and benefits of that clause in the Constitution of the United States
which guarantees to the citizens of each State all the rights,
privileges, and immunities of the citizens of the several States. On the
10th of July I returned home, and delivered a speech to the people of
Chicago, in which I announced it to be my purpose to appeal to the
people of Illinois to sustain the course I had pursued in Congress. In
that speech I joined issue with Mr. Lincoln on the points which he had
presented. Thus there was an issue clear and distinct made up between us
on these two propositions laid down in the speech of Mr. Lincoln at
Springfield, and controverted by me in my reply to him at Chicago. On
the next day, the 11th of July, Mr. Lincoln replied to me at Chicago,
explaining at some length and reaffirming the positions which he had
taken in his Springfield speech. In that Chicago speech he even went
further than he had before, and uttered sentiments in regard to the
negro being on an equality with the white man. He adopted in support of
this position the argument which Lovejoy and Codding and other Abolition
lecturers had made familiar in the northern and central portions of the
State; to wit, that the Declaration of Independence having declared all
men free and equal, by divine law, also that negro equality was an
inalienable right, of which they could not be deprived. He insisted, in
that speech, that the Declaration of Independence included the negro in
the clause asserting that all men were created equal, and went so far as
to say that if one man was allowed to take the position that it did not
include the negro, others might take the position that it did not
include other men. He said that all these distinctions between this man
and that man, this race and the other race, must be discarded, and we
must all stand by the Declaration of Independence, declaring that all
men were created equal.

The issue thus being made up between Mr. Lincoln and myself on three
points, we went before the people of the State. During the following
seven weeks, between the Chicago speeches and our first meeting at
Ottawa, he and I addressed large assemblages of the people in many of
the central counties. In my speeches I confined myself closely to those
three positions which he had taken, controverting his proposition that
this Union could not exist as our fathers made it, divided into Free and
Slave States, controverting his proposition of a crusade against the
Supreme Court because of the Dred Scott decision, and controverting his
proposition that the Declaration of Independence included and meant the
negroes as well as the white men, when it declared all men to be created
equal. I supposed at that time that these propositions constituted a
distinct issue between us, and that the opposite positions we had taken
upon them we would be willing to be held to in every part of the State.
I never intended to waver one hair’s breadth from that issue either in
the north or the south or wherever I should address the people of
Illinois. I hold that when the time arrives that I cannot proclaim my
political creed in the same terms, not only in the northern, but in the
southern part of Illinois, not only in the Northern, but the Southern
States, and wherever the American flag waves over American soil, that
then there must be something wrong in that creed; so long as we live
under a common Constitution, so long as we live in a confederacy of
sovereign and equal States, joined together as one for certain purposes,
that any political creed is radically wrong which cannot be proclaimed
in every State and every section of that Union, alike. I took up Mr.
Lincoln’s three propositions in my several speeches, analyzed them, and
pointed out what I believed to be the radical errors contained in them.
First, in regard to his doctrine that this government was in violation
of the law of God, which says that a house divided against itself cannot
stand, I repudiated it as a slander upon the immortal framers of our
Constitution. I then said, I have often repeated, and now again assert,
that in my opinion our government can endure forever, divided into Free
and Slave States as our fathers made it,—each State having the right to
prohibit, abolish, or sustain slavery, just as it pleases. This
government was made upon the great basis of the sovereignty of the
States, the right of each State to regulate its own domestic
institutions to suit itself; and that right was conferred with the
understanding and expectation that inasmuch as each locality had
separate interests, each locality must have different and distinct local
and domestic institutions, corresponding to its wants and interests. Our
fathers knew when they made the government that the laws and
institutions which were well adapted to the Green Mountains of Vermont
were unsuited to the rice plantations of South Carolina. They knew then,
as well as we know now, that the laws and institutions which would be
well adapted to the beautiful prairies of Illinois would not be suited
to the mining regions of California. They knew that in a Republic as
broad as this, having such a variety of soil, climate, and interest,
there must necessarily be a corresponding variety of local laws,—the
policy and institutions of each State adapted to its condition and
wants. For this reason this Union was established on the right of each
State to do as it pleased on the question of slavery, and every other
question; and the various States were not allowed to complain of, much
less interfere with, the policy of their neighbors.

Suppose the doctrine advocated by Mr. Lincoln and the Abolitionists of
this day had prevailed when the Constitution was made, what would have
been the result? Imagine for a moment that Mr. Lincoln had been a member
of the Convention that framed the Constitution of the United States, and
that when its members were about to sign that wonderful document, he had
arisen in that Convention as he did at Springfield this summer, and,
addressing himself to the President, had said, “A house divided against
itself cannot stand; this government, divided into Free and Slave States
cannot endure, they must all be free or all be slave; they must all be
one thing, or all the other,—otherwise, it is a violation of the law of
God, and cannot continue to exist;”—suppose Mr. Lincoln had convinced
that body of sages that that doctrine was sound, what would have been
the result? Remember that the Union was then composed of thirteen
States, twelve of which were slaveholding, and one free. Do you think
that the one Free State would have outvoted the twelve slaveholding
States, and thus have secured the abolition of slavery? On the other
hand, would not the twelve slaveholding States have outvoted the one
free State, and thus have fastened slavery, by a constitutional
provision, on every foot of the American Republic forever? You see that
if this Abolition doctrine of Mr. Lincoln had prevailed when the
government was made, it would have established slavery as a permanent
institution in all the States, whether they wanted it or not; and the
question for us to determine in Illinois now, as one of the Free States,
is whether or not we are willing, having become the majority section, to
enforce a doctrine on the minority which we would have resisted with our
heart’s blood had it been attempted on us when we were in a minority.
How has the South lost her power as the majority section in this Union,
and how have the Free States gained it, except under the operation of
that principle which declares the right of the people of each State and
each Territory to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their
own way? It was under that principle that slavery was abolished in New
Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, and
Pennsylvania; it was under that principle that one-half of the
slaveholding States became free; it was under that principle that the
number of Free States increased until, from being one out of twelve
States, we have grown to be the majority of States of the whole Union,
with the power to control the House of Representatives and Senate, and
the power, consequently, to elect a President by Northern votes, without
the aid of a Southern State. Having obtained this power under the
operation of that great principle, are you now prepared to abandon the
principle and declare that merely because we have the power you will
wage a war against the Southern States and their institutions until you
force them to abolish slavery everywhere?

After having pressed these arguments home on Mr. Lincoln for seven
weeks, publishing a number of my speeches, we met at Ottawa in joint
discussion, and he then began to crawfish a little, and let himself
down. I there propounded certain questions to him. Amongst others, I
asked him whether he would vote for the admission of any more Slave
States, in the event the people wanted them. He would not answer. I then
told him that if he did not answer the question there, I would renew it
at Freeport, and would then trot him down into Egypt, and again put it
to him. Well, at Freeport, knowing that the next joint discussion took
place in Egypt, and being in dread of it, he did answer my question in
regard to no more Slave States in a mode which he hoped would be
satisfactory to me, and accomplish the object he had in view. I will
show you what his answer was. After saying that he was not pledged to
the Republican doctrine of “no more Slave States,” he declared:

“I state to you freely, frankly, that I should be exceedingly sorry to
ever be put in the position of having to pass upon that question. I
should be exceedingly glad to know that there never would be another
Slave State admitted into this Union.”

Here permit me to remark, that I do not think the people will ever force
him into a position against his will. He went on to say:

“But I must add, in regard to this, that if slavery shall be kept out of
the Territory during the Territorial existence of any one given
Territory, and then the people should, having a fair chance and a clear
field, when they come to adopt a constitution, if they should do the
extraordinary thing of adopting a slave constitution uninfluenced by the
actual presence of the institution among them, I see no alternative, if
we own the country, but we must admit it into the Union.”

That answer Mr. Lincoln supposed would satisfy the old line Whigs,
composed of Kentuckians and Virginians, down in the southern part of the
State. Now, what does it amount to? I desired to know whether he would
vote to allow Kansas to come into the Union with slavery or not, as her
people desired. He would not answer, but in a roundabout way said that
if slavery should be kept out of a Territory during the whole of its
Territorial existence, and then the people, when they adopted a State
Constitution, asked admission as a Slave State, he supposed he would
have to let the State come in. The case I put to him was an entirely
different one. I desired to know whether he would vote to admit a State
if Congress had not prohibited slavery in it during its Territorial
existence, as Congress never pretended to do under Clay’s Compromise
measures of 1850. He would not answer, and I have not yet been able to
get an answer from him. I have asked him whether he would vote to admit
Nebraska, if her people asked to come in as a State with a constitution
recognizing slavery, and he refused to answer. I have put the question
to him with reference to New Mexico, and he has not uttered a word in
answer. I have enumerated the Territories, one after another, putting
the same question to him with reference to each, and he has not said,
and will not say, whether, if elected to Congress, he will vote to admit
any Territory now in existence with such a constitution as her people
may adopt. He invents a case which does not exist, and cannot exist
under this government, and answers it; but he will not answer the
question I put to him in connection with any of the Territories now in
existence. The contract we entered into with Texas when she entered the
Union obliges us to allow four States to be formed out of the old State,
and admitted with or without slavery, as the respective inhabitants of
each may determine. I have asked Mr. Lincoln three times in our joint
discussions whether he would vote to redeem that pledge, and he has
never yet answered. He is as silent as the grave on the subject. He
would rather answer as to a state of the case which will never arise
than commit himself by telling what he would do in a case which would
come up for his action soon after his election to Congress. Why can he
not say whether he is willing to allow the people of each State to have
slavery or not as they please, and to come into the Union, when they
have the requisite population, as a Slave or a Free State as they
decide? I have no trouble in answering the question. I have said
everywhere, and now repeat it to you, that if the people of Kansas want
a Slave State they have a right, under the Constitution of the United
States, to form such a State, and I will let them come into the Union
with slavery or without, as they determine. If the people of any other
Territory desire slavery, let them have it. If they do not want it, let
them prohibit it. It is their business, not mine. It is none of our
business in Illinois whether Kansas is a Free State or a Slave State. It
is none of your business in Missouri whether Kansas shall adopt slavery
or reject it. It is the business of her people, and none of yours. The
people of Kansas have as much right to decide that question for
themselves as you have in Missouri to decide it for yourselves, or we in
Illinois to decide it for ourselves.

And here I may repeat what I have said in every speech I have made in
Illinois, that I fought the Lecompton Constitution to its death, not
because of the slavery clause in it, but because it was not the act and
deed of the people of Kansas. I said then in Congress, and I say now,
that if the people of Kansas want a Slave State, they have a right to
have it. If they wanted the Lecompton Constitution, they had a right to
have it. I was opposed to that constitution because I did not believe
that it was the act and deed of the people, but, on the contrary, the
act of a small, pitiful minority acting in the name of the majority.
When at last it was determined to send that constitution back to the
people, and, accordingly, in August last, the question of admission
under it was submitted to a popular vote, the citizens rejected it by
nearly ten to one, thus showing conclusively that I was right when I
said that the Lecompton Constitution was not the act and deed of the
people of Kansas, and did not embody their will.

I hold that there is no power on earth, under our system of government,
which has the right to force a constitution upon an unwilling people.
Suppose that there had been a majority of ten to one in favor of slavery
in Kansas, and suppose there had been an Abolition President and an
Abolition Administration, and by some means the Abolitionists succeeded
in forcing an Abolition Constitution upon those slaveholding people,
would the people of the South have submitted to that act for an instant?
Well, if you of the South would not have submitted to it a day, how can
you, as fair, honorable, and honest men, insist on putting a slave
constitution on a people who desire a Free State? Your safety and ours
depend upon both of us acting in good faith, and living up to that great
principle which asserts the right of every people to form and regulate
their domestic institutions to suit themselves, subject only to the
Constitution of the United States.

Most of the men who denounced my course on the Lecompton question
objected to it, not because I was not right, but because they thought it
expedient at that time, for the sake of keeping the party together, to
do wrong. I never knew the Democratic party to violate any one of its
principles, out of policy or expediency, that it did not pay the debt
with sorrow. There is no safety or success for our party unless we
always do right, and trust the consequences to God and the people. I
chose not to depart from principle for the sake of expediency on the
Lecompton question, and I never intend to do it on that or any other
question.

But I am told that I would have been all right if I had only voted for
the English bill after the Lecompton was killed. You know a general
pardon was granted to all political offenders on the Lecompton question,
provided they would only vote for the English bill. I did not accept the
benefits of that pardon for the reason that I had been right in the
course I had pursued, and hence did not require any forgiveness. Let us
see how the result has been worked out. English brought in his bill
referring the Lecompton Constitution back to the people, with the
provision that if it was rejected, Kansas should be kept out of the
Union until she had the full ratio of population required for member of
Congress,—thus in effect declaring that if the people of Kansas would
only consent to come into the Union under the Lecompton Constitution,
and have a Slave State when they did not want it, they should be
admitted with a population of 35,000; but that if they were so obstinate
as to insist upon having just such a constitution as they thought best,
and to desire admission as a free State, then they should be kept out
until they had 93,420 inhabitants. I then said, and I now repeat to you,
that whenever Kansas has people enough for a Slave State she has people
enough for a Free State. I was, and am willing to adopt the rule that no
State shall ever come into the Union until she has the full ratio of
population for a member of Congress, provided that rule is made uniform.
I made that proposition in the Senate last winter, but a majority of the
Senators would not agree to it; and I then said to them, If you will not
adopt the general rule, I will not consent to make an exception of
Kansas.

I hold that it is a violation of the fundamental principles of this
government to throw the weight of Federal power into the scale, either
in favor of the Free or the Slave States. Equality among all the States
of this Union is a fundamental principle in our political system. We
have no more right to throw the weight of the Federal Government into
the scale in favor of the slaveholding than the Free States, and last of
all should our friends in the South consent for a moment that Congress
should withhold its powers either way when they know that there is a
majority against them in both Houses of Congress.

Fellow-citizens, how have the supporters of the English bill stood up to
their pledges not to admit Kansas until she obtained a population of
93,420 in the event she rejected the Lecompton Constitution? How? The
newspapers inform us that English himself, whilst conducting his canvass
for re-election, and in order to secure it, pledged himself to his
constituents that if returned he would disregard his own bill and vote
to admit Kansas into the Union with such population as she might have
when she made application. We are informed that every Democratic
candidate for Congress in all the States where elections have recently
been held was pledged against the English bill, with perhaps one or two
exceptions. Now, if I had only done as these anti-Lecompton men who
voted for the English bill in Congress, pledging themselves to refuse to
admit Kansas if she refused to become a Slave State until she had a
population of 93,420 and then returned to their people, forfeited their
pledge, and made a new pledge to admit Kansas at any time she applied,
without regard to population, I would have had no trouble. You saw the
whole power and patronage of the Federal Government wielded in Indiana,
Ohio, and Pennsylvania to re-elect anti-Lecompton men to Congress who
voted against Lecompton, then voted for the English bill, and then
denounced the English bill, and pledged themselves to their people to
disregard it. My sin consists in not having given a pledge, and then in
not having afterward forfeited it. For that reason, in this State, every
postmaster, every route agent, every collector of the ports, and every
Federal officeholder forfeits his head the moment he expresses a
preference for the Democratic candidates against Lincoln and his
Abolition associates. A Democratic Administration which we helped to
bring into power deems it consistent with its fidelity to principle and
its regard to duty to wield its power in this State in behalf of the
Republican Abolition candidates in every county and every Congressional
District against the Democratic party. All I have to say in reference to
the matter is, that if that Administration have not regard enough for
principle, if they are not sufficiently attached to the creed of the
Democratic party, to bury forever their personal hostilities in order to
succeed in carrying out our glorious principles, I have. I have no
personal difficulty with Mr. Buchanan or his Cabinet. He chose to make
certain recommendations to Congress, as he had a right to do, on the
Lecompton question. I could not vote in favor of them. I had as much
right to judge for myself how I should vote as he had how he should
recommend. He undertook to say to me, “If you do not vote as I tell you,
I will take off the heads of your friends.” I replied to him, “You did
not elect me. I represent Illinois, and I am accountable to Illinois, as
my constituency, and to God; but not to the President or to any other
power on earth.”

And now this warfare is made on me because I would not surrender my
convictions of duty, because I would not abandon my constituency, and
receive the orders of the executive authorities as to how I should vote
in the Senate of the United States. I hold that an attempt to control
the Senate on the part of the Executive is subversive of the principles
of our Constitution. The Executive department is independent of the
Senate, and the Senate is independent of the President. In matters of
legislation the President has a veto on the action of the Senate, and in
appointments and treaties the Senate has a veto on the President. He has
no more right to tell me how I shall vote on his appointments than I
have to tell him whether he shall veto or approve a bill that the Senate
has passed. Whenever you recognize the right of the Executive to say to
a Senator, “Do this, or I will take off the heads of your friends,” you
convert this government from a republic into a despotism. Whenever you
recognize the right of a President to say to a member of Congress, “Vote
as I tell you, or I will bring a power to bear against you at home which
will crush you,” you destroy the independence of the representative and
convert him into a tool of Executive power. I resisted this invasion of
the constitutional rights of a Senator, and I intend to resist it as
long as I have a voice to speak or a vote to give. Yet Mr. Buchanan
cannot provoke me to abandon one iota of Democratic principles out of
revenge or hostility to his course. I stand by the platform of the
Democratic party, and by its organization, and support its nominees. If
there are any who choose to bolt, the fact only shows that they are not
as good Democrats as I am.

My friends, there never was a time when it was as important for the
Democratic party, for all national men, to rally and stand together, as
it is to-day. We find all sectional men giving up past differences and
continuing the one question of slavery; and when we find sectional men
thus uniting we should unite to resist them and their treasonable
designs. Such was the case in 1850, when Clay left the quiet and peace
of his home, and again entered upon public life to quell agitation and
restore peace to a distracted Union. Then we Democrats, with Cass at our
head, welcomed Henry Clay, whom the whole nation regarded as having been
preserved by God for the times. He became our leader in that great
fight, and we rallied around him the same as the Whigs rallied around
old Hickory in 1832 to put down nullification. Thus you see that whilst
Whigs and Democrats fought fearlessly in old times about banks, the
tariff, distribution, the specie circular, and the sub-treasury, all
united as a band of brothers when the peace, harmony, or integrity of
the Union was imperiled. It was so in 1850, when Abolitionism had even
so far divided this country, North and South, as to endanger the peace
of the Union; Whigs and Democrats united in establishing the Compromise
Measures of that year, and restoring tranquillity and good feeling.

These measures passed on the joint action of the two parties. They
rested on the great principle that the people of each State and each
Territory should be left perfectly free to form and regulate their
domestic institutions to suit themselves. You Whigs and we Democrats
justified them in that principle. In 1854, when it became necessary to
organize the Territories of Kansas and Nebraska, I brought forward the
bill on the same principle. In the Kansas-Nebraska bill you find it
declared to be the true intent and meaning of the Act not to legislate
slavery into any State or Territory, nor to exclude it therefrom, but to
leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their
domestic institutions in their own way. I stand on that same platform in
1858 that I did in 1850, 1854, and 1856. The Washington “Union,”
pretending to be the organ of the Administration, in the number of the
5th of this month, devotes three columns and a half to establish these
propositions; first, that Douglas, in his Freeport speech, held the same
doctrine that he did in his Nebraska bill in 1854; second, that in 1854
Douglas justified the Nebraska bill upon the ground that it was based
upon the same principle as Clay’s Compromise Measures of 1850. The
“Union” thus proved that Douglas was the same in 1858 that he was in
1856, 1854, and 1850, and consequently argued that he was never a
Democrat. Is it not funny that I was never a Democrat? There is no
pretence that I have changed a hair’s breadth. The “Union” proves by my
speeches that I explained the Compromise Measures of 1850 just as I do
now, and that I explained the Kansas and Nebraska bill in 1854 just as I
did in my Freeport speech, and yet says that I am not a Democrat, and
cannot be trusted, because I have not changed during the whole of that
time. It has occurred to me that in 1854 the author of the Kansas and
Nebraska bill was considered a pretty good Democrat. It has occurred to
me that in 1856, when I was exerting every nerve and every energy for
James Buchanan, standing on the same platform then that I do now, that I
was a pretty good Democrat. They now tell me that I am not a Democrat,
because I assert that the people of a Territory, as well as those of a
State, have the right to decide for themselves whether slavery can or
cannot exist in such Territory. Let me read what James Buchanan said on
that point when he accepted the Democratic nomination for the Presidency
in 1856. In his letter of acceptance, he used the following language:

“The recent legislation of Congress respecting domestic slavery, derived
as it has been from the original and pure fountain of legitimate
political power, the will of the majority, promises ere long to allay
the dangerous excitement. This legislation is founded upon principles as
ancient as free government itself, and, in accordance with them, has
simply declared that the people of a Territory, like those of a State,
shall decide for themselves whether slavery shall or shall not exist
within their limits.”

Dr. Hope will there find my answer to the question he propounded to me
before I commenced speaking. Of course, no man will consider it an
answer who is outside of the Democratic organization, bolts Democratic
nominations, and indirectly aids to put Abolitionists into power over
Democrats. But whether Dr. Hope considers it an answer or not, every
fair-minded man will see that James Buchanan has answered the question,
and has asserted that the people of a Territory, like those of a State,
shall decide for themselves whether slavery shall or shall not exist
within their limits. I answer specifically if you want a further answer,
and say that while under the decision of the Supreme Court, as recorded
in the opinion of Chief Justice Taney, slaves are property like all
other property, and can be carried into any Territory of the United
States the same as any other description of property, yet when you get
them there they are subject to the local law of the Territory just like
all other property. You will find in a recent speech delivered by that
able and eloquent statesman, Hon. Jefferson Davis, at Bangor, Maine,
that he took the same view of this subject that I did in my Freeport
speech. He there said:

“If the inhabitants of any Territory should refuse to enact such laws
and police regulations as would give security to their property or to
his, it would be rendered more or less valueless in proportion to the
difficulties of holding it without such protection. In the case of
property in the labor of man, or what is usually called slave property,
the insecurity would be so great that the owner could not ordinarily
retain it. Therefore, though the right would remain, the remedy being
withheld, it would follow that the owner would be practically debarred,
by the circumstances of the case, from taking slave property into a
Territory where the sense of the inhabitants was opposed to its
introduction. So much for the oft-repeated fallacy of forcing slavery
upon any community.”

You will also find that the distinguished Speaker of the present House
of Representatives, Hon. Jas. L. Orr, construed the Kansas and Nebraska
bill in this same way in 1856, and also that great intellect of the
South, Alex. H. Stephens, put the same construction upon it in Congress
that I did in my Freeport speech. The whole South are rallying to the
support of the doctrine that if the people of a Territory want slavery,
they have a right to have it, and if they do not want it, that no power
on earth can force it upon them. I hold that there is no principle on
earth more sacred to all the friends of freedom than that which says
that no institution, no law, no constitution, should be forced on an
unwilling people contrary to their wishes; and I assert that the Kansas
and Nebraska bill contains that principle. It is the great principle
contained in that bill. It is the principle on which James Buchanan was
made President. Without that principle, he never would have been made
President of the United States. I will never violate or abandon that
doctrine, if I have to stand alone. I have resisted the blandishments
and threats of power on the one side, and seduction on the other, and
have stood immovably for that principle, fighting for it when assailed
by Northern mobs, or threatened by Southern hostility. I have defended
it against the North and the South, and I will defend it against whoever
assails it, and I will follow it wherever its logical conclusions lead
me. I say to you that there is but one hope, one safety for this
country, and that is to stand immovably by that principle which declares
the right of each State and each Territory to decide these questions for
themselves. This government was founded on that principle, and must be
administered in the same sense in which it was founded.

But the Abolition party really thinks that under the Declaration of
Independence the negro is equal to the white man, and that negro
equality is an inalienable right conferred by the Almighty, and hence
that all human laws in violation of it are null and void. With such men
it is no use for me to argue. I hold that the signers of the Declaration
of Independence had no reference to negroes at all when they declared
all men to be created equal. They did not mean negro, nor the savage
Indians, nor the Feejee Islanders, nor any other barbarous race. They
were speaking of white men. They alluded to men of European birth and
European descent,—to white men, and to none others,—when they declared
that doctrine. I hold that this government was established on the white
basis. It was established by white men for the benefit of white men and
their posterity forever, and should be administered by white men, and
none others. But it does not follow by any means, that merely because
the negro is not a citizen, and merely because he is not our equal,
that, therefore, he should be a slave. On the contrary, it does follow
that we ought to extend to the negro race, and to all other dependent
races, all the rights, all the privileges, and all the immunities which
they can exercise consistently with the safety of society. Humanity
requires that we should give them all these privileges; Christianity
commands that we should extend those privileges to them. The question
then arises, What are those privileges, and what is the nature and
extent of them? My answer is, that that is a question which each State
must answer for itself. We in Illinois have decided it for ourselves. We
tried slavery, kept it up for twelve years, and finding that it was not
profitable, we abolished it for that reason, and became a Free State. We
adopted in its stead the policy that a negro in this State shall not be
a slave and shall not be a citizen. We have a right to adopt that
policy. For my part, I think it is a wise and sound policy for us. You
in Missouri must judge for yourselves whether it is a wise policy for
you. If you choose to follow our example, very good; if you reject it,
still well,—it is your business, not ours. So with Kentucky. Let
Kentucky adopt a policy to suit herself. If we do not like it, we will
keep away from it; and if she does not like ours, let her stay at home,
mind her own business, and let us alone. If the people of all the States
will act on that great principle, and each State mind its own business,
attend to its own affairs, take care of its own negroes, and not meddle
with its neighbors, then there will be peace between the North and
South, the East and the West, throughout the whole Union.

Why can we not thus have peace? Why should we thus allow a sectional
party to agitate this country, to array the North against the South, and
convert us into enemies instead of friends, merely that a few ambitious
men may ride into power on a sectional hobby? How long is it since these
ambitious Northern men wished for a sectional organization? Did any one
of them dream of a sectional party as long as the North was the weaker
section and the South the stronger? Then all were opposed to sectional
parties; but the moment the North obtained the majority in the House and
Senate by the admission of California, and could elect a President
without the aid of Southern votes, that moment ambitious Northern men
formed a scheme to excite the North against the South, and make the
people be governed in their votes by geographical lines, thinking that
the North, being the stronger section, would outvote the South, and
consequently they, the leaders, would ride into office on a sectional
hobby. I am told that my hour is out. It was very short.

                          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 recommend 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 intend 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 man 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 didn’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 cases. 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. 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 among 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 there they are; the question is, How can they best be 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 among 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 societies 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 hateful
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
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
placed 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 amongst 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 domestic
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 springs 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 stilled 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 _States_. 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 introducing 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 a 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, as being wrong. 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 amongst
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 excluded it. Even here to-day
you heard Judge Douglas quarrel with me because I uttered a wish that it
might some time 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 some time, 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, his 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 his 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 regulation,” 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 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 argument 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 a 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.

                        MR. DOUGLAS’S REJOINDER

Mr. Lincoln has concluded his remarks by saying that there is not such
an Abolitionist as I am in all America. If he could make the
Abolitionists of Illinois believe that, he would not have much show for
the Senate. Let him make the Abolitionists believe the truth of that
statement, and his political back is broken.

His first criticism upon me is the expression of his hope that the war
of the Administration will be prosecuted against me and the Democratic
party of this State with vigor. He wants that war prosecuted with vigor;
I have no doubt of it. His hopes of success and the hopes of his party
depend solely upon it. They have no chance of destroying the Democracy
of this State except by the aid of Federal patronage. He has all the
Federal officeholders here as his allies, running separate tickets
against the Democracy to divide the party, although the leaders all
intend to vote directly the Abolition ticket, and only leave the
greenhorns to vote this separate ticket who refuse to go into the
Abolition camp. There is something really refreshing in the thought that
Mr. Lincoln is in favor of prosecuting one war vigorously. It is the
first war that I ever knew him to be in favor of prosecuting. It is the
first war that I ever knew him to believe to be just or constitutional.
When the Mexican war was being waged, and the American army was
surrounded by the enemy in Mexico, he thought that war was
unconstitutional, unnecessary, and unjust. He thought it was not
commenced on the right _spot_.

When I made an incidental allusion of that kind in the joint discussion
over at Charleston some weeks ago, Lincoln, in replying, said that I,
Douglas, had charged him with voting against supplies for the Mexican
war, and then he reared up, full length, and swore that he never voted
against the supplies; that it was a slander; and caught hold of Ficklin,
who sat on the stand, and said, “Here, Ficklin, tell the people that it
is a lie.” Well, Ficklin, who had served in Congress with him, stood up
and told them all that he recollected about it. It was that when George
Ashmun, of Massachusetts, brought forward a resolution declaring the war
unconstitutional, unnecessary, and unjust, that Lincoln had voted for
it. “Yes,” said Lincoln, “I did.” Thus he confessed that he voted that
the war was wrong, that our country was in the wrong, and consequently
that the Mexicans were in the right; but charged that I had slandered
him by saying that he voted against the supplies. I never charged him
with voting against the supplies in my life, because I knew that he was
not in Congress when they were voted. The war was commenced on the 13th
day of May, 1846, and on that day we appropriated in Congress ten
millions of dollars and fifty thousand men to prosecute it. During the
same session we voted more men and more money, and at the next session
we voted more men and more money, so that by the time Mr. Lincoln
entered Congress we had enough men and enough money to carry on the war,
and had no occasion to vote for any more. When he got into the House,
being opposed to the war, and not being able to stop the supplies,
because they had all gone forward, all he could do was to follow the
lead of Corwin of Ohio, and prove that the war was not begun on the
right spot, and that it was unconstitutional, unnecessary, and wrong.
Remember, too, that this he did after the war had been begun. It is one
thing to be opposed to the declaration of a war, another and very
different thing to take sides with the enemy against your own country
after the war has been commenced. Our army was in Mexico at the time,
many battles had been fought; our citizens, who were defending the honor
of their country’s flag, were surrounded by the daggers, the guns, and
the poison of the enemy. Then it was that Corwin made his speech in
which he declared that the American soldiers ought to be welcomed by the
Mexicans with bloody hands and hospitable graves; then it was that
Ashmun and Lincoln voted in the House of Representatives that the war
was unconstitutional and unjust; and Ashmun’s resolution, Corwin’s
speech, and Lincoln’s vote were sent to Mexico and read at the head of
the Mexican army, to prove to them that there was a Mexican party in the
Congress of the United States who were doing all in their power to aid
them. That a man who takes sides with the common enemy against his own
country in time of war should rejoice in a war being made on me now, is
very natural. And, in my opinion, no other kind of a man would rejoice
in it.

Mr. Lincoln has told you a great deal to-day about his being an old line
Clay Whig. Bear in mind that there are a great many old Clay Whigs down
in this region. It is more agreeable, therefore, for him to talk about
the old Clay Whig party than it is for him to talk Abolitionism. We did
not hear much about the old Clay Whig party up in the Abolition
districts. How much of an old line Henry Clay Whig was he? Have you read
General Singleton’s speech at Jacksonville? You know that General
Singleton was for twenty-five years the confidential friend of Henry
Clay in Illinois, and he testified that in 1847, when the Constitutional
Convention of this State was in session, the Whig members were invited
to a Whig caucus at the house of Mr. Lincoln’s brother-in-law, where Mr.
Lincoln proposed to throw Henry Clay overboard and take up General
Taylor in his place, giving as his reason that, if the Whigs did not
take up General Taylor, the Democrats would. Singleton testifies that
Lincoln in that speech urged as another reason for throwing Henry Clay
overboard, that the Whigs had fought long enough for principle, and
ought to begin to fight for success. Singleton also testified that
Lincoln’s speech did not have the effect of cutting Clay’s throat, and
that he (Singleton) and others withdrew from the caucus in indignation.
He further states that when they got to Philadelphia to attend the
National Convention of the Whig party, that Lincoln was there, the
bitter and deadly enemy of Clay, and that he tried to keep him
(Singleton) out of the Convention because he insisted on voting for
Clay, and Lincoln was determined to have Taylor. Singleton says that
Lincoln rejoiced with very great joy when he found the mangled remains
of the murdered Whig statesman lying cold before him. Now, Mr. Lincoln
tells you that he is an old line Clay Whig! General Singleton testifies
to the facts I have narrated, in a public speech which has been printed
and circulated broadcast over the State for weeks, yet not a lisp have
we heard from Mr. Lincoln on the subject, except that he is an old Clay
Whig.

What part of Henry Clay’s policy did Lincoln ever advocate. He was in
Congress in 1848–9, when the Wilmot Proviso warfare disturbed the peace
and harmony of the country, until it shook the foundation of the
Republic from its centre to its circumference. It was that agitation
that brought Clay forth from his retirement at Ashland again to occupy
his seat in the Senate of the United States, to see if he could not, by
his great wisdom and experience, and the renown of his name, do
something to restore peace and quiet to a disturbed country. Who got up
that sectional strife that Clay had to be called upon to quell? I have
heard Lincoln boast that he voted forty-two times for the Wilmot
Proviso, and that he would have voted as many times more if he could.
Lincoln is the man, in connection with Seward, Chase, Giddings, and
other Abolitionists, who got up that strife that I helped Clay to put
down. Henry Clay came back to the Senate in 1849, and saw that he must
do something to restore peace to the country. The Union Whigs and the
Union Democrats welcomed him, the moment he arrived, as the man for the
occasion. We believed that he, of all men on earth, had been preserved
by Divine Providence to guide us out of our difficulties, and we
Democrats rallied under Clay then, as you Whigs in Nullification time
rallied under the banner of old Jackson, forgetting party when the
country was in danger, in order that we might have a country first, and
parties afterward.

And this reminds me that Mr. Lincoln told you that the slavery question
was the only thing that ever disturbed the peace and harmony of the
Union. Did not Nullification once raise its head and disturb the peace
of this Union in 1832? Was that the slavery question, Mr. Lincoln? Did
not disunion raise its monster head during the last war with Great
Britain? Was that the slavery question, Mr. Lincoln? The peace of this
country has been disturbed three times, once during the war with Great
Britain, once on the tariff question, and once on the slavery question.
His argument therefore that slavery is the only question that has ever
created dissension in the Union falls to the ground. It is true that
agitators are enabled now to use this slavery question for the purpose
of sectional strife. He admits that in regard to all things else, the
principle that I advocate, making each State and Territory free to
decide for itself, ought to prevail. He instances the cranberry laws and
the oyster laws, and he might have gone through the whole list with the
same effect. I say that all these laws are local and domestic, and that
local and domestic concerns should be left to each State and each
Territory to manage for itself. If agitators would acquiesce in that
principle, there never would be any danger to the peace and harmony of
the Union.

Mr. Lincoln tries to avoid the main issue by attacking the truth of my
proposition, that our fathers made this government divided into Free and
Slave States, recognizing the right of each to decide all its local
questions for itself. Did they not thus make it? It is true that they
did not establish slavery in any of the States, or abolish it in any of
them; but finding thirteen States, twelve of which were slave and one
free, they agreed to form a government uniting them together as they
stood, divided into Free and Slave States, and to guarantee forever to
each State the right to do as it pleased on the slavery question. Having
thus made the government, and conferred this right upon each State
forever, I assert that this government can exist as they made it,
divided into Free and Slave States, if any one State chooses to retain
slavery. He says that he looks forward to a time when slavery shall be
abolished everywhere. I look forward to a time when each State shall be
allowed to do as it pleases. If it chooses to keep slavery forever, it
is not my business, but its own; if it chooses to abolish slavery, it is
its own business,—not mine. I care more for the great principle of
self-government, the right of the people to rule, than I do for all the
negroes in Christendom. I would not endanger the perpetuity of this
Union, I would not blot out the great inalienable rights of the white
men, for all the negroes that ever existed. Hence, I say, let us
maintain this government on the principles that our fathers made it on,
recognizing the right of each State to keep slavery as long as its
people determine, or to abolish it when they please. But Mr. Lincoln
says that when our fathers made this government they did not look
forward to the state of things now existing, and therefore he thinks the
doctrine was wrong; and he quotes Brooks, of South Carolina, to prove
that our fathers then thought that probably slavery would be abolished
by each State acting for itself before this time. Suppose they did;
suppose they did not foresee what has occurred,—does that change the
principles of our government? They did not probably foresee the
telegraph that transmits intelligence by lightning, nor did they foresee
the railroads that now form the bonds of union between the different
States, or the thousand mechanical inventions that have elevated
mankind. But do these things change the principles of the government?
Our fathers, I say, made this government on the principle of the right
of each State to do as it pleases in its own domestic affairs, subject
to the Constitution, and allowed the people of each to apply to every
new change of circumstances such remedy as they may see fit to improve
their condition. This right they have for all time to come.

Mr. Lincoln went on to tell you that he does not at all desire to
interfere with slavery in the States where it exists, nor does his
party. I expected him to say that down here. Let me ask him, then, how
he expects to put slavery in the course of ultimate extinction
everywhere, if he does not intend to interfere with it in the States
where it exists? He says that he will prohibit it in all Territories,
and the inference is, then, that unless they make Free States out of
them he will keep them out of the Union; for, mark you, he did not say
whether or not he would vote to admit Kansas with slavery or not, as her
people might apply (he forgot that, as usual, etc.); he did not say
whether or not he was in favor of bringing the Territories now in
existence into the Union on the principle of Clay’s Compromise Measures
on the slavery question. I told you that he would not. His idea is that
he will prohibit slavery in all the Territories, and thus force them all
to become Free States, surrounding the Slave States with a cordon of
Free States, and hemming them in, keeping the slaves confined to their
present limits whilst they go on multiplying, until the soil on which
they live will no longer feed them, and he will thus be able to put
slavery in a course of ultimate extinction by starvation. He will
extinguish slavery in the Southern States as the French general
exterminated the Algerines when he smoked them out. He is going to
extinguish slavery by surrounding the Slave States, hemming in the
slaves, and starving them out of existence, as you smoke a fox out of
his hole. He intends to do that in the name of humanity and
Christianity, in order that we may get rid of the terrible crime and sin
entailed upon our fathers of holding slaves. Mr. Lincoln makes out that
line of policy, and appeals to the moral sense of justice and to the
Christian feeling of the community to sustain him. He says that any man
who holds to the contrary doctrine is in the position of the king who
claimed to govern by divine right. Let us examine for a moment and see
what principle it was that overthrew the divine right of George the
Third to govern us. Did not these Colonies rebel because the British
Parliament had no right to pass laws concerning our property and
domestic and private institutions without our consent? We demanded that
the British Government should not pass such laws unless they gave us
representation in the body passing them; and this the British Government
insisting on doing, we went to war, on the principle that the Home
Government should not control and govern distant colonies without giving
them a representation. Now, Mr. Lincoln proposes to govern the
Territories without giving them a representation, and calls on Congress
to pass laws controlling their property and domestic concerns without
their consent and against their will. Thus, he asserts for his party the
identical principle asserted by George III. and the Tories of the
Revolution.

I ask you to look into these things and then tell me whether the
Democracy or the Abolitionists are right. I hold that the people of a
Territory, like those of a State (I use the language of Mr. Buchanan in
his Letter of Acceptance), have the right to decide for themselves
whether slavery shall or shall not exist within their limits. The point
upon which Chief Justice Taney expresses his opinion is simply this,
that slaves, being property, stand on an equal footing with other
property, and consequently that the owner has the same right to carry
that property into a Territory that he has any other, subject to the
same conditions. Suppose that one of your merchants was to take fifty or
one hundred thousand dollars’ worth of liquors to Kansas. He has a right
to go there, under that decision; but when he gets there he finds the
Maine liquor law in force, and what can he do with his property after he
gets it there? He cannot sell it, he cannot use it; it is subject to the
local law, and that law is against him, and the best thing he can do
with it is to bring it back into Missouri or Illinois and sell it. If
you take negroes to Kansas, as Colonel Jefferson Davis said in his
Bangor speech, from which I have quoted to-day, you must take them there
subject to the local law. If the people want the institution of slavery,
they will protect and encourage it; but if they do not want it they will
withhold that protection, and the absence of local legislation
protecting slavery excludes it as completely as a positive prohibition.
You slaveholders of Missouri might as well understand what you know
practically, that you cannot carry slavery where the people do not want
it. All you have a right to ask is that the people shall do as they
please: if they want slavery, let them have it; if they do not want it,
allow them to refuse to encourage it.

My friends, if, as I have said before, we will only live up to this
great fundamental principle, there will be peace between the North and
the South. Mr. Lincoln admits that, under the Constitution, on all
domestic questions, except slavery, we ought not to interfere with the
people of each State. What right have we to interfere with the people of
each State? What right have we to interfere with slavery any more than
we have to interfere with any other question? He says that this slavery
question is now the bone of contention. Why? Simply because agitators
have combined in all the Free States to make war upon it. Suppose the
agitators in the States should combine in one half of the Union to make
war upon the railroad system of the other half? They would thus be
driven to the same sectional strife. Suppose one section makes war upon
any other particular institution of the opposite section, and the same
strife is produced. The only remedy and safety is that we shall stand by
the Constitution as our fathers made it, obey the laws as they are
passed, while they stand the proper test, and sustain the decisions of
the Supreme Court and the constituted authorities.

                               APPENDIX B
                  THE LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATE AT ALTON

       (Prepared as an exercise in briefing by a class in written
                             argumentation)

                       _Senator Douglas’s Speech_

Proposition: Vote for Douglas and the Democratic Party

                             _Introduction_

Douglas states that there are three points at issue between Lincoln and
himself:

  1. Whether the Union can exist half slave and half free.

  2. Whether the Supreme Court was in error in the Dred Scott Decision.

  3. Whether the Declaration of Independence included the negroes.

                                _Proof_

Proposition: (Repeated) Vote for Douglas and the Democratic Party,
because

  A. The Republican creed is wrong for the reason that it cannot be
     advocated everywhere, for

      I. Any creed is radically wrong that cannot be proclaimed alike in
         every state in the Union.

  B. Refutation: The argument that this government cannot exist half
     slave and half free is unsound, for

      I. Each state decides upon its own institutions, for

          a. Each state is sovereign.

      II. If the makers of the Constitution had believed Lincoln’s
         doctrine, they would have made a provision establishing
         slavery, for

          a. At that time twelve out of thirteen states were slave
             holding states.

      III. It would be unjust for the Northern states to attack slavery
         in the slave states, for

          a. When the free states were in the minority the slave states
             did not interfere with them.

          b. It would violate the sovereignty of the states which is
             guaranteed them in the Constitution.

  C. Lincoln is undecided about the admission of more slave states, for

      I. He would not answer at Ottawa.

      II. At Freeport he said he would be very sorry to be put in a
         position to decide that question.

      III. He has not answered my question directly, for

          a. His answer depended upon whether slavery had been kept out
             during the state’s whole territorial existence, etc.

      IV. He has not said, and will not say, whether, if elected to
         Congress, he will vote to admit any territory now in existence
         with such a Constitution as her people may provide.

      V. He will not say whether he will redeem our pledge with Texas.

  D. Douglas takes a clear and just stand on these questions, for

      I. He plainly states that he will let the people of any territory
         come into the Union slave or free as they decide.

  E. Douglas has stood by the principles he advocated, for

      I. He opposed the Lecompton Constitution because it did not
         represent the will of the people, for

          a. When it was submitted to the people of Kansas last August
             it was rejected by a vote of ten to one.

      II. He refused to support the English bill, for

          a. He was right and honest in his opposition to the Lecompton
             Constitution.

          b. He believed that whenever Kansas had enough people for a
             slave state she had enough people for a free state but the
             English bill was directly opposed to this principle, for

              1. The bill provided that if Kansas came in as a slave
                 state it would be admitted with a population of 35,000,
                 but if it desired admission as a free state it must
                 have 93,420 inhabitants.

      III. He opposes the attempt on the part of the Executive to
         control the Senate, for

          a. It will lead to despotism.

      IV. He stands on the same platform now that he stood on in 1850,
         1854, and 1856, for

          a. Even the Washington Union admits this.

  F. The principle of letting the people of each state decide for
     themselves about slavery is the right principle, for

      I. It is the principle advocated by our leading statesmen and
         patriots, for

          a. James Buchanan advocates it, for

              1. He said so in his letter of acceptance after he
                 received the Democratic nomination for the Presidency
                 in 1856.

          b. Chief Justice Taney does not deny this principle.

          c. The Honorable Jefferson Davis took the same view in his
             speech at Bangor, Maine.

          d. The Speaker of the House, Mr. Orr, holds the same view.

          e. Alex. H. Stephens puts the same construction upon it that
             Douglas does.

      II. The people believe it is right, for

          a. The people made James Buchanan president on this same
             principle.

      III. It is the principle that can bring peace to the Union, for

          a. If the people of all the states will act on this great
             principle, and each state mind its own business, take care
             of its own negroes, and not meddle with its neighbors,
             there will be no cause for dissension.

                                _Conclusion_

  A. A plea for peace by adopting the principles presented in the proof.

  B. A denunciation of those who seek to turn this public controversy to
     their own personal advantage.

                          MR. LINCOLN’S REPLY

    Proposition: Vote for Lincoln and the Republican party.

                               _Introduction_

  A. Lincoln advises Judge Douglas to continue the war upon the other
     wing of his party.

  B. Douglas should not make too much of Buchanan’s inconsistency
     because he is inconsistent himself, for he once championed the
     Missouri Compromise but now he opposes it.

                                _Proof_

Proposition: (Repeated) Vote for Lincoln and the Republican party,
because

  A. Refutation: The statement that I have complained that the Supreme
     Court in the Dred Scott case had decided that a negro could never
     be a citizen of the United States is untrue, for

      I. No such idea can be found in my speech.

      II. The truth is that I mentioned the Dred Scott Decision only as
         part of a conspiracy to make slavery national.

  B. Douglas misrepresents my position on the Declaration of
     Independence, for

      I. He has garbled my Chicago speech, for

          a. He omitted between two quotations four sentences necessary
             to my meaning.

      II. Douglas has taken no notice of an extract from my Springfield
         speech in which my views are clearly expressed.

      III. My position is the same as that of Henry Clay, for

          a. Clay declared the Declaration as an abstract principle is
             true and the new proposition of the Dred Scott Decision is
             intended to make the negro nothing but property in all the
             states.

          b. Refutation: The statement that Henry Clay held that the
             negro was not included in the Declaration of Independence
             is untrue, for

              1. He never expressed this belief.

              2. The speech referred to in the Chicago Times as showing
                 that this was Mr. Clay’s view shows precisely the
                 opposite view, for

                  (a) He says that it is true as an abstract principle
                     that all men are created equal, but that we cannot
                     practically apply it in all cases.

  C. Lincoln still says that the proposition that “A house divided
     against itself cannot stand” is true, for

      I. The agitation over slavery will not cease, for

          a. Douglas’ Kansas-Nebraska bill has stirred up the whole
             discussion again, for

              1. Although the Kansas-Nebraska bill was declared to be
                 the end it has stirred up strife in the last Congress
                 and throughout the entire country.

          b. In its pretense to confer local self-government the
             Kansas-Nebraska bill proved to be a lie.

      II. The framers of the Constitution hoped to put slavery in a
         course of extinction, for

          a. They provided that the slave trade should cease after
             twenty years.

          b. The Constitution does not contain the words “slavery” or
             “negro race,” for

              1. Its framers thought slavery a temporary thing.

              2. Fugitive slaves are not mentioned.

              3. The representation clause avoids using these words.

      III. Refutation: The statement that the framers of the
         Constitution introduced slavery is not true, for

          a. They found it but marked it with their disapproval.

      IV. Lincoln wishes to return to the policy of the framers of the
         Constitution, for

          a. Refutation: The charge that the Constitution has stirred up
             this agitation over slavery is false, for

              1. The agitation has been stirred up by Judge Douglas and
                 his friends.

          b. Other local laws have not caused strife, for

              1. The cranberry laws of Indiana caused no strife.

              2. The oyster laws of Virginia have not caused strife.

          c. The slave traffic has caused trouble whenever it has
             attempted to extend itself, for

              1. The Missouri Compromise and the Annexation of Texas
                 prove this.

              2. Slavery has divided political parties and churches.

  D. The real issue between Lincoln and Douglas is not as to states, it
     is whether Congress shall exclude slavery from the territories
     while in a territorial condition, for

      I. I agree with Douglas that the states have a right to determine
         for themselves about slavery.

      II. I differ from Douglas as to the right of the people to take
         slaves into the territories of the United States, for

          a. We must preserve the territories for free white people the
             world over.

  E. Fundamentally this controversy means that the Republicans believe
     slavery to be wrong and the Democrats believe it to be right, for

      I. The Republicans insist that slavery shall grow no larger.

      II. The Democrats never treat slavery as wrong, for

          a. When the proposition to abolish slavery in Missouri failed
             the Democrats rejoiced.

          b. Douglas, unlike Clay, does not care whether slavery is
             voted up or down.

          c. Douglas looks to no end of the institution of slavery.

          d. Douglas has been the most prominent instrument in placing
             slavery upon “Brooks’ cotton-gin basis” where he openly
             confesses he has no desire to see it ended.

  F. Judge Douglas’ position on the Dred Scott Decision is a doctrine of
     lawlessness, for

      I. Before the Dred Scott decision Douglas said constantly, that
         whether or not the people of the territories could exclude
         slavery was a question for the Supreme Court to decide. Now he
         says it is not a question for the Supreme Court, but for the
         people.

      II. Douglas’s doctrine of local police regulation is contrary to
         the Constitution, for

          a. The territories cannot withhold the legislation which a man
             needs for the enjoyment of a right fixed in his favor by
             the Constitution.

      III. If such a right as Judge Douglas holds to be a right really
         exists then the fugitive slave law can be made of no effect by
         the same kind of action.

                        MR. DOUGLAS’S REJOINDER

Proposition: Vote for Douglas and the Democratic party, because

  A. Mr. Lincoln’s tendency is toward abolitionism.

  B. Lincoln’s course in Congress with reference to the Mexican War was
     unpatriotic, for

      I. He voted that it was unnecessary, unconstitutional, and unjust,
         after it had been begun.

  C. Refutation: Lincoln’s claim to be an old line Clay Whig is false,
     for

      I. In a caucus in 1847 Lincoln wanted to throw Henry Clay
         overboard and take up General Taylor in his place.

      II. Lincoln was the bitter enemy of Clay in the National
         Convention at Philadelphia.

      III. Singleton says that Lincoln rejoiced greatly at Clay’s
         defeat.

      IV. Lincoln never supported any of Clay’s policies, for

          a. Lincoln voted forty-two times for the Wilmot Proviso,
             whereas Clay opposed it.

  D. Refutation: Lincoln’s statement that the slavery question is the
     only thing that ever threatened the Union is false, for

      I. Nullification threatened the Union in 1832.

      II. In 1813 the Hartford Convention threatened the Union.

  E. The fathers made this government divided into free and slave
     states, recognizing the right of each to decide all its local
     questions for itself, for

      I. They did not abolish or establish slavery in any of the states.

      II. Refutation: The statement that conditions have changed does
         not affect the question, for

          a. Changed conditions do not change the principles of the
             government.

  F. Lincoln advocates the identical principle asserted by George III
     and the Tories of the Revolution, for

      I. He wants Congress to pass laws controlling the property and
         domestic concerns of the people in the territories, without
         their consent and against their will.

  G. Douglas’s principle of local option on the slavery question is
     sufficient to preserve peace, for

      I. It preserves peace on all other local questions.

                              _Conclusion_

The only remedy and safety is that we stand by the Constitution as our
fathers made it, obey the laws as they are passed, while they stand the
proper test, and sustain the decisions of the Supreme Court and the
constituted authorities.

                               APPENDIX C
                 LINCOLN’S ADDRESS AT COOPER INSTITUTE

                          [FEBRUARY 27, 1860]

MR. PRESIDENT AND FELLOW-CITIZENS OF NEW YORK: The facts with which I
shall deal this evening are mainly old and familiar; nor is there
anything new in the general use I shall make of them. If there shall be
any novelty, it will be in the mode of presenting the facts, and the
inferences and observations following that presentation. In his speech
last Autumn at Columbus, Ohio, as reported in the New York “Times,”
Senator Douglas said:

“Our fathers, when they framed the government under which we live,
understood this question just as well, and even better, than we do now.”

I fully indorse this, and I adopt it as a text for this discourse. I so
adopt it because it furnishes a precise and an agreed starting-point for
a discussion between Republicans and that wing of the Democracy headed
by Senator Douglas. It simply leaves the inquiry: What was the
understanding those fathers had of the question mentioned?

What is the frame of government under which we live? The answer must be,
“The Constitution of the United States.” That Constitution consists of
the original, framed in 1787, and under which the present government
first went into operation, and twelve subsequently framed amendments,
the first ten of which were framed in 1789.

Who were our fathers that framed the Constitution? I suppose the
“thirty-nine” who signed the original instrument may be fairly called
our fathers who framed that part of the present government. It is almost
exactly true to say they framed it, and it is altogether true to say
they fairly represented the opinion and sentiment of the whole nation at
that time. Their names, being familiar to nearly all, and accessible to
quite all, need not now be repeated.

I take these “thirty-nine,” for the present, as being “our fathers who
framed the government under which we live.” What is the question which,
according to the text, those fathers understood “just as well, and even
better, than we do now”?

It is this: Does the proper division of local from Federal authority, or
anything in the Constitution, _forbid_ our Federal Government to control
as to slavery in our Federal Territories?

Upon this, Senator Douglas holds the affirmative, and Republicans the
negative. This affirmation and denial form an issue; and this issue—this
question—is precisely what the text declares our fathers understood
“better than we”. Let us now inquire whether the “thirty-nine,” or any
of them, ever acted upon this question; and if they did, how they acted
upon it—_how they expressed that better understanding_. In 1784, three
years before the Constitution, the United States then owning the
Northwestern Territory, and no other, the Congress of the Confederation
had before them the question of prohibiting slavery in that Territory,
and four of the “thirty-nine” who afterward framed the Constitution were
in that Congress, and voted on that question. Of these, Roger Sherman,
Thomas Mifflin, and Hugh Williamson voted for the prohibition, thus
showing that, in their understanding, no line dividing local from
Federal authority, nor anything else, properly forbade the Federal
Government to control as to slavery in Federal territory. The other of
the four, James McHenry, voted against the prohibition, showing that for
some cause he thought it improper to vote for it.

In 1787, still before the Constitution, but while the convention was in
session framing it, and while the Northwestern Territory still was the
only Territory owned by the United States, the same question of
prohibiting slavery in the Territory again came before the Congress of
the Confederation; and two more of the “thirty-nine” who afterward
signed the Constitution were in that Congress, and voted on the