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Title: The Writings of Abraham Lincoln, Volume 4
       The Lincoln-Douglas Debates II.

Author: Abraham Lincoln

Release Date: August 16, 2006 [EBook #2656]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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Produced by David Widger





THE WRITINGS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN, Volume Four

CONSTITUTIONAL EDITION



THE LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES II



LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS FOURTH DEBATE,
AT CHARLESTON, SEPTEMBER 18, 1858.


LADIES AND GENTLEMEN:--It will be very difficult for an audience so large
as this to hear distinctly what a speaker says, and consequently it is
important that as profound silence be preserved as possible.

While I was at the hotel to-day, an elderly gentleman called upon me to
know whether I was really in favor of producing a perfect equality
between the negroes and white people. While I had not proposed to myself
on this occasion to say much on that subject, yet as the question was
asked me I thought I would occupy perhaps five minutes in saying
something in regard to it. I will say, then, that I am not, nor ever have
been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political
equality of the white and black races; that I am not, nor ever have been,
in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to
hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say, in
addition to this, that there is a physical difference between the white
and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living
together on terms of social and political equality. And in as much as
they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the
position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in
favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race. I say
upon this occasion I do not perceive that because the white man is to
have the superior position the negro should be denied everything. I do
not understand that because I do not want a negro woman for a slave I
must necessarily want her for a wife. My understanding is that I can just
let her alone. I am now in my fiftieth year, and I certainly never have
had a black woman for either a slave or a wife. So it seems to me quite
possible for us to get along without making either slaves or wives of
negroes. I will add to this that I have never seen, to my knowledge, a
man, woman, or child who was in favor of producing a perfect equality,
social and political, between negroes and white men. I recollect of but
one distinguished instance that I ever heard of so frequently as to be
entirely satisfied of its correctness, and that is the case of Judge
Douglas's old friend Colonel Richard M. Johnson. I will also add to the
remarks I have made (for I am not going to enter at large upon this
subject), that I have never had the least apprehension that I or my
friends would marry negroes if there was no law to keep them from it; but
as Judge Douglas and his friends seem to be in great apprehension that
they might, if there were no law to keep them from it, I give him the
most solemn pledge that I will to the very last stand by the law of this
State which forbids the marrying of white people with negroes. I will add
one further word, which is this: that I do not understand that there is
any place where an alteration of the social and political relations of
the negro and the white man can be made, except in the State
Legislature,--not in the Congress of the United States; and as I do not
really apprehend the approach of any such thing myself, and as Judge
Douglas seems to be in constant horror that some such danger is rapidly
approaching, I propose as the best means to prevent it that the Judge be
kept at home, and placed in the State Legislature to fight the measure. I
do not propose dwelling longer at this time on this subject.

When Judge Trumbull, our other Senator in Congress, returned to Illinois
in the month of August, he made a speech at Chicago, in which he made
what may be called a charge against Judge Douglas, which I understand
proved to be very offensive to him. The Judge was at that time out upon
one of his speaking tours through the country, and when the news of it
reached him, as I am informed, he denounced Judge Trumbull in rather
harsh terms for having said what he did in regard to that matter. I was
traveling at that time, and speaking at the same places with Judge
Douglas on subsequent days, and when I heard of what Judge Trumbull had
said of Douglas, and what Douglas had said back again, I felt that I was
in a position where I could not remain entirely silent in regard to the
matter. Consequently, upon two or three occasions I alluded to it, and
alluded to it in no other wise than to say that in regard to the charge
brought by Trumbull against Douglas, I personally knew nothing, and
sought to say nothing about it; that I did personally know Judge
Trumbull; that I believed him to be a man of veracity; that I believed
him to be a man of capacity sufficient to know very well whether an
assertion he was making, as a conclusion drawn from a set of facts, was
true or false; and as a conclusion of my own from that, I stated it as my
belief if Trumbull should ever be called upon, he would prove everything
he had said. I said this upon two or three occasions. Upon a subsequent
occasion, Judge Trumbull spoke again before an audience at Alton, and
upon that occasion not only repeated his charge against Douglas, but
arrayed the evidence he relied upon to substantiate it. This speech was
published at length; and subsequently at Jacksonville Judge Douglas
alluded to the matter. In the course of his speech, and near the close of
it, he stated in regard to myself what I will now read:

"Judge Douglas proceeded to remark that he should not hereafter occupy
his time in refuting such charges made by Trumbull, but that, Lincoln
having indorsed the character of Trumbull for veracity, he should hold
him (Lincoln) responsible for the slanders."

I have done simply what I have told you, to subject me to this invitation
to notice the charge. I now wish to say that it had not originally been
my purpose to discuss that matter at all But in-as-much as it seems to be
the wish of Judge Douglas to hold me responsible for it, then for once in
my life I will play General Jackson, and to the just extent I take the
responsibility.

I wish to say at the beginning that I will hand to the reporters that
portion of Judge Trumbull's Alton speech which was devoted to this
matter, and also that portion of Judge Douglas's speech made at
Jacksonville in answer to it. I shall thereby furnish the readers of this
debate with the complete discussion between Trumbull and Douglas. I
cannot now read them, for the reason that it would take half of my first
hour to do so. I can only make some comments upon them. Trumbull's charge
is in the following words:

"Now, the charge is, that there was a plot entered into to have a
constitution formed for Kansas, and put in force, without giving the
people an opportunity to vote upon it, and that Mr. Douglas was in the
plot."

I will state, without quoting further, for all will have an opportunity
of reading it hereafter, that Judge Trumbull brings forward what he
regards as sufficient evidence to substantiate this charge.

It will be perceived Judge Trumbull shows that Senator Bigler, upon the
floor of the Senate, had declared there had been a conference among the
senators, in which conference it was determined to have an enabling act
passed for the people of Kansas to form a constitution under, and in this
conference it was agreed among them that it was best not to have a
provision for submitting the constitution to a vote of the people after
it should be formed. He then brings forward to show, and showing, as he
deemed, that Judge Douglas reported the bill back to the Senate with that
clause stricken out. He then shows that there was a new clause inserted
into the bill, which would in its nature prevent a reference of the
constitution back for a vote of the people,--if, indeed, upon a mere
silence in the law, it could be assumed that they had the right to vote
upon it. These are the general statements that he has made.

I propose to examine the points in Judge Douglas's speech in which he
attempts to answer that speech of Judge Trumbull's. When you come to
examine Judge Douglas's speech, you will find that the first point he
makes is:

"Suppose it were true that there was such a change in the bill, and that
I struck it out,--is that a proof of a plot to force a constitution upon
them against their will?"

His striking out such a provision, if there was such a one in the bill,
he argues, does not establish the proof that it was stricken out for the
purpose of robbing the people of that right. I would say, in the first
place, that that would be a most manifest reason for it. It is true, as
Judge Douglas states, that many Territorial bills have passed without
having such a provision in them. I believe it is true, though I am not
certain, that in some instances constitutions framed under such bills
have been submitted to a vote of the people with the law silent upon the
subject; but it does not appear that they once had their enabling acts
framed with an express provision for submitting the constitution to be
framed to a vote of the people, then that they were stricken out when
Congress did not mean to alter the effect of the law. That there have
been bills which never had the provision in, I do not question; but when
was that provision taken out of one that it was in? More especially does
the evidence tend to prove the proposition that Trumbull advanced, when
we remember that the provision was stricken out of the bill almost
simultaneously with the time that Bigler says there was a conference
among certain senators, and in which it was agreed that a bill should be
passed leaving that out. Judge Douglas, in answering Trumbull, omits to
attend to the testimony of Bigler, that there was a meeting in which it
was agreed they should so frame the bill that there should be no
submission of the constitution to a vote of the people. The Judge does
not notice this part of it. If you take this as one piece of evidence,
and then ascertain that simultaneously Judge Douglas struck out a
provision that did require it to be submitted, and put the two together,
I think it will make a pretty fair show of proof that Judge Douglas did,
as Trumbull says, enter into a plot to put in force a constitution for
Kansas, without giving the people any opportunity of voting upon it.

But I must hurry on. The next proposition that Judge Douglas puts is
this:

"But upon examination it turns out that the Toombs bill never did contain
a clause requiring the constitution to be submitted."

This is a mere question of fact, and can be determined by evidence. I
only want to ask this question: Why did not Judge Douglas say that these
words were not stricken out of the Toomb's bill, or this bill from which
it is alleged the provision was stricken out,--a bill which goes by the
name of Toomb's, because he originally brought it forward? I ask why, if
the Judge wanted to make a direct issue with Trumbull, did he not take
the exact proposition Trumbull made in his speech, and say it was not
stricken out? Trumbull has given the exact words that he says were in the
Toomb's bill, and he alleges that when the bill came back, they were
stricken out. Judge Douglas does not say that the words which Trumbull
says were stricken out were not so stricken out, but he says there was no
provision in the Toomb's bill to submit the constitution to a vote of the
people. We see at once that he is merely making an issue upon the meaning
of the words. He has not undertaken to say that Trumbull tells a lie
about these words being stricken out, but he is really, when pushed up to
it, only taking an issue upon the meaning of the words. Now, then, if
there be any issue upon the meaning of the words, or if there be upon the
question of fact as to whether these words were stricken out, I have
before me what I suppose to be a genuine copy of the Toomb's bill, in
which it can be shown that the words Trumbull says were in it were, in
fact, originally there. If there be any dispute upon the fact, I have got
the documents here to show they were there. If there be any controversy
upon the sense of the words,--whether these words which were stricken out
really constituted a provision for submitting the matter to a vote of the
people,--as that is a matter of argument, I think I may as well use
Trumbull's own argument. He says that the proposition is in these words:

"That the following propositions be and the same are hereby offered to
the said Convention of the people of Kansas when formed, for their free
acceptance or rejection; which, if accepted by the Convention and
ratified by the people at the election for the adoption of the
constitution, shall be obligatory upon the United States and the said
State of Kansas."

Now, Trumbull alleges that these last words were stricken out of the bill
when it came back, and he says this was a provision for submitting the
constitution to a vote of the people; and his argument is this:

"Would it have been possible to ratify the land propositions at the
election for the adoption of the constitution, unless such an election
was to be held?"

This is Trumbull's argument. Now, Judge Douglas does not meet the charge
at all, but he stands up and says there was no such proposition in that
bill for submitting the constitution to be framed to a vote of the
people. Trumbull admits that the language is not a direct provision for
submitting it, but it is a provision necessarily implied from another
provision. He asks you how it is possible to ratify the land proposition
at the election for the adoption of the constitution, if there was no
election to be held for the adoption of the constitution. And he goes on
to show that it is not any less a law because the provision is put in
that indirect shape than it would be if it were put directly. But I
presume I have said enough to draw attention to this point, and I pass it
by also.

Another one of the points that Judge Douglas makes upon Trumbull, and at
very great length, is, that Trumbull, while the bill was pending, said in
a speech in the Senate that he supposed the constitution to be made would
have to be submitted to the people. He asks, if Trumbull thought so then,
what ground is there for anybody thinking otherwise now? Fellow-citizens,
this much may be said in reply: That bill had been in the hands of a
party to which Trumbull did not belong. It had been in the hands of the
committee at the head of which Judge Douglas stood. Trumbull perhaps had
a printed copy of the original Toomb's bill. I have not the evidence on
that point except a sort of inference I draw from the general course of
business there. What alterations, or what provisions in the way of
altering, were going on in committee, Trumbull had no means of knowing,
until the altered bill was reported back. Soon afterwards, when it was
reported back, there was a discussion over it, and perhaps Trumbull in
reading it hastily in the altered form did not perceive all the bearings
of the alterations. He was hastily borne into the debate, and it does not
follow that because there was something in it Trumbull did not perceive,
that something did not exist. More than this, is it true that what
Trumbull did can have any effect on what Douglas did? Suppose Trumbull
had been in the plot with these other men, would that let Douglas out of
it?  Would it exonerate Douglas that Trumbull did n't then perceive he
was in the plot? He also asks the question: Why did n't Trumbull propose
to amend the bill, if he thought it needed any amendment? Why, I believe
that everything Judge Trumbull had proposed, particularly in connection
with this question of Kansas and Nebraska, since he had been on the floor
of the Senate, had been promptly voted down by Judge Douglas and his
friends. He had no promise that an amendment offered by him to anything
on this subject would receive the slightest consideration. Judge Trumbull
did bring to the notice of the Senate at that time the fact that there
was no provision for submitting the constitution about to be made for the
people of Kansas to a vote of the people. I believe I may venture to say
that Judge Douglas made some reply to this speech of Judge Trumbull's,
but he never noticed that part of it at all. And so the thing passed by.
I think, then, the fact that Judge Trumbull offered no amendment does not
throw much blame upon him; and if it did, it does not reach the question
of fact as to what Judge Douglas was doing. I repeat, that if Trumbull
had himself been in the plot, it would not at all relieve the others who
were in it from blame. If I should be indicted for murder, and upon the
trial it should be discovered that I had been implicated in that murder,
but that the prosecuting witness was guilty too, that would not at all
touch the question of my crime. It would be no relief to my neck that
they discovered this other man who charged the crime upon me to be guilty
too.

Another one of the points Judge Douglas makes upon Judge Trumbull is,
that when he spoke in Chicago he made his charge to rest upon the fact
that the bill had the provision in it for submitting the constitution to
a vote of the people when it went into his Judge Douglas's hands, that it
was missing when he reported it to the Senate, and that in a public
speech he had subsequently said the alterations in the bill were made
while it was in committee, and that they were made in consultation
between him (Judge Douglas) and Toomb's. And Judge Douglas goes on to
comment upon the fact of Trumbull's adducing in his Alton speech the
proposition that the bill not only came back with that proposition
stricken out, but with another clause and another provision in it, saying
that "until the complete execution of this Act there shall be no election
in said Territory,"--which, Trumbull argued, was not only taking the
provision for submitting to a vote of the people out of the bill, but was
adding an affirmative one, in that it prevented the people from
exercising the right under a bill that was merely silent on the question.
Now, in regard to what he says, that Trumbull shifts the issue, that he
shifts his ground,--and I believe he uses the term that, "it being proven
false, he has changed ground," I call upon all of you, when you come to
examine that portion of Trumbull's speech (for it will make a part of
mine), to examine whether Trumbull has shifted his ground or not. I say
he did not shift his ground, but that he brought forward his original
charge and the evidence to sustain it yet more fully, but precisely as he
originally made it. Then, in addition thereto, he brought in a new piece
of evidence. He shifted no ground. He brought no new piece of evidence
inconsistent with his former testimony; but he brought a new piece,
tending, as he thought, and as I think, to prove his proposition. To
illustrate: A man brings an accusation against another, and on trial the
man making the charge introduces A and B to prove the accusation. At a
second trial he introduces the same witnesses, who tell the same story as
before, and a third witness, who tells the same thing, and in addition
gives further testimony corroborative of the charge. So with Trumbull.
There was no shifting of ground, nor inconsistency of testimony between
the new piece of evidence and what he originally introduced.

But Judge Douglas says that he himself moved to strike out that last
provision of the bill, and that on his motion it was stricken out and a
substitute inserted. That I presume is the truth. I presume it is true
that that last proposition was stricken out by Judge Douglas. Trumbull
has not said it was not; Trumbull has himself said that it was so
stricken out. He says: "I am now speaking of the bill as Judge Douglas
reported it back. It was amended somewhat in the Senate before it passed,
but I am speaking of it as he brought it back." Now, when Judge Douglas
parades the fact that the provision was stricken out of the bill when it
came back, he asserts nothing contrary to what Trumbull alleges. Trumbull
has only said that he originally put it in, not that he did not strike it
out. Trumbull says it was not in the bill when it went to the committee.
When it came back it was in, and Judge Douglas said the alterations were
made by him in consultation with Toomb's. Trumbull alleges, therefore, as
his conclusion, that Judge Douglas put it in. Then, if Douglas wants to
contradict Trumbull and call him a liar, let him say he did not put it
in, and not that he did n't take it out again. It is said that a bear is
sometimes hard enough pushed to drop a cub; and so I presume it was in
this case. I presume the truth is that Douglas put it in, and afterward
took it out. That, I take it, is the truth about it. Judge Trumbull says
one thing, Douglas says another thing, and the two don't contradict one
another at all. The question is, what did he put it in for? In the first
place, what did he take the other provision out of the bill for,--the
provision which Trumbull argued was necessary for submitting the
constitution to a vote of the people? What did he take that out for; and,
having taken it out, what did he put this in for? I say that in the run
of things it is not unlikely forces conspire to render it vastly
expedient for Judge Douglas to take that latter clause out again. The
question that Trumbull has made is that Judge Douglas put it in; and he
don't meet Trumbull at all unless he denies that.

In the clause of Judge Douglas's speech upon this subject he uses this
language toward Judge Trumbull. He says:

"He forges his evidence from beginning to end; and by falsifying the
record, he endeavors to bolster up his false charge."

Well, that is a pretty serious statement--Trumbull forges his evidence
from beginning to end. Now, upon my own authority I say that it is not
true. What is a forgery? Consider the evidence that Trumbull has brought
forward. When you come to read the speech, as you will be able to,
examine whether the evidence is a forgery from beginning to end. He had
the bill or document in his hand like that [holding up a paper]. He says
that is a copy of the Toomb's bill,--the amendment offered by Toomb's. He
says that is a copy of the bill as it was introduced and went into Judge
Douglas's hands. Now, does Judge Douglas say that is a forgery? That is
one thing Trumbull brought forward. Judge Douglas says he forged it from
beginning to end! That is the "beginning," we will say. Does Douglas say
that is a forgery? Let him say it to-day, and we will have a subsequent
examination upon this subject. Trumbull then holds up another document
like this, and says that is an exact copy of the bill as it came back in
the amended form out of Judge Douglas's hands. Does Judge Douglas say
that is a forgery? Does he say it in his general sweeping charge? Does he
say so now? If he does not, then take this Toomb's bill and the bill in
the amended form, and it only needs to compare them to see that the
provision is in the one and not in the other; it leaves the inference
inevitable that it was taken out.

But, while I am dealing with this question, let us see what Trumbull's
other evidence is. One other piece of evidence I will read. Trumbull says
there are in this original Toomb's bill these words:

"That the following propositions be and the same are hereby offered to
the said Convention of the people of Kansas, when formed, for their free
acceptance or rejection; which, if accepted by the Convention and
ratified by the people at the election for the adoption of the
constitution, shall be obligatory upon the United States and the said
State of Kansas."

Now, if it is said that this is a forgery, we will open the paper here
and see whether it is or not. Again, Trumbull says, as he goes along,
that Mr. Bigler made the following statement in his place in the Senate,
December 9, 1857:

"I was present when that subject was discussed by senators before the
bill was introduced, and the question was raised and discussed, whether
the constitution, when formed, should be submitted to a vote of the
people. It was held by those most intelligent on the subject that, in
view of all the difficulties surrounding that Territory, the danger of
any experiment at that time of a popular vote, it would be better there
should be no such provision in the Toomb's bill; and it was my
understanding, in all the intercourse I had, that the Convention would
make a constitution, and send it here, without submitting it to the
popular vote."

Then Trumbull follows on:

"In speaking of this meeting again on the 21st December, 1857
[Congressional Globe, same vol., page 113], Senator Bigler said:

"'Nothing was further from my mind than to allude to any social or
confidential interview. The meeting was not of that character. Indeed, it
was semi-official, and called to promote the public good. My recollection
was clear that I left the conference under the impression that it had
been deemed best to adopt measures to admit Kansas as a State through the
agency of one popular election, and that for delegates to this
Convention. This impression was stronger because I thought the spirit of
the bill infringed upon the doctrine of non-intervention, to which I had
great aversion; but with the hope of accomplishing a great good, and as
no movement had been made in that direction in the Territory, I waived
this objection, and concluded to support the measure. I have a few items
of testimony as to the correctness of these impressions, and with their
submission I shall be content. I have before me the bill reported by the
senator from Illinois on the 7th of March, 1856, providing for the
admission of Kansas as a State, the third section of which reads as
follows:

"That the following propositions be, and the same are hereby offered to
the said Convention of the people of Kansas, when formed, for their free
acceptance or rejection; which, if accepted by the Convention and
ratified by the people at the election for the adoption of the
constitution, shall be obligatory upon the United States and the said
State of Kansas."

The bill read in his place by the senator from Georgia on the 25th of
June, and referred to the Committee on Territories, contained the same
section word for word. Both these bills were under consideration at the
conference referred to; but, sir, when the senator from Illinois reported
the Toombs bill to the Senate with amendments, the next morning, it did
not contain that portion of the third section which indicated to the
Convention that the constitution should be approved by the people. The
words "and ratified by the people at the election for the adoption of the
constitution" had been stricken out.

Now, these things Trumbull says were stated by Bigler upon the floor of
the Senate on certain days, and that they are recorded in the
Congressional Globe on certain pages. Does Judge Douglas say this is a
forgery? Does he say there is no such thing in the Congressional Globe?
What does he mean when he says Judge Trumbull forges his evidence from
beginning to end? So again he says in another place that Judge Douglas,
in his speech, December 9, 1857 (Congressional Globe, part I., page 15),
stated:

"That during the last session of Congress, I [Mr. Douglas] reported a
bill from the Committee on Territories, to authorize the people of Kansas
to assemble and form a constitution for themselves. Subsequently the
senator from Georgia [Mr. Toombs] brought forward a substitute for my
bill, which, after having been modified by him and myself in
consultation, was passed by the Senate."

Now, Trumbull says this is a quotation from a speech of Douglas, and is
recorded in the Congressional Globe. Is it a forgery? Is it there or not?
It may not be there, but I want the Judge to take these pieces of
evidence, and distinctly say they are forgeries if he dare do it.

[A voice: "He will."]

Well, sir, you had better not commit him. He gives other
quotations,--another from Judge Douglas. He says:

"I will ask the senator to show me an intimation, from any one member of
the Senate, in the whole debate on the Toombs bill, and in the Union,
from any quarter, that the constitution was not to be submitted to the
people. I will venture to say that on all sides of the chamber it was so
understood at the time. If the opponents of the bill had understood it
was not, they would have made the point on it; and if they had made it,
we should certainly have yielded to it, and put in the clause. That is a
discovery made since the President found out that it was not safe to take
it for granted that that would be done, which ought in fairness to have
been done."

Judge Trumbull says Douglas made that speech, and it is recorded. Does
Judge Douglas say it is a forgery, and was not true? Trumbull says
somewhere, and I propose to skip it, but it will be found by any one who
will read this debate, that he did distinctly bring it to the notice of
those who were engineering the bill, that it lacked that provision; and
then he goes on to give another quotation from Judge Douglas, where Judge
Trumbull uses this language:

"Judge Douglas, however, on the same day and in the same debate, probably
recollecting or being reminded of the fact that I had objected to the
Toombs bill when pending that it did not provide for a submission of the
constitution to the people, made another statement, which is to be found
in the same volume of the Globe, page 22, in which he says: 'That the
bill was silent on this subject was true, and my attention was called to
that about the time it was passed; and I took the fair construction to
be, that powers not delegated were reserved, and that of course the
constitution would be submitted to the people.'

"Whether this statement is consistent with the statement just before
made, that had the point been made it would have been yielded to, or that
it was a new discovery, you will determine."

So I say. I do not know whether Judge Douglas will dispute this, and yet
maintain his position that Trumbull's evidence "was forged from beginning
to end." I will remark that I have not got these Congressional Globes
with me. They are large books, and difficult to carry about, and if Judge
Douglas shall say that on these points where Trumbull has quoted from
them there are no such passages there, I shall not be able to prove they
are there upon this occasion, but I will have another chance. Whenever he
points out the forgery and says, "I declare that this particular thing
which Trumbull has uttered is not to be found where he says it is," then
my attention will be drawn to that, and I will arm myself for the
contest, stating now that I have not the slightest doubt on earth that I
will find every quotation just where Trumbull says it is. Then the
question is, How can Douglas call that a forgery? How can he make out
that it is a forgery? What is a forgery? It is the bringing forward
something in writing or in print purporting to be of certain effect when
it is altogether untrue. If you come forward with my note for one hundred
dollars when I have never given such a note, there is a forgery. If you
come forward with a letter purporting to be written by me which I never
wrote, there is another forgery. If you produce anything in writing or in
print saying it is so and so, the document not being genuine, a forgery
has been committed. How do you make this forgery when every piece of the
evidence is genuine?  If Judge Douglas does say these documents and
quotations are false and forged, he has a full right to do so; but until
he does it specifically, we don't know how to get at him. If he does say
they are false and forged, I will then look further into it, and presume
I can procure the certificates of the proper officers that they are
genuine copies. I have no doubt each of these extracts will be found
exactly where Trumbull says it is. Then I leave it to you if Judge
Douglas, in making his sweeping charge that Judge Trumbull's evidence is
forged from beginning to end, at all meets the case,--if that is the way
to get at the facts. I repeat again, if he will point out which one is a
forgery, I will carefully examine it, and if it proves that any one of
them is really a forgery, it will not be me who will hold to it any
longer. I have always wanted to deal with everyone I meet candidly and
honestly. If I have made any assertion not warranted by facts, and it is
pointed out to me, I will withdraw it cheerfully. But I do not choose to
see Judge Trumbull calumniated, and the evidence he has brought forward
branded in general terms "a forgery from beginning to end." This is not
the legal way of meeting a charge, and I submit it to all intelligent
persons, both friends of Judge Douglas and of myself, whether it is.

The point upon Judge Douglas is this: The bill that went into his hands
had the provision in it for a submission of the constitution to the
people; and I say its language amounts to an express provision for a
submission, and that he took the provision out. He says it was known that
the bill was silent in this particular; but I say, Judge Douglas, it was
not silent when you got it. It was vocal with the declaration, when you
got it, for a submission of the constitution to the people. And now, my
direct question to Judge Douglas is, to answer why, if he deemed the bill
silent on this point, he found it necessary to strike out those
particular harmless words. If he had found the bill silent and without
this provision, he might say what he does now. If he supposes it was
implied that the constitution would be submitted to a vote of the people,
how could these two lines so encumber the statute as to make it necessary
to strike them out? How could he infer that a submission was still
implied, after its express provision had been stricken from the bill? I
find the bill vocal with the provision, while he silenced it. He took it
out, and although he took out the other provision preventing a submission
to a vote of the people, I ask, Why did you first put it in? I ask him
whether he took the original provision out, which Trumbull alleges was in
the bill. If he admits that he did take it, I ask him what he did it for.
It looks to us as if he had altered the bill. If it looks differently to
him,--if he has a different reason for his action from the one we assign
him--he can tell it. I insist upon knowing why he made the bill silent
upon that point when it was vocal before he put his hands upon it.

I was told, before my last paragraph, that my time was within three
minutes of being out. I presume it is expired now; I therefore close.




Mr. LINCOLN'S REJOINDER.

FELLOW-CITIZENS: It follows as a matter of course that a half-hour answer
to a speech of an hour and a half can be but a very hurried one. I shall
only be able to touch upon a few of the points suggested by Judge
Douglas, and give them a brief attention, while I shall have to totally
omit others for the want of time.

Judge Douglas has said to you that he has not been able to get from me an
answer to the question whether I am in favor of negro citizenship. So far
as I know the Judge never asked me the question before. He shall have no
occasion to ever ask it again, for I tell him very frankly that I am not
in favor of negro citizenship. This furnishes me an occasion for saying a
few words upon the subject. I mentioned in a certain speech of mine,
which has been printed, that the Supreme Court had decided that a negro
could not possibly be made a citizen; and without saying what was my
ground of complaint in regard to that, or whether I had any ground of
complaint, Judge Douglas has from that thing manufactured nearly
everything that he ever says about my disposition to produce an equality
between the negroes and the white people. If any one will read my speech,
he will find I mentioned that as one of the points decided in the course
of the Supreme Court opinions, but I did not state what objection I had
to it. But Judge Douglas tells the people what my objection was when I
did not tell them myself. Now, my opinion is that the different States
have the power to make a negro a citizen under the Constitution of the
United States if they choose. The Dred Scott decision decides that they
have not that power. If the State of Illinois had that power, I should be
opposed to the exercise of it. That is all I have to say about it.

Judge Douglas has told me that he heard my speeches north and my speeches
south; that he had heard me at Ottawa and at Freeport in the north and
recently at Jonesboro in the south, and there was a very different cast
of sentiment in the speeches made at the different points. I will not
charge upon Judge Douglas that he wilfully misrepresents me, but I call
upon every fair-minded man to take these speeches and read them, and I
dare him to point out any difference between my speeches north and south.
While I am here perhaps I ought to say a word, if I have the time, in
regard to the latter portion of the Judge's speech, which was a sort of
declamation in reference to my having said I entertained the belief that
this government would not endure half slave and half free. I have said
so, and I did not say it without what seemed to me to be good reasons. It
perhaps would require more time than I have now to set forth these
reasons in detail; but let me ask you a few questions. Have we ever had
any peace on this slavery question? When are we to have peace upon it, if
it is kept in the position it now occupies? How are we ever to have peace
upon it? That is an important question. To be sure, if we will all stop,
and allow Judge Douglas and his friends to march on in their present
career until they plant the institution all over the nation, here and
wherever else our flag waves, and we acquiesce in it, there will be
peace. But let me ask Judge Douglas how he is going to get the people to
do that? They have been wrangling over this question for at least forty
years. This was the cause of the agitation resulting in the Missouri
Compromise; this produced the troubles at the annexation of Texas, in the
acquisition of the territory acquired in the Mexican War. Again, this was
the trouble which was quieted by the Compromise of 1850, when it was
settled "forever" as both the great political parties declared in their
National Conventions. That "forever" turned out to be just four years,
when Judge Douglas himself reopened it. When is it likely to come to an
end? He introduced the Nebraska Bill in 1854 to put another end to the
slavery agitation. He promised that it would finish it all up
immediately, and he has never made a speech since, until he got into a
quarrel with the President about the Lecompton Constitution, in which he
has not declared that we are just at the end of the slavery agitation.
But in one speech, I think last winter, he did say that he did n't quite
see when the end of the slavery agitation would come. Now he tells us
again that it is all over and the people of Kansas have voted down the
Lecompton Constitution. How is it over? That was only one of the attempts
at putting an end to the slavery agitation--one of these "final
settlements." Is Kansas in the Union? Has she formed a constitution that
she is likely to come in under? Is not the slavery agitation still an
open question in that Territory? Has the voting down of that constitution
put an end to all the trouble? Is that more likely to settle it than
every one of these previous attempts to settle the slavery agitation?
Now, at this day in the history of the world we can no more foretell
where the end of this slavery agitation will be than we can see the end
of the world itself. The Nebraska-Kansas Bill was introduced four years
and a half ago, and if the agitation is ever to come to an end we may say
we are four years and a half nearer the end. So, too, we can say we are
four years and a half nearer the end of the world, and we can just as
clearly see the end of the world as we can see the end of this agitation.
The Kansas settlement did not conclude it. If Kansas should sink to-day,
and leave a great vacant space in the earth's surface, this vexed
question would still be among us. I say, then, there is no way of putting
an end to the slavery agitation amongst us but to put it back upon the
basis where our fathers placed it; no way but to keep it out of our new
Territories,--to restrict it forever to the old States where it now
exists. Then the public mind will rest in the belief that it is in the
course of ultimate extinction. That is one way of putting an end to the
slavery agitation.

The other way is for us to surrender and let Judge Douglas and his
friends have their way and plant slavery over all the States; cease
speaking of it as in any way a wrong; regard slavery as one of the common
matters of property, and speak of negroes as we do of our horses and
cattle. But while it drives on in its state of progress as it is now
driving, and as it has driven for the last five years, I have ventured
the opinion, and I say to-day, that we will have no end to the slavery
agitation until it takes one turn or the other. I do not mean that when
it takes a turn toward ultimate extinction it will be in a day, nor in a
year, nor in two years. I do not suppose that in the most peaceful way
ultimate extinction would occur in less than a hundred years at least;
but that it will occur in the best way for both races, in God's own good
time, I have no doubt. But, my friends, I have used up more of my time
than I intended on this point.

Now, in regard to this matter about Trumbull and myself having made a
bargain to sell out the entire Whig and Democratic parties in 1854: Judge
Douglas brings forward no evidence to sustain his charge, except the
speech Matheny is said to have made in 1856, in which he told a
cock-and-bull story of that sort, upon the same moral principles that
Judge Douglas tells it here to-day. This is the simple truth. I do not
care greatly for the story, but this is the truth of it: and I have twice
told Judge Douglas to his face that from beginning to end there is not
one word of truth in it. I have called upon him for the proof, and he
does not at all meet me as Trumbull met him upon that of which we were
just talking, by producing the record. He did n't bring the record
because there was no record for him to bring. When he asks if I am ready
to indorse Trumbull's veracity after he has broken a bargain with me, I
reply that if Trumbull had broken a bargain with me I would not be likely
to indorse his veracity; but I am ready to indorse his veracity because
neither in that thing, nor in any other, in all the years that I have
known Lyman Trumbull, have I known him to fail of his word or tell a
falsehood large or small. It is for that reason that I indorse Lyman
Trumbull.

[Mr. JAMES BROWN (Douglas postmaster): "What does Ford's History say
about him?"]

Some gentleman asks me what Ford's History says about him. My own
recollection is that Ford speaks of Trumbull in very disrespectful terms
in several portions of his book, and that he talks a great deal worse of
Judge Douglas. I refer you, sir, to the History for examination.

Judge Douglas complains at considerable length about a disposition on the
part of Trumbull and myself to attack him personally. I want to attend to
that suggestion a moment. I don't want to be unjustly accused of dealing
illiberally or unfairly with an adversary, either in court or in a
political canvass or anywhere else. I would despise myself if I supposed
myself ready to deal less liberally with an adversary than I was willing
to be treated myself. Judge Douglas in a general way, without putting it
in a direct shape, revives the old charge against me in reference to the
Mexican War. He does not take the responsibility of putting it in a very
definite form, but makes a general reference to it. That charge is more
than ten years old. He complains of Trumbull and myself because he says
we bring charges against him one or two years old. He knows, too, that in
regard to the Mexican War story the more respectable papers of his own
party throughout the State have been compelled to take it back and
acknowledge that it was a lie.

[Here Mr. LINCOLN turned to the crowd on the platform, and, selecting
HON. ORLANDO B. FICKLIN, led him forward and said:]

I do not mean to do anything with Mr. FICKLIN except to present his face
and tell you that he personally knows it to be a lie! He was a member of
Congress at the only time I was in Congress, and [FICKLIN] knows that
whenever there was an attempt to procure a vote of mine which would
indorse the origin and justice of the war, I refused to give such
indorsement and voted against it; but I never voted against the supplies
for the army, and he knows, as well as Judge Douglas, that whenever a
dollar was asked by way of compensation or otherwise for the benefit of
the soldiers I gave all the votes that FICKLIN or Douglas did, and
perhaps more.

[Mr. FICKLIN: My friends, I wish to say this in reference to the matter:
Mr. Lincoln and myself are just as good personal friends as Judge Douglas
and myself. In reference to this Mexican War, my recollection is that
when Ashmun's resolution [amendment] was offered by Mr. Ashmun of
Massachusetts, in which he declared that the Mexican War was unnecessary
and unconstitutionally commenced by the President-my recollection is that
Mr. Lincoln voted for that resolution.]

That is the truth. Now, you all remember that was a resolution censuring
the President for the manner in which the war was begun. You know they
have charged that I voted against the supplies, by which I starved the
soldiers who were out fighting the battles of their country. I say that
FICKLIN knows it is false. When that charge was brought forward by the
Chicago Times, the Springfield Register [Douglas's organ] reminded the
Times that the charge really applied to John Henry; and I do know that
John Henry is now making speeches and fiercely battling for Judge
Douglas. If the Judge now says that he offers this as a sort of setoff to
what I said to-day in reference to Trumbull's charge, then I remind him
that he made this charge before I said a word about Trumbull's. He
brought this forward at Ottawa, the first time we met face to face; and
in the opening speech that Judge Douglas made he attacked me in regard to
a matter ten years old. Is n't he a pretty man to be whining about people
making charges against him only two years old!

The Judge thinks it is altogether wrong that I should have dwelt upon
this charge of Trumbull's at all. I gave the apology for doing so in my
opening speech. Perhaps it did n't fix your attention. I said that when
Judge Douglas was speaking at place--where I spoke on the succeeding day
he used very harsh language about this charge. Two or three times
afterward I said I had confidence in Judge Trumbull's veracity and
intelligence; and my own opinion was, from what I knew of the character
of Judge Trumbull, that he would vindicate his position and prove
whatever he had stated to be true. This I repeated two or three times;
and then I dropped it, without saying anything more on the subject for
weeks--perhaps a month. I passed it by without noticing it at all till I
found, at Jacksonville, Judge Douglas in the plenitude of his power is
not willing to answer Trumbull and let me alone, but he comes out there
and uses this language: "He should not hereafter occupy his time in
refuting such charges made by Trumbull but that, Lincoln having indorsed
the character of Trumbull for veracity, he should hold him [Lincoln]
responsible for the slanders." What was Lincoln to do? Did he not do
right, when he had the fit opportunity of meeting Judge Douglas here, to
tell him he was ready for the responsibility? I ask a candid audience
whether in doing thus Judge Douglas was not the assailant rather than I?
Here I meet him face to face, and say I am ready to take the
responsibility, so far as it rests on me.

Having done so I ask the attention of this audience to the question
whether I have succeeded in sustaining the charge, and whether Judge
Douglas has at all succeeded in rebutting it? You all heard me call upon
him to say which of these pieces of evidence was a forgery. Does he say
that what I present here as a copy of the original Toombs bill is a
forgery? Does he say that what I present as a copy of the bill reported
by himself is a forgery, or what is presented as a transcript from the
Globe of the quotations from Bigler's speech is a forgery? Does he say
the quotations from his own speech are forgeries? Does he say this
transcript from Trumbull's speech is a forgery?

["He didn't deny one of them."]

I would then like to know how it comes about that when each piece of a
story is true the whole story turns out false. I take it these people
have some sense; they see plainly that Judge Douglas is playing
cuttle-fish, a small species of fish that has no mode of defending itself
when pursued except by throwing out a black fluid, which makes the water
so dark the enemy cannot see it, and thus it escapes. Ain't the Judge
playing the cuttle-fish?

Now, I would ask very special attention to the consideration of Judge
Douglas's speech at Jacksonville; and when you shall read his speech of
to-day, I ask you to watch closely and see which of these pieces of
testimony, every one of which he says is a forgery, he has shown to be
such. Not one of them has he shown to be a forgery. Then I ask the
original question, if each of the pieces of testimony is true, how is it
possible that the whole is a falsehood?

In regard to Trumbull's charge that he [Douglas] inserted a provision
into the bill to prevent the constitution being submitted to the people,
what was his answer? He comes here and reads from the Congressional Globe
to show that on his motion that provision was struck out of the bill.
Why, Trumbull has not said it was not stricken out, but Trumbull says he
[Douglas] put it in; and it is no answer to the charge to say he
afterwards took it out. Both are perhaps true. It was in regard to that
thing precisely that I told him he had dropped the cub. Trumbull shows
you that by his introducing the bill it was his cub. It is no answer to
that assertion to call Trumbull a liar merely because he did not
specially say that Douglas struck it out. Suppose that were the case,
does it answer Trumbull? I assert that you [pointing to an individual]
are here to-day, and you undertake to prove me a liar by showing that you
were in Mattoon yesterday. I say that you took your hat off your head,
and you prove me a liar by putting it on your head. That is the whole
force of Douglas's argument.

Now, I want to come back to my original question. Trumbull says that
Judge Douglas had a bill with a provision in it for submitting a
constitution to be made to a vote of the people of Kansas. Does Judge
Douglas deny that fact? Does he deny that the provision which Trumbull
reads was put in that bill? Then Trumbull says he struck it out. Does he
dare to deny that? He does not, and I have the right to repeat the
question,--Why Judge Douglas took it out? Bigler has said there was a
combination of certain senators, among whom he did not include Judge
Douglas, by which it was agreed that the Kansas Bill should have a clause
in it not to have the constitution formed under it submitted to a vote of
the people. He did not say that Douglas was among them, but we prove by
another source that about the same time Douglas comes into the Senate
with that provision stricken out of the bill. Although Bigler cannot say
they were all working in concert, yet it looks very much as if the thing
was agreed upon and done with a mutual understanding after the
conference; and while we do not know that it was absolutely so, yet it
looks so probable that we have a right to call upon the man who knows the
true reason why it was done to tell what the true reason was. When he
will not tell what the true reason was, he stands in the attitude of an
accused thief who has stolen goods in his possession, and when called to
account refuses to tell where he got them. Not only is this the evidence,
but when he comes in with the bill having the provision stricken out, he
tells us in a speech, not then but since, that these alterations and
modifications in the bill had been made by HIM, in consultation with
Toombs, the originator of the bill. He tells us the same to-day. He says
there were certain modifications made in the bill in committee that he
did not vote for. I ask you to remember, while certain amendments were
made which he disapproved of, but which a majority of the committee voted
in, he has himself told us that in this particular the alterations and
modifications were made by him, upon consultation with Toombs. We have
his own word that these alterations were made by him, and not by the
committee. Now, I ask, what is the reason Judge Douglas is so chary about
coming to the exact question? What is the reason he will not tell you
anything about How it was made, BY WHOM it was made, or that he remembers
it being made at all? Why does he stand playing upon the meaning of words
and quibbling around the edges of the evidence? If he can explain all
this, but leaves it unexplained, I have the right to infer that Judge
Douglas understood it was the purpose of his party, in engineering that
bill through, to make a constitution, and have Kansas come into the Union
with that constitution, without its being submitted to a vote of the
people. If he will explain his action on this question, by giving a
better reason for the facts that happened than he has done, it will be
satisfactory. But until he does that--until he gives a better or more
plausible reason than he has offered against the evidence in the case--I
suggest to him it will not avail him at all that he swells himself up,
takes on dignity, and calls people liars. Why, sir, there is not a word
in Trumbull's speech that depends on Trumbull's veracity at all. He has
only arrayed the evidence and told you what follows as a matter of
reasoning. There is not a statement in the whole speech that depends on
Trumbull's word. If you have ever studied geometry, you remember that by
a course of reasoning Euclid proves that all the angles in a triangle are
equal to two right angles. Euclid has shown you how to work it out. Now,
if you undertake to disprove that proposition, and to show that it is
erroneous, would you prove it to be false by calling Euclid a liar? They
tell me that my time is out, and therefore I close.




FIFTH JOINT DEBATE, AT GALESBURGH,

OCTOBER 7, 1858

Mr. LINCOLN'S REPLY.

MY FELLOW-CITIZENS: A very large portion of the speech which Judge
Douglas has addressed to you has previously been delivered and put in
print. I do not mean that for a hit upon the Judge at all.---If I had not
been interrupted, I was going to say that such an answer as I was able to
make to a very large portion of it had already been more than once made
and published. There has been an opportunity afforded to the public to
see our respective views upon the topics discussed in a large portion of
the speech which he has just delivered. I make these remarks for the
purpose of excusing myself for not passing over the entire ground that
the Judge has traversed. I however desire to take up some of the points
that he has attended to, and ask your attention to them, and I shall
follow him backwards upon some notes which I have taken, reversing the
order, by beginning where he concluded.

The Judge has alluded to the Declaration of Independence, and insisted
that negroes are not included in that Declaration; and that it is a
slander upon the framers of that instrument to suppose that negroes were
meant therein; and he asks you: Is it possible to believe that Mr.
Jefferson, who penned the immortal paper, could have supposed himself
applying the language of that instrument to the negro race, and yet held
a portion of that race in slavery? Would he not at once have freed them?
I only have to remark upon this part of the Judge's speech (and that,
too, very briefly, for I shall not detain myself, or you, upon that point
for any great length of time), that I believe the entire records of the
world, from the date of the Declaration of Independence up to within
three years ago, may be searched in vain for one single affirmation, from
one single man, that the negro was not included in the Declaration of
Independence; I think I may defy Judge Douglas to show that he ever said
so, that Washington ever said so, that any President ever said so, that
any member of Congress ever said so, or that any living man upon the
whole earth ever said so, until the necessities of the present policy of
the Democratic party, in regard to slavery, had to invent that
affirmation. And I will remind Judge Douglas and this audience that while
Mr. Jefferson was the owner of slaves, as undoubtedly he was, in speaking
upon this very subject he used the strong language that "he trembled for
his country when he remembered that God was just"; and I will offer the
highest premium in my power to Judge Douglas if he will show that he, in
all his life, ever uttered a sentiment at all akin to that of Jefferson.

The next thing to which I will ask your attention is the Judge's comments
upon the fact, as he assumes it to be, that we cannot call our public
meetings as Republican meetings; and he instances Tazewell County as one
of the places where the friends of Lincoln have called a public meeting
and have not dared to name it a Republican meeting. He instances Monroe
County as another, where Judge Trumbull and Jehu Baker addressed the
persons whom the Judge assumes to be the friends of Lincoln calling them
the "Free Democracy." I have the honor to inform Judge Douglas that he
spoke in that very county of Tazewell last Saturday, and I was there on
Tuesday last; and when he spoke there, he spoke under a call not
venturing to use the word "Democrat." [Turning to Judge Douglas.] what
think you of this?

So, again, there is another thing to which I would ask the Judge's
attention upon this subject. In the contest of 1856 his party delighted
to call themselves together as the "National Democracy"; but now, if
there should be a notice put up anywhere for a meeting of the "National
Democracy," Judge Douglas and his friends would not come. They would not
suppose themselves invited. They would understand that it was a call for
those hateful postmasters whom he talks about.

Now a few words in regard to these extracts from speeches of mine which
Judge Douglas has read to you, and which he supposes are in very great
contrast to each other. Those speeches have been before the public for a
considerable time, and if they have any inconsistency in them, if there
is any conflict in them, the public have been able to detect it. When the
Judge says, in speaking on this subject, that I make speeches of one sort
for the people of the northern end of the State, and of a different sort
for the southern people, he assumes that I do not understand that my
speeches will be put in print and read north and south. I knew all the
while that the speech that I made at Chicago, and the one I made at
Jonesboro and the one at Charleston, would all be put in print, and all
the reading and intelligent men in the community would see them and know
all about my opinions. And I have not supposed, and do not now suppose,
that there is any conflict whatever between them. But the Judge will have
it that if we do not confess that there is a sort of inequality between
the white and black races which justifies us in making them slaves, we
must then insist that there is a degree of equality that requires us to
make them our wives. Now, I have all the while taken a broad distinction
in regard to that matter; and that is all there is in these different
speeches which he arrays here; and the entire reading of either of the
speeches will show that that distinction was made. Perhaps by taking two
parts of the same speech he could have got up as much of a conflict as
the one he has found. I have all the while maintained that in so far as
it should be insisted that there was an equality between the white and
black races that should produce a perfect social and political equality,
it was an impossibility. This you have seen in my printed speeches, and
with it I have said that in their right to "life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness," as proclaimed in that old Declaration, the
inferior races are our equals. And these declarations I have constantly
made in reference to the abstract moral question, to contemplate and
consider when we are legislating about any new country which is not
already cursed with the actual presence of the evil,--slavery. I have
never manifested any impatience with the necessities that spring from the
actual presence of black people amongst us, and the actual existence of
slavery amongst us where it does already exist; but I have insisted that,
in legislating for new countries where it does not exist there is no just
rule other than that of moral and abstract right! With reference to those
new countries, those maxims as to the right of a people to "life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" were the just rules to be
constantly referred to. There is no misunderstanding this, except by men
interested to misunderstand it. I take it that I have to address an
intelligent and reading community, who will peruse what I say, weigh it,
and then judge whether I advanced improper or unsound views, or whether I
advanced hypocritical, and deceptive, and contrary views in different
portions of the country. I believe myself to be guilty of no such thing
as the latter, though, of course, I cannot claim that I am entirely free
from all error in the opinions I advance.

The Judge has also detained us awhile in regard to the distinction
between his party and our party. His he assumes to be a national party,
ours a sectional one. He does this in asking the question whether this
country has any interest in the maintenance of the Republican party. He
assumes that our party is altogether sectional, that the party to which
he adheres is national; and the argument is, that no party can be a
rightful party--and be based upon rightful principles--unless it can
announce its principles everywhere. I presume that Judge Douglas could
not go into Russia and announce the doctrine of our national Democracy;
he could not denounce the doctrine of kings and emperors and monarchies
in Russia; and it may be true of this country that in some places we may
not be able to proclaim a doctrine as clearly true as the truth of
democracy, because there is a section so directly opposed to it that they
will not tolerate us in doing so. Is it the true test of the soundness of
a doctrine that in some places people won't let you proclaim it? Is that
the way to test the truth of any doctrine? Why, I understood that at one
time the people of Chicago would not let Judge Douglas preach a certain
favorite doctrine of his. I commend to his consideration the question
whether he takes that as a test of the unsoundness of what he wanted to
preach.

There is another thing to which I wish to ask attention for a little
while on this occasion. What has always been the evidence brought forward
to prove that the Republican party is a sectional party? The main one was
that in the Southern portion of the Union the people did not let the
Republicans proclaim their doctrines amongst them. That has been the main
evidence brought forward,--that they had no supporters, or substantially
none, in the Slave States. The South have not taken hold of our
principles as we announce them; nor does Judge Douglas now grapple with
those principles. We have a Republican State Platform, laid down in
Springfield in June last stating our position all the way through the
questions before the country. We are now far advanced in this canvass.
Judge Douglas and I have made perhaps forty speeches apiece, and we have
now for the fifth time met face to face in debate, and up to this day I
have not found either Judge Douglas or any friend of his taking hold of
the Republican platform, or laying his finger upon anything in it that is
wrong. I ask you all to recollect that. Judge Douglas turns away from the
platform of principles to the fact that he can find people somewhere who
will not allow us to announce those principles. If he had great
confidence that our principles were wrong, he would take hold of them and
demonstrate them to be wrong. But he does not do so. The only evidence he
has of their being wrong is in the fact that there are people who won't
allow us to preach them. I ask again, is that the way to test the
soundness of a doctrine?

I ask his attention also to the fact that by the rule of nationality he
is himself fast becoming sectional. I ask his attention to the fact that
his speeches would not go as current now south of the Ohio River as they
have formerly gone there I ask his attention to the fact that he
felicitates himself to-day that all the Democrats of the free States are
agreeing with him, while he omits to tell us that the Democrats of any
slave State agree with him. If he has not thought of this, I commend to
his consideration the evidence in his own declaration, on this day, of
his becoming sectional too. I see it rapidly approaching. Whatever may be
the result of this ephemeral contest between Judge Douglas and myself, I
see the day rapidly approaching when his pill of sectionalism, which he
has been thrusting down the throats of Republicans for years past, will
be crowded down his own throat.

Now, in regard to what Judge Douglas said (in the beginning of his
speech) about the Compromise of 1850 containing the principles of the
Nebraska Bill, although I have often presented my views upon that
subject, yet as I have not done so in this canvass, I will, if you
please, detain you a little with them. I have always maintained, so far
as I was able, that there was nothing of the principle of the Nebraska
Bill in the Compromise of 1850 at all,--nothing whatever. Where can you
find the principle of the Nebraska Bill in that Compromise? If anywhere,
in the two pieces of the Compromise organizing the Territories of New
Mexico and Utah. It was expressly provided in these two acts that when
they came to be admitted into the Union they should be admitted with or
without slavery, as they should choose, by their own constitutions.
Nothing was said in either of those acts as to what was to be done in
relation to slavery during the Territorial existence of those
Territories, while Henry Clay constantly made the declaration (Judge
Douglas recognizing him as a leader) that, in his opinion, the old
Mexican laws would control that question during the Territorial
existence, and that these old Mexican laws excluded slavery. How can that
be used as a principle for declaring that during the Territorial
existence as well as at the time of framing the constitution the people,
if you please, might have slaves if they wanted them? I am not discussing
the question whether it is right or wrong; but how are the New Mexican
and Utah laws patterns for the Nebraska Bill? I maintain that the
organization of Utah and New Mexico did not establish a general principle
at all. It had no feature of establishing a general principle. The acts
to which I have referred were a part of a general system of Compromises.
They did not lay down what was proposed as a regular policy for the
Territories, only an agreement in this particular case to do in that way,
because other things were done that were to be a compensation for it.
They were allowed to come in in that shape, because in another way it was
paid for, considering that as a part of that system of measures called
the Compromise of 1850, which finally included half-a-dozen acts. It
included the admission of California as a free State, which was kept out
of the Union for half a year because it had formed a free constitution.
It included the settlement of the boundary of Texas, which had been
undefined before, which was in itself a slavery question; for if you
pushed the line farther west, you made Texas larger, and made more slave
territory; while, if you drew the line toward the east, you narrowed the
boundary and diminished the domain of slavery, and by so much increased
free territory. It included the abolition of the slave trade in the
District of Columbia. It included the passage of a new Fugitive Slave
law. All these things were put together, and, though passed in separate
acts, were nevertheless, in legislation (as the speeches at the time will
show), made to depend upon each other. Each got votes with the
understanding that the other measures were to pass, and by this system of
compromise, in that series of measures, those two bills--the New Mexico
and Utah bills--were passed: and I say for that reason they could not be
taken as models, framed upon their own intrinsic principle, for all
future Territories. And I have the evidence of this in the fact that
Judge Douglas, a year afterward, or more than a year afterward, perhaps,
when he first introduced bills for the purpose of framing new
Territories, did not attempt to follow these bills of New Mexico and
Utah; and even when he introduced this Nebraska Bill, I think you will
discover that he did not exactly follow them. But I do not wish to dwell
at great length upon this branch of the discussion. My own opinion is,
that a thorough investigation will show most plainly that the New Mexico
and Utah bills were part of a system of compromise, and not designed as
patterns for future Territorial legislation; and that this Nebraska Bill
did not follow them as a pattern at all.

The Judge tells, in proceeding, that he is opposed to making any odious
distinctions between free and slave States. I am altogether unaware that
the Republicans are in favor of making any odious distinctions between
the free and slave States. But there is still a difference, I think,
between Judge Douglas and the Republicans in this. I suppose that the
real difference between Judge Douglas and his friends, and the
Republicans on the contrary, is, that the Judge is not in favor of making
any difference between slavery and liberty; that he is in favor of
eradicating, of pressing out of view, the questions of preference in this
country for free or slave institutions; and consequently every sentiment
he utters discards the idea that there is any wrong in slavery.
Everything that emanates from him or his coadjutors in their course of
policy carefully excludes the thought that there is anything wrong in
slavery. All their arguments, if you will consider them, will be seen to
exclude the thought that there is anything whatever wrong in slavery. If
you will take the Judge's speeches, and select the short and pointed
sentences expressed by him,--as his declaration that he "don't care
whether slavery is voted up or down,"--you will see at once that this is
perfectly logical, if you do not admit that slavery is wrong. If you do
admit that it is wrong, Judge Douglas cannot logically say he don't care
whether a wrong is voted up or voted down. Judge Douglas declares that if
any community wants slavery they have a right to have it. He can say that
logically, if he says that there is no wrong in slavery; but if you admit
that there is a wrong in it, he cannot logically say that anybody has a
right to do wrong. He insists that upon the score of equality the owners
of slaves and owners of property--of horses and every other sort of
property--should be alike, and hold them alike in a new Territory. That
is perfectly logical if the two species of property are alike and are
equally founded in right. But if you admit that one of them is wrong, you
cannot institute any equality between right and wrong. And from this
difference of sentiment,--the belief on the part of one that the
institution is wrong, and a policy springing from that belief which looks
to the arrest of the enlargement of that wrong, and this other sentiment,
that it is no wrong, and a policy sprung from that sentiment, which will
tolerate no idea of preventing the wrong from growing larger, and looks
to there never being an end to it through all the existence of
things,--arises the real difference between Judge Douglas and his friends
on the one hand and the Republicans on the other. Now, I confess myself
as belonging to that class in the country who contemplate slavery as a
moral, social, and political evil, having due regard for its actual
existence amongst us and the difficulties of getting rid of it in any
satisfactory way, and to all the constitutional obligations which have
been thrown about it; but, nevertheless, desire a policy that looks to
the prevention of it as a wrong, and looks hopefully to the time when as
a wrong it may come to an end.

Judge Douglas has again, for, I believe, the fifth time, if not the
seventh, in my presence, reiterated his charge of a conspiracy or
combination between the National Democrats and Republicans. What evidence
Judge Douglas has upon this subject I know not, inasmuch as he never
favors us with any. I have said upon a former occasion, and I do not
choose to suppress it now, that I have no objection to the division in
the Judge's party. He got it up himself. It was all his and their work.
He had, I think, a great deal more to do with the steps that led to the
Lecompton Constitution than Mr. Buchanan had; though at last, when they
reached it, they quarreled over it, and their friends divided upon it. I
am very free to confess to Judge Douglas that I have no objection to the
division; but I defy the Judge to show any evidence that I have in any
way promoted that division, unless he insists on being a witness himself
in merely saying so. I can give all fair friends of Judge Douglas here to
understand exactly the view that Republicans take in regard to that
division. Don't you remember how two years ago the opponents of the
Democratic party were divided between Fremont and Fillmore? I guess you
do. Any Democrat who remembers that division will remember also that he
was at the time very glad of it, and then he will be able to see all
there is between the National Democrats and the Republicans. What we now
think of the two divisions of Democrats, you then thought of the Fremont
and Fillmore divisions. That is all there is of it.

But if the Judge continues to put forward the declaration that there is
an unholy and unnatural alliance between the Republicans and the National
Democrats, I now want to enter my protest against receiving him as an
entirely competent witness upon that subject. I want to call to the
Judge's attention an attack he made upon me in the first one of these
debates, at Ottawa, on the 21st of August. In order to fix extreme
Abolitionism upon me, Judge Douglas read a set of resolutions which he
declared had been passed by a Republican State Convention, in October,
1854, at Springfield, Illinois, and he declared I had taken part in that
Convention. It turned out that although a few men calling themselves an
anti-Nebraska State Convention had sat at Springfield about that time,
yet neither did I take any part in it, nor did it pass the resolutions or
any such resolutions as Judge Douglas read. So apparent had it become
that the resolutions which he read had not been passed at Springfield at
all, nor by a State Convention in which I had taken part, that seven days
afterward, at Freeport, Judge Douglas declared that he had been misled by
Charles H. Lanphier, editor of the State Register, and Thomas L. Harris,
member of Congress in that district, and he promised in that speech that
when he went to Springfield he would investigate the matter. Since then
Judge Douglas has been to Springfield, and I presume has made the
investigation; but a month has passed since he has been there, and, so
far as I know, he has made no report of the result of his investigation.
I have waited as I think sufficient time for the report of that
investigation, and I have some curiosity to see and hear it. A fraud, an
absolute forgery was committed, and the perpetration of it was traced to
the three,--Lanphier, Harris, and Douglas. Whether it can be narrowed in
any way so as to exonerate any one of them, is what Judge Douglas's
report would probably show.

It is true that the set of resolutions read by Judge Douglas were
published in the Illinois State Register on the 16th of October, 1854, as
being the resolutions of an anti-Nebraska Convention which had sat in
that same month of October, at Springfield. But it is also true that the
publication in the Register was a forgery then, and the question is still
behind, which of the three, if not all of them, committed that forgery.
The idea that it was done by mistake is absurd. The article in the
Illinois State Register contains part of the real proceedings of that
Springfield Convention, showing that the writer of the article had the
real proceedings before him, and purposely threw out the genuine
resolutions passed by the Convention and fraudulently substituted the
others. Lanphier then, as now, was the editor of the Register, so that
there seems to be but little room for his escape. But then it is to be
borne in mind that Lanphier had less interest in the object of that
forgery than either of the other two. The main object of that forgery at
that time was to beat Yates and elect Harris to Congress, and that object
was known to be exceedingly dear to Judge Douglas at that time. Harris
and Douglas were both in Springfield when the Convention was in session,
and although they both left before the fraud appeared in the Register,
subsequent events show that they have both had their eyes fixed upon that
Convention.

The fraud having been apparently successful upon the occasion, both
Harris and Douglas have more than once since then been attempting to put
it to new uses. As the fisherman's wife, whose drowned husband was
brought home with his body full of eels, said when she was asked what was
to be done with him, "Take the eels out and set him again," so Harris and
Douglas have shown a disposition to take the eels out of that stale fraud
by which they gained Harris's election, and set the fraud again more than
once. On the 9th of July, 1856, Douglas attempted a repetition of it upon
Trumbull on the floor of the Senate of the United States, as will appear
from the appendix of the Congressional Globe of that date.

On the 9th of August, Harris attempted it again upon Norton in the House
of Representatives, as will appear by the same documents,--the appendix
to the Congressional Globe of that date. On the 21st of August last, all
three--Lanphier, Douglas, and Harris--reattempted it upon me at Ottawa.
It has been clung to and played out again and again as an exceedingly
high trump by this blessed trio. And now that it has been discovered
publicly to be a fraud we find that Judge Douglas manifests no surprise
at it at all. He makes no complaint of Lanphier, who must have known it
to be a fraud from the beginning. He, Lanphier, and Harris are just as
cozy now and just as active in the concoction of new schemes as they were
before the general discovery of this fraud. Now, all this is very natural
if they are all alike guilty in that fraud, and it is very unnatural if
any one of them is innocent. Lanphier perhaps insists that the rule of
honor among thieves does not quite require him to take all upon himself,
and consequently my friend Judge Douglas finds it difficult to make a
satisfactory report upon his investigation. But meanwhile the three are
agreed that each is "a most honorable man."

Judge Douglas requires an indorsement of his truth and honor by a
re-election to the United States Senate, and he makes and reports against
me and against Judge Trumbull, day after day, charges which we know to be
utterly untrue, without for a moment seeming to think that this one
unexplained fraud, which he promised to investigate, will be the least
drawback to his claim to belief. Harris ditto. He asks a re-election to
the lower House of Congress without seeming to remember at all that he is
involved in this dishonorable fraud! The Illinois State Register, edited
by Lanphier, then, as now, the central organ of both Harris and Douglas,
continues to din the public ear with this assertion, without seeming to
suspect that these assertions are at all lacking in title to belief.

After all, the question still recurs upon us, How did that fraud
originally get into the State Register? Lanphier then, as now, was the
editor of that paper. Lanphier knows. Lanphier cannot be ignorant of how
and by whom it was originally concocted. Can he be induced to tell, or,
if he has told, can Judge Douglas be induced to tell how it originally
was concocted? It may be true that Lanphier insists that the two men for
whose benefit it was originally devised shall at least bear their share
of it! How that is, I do not know, and while it remains unexplained I
hope to be pardoned if I insist that the mere fact of Judge Douglas
making charges against Trumbull and myself is not quite sufficient
evidence to establish them!

While we were at Freeport, in one of these joint discussions, I
answered certain interrogatories which Judge Douglas had propounded
to me, and then in turn propounded some to him, which he in a sort of
way answered. The third one of these interrogatories I have with me,
and wish now to make some comments upon it. It was in these words:
 "If the Supreme Court of the United States shall decide that the
States cannot exclude slavery from their limits, are you in favor of
acquiescing in, adhering to, and following such decision as a rule of
political action?"

To this interrogatory Judge Douglas made no answer in any just sense of
the word. He contented himself with sneering at the thought that it was
possible for the Supreme Court ever to make such a decision. He sneered
at me for propounding the interrogatory. I had not propounded it without
some reflection, and I wish now to address to this audience some remarks
upon it.

In the second clause of the sixth article, I believe it is, of the
Constitution of the United States, we find the following language:

"This Constitution and the laws of the United States which shall be made
in pursuance thereof, and all treaties made, or which shall be made,
under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the
land; and the judges in every State shall be bound thereby, anything in
the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding."

The essence of the Dred Scott case is compressed into the sentence which
I will now read:

"Now, as we have already said in an earlier part of this opinion, upon a
different point, the right of property in a slave is distinctly and
expressly affirmed in the Constitution."

I repeat it, "The right of property in a slave is distinctly and
expressly affirmed in the Constitution"! What is it to be "affirmed" in
the Constitution? Made firm in the Constitution, so made that it cannot
be separated from the Constitution without breaking the Constitution;
durable as the Constitution, and part of the Constitution. Now,
remembering the provision of the Constitution which I have
read--affirming that that instrument is the supreme law of the land; that
the judges of every State shall be bound by it, any law or constitution
of any State to the contrary notwithstanding; that the right of property
in a slave is affirmed in that Constitution, is made, formed into, and
cannot be separated from it without breaking it; durable as the
instrument; part of the instrument;--what follows as a short and even
syllogistic argument from it? I think it follows, and I submit to the
consideration of men capable of arguing whether, as I state it, in
syllogistic form, the argument has any fault in it:

Nothing in the Constitution or laws of any State can destroy a right
distinctly and expressly affirmed in the Constitution of the United
States.

The right of property in a slave is distinctly and expressly affirmed in
the Constitution of the United States.

Therefore, nothing in the Constitution or laws of any State can destroy
the right of property in a slave.

I believe that no fault can be pointed out in that argument; assuming the
truth of the premises, the conclusion, so far as I have capacity at all
to understand it, follows inevitably. There is a fault in it as I think,
but the fault is not in the reasoning; but the falsehood in fact is a
fault of the premises. I believe that the right of property in a slave is
not distinctly and expressly affirmed in the Constitution, and Judge
Douglas thinks it is. I believe that the Supreme Court and the advocates
of that decision may search in vain for the place in the Constitution
where the right of property in a slave is distinctly and expressly
affirmed I say, therefore, that I think one of the premises is not true
in fact. But it is true with Judge Douglas. It is true with the Supreme
Court who pronounced it. They are estopped from denying it, and being
estopped from denying it, the conclusion follows that, the Constitution
of the United States being the supreme law, no constitution or law can
interfere with it. It being affirmed in the decision that the right of
property in a slave is distinctly and expressly affirmed in the
Constitution, the conclusion inevitably follows that no State law or
constitution can destroy that right. I then say to Judge Douglas and to
all others that I think it will take a better answer than a sneer to show
that those who have said that the right of property in a slave is
distinctly and expressly affirmed in the Constitution, are not prepared
to show that no constitution or law can destroy that right. I say I
believe it will take a far better argument than a mere sneer to show to
the minds of intelligent men that whoever has so said is not prepared,
whenever public sentiment is so far advanced as to justify it, to say the
other. This is but an opinion, and the opinion of one very humble man;
but it is my opinion that the Dred Scott decision, as it is, never would
have been made in its present form if the party that made it had not been
sustained previously by the elections. My own opinion is, that the new
Dred Scott decision, deciding against the right of the people of the
States to exclude slavery, will never be made if that party is not
sustained by the elections. I believe, further, that it is just as sure
to be made as to-morrow is to come, if that party shall be sustained. I
have said, upon a former occasion, and I repeat it now, that the course
of arguement that Judge Douglas makes use of upon this subject (I charge
not his motives in this), is preparing the public mind for that new Dred
Scott decision. I have asked him again to point out to me the reasons for
his first adherence to the Dred Scott decision as it is. I have turned
his attention to the fact that General Jackson differed with him in
regard to the political obligation of a Supreme Court decision. I have
asked his attention to the fact that Jefferson differed with him in
regard to the political obligation of a Supreme Court decision. Jefferson
said that "Judges are as honest as other men, and not more so." And he
said, substantially, that whenever a free people should give up in
absolute submission to any department of government, retaining for
themselves no appeal from it, their liberties were gone. I have asked his
attention to the fact that the Cincinnati platform, upon which he says he
stands, disregards a time-honored decision of the Supreme Court, in
denying the power of Congress to establish a National Bank. I have asked
his attention to the fact that he himself was one of the most active
instruments at one time in breaking down the Supreme Court of the State
of Illinois because it had made a decision distasteful to him,--a
struggle ending in the remarkable circumstance of his sitting down as one
of the new Judges who were to overslaugh that decision; getting his title
of Judge in that very way.

So far in this controversy I can get no answer at all from Judge Douglas
upon these subjects. Not one can I get from him, except that he swells
himself up and says, "All of us who stand by the decision of the Supreme
Court are the friends of the Constitution; all you fellows that dare
question it in any way are the enemies of the Constitution." Now, in this
very devoted adherence to this decision, in opposition to all the great
political leaders whom he has recognized as leaders, in opposition to his
former self and history, there is something very marked. And the manner
in which he adheres to it,--not as being right upon the merits, as he
conceives (because he did not discuss that at all), but as being
absolutely obligatory upon every one simply because of the source from
whence it comes, as that which no man can gainsay, whatever it may
be,--this is another marked feature of his adherence to that decision. It
marks it in this respect, that it commits him to the next decision,
whenever it comes, as being as obligatory as this one, since he does not
investigate it, and won't inquire whether this opinion is right or wrong.
So he takes the next one without inquiring whether it is right or wrong.
He teaches men this doctrine, and in so doing prepares the public mind to
take the next decision when it comes, without any inquiry. In this I
think I argue fairly (without questioning motives at all) that Judge
Douglas is most ingeniously and powerfully preparing the public mind to
take that decision when it comes; and not only so, but he is doing it in
various other ways. In these general maxims about liberty, in his
assertions that he "don't care whether slavery is voted up or voted
down,"; that "whoever wants slavery has a right to have it"; that "upon
principles of equality it should be allowed to go everywhere"; that
"there is no inconsistency between free and slave institutions"--in this
he is also preparing (whether purposely or not) the way for making the
institution of slavery national! I repeat again, for I wish no
misunderstanding, that I do not charge that he means it so; but I call
upon your minds to inquire, if you were going to get the best instrument
you could, and then set it to work in the most ingenious way, to prepare
the public mind for this movement, operating in the free States, where
there is now an abhorrence of the institution of slavery, could you find
an instrument so capable of doing it as Judge Douglas, or one employed in
so apt a way to do it?

I have said once before, and I will repeat it now, that Mr. Clay, when he
was once answering an objection to the Colonization Society, that it had
a tendency to the ultimate emancipation of the slaves, said that:

"Those who would repress all tendencies to liberty and ultimate
emancipation must do more than put down the benevolent efforts of the
Colonization Society: they must go back to the era of our liberty and
independence, and muzzle the cannon that thunders its annual joyous
return; they must blow out the moral lights around us; they must
penetrate the human soul, and eradicate the light of reason and the love
of liberty!"

And I do think--I repeat, though I said it on a former occasion--that
Judge Douglas and whoever, like him, teaches that the negro has no share,
humble though it may be, in the Declaration of Independence, is going
back to the era of our liberty and independence, and, so far as in him
lies, muzzling the cannon that thunders its annual joyous return; that he
is blowing out the moral lights around us, when he contends that whoever
wants slaves has a right to hold them; that he is penetrating, so far as
lies in his power, the human soul, and eradicating the light of reason
and the love of liberty, when he is in every possible way preparing the
public mind, by his vast influence, for making the institution of slavery
perpetual and national.

There is, my friends, only one other point to which I will call your
attention for the remaining time that I have left me, and perhaps I shall
not occupy the entire time that I have, as that one point may not take me
clear through it.

Among the interrogatories that Judge Douglas propounded to me at
Freeport, there was one in about this language:

"Are you opposed to the acquisition of any further territory to the
United States, unless slavery shall first be prohibited therein?"

I answered, as I thought, in this way: that I am not generally opposed to
the acquisition of additional territory, and that I would support a
proposition for the acquisition of additional territory according as my
supporting it was or was not calculated to aggravate this slavery
question amongst us. I then proposed to Judge Douglas another
interrogatory, which was correlative to that: "Are you in favor of
acquiring additional territory, in disregard of how it may affect us upon
the slavery question?" Judge Douglas answered,--that is, in his own way
he answered it. I believe that, although he took a good many words to
answer it, it was a little more fully answered than any other. The
substance of his answer was that this country would continue to expand;
that it would need additional territory; that it was as absurd to suppose
that we could continue upon our present territory, enlarging in
population as we are, as it would be to hoop a boy twelve years of age,
and expect him to grow to man's size without bursting the hoops. I
believe it was something like that. Consequently, he was in favor of the
acquisition of further territory as fast as we might need it, in
disregard of how it might affect the slavery question. I do not say this
as giving his exact language, but he said so substantially; and he would
leave the question of slavery, where the territory was acquired, to be
settled by the people of the acquired territory. ["That's the doctrine."]
May be it is; let us consider that for a while. This will probably, in
the run of things, become one of the concrete manifestations of this
slavery question. If Judge Douglas's policy upon this question succeeds,
and gets fairly settled down, until all opposition is crushed out, the
next thing will be a grab for the territory of poor Mexico, an invasion
of the rich lands of South America, then the adjoining islands will
follow, each one of which promises additional slave-fields. And this
question is to be left to the people of those countries for settlement.
When we get Mexico, I don't know whether the Judge will be in favor of
the Mexican people that we get with it settling that question for
themselves and all others; because we know the Judge has a great horror
for mongrels, and I understand that the people of Mexico are most
decidedly a race of mongrels. I understand that there is not more than
one person there out of eight who is pure white, and I suppose from the
Judge's previous declaration that when we get Mexico, or any considerable
portion of it, that he will be in favor of these mongrels settling the
question, which would bring him somewhat into collision with his horror
of an inferior race.

It is to be remembered, though, that this power of acquiring additional
territory is a power confided to the President and the Senate of the
United States. It is a power not under the control of the representatives
of the people any further than they, the President and the Senate, can be
considered the representatives of the people. Let me illustrate that by a
case we have in our history. When we acquired the territory from Mexico
in the Mexican War, the House of Representatives, composed of the
immediate representatives of the people, all the time insisted that the
territory thus to be acquired should be brought in upon condition that
slavery should be forever prohibited therein, upon the terms and in the
language that slavery had been prohibited from coming into this country.
That was insisted upon constantly and never failed to call forth an
assurance that any territory thus acquired should have that prohibition
in it, so far as the House of Representatives was concerned. But at last
the President and Senate acquired the territory without asking the House
of Representatives anything about it, and took it without that
prohibition. They have the power of acquiring territory without the
immediate representatives of the people being called upon to say anything
about it, and thus furnishing a very apt and powerful means of bringing
new territory into the Union, and, when it is once brought into the
country, involving us anew in this slavery agitation. It is therefore, as
I think, a very important question for due consideration of the American
people, whether the policy of bringing in additional territory, without
considering at all how it will operate upon the safety of the Union in
reference to this one great disturbing element in our national politics,
shall be adopted as the policy of the country. You will bear in mind that
it is to be acquired, according to the Judge's view, as fast as it is
needed, and the indefinite part of this proposition is that we have only
Judge Douglas and his class of men to decide how fast it is needed. We
have no clear and certain way of determining or demonstrating how fast
territory is needed by the necessities of the country. Whoever wants to
go out filibustering, then, thinks that more territory is needed. Whoever
wants wider slave-fields feels sure that some additional territory is
needed as slave territory. Then it is as easy to show the necessity of
additional slave-territory as it is to assert anything that is incapable
of absolute demonstration. Whatever motive a man or a set of men may have
for making annexation of property or territory, it is very easy to
assert, but much less easy to disprove, that it is necessary for the
wants of the country.

And now it only remains for me to say that I think it is a very grave
question for the people of this Union to consider, whether, in view of
the fact that this slavery question has been the only one that has ever
endangered our Republican institutions, the only one that has ever
threatened or menaced a dissolution of the Union, that has ever disturbed
us in such a way as to make us fear for the perpetuity of our
liberty,--in view of these facts, I think it is an exceedingly
interesting and important question for this people to consider whether we
shall engage in the policy of acquiring additional territory, discarding
altogether from our consideration, while obtaining new territory, the
question how it may affect us in regard to this, the only endangering
element to our liberties and national greatness. The Judge's view has
been expressed. I, in my answer to his question, have expressed mine. I
think it will become an important and practical question. Our views are
before the public. I am willing and anxious that they should consider
them fully; that they should turn it about and consider the importance of
the question, and arrive at a just conclusion as to whether it is or is
not wise in the people of this Union, in the acquisition of new
territory, to consider whether it will add to the disturbance that is
existing amongst us--whether it will add to the one only danger that has
ever threatened the perpetuity of the Union or our own liberties. I think
it is extremely important that they shall decide, and rightly decide,
that question before entering upon that policy.

And now, my friends, having said the little I wish to say upon this head,
whether I have occupied the whole of the remnant of my time or not, I
believe I could not enter upon any new topic so as to treat it fully,
without transcending my time, which I would not for a moment think of
doing. I give way to Judge Douglas.




SIXTH JOINT DEBATE,

AT QUINCY, OCTOBER 13, 1858.

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: I have had no immediate conference with Judge
Douglas, but I will venture to say that he and I will perfectly agree
that your entire silence, both when I speak and when he speaks, will be
most agreeable to us.

In the month of May, 1856, the elements in the State of Illinois which
have since been consolidated into the Republican party assembled together
in a State Convention at Bloomington. They adopted at that time what, in
political language, is called a platform. In June of the same year the
elements of the Republican party in the nation assembled together in a
National Convention at Philadelphia. They adopted what is called the
National Platform. In June, 1858,--the present year,--the Republicans of
Illinois reassembled at Springfield, in State Convention, and adopted
again their platform, as I suppose not differing in any essential
particular from either of the former ones, but perhaps adding something
in relation to the new developments of political progress in the country.

The Convention that assembled in June last did me the honor, if it be
one, and I esteem it such, to nominate me as their candidate for the
United States Senate. I have supposed that, in entering upon this
canvass, I stood generally upon these platforms. We are now met together
on the 13th of October of the same year, only four months from the
adoption of the last platform, and I am unaware that in this canvass,
from the beginning until to-day, any one of our adversaries has taken
hold of our platforms, or laid his finger upon anything that he calls
wrong in them.

In the very first one of these joint discussions between Senator Douglas
and myself, Senator Douglas, without alluding at all to these platforms,
or any one of them, of which I have spoken, attempted to hold me
responsible for a set of resolutions passed long before the meeting of
either one of these conventions of which I have spoken. And as a ground
for holding me responsible for these resolutions, he assumed that they
had been passed at a State Convention of the Republican party, and that I
took part in that Convention. It was discovered afterward that this was
erroneous, that the resolutions which he endeavored to hold me
responsible for had not been passed by any State Convention anywhere, had
not been passed at Springfield, where he supposed they had, or assumed
that they had, and that they had been passed in no convention in which I
had taken part. The Judge, nevertheless, was not willing to give up the
point that he was endeavoring to make upon me, and he therefore thought
to still hold me to the point that he was endeavoring to make, by showing
that the resolutions that he read had been passed at a local convention
in the northern part of the State, although it was not a local convention
that embraced my residence at all, nor one that reached, as I suppose,
nearer than one hundred and fifty or two hundred miles of where I was
when it met, nor one in which I took any part at all. He also introduced
other resolutions, passed at other meetings, and by combining the whole,
although they were all antecedent to the two State Conventions and the
one National Convention I have mentioned, still he insisted, and now
insists, as I understand, that I am in some way responsible for them.

At Jonesboro, on our third meeting, I insisted to the Judge that I was in
no way rightfully held responsible for the proceedings of this local
meeting or convention, in which I had taken no part, and in which I was
in no way embraced; but I insisted to him that if he thought I was
responsible for every man or every set of men everywhere, who happen to
be my friends, the rule ought to work both ways, and he ought to be
responsible for the acts and resolutions of all men or sets of men who
were or are now his supporters and friends, and gave him a pretty long
string of resolutions, passed by men who are now his friends, and
announcing doctrines for which he does not desire to be held responsible.

This still does not satisfy Judge Douglas. He still adheres to his
proposition, that I am responsible for what some of my friends in
different parts of the State have done, but that he is not responsible
for what his have done. At least, so I understand him. But in addition to
that, the Judge, at our meeting in Galesburgh, last week, undertakes to
establish that I am guilty of a species of double dealing with the
public; that I make speeches of a certain sort in the north, among the
Abolitionists, which I would not make in the south, and that I make
speeches of a certain sort in the south which I would not make in the
north. I apprehend, in the course I have marked out for myself, that I
shall not have to dwell at very great length upon this subject.

As this was done in the Judge's opening speech at Galesburgh, I had an
opportunity, as I had the middle speech then, of saying something in
answer to it. He brought forward a quotation or two from a speech of mine
delivered at Chicago, and then, to contrast with it, he brought forward
an extract from a speech of mine at Charleston, in which he insisted that
I was greatly inconsistent, and insisted that his conclusion followed,
that I was playing a double part, and speaking in one region one way, and
in another region another way. I have not time now to dwell on this as
long as I would like, and wish only now to requote that portion of my
speech at Charleston which the Judge quoted, and then make some comments
upon it. This he quotes from me as being delivered at Charleston, and I
believe correctly:

"I will say, then, that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of
bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white
and black races; that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of making
voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor
to intermarry with white people; and I will say, in addition to this,
that there is a physical difference between the white and black races
which will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of
social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live while
they do remain together, there must be the position of superior and
inferior. I am as much as any other man in favor of having the superior
position assigned to the white race."

This, I believe, is the entire quotation from Charleston speech, as Judge
Douglas made it his comments are as follows:

"Yes, here you find men who hurrah for Lincoln, and say he is right when
he discards all distinction between races, or when he declares that he
discards the doctrine that there is such a thing as a superior and
inferior race; and Abolitionists are required and expected to vote for
Mr. Lincoln because he goes for the equality of races, holding that in
the Declaration of Independence the white man and negro were declared
equal, and endowed by divine law with equality. And down South, with the
old-line Whigs, with the Kentuckians, the Virginians and the
Tennesseeans, he tells you that there is a physical difference between
the races, making the one superior, the other inferior, and he is in
favor of maintaining the superiority of the white race over the negro."

Those are the Judges comments. Now, I wish to show you that a month, or
only lacking three days of a month, before I made the speech at
Charleston, which the Judge quotes from, he had himself heard me say
substantially the same thing It was in our first meeting, at Ottawa--and
I will say a word about where it was, and the atmosphere it was in, after
a while--but at our first meeting, at Ottawa, I read an extract from an
old speech of mine, made nearly four years ago, not merely to show my
sentiments, but to show that my sentiments were long entertained and
openly expressed; in which extract I expressly declared that my own
feelings would not admit a social and political equality between the
white and black races, and that even if my own feelings would admit of
it, I still knew that the public sentiment of the country would not, and
that such a thing was an utter impossibility, or substantially that. That
extract from my old speech the reporters by some sort of accident passed
over, and it was not reported. I lay no blame upon anybody. I suppose
they thought that I would hand it over to them, and dropped reporting
while I was giving it, but afterward went away without getting it from
me. At the end of that quotation from my old speech, which I read at
Ottawa, I made the comments which were reported at that time, and which I
will now read, and ask you to notice how very nearly they are the same as
Judge Douglas says were delivered by me down in Egypt. After reading, I
added these words:

"Now, gentlemen, I don't want to read at any great length; but this is
the true complexion of all I have ever said in regard to the institution
of slavery or the black race, and this is the whole of it: anything that
argues me into his idea of perfect social and political equality with the
negro, is but a specious and fantastical arrangement of words by which a
man can prove a horse-chestnut to be a chestnut horse. I will say here,
while upon this subject, that I have no purpose, directly or indirectly,
to interfere with the institution in the States where it exists. I
believe I have no right to do so. I have no inclination to do so. I have
no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white
and black races. There is a physical difference between the two which, in
my judgment, will probably forever forbid their living together on the
footing of perfect equality; and inasmuch as it becomes a necessity that
there must be a difference, I, as well as Judge Douglas, am in favor of
the race to which I belong having the superior position. I have never
said anything to the contrary, but I hold that, notwithstanding all this,
there is no reason in the world why the negro is not entitled to all the
rights enumerated in the Declaration of Independence,--the right of life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I hold that he is as much entitled
to these as the white man. I agree with Judge Douglas that he is not my
equal in many respects, certainly not in color, perhaps not in
intellectual and moral endowments; but in the right to eat the bread,
without the leave of anybody else, which his own hand earns, he is my
equal and the equal of Judge Douglas, and the equal of every other man."

I have chiefly introduced this for the purpose of meeting the Judge's
charge that the quotation he took from my Charleston speech was what I
would say down South among the Kentuckians, the Virginians, etc., but
would not say in the regions in which was supposed to be more of the
Abolition element. I now make this comment: That speech from which I have
now read the quotation, and which is there given correctly--perhaps too
much so for good taste--was made away up North in the Abolition District
of this State par excellence, in the Lovejoy District, in the personal
presence of Lovejoy, for he was on the stand with us when I made it. It
had been made and put in print in that region only three days less than a
month before the speech made at Charleston, the like of which Judge
Douglas thinks I would not make where there was any Abolition element. I
only refer to this matter to say that I am altogether unconscious of
having attempted any double-dealing anywhere; that upon one occasion I
may say one thing, and leave other things unsaid, and vice versa, but
that I have said anything on one occasion that is inconsistent with what
I have said elsewhere, I deny, at least I deny it so far as the intention
is concerned. I find that I have devoted to this topic a larger portion
of my time than I had intended. I wished to show, but I will pass it upon
this occasion, that in the sentiment I have occasionally advanced upon
the Declaration of Independence I am entirely borne out by the sentiments
advanced by our old Whig leader, Henry Clay, and I have the book here to
show it from but because I have already occupied more time than I
intended to do on that topic, I pass over it.

At Galesburgh, I tried to show that by the Dred Scott decision, pushed to
its legitimate consequences, slavery would be established in all the
States as well as in the Territories. I did this because, upon a former
occasion, I had asked Judge Douglas whether, if the Supreme Court should
make a decision declaring that the States had not the power to exclude
slavery from their limits, he would adopt and follow that decision as a
rule of political action; and because he had not directly answered that
question, but had merely contented himself with sneering at it, I again
introduced it, and tried to show that the conclusion that I stated
followed inevitably and logically from the proposition already decided by
the court. Judge Douglas had the privilege of replying to me at
Galesburgh, and again he gave me no direct answer as to whether he would
or would not sustain such a decision if made. I give him his third chance
to say yes or no. He is not obliged to do either, probably he will not do
either; but I give him the third chance. I tried to show then that this
result, this conclusion, inevitably followed from the point already
decided by the court. The Judge, in his reply, again sneers at the
thought of the court making any such decision, and in the course of his
remarks upon this subject uses the language which I will now read.
Speaking of me, the Judge says:

"He goes on and insists that the Dred Scott decision would carry slavery
into the free States, notwithstanding the decision itself says the
contrary." And he adds:

"Mr. Lincoln knows that there is no member of the Supreme Court that
holds that doctrine. He knows that every one of them in their opinions
held the reverse."

I especially introduce this subject again for the purpose of saying that
I have the Dred Scott decision here, and I will thank Judge Douglas to
lay his finger upon the place in the entire opinions of the court where
any one of them "says the contrary." It is very hard to affirm a negative
with entire confidence. I say, however, that I have examined that
decision with a good deal of care, as a lawyer examines a decision and,
so far as I have been able to do so, the court has nowhere in its
opinions said that the States have the power to exclude slavery, nor have
they used other language substantially that, I also say, so far as I can
find, not one of the concurring judges has said that the States can
exclude slavery, nor said anything that was substantially that. The
nearest approach that any one of them has made to it, so far as I can
find, was by Judge Nelson, and the approach he made to it was exactly, in
substance, the Nebraska Bill,--that the States had the exclusive power
over the question of slavery, so far as they are not limited by the
Constitution of the United States. I asked the question, therefore, if
the non-concurring judges, McLean or Curtis, had asked to get an express
declaration that the States could absolutely exclude slavery from their
limits, what reason have we to believe that it would not have been voted
down by the majority of the judges, just as Chase's amendment was voted
down by Judge Douglas and his compeers when it was offered to the
Nebraska Bill.

Also, at Galesburgh, I said something in regard to those Springfield
resolutions that Judge Douglas had attempted to use upon me at Ottawa,
and commented at some length upon the fact that they were, as presented,
not genuine. Judge Douglas in his reply to me seemed to be somewhat
exasperated. He said he would never have believed that Abraham Lincoln,
as he kindly called me, would have attempted such a thing as I had
attempted upon that occasion; and among other expressions which he used
toward me, was that I dared to say forgery, that I had dared to say
forgery [turning to Judge Douglas]. Yes, Judge, I did dare to say
forgery. But in this political canvass the Judge ought to remember that I
was not the first who dared to say forgery. At Jacksonville, Judge
Douglas made a speech in answer to something said by Judge Trumbull, and
at the close of what he said upon that subject, he dared to say that
Trumbull had forged his evidence. He said, too, that he should not
concern himself with Trumbull any more, but thereafter he should hold
Lincoln responsible for the slanders upon him. When I met him at
Charleston after that, although I think that I should not have noticed
the subject if he had not said he would hold me responsible for it, I
spread out before him the statements of the evidence that Judge Trumbull
had used, and I asked Judge Douglas, piece by piece, to put his finger
upon one piece of all that evidence that he would say was a forgery! When
I went through with each and every piece, Judge Douglas did not dare then
to say that any piece of it was a forgery. So it seems that there are
some things that Judge Douglas dares to do, and some that he dares not to
do.

[A voice: It is the same thing with you.]

Yes, sir, it is the same thing with me. I do dare to say forgery when it
is true, and don't dare to say forgery when it is false. Now I will say
here to this audience and to Judge Douglas I have not dared to say he
committed a forgery, and I never shall until I know it; but I did dare to
say--just to suggest to the Judge--that a forgery had been committed,
which by his own showing had been traced to him and two of his friends. I
dared to suggest to him that he had expressly promised in one of his
public speeches to investigate that matter, and I dared to suggest to him
that there was an implied promise that when he investigated it he would
make known the result. I dared to suggest to the Judge that he could not
expect to be quite clear of suspicion of that fraud, for since the time
that promise was made he had been with those friends, and had not kept
his promise in regard to the investigation and the report upon it. I am
not a very daring man, but I dared that much, Judge, and I am not much
scared about it yet. When the Judge says he would n't have believed of
Abraham Lincoln that he would have made such an attempt as that he
reminds me of the fact that he entered upon this canvass with the purpose
to treat me courteously; that touched me somewhat. It sets me to
thinking. I was aware, when it was first agreed that Judge Douglas and I
were to have these seven joint discussions, that they were the successive
acts of a drama, perhaps I should say, to be enacted, not merely in the
face of audiences like this, but in the face of the nation, and to some
extent, by my relation to him, and not from anything in myself, in the
face of the world; and I am anxious that they should be conducted with
dignity and in the good temper which would be befitting the vast
audiences before which it was conducted. But when Judge Douglas got home
from Washington and made his first speech in Chicago, the evening
afterward I made some sort of a reply to it. His second speech was made
at Bloomington, in which he commented upon my speech at Chicago and said
that I had used language ingeniously contrived to conceal my intentions,
or words to that effect. Now, I understand that this is an imputation
upon my veracity and my candor. I do not know what the Judge understood
by it, but in our first discussion, at Ottawa, he led off by charging a
bargain, somewhat corrupt in its character, upon Trumbull and
myself,--that we had entered into a bargain, one of the terms of which
was that Trumbull was to Abolitionize the old Democratic party, and I
(Lincoln) was to Abolitionize the old Whig party; I pretending to be as
good an old-line Whig as ever. Judge Douglas may not understand that he
implicated my truthfulness and my honor when he said I was doing one
thing and pretending another; and I misunderstood him if he thought he
was treating me in a dignified way, as a man of honor and truth, as he
now claims he was disposed to treat me. Even after that time, at
Galesburgh, when he brings forward an extract from a speech made at
Chicago and an extract from a speech made at Charleston, to prove that I
was trying to play a double part, that I was trying to cheat the public,
and get votes upon one set of principles at one place, and upon another
set of principles at another place,--I do not understand but what he
impeaches my honor, my veracity, and my candor; and because he does this,
I do not understand that I am bound, if I see a truthful ground for it,
to keep my hands off of him. As soon as I learned that Judge Douglas was
disposed to treat me in this way, I signified in one of my speeches that
I should be driven to draw upon whatever of humble resources I might
have,--to adopt a new course with him. I was not entirely sure that I
should be able to hold my own with him, but I at least had the purpose
made to do as well as I could upon him; and now I say that I will not be
the first to cry "Hold." I think it originated with the Judge, and when
he quits, I probably will. But I shall not ask any favors at all. He asks
me, or he asks the audience, if I wish to push this matter to the point
of personal difficulty. I tell him, no. He did not make a mistake, in one
of his early speeches, when he called me an "amiable" man, though perhaps
he did when he called me an "intelligent" man. It really hurts me very
much to suppose that I have wronged anybody on earth. I again tell him,
no! I very much prefer, when this canvass shall be over, however it may
result, that we at least part without any bitter recollections of
personal difficulties.

The Judge, in his concluding speech at Galesburgh, says that I was
pushing this matter to a personal difficulty, to avoid the responsibility
for the enormity of my principles. I say to the Judge and this audience,
now, that I will again state our principles, as well as I hastily can, in
all their enormity, and if the Judge hereafter chooses to confine himself
to a war upon these principles, he will probably not find me departing
from the same course.

We have in this nation this element of domestic slavery. It is a matter
of absolute certainty that it is a disturbing element. It is the opinion
of all the great men who have expressed an opinion upon it, that it is a
dangerous element. We keep up a controversy in regard to it. That
controversy necessarily springs from difference of opinion; and if we can
learn exactly--can reduce to the lowest elements--what that difference of
opinion is, we perhaps shall be better prepared for discussing the
different systems of policy that we would propose in regard to that
disturbing element. I suggest that the difference of opinion, reduced to
its lowest of terms, is no other than the difference between the men who
think slavery a wrong and those who do not think it wrong. The Republican
party think it wrong; we think it is a moral, a social, and a political
wrong. We think it as a wrong not confining itself merely to the persons
or the States where it exists, but that it is a wrong in its tendency, to
say the least, that extends itself to the existence of the whole nation.
Because we think it wrong, we propose a course of policy that shall deal
with it as a wrong. We deal with it as with any other wrong, in so far as
we can prevent its growing any larger, and so deal with it that in the
run of time there may be some promise of an end to it. We have a due
regard to the actual presence of it amongst us, and the difficulties of
getting rid of it in any satisfactory way, and all the constitutional
obligations thrown about it. I suppose that in reference both to its
actual existence in the nation, and to our constitutional obligations, we
have no right at all to disturb it in the States where it exists, and we
profess that we have no more inclination to disturb it than we have the
right to do it. We go further than that: we don't propose to disturb it
where, in one instance, we think the Constitution would permit us. We
think the Constitution would permit us to disturb it in the District of
Columbia. Still, we do not propose to do that, unless it should be in
terms which I don't suppose the nation is very likely soon to agree
to,--the terms of making the emancipation gradual, and compensating the
unwilling owners. Where we suppose we have the constitutional right, we
restrain ourselves in reference to the actual existence of the
institution and the difficulties thrown about it. We also oppose it as an
evil so far as it seeks to spread itself. We insist on the policy that
shall restrict it to its present limits. We don't suppose that in doing
this we violate anything due to the actual presence of the institution,
or anything due to the constitutional guaranties thrown around it.

We oppose the Dred Scott decision in a certain way, upon which I ought
perhaps to address you a few words. We do not propose that when Dred
Scott has been decided to be a slave by the court, we, as a mob, will
decide him to be free. We do not propose that, when any other one, or one
thousand, shall be decided by that court to be slaves, we will in any
violent way disturb the rights of property thus settled; but we
nevertheless do oppose that decision as a political rule which shall be
binding on the voter to vote for nobody who thinks it wrong, which shall
be binding on the members of Congress or the President to favor no
measure that does not actually concur with the principles of that
decision. We do not propose to be bound by it as a political rule in that
way, because we think it lays the foundation, not merely of enlarging and
spreading out what we consider an evil, but it lays the foundation for
spreading that evil into the States themselves. We propose so resisting
it as to have it reversed if we can, and a new judicial rule established
upon this subject.

I will add this: that if there be any man who does not believe that
slavery is wrong in the three aspects which I have mentioned, or in any
one of them, that man is misplaced, and ought to leave us; while on the
other hand, if there be any man in the Republican party who is impatient
over the necessity springing from its actual presence, and is impatient
of the constitutional guaranties thrown around it, and would act in
disregard of these, he too is misplaced, standing with us. He will find
his place somewhere else; for we have a due regard, so far as we are
capable of understanding them, for all these things. This, gentlemen, as
well as I can give it, is a plain statement of our principles in all
their enormity. I will say now that there is a sentiment in the country
contrary to me,--a sentiment which holds that slavery is not wrong, and
therefore it goes for the policy that does not propose dealing with it as
a wrong. That policy is the Democratic policy, and that sentiment is the
Democratic sentiment. If there be a doubt in the mind of any one of this
vast audience that this is really the central idea of the Democratic
party in relation to this subject, I ask him to bear with me while I
state a few things tending, as I think, to prove that proposition. In the
first place, the leading man--I think I may do my friend Judge Douglas
the honor of calling him such advocating the present Democratic policy
never himself says it is wrong. He has the high distinction, so far as I
know, of never having said slavery is either right or wrong. Almost
everybody else says one or the other, but the Judge never does. If there
be a man in the Democratic party who thinks it is wrong, and yet clings
to that party, I suggest to him, in the first place, that his leader
don't talk as he does, for he never says that it is wrong. In the second
place, I suggest to him that if he will examine the policy proposed to be
carried forward, he will find that he carefully excludes the idea that
there is anything wrong in it. If you will examine the arguments that are
made on it, you will find that every one carefully excludes the idea that
there is anything wrong in slavery. Perhaps that Democrat who says he is
as much opposed to slavery as I am will tell me that I am wrong about
this. I wish him to examine his own course in regard to this matter a
moment, and then see if his opinion will not be changed a little. You say
it is wrong; but don't you constantly object to anybody else saying so?
Do you not constantly argue that this is not the right place to oppose
it? You say it must not be opposed in the free States, because slavery is
not here; it must not be opposed in the slave States, because it is
there; it must not be opposed in politics, because that will make a fuss;
it must not be opposed in the pulpit, because it is not religion. Then
where is the place to oppose it? There is no suitable place to oppose it.
There is no place in the country to oppose this evil overspreading the
continent, which you say yourself is coming. Frank Blair and Gratz Brown
tried to get up a system of gradual emancipation in Missouri, had an
election in August, and got beat, and you, Mr. Democrat, threw up your
hat, and hallooed "Hurrah for Democracy!" So I say, again, that in regard
to the arguments that are made, when Judge Douglas Says he "don't care
whether slavery is voted up or voted down," whether he means that as an
individual expression of sentiment, or only as a sort of statement of his
views on national policy, it is alike true to say that he can thus argue
logically if he don't see anything wrong in it; but he cannot say so
logically if he admits that slavery is wrong. He cannot say that he would
as soon see a wrong voted up as voted down. When Judge Douglas says that
whoever or whatever community wants slaves, they have a right to have
them, he is perfectly logical, if there is nothing wrong in the
institution; but if you admit that it is wrong, he cannot logically say
that anybody has a right to do wrong. When he says that slave property
and horse and hog property are alike to be allowed to go into the
Territories, upon the principles of equality, he is reasoning truly, if
there is no difference between them as property; but if the one is
property held rightfully, and the other is wrong, then there is no
equality between the right and wrong; so that, turn it in anyway you can,
in all the arguments sustaining the Democratic policy, and in that policy
itself, there is a careful, studied exclusion of the idea that there is
anything wrong in slavery. Let us understand this. I am not, just here,
trying to prove that we are right, and they are wrong. I have been
stating where we and they stand, and trying to show what is the real
difference between us; and I now say that whenever we can get the
question distinctly stated, can get all these men who believe that
slavery is in some of these respects wrong to stand and act with us in
treating it as a wrong,--then, and not till then, I think we will in some
way come to an end of this slavery agitation.




Mr. LINCOLN'S REJOINDER.

MY FRIENDS:--Since Judge Douglas has said to you in his conclusion that
he had not time in an hour and a half to answer all I had said in an
hour, it follows of course that I will not be able to answer in half an
hour all that he said in an hour and a half.

I wish to return to Judge Douglas my profound thanks for his public
annunciation here to-day, to be put on record, that his system of policy
in regard to the institution of slavery contemplates that it shall last
forever. We are getting a little nearer the true issue of this
controversy, and I am profoundly grateful for this one sentence. Judge
Douglas asks you, Why cannot the institution of slavery, or rather, why
cannot the nation, part slave and part free, continue as our fathers made
it, forever? In the first place, I insist that our fathers did not make
this nation half slave and half free, or part slave and part free. I
insist that they found the institution of slavery existing here. They did
not make it so but they left it so because they knew of no way to get rid
of it at that time. When Judge Douglas undertakes to say that, as a
matter of choice, the fathers of the government made this nation part
slave and part free, he assumes what is historically a falsehood. More
than that: when the fathers of the government cut off the source of
slavery by the abolition of the slave-trade, and adopted a system of
restricting it from the new Territories where it had not existed, I
maintain that they placed it where they understood, and all sensible men
understood, it was in the course of ultimate extinction; and when Judge
Douglas asks me why it cannot continue as our fathers made it, I ask him
why he and his friends could not let it remain as our fathers made it?

It is precisely all I ask of him in relation to the institution of
slavery, that it shall be placed upon the basis that our fathers placed
it upon. Mr. Brooks, of South Carolina, once said, and truly said, that
when this government was established, no one expected the institution of
slavery to last until this day, and that the men who formed this
government were wiser and better than the men of these days; but the men
of these days had experience which the fathers had not, and that
experience had taught them the invention of the cotton-gin, and this had
made the perpetuation of the institution of slavery a necessity in this
country. Judge Douglas could not let it stand upon the basis which our
fathers placed it, but removed it, and put it upon the cotton-gin basis.
It is a question, therefore, for him and his friends to answer, why they
could not let it remain where the fathers of the government originally
placed it. I hope nobody has understood me as trying to sustain the
doctrine that we have a right to quarrel with Kentucky, or Virginia, or
any of the slave States, about the institution of slavery,--thus giving
the Judge an opportunity to be eloquent and valiant against us in
fighting for their rights. I expressly declared in my opening speech that
I had neither the inclination to exercise, nor the belief in the
existence of, the right to interfere with the States of Kentucky or
Virginia in doing as they pleased with slavery Or any other existing
institution. Then what becomes of all his eloquence in behalf of the
rights of States, which are assailed by no living man?

But I have to hurry on, for I have but a half hour. The Judge has
informed me, or informed this audience, that the Washington Union is
laboring for my election to the United States Senate. This is news to
me,--not very ungrateful news either. [Turning to Mr. W. H. Carlin, who
was on the stand]--I hope that Carlin will be elected to the State
Senate, and will vote for me. [Mr. Carlin shook his head.] Carlin don't
fall in, I perceive, and I suppose he will not do much for me; but I am
glad of all the support I can get, anywhere, if I can get it without
practicing any deception to obtain it. In respect to this large portion
of Judge Douglas's speech in which he tries to show that in the
controversy between himself and the Administration party he is in the
right, I do not feel myself at all competent or inclined to answer him. I
say to him, "Give it to them,--give it to them just all you can!" and, on
the other hand, I say to Carlin, and Jake Davis, and to this man Wogley
up here in Hancock, "Give it to Douglas, just pour it into him!"

Now, in regard to this matter of the Dred Scott decision, I wish to say a
word or two. After all, the Judge will not say whether, if a decision is
made holding that the people of the States cannot exclude slavery, he
will support it or not. He obstinately refuses to say what he will do in
that case. The judges of the Supreme Court as obstinately refused to say
what they would do on this subject. Before this I reminded him that at
Galesburgh he said the judges had expressly declared the contrary, and
you remember that in my Opening speech I told him I had the book
containing that decision here, and I would thank him to lay his finger on
the place where any such thing was said. He has occupied his hour and a
half, and he has not ventured to try to sustain his assertion. He never
will. But he is desirous of knowing how we are going to reverse that Dred
Scott decision. Judge Douglas ought to know how. Did not he and his
political friends find a way to reverse the decision of that same court
in favor of the constitutionality of the National Bank? Didn't they find
a way to do it so effectually that they have reversed it as completely as
any decision ever was reversed, so far as its practical operation is
concerned?

And let me ask you, did n't Judge Douglas find a way to reverse the
decision of our Supreme Court when it decided that Carlin's father--old
Governor Carlin had not the constitutional power to remove a Secretary of
State? Did he not appeal to the "MOBS," as he calls them? Did he not make
speeches in the lobby to show how villainous that decision was, and how
it ought to be overthrown? Did he not succeed, too, in getting an act
passed by the Legislature to have it overthrown? And did n't he himself
sit down on that bench as one of the five added judges, who were to
overslaugh the four old ones, getting his name of "judge" in that way,
and no other? If there is a villainy in using disrespect or making
opposition to Supreme Court decisions, I commend it to Judge Douglas's
earnest consideration. I know of no man in the State of Illinois who
ought to know so well about how much villainy it takes to oppose a
decision of the Supreme Court as our honorable friend Stephen A. Douglas.

Judge Douglas also makes the declaration that I say the Democrats are
bound by the Dred Scott decision, while the Republicans are not. In the
sense in which he argues, I never said it; but I will tell you what I
have said and what I do not hesitate to repeat to-day. I have said that
as the Democrats believe that decision to be correct, and that the
extension of slavery is affirmed in the National Constitution, they are
bound to support it as such; and I will tell you here that General
Jackson once said each man was bound to support the Constitution "as he
understood it." Now, Judge Douglas understands the Constitution according
to the Dred Scott decision, and he is bound to support it as he
understands it. I understand it another way, and therefore I am bound to
support it in the way in which I understand it. And as Judge Douglas
believes that decision to be correct, I will remake that argument if I
have time to do so. Let me talk to some gentleman down there among you
who looks me in the face. We will say you are a member of the Territorial
Legislature, and, like Judge Douglas, you believe that the right to take
and hold slaves there is a constitutional right The first thing you do is
to swear you will support the Constitution, and all rights guaranteed
therein; that you will, whenever your neighbor needs your legislation to
support his constitutional rights, not withhold that legislation. If you
withhold that necessary legislation for the support of the Constitution
and constitutional rights, do you not commit perjury? I ask every
sensible man if that is not so? That is undoubtedly just so, say what you
please. Now, that is precisely what Judge Douglas says, that this is a
constitutional right. Does the Judge mean to say that the Territorial
Legislature in legislating may, by withholding necessary laws, or by
passing unfriendly laws, nullify that constitutional right? Does he mean
to say that? Does he mean to ignore the proposition so long and well
established in law, that what you cannot do directly, you cannot do
indirectly? Does he mean that? The truth about the matter is this: Judge
Douglas has sung paeans to his "Popular Sovereignty" doctrine until his
Supreme Court, co-operating with him, has squatted his Squatter
Sovereignty out. But he will keep up this species of humbuggery about
Squatter Sovereignty. He has at last invented this sort of do-nothing
sovereignty,--that the people may exclude slavery by a sort of
"sovereignty" that is exercised by doing nothing at all. Is not that
running his Popular Sovereignty down awfully? Has it not got down as thin
as the homeopathic soup that was made by boiling the shadow of a pigeon
that had starved to death? But at last, when it is brought to the test of
close reasoning, there is not even that thin decoction of it left. It is
a presumption impossible in the domain of thought. It is precisely no
other than the putting of that most unphilosophical proposition, that two
bodies can occupy the same space at the same time. The Dred Scott
decision covers the whole ground, and while it occupies it, there is no
room even for the shadow of a starved pigeon to occupy the same ground.

Judge Douglas, in reply to what I have said about having upon a previous
occasion made the speech at Ottawa as the one he took an extract from at
Charleston, says it only shows that I practiced the deception twice. Now,
my friends, are any of you obtuse enough to swallow that? Judge Douglas
had said I had made a speech at Charleston that I would not make up
north, and I turned around and answered him by showing I had made that
same speech up north,--had made it at Ottawa; made it in his hearing;
made it in the Abolition District,--in Lovejoy's District,--in the
personal presence of Lovejoy himself,--in the same atmosphere exactly in
which I had made my Chicago speech, of which he complains so much.

Now, in relation to my not having said anything about the quotation from
the Chicago speech: he thinks that is a terrible subject for me to
handle. Why, gentlemen, I can show you that the substance of the Chicago
speech I delivered two years ago in "Egypt," as he calls it. It was down
at Springfield. That speech is here in this book, and I could turn to it
and read it to you but for the lack of time. I have not now the time to
read it. ["Read it, read it."] No, gentlemen, I am obliged to use
discretion in disposing most advantageously of my brief time. The Judge
has taken great exception to my adopting the heretical statement in the
Declaration of Independence, that "all men are created equal," and he has
a great deal to say about negro equality. I want to say that in sometimes
alluding to the Declaration of Independence, I have only uttered the
sentiments that Henry Clay used to hold. Allow me to occupy your time a
moment with what he said. Mr. Clay was at one time called upon in
Indiana, and in a way that I suppose was very insulting, to liberate his
slaves; and he made a written reply to that application, and one portion
of it is in these words:

"What is the foundation of this appeal to me in Indiana to liberate the
slaves under my care in Kentucky? It is a general declaration in the act
announcing to the world the independence of the thirteen American
colonies, that men are created equal. Now, as an abstract principle,
there is no doubt of the truth of that declaration, and it is desirable
in the original construction of society, and in organized societies, to
keep it in view as a great fundamental principle."

When I sometimes, in relation to the organization of new societies in new
countries, where the soil is clean and clear, insisted that we should
keep that principle in view, Judge Douglas will have it that I want a
negro wife. He never can be brought to understand that there is any
middle ground on this subject. I have lived until my fiftieth year, and
have never had a negro woman either for a slave or a wife, and I think I
can live fifty centuries, for that matter, without having had one for
either. I maintain that you may take Judge Douglas's quotations from my
Chicago speech, and from my Charleston speech, and the Galesburgh
speech,--in his speech of to-day,--and compare them over, and I am
willing to trust them with you upon his proposition that they show
rascality or double-dealing. I deny that they do.

The Judge does not seem at all disposed to have peace, but I find he is
disposed to have a personal warfare with me. He says that my oath would
not be taken against the bare word of Charles H. Lanphier or Thomas L.
Harris. Well, that is altogether a matter of opinion. It is certainly not
for me to vaunt my word against oaths of these gentlemen, but I will tell
Judge Douglas again the facts upon which I "dared" to say they proved a
forgery. I pointed out at Galesburgh that the publication of these
resolutions in the Illinois State Register could not have been the result
of accident, as the proceedings of that meeting bore unmistakable
evidence of being done by a man who knew it was a forgery; that it was a
publication partly taken from the real proceedings of the Convention, and
partly from the proceedings of a convention at another place, which
showed that he had the real proceedings before him, and taking one part
of the resolutions, he threw out another part, and substituted false and
fraudulent ones in their stead. I pointed that out to him, and also that
his friend Lanphier, who was editor of the Register at that time and now
is, must have known how it was done. Now, whether he did it, or got some
friend to do it for him, I could not tell, but he certainly knew all
about it. I pointed out to Judge Douglas that in his Freeport speech he
had promised to investigate that matter. Does he now say that he did not
make that promise?  I have a right to ask why he did not keep it. I call
upon him to tell here to-day why he did not keep that promise? That fraud
has been traced up so that it lies between him, Harris, and Lanphier.
There is little room for escape for Lanphier. Lanphier is doing the Judge
good service, and Douglas desires his word to be taken for the truth. He
desires Lanphier to be taken as authority in what he states in his
newspaper. He desires Harris to be taken as a man of vast credibility;
and when this thing lies among them, they will not press it to show where
the guilt really belongs. Now, as he has said that he would investigate
it, and implied that he would tell us the result of his investigation, I
demand of him to tell why he did not investigate it, if he did not; and
if he did, why he won't tell the result. I call upon him for that.

This is the third time that Judge Douglas has assumed that he learned
about these resolutions by Harris's attempting to use them against Norton
on the floor of Congress. I tell Judge Douglas the public records of the
country show that he himself attempted it upon Trumbull a month before
Harris tried them on Norton; that Harris had the opportunity of learning
it from him, rather than he from Harris. I now ask his attention to that
part of the record on the case. My friends, I am not disposed to detain
you longer in regard to that matter.

I am told that I still have five minutes left. There is another matter I
wish to call attention to. He says, when he discovered there was a
mistake in that case, he came forward magnanimously, without my calling
his attention to it, and explained it. I will tell you how he became so
magnanimous. When the newspapers of our side had discovered and published
it, and put it beyond his power to deny it, then he came forward and made
a virtue of necessity by acknowledging it. Now he argues that all the
point there was in those resolutions, although never passed at
Springfield, is retained by their being passed at other localities. Is
that true? He said I had a hand in passing them, in his opening speech,
that I was in the convention and helped to pass them. Do the resolutions
touch me at all? It strikes me there is some difference between holding a
man responsible for an act which he has not done and holding him
responsible for an act that he has done. You will judge whether there is
any difference in the "spots." And he has taken credit for great
magnanimity in coming forward and acknowledging what is proved on him
beyond even the capacity of Judge Douglas to deny; and he has more
capacity in that way than any other living man.

Then he wants to know why I won't withdraw the charge in regard to a
conspiracy to make slavery national, as he has withdrawn the one he made.
May it please his worship, I will withdraw it when it is proven false on
me as that was proven false on him. I will add a little more than that, I
will withdraw it whenever a reasonable man shall be brought to believe
that the charge is not true. I have asked Judge Douglas's attention to
certain matters of fact tending to prove the charge of a conspiracy to
nationalize slavery, and he says he convinces me that this is all untrue
because Buchanan was not in the country at that time, and because the
Dred Scott case had not then got into the Supreme Court; and he says that
I say the Democratic owners of Dred Scott got up the case. I never did
say that I defy Judge Douglas to show that I ever said so, for I never
uttered it. [One of Mr. Douglas's reporters gesticulated affirmatively at
Mr. Lincoln.] I don't care if your hireling does say I did, I tell you
myself that I never said the "Democratic" owners of Dred Scott got up the
case. I have never pretended to know whether Dred Scott's owners were
Democrats, or Abolitionists, or Freesoilers or Border Ruffians. I have
said that there is evidence about the case tending to show that it was a
made-up case, for the purpose of getting that decision. I have said that
that evidence was very strong in the fact that when Dred Scott was
declared to be a slave, the owner of him made him free, showing that he
had had the case tried and the question settled for such use as could be
made of that decision; he cared nothing about the property thus declared
to be his by that decision. But my time is out, and I can say no more.



LAST DEBATE,

AT ALTON, OCTOBER 15, 1858

Mr. LINCOLN'S REPLY

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN:--I have been somewhat, in my own mind, complimented
by a large portion of Judge Douglas's speech,--I mean that portion which
he devotes to the controversy between himself and the present
Administration. This is the seventh time Judge Douglas and myself have
met in these joint discussions, and he has been gradually improving in
regard to his war with the Administration. At Quincy, day before
yesterday, he was a little more severe upon the Administration than I had
heard him upon any occasion, and I took pains to compliment him for it. I
then told him to give it to them with all the power he had; and as some
of them were present, I told them I would be very much obliged if they
would give it to him in about the same way. I take it he has now vastly
improved upon the attack he made then upon the Administration. I flatter
myself he has really taken my advice on this subject. All I can say now
is to re-commend to him and to them what I then commended,--to prosecute
the war against one another in the most vigorous manner. I say to them
again: "Go it, husband!--Go it, bear!"

There is one other thing I will mention before I leave this branch of the
discussion,--although I do not consider it much of my business, anyway. I
refer to that part of the Judge's remarks where he undertakes to involve
Mr. Buchanan in an inconsistency. He reads something from Mr. Buchanan,
from which he undertakes to involve him in an inconsistency; and he gets
something of a cheer for having done so. I would only remind the Judge
that while he is very valiantly fighting for the Nebraska Bill and the
repeal of the Missouri Compromise, it has been but a little while since
he was the valiant advocate of the Missouri Compromise. I want to know if
Buchanan has not as much right to be inconsistent as Douglas has? Has
Douglas the exclusive right, in this country, of being on all sides of
all questions? Is nobody allowed that high privilege but himself? Is he
to have an entire monopoly on that subject?

So far as Judge Douglas addressed his speech to me, or so far as it was
about me, it is my business to pay some attention to it. I have heard the
Judge state two or three times what he has stated to-day, that in a
speech which I made at Springfield, Illinois, I had in a very especial
manner complained that the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott case had
decided that a negro could never be a citizen of the United States. I
have omitted by some accident heretofore to analyze this statement, and
it is required of me to notice it now. In point of fact it is untrue. I
never have complained especially of the Dred Scott decision because it
held that a negro could not be a citizen, and the Judge is always wrong
when he says I ever did so complain of it. I have the speech here, and I
will thank him or any of his friends to show where I said that a negro
should be a citizen, and complained especially of the Dred Scott decision
because it declared he could not be one. I have done no such thing; and
Judge Douglas, so persistently insisting that I have done so, has
strongly impressed me with the belief of a predetermination on his part
to misrepresent me. He could not get his foundation for insisting that I
was in favor of this negro equality anywhere else as well as he could by
assuming that untrue proposition. Let me tell this audience what is true
in regard to that matter; and the means by which they may correct me if I
do not tell them truly is by a recurrence to the speech itself. I spoke
of the Dred Scott decision in my Springfield speech, and I was then
endeavoring to prove that the Dred Scott decision was a portion of a
system or scheme to make slavery national in this country. I pointed out
what things had been decided by the court. I mentioned as a fact that
they had decided that a negro could not be a citizen; that they had done
so, as I supposed, to deprive the negro, under all circumstances, of the
remotest possibility of ever becoming a citizen and claiming the rights
of a citizen of the United States under a certain clause of the
Constitution. I stated that, without making any complaint of it at all. I
then went on and stated the other points decided in the case; namely,
that the bringing of a negro into the State of Illinois and holding him
in slavery for two years here was a matter in regard to which they would
not decide whether it would make him free or not; that they decided the
further point that taking him into a United States Territory where
slavery was prohibited by Act of Congress did not make him free, because
that Act of Congress, as they held, was unconstitutional. I mentioned
these three things as making up the points decided in that case. I
mentioned them in a lump, taken in connection with the introduction of
the Nebraska Bill, and the amendment of Chase, offered at the time,
declaratory of the right of the people of the Territories to exclude
slavery, which was voted down by the friends of the bill. I mentioned all
these things together, as evidence tending to prove a combination and
conspiracy to make the institution of slavery national. In that
connection and in that way I mentioned the decision on the point that a
negro could not be a citizen, and in no other connection.

Out of this Judge Douglas builds up his beautiful fabrication of my
purpose to introduce a perfect social and political equality between the
white and black races. His assertion that I made an "especial objection"
(that is his exact language) to the decision on this account is untrue in
point of fact.

Now, while I am upon this subject, and as Henry Clay has been alluded to,
I desire to place myself, in connection with Mr. Clay, as nearly right
before this people as may be. I am quite aware what the Judge's object is
here by all these allusions. He knows that we are before an audience
having strong sympathies southward, by relationship, place of birth, and
so on. He desires to place me in an extremely Abolition attitude. He read
upon a former occasion, and alludes, without reading, to-day to a portion
of a speech which I delivered in Chicago. In his quotations from that
speech, as he has made them upon former occasions, the extracts were
taken in such a way as, I suppose, brings them within the definition of
what is called garbling,--taking portions of a speech which, when taken
by themselves, do not present the entire sense of the speaker as
expressed at the time. I propose, therefore, out of that same speech, to
show how one portion of it which he skipped over (taking an extract
before and an extract after) will give a different idea, and the true
idea I intended to convey. It will take me some little time to read it,
but I believe I will occupy the time that way.

You have heard him frequently allude to my controversy with him in regard
to the Declaration of Independence. I confess that I have had a struggle
with Judge Douglas on that matter, and I will try briefly to place myself
right in regard to it on this occasion. I said--and it is between the
extracts Judge Douglas has taken from this speech, and put in his
published speeches:

"It may be argued that there are certain conditions that make necessities
and impose them upon us, and to the extent that a necessity is imposed
upon a man he must submit to it. I think that was the condition in which
we found ourselves when we established this government. We had slaves
among us, we could not get our Constitution unless we permitted them to
remain in slavery, we could not secure the good we did secure if we
grasped for more; and having by necessity submitted to that much, it does
not destroy the principle that is the charter of our liberties. Let the
charter remain as our standard."

Now, I have upon all occasions declared as strongly as Judge Douglas
against the disposition to interfere with the existing institution of
slavery. You hear me read it from the same speech from which he takes
garbled extracts for the purpose of proving upon me a disposition to
interfere with the institution of slavery, and establish a perfect social
and political equality between negroes and white people.

Allow me while upon this subject briefly to present one other extract
from a speech of mine, more than a year ago, at Springfield, in
discussing this very same question, soon after Judge Douglas took his
ground that negroes were, not included in the Declaration of
Independence:

"I think the authors of that notable instrument intended to include all
men, but they did not mean to declare all men equal in all respects. They
did not mean to say all men were equal in color, size, intellect, moral
development, or social capacity. They defined with tolerable distinctness
in what they did consider all men created equal,--equal in certain
inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness. This they said, and this they meant. They did not mean to
assert the obvious untruth that all were then actually enjoying that
equality, or yet that they were about to confer it immediately upon them.
In fact they had no power to confer such a boon. They meant simply to
declare the right, so that the enforcement of it might follow as fast as
circumstances should permit.

"They meant to set up a standard maxim for free society which should be
familiar to all,--constantly looked to, constantly labored for, and even,
though never perfectly attained, constantly approximated, and thereby
constantly spreading and deepening its influence, and augmenting the
happiness and value of life to all people, of all colors, everywhere."

There again are the sentiments I have expressed in regard to the
Declaration of Independence upon a former occasion,--sentiments which
have been put in print and read wherever anybody cared to know what so
humble an individual as myself chose to say in regard to it.

At Galesburgh, the other day, I said, in answer to Judge Douglas, that
three years ago there never had been a man, so far as I knew or believed,
in the whole world, who had said that the Declaration of Independence did
not include negroes in the term "all men." I reassert it to-day. I assert
that Judge Douglas and all his friends may search the whole records of
the country, and it will be a matter of great astonishment to me if they
shall be able to find that one human being three years ago had ever
uttered the astounding sentiment that the term "all men" in the
Declaration did not include the negro. Do not let me be misunderstood. I
know that more than three years ago there were men who, finding this
assertion constantly in the way of their schemes to bring about the
ascendency and perpetuation of slavery, denied the truth of it. I know
that Mr. Calhoun and all the politicians of his school denied the truth
of the Declaration. I know that it ran along in the mouth of some
Southern men for a period of years, ending at last in that shameful,
though rather forcible, declaration of Pettit of Indiana, upon the floor
of the United States Senate, that the Declaration of Independence was in
that respect "a self-evident lie," rather than a self-evident truth. But
I say, with a perfect knowledge of all this hawking at the Declaration
without directly attacking it, that three years ago there never had lived
a man who had ventured to assail it in the sneaking way of pretending to
believe it, and then asserting it did not include the negro. I believe
the first man who ever said it was Chief Justice Taney in the Dred Scott
case, and the next to him was our friend Stephen A. Douglas. And now it
has become the catchword of the entire party. I would like to call upon
his friends everywhere to consider how they have come in so short a time
to view this matter in a way so entirely different from their former
belief; to ask whether they are not being borne along by an irresistible
current,--whither, they know not.

In answer to my proposition at Galesburgh last week, I see that some man
in Chicago has got up a letter, addressed to the Chicago Times, to show,
as he professes, that somebody had said so before; and he signs himself
"An Old-Line Whig," if I remember correctly. In the first place, I would
say he was not an old-line Whig. I am somewhat acquainted with old-line
Whigs from the origin to the end of that party; I became pretty well
acquainted with them, and I know they always had some sense, whatever
else you could ascribe to them. I know there never was one who had not
more sense than to try to show by the evidence he produces that some men
had, prior to the time I named, said that negroes were not included in
the term "all men" in the Declaration of Independence. What is the
evidence he produces? I will bring forward his evidence, and let you see
what he offers by way of showing that somebody more than three years ago
had said negroes were not included in the Declaration. He brings forward
part of a speech from Henry Clay,--the part of the speech of Henry Clay
which I used to bring forward to prove precisely the contrary. I guess we
are surrounded to some extent to-day by the old friends of Mr. Clay, and
they will be glad to hear anything from that authority. While he was in
Indiana a man presented a petition to liberate his negroes, and he (Mr.
Clay) made a speech in answer to it, which I suppose he carefully wrote
out himself and caused to be published. I have before me an extract from
that speech which constitutes the evidence this pretended "Old-Line Whig"
at Chicago brought forward to show that Mr. Clay did n't suppose the
negro was included in the Declaration of Independence. Hear what Mr. Clay
said:

"And what is the foundation of this appeal to me in Indiana to liberate
the slaves under my care in Kentucky? It is a general declaration in the
act announcing to the world the independence of the thirteen American
colonies, that all men are created equal. Now, as an abstract principle,
there is no doubt of the truth of that declaration; and it is desirable,
in the original construction of society and in organized societies, to
keep it in view as a great fundamental principle. But, then, I apprehend
that in no society that ever did exist, or ever shall be formed, was or
can the equality asserted among the members of the human race be
practically enforced and carried out. There are portions, large portions,
women, minors, insane, culprits, transient sojourners, that will always
probably remain subject to the government of another portion of the
community.

"That declaration, whatever may be the extent of its import, was made by
the delegations of the thirteen States. In most of them slavery existed,
and had long existed, and was established by law. It was introduced and
forced upon the colonies by the paramount law of England. Do you believe
that in making that declaration the States that concurred in it intended
that it should be tortured into a virtual emancipation of all the slaves
within their respective limits? Would Virginia and other Southern States
have ever united in a declaration which was to be interpreted into an
abolition of slavery among them? Did any one of the thirteen colonies
entertain such a design or expectation? To impute such a secret and
unavowed purpose, would be to charge a political fraud upon the noblest
band of patriots that ever assembled in council,--a fraud upon the
Confederacy of the Revolution; a fraud upon the union of those States
whose Constitution not only recognized the lawfulness of slavery, but
permitted the importation of slaves from Africa until the year 1808."

This is the entire quotation brought forward to prove that somebody
previous to three years ago had said the negro was not included in the
term "all men" in the Declaration. How does it do so? In what way has it
a tendency to prove that? Mr. Clay says it is true as an abstract
principle that all men are created equal, but that we cannot practically
apply it in all eases. He illustrates this by bringing forward the cases
of females, minors, and insane persons, with whom it cannot be enforced;
but he says it is true as an abstract principle in the organization of
society as well as in organized society and it should be kept in view as
a fundamental principle. Let me read a few words more before I add some
comments of my own. Mr. Clay says, a little further on:

"I desire no concealment of my opinions in regard to the institution of
slavery. I look upon it as a great evil, and deeply lament that we have
derived it from the parental government and from our ancestors. I wish
every slave in the United States was in the country of his ancestors. But
here they are, and the question is, How can they be best dealt with? If a
state of nature existed, and we were about to lay the foundations of
society, no man would be more strongly opposed than I should be to
incorporate the institution of slavery amongst its elements."

Now, here in this same book, in this same speech, in this same extract,
brought forward to prove that Mr. Clay held that the negro was not
included in the Declaration of Independence, is no such statement on his
part, but the declaration that it is a great fundamental truth which
should be constantly kept in view in the organization of society and in
societies already organized. But if I say a word about it; if I attempt,
as Mr. Clay said all good men ought to do, to keep it in view; if, in
this "organized society," I ask to have the public eye turned upon it; if
I ask, in relation to the organization of new Territories, that the
public eye should be turned upon it, forthwith I am vilified as you hear
me to-day. What have I done that I have not the license of Henry Clay's
illustrious example here in doing? Have I done aught that I have not his
authority for, while maintaining that in organizing new Territories and
societies this fundamental principle should be regarded, and in organized
society holding it up to the public view and recognizing what he
recognized as the great principle of free government?

And when this new principle--this new proposition that no human being
ever thought of three years ago--is brought forward, I combat it as
having an evil tendency, if not an evil design. I combat it as having a
tendency to dehumanize the negro, to take away from him the right of ever
striving to be a man. I combat it as being one of the thousand things
constantly done in these days to prepare the public mind to make
property, and nothing but property, of the negro in all the States of
this Union.

But there is a point that I wish, before leaving this part of the
discussion, to ask attention to. I have read and I repeat the words of
Henry Clay:

"I desire no concealment of my opinions in regard to the institution of
slavery. I look upon it as a great evil, and deeply lament that we have
derived it from the parental government and from our ancestors. I wish
every slave in the United States was in the country of his ancestors. But
here they are, and the question is, How can they be best dealt with? If a
state of nature existed, and we were about to lay the foundations of
society, no man would be more strongly opposed than I should be to
incorporate the institution of slavery amongst its elements."

The principle upon which I have insisted in this canvass is in relation
to laying the foundations of new societies. I have never sought to apply
these principles to the old States for the purpose of abolishing slavery
in those States. It is nothing but a miserable perversion of what I have
said, to assume that I have declared Missouri, or any other slave State,
shall emancipate her slaves; I have proposed no such thing. But when Mr.
Clay says that in laying the foundations of society in our Territories
where it does not exist, he would be opposed to the introduction of
slavery as an element, I insist that we have his warrant--his
license--for insisting upon the exclusion of that element which he
declared in such strong and emphatic language was most hurtful to him.

Judge Douglas has again referred to a Springfield speech in which I said
"a house divided against itself cannot stand." The Judge has so often
made the entire quotation from that speech that I can make it from
memory. I used this language:

"We are now far into the fifth year since a policy was initiated with the
avowed object and confident promise of putting an end to the slavery
agitation. Under the operation of this policy, that agitation has not
only not ceased, but has constantly augmented. In my opinion it will not
cease until a crisis shall have been reached and passed. 'A house divided
against itself cannot stand.' I believe this government cannot endure
permanently, half slave and half free. I do not expect the house to fall,
but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one
thing, or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the
further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in
the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction, or its
advocates will push it forward till it shall become alike lawful in all
the States, old as well as new, North as well as South."

That extract and the sentiments expressed in it have been extremely
offensive to Judge Douglas. He has warred upon them as Satan wars upon
the Bible. His perversions upon it are endless. Here now are my views
upon it in brief:

I said we were now far into the fifth year since a policy was initiated
with the avowed object and confident promise of putting an end to the
slavery agitation. Is it not so? When that Nebraska Bill was brought
forward four years ago last January, was it not for the "avowed object"
of putting an end to the slavery agitation? We were to have no more
agitation in Congress; it was all to be banished to the Territories. By
the way, I will remark here that, as Judge Douglas is very fond of
complimenting Mr. Crittenden in these days, Mr. Crittenden has said there
was a falsehood in that whole business, for there was no slavery
agitation at that time to allay. We were for a little while quiet on the
troublesome thing, and that very allaying plaster of Judge Douglas's
stirred it up again. But was it not understood or intimated with the
"confident promise" of putting an end to the slavery agitation? Surely it
was. In every speech you heard Judge Douglas make, until he got into this
"imbroglio," as they call it, with the Administration about the Lecompton
Constitution, every speech on that Nebraska Bill was full of his
felicitations that we were just at the end of the slavery agitation. The
last tip of the last joint of the old serpent's tail was just drawing out
of view. But has it proved so? I have asserted that under that policy
that agitation "has not only not ceased, but has constantly augmented."
When was there ever a greater agitation in Congress than last winter?
When was it as great in the country as to-day?

There was a collateral object in the introduction of that Nebraska
policy, which was to clothe the people of the Territories with a superior
degree of self-government, beyond what they had ever had before. The
first object and the main one of conferring upon the people a higher
degree of "self-government" is a question of fact to be determined by you
in answer to a single question. Have you ever heard or known of a people
anywhere on earth who had as little to do as, in the first instance of
its use, the people of Kansas had with this same right of
"self-government "? In its main policy and in its collateral object, it
has been nothing but a living, creeping lie from the time of its
introduction till to-day.

I have intimated that I thought the agitation would not cease until a
crisis should have been reached and passed. I have stated in what way I
thought it would be reached and passed. I have said that it might go one
way or the other. We might, by arresting the further spread of it, and
placing it where the fathers originally placed it, put it where the
public mind should rest in the belief that it was in the course of
ultimate extinction. Thus the agitation may cease. It may be pushed
forward until it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well
as new, North as well as South. I have said, and I repeat, my wish is
that the further spread of it may be arrested, and that it may be where
the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of
ultimate extinction--I have expressed that as my wish I entertain the
opinion, upon evidence sufficient to my mind, that the fathers of this
government placed that institution where the public mind did rest in the
belief that it was in the course of ultimate extinction. Let me ask why
they made provision that the source of slavery--the African
slave-trade--should be cut off at the end of twenty years? Why did they
make provision that in all the new territory we owned at that time
slavery should be forever inhibited? Why stop its spread in one
direction, and cut off its source in another, if they did not look to its
being placed in the course of its ultimate extinction?

Again: the institution of slavery is only mentioned in the Constitution
of the United States two or three times, and in neither of these cases
does the word "slavery" or "negro race" occur; but covert language is
used each time, and for a purpose full of significance. What is the
language in regard to the prohibition of the African slave-trade? It runs
in about this way:

"The migration or importation of such persons as any of the States now
existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the
Congress prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight."

The next allusion in the Constitution to the question of slavery and the
black race is on the subject of the basis of representation, and there
the language used is:

"Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several
States which may be included within this Union, according to their
respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole
number of free persons, including those bound to service for a term of
years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three-fifths of all other
persons."

It says "persons," not slaves, not negroes; but this "three-fifths" can
be applied to no other class among us than the negroes.

Lastly, in the provision for the reclamation of fugitive slaves, it is
said:

"No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof,
escaping into another, shall in consequence of any law or regulation
therein be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered
up, on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due."

There again there is no mention of the word "negro" or of slavery. In all
three of these places, being the only allusions to slavery in the
instrument, covert language is used. Language is used not suggesting that
slavery existed or that the black race were among us. And I understand
the contemporaneous history of those times to be that covert language was
used with a purpose, and that purpose was that in our Constitution, which
it was hoped and is still hoped will endure forever,--when it should be
read by intelligent and patriotic men, after the institution of slavery
had passed from among us,--there should be nothing on the face of the
great charter of liberty suggesting that such a thing as negro slavery
had ever existed among us. This is part of the evidence that the fathers
of the government expected and intended the institution of slavery to
come to an end. They expected and intended that it should be in the
course of ultimate extinction. And when I say that I desire to see the
further spread of it arrested, I only say I desire to see that done which
the fathers have first done. When I say I desire to see it placed where
the public mind will rest in the belief that it is in the course of
ultimate extinction, I only say I desire to see it placed where they
placed it. It is not true that our fathers, as Judge Douglas assumes,
made this government part slave and part free. Understand the sense in
which he puts it. He assumes that slavery is a rightful thing within
itself,--was introduced by the framers of the Constitution. The exact
truth is, that they found the institution existing among us, and they
left it as they found it. But in making the government they left this
institution with many clear marks of disapprobation upon it. They found
slavery among them, and they left it among them because of the
difficulty--the absolute impossibility--of its immediate removal. And
when Judge Douglas asks me why we cannot let it remain part slave and
part free, as the fathers of the government made it, he asks a question
based upon an assumption which is itself a falsehood; and I turn upon him
and ask him the question, when the policy that the fathers of the
government had adopted in relation to this element among us was the best
policy in the world, the only wise policy, the only policy that we can
ever safely continue upon that will ever give us peace, unless this
dangerous element masters us all and becomes a national institution,--I
turn upon him and ask him why he could not leave it alone. I turn and ask
him why he was driven to the necessity of introducing a new policy in
regard to it. He has himself said he introduced a new policy. He said so
in his speech on the 22d of March of the present year, 1858. I ask him
why he could not let it remain where our fathers placed it. I ask, too,
of Judge Douglas and his friends why we shall not again place this
institution upon the basis on which the fathers left it. I ask you, when
he infers that I am in favor of setting the free and slave States at war,
when the institution was placed in that attitude by those who made the
Constitution, did they make any war? If we had no war out of it when thus
placed, wherein is the ground of belief that we shall have war out of it
if we return to that policy? Have we had any peace upon this matter
springing from any other basis? I maintain that we have not. I have
proposed nothing more than a return to the policy of the fathers.

I confess, when I propose a certain measure of policy, it is not enough
for me that I do not intend anything evil in the result, but it is
incumbent on me to show that it has not a tendency to that result. I have
met Judge Douglas in that point of view. I have not only made the
declaration that I do not mean to produce a conflict between the States,
but I have tried to show by fair reasoning, and I think I have shown to
the minds of fair men, that I propose nothing but what has a most
peaceful tendency. The quotation that I happened to make in that
Springfield Speech, that "a house divided against itself cannot stand,"
and which has proved so offensive to the judge, was part and parcel of
the same thing. He tries to show that variety in the democratic
institutions of the different States is necessary and indispensable. I do
not dispute it. I have no controversy with Judge Douglas about that. I
shall very readily agree with him that it would be foolish for us to
insist upon having a cranberry law here in Illinois, where we have no
cranberries, because they have a cranberry law in Indiana, where they
have cranberries. I should insist that it would be exceedingly wrong in
us to deny to Virginia the right to enact oyster laws, where they have
oysters, because we want no such laws here. I understand, I hope, quite
as well as Judge Douglas or anybody else, that the variety in the soil
and climate and face of the country, and consequent variety in the
industrial pursuits and productions of a country, require systems of law
conforming to this variety in the natural features of the country. I
understand quite as well as Judge Douglas that if we here raise a barrel
of flour more than we want, and the Louisianians raise a barrel of sugar
more than they want, it is of mutual advantage to exchange. That produces
commerce, brings us together, and makes us better friends. We like one
another the more for it. And I understand as well as Judge Douglas, or
anybody else, that these mutual accommodations are the cements which bind
together the different parts of this Union; that instead of being a thing
to "divide the house,"--figuratively expressing the Union,--they tend to
sustain it; they are the props of the house, tending always to hold it
up.

But when I have admitted all this, I ask if there is any parallel between
these things and this institution of slavery? I do not see that there is
any parallel at all between them. Consider it. When have we had any
difficulty or quarrel amongst ourselves about the cranberry laws of
Indiana, or the oyster laws of Virginia, or the pine-lumber laws of
Maine, or the fact that Louisiana produces sugar, and Illinois flour?
When have we had any quarrels over these things? When have we had perfect
peace in regard to this thing which I say is an element of discord in
this Union? We have sometimes had peace, but when was it? It was when the
institution of slavery remained quiet where it was. We have had
difficulty and turmoil whenever it has made a struggle to spread itself
where it was not. I ask, then, if experience does not speak in
thunder-tones telling us that the policy which has given peace to the
country heretofore, being returned to, gives the greatest promise of
peace again. You may say, and Judge Douglas has intimated the same thing,
that all this difficulty in regard to the institution of slavery is the
mere agitation of office-seekers and ambitious Northern politicians. He
thinks we want to get "his place," I suppose. I agree that there are
office-seekers amongst us. The Bible says somewhere that we are
desperately selfish. I think we would have discovered that fact without
the Bible. I do not claim that I am any less so than the average of men,
but I do claim that I am not more selfish than Judge Douglas.

But is it true that all the difficulty and agitation we have in regard to
this institution of slavery spring from office-seeking, from the mere
ambition of politicians? Is that the truth? How many times have we had
danger from this question? Go back to the day of the Missouri Compromise.
Go back to the nullification question, at the bottom of which lay this
same slavery question. Go back to the time of the annexation of Texas. Go
back to the troubles that led to the Compromise of 1850. You will find
that every time, with the single exception of the Nullification question,
they sprung from an endeavor to spread this institution. There never was
a party in the history of this country, and there probably never will be,
of sufficient strength to disturb the general peace of the country.
Parties themselves may be divided and quarrel on minor questions, yet it
extends not beyond the parties themselves. But does not this question
make a disturbance outside of political circles? Does it not enter into
the churches and rend them asunder? What divided the great Methodist
Church into two parts, North and South? What has raised this constant
disturbance in every Presbyterian General Assembly that meets? What
disturbed the Unitarian Church in this very city two years ago? What has
jarred and shaken the great American Tract Society recently, not yet
splitting it, but sure to divide it in the end? Is it not this same
mighty, deep-seated power that somehow operates on the minds of men,
exciting and stirring them up in every avenue of society,--in politics,
in religion, in literature, in morals, in all the manifold relations of
life? Is this the work of politicians? Is that irresistible power, which
for fifty years has shaken the government and agitated the people, to be
stifled and subdued by pretending that it is an exceedingly simple thing,
and we ought not to talk about it? If you will get everybody else to stop
talking about it, I assure you I will quit before they have half done so.
But where is the philosophy or statesmanship which assumes that you can
quiet that disturbing element in our society which has disturbed us for
more than half a century, which has been the only serious danger that has
threatened our institutions,--I say, where is the philosophy or the
statesmanship based on the assumption that we are to quit talking about
it, and that the public mind is all at once to cease being agitated by
it? Yet this is the policy here in the North that Douglas is advocating,
that we are to care nothing about it! I ask you if it is not a false
philosophy. Is it not a false statesmanship that undertakes to build up a
system of policy upon the basis of caring nothing about the very thing
that everybody does care the most about--a thing which all experience has
shown we care a very great deal about?

The Judge alludes very often in the course of his remarks to the
exclusive right which the States have to decide the whole thing for
themselves. I agree with him very readily that the different States have
that right. He is but fighting a man of straw when he assumes that I am
contending against the right of the States to do as they please about it.
Our controversy with him is in regard to the new Territories. We agree
that when the States come in as States they have the right and the power
to do as they please. We have no power as citizens of the free-States, or
in our Federal capacity as members of the Federal Union through the
General Government, to disturb slavery in the States where it exists. We
profess constantly that we have no more inclination than belief in the
power of the government to disturb it; yet we are driven constantly to
defend ourselves from the assumption that we are warring upon the rights
of the Sates. What I insist upon is, that the new Territories shall be
kept free from it while in the Territorial condition. Judge Douglas
assumes that we have no interest in them,--that we have no right whatever
to interfere. I think we have some interest. I think that as white men we
have. Do we not wish for an outlet for our surplus population, if I may
so express myself? Do we not feel an interest in getting to that outlet
with such institutions as we would like to have prevail there? If you go
to the Territory opposed to slavery, and another man comes upon the same
ground with his slave, upon the assumption that the things are equal, it
turns out that he has the equal right all his way, and you have no part
of it your way. If he goes in and makes it a slave Territory, and by
consequence a slave State, is it not time that those who desire to have
it a free State were on equal ground? Let me suggest it in a different
way. How many Democrats are there about here ["A thousand"] who have left
slave States and come into the free State of Illinois to get rid of the
institution of slavery? [Another voice: "A thousand and one."] I reckon
there are a thousand and one. I will ask you, if the policy you are now
advocating had prevailed when this country was in a Territorial
condition, where would you have gone to get rid of it? Where would you
have found your free State or Territory to go to? And when hereafter, for
any cause, the people in this place shall desire to find new homes, if
they wish to be rid of the institution, where will they find the place to
go to?

Now, irrespective of the moral aspect of this question as to whether
there is a right or wrong in enslaving a negro, I am still in favor of
our new Territories being in such a condition that white men may find a
home,--may find some spot where they can better their condition; where
they can settle upon new soil and better their condition in life. I am in
favor of this, not merely (I must say it here as I have elsewhere) for
our own people who are born amongst us, but as an outlet for free white
people everywhere the world over--in which Hans, and Baptiste, and
Patrick, and all other men from all the world, may find new homes and
better their conditions in life.

I have stated upon former occasions, and I may as well state again, what
I understand to be the real issue in this controversy between Judge
Douglas and myself. On the point of my wanting to make war between the
free and the slave States, there has been no issue between us. So, too,
when he assumes that I am in favor of producing a perfect social and
political equality between the white and black races. These are false
issues, upon which Judge Douglas has tried to force the controversy.
There is no foundation in truth for the charge that I maintain either of
these propositions. The real issue in this controversy--the one pressing
upon every mind--is the sentiment on the part of one class that looks
upon the institution of slavery as a wrong, and of another class that
does not look upon it as a wrong. The sentiment that contemplates the
institution of slavery in this country as a wrong is the sentiment of the
Republican party. It is the sentiment around which all their actions, all
their arguments, circle, from which all their propositions radiate. They
look upon it as being a moral, social, and political wrong; and while
they contemplate it as such, they nevertheless have due regard for its
actual existence among us, and the difficulties of getting rid of it in
any satisfactory way, and to all the constitutional obligations thrown
about it. Yet, having a due regard for these, they desire a policy in
regard to it that looks to its not creating any more danger. They insist
that it should, as far as may be, be treated as a wrong; and one of the
methods of treating it as a wrong is to make provision that it shall grow
no larger. They also desire a policy that looks to a peaceful end of
slavery at some time. These are the views they entertain in regard to it
as I understand them; and all their sentiments, all their arguments and
propositions, are brought within this range. I have said, and I repeat it
here, that if there be a man amongst us who does not think that the
institution of slavery is wrong in any one of the aspects of which I have
spoken, he is misplaced, and ought not to be with us. And if there be a
man amongst us who is so impatient of it as a wrong as to disregard its
actual presence among us and the difficulty of getting rid of it suddenly
in a satisfactory way, and to disregard the constitutional obligations
thrown about it, that man is misplaced if he is on our platform. We
disclaim sympathy with him in practical action. He is not placed properly
with us.

On this subject of treating it as a wrong, and limiting its spread, let
me say a word. Has anything ever threatened the existence of this Union
save and except this very institution of slavery? What is it that we hold
most dear amongst us? Our own liberty and prosperity. What has ever
threatened our liberty and prosperity, save and except this institution
of slavery? If this is true, how do you propose to improve the condition
of things by enlarging slavery, by spreading it out and making it bigger?
You may have a wen or cancer upon your person, and not be able to cut it
out, lest you bleed to death; but surely it is no way to cure it, to
engraft it and spread it over your whole body. That is no proper way of
treating what you regard a wrong. You see this peaceful way of dealing
with it as a wrong, restricting the spread of it, and not allowing it to
go into new countries where it has not already existed. That is the
peaceful way, the old-fashioned way, the way in which the fathers
themselves set us the example.

On the other hand, I have said there is a sentiment which treats it as
not being wrong. That is the Democratic sentiment of this day. I do not
mean to say that every man who stands within that range positively
asserts that it is right. That class will include all who positively
assert that it is right, and all who, like Judge Douglas, treat it as
indifferent and do not say it is either right or wrong. These two classes
of men fall within the general class of those who do not look upon it as
a wrong. And if there be among you anybody who supposes that he, as a
Democrat, can consider himself "as much opposed to slavery as anybody," I
would like to reason with him. You never treat it as a wrong. What other
thing that you consider as a wrong do you deal with as you deal with
that? Perhaps you say it is wrong--but your leader never does, and you
quarrel with anybody who says it is wrong. Although you pretend to say so
yourself, you can find no fit place to deal with it as a wrong. You must
not say anything about it in the free States, because it is not here. You
must not say anything about it in the slave States, because it is there.
You must not say anything about it in the pulpit, because that is
religion, and has nothing to do with it. You must not say anything about
it in politics, because that will disturb the security of "my place."
There is no place to talk about it as being a wrong, although you say
yourself it is a wrong. But, finally, you will screw yourself up to the
belief that if the people of the slave States should adopt a system of
gradual emancipation on the slavery question, you would be in favor of
it. You would be in favor of it. You say that is getting it in the right
place, and you would be glad to see it succeed. But you are deceiving
yourself. You all know that Frank Blair and Gratz Brown, down there in
St. Louis, undertook to introduce that system in Missouri. They fought as
valiantly as they could for the system of gradual emancipation which you
pretend you would be glad to see succeed. Now, I will bring you to the
test. After a hard fight they were beaten, and when the news came over
here, you threw up your hats and hurrahed for Democracy. More than that,
take all the argument made in favor of the system you have proposed, and
it carefully excludes the idea that there is anything wrong in the
institution of slavery. The arguments to sustain that policy carefully
exclude it. Even here to-day you heard Judge Douglas quarrel with me
because I uttered a wish that it might sometime come to an end. Although
Henry Clay could say he wished every slave in the United States was in
the country of his ancestors, I am denounced by those pretending to
respect Henry Clay for uttering a wish that it might sometime, in some
peaceful way, come to an end. The Democratic policy in regard to that
institution will not tolerate the merest breath, the slightest hint, of
the least degree of wrong about it. Try it by some of Judge Douglas's
arguments. He says he "don't care whether it is voted up or voted down"
in the Territories. I do not care myself, in dealing with that
expression, whether it is intended to be expressive of his individual
sentiments on the subject, or only of the national policy he desires to
have established. It is alike valuable for my purpose. Any man can say
that who does not see anything wrong in slavery; but no man can logically
say it who does see a wrong in it, because no man can logically say he
don't care whether a wrong is voted up or voted down. He may say he don't
care whether an indifferent thing is voted up or down, but he must
logically have a choice between a right thing and a wrong thing. He
contends that whatever community wants slaves has a right to have them.
So they have, if it is not a wrong. But if it is a wrong, he cannot say
people have a right to do wrong. He says that upon the score of equality
slaves should be allowed to go in a new Territory, like other property.
This is strictly logical if there is no difference between it and other
property. If it and other property are equal, this argument is entirely
logical. But if you insist that one is wrong and the other right, there
is no use to institute a comparison between right and wrong. You may turn
over everything in the Democratic policy from beginning to end, whether
in the shape it takes on the statute book, in the shape it takes in the
Dred Scott decision, in the shape it takes in conversation, or the shape
it takes in short maxim-like arguments,--it everywhere carefully excludes
the idea that there is anything wrong in it.

That is the real issue. That is the issue that will continue in this
country when these poor tongues of Judge Douglas and myself shall be
silent. It is the eternal struggle between these two principles--right
and wrong--throughout the world. They are the two principles that have
stood face to face from the beginning of time, and will ever continue to
struggle. The one is the common right of humanity, and the other the
divine right of kings. It is the same principle in whatever shape it
develops itself. It is the same spirit that says, "You work and toil and
earn bread, and I'll eat it." No matter in what shape it comes, whether
from the mouth of a king who seeks to bestride the people of his own
nation and live by the fruit of their labor, or from one race of men as
an apology for enslaving another race, it is the same tyrannical
principle. I was glad to express my gratitude at Quincy, and I re-express
it here, to Judge Douglas,--that he looks to no end of the institution of
slavery. That will help the people to see where the struggle really is.
It will hereafter place with us all men who really do wish the wrong may
have an end. And whenever we can get rid of the fog which obscures the
real question, when we can get Judge Douglas and his friends to avow a
policy looking to its perpetuation,--we can get out from among that class
of men and bring them to the side of those who treat it as a wrong. Then
there will soon be an end of it, and that end will be its "ultimate
extinction." Whenever the issue can be distinctly made, and all
extraneous matter thrown out so that men can fairly see the real
difference between the parties, this controversy will soon be settled,
and it will be done peaceably too. There will be no war, no violence. It
will be placed again where the wisest and best men of the world placed
it. Brooks of South Carolina once declared that when this Constitution
was framed its framers did not look to the institution existing until
this day. When he said this, I think he stated a fact that is fully borne
out by the history of the times. But he also said they were better and
wiser men than the men of these days, yet the men of these days had
experience which they had not, and by the invention of the cotton-gin it
became a necessity in this country that slavery should be perpetual. I
now say that, willingly or unwillingly--purposely or without purpose,
Judge Douglas has been the most prominent instrument in changing the
position of the institution of slavery,--which the fathers of the
government expected to come to an end ere this, and putting it upon
Brooks's cotton-gin basis; placing it where he openly confesses he has no
desire there shall ever be an end of it.

I understand I have ten minutes yet. I will employ it in saying something
about this argument Judge Douglas uses, while he sustains the Dred Scott
decision, that the people of the Territories can still somehow exclude
slavery. The first thing I ask attention to is the fact that Judge
Douglas constantly said, before the decision, that whether they could or
not, was a question for the Supreme Court. But after the court had made
the decision he virtually says it is not a question for the Supreme
Court, but for the people. And how is it he tells us they can exclude it?
He says it needs "police regulations," and that admits of "unfriendly
legislation." Although it is a right established by the Constitution of
the United States to take a slave into a Territory of the United States
and hold him as property, yet unless the Territorial Legislature will
give friendly legislation, and more especially if they adopt unfriendly
legislation, they can practically exclude him. Now, without meeting this
proposition as a matter of fact, I pass to consider the real
constitutional obligation. Let me take the gentleman who looks me in the
face before me, and let us suppose that he is a member of the Territorial
Legislature. The first thing he will do will be to swear that he will
support the Constitution of the United States. His neighbor by his side
in the Territory has slaves and needs Territorial legislation to enable
him to enjoy that constitutional right. Can he withhold the legislation
which his neighbor needs for the enjoyment of a right which is fixed in
his favor in the Constitution of the United States which he has sworn to
support? Can he withhold it without violating his oath? And, more
especially, can he pass unfriendly legislation to violate his oath? Why,
this is a monstrous sort of talk about the Constitution of the United
States! There has never been as outlandish or lawless a doctrine from the
mouth of any respectable man on earth. I do not believe it is a
constitutional right to hold slaves in a Territory of the United States.
I believe the decision was improperly made and I go for reversing it.
Judge Douglas is furious against those who go for reversing a decision.
But he is for legislating it out of all force while the law itself
stands. I repeat that there has never been so monstrous a doctrine
uttered from the mouth of a respectable man.

I suppose most of us (I know it of myself) believe that the people of the
Southern States are entitled to a Congressional Fugitive Slave law,--that
is a right fixed in the Constitution. But it cannot be made available to
them without Congressional legislation. In the Judge's language, it is a
"barren right," which needs legislation before it can become efficient
and valuable to the persons to whom it is guaranteed. And as the right is
constitutional, I agree that the legislation shall be granted to it, and
that not that we like the institution of slavery. We profess to have no
taste for running and catching niggers, at least, I profess no taste for
that job at all. Why then do I yield support to a Fugitive Slave law?
Because I do not understand that the Constitution, which guarantees that
right, can be supported without it. And if I believed that the right to
hold a slave in a Territory was equally fixed in the Constitution with
the right to reclaim fugitives, I should be bound to give it the
legislation necessary to support it. I say that no man can deny his
obligation to give the necessary legislation to support slavery in a
Territory, who believes it is a constitutional right to have it there. No
man can, who does not give the Abolitionists an argument to deny the
obligation enjoined by the Constitution to enact a Fugitive State law.
Try it now. It is the strongest Abolition argument ever made. I say if
that Dred Scott decision is correct, then the right to hold slaves in a
Territory is equally a constitutional right with the right of a
slaveholder to have his runaway returned. No one can show the distinction
between them. The one is express, so that we cannot deny it. The other is
construed to be in the Constitution, so that he who believes the decision
to be correct believes in the right. And the man who argues that by
unfriendly legislation, in spite of that constitutional right, slavery
may be driven from the Territories, cannot avoid furnishing an argument
by which Abolitionists may deny the obligation to return fugitives, and
claim the power to pass laws unfriendly to the right of the slaveholder
to reclaim his fugitive. I do not know how such an arguement may strike a
popular assembly like this, but I defy anybody to go before a body of men
whose minds are educated to estimating evidence and reasoning, and show
that there is an iota of difference between the constitutional right to
reclaim a fugitive and the constitutional right to hold a slave, in a
Territory, provided this Dred Scott decision is correct, I defy any man
to make an argument that will justify unfriendly legislation to deprive a
slaveholder of his right to hold his slave in a Territory, that will not
equally, in all its length, breadth, and thickness, furnish an argument
for nullifying the Fugitive Slave law. Why, there is not such an
Abolitionist in the nation as Douglas, after all! such an Abolitionist in
the nation as Douglas, after all!










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