a right to carry his slaves into the United States Territories. And now
there was some inconsistency in saying that the decision was right, and
saying, too, that the people of the Territory could lawfully drive slavery
out again. When all the trash, the words, the collateral matter, was
cleared away from it, all the chaff was fanned out of it, it was a bare
absurdity,--no less than that a thing may be lawfully driven away from
where it has a lawful right to be. Clear it of all the verbiage, and
that is the naked truth of his proposition,--that a thing may be lawfully
driven from the place where it has a lawful right to stay. Well, it was
because the judge could n't help seeing this that he has had so much
trouble with it; and what I want to ask your especial attention to, just
now, is to remind you, if you have not noticed the fact, that the judge
does not any longer say that the people can exclude slavery. He does not
say so in the copyright essay; he did not say so in the speech that he
made here; and, so far as I know, since his re-election to the Senate he
has never said, as he did at Freeport, that the people of the Territories
can exclude slavery. He desires that you, who wish the Territories to
remain free, should believe that he stands by that position; but he does
not say it himself. He escapes to some extent the absurd position I have
stated, by changing his language entirely. What he says now is something
different in language, and we will consider whether it is not different
in sense too. It is now that the Dred Scott decision, or rather the
Constitution under that decision, does not carry slavery into the
Territories beyond the power of the people of the Territories to control
it as other property. He does not say the people can drive it out, but
they can control it as other property. The language is different; we
should consider whether the sense is different. Driving a horse out of
this lot is too plain a proposition to be mistaken about; it is putting
him on the other side of the fence. Or it might be a sort of exclusion of
him from the lot if you were to kill him and let the worms devour him;
but neither of these things is the same as "controlling him as other
property." That would be to feed him, to pamper him, to ride him, to use
and abuse him, to make the most money out of him, "as other property";
but, please you, what do the men who are in favor of slavery want more
than this? What do they really want, other than that slavery, being in the
Territories, shall be controlled as other property? If they want anything
else, I do not comprehend it. I ask your attention to this, first, for the
purpose of pointing out the change of ground the judge has made; and, in
the second place, the importance of the change,--that that change is not
such as to give you gentlemen who want his popular sovereignty the power
to exclude the institution or drive it out at all. I know the judge
sometimes squints at the argument that in controlling it as other property
by unfriendly legislation they may control it to death; as you might, in
the case of a horse, perhaps, feed him so lightly and ride him so much
that he would die. But when you come to legislative control, there is
something more to be attended to. I have no doubt, myself, that if the
Territories should undertake to control slave property as other property
that is, control it in such a way that it would be the most valuable as
property, and make it bear its just proportion in the way of burdens
as property, really deal with it as property,--the Supreme Court of the
United States will say, "God speed you, and amen." But I undertake to
give the opinion, at least, that if the Territories attempt by any direct
legislation to drive the man with his slave out of the Territory, or to
decide that his slave is free because of his being taken in there, or to
tax him to such an extent that he cannot keep him there, the Supreme Court
will unhesitatingly decide all such legislation unconstitutional, as long
as that Supreme Court is constructed as the Dred Scott Supreme Court is.
The first two things they have already decided, except that there is a
little quibble among lawyers between the words "dicta" and "decision."
They have already decided a negro cannot be made free by Territorial
legislation.
What is the Dred Scott decision? Judge Douglas labors to show that it is
one thing, while I think it is altogether different. It is a long opinion,
but it is all embodied in this short statement: "The Constitution of the
United States forbids Congress to deprive a man of his property, without
due process of law; the right of property in slaves is distinctly and
expressly affirmed in that Constitution: therefore, if Congress shall
undertake to say that a man's slave is no longer his slave when he crosses
a certain line into a Territory, that is depriving him of his property
without due process of law, and is unconstitutional." There is the whole
Dred Scott decision. They add that if Congress cannot do so itself,
Congress cannot confer any power to do so; and hence any effort by the
Territorial Legislature to do either of these things is absolutely decided
against. It is a foregone conclusion by that court.
Now, as to this indirect mode by "unfriendly legislation," all lawyers
here will readily understand that such a proposition cannot be tolerated
for a moment, because a legislature cannot indirectly do that which it
cannot accomplish directly. Then I say any legislation to control this
property, as property, for its benefit as property, would be hailed by
this Dred Scott Supreme Court, and fully sustained; but any legislation
driving slave property out, or destroying it as property, directly or
indirectly, will most assuredly, by that court, be held unconstitutional.
Judge Douglas says if the Constitution carries slavery into the
Territories, beyond the power of the people of the Territories to control
it as other property; then it follows logically that every one who swears
to support the Constitution of the United States must give that support
to that property which it needs. And, if the Constitution carries slavery
into the Territories, beyond the power of the people, to control it as
other property, then it also carries it into the States, because the
Constitution is the supreme law of the land. Now, gentlemen, if it were
not for my excessive modesty, I would say that I told that very thing to
Judge Douglas quite a year ago. This argument is here in print, and if it
were not for my modesty, as I said, I might call your attention to it. If
you read it, you will find that I not only made that argument, but made it
better than he has made it since.
There is, however, this difference: I say now, and said then, there is no
sort of question that the Supreme Court has decided that it is the right
of the slave holder to take his slave and hold him in the Territory; and
saying this, judge Douglas himself admits the conclusion. He says if that
is so, this consequence will follow; and because this consequence
would follow, his argument is, the decision cannot, therefore, be that
way,--"that would spoil my popular sovereignty; and it cannot be possible
that this great principle has been squelched out in this extraordinary
way. It might be, if it were not for the extraordinary consequences of
spoiling my humbug."
Another feature of the judge's argument about the Dred Scott case is,
an effort to show that that decision deals altogether in declarations of
negatives; that the Constitution does not affirm anything as expounded
by the Dred Scott decision, but it only declares a want of power a total
absence of power, in reference to the Territories. It seems to be his
purpose to make the whole of that decision to result in a mere negative
declaration of a want of power in Congress to do anything in relation to
this matter in the Territories. I know the opinion of the Judges states
that there is a total absence of power; but that is, unfortunately; not
all it states: for the judges add that the right of property in a slave is
distinctly and expressly affirmed in the Constitution. It does not stop
at saying that the right of property in a slave is recognized in the
Constitution, is declared to exist somewhere in the Constitution, but says
it is affirmed in the Constitution. Its language is equivalent to saying
that it is embodied and so woven in that instrument that it cannot be
detached without breaking the Constitution itself. In a word, it is part
of the Constitution.
Douglas is singularly unfortunate in his effort to make out that decision
to be altogether negative, when the express language at the vital part is
that this is distinctly affirmed in the Constitution. I think myself, and
I repeat it here, that this decision does not merely carry slavery into
the Territories, but by its logical conclusion it carries it into the
States in which we live. One provision of that Constitution is, that it
shall be the supreme law of the land,--I do not quote the language,--any
constitution or law of any State to the contrary notwithstanding. This
Dred Scott decision says that the right of property in a slave is affirmed
in that Constitution which is the supreme law of the land, any State
constitution or law notwithstanding. Then I say that to destroy a thing
which is distinctly affirmed and supported by the supreme law of the land,
even by a State constitution or law, is a violation of that supreme law,
and there is no escape from it. In my judgment there is no avoiding that
result, save that the American people shall see that constitutions are
better construed than our Constitution is construed in that decision. They
must take care that it is more faithfully and truly carried out than it is
there expounded.
I must hasten to a conclusion. Near the beginning of my remarks I said
that this insidious Douglas popular sovereignty is the measure that now
threatens the purpose of the Republican party to prevent slavery from
being nationalized in the United States. I propose to ask your attention
for a little while to some propositions in affirmance of that statement.
Take it just as it stands, and apply it as a principle; extend and apply
that principle elsewhere; and consider where it will lead you. I now put
this proposition, that Judge Douglas's popular sovereignty applied will
reopen the African slave trade; and I will demonstrate it by any variety
of ways in which you can turn the subject or look at it.
The Judge says that the people of the Territories have the right, by his
principle, to have slaves, if they want them. Then I say that the people
in Georgia have the right to buy slaves in Africa, if they want them;
and I defy any man on earth to show any distinction between the two
things,--to show that the one is either more wicked or more unlawful; to
show, on original principles, that one is better or worse than the other;
or to show, by the Constitution, that one differs a whit from the other.
He will tell me, doubtless, that there is no constitutional provision
against people taking slaves into the new Territories, and I tell him
that there is equally no constitutional provision against buying slaves
in Africa. He will tell you that a people, in the exercise of popular
sovereignty, ought to do as they please about that thing, and have slaves
if they want them; and I tell you that the people of Georgia are as much
entitled to popular sovereignty and to buy slaves in Africa, if they want
them, as the people of the Territory are to have slaves if they want them.
I ask any man, dealing honestly with himself, to point out a distinction.
I have recently seen a letter of Judge Douglas's in which, without stating
that to be the object, he doubtless endeavors to make a distinction
between the two. He says he is unalterably opposed to the repeal of the
laws against the African slave trade. And why? He then seeks to give a
reason that would not apply to his popular sovereignty in the Territories.
What is that reason? "The abolition of the African slave trade is a
compromise of the Constitution!" I deny it. There is no truth in the
proposition that the abolition of the African slave trade is a compromise
of the Constitution. No man can put his finger on anything in the
Constitution, or on the line of history, which shows it. It is a mere
barren assertion, made simply for the purpose of getting up a distinction
between the revival of the African slave trade and his "great principle."
At the time the Constitution of the United States was adopted, it was
expected that the slave trade would be abolished. I should assert and
insist upon that, if judge Douglas denied it. But I know that it was
equally expected that slavery would be excluded from the Territories, and
I can show by history that in regard to these two things public opinion
was exactly alike, while in regard to positive action, there was more done
in the Ordinance of '87 to resist the spread of slavery than was ever done
to abolish the foreign slave trade. Lest I be misunderstood, I say again
that at the time of the formation of the Constitution, public expectation
was that the slave trade would be abolished, but no more so than the
spread of slavery in the Territories should be restrained. They stand
alike, except that in the Ordinance of '87 there was a mark left by public
opinion, showing that it was more committed against the spread of slavery
in the Territories than against the foreign slave trade.
Compromise! What word of compromise was there about it? Why, the public
sense was then in favor of the abolition of the slave trade; but there was
at the time a very great commercial interest involved in it, and extensive
capital in that branch of trade. There were doubtless the incipient stages
of improvement in the South in the way of farming, dependent on the slave
trade, and they made a proposition to Congress to abolish the trade after
allowing it twenty years,--a sufficient time for the capital and commerce
engaged in it to be transferred to other channel. They made no provision
that it should be abolished in twenty years; I do not doubt that they
expected it would be, but they made no bargain about it. The public
sentiment left no doubt in the minds of any that it would be done away.
I repeat, there is nothing in the history of those times in favor of
that matter being a compromise of the constitution. It was the public
expectation at the time, manifested in a thousand ways, that the spread of
slavery should also be restricted.
Then I say, if this principle is established, that there is no wrong
in slavery, and whoever wants it has a right to have it, is a matter
of dollars and cents, a sort of question as to how they shall deal with
brutes, that between us and the negro here there is no sort of question,
but that at the South the question is between the negro and the crocodile,
that is all, it is a mere matter of policy, there is a perfect right,
according to interest, to do just as you please,--when this is done, where
this doctrine prevails, the miners and sappers will have formed public
opinion for the slave trade. They will be ready for Jeff. Davis and
Stephens and other leaders of that company to sound the bugle for the
revival of the slave trade, for the second Dred Scott decision, for the
flood of slavery to be poured over the free States, while we shall be here
tied down and helpless and run over like sheep.
It is to be a part and parcel of this same idea to say to men who want to
adhere to the Democratic party, who have always belonged to that
party, and are only looking about for some excuse to stick to it, but
nevertheless hate slavery, that Douglas's popular sovereignty is as good
a way as any to oppose slavery. They allow themselves to be persuaded
easily, in accordance with their previous dispositions, into this belief,
that it is about as good a way of opposing slavery as any, and we can do
that without straining our old party ties or breaking up old political
associations. We can do so without being called negro-worshipers. We
can do that without being subjected to the jibes and sneers that are so
readily thrown out in place of argument where no argument can be found.
So let us stick to this popular sovereignty,--this insidious popular
sovereignty.
Now let me call your attention to one thing that has really happened,
which shows this gradual and steady debauching of public opinion,
this course of preparation for the revival of the slave trade, for the
Territorial slave code, and the new Dred Scott decision that is to carry
slavery into the Free States. Did you ever, five years ago, hear of
anybody in the world saying that the negro had no share in the Declaration
of National Independence; that it does not mean negroes at all; and when
"all men" were spoken of, negroes were not included?
I am satisfied that five years ago that proposition was not put upon paper
by any living being anywhere. I have been unable at any time to find a man
in an audience who would declare that he had ever known of anybody saying
so five years ago. But last year there was not a Douglas popular sovereign
in Illinois who did not say it. Is there one in Ohio but declares his firm
belief that the Declaration of Independence did not mean negroes at all? I
do not know how this is; I have not been here much; but I presume you are
very much alike everywhere. Then I suppose that all now express the belief
that the Declaration of Independence never did mean negroes. I call upon
one of them to say that he said it five years ago.
If you think that now, and did not think it then, the next thing that
strikes me is to remark that there has been a change wrought in you,--and
a very significant change it is, being no less than changing the negro,
in your estimation, from the rank of a man to that of a brute. They
are taking him down and placing him, when spoken of, among reptiles and
crocodiles, as Judge Douglas himself expresses it.
Is not this change wrought in your minds a very important change? Public
opinion in this country is everything. In a nation like ours, this popular
sovereignty and squatter sovereignty have already wrought a change in the
public mind to the extent I have stated. There is no man in this crowd who
can contradict it.
Now, if you are opposed to slavery honestly, as much as anybody, I ask you
to note that fact, and the like of which is to follow, to be plastered on,
layer after layer, until very soon you are prepared to deal with the negro
every where as with the brute. If public sentiment has not been debauched
already to this point, a new turn of the screw in that direction is all
that is wanting; and this is constantly being done by the teachers of
this insidious popular sovereignty. You need but one or two turns further,
until your minds, now ripening under these teachings, will be ready for
all these things, and you will receive and support, or submit to, the
slave trade, revived with all its horrors, a slave code enforced in our
Territories, and a new Dred Scott decision to bring slavery up into the
very heart of the free North. This, I must say, is but carrying out those
words prophetically spoken by Mr. Clay,--many, many years ago,--I believe
more than thirty years, when he told an audience that if they would
repress all tendencies to liberty and ultimate emancipation they must go
back to the era of our independence, and muzzle the cannon which thundered
its annual joyous return on the Fourth of July; they must blow out the
moral lights around us; they must penetrate the human soul, and eradicate
the love of liberty: but until they did these things, and others
eloquently enumerated by him, they could not repress all tendencies to
ultimate emancipation.
I ask attention to the fact that in a pre-eminent degree these popular
sovereigns are at this work: blowing out the moral lights around us;
teaching that the negro is no longer a man, but a brute; that the
Declaration has nothing to do with him; that he ranks with the crocodile
and the reptile; that man, with body and soul, is a matter of dollars and
cents. I suggest to this portion of the Ohio Republicans, or Democrats, if
there be any present, the serious consideration of this fact that there
is now going on among you a steady process of debauching public opinion on
this subject. With this, my friends, I bid you adieu.
SPEECH AT CINCINNATI OHIO, SEPTEMBER 17, 1859
My Fellow-Citizens of the State of Ohio: This is the first time in my
life that I have appeared before an audience in so great a city as this:
I therefore--though I am no longer a young man--make this appearance
under some degree of embarrassment. But I have found that when one is
embarrassed, usually the shortest way to get through with it is to quit
talking or thinking about it, and go at something else.
I understand that you have had recently with you my very distinguished
friend Judge Douglas, of Illinois; and I understand, without having had
an opportunity (not greatly sought, to be sure) of seeing a report of the
speech that he made here, that he did me the honor to mention my humble
name. I suppose that he did so for the purpose of making some objection to
some sentiment at some time expressed by me. I should expect, it is true,
that judge Douglas had reminded you, or informed you, if you had never
before heard it, that I had once in my life declared it as my opinion that
this government cannot endure permanently, half slave and half free; that
a house divided against itself cannot stand, and, as I had expressed it,
I did not expect the house to fall, that I did not expect the Union to be
dissolved, but that I did expect that it would cease to be divided, that
it would become all one thing, or all the other; that either the opponents
of slavery would arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the
public mind would rest in the belief that it was in the course of ultimate
extinction, or the friends of slavery will push it forward until it
becomes alike lawful in all the States, old or new, free as well as slave.
I did, fifteen months ago, express that opinion, and upon many occasions
Judge Douglas has denounced it, and has greatly, intentionally or
unintentionally, misrepresented my purpose in the expression of that
opinion.
I presume, without having seen a report of his speech, that he did
so here. I presume that he alluded also to that opinion, in different
language, having been expressed at a subsequent time by Governor Seward of
New York, and that he took the two in a lump and denounced them; that he
tried to point out that there was something couched in this opinion which
led to the making of an entire uniformity of the local institutions of the
various States of the Union, in utter disregard of the different States,
which in their nature would seem to require a variety of institutions
and a variety of laws, conforming to the differences in the nature of the
different States.
Not only so: I presume he insisted that this was a declaration of war
between the free and slave States, that it was the sounding to the onset
of continual war between the different States, the slave and free States.
This charge, in this form, was made by Judge Douglas on, I believe, the
9th of July, 1858, in Chicago, in my hearing. On the next evening, I made
some reply to it. I informed him that many of the inferences he drew from
that expression of mine were altogether foreign to any purpose entertained
by me, and in so far as he should ascribe these inferences to me, as my
purpose, he was entirely mistaken; and in so far as he might argue that,
whatever might be my purpose, actions conforming to my views would lead
to these results, he might argue and establish if he could; but, so far as
purposes were concerned, he was totally mistaken as to me.
When I made that reply to him, I told him, on the question of declaring
war between the different States of the Union, that I had not said that
I did not expect any peace upon this question until slavery was
exterminated; that I had only said I expected peace when that institution
was put where the public mind should rest in the belief that it was in
course of ultimate extinction; that I believed, from the organization of
our government until a very recent period of time, the institution had
been placed and continued upon such a basis; that we had had comparative
peace upon that question through a portion of that period of time, only
because the public mind rested in that belief in regard to it, and that
when we returned to that position in relation to that matter, I supposed
we should again have peace as we previously had. I assured him, as I now,
assure you, that I neither then had, nor have, or ever had, any purpose in
any way of interfering with the institution of slavery, where it exists. I
believe we have no power, under the Constitution of the United States, or
rather under the form of government under which we live, to interfere with
the institution of slavery, or any other of the institutions of our
sister States, be they free or slave States. I declared then, and I
now re-declare, that I have as little inclination to interfere with the
institution of slavery where it now exists, through the instrumentality of
the General Government, or any other instrumentality, as I believe we have
no power to do so. I accidentally used this expression: I had no purpose
of entering into the slave States to disturb the institution of slavery.
So, upon the first occasion that Judge Douglas got an opportunity to reply
to me, he passed by the whole body of what I had said upon that subject,
and seized upon the particular expression of mine that I had no purpose of
entering into the slave States to disturb the institution of slavery. "Oh,
no," said he, "he [Lincoln] won't enter into the slave States to disturb
the institution of slavery, he is too prudent a man to do such a thing as
that; he only means that he will go on to the line between the free and
slave States, and shoot over at them. This is all he means to do. He means
to do them all the harm he can, to disturb them all he can, in such a way
as to keep his own hide in perfect safety."