^0 0° " " ^^0^ ^- v^ .,-/K'J-:, -■V^v . V ^ ^* "^ ^ - -^ - ,^°% -s . .Too y^ "o^^-^ / %' political ^cbatce BETWEEN ABRAHAM I^INCOLN M^-J^ AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS In the Celebrated Campaign of 1858 in Illinois; including the preceding speeches of each at Chicago, Springfield, etc. ALSO, THE TWO GREAT SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN IN OHIO IN 1859, AND A COMPLETE INDEX TO THE WHOLE. ®. S. Ibubbell 8. Company, Cleveland, Ohio. 1895. 60695 CONTENTS. Speech of Lincolx, at Springfield, June 17, 1858, - - - - ,. » AT Chicago, July 10, 1858, - - - " », »i AT Springfield, July 17, 1858, - - - - .. a AT Columbus, Ohio, September, 1859, - .. .< AT CiNCIXNATI, OhIO, SEPTEMBER, 1859, Speech of Douglas, AT Chicago, July 9, 1858, a 4' AT Bloomington, July 10, 1858, - - - - a .( AT Springfield, July 17,1858, - - - - Correspondence between Lincoln and Douglas, preliminary to the Debates, First Joint Debate, at Ottawa, August 21, 1858, - - Douglas's Opening Speech, - - Lincoln's Reply, Douglas's Rejoinder, Second Joint Debate, at Freeport, August 27, 1858, Lincoln's Opening Speech, Douglas's Reply, Lincoln's Rejoinder, Third Joint Debate, at Jonesboro, Sept. 15, 1858, - - - - Douglas's Speech, ----"'' Lincoln's Reply, ---■"'" Douglas's Rejoinder, Fourth Joint Debate, at Charleston, Sept. 18, 1858, - Lincoln's Speech, Douglas's Reply, Lincoln's Rejoinder, ---"'' Extract from Trumbull's Speech at Alton, Extract from Douglas's Speech at Jacksonville, Page. 1 20 81 303 386 8 36 60 101 101 111 127 133 133 142 161 167 167 180 199 207 207 219 238 245 251 ^'^ CONTENTS. Fifth Joint Debate, at Galesburgh, Oct. 7, 1858, - Douglas's Speech, Lincoln's Reply, - - Douglas's Rejoinder, Sixth Joint Debate, at Quincy, Oct. 13, 1858, Lincoln's Speech, Douglas's Reply, Lincoln's Rejoinder, Seventh and Last Joint Debate, at Alton, Oct. 15, 1858, Douglas's Speech, ----... Lincoln's Reply, ---.... Douglas's Rejoinder, ...... 257 257 268 284 290 290 301 318 325 325 338 357 POLITICAL DEBATES BETWEEN LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS. SPEECH OF HON. ABRAHAM LINCOLN, At Springfield, June 17, 1858. [The following speech was delivered at Springfield, 111., at the close of the Republican State Convention held at that time and place, and by which Convention Mr. Lincoln had been named as their candidate for United States Senator. Mr. Douglas was not present.] Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Convention : If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could better judge what to do, and how to do it. 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 slavery agita- tion. Under the operation of that 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 Union to be dissolved ; 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 ulti- mate 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. Have we no tendency to the latter condition? Let any one who doubts, carefully contemplate that now almost complete legal combination — piece of machinery, so to speak — compounded of the Nebraska doctrine and the Dred Scott decision. Let him consider, not only what work the machinery 2 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LIN'COLN is adapted to do, and how well adapted, but also let him study the history of its construction, and trace, if he can, or rather fail, if he can, to trace the evidences of design, and concert of action, among its chief architects, from the beginning. The new year of 1854 found slavery excluded from more than half the States by State Constitutions, and from most of the National territory by Congressional prohibition. Four days later, commenced the struggle which ended in repealing that Congressional prohibition. This opened all the National ter- ritory to slavery, and was the first point gained. But, so far. Congress only had acted, and an indorsement by the people, real or apparent, was indispensable to save the point already gained, and give chance for more. This necessity had not been overlooked, but had been pro- vided for, as well as might be, in the notable argument of "squatter sovereignty," otherwise called " sacred right of self-govern- ment," which latter phrase, though expressive of the only rightful basis of any government, was so perverted in this attempted use of it as to amount to just this : That if any one man choose to enslave another, no third man shall be allowed to object. That argument was incorporated into the Nebraska bill itself, in the language which follows : "It being the true intent and meaning of this Act not to legislate slavery into any Ter- ritory or State, nor to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to the Constitution of the United States." Then opened the roar of loose declama- tion in favor of "squatter sovereignty," and "sacred right of self-government. " " But," said opposition members, " let us amend the bill so as to expressly declare that the people of the Territory may exclude slavery." " Not we, " said the friends of the measure ; and down they voted the amendment. While the Nebraska bill was passing through Congress, a law case, involving the question of a negro's freedom, by reason of his owner having voluntarily taken him first into a free State, and then into a territory covered by the Congressional prohibi- tion, and held him as a slave for a long time in each, was pass- ing through the United States Circuit Court for the District of Missouri ; and both Nebraska bill and lawsuit were brought to a decision in the same month of Ma}', 1854. The negro's name was " Dred Scott," which name now designates the decision finally made in the case. Before the then next Presidential elec- tion, the law case came to, and was argued in, the Supreme Court of the United States ; but the decision of it was deferred until after the election. Still, before the election. Senator Trumbull, on the floor of the Senate, requested the leading advocate of the Nebraska bill to state his opinion whether the AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 6 people of a Territory can constitutionally exclude slavery from their limits ; and the latter answers : " That is a question for the Supreme Court." The election came. Mr. Buchanan was elected, and the indorsement, such as it was, secured. That was the second point gained. The indorsement, however, fell short of a clear popular majority b}" nearl}^ four hundred thousand votes, and so, perhaps, was not overwhelmingly reliable and satisfactory. The outgoing President, in his last annual message, as impressively as possible echoed back upon the people the weight and authority of the indorsement. The Supreme Court met again, did not announce their decision, but ordered a re-argument. The Presi- dential inauguration came, and still no decision of the court ; but the incoming President, in his inaugural address, fervently ex- horted the people to abide by the forthcoming decision, whatever it might be. Then, in a few days, came the decision. The reputed author of the Nebraska bill finds an early occasion to make a speech at this capital indorsing the Dred Scott decision, and vehemently denouncing all opposition to it. The new President, too, seizes the early occasion of the Silliman letter to indorse and strongly construe that decision, and to express his astonishment that any different view had ever been entertained ! At length a squabble springs up between the President and the author of the Nebraska bill, on the mere question oi fact, whether the Lecompton Constitution was or was not in any just sense made by the people of Kansas ; and in that quarrel the latter declares that all he wants is a fair vote for the people, and that he cares not whether slavery be voted down or voted uf. I do not understand his declaration, that he cares not whether slavery be voted down or voted up, to be intended by him other than as an apt definition of the polic}^ he would impress upon the public mind, — the principle for which he declares he has suffered so much, and is ready to suffer to the end. And well may he cling to that principle ! If he has any parental feeling, well may he cling to it. That principle is the only shred left of his original Nebraska doctrine. Under the Dred Scott decision "squatter sovereignty" squatted out of existence, tumbled down like tem- porary scaffolding ; like the mould at the foundry, served through one blast, and fell back into loose sand ; helped to carry an election, and then was kicked to the winds. His late joint struggle with the Republicans, against the Lecompton Constitu- tion, involves nothing of the original Nebraska doctrine. That struggle was made on a point — the right of a people to make their own constitution — upon which he and the Republicans have never differed. The several points of the Dred Scott decision, in connection with Senator Douglas's "care not" policy, constitute the piece 4 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN of machinery, in its present state of advancement. This was the third point gained. The working points of that machinery are : — Firstly, That no negro slave, imported as such from Africa, and no descendant of such slave, can ever be a citizen of any State, in the sense of that term as used in the Constitution of the United States. This point is made in order to deprive the negro, in every possible event, of the benefit of that provision of the United States Constitution which declares that " The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States." Secondly, That, " subject to the Constitution of the United States," neither Congress nor a Territorial Legislature can exclude slavery from any United States Territory. This point is made in order that individual men may fill up the Territories with slaves, without danger of losing them as property, and thus to enhance the chances of permanency to the institution through all the future. Thirdly, That whether the holding a negro in actual slavery in a free State, makes him free, as against the holder, the United States courts will not decide, but will leave to be decided by the courts of any slave State the negro may be forced into by the master. This point is made, not to be pressed immediately ; but, if acquiesced in for awhile, and apparently indorsed by the people at an election, then to sustain the logical conclusion that what Dred Scott's master might lawfully do with Dred Scott in the free State of Illinois, every other master may lawfully do with any other one, or one thousand slaves, in Illinois, or in any other free State. Auxiliary to all this, and working hand in hand with it, the Nebraska doctrine, or what is left of it, is to educate and mould public opinion, at least Northern public opinion, not to care whether slavery is voted down or voted up. This shows exactly where we now are ; and partially, also, whither we are tending. It will throw additional light on the latter, to go back and run the mind over the string of historical facts already stated. Several things will now appear less dark and mysterious than they did when they were transpiring. The people were to be left "perfectly free," "subject only to the Constitution." What the Constitution had to do with it, outsiders could not then see. Plainly enough now, it was an exactly fitted niche, for the Dred Scott decision to afterward come in, and declare the perfect free- dom of the people to be just no freedom at all. Why was the amendment, expressly declaring the right of the people, voted down? Plainly enough now, — the adoption of it would have spoiled the niche for the Dred 'Scott decision. Why was the court decision held up? Why even a Senator's individual opinion withheld, till after the Presidential election? Plainly AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 5 enough now : the speaking out then would have damaged the perfectly free argument upon which the election was to be carried. Why the outgoing President's felicitation on the indorsement? Why the delay of a re-argument? Why the incoming President's advance exhortation in favor of the de- cision? These things look like the cautious patting and petting of a spirited horse preparatory to mounting him, when it is dreaded that he may give the rider a fall. And why the hasty after-indorsement of the decision by the President and others? We cannot absolutely know that all these exact adaptations are the result of preconcert. But when we see a lot of framed timbers, different portions of which we know have been gotten out at different times and places and by different workmen, — Stephen, Franklin, Roger and James, for instance, — and when we see these timbers joined together, and see they exactly make the frame of a house or a mill, all the tenons and mortises exactly fitting, and all the lengths and proportions of the different pieces exactly adapted to their respective places, and not a piece too many or too few, — not omitting even scaffolding, — or, if a single piece be lacking, we see the place in the frame exactly fitted and prepared yet to bring such piece in, — in such a case, we find it impossible not to believe that Stephen and Franklin and Roger and James all understood one another from the beginning, and all worked upon a common plan or draft drawn up before the first blow was struck. It should not be overlooked that by the Nebraska bill the people of a State as well as Territory were to be left "per- fectly free," " subject only to the Constitution." Why mention a State? They were legislating for Territories, and not for or about States. Certainly the people of a State are and ought to be subject to the Constitution of the United States ; but why is mention of this lugged into this merely Territorial law? Why are the people of a Territory and the people of a State therein lumped together, and their relation to the Constitution therein treated as being precisely the same? While the opinion of the court, b}^ Chief Justice Taney, in the Dred Scott case, and the separate opinions of *1 the concurring Judges, expressly declare that the Constitution of the United States neither permits Congress nor a Territorial Legislature to exclude slavery from any United States Territory, they all omit to declare whether or not the same Constitution permits a State, or the people of a State, to exclude it. Possibly, this is a mere omission ; but who can be quite sure, if McLean or Curtis had sought to get into the opinion a declaration of unlimited power in the people of a State to exclude slavery from their limits, just as Chase and Mace sought to get such declaration, in behalf of the people of a Territory, into the Nebraska bill, — I ask, who can be quite sure 6 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN that it would not have been voted down in the one case as it had been in the other? The nearest approach to the point of declar- ing the power of a State over slavery, is made by Judge Nelson. He approaches it more than once, using the precise idea, and almost the language, too, of the Nebraska Act. On one occasion, his exact language is, " Except in cases where the power is restrained by the Constitution of the United States, the law of the State is supreme over the subject of slavery within its juris- diction." In what cases the power of the States is so restrained by the United States Constitution, is left an open question, precisely as the same question, as to the restraint on the power of the Territories, was left open in the Nebraska Act. Put this and that together, and we have another nice little niche, which we may, ere long, see filled with another Supreme Court decision, declaring that the Constitution of the United States does not permit a State to exclude slavery from its limits. And this may especially be expected if the doctrine of "care not whether slavery be voted down or voted up " shall gain upon the public mind sufficiently to give promise that such a decision can be main- tained when made. Such a decision is all that slavery now lacks of being alike lawful in all the States. Welcome or unwelcome, such decision is probably coming, and will soon be upon us, unless the power of the present political d3'-nasty shall be met and overthrown. We shall lie down pleasantly dreaming that the people of Missouri are on the verge of making their State free, and we shall awake to the reality instead that the Supreme Court has made Illinois a slave State. To meet and overthrow the power of that dynasty is the work now before all those who would prevent that consum- mation. That is what we have to do. How can we best do it? There are those who denounce us openl}'^ to their own friends, and yet whisper us softly that Senator Douglas is the aptest instrument there is with which to effect that object. They wish us to infer all, from the fact that he now has a little quarrel with the present head of the dynasty, and that he has regularl}^ voted with us on a single point, upon which he and we have never differed. They remind us that he is a great man, and that the largest of us are very small ones. Let this be granted. But " a living dog is better than a dead lion." Judge Douglas, if not a dead lion, for this work is at least a caged and toothless one. How can he oppose the advances of slavery? He don't care anything about it. His avowed mission is impressing the " public heart" to care nothing about it. A leading Douglas Democratic newspaper thinks Douglas's superior talent will be needed to resist the revival of the African slave trade. Does Douglas believe an effort to revive that trade is approaching? He has not said so. Does he really think so? But if it is, how can he AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 7 resist it? For 3'ears he has labored to prove it a sacred right of white men to take negro slaves into the new Territories. Can he possibly show that it is less a sacred right to buy them where they can be bought cheapest? And unquestionably they can be bought cheaper in Africa than in Virginia. He has done all in his power to reduce the whole question of slavery to one of a mere right of property ; and, as such, how can he oppose the foreign slave trade, — how can he refuse that trade in that " prop- erty " shall be " perfectly free," — unless he does it as a protection to the home production? And as the home producers will prob- ably not ask the protection, he will be wholly without a ground of opposition. Senator Douglas holds, we know, that a man may rightfully be wiser to-day than he was yesterday ; that he may rightfully change when he finds himself wrong. But can we, for that reason, run ahead, and infer that he will make any particular change, of which he himself has given no intimation? Can we safely base our action upon any such vague inference? Now, as ever, I wish not to misrepresent Judge Douglas's position, question his motives, or do aught that can be personally offensive to him. Whenever, if ever, he and we can come together on principle so that our cause may have assistance from his great abilitv, I hope to have interposed no adventitious obstacle. But clearly he is not now with us ; he does not pretend to be, — he does not promise ever to be. Our cause, then, must be intrusted to, and conducted by, its own undoubted friends, — those whose hands are free, whose hearts are in the work, who do care for the result. Two vears ago the Republicans of the nation mustered over thirteen hundred thousand strong. We did this under the single impulse of resist- ance to a common danger, with every external circumstance against us. Of strange, discordant, and even hostile elements we gathered from the four winds, and formed and fought the battle through, under the constant hot fire of a disciplined, proud, and pampered enem}'. Did we brave all then, to falter now, — now, when that same enemy is wavering, dissevered, and belligerent? The result is not doubtful. We shall not fail ; if we stand firm, we shall not Jail. Wise counsels may accelerate, or mistakes delay it, but, sooner or later, the victory is sure to come. DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN SPEECH OF SENATOR DOUGLAS, On the Occasion of his Public Reception at Chicago, Friday Evening, July 9th, 1858. (Mr. Lincoln was present.) Mr. Douglas said, — Mr. Chairman and Fellow-Citizens : I can find no lan- guage which can adequately express my profound gratitude for the magnificent welcome which you have extended to me on this occasion. This vast sea of human faces indicates how deep an interest is felt by our people in the great questions which agitate the public mind, and which underlie the foundations of our free institutions. A reception like this, so great in numbers that no human voice can be heard to its countless thousands, — so enthu- siastic that no one individual can be the object of such enthusi- asm, — clearly shows that there is some great principle which sinks deep in the heart of the masses, and involves the rights and the liberties of a whole people, that has brought you together with a unanimity and a cordiality never before excelled, if, indeed, equaled, on any occasion. I have not the vanity to believe that it is any personal compliment to me. It is an expression of your devotion to that great principle of self-government, to which my life for many years past has been, and in the future will be, devoted. If there is any one principle dearer and more sacred than all others in free govern- ments, it is that which asserts the exclusive right of a free people to form and adopt their own fundamental law, and to manage and regulate their own internal affairs and domestic institutions. When I found an effort being made during the recent session of Congress to force a constitution upon the people of Kansas against their will, and to force that State into the Union with a constitution which her people had rejected by more than ten thousand, I felt bound as a man of honor and a representative of Illinois, bound by every consideration of duty, of fidelity, and' of patriotism, to resist to the utmost of m}^ power the consumma- tion of that fraud. With others, I did resist it, and resisted it successfully until the attempt was abandoned. We forced them to refer that constitution back to the people of Kansas, to be accepted or rejected as they shall decide at an election which is fixed for the first Monda}'- in August next. It is true that the mode of reference, and the form of the submission, was not such as I could sanction with my vote, for the reason that it discrimi- nated between Free States and Slave States ; providing that if Kansas consented to come in under the Lecompton Constitution it should be received with a population of thirty-five thousand ; but that if she demanded another constitution, more consistent with the sentiments of her people and their feelings, that it should AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 9 not be received into the Union until she has 93,420 inhabitants. I did not consider that mode of submission fair, for the reason that any election is a mockery which is not free, that an}' election is a fraud upon the rights of the people which holds out induce- ments for affirmative votes, and threatens penalties for negative votes. But whilst I was not satisfied with the mode of submission, whilst I resisted it to the last, demanding a fair, a just, a free mode of submission, still, when the law passed placing it within the power of the people of Kansas at that election to reject the Lecompton Constitution, and then make another in harmony with their principles and their opinions, I did not believe that either the penalties on the one hand, or the inducements on the other, would force that people to accept a constitution to which they are irreconcilably opposed. All I can say is, that if their votes can be controlled by such considerations, all the sympathy which has been expended upon them has been misplaced, and all the efforts that have been made in defence of their right to self- government have been made in an unworthy cause. Hence, my friends, I regard the Lecompton battle as having been fought, and the victory won, because the arrogant demand for the admission of Kansas under the Lecompton Constitution unconditionally, whether her people wanted it or not, has been abandoned, and the principle which recognizes the right of the people to decide for themselves has been submitted in its place. Fellow-citizens, while I devoted my best energies — all m}'- energies, mental and physical — to the vindication of the great principle, and whilst the result has been such as will enable the people of Kansas to come into the Union with such a constitution as the}'- desire, yet the credit of this great moral victory is to be divided among a large number of men of various and different political creeds. I was rejoiced when I found in this great contest the Republican party coming up manfully and sustaining the principle that the people of each Territory, when coming into the Union, have the right to decide for themselves whether slavery shall or shall not exist within their limits. I have seen the time when that principle was controverted. I have seen the time when all parties did not recognize the right of a people to have slavery or freedom, to tolerate or prohibit slavery as they deemed best, but claimed that power for the Congress of the United States, regardless of the wishes of the people to be affected by it ; and when I found upon the Crittenden-Montgomery bill the Republi- cans and Americans of the North, and I may say, too, some glorious Americans and old-line Whigs from the South, like Crittenden and his patriotic associates, joined with a portion of the Democracy to carry out and vindicate the right of the people to decide whether slavery should or should not exist within the limits of Kansas, I was rejoiced within my secret soul, for I saw 10 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN an indication that the American people, when they come to understand the principle, would give it their cordial support. The Crittenden-Montgomery bill was as fair and as perfect an exposition of the doctrine of popular sovereignty as could be carried out by any bill that man ever devised. It proposed to refer the Lecompton Constitution back to the people of Kansas, and give them the right to accept or reject it as they pleased, at a fair election, held in pursuance of law, and in the event of their rejecting it, and forming another in its stead, to permit them to come into the Union on an equal footing with the original States. It was fair and just in all of its provisions. I gave it my cordial support, and was rejoiced when I found that it passed the House of Representatives, and at one time I entertained high hope that it would pass the Senate. I regard the great principle of popular sovereignty as having been vindicated and made triumphant in this land as a permanent rule of public policy in the organization of Territories and the admission of new States. Illinois took her position upon this principle many j^ears ago. You all recollect that in 1850, after the passage of the Compromise measures of that year, when I returned to my home there was great dissatisfaction expressed at my course in supporting those measures. I appeared before the people of Chicago at a mass meeting, and vindicated each and every one of those measures ; and by reference to my speech on that occasion, which was printed and circulated broadcast throughout the State at the time, you will find that I then and there said that those measures were all founded upon the great principle that every people ought to possess the right to form and regulate their own domestic institutions in their own way, and that that right being possessed by the people of the States, I saw no reason why the same principle should not be extended to all of the Territories of the United States. A general election was held in this State a few months afterward, for members of the Legislature, pending which all these questions were thoroughly canvassed and discussed, and the nominees of the different parties instructed in regard to the wishes of their constituents upon them. When that election was over, and the Legislature assembled, they proceeded to consider the merits of those Com- promise measures, and the principles upon which they were predicated. And what was the result of their action? They passed resolutions, first repealing the Wilmot Proviso instructions, and in lieu thereof adopted another resolution, in which they declared the great principle which asserts the right of the people to make their own form of government and establish their own institutions. That resolution is as follows : — Resolved^ That our liberty and independence are based upon the right of the people to form for themselves such a government as they AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 11 may choose; that this great principle, the birthright of freemen, the gift of Heaven, secured to us by the blood of our ancestors, ought to be secured to future generations, and no~limitation ought to be applied to this power in the organization of any Territory of the United States, of either Territorial Government or State Constitution, provided the Government so established shall be Republican, and in conformity vv^ith the Constitution of the United States. That resolution, declaring the great principle of self-govern- ment as applicable to the Territories and new States, passed the House of Representatives of this State by a vote of sixty-one in the affirmative, to only four in the negative. Thus you find that an expression of public opinion — enlightened, educated, intelligent public opinion — on this question, by the representatives of Illinois in 1851, approaches nearer to unanimity than has ever been obtained on any controverted question. That resolution was entered on the journal of the Legislature of the State of Illinois, and it has remained there from that day to this, a standing instruction to her Senators, and a request to her Representatives, in Congress to carry out that principle in all future cases. Illinois, therefore, stands pre-eminent as the State which stepped forward early and established a platform applicable to this slavery question, concurred in alike by Whigs and Democrats, in which it was declared to be the wish of our people that thereafter the people of the Territories should be left perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, and that no limitation should be placed upon that right in an}^ form. Hence what was my duty in 1854, when it became necessary to bring forward a bill for the organization of the Territories of Kansas and Nebraska? Was it not my duty, in obedience to the Illinois platform, to your standing instructions to 3^our Senators, adopted with almost entire unanimity, to incorporate in that bill the great principle of self-government, declaring that it was " the true intent and meaning of the Act not to legislate slavery into any State or Territory, or to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to the Constitution of the United States?" I did incorporate that principle in the Kansas-Nebraska bill, and perhaps I did as much as any living man in the enactment of that bill, thus establishing the doctrine in the public policy of the country. I then defended that principle against assaults from one section of the Union. During this last winter it became my duty to vindicate it against assaults from the other section of the Union. I vindicated it boldly and fearlessly, as the people of Chicago can bear witness, when it was assailed by Free-soilers ; and during this winter I vindicated and defended it as boldl}^ and fearlessly when it was attempted to be violated by the almost united South. I pledged 12 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN myself to you on every stump in Illinois in 1854, 1 pledged myself to the people of other States, North and South, wherever I spoke ; and in the United States Senate and elsewhere, in every form in which I could reach the public mind or the public ear, I gave the pledge that I, so far as the power should be in my hands, would vin- dicate the principle of the right of the people to form their own insti- tutions, to establish Free States or Slave States as they chose, and that that principle should never be violated either by fraud, by violence, by circumvention, or by any other means, if it was in my power to prevent it. I now submit to you, my fellow-citizens, whether I have not redeemed that pledge in good faith. Yes, my friends, I have redeemed it in good faith ; and it is a matter of heartfelt gratification to me to see these assembled thousands here to-night bearing their testimony to the fidelity with which I have advocated that principle, and redeemed my pledges in connection with it. I will be entirely frank with you. My object was to secure the right of the people of each State and of each Territory, North or South, to decide the question for themselves, to have slavery or not, just as the}' chose ; and my opposition to the Lecompton Constitution was not predicated upon the ground that it was a pro-slavery constitution, nor would my action have been different had it been a Free-soil constitution. My speech against the Lecompton fraud was made on the 9th of December, while the vote on the slavery clause in that Constitution was not taken until the 21st of the same month, nearly two weeks after. I made my speech against the Lecompton monstrosity solely on the ground that it was a violation of the fundamental principles of free government ; on the ground that it was not the act and deed of the people of Kansas ; that it did not embody their will ; that they were averse to it ; and hence I denied the right of Congress to force it upon them, either as a Free State or a Slave State. I deny the right of Congress to force a slaveholding State upon an unwilling people. I deny their right to force a Free State upon an unwilling people. I deny their right to force a good thing upon a people who are unwilling to receive it. The great principle is the right of every community to judge and decide for itself whether a thing is right or wrong, whether it would be good or evil for them to adopt it ; and the right of free action, the right of free thought, the right of free judgment, upon the question is dearer to every ti*ue American than any other under a free government. My objection to the Lecompton contrivance was, that it undertook to put a constitution on the people of Kansas against their will, in opposition to their wishes, and thus violated the great principle upon which all our institu- tions rest. It is no answer to this argument to say that slavery is an evil, and hence should not be tolerated. You must allow AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 13 the people to decide for themselves whether it is a good or an evil. You allow them to decide for themselves whether they desire a Maine liquor law or not ; you allow them to decide for themselves what kind of common schools they will have, what system of banking they will adopt, or whether they will adopt an}- at all ; you allow them to decide for themselves the relations between husband and wife, parent and child, guardian and ward, — in fact, you allow them to decide for themselves all other questions ; and why not upon this question ? Whenever you put a limitation upon the right of any people to decide what laws they want, you have destroyed the fundamental principle of self-government. In connection with this subject, perhaps, it will not be im- proper for me on this occasion to allude to the position of those who have chosen to arraign my conduct on this same subject. I have observed from the public prints that but a few days ago the Republican party of the State of Illinois assembled in Convention at Springfield, and not only laid down their platform, but nominated a candidate for the United States Senate, as my successor. I take great pleasure in saying that I have known, personally and intimately, for about a quarter of a century, the worthy gentleman who has been nominated for my place, and I will say that I regard him as a kind, amiable, and intelligent gentleman, a good citizen and an honorable opponent ; and what- ever issue I may have with him will be of principle, and not involving personalities. Mr. Lincoln made a speech before that Republican Convention which unanimously nominated him for the Senate, — a speech evidently well prepared and carefully written, — in which he states the basis upon which he proposes to carry on the campaign during this summer. In it he lays down two distinct propositions which I shall notice, and upon which I shall take a direct and bold issue with him. His first and main proposition I will give in his own language, scripture quotations and all [laughter] ; I give his exact language: '"A house divided against itself cannot stand.' I believe this government cannot endure, permanently, half slave and \\?\ifree. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved^ I do not expect the house \.o fall ; but I do expect it to cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other." In other words, Mr. Lincoln asserts, as a fundamental principle of this government, that there must be uniformity in the local laws and domestic institutions of each and all tlie States of the Union ; and he therefore invites all the non-slaveholding States to band together, organize as one body, and make war upon slavery in Kentucky, upon slavery in Virginia, upon the Carolinas, upon slavery in all of the slaveholding States in this Union, and to persevere in that war until it shall be exterminated. 14 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN He then notifies the slaveholding States to stand together as a unit and make an aggressive . war upon the Free States of this Union with a view of establishing slavery in them all ; of forcing it upon Illinois, of forcing it upon New York, upon New England, and upon every other Free State, and that they shall keep up the warfare until it has been formally established in them all. In other words, Mr. Lincoln advocates boldly and clearly a war of sections, a war of the North against the South, of the Free States against the Slave States, — a war of extermination, — to be continued relentlessly until the one or the other shall be subdued, and all the States shall either become free or become slave. Now, my friends, I must say to you frankly that I take bold, unqualified issue with him upon that principle. I assert that it is neither desirable nor possible that there should be uniformity in the local institutions and domestic regulations of the different States of this Union. The framers of our government never con- templated uniformity in its internal concerns. The fathers of the Revolution and the sages who made the Constitution well under- stood that the laws and domestic institutions which would suit the granite hills of New Hampshire would be totally unfit for the rice plantations of South Carolina ; they well understood that the laws which would suit the agricultural districts of Pennsylvania and New York would be totally unfit for the large mining regions of the Pacific, or the lumber regions of Maine. They well under- stood that the great varieties of soil, of production, and of interests in a Republic as large as this, required different local and domestic regulations in each locality, adapted to the wants and interests of each separate State, and for that reason it was pro- vided in the Federal Constitution that the thirteen original States should remain sovereign and supreme within their own limits in regard to all that was local and internal and domestic, while the Federal Government should have certain specified powers which were general and national, and could be exercised only by Federal authority. The framers of the Constitution well understood that each locality, having separate and distinct interests, required separate and distinct laws, domestic institutions, and police regulations adapted to its own wants and its own condition ; and they acted on the presumption, also, that these laws and institutions would be as diversified and as dissimilar as the States would be numer- ous, and that no two would be precisely alike, because the inter- ests of no two would be precisely the same. Hence I assert that the great fundamental principle which underlies our complex system of State and Federal governments contemplated diversity and dissimilarity in the local institutions and domestic affairs of each and every State then in the Union, or thereafter to be admitted into the Confederacy. I therefore conceive that my AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 15 friend Mr. Lincoln has totally misapprehended the great principles upon which our government rests. Uniformity in local and domestic affairs would be destructive of State rights, of State sovereignty, of personal liberty and personal freedom. Uniformity is the parent of despotism the world over, not only in politics, but in religion. Wherever the doctrine of uniformity is proclaimed, that all the States must be free or all slave, that all labor must be white or all black, that all the citizens of the different States must have the same privileges or be governed by the same regulations, you have destroyed the greatest safeguard which our institutions have thrown around the rights of the citizen. How could this uniformity be accomplished, if it was desir- able and possible? There is but one mode in which it could be obtained, and that must be by abolishing the State Legislatures, blotting out State sovereignty, merging the rights and sover- eignty of the States in one consolidated empire, and vesting Con- gress with the plenary power to make all the police regulations, domestic and local laws, uniform throughout the limits of the Republic. When you shall have done this, you will have uni- formity. Then the States will all be slave or all be free ; then negroes will vote everywhere or nowhere ; then you will have a Maine liquor law in every State or none ; then you will have uniformity in all things, local and domestic, by the authority of the Federal Government. But when you attain that uniformity, you will have converted these thirty-two sovereign, independent States into one consolidated empire, with the uniformity of dis- position reigning triumphant throughout the length and breadth of the land. From this view of the case, my friends, I am driven irresist- ibly to the conclusion that diversity, dissimilarity, variety, in all our local and domestic institutions is the great safeguard of our liberties, and that the framers of our institutions were wise, saga- cious, and patriotic when they made this government a confeder- ation of sovereign States, with a legislature for each, and conferred upon each legislature the power to make all local and domestic institutions to suit the people it represented, without in- terference from any other State or from the general Congress of the Union. If we expect to maintain our liberties, we must pre- serve the rights and sovereignty of the States ; we must main- tain and carry out that great principle of self-government incorporated in the Compromise measures of 1850, indorsed by the Illinois Legislature in 1851, emphatically embodied and carried out in the Kansas-Nebraska bill, and vindicated this year by the refusal to bring Kansas into the Union with a constitutign distasteful to her people. The other proposition discussed by Mr. Lincoln in his speech consists in a crusade against the Supreme Court of the 16 DEBATES BETWEEN ..BRAHAM LINCOLN United States on account of the I red Scott decision. On this question also I desire to say to y u unequivocally, that I take direct and distinct issue with him. I have no warfare to make on the Supreme Court of the United States, either on account of that or any other decision which tht y have pronounced from that bench. The Constitution of the United States has provided that the powers of government (and the Constitution of each State has the same provision) shall be divided into three departments, — executive, legislative, and judicial. The right and the province of expounding the Constitution and constructing the law is vested in the judiciar}^ established b}^ the Constitution. As a lawyer, I feel at liberty to appear before the court and controvert any principle of law while the question is pending before the tribunal ; but when the decision is made, my private opinion, your opinion, all other opinions, must yield to the majesty of that authoritative adjudication. I wish you to bear in mind that this involves a great principle, upon which our rights, our liberty, and our property all depend. What security have you for your property, for your reputation, and for your personal rights, if the courts are not upheld, and their decisions respected when once fairly rendered by the highest tribunal known to the Constitution ? I do not choose, therefore, to go into any argument with Mr. Lin- coln in reviewing the various decisions which the Supreme Court has made, either upon the Dred Scott case or any other. I have no idea of appealing from the decision of the Supreme Court upon a constitutional question to the decisions of a tumultu- ous town meeting. I am aware that once an eminent lawyer of this city, now no more, said that the State of Illinois had the most perfect judicial system in the world, subject to but one exception, which could be cured by a slight amendment, and that amendment was to so change the law as to allow an appeal from the decisions of the Supreme Court of Illinois, on all constitu- tional questions, to justices of the peace. M}^ friend Mr. Lincoln, who sits behind me, reminds me that that proposition was made when I was judge of the Supreme Court. Be that as it may, I do not think that fact adds any greater weight or authority to the suggestion. It matters not with me who was on the bench, whether Mr. Lincoln or myself, whetlier a Lockwood or a Smith, a Taney or a Marshall ; the decision of the highest tribunal known to the Constitution of the country must be final till it has been reversed by an equally high authority. Hence, I am opposed to this doctrine of Mr. Lincoln by which he proposes to take an appeal from the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, upon this high constitutional question, to a Republican caucus sitting in the country. Yes, or any other caucus or town meeting, whether it be Republican, American, or Democratic. I respect the decisions of that august AND STEPHE^J A. DOUGLAS. 17 tribunal ; I shall always bow(:n deference to them. I am a law- abiding man. I will sustainothe Constitution of my country as our fathers have made it. I will yield obedience to the laws, whether I like them or not, ap I find them on the statute book. I will sustain the judicial tribunals and constituted authorities in all matters withiji the pale of their jurisdiction as defined by the Constitution. But I am equally free to say that the reason assigned by Mr. Lincoln for resisting the decision of the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott case does not in itself meet my approbation. He objects to it because that decision declared that a negro descended from African parents who were brought here and sold as slaves is not, and cannot be a citizen of the United States. He says it is wrong, because it deprives the negro of the benefits of that clause of the Constitution which says that citizens of one State shall enjoy all the privileges and immunities of citizens of the several States ; in other words, he thinks it wrong because it deprives the negro of the privileges, immunities, and rights of citizenship, which pertain, according to that decision, only to the white man. I am free to say to you that in my opinion this government of ours is founded on the white basis. It was made by the white man, for the benefit of the white man, to be administered by white men, in such manner as they should determine. It is also true that a negro, an Indian, or any other man of inferior race to a white man should be permitted to enjo}--, and humanity requires that he should have, all the rights, privileges, and immunities which he is capable of exercising consistent with the safety of society. I would give him every right and every privilege which his capacity would enable him to enjoy, consistent with the good of the society in which he lived. But you may ask me, What are these rights and these privileges ? My answer is, that each State must decide for itself the nature and extent of these rights. Illinois has decided for herself. We have decided that the negro shall not be a slave, and we have at the same time decided that he shall not vote, or serve on juries, or enjoy political privileges. I am content with that system of policy which we have adopted for ourselves. I deny the right of any other State to complain of our policy in that respect, or to interfere with it, or to attempt to change it. On the other hand, the State of Maine has decided that in that State a negro man may vote on an equality with the white man. The sovereign power of Maine had the right to prescribe that rule for herself. Illinois has no right to complain of Maine for conferring the right of negro suffrage, nor has Maine any right to interfere with or complain of Illinois because she has denied negro suffrage. The State of New York has decided by her Constitution that a negro may vote, provided that he own $250 worth of property, 18 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN but not Otherwise. The rich negro can vote, but the poor one cannot. Although that distinction does not commend itself to my judgment, yet I assert that the sovereign power of New York had a right to prescribe that form of the elective franchise. Kentucky, Virginia, and other States have provided that negroes, or a certain class of them in those States, shall be slaves, having neither civil nor political rights. Without indorsing the wisdom of that decision, I assert that Virginia has the same power, by virtue of her sovereignty to protect slavery within her limits, as Illinois has to banish it forever from our own borders. I assert the right of each State to decide for itself on all these questions, and I do not subscribe to the doctrine of my friend Mr. Lincoln, that uniformity is either desirable or possible. I do not acknowl- edge that the States must all be free or must all be slave. I do not acknowledge that the negro must have civil and political rights everywhere or nowhere. I do not acknowledge that the Chinese must have the same rights in California that we would confer upon him here. I do not acknowledge that the coolie imported into this country must necessarily be put upon an equality with the white race. I do not acknowledge any of these doctrines of uniformity in the local and domestic regu- lations in the different States. Thus you see, my fellow-citizens, that the issues between Mr. Lincoln and myself, as respective candidates for the United States Senate, as made up, are direct, unequivocal, and irrecon- cilable. He goes for uniformity in our domestic institutions, for a war of sections, until one or the other shall be subdued. I go for the great principle of the Kansas-Nebraska bill, — the right of the people to decide for themselves. On the other point, Mr. Lincoln goes for a warfare upon the Supreme Court of the United States because of their judicial decision in the Dred Scott case. I yield obedience to the decis- ions in that court, — to the final determination of the highest judicial tribunal known to our Constitution. He objects to the Dred Scott decision because it does not put the negro in the possession of the rights of citizenship on an equality with the white man. I am opposed to negro equality. I repeat that this nation is a white people, — a people composed of European descendants ; a people that have established this government for themselves and their posterity, — and I am in favor of preserving, not only the purity of the blood, but the purity of the government from any mixture or amalgamation with inferior races. I have seen the effects of this mixture of superior and inferior races, — this amalgamation of white men and Indians and negroes ; we have seen it in Mexico, in Central America, in South America, and in all the Spanish-American States ; and its result has been degeneration, demoralization, and degradation below the capacity for self-government. AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 19 I am opposed to taking any step that recognizes the negro man or the Indian as the equal of the white man. I am opposed to giving him a voice in the administration of the government. I would extend to the negro and the Indian and to all dependent races every right, every privilege, and every immunity consistent with the safety and welfare of the white races ; but equalit}^ they never should have, either political or social, or in any other respect whatever. My friends, you see that the issues are distinctly drawn. I stand by the same platform that I have so often proclaimed to you and to the people of Illinois heretofore. I stand by the Democratic organization, yield obedience to its usages, and support its regular nominations. I indorse and approve the Cincinnati platform, and I adhere to and intend to carry out, as part of that platform, the great principle of self-government, which recognizes the right of the people in each State and Territory to decide for themselves their domestic institutions. In other words, if the Lecompton issue shall arise again, you have only to turn back and see where you have found me during the last six months, and then rest assured that you will find me in the same position, battling for the same principle, and vindi- cating it from assault from whatever quarter it may come, so long as I have the power to do it. Fellow-citizens, you now have before you the outlines of the propositions which I intend to discuss before the people of Illinois during the pending campaign. I have spoken without prepara- tion and in a very desultory manner, and may have omitted some points which I desired to discuss, and may have been less explicit on others than I could have wished. I have made up my mind to appeal to the people against the combination which has been made against me. The Republican leaders have formed an alliance — an unholy, unnatural alliance — with a portion of the unscrupulous Federal office-holders. I intend to fight that allied army wherever I meet them. I know they deny the alliance, while avoiding the common purpose ; but yet these men, who are trying to divide the Democratic party for the purpose of electing a Republican Senator in my place, are just as much the agents, the tools, the supporters of Mr. Lincoln as if they were avowed Republicans, and expect their reward for their services when the Republicans come into power. I shall deal with these allied forces just as the Russians dealt with the Allies at Sebastopol. The Russians, when they fired a broadside at the common enemy, did not stop to inquire whether it hit a Frenchman, an English- man, or a Turk, nor will I stop, nor shall I stop to inquire whether my blows hit the Republican leaders or their allies, who are holding the Federal offices, and yet acting in concert with the Republicans to defeat the Democratic party and its 20 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN nominees. I do not include all of the Federal office-holders in this remark. Such of them as are Democrats and show their Democracy by remaining inside of the Democratic organization and supporting its nominees, I recognize as Democrats ; but those who, having been defeated inside of the organization, go outside and attempt to divide and destroy the party in concert with the Republican leaders, have ceased to be Democrats, and belong to the allied army, whose avowed object is to elect the Republican ticket by dividing and destroying the Democratic party. My friends, I have exhausted myself, and I certainly have fatigued you, in the long and desultory remarks which I have made. It is now two nights since I have been in bed, and I think I have a right to a little sleep. I will, however, have an opportunity of meeting you face to face, and addressing you on more than one occasion before the November election. In conclusion, I must again say to you, justice to my own feelings demands it, that my gratitude for the welcome you have extended to me on this occasion knows no bounds, and can be described by no language which I can command. I see that I am literally at home when among my constituents. This welcome has amply repaid me for every effort that I have made in the public service during nearly twenty-five years that I have held office at your hands. It not only compensates me for the past, but it furnishes an inducement and incentive for future effort which no man, no matter how patriotic, can feel who has not witnessed the mag- nificent reception you have extended to me to-night on my return SPEECH OF HON. ABRAHAM LINCOLN. IN REPLY TO SENATOR DOUGLAS. Delivered at Chicago, Saturday Evening, July 10, 1858. (Mr. Douglas was not present.) Mr. Lincoln was introduced by C. L. Wilson, Esq. ; and as he made his appearance he was greeted with a perfect storm of applause. For some moments the enthusiasm continued unabated. At last, when by a wave of his hand, partial silence was restored, Mr. Lincoln said : — My Fellow-Citizens: On yesterday evening, upon the occasion of the reception given to Senator Douglas, I was furnished with a seat very convenient for hearing him, and was otherwise very courteously treated by him and his friends, and for which I thank him and them. During the course of his remarks my name was mentioned in such a way as, I suppose, AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 21 renders it at least not improper that I should make some sort of reply to him. I shall not attempt to follow him in the precise order in which he addressed the assembled multitude upon that occasion, though I shall perhaps do so in the main. There was one question to which he asked the attention of the crowd, which I deem of somewhat less importance — at least of propriety for me to dwell upon — than the others, which he brought in near the close of his speech, and which I think it would not be entirely proper for me to omit attending to, and yet if I were not to give some attention to it now, I should probably forget it altogether. While I am upon this subject, allow me to say that I do not intend to indulge in that inconvenient mode sometimes adopted in public speaking, of reading from docu- ments ; but I shall depart from that rule so far as to read a little scrap from his speech, which notices this first topic of which I shall speak, — that is, provided I can find it in the paper. " I have made up my mind to appeal to the people against the combination that has been made against me ; the Republican leaders having formed an alliance — an unholy and unnatural alliance — with a portion of unscrupulous Federal office-holders. I intend to fight that allied army wherever I meet them. I know they deny the alliance ; but yet these men who are trying to divide the Democratic party for the purpose of electing a Republican Senator in my place are just as much the agents and tools of the supporters of Mr. Lincoln. Hence I shall deal with this allied army just as the Russians dealt with the Allies at Sebastopol, — that is, the Russians did not stop to inquire, when they fired a broadside, whether it hit an Englishman, a Frenchman, or a Turk. Nor will I stop to inquire, nor shall I hesitate, whether my blows shall hit the Republican leaders or their allies, who are holding the Federal offices, and yet acting in concert with them." Well, now, gentlemen, is not that very alarming? Just to think of it ! right at the outset of his canvass, I, a poor, kind, amiable, intelligent gentleman, — I am to be slain in this way! Wh}'-, my friend the Judge is not only, as it turns out, not a dead lion, nor even a living one, — he is the rugged Russian Bear ! But if they will have it — for he says that we deny it — that there is any such alliance, as he says there is, — and I don t propose hanging very much upon this question of veracity, — but if he will have it that there is such an alliance, — that the Administration men and we are allied, and we stand in the attitude of English, French, and Turk, he occupying the position of the Russian, in that case I beg that he will indulge us while we barely suggest to him that these allies took Sebastopol. Gentlemen, only a few more words as to this alliance. For my part, I have to say that whether there be such an alliance depends, so far as I know, upon what may be a right definition 22 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN of the term " alliance." If for the Republican party to see the other great party to which they are opposed divided among- themselves, and not try to stop the division, and rather be glad of it, — if that is an alliance, I confess I am in ; but if it is meant to be said that the Republicans had formed an alliance going beyond that, by which there is contribution of money or sacrifice of principle on the one side or the other, so far as the Republican party is concerned, — if there be any such thing, I protest that I neither know anything of it, nor do I believe it. I will, however, say, — as I think this branch of the argument is lugged in, — I would before I leave it, state, for the benefit of those concerned, that one of those same Buchanan men did once tell me of an argument that he made for his opposition to Judge Douglas. He said that a friend of our Senator Douglas had been talking to him, and had, among other things, said to him : " Why, you don't want to beat Douglas?" "Yes," said he, "I do want to beat him, and I will tell you why. I believe his original Nebraska bill was right in the abstract, but it was wrong in the time that it was brought forward. It was wrong in the application to a Territory in regard to which the question had been settled ; it was brought forward at a time when nobody asked him ; it was tendered to the South when the South had not asked for it, but when they could not well refuse it ; and for this same reason he forced that question upon our party. It has sunk the best men all over the nation, everywhere ; and now, when our President, struggling with the difficulties of this man's getting up, has reached the very hardest point to turn in the case, he deserts him and I am for putting him where he will trouble us no more." Now, gentlemen, that is not my argument ; that is not my argument at all. I have only been stating to you the argument of a Buchanan man. You will judge if there is an}^ force in it. Popular sovereignty ! everlasting popular sovereignty ! Let us for a moment inquire into this vast matter of popular sovereignty. What is popular sovereignty? We recollect that at an early period in the history of this struggle there was another name for the same thing, — "Squatter Sover- eignty." It was not exactly Popular Sovereignty, but Squatter Sovereignty. What do those terms mean? What do those terms mean when used now? And vast credit is taken by our friend the Judge in regard to his support of it, when he declares the last years of his life have been, and all the future years of his life shall be, devoted to this matter of popular sovereignty. What is it? Why, it is the sovereignty of the people! What was Squatter Sovereignty? I suppose if it had any significance at all, it was the right of the people to govern themselves, to be sovereign in their own affairs while they were squatted down in a country not their own, while they had AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 23 squatted on a Territory that did not belong to them, in the sense that a State belongs to the people who inhabit it, — when it belonged to the nation ; such right to govern themselves was called "Squatter Sovereignty." Now, I wish you to mark. What has become of that Squatter Sovereignty? What has become of it? Can you get anybody to tell you now that the people of a Territory have any authority to govern themselves, in regard to this mooted question of slaver}'-, before they form a State Constitution? No such thing at all, although there is a general running fire, and although there has been a hurrah made in every speech on that side, assuming that policy had given the people of a Territory the right to govern themselves upon this question ; yet the point is dodged. To-day it has been decided — no more than a year ago it was decided by the Supreme Court of the United States, and is in- sisted upon to-day — that the people of a Territory have no right to exclude slavery from a Territory ; that if any one man chooses to take slaves into a Territory, all the rest of the people have no right to keep them out. This being so, and this decision being made one of the points that the Judge approved, and one in the approval of which he says he means to keep me down, — put me down I should not say, for I have never been up. He says he is in favor of it, and sticks to it, and expects to win his battle on that decision, which says that there is no such thing as Squatter Sovereignty, but that any one man may take slaves into a Terri- tory, and all the other men in the Territory may be opposed to it, and yet by reason of the Constitution they cannot prohibit it. When that is so, how much is left of this vast matter of Squatter Sovereignty, I should like to know? When we get back, we get to the point of the right of the people to make a Constitution. Kansas was settled, for example, in 1854. It was a Territory yet, without having formed a consti- tution, in a very regular way, for three years. All this time negro slavery could be taken in by any few individuals, and by that decision of the Supreme Court, which the Judge approves, all the rest of the people cannot keep it out ; but when they come to make a constitution, they may say they will not have slavery. But it is there ; they are obliged to tolerate it some way, and all experience shows it will be so, for they will not take the negro slaves and absolutely deprive the owners of them. All experi- ence shows this to be so. All that space of time that runs from the beginning of the settlement of the Territory until there is sufficiency of people to make a State constitution, — all that portion of time popular sovereignty is given up. The seal is absolutely put down upon it by the court decision, and Judge Douglas puts his own upon the top of that ; yet he is appealing to the people to give him vast credit for his devotion to popular sovereignty. 24 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN Again, when we get to the question of the right of the people to form a State constitution as they please, to form it with slavery or without slavery, — if that is anything new, I confess I don't know it. Has there ever been a time when anybody said that any other than the people of a Territory itself should form a constitution? What is now in it that Judge Douglas should have fought several years of his life, and pledge himself to fight all the remaining years of his life for? Can Judge Douglas find any- body on earth that said that anybody else should form a constitution for a people? [A voice, "Yes."] Well, I should like you to name him ; I should like to know who he was. [Same voice, "John Calhoun."] Mr. Lincoln : No, sir, I never heard of even John Calhoun saying such a thing. He insisted on the same principle as Judge Douglas ; but his mode of applying it, in fact, was wrong. It is enough for my purpose to ask this crowd whenever a Republican said anything against it. They never said anything against it, but they have constantly spoken for it ; and whoever will under- take to examine the platform, and the speeches of responsible men of the party, and of irresponsible men, too, if you please, will be unable to find one word from anybody in the Republican ranks opposed to that Popular Sovereignty which Judge Douglas thinks that he has invented. I suppose that Judge Douglas will claim, in a little while, that he is the inventor of the idea that the people should govern themselves ; that nobody ever thought of such a thing until he brought it forward. We do not remember that in that old Declaration of Independence it is said that " We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal ; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights ; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness ; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." There is the origin of Popular Sovereignty. Who, then, shall come in at this day and claim that he invented it? The Lecompton Constitution connects itself with this ques- tion, for it is in this matter of the Lecompton Constitution that our friend Judge Douglas claims such vast credit. I agree that in opposing the Lecompton Constitution, so far as I can perceive, he was right. I do not deny that at all ; and, gentlemen, you will readily see why I could not deny it, even if I wanted to. But I do not wish to ; for all the Republicans in the nation opposed it, and they would have opposed it just as much without Judge Douglas's aid as with it. They had all taken ground against it long before he did. Why, the reason that he urges against that Constitution, I urged against him a year before. I have the printed speech in my hand. The argument that he makes, why that Constitution should not be adopted, that the people were not fairly represented nor allowed to vote, I pointed out in a speech AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 25 a year ago, which I hold in my hand now, that no fair chance was to be given to the people. ["Read it, Read it."] I shall not waste your time by trying to read it. ["Read it, Read it."] Gentlemen, reading from speeches is a very tedious business, particularly for an old man that has to put on spectacles, and more so if the man be so tall that he has to bend over to the light. A little more, now, as to this matter of Popular Sovereignty and the Lecompton Constitution. The Lecompton Constitution, as the Judge tells us, was defeated. The defeat of it was a good thing or it was not. He thinks the defeat of it was a good thing, and so do I, and we agree in that. Who defeated it? A voice : Judge Douglas. Mr. Lincoln : Yes, he furnished himself, and if you suppose he controlled the other Democrats that went with him, he fur- nished three votes ; while the Republicans furnished twenty. That is what he did to defeat it. In the House of Repre- sentatives he and his friends furnished some twenty votes, and the Republicans furnished ninety odd. Now, who was it that did the work? A voice : Douglas. Mr. Lincoln : Why, yes, Douglas did it ! To be sure he did. Let us, however, put that proposition another way. The Republicans could not have done it without Judge Douglas. Could he have done it without them? Which could have come the nearest to doing it without the other? A voice : Who killed the bill? Another voice : Douglas. Mr. Lincoln : Ground was taken against it by the Republi- cans long before Douglas did it. The proportion of opposition to that measure is about five to one. A voice : Why don't they come out on it? Mr. Lincoln : You don't know what you are talking about, my friend. I am quite willing to answer any gentleman in the crowd who asks an intelligent question. Now, who in all this country has ever found any of our friends of Judge Douglas's way of thinking, and who have acted upon this main question, that has ever thought of uttering a word in behalf of Judge Trumbull ? A voice : We have. Mr. Lincoln : I defy you to show a printed resolution passed in a Democratic meeting — I take it upon myself to defy any man to show a printed resolution of a Democratic meeting, large or small — in favor of Judge Trumbull, or any of the five to one Republicans who beat that bill. Everything must be for the Democrats ! They did everything, and the five to the one that really did the thing they snub over, and they do not seem to remember that they have an existence upon the face of the earth. 26 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN Gentlemen, I fear that I shall become tedious. I leave this branch of the subject to take hold of another. I take up that part of Judge Douglas's speech in which he respectfully attended to me. Judge Douglas made two points upon my recent speech at Springfield. He says they are to be the issues of this campaign. The first one of these points he bases upon the language in a speech which I delivered at Springfield, which I believe I can quote correctly from memory. I said there that " we are now far into the fifth year since a policy was instituted for the avowed object, and with the confident promise, of putting an end to slavery agitation ; under the operation of that policy, that agita- tion had not only not ceased, but had constantly augmented." " I believe 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 Union to be dissolved," — I am quot- ing from my speech, — " 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 the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the 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 until it shall become alike lawful in all the States, North as well as South." What is the paragraph? In this paragraph, which I have quoted in your hearing, and to which I ask the attention of all, Judge Douglas thinks he discovers great political heres}'. I want your attention particularly to what he has inferred from it. He says I am in favor of making all the States of this Union uniform in all their internal regulations ; that in all their domestic concerns I am in favor of making them entirely uniform. He draws this inference from the language I have quoted to you. He says that I am in favor of making war by the North upon the South for the extinction of slaver}^ ; that I am also in favor of inviting (as he expresses it) the South to a war upon the North for the purpose of nationalizing slavery. Now, it is singular enough, if you will carefully read that passage over, that I did not say that I was in favor of anything in it. I only said what I expected would take place. I made a prediction only, — it may have been a foolish one, perhaps. I did not even say that I desired that slavery should be put in course of ultimate extinction. I do say so now, however, so there need be no longer any difficult}'- about that. It may be written down in the great speech. Gentlemen, Judge Douglas informed you that this speech of mine was probably carefully prepared. I admit that it was. I am not master of language ; I have not a fine education ; I am not capable of entering into a disquisition upon dialectics, as I believe you AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 27 call it ; but I do not believe the language I employed bears any- such construction as Judge Douglas puts upon it. But I don't care about a quibble in regard to words. I know what I meant, and I will not leave this crowd in doubt, if I can explain it to them, what I really meant in the use of that paragraph. I am not, in the first place, unaware that this Government has endured eighty-two years half slave and half free. I know that. I am tolerably well acquainted with the history of the country, and I know that it has endured eighty-two years half slave and half free. I believe — and that is what I meant to allude to there — I believe it has endured, because during all that time, until the introduction of the Nebraska bill, the public mind did rest all the time in the belief that slavery was in course of ultimate extinction. That was what gave us the rest that we had through that period of eighty-two years, — at least, so I believe. I have always hated slavery, I think, as much as any Abolitionist, — I have been an Old Line Whig, — I have always hated it ; but I have always been quiet about it until this new era of the intro- duction of the Nebraska bill began. I always believed that everybody was against it, and that it was in course of ultimate extinction. [Pointing to Mr. Browning, who stood near by.] Browning thought so ; the great mass of the nation have rested in the belief that slavery was in course of ultimate extinction. They had reason so to believe. The adoption of the Constitution and its attendant history led the people to believe so ; and that such was the belief of the framers of the Constitution itself, why did those old men, about the time of the adoption of the Constitution, decree that slavery should not go into the new Territory, where it had not already gone ? Why declare that within twenty years the African Slave Trade, by which slaves are supplied, might be cut off by Congress? Why were all these acts? I might enumerate more of these acts ; but enough. What were they but a clear indica- tion that the framers of the Constitution intended and expected the ultimate extinction of that institution ? And now, when I say, as I said in my speech, that Judge Douglas has quoted from, when I say that I think the opponents of slaver}'- will resist the farther spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest with the belief that it is in course of ultimate extinction, I only mean to say that they will place it where the founders of this Government originally placed it. I have said a hundred times, and I have now no inclination to take it back, that I believe there is no right, and ought to be no inclination, in the people of the Free States to enter into the Slave States, and interfere with the question of slavery at all. I have said that always ; Judge Douglas has heard me say it, if not quite a hundred times, at least as good as a hundred times ; and 28 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN when it is said that I am in favor of interfering with slavery where it exists,! know it is unwarranted by anything I have ever intended^ and, as I believe, by anything I have ever said. If, by any means, I have ever used language which could fairly be so construed (as, however, I believe I never have), I now correct it. So much, then, for the inference that Judge Douglas draws, that I am in favor of setting the sections at war with one another. I know that I never meant any such thing, and I believe that no fair mind can infer any such thing from anything I have ever said. Now, in relation to his inference that I am in favor of a general consolidation of all the local institutions of the various States. I will attend to that for a little while, and try to inquire, if I can, how on earth it could be that any man could draw such an inference from anything I said. I have said, very many times, in Judge Douglas's hearing, that no man believed more than I in the principle of self-government ; that it lies at the bottom of all my ideas of just government, from beginning to end. I have denied that his use of that term applies properly. But for the thing itself, I deny that any man has ever gone ahead of me in his devotion to the principle, whatever he ma}- have done in efficiency in advocating it. I think that I have said it in your hearing, that I believe each individual is naturally entitled to do as he pleases with himself and the fruit of his labor, so far as it in no wise interferes with any other man's rights ; that each community, as a State, has a right to do exactly as it pleases with all the concerns within that State that interferes with the right of no other State ; and that the General Government, upon principle, has no right to interfere with anything other than that general class of things that does concern the whole. I have said that at all times. I have said, as illustrations, that I do not believe in the right of Illinois to interfere with the cran- berry laws of Indiana, the 03rster laws of Virginia, or the liquor laws of Maine. I have said these things over and over again, and I repeat them here as my sentiments. How is it, then, that Judge Douglas infers, because I hope to see slavery put where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction, that I am in favor of Illinois going over and interfering with the cranberry laws of Indiana? What can authorize him to draw any such inference? I suppose there might be one thing that at least enabled him to draw such an inference that would not be true with me or many others, that is, because he looks upon all this matter of slavery as an exceedingly little thing, — this matter of keeping one-sixth of the population of the whole nation in a state of oppression and tyranny unequaled in the world. He looks upon it as being an exceedingly little thing, — only equal to the question of the AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 29 cranberry laws of Indiana ; as something having no moral question in it ; as something on a par with the question of whether a man shall pasture his land with cattle, or plant it with tobacco ; so little and so small a thing that he concludes, if I could desire that if anything should be done to bring about the ultimate extinction of that little thing, I must be in favor of bringing about an amalgamation of all the other little things in the Union. Now, it so happens — and there, I presume, is the foundation of this mistake — that the Judge thinks thus ; and it so happens that there is a vast portion ofthe American people that do not look upon that matter as being this very little thing. They look upon it as a vast moral evil ; they can prove it as such by the writings of those who gave us the blessings of liberty which we enjoy, and that they so looked upon it, and not as an evil merely confining itself to the States where it is situated ; and while we agree that, by the Constitution we assented to, in the States where it exists, we have no right to interfere with it, because it is in the Constitution ; and we are by both duty and inclination to stick by that Constitution, in all its letter and spirit, from beginning to end. So much, then, as to my disposition — my wish — to have all the State Legislatures blotted out, and to have one consolidated government, and a uniformity of domestic regulations in all the States, by which I suppose it is meant, if we raise corn here, we must make sugar-cane grow here too, and we must make those which grow North grow in the South. All this I suppose he understands I am in favor of doing. Now, so much for all this nonsense ; for I must call it so. The Judge can have no issue with me on a question of establishing uniformity in the domestic regulations of the States. A little now on the other point, — the Dred Scott decision. Another of the issues he says that is to be made with me is upon his devotion to the Dred Scott decision, and my opposition to it. I have expressed heretofore, and I now repeat, my opposi- tion to the Dred Scott decision ; but I should be allowed to state the nature of that opposition,^ and I ask your indulgence while I do so. What is fairly implied by the term Judge Douglas has used, "resistance to the decision"? I do not resist it. If I wanted to ^ake Dred Scott from his master, I would be interfer- ing with property, and that terrible difficulty that Judge Douglas speaks of, of interfering with property, would arise. But I am doing no such thing as that, but all that I am doing is refusing to obey it as a political rule. If I were in Congress, and a vote should come up on a question whether slavery should be pro- hibited in a new Territory, in spite ofthe Dred Scott decision, I would vote that it should. That is what I should do. Judge Douglas said last night 30 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN that defore the decision he might advance his opinion, and it might be contrary to the decision when it was made ; but after it was made he would abide by it until it was reversed. Just so ! We let this property abide by the decision, but we will try to reverse that decision. We will try to put it where Judge Douglas would not object, for he says he will obey it until it is reversed. Somebody has to reverse that decision, since it is made, and we mean to reverse it, and we mean to do it peaceably. What are the uses of decisions of courts? They have two uses. As rules of property they have two uses. First, they decide upon the question before the court. They decide in this case that Dred Scott is a slave. Nobody resists that. Not only that, but they say to everybody else, that persons standing just as Dred Scott stands, is as he is. That is, they say that when a question comes up upon another person, it will be so decided again, unless the court decides in another way, unless the court overrules its decision. Well, we mean to do what we can to have the court decide the other way. That is one thing we mean to try to do. The sacredness that Judge Douglas throws around this de- cision is a degree of sacredness that has never been before thrown around any other decision. I have never heard of such a thing. Why, decisions apparently contrary to that decision, or that good lawyers thought were contrary to that decision, have been made by that very court before. It is the first of its kind ; it is an astonisher in legal history. It is a new wonder of the world. It is based upon falsehood in the main as to the facts ; allegations of facts upon which it stands are not facts at all in many instances, and no decision made on any question — the first instance of a decision made under so many unfavorable circumstances — thus placed, has ever been held by the profession as law, and it has always needed confirmation before the lawj^ers regarded it as settled law. But Judge Douglas will have it that all hands must take this extraordinary decision, made under these extraordinary circumstances, and give their vote in Congress in accordance with it, yield to it, and obey it in every possible sense. Circum- stances alter cases. Do not gentlemen here remember the case of that same Supreme Court, some twenty-five or thirty years ago deciding that a National Bank was constitutional? I ask, if somebody does not remember that a National Bank was declared to be constitutional? Such is the truth, whether it be remem- bered or not. The Bank charter ran out, and a re-charter was granted by Congress. That re-charter was laid before General Jackson. It was urged upon him, when he denied the constitu- tionality of the Bank, that the Supreme Court had decided that it was constitutional ; and that General Jackson then said that the Supreme Court had no right to lay down a rule to govern a AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 31 co-ordinate branch of the Government, the members of which had sworn to support the Constitution ; that each member had sworn to support that Constitution as he understood it. I will venture here to say that I have heard Judge Douglas say that he approved of General Jackson for that act. What has now become of all his tirade about "resistance to the Supreme Court"? My fellow-citizens, getting back a little, — for I pass from these points, — when Judge Douglas makes his threat of annihila- tion upon the " alliance," he is cautious to say that that warfare of his is to fall upon the leaders of the Republican party. Almost every word he utters, and every distinction he makes, has its significance. He means for the Republicans who do not count themselves as leaders, to be his friends ; he makes no fuss over them ; it is the leaders that he is making war upon. He wants it understood that the mass of the Republican party are really his friends. It is only the leaders that are doing something, that are intolerant, and that require extermination at his hands. As this is clearly and unquestionabl}'- the light in which he presents that matter, I want to ask your attention, addressing myself to the Republicans here, that I may ask you some questions as to where you, as the Republican party, would be placed if you sustained Judge Douglas in his present position by a re-election? I do not claim, gentlemen, to be unselfish ; I do not pretend that I would not like to go to the United States Senate, — I make no such hypocritical pretence ; but I do say to you that in this mighty issue it is nothing to you — nothing to the mass of the people of the nation, — whether or not Judge Douglas or myself shall ever be heard of after this night ; it may be a trifle to either of us, but in connection with this mighty question, upon which hang the destinies of the nation, perhaps, it is absolutely nothing : but where will you be placed if you re-indorse Judge Douglas? Don't you know how apt he is, how exceedingly anxious he is at all times, to seize upon anything and everything to persuade you that something he has done j'C?^ did yourselves? Why, he tried to persuade you last night that our Illinois Legislature instructed him to introduce the Nebraska bill. There was nobody in that Legislature ever thought of such a thing ; and when he first introduced the bill, he never thought of it ; but still he fights furiously for the proposition, and that he did it because there was a standing instruction to our Senators to be always introducing Nebraska bills. He tells you he is for the Cincinnati platform, he tells you he is for the Dred Scott decision. He tells you, not in his speech last night, but substantially in a former speech, that he cares not if slavery is voted up or down ; he tells you the struggle on Lecompton is past ; it may come up again or not, and if it does, he stands where he stood when, in spite of him and 32 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN his opposition, you built up the Republican part}^ If you indorse him, you tell him you do not care whether slavery be voted up or down, and he will close, or try to close your mouths with his declaration, repeated by the day, the week, the month, and the year. Is that what you mean? [Cries of "No," one voice "Yes."] Yes, I have no doubt you who have always been for him, if you mean that. No doubt of that, soberly I have said, and I repeat it. I think, in the position in which Judge Douglas stood in opposing the Lecompton Constitution, he was right ; he does not know that it will return, but if it does we may know where to find him, and if it does not, we may know where to look for him, and that is on the Cincinnati platform. Now, I could ask the Republican party, after all the hard names that Judge Douglas has called them by, — all his repeated charges of their inclination to marry with and hug negroes ; all his declara- tions of Black Republicanism : b}^ the way, we are improving, the black has got rubbed off, — but with all that, if he be indorsed by Republican votes, where do you stand? Plainly, you stand ready saddled, bridled, and harnessed, and waiting to be driven over to the slavery extension camp of the nation, — just ready to be driven over, tied together in a lot, to be driven over, every man with a rope around his neck, that halter being held by Judge Douglas. That is the question. If Republican men have been in earnest in what they have done, I think they had better not do it ; but I think that the Republican party is made up of those who, as far as they can peaceably, will oppose the exten- sion of slavery, and who will hope for its ultimate extinction. If they believe it is wrong in grasping up the new lands of the continent, and keeping them from the settlement of free white laborers, who want the land to bring up their families upon ; if they are in earnest, although they may make a mistake, they will grow restless, and the time will come when they will come back again and reorganize, if not by the same name, at least upon the same principles as their party now has. It is better then, to save the work while it is begun. You have done the labor ; maintain it, keep it. If men choose to serve you, go with them ; but as you have made up your organization upon principle, stand by it ; for, as surely as God reigns over you, and has inspired your mind, and given you a sense of propriety, and continues to give you hope, so surely will you still cling to these ideas, and you will at last come back again after your wanderings, merely to do your work over again. We were often, — more than once, at least, — in the course of Judge Douglas's speech last night, reminded that this government was made for white men ; that he believed it was made for white men. Well, that is putting it into a shape in which no one wants to deny it ; but the Judge then goes into his passion for drawing AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 33 inferences that are not warranted. I protest, now and forever, against that counterfeit logic which presumes that because I did not want a negro woman for a slave, I do necessarily want her for a wife. My understanding is that I need not have her for either, but, as God made us separate, we can leave one another alone, and do one another much good thereby. There are white men enough to marry all the white women, and enough black men to marry all the black women ; and in God's name let them be so married. The Judge regales us with the terrible enormities that take place by the mixture of races ; that the inferior race bears the superior down. Why, Judge, if we do not let them get together in the Territories, they won't mix there. A voice : Three cheers for Lincoln. (The cheers were given with a hearty good will.) Mr. Lincoln : I should say at least that that is a self-evident truth. Now, it happens that we meet together once every year, sometimes about the 4th of July, for some reason or other. These 4th of July gatherings I suppose have their uses. If you will indulge me, I will state what I suppose to be some of them. We are now a mighty nation ; we are thirty, or about thirty millions of people, and we own and inhabit about one-fifteenth part of the dry land of the whole earth. We run our memory back over the pages of history for about eighty-two years, and we discover that we were then a very small people in point of numbers, vastly inferior to what we are now, with a vastly less extent of country, with vastly less of ever^^thing we deem desir- able among men ; we look upon the change as exceedingly advantageous to us and to our posterity, and we fix upon some- thing that happened away back, as in some way or other being connected with this rise of prosperity. We find a race of men living in that day whom we claim as our fathers and grandfathers ; they were iron men ; they fought for the principle that they were contending for ; and we understood that by what they then did it has followed that the degree of prosperity which we now enjoy has come to us. We hold this annual celebration to remind our- selves of all the good done in this process of time, of how it was done and who did it, and how we are historically connected with it ; and we go from these meetings in better humor with ourselves, we feel more attached the one to the other, and more firmly bound to the country we inhabit. In every way we are better men in the age and race and country in which we live, for these celebrations. But after we have done all this we have not yet reached the whole. There is something else connected with it. We have — besides these, men descended by blood from our ancestors — among us, perhaps half our people, who are not descendants at all of these men ; they are men who have come 34 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN from Europe, — German, Irish, French, and Scandinavian, — men that have come from Europe themselves, or whose ancestors have come hither and settled here, finding themselves our equals in all things. If they look back through this history to trace their connection with those days by blood, they find they have none, they cannot carry themselves back into that glorious epoch and make themselves feel that they are part of us ; but when they look through that old Declaration of Independence, they find that those old men say that "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal ;" and then they feel that that moral sentiment, taught in that day, evidences their relation to those men, that it is the father of all moral principle in them, and that they have a right to claim it as though they were blood of the blood, and flesh of the flesh, of the men who wrote that Declaration ; and so they are. That is the electric cord in that Declaration that links the hearts of patriotic and liberty- loving men together, that will link those patriotic hearts as long as the love of freedom exists in the minds of men throughout the world. Now, sirs, for the purpose of squaring things with this idea of " don't care if slavery is voted up or voted down," for sustain- ing the Dred Scott decision, for holding that the Declaration of Independence did not mean anything at all, we have Judge Douglas giving his exposition of what the Declaration of Inde- pendence means, and we have him saying that the people of America are equal to the people of England. According to his construction, you Germans are not connected with it. Now, I ask you in all soberness, if all these things, if indulged in, if ratified, if confirmed and indorsed, if taught to our children, and repeated to them, do not tend to rub out the sentiment of liberty in the countr}^ and to transform this government into a govern- jnent of some other form. Those arguments that are made, that the inferior race are to be treated with as much allowance as they are capable of enjoying ; that as much is to be done for them as their condition will allow. What are these arguments? They are the arguments that kings have made for enslaving the people in all ages of the world. You will find that all the argu- ments in favor of kingcraft were of this class ; they alwa3''S bestrode the necks of the people, not that they wanted to do it, but because the people were better off" for being ridden. That is their argument, and this argument of the Judge is the same old serpent that says. You work, and I eat ; You toil, and I will enjoy the fruits of it. Turn in whatever way you will, whether it come from the mouth of a king, an excuse for enslaving the people of his country, or from the mouth of men of one race as a reason for enslaving the men of another race, it is all the same old serpent ; and I hold, if that course of argumentation that is AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 35 made for the purpose of convincing the public mind that we should not care about this, should be granted, it does not stop with the negro. I should like to know if, taking this old Declaration of Independence, which declares that all men are equal upon principle, and making exceptions to it, where will it stop? If one man says it does not mean a negro, why not another say it does not mean some other man? If that declara- tion is not the truth, let us get the statute book, in which we find it, and tear it out ! Who is so bold as to do it? If it is not true, let us tear it out ! [Cries of "No, no."] Let us stick to it, then ; let us stand firmly by it, then. 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 es- tablished this government. We had slavery 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 that charter stand as our standard. My friend has said to me that I am a poor hand to quote scripture. I will try it again, however. It is said in one of the admonitions of our Lord, " As your Father in heaven is perfect, be ye also perfect." The Saviour, I suppose, did not expect that any human creature could be perfect as the Father in heaven ; but he said : " As your Father in heaven is perfect, be ye also perfect." He set that up as a standard ; and he who did most toward reaching that standard, attained the highest degree of moral perfection. So I say in relation to the principle that all men are created equal, let it be as nearly reached as we can. If we cannot give freedom to every creature, let us do nothing that will impose slavery upon any other creature. Let us then turn this government back into the channel in which the framers of the Constitution originally placed it. Let us stand firmly by each other. If we do not do so, we are turning in the contrary direction, that our friend Judge Douglas proposes — not inten- tionally — as working in the traces tend to make this one uni- versal slave nation. He is one that runs in that direction, and as such I resist him. My friends, I have detained you about as long as I desired to do, and I have only to say. Let us discard all this quibbling •' about this man and the other man ; this race and that race and the other race being inferior, and therefore they must be placed in an inferior position ; discarding our standard that we have left us. Let us discard all these things, and unite as one people throughout this land, until we shall once more stand up declaring that all men are created equal. 36 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN My friends, I could not, without launching off upon some new topic, which would detain you too long, continue to-night. I thank you for this most extensive audience that you have fur- nished me to-night. I leave you, hoping that the lamp of lib- erty will burn in your bosoms until there shall no longer be a doubt that all men are created free and equal. SPEECH OF SENATOR DOUGLAS. Delivered at Bloomington, III., July 16, 1858. (Mr. Lincoln was present.) Senator Douglas said : — Mr. Chairman, and Fellow-citizens of McLean County : To say that I am profoundly touched by the hearty welcome you have extended me, and by the kind and complimentar}'^ senti- ments you have expressed toward me, is but a feeble expression of the feelings of my heart. I appear before you this evening for the purpose of vindi- cating the course which I have felt it my duty to pursue in the Senate of the United States upon the great public questions which have agitated the countr}^ since I last addressed you. I am aware that my senatorial course has been arraigned, not only by political foes, but by a few men pretending to belong to the Democratic party, and yet acting in alliance with the enemies of that party, for the purpose of electing Republicans to Congress in this State, in place of the present Democratic delegation. I desire your attention whilst I address you, and then I will ask your verdict whether I have not in all things acted in entire good faith, and honestly carried out the principles, the professions, and the avowals which I made before my constituents previous to my going to the Senate. During the last session of Congress the great question of controversy has been the admission of Kansas into the Union under the Lecompton Constitution. I need not inform you that from the beginning to the end I took bold, determined, and unre- lenting ground in opposition to that Lecompton Constitution. My reason for that course is contained in the fact that that instru- ment was not the act and deed of the people of Kansas, and did not embody their will. I hold it to be a fundamental principle in all free governments — a principle asserted in the Declaration of Independence, and underlying the Constitution of the United States, as well as the Constitution of every State of the Union — that every people ought to have the right to form, adopt, and ratify the Constitution imder which they are to live. When I AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 37 introduced the Nebraska bill in the Senate of the United States, in 1854, I incorporated in it the provision that it was the true intent and meaning of the bill, not to legislate slavery into any Territory or State, or to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their own domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to the Con- stitution of the United States. In that bill the pledge was distinctly made that the people of Kansas should be left not only free, but perfectly free to form and regulate their own domestic institutions to suit themselves ; and the question arose, when the Lecompton Constitution was sent into Congress, and the admis- sion of Kansas not only asked, but attempted to be forced under it, whether or not that Constitution was the free act and deed of the people of Kansas? No man pretends that it embodied their will. Every man in America knows that it was rejected by the people of Kansas, by a majority of over ten thousand, before the attempt was made in Congress to force the Territory into the Union under that Constitution. I resisted, therefore, the Lecompton Constitution because it was a violation of the great principle of self-government, upon which all our institutions rest. I do not wish to mislead you, or to leave you in doubt as to the motives of my action. I did not oppose the Lecompton Consti- tution upon the ground of the slavery clause contained in it, I made my speech against that instrument before the vote was taken on the slavery clause. At the time I made it I did not know whether that clause would be voted in or out ; whether it would be included in the Constitution, or excluded from it ; and it made no difference with me what the result of the vote was, for the reason that I was contending for a principle, under which you have no more right to force a Free State upon a people against their will, than you have to force a Slave State upon them without their consent. The error consisted in attempting to control the free action of the people of Kansas in any respect whatever. It is no argument with me to say that such and such a clause of the Constitution was not palatable, that you did not like it; it is a matter of no consequence whether you in Illinois like any clause in the Kansas Constitution or not ; it is not a question for you, but it is a question for the people of Kansas. The}'^ have the right to make a Constitution in accordance with their own wishes, and if you do not like it, you are not bound to go there and live under it. We in Illinois have made a Constitu- tion to suit ourselves, and we think we have a tolerably good one ; but whether we have or not, it is nobody's business but our own. If the people in Kentucky do not like it, they need not come here to live under it ; If the people of Indiana are not satisfied with it, what matters it to us? We, and we alone, have the right to a voice in its adoption or rejection. Reasoning thus, my friends, 38 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN my efforts were directed to the vindication of the great principle involving the right of the people of each State and each Territory to form and regulate their own domestic institutions to suit them- selves, subject only to the Constitution of our common country. I am rejoiced to be enabled to say to you that we fought that battle until we forced the advocates of the Lecompton instrument to abandon the attempt of inflicting it upon the people of Kansas, without first giving them an opportunity of rejecting it. When we compelled them to abandon that effort, they resorted to a scheme. They agreed to refer the Constitution back to the people of Kansas, thus conceding the correctness of the principle for which I had contended, and granting all I had desired, pro- vided the mode of that reference and the mode of submission to the people had been just, fair, and equal. I did not consider the mode of submission provided in what is known as the " English" bill a fair submission, and for this simple reason, among others : It provided, in effect, that if the people of Kansas w^ould accept the Lecompton Constitution, that they might come in with 35,000 inhabitants ; but that, if they rejected it, in order that they might form a constitution agreeable to their own feelings, and conform- able to their own principles, that they should not be received into the Union until they had 93,420 inhabitants. In other words, it said to the people, — If you will comei into the Union as a slaveholding State, you shall be admitted wth 35,000 inhab- itants ; but if you insist on being a Free State, you shall not be admitted until you have 93,420. I was not willing to discrimi- nate between Free States and Slave States in this Confederacy. I will not put a restriction upon a Slave State that I would not put upon a Free State, and I will not permit, if I can prevent it, a restriction being put upon a Free State which is not applied with the same force to the slaveholding States. Equalit}^ among the States is a cardinal and fundamental principle in our Confed- eracy, and cannot be violated without overturning our system of government. Hence I demanded that the Free States and the slaveholding States should be kept on an exact equality, one with the other, as the Constitution of the United States had placed them. If the people of Kansas want a slaveholding State, let them have it ; and if the}'^ want a Free State they have a right to it ; and it is not for the people of Illinois, or Missouri, or New York, or Kentucky, to complain, whatever the decision of the people of Kansas may be upon that point. But while I was not content with the mode of submission contained in the English bill, and while I could not sanction it for the reason that, in my opinion, it violated t'ie great principle of equality among the different States, yet w^hen it became the law of the land, and under it the question was referred back to the people of Kansas for their decision, at an election to be held AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 39 on the first Monday in August next, I bowed in deference, because whatever decision the people shall make at that election must be final, and conclusive of the whole question. If the people of Kansas accept the proposition submitted by Congress, from that moment Kansas will become a State of the Union, and there is no way of keeping her out if you should try. The act of admission would become irrepealable ; Kansas would be a State, and there would be an end of the controvers}' . On the other hand, if at that election the people of Kansas shall reject the proposition, as is now generally thought will be the case, from that moment the Lecompton Constitution is dead, and again there is an end of the controversy. So you see that either way, on the 3d of August next, the Lecompton controversy ceases and terminates forever ; and a similar question can never arise unless some man shall attempt to play the Lecompton game over again. But, my fellow-citizens, I am well convinced that that game will never be attempted again ; it has been so solemnly and thoroughl}'- rebuked during the last session of Congress that it will find but few advocates in the future. The President of the United States, in his annual message, expressly recommends that the example of the Minnesota case, wherein Congress required the Constitution to be submitted to the vote of the people for ratification or rejection, shall be followed in all future cases ; and all we have to do is to sustain as one man that recommendation, and the Kansas controversy can never again arise. My friends, I do not desire you to understand me as claim- ing for myself any special merit for the course I have pursued on this question. I simply did my duty, — a duty enjoined by fidelit}^, by honor, by patriotism ; a duty which I could not have shrunk from, in my opinion, without dishonor and faithlessness to my constituency. Besides, I only did what it was in the power of any one man to do. There were others, men of emi- nent ability, men of wide reputation, renowned all over America, who led the van, and are entitled to the greatest share of the credit. Foremost among them all, as he was head and shoulders above them all, was Kentucky's great and gallant statesman, John J. Crittenden. By his course upon this question he has shown himself a worth}'^ successor of the immortal Clay, and well may Kentucky be proud of him. I will not withhold, either, the meed of praise due the Republican party in Congress for the course which they pursued. In the language of the " New York Tribune," they came to the Douglas platform, abandoning their own, believing that under the peculiar circumstances they would in that mode best subserve the interests of the country. My friends, when I am battling for a great principle, I want aid and support from whatever quarter I can get it, in order to carry out 40 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN that principle. I never hesitate in my course when I find those who on all former occasions differed from me upon the principle finally coming to its support. Nor is it for me to inquire into the motives which animated the Republican members of Congress in supporting the Crittenden-Montgomery bill. It is enough for me that in that case the}?" came square up and indorsed the great principle of the Kansas-Nebraska bill, which declared that Kan- sas should be received into the Union, with slavery or without, as its Constitution should prescribe. I was the more rejoiced at the action of the Republicans on that occasion for another reason. I could not forget, you will not soon forget, how unanimous that party was, in 1854, in declaring that never should another Slave State be admitted into this Union under any circumstances whatever ; and yet we find that during this last winter they came up and voted to a man, declaring that Kansas should come in as a State with slavery under the Lecompton Constitution, if her people desired it, and that if they did not, that they might form a new Constitution, with slavery or without, just as they pleased. I do not question the motive when men do a good act ; I give them credit for the act ; and if they will stand by that principle in the future, and abandon their heresy of " no more Slave States even if the people want them," I will then give them still more credit. I am afraid, though, that they will not stand by it in the future. If they do, I will freely forgive them all the abuse they heaped upon me in 1854 for having advocated and carried out that same principle in the Kansas-Nebraska bill. Illinois stands proudly forward as a State which early took her position in favor of the principle of popular sovereignty as applied to the Territories of the United States. When the Com- promise measure of 1850 passed, predicated upon that principle, you recollect the exitement which prevailed throughout the northern portion of this State. I vindicated those measures then, and defended myself for having voted for them, upon the ground that they embodied the principle that every people ought to have the privilege of forming and regulating their own institutions to suit themselves ; that each State had that right, and I saw no reason why it should not be extended to the Territories. When the people of Illinois had an opportunity of passing judgment upon those measures, they indorsed them by a vote of their rep- resentatives in the Legislature, — sixty-one in the affirmative, and only four in the negative, — in which they asserted that the principle embodied in the measures was the birthright of free- men, the gift of Heaven, a principle vindicated by our revolu- tionary fathers, and that no limitation should ever be placed upon it, either in the organization of a Territorial Government or the admission of a State into the Union. That resolution still stands unrepealed on the journals of the Legislature of Illinois. AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 41 In obedience to it, and in exact conformity with the principle, I brought in the Kansas-Nebraska bill, requiring that the people should be left perfectly free in the formation of their institutions and in the organization of their government. I now submit to 3'ou whether I have not in good faith redeemed that pledge, that the people of Kansas should be left perfectly free to form and regulate their institutions to suit themselves. And yet, while no man can arise in any crowd and deny that I have been faithful to my principles and redeemed my pledge, we find those who are struggling to crush and defeat me, for the very reason that I have been faithful in carrying out those measures. We find the Republican leaders forming an alliance with professed Lecompton men to defeat every Democratic nominee and elect Republicans in their places, and aiding and defending them in order to help them break down Anti-Lecompton men, whom they acknowledge did right in their opposition to Lecompton. The only hope that Mr. Lincoln has of defeating me for Senate rests in the fact that I was faithful to my principles and that he may be able in consequence of that fact to form a coalition with Lecompton men who wish to defeat me for that fidelity. This is one element of strength upon which he relies to accomplish his object. He hopes he can secure the few men claiming to be friends of the Lecompton Constitution, and for that reason you will find he does not say a word against the Lecompton Constitution or its supporters. He is as silent as the grave upon that subject. Behold Mr. Lincoln courting Lecomp- ton votes, in order that he may go to the Senate as the repre- sentative of Republican principles ! You know that the alliance exists. I think you will find that it will ooze out before the contest is over. Every Republican paper takes ground with my Lecompton enemies, encouraging them, stimulating them in their opposition to me, and styling my friends bolters from the Democratic party, and their Lecompton allies the true Democratic party of the countr}^ If they think that they can mislead and deceive the people of Illinois, or the Democracy of Illinois, by that sort of an unnatural and unholy alliance, I think they show very little sagacity, or give the people very little credit for intelligence. It must be a contest of principle. Either the radical Abolition principles of Mr. Lincoln must be maintained, or the strong, constitutional, national Democratic principles with which I am identified must be carried out. There can be but two great political parties in this country. The contest this year and in 1860 must necessarily be between the Democracy and the Republicans, if we can judge from present indications. My whole life has been identified with the Demo- cratic party. I have devoted all of my energies to advocating 42 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN its principles and sustaining its organization. In this State the party was never better united or more harmonious than at this time. The State Convention which assembled on the 2d of April, and nominated Fondey and French, was regularly called by the State Central Committee, appointed by the previous State Con- vention for that purpose. The meetings in each county in the State for the appointment of delegates to the Convention were regularly called by the county committees, and the proceedings in every county in the State, as well as in the State Convention, were regular in all respects. No convention was ever more harmonious in its action, or showed a more tolerant and just spirit toward brother Democrats. The leaders of the party there assembled declared their unalterable attachment to the time- honored principles and organization of the Democratic party, and to the Cincinnati platform. They declared that that platform was the only authoritative exposition of Democratic principles, and that it must so stand until changed by another National Con- vention ; that in the mean time the}'^ would make no new tests, and submit to none ; that they would proscribe no Democrat or permit the proscription of Democrats because of their opinion upon Lecomptonism, or upon any other issue which has arisen, but would recognize all men as Democrats who remained inside of the organization, preserved the usages of the party, and supported its nominees. These bolting Democrats who now claim to be the peculiar friends of the National Administration, and have formed an alliance with Mr. Lincoln and the Republicans for the purpose of defeating the Democratic party, have ceased to claim fellowship with the Democratic organization, have entirely separated themselves from it, and are endeavoring to build up a faction in the State, not with the hope or expectation of electing any one man who professes to be a Democrat to office in an}' county in the State, but merely to secure the defeat of the Democratic nominees and the election of Republicans in their places. What excuse can any honest Democrat have for aban- doning the Democratic organization and joining with the Repub- licans to defeat our nominees, in view of the platform established by the State Convention? They cannot pretend that they were proscribed because of their opinions upon Lecompton or any other question, for the Convention expressly declared that they recognized all as good Democrats who remained inside of the organization and abided by the nominations. If the question is settled or is to be considered as finally disposed of by the vote on the 3d of August, what possible excuse can any good Demo- crat make for keeping up a division for the purpose of prostrat- ing his party, after that election is over and the controversy has terminated? It is evident that all who shall keep up this war- fare for the purpose of dividing and destroying the party have AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 43 made up their minds to abandon the Democratic organization forever, and to join those for whose benefit they are now trying to distract our party, and elect Republicans in the place of the Democratic nominees. I submit the question to you whether I have been right or wrong in the course I have pursued in Congress. And I submit, also, whether I have not redeemed in good faith every pledge I have made to you. Then, my friends, the question recurs, whether I shall be sustained or rejected? If you are of opinion that Mr. Lincoln will advance the interests of Illinois better than I can ; that he will sustain her honor and her dignity higher than it has been in my power to do ; that your interests and the inter- ests of your children require his election instead of mine, it is your duty to give him your support. If, on the contrar}^ ^^ou think that my adherence to these great fundamental principles upon which our government is founded is the true mode of sus- taining the peace and harmony of the country, and maintaining the perpetuity of the Republic, I then ask you to stand by me in the efforts I have made to that end. And this brings me to the consideration of the two points at issue between Mr. Lincoln and mj'self. The Republican Con- vention, when it assembled at Springfield, did me and the coun- try the honor of indicating the man who was to be their standard- bearer, and the embodiment of their principles, in this State. I owe them my gratitude for thus making up a direct issue be- tween Mr. Lincoln and myself. I shall have no controversies of a personal character with Mr. Lincoln. I have known him well for a quarter of a century. I have known him, as you all know him, a kind-hearted, amiable gentleman, a right good fellow, a worthy citizen, of eminent ability as a lawyer, and, I have no doubt, sufficient ability to make a good Senator. The question, then, for you to decide is, whether his principles are more in ac- cordance with the genius of our free institutions, the peace and harmony of the Republic, than those which I advocate. He tells you, in his speech made at Springfield, before the Convention which gave him his unanimous nomination, that, — " A house divided against itself cannot stand." " I believe this government cannot endure permanently, half slave and half free." " I do not expect the Union to be dissolved, I don't 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." That is the fundamental principle upon which he sets out in this campaign. Well, I do not suppose you will believe one word of it when you come to examine it carefully, and see its consequences. Although the Republic has existed from 1789 to this da}^ divided into Free States and Slave States, yet we are 44 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN told that in the future it cannot endure unless they shall become all free or all slave. For that reason, he says, as the gentleman in the crowd says, that they must be all free. He wishes to go to the Senate of the United States in order to carry out that line of public policy, which will compel all the States in the South to become free. How is he going to do it? Has Congress any power over the subject of slavery in Kentuck}^, or Virginia, or any other State of this Union? How, then, is Mr. Lincoln going to carry out that principle which he says is essential to the exist- ence of this Union, to-wit : That slavery must be abolished in all the States of the Union, or must be established in them all? You convince the South that the}^ must either establish slavery in Illinois, and in every other Free State, or submit to its abolition in every Southern State, and you invite them to make a warfare upon the Northern States in order to establish slavery, for the sake of perpetuating it at home. Thus, Mr. Lincoln invites, by his proposition, a war of sections, a war between Illinois and Kentucky, a war between the Free States and the Slave States, a war between the North and the South, for the purpose of either exterminating slavery in every Southern State, or planting it in every Northern State. He tells you that the safety of this Re- public, that the existence of this Union, depends upon that war- fare beinof carried on until one section or the other shall be entirely subdued. The States must all be free or slave, for a house divided against itself cannot stand. That is Mr. Lincoln's argu- ment upon that question. My friends, is it possible to preserve peace between the North and the South if such a doctrine shall prevail in either section of the Union? Will you ever submit to a warfare waged by the Southern States to establish slavery in Illinois? What man in Illinois would not lose the last drop of his heart's blood before he would submit to the institution of slavery being forced upon us by the other States, against our will? And if that be true of us, what Southern man would not shed the last drop of his heart's blood to prevent Illinois, or any other Northern State, from interfering to abolish slavery in his State? Each of these States is sovereign under the Constitu- tion ; and if we wish to preserve our liberties, the reserved rights and sovereignty of each and every State must be maintained. I have said on a former occasion, and I here repeat, that it is neither desirable nor possible to establish uniformit}'- in the local and domestic institutions of all the States of this Confederac3^ And why? Because the Constitution of the United States rests upon the right of every State to decide all its local and domestic institutions for itself. It is not possible, therefore, to make them conform to each other, unless we subvert the Constitution of the United States. No, sir, that cannot be done. God forbid that any man should ever make the attempt. Let that Constitution AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 45 ever be trodden under foot and destroyed, and there will not be wisdom and patriotism enough left to make another that will work half so well. Our safety, our liberty, depends upon pre- serving the Constitution of the United States as our fathers made it, inviolate, at the same time maintaining the reserved rights and the sovereignty^ of each State over its local and domestic institu- tions, against Federal authority, or any outside interference. The difference between Mr. Lincoln and myself upon this point is, that he goes for a combination of the Northern States, or the organization of a sectional political party in the Free States, to make war on the domestic institutions of the Southern States, and to prosecute that war until they shall all be subdued, and made to conform to such rules as the North shall dictate to them. I am aware that Mr. Lincoln, on Saturday night last, made a speech at Chicago, for the purpose, as he said, of explaining his position on this question. I have read that speech with great care, and will do him the justice to say that it is marked by eminent abilit}^ and great success in concealing what he did mean to say in his Springfield speech. His answer to this point, which I have been arguing, is, that he never did mean, and that I ought to know that he never intended to convey the idea, that he wished the " people of the Free States to entei' into the Southern States, and interfere with slavery." Well, I never did suppose that he ever dreamed of entering into Kentucky to make war upon her insti- tutions ; nor will any Abolitionist ever enter into Kentucky to wage such war. Their mode of making war is not to enter into those States where slavery exists, and there interfere, and render themselves responsible for the consequences. Oh, no ! They stand on this side of the Ohio River and shoot across. They stand in Bloomington, and shake their fists at the people of Lexington ; they threaten South Carolina from Chicago. And they call that bravery ! But they are very particular, as Mr. Lincoln says, not to enter into those States for the purpose of interfering with the institution of slaver}"- there. I am not only opposed to entering into the Slave States, for the pur- pose of interfering with their institutions, but I am opposed to a sectional agitation to control the institutions of other States. I am opposed to organizing a sectional party, which appeals to Northern pride, and Northern passion and prejudice, against Southern institutions, thus stirring up ill-feeling and hot blood between brethren of the same Republic. I am opposed to that whole system of sectional agitation, which can produce nothing but strife, but discord, but hostilit}'', and, finally, disunion. And yet Mr. Lincoln asks you to send him to the Senate of the United States, in order that he may carry out that great principle of his, that all the States must be slave, or all must be free. I repeat, 46 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN how is he to carry it out when he gets to the Senate? Does he intend to introduce a bill to abolish slavery in Kentucky? Does he intend to introduce a bill to interfere with slavery in Virginia? How is he to accomplish what he professes must be done in order to save the Union? Mr. Lincoln is a lawyer, sagacious and able enough to tell you how he proposes to do it. I ask Mr. Lincoln how it is that he proposes ultimately to bring about this uniformity in each and all the States of the Union. There is but one possible mode which I can see, and perhaps Mr. Lincoln intends to pursue it ; that is, to introduce a proposition into the Senate to change the Constitution of the United States, in order that all the State Legislatures may be abolished. State sovereignty blotted out, and the power conferred upon Congress to make local laws and establish the domestic institutions and police regulations uniformly throughout the United States. Are you prepared for such a change in the institutions of your country? Whenever you shall have blotted out the State sovereignties, abolished the State Legislatures, and consolidated all the power in the Federal Government, you will have estab- lished a consolidated Empire as destructive to the liberties of the people and the rights of the citizen as that of Austria, or Russia, or any other despotism that rests upon the necks of the people. How is it possible for Mr. Lincoln to carry out his cherished principle of abolishing slavery everywhere or establishing it everywhere, except by the mode which I have pointed out, — by an amendment to the Constitution to the effect that I have suggested? There is no other possible mode. Mr. Lincoln intends resorting to that, or else he means nothing by the great principle upon which he desires to be elected. My friends, I trust that we will be able to get him to define what he does mean by this scriptural quotation that " A house divided against itself cannot stand ;" that the government cannot endure permanently, half slave and half free ; that it must be all one thing, or all the other. Who among you expects to live, or have his children live, until slavery shall be established in Illinois or abolished in South Carolina? Who expects to see that occur during the life-time of ourselves or our children ? There is but one possible way in which slavery can be abolished, and that is by leaving a State, according to the principle of the Kansas-Nebraska bill, perfectly free to form and regulate its institutions in its own way. That was the principle upon v^'hich this Republic was founded, and it is under the operation of that principle that we have been able to preserve the Union thus far. Under its operations, slavery disappeared from New Hampshire, from Rhode Island, from Connecticut, from New York, from New Jersey, from Pennsylvania, from six of the twelve original slaveholding States ; and this gradual AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 47 system of emancipation went on quietly, peacefully, and steadily, so long as we in the Free States minded our own business and left our neighbors alone. But the moment the abolition societies were organized throughout the North, preaching a violent cru- sade against slavery in the Southern States, this combination necessarily caused a counter-combination in the South, and a sectional line was drawn which was a barrier to any further emancipation. Bear in mind that emancipation has not taken place in any one State since the Free-soil party was organized as a political party in this country. Emancipation went on gradually in State after State so long as the Free States were content with managing their own affairs and leaving the South perfectly free to do as they pleased ; but the moment the North said. We are powerful enough to control you of the South, the moment the North proclaimed itself the determined master of the South, that moment the South combined to resist the attack, and thus sectional parties were formed, and gradual emancipation ceased in all the Northern slaveholding States. And yet Mr. Lincoln, in view of these historical facts, proposes to keep up this sectional agitation, band all the Northern States together in one political party, elect a President by Northern votes alone, and then, of course, make a cabinet composed of Northern men, and administer the government by Northern men onl3^ denying all the Southern States of this Union any participation in the administration of affairs whatsoever. I submit to you, my fellow- citizens, whether such a line of policy is consistent with the peace and harmony of the country? Can the Union endure under such a system of policy? He has taken his position in favor of sectional agitation and sectional warfare. I have taken mine in favor of securing peace, harmony, and good-will among all the States, b}^ permitting each to mind its own business, and dis- countenancing any attempt at interference on the part of one State with the domestic concerns of the others. Mr. Lincoln makes another issue with me, and he wishes to confine the contest to these two issues. I accept the other as readily as the one to which I have already referred. The other issue is a crusade against the Supreme Court of the United States, because of its decision in the Dred Scott case. My fellow-citizens, I have no issue to make with the Supreme Court. I have no crusade to preach against that august body. I have no warfare to make upon it. I receive the decision of the Judges of that Court, when pronounced, as the final adjudication upon all questions within their jurisdiction. It would be perfectly legitimate and proper for Mr. Lincoln, myself, or any other lawyer, to go before the Supreme Court and argue any question that might arise there, taking either side of it, and enforcing it with all our ability, zeal, and energ}^ ; but when the decision is 48 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN pronounced, that decision becomes the law of the land, and he, and you, and myself, and every other good citizen, must bow to it, and yield obedience to it. Unless we respect and bow in deference to the final decisions of the highest judicial tribunal in our country, we are driven at once to anarchy, to violence, to mob law, and there is no security left for our property or our own civil rights. What protects your property but the law, and who expounds the law but the judicial tribunals ; and if an appeal is to be taken from the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States in all cases where a person does not like the adju- dication, to whom is that appeal to be taken? Are we to appeal from the Supreme Court to a county -meeting like this? And shall we here re-argue the question and reverse the decision? If so, how are we to enforce our decrees after we have pronounced them? Does Mr. Lincoln intend to appeal from the decision of the Supreme Court to a Republican caucus, or a town meeting? To whom is he going to appeal? ["To Lovejoy," and shouts of laughter.] Why, if I understand aright, Lincoln and Lovejoy are co-appellants in a joint suit, and inasmuch as they are so, he would not certainly appeal from the Supreme Court to his own partner to decide the case for him. Mr. Lincoln tells you that he is opposed to the decision of the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott case. Well, suppose he is ; what is he going to do about it? I never got beat in a law suit in my life that I was not opposed to the decision ; and if I had it before the Circuit Court I took it up to the Supreme Court, where, if I got beat again, I thought it better to say no more about it, as I did not know of any lawful mode of reversing the decision of the highest tribunal on earth. To whom is Mr. Lincoln going to appeal? Why, he says he is going to appeal to Con- gress. Let us see how he will appeal to Congress. He tells us that on the 8th of March, 1820, Congress passed a law called the Missouri Compromise, prohibiting slavery forever in all the territory west of the Mississippi and north of the Missouri line of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes, that Dred Scott, a slave in Missouri, was taken by his master to Fort Snelling, in the present State of Minnesota, situated on the west branch of the Missis- sippi River, and consequently in the Territory where slavery was prohibited by the Act of 1820, and that when Dred Scott appealed for his freedom in consequence of having been taken into a free Territory, the Supreme Court of the United States decided that Dred Scott did not become free by being taken into that Territory, but that having been carried back to Missouri, was yet a slave. Mr. Lincoln is going to appeal from that decision and reverse it. He does not intend to reverse it as to Dred Scott. Oh, no ! But he will reverse it so that it shall not stand as a rule in the future. How will he do it? He says that if he is elected to the Senate, AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 49 he will introduce and pass a law just like the Missouri Com- promise, prohibiting slavery again in all the Territories. Sup- pose, he does re-enact the same law which the Court has pro- nounced unconstitutional, will that make it constitutional? If the Act of 1820 was unconstitutional, in consequence of Congress having no power to pass it, will Mr. Lincoln make it constitu- tional by passing it again? What clause of the Constitution of the United States provides for an appeal from the decision of the Supreme Court to Congress? If my reading of that instrument is correct, it is to the effect that that Constitution and all laws made in pursuance of it are of the supreme law of the land, any- thing in the Constitution or laws of a State to the contrary notwithstanding. Hence, you will find that only such Acts of Congress are laws as are made in pursuance of the Constitution. When Congress has passed an Act, and put it on the statute book as law, who is to decide whether that Act is in conformity with the Constitution or not? The Constitution of the United States tells you. It has provided that the judicial power of the United States shall be vested in a Supreme Court, and such inferior Courts as Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. Thus, by the Constitution, the Supreme Court is declared, in so many words, to be the tribunal, and the only tribunal, which is competent to adjudicate upon the constitutionality of an Act of Congress. He tells you that that Court has adjudicated the question, and decided that an Act of Congress prohibiting slavery in the Territory is unconstitutional and void ; and yet he says he is going to pass another like it. What for? Will it be any more valid? Will he be able to convince the Court that the second Act is valid when the first is invalid and void? What good does it do to pass a second Act? Why, it will have the effect to arraign the Supreme Court before the people, and to bring them into all the political discussions of the country. Will that do any good? Will it inspire any more confidence in the judicial tribunals of the country? What good can it do to wage this war upon the Court, arraying it against Congress, and Congress against the Court? The Constitution of the United States has said that this govern- ment shall be divided into three separate and distinct branches, — the executive, the legislative, and the judicial ; and of course each one is supreme and independent of the other within the circle of its own powers. The functions of Congress are to enact the statutes, the province of the Court is to pronounce upon their validity, and the duty of the Executive is to carry the decision into effect when rendered by the Court. And yet, notwith- standing the Constitution makes the decision of the Court final in regard to the validity of an Act of Congress, Mr. Lincoln is going to reverse that decision by passing another Act of Congress. When he has become convinced of the folly of the proposi- 50 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN tion, perhaps he will resort to the same subterfuge that I have found others of his party resort to, which is to agitate and agitate until he can change the Supreme Court and put other men in the places of the present incumbents. I wonder whether Mr. Lin- coln is right sure that he can accomplish that reform. He cer- tainly will not be able to get rid of the present Judges until they die, and from present appearances I think they have as good security of life as he has himself. I am afraid that my friend Lin- coln would not accomplish this task during his own lifetime, and yet he wants to go to Congress to do all this in six years. Do you think that he can persuade nine Judges, or a majority of them, to die in that six years, just to accommodate him? They are appointed Judges for life, and according to the present organization, new ones cannot be appointed during that time ; but he is going to agitate until they die, and then have the President appoint good Republicans in their places. He had better be quite sure that he gets a Republican President at the same time to appoint them. He wants to have a Republican President elected by Northern votes, not a Southern man participating, and elected for the pur- pose of placing none but Republicans on the bench ; and, conse- quently, if he succeeds in electing that President, and succeeds in persuading the present Judges to die, in order that their vacancies may be filled, that the President will then appoint their successors. And by what process will he appoint them? He first looks for a man who has the legal qualifications, perhaps he takes Mr. Lincoln, and says, "Mr. Lincoln, would you not like to go on the Supreme bench?" "Yes," replies Mr. Lincoln. "Well," returns the Republican President, "I cannot appoint you until you give me a pledge as to how you will decide in the event of a particular question coming before you." What would you think of Mr. Lincoln if he would consent to give that pledge? And yet he is going to prosecute a war until he gets the present Judges out, and then catechise each man and require a pledge before his appointment as to how he will decide each question that may arise upon points affecting the Republican party. Now, my friends, suppose this scheme was practical, I ask you what confidence you would have in a Court thus constituted, — a Court composed of partisan Judges, appointed on political grounds, selected with a view to the decision of questions in a particular way, and pledged in regard to a decision before the argument, and without reference to the peculiar state of the facts. Would such a Court command the respect of the country? If the Republican party cannot trust Democratic Judges, how can they expect us to trust Republican Judges, when they have been selected in advance for the purpose of packing a decision in the event of a case arising? My fellow-citizens, whenever partisan politics shall be carried on to the bench ; whenever the AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 51 Judges shall be arraigned upon the stump, and their judicial conduct reviewed in town meetings and caucuses ; whenever the independence and integrity of the judiciary shall be tampered with to the extent of rendering them partial, blind, and suppliant tools, what security will you have for your rights and your liberties? I therefore take issue with Mr. Lincoln directly in regard to this warfare upon the Supreme Court of the United States. I accept the decision of that Court as it was pronounced. Whatever my individual opinions may be, I, as a good citizen, am bound by the laws of the land, as the Legislature makes them, as the Court expounds them, and as the executive officers administer them. I am bound by our Constitution as our fathers made it, and as it is our duty to support it. I am bound, as a good citizen, to sustain the constituted authorities, and to resist, discourage, and beat down, by all lawful and peaceful means, all attempts at exciting mobs, or violence, or an}^ other revolutionary proceedings against the Constitution and the constituted author- ities of the country. Mr. Lincoln is alarmed for fear that, under the Dred Scott decision, slaver}^ will go into all the Territories of the United States. All I have to say is that, with or without that decision, slavery will go just where the people want it, and not one inch further. You have had experience upon that subject in the case of Kansas. You have been told by the Republican party that, from 1854, when the Kansas-Nebraska bill passed, down to last winter, that slavery was sustained and supported in Kansas by the laws of what they called a " bogus " Legislature. And how many slaves were there in the Territory at the end of last winter? Not as many at the end of that period as there were on the day the Kansas-Nebraska bill passed. There was quite a number of slaves in Kansas, taken there under the Missouri Compromise, and in spite of it, before the Kansas-Nebraska bill passed ; and now it is asserted that there are not as many there as there were before the passage of the bill, notwithstanding that they had local laws sustaining and encouraging it, enacted, as the Repub- licans say, by a "bogus" Legislature, imposed upon Kansas by an invasion from Missouri. Why has not slavery obtained a foothold in Kansas under these circumstances? Simply because there was a majority of her people opposed to slavery, and every slaveholder knew that if he took his slaves there, the moment that majority got possession of the ballot-boxes, and a fair election was held, that moment slavery would be abolished, and he would lose them. For that reason, such owners as took their slaves there, brought them back to Missouri, fearing that if they remained they would be emancipated. Thus you see that under the principle of popular sovereignty, slavery has been kept out of Kansas, notwithstanding the fact that for the first three years 52 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN they had a Legislature in that Territory favorable to it. I tell you, m}^ friends, it is impossible under our institutions to force slaver}' on an unwilling people. If this principle of popular sovereignty asserted in the Nebraska bill be fairly carried out, by letting the people decide the question for themselves, by a fair vote, at a fair election, and with honest returns, slavery will never exist one day, or one hour, in any Territory against the unfriendly legislation of an unfriendly people. I care not how the Dred Scott decision may have settled the abstract question so far as the practical result is concerned ; for, to use the language of an eminent Southern Senator on this very question : — " I do not care a fig which way the decision shall be, for it is of no particular consequence ; slavery cannot exist a day or an hour, in any Territory or State, unless it has affirmative laws sustaining and supporting it, furnishing police regulations and remedies ; and an omission to furnish them would be as fatal as a constitutional prohi- bition. Without affirmative legislation in its favor, slavery could not exist any longer than a new-born infant could survive under the heat of the sun, on a barren rock, without protection. It would wilt and die for the want of support." Hence, if the people of a Territory want slavery, they will encourage it by passing affirmatory laws, and the necessary police regulations, patrol laws, and slave code; if they do not want it, they will withhold that legislation, and by withholding it slavery is as dead as if it was prohibited by a constitutional prohibition, especially if, in addition, their legislation is un- friendly, as it would be if they were opposed to it. They could pass such local laws and police regulations as would drive slavery out in one day, or one hour, if they were opposed to it ; and therefore, so far as the question of slavery in the Territories is concerned, so far as the principle of popular sovereignty is concerned, in its practical operation, it matters not how the Dred Scott case may be decided with reference to the Territories. My own opinion on that law point is well known. It is shown by my votes and speeches in Congress. But be it as it may, the question was an abstract question, inviting no practical results; and whether slavery shall exist or shall not exist in any State or Territory will depend upon whether the people are for or against it ; and whichever way they shall decide it in any Territory or in any State, will be entirely satisfactory to me. But I must now bestow a few words upon Mr. Lincoln's main objection to the Dred Scott decision. He is not going to submit to it. Not that he is going to make war upon it with force of arms. But he is going to appeal and reverse it in some way ; he cannot tell us how. I reckon not by a writ of error, because I do not know where he would prosecute that, except AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 53 before an Abolition Society. And when he appeals, he does not exactly tell us to whom he will appeal, except it be the Republi- can party ; and I have yet to learn that the Republican party, under the Constitution, has judicial powers : but he is going to appeal from it and reverse it, either by an Act of Congress, or by turning out the judges, or in some other way. And why? Because he says that that decision deprives the negro of the benefits of that clause of the Constitution of the United States which entitles the citizens of each State to all the privileges and immunities of citizens of the several States. Well, it is very true that the decision does have that effect. By deciding that a negro is not a citizen, of course it denies to him the rights and privileges awarded to citizens of the United States. It is this that Mr. Lincoln will not submit to. Why? For the palpable reason that he wishes to confer upon the negro all the rights, privileges, and immunities of citizens of the several States. I will not quarrel with Mr. Lincoln for his views on that subject. I have no doubt he is conscientious in them, I have not the slightest idea but that he conscientiously believes that a negro ought to enjoy and exercise all the rights and privileges given to white men ; but I do not agree with him, and hence I cannot concur with him. I believe that this Government of ours was founded on the white basis. I believe that it was established by white men, by men of European birth, or descended of European races, for the benefit of white men and their posterity in all time to come. I do not believe that it was the design or inten- tion of the signers of the Declaration of Independence or the framers of the Constitution to include negroes, Indians, or other inferior races, with white men, as citizens. Our fathers had at that day seen the evil consequences of conferring civil and politi- cal rights upon the Indian and negro in the Spanish and French colonies on the American continent and the adjacent islands. In Mexico, in Central America, in South America and in the West India Islands, where the Indian, the negro, and men of all colors and all races are put on an equality by law, the effect of political amalgamation can be seen. Ask any of those gallant young men in your own county, who went to Mexico to fight the battles of their country, in what friend Lincoln con- siders an unjust and unholy war, and hear what they will tell you in regard to the amalgamation of races in that country. Amal- gamation there, first political, then social, has led to demoraliza- tion and degradation, until it has reduced that people below the point of capacity for self-government. Our fathers knew what the eflect of it would be, and from the time they planted foot on the American continent, not only those who landed at James- town, but at Plymouth Rock and all other points on the coast, they pursued the policy of confining civil and political rights to the 54 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN white race, and excluding the negro in all cases. Still, Mr. Lincoln conscientiously believes that it is his duty to advocate negro citizenship. He wants to give the negro the privilege of citizenship. He quotes scripture again, and says : " As your Father in heaven is perfect, be ye also perfect." And he applies that scriptural quotation to all classes ; not that he expects us all to be as perfect as our Master, but as nearly perfect as possible. In other words, he is willing to give the negro an equality under the law, in order that he may approach as near perfection, or an equality with the white man, as possible. To this same end he quotes the Declaration of Independence in these words : " We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men were created equal, and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of hap- piness ;" and goes on to argue that the negro was included, or intended to be included, in that Declaration, by the signers of the paper. He says that, by the Declaration of Independence, therefore, all kinds of men, negroes included, were created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, and, further, that the right of the negro to be on an equality with the white man is a divine right, conferred by the Almighty, and rendered inalienable according to the Declaration of Inde- pendence. Hence no human law or constitution can deprive the negro of that equality with the white man to which he is en- titled by the divine law. ["Higher law."] Yes, higher law. Now, I do not question Mr. Lincoln's sincerity on this point. He believes that the negro, by the divine law, is created the equal of the white man, and that no human law can deprive him of that equality, thus secured ; and he contends that the negro ought, therefore, to have all the rights and privileges of citizen- ship on an equality with the white man. In order to accomplish this, the first thing that would have to be done in this State would be to blot out of our State Constitution that clause which pro- hibits negroes from coming into this State and making it an African colony, and permit them to come and spread over these charming prairies until in midday they shall look black as night. When our friend Lincoln gets all his colored brethren aroimd him here, he will then raise them to perfection as fast as possible, and place them on an equality with the white man, first removing all legal restrictions, because they are our equals b}?^ divine law, and there should be no such restrictions. He wants them to vote. I am opposed to it. If they had a vote, I reckon they would all vote for him in preference to me, entertaining the views I do. But that matters not. The position he has taken on this question not only presents him as claiming for them the right to vote, but their right, under the divine law and the Declaration of Independ- ence, to be elected to office, to become members of the Legis- AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 55 lature, to go to Congress, to become Governors, or United States Senators, or Judges of the Supreme Court ; and I suppose that when they control that court they will probably reverse the Dred Scott decision. He is going to bring negroes here, and give them the right of citizenship, the right of voting, and the right of holding office and sitting on juries; and what else? Why, he would permit them to marry, would he not? And if he gives them that right, I suppose he will let them marry whom they please, provided they marry their equals. If the divine law declares that the white man is the equal of the negro woman, that they are on a perfect equality, I suppose he admits the right of the negro woman to marry the white man. In other words, his doctrine that the negro, by divine law, is placed on a perfect equality with the white man, and that that equality is recognized by the Declaration of Independence, leads him necessarily to establish negro equality under the law ; but whether even then they would be so in fact would depend upon the degree of virtue and intelligence they possessed, and certain other qualities that are matters of taste rather than of law. I do not understand Mr. Lincoln as saying that he expects to make them our equals socially, or by intelligence, nor in fact as citizens, but that he wishes to make them our equals under the law, and then say to them, " as your Master in heaven is perfect, be ye also perfect." Well, I confess to you, my fellow-citizens, that I am utterly opposed to that system of Abolition philosophy. I do not be- lieve that the signers of the Declaration of Independence had any reference to negroes when they used the expression that all men were created equal, or that they had any reference to the Chinese or Coolies, the Indians, the Japanese, or any other inferior race. They were speaking of the white race, the European race on this continent, and their descendants, and emigrants who should come here. They were speaking only of the white race, and never dreamed that their language would be construed to include the negro. And now for the evidence of that fact. At the time the Declaration of Independence was put forth, declaring the equality of all men, every one of the thirteen colonies was a slaveholding colony, and every man who signed that Declaration represented a slaveholding constituency. Did they intend, when they put their signatures to that instrument, to declare that their own slaves were on an equality with them ; that they were made their equals by divine law, and that any human law reducing them to an inferior position was void, as being in violation of divine law? Was that the meaning of the signers of the Declaration of Independence? Did Jefferson and Henry and Lee, — did any of the signers of that instrument, or all of them, on the day they signed it, give their slaves freedom? History records that they did not. Did they go further, and put 56 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN the negro on an equality with the white man throughout the country? They did not. And yet if they had understood that Declaration as including the negro, which Mr. Lincoln holds they did, they would have been bound, as conscientious men, to have restored the negro to that equality which he thinks the Almighty intended they should occupy with the white man. They did not do it. Slavery was abolished in only one State before the adoption of the Constitution in 1789, and then in others gradually, down to the time this Abolition agitation began ; and it has not been abolished in one since. The history of the countr}^ shows that neither the signers of the Declaration, nor the framers of the Constitution, ever supposed it possible that their language would be used in an attempt to make this nation a mixed nation of Indians, negroes, whites, and mongrels. I repeat, that our whole history confirms the proposition, that from the earliest settlement of the colonies down to the Declaration of Independence and the adoption of the Constitution of the United States, our fathers proceeded on the white basis, making the white people the governing race, but conceding to the Indian and negro, and all inferior races, all the rights and all the privileges they could enjoy consistent with the safety of the society in which they lived. That is my opinion now. I told you that humanity, philanthropy, justice, and sound policy re- quired that we should give the negro every right, every privilege, every immunity, consistent with the safety and welfare of the State. The question then naturally arises. What are those rights and privileges, and What is the nature and extent of them ? My answer is, that that is a question which each State and each Territor}^ must decide for itself. We have decided that question. We have said that in this State the negro shall not be a slave, but that he shall enjoy no political rights ; that negro equality shall not exist. I am content with that position. My friend Lincoln is not. He thinks that our policy and our laws on that subject are contrary to the Declaration of Independence. He thinks that the Almighty made the negro his equal and his brother. For my part, I do not consider the negro any kin to me, nor to any other white man ; but I would still carry my humanity and my philanthropy to the extent of giving him every privilege and every immunity that he could enjoy, consistent with our own good. We in Illinois have the right to decide upon that question for ourselves, and we are bound to allow every other State to do the same. Maine allows the negro to vote on an equalit}'^ with the white man. I do not quarrel with our friends in Maine for that. If they think it wise and proper in Maine to put the negro on an equality with the white man, and allow him to go to the polls and negative the vote of a white man, it is their business, and not mine. On the other hand, New AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 57 York permits a negro to vote, provided he owns $250 worth of property. New York thinks that a negro ought to be permitted to vote, provided he is rich, but not otherwise. They allow the aristocratic negro to vote there. I never saw the wisdom, the propriety, or the justice of that decision on the part of New York, and yet it never occurred to me that I had a right to find fault with that State. It is her business ; she is a sovereign State, and has a right to do as she pleases ; and if she will take care of her own negroes, making such regulations concerning them as suit her, an d let us alone, I will mind my business, and not interfere with her. In Kentucky they will not give a negro any political or any civil rights. I shall not argue the question whether Ken- tucky in so doing has decided right or wrong, wisely or unwisely. It is a question for Kentucky to decide for herself. I believe that the Kentuckians have consciences as well as ourselves ; they have as keen a perception of their religious, moral, and social duties as we have ; and I am willing that they shall decide this slavery question for themselves, and be accountable to their God for their action. It is not for me to arraign them for what they do. I will not judge them, lest I shall be judged. Let Ken- tucky mind her own business and take care of her negroes, and we attend to our own affairs and take care of our negroes, and we will be the best of friends ; but if Kentucky attempts to interfere with us, or we with her, there will be strife, there will be discord, there will be relentless hatred, there will be every- thing but fraternal feeling and brotherly love. It is not necessary that you should enter Kentucky and interfere in that State, to use the language of Mr. Lincoln. It is just as offensive to inter- fere from this State, or send your missiles over there. I care not whether an enemy, if he is going to assault us, shall actually come into our State, or come along the line, and throw his bomb- shells over to explode in our midst. Suppose England should plant a battery on the Canadian side of the Niagara River, opposite Buffalo, and throw bombshells over, which would explode in Main Street, in that city, and destroy the buildings, and that, when we protested, she would say, in the language of Mr. Lincoln, that she never dreamed of coming into the United States to interfere with us, and that she was just throwing her bombs over the line from her own side, which she had a right to do. Would that explanation satisfy us? So it is with Mr. Lincoln. He is not going into Kentucky, but he will plant his batteries on this side of the Ohio, where he is safe and secure for a retreat, and will throw his bombshells — his Abolition docu- ments — over the river, and will carry on a political warfare, and get up strife between the North and the South, until he elects a sectional President, reduces the South to the condition of dependent colonies, raises the negro to an equality, and forces 58 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN the South to submit to the doctrine that a house divided against itself cannot stand ; that the Union divided into half slave States and half free cannot endure ; that they must all be slave or they must all be free ; and that as we in the North are in the majority, we will not permit them to be all slave, and therefore they in the South must consent to the States all being free. Now, fellow- citizens, I submit to you whether these doctrines are consistent with the peace and harmony of this Union? I submit to you whether they are consistent with our duties as citizens of a common confederacy ; whether they are consistent with the principles which ought to govern brethren of the same family? I recognize all the people of these States, North and South, East and West, old or new, Atlantic or Pacific, as our brethren, flesh of our flesh, and I will do no act unto them that I would not be will- ing they should do unto us. I would apply the same Christian rule to the States of this Union that we are taught to apply to individuals, — " Do unto others as you would have others do unto you ; " and this would secure peace. Why should this slavery agitation be kept up? Does it benefit the white man, or the slave? Who does it benefit, except the Republican politicians, who use it as their hobby to ride into office? Why, I repeat, should it be continued? Why cannot we be content to administer this government as it was made, — a confederacy of sovereign and independent States? Let us recognize the sovereignty and independence of each State, refrain from inter- fering with the domestic institutions and regulations of other States, permit the Territories and new States to decide their institutions for themselves, as we did when we were in their con- dition ; blot out these lines of North and South, and resort back to these lines of State boundaries which the Constitution has marked out and engraved upon the face of the country ; have no other dividing lines but these, and we will be one united, harmonious people, with fraternal feelings, and no discord or dissension. These are my views, and these are the principles to which I have devoted all my energies since 1850, when I acted side by side with the immortal Clay and the god-like Webster in that memorable struggle, in which Whigs and Democrats united upon a common platform of patriotism and the Constitution, throwing aside partisan feelings in order to restore peace and harmony to a distracted country. And when I stood beside the death-bed of Mr. Clay, and heard him refer, with feelings and emotions of the deepest solicitude, to the welfare of the country, and saw that he looked upon the principle embodied in the great Compromise measures of 1850, the principle of the Nebraska bill, the doctrine of leaving each State and Territory free to decide its institutions for itself, as the only means by which the peace of the country AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 59 could be preserved and the Union perpetuated, — I pledged him, on that death-bed of his, that so long as I lived, my energies should be devoted to the vindication of that principle, and of his fame as connected with it. I gave the same pledge to the great expounder of the Constitution, he who has been called the " god- like Webster." I looked up to Clay and to him as a son w^ould to a father, and I call upon the people of Illinois, and the people of the whole Union, to bear testimony that never since the sod has been laid upon the graves of these eminent statesmen have I failed, on any occasion, to vindicate the principle with which the last great crowning acts of their lives were identified, or to vindicate their names whenever they have been assailed ; and now my life and energy are devoted to this great work as the means of preserving this Union. This Union can only be preserved by maintaining the fraternal feelintj between the North and the South, the East and the West. If that good feeling can be pre- served, the Union will be as perpetual as the fame of its great founders. It can be maintained by preserving the sovereignty of the States, the right of each State and each Territory to settle its domestic concerns for itself, and the duty of each to refrain from interfering with the other in any of its local or domestic institutions. Let that be done, and the Union will be perpetual ; let that be done, and this Republic, which began with thirteen States, and which now numbers thirt3^-two, which, when it began, only extended from the Atlantic to the Mississippi, but now reaches to the Pacific, may yet expand. North and South, until it covers the whole Continent, and becomes one vast ocean-bound confederacy. Then, my friends, the path of duty, of honor, of patriotism, is plain. There are a few simple principles to be preserved. Bear in mind the dividing line between State rights and Federal authority ; let us maintain the great principles of popular sovereignty, of State rights, and of the Federal Union as the Constitution has made it, and this Republic will endure forever. I thank you kindly for the patience with which you have listened to me. I fear I have wearied you. I have a heavy day's work before me to-morrow, I have several speeches to make. My friends, in whose hands I am, are taxing me beyond human endurance ; but I shall take the helm and control them hereafter. I am profoundly grateful to the people of McLean for the reception they have given me, and the kindness with which they have listened to me. I remember when I first came among you here, twenty-five years ago, that I was prosecuting attorney in this district, and that my earliest eflbrts were made here, when my deficiencies were too apparent, I am afraid, to be concealed from any one. I remember the courtesy and kindness with which I was uniformly treated by you all ; and whenever I can 60 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN recognize the face of one of your old citizens, it is like meeting an old and cherished friend. I come among you with a heart filled with gratitude for past favors. I have been with you but little for the past few years, on account of my official duties. I intend to visit you again before the campaign is over. I wish to speak to your whole people. I wish them to pass judgment upon the correctness of my course, and the soundness of the principles which I have proclaimed. If you do not approve my principles, I cannot ask your support. If you believe that the election of Mr. Lincoln would contribute more to preserve the harmony of the country, to perpetuate the Union, and more to the prosperity and the honor and glory of the State, then it is your duty to give him the preference. If, on the contrary, you believe that I have been faithful to my trust, and that b}^ sustaining me you will give greater strength and efficiency to the principles which I have expounded, I shall then be grateful for your support. I renew my profound thanks for your attention. SPEECH OF SENATOR DOUGLAS, Delivered July 17, 1858, at Springfield, III. (Mr. Lincoln was not present.) Mr. Chairman and Fellow-citizens of Springfield and OLD Sangamon : My heart is filled with emotions at the allusions which have been so happily and so kindly made in the welcome just extended to me, — a welcome so numerous and so enthusi- astic, bringing me to my home among my old friends, that language cannot express m}^ gratitude. I do feel at home when- ever I return to old Sangamon and receive those kind and friendly greetings which have never failed to meet me when I have come among 3^ou ; but never before have I had such occasion to be grateful and to be proud of the manner of the reception as on the present. While I am willing, sir, to attribute a part of this demonstration to those kind and friendly personal relations to which you have referred, I cannot conceal from myself that the controlling and pervading element in this great mass of human beings is devotion to that principle of self-government to which so many years of my life have been devoted ; and rejoice more in considering it an approval of m}-- support of a cardinal principle than I would if I could appropriate it to myself as a personal compliment. You but speak rightly when you assert that during the last session of Congress there was an attempt to violate one of the fundamental principles upon which our free institutions rest. The attempt to force the Lecompton Constitution upon the people AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 61 of Kansas against their will, would have been, if successful, subversive of the great fundamental principles upon which all our institutions rest. If there is any one principle more sacred and more vital to the existence of a free government than all others, it is the right of the people to form and ratify the Consti- tution under which they are to live. It is the corner-stone of the temple of liberty ; it is the foundation upon which the whole structure rests ; and whenever it can be successfully evaded, self- government has received a vital stab. I deemed it my duty, as a citizen and as a representative of the State of Illinois, to resist, with all my energies and with whatever of ability I could command, the consummation of that effort to force a constitution upon an unwilling people. I am aware that other questions have been connected, or attempted to be connected, with that great struggle ; but they were mere collateral questions, not affecting the main point. Mj'- opposition to the Lecompton Constitution rested solely upon the fact that it was not the act and deed of that people, and that it did not embody their will. I did not object to it upon the ground of the slavery clause contained in it. I shoiild have resisted it with the same energ}^ and determination even if it had been a free State instead of a slaveholding State ; and as an evidence of this fact I wish you to bear in mind that my speech against that Lecompton Act was made on the 9th day of December, nearly two weeks before the vote was taken on the acceptance or rejection of the slavery clause. I did not then know, I could not have known, whether the slavery clause would be accepted or rejected ; the general impression was that it would be rejected ; and in my speech I assumed that impression to be true ; that probably it would be voted down ; and then I said to the United States Senate, as I now proclaim to you, m}^ constituents, that you have no more right to force a free State upon an unwilling people than you have to force a slave State upon them against their will. You have no right to force either a good or a bad thing upon a people who do not choose to receive it. And then, again, the highest privilege of our people is to determine for themselves what kind of institutions are good and what kind of institutions are bad ; and it may be true that the same people, situated in a different latitude and different climate, and with different productions and different interests, might decide the same question one way in the North and another way in the South, in order to adapt their institutions to the wants and wishes of the people to be affected by them. You all are familiar with the Lecompton struggle, and I will occupy no more time upon the subject, except to remark that when we drove the enemies of the principle of popular sovereignty from the effort to force the Lecompton Constitution upon the 62 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN people of Kansas, and when we compelled them to abandon the attempt and to refer that Constitution to that people for accept- ance or rejection, we obtained a concession of the principle for which I had contended throughout the struggle. When I saw that the principle was conceded, and that the Constitution was not to be forced upon Kansas against the wishes of the people, I felt anxious to give the proposition my support ; but when I examined it, I found that the mode of reference to the people and the form of submission, upon which the vote was taken, was so objectionable as to make it unfair and unjust. Sir, it is an axiom with me that in every free government an unfair election is no election at all. Every election should be free, should be fair, with the same privileges and the same inducements for a negative as for an affirmative vote. The objection to what is called the "English" proposition, by which the Lecompton Constitution was referred back to the people of Kansas, was this : that if the people chose to accept the Lecomp- ton Constitution they could come in with only 35,000 inhabitants ; while if they determined to reject it in order to form another more in accordance with their wishes and sentiments, they were compelled to stay out until they should have 93,420 inhabitants. In other words, it was making a distinction and discrimination between Free States and Slave States under the Federal Consti- tution. I deny the justice, I deny the right, of any distinction or discrimination between the States North and South, free or slave. Equality among the States is a fundamental principle of this government. Hence, while I will never consent to the passage of a law that a Slave State may come in with 35,000, while a Free State shall not come in unless it have 93,000, on the other hand, I shall not consent to admit a Free State with a population of 35,000, and require 93,000, in a slaveholding State. My principle is to recognize each State of the Union as independent, sovereign, and equal in its sovereignty. I will apply that principle, not only to the original thirteen States, but to the States which have since been brought into the Union, and also to every State that shall hereafter be received, "as long as water shall run, and grass grow." For these reasons I felt compelled, by a sense of duty, by a conviction of principle, to record my vote against what is called the English bill ; but yet the bill became a law, and under that law an election has been ordered to be held on the first Monday in August, for the purpose of determining the question of the acceptance or rejection of the proposition submitted by Congress. I have no hesitation in saying to you, as the chairman of your committee has justly said in his address, that whatever the decision of the people of Kansas may be at that election, it must be final and conclusive of the AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 63 whole subject ; for if at that election a majority of the people of Kansas shall vote for the acceptance of the Congressional proposition, Kansas from that moment becomes a State of the Union, the law admitting her becomes irrepealable, and thus the controversy terminates forever ; if, on the other hand, the people of Kansas shall vote down that proposition, as it is now generally admitted they will, by a large majority, then from that instant the Lecompton Constitution is dead, — dead beyond the power of resurrection ; and thus the controversy terminates. And when the monster shall die, I shall be willing, and trust that all of you will be willing, to acquiesce in the death of the Lecompton Constitution. The controversy may now be con- sidered as terminated, for in three weeks from now it will be finally settled, and all the ill-feeling, all the embittered feeling which grew out of it shall cease, unless an attempt should be made in the future to repeat the same outrage upon popular rights. I need not tell 3^ou that my past course is a sufficient guarantee that if the occasion shall ever arise again while I occupy a seat in the United States Senate, you will find me carrying out the same principle that I have this winter, with all the energy and all the power I may be able to command. I have the gratification of saying to you that I do not believe that that controversy will ever arise again : firstly, because the fate of Lecompton is a warning to the people of every Territory and of every State to be cautious how the example is repeated ; and, secondl}^ because the President of the United States, in his annual message, has said that he trusts the example in the Minnesota case, wherein Congress passed a law, called an Enabling Act, requiring the Constitution to be submitted to the people for acceptance or rejection, will be followed in all future cases. ["That was right."] I agree with you that it was right. I said so on the day after the message was delivered, in my speech in the Senate on the Lecompton Constitution, and I have frequently in the debate tendered to the President and his friends, tendered to the Lecomptonites, my voluntary pledge, that if he will stand by that recommendation, and they will stand by it, that they will find me working hand in hand with them in the effort to carry it out. All we have to do, therefore, is to adhere firml}^ in the future, as we have done in the past, to the principle contained in the recommendation of the President in his annual message, that the example in the Minnesota case shall be carried out in all future cases of the admission of Territories into the Union as States. Let that be done, and the principle of popular sovereignty will be maintained in all of its vigor and all of its integrity. I rejoice to know that Illinois stands prominently and proudly forward among the States which first took their position firmly and immovably upon this principle 64 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN of popular sovereignty, applied to the Territories as well as the States. You all recollect when, in 1850, the peace of the country was disturbed in consequence of the agitation of the slavery question, and the effort to force the Wilmot Proviso upon all the Territories, that it required all the talent and all the energy, all the wisdom, all the patriotism, of a Clay and a Webster, united with other great party leaders, to devise a system of measures by which peace and harmony could be restored to our distracted country. Those compromise measures eventually passed, and were recorded on the statute book, not only as the settlement of the then existing difficulties, but as furnishing a rule of action which should prevent in all future time the recurrence of like evils, if they were lirml}^ and fairly carried out. Those compromise measures rested, as I said in my speech at Chicago on my return home that year, upon the principle that every people ought to have the right to form and regulate their own domestic institutions in their own way, subject onl}^ to the Constitution. The}^ were founded upon the principle that while every State possessed that right under the Constitution, that the same right ought to be extended to and exercised by the people of the Territories. When the Illinois Legislature assembled, a few months after the adoption of these measures, the first thing the members did was to review their action upon this slavery agitation, and to correct the errors into which their predecessors had fallen. You remember that their first act was to repeal the Wilmot Proviso instructions to our United States Senators, which had been previously passed, and in lieu of them to record another resolution upon the I'ournal, with which j^ou must all be familiar, — a resolution brought forward by Mr. Ninian Edwards, and adopted by the House of Representatives by a vote of 61 in the affirmative to 4 in the negative. That resolution I can quote to you in almost its precise language. It declared that the great principle of self-government was the birthright of freemen, was the gift of Heaven, was achieved by the blood of our revolutionary fathers, and must be continued and carried out in the organization of all the Territories and the admission of all new States. That became the Illinois platform by the United voices of the Democratic party and of the Whig party in 1851 ; all the Whigs and all the Democrats in the Legislature uniting in an affirma- tive vote upon it, and there being only four votes in the negative, — of Abolitionists, of course. That resolution stands upon the journal of your Legislature to this day and hour unrepealed, as a standing, living, perpetual instruction to the Sena- tors from Illinois in all time to come to carr}^ out that principle of self-government, and allow no limitation upon it in the organiza- tion of any Territories or the admission of any new States. In 1854, when it became my duty as the chairman of the committee AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 65 on Territories to bring forward a bill for the organization of Kansas and Nebraska, I incorporated that principle in it, and Congress passed it, thus carrjdng the principle into practical effect. I will not recur to the scenes which took place all over the countr}^ in 1854, when that Nebraska bill passed. I could then travel from Boston to Chicago b}' the light of my own effigies, in consequence of having stood up for it. I leave it to you to say how I met that storm, and whether I quailed under it ; whether I did not " face the music," justify the principle, and pledge my life to carry it out. A friend here reminds me, too, that when making speeches then, justif^ang the Nebraska bill and the great principle of self- government, that I predicted that in less than five years you would have to get out a search-warrant to find an anti-Nebraska man. Well, I believe I did make that prediction. I did not claim the power of a prophet, but it occurred to me that among a free people, and an honest people, and an intelligent people, that five j'ears was long enough for them to come to an understanding that the great principle of self-government was right, not only in the States, but in the Territories. I rejoiced this year to see my prediction, in that respect, carried out and fulfilled by the unanimous vote, in one form or another, of both Houses of Congress. If you will remember that pending this Lecompton controversy that gallant old Roman, Kentucky's favorite son, the worthy successor of the immortal Clay, — I allude, as you know, to the gallant John J. Crittenden, — brought forward a bill, now known as the Crittenden-Montgomery bill, in which it was proposed that the Lecompton Constitution should be referred back to the people of Kansas, to be decided for or against it, at a fair election, and if a majority were in favor of it, that Kansas should come into the Union as a slaveholding State, but that if a majority were against it, that they should make a new constitution, and come in with slavery or without it, as they thought proper. ["That was right."] Yes, my dear sir, it was not only right, but it was carrying out the principle of the Nebraska bill in its letter and in its spirit. Of course I voted for it, and so did every Republican Senator and Representative in Congress. I have found some Democrats so perfectly straight that they blame me for voting for the principle of the Nebraska bill because the Republicans voted the same way. [Great laughter. "What did they say?"] What did they say? Why, man}' of them said that Douglas voted with the Republicans. Yes, not only that, but with the black Republicans. Well, there are different modes of stating that proposition. The " New York Tribune " says that Douglas did not vote with the Republicans, but that on that question the Republicans went over to Douglas and voted with him. 10 66 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN My friends, I have never yet abandoned a principle because of the support I found men yielding to it, and I shall never abandon my Democratic principles merely because Republicans come to them. For what do we travel over the country and make speeches in every political canvass, if it is not to enlighten the minds of these Republicans, to remove the scales from their eyes, and to impart to them the light of Democratic vision, so that they may be able to carry out the Constitution of our countrv as our fathers made it. And if by preaching our principles to the people we succeed in convincing the Repub- licans of the errors of their ways, and bring them over to us, are we bound to turn traitors to our principles merely because they give them their support? All I have to say is that I hope the Republican party will stand firm, in the future, by the vote they gave on the Crittenden-Montgomery bill. I hope we will find, in the resolutions of their County and Congressional Conven- tions, no declarations of " no more Slave States to be admitted into this Union," but in lieu of that declaration that we will find the principle that the people of every State and every Territory shall come into the Union with slavery or without it, just as they please, without any interference on the part of Congress. My friends, whilst I was at Washington, engaged in this great battle for sound constitutional principles, I find from the newspapers that the Republican party of this State assembled in this capital in State Convention, and not only nominated, as it was wise and proper for them to do, a man for my successor in the Senate, but laid down a platform, and their nominee made a speech, carefully written and prepared, and well delivered, which that Convention accepted as containing the Republican creed. I have no comment to make on that part of Mr. Lincoln's speech in which he represents me as forming a conspiracy with the Supreme Court, and with the late President of the United States and the present chief magistrate, having for my object the passage of the Nebraska bill, the Dred Scott decision, and the extension of slavery, — a scheme of political tricksters, composed of Chief Justice Taney and his eight associates, two Presidents of the United States, and one Senator of Illinois. If Mr. Lin- coln deems me a conspirator of that kind, all I have to say is that I do not think so badly of the President of the United States, and the Supreme Court of the United States, the highest judicial tribunal on earth, as to believe that they were capable in their action and decision of entering into political intrigues for partisan purposes. I therefore shall only notice those parts of Mr. Lincoln's speech in which he lays down his platform of principles, and tells you what he intends to do if he is elected to the Senate of the United States. [An old gentleman here rose on the platform and said : " Be particular now. Judge, be particular."] AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 67 Mr. Douglas : My venerable friend here says that he will be gratified if I will be particular; and in order that I may be so, I will read the language of Mr. Lincoln as reported by himself and published to the country. Mr. Lincoln lays down his main proposition in these words : — " 'A house divided against itself cannot stand.' I believe this Union cannot endure permanently, half free and half slave. I do not expect the Union will be dissolved, I do not expect the house to fall ; but I do expect it to cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other." Mr. Lincoln does not think this Union can continue to exist composed of half slave and half free States ; the}'^ must all be free, or all slave. I do not doubt that this is Mr. Lincoln's con- scientious conviction. I do not doubt that he thinks it is the highest duty of every patriotic citizen to preserve this glorious Union, and to adopt these measures as necessary to its preserva- tion. He tells you that the only mode to preserve the Union is to make all the States free, or all slave. It must be the one, or it must be the other. Now, that being essential, in his estima- tion, to the preservation of this glorious Union, how is he going to accomplish it? He says that he wants to go to the Senate in order to carry out this favorite patriotic policy of his, of making all the States free, so that the house shall no longer be divided against itself. When he gets to the Senate, by what means is he going to accomplish it? By an Act of Congress? Will he contend that Congress has any power under the Constitution to abolish slavery in any State of this Union, or to interfere with it directly or indirectly? Of course he will not contend that. Then what is to be his mode of carrying out his principle, by which slavery shall be abolished in all of the States? Mr. Lincoln certainly does not speak at random. He is a lawyer, — an eminent lawyer, — and his profession is to know the remedy for every wrong. What is his remedy for this imaginary wrong which he supposes to exist? The Constitution of the United States provides that it may be amended by Congress passing an amendment by a two-thirds majority of each house, which shall be ratified by three-fourths of the States ; and the infer- ence is that Mr. Lincoln intends to carry this slavery agitation into Congress with the view of amending the Constitution so that 'slavery can be abolished in all the States of the Union. In other words, he is not going to allow one portion of the Union to be slave and another portion to be free ; he is not going to permit the house to be divided against itself. He is going to remedy it by lawful and constitutional means. What are to be these means? How can he abolish slavery in those States where it exists? There is but one mode by which a political organization, com- 68 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN posed of men in the Free States, can abolish slavery in the slaveholding States, and that would be to abolish the State Legislatures, blot out of existence the State sovereignties, invest Congress with full and plenary power over all the local and domestic and police regulations of the different States of this Union. Then there would be uniformity in the local concerns and domestic institutions of the different States ; then the house would be no longer divided against itself; then the States would all be free, or they would all be slave ; then you would have imiformity prevailing throughout this whole land in the local and domestic institutions : but it would be a uniformity, not of liberty, but a uniformity of despotism that would triumph. I submit to you, my fellow-citizens, whether this is not the logical conse- quence of Mr. Lincoln's proposition? I have called on Mr. Lincoln to explain what he did mean, if he did not mean this, and he has made a speech at Chicago in which he attempts to explain. And how does he explain? I will give him the benefit of his own language, precisely as it was reported in the Repub- lican papers of that city, after undergoing his revision : — " I have said a hundred times, and have now no inclination to take it back, that I believe there is no right and ought to be no inclination in the people of the Free States to enter into the Slave States and inter- fere with the question of slavery at all." He believes the/e is no right on the part of the free people of the Free States to enter the Slave States and interfere with the question of slavery, hence he does not propose to go into Kentucky and stir up a civil war and a servile war between the blacks and the whites. All he proposes is to invite the people of Illinois and every other Free State to band together as one sectional part}^ governed and divided b}'' a geographical line, to make war upon the institution of slavery in the slaveholding States. He is going to carry it out by means of a political party that has its adherents only in the Free States, — a political partv that does not pretend that it can give a solitary vote in the Slave States of the Union ; and by this sectional vote he is going to elect a President of the United States, form a cabinet, and administer the government on sectional grounds, being the power of the North over that of the South. In other words, he invites a war of the North against the South, a warfare of the Free States against the slaveholding States. He asks all men in the Free States to conspire to exterminate slavery in the Southern States, so as to make them all free, and then he notifies the South that unless they are going to submit to our eflbrts to exterminate their institutions, they must band together and plant slavery in Illinois and ever}'- Northern State. He says that the States must all be free or must all be slave. On this point I take AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 69 issue with him directly. I assert that Illinois has a right to decide the slavery question for herself. We have decided it, and I think we have done it wisely ; but whether wisely or unwisely, it is our business, and the people of no other State have any right to interfere with us, directly or indirectly. Claiming as we do this right for ourselves, we must concede it to every other State, to be exercised by them respectively. Now, Mr. Lincoln says that he will not enter into Kentucky to abolish slavery there, but that all he will do is to fight slavery in Kentucky from Illinois. He will not go over there to set fire to the match. I do not think he would. Mr. Lincoln is a very prudent man. He would not deem it wise to go over into Kentucky to stir up this strife, but he would do it from this side of the river. Permit me to inquire whether the wrong, the out- rage, of interference by one State with the local concerns of another is worse when you actually invade them than it would be if you carried on the warfare from another State? For the purpose of illustration, suppose the British Government should plant a battery on the Niagara River, opposite Buffalo, and throw their shells over into Buffalo, where they should explode and blow up the houses and destroy the town. We call the British Government to an account, and they say, in the language of Mr. Lincoln, we did not enter into the limits of the United States to interfere with you ; we planted the battery on our own soil, and had a right to shoot from our own soil ; and if our shells and balls fell in Buffalo and killed your inhabitants, why, it is your lookout, not ours. Thus, Mr. Lincoln is going to plant his Abolition batteries all along the banks of the Ohio River, and throw his shells into Virginia and Kentucky and into Missouri, and blow up the institution of slavery ; and when we arraign him for his unjust interference with the institutions of the other States, he sa^^s, " Why, I never did enter into Kentucky to interfere with her ; I do not propose to do it ; I only propose to take care of my own head by keeping on this side of the river, out of harm's way." But yet he says he is going to persevere in this system ot sectional warfare, and I have no doubt he is sincere in what he says. He says that the existence of the Union depends upon his success in firincj into these Slave States until he exterminates them. He says that unless he shall play his batteries success- fully, so as to abolish slavery in every one of the States, that the Union shall be dissolved ; and he says that a dissolution of the Union would be a terrible calamity. Of course it would. We are all friends of the Union. We all believe — I do — that our lives, our liberties, our hopes in the future, depend upon the preser- vation and perpetuity of this glorious Union. I believe that the hopes of the friends of liberty throughout the world depend upon the perpetuity of the American Union. But while I believe that 70 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN my mode of preserving the Union is a very different one from that of Mr. Lincoln, I believe that the Union can only be pre- served by maintaining inviolate the Constitution of the United States as our fathers have made it. That Constitution fjuarantees to the people of every State the right to have slavery or not have it ; to have negroes or not have them ; to have Maine liquor laws or not have them ; to have just such institutions as they choose, each State being left free to decide for itself. The framers of that Constitution never conceived the idea that uniformity in the domestic institutions of the different States was either desirable or possible. They well understood that the laws and institutions which would be well adapted to the granite hills of New Hampshire would be unfit for the rice plantations of South Carolina ; they well understood that each one of the thirteen States had distinct and separate interests, and required distinct and separate local laws and local institutions. And in view of that fact they provided that each State should retain its sovereign power within its own limits, with the right to make just such laws and just such institutions as it saw proper, under the belief that no two of them w^ould be alike. If they had supposed that uniformity was desirable and possible, why did they provide for a separate legislature for each State? Why did they not blot out State sovereignty and State legislatures, and give all the power to Congress, in order that the laws might be uniform? For the very reason that uniformity, in their opinion, was neither desirable nor possible. We have increased from thirteen States to thirt3'-two States ; and just in proportion as the number of States increases and our territory expands, there will be a still greater variet}^ and dissimilarity of climate, of production, and of interest, requiring a corresponding dissimilarity and variety in the local laws and institutions adapted thereto. The laws that are necessary in the mining regions of California would be totally useless and vicious on the prairies of Illinois ; the laws that would suit the lumber regions of Maine or of Minnesota would be totally useless and valueless in the tobacco regions of Virginia and Kentucky ; the laws which would suit the manufacturing districts of New England would be totally unsuited to the planting regions of the Carolinas, of Georgia, and of Louisiana. Each State is supposed to have interests separate and distinct from each and every other ; and hence must have laws different from each and every other State, in order that its laws shall be adapted to the condition and necessities of the people. Hence I insist that our institutions rest on the theory that there shall be dissimilarity and variety in the local laws and institutions of the different States, instead of all being uniform ; and you find, my friends, that Mr. Lincoln and myself differ radically and totally on the fundamental principles of this government. He goes for con- AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 71 solidation, for uniformity in our local institutions, for blotting out State rights and State sovereignty, and consolidating all the power in the Federal Government, for converting these thirty- two sovereign States into one empire, and making uniformity throughout the length and breadth of the land. On the other hand, I go for maintaining the authority of the Federal Govern- ment within the limits marked out by the Constitution, and then for maintaining and preserving the sovereignty of each and all of the States of the Union, in order that each State may regulate and adopt its own local institutions in its own way, without inter- ference from any power whatsoever. Thus you find there is a distinct issue of principles — principles irreconcilable — between Mr. Lincoln and myself. He goes for consolidation and uni- formity in our government ; I go for maintaining the confedera- tion of the sovereign States under the Constitution as our fathers made it, leaving each State at liberty to manage its own affairs and own internal institutions. Mr. Lincoln makes another point upon me, and rests his whole case upon these two points. His last point is, that he will wage a warfare upon the Supreme Court of the United States because of the Dred Scott decision. He takes occasion, in his speech made before the Republican Convention, in my absence, to arraign me, not only for having expressed my acquiescence in that decision, but to charge me with being a conspirator with that court in devising that decision three years before Dred Scott ever thought of commencing a suit for his freedom. The object of his speech was to convey the idea to the people that the court could not be trusted, that the late President could not be trusted, that the present one could not be trusted, and that Mr. Douglas could not be trusted ; that they were all conspirators in bringing about that corrupt decision, to which Mr. Lincoln is determined he will never yield a willing obedience. He makes two points upon the Dred Scott decision. The first is that he objects to it because the court decided that negroes descended of slave parents are not citizens of the United States ; and, secondly, because they have decided that the Act of Con- gress passed 8th of March, 1820, prohibiting slavery in all of the Territories north of 36° 30', was unconstitutional and void, and hence did not have effect in emancipating a slave brought into that Territory. And he will not submit to that decision. He says that he will not fight the Judges or the United States Mar- shals in order to liberate Dred Scott, but that he will not respect that decision, as a rule of law binding on this country, in the future. Why not? Because, he says, it is unjust. How is he going to remedy it? Why, he says he is going to reverse it. How? He is going to take an appeal. To whom is he going to appeal? The Constitution of the United States provides that 72 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN the Supreme Court is the ultimate tribunal, the highest judicial tribunal on earth ; and Mr. Lincoln is going to appeal from that. To whom? I know he appealed to the Republican State Con- vention of Illinois, and I believe that Convention reversed the decision ; but I am not aware that they have yet carried it into effect. How are they going to make that reversal effectual? Why, Mr. Lincoln tells us in his late Chicago speech. He ex- plains it as clear as light. He says to the people of Illinois that if you elect him to the Senate he will introduce a bill to re-enact the law which the court pronounced unconstitutional. [Shouts of laughter, and voices, '''- Sfot the law."] Yes, he is going to spot the law. The court pronounces that law, prohibiting slavery, unconstitutional and void, and Mr. Lincoln is going to pass an Act reversing that decision and making it valid. I never heard before of an appeal being taken from the Supreme Court to the Congress of the United States to reverse its decision. I have heard of appeals being taken from Congress to the Supreme Court to declare a statute void. That has been done from the earliest days of Chief Justice Marshall down to the present time. The Supreme Court of Illinois do not hesitate to pronounce an Act of the Legislature void, as being repugnant to the Con- stitution, and the Supreme Court of the United States is vested by the Constitution with that very power. The Constitution says that the judicial power of the United States shall be vested in the Supreme Court and such inferior courts as Congress shall, from time to time, ordain and establish. Hence it is the province and duty of the Supreme Court to pronounce judgment on the validity and constitutionality of an Act of Congress. In this case they have done so, and Mr. Lincoln will not submit to it, and he is going to reverse it by another Act of Congress of the same tenor. My opinion is that Mr. Lincoln ought to be on the Supreme Bench himself, when the Republicans get into power, if that kind of law knowledge qualifies a man for the bench. But Mr. Lincoln intimates that there is another mode by which he can reverse the Dred Scott decision. How is that? Why, he is going to appeal to the people to elect a President who will appoint judges who will reverse the Dred Scott decision. Well, let us see how that is going to be done. First, he has to carry on his sectional organization, a party confined to the Free States, making war upon the slaveholding States until he gets a Repub- lican President elected. ["He never will, sir."] I do not believe he ever will. But suppose he should ; when that Repub- lican President shall have taken his seat (Mr. Seward, for instance), will he then proceed to appoint judges? No ! he will have to wait until the present judges die before he can do that ; and perhaps his four years would be out before a majority of these judges found it agreeable to die; and it. is very possible. AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 73 too, that Mr. Lincoln's senatorial term would expire before these judges would be accommodating enough to die. If it should so happen ; I do not see a very great prospect for Mr. Lincoln to reverse the Dred Scott decision. But suppose they should die, then how are the new judges to be appointed ? Why, the Repub- lican President is to call upon the candidates and catechise them, and ask them, " How will you decide this case if I appoint vou judge?" Suppose, for instance, Mr. Lincoln to be a candidate for a vacancy on the Supreme Bench to fill Chief Justice Taney's place, and when he applied to Seward, the latter would say, " Mr. Lincoln, I cannot appoint you until I know how you will decide the Dred Scott case?" Mr. Lincoln tells him, and he then asks him how he will decide Tom Jones's case, and Bill Wilson's case, and thus catechises the judge as to how he will decide any case which may arise before him. Suppose you get a Supreme Court composed of such judges, who have been appointed by a partisan President upon their giving pledges how they would decide a case before it arose, — what confidence would you have in such a court? Would not your court be prostituted beneath the contempt of all mankind? What man would feel that his liberties were safe, his right of person or property was secure, if the Supreme Bench, that august tribunal, the highest on earth, was brought down to that low, dirty pool wherein the judges are to give pledges in advance how they will decide all the questions which may be brought before them? It is a propo- sition to make that court the corrupt, unscrupulous tool of a political party. But Mr. Lincoln cannot conscientiously submit, he thinks, to the decision of a court composed of a majoritv of Democrats. If he cannot, how can he expect us to have confi- dence in a court composed of a majority of Republicans, selected for the purpose of deciding against the Democracy, and in favor of the Republicans? The very proposition carries with it the demoralization and degradation destructive of the judicial depart- ment of the Federal Government. I say to you, fellow-citizens, that I have no warfare to make upon the Supreme Court because of the Dred Scott decision. I have no complaints to make against that court because of that decision. My private opinions on some points of the case may have been one way ; and on other points of the case another ; in some things concurring with the court, and in others dissent- ing ; but what have my private opinions in a question of law to do with the decision after it has been pronounced by the highest judicial tribunal known to the Constitution? You, sir [address- ing the chairman], as an eminent lawyer, have a right to entertain your opinions on any question that comes before the court, and to appear before the tribunal and maintain them boldly and with tenacity until the final decision shall have been pronounced ; 11 74 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN and then, sir, whether you are sustained or overruled, your duty as a lawyer and a citizen is to bow in deference to that decision. I intend to yield obedience to the decisions of the highest tribunals in the land in all cases, whether their opinions are in conformity with my views as a lawyer or not. When we refuse to abide by judicial decisions, what protection is there left for life and property? To whom shall you appeal? To mob law, to partisan caucuses, to town meetings, to revolution? Where is the remedy when you refuse obedience to the constituted authorities? I will not stop to inquire whether I agree or disagree with all the opinions expressed by Judge Taney or any other judge. It is enough for me to know that the decision has been made. It has been made by a tribunal appointed by the Constitution to make it ; it was a point within their jurisdiction, and I am bound by it. But, my friends, Mr. Lincoln says that this Dred Scott decision destroys the doctrine of popular sovereignty, for the reason that the court has decided that Congress had no power to prohibit slavery in the Territories, and hence he infers that it would decide that the Territorial legislatures could not prohibit slavery there. I will not stop to inquire whether the court will carry the decision that far or not. It would be interesting as a matter of theory, but of no importance in practice ; for this reason, that if the people of a Territory want slavery they will have it, and if they do not want it they will drive it out, and you cannot force it on them. Slavery cannot exist a day in the midst of an unfriendly people with unfriendly laws. There is truth and wisdom in a remark made to me by an eminent Southern senator, when speaking of this technical right to take slaves into the Territories. Said he, " I do not care a fig which way the decision shall be, for it is of no particular consequence ; slavery cannot exist a day or an hour in any Territory or State unless it has affirmative laws sustaining and supporting it, furnishing police regulations and remedies ; and an omission to furnish them would be as fatal as a constitutional prohibition. Without affirmative legislation in its favor, slavery could not exist any longer than a new-born infant could survive under the heat of the sun, on a barren rock, without protection. It would wilt and die for the want of support." So it would be in the Territories. See the illustration in Kansas. The Repub- licans have told you, during the whole history of that Territory, down to last winter, that the pro-slavery party in the Legislature had passed a pro-slavery code, establishing and sustaining slavery in Kansas, but that this pro-slavery Legislature did not truly represent the people, but was imposed upon them by an invasion from Missouri ; and hence the Legislature were one way, and the people another. Granting all this, and what has been the result? With laws supporting slavery, but the people AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 75 against, there are not as many slaves in Kansas to-day as there were on the day the Nebraska bill passed and the Missouri Compromise was repealed. Why? Simply because slave- owners knew that if they took their slaves into Kansas, where a majorit}^ of the people were opposed to slavery, that it would soon be abolished, and they would lose their right of property in consequence of taking them there. For that reason they would not take or keep them there. If there had been a majority of the people in favor of slavery, and the climate had been favorable, the}^ would have taken them there; but the climate not being suitable, the interest of the people being opposed to it, and a majority being against it, the slave-owner did not find it profitable to take his slaves there, and consequently there are not as many slaves there to-day as on the day the Missouri Compromise was repealed. This shows clearly that if the people do not want slavery the}'- will keep it out ; and if they do want it, they will protect it. You have a good illustration of this in the Territorial history of this State. You all remember that by the Ordinance of 1787 slavery was prohibited in Illinois ; yet you all know, particularly you old settlers who were here in Territorial times, that the Territorial Legislature, in defiance of that Ordinance, passed a law allowing you to go into Kentucky, buy slaves, and bring them into the Territory, having them sign indentures to serve you and your posterity ninety-nine years, and their posterity thereafter to do the same. This hereditary slavery was intro- duced in defiance of the Act of Congress. That was the exercise of popular sovereignty, — the right of a Territory to decide the question for itself in defiance of the Act of Congress. On the other hand, if the people of a Territory are hostile to slavery, they will drive it out. Consequently, this theoretical question raised upon the Dred Scott decision is worthy of no consideration whatsoever, for it is only brought into these political discussions and used as a hobby upon which to ride into office, or out of which to manufacture political capital. «^^ But Mr. Lincoln's main objection to the Dred Scott decision I have reserved for my conclusion. His principal objection to that decision is that it was intended to deprive the negro of the rights of citizenship in the different States of the Union. Well, suppose it was, — and there is no doubt that that was its legal effect, — what is his objection to it? Why, he thinks that a negro ought to be permitted to have the rights of citizenship. He is in favor of negro citizenship, and opposed to the Dred Scott decision, because it declares that a negro is not a citizen, and hence is not entitled to vote. Here I have a direct issue with Mr. Lincoln. I am not in favor of negro citizenship. I do not believe that a negro is a citizen or ought to be a citizen. I 76 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN believe that tliis government of ours was founded, and wisely founded, upon the white basis. It was made by white men for the benefit of white men and their posterity, to be executed and managed by white men. I freely concede that humanity requires us to extend all the protection, all the privileges, all the immunities, to the Indian and the negro which they are capable of enjoying consistent with the safety of society. You may then ask me what are those rights, what is the nature and extent of the rights which a negro ought to have? My answer is that this is a question for each State and each Territory to decide for itself. In Illinois we have decided that a negro is not a slave, but we have at the same time determined that he is not a citizen and shall not enjoy any political rights. I concur in the wisdom of that policy, and am content with it. I assert that the sover- eignty of Illinois had a right to determine that question as we have decided it, and I deny that any other State has a right to interfere with us or call us to account for that decision. In the State of Maine they have decided by their Constitution that the negro shall exercise the elective franchise and hold office on an equality with the white man. Whilst I do not concur in the good sense or correct taste of that decision on the part of Maine, I have no disposition to quarrel with her. It is her business, and not ours. If the people of Maine desire to be put on an equality with the negro, I do not know that anybody in this State will attempt to prevent it. If the white people of Maine think a negro their equal, and that he has a right to come and kill their vote by a negro vote, they have a right to think so, I suppose, and I have no disposition to interfere with them. Then, again, passing over to New York, we find in that State they have provided that a negro may vote, provided he holds $250 worth of property, but that he shall not unless he does ; that is to say, they will allow a negro to vote if he is rich, but a poor fellow they will not allow to vote. In New York they think a rich negro is equal to a white man. Well, that is a matter of taste with them. If they think so in that State, and do not carry the doctrine outside of it, and propose to interfere with us, I have no quarrel to make with them. It is their business. There is a great deal of philosophy and good sense in a saying of Fridley of Kane. Fridley had a lawsuit before a justice of the peace, and the justice decided it against him. This he did not like ; and standing up and looking at the justice for a moment, " Well, Squire," said he, " if a man chooses to make a darnation fool of himself, I suppose there is no law against it." That is all I have to say about these negro regulations and this negro voting in other States where they have systems different from ours. If it is their wish to have it so, be it so. There is no cause to complain. Kentucky has decided that it is not AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 77 consistent with her safety and her prosperity to allow a negro to have either political rights or his freedom, and hence she makes him a slave. That is her business, not mine. It is her right under the Constitution of the country. The sovereignty of Kentucky, and that alone, can decide that question ; and when she decides it, there is no power on earth to which you can ! appeal to reverse it. Therefore, leave Kentucky as the Constitu- \ tion has left her, a sovereign, independent State, with the exclusive right to have slavery or not, as she chooses ; and so long as I hold power I will maintain and defend her rights I against anj' assaults, from whatever quarter they may come. n I will never stop to inquire whether I approve or disapprove 'I of the domestic institutions of a State. I maintain her sovereign ' rights. I defend her sovereignty from all assault, in the hope that she will join in defending us when we are assailed by any ' outside power. How are we to protect our sovereign rights, to keep slavery out, unless we protect the sovereign rights to every other State to decide the question for itself? Let Kentucky, or South Carolina, or any other State attempt to interfere in Illinois, . and tell us that we shall establish slavery, in order to make it ''imiform, according to Mr. Lincoln's proposition, throughout the "Union ; let them come here and tell us that we must and shall have slavery, — and I will call on you to follow me, and shed the last drop of our heart's blood in repelling the invasion and chastising their insolence. And if we would fight for our reserved rights and sovereign power in our own limits, we must respect the sovereignty of each other State. Hence, you find that Mr. Lincoln and myself come to a direct issue on this whole doctrine of slavery. He is going to wage a war against it everywhere, not only in Illinois, but in his native State of Kentuck3^ And why? Because he says that the Declaration of Independence contains this language : " We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal ; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights ; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness ;" and he asks whether that instrument does not declare that all men are created equal. Mr. Lincoln then goes on to say that that clause of the Declaration of Independ- ence includes negroes. [" I say not."] Well, if you say not, I do not think j^ou will vote for Mr. Lincoln. Mr. Lincoln goes on to argue that the language " all men " included the negroes, Indians, and all inferior races. In his Chicago speech he says, in so mar^y words, that it includes the negroes, that they were endowed by the Almighty with the right of equality with the white man, and therefore that that right is divine, — a right under the higher law ; that the law of God makes them equal to the white man, and therefore that 78 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN the law of the white man cannot deprive them of that right. This is Mr. Lincoln's argument. He is conscientious in his belief. I do not question his sincerity ; I do not doubt that he, in his conscience, believes that the Almighty made the negro equal to the white man. He thinks that the negro is his brother. I do not think that the negro is any kin of mine at all. And here is the difference between us. I believe that the Declara- tion of Independence, in the words, " all men are created equal," was intended to allude only to the people of the United States, to men of European birth or descent, being white men ; that they were created equal, and hence that Great Britain had no right to deprive them of their political and religious privileges ; but the signers of that paper did not intend to include the Indian or the negro in that declaration ; for if they had, would they not have been bound to abolish slavery in every State and Colony from that da}^? Remember, too, that at the time the Declaration was put forth, every one of the thirteen colonies were slaveholding colonies ; every man who signed that Declaration represented slaveholding constituents. Did those signers mean by that act to charge themselves and all their constituents with having violated the law of God, in holding the negro in an inferior con- dition to the white man? And yet, if they included negroes in that term, they were bound, as conscientious men, that day and that hour, not only to have abolished slavery throughout the land, but to have conferred political rights and privileges on the negro, and elevated him to an equality with the white man. ["They did not do it."] I know they did not do it ; and the very fact that they did not shows that they did not understand the language they used to include any but the white race. Did they mean to say that the Indian, on this continent, was created equal to the white man, and that he was endowed b}'^ the Almighty with inalienable rights, — rights so sacred that they could not be taken away by any constitution or law that man could pass? Why, their whole action toward the Indian showed that they never dreamed that they were bound to put him on an equality. I am not only opposed to negro equality, but I am opposed to Indian equality. I am opposed to putting the coolies, now im- porting into this country, on an equality with us, or putting the Chinese or any inferior race on an equality with us. I hold that the white race, the European race, I care not whether Irish, Ger- man, French, Scotch, English, or to what nation they belong, so they are the white race, to be our equals. And I am for placing them, as our fathers did, on an equality with us. Emi- grants from Europe, and their descendants, constitute the people of the United States. The Declaration of Independence only included the white people of the United States. The Constitution of the United States was framed by the white people ; it ought AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 79 to be administered by them, leaving each State to make such regulations concerning the negro as it chooses, allowing him political rights or not, as it chooses, and allowing him civil rights or not, as it may determine for itself. Let us only carry out those principles, and we will have peace and harmony in the different States. But Mr. Lincoln's conscientious scruples on this point govern his actions, and I honor him for following them, although I abhor the doctrine which he preaches. His conscientious scruples lead him to believe that the negro is entitled by divine right to the civil and political privileges of citizenship on an equality with the white man. For that reason he says he wishes the Dred Scott decision reversed. He wishes to confer those privileges of citizenship on the negro. Let us see how he will do it. He will first be called upon to strike out of the Constitution of Illinois that clause which prohibits free negroes and slaves from Kentucky or any other State coming into Illinois. When he blots out that clause, when he lets down the door or opens the gate for all the negro population to flow in and cover our prairies, until in midday they will look dark and black as night, — when he shall have done this, his mission will yet be unfulfilled. Then it will be that he will apply his principles of negro equality ; that is, if he can get the Dred Scott decision reversed in the mean time. He will then change the Constitu- tion again, and allow negroes to vote and hold office, and will make them eligible to the Legislature, so that thereafter they can have the right men for United States Senators. He will allow them to vote to elect the Legislature, the Judges, and the Gov- ernor, and will make them eligible to the office of Judge or Governor, or to the Legislature. He will put them on an equality with the white man. What then? Of course, after making them eligible to the judiciary, when he gets Cuftee elevated to the bench, he certainly will not refuse his judge the privilege of marrying any woman he may select ! I submit to you whether these are not the legitimate consequences of his doctrine? If it be true, as he says, that by the Declaration of Independence and by divine law, the negro is created the equal of the white man ; if it be true that the Dred Scott decision is unjust and wrong, be- cause it deprives the negro of citizenship and equality with the white man, — then does it not follow that if he had the power he would make negroes citizens, and give them all the rights and all the privileges of citizenship on an equality with white men? I think that is the inevitable conclusion. I do not doubt Mr. Lincoln's conscientious conviction on the subject, and I do not doubt that he will carry out that doctrine if he ever has the power ; but I resist it because I am utterly opposed to any 80 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN political amalgamation or any other amalgamation on this con- tinent. We are witnessing the result of giving civil and political rights to inferior races in Mexico, in Central America, in South America, and in the West India Islands. Those young men who went from here to Mexico to fight the battles of their country in the Mexican war can tell you the fruits of negro equality with the white man. They will tell you that the result of that equality is social amalgamation, demoralization, and degradation below the capacity for self-government. My friends, if we wish to preserve this government we must maintain it on the basis on which it was established ; to wit, the white basis. We must preserve the purity of the race not only in our politics, but in our domestic relations. We must then preserve the sovereignty of the States, and we must maintain the Federal Union by preserving the Federal Constitution inviolate. Let us do that, and our Union will not only be per- petual, but may extend until it shall spread over the entire continent. Fellow-citizens, I have already detained you too long. I have exhausted myself and wearied you, and owe you an apology for the desultory manner in which I have discussed these topics. I will have an opportunity of addressing you again before the November election comes off. I come to you to appeal to your judgment as American citizens, to take your verdict of approval or disapproval upon the discharge of my public duty and my principles as compared with those of Mr. Lincoln. If 3'^ou con- scientiously believe that his principles are more in harmony with the feelings of the American people and the interests and honor of the Republic, elect him. If, on the contrary, you believe that my principles are more consistent with those great principles upon which our fathers framed this government, then I shall ask you to so express your opinion at the polls. I am aware that it is a bitter and severe contest, but I do not doubt what the decision of'the people of Illinois will be. I do not anticipate any personal collision between Mr. Lincoln and myself. You all know I am an amiable, good-natured man, and I take great pleasure in bearing testimony to the fact that Mr. Lincoln is a kind-hearted, amiable, good-natured gentleman, with whom no man has a right to pick a quarrel, even if he wanted one. He is a worthy gentleman. I have known him for twenty-five years, and there is no better citizen and no kinder-hearted man. He is a fine lawyer, possesses high ability, and there is no objection to him, except the monstrous revolutionary doctrines with which he is identified and which he conscientiously entertains, and is determined to carry out if he gets the power. He has one element of strength upon which he relies to accomplish his object, and that is his alliance with certain men in AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 81 this State claiming to be Democrats, whose avowed object is to use their power to prostrate the Democratic nominees. He hopes he can secure the few men claiming to be friends of the Lecompton Constitution, and for that reason you will find he does not say a word against the Lecompton Constitution or its supporters. He is as silent as the grave upon that subject. Behold Mr. Lincoln courting Lecompton votes, in order that he may go to the Senate as the representative of Republican principles ! You know that that alliance exists. I think you will find that it will ooze out before the contest is over. It must be a contest of principle. Either the radical Abolition principles of Mr. Lincoln must be maintained, or the strong, constitutional, national Democratic principles with which I am identified must be carried out. I shall be satisfied whatever way you decide. I have been sustained by the people of Illinois with a steadiness, a firmness, and an enthusiasm which makes my heart overflow with gratitude. If I was now to be consigned to. private life I would have nothing to complain of. I would even then owe you a debt of gratitude which the balance of my life could not repay. But, my friends, you have discharged every obligation you owe to me. I have been a thousand times paid by the welcome you have extended to me since I have entered the State on my return home this time. Your reception not only discharges all obligations, but it furnishes inducement to renewed efforts to serve you in the future. If you think Mr. Lincoln will do more to advance the interests and elevate the character of Illinois than myself, it is your duty to elect him ; if you think he would do more to preserve the peace of the country and perpetuate the Union than myself, then elect him. I leave the question in your hands, and again tender you my profound thanks for the cordial and heartfelt welcome tendered to me this evening. SPEECH OF HON. ABRAHAM LINCOLN. Delivered in Springfield, Saturday Evening, July 17, 1858. (Mr. Doug- las was not present.) Fellow-Citizens: Another election, which is deemed an important one, is approaching, and, as I suppose, the Republican party will, without much difficulty, elect their State ticket. But in regard to the Legislature, we, the Republicans, labor under some disadvantages. In the first place, we have a Legislature to elect upon an apportionment of the representation made several years ago, when the proportion of the population was far greater in the South (as compared with the North) than it now is ; and 12 82 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN inasmuch as our opponents hold almost entire sway in the South, and we a correspondingly large majority in the North, the fact that we are now to be represented as we were years ago, when the population was different, is to us, a very great disadvantage. We had in the year 1855, according to law, a census, or enumera- tion of the inhabitants, taken for the purpose of a new apportion- ment of representation. We know what a fair apportionment of representation upon that census would give us. We know that it could not, if fairly made, fail to give the Republican party from six to ten more members of the Legislature than they can probably get as the law now stands. It so happened at the last session of the Legislature that our opponents, holding the control of both branches of the Legislature, steadily refused to give us such an apportionment as we were rightly entitled to have upon the census already taken. The Legislature steadily refused to give us such an apportionment as we were rightfully entitled to have upon the census taken of the population of the State. The Legislature would pass no bill upon that subject, except such as was at least as unfair to us as the old one, and in which, in some instances, two men in the Democratic regions were allowed to go as far toward sending a member to the Legislature as three were in the Republican regions. Comparison was made at the time as to representative and senatorial districts, which completely demonstrated that such was the fact. Such a bill was passed and tendered to the Republican Governor for his signature ; but principally for the reasons I have stated, he withheld his approval, and the bill fell without becoming a law. Another disadvantage under which we labor is, that there are one or two Democratic Senators who will be members of the next Legislature, and will vote for the election of Senator, who are holding over in districts in which we could, on all reasonable calculation, elect men of our own, if we only had the chance of an election. When we consider that there are but twenty-five Senators in the Senate, taking two from the side where they rightfully belong, and adding them to the other, is to us a dis- advantage not to be lightly regarded. Still, so it is ; we have this to contend with. Perhaps there is no ground of complaint on our part. In attending to the many things involved in the last general election for President, Governor, Auditor, Treasurer, Superintendent of Public Instruction, Members of Congress, ot the Legislature, County Ofhcers, and so on, we allowed these things to happen by want of sufficient attention, and we have no cause to complain of our adversaries, so far as this matter is concerned. But we have some cause to complain of the refusal to give us a fair apportionment. There is still another disadvantage under which we labor, and to which I will ask your attention. It arises out of the AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 83 relative positions of the two persons who stand before the State as candidates for the Senate. 1 Senator Dougkis is of world-wide renown. All the anxious politicians of his party, or who have been of his party for years past, have been looking upon him as certainly, at no distant day, to be the President of the United States. They have seen in his round, joll}^ fruitful face post- offices, land-offices, marshalships, and cabinet appointments, chargeships and foreign missions, bursting and sprouting out in wonderful exuberance, ready to be laid hold of by their greedy hands. And as they have been gazing upon this attractive picture so long, they cannot, in the little distraction that has taken place in the party, bring themselves to give up the charm- ing hope ; but with greedier anxiety they rush about him, sustain him, and give him marches, triumphal entries, and receptions beyond what even in the days of his highest prosperity they could have brought about in his favor. On the contrary, nobody has ever expected me to be President. In my poor, lean, lank face, nobody has ever seen that any cabbages were sprouting out. These are disadvantages all, taken together, that the Republicans labor under. We have to fight this battle upon principle, and upon principle alone. I am, in a certain sense, made the stand- ard-bearer in behalf of the Republicans. I was made so merely because there had to be some one so placed, — I being in nowise preferable to any other one of the twenty-five, perhaps a hundred, we have in the Republican ranks. Then I say I wish it to be dis- tinctly understood and borne in mind that we have to fight this battle without many — perhaps without any — of the external aids which are brought to bear against us. So I hope those with whom I am surrounded have principle enough to nerve themselves for the task, and leave nothing undone that can be fairly done to bring about the right result. After Senator Douglas left Washington, as his movements were made known by the public prints, he tarried a considerable time in the city of New York ; and it was heralded that, like another Napoleon, he was lying by and framing the plan of his campaign. It was telegraphed to Washington City, and pub- lished in the " Union," that he was framing his plan for the pur- pose of going to Illinois to pounce upon and annihilate the treasonable and disunion speech which Lincoln had made here on the 16th of June. Now, I do suppose that the Judge really spent some time in New York maturing the plan of the campaign, as his friends heralded for him. I have been able, by noting his movements since his arrival in Illinois, to discover evidences con- firmatory of that allegation. I think I have been able to see what are the material points of that plan. I will, for a little while, ask your attention to some of them. What I shall point out, though not showing the whole plan, are, nevertheless, the main points, as I suppose. 84 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN They are not very numerous. The first is Popular Sover- eignty. The second and third are attacks upon my speech made on the 16th of June. Out of these three points — drawing within the range of popular sovereignty the question of the Lecompton Constitution — he makes his principal assault. Upon these his successive speeches are substantially one and the same. On this matter of popular sovereignty I wish to be a little careful. Auxiliary to these main points, to be sure, are their thunderings of cannon, their marching and music, their fizzle-gigs and fire- works ; but I will not waste time with them. The}^ are but the little trappings of the campaign. Coming to the substance, — the first point, — " popular sover- eignty." It is to be labeled upon the cars in which he travels ; put upon the hacks he rides in ; to be flaunted upon the arches he passes under, and the banners which wave over him. It is to be dished up in as many varieties as a French cook can produce soups from potatoes. Now, as this is so great a staple of the plan of the campaign, it is worth while to examine it carefully ; and if we examine onl}'- a very little, and do not allow ourselves to be misled, we shall be able to see that the whole thing is the most arrant Qiiixotism that was ever enacted before a community. What is the matter of popular sovereignty? The first thing, in order to understand it, is to get a good definition of what it is, and after that to see how it is applied. I suppose almost everj^ one knows that, in this controversy, whatever has been said has had reference to the question of negro slaver}^ We have not been in a controversy about the right of the people to govern themselves in the ordinary matters of domestic concern in the States and Territories. Mr. Buchanan, in one of his late messages (I think when he sent up the Le- compton Constitution) urged that the main point to which the public attention had been directed was not in regard to the great variety of small domestic matters, but was directed to the question of negro slaver}^ ; and he asserts that if the people had had a fair chance to vote on that question, there was no reasonable ground of objection in regard to minor questions. Now, while I think that the people had not had given, or offered them, a fair chance upon that slavery question, still, if there had been a fair submis- sion to a vote upon that main question, the President's proposition would have been true to the utmost. Hence, when hereafter I speak of popular sovereignty, I wish to be understood as ap- plying what I say to the question of slavery only, not to other minor domestic matters of a Territory or a State. Does Judge Douglas, when he says that several of the past years of his life have been devoted to the question of " popular sovereignty," and that all the remainder of his life shall be devoted to it, does he mean to say that he has been devoting his life to AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 85 securing to the people of the Territories the right to exclude slavery from the Territories ? If he means so to say he means to deceive ; because he and every one knows that the decision of the Supreme Court, which he approves and makes especial ground of attack upon me for disapproving, forbids the people of a Territory to exclude slavery. This covers the whole ground, from the settle- ment of a Territory till it reaches the degree of maturity entitling it to form a State Constitution. So far as all that ground is con- cerned, the Judge is not sustaining popular sovereignty, but absolutely opposing it. He sustains the decision which declares that the popular will of the Territory has no constitutional power to exclude slavery during their territorial existence. This being so, the period of time from the first settlement of a Terri- tory till it reaches the point of forming a State Constitution is not the thing that the Judge has fought for or is fighting for, but, on the contrary, he has fought for, and is fighting for, the thing that annihilates and crushes out that same popular sover- eignty. Well, so much being disposed of, what is left? Why, he is contending for the right of the people, when they come to make a State Constitution, to make it for themselves, and precisely as best suits themselves. I say again, that is Quixotic. I defy con- tradiction when I declare that the Judge can find no one to oppose him on that proposition. I repeat, there is nobody oppos- ing that proposition on ■p7-inci^le. Let me not be misunderstood. I know that, with reference to the Lecompton Constitution, I may be misunderstood ; but when you understand me correctly, my proposition will be true and accurate. Nobody is opposing, or has opposed, the right of the people, when they form a Consti- tution, to form it for themselves. Mr. Buchanan and his friends have not done it ; they, too, as well as the Republicans and the Anti-Lecompton Democrats, have not done it ; but on the con- trary, they together have insisted on the right of the people to form a Constitution for themselves. The difference between the Buchanan men on the one hand, and the Douglas men and the Republicans on the other, has not been on a question of prin- ciple, but on a question oifact. The dispute was upon the question of fact, whether the Lecompton Constitution had been fairly formed by the people or not. Mr. Buchanan and his friends have not contended for the contrary principle any more than the Douglas men or the Repub- licans. They have insisted that whatever of small irregularities existed in getting up the Lecompton Constitution were such as happen in the settlement of all new Territories. The question was, Was it a fair emanation of the people? It was a question of fact, and not of principle. As to the principle, all were agreed. Judge Douglas voted with the Republicans upon that matter of fact. 86 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN He and they, by their voices and votes, denied that it was a fair emanation of the people. The Administration affirmed that it was. With respect to the evidence bearing upon that question of fact, I readily agree that Judge Douglas and the Republicans had the right on their side, and that the Administration was wrong. But I state again that, as a matter of principle, there is no dispute upon the right of a people in a Territory, merging into a State, to form a Constitution for themselves without out- side interference from any quarter. This being so, what is Judge Douglas going to spend his life for? Is he going to spend his life in maintaining a principle that nobody on earth opposes? Does he expect to stand up in majestic dignity, and go through his apotheosis and become a god, in the maintaining of a prin- ciple which neither man nor mouse in all God's creation is opposing? Now something in regard to the Lecompton Con- stitution more specially ; for I pass from this other question of popular sovereignty as the most arrant humbug that has ever been attempted on an intelligent community. As to the Lecompton Constitution, I have already said that on the question of fact as to whether it was a fair emanation of the people or not, Judge Douglas, with the Republicans and some Americans, had greatly the argument against the Administration ; and while I repeat this, I wish to know what there is in the opposition of Judge Douglas to the Lecompton Constitution that entitles him to be considered the only opponent to it, — as being par excellence the very quintessence of that opposition. I agree to the rightfulness of his opposition. He in the Senate and his class of men there formed the number three ^ and no more. In the House of Representatives his class of men — the Anti-Lecomp- ton Democrats — formed a number of about twenty. It took one himdred and twenty to defeat the measure, against one hundred and twelve. Of the votes of that one hundred and twenty, Judge Douglas's friends furnished twenty, to add to which there were six Americans and ninety-four Republicans. I do not say that I am precisely accurate in their numbers, but I am sufficiently so for any use I am making of it. Why is it that twenty shall be entitled to all the credit of doing that work, and the hundred none of it? Why, if, as Judge Douglas says, the honor is to be divided and due credit is to be given to other parties, why is just so much given as is con- sonant with the wishes, the interests, and advancement of the twenty? My understanding is, when a common job is done, or a common enterprise prosecuted, if I put in five dollars to your one, I have a right to take out five dollars to your one. But he does not so understand it. He declares the dividend of credit for defeating Lecompton upon a basis which seems unprecedented and incomprehensible. AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 87 Let US see. Lecompton in the raw was defeated. It after- ward took a sort of cooked-up shape, and was passed in the En- glish bill. It is said by the Judge that the defeat was a good and proper thing. If it was a good thing, why is he entitled to more credit than others for the performance of that good act, unless there was something in the antecedents of the Republicans that might induce every one to expect them to join in that good work, and at the same time something leading them to doubt that he would? Does he place his superior claim to credit on the ground that heperformed a good act which was never expected of him ? He says I have a proneness for quoting Scripture. If I should do so now, it occurs that perhaps he places himself somewhat upon the ground of the parable of the lost sheep which went astray upon the mountains, and when the owner of the hundred sheep found the one that was lost, and threw it upon his shoulders and came home rejoicing, it was said that there was more rejoicing over the one sheep that was lost and had been found, than over the ninety and nine in the fold. The application is made by the Saviour in this parable, thus : "Verily, I say unto you, there is more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, than over ninety and nine just persons that need no repentance." And now, if the Judge claims the benefit of this parable, let hhn rej)ent. Let him not come up here and say : " I am the only just person ; and you are the ninety-nine sinners ! Repent- ance before forgiveness is a provision of the Christian system, and on that condition alone will the Republicans grant his for- giveness. How will he prove that we have ever occupied a different position in regard to the Lecompton Constitution or any prin- ciple in it? He says he did not make his opposition on the ground as to whether it was a free or slave constitution, and he would have you understand that the Republicans made their opposition because it ultimately became a slave constitution. To make proof in favor of himself on this point, he reminds us that he opposed Lecompton before the vote was taken declaring whether the State was to be free or slave. But he forgets to say that our Republican Senator, Trumbull, made a speech against Lecompton even before he did. Why did he oppose it? Partly, as he declares, because the members of the Convention who framed it were not fairly elected by the people ; that the people were not allowed to vote unless they had been registered ; and that the people of whole counties, in some instances, were not registered. For these reasons he declares the Constitution was not an emanation, in any true sense, from the people. He also has an additional ■objection as to the mode of submitting the Constitution back to bo DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN the people. But bearing on the question of whether the dele- gates were fairly elected, a speech of his, made something more than twelve months ago, from this stand, becomes important. It was made a little while before the election of the delegates who made Lecompton. In that speech he declared there was every reason to hope and believe the election would be fair ; and if any one failed to vote, it would be his own culpable fault. I, a few days after, made a sort of answer to that speech. In that answer I made, substantially, the very argument with which he combated his Lecompton adversaries in the Senate last winter. I pointed to the facts that the people could not vote without being registered, and that the time for registering had gone by. I commented on it as wonderful that Judge Douglas could be ignorant of these facts, which every one else in the nation so well knew. I now pass from popular sovereignty and Lecompton. I may have occasion to refer to one or both. When he was preparing his plan of campaign, Napoleon- like, in New York, as appears by two speeches I have heard him deliver since his arrival in Illinois, he gave special attention to a speech of mine, delivered here on the 16th of June last. He says that he carefully read that speech. He told us that at Chicago a week ago last night, and he repeated it at Blooming- ton last night. Doubtless, he repeated it again to-day, though I did not hear him. In the first two places — Chicago and Bloomington — I heard him ; to-day I did not. He said he had carefully examined that speech, — zuheii, he did not say ; but there is no reasonable doubt it was when he was in New York preparing his plan of campaign. I am glad he did read it carefully. He says it was evidently prepared with great care. I freely admit it was prepared with care. I claim not to be more free from errors than others, — perhaps scarcely so much ; but I was very careful not to put anything in that speech as a matter of fact, or make any inferences which did not appear to me to be true and fully warrantable. If I had made any mistake, I was willing to be corrected ; if I had drawn any inference in regard to Judge Douglas, or any one else, which was not warranted, I was fully prepared to modify it as soon as discovered. I planted mj^self upon the truth and the truth only, so far as I knew it, or could be brought to know it. Having made that speech with the most kindly feelings toward Judge Douglas, as manifested therein, I was gratified when I found that he had carefully examined it, and had detected no error of fact, nor any inference against him, nor any misrepresentations of which he thought fit to complain. In neither of the two speeches I have mentioned did he make any AND STEPHEN A, DOUGLAS. 89 such complaint. I will thank anyone who will inform me that he, in his speech to-day, pointed out anything I had stated respecting him, as being erroneous. I presume there is no such thing. I have reason to be gratified that the care and caution used in that speech left it so that he, most of all others interested in discovering error, has not been able to point out one thing against him which he could say was wrong. He seizes upon the doctrines he supposes to be included in that speech, and declares that upon them will turn the issues of this campaign. He then quotes, or attempts to quote, from my speech. I will not say that he wilfully misquotes, but he does fail to quote accurately. His attempt at quoting is from a passage which I believe I can quote accurately from memory. I shall make the quotation now, with some comments upon it, as I have already said, in order that the Judge shall be left entirely without excuse for misrepresenting me. I do so now, as I hope, for the last time, I do this in great caution, in order that if he repeats his misrepresentation it shall be plain to all that he does so wilfully. If, after all, he still persists, I shall be compelled to reconstruct the course I have marked out for myself, and draw upon such humble resources as I have, for a new course, better suited to the real exigencies of the case. I set out in this campaign with the intention of conducting it strictly as a gentleman, in sub- stance at least, if not in the outside polish. The latter I shall never be ; but that which constitutes the inside of a gentleman I hope I understand, and am not less inclined to practice than others. It was my purpose and expectation that this canvass would be conducted upon principle, and with fairness on both sides, and it shall not be my fault if this purpose and expecta- tion shall be given up. He charges, in substance, that I invite a war of sections ; that I propose all the local institutions of the different States shall become consolidated and uniform. What is there in the language of that speech which expresses such purpose or bears such con- struction? I have again and again said that I would not enter into any of the States to disturb the institution of slavery. Judge Douglas said, at Bloomington, that I used language most able and ingenious for concealing what I really meant ; and that while I had protested against entering into the Slave States, I nevertheless did mean to go on the banks of the Ohio and throw missiles into Kentucky, to disturb them in their domestic institutions. I said in that speech, and I meant no more, that the institution of slavery ought to be placed in the very attitude where the framers of this government placed it and left it. I do not under- stand that the framers of our Constitution left the people of the Free States in the attitude of firing bombs or shells into the 13 •90 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN Slave States. I was not using that passage for the purpose for which he infers I did use it. I said : — " We are now far advanced into the fifth year since a policy was created for the avowed object and with the confident promise of putting an end to slavery agitation. Under the operation of that policy that agitation has not only not ceased, but has constantly aug- mented. In my opinion it will not cease till a crisis shall have been reached and passed. ' A house divided against itself cannot stand.' I believe that this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free ; 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." Now you all see, from that quotation, I did not express my -wish on anything. In that passage I indicated no wish or purpose of my own ; I simply expressed my expectation. Can- not the Judge perceive a distinction between a ■puj'fose and an expectation f I have often expressed an expectation to die, but I have never expressed a wish to die. I said at Chicago, and now repeat, that I am quite aware this government has endured, half slave and half free, for eighty-two years. I understand that little bit of history. I expressed the opinion I did because I perceived — or thought I perceived — a new set of causes introduced. I did say at Chicago, in my speech there, that I do wish to see the spread of slavery arrested, and to see it placed where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction. I said that because I supposed, when the public mind shall rest in that belief, we shall have peace on the slavery question. I have believed — and now believe — the public mind did rest on that belief up to the introduction of the Nebraska bill. Although I have ever been opposed to slaver}', so far I rested in the hope and belief that it was in the course of ultimate extinction. For that reason it had been a minor question with me. I might have been mistaken ; but I had believed, and now believe, that the whole public mind, that is, the mind of the great majority, had rested in that belief up to the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. But upon that event I became convinced that either I had been resting in a delusion, or the institution was being placed on a new basis, — a basis for making it per- petual, national, and universal. Subsequent events have greatly confirmed me in that belief. I believe that bill to be the begin- ning of a conspiracy for that purpose. So believing, I have since then considered that question a paramount one. So believing, I thought the public mind will never rest till the power AND STEPHEN A, DOUGLAS. 91 of Congress to restrict the spread of it shall again be acknowl- edged and exercised on the one hand, or, on the other, all resistance be entirely crushed out. I have expressed that opinion, and I entertain it to-night. It is denied that there is any tendency to the nationalization of slavery in these States. Mr. Brooks, of South Carolina, in one of his speeches, when they were presenting him canes, silver plate, gold pitchers, and the' like, for assaulting Senator Sumner, distinctly affirmed his opinion that when this Constitution was formed, it was the belief of no man that slavery would last to the present day. He said, what I think, that the framers of our Constitution placed the institution of slavery where the public mind rested in the hope that it was in the course of ultimate extinction. But he went on to say that the men of the present age, by their experience, have become wiser than the framers of the Constitution, and the inven- tion of the cotton gin had made the perpetuity of slavery a necessity in this country. As another piece of evidence tending to this same point : Quite recently in Virginia, a man — the owner of slaves — made a will providing that after his death certain of his slaves should have their freedom if they should so choose, and go to Liberia, rather than remain in slaver}^ They chose to be liberated. But the persons to whom they w^ould descend as property claimed them as slaves. A suit was instituted, which finall}^ came to the Supreme Court of Virginia, and was therein decided against the slaves upon the ground that a negro cannot make a choice ; that they had no legal power to choose, — could not perform the con- dition upon which their freedom depended. I do not mention this with any purpose of criticising it, but to connect it with the arguments as affording additional evidence of the change of sentiment upon this question of slaver}^ in the direction of making it perpetual and national. I argue now as I did before, that there is such a tendency ; and I am backed, not merely by the facts, but by the open confession in the Slave States. And now as to the Judge's inference that because I wish to see slavery placed in the course of ultimate extinction, — placed where our fathers originally placed it, — I wish to annihilate the State Legislatures, to force cotton to grow upon the tops of the Green Mountains, to freeze ice in Florida, to cut lumber on the broad Illinois prairie, — that I am in favor of all these ridiculous and impossible things. It seems to me it is a complete answer to all this to ask if, when Congress did have the fashion of restricting slavery from free territory ; when courts did have the fashion of deciding that taking a slave into a free country made him free, — I say it is a sufficient answer to ask if any of this ridiculous nonsense about 92 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN consolidation and uniformity did actually follow. Who heard of any such thing because of the Ordinance of '87 ? because of the Missouri Restriction ? because of the numerous court decisions of that character ? Now, as to the Dred Scott decision ; for upon that he makes his last point at me. He boldly takes ground in favor of that decision. This is one-half the onslaught, and one-third of the entire plan of the campaign. I am opposed to that decision in a certain / sense, but not in the sense which he puts on it. I say that in so / far as it decided in favor of Dred Scott's master, and against I Dred Scott and his family, I do not propose to disturb or resist the decision. I never have proposed to do any such thing. I think that in / respect for judicial authority my humble history would not suffer / in comparison with that of Judge Douglas. He would have the ' citizen conform his vote to that decision ; the member of Congress, his ; the President, his use of the veto power. He would make it a rule of political action for the people and all the departments of the government. I would not. By resisting it as a political rule, I disturb no right of property, create no disorder, excite no mobs. When bespoke at Chicago, on Friday evening of last week, he made this same point upon me. On Saturday evening I re- plied, and reminded him of a Supreme Court decision which he opposed for at least several years. Last night, at Bloomington, he took some notice of that repl}^, but entirely forgot to remem- ber that part of it. He renews his onslaught upon me, forgetting to remember that I have turned the tables against himself on that very point. I renew the effort to draw his attention to it. I wish to stand erect before the country, as well as Judge Douglas, on this ques- tion of judicial authority; and therefore I add something to the authority in favor of my own position. I wish to show that I am sustained by authority, in addition to that heretofore presented. I do not expect to convince the Judge. It is part of the plan of his campaign, and he will cling to it with a desperate grip. Even turn it upon him, — the sharp point against him, and gaff him through, — he will still cling to it till he can invent some new dodge to take the place of it. In public speaking it is tedious reading from documents ; but I must beg to indulge the practice to a limited extent. I shall read from a letter written by Mr. Jefferson in 1820, and now to be found in the seventh volume of his correspondence, at page 177. It seems he had been presented by a gentleman of the name of Jarvis with a book, or essay, or periodical, called the "Republican," and he was writing in acknowledgment of AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 93 the present, and noting some of its contents. After expressing the hope that the work will produce a favorable effect upon the minds of the young, he proceeds to say : — " That it will have this tendency may be expected, and for that reason I feel an urgency to note what I deem an error in it, the more requiring notice as your opinion is strengthened by that of many others. You seem, in page 84 and 148, to consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions, — a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy. Our judges are as honest as other men, and not more so. They have, with others, the same passions for party, for power, and the privilege of their corps. Their maxim is, ' Boni judicis est ampliare jurisdictionem ;' and their power is the more dangerous as they are in office for life, and not responsible, as the other function- aries are, to the elective control. The Constitution has erected no such single tribunal, knowing that, to whatever hands confided, with the corruptions of time and party, its members would become despots. It has more wisely made all the departments co-equal and co-sovereign with themselves." Thus we see the power claimed for the Supreme Court by Judge Douglas, Mr. Jefferson holds, would reduce us to the despotism of an oligarchy. Now, I have said no more than this, — in fact, never quite so much as this ; at least I am sustained by Mr. Jefferson. Let us go a little further. You remember we once had a National Bank. Some one owed the bank a debt ; he was sued, and sought to avoid payment on the ground that the bank was unconstitutional. The case went to the Supreme Coiu't, and therein it was decided that the bank was constitutional. The whole Democratic party revolted against that decision. General Jackson himself asserted that he, as President, would not be bound to hold a National Bank to be constitutional, even though the court had decided it to be so. He fell in precisely with the view of Mr. Jefferson, and acted upon it under his official oath, in vetoing a charter for a National Bank. The declaration that Congress does not possess this constitutional power to charter a bank has gone into the Democratic platform, at their National Conventions, and was brought forward and reaffirmed in their last Convention at Cincinnati. They have contended for that declaration, in the very teeth of the Supreme Court, for more than a quarter of a century. In fact, they have reduced the decision to an absolute nullity. That decision, I repeat, is re- pudiated in the Cincinnati platform ; and still, as if to show that effrontery can go no further, Judge Douglas vaunts in the very speeches in which he denounces me for opposing the Dred Scott decision that he stands on the Cincinnati platform. Now, I wish to know what the Judge can charge upon me, 94 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN with respect to decisions of the Supreme Court, which, does not lie in all its length, breadth, and proportions at his own door. The plain truth is simply this: Judge Douglas \^ for Supreme Court decisions when he likes ; and against them when he does not like them. He is for the Dred Scott decision because it tends to nationalize slavery ; because it is part of the original combination for that object. It so happens, singularly enough, that I never stood opposed to a decision of the Supreme Court till this. On the contrary, I have no recollection that he was ever particularly in favor of one till this. He never was in favor of any, nor opposed to any, till the present one, which helps to nationalize slavery. Free men of Sangamon, free men of Illinois, free men everywhere, judge ye between him and me upon this issue. He says this Dred Scott case is a very small matter at most, — that it has no practical effect ; that at best, or rather, I suppose, at worst, it is but an abstraction. I submit that the proposition that the thing which determines whether a man is free or a slave is rather conci'ete than abstract. I think you would con- clude that it was, if your liberty depended upon it, and so would Judge Douglas, if his liberty depended upon it. But suppose it was on the question of spreading slavery over the new Territories that he considers it as being merely an abstract matter, and one of no practical importance. How has the planting of slaver}^ in new countries always been effected? It has now been decided that slavery cannot be kept out of our new Territories by any legal means. In what do our new Territories now differ in this respect from the old Colonies when slavery was first planted within them? It was planted, as Mr. Clay once declared, and as history proves true, by individual men, in spite of the wishes of the people ; the Mother Government refusing to prohibit it, and withholding from the people of the Colonies the authority to prohibit it for themselves. Mr. Clay says this was one of the great and just causes of complaint against Great Britain by the Colonies, and the best apology we can now make for having the institution amongst us. In that precise condition our Nebraska politicians have at last succeeded in placing our own new Territories ; the government will not prohibit slavery within them, nor allow the people to prohibit it. I defy any man to find any difference between the policy which originally planted slavery in these Colonies and that policy which now prevails in our new Territories. If it does not go into them, it is only because no individual wishes it to go. The Judge indulged himself doubtless to-day with the question as to what I am going to do with or about the Dred Scott decision. Well, Judge, will you please tell me what you did about the bank decision ? Will you not graciously allow us to do with the Dred AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 95 Scott decision precisely as you did with the bank decision? You succeeded in breaking down the moral effect of that decision : did you find it necessary to amend the Constitution, or to set up a court of negroes in order to do it? There is one other point. Judge Douglas has a ver}^ affec- tionate leaning toward the Americans and Old Whigs. Last evening, in a sort of weeping tone, he described to us a deathbed scene. He had been called to the side of Mr. Clay, in his last moments, in order that the genius of "popular sovereignty" might duly descend from the dying man and settle upon him, the living and most worthy successor. He could do no less than promise that he would devote the remainder of his life to " pop- ular sovereignty ;" and then the great statesman departs in peace. By this part of the " plan of the campaign " the Judge has evidently promised himself that tears shall be drawn down the cheeks of all Old Whigs, as large as half-grown apples. Mr. Webster, too, was mentioned ; but it did not quite come to a deathbed scene as to him. It would be amusing, if it were not disgusting, to see how quick these compromise-breakers administer on the political effects of their dead adversaries, ti-umping up claims never before heard of, and dividing the assets among themselves. If I should be found dead to-morrow morning, nothing but my insignificance could prevent a speech being made on my authority, before the end of next week. It so happens that in that " popular sovereignty " with which Mr. Clay was identified, the Missouri Compromise was expressly reserved ; and it was a little singular if Mr. Clay cast his mantle upon Judge Douglas on purpose to have that compromise repealed. Again, the Judge did not keep faith with Mr. Clay when he first brought in his Nebraska bill. He left the Missouri Com- promise unrepealed, and in his report accompanying the bill he told the world he did it on purpose. The manes of Mr. Clay must have been in great agony till thirty days later, when "popular sovereignty " stood forth in all its glory. One more thing. Last night Judge Douglas tormented him- self with horrors about my disposition to make negroes perfectly equal with white men in social and political relations. He did not stop to show that I have said any such thing, or that it legiti- mately follows from anything I have said, but he rushes on with his assertions. I adhere to the Declaration of Independence. If Judge Douglas and his friends are not willing to stand by it, let them come up and amend it. Let them make it read that all men are created equal except negroes. Let us have it decided whether the Declaration of Independence, in this blessed year of 1858, shall be thus amended. In his consti*uction of the Declar- ation last year, he said it only meant that Americans in America were equal to Englishmen in England. Then, when I pointed 96 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN out to him that by that rule he excludes the Germans, the Irish, the Portuguese, and all the other people who have come amongst us since the Revolution, he reconstructs his constiTiction. In his last speech he tells us it meant Europeans. I press him a little further, and ask if it meant to include the Russians in Asia ; or does he mean to exclude that vast popula- tion from the principles of our Declaration of Independence ? I expect ere long he will introduce another amendment to his definition. He is not at all particular. He is satisfied with any- thing which does not endanger the nationalizing of negro slavery. It may draw white men down, but it must not lift negroes up. Who shall say, "I am the superior, and you are the inferior " ? My declarations upon this subject of negro slavery may be misrepresented, but cannot be misunderstood, I have said that I do not understand the Declaration to mean that all men were created equal in all respects. They are not our equal in color ; but I suppose that it does mean to declare that all men are equal in some respects ; they are equal in their right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Certainly the negro is not our equal in color, — perhaps not in man}?' other respects ; still, in the right to put into his mouth the bread that his own hands have earned, he is the equal of every other man, white or black. In pointing out that more has been given you, you cannot be justi- fied in taking away the little which has been given him. All I ask for the negro is that if you do not like him, let him alone. It God gave him but little, that little let him enjoy. When our government was established we had the institution of slavery among us. We were in a certain sense compelled to tolerate its existence. It was a sort of necessity. We had gone through our struggle and secured our own independence. The framers of the constitution found the institution of slavery amongst their own institutions at the time. They found that by an eflbrt to eradicate it they might lose much of what they had alread}^ gained. They were obliged to bow to the necessity. They gave power to Congress to abolish the slave trade at the end of twenty years. They also prohibited it in the Territories where it did not exist. They did what they could, and yielded to the necessity for the rest. I also yield to all which follows from that necessity. What I would most desire would be the separation of the white and black races. One more point on this Springfield speech which Judge Douglas says he has read so carefully. I expressed my belief in the existence of a conspiracy to perpetuate and nationalize slavery. I did not profess to know it, nor do I now. I showed the part Judge Douglas had played in the string of facts constituting to my mind the proof of that conspiracy. I showed the parts played by others. AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 97 I charged that the people had been deceived into carrying the last Presidential election, by the impression that the people of the Territories might exclude slavery if they chose, when it was known in advance by the conspirators that the court was to de- cide that neither Congress nor the people could so exclude slavery. These charges are more distinctly made than anything else in the speech. Judge Douglas has carefully read and re-read that speech. He has not, so far as I know, contradicted those charges. In the two speeches which I heard he certainly did not. On his own tacit admission, I renew that charge. I charge him with having been a party to that conspiracy and to that deception for the sole purpose of nationalizing slavery. The following is the correspondence between the two rival candidates for the United States Senate : — Mr. Lincoln to Mr. Douglas. Chicago, III., July 24, 1858. Hon. S. A. Douglas : My dear Sir, — Will be agreeable to you to make an arrangement for you and myself to divide time, and address the same audiences the present canvass ? Mr. Judd, who will hand you this, is authorized to receive your answer; and, if agreeable to you, to enter into the terms of such arrangement. Your obedient servant, A. Lincoln. Mr. Douglas to Mr. Lincoln. Chicago, July 24, 1858. Hon. A. Lincoln : Dear Sir, — ^Your note of this date, in which you inquire if it would be agreeable to me to make an arrangement to divide the time and address the same audiences during the present canvass, was handed me by Mr. Judd. Recent events have inter- posed difficulties in the way of such an arrangement, I went to Springfield last week for the purpose of conferring with the Democratic State Centra] Committee upon the mode of con- ducting the canvass, and with them, and under their advice, made a list of appointments covering the entire period until late in October, The people of the several localities have been notified of the times and places of the meetings. Those appointments have all been made for Democratic meetings, and arrangements have been made by which the Democratic candidates for Congress, for the Legislature, and other offices, will be present and address the people. It is evident, therefore, that these various candidates, in connection with myself, will occupy the whole time of the day and evening, and leave no opportunity for other speeches. 14 98 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN Besides, there is another consideration which should be kept in mind. It has been suggested recently that an arrangement had been made to bring out a third candidate for the United States Senate, who, with yourself, should canvass the State in opposition to me, with no other purpose than to insure my defeat, by dividing the Demo- cratic party for your benefit. If I should make this arrangement with you, it is more than probable that this other candidate, who has a common object with you, would desire to become a party to it, and claim the right to speak from the same stand; so that he and you, in concert, might be able to take the opening and closing speech in every case. I cannot refrain from expressing my surprise, if it was your orig- inal intention to invite such an arrangement, that you should have waited until after I had made my appointments, inasmuch as we were both here in Chicago together for several days after my arrival, and again at Bloomington, Atlanta, Lincoln, and Springfield, where it was well known I went for the purpose of consulting with the State Central Committee, and agreeing upon the plan of the campaign. While, under these circumstances, I do not feel at liberty to make any arrangements which would deprive the Democratic candidates for Congress, State offices, and the Legislature from participating in the discussion at the various meetings designated by the Democratic State Central Committee, I will, in order to accommodate you as far as it is in my power to do so, take the responsibility of making an arrange- ment with you for a discussion between us at one prominent point in each Congressional District in the State, except the Second and Sixth districts, where we have both spoken, and in each of which cases you had the concluding speech. If agreeable to you, I will indicate the following places as those most suitable in the several Congressional districts at which we should speak, to wit : Freeport, Ottawa, Gales- burg, Quincy, Alton, Jonesboro, and Charleston. I will confer with you at the earliest convenient opportunity in regard to the mode of conducting the debate, the times of meeting at the several places, subject to the condition that where appointments have already been made by the Democratic State Central Committee at any of those places, I must insist upon you meeting me at the times specified. Very respectfully, your most obedient servant, S. A. Douglas. Mr. Lincoln to Mr. Douglas. Springfield, July 29, 1858. Hon. S. A. Douglas : Dear Sir, — Yours of the 24th in relation to an arrangement to divide time, and address the same audiences, is received ; and, in apology for not sooner replying, allow me to say, that when I sat by you at dinner yesterday, I was not aware that you had answered my note, nor, certainly, that my own note had been presented to you. An hour after, I saw a copy of your answer in the Chicago "Times," and reaching home, I found the original awaiting me. Protesting that your insinuations of attempted unfairness on my AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 99 part are unjust, and with the hope that you did not very considerately make them, I proceed to reply. To your statement that "It has been suggested, recently, that an arrangement had been made to bring out a third candidate for the United States Senate, who, with yourself, should canvass the state in opposition to me," etc., I can only say, that such suggestion must have been made by yourself, for certainly none such has been made by or to me, or otherwise, to my knowledge. Surely you did not deliberately conclude, as you insinuate, that I was expecting to draw you into an arrangement of terms, to be agreed on by yourself, by which a third candidate and myself, "in concert, might be able to take the opening and closing speech in every case." As to your surprise that I did not sooner make the proposal to divide time with you, I can only say, I made it as soon as I resolved to make it. I did not know but that such proposal would come from you ; I waited, respectfully, to see. It may have been well known to you that you went to Springfield for the purpose of agreeing on the plan of campaign ; but it was not so known to me. When your ap- pointments were announced in the papers, extending only to the 21st of August, I, for the first time considered it certain that you would make no proposal to me, and then resolved that, if my friends con- curred, I would make one to you. As soon thereafter as I could see and consult with friends satisfactorily, I did make the proposal. It did- not occur to me that the proposed arrangement could derange your plans after the latest of your appointments already made. After that, there was, before the election, largely over two months of clear time. For you to say that we have already spoken at Chicago and Springfield, and that on both occasions I had the concluding speech, is hardly a fair statement. The truth rather is this : At Chicago, July 9th, you made a carefully prepared conclusion on my speech of June 16th. Twenty-four hours after, I made a hasty conclusion on yours of the 9th. You had six days to prepare, and concluded on me again at Bloomington on the 16th. Twenty-four hours after, I con- cluded again on you at Springfield. In the mean time, you had made another conclusion on me at Springfield, which I did not hear, and of the contents of which I knew nothing when I spoke ; so that your speech made in daylight, and mine at night, of the 17th, at Spring- field, were both made in perfect independence of each other. The dates of making all these speeches will show, I think, that in the matter of time for preparation, the advantage has all been on your side, and that none of the external circumstances have stood to my advantage. I agree to an arrangement for us to speak at the seven places you have named, and at your own times, provided you name the times at once, so that I, as well as you, can have to myself the time not cov- ered by the arrangement. As to the other details, I wish perfect reciprocity and no more. I wish as much time as you, and that conclusions shall alternate. That is all. Your obedient servant, A. Lincoln. P. S. — As matters now stand, I shall be at no more of your exclusive meetings, and for about a week from to-day a letter from you will reach me at Springfield. A. L. 100 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN Mr. Douglas to Mr. Lincoln. Bement, Piatt Co., III., July 30, 1858. Dear Sir, — Your letter dated yesterday, accepting my proposition for a joint discussion at one prominent point in each Congressional District, as stated in my previous letter, was received this morning. The times and places designated are as follows : — Ottawa, La Salle County Freeport, Stephenson County Jonesboro, Union County Charleston, Coles County Galesburgh, Knox County Quincy, Adams County Alton, Madison County August 21st, 1858. 27th, September 15th, 18th, October 7th, 13th, 15th, I agree to your suggestion that we shall alternately open and close the discussion. I will speak at Ottawa one hour, you can reply, occupying an hour and a half, and I will then follow for half an hour. At Freeport, you shall open the discussion and speak one hour; I will follow for an hour and a half, and you can then reply for half an hour. We will alternate in like manner in each successive place. Very respectfully, your obedient servant, S. A. Douglas. Hon. A. Lincoln, Springfield, 111. Mr. Lincoln to Mr. Douglas. Springfield, July 31, 1858. Hon. S. A. Douglas : Dear Sir, — Yours of yesterday, naming places, times, and terms for joint discussions between us, was received this morning. Although, by the terms, as you propose, you take foiir openings and closes, to my three, I accede, and thus close the arrangement. I direct this to you at Hillsboro, and shall try to have both your letter and this appear in the "Journal" and "Register" of Monday morning. Your obedient servant, A. Lincoln. AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 101 FIRST JOINT DEBATE, AT OTTAWA. August 21, 1858. MR. DOUGLAS'S SPEECH. Ladies and Gentlemen : I appear before you to-day for the purpose of discussing the leading political topics which now agitate the public mind. By an arrangement between Mr. Lincoln and myself, we are present here to-da}'- for the purpose of having a joint discussion, as the representatives of the two great political parties of the State and Union, upon the principles in issue between those parties ; and this vast concourse of people shows the deep feeling which pervades the public mind in regard to the questions dividing us. Prior to 1854 this country was divided into two great political parties, known as the Whig and Democratic parties. Both were national and patriotic, advocating principles that were universal in their application. An old line Whig could proclaim his principles in Louisiana and Massachusetts alike. Whig principles had no boundary sectional line ; they were not limited by the Ohio River, nor by the Potomac, nor by the line of the Free and Slave States, but applied and were proclaimed wherever the Constitution ruled or the American flag waved over the American soil. So it was, and so it is with the great Democratic party, which, from the da3^s of Jefferson until this period, has proven itself to be the historic party of this nation. While the Whig and Democratic parties diftered in regard to a bank, the tariff', distribution, the specie circular, and the sub-treasury, they agreed on the great slavery question which no*w agitates the Union. I say that the Whig party and the Democratic party agreed on this slavery question, while they differed on those matters of expediency to which I have referred. The Whig party and the Democratic party jointly adopted the Compromise measures of 1850 as the basis of a proper and just solution of this slavery question in all its forms. Clay was the great leader, with Webster on his right and Cass on his left, and sustained by the patriots in the Whig and Democratic ranks who had devised and enacted the Compromise measures of 1850. In 1851 the Whig party and the Democratic party united in Illinois in adopting resolutions indorsing and approving the principles of the Compromise measures of 1850, as the proper adjustment of that question. In 1852, when the Whig party assembled in Convention at Baltimore for the purpose of nomi- nating a candidate for the Presidency, the first thing it did was to declare the Compromise measures of 1850, in substance and 102 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN in principle, a suitable adjustment of that question. [Here the speaker was interrupted by loud and long-continued applause.] My friends, silence will be more acceptable to me in the discussion of these questions than applause. I desire to address myself to your judgment, your understanding, and your consciences, and not to your passions or your enthusiasm. When the Democratic Convention assembled in Baltimore in the same year, for the purpose of nominating a Democratic candidate for the Presidency, it also adopted the Compromise measures of 1850 as the basis of Democratic action. Thus j^ou see that up to 1853-'54, the Whig party and the Democratic party both stood on the same platform with regard to the slavery question. That platform was the right of the people of each State and each Territory to decide their local and domestic institutions for themselves, subject only to the Federal Constitution. During the session of Congress of 1853-'54, I introduced into the Senate of the United States a bill to organize the Terri- tories of Kansas and Nebraska on that principle which had been adopted in the Compromise measures of 1850, approved by the Whig party and the Democratic party in Illinois in 1851, and indorsed by the Whig party and the Democratic party in National Convention in 1852. In order that there might be no misunder- standing in relation to the principle involved in the Kansas and Nebraska bill, I put forth the true intent and meaning of this Act in these words : " It is the true intent and meaning of this Act not to legislate slavery into any State or Territory, or to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to the Federal Constitution." Thus you see that up to 1854, when the Kansas and Nebraska bill was brought into Congress for the purpose of canying out the principles which both parties had up to that time indorsed and approved, there had been no division in this country in regard to that principle except the opposition of the Abolitionists. In the House of Representatives of the Illinois Legislature, upon a resolution asserting that principle, every Whig and every Democrat in the House voted in the affirmative, and only four men voted against it, and those four were old line Abolitionists. In 1854, Mr. Abraham Lincoln and Mr. Trumbull entered into an arrangement, one with the other, and each with his respective friends, to dissolve the old Whig party on the one hand, and to dissolve the old Democratic party on the other, and to connect the members of both into an Abolition part}^, under the name and disguise of a Republican party. The terms of that arrangement between Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Trumbull have been published to the world by Mr. Lincoln's special friend, James H. Matheny, Esq., and they were, that Lincoln should have Shields's AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 103 place in the United States Senate, which was then about to become vacant, and that Trumbull should have my seat when my term expired. Lincoln went to work to Abolitionize the old Whig party all over the State, pretending that he was then as good a Whig as ever ; and Trumbull went to work in his part of the State preaching Abolitionism in its milder and lighter form, and trying to Abolitionize the Democratic party, and bring old Democrats handcuffed and bound hand and foot into the Abolition camp. In pursuance of the arrangement, the parties met at Springfield in October, 1854, and proclaimed their new platform. Lincoln was to bring into the Abolition camp the old line Whigs, and transfer them over to Giddings, Chase, Fred Douglass, and Parson Lovejoy, who were ready to receive them and christen them in their new faith. They laid down on that occasion a platform for their new Republican party, which was to be thus constructed. I have the resolutions of their State Convention then held, which was the first mass State Convention ever held in Illinois by the Black Republican party, and I now hold them in my hands, and will read a part of them, and cause the others to be printed. Here are the most important and material resolu- tions of this Abolition platform : — "1. Resolved, That we believe this truth to be self-evident, that when parties become subversive of the ends for which they are established, or incapable of restoring the government to the true principles of the Constitution, it is the right and duty of the people to dissolve the political bands by which they may have been connected therewith, and to organize new parties, upon such principles and with such views as the circumstances and exigencies of the nation may demand. " 2. Resolved, That the times imperatively demand the reorgan- ization of parties, and, repudiating all previous party attachments, names and predilections, we unite ourselves in defense of the liberty and Constitution of the country, and will hereafter co-operate as the Republican party, pledged to the accomplishment of the following purposes : To bring the administration of the government back to the control of first principles ; to restore Nebraska and Kansas to the position of free Territories ; that, as the Constitution of the United States vests in the States, and not in Congress, the power to legislate for the extradition of fugitives from labor, to repeal and entirely abrogate the Fugitive Slave law ; to restrict slavery to those States in which it exists ; to prohibit the admission of any more Slave States into the Union ; to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia ; to exclude slavery from all the Territories over which the General Government has exclusive jurisdiction ; and to resist the acquirement of any more Territories, unless the practice of slavery therein forever shall have been prohibited. " 3. Resolved, That in furtherance of these principles we will use such constitutional and lawful means as shall seem best adapted * to their accomplishment, and that we will support no man for office, 104 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN under the General or State Government, who is not positively and fully committed to the support of these principles, and whose personal character and conduct is not a guarantee that he is reliable, and who shall not have abjured old party allegiance and ties." Now, gentlemen, your Black Republicans have cheered every one of those propositions, and yet I venture to say that you cannot get Mr. Luicoln to come out and say that he is now in favor of each one of them. That these propositions, one and all, constitute the platform of the Black Republican party of this day, I have no doubt ; and when you were not aware for what purpose I was reading them, your Black Republicans cheered them as good Black Republican doctrines. My object in reading these resolutions was to put the question to Abraham Lincoln this day, whether he now stands and will stand by each article in that creed and carry it out. I desire to know whether Mr. Lincoln to-day stands, as he did in 1854, in favor of the unconditional repeal of the Fugitive Slave law. I desire him to answer whether he stands pledged to-day, as he did in 1854, against the admission of any more Slave States into the Union, even if the people want them. I want to know whether he stands pledged against the admission of a new State into the Union with such a Constitution as the people of that State may see fit to make. I want to know whether he stands to-day pledged to the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. I desire him to answer whether he stands pledged to the prohibition of the slave trade between the different States. I desire to know whether he stands pledged to prohibit slavery in all the Territories of the United States, North as well as South of the Missouri Compromise line. I desire him to answer whether he is opposed to the acquisition of any more territory, unless slavery is prohibited therein. I want his answer to these questions. Your affirmative cheers in favor of this Abolition platform is not satisfactory. I ask Abraham Lincoln to answer those questions, in order that, when I trot him down to lower Egypt, I may put the same questions to him. My principles are the same everywhere. I can proclaim them alike in the North, the South, the East, and the West. My principles will apply wherever the Constitution prevails, and the American flag waves. I desire to know whether Mr. Lincoln's principles will bear transplanting from Ottawa to Jonesboro? I put these questions to him to-day distinctly and ask an answer. I have a right to an answer, for I quote from the platform of the Repub- lican party, made by himself and others at the time that party was formed, and the bargain made by Lincoln to dissolve and kill the old Whig party, and transfer its members, bound hand and foot, to the Abolition party, under the direction of Giddings AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 105 and Fred Douglass. In the remarks I have made on this platform, and the position of Mr. Lincoln upon it, I mean nothing personally disrespectful or unkind to that gentleman. I have known him for nearly twenty-five years. There were many points of sympathy between us when we first got acquainted. We were both comparatively boys, and both struggling with poverty in a strange land. I was a school-teacher in the town of Winchester, and he a flourishing grocery-keep"3r in the town of Salem. He was more successful in his occupation than I was in mine, and hence more fortunate in this world's goods. Lincoln is one of those peculiar men who perform with admira- ble skill everything which they undertake. I made as good a school-teacher as I could, and when a cabinet-maker I made a good bedstead and tables, although my old boss said I succeeded better with bureaus and secretaries than anything else ; but I believe that Lincoln was always more successful in business than I, for his business enabled him to get into the Legislature. I met him there, however, and had a sympathy with him, because of the up-hill struggle we both had in life. He was then just as good at telling an anecdote as now. He could beat any of, the boys wrestling, or running a foot-race, in pitching quoits or tossing a copper ; could ruin more liquor than all the boys of the town together ; and the dignity and impartiality with which he presided at a horse-race or fist-fight excited the admiration and won the praise of everybody that was present and participated. I sympathized with him because he was struggling with difficul- ties, and so was L Mr. Lincoln served with me in the Legisla- ture in 1836, when we both retired, and he subsided, or became submerged, and he was lost sight of as a public man for some years. In 1846, when Wilmot introduced his celebrated proviso, and the Abolition tornado swept over the country, Lincoln again turned up as a member of Congress from the Sangamon district. I was then in the Senate of the United States, and was glad to welcome my old friend and companion. Whilst in Congress, he distinguished himself by his opposition to the Mexican war, taking the side of the common enemy against his own country ; and when he returned home he found that the indignation of the people followed him everywhere, and he was again submerged, or obliged to retire into private life, forgotten by his former friends. He came up again in 1854, just in time to make this Abolition or Black Republican platform, in company with Giddings, Lovejoy, Chase, and Fred Douglass, for the Repub- lican party to stand upon. Trumbull, too, was one of our own contemporaries. He was born and raised in old Connecticut, was bred a Federalist, but, removing to Georgia, turned Nullifier when Nullification was popular, and as soon as he disposed of his clocks and wound up his business, migrated to Illinois, 15 100 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN turned politician and lawyer here, and made his appearance in 1841 as a member of the Legislature. He became noted as the author of the scheme to repudiate a large portion of the State debt of Illinois, which, if successful, would have brought infamy and disgrace upon the fair escutcheon of our glorious State. The odium attached to that measure consigned him to oblivion for a time. I helped to do it. I walked into a public meeting in the hall of the House of Representatives, and replied to his repudiating speeches, and resolutions were carried over his head denouncing repudiation, and asserting the moral and legal obligation of Illinois to pay every dollar of the debt she owed, and every bond that bore her seal. Trumbull's malignity has followed me since I thus defeated his infamous scheme. These two men having formed this combination to Aboli- tionize the old Whig party and the old Democratic party, and put themselves into the Senate of the United States, in pursuance of their bargain, are now carrying out that arrangement. Matheny states that Trumbull broke faith ; that the bargain was that Lincoln should be the Senator in Shields's place, and Trum- bull was to wait for mine ; and the story goes that Trumbull cheated Lincoln, having control of four or five Abolitionized Democrats who were holding over in the Senate ; he would not let them vote for Lincoln, and which obliged the rest of the Aboli- tionists to support him in order to secure an Abolition Senator. There are a number of authorities for the truth of this besides Matheny, and I suppose that even Mr. Lincoln will not deny it. Mr. Lincoln demands that he shall have the place intended for Trumbull, as Trumbull cheated him and got his, and Tnim- bull is stumping the State traducing me for the purpose of securing the position for Lincoln, in order to quiet him. It was in con- sequence of this arrangement that the Republican Convention was empaneled to instruct for Lincoln and nobody else, and it was on this account that they passed resolutions that he was their first, their last, and their only choice. Archy Williams was nowhere, Browning was nobody, Wentworth was not to be considered ; they had no man in the Republican party for the place except Lincoln, for the reason that he demanded that they should carry out the arrangement. Having formed this new party for the benefit of deserters from Whiggery, and deserters from Democracy, and having laid down the Abolition platform which I have read, Lincoln now takes his stand and proclaims his Abolition doctrines. Let me read a part of them. In his speech at Springfield to the Con- vention which nominated him for the Senate, he said : — " In my opinion it will not cease until a crisis shall have been reached and passed. ' A house divided against itself cannot stand.' AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 107 I believe this government cannot endure ferfnanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved, — 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 ifi the course of ultimate extinction, or its advocates zvill push it forward till it shall become alike lawful in all the States, — old as well as new, North as well as South." ["Good," "good," and cheers.] I am delighted to hear you Black Republicans say "good." I have no doubt that doctrine expresses your sentiments, and I will prove to you now, if you will listen to me, that it is revolutionary, and destructive of the existence of this government. Mr. Lincoln, in the extract from which I have read, says that this government cannot endure permanently in the same condition in which it was made by its framers, — divided into Free and Slave States. He says that it has existed for about seventy years thus divided, and yet he tells you that it cannot endure permanently on the same principles and in the same relative condition in which our fathers made it. Why can it not exist divided into Free and Slave States? Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Madison, Ham- ilton, Jay, and the great men of that day, made this government divided into Free and Slave States, and left each State perfectly free to do as it pleased on the subject of slavery. Why can it not exist on the same principles on which our fathers made it? They knew when they framed the Constitution that in a coimtry as wide and broad as this, with such a variety of climate, pro- duction, and interest, the people necessarily required different laws and institutions in different localities. They knew that the laws and regulations which would suit the granite hills of New Hampshire would be unsuited. to the rice plantations of South Carolina, and they therefore provided that each State should retain its own Legislature and its own sovereignty, with the full and complete power to do as it pleased within its own limits, in all that was local and not national. One of the reserved rights of the States was the right to regulate the relations between master and servant, on the slavery question. At the time the Constitution was framed, there were thirteen States in the Union, twelve of which were slaveholding States and one a Free State. Suppose this doctrine of uniformity preached by Mr. Lincoln, that the States should all be free or all be slave had prevailed, and what would have been the result? Of course, the twelve slaveholding: States would have overruled the one Free State, and slavery would have been fastened by a Constitutional provision on every inch of the American Republic, instead of being left, as our fathers wisely left it, to each State to decide for itself. 108 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN Here I assert that uniformity in the local laws and institutions of the different States is neither possible nor desirable. If uni- formity had been adopted when the government was established, it must inevitably have been the uniformity of slavery everywhere, or else the uniformity of negro citizenship and negro equality everywhere. We are told by Lincoln that he is utterly opposed to the Dred Scott decision, and will not submit to it, for the reason that he says it deprives the negro of the rights and privileges of citizenship. That is the first and main reason which he assigns for his warfare on the Supreme Court of the United States and its decision. I ask you, are you in favor of conferring upon the negro the rights and privileges of citizenship? Do you desire to strike out of our State Constitution that clause which keeps slaves and free negroes out of the State, and allow the free negroes to flow in, and cover ^^our prairies with black settlements? Do you desire to turn this beautiful State into a free negro colony, in order that when Missouri abolishes slavery she can send one hundred thousand emancipated slaves into Illinois, to become citizens and voters, on an equality with yourselves? If you desire negro citizenship, if you desire to allow them to come into the State and settle with the white man, if you desire them to vote on an equality with yourselves, and to make them eligible to office, to serve on juries, and to adjudge your rights, then support Mr. Lincoln and the Black Republican party, who are in favor of the citizenship of the negro. For one, I am opposed to negro citizen- ship in any and every form. I believe this government was made on the white basis. I believe it was made by white men, for the benefit of white men and their posterity forever, and I am in favor of confining citizenship to white men, men of European birth and descent, instead of conferring it upon negroes, Indians, and other inferior races. Mr. Lincoln, following the example and lead of all the little Abolition orators, who go around and lecture in the basements of schools and churches, reads from the Declaration of Independ- ence that all men were created equal, and then asks. How can you deprive a negro of that equality which God and the Dec- laration of Independence awards to him? He and they maintain that negro equality is guaranteed by the laws of God, and that it is asserted in the Declaration of Independence. If they think so, of course they have a right to do so, and so vote. I do not question Mr. Lincoln's conscientious belief that the negro was made his equal, and hence is his brother ; but for my own part, I do not regard the negro as my equal, and positively deny that he is my brother, or any kin to me whatever. Lincoln has evidently learned by heart Parson Lovejoy's catechism. He can repeat it as well as Farnsworth, and he is worthy of a medal AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 109 from Father Giddings and Fred Douglass for his Abolitionism. He holds that the negro was born his equal and yours, and that he was endowed with equality by the Almighty, and that no human law can deprive him of these rights, which were guaran- teed to him by the Supreme Ruler of the Universe. Now I do not believe that the Almighty ever intended the negro to be the equal of the white man. If he did, he has been a long time demonstrating the fact. For thousands of years the negro has been a race upon the earth, and during all that time, in all lati- tudes and climates, wherever he has wandered or been taken, he has been inferior to the race which he has there met. He belongs to an inferior race, and must always occupy an inferior position. I do not hold that because the negro is our inferior that therefore he ought to be a slave. By no means can such a conclusion be drawn from what I have said. On the contrary, I hold that humanity and Christianity both require that the negro shall have and enjoy every right, every privilege, and every immunity consistent with the safety of the society in which he lives. On that point, I presume, there can be no diversity of opinion. You and I are bound to extend to our inferior and de- pendent beings every right, every privilege, every facility and immunity consistent with the public good. The question then arises. What rights and privileges are consistent with the public good? This is a question which each State and each Territory must decide for itself; Illinois has de- cided it for herself. We have provided that the negro shall not be a slave, and we have also provided that he shall not be a citi- zen, but protect him in his civil rights, in his life, his person and his property, only depriving him of all political rights whatso- ever, and refusing to put him on an equality with the white man. That policy of Illinois is satisfactory to the Democratic party and to me ; and if it were to the Republicans, there would then be no question upon the subject. But the Republicans say that he ought to be made a citizen, and when he becomes a citizen he becomes your equal, with all your rights and privileges. They assert the Dred Scott decision to be monstrous because it denies that the negro is or can be a citizen under the Constitution. Now, I hold that Illinois had a right to abolish and prohibit slaver}'^ as she did, and I hold that Kentucky has the same right to continue and protect slavery that Illinois had to abolish it. I hold that New York had as much right to abolish slavery as Vir- ginia has to continue it, and that each and every State of this Union is a sovereign power, with the right to do as it pleases upon this question of slavery, and upon all its domestic institu- tions. Slavery is not the only question which comes up in this controversy. There is a far more important one to you, and that is, — What shall be done with the free negro? We have settled 110 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN the slavery question as far as we are concerned ; we have pro- hibited it in Illinois forever ; and in doing so, I think we have done wisely, and there is no man in the State who would be more strenuous in his opposition to the introduction of slavery than I would. But when we settled it for ourselves, we exhausted all our power over that subject. We have done our whole duty, and can do no more. We must leave each and every other State to decide for itself the same question. In relation to the policy to be pursued toward the free negroes, we have said that they shall not vote ; whilst Maine, on the other hand, has said that they shall vote. Maine is a sovereign State, and has the power to regulate the qualifications of voters within her limits. I would never consent to confer the right of voting and of citizenship upon a negro ; but still I am not going to quarrel with Maine for differing from me in opinion. Let Maine take care of her own negroes, and fix the qualifications of her own voters to suit her- self, without interfering with Illinois, and Illinois will not inter- fere with Maine. So with the State of New York. She allows the negro to vote, provided he owns two hundred and fifty dol- lars' worth of property, but not otherwise. While I would not make any distinction whatever between a negro who held prop- erty and one who did not, yet if the sovereign State of New York chooses to make that distinction, it is her business and not mine, and I will not quarrel with her for it. She can do as she pleases on this question if she minds her own business, and we will do the same thing. Now, my friends, if we will only act conscientiously and rigidly upon this great principle of popular sovereignty, which guarantees to each State and Territory the right to do as it pleases on all things, local and domestic, instead of Congress interfering, we will continue at peace one with an- other. Why should Illinois be at war with Missouri, or Ken- tucky with Ohio, or Virginia with New York, merely because their institutions differ? Our fathers intended that our institu- tions should differ. They knew that the North and the South, having different climates, productions, and interests, required dif- ferent institutions. This doctrine of Mr. Lincoln, of uniformity among the institutions of the different States, is a new doctrine, never dreamed of by Washington, Madison, or the framers of this government. Mr. Lincoln and the Republican party set themselves up as wiser than these men who made this govern- ment, which has flourished for seventy years under the principle of popular sovereignty, recognizing the right of each State to do as it pleased. Under that principle, we have grown from a nation of three or four millions to a nation of about thirty millions of people ; we have crossed the Alleghany mountains and filled up the whole Northwest, turning the prairie into a garden, and building up churches and schools, thus spreading civilization and Christianity where before there was nothing but savage AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. Ill barbarism. Under that principle we have become, from a feeble nation, the most powerful on the face of the earth ; and if wi only adhere to that principle, we can go forward increasing in territory, in power, in strength, and in glory until the Repub- lic 'of America shall be the North Star that shall guide the friends of freedom throughout the civilized world. And why can we not adhere to the great principle of self-government, upon which our institutions were originally based? I believe that this new doctrine preached by Mr. Lincoln and his party will dissolve the Union if it succeeds. They are trying to array all the Northern States in one body against the South, to excite a sec- tional war between the Free States and the Slave States, in order that the one or the other may be driven to the wall. I am told that my time is out. Mr. Lincoln will now ad- dress you for an hour and a half, and I will then occupy an half hour in replying to him. MR. LINCOLN'S REPLY. My Fellow-Citizens : When a man hears himself some- what misrepresented, it provokes him, — at least, I find it so with myself; but when misrepresentation becomes very gross and pal- pable, it is more apt to amuse him. The first thing I see fit to notice is the fact that Judge Douglas alleges, after running through the history of the old Democratic and the old Whig par- ties, that Judge Trumbull and myself made an arrangement in 1854, by which I was to have the place of General Shields in the United States Senate, and Judge Trumbull was to have the place of Judge Douglas. Now, all I have to say upon that subject is that I think no man — not even Judge Douglas — can prove it, because it is not ti-tie. I have no doubt he is ^'■conscientious'''' in saying it. As to those resolutions that he took such a length of time to read, as being the platform of the Republican party in 1854, I say I never had anything to do with them, and I think Trumbull never had. Judge Douglas cannot show that either of us ever did have anything to do with them. I believe ////5 is true about those resolutions : There was a call for a Convention to form a Republican party at Springfield, and I think that my friend Mr. Lovejoy, who is here upon this stand, had a hand in it. I think this is true, and I think if he will remember accurately, he will be able to recollect that he tried to get me into it, and I would not go in. I believe it is also true that I went awa}^ from Springfield when the Convention was in session, to attend court in Tazewell County. It is true they did place my name, though without authority, upon the committee, and afterward wrote me to attend the meeting of the committee ; but I refused to do so, and I never had anything to do with that organization. This is the plain truth about all that matter of the resolutions. 112 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN Now, about this story that Judge Douglas tells of Trumbull bargaining to sell out the old Democratic party, and Lincoln agreeing to sell out the old Whig party, I have the means of knowing about that : Judge Douglas cannot have ; and I know there is no substance to it whatever. Yet I have no doubt he is '''■conscientious" about it. I know that after Mr. Lovejoy got into the Legislature that winter, he complained of me that I had told all the old Whigs of his district that the old Whig party was good enough for them, and some of them voted against him because I told them so. Now, I have no means of totally disproving such charges as this which the Judge makes. A man cannot prove a negative ; but he has a right to claim that when a man makes an affirmative charge, he must offer some proof to show the truth of what he says. I certainly cannot introduce testimony to show the negative about things, but I have a right to claim that if a man says he knows a thing, then he must show how he knows it. I always have a right to claim this, and it is not satisfactory to me that he may be "conscientious" on the subject. Now, gentlemen, I hate to waste my time on such things ; but in regard to that general Abolition tilt that Judge Douglas makes, when he says that I was engaged at that time in selling out and Abolitionizing the old Whig party, I hope you will permit me to read a part of a printed speech that I made then at Peoria, which will show altogether a different view of the position I took in that contest of 1854. Voice: "Put on your specs." Mr. Lincoln : Yes, sir, I am obliged to do so ; I am no longer a young man. "This is the repeal of the Missouri Compromise.^ The foregoing history may not be precisely accurate in every particular, but I am sure it is sufficiently so for all the uses I shall attempt to make of it, and in it we have before us the chief materials enabling us to cor- rectly judge whether the repeal of the Missouri Compromise is right or wrong. "I think, and shall try to show, that it is wrong — wrong in its direct effect, letting slavery into Kansas and Nebraska, and wrong in its prospective principle, allowing it to spread to every other part of the wide world where men can be found inclined to take it. "This declared indifference, but, as I must think, covert rea/ zeal for the spread of slavery, I cannot but hate. I hate it because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself. I hate it because it deprives our republican example of its just influence in the world, — enables the enemies of free institutions, with plausibility, to taunt us as hypocrites ; ^ This extract from Mr. Lincoln's Peoria speecli of 1854 was read by him in the Ottawa debate, but was not reported fully or accurately in either the "Times" or "Press and Tribune." It is inserted now as necessary to a complete report of the debate. AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 113 causes the real friends of freedom to doubt our sincerity, and especially because it forces so many really good men amongst ourselves into an open war with the very fundamental principles of civil liberty, — criticising the Declaration of Independence, and insisting that there is no right principle of action but sclf-inte?-est. "Before proceeding, let me say I think I have no prejudice against the Southern people. They are just what we would be in their situation. If slavery did not now exist among them, they would not introduce it. If it did now exist among us, we should not instantly give it up. This I believe of the masses North and South. Doubtless there are. individuals on both sides who would not hold slaves under any circumstances ; and others who would gladly intro- duce slavery anew, if it were out of existence. We know that some Southern men do free their slaves, go North, and become tip-top Abolitionists ; while some Northern ones go South and become most cruel slave-masters. "When Southern people tell us they are no more responsible for the origin of slavery than we, I acknowledge the fact. When it is said that the institution exists, and that it is very difficult to get rid of it, in any satisfactory way, I can understand and appreciate the saying. I surely will not blame them for not doing what I should not know how to do myself. If all earthly power were given me, I should not know what to do, as to the existing institution. My first impulse would be to free all the slaves and send them to Liberia, — to their own native land. But a moment's reflection would convince me that whatever of high hope (as I think there is) there may be in this, in the long run, its sudden execution is impossible. If they were all landed there in a day, they would all perish in the next ten days ; and there are not surplus shipping and surplus money enough in the world to carry them there in many times ten days. What then? Free them all and keep them among us as underlings? Is it quite certain that this betters their condition? I think I would not hold one in slavery, at any rate ; yet the point is not clear enough to me to denounce people upon. What next? Free them, and make them politically and socially our equals? My own feelings will not admit of this ; and if mine would, we well know that those of the great mass of white people will not. Whether this feeling accords with justice and sound judgment, is not the sole question, if, indeed, it is any part of it. A universal feeling, whether well or ill founded, can- not be safely disregarded. We cannot, then, make them equals. It does seem to me that systems of gradual emancipation might be adopted ; but for their tardiness in this, I will not undertake to judge our brethren of the South. "When they remind us of their constitutional rights, I acknow- ledge them, not grudgingly, but fully and fairly; and I would give them any legislation for the reclaiming of their fugitives, which should not, in its stringency, be more likely to carry a free man into slavery, than our ordinary criminal laws are to hang an innocent one. "But all this, to my judgment, furnishes no more excuse for per- mitting slavery to go into our own free territory than it would for reviving the African slave-trade by law. The law which forbids the bringing of s\di\QS from Africa, and that which has so long forbid the 16 114 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN taking of them to Nebraska, can hardly be distinguished on any moral principle ; and the repeal of the former could find quite as plausible excuses as that of the latter." I have reason to know that Judge Douglas knows that I said this. I think he has the answer here to one of the questions he put to me. I do not mean to allow him to catechise me unless he pays back for it in kind. I will not answer questions one after another, unless he reciprocates ; but as he has made this inquiry, and I have answered it before, he has got it without my getting anything in return. He has got my answer on the Fugitive Slave law. Now, gentlemen, I don't want to read at any greater length ; but this is the true complexion of all I have ever said in regard to the institution of slavery and the black race. This is the whole of it ; and anything that argues me into his idea of perfect social and political equality with the negro, is but a specious and fantastic arrangement of words, by which a man can prove a horse-chestnut to be a chestnut horse. I will say here, while upon this subject, that I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no / inclination to do so. I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and the black races. There is a ph5'sical difference between the two which, in my judgment, will probably forever forbid their living together upon the footing of perfect equality; and inasmuch as it becomes a necessity that there must be a difference, I, as well as Judge Douglas, am in favor of the race to which I belong having the superior position. I have never said anything to the contrary, I but I hold that, notwithstanding all this, there is no reason in the world why the negro is not entitled to all the natural rights enu- merated in the Declaration of Independence, — the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I hold that he is as much entitled to these as the white man. I agree with Judge Douglas he is not my equal in many respects, — certainly not in color, perhaps not in moral or intellectual endowment. But in the right to eat the bread, without the leave of anybody else, which his own hand earns, he is my equal, and the equal of Jtidge Douglas, and the equal of every living man. Now I pass on to consider one or two more of these little follies. The Judge is woefully at fault about his early friend Lincoln being a "grocery-keeper." I don't know as it would be a great sin, if I had been ; but he is mistaken. Lincoln never kept a grocery anywhere in the world. It is true that Lin- coln did work the latter part of one winter in a little still-house, up at the head of a hollow. And so I think m}- friend the Judge is equally at fault when he charges me at the time when I was in AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 115 Congress of having opposed our soldiers who were fighting in the Mexican war. The Judge did not make his charge very dis- tinctly, but I can tell you what he can prove, by referring to the record. You remember I was an old Whig, and whenever the Democratic party tried to get me to vote that the wj'r had been righteously begun by the President, I would not to it. But whenever the}^ asked for any money, or land-warrants, or any- thing to pay the soldiers there, during all that time, I gave the same vote that Judge Douglas did. You can think as you please as to whether that was consistent. Such is the truth ; and the Judge has the right to make all he can out of it. But when he, by a general charge, conveys the idea that I withheld supplies from the soldiers who were fighting in the Mexican war, or did anything else to hinder the soldiers, he is, to say the least, grossly and altogether mistaken, as a consultation of the records will prove to him. As I have not used up so much of my time as I had sup- posed, I will dwell a little longer upon one or two of these minor topics upon which the Judge has spoken. He has read from my speech in Springfield, in which I say that "a house divided against itself cannot stand." Does the Judge say h ca?i stand? I don't know whether he does or not. The Judge does not seem to be attending to me just now, but I would like to know if it is his opinion that a house divided against itself can stand. If he does, then there is a question of veracity, not between him and me, but between the Judge and an authority of a somewhat higher character. Now, my friends, I ask your attention to this matter for the purpose of saying something seriously. I know that the Judge may readily enough agree with me that the maxim which was put forth by the Saviour is true, but he may allege that I mis- apply it ; and the Judge has a right to urge that, in my applica- tion, I do misapply it, and then I have a right to show that I do not misapply it. When he undertakes to say that because I think this nation, so far as the question of slavery is concerned, will all become one thing or all the other, I am in favor of bring- ing about a dead uniformity in the various States, in all their in- stitutions, he argues erroneously. The great variety of the local institutions in the States, springing from diflferences in the soil, differences in the face of the country, and in the climate, are bonds of Union. They do not make "a house divided against itself," but they make a house united. If they produce in one section of the country what is called for by the wants of another section, and this other section can supply the wants of the first, they are not matters of discord, but bonds of union, true bonds of union. But can this question of slavery be considered as among t/iese varieties in the institutions of the country? I leave 116 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN it to you to say whether, in the history of our government, this institution of slavery has not always failed to be a bond of union, and, on the contrary, been an apple of discord and an element of division in the house. I ask you to consider whether, so long as the moral constitution of men's minds shall con- tinue to be the same, after this generation and assemblage shall sink into the grave, and another race shall arise, with the same moral and intellectual development we have, — whether, if that institution is standing in the same irritating position in which it now is, it will not continue an element of division? If so, then I have a right to say that, in regard to this question, the Union is a house divided against itself; and when the Judge reminds me that I have often said to him that the institution of slavery has existed for eighty years in some States, and yet it does not exist in some others, I agree to the fact, and I account for it by looking at the position in which our fathers originally placed it, — restricting it from the new Territories where it had not gone, and legislating to cutoff its source by the abrogation of the slave- trade, thus putting the seal of legislation against its spread. The public mind did rest in the belief that it was in the course ot ultimate extinction. But lately, I think — and in this I charge nothing on the Judge's motives — lately, I think, that he, and those acting with him, have placed that institution on a new basis, which looks to the ^perpetuity and nationalization of slavery. And while it is placed upon this new basis, I say, and I have said, that I believe we shall not have peace upon the question until the opponents of slavery 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, on the other hand, that its advocates will push it forward until it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new. North as well as South. Now, I believe if we could arrest the spread, and place it where Washington and Jefferson and Madison placed it, it zuould be in the course of ultimate extinction, and the public mind ■would, as for eighty years past, believe that it was in the course of ultimate extinction. The crisis would be past, and the institution might be let alone for a hundred years, if it should live so long, in the States where it exists ; yet it would be going out of existence in the way best for both the black and the white races. A Voice: "Then do you repudiate Popular Sovereignty?" Mr. Lincoln : Well, then, let us talk about Popular Sover- eignty ! What is Popular Sovereignty? Is it the right of the people to have slavery or not have it, as they see fit, in the Territories ? I will state — and I have an able man to watch me — my understanding is that Popular Sovereignty, as now applied to the question of slavery, does allow the people of a Territory to have slavery if they want to, but does not allow them 7iot to have AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 117 it if they do not want it. I do not mean that if this vast con- course of people were in a Territory of the United States, any one of them would be obliged to have a slave if he did not want one ; but I do say that, as I understand the Dred Scott decision, if any one man wants slaves, all the rest have no way of keeping that one man from holding them. When I made my speech at Springfield, of which the Judge complains, and from which he quotes, I really was not thinking of the things which he ascribes to me at all. I had no thought in the world that I was doing anything to bring about a war between the Free and Slave States. I had no thought in the world that I was doing anything to bring about a political and social equality of the black and white races. It never occurred to me that I was doing anything or favoring anything to reduce to a dead uniformity all the local institutions of the various States. But I must say, in all fairness to him, if he thinks I am doing something which leads to these bad results, it is none the better that I did not mean it. It is just as fatal to the country, if I have any influence in producing it, whether I intend it or not. But can it be true that placing this institution upon the original basis — the basis upon which our fathers placed it — can have any tendency to set the Northern and the Southern States at war with one another, or that it can have any tendency to make the people of Vermont raise sugar-cane, because they raise it in Louisiana, or that it can compel the people of Illinois to cut pine logs on the Grand Prairie, where they will not grow, because they cut pine logs in Maine, where they do grow? The Judge says this is a new principle started in regard to this question. Does the Judge claim that he is working on the plan of the founders of government? I think he says in some of his speeches — indeed, I have one here now — that he saw evidence of a policy to allow slavery to be south of a certain line, while north of it it should be excluded, and he saw an indisposition on the part of the country to stand upon that policy, and therefore he set about studying the subject upon original -princi-ples, and upon 07'iginal -principles he got up the Nebraska bill ! I am fighting it upon these "original principles," — fighting it in the Jeftersonian, Washingtonian, and Madisonian fashion. Now, my friends, I wish you to attend for a little while to one or two other things in that Springfield speech. My main object was to show, so far as my humble ability was capable of showing, to the people of this country what I believed was the truth, — that there was a tendency^ if not a conspiracy, among those who have engineered this slavery question for the last four or five years, to make slavery perpetual and universal in this nation. Having made that speech principally for that object, after arrang- ing the evidences that I thought tended to prove my proposition, I concluded with this bit of comment : — 118 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN "We cannot absolutely know that these exact adaptations are the result of preconcert ; but when we see a lot of framed timbers, dif- ferent portions of which we know have been gotten out at different times and places, and by different workmen — Stephen, Franklin, Roger, and James, for instance, — and when we see these timbers joined together, and see they exactly make the frame of a house or a mill, all the tenons and mortises exactly fitting, and all the lengths and proportions of the different pieces exactly adapted to their respect- ive places, and not a piece too many or too few, — not omitting even the scaffolding, — or if a single piece be lacking, we see the place in the frame exactly fitted and prepared yet to bring such piece in, — in such a case we feel it impossible not to believe that Stephen and Franklin and Roger and James all understood one another from the beginning, and all worked upon a common plan or draft drawn before the first blow was struck," When my friend Judge Douglas came to Chicago on the 9th of July, this speech having been delivered on the 16th of June, he made an harangue there, in which he took hold of this speech of mine, showing that he had carefully read it ; and while he paid no attention to this matter at all, but complimented me as being a "kind, amiable, and intelligent gentleman,'' notwithstanding I had said this, he goes on and eliminates, or draws out, from my speech this tendency of mine to set the States at war with one another, to make all the institutions uniform, and set the niggers and white people to marrying together. Then, as the Judge had complimented me with these pleasant titles (I must confess to my weakness), I was a little "taken," for it came from a great man. I was not ver3r much accustomed to flattery, and it came the sweeter to me. I was rather like the Hoosier, with the gingerbread, when he said he reckoned he loved it better than any other man, and got less of it. As the Judge had so flattered me, I could not make up m}' mind that he meant to deal unfairly with me ; so I went to work to show him that he misunderstood the whole scope of my speech, and that I really never intended to set the people at war with one another. As an illustration, the next time I met him, which was at Springfield, I used this expression, that I claimed no right under the Constitution, nor had I any inclination, to enter into the Slave States and interfere with the institutions of slavery. He says upon that : Lincoln will not enter into the Slave States, but will go to the banks of the Ohio, on this side, and shoot over ! He runs on, step by step, in the horse-chestnut style of argument, until in the Springfield speech he says : "Unless he shall be successful in firing his bat- teries, until he shall have extinguished slavery in all the States, the Union shall be dissolved." Now, I don't think that was exactly the way to treat "a kind, amiable, intelligent gentleman." I know if I had asked the Judge to show when or where it was I had said that, if I didn't succeed in firing into the Slave States AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 119 until slavery should be extinguished, the Union should be dis- solved, he could not have shown it. I understand what he would do. He would say, "I don't mean to quote from you, but this was the result of what you say." But I have the right to ask, and I do ask now, Did you not put it in such a form that an ordi- nary reader or listener would take it as an expression from me'i In a speech at Springfield, on the night of the 17th, I thought I might as well attend to my own business a little, and I recalled his attention as well as I could to this charge of conspiracy to nationalize slavery. I called his attention to the fact that he had acknowledged, in my hearing twice, that he had carefully read the speech, and, in the language of the lawyers, as he had twice read the speech, and still had put in no plea or answer, I took a default on him. I insisted that I had a right then to renew that charge of conspiracy. Ten days after- ward I met the Judge at Clinton, — that is to say, I was on the ground, but not in the discussion, — and heard him make a speech. Then he comes in with his plea to this charge, for the first time ; and his plea when put in, as well as I can recollect it, amounted to this : that he never had any talk with Judge Taney or the President of the United States with regard to the Dred Scott decision before it was made. I (Lincoln) ought to know that the man who makes a charge without knowing it to be true, falsifies as much as he who knowingly tells a false- hood ; and, lastly, that he would pronounce the whole thing a falsehood ; but he would make no personal application of the charge of falsehood, not because of an}'- regard for the " kind, amiable, intelligent gentleman," but because of his own personal self-respect ! I have understood since then (but [turning to Judge Douglas] will not hold the Judge to it if he is not willing) that he has broken through the " self-respect," and has got to saying the thing out. The Judge nods to me that it is so. It is fortunate for me that I can keep as good-humored as I do, when the Judge acknowledges that he has been trying to make a question of veracity with me. I know the Judge is a great man, while I am only a small man, but I feel that I have got him. I demur to that plea. I waive all objections that it was not filed till after default was taken, and demur to it upon the merits. What if Judge Douglas never did talk with Chief Justice Taney and the President before the Dred Scott decision was made, does it follow that he could not have had as perfect an understanding without talking as with it? I am not disposed to stand upon my legal advantage. I am disposed to take his denial as being like an answer in chancery, that he neither had any knowledge, information, or belief in the existence of such a conspiracy. I am disposed to take his answer as being as broad as though he had put it in these words. And now, I ask, even if 120 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN he had done so, have not I a right to -prove it on him, and to offer the evidence of more than two witnesses, by whom to prove it ; and if the evidence proves the existence of the conspiracy, does his broad answer denying all knowledge, information, or belief, disturb the fact? It can only show that he was tised by con- spirators, and was not a leader of them. Now, in regard to his reminding me of the moral rule that persons who tell what they do not know to be true, falsify as much as those who knowingl}'- tell falsehoods. I remember the rule, and it must be borne in mind that in what I have read to you, I do not say that I know such a conspiracy to exist. To that I r&^\y, I believe it. If the Judge says that I do not believe it, then he says what he does not know, and falls within his own rule, that he who asserts a thing which he does not know to be true, falsifies as much as he who knowingly tells a falsehood. I want to call your attention to a little discussion on that branch of the case, and the evidence which brought my mind to the conclusion which I expressed as my belie/. If, in arraying that evidence, I had stated anything which was false or erroneous, it needed but that Judge Douglas should point it out, and I would have taken it back, with all the kindness in the world. I do not deal in that way. If I have brought forward anything not a fact, if he will point it out, it will not even ruffie me to take it back. But if he will not point out anything erroneous in the evidence, is it not rather for him to show, by a comparison of the evidence, that I have r^«5£?«^^ falsely, than to call the "kind, amiable, intelligent gentleman" a liar? If I have reasoned to a false conclusion, it is the vocation of an able debater to show by argument that I have wandered to an erroneous conclusion. I want to ask your attention to a portion of the Nebraska bill, which Judge Douglas has quoted ; " It being the true intent and meaning of this Act, not to legislate slavery into any Ter- ritory or State, nor to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institu- tions in their own way, subject only to the Constitution of the United States." Thereupon Judge Douglas and others began to argue in favor of " Popular Sovereignty," — the right of the people to have slaves if they wanted them, and to exclude slavery if they did not want them. "But," said, in substance, a Senator from Ohio (Mr. Chase, I believe), "we more than suspect that you do not mean to allow the people to exclude slaver}?^ if they wish to ; and if you do mean it, accept an amendment which I propose, expressly authorizing the people to exclude slavery. "^ I believe I have the amendment here before me, which was offered, and under which the people of the Territory, through their representatives, might, if they saw fit, prohibit the existence of slavery therein. And now I state it as a /act, to be taken AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 121 back if there is any mistake about it, that Judge Douglas and those acting with him voted that amendment dozun. I now think that those men who voted it down had a real reason for doing so. They know what that reason was. It looks to us, since we have seen the Dred Scott decision pronounced, holding that " under the Constitution," the people cannot exclude slavery, — I say it looks to outsiders, poor, simple, "amiable, intelligent gentlemen," as though the niche was left as a place to put that Dred Scott decision in, — a niche which would have been spoiled by adopting the amendment. And now, I say again, if this was not the reason, it will avail the Judge much more to calmly and good-humoredly point out to these people what that other reason was for voting the amendment down, than, swelling himself up, to vociferate that he may be provoked to call some- body a liar. Again : there is in that same quotation from the Nebraska bill this clause : " It being the true intent and meaning of this bill not to legislate slavery into any Territory or State."" I have always been puzzled to know what business the word "State" had in that connection. Judge Douglas knows. He put it there. He knows what he put it there for. "We outsiders cannot say what he put it there for. The law they were passing was not about States, and was not making provisions for States. What was it placed there for? After seeing the Dred Scott decision, which holds that the people cannot exclude slavery from a Territory, if another Dred Scott decision shall come, holding that they cannot exclude it from a State, we shall discover that when the word was originally put there, it was in view of some- thing which was to come in due time, we shall see that it was the other half of something. I now say again, if there is any different reason for putting it there. Judge Douglas, in a good- humored way, wdthout calling anybody a liar, can tell what the reason zvas. When the Judge spoke at Clinton, he came very near making a charge of falsehood against me. He used, as I found it printed in a newspaper, which, I remember, was very nearly like the real speech, the following language : "I did not answer the charge [of conspiracy] before, for the reason that I did not suppose there was a man in America with a heart so corrupt as to believe such a charge could be true. I have too much respect for Mr. Lincoln to suppose he is serious in making the charge." I confess this is rather a curious view, that out of respect for me he should consider I was making what I deemed rather a grave charge in fun. I confess it strikes me rather strangely. But I let it pass. As the Judge did not for a moment believe that 17 122 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN there was a man in America whose heart was so "corrupt" as to make such a charge, and as he places me among the "men in America" who have hearts base enough to make such a charge, I hope he will excuse me if I hunt out another charge very like this ; and if it should turn out that in hunting I should find that other, and it should turn out to be Judge Douglas himself who made it, I hope he will reconsider this question of the deep cor- ruption of heart he has thought fit to ascribe to me. In Judge Douglas's speech of March 22, 1858, which I hold in my hand, he says : — "In this connection there is another topic to which I desire to allude. I seldom refer to the course of newspapers, or notice the articles which they publish in regard to myself; but the course of the Washington 'Union' has been so extraordinary for the last two or three months, that I think it well enough to make some allusion to it. It has read me out of the Democratic party every other day, at least for two or three months, and keeps reading me out, and, as if it had not succeeded, still continues to read me out, using such terms as 'traitor,' 'renegade,' 'deserter,' and other kind and polite epithets of that nature. Sir, I have no vindication to make of my Democracy against the Washington 'Union,' or any other newspapers. I am willing to allow my history and action for the last twenty years to speak for themselves as to my political principles and my fidelity to political obligations. The Washington 'Union' has a personal grievance. When its editor was nominated for public printer, I declined to vote for him, and stated that at some time I might give my reasons for doing so. Since I declined to give that vote, this scurrilous abuse, these vindictive and constant attacks have been repeated almost daily on me. Will my friend from Michigan read the article to which I allude?" This is a part of the speech. You must excuse me from read- ing the entire article of the Washington "Union," as Mr. Stuart read it for Mr. Douglas. The Judge goes on and sums up, as I think, correctly: — "Mr. President, you here find several distinct propositions advanced boldly by the Washington 'Union' editorially, and apparently authoritatively ; and any man who questions any of them is denounced as an Abolitionist, a Free-soiler, a fanatic. The propositions are, first, that the primary object of all government at its original institu- tion is the protection of person and property ; second, that the Con- stitution of the United States declares that the citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States ; and that, therefore, thirdly, all State laws, whether organic or otherwise, which prohibit the citizens of one State from settling in another with their slave property, and especially declaring it forfeited, are direct violations of the original intention of the gov- ernment and Constitution of the United States ; and, fourth, that the emancipation of the slaves of the Northern States was u gross outrage of the rights of property, inasmuch as it was involuntarily done on the oart of the owner. AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 123 "Remember that this article was published in the 'Union' on the 17th of November, and on the 18th appeared the first article giving the adhesion of the 'Union' to the Lecompton Constitution. It was in these words : — " 'Kansas and Her Constitution. — The vexed question is settled. The problem is solved. The dead point of danger is passed. All serious trouble to Kansas affairs is over and gone' — "And a column nearly of the same sort. Then, when you come to look into the Lecompton Constitution, you find the same doctrine incorporated in it which was put forth editorially in the 'Union.' What is it? " 'Article 7, Section 1. The right of property is before and higher than any constitutional sanction ; and the right of the owner of a slave to such slave and its increase is the same and as inviolable as the right of the owner of any property whatever.' "Then in the schedule is a provision that the Constitution may be amended after 1864 by a two-thirds vote. " 'But no alteration shall be made to affect the right of property in the ownership of slaves.' "It will be seen by these clauses in the Lecompton Constitution that they are identical in spirit with the authoritative article in the Washington 'Union' of the day previous to its indorsement of this Constitution." I pass over some portions of the speech, and I hope that any one who feels interested in this matter will read the entire section of the speech, and see whether I do the Judge injustice. He proceeds : — "When I saw that article in the 'Union' of the 17th of November, followed by the glorification of the Lecompton Constitution on the 18th of November, and this clause in the Constitution asserting the doctrine that a State has no right to prohibit slavery within its limits, I saw that there was ^ fatal blow being struck at the sovereignty of the States of this Union." I stop the quotation there, again requesting that it may all be read. I have read all of the portion I desire to comment upon. What is this charge that the Judge thinks I must have a very cor- rupt heart to make? It was a purpose on the part of certain high functionaries to make it impossible for the people of one State to prohibit the people of any other State from entering it with their "property," so called, and making it a Slave State. In other words, it was a charge implying a design to make the institution of slavery national. And now I ask your attention to what Judge Douglas has himself done here. I know he made that part of the speech as a reason why he had refused to vote for a certain man for public printer ; but when we get at it, the charge itself is the very one I made against him, that he thinks I am so cor- rupt for uttering. Now, whom does he make that charge against? 124 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN Does he make it against that newspaper editor merely? No ; he says it is identical in spirit with the Lecompton Constitution, and so the framers of that Constitution are brought in with the editor of the newspaper in that "fatal blow being struck." He did not call it a "conspiracy." In his language, it is a "fatal blow being struck." And if the words carry the meaning better when changed from a "conspiracy" into a "fatal blow being struck," I will change my expression, and call it "fatal blow being struck." We see the charge made not merely against the editor of the "Union," but all the framers of the Lecompton Constitution ; and not only so, but the article was an authoritative article. By whose authority? Is there any question but he means it was by the authority of the President and his Cabinet, — the Aministra- tion? Is there any sort of question but he means to make that charge? Then there are the editors of the "Union," the framers of the Lecompton Constitution, the President of the United States and his Cabinet, and all the supporters of the Lecompton Consti- tution, in Congress and out of Congress, who are all involved in this "fatal blow being struck." I commend to Judge Douglas's consideration the question of how corrupt a fnan's heart must be to make such a charge! Now, my friends, I have but one branch of the subject, in the little time I have left, to which to call your attention ; and as I shall come to a close at the end of that branch, it is probable that I shall not occupy quite all the time allotted to me. Although on these questions I would like to talk twice as long as I have, I could not enter upon another head and discuss it properly without running over my time. I ask the attention of the people here assembled and elsewhere to the course that Judge Douglas is pursuing every day as bearing upon this ques- tion of making slavery national. Not going back to the records, but taking the speeches he makes, the speeches he made yester- day and day before, and makes constantly all over the country, — I ask your attention to them. In the first place, what is necessary to make the institution national? Not war. There is no danger that the people of Kentucky will shoulder their muskets, and, with a young nigger stuck on every bayonet, march into Illinois and force them upon us. There is no danger of our going over there and making war upon them. Then what is necessary for the nationalization of slavery? It is simply the next Dred Scott decision. It is merely for the Supreme Court to decide that no State under the Constitution can exclude it, just as they have already decided that under the Constitution neither Congress nor the Territorial Legislature can do it. When that is decided and acquiesced in, the whole thing is done. This being true, and this being the way, as I think, that slavery is to be made national, AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 125 let US consider what Judge Douglas is doing every day to that end. In the first place, let us see what influence he is exerting on public sentiment. In this and like communities, public senti- ment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail ; without it, nothing can succeed. Consequently, he who moulds public sentiment, goes deeper than he who enacts statutes or pro- nounces decisions. He makes statutes and decisions possible or impossible to be executed. This must be borne in mind, as also the additional fact that Judge Douglas is a man of vast influence, so great that it is enough for many men to profess to believe any- thing, when they once find out Judge Douglas professes to believe it. Consider also the attitude he occupies at the head of a large party, — a party which he claims has a majority of all the voters in the country. This man sticks to a decision which forbids the people of a Territory from excluding slavery, and he does so, not because he says it is right in itself, — he does not give any opinion on that, — but because it has been decided by the court; and being decided by the court, he is, and you are, bound to take it in your political action as law^ not that he judges at all of its merits, but because a decision of the court is to him a " Thus saith the Lord." He places it on that ground alone ; and you will bear in mind that thus committing himself unreservedly to this decision commits him to the next one just as firmly as to this. He did not commit himself on account of the merit or demerit of the decision, but it is a "Thus saith the Lord." The next de- cision, as much as this, will be a " Thus saith the Lord." There is nothing that can divert or turn him away from this decision. It is nothing that I point out to him that his great prototype, General Jackson, did not believe in the binding force of decisions. It is nothing to him that Jefferson did not so believe. I have said that I have often heard him approve of Jackson's course in disregarding the decision of the Supreme Court pronouncing a National Bank constitutional. He says, I did not hear him say so. He denies the accuracy of my recollection. I say he ought to know better than I, but I will make no question about this thing, though it still seems to me that I heard him say it twenty times. I will tell him, though, that he now claims to stand on the Cincinnati platform, which affirms that Congress cannot charter a National Bank, in the teeth of that old standing decision that Congress can charter a bank. And I remind him of another piece of history on the question of respect for judicial decisions, and it is a piece of Illinois history belonging to a time when the large party to which Judge Douglas belonged were displeased with a decision of the Supreme Court of Illinois, because they had decided that a Governor could not remove a Secretary of State. You will find the whole story in Ford's History of Illinois, and I know that Judge Douglas will not deny that he 126 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN was then in favor of overslaughing that decision by the mode of adding five new judges, so as to vote down the four old ones. Not only so, but it ended in the 'Judge's sitting down on that very bench as one of the Jive new judges to break down the four old ones. It was in this way precisely that he got his title of judge. Now, when the judge tells me that men appointed conditionally to sit as members of a court will have to be catechised before- hand upon some subject, I say, " You know. Judge ; you have tried it." When he says a court of this kind will lose the confidence of all men, will be prostituted and disgraced by such a proceed- ing, I say, " You know best, Judge ; you have been through the mill." But I cannot shake Judge Douglas's teeth loose from the Dred Scott decision. Like some obstinate animal (I mean no disrespect) that will hang on when he has once got his teeth fixed, you may cut ofi^" a leg, or you may tear away an arm, still he will not relax his hold. And so I may point out to the Judge, and say that he is bespattered all over, from the beginning of his political life to the present time, with attacks upon judicial decisions ; I may cut oft' limb after limb of his public record, and strive to wrench him from a single dictum of the court, — yet I cannot divert him from it. He hangs, to the last, to the Dred Scott decision. These things show there is a purpose strong as death and eternity for which he adheres to this decision, and for which he will adhere to all other decisions of the same court. A Hibernian : " Give us something besides Drid Scott." Mr. Lincoln : Yes ; no doubt you want to hear something that don't hurt. Now, having spoken of the Dred Scott decision, one more word, and I am done. Henry Clay, my beau-ideal of a statesman, the man for whom I fought all my humble life, — Henry Clay once said of a class of men who would repress all tendencies to liberty and ultimate emancipation that they must, if they would do this, go back to the era of our Independence,, and muzzle the cannon which thunders its annual joyous return ; they must blow out the moral lights around us ; they must pene- trate the human soul, and eradicate there the love of liberty ; and then, and not till then, could they perpetuate slaver}'- in this countr}^ ! To my thinking, Judge Douglas is, by his example and vast influence, doing that very thing in this community, when he says that the negro has nothing in the Declaration of Inde- pendence. Henry Clay plainly understood the contrary. Judge Douglas is going back to the era of our Revolution, and, to the extent of his ability, muzzling the cannon which thunders its annual joyous return. When he invites any people, willing to have slavery, to establish it, he is blowing out the moral lights around us. When he says he " cares not whether slaver}'- is voted down or up," — that it is a sacred right of self-government, — he is, in my judgment, penetrating the human soul and eradi- AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 127 eating the light of reason and the love of liberty in this Amer- ican people. And now I will only say that when, by all these means and appliances, Judge Douglas shall succeed in bringing public sentiment to an exact accordance with his own views ; when these vast assemblages shall echo back all these sentiments ; when they shall come to repeat his views and to avow his prin- ciples, and to say all that he says on these mighty questions, — then it needs only the formality of the second Dred Scott decision, which he indorses in advance, to make slavery alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new. North as well as South. My friends, that ends the chapter. The Judge can take his half-hour. MR. DOUGLAS'S REPLY. Fellow-Citizens : I will now occupy the half-hour allotted to me in replying to Mr. Lincoln. The first point to which I will call your attention is, as to what I said about the organization of the Republican party in 1854, and the platform that was formed on the oth of October of that year, and I will then put the question to Mr. Lincoln, whether or not he approves of each article in that platform, and ask for a specific answer. I did not charge him with being a member of the committee which reported that platform. I charged that that platform was the platform of the Republican party adopted by them. The fact that it was the platform of the Republican party is not denied ; but Mr. Lincoln now says that although his name was on the committee which reported it, that he does not think he was there, but thinks he was in Tazewell, holding court. Now, I want to remind Mr. Lincoln that he was at Springfield when that Convention was held and those resolutions adopted. The point I am going to remind Mr. Lincoln of is this : that after I had made my speech in 1854, during the fair, he gave me notice that he was going to reply to me the next day. I was sick at the time, but I stayed over in Springfield to hear his reply and to reply to him. On that day this very Convention, the resolutions adopted by which I have read, was to meet in the Senate chamber. He spoke in the hall of the House ; and when he got through his speech — my recollection is distinct, and I shall never forget it — Mr. Codding walked in as I took the stand to reply, and gave notice that the Republican State Convention would meet instantly in the Senate chamber, and called upon the Republicans to retire there and go into this very Convention, instead of remaining and listening to me. In the first place, Mr. Lincoln was selected by the very men who made the Republican organization, on that day, to reply to me. He spoke for them and for that party, and he was 128 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN the leader of the party ; and on the very day he made his speech in reply to me, preaching up this same doctrine of negro equality under the Declaration of Independence, this Republican party met in Convention. Another evidence that he was acting in concert with them is to be found in the fact that that Convention waited an hour after its time of meeting to hear Lincoln's speech, and Codding, one of their leading men, marched in the moment Lincoln got through, and gave notice that they did not want to hear me, and would proceed with the business of the Convention. Still another fact. I have here a newspaper printed at Springfield, Mr. Lincoln's own town, in October, 1854, a few days afterward, publishing these resolutions, charging Mr. Lincoln with entertaining these sentiments, and trying to prove that they were also the sentiments of Mr. Yates, their candidate for Congress. This has been published on Mr. Lincoln over and over again, and never before has he denied it. But, my friends, this denial of his that he did not act on the committee, is a miserable quibble to avoid the main issue, which is, that this Republican platform declares in favor of the unconditional repeal of the Fugitive Slave law. Has Lincoln answered whether he indorsed that or not? I called his atten- tion to it when I first addressed you, and asked him for an answer, and I then predicted that he would not answer. How does he answer? Why, that he was not on the committee that wrote the resolutions. I then repeated the next proposition contained in the resolutions, which was to restrict slavery in those States in which it exists, and asked him whether he indorsed it. Does he answer yes, or no? He says in reply, "I was not on the committee at the time ; I was up in Tazewell." The next question I put to him was, whether he was in favor of prohibiting the admission of any more Slave States into the Union. I put the question to him distinctly, whether, if the people of the Territory, when they had sufficient population to make a State, should form their Constitution recognizing slavery, he would vote for or against its admission. He is a candidate for the United States Senate, and it is possible, if he should be elected, that he would have to vote directly on that question. I asked him to answer me and you, whether he would vote to admit a State into the Union, with slavery or without it, as its own people might choose. He did not answer that question. He dodges that question also, under the cover that he was not on the committee at the time, that he was not present when the platform was made. I want to know if he should happen to be in the Senate when a State applied for admission, with a Consti- tution acceptable to her own people, he would vote to admit that State, if slavery was one of its institutions. He avoids the answer. AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 129 It is true he gives the Abolitionists to understand by a hint that he would not vote to admit such a State. And why? He goes on to say that the man who would talk about giving each State the right to have slavery or not, as it pleased, was akin to the man who would muzzle the guns which thundered forth the annual joyous return of the day of our Independence. He says that that kind of talk is casting a blight on the glory of this country. What is the meaning of that? That he is not in favor of each State to have the right of doing as it pleases an the slavery question ? I will put the question to him again and again, and I intend to force it out of him. Then, again, this platform, which was made at Springfield by his own party when he was its acknowledged head, provides that Republicans will insist on the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, and I asked Lincoln specifically whether he agreed with them in that? [" Did you get an answer?"] He is afraid to answer it. He knows I would trot him down to Egypt. I intend to make him answer there, or I will show the people of Illinois that he does not intend to answer these questions. The Convention to which I have been alluding goes a little further, and pledges itself to exclude slavery from all the Territories over which the General Government has exclusive jurisdiction north of 36 deg. 30 min., as well as south. Now, I want to know whether he approves that provision. I want him to answer, and when he does, I want to know his opinion on another point, which is, whether he will redeem the pledge of this platform, and resist the acquirement of any more territory unless slavery therein shall be forever prohibited. I want him to answer this last question. Each of the questions I have put to him are practical questions, — questions based upon the funda- mental principles of the Black Republican party ; and I want to know whether he is the first, last, and only choice of a party with whom he does not agree in principle. He does not deny but that that principle was unanimously adopted by the Republi- can party ; he does not deny that the whole Republican party is pledged to it ; he does not deny that a man who is not faithful to it is faithless to the Republican party ; and now I want to know whether that party is unanimously in favor of a man who does not adopt that creed and agree with them in their principles ; I want to know whether the man who does not agree with them, and who is afraid to avow his differences, and who dodges the issue, is the first, last, and only choice of the Republican party. A voice : How about the conspiracy? Mr. Douglas ; Never mind, I will come to that soon enough. But the platform which I have read to you not only lays down these principles, but it adds : — 18 130 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN *■'■ Resolved, That in furtherance of these principles, we will use such constitutional and lawful means as shall seem best adapted to their accomplishment, and that we will support no man for office, under the General or State Government, who is not positively and fully committed to the support of these principles, and whose personal character and conduct is not a guarantee that he is reliable, and who shall not have abjured old party allegiance and ties." The Black Republican party stands pledged that they will never support Lincoln until he has pledged himself to that plat- form ; but he cannot devise his answer, he has not made up his mind whether he will or not. He talked about everything else he could think of to occupy his hour and a half, and when he could not think of anything more to say, without an excuse for refusing to answer these questions, he sat down long before his time was out. In relation to Mr. Lincoln's charge of conspiracy against me, I have a word to say. In his speech to-day he quotes a playful part of his speech at Springfield, about Stephen, and James, and Franklin, and Roger, and says that I did not take exception to it. I did not answer it, and he repeats it again. I did not take exception to this figure of his. He has a right to be as playful as he pleases in throwing his arguments together, and I will not object ; but I did take objection to his second Springfield speech, in which he stated that he intended his first speech as a charge of corruption or conspiracy against the Supreme Court of the United States, President Pierce, President Buchanan, and myself. That gave the offensive character to the charge. He then said that when he made it he did not know whether it was true or not ; but inasmuch as Judge Douglas had not denied it, although he had replied to the other parts of his speech three times, he repeated it as a charge of conspiracy against me, thus charging me with moral turpitude. When he put it in that form, I did say that, inasmuch as he repeated the charge simply because I had not denied it, I would deprive him of the opportunity of ever repeating it again, by declaring that it was, in all its bearings, an infamous lie. He says he will repeat it until I answer his folly and nonsense about Stephen, and Franklin, and Roger, and Bob, and James. He studied that out, prepared that one sentence with the greatest care, committed it to memory, and put it in his first Springfield speech ; and now he carries that speech around, and reads that]sentence to show how pretty it is. His vanity is wounded because I will not go into that beautiful figure of his about the building of a house. All I have to say is, that I am not green enough to let him make a charge which he acknowledges he does not know to be true, and then take up my time in answering it, when I know it to be false, and nobody else knows it to be true. AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 131 I have not brought a charge of moral turpitude against him. When he, or any other man, brings one against me, instead of disproving it, I will say that it is a lie, and let him prove it if he can. I have lived twenty-five years in Illinois, I have served you with all the fidelity and ability which I possess, and Mr. Lincoln is at liberty to attack my public action, my votes, and my con- duct ; but when he dares to attack my moral integrity by a charge of conspiracy between myself. Chief Justice Taney and the Supreme Court, and two Presidents of the United States, I will repel it. Mr. Lincoln has not character enough for integrity and truth, merely on his own i-pse dixit, to arraign President Buchanan, President Pierce, and nine Judges of the Supreme Court, not one of whom would be complimented by being put on an equality with him. There is an unpardonable presumption in a man putting himself up before thousands of people, and pretending that his ipse dixit, without proof, without fact, and without truth, is enough to bring down and destroy the purest and best of living men. Fellow-citizens, my time is fast expiring; I must pass on. Mr. Lincoln wants to know why I voted against Mr. Chase's amendment to the Nebraska bill. I will tell him. In the first place, the bill already conferred all the power which Congress had, by giving the people the whole power over the subject. Chase offered a proviso that they might abolish slavery, which by implication would convey the idea that they could prohibit by not introducing that institution. General Cass asked him to modify his amendment so as to provide that the people might either prohibit or introduce slavery, and thus make it fair and equal. Chase refused to so modify his proviso, and then General Cass and all the rest of us voted it down. Those facts appear on the journals and debates of Congress, where Mr. Lincoln found the charge ; and if he had told the whole truth, there would have been no necessity for me to occupy your time in explaining the matter. Mr. Lincoln wants to know why the word " State," as well as "Territory," was put into the Nebraska bill. I will tell him. It was put there to meet just such false arguments as he has been adducing. That first, not only the people of the Territories should do as they pleased, but that when they come to be ad- mitted as States, they should come into the Union with or without slavery, as the people determined. I meant to knock in the head this Abolition doctrine of Mr. Lincoln's, that there shall be no more Slave States, even if the people want them. And it does not do for him to say, or for any other Black Republican to say, that there is nobody in favor of the doctrine of no more Slave 132 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN States, and that nobody wants to interfere with the right of the people to do as they please. What was the origin of the Mis- souri difficulty and the Missouri Compromise? The people of Missouri formed a Constitution as a Slave State, and asked admission into the Union ; but the Free-soil party of the North, being in a majority, refused to acimit her because she had slavery as one of her institutions. Hence this first slavery agitation arose upon a State, and not upon a Territory ; and yet Mr. Lincoln does not know why the word "State" was placed in the Kansas- Nebraska bill. The whole Abolition agitation arose on that doctrine of prohibiting a State from coming in with slavery or not, as it pleased, and that same doctrine is here in this Repub- lican platform of 1854 ; it has never been repealed ; and every Black Republican stands pledged by that platform never to vote for any man who is not in favor of it. Yet Mr. Lincoln does not know that there is a man in the world who is in favor of pre- venting a State from coming in as it pleases, notwithstanding. The Springfield platform says that they, the Republican party, will not allow a State to come in under such circumstances. He is an ignorant man. Now you see that upon these very points I am as far from bringing Mr. Lincoln up to the line as I ever was before. He does not want to avow his principles. I do want to avow mine, as clear as sunlight in midday. Democracy is founded upon the eternal principle of right. The plainer these principles are avowed before the people, the stronger will be the support which they will receive. I only wish I had the power to make them so clear that they would shine in the heavens for every man, woman, and child to read. The first of those principles that I would proclaim would be in opposition to Mr. Lincoln's doctrine of uniformity between the different States, and I would declare instead the sovereign right of each State to decide the slavery question as well as all other domestic questions for themselves, without interference from any other State or power whatsoever. When that principle is recognized, you will have peace and harmony and fraternal feeling between all the States of this Union ; until you do recognize that doctrine, there will be sec- tional warfare agitating and distracting the country. What does Mr. Lincoln propose? He says that the Union cannot exist divided into Free and Slave States. If it cannot endure thus divided, then he must strive to make them all free or all slave, which will inevitably bring about a dissolution of the Union. Gentlemen, I am told that my time is out, and I am obliged to stop. AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 133 SECOND JOINT DEBATE, AT FREEPORT, August 27, 1858. MR. LINCOLN'S SPEECH. Ladies and Gentlemen : On Saturday last, Judge Douglas and myself first met in public discussion. He spoke one hour, I an hour and a half, and he replied for half an hour. The order is now reversed. I am to speak an hour, he an hour and a half, and then I am to reply for half an hour. I propose to devote my- self during the first hour to the scope of what was brought within the range of his half-hour speech at Ottawa. Of course there was brought within the scope in that half-hour's speech some- thing of his own opening speech. In the course of that opening argument Judge Douglas proposed to me seven distinct interrog- atories. In my speech of an hour and a half, I attended to some other parts of his speech, and incidentally, as I thought, answered one of the interrogatories then. I then distinctly intimated to him that I would answer the rest of his interrogatories on con- dition only that he should agree to answer as many for me. He made no intimation at the time of the proposition, nor did he in his reply allude at all to that suggestion of mine. I do him no in- justice in saying that he occupied at least half of his reply in dealing with me as though I had refused to answer his inter- rogatories. I now propose that I will answer any of the interrog- atories, upon condition that he will answer questions from me not exceeding the same number. I give him an opportunity to respond. The Judge remains silent. I now say that I will answer his interrogatories, whether he answers mine or not; and that after I have done so, I shall propound mine to him. I have supposed myself, since the organization of the Repub- lican party at Bloomington, in May, 1856, bound as a party man by the platforms of the party, then and since. If in any interrog- atories which I shall answer I go beyond the scope of what is within these platforms, it will be perceived that no one is respon- sible but myself. Having said thus much, I will take up the Judge's interrog- atories as I find them printed in the Chicago "Times," and answer them seriatim. In order that there may be no mistake about it, I have copied the interrogatories in writing, and also my answers to them. The first one of these interrogatories is in these words : — Question 1. — "I desire to know whether Lincoln to-day stands, as he did in 1854, in favor of the unconditional repeal of , the Fugitive Slave law?" 134 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN Answer. — I do not now, nor ever did, stand in favor of the unconditional repeal of the Fugitive Slave law. c^. 2. " I desire him to answer whether he stands pledged to-day, as he did in 1854, against the admission of any more Slave States into the Union, even if the people want them? " A. I do not now, or ever did, stand pledged against the admission of any more Slave States into the Union. J^. 3. " I want to know whether he stands pledged against the admission of a new State into the Union with such a Consti- tution as the people of that State may see fit to make? " A. I do not stand pledged against the admission of a new State into the Union, with such a Constitution as the people of that State may see fit to make. J^. 4. " I want to know whether he stands to-day pledged to the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia? " A. I do not stand to-day pledged to the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. ^ 5. "I desire him to answer whether he stands pledged to the prohibition of the slave-trade between the diflferent States ? " A. I do not stand pledged to the prohibition of the slave- trade between the different States. j^. 6. " I desire to know whether he stands pledged to prohibit slavery in all the Territories of the United States, north as well as south of the Missouri Compromise line? " A. I am impliedly, if not expressly, pledged to a belief in the right and duty of Congress to prohibit slavery in all the United States Territories. o^. 7. *'I desire him to answer whether he is opposed to the acquisition of any new territory unless slavery is first prohibited therein?" A. I am not generally opposed to honest acquisition of ter- ritory ; and, in any given case, I would or would not oppose such acquisition, accordingly as I might think such acquisition would or would not aggravate the slavery question among ourselves. Now, my frienHs, it will be perceived, upon an examination of these questions and answers, that so far I have only answered that I was not ^pledged to this, that, or the other. The Judge has not framed his interrogatories to ask me anything more than this, and I have answered in strict accordance with the interrogatories, and have answered truly, that I am not pledged at all upon any of the points to which I have answered. But I am not disposed to hang upon the exact form of his interrogatory. I am rather dis- posed to take up at least some of these questions, and state what I reall}'^ think upon them. As to the first one, in regard to the Fugitive Slave law, I have never hesitated to say, and I do not now hesitate to say, that I think, under the Constitution of the United States, the AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 135 people of the Southern States are entitled to a Congressional Fugitive Slave law. Having said that, I have had nothing to say in regard to the existing Fugitive Slave law, further than that I think it should have been framed so as to be free from some of the objections that pertain to it, without lessening its efficiency. And inasmuch as we are not now in an agitation in regard to an alteration or modification of that law, I would not be the man to introduce it as a new subject of agitation upon the general question of slavery. In regard to the other question, of whether I am pledged to to the admission of any more Slave States into the Union, I state to you very frankly that I would be exceedingly sorry ever to be put in a position of having to pass upon that question. I should be exceedingly glad to know that there would never be another Slave State admitted into the Union ; but I must add that if slavery shall be kept out of the Territories during the territorial existence of any one given Territory, and then the people shall, having a fair chance and a clear field, when they come to adopt the constitution, do such an extraordinary thing as to adopt a slave constitution, uninfluenced by the actual presence of the institution among them, I see no alternative, if we own the country, but to admit them into the Union. The third interrogatory is answered by the answer to the second, it being, as I conceive, the same as the second. The fourth one is in regard to the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. In relation to that, I have my mind very distinctly made up. I should be exceedingly glad to see slavery abolished in the District of Columbia. I believe that Congress possesses the constitutional power to abolish it. Yet as a member of Congress, I should not, with my present views, be in favor of endea-voring to abolish slavery in the District of Colum- bia, unless it would be upon these conditions : First, that the abolition should be gradual ; second, that it should be on a vote of the majority of qualified voters in the District ; and third, that compensation should be made to unwilling owners. With these three conditions, I confess I would be exceedingly glad to see Congress abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, and, in the language of Henry Clay, " sweep from our capital that foul blot upon our nation." In regard to the fifth interrogatory, I must say here, that as to the question of the abolition of the slave-trade between the different States, I can truly answer, as I have, that I am fledged to nothing about it. It is a subject to which I have not given that mature consideration that would make me feel authorized to state a position so as to hold myself entirely bound by it. In other words, that question has never been prominently enough before me to induce me to investigate whether we really ha\'e 136 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN the constitutional power to do it. I could investigate it if I had sufficient time to bring m^^self to a conclusion upon that subject ; but I have not done so, and I say so frankly to you here, and to Judge Douglas. I must say, however, that if I should be of opinion that Congress does possess the constitutional power to abolish the slave-trade among the different States, I should still not be in favor of the exercise of that power, unless upon some conservative principle as I conceive it, akin to what I have said in relation to the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. My answer as to whether I desire that slavery should be prohibited in all the Territories of the United States, is full and explicit within itself, and cannot be made clearer by any com- ments of mine. So I suppose in regard to the question whether I am opposed to the acquisition of any more territory unless slavery is first prohibited therein, my answer is such that I could add nothing by way of illustration, or making myself better understood, than the answer which I have placed in writing. Now in all this the Judge has me, and he has me on the record. I suppose he had flattered himself that I was really enter- taining one set of opinions for one place, and another set for another place ; that I was afraid to say at one place what I uttered at another. What I am saying here I suppose I say to a vast audience as strongly tending to Abolitionism as any audience in the State of Illinois, and I believe I am saying that which, if it would be offensive to any persons and render them enemies to myself, would be offensive to persons in this 'audience. I now proceed to propound to the Judge the interrogatories,, so far as I have framed them. I will bring forward a new installment when I get them ready. I will bring them forward now, only reaching to number four. The first one is : — ^lestion 1. — If the people of Kansas shall, by means entirely unobjectionable in all other respects, adopt a State constitution, and ask admission into the Union under it, before they have the requisite number of inhabitants according to the English bill, — some ninety-three thousand, — will you vote to admit them? J^. 2. Can the people of a United States Territory, in any lawful way, against the wish of any citizen of the United States, exclude slaver^'- from its limits prior to the formation of a State constitution? .^. 3. If the Supreme Court of the United States shall decide that States cannot exclude slavery from their limits, are you in favor of acquiescing in, adopting, and following such decision as a rule of political action? ^. 4. Are you in favor of acquiring additional territory,, in disregard of how such acquisition may aftect the nation on the slavery question? AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 137 As introductory to these interrogatories which Judge Douglas propounded to me at Ottawa, he read a set of resolu- tions which he said Judge Trumbull and myself had participated in adopting, in the first Republican State Convention, held at Springfield in October, 1854. He insisted that I and Judge Trumbull, and perhaps the entire Republican party, were responsible for the doctrines contained in the set of resolutions which he read, and I understand that it was from that set of resolutions that he deduced the interrogatories which he propounded to me, using these resolutions as a sort of authority for propounding those questions to me. Now, I say here to-day that I do not answer his interrogatories because of their springing at all from that set resolutions which he read. I answered them because Judge Douglas tbought fit to ask them. I do not now, nor never did, recognize any responsibility upon myself in that set of resolutions. When I replied to him on that occasion, I assured him that I never had anything to do with them. I repeat here to-day that I never in any possible form had anything to do with that set of resolutions. It turns out, I believe, that those resolutions were never passed in any convention held in Springfield. It turns out that they were never passed at any convention or any public meeting that I had any part in. I believe it turns out, in addition to all this, that there was not, in the fall of 1854, any convention holding a session in Springfield, calling itself a Republican State Convention ; yet it is true there was a convention, or assemblage of men calling themselves a convention, at Springfield, that did pass some resolutions. But so little did I really know of the proceedings of that convention, or what set of resolutions they had passed, though having a general knowledge that there had been such an assemblage of men there, that when Judge Douglas read the resolutions, I really did not know but they had been the resolutions passed then and there. I did not question that they were the resolutions adopted. For I could not bring myself to suppose that Judge Douglas could say what he did upon this subject without knowing that it was true. I contented myself, on that occasion, with denying, as I truly could, all connection with them, not denying or affirming whether they were passed at Springfield. Now, it turns out that he had got hold of some resolutions passed at some convention or public meeting in Kane County. I wish to say here, that I don't con- ceive that in any fair and just mind this discovery relieves me at all. r had just as much to do with the convention in Kane Count}'^ as that at Springfield. I am just as much responsible for the resolutions at Kane County as those at Springfield, — the amount of the responsibility being exactly nothing in either case ; no more than there would be in regard to a set of resolutions passed in the moon. 19 138 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN I allude to this extraordinary matter in this canvass for some further purpose than anything yet advanced. Judge Douglas did not make his statement upon that occasion as matters that he be- lieved to be true, but he stated them roundly as bemgtrue, in such form as to pledge his veracity for their truth. When the whole matter turns out as it does, and when we consider who Judge Douglas is, — that he is a distinguished Senator of the United States ; that he has served nearly twelve years as such ; that his character is not at all limited as an ordinary Senator of the United States, but that his name has become of world-wide renown, — it is most extraordinary that he should so far forget all the sug- gestions of justice to an adversary, or of prudence to himself, as to venture upon the assertion of that which the slightest investi- gation would have shown him to be Wholly false. I can only account for his having done so upon the supposition that that evil genius which has attended him through his life, giving to him an apparent astonishing prosperity, such as to lead very many good men to doubt there being any advantage in virtvie over vice, — I say I can only account for it on the supposition that that evil genius has at last made up its mind to forsake him. And I may add that another extraordinary feature of the Judge's conduct in this canvass — made more extraordinary by this incident — is, that he is in the habit, in almost all the speeches he makes, of charging falsehood upon his adversaries, myself and others. I now ask whether he is able to find in an^'^thing that Judge Trumbull, for instance, has said, or in anything that I have said, a justification at all compared with what we have, in this instance, for that sort of vulgarity. I have been in the habit of charging as a matter of belief on my part that, in the introduction of the Nebraska bill into Con- gress, there was a conspiracy to make slavery perpetual and national. I have arranged from time to time the evidence which establishes and proves the truth of this charge. I recurred to this charge at Ottawa. I shall not now have time to dwell upon it at very great length ; but inasmuch as Judge Douglas, in his reply of half an hour, made some points upon me in relation to it, I propose noticing a few of them. The Judge insists that, in the first speech I made, in which I very distinctly made that charge, he thought for a good while I was in fun ! that I was playful ; that I was not sincere about it ; and that he only grew angry and somewhat excited when he found that I insisted upon it as a matter of earnestness. He says he characterized it as a falsehood so far as I implicated his moral character in that transaction. Well, I did not know, till he pre- sented that view, that I had implicated his moral character. He is very much in the habit, when he argues me up into a position I never thought of occupying, of very cosily saying he has no AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 139 doubt Lincoln is "conscientious" in saying so. He should re- member that I did not know but what he was altogether "conscientious" in that matter. I can conceive it possible for men to conspire to do a good thing, and I really find nothing in Judge Douglas's course or arguments that is contrary to or in- consistent with hisbelief of a conspiracy to nationalize and spread slavery as being a good and blessed thing ; and so I hope he will understand that I do not at all question but that in all this matter he is entirely "conscientious." But to draw your attention to one of the points I made in this case, beginning at the beginning. When the Nebraska bill was introduced, or a short time afterward, by an amendment, I believe, it was provided that it must be considered "the true intent and meaning of this Act not to legislate slavery into any State or Territory, or to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their own domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to the Con- stitution of the United States." I have called his attention to the fact that when he and some others began arguing that they were giving an increased degree of liberty to the people in the Territories over and above what they formerly had on the ques- tion of slavery, a question was raised whether the law was enacted to give such unconditional liberty to the people ; and to test the sincerity of this mode of argument, Mr. Chase, of Ohio, introduced an amendment, in which he made the law — if the amendment were adopted — expressly declare that the people of the Territory should have the power to exclude slavery if they saw fit. I have asked attention also to the fact that Judge Doug- las and those who acted with him voted that amendment down, notwithstanding it expressed exactly the thing they said was the true intent and meaning of the law. I have called attention to the fact that in subsequent times a decision of the Supreme Court has been made, in which it has been declared that a Territorial Legislature has no constitutional right to exclude slavery. And I have argued and said that for men who did intend that the people of the Territory should have the right to exclude slavery absolutely and unconditionally, the voting down of Chase's amendment is wholly inexplicable. It is a puzzle, a riddle. But I have said, that with men who did look forward to such a decision, or who had it in contemplation that such a decision of the Supreme Court would or might be made, the voting down of that amendment would be perfectly rational and intelligible. It would keep Congress from coming in collision with the decision when it was made. Anybody can conceive that if there was an inten- tion or expectation that such a decision was to follow, it would not be a very desirable party attitude to get into for the Supreme Court — all or nearly all its members belonging to the same party 140 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN — to decide one way, when the party in Congress had decided the other way. Hence it would be very rational for men ex- pecting such a decision to keep the niche in that law clear for it. After pointing this out, I tell Judge Douglas that it looks to me as though here was the reason why Chase's amendment was voted down. I tell him that, as he did it, and knows why he did it, if it was done for a reason different from this, he knozvs what that reason was, andean tell us xvhat it was. I tell him, also, it will be vastly more satisfactory to the countr}-- for him to give some other plausible, intelligible reason xvhy it was voted down than to stand upon his dignity and call people liars. Well, on Saturday he did make his answer ; and what do you think it was? He says if I had only taken upon myself to tell the whole truth about that amendment of Chase's, no explanation would have been necessary on his part — or words to that effect. Now, I say here that I am quite unconscious of having suppressed anything material to the case, and I am very frank to admit if there is any sound reason other than that which appeared to me material, it is quite fair for him to present it. What reason does he propose? That when Chase came forward with his amendment expressly author- izing the people to exclude slavery from the limits of every Territory, General Cass proposed to Chase, if he (Chase) would add to his amendment that the people should have the power to introduce or exclude, they would let it go. This is substantially all of his reply. And because Chase would not do that, they voted his amendment down. Well, it turns out, I believe, upon examination, that General Cass took some part in the little njn- ning debate upon that amendment, and then ran away a7id did not vote on it at all. Is not that the fact? So confident, as I think, was General Cass that there was a snake somewhere about, he chose to run away from the whole thing. This is an inference I draw from the fact that, though he took part in the debate, his name does not appear in the ayes and noes. But does Judge Douglas's reply amount to a satisfactory answer? [Cries of "Yes," "Yes," and "No," "No."] There is some little difference of opinion here. But I ask attention to a few more views bearing on the question of whether it amounts to a satisfactory answer. The men who were determined that that amendment should not get into the bill and spoil the place where the Dred Scott decision was to come in, sought an excuse to get rid of it somewhere. One of these ways — one of these excuses — was to ask Chase to add to his proposed amendment a pro- vision that the people might introduce slavery if they wanted to. They very well knew Chase would do no such thing, that Mr. Chase was one of the men differing from them on the broad principle of his insisting that freedom was better than slaverj'-, — AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 141 a man who would not consent to enact a law, penned with his own hand, by which he was made to recognize slaver}'^ on the one hand, and liberty on the other, d^^ -precisely equal; and when they insisted on his doing this, they very well knew they insisted on that which he would not for a moment think of doing, and that they were only bluffing him. I believe (I have not, since he made his answer, had a chance to examine the journals or " Con- gressional Globe" and therefore speak from memory) — I believe the state of the bill at that time, according to parliamentary rules, was such that no member could propose an additional amendment to Chase's amendment. I rather think this is the truth, — the Judge shakes his head. Very well. I would like to know, then, if they wanted Chase' s amendment fixed over, -why somebody else could not have offered to do it? If they wanted it amended, why did they not offer the amendment? Why did they stand there taunting and quibbling at Chase? Why did they not fut it in themselves? But to put it on the other ground : suppose that there was such an amendment offered, and Chase's was an amendment to an amendment ; until one is disposed of by parliamentary law, you cannot pile another on. Then all these gentlemen had to do was to vote Chase's on, and then, in the amended form in which the whole stood, add their own amendment to it, if they wanted to put it in that shape. This was all they were obliged to do, and the ayes and noes show that there were thirty-six who voted it down, against ten who voted in favor of it. The thirty-six held entire sway and control. They could in some form or other have put that bill in the exact shape they wanted. If there was a rule preventing their amend- ing it at the time, they could pass that, and then. Chase's amend- ment being merged, put it in the shape they wanted. They did not choose to do so, but they went into a quibble with Chase to get him to add what they knew he would not add, and because he would not, they stand upon the flimsy pretext for voting down what they argued was the meaning and intent of their own bill. They left room thereby for this Dred Scott decision, which goes very far to make slavery national throughout the United States. I pass one or two points I have, because my time will very soon expire ; but I must be allowed to say that Judge Douglas recurs again, as he did upon one or two other occasions, to the enormity of Lincoln, — an insignificant individual like Lincoln, — upon his ipse dixit charging a conspiracy upon a large number of members of Congress, the Supreme Court, and two Presi- dents, to nationalize slavery. I want to say that, in the first place, I have made no charge of this sort upon my ipse dixit. I have only arrayed the evidence tending to prove it, and pre- sented it to the understanding of others, saying what I think it proves, but giving you the means of judging whether it proves it 142 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN or not. This is precisely what I have done. I have not placed it upon my ifse dixit at all. On this occasion, I wish to recall his attention to a piece of evidence which I brought forward at Ottawa on Saturday, showing that he had made substantially the same charge against substantially the same persons, excluding his dear self from the category. I ask him to give some attention to the evidence which I brought forward that he himself had dis- covered a "fatal blow being struck" against the right of the people to exclude slavery from their limits, which fatal blow he assumed as in evidence in an article in the Washington "Union," pub- lished "by authority." I ask by whose authority ? Rediscovers a similar or identical provision in the Lecompton Constitution. Made by whom? Theframers of that Constitution. Advocated by whom? By all the members of the party in the nation, who advocated the introduction of Kansas into the Union under the Lecompton Constitution. I have asked his attention to the evidence that he arrayed to prove that such a fatal blow was being struck, and to the facts which he brought forward in support of that charge, — being identical with the one which he thinks so villainous in me. He pointed it, not at a newspaper editor merely, but at the President and his Cabinet and the members of Congress advocating the Lecompton Constitution and those framing that instrument. I must again be permitted to remind him that although my ipse dixit may not be as great as his, yet it somewhat reduces the force of his calling my attention to the enormity of my making a like charge against him. Go on, Judge Douglas. MR. DOUGLAS'S SPEECH. Ladies and Gentlemen : The silence with which you have listened to Mr. Lincoln during his hour is creditable to this vast audience, composed of men of various political parties. Nothing is more honorable to any large mass of people assembled for the purpose of a fair discussion than that kind and respectful attention that is yielded, not only to your political friends, but to those who are opposed to you in politics. I am glad that at last I have brought Mr. Lincoln to the con- clusion that he had better define his position on certain political questions to which I called his attention at Ottawa. He there showed no disposition, no inclination, to answer them. I did not present idle questions for him to answer, merely for my gratifica- tion. I laid the foundation for those interrogatories by showing that they constituted the platform of the party whose nominee he AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 143 is for the Senate. I did not presume that I had the right to cate- chise him as I saw proper, unless I showed that his party, or a majority of it, stood upon the platform and were in favor of the propositions upon which my questions were based. I desired simply to know, inasmuch as he had been nominated as the first, last, and only choice of his party, whether he concurred in the platform which that party had adopted for its government. In a few minutes I will proceed to review the answers which he has given to these interrogatories ; but, in order to relieve his anxiety, I will first respond to these which he has presented to me. Mark you, he has not presented interrogatories which have ever received the sanction of the party with which I am acting, and hence he has no other foundation for them than his own curiosity. First, he desires to know if the people of Kansas shall form a constitution by means entirely proper and unobjectionable, and ask admission into the Union as a State, before they have the requisite population for a member of Congress, whether I will vote for that admission. Well, now, I regret exceedingly that he did not answer that interrogatory himself before he put it to me, in order that we might understand, and not be left to infer, on which side he is. Mr. Trumbull, during the last session of Con- gress, voted from the beginning to the end against the admission of Oregon, although a Free State, because she had not the requisite population for a member of Congress. Mr. Trumbull would not consent, under any circumstances, to let a State, free or slave, come into the Union until it had the requisite popula- tion. As Mr. Trumbull is in the field, fighting for Mr. Lincoln, I would like to have Mr. Lincoln answer his own question, and tell me whether he is ^ghting Trumbull on that issue or not. But I will answer his question. In reference to Kansas, it is my opinion that as she has population enough to constitute a Slave State, she has people enough for a Free State. I will not make Kansas an exceptional case to the other States of the Union. I hold it to be a sound rule, of universal application, to require a Territory to contain the requisite population for a member of Congress before it is admitted as a State into the Union. I made that proposition in the Senate in 1856, and I renewed it during the last session, in a bill providing that no Territory of the United States should form a constitution and apply for admission until it had the requisite population. On another occasion I pro- posed that neither Kansas nor any other Territory should be admitted until it had the requisite population. Congress did not adopt any of my propositions containing this general rule, but did make an exception of Kansas. I will stand by that excep- tion. Either Kansas must come in as a Free State, with what- ever population she may have, or the rule must be applied to all the other Territories alike. I therefore answer at once, that, it 144 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN having been decided that Kansas has people enough for a Slave State, I hold that she has enough for a Free State. I hope Mr. Lincoln is satisfied with my answer ; and now I would like to get his answer to his own interrogatory, — whether or not he will vote to admit Kansas before she has the requisite population. I want to know whether he will vote to admit Oregon before that Terri- tory has the requisite population. Mr. Trumbull will not, and the same reason that commits Mr. Trumbull against the admis- sion of Oregon, commits him against Kansas, even if she should apply for admission as a Free State. If there is any sincerity,, any truth, in the argument of Mr. Trumbull in the Senate, against the admission of Oregon because she had not 93,420 people, although her population was larger than that of Kansas, he stands pledged against the admission of both Oregon and Kansas until they have 93,420 inhabitants. I would like Mr. Lincoln to answer this question. I would like him to take his own medicine. If he differs with Mr. Trumbull, let him answer his argument against the admission of Oregon, instead of poking questions at me. The next question propounded to me by Mr. Lincoln is. Can the people of a Territory in any lawful way, against the wishes of any citizen of the United States, exclude slavery from their limits prior to the formation of a State constitution ? I answer emphatically, as Mr. Lincoln has heard me answer a hundred times from every stump in Illinois, that in my opinion the people of a Territory can, by lawful means, exclude slavery from their limits prior to the formation of a State constitution. Mr. Lincoln knew that I had answered that question over and over again. He heard me argue the Nebraska bill on that principle all over the State in 1854, in 1855, and in 1856, and he has no excuse for pretending to be in doubt as to my position on that question. It matters not what way the Supreme court may hereafter decide as to the abstract question whether slavery may or may not go into a Territory under the Constitution, the people have the law- ful means to introduce it or exclude it as they please, for the reason that slavery cannot exist a day or an hour anywhere, un- less it is supported by local police regulations. Those police regulations can only be established by the local legislature ; and if the people are opposed to slavery, they will elect representa- tives to that body who will by unfriendly legislation effectually prevent the introduction of it into their midst. If, on the con- trary, they are for it, their legislation will favor its extension. Hence, no matter what the decision of the Supreme Court may be on that abstract question, still the right of the people to make a Slave Territory or a Free Territory is perfect and complete under the Nebraska bill. I hope Mr, Lincoln deems my answer satisfactory on that point. AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 145 In this connection, I will notice the charge which he has in- troduced in relation to Mr. Chase's amendment. I thought that I had chased that amendment out of Mr. Lincoln's brain at Ottawa ; but it seems that it still haunts his imagination, and he is not yet satisfied. I had supposed that he would be ashamed to press that question further. He is a lawyer, and has been a mem- ber of Congress, and has occupied his time and amused you by telling you about parliamentary proceedings. He ought to have known better than to tr}^ to palm off his miserable impositions upon this intelligent audience. The Nebraska bill provided that the legislative power and authority of the said Territory should extend to all rightful subjects of legislation consistent with the organic act and the Constitution of the United States. I did not make any exception as to slavery, but gave all the power that it was possible for Congress to give, without violating the Consti- tution, to the Territorial legislature, with no exception or limita- tion on the subject of slavery at all. The language of that bill which I have quoted gave the full power and the full authority over the subject of slavery, affirmatively and negatively, to intro- duce it or exclude it, so far as the Constitution of the United States would permit. What more could Mr. Chase give by his amendment? Nothing. He offered his amendment for the iden- tical purpose for which Mr. Lincoln is using it, — to enable dema- gogues in the country to try and deceive the people. His amendment was to this effect. It provided that the legislature should have the power to exclude slavery ; and General Cass suggested, "Why not give the power to introduce as well as exclude?" The answer was, They have the power already in the bill to do both. Chase was afraid his amendment would be adopted if he put the alternative proposition, and so make it fair both ways, but would not yield. He offered it for the purpose of having it rejected. He offered it, as he has himself avowed over and over again, simply to make capital out of it for the stump. He expected that it would be capital for small politicians in the country, and that they would make an effort to deceive the people with it ; and he was not mistaken, for Lincoln is carrjnng out the plan admirably. Lincoln knows that the Nebraska bill, without Chase's amendment, gave all the power which the Con- stitution would permit. Could Congress confer any more? Could Congress go beyond the Constitution of the country? We gave all a full grant, with no exception in regard to slavery one way or the other. We left that question as we left all others, to be decided by the people for themselves, just as they please. I will not occupy my time on this question. I have argued it before, all over Illinois. I have argued it in this beautiful city of Freeport ; I have argued it in the North, the South, the East, and the West, avowing the same sentiments and the same prin- 20 146 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN ciples. I have not been afraid to avow my sentiments up here for fear I would be trotted down into Egypt. The third question which Mr. Lincoln presented is, If the Supreme Court of the United States shall decide that a Stale of this Union cannot exclude slavery from its own limits, will I submit to it? I am amazed that Lincoln should ask such a question. [" A schoolboy knows better."] Yes, a schoolboy does know better. Mr. Lincoln's object is to cast an imputation upon the Supreme Court. He knows that there never was but one man in America, claiming any degree of intelligence or decency, who ever for a moment pretended such a thing. It is true that the Washington "Union," in an article published on the 17th of last December, did put forth that doctrine, and I denounced the article on the floor of the Senate, in a speech which Mr. Lincoln now pretends was against the President. The "Union" had claimed that slavery had a right to go into the Free States, and that any provision in the Constitution or laws of the Free States to the contrary were null and void. I denounced it in the Senate, as I said before, and I was the first man who did. Lincoln's friends, Trumbull, and Seward, and Hale, and Wilson, and the whole Black Republican side of the Senate, were silent. They left it to me to denounce it. And what was the reply made to me on that occasion? Mr. Toombs, of Georgia, got up and undertook to lecture me on the ground that I ought not to have deemed the article worthy of notice, and ought not to have replied to it ; that there was not one man, woman, or child south of the Potomac, in any Slave State, who did not repudiate any such pretension. Mr. Lincoln knows that that reply was made on the spot, and yet now he asks this question. He might as well ask me. Suppose Mr. Lincoln should steal a horse, would I sanction it ; and it would be as genteel in me to ask him, in the event he stole a horse, what ought to be done with him. He casts an imputation upon the Supreme Court of the United States, by supposing that they would violate the Constitution of the United States. I tell him that such a thing is not possible. It would be an act of moral treason that no man on the bench could ever descend to. Mr. Lincoln himself would never in his partisan feelings so far forget what was right as to be guilty of such an act. The fourth question of Mr. Lincoln is, Are you in favor of acquiring additional territory, in disregard as to how such acqui- sition may affect the Union on the Slavery question? This question is very ingeniously and cunningly put. The Black Republican creed lays it down expressly that under no circumstances shall we acquire any more territory, unless slavery is first prohibited in the country. I ask Mr. Lincoln whether he is in favor of that proposition. Are you AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 147 [addressing Mr. Lincoln] opposed to the acquisition of any more territory, under any circumstances, unless slavery is prohibited in it? That he does not like to answer. When I ask him whether he stands up to that article in the platform of his party, he turns, Yankee-fashion, and without answering it, asks me whether I am in favor of acquiring territory without regard to how it may affect the Union on the slavery question. I answer that whenever it becomes necessary, in our growth and progress, to acquire more territory, that I am in favor of it, without refer- ence to the question of slavery ; and when we have acquired it, I will leave the people free to do as they please, either to make it slave or free territory, as they prefer. It is idle to tell me or you that we have territory enough. Our fathers supposed that we had enough when our territory extended to the Mississippi River ; but a few years' growth and expansion satisfied them that we needed more, and the Louisiana territory, from the West branch of the Mississippi to the British possessions, was acquired. Then we acquired Oregon, then California and New Mexico. We have enough now for the present ; but this is a young and growing nation. It swarms as often as a hive of bees ; and as new swarms are turned out each year, there must be hives in which they can gather and make their honey. In less than fif- teen years, if the same progress that has distinguished this coun- try for the last fifteen years continues, every foot of vacant land between this and the Pacific Ocean, owned by the United States, will be occupied. Will you not continue to increase at the end of fifteen years as well as now? I tell you, increase, and multi- ply, and expand, is the law of this nation's existence. You can- not limit this great Republic by mere boundary lines, saying, "Thus far shalt thou go, and no further." Any one of you gen- tlemen might as well say to a son twelve years old that he is big enough, and must not grow any larger ; and in order to prevent his growth, put a hoop around him to keep him to his present size. What would be the result? Either the hoop must burst and be rent asunder, or the child must die. So it would be with this great nation. With our natural increase, growing with a rapidity unknown in any part of the globe, with the tide of emi- gration that is fleeing from despotism in the old world to seek refuge in our own, there is a constant torrent pouring into this country that requires more land, more territory upon which to settle ; and just as fast as our interests and our destiny require additional territory in the North, in the South, or on the islands of the ocean, I am for it ; and when we acquire it, will leave the people, according to the Nebraska bill, free to do as they please on the subject of slavery and every other question. I trust now that Mr. Lincoln will deem himself answered on his four points. He racked his brain so much in devising these 148 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN four questions that he exhausted himself, and had not strength enough to invent the others. As soon as he is able to hold a coun- cil with his advisers, Lovejoy, Farnsworth, and Fred Douglass, he will frame and propound others. ["Good, good."] You Black Republicans who say good, I have no doubt think that they are all good men. I have reason to recollect that some peo- ple in this country think that Fred Douglass is a very good man. The last time I came here to make a speech, while talking from the stand to you, people of Freeport, as I am doing to-day, I saw a carriage — and a magnificent one it was — drive up and take a position on the outside of the crowd ; a beautiful young lady was sitting on the box-seat, whilst Fred Douglass and her mother re- clined inside, and the owner of the carriage acted as driver. I saw this in your own town. ["What of it?"] All I have to say of it is this, that if you. Black Republicans, think that the negro ought to be on a social equality with your wives and daughters, and ride in a carriage with your wife, whilst you drive the team, you have perfect right to do so. I am told that one of Fred Douglass's kinsmen, another rich black negro, is now traveling in this part of the State, making speeches for his friend Lincoln as the champion of black men. ["What have you to say against it?"] All I have to say on that subject is, that those of you who believe that the negro is your equal and ought to be on an equality with you socially, politically, and legally, have a right to entertain those opinions, and of course will vote for Mr. Lin- coln. I have a word to say on Mr. Lincoln's answers to the inter- rogatories contained in my speech at Ottawa, and which he has pretended to reply to here to-day. Mr. Lincoln makes a great parade of the fact that I quoted a platform as having been adopted by the Black Republican party at Springfield in 1854, which, it turns out, was adopted at another place. Mr. Lincoln loses sight of the thing itself in his ecstasies over the mistake I made in stating the place where it was done. He thinks that that platform was not adopted on the right "spot." When I put the direct questions to Mr. Lincoln to ascertain whether he now stands pledged to that creed, — to the uncon- ditional repeal of the Fugitive Slave law, a refusal to admit any more Slave States into the Union, even if the people want them, a determination to apply the Wilmot Proviso, not only to all the territory we now have, but all that we may hereafter acquire,— he refused to answer ; and his followers say, in excuse, that the resolutions upon which I based my interrogatories were not adopted at the '-'-right spoty Lincoln and his political friends are great on '■'■s-pots.''' In Congress, as a representative of this State, he declared the Mexican war to be unjust and infamous, and would not support it, or acknowledge his own country to be AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 149 right in the contest, because he said that American blood was not shed on American soil in the "■right sfoty And now he can- not answer the questions I put to him at Ottawa because the resolutions I read were not adopted at the '■'■right spot.'' It may be possible that I was led into an error as to the spot on which the resolutions I then read were proclaimed, but I was not, and am not, in error as to the fact of their forming the basis of the creed of the Republican party when that party was first organized. I will state to you the evidence I had, and upon which I relied for my statement that the resolutions in question were adopted at Springfield on the 5th of October, 1854. Although I was aware that such resolutions had been passed in this district, and nearly all the Northern Congressional Districts and County Conventions, I had not noticed whether or not they had been adopted by any State convention. In 1856, a debate arose in Congress between Major Thomas L. Harris, of the Springfield District, and Mr. Norton, of the Joliet District, on political matters connected with our State, in the course of which, Major Harris quoted those resolutions as having been passed by the first Republican State Convention that ever assembled in Illinois. I knew that Major Harris was remarkable for his accuracy, that he was a very conscientious and sincere man, and I also noticed that Norton did not question the accuracy of this statement. I therefore took it for granted that it was so ; and the other day when I concluded to use the resolutions at Ottawa, I wrote to Charles H. Lanphier, editor of the "State Register," at Springfield, calling his attention to them, telling him that I had been informed that Major Harris was lying sick at Springfield, and desiring him to call upon him and ascertain all the facts con- cerning the resolutions, the time and the place where they were adopted. In reply, Mr. Lanphier sent me two copies of his paper, which I have here. The first is a copy of the "State Register," published at Springfield, Mr. Lincoln's own town, on the 16th of October, 1854, only eleven days after the adjourn- ment of the Convention, from which I desire to read the follow- ing :— "During the late discussions in this city, Lincoln made a speech, to which Judge Douglas replied. In Lincoln's speech he took the broad ground that, according to the Declaration of Independence, the whites and blacks are equal. From this he drew the conclusion, which he several times repeated, that the white man had no right to pass laws for the government of the black man without the nigger's consent. This speech of Lincoln's was heard and applauded by all the Abolitionists assembled in Springfield. So soon as Mr. Lincoln was done speaking, Mr. Codding arose, and requested all the delegates to the Black Republican Convention to withdraw into the Senate chamber. They did so; and after long deliberation, they laid down the following Abolition platform as the platform on which they stood. We call the particular attention of all our readers to it." 150 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN Then follows the identical platform, word for word, which I read at Ottawa. Now, that was published in Mr. Lincoln's own town, eleven days after the Convention was held, and it has re- mained on record up to this day never contradicted. When I quoted the resolutions at Ottawa and questioned Mr. Lincoln in relation to them, he said that his name was on the committee that reported them, but he did not serve, nor did he think he served, because he was, or thought he was, in Tazewell County at the time the Convention was in session. He did not deny that the resolutions were passed by the Springfield Conven- tion. He did not know better, and evidently thought that they were ; but afterward his friends declared that they had discovered that they varied in some respects from the resolutions passed by that Convention. I have shown you that I had good evidence for believing that the resolutions had been passed at Springfield. Mr. Lincoln ought to have known better ; but not a word is said about his ignorance on the subject, whilst I, notwithstanding the circumstances, am accused of forgery. Now, I will show you that if I have made a mistake as to the place where these resolutions were adopted, — and when I get down to Springfield I will investigate the matter, and see whether or not I have, — that the principles they enunciate were adopted as the Black Republican platform ["white, white"] , in the various counties and Congressional Districts throughout the north end of the State in 1854. This platform was adopted in nearly every county that gave a Black Republican majority for the Legislature in that year, and here is a man [pointing to Mr. Denio, who sat on the stand near Deacon Bross] who knows as well as any living man that it was the creed of the Black Republican party at that time. I would be willing to call Denio as a witness, or any other honest man belonging to that party. I will now read the resolutions adopted at the Rockford Convention on the 30th of August 1854, which nominated Washburne for Congress. You elected him on the following platform : — '■'■Resolved, That the continued and increasing aggressions of slavery in our country are destructive of the best rights of a free people, and that such aggressions be successfully resisted without the united political action of all good men. '■'■Resolved, That the citizens of the United States hold in their hands peaceful, constitutional, and efficient remedy against the encroachments of the slave power, — the ballot box ; and if that remedy is boldly and wisely applied, the principles of liberty and eternal jus- tice will be established. ^^ Resolved, That we accept this issue forced upon us by the slave power, and, in defence of freedom, will co-operate and be known as Republicans, pledged to the accomplishment of the following purposes : — AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 151 "To bring the Administration of the Government back to the control of first principles ; to restore Kansas and Nebraska to the position of Free Territories ; to repeal and entirely abrogate the Fugitive Slave law ; to restrict slavery to those States in which it exists ; to prohibit the admission of any more Slave States into the Union ; to exclude slavery from all the Territories over which the General Government has exclusive jurisdiction ; and to resist the acqui- sition of any more Territories, unless the introduction of slavery therein forever shall have been prohibited. "•Resolved, That in furtherance of these principles we will use such constitutional and lawful means as shall seem best adapted to their accomplishment, and that we will support no man for office under the General or State Government who is not positively committed to the support of these principles, and whose personal character and conduct is not a guarantee that he is reliable, and shall abjure all party allegiance and ties. ^'■Resolved, That we cordially invite persons of all former political parties whatever, in favor of the object expressed in the above resolutions, to unite with us in carrying them into effect." Well, you think that is a very good platform, do you not? If you do, if you approve it now, and think it is all right, you will not join with those men who say I libel you by calling these your principles, will you? Now, Mr. Lincoln complains; Mr. Lincoln charges that I did you and him injustice by saying that this was the platform of your party. I am told that Washburne made a speech in Galena last night, in which he abused me awfully for bringing to light this platform, on which he was elected to Congress. He thought that you had forgotten it, as he, and Mr. Lincoln desires too. He did not deny but that you had adopted it, and that he had subscribed to and was pledged by it, but he did not think it was fair to call it up and remind the people that it was their platform. But I am glad to find that you are more honest in your Abolitionism than your leaders, by avowing that it is your plat- form, and right in your opinion. In the adoption of that platform, you not only declared that you would resist the admission of any more Slave States, and work for the repeal of the Fugitive Slave law, but you pledged yourselves not to vote for any man for State or Federal offices who was not committed to these principles. You were thus committed. Similar resolutions to those were adopted in your county Convention here, and now with your admissions that they are your platform and embody your sentiments now as they did then, what do you think of Mr. Lincoln, your candidate for the United States Senate, who is attempting to dodge the responsi- bility of this platform, because it was not adopted in the right spot. I thought that it was adopted in Springfield ; but it turns out it was not, that it was adopted at Rockford, and in the 152 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN various counties which comprise this Congressional District. When I get into the next district, I will show that the same platform was adopted there, and so on through the State, until I nail the responsibility of it upon the Black Republican party throughout the State. A voice : Couldn't you modify, and call it brown? Mr. Douglas : Not a bit. I thought that you were becoming a little brown when your members in Congress voted for the Crittenden-Montgomery bill ; but since you have backed out from that position and gone back to Abolitionism you are black, and not brown. Gentlemen, I have shown you what your platform was in 1854. You still adhere to it. The same platform was adopted by nearly all the counties where the Black Republican party had a majority in 1854. I wish now to call your attention to the action of your representatives in the Legislature when they assembled together at Springfield. In the first place, you must remember that this was the organization of a new party. It is so declared in the resolutions themselves, which say that you are going to dissolve all old party ties and call the new party Republican. The old Whig party was to have its throat cut from ear to ear, and the Democratic party was to be annihilated and blotted out of existence, whilst in lieu of these parties the Black Republican party was to be organized on this Abolition platform. You know who the chief leaders were in breaking up and destroy- ing these two great parties. Lincoln on the one hand, and Trum- bull on the other, being disappointed politicians, and having retired or been driven to obscurity by an outraged constituency because of their political sins, formed a scheme to Abolitionize the two parties, and lead the old line Whigs and old line Demo- crats captive, bound hand and foot, into the Abolition camp. Giddings, Chase, Fred Douglass, and Lovejoy were here to christen them whenever they were brought in. Lincoln went to work to dissolve the old line Whig party. Clay was dead ; and although the sod was not yet green on his grave, this man under- took to bring into disrepute those great Compromise measures of 1850, with which Clay and Webster were identified. Up to 1854 the old Whig party and the Democratic party had stood on a common platform so far as this slavery question was concerned. You Whigs and we Democrats differed about the bank, the tariff', distribution, the specie circular, and the sub-treasury, but we agreed on this slavery question, and the true mode of preserving the peace and harmony of the Union. The Compromise measures of 1850 were introduced by Clay, were defended by Webster, and supported by Cass, and were approved by Filmore, and sanctioned by the National men of both parties. They constituted a common plank upon which both Whigs and AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 153 Democrats stood. In 1852 the Whig party, in its last National Convention at Baltimore, indorsed and approved these measures of Clay, and so did the National Convention of the Democratic party held that same year. Thus the old line Whigs and the old line Democrats stood pledged to the great principle of self- government, which guarantees to the people of each Territory the right to decide the slavery question for themselves. In 1854, after the death of Clay and Webster, Mr. Lincoln, on the part of the Whigs, undertook to Abolitionize the Whig party, by dissolving it, transferring the members into the Abolition camp, and making them train under Giddings, Fred Douglass, Lovejoy, Chase, Farnsworth, and other Abolition leaders. Trumbull undertook to dissolve the Democratic party by taking old Democrats into the Abolition camp. Mr. Lincoln was aided in his efforts by many leading Whigs throughout the State, your member of Congress, Mr. Washburne, being one of the most active. Trumbull was aided by many renegades from the Democratic party, among whom were John Wentworth, Tom Turner, and others, with whom you are familiar. [Mr. Turner, who was one of the moderators, here interposed, and said that he had drawn the resolutions which Senator Douglas had read.] Mr. Douglas : Yes, and Turner says that he drew these, resolutions. ["Hurrah for Turner," "Hurrah for Douglas."] That is right ; give Turner cheers for drawing the resolutions if you approve them. If he drew those resolutions, he will not deny that they are the creed of the Black Republican party. Mr. Turner : They are our creed exactly. Mr. Douglas : And yet Lincoln denies that he stands on. them. Mr. Turner says that the creed of the Black Republican party is the admission of no more Slave States, and yet Mr. Lincoln declares that he would not like to be placed in a position where he would have to vote for them. All I have to say to friend Lincoln is, that I do not think there is much danger of his being placed in such an embarrassing position as to be obligee^ to vote on the admission of any more Slave States, I propose, out of mere kindness, to relieve him from any such necessity. When the bargain between Lincoln and Trumbull was completed for Abolitionizing the Whig and Democratic parties, they "spread" over the State, Lincoln still pretending to be an old line Whig, in order to " rope in " the Whigs, and Tiiimbull pretending to be as good a Democrat as he ever was, in order to coax the Democrats over into the Abolition ranks. They played the part that "decoy ducks" play down on the Potomac River. In that part of the country they make artificial ducks, and put them on the water in places where the wild ducks are to be. found, for the purpose of decoying them. Well, Lincoln andj 21 154 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN Trumbull played the part of these "decoy ducks," and deceived enough old line Whigs and old line Democrats to elect a Black Republican Legislature. When that Legislature met, the first thing it did was to elect as Speaker of the House the very man who is now boasting that he wrote the Abolition platform on which Lincoln will not stand. I want to know of Mr. Turner whether or not, when he was elected, he was a good embodiment of Republican principles? Mr. Turner : I hope I was then, and am now. Mr. Douglas : He swears that he hopes he was then, and is now. He wrote that Black Republican platform, and is satis- fied with it now. I admire and acknowledge Turner's honesty. Every man of you knows that what he says about these resolu- tions being the platform of the Black Republican party is true, and you also know that each one of these men who are shuffling and trying to deny it are only trying to cheat the people out of their votes for the purpose of deceiving them still more after the election. I propose to trace this thing a little further, in order that you can see what additional evidence there is to fasten this revolutionary platform upon the Black Republican party. When the Legislature assembled, there was a United States Senator to elect in the place of General Shields, and before they proceeded to ballot, Lovejoy insisted on laying down certain principles by which to govern the party. It has been published to the world and satisfactorily proven that there was, at the time the alliance was made between Trumbull and Lincoln to Abolitionize the two parties, an agreement that Lincoln should take Shields's place in the United States Senate, and Trumbull should have mine so soon as they could conveniently get rid of me. When Lincoln was beaten for Shields's place, in a manner I will refer to in a few minutes, he felt very sore and restive ; his friends grumbled, and some of them came out and charged that the most infamous treachery had been practiced against him ; that the bargain was that Lincoln was to have had Shields's place, and Trumbull was to have waited for mine, but that Trumbull, having the control of a few Abolitionized Democrats, he pre- vented them from voting for Lincoln, thus keeping him within a few votes of an election until he succeeded in forcing the party to drop him and elect Trumbull. Well, Trumbull having cheated Lincoln, his friends made a fuss, and in order to keep them and Lincoln quiet, the party were obliged to come forward, in advance, at the last State election, and make a pledge that they would go for Lincoln and nobody else. Lincoln could not be silenced in any other way. Now, there are a great many Black Republicans of you who do not know this thing was done. [" White, white," and great clamor.] I wish to remind you that while Mr. Lincoln was AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 155 speaking there was not a Democrat vulgar and blackguard enough to interrupt him. But I know that the shoe is pinching you. I am clinching Lincoln now, and you are scared to death for the result. I have seen this thing before. I have seen men make appointments for joint discussions, and the moment their man has been heard, try to interrupt and prevent a fair hearing of the other side. I have seen your mobs before, and defy your wrath. [Tremendous applause.] My friends, do not cheer, for I need m}- whole time. The object of the opposition is to occupy my attention in order to prevent me from giving the whole evidence and nailing this double dealing on the Black Republican party. As I have before said, Lovejoy demanded a declaration of principles on the part of the Black Republicans of the Legislature before going into an election for United States Senator. He offered the following preamble and resolutions which I hold in my hand : '* Whereas, Human slavery is a violation of the principles of natural and revealed rights ; and whereas the fathers of the Revolu- tion, fully imbued with the spirit of these principles, declared free- dom to be the inalienable birthright of all men ; and whereas the preamble to the Constitution of the United States avers that that instrument was ordained to establish justice, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity ; and whereas, in furtherance of the above principles, slavery was forever prohibited in the old Northwest Territory, and more recently in all that Territory lying west and north of the State of Missouri, by the act of the Federal Government ; and whereas the repeal of the prohibition last referred to was contrary to the wishes of the people of Illinois, a violation of an implied compact long deemed sacred by the citizens of the United States, and a wide departure from the uniform action of the General Government in relation to the extension of slavery; therefore, ^''Resolved, by the Ho7ise of Representatives, the Senate concurring therein. That our Senators in Congress be instructed, and our Repre- sentatives requested to introduce, if not otherwise introduced, and to vote for a bill to restore such prohibition to the aforesaid Territories, and also to extend a similar prohibition to all territory which now belongs to the United States, or which may hereafter come under their jurisdiction. " Resolved, That our Senators in Congress be instructed, and our Representatives requested, to vote against the admission of any State into the Union, the Constitution of which does not prohibit slavery, whether the territory out of which such State may have been formed shall have been acquired by conquest, treaty, purchase, or from original territory of the United States. " Resolved, That our Senators in Congress be instructed, and our Representatives requested, to introduce and vote for a bill to repeal an Act entitled ' an Act respecting fugitives from justice and persons escaping from the service of their masters;' and, failing in that, for such a modification of it as shall secure the right of habeas corpus and trial by jury before the regularly constituted authorities of the State, to all persons claimed as owing service or labor." 156 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN Those resolutions were introduced by Mr. Lovejoy imme- diately preceding the election of Senator. They declared, first, that the Wilmot Proviso must be applied to all territory north of 86 deg., 30 min. Secondly, that it must be applied to all ter- ritory south of 36 deg., 30 min. Thirdly, that it must be applied to all the territory now owned by the United States ; and finally, that it must be applied to all territory hereafter to be acquired by the United States. The next resolution declares that no more Slave States shall be admitted into this Union under any circum- stances whatever, no matter whether they are formed out of ter- ritory now owned by us or that we may hereafter acquire, by treaty, by Congress, or in any manner whatever. The next resolution demands the unconditional repeal of the Fugitive Slave law, although its unconditional repeal would leave no provision for carrying out that clause of the Constitution of the United States which guarantees the surrender of fugitives. If they could not get an unconditional repeal, they demanded that that law should be so modified as to make it as nearly useless as possible. Now, I want to show you who voted for these resolutions. When the vote was taken on the first resolution it was decided in the affirmative, — yeas 41, nays 32. You will find that this is a strict party vote, between the Democrats on the one hand, and the Black Republicans on the other. [Cries of "White, white," and clamor.] I know your name, and always call things by their right name. The point I wish to call your attention to is this : that these resolutions were adopted on the 7th day of Feb- ruar}', and that on the 8th the}' went into an election for a United States Senator, and that day every man who voted for these resolutions, with but two exceptions, voted for Lincoln for the United States Senate. ["Give us their names."] I will read the names over to you if you want them, but I believe your object is to occupy my time. On the next resolution the vote stood — ^yeas 33, nays 40 ; and on the third resolution — yeas 35, nays 47. I wish to impress it upon you that every man who voted for those resolutions, with but two exceptions, voted on the next day for Lincoln for United States Senator. Bear in mind that the members who thus voted for Lincoln were elected to the Legislature pledged to vote for no man for oflice under the State or Federal Government who was not committed to this Black Republican platform. They were all so pledged. Mr. Turner, who stands b}'- me, and who then represented you, and who says that he wrote those resolu- tions, voted for Lincoln, when he was pledged not to do so unless Lincoln was in favor of those resolutions. I now ask Mr. Turner [turning to Mr. Turner], did you violate your pledge in voting for Mr. Lincoln, or did he commit himself to your platform before you cast your vote for him ? AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 157 I could go through the whole list of names here, and show you that all the Black Republicans in the Legislature, who voted for Mr. Lincoln, had voted on the day previous for these resolu- tions. For instance, here are the names of Sargent and Little, of Jo Daviess and Carroll, Thomas J. Turner of Stephenson, Lawrence of Boone and McHenry, Swan of Lake, Pinckney of Ogle County, and Lyman of Winnebago. Thus you see every member from your Congressional District voted for Mr. Lincoln, and they were pledged not to vote for him unless he was com- mitted to the doctrine of no more Slave States, the prohibition of slavery in the Territories, and the repeal of the Fugitive Slave law. Mr. Lincoln tells you to-day that he is not pledged to any such doctrine. Either Mr. Lincoln was then committed to those propositions, or Mr. Turner violated his pledges to you when he voted for him. Either Lincoln was pledged to each one of those propositions, or else every Black Republican Representative from this Congressional District violated his pledge of honor to his constituents by voting for him. I ask you which horn of the dilemma will you take ? Will you hold Lincoln up to the platform of his party, or will you accuse ever}'- Representative you had in the Legislature of violating his pledge of honor to his consti- tuents ? There is no escape for you. Either Mr. Lincoln was committed to those propositions, or your members violated their faith. Take either horn of the dilemma you choose. There is no dodging the question ; I want Lincoln's answer. He says he was not pledged to repeal the Fugitive Slave law, that he does not quite like to do it ; he will not introduce a law to repeal it, but thinks there ought to be some law ; he does not tell what it ought to be ; upon the whole, he is altogether undecided, and don't know what to think or do. That is the substance of his answer upon the repeal of the Fugitive Slave law. I put the question to him distinctly, whether he indorsed that part of the Black Republican platform which calls for the entire abrogation and repeal of the Fugitive Slave law. He answers. No ! that he does not indorse that ; but he does not tell what he is for, or what he will vote for. His answer is, in fact, no answer at all. Why cannot he speak out, and say what he is for, and what he will do? In regard to there being no more Slave States, he is not pledged to that. He would not like, he says, to be put in a position where he would have to vote one way or another upon that question. I pray you, do not put him in a position that would embarrass him so much. Gentlemen, if he goes to the Senate, he may be put in that position, and then which way will he vote? A Voice : How will you vote? Mr. Douglas : I will vote for the admission of just such a State as by the form of their constitution the people show they 158 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN want; if the}'' want slavery, they shall have it; if they prohibit slavery, it shall be prohibited. They can form their institutions to please themselves, subject only to the Constitution ; and I, for one, stand ready to receive them into the Union. Why cannot your Black Republican candidates talk out as plain as that when they are questioned ? I do not want to cheat any man out of his vote. No man is deceived in regard to my principles if I have the power to express myself in terms explicit enough to convey my ideas. Mr. Lincoln made a speech when he was nominated for the United States Senate which covers all these Abolition plat- forms. He there lays down a proposition so broad in its Aboli- tionism as to cover the whole ground. "In my opinion it [the slavery agitation] 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 per- manently, 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 advo- cates will push it forward till it shall become alike lawful in all the States, — old as well as new, North as well as South." There you find that Mr. Lincoln lays down the doctrine that this Union cannot endure divided as our fathers made it, with Free and Slave States. He sa3^s they must all become one thing, or all the other ; that they must all be free or all slave, or else the Union cannot continue to exist ; it being his opinion that to admit any more Slave States, to continue to divide the Union into Free and Slave States, will dissolve it. I want to know of Mr. Lincoln whether he will vote for the admission of another Slave State. He tells you the Union cannot exist unless the States are all free or all slave ; he tells you that he is opposed to making them all slave, and hence he is for making them all free, in order that the Union may exist ; and yet he will not say that he will not vote against another Slave State, knowing that the Union must be dissolved if he votes for it. I ask you if that is fair dealing? The true intent and inevitable conclusion to be drawn from his first Springfield speech is, that he is opposed to the admission of any more Slave States under any circumstance. If he is so opposed, why not say so? If he believes this Union cannot endure divided into Free and Slave States, that they must all become free in order to save the Union, he is bound as an honest man to vote against any more Slave States. If he believes it, he is bound to do it. Show me that it is my duty, in order to save the Union, to do a particular act, and I will do AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 159 it if the Constitution does not prohibit it. I am not for the dissolution of the Union under any circumstances. I will pursue no course of conduct that will give just cause for the dissolution of the Union. The hope of the friends of freedom throughout the world rests upon the perpetuity of this Union. The down- trodden and oppressed people who are suffering under European despotism all look with hope and anxiety to the American Union as the only resting place and permanent home of freedom and self-government. Mr. Lincoln says that he believes that this Union cannot continue to endure with Slave States in it, and yet he will not tell you distinctly whether he will vote for or against the admis- sion of any more Slave States, but says he would not like to be put to the test. I do not think he will be put to the test. I do not think that the people of Illinois desire a man to represent them who would not like to be put to the test on the performance of a high constitutional duty. I will retire in shame from the Senate of the United States when I am not willing to be put to the test in the performance of my duty. I have been put to severe tests. I have stood by my principles in fair w^eather and in foul, in the sunshine and in the rain. I have defended the great principles of self-government here among you w^hen North- ern sentiment ran in a torrent against me, and I have defended that same great principle when Southern sentiment came down like an avalanche upon me. I was not afraid of any test they put to me. I knew I was right ; I knew my principles were sound ; I knew that the people would see in the end that I had done right, and I knew that the God of heaven would smile upon me if I was faithful in the performance of my duty. Mr. Lincoln makes a charge of corruption against the Supreme Court of the United States, and two Presidents of the United States, and attempts to bolster it up by saying that I did the same against the Washington "Union." Suppose I did make that charge of corruption against the Washington "Union," w'hen it was true, does that justify him in making a false charge against me and others? That is the question I would put. He says that at the time the Nebraska bill was introduced, and before it was passed, there was a conspiracy between the Judges of the Supreme Court, President Pierce, President Buchanan, and my- self, by that bill and the decision of the court to break down the barrier and establish slavery all over the Union. Does he not know that that charge is historically false as against President Buchanan? He knows that Mr. Buchanan was at that time in England, representing this country with distinguished ability at the Court of St. James, that he was there for a long time before, and did not return for a year or more after. He knows that to be true, and that fact proves his charge to be false as against Mr. 160 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN Buchanan. Then, again, I wish to call his attention to the fact that at the time the Nebraska bill was passed, the Dred Scott case was not before the Supreme Court at all ; it was not upon the docket of the Supreme Court ; it had not been brought there ; and the Judges in all probability knew nothing of it. Thus the history of the country proves the charge to be false as against them. As to President Pierce, his high character as a man of integrity and honor is enough to vindicate him from such a charge ; and as to myself, I pronounce the charge an infamous lie, whenever and wherever made, and by whomsoever made. I am willing that Mr. Lincoln should go and rake up every public act of mine, every measure I have introduced, report I have made, speech delivered, and criticise them ; but when he charges upon me a connipt conspiracy for the purpose of perverting the institutions of the country, I brand it as it deserves. I say the history of the country proves it to be false, and that it could not have been possible at the time. But now he tries to protect him- self in this charge, because I made a charge against the Wash- ington "Union." My speech in the Senate against the Wash- ington "Union" was made because it advocated a revolutionary doctrine, by declaring that the Free States had not the right to prohibit slavery within their own limits. Because I made that charge against the Washington "Union," Mr. Lincoln says it was a charge against Mr, Buchanan. Suppose it was : is Mr. Lincoln the peculiar defender of Mr. Buchanan? Is he so inter- ested in the Federal Administration, and so bound to it, that he must jump to the rescue and defend it from every attack that I may make against it? I understand the whole thing. The Wash- ington "Union,' under that most corrupt of all men, Cornelius Wendell, is advocating Mr. Lincoln's claim to the Senate. Wen- dell was the printer of the last Black Republican House of Rep- resentatives ; he was a candidate before the present Democratic House, but was ignominiously kicked out ; and then he took the money which he had made out of the public printing by means of the Black Republicans, bought the Washington "Union," and is now publishing it in the name of the Democratic party, and advocating Mr. Lincoln's election to the Senate. Mr. Lincoln therefore considers an attack upon Wendell and his con-upt gang as a personal attack upon him. This only proves what I have charged, — that there is an alliance between Lincoln and his sup- porters, and the Federal office-holders of thisState, and the Presi- dential aspirants out of it, to break me down at home. Mr. Lincoln feels bound to come in to the rescue of the Wash- ington "Union." In that speech which I delivered in answer to the Washington "Union," I made it distinctly against the "Union," and againstthe "Union" alone. I did not choose to go beyond that. If I have reason to attack the President's conduct, AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 161 I will do it in language that will not be misunderstood. When I differed with the President, I spoke out so that you all heard me. That question passed away ; it resulted in the triumph of my principle, by allowing the people to do as they please ; and there is an end of the controversy. Whenever the great principle of self-government, — the right of the people to make their own Constitution, and come into the Union with slavery or without it, as they see proper, — shall again arise, you will find me standing firm in defence of that principle, and fighting whoever fights it. If Mr. Buchanan stands, as I doubt not he will, by the recommen- dation contained in his Message, that hereafter all State constitu- tions ought to be submitted to the people before the admission of the State into the Union, he will find me standing by him firmly, shoulder to shoulder, in carrying it out. I know Mr. Lincoln's object : he wants to divide the Democratic party, in order that he may defeat me and gel to the Senate. [Mr. Douglas's time here expired, and he stopped on the moment.] MR. LINCOLN'S REJOINDER. My Friends : It will readily occur to you that I cannot, in half an hour, notice all the things that so able a man as Judge Douglas can say in an hour and a half; and I hope, there- fore, if there be anything that he has said upon which you would like to hear something from me, but which I omit to comment upon, you will bear in mind that it would be expecting an im- possibility for me to go over his whole ground. I can but take up some of the points that he has dwelt upon, and employ my half- hour specially on them. The first thing I have to say to you is a word in regard to Judge Douglas's declaration about the "vulgarity and black- guardism" in the audience, — that no such thing, as he says, was shown by any Democrat while I was speaking. Now, I only wish, by way of reply on this subject, to say that while /was speaking, / used no "vulgarity or blackguardism" toward any Democrat. Now, my friends, I come to all this long portion of the Judge's speech, — perhaps half of it, — which he has devoted to the various resolutions and platforms that have been adopted in the different counties in the different Congressional Districts, and in the Illinois Legislature, which he supposes are at variance with the positions I have assumed before you to-day. It is true that many of these resolutions are at variance with the positions I have here assumed. All I have to ask is that we talk reason- ably and rationally about it. I happen to know, the Judge's 22 162 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN opinion to the contrary notwithstanding, that I have never tried to conceal my opinions, nor tried to deceive any one in reference to them. He may go and examine all the members who voted for me for United States Senator in 1855, after the election of 1854. They were pledged to certain things here at home, and were determined to have pledges from me; and if he will find any of these persons who will tell him anything inconsistent with what I say now, I will resign, or rather retire from the race, and give him no more trouble. The plain truth is this : At the in- troduction of the Nebraska policy, we believed there was a new era being introduced in the history of the Republic, which tended to the spread and perpetuation of slavery. But in our oppo- sition to that measure we did not agree with one another in everything. The people in the north end of the State were for stronger measures of opposition than we of the central and south- ern portions of the State, but we were all opposed to the Nebraska doctrine. We had that one feeling and that one sentiment in common. You at the north end met in your Conventions and passed your resolutions. We in the middle of the State and further south did not hold such Conventions and pass the same resolutions, although we had in general a common view and a common sentiment. So that these meetings which the Judge has alluded to, and the resolutions he has read from, were local, and did not spread over the whole State. We at last met together in 1856, from all parts of the State, and we agreed upon a common platform. You, who held more extreme notions, either yielded those notions, or, if not wholly yielding them, agreed to yield them practically, for the sake of embodying the opposition to the measures which the opposite party were pushing forward at that time. We met you then, and if there was anything yielded, it was for practical purposes. We agreed then upon a platform for the party throughout the entire State of Illinois, and now we are all bound, as a party, to that platform. And I say here to you, if any one expects of me — in the case of my election — that I will do anything not signified by our Republican platform and my answers here to-day, I tell you very frankly that person will be deceived. I do not ask for the vote of any one who supposes that I have secret purposes or pledges that I dare not speak out. Cannot the Judge be satisfied? If he fears, in the unfortunate case of my election, that my going to Washington will enable me to advocate sentiments contrary to those which I expressed when you voted for and elected me, I assure him that his fears are wholly needless and groundless. Is the Judge really afraid of any such thing? I'll tell you what he is afraid of. He is afraid we'll all fuU together. This is what alarms him more than any- thing else. For my part, I do hope that all of us, entertaining a common sentiment in opposition to what appears to us a design AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 163 to nationalize and perpetuate slavery, will waive minor differ- ences on questions which either belong to the dead pastor the distant future, and all pull together in this struggle. What are your sentiments ? If it be true that on the ground which I occupy — ground which I occupy as frankly and boldly as Judge Doug- las does his, — my views, though partly coinciding with yours, are not as perfectly in accordance with your feelings as his are, I do say to you in all candor, go for him, and not for me. I hope to deal in all things fairly with Judge Douglas, and with the peo- ple of the State, in this contest. And if I should never be elected to any office, I trust I may go down with no stain of falsehood upon my reputation, notwithstanding the hard opinions Judge Douglas chooses to entertain of me. The Judge has again addressed himself to the Abolition ten- dencies of a speech of mine made at Springfield in June last. I have so often tried to answer what he is always saying on that melancholy theme that I almost turn with disgust from the dis- cussion, — from the repetition of an answer to it. I trust that nearly all of this intelligent audience have read that speech. If 3'ou have, I may venture to leave it to you to inspect it closely, and see whether it contains any of those "bugaboos" which frighten Judge Douglas. • The Judge complains that I did not fully answer his ques- tions. If I have the sense to comprehend and answer those questions, I have done so fairly. If it can be pointed out to me how I can more fully and fairly answer him, I aver I have not the sense to see how it is to be done. He says, I do not declare I would in any event vote for the admission of a Slave State into the Union. If I have been fairly reported, he will see that I did give an explicit answer to his interrogatories ; I did not merely say that I would dislike to be put to the test, but I said clearly, if I were put to the test, and a Territory from which slavery had been excluded should present herself with a State constitution sanctioning slavery, — a most extraordinary thing, and wholly unlikely to happen, — I did not see how I could avoid voting for her admission. But he refuses to understand that I said so, and he wants this audience to understand that I did not say so. Yet it will be so reported in the printed speech that he cannot help seeing it. He says if I should vote for the admission of a Slave State I would be voting for a dissolution of the Union, because I hold that the Union cannot permanently exist half slave and half free. I repeat that I do not believe this government can endure per- manently half slave and half free ; yet I do not admit, nor does it all follow, that the admission of a single Slave State will per- manently fix the character and establish this as a universal slave nation. The Judge is very happy indeed at working up these 4 164 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN quibbles. Before leaving the subject of answering questions, I aver as my confident belief, when you come to see our speeches in print, that you will find every question which he has asked me more fairly and boldly and fully answered than he has answered those which I put to him. Is not that so? The two speeches may be placed side by side, and I will venture to leave it to im- partial judges whether his questions have not been more directly and circumstantially answered than mine. Judge Douglas says he made a charge upon the editor of the Washington " Union," alone, of entertaining a purpose to rob the States of their power to exclude slavery from their limits. I undertake to say, and I make the direct issue, that he did not make his charge against the editor of the "Union" alone. I will undertake to prove by the record here that he made that charge against more and higher dignitaries than the editor of the Washington "Union." I am quite aware that he was shirking and dodging around the form in which he put it, but I can make it manifest that he leveled his "fatal blow" against more persons than this Washington editor. Will he dodge it now by alleging that I am trying to defend Mr. Buchanan against the charge? Not at all. Am I not making the same charge myself? I am trying to show that you. Judge Douglas, are a witness on my side. I am not defending Buchanan, and I will tell Judge Douglas that in my opinion, when he made that charge, he had an eye farther north than he was to-day. He was then fighting against people who called htm a Black Republican and an Abolitionist. It is mixed all through his speech, and it is tolerably manifest that his eye was a great deal farther north than it is to-day. The Judge says that though he made this charge, Toombs got up and declared there was not a man in the United States, except the editor of the " Union," who was in favor of the doctrines put forth in that article. And thereupon I understand that the Judge withdrew the charge. Although he had taken extracts from the newspaper, and then from the Lecompton Constitution, to show the existence of a conspiracy to bring about a " fatal blow," by which the States were to be deprived of the right of excluding slavery, it all went to pot as soon as Toombs got up and told him it was not true. It reminds me of the story that John Phoenix, the California railroad surveyor, tells. He says they started out from the Plaza to the Mission of Dolores. They had two ways of determining distances. One was by a chain and pins taken over the ground. The other was by a " go-it-ometer," — an invention of his own, — a three-legged instrument, with which he computed a series of triangles between the points. At night he turned to the chain-man to ascertain what distance they had come, and found that by some mistake he had merely dragged AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 165 the chain over the ground, without keeping any record. By the "go-it-ometer" he found he had made ten miles. Being skeptical about this, he asked a drayman who was passing how far it was to the Plaza. The drayman replied it was just half a mile ; and the surveyor put it down in his book, — just as Judge Douglas says, after he had made his calculations and computa- tions, he took Toombs's statement. I have no doubt that after Judge Douglas had made his charge, he was as easily satisfied about its truth as the surveyor was of the drayman's statement of the distance to the Plaza. Yet it is a fact that the man who put forth all that matter which Douglas deemed a " fatal blow" at State sovereignty, was elected by the Democrats as public printer. Now, gentlemen, you may take Judge Douglas's speech of March 22, 1858, beginning about the middle of page 21, and reading to the bottom of page 24, and you will find the evidence on which I say that he did not make his charge against the editor of the "Union" alone. I cannot stop to read it, but I will give it to the reporters. Judge Douglas said : — " Mr. President, you here find several distinct propositions advanced boldly by the Washington ' Union ' editorially, and apparently authoritatively , and every man who questions any of them is denounced as an Abolitionist, a Free-soiler, a fanatic. The propositions are, first, that the primary object of all government at its original institution is the protection of persons and property ; second, that the Constitution of the United States declares that the citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States; and that, therefore, thirdly, all State laws, whether organic or otherwise, which prohibit the citizens of one State from settling in another with their slave property, and especially declaring it forfeited, are direct violations of the original intention of the Government and Constitution of the United States; and, fourth, that the emancipation of the slaves of the Northern States was a gross outrage on the rights of property, inasmuch as it was involuntarily done on the part of the owner. " Remember that this article was published in the ' Union ' on the 17th of November, and on the 18th appeared the first article, giving the adhesion of the ' Union ' to the Lecompton Constitution. It was in these words : — " ' Kansas and her Constitution. — The vexed question is settled. The problem is solved. The dead point of danger is passed. All serious trouble to Kansas affairs is over and gone — ' "And a column, nearly, of the same sort. Then, when you come to look into the Lecompton Constitution, you find the same doctrine incorporated in it which was put forth editorially in the , Union.' What is it? " 'Article 7, Section 1. The right of property is before and higher than any constitutional sanction ; and the right of the owner of a slave to such slave and its increase is the same and as invariable as the right of the owner of any property whatever.' 166 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN "Then in the schedule is a provision that the Constitution may be amended after 1864 by a two-thirds vote. " ' But no alteration shall be made to affect the right of property in the ownership of slaves.' " It will be seen by these clauses in the Lecompton Constitution that they are identical in spirit with this autlioritative article in the Washington 'Union' of the day previous to its indorsement of this Constitution. "When I saw that article in the 'Union' of the 17th of November, followed by the glorification of the Lecompton Constitu- tion on the 18th of November, and this clause in the Constitution asserting the doctrine that a State has no right to prohibit slavery within its limits, I saw that there was d, fatal blow being struck at the sovereignty of the States of this Union." Here he says, *' Mr. President, you here find several distinct propositions advanced boldly, and apparently authoritatively. "" By whose authority, Judge Douglas? Again, he says in another place, "It will be seen by these clauses in the Lecompton Constitution that they are identical in spirit with this authori- tative article." By zvhose authority? Who do you mean to say authorized the publication of these articles? He knows that the Washington "Union" is considered the organ of the Administra- tion. / demand of Judge Douglas by -whose authority he meant to say those articles were published, if not by the authority of the President of the United States and his Cabinet? I defy him to show whom he referred to, if not to these high functionaries in the Federal Government. More than this, he says the articles in that paper and the provisions of the Lecompton Constitution are "identical," and, being identical, he argues that the authors are co-operating and conspiring together. He does not use the word "conspiring," but what other construction can you put upon it? He winds up with this : — " When I saw that article in the 'Union' of the 17th of Novem- ber, followed by the glorification of the Lecompton Constitution on the 18th of November, and this clause in the Constitution asserting the doctrine that a State has no right to prohibit slavery within its limits, I saw that there was a fatal blow being struck at the sover- eignty of the States of the Union." I ask him if all this fuss was made over the editor of this newspaper. It would be a terribly 'fatal blow" indeed which a single man could strike, when no President, no Cabinet officer, no member of Congress, was giving strength and efficiency to the moment. Out of respect to Judge Douglas's good sense I must believe he didn't manufacture his idea of the "fatal" character of that blow out of such a miserable scapegrace as he represents that editor to be. But the Judge's eye is farther south now. Then, it was very peculiarly and decidedly north. His hope AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 167 rested on the idea of visiting the great "Black Republican" party, and making it the tail of his new kite. He knows he was then expecting from day to day to turn Republican, and place himself at the head of our organization. He has found that these despised "Black Republicans" estimate him by a standard which he has taught them none too well. Hence he is crawling back into his old camp, and you will find him eventually installed in full fellowship among those whom he was then battling, and with whom he now pretends to be at such fearful variance. [Loud applause, and cries of "Go on, go on."] I cannot, gentle- men ; my time has expired." THIRD JOINT DEBATE, AT JONESBORO. September 15, 1858. MR. DOUGLAS'S SPEECH. L#ADiEs AND Gentlemen : I appear before you to-dav in pursuance of a previous notice, and have made arrangements with Mr. Lincoln to divide time, and discuss with him the lead- ing political topics that now agitate the country. Prior to 1854 this country was divided into two great politi- cal parties known as Whig and Democratic. These parties dif- fered from each other on certain questions which were then deemed to be important to the best interests of the Republic. Whigs and Democrats differed about a bank, the tariff, distribu- tion, the specie circular, and the sub-treasury. On those issues we went before the country and discussed the principles, objects, and measures of the two great parties. Each of the parties could proclaim its principles in Louisiana as well as in Massachusetts, in Kentucky as well as in Illinois. Since that period, a great revolution has taken place in the formation of parties, by which they now seem to be divided by a geographical line, a large party in the North being arrayed under the Abolition or Repub- lican banner, in hostility to the Southern States, Southern people, and Southern institutions. It becomes important for us to inquire how this transformation of parties has occurred, made from those of national principles to geographical factions. You remember that in 1850 — this country was agitated from its centre to its cir- cumference about this slavery question — it became necessary for the leaders of the great Whig party and the leaders of the great Democratic party to postpone, for the time being, their particular disputes, and unite first to save the Union before they should quarrel as to the mode in which it was to be governed. During the Congress of 1849-50, Henry Clay was the leader of the Union men, supported by Cass and Webster, and the leaders of 168 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN the Democracy and the leaders of the Whigs, in opposition to Northern Abolitionists or Southern Disunionists. That great contest of 1850 resulted in the establishment of the Compromise measures of that year, which measures rested on the great prin- ciples that the people of each State and each Territory of this Union ought to be permitted to regulate their own domestic in- stitutions in their own way, subject to no other limitation than that which the Federal Constitution imposes. I now wish to ask you whether that principle was right or wrong which guaranteed to every State and every community the right to form and regulate their domestic institutions to suit themselves. These measures were adopted, as I have previously said, by the joint action of the Union Whigs and Union Demo- crats in opposition to Northern Abolitionists and Southern Dis- unionists. In 1858, when the Whig party assembled, at Balti- more, in National Convention for the last time, they adopted the principle of the Compromise Measures of 1850 as their rule of party action in the future. One month thereafter the Democrats assembled at the same place to nominate a candidate for the Presidency, and declared the same great principle as the rule of action by which the Democracy would be governed. The Presi- dential election of 1852 was fought on that basis. It is true that the Whigs claimed special merit for the adoption of those meas- ures, because they asserted that their great Clay originated them, their god-like Webster defended them, and their Filmore signed the bill making them the law of the land ; but, on the other hand, the Democrats claimed special credit for the Democracy, upon the ground that we gave twice as many votes in both Houses of Congress for the passage of these measures as the Whig party. Thus you see that in the Presidential election of 1852, the Whigs were pledged by their platform and their candidate to the principle of the Compromise Measures of 1850, and the Demo- cracy were likewise pledged by our principles, our platform, and our candidate to the same line of policy, to preserve peace and quiet between the different sections of this Union. Since that period the Whig party has been transformed into a sectional party, under the name of the Republican party, whilst the Demo- cratic party continues the same national party it was at that day. All sectional men, all men of Abolition sentiments and principles, no matter whether they were old Abolitionists or had been Whigs or Democrats, rally under the sectional Republican banner, and consequently all National men, all Union-loving men, whether Whigs, Democrats, or by whatever name they have been known, ought to rally under the Stars and Stripes in defence of the Con- stitution as our fathers made it, and of the Union as it has existed under the Constitution. How has this departure from the faith of the Democracy AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 169 and the faith of the Whig party been accomplished ? In 1854, certain restless, ambitious, and disappointed politicians through- out the land took advantage of the temporary excitement created by the Nebraska bill to try and dissolve the old Whig party and the old Democratic party, to Abolitionize their members, and lead them, bound hand and foot, captives into the Abolition camp. In the State of New York a convention was held by some of these men, and a platform adopted, every plank of which was as black as night, each one relating to the negro, and not one referring to the interests of the white man. That example was followed throughout the Northern States, the effort being made to combine all the Free States in hostile array against the Slave States. The men who thus thought that they could build up a great sectional party, and through its organization control the political destinies of this country, based all their hopes on the single fact that the North was the stronger division of the nation, and hence, if the North could be combined against the South, a sure victory awaited their efforts. I am doing no more than justice to the truth of history when I say that in this State, Abraham Lincoln, on behalf of the Whigs, and Lyman Trumbull, on behalf of the Democrats, were the leaders who undertook to perform this grand scheme of Abolitionizing the two parties to which they belonged. They had a private arrangement as to what should be the political destiny of each of the contracting parties before they went into the operation. The arrangement was that Mr. Lincoln was to take the old line Whigs with him, claiming that he was still as good a Whig as ever, over to the Abolitionists, and Mr. Trumbull was to run for Congress in the Belleville District, and, claiming to be a good Democrat, coax the old Democrats into the Abolition camp, and when, by the joint efforts of the Abolitionized Whigs, the Abolitionized Demo- crats, and the old line Abolition and Free-soil party of this State, they should secure a majority in the Legislature. Lincoln was then to be made United States Senator in Shields's place, Tiiim- bull remaining in Congress until I should be accommodating enough to die or resign, and give him a chance to follow Lincoln. That was a very nice little bargain so far as Lincoln and Trumbull were concerned, if it -had been carried out in good faith, and friend Lincoln had attained to senatorial dignity according to the contract. They went into the contest in every part of the State, calling upon all disappointed politicians to join in the crusade against the Democracy, and appealed to the prevailing sentiments and prejudices in all the northern counties of the State. In three Congressional Districts in the north end of the State they adopted, as the platform of this new party thus formed by Lincoln and Trumbull in connection with the Abolitionists, all of those princi- ples which aimed at a warfare on the part of the North against 23 170 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN the South. They declared in that platform that the Wilmot Proviso was to be applied to all the Territories of the United States, north as well as south of 36 deg. 30 min., and not only to all the territory we then had, but all that we might hereafter acquire ; that hereafter no more Slave States should be admitted into this Union, even if the people of such State desired slavery ; that the Fugitive Slave law should be absolutely and uncondition- ally repealed ; that slavery should be abolished in the District of Columbia ; that the slave-trade should be abolished between the different States ; and, in fact, every article in their creed related to this slavery question, and pointed to a Northern geographical party in hostility to the Southern States of this Union. Such were their principles in Northern Illinois. A little further south they became bleached, and grew paler just in proportion as public sentiment moderated and changed in this direction. They were Republicans or Abolitionists in the North, anti-Nebraska men down about Springfield, and in this neighborhood they contented themselves with talking about the inexpediency of the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. In the extreme northern counties they brought out men to canvass the State whose com- plexion suited their political creed ; and hence Fred Douglass, the negro, was to be found there, following General Cass, and attempting to speak on behalf of Lincoln, Tinimbull, and Aboli- tionism, against that illustrious senator. Why, they brought Fred Douglass to Freeport, when I was addressing a meeting there, in a carriage driven by the white owner, the negro sitting inside with the white lady and her daughter. When I got through canvassing the northern counties that year, and progressed as far south as Springfield, I was met and opposed in discussion by Lincoln, Lovejoy, Trumbull, and Sidney Breese, who were on one side. Father Giddings, the high-priest of Abolitionism, had just been there, and Chase came about the time I left. ["Why didn't you shoot him?"] 1 did take a running shot at them ; but as I was single-handed against the white, black, and mixed drove, I had to use a shot-gun and fire into the crowd, instead of taking them off singly with a rifle. Trumbull had for his lieu- tenants, in aiding him to Abolitionize the Democracy, such men as John Wentworth of Chicago, Governor Reynolds of Belleville, Sidney Breese of Carlisle, and John Dougherty of Union, each of whom modified his opinions to suit the locality he was in. Dougherty, for instance, would not go much further than to talk about the inexpediency of the Nebraska bill, whilst his allies at Chicago advocated negro citizenship and negro equality, putting the white man and the negro on the same basis under the law. Now, these men, four years ago, were engaged in a conspiracy to break down the Democracy ; to-day they are again acting together for the same purpose ! They do not hoist the same flag, AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 171 they do not own the same principles or profess the same faith, but conceal their union for the sake of policy. In the northern counties, you find that all the conventions are called in the name of the Black Republican party ; at Springfield, they dare not call a Republican Convention, but invite all the enemies of the Democracy to unite ; and when they get down into Egypt, Trumbull issues notices calling upon the '''■Free Veniocracy'" to assemble and hear him speak. I have one of the handbills call- ing a Ti'umbull meeting at Waterloo the other day, which I received there, which is in the following language : — A meeting of the Free Democracy will take place in Waterloo, on Monday, Sept. 18th inst., whereat Hon. Lyman Trumbull, Hon. John Baker and others will address the people upon the diflferent political topics of the day. Members of all parties are cordially invited to be present, and hear and determine for themselves. The Monroe Free Democracy. What is that name of " Free Democrats " put forth for, unless to deceive the people, and make them believe that Trumbull and his followers are not the same party as that which raises the black flag of Abolitionism in the northern part of this State, and makes war upon the Democratic party throughout the State ? When I put that question to them at Waterloo on Saturday last, one of them rose and stated that they had changed their name for political effect, in order to get votes. There was a candid admission. Their object in changing their party organization and principles in different localities was avowed to be an attempt to cheat and deceive some portion of the people until after the election. Why cannot a political party that is conscious of the rectitude of its purposes and the soundness of its principles declare them everywhere alike? I would disdain to hold any political principles that I could not avow in the same terms in Kentucky that I declared in Illinois, in Charleston as well as in Chicago, in New Orleans as well as in New York. So long as we live under a Constitution common to all the States, our political faith ought to be as broad, as liberal, and just as that Constitution itself, and should be proclaimed alike in every portion of the Union. But it is apparent that our opponents find it necessary, for partisan effect, to change their colors in different counties in order to catch the popular breeze, and hope with these discordant materials combined together to secure a majority in the Legis- lature for the purpose of putting down the Democratic party. This combination did succeed in 1854 so far as to elect a majority of their confederates to the Legislature, and the first important act which they performed was to elect a Senator in the place of the eminent and gallant Senator Shields. His term expired in 172 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN the United States Senate at that time, and he had to be crushed by the Abolition coalition for the simple reason that he would not join in their conspiracy to wage war against one-half of the Union. That was the only objection to General Shields. He had served the people of the State with ability in the Legislature, he had served j^ou with fidelity and ability as Auditor, he had performed his duties to the satisfaction of the whole country at the head of the Land Department at Washington, he had covered the State and the Union with immortal glory on the bloody fields of Mexico in defence of the honor of our flag, and yet he had to be stricken down by this unholy combination. And for what cause? Merely because he would not join a combination of one half of the States to make war upon the other half, after having poured out his heart's blood for all the States in the Union. Trum- bull was put in his place by Abolitionism. How did Trumbull get there? Before the Abolitionists would consent to go into an election for United States Senator they required all the members of this new combination to show their hands upon this question of Abolitionism. Lovejoy, one of their high-priests, brought in resolutions defining the Abolition creed, and required them to commit themselves on it by their votes, — yea or nay. In that creed, as laid down by Lovejoy, they declared, first, that the Wilmot Proviso must be put on all the Territories of the United States, north as well as south of 36 deg. 30 min., and that no more territory should ever be acquired unless slavery was at first prohibited therein ; second, that no more States should ever be received into the Union unless slavery was first prohibited, by Constitutional provision, in such States; third, that the Fugitive Slave law must be immediately repealed, or, failing in that, then such amendments were to be made to it as would render it useless and inefficient for the objects for which it was passed, etc. The next day after these resolutions were offered they were voted upon, part of them carried, and the others defeated, the same men who voted for them, with only two exceptions, voting soon after for Abraham Lincoln as their candidate for the United States Senate. He came within one or two votes of being elected, but he could not quite get the number required, for the simple reason that his friend Trumbull, who was a party to the bargain by which Lincoln was to take Shields's place, controlled a few Abolitionized Democrats in the Legislature, and would not allow them all to vote for him, thus wronging Lincoln by per- mitting him on each ballot to be almost elected, but not quite, until he forced them to drop Lincoln and elect him (Trumbull), in order to unite the party. Thus you find that although the Legislature was carried that year by the bargain between Trumbull, Lincoln, and the Abolitionists, and the union of these discordant elements in one harmonious party, yet Trumbull AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 173 violated his pledge, and played a Yankee trick on Lincoln when they came to divide the spoils. Perhaps you would like a little evidence on this point. If you would, I will call Colonel James H. Matheny, of Springfield, to the stand, Mr. Lincoln's especial confidential friend for the last twenty years, and see what he will say upon the subject of this bargain. Matheny is now the Black Republican, or Abolition, candidate for Congress in the Spring- field District against the gallant Colonel Harris, and is making speeches all over that part of the State against me and in favor of Lincoln, in concert with Trumbull. He ought to be a good witness, and I will read an extract from a speech which he made in 1856, when he was mad because his friend Lincoln had been cheated. It is one of numerous speeches of the same tenor that were made about that time, exposing this bargain between Lin- coln, Trumbull, and the Abolitionists. Matheny then said : — " The Whigs, Abolitionists, Know-Nothings, and renegade Democrats made a solemn compact for the purpose of carrying this State against the Democracy, on this plan : 1st. That they would all combine and elect Mr, Trumbull to Congress, and thereby carry his district for the Legislature, in order to throw all the strength that could be obtained into that body against the Democrats. 2d. That when the Legislature should meet, the officers of that body, such as Speaker, clerks, door-keepers, etc., would be given to the Abolition- ists ; and 8d. That the Whigs were to have the United States Senator. That, accordingly, in good faith, Trumbull was elected to Congress, and his district carried for the Legislature, and, when it convened, the Abolitionists got all the officers of that body ; and, thus far, the 'bond' was fairly executed. The Whigs, on their part, demanded the election of Abraham Lincoln to the United States Senate, that the bond might be fulfilled, the other parties to the contract having already secured to themselves all that was called for. But, in the most perfidious manner, they refused to elect Mr. Lincoln, and the mean, low-lived, sneaking Trumbull succeeded, by pledging all that was required by any party, in thrusting Lincoln aside, and foisting himself, an excrescence from the rotten bowels of the Democracy, into the United States Senate: and thus it has ever been, that an honest man makes a bad bargain when he conspires or contracts with rogues." Matheny thought that his friend Lincoln made a bad bargain when he conspired and contracted with such rogues as Trumbull and his Abolition associates in that campaign. Lincoln was shoved off the track, and he and his friends all at once began to mope, became sour and mad, and disposed to tell, but dare not ; and thus they stood for a long time, until the Abolitionists coaxed and flattered him back by their assurances that he should certainly be a senator in Douglas's place. In that way the Abolitionists have been enabled to hold Lincoln to the alliance up to this time, and now they have brought him into a fight 174 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN against me, and he is to see if he is again to be cheated by them» Lincoln, this time, though, required more of them than a promise, and holds their bond, if not security, that Lovejoy shall not cheat him as Trumbull did. When the Republican Convention assembled at Springfield, in June last, for the purpose of nominating State officers only,, the Abolitionists could not get Lincoln and his friends into it until they would pledge themselves that Lincoln should be their candidate for the Senate ; and you will find, in proof of this, that that Convention passed a resolution unanimously declaring that Abraham Lincoln was the "first, last, and only choice" of the Republicans for United States Senator. He was not willing to have it understood that he was merely their first choice, or their last choice, but their only choice. The Black Republican party had nobody else. Browning was nowhere ; Governor Bissell was of no account ; Archie Williams was not to be taken into consider- ation ; John Wentworth was not worth mentioning ;JohnM. Palmer was degraded ; and their party presented the extraordinary spectacle of having but one, — the first, the last, and only choice for the Senate. Suppose that Lincoln should die, what a horrible condition the Republican party would be in ! They would have nobody left. They have no other choice, and it was necessary for them to put themselves before the world in this ludicrous, ridiculous attitude of having no other choice, in order to quiet Lincoln's suspicions, and assure him that he was not to be cheated by Lovejoy, and the trickery by which Trumbull outgeneraled him. Well, gentlemen, I think they will have a nice time of it before they get through. I do not intend to give them any chance to cheat Lincoln at all this time. I intend to relieve him of all anxiety upon that subject, and spare them the mortification of more exposures of contracts violated, and the pledged honor of rogues forfeited. But I wish to invite your attention to the chief points at issue between Mr. Lincoln and myself in this discussion. Mr. Lin- coln, knowing that he was to be candidate of his party, on account of the arrangement of which I have already spoken, knowing that he was to receive the nomination of the Conven- tion for the United States Senate, had his speech, accepting that nomination, all written and committed to memory, ready to be delivered the moment the nomination was announced. Accord- ingly, when it was made, he was in readiness, and delivered his speech, a portion of which I will read in order that I may state his political principles fairly, by repeating them in his own language : "We are now far into the fifth year since a policy was instituted for the avowed object, and with the confident promise, of putting an end to slavery agitation ; under the operation of that policy, that agitation AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 175 has not only not ceased, but has constantly augmented. I believe 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 Union to be dissolved, I do not expect the house to fall ; but I do expect it w^ill cease to be divided. It vv^ill become all one thing or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the 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 for- ward until it shall become alike lawful in all the States, North as well as South." There you have Mr. Lincoln's first and main proposition, upon which he bases his claims, stated in his own language. He tells 3'ou that this Republic cannot endure permanently divided into Slave and Free States, as our fathers made it. He says that they must all become free or all become slave, that they must all be one thing or all be the other, or this government can- not last. Why can it not last, if we will execute the government in the same spirit and upon the same principles upon which it is founded? Lincoln, by his proposition, says to the South: "If you desire to maintain your institutions as they are now, you must not be satisfied with minding your own business, but you must invade Illinois and all the other Northern States, establish slavery in them, and make it universal ;" and in the same lan- guage he says to the North : " You must not be content with regulating your own affairs and minding your own business, but if you desire to maintain your freedom, you must invade the Southern States, abolish slavery there and everywhere, in order to have the States all one thing or all the other." I say that this is the inevitable and irresistible result of Mr. Lincoln's argument, inviting a warfare between the North and the South, to be car- ried on with ruthless vengeance until the one section or the other shall be driven to the wall, and become the victim of the rapacity of the other. What good would follow such a system of warfare ? Suppose the North should succeed in conquering the South, how much would she be the gainer? or suppose the South should conquer the North, could the Union be preserved in that way? Is this sectional warfare to be waged between the Northern States and Southern States until they all shall become uniform in their local and domestic institutions, merely because Mr. Lincoln says that a house divided against itself cannot stand, and pre- tends that this scriptural quotation, this language of our Lord and Master, is applicable to the American Union and the American Constitution? Washington and his compeers, in the Convention that framed the Constitution, made this government divided into Free and Slave States. It was composed then of thirteen sover- eign and independent States, each having sovereign authority over its local and domestic institutions, and all bound together 176 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN by the Federal Constitution. Mr. Lincoln likens that bond of the Federal Constitution, joining Free and Slave States together, to a house divided against itself, and says that it is contrary to the law of God, and cannot stand. When did he learn, and by what authority does he proclaim, that this Government is con- trary to the law of God and cannot stand? It has stood thus divided into Free and Slave States from its organization up to this day. During that period we have increased from four mil- lions to thirty millions of people ; we have extended our territory from the Mississippi to the Pacific Ocean ; we have acquired the Floridas and Texas, and other territory sufficient to double our geographical extent ; we have increased in population, in wealth, and in power beyond any example on earth ; we have risen from a weak and feeble power to become the terror and admiration of the civilized world ; and all this has been done under a Constitu- tion which Mr. Lincoln, in substance, says is in violation of the law of God, and under a Union divided into Free and Slave States, which Mr. Lincoln thinks, because of such division, can- not stand. Surely Mr. Lincoln is a wiser man than those who framed the Government. Washington did not believe, nor did his compatriots, that the local laws and domestic institutions that were well adapted to the Green Mountains of Vermont were suited to the rice plantations of South Carolina ; they did not believe at that day that in a Republic so broad and expanded as this, containing such a variety of climate, soil, and interest, that uniformity in the local laws and domestic institutions was either desirable or possible. They believed then, as our experience has proved to us now, that each locality, having different inter- ests, a different climate, and different surroundings, required dif- ferent local laws, local policy, and local institutions, adapted to the wants of that locality. Thus our government was formed on the principle of diversity in the local institutions and laws, and not on that of uniformity. As my time flies, I can only glance at these points, and not present them as fully as I would wish, because I desire to bring all the points in controversy between the two parties before you, in order to have Mr. Lincoln's reply. He makes war on the decision of the Supreme Court, in the case known as the Dred Scott case. I wish to say to you, fellow-citizens, that I have no war to make on that decision, or any other ever rendered by the Supreme Court. I am content to take that decision as it stands delivered by the highest judicial tribunal on earth, — a tribunal established by the Constitution of the United States for that pur- pose ; and hence that decision becomes the law of the land, bind- ing on you, on me, and on every other good citizen, whether we like it or not. Hence I do not choose to go into an argument to prove, before this audience, whether or not Chief Justice Taney understood the law better than Abraham Lincoln. AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 177 Mr. Lincoln objects to that decision, first and mainly because it deprives the negro of the rights of citizenship. I am as mvich opposed to his reason for that objection as I am to the objection itself. I hold that a negro is not and never ought to be a citizen of the United States. I hold that this government was made on the white basis, by white men, for the benefit of white men and their posterity forever, and should be administered by white men and none others. I do not believe that the Almighty made the negro capable of self-government. I am aware that all the Abo- lition lecturers that you find traveling about through the coun- try are in the habit of reading the Declaration of Independence to prove that all men were created equal, and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Mr. Lincoln is very much in the habit of following in the track of Lovejoy in this particular, by reading that part of the Declaration of Independence to prove that the negro was endowed by the Almighty with the inalienable right of equality with white men. Now, I say to you, my fellow- citizens, that in my opinion the signers of the Declaration had no reference to the negro whatever when they declared all men to be created equal. They desired to express by that phrase white men, men of European birth and European descent, and had no reference either to the negro, the savage Indians, the Fejee, the Malay, or any other inferior and degraded race, when they spoke of the equality of men. One great evidence that such was their understanding is to be found in the fact that at that time every one of the thirteen colonies was a slaveholding colony, every signer of the Declaration represented a slaveholding constituency, and we know that not one of them emancipated his slaves, much less ofTered citizenship to them, when they signed the Declara- tion ; and yet, if they intended to declare that the negro was the equal of the white man, and entitled by divine right to an equal- ity with him, they were bound, as honest men, that day and hour to have put their negroes on an equality with themselves. Instead of doing so, with uplifted eyes to Heaven they implored the divine blessing upon them, during the seven years' bloody war they had to fight to maintain that Declaration, never dreaming that they were violating divine law by still holding the negroes in bondage and depriving them of equality. My friends, I am in favor of preserving this government as our fathers made it. It does not follow by any means that because a negro is not your equal or mine, that hence he must necessarily be a slave. On the contrary, it does follow that we ought to ex- tend to the negro every right, every privilege, every immunity, which he is capable of enjoying, consistent with the good of soci- ety. When you ask me what these rights are, what their nature and extent is, I tell you that that is a question which each State 24 178 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN of this Union must decide for itself. Illinois has alread}' decided the question. We have decided that the negro must not be a slave within our limits ; but we have also decided that the negro shall not be citizen within our limits ; that he shall not vote, hold office, or exercise any political rights. I maintain that Illinois, as a sovereign State, has a right thus to fix her policy with refer- ence to the relation between the white man and the negro ; but while we had that right to decide the question for ourselves, we must recognize the same right in Kentucky and in every other State to make the same decision, or a different one. Having de- cided our own policy with reference to the black race, we must leave Kentucky and Missouri and every other State perfectly free to make just such a decision as they see proper on that ques- tion. Kentucky has decided that question for herself. She has said that within her limits a negro shall not exercise any political rights, and she has also said that a portion of the negroes under the laws of that State shall be slaves. She had as much right to adopt that as her policy as we had to adopt the contrary for our policy. New York has decided that in that State a negro may vote if he has $250 worth of property, and if he owns that much he may vote upon an equality with the white man. I, for one, am utterly opposed to negro suffrage anywhere and under any circumstances ; yet, inasmuch as the Supreme Court have decided in the celebrated Dred Scott case that a State has a right to confer the privilege of voting upon free negroes, I am not going to make war upon New York be- cause she has adopted a policy repugnant to my feelings. But New York must mind her own business, and keep her negro suf- frage to herself, and not attempt to force it upon us. In the State of Maine they have decided that a negro may vote and hold office on an equality with a white man. I had oc- casion to say to the senators from Maine, in a discussion, last ses- sion, that if they thought that the white people within the limits of their State were no better than negroes, I would not quarrel with them for it, but they must not say that my white constituents of Illinois were no better than negroes, or we would be sure to quarrel. The Dred Scott decision covers the whole question, and de- clares that each State has the right to settle this question of suf- frage for itself, and all questions as to the relations between the white man and the negro. Judge Taney expressly la3^s down the doctrine. I receive it as law, and I say that while those States are adopting regulations on that subject disgusting and ab- horrent, according to my views, I will not make war on them if they will mind their own business and let us alone. I now come back to the question. Why cannot this Union exist forever, divided into Free and Slave States, as our fathers AND STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 179 made it? It can thus exist if each State will carry out the prin- ciples upon which our institutions were founded ; to wit, the right of each State to do as it pleases, without meddling with its neigh- bors. Just act upon that great principle, and this Union will not only live forever, but it will extend and expand until it covers the whole continent, and makes this confederacy one grand, ocean-bound Republic. We must bear in mind that we are yet a young nation, growing with a rapidity unequaled in the history of the world, that our national increase is great, and that the emi- gration from the Old World is increasing, requiring us to expand and acquire new territory from time to time, in order to give our people land to live upon. If we live upon the principle of State rights and State sovereignty, each State regulating its own affairs and minding its own business, we can go on and extend indefi- nitely, just as fast and as far as we need the territory. The time may come, indeed has now come, when our interests would be advanced by the acquisition of the Island of Cuba. When we get Cuba we must take it as we find it, leaving the people to de- cide the question of slavery for themselves, without interference on the part of the Federal Government or of any State of this Union. So, when it becomes necessary to acquire any portion of Mexico or Canada, or of this continent or the adjoining islands, we must take them as we find them, leaving the people free to do as they please, — to have slavery or not, as they choose. I never have inquired and never will inquire whether a new State, apply- ing for admission, has slavery or not for one of her institutions. If the Constitution that is presented be the act and deed of the people, and embodies their will, and they have the requisite popu- lation, I will admit them, with slavery or without it, just as that people shall determine. My objection to the Lecompton Consti- tution did not consist in the fact that it made Kansas a Slave State. I would have been as much opposed to its admission under such a Constitution as a Free State as I was opposed to its admission under it as a Slave State. I hold that that was a ques- tion which that people had a right to decide for themselves, and that no power on earth ought to have interfered with that deci- sion. In my opinion, the Lecompton Constitution was not the act and deed of the people of Kansas, and did not embody their will ; and the recent election in that Territory, at which it was voted down by nearly ten to one, shows conclusively that I was right in saying, when the Constitution was presented, that it was not the act and deed of the people, and did not embody their will. If we wish to preserve our institutions in their purity, and transmit them unimpaired to our latest posterity, we must preserve with religious good faith that great principle of self-government which guarantees to each and every State, old and new, the right to make just such constitutions as they desire, and come 180 DEBATES BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN into the Union with their own constitution, and not one palmed upon them. Whenever you sanction the doctrine that Congress may crowd a constitution down the throats of an unwilling people, against their consent, you will subvert the great funda- mental principle upon which all our free institutions rest. In the future I have no fear that the attempt will ever be made. President Buchanan declared in his annual message that hereafter the rule adopted in the Minnesota case, requiring a constitution to be sub- mitted to the people, should be followed in all future cases ; and if he stands by that recommendation, there will be no division in the Democratic party on that principle in the future. Hence, the great mission of the Democracy is to unite the fraternal feel- ing of the whole country, restore peace and quiet, by teaching each State to mind its own business, and regulate its own domestic affairs, and all to unite in carrying out the Constitution as our fathers made it, and thus to preserve the Union and render it perpetual in all time to come. Why should we not act as our fathers who made the ■ Kelly, 189. "'^ ' Kentucky, slavery in, 1,3, 18, 37, 44, 46, 75, 79, 109-110, 124,178, 266, 268, 319, a37, 406; and Kansas, ,38; and Abolitionists, 45, 68 69, 89, 203, ,308; rights of negro in, 57, 76-77, 264; tobacco regions of, 70; and the Democrats, 167, 171, 261; and the Republicans, 262, 285, 293-294, ,307; and Clav, .322, .342; and Douglas, 388-400; and'ordinance of '87, 401-402. Keystone Club, .315. Know-nnthing party, 95, 173, 2,32. Knox Co., Ills., 2.57, 284. Land Department, 172. Lanphier, Chas. IL, 149, 275-277,285-286, 302, 323. La Salle Co., Ills., 189. " La Salle Democrat," the, 188. Lawrence, 1-57. Lecompton Constitution, 3-45, 60-65, 84- 88, 123-124, 142, 164-166, 179, 239, 249, 257-261, 275, a30-.3.33, 345. Lecompton men, 2C0. Lee, R. H., 55. Liberia, 9, 113. Lincoln, A., first speech at Springfield, 1-7; speech at Chicago, 20-35; second speech at Springfield, 81-96; corres- pondence with Douglas, 97-100; speech at Ottawa, 111-126; speech at Freeport, 1.33-142, rejoinder, 161-167; speech at Jonesboro, 180-198; speech at Charles- INDEX. 413 ton, 207-218, rejoinder, 238-244; speech at Galesburgh, 268-283; speech at Quincy, 290-300; rejoinder, 318-324; speech at Alton, 338-356; speech at Columbus, 363-386 ; speech at Cincin- nati, 386-407. Liquor laws, 28. Little, 157. Lockwood, Judge, 16. Louisiana, 70, 101, 117, 147, 167, 184, 261, 349 391. Lovejoy> Parson, 103-112, 148-156, 170- 177, 197-203, 231-236, 262, 287-326. Lovejoy district, 294. Lyman, 157. McDoNELL, Chas., 189. McDonough Co., Ills., 197. McHenry Co., Ills., 189. McLean Co., Ills., 5, 36, 59,'295. Mace, 5. Macomb, Ills., 197. Madison, James, 107-117, ;222-223, 237, 252 399. Maine, 14^ 17, 28, 56, 70, 76, 110-117, 178, 266, 349. Maine liquor law, 13, 15, 70, 266, 312, 362. Malay, 177. Marshall, Judge, 16, 72. Marshall Co., Ills., 197. Maryland, 407. Mafon and Dixon's line, 262. Mas. -^usetts, 101, 167, 241, 261-262, 358. Matheny, Jas. H., 102, 106, 173, 182, 201-202, 232-240. Matteson, Joel, 189. Mattoon, Ills., 243. Mayo, Z. B., 189-190. Memphis, Tenn., 390-393. Methodist Church, 350. Mexican army, 358. Mexican laws, 272. Mexican war, men engaged in, 80; opposed by Lincoln, 105, 115, 148, 228, 241, 286, 357-358; territory acquired by, 185, 239, 282. Mexicans, 358. Mexico, 18, 53, 172, 179, 20L Michigan, 122, 395, 402. Mining, 70. Minnesota, .39, 48, 63,J0, 193, 246, 316. Minnesota case, 180. Mississippi river, 48, 59, 147, 176, 307. Missouri, U. S. Circuit Court of, 2; and slavery, 6, 51, 108, 155, 300, 308-309, 337, 344, 363; and state sovereignty, 38, 178, 317, 330, 353; and Lincoln, 69; and Kansas, 74; Constitution, 132; French settlements in, 402-403. Missouri Compromise, origin and extent, 48, 132, 183, 239; referred to by Doug- las, 49, 314; and Kansas, 51, 75; repeal of, 90, 112, 170, 184-185, 196, .338 ; and Clay, 95; referred to by Lincoln, 349, 396. Missouri courts, 303. Missouri line, 48, 104, 134. "Missouri Republican," 197, 245. Missouri restriction, 92. Molony, R. S., 188, 189, 202. Monroe Co., Ills., 234, 235, 252, 264, 269. Naper, Capt., 189. Naperville, Ills., 189. Napoleon, 83, 88. National Bank, 30, 93, 125, 280, 289, 320. "National Democracy," 185, 228, 249, 269, 275. Nebraska, organization, 11, 65, 102; poli- ticians, 94; and slavery, 103, 112-114, 151, 200, 212, 394; constitution, 329; and Kansas-Nebraska bill, 334. Negro citizenship, 54, 75-79, 108, 219, 231-238, 262, 338.339. Negro democracy, 407. Negro equality, Douglas opposed to, 78-79, 108, 128, 2.31, 306-307, 322; Lin- coln's doctrine, 221, 263, 284, 293, 326, 339-340, 364-365. Negro regulations, 76. Negro sufTrage, 364-366. Negro voting, 76. Nelson, Judge, 6, 295. New England, 14, 70. New Hampshire, 14, 46, 70, 107, 328. New Jersey, 46. 328. New Mexico, 147, 191, 272-273, 304, 314- 315 329. New Mexico bill, 273. New Orleans, 171. New York, and slavery, 14, 38, 46, 109, 110, 171, .328; negro franchise of, 17-18, 57, 76, 178, 266; Douglas's stay in, 83, 88; and Abolitionists, 169; 398. "New York Tribune," .39, 65. Niagara river, 69, 1.57. North, the, .316, .3.34, 363, 385-399. North-West territory, 402. Northern Abolitionists, 168, 229. Norton, 149, 276, 323-324. Nullification, 105, a34, 349, 360. Ohio, 110, 120, 139, 260-262, 307, 332, .3&3, .385-402. Ohio river, 45, 69, 89, 101, 118, 157, 272, .391-401. "Ohio statesman," 364. Ordinance of 1787, 75, 92, 188, 383, 395-40.3. Oregon,' 143-144, 147, 304. Orr, Jas. L., 267, 312, .3.36. Ottawa, Ills., joint debate at, 98, 100-101, 145-150, 189, 191-197, 199, 238, 242, 275, 277, 286-287, 293-297, ,304, 307, 322-328, 364; resolutions at, 183, 285. "Ottawa Free-Trader," .364. Oyster laws, 28, 348-349, .360. 414 INDEX. Pacific ocean, 14, 59, 147, 176. Palmer, John M., 174, 233. Peck, J. J., 233. Pendleton, W. N., 260. Pennsylvania, 14, 46, 2G0, 328, 332, 398. Peoria, Ills., 112. Peru, Ills., 188. Pettit, 341. Philadelphia, 290, 359. Phillips, Wendell, 306. Phoenix. John, 164. Pierce, Franklin, 130-131, 159-160, 187, 223-230, 252, 303. Pinckney, 157. Pine lumber laws, 349. Piatt, P. W., 189. Polk, J. K., 222. "Popular sovereignty," referred to by Lincoln, 22-25, 84-88, 95, 116, 120, 321, 381-385, 393, 394, 401-404; referred to by Douglas, 40, 51-52, 59, 63, 74, 101, 110, 220, 251, 258. Portuguese, 96. Potomac river, 146, 153, 288. Poughkeepsie, N. Y., 231. Presbyterian general assembly, 350. Princeton, Ills., 189. Pryor, Roger A., 398. Qlincy, Ills., 98, 100, 290, 338, 354. Railroad system, 363. Randolph Co., Ills., 235. Reddick, Wm., 189. Renwick, Geo., 189. "Republican, the," 92. Republican abolition candidates, 332. Republican caucus, 16. Republican congressional convention, 301. Republican Congressional district, 301. Republican convention, at Springfield, 13, 150, 276, 286-287. Republican county convention, 302. Republican institutions, 283. Republican judges, 50, 73. Republican legislature, 81-82, 154. Republican national convention, 290-291. Republican partv, and slavery, 9, 32, 68, 74, 109-110, 129, 150, 190, 228, 231, 287, 298-299, 328, 352, 367-368, 382, 399-400; and Federal office-holders, 19-20,261; and Democratic alliance, 21-22, .36, 42-43; and State constitution, 24; and Lecompton constitution, 25, 39, 85-87, 166-167, 249-251, 258, 261; and Critten- den-Montgomery bill, 40, 65-66; and Lecompton men, 41; and Kansas- Nebraska hill, 51; and Dred Scott decision, 72; organization of, 102, 127, 149, 152, 168; platform of, 103-104, 128, 132, 150, 154, 162, 186, 286, 290-302; and nomination of Lincoln, 106, 174, 233; and N. W. Compromise, 170 ; principles, 262-269; sectional, 271-275,307-308; and Supreme court, 311, 320; Ohio, 386. Republican politicians, 58. Republican State Convention, 1, 13, 43, 71, 103, 106, 111, 127-128, 1.37, 149-150, 174, 186, 235, 271, 275, 286-291, 302, 308, 325. Revolution, the, 265, 402. Reynolds, Gov., 170, 185, 231-234. Rhode Island, 46, 328. " Richmond Inquirer, the," 398. Rockford, 151, 286, 301-302. Rockford Convention, 150. Roger, 5, 118, 130. Russia, 46, 271, 285. Russians, the, 19-21. St. Genevieve, 402. St. Louis, 353. Salem, 105. Sangamon Co., 60, 94, 105, 235, 263, 305. Sargent, 157. Scandinavian, 34. Scott, Gen., 183, 230. Sebastopol, 19, 21. Seward, W. H., 72-73, 146, 230, 254, 360, 368, 387, 398. Sherman, F. C, 189. Shields, Gen., 102-111, 154, 169-172, 2.30- 232. .Silliman letter, 3. Singleton, Gen., 359. Slave Code, 205, 312-313, 367. Slave Code, Congressional, see C. Slave States, opposed to Free States, 14, 44-45, 58, 111, 117-118, 132, 169, 300, 319,348,387-388; and Kansas, 38,123, 179, 205, 249-251, 258-259, 3;30-.3.32; and Kansas-Nebraska bill, 40, 147, 316; existence since 1789, 43, 78, 107, 158, 267-268,325-328,360-361; and Lecomp- ton constitution, 61-62; and Republi- cans, 66, 101, 261-262, 271-273, 285, 301-308, 317; abolition in, 67-72, 89-91, 159, 175-178, 2.37, 353, 362; new, 103-104, 128, 1.31-135, 151-163, 170, 187-188, 191, 199-203, 236, 287, 329, 351 ; population of, 143-144; and emancipa- tion, 344; and the Bible, 392; and Illinois, 403; and Douglas, 406-407. Smith, Enos W., 189. Smith, [udge, 16. Smith, Sain., 312. South, the, 9, 316, 334, .362-3a3, 384, 398. South America, 18, 53, 80, 282. South Carolina, rice plantations of, 14, 70, 107, 176, 327; and abolitionists, 45-46; and Illinois, 77. Southern disunionists, 168, 229. Spanish-American states, 18. Spanish colonies, 53. Springfield, Ills., 231, 235, 267; Lincoln's speeches at, 1, 26, 81, 106, 115-119, 184-185, 237, 303, 322-327, 3,38-348; Republican convention at, 43, 103, 111, 127-129, 1;17, 148-152, 158, 163, 174, 183, 264, 271-276, 285-295, 301-308, ,324-325; Douglas's speech at, 60, 118, 1-30, 196; INDEX. 415 Democratic state central committee at, 97; Lincoln's letters from, 98-100; Legislature at, 232. Springfield, Mass., 227. Springfield district, 149, 201. "Springfield lournal, the," 100. "Springfield Register, the," 100, 241. Squatter sovereignty, 1, 22-23, 321, 385. State Constitutions, 366. State Legislatures, 15, 46, 68, 70, 91, 208. State rights, 59, 179. State sovereignty, 15, 46, 68-71, 165, 179, 327. Stephen, Alex. H., 5, 118, 130, 312, 3.36, 384. Stephenson Co., Ills., 2.35. Strode, J. M., 189. Stuart, 122. Sumner, Chas., 91, 181. Swan, 157. Sweet, Martin P., 187-188. Taney, Judge, and Dred Scott case, 5, 119, 176-178, 206, 266, 289, 311, 335, 342, 362; referred to by Douglas, 16, 73-74; and the charge of conspiracy, 66, 131, 303. Taylor, Zachary, 223, 359. Tazewell county. 111, 127-128, 150, 263- 264, 269. Tazewell Court, 287. Tennessee, 312, 390. Tennesseeans, 264, 293. Territorial bills, 314. Territorial legislature, 253, 314. Territorial slave code, 385, 406. Texas, 176, 187-188, 201, 273, 329. Texas, annexation of, 185, 239, 349. Texas boundary, 273, 314. Tobacco, 70. Toombs, Robt., 146, 164-165, 214-216, 244-253, 288. Toombs bill, 210-225, 242, 247-2.54. Topeka constitution, 255. Tories, 362. Trumbull, Senator, 2, 25, 87, 102-112, 1.37-154, 169-277, 290-297, 324. Turks, 19, 21. Turner, T. J., 153-157. Union, Ills., 170. Union Democrats, 168, 229, 360, Union men, 229. Union Whigs, 168, 229. Unitarian Church, .350. U. S. Constitution, see Constitution of U. S. United States Supreme Court, and Illi- nois, 6; decision opposed by Lincoln, 15-18, 46, 50, 55, 124, 160, 176-178, 192, 196, 205-206, 226-227, 237-238, 278, 288, 312, .320-326, 3.35, .3.38, 355, 366, 380-381, 396-397; and National Bank, 30, 92-94, 125, 280; appeal from, 49, 72, 289, 310; Douglas's suppositions, 73; Lincoln's charge of conspiracy, 131, 141, 1.59, 303; future decisions on slavery, 124, 144-146, 193, 294-295, and U. S. consti- tution, 279, 311. Utah,272, 273, 314, 315. Van Buren, M., 252. Vermont, 117, 176, 191, 203-204, 327. Virginia, purchase of slaves in, 7 ; slavery in, 13, 44, 46, 109-110, 264, 293-294; 398, 402 ; negroes' rights in, 18, 91, 266 ; oyster laws of, 28, 348-349; and aboli- tionists, 69, 308, 319, .343; tobacco regions of, 70. Virginia Supreme Court, 91. Voss, A., 189. Wabash, Ind., 203. Wade, B. F., 363. Warren Co., Ills., 287. Washburne, E. B., 150-153, 20a,'236. Washington, D. C, 66, 83, 162, 172, 202, 226-227, 297, 398. Washington, George, 107-117, 175-176, 222-223, 237, 252, 269, 399. Washington's army, 180. Washington Territory, 201. "Washington Union, the," 122-124, 142, 146, 1.59-166, 288, 313-319, 334. Waterloo, Ills., 171, 185, 235. Waukegan, Ills., 235. Webster, Daniel, 58-64, 95-101, 152-153, 167-168, 228-230, 313, 316. Wendell, Cornelius, 160. Wentworth, John, 106, 153, 170, 174, 202, 2.33. West India Islands, 53, 80. Whig caucus, 359. Whig national convention, 153, 168, 183, 230, 859. Whig Presidents, 222-223. Whigs, and Crittenden-Montgomery bill, 9 ; and slaverv, 11, 27 ; and Compromise Measures of 1850, 58, 101-102, 228-230, .30.5, 329, 3.34; and Wilmot proviso, 64; and Douglas, 95, 167-168, 183, 261; abolitionized, 103-106, 112, 115, 152-154, 169, 173, 202, 231, 2.34, 262, 297; and Trumbull, 2.33, 240; Union, 360. Wilcox, Elijah, 189. Will Co., Ills., 189. Williams, Archie, 106, 174, 2.33. Williams, E. B., 189. Wilmot proviso, 10, 64, 105-106, 148-156. 169-172, 253, ,359. Wilson, C. L., 20, 146. Winchester, Ills., 105. Winnebago Co., Ills., 189. Wisconsin, 395, 402. Wise, II. A.,. 398.399. Wogley, ,320, Yates, 128, 276. A FB <> "? ^^-n^ «> .^^ &'\. '^ ^^ > ^°-^. ^^- -- ..^i- v^' •»^° ""-*' V^^ ^^^r ^^-n^. ^^ ,^ V^^'/ \^^'^^\^^^' V^^s^'/ O * o