973.7L63 N1854p 1952 cop . 2 Lincoln, Abraham Abraham Lincoln's Speech at Peoria, Illinois, October 16, 1854 l MVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY MEMORIAL the Class of 1901 founded by HARLAN HOY! HORNER III \RII I I \ CALHOl N HORNER ABRAHAM LINCOLN DELIVERING HIS FAMOUS SPEECH IN PEORIA, ILLINOIS ON THE NIGHT OF OCTOBER 16, 1854 Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2012 with funding from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign http://archive.org/details/abrahamlincolnsOlinc OCTOBER SIXTEENTH, EIGHTEEN HUN- DRED FIFTY-FOUR WAS A MEMORABLE DAY IN PEORIA. ..NONE APPRECIATED IT THEN. ..AND FEW APPRECIATE IT NOW. ..NINETY-EIGHT YEARS AFTER One night on the Court House steps in Peoria, at the request of twenty citizens of the town, Lincoln delivered a speech, which many partisans claim to be the real beginning of Lincoln the statesman; claim it to be the foundation and structure of every argument he ever brought forth. This speech was reported and is preserved. It was a reply to Douglas, that meteor in the American sky, who flashed from a country school teacher up through positions of hon- or to United States Senator and on, to be candidate for president, all at swifter pace and in lesser years of age than any other American. And all was done by and with adroit catering to the slave power, the very element Lincoln opposed. To please the South, Douglas had procured the repeal of the Missouri Compromise under the specious plea that it was proper for each new state to decide for itself whether it should be slave or free. Lincoln proclaimed at Peoria that such a repeal was in fact a repeal of the Declaration of Independence; that the Missouri Com- promise must be restored; that slavery must not be admitted into Ne- braska; that "all the governed must be allowed an equal voice in the government." These words were really the doctrine of the Mayflower and were the very steps Lincoln trod upward. It becomes more and more apparent to the student of the life of Abraham Lincoln that his address at Peoria on October 16, 1854 was the turning point in bis career and that it is deserving of special study. ^ Abraham Lincoln was born on Rock Spring Farm, in Hardin County, Kentucky, on February 12, 1809. The log cabin in which he was born is Still preserved surrounded by a beautiful Memorial building. Ascending the steps the visitor reaches the entrance over which is carved in marble an extract from, the speech delivered in Peoria, Illinois. October 16th, 1854. In the following paragraph of Lincoln's address in Peoria on Octo- ber 16, 1854, appeared the memorable words which are carved in stone at the entrance to the Lincoln Memorial Building: Some men. mostly Whigs, who condemn the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, nevertheless hesitate to go for its restoration, lest they be thrown in company with the abolitionists. Will they allow me, as an old II ig, to tell them, goodhumoredly, that I think this is very silly? STASD WITH ASYBODY THAT STASDS RIGHT. STASD WITH HIM WHILE HE IS RIGHT, AND PART WITH HIM II HEN HE GOES II ROSG. Stand with the abolitionist in restoring the Missouri Compro- mise, and stand against him when he attempts to repeal the Fugitive Slaie In the latter case you stand with the Southern disunionist. What of that? You are still right. In both cases you are right. In both cases you oppose the dangerous extremes. In both you stand on middle ground hold the ship level and steady. In both you are national, and nothing less than national. This is the good old Whig ground. To desert such ground because of any company is to be less tha'.- a H 'h'tg — less than a man — less than an American.'' "stand with anybody that stands right. STAND WITH HIM WHILE HE_ IS RIGHT. AND PArVr WITH HIM WHEN HE GOES WRONC. PtOKIAJLL. OCT. 16. IBS*. 1 Entrance of the beautiful Memorial Building in Hodgen- ville, Kentucky . . . which preserves the log cabin in which Abraham Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809. "Lincoln was a great man of all time, for all parties, for all lands, and for all races of men. His motto was: (as he said in his Peoria speech) "Stand with anybody that stands right, stand with him while he is right, and part with him when he goes wrong." Those were his own words. No pure parti- san would ever assent to so discriminating and disintegrating a proposition." . . . DAVID LLOYD GEORGE The Lincoln Memorial . . . Hodgenville, Kentucky "But the greatest gift of the orator, Lincoln did possess; the personality behind the words was felt, Beyond and above all skill, says the editor ol a great paper who heard him in Peoria, was the overwhelming conviction imposed upon the audience that the speaker himself was charged with an irresistible and inspiring duty to his fellow men.' It seems as it Lincoln deliberately used up his rhetorical effects at the outset to put his audience in the temper m which they would earnestly follow him and to challenge theii lull attention to reasoning which was to satisfj theii calmer judgment." 1 ORD ( HAKN'W (K)D JUDGE STEPHEN O. DOUGLAS IN PEORIA, OCTOBER 16, 1854 In the former edition of "Lincoln in Peoria" regret was expressed that ive had been unable to find anywhere an account of the speech made by fudge Douglas upon that occasion. Since then — in nosing around amongst copies of old newspapers in the basement of the Peoria Library — ive resurrected the following in the Peoria Daily Union of October 21st, 1854. It will be noted that the account is only extracts made by the editor. It seems strange that a speech of such importance — lasting over a period of nearly three hours — should find no place in any of the publications of the life or speeches of Douglas. It will also be noted that, through- out, Douglas was acting on the defensive. FROM THE PEORIA DAILY UNION, OCTOBER 21, 1854 After returning his thanks to the democracy of Peoria for the kind recep- tion extended to him, Judge Douglas proceeded to discuss the principles of the Nebraska Bill, and to defend himself against the attacks of his opponents. Before entering upon the merits of the case he referred briefly to the number and political character of the opposition speakers who had been detailed to follow him through the State. In an abolition settlement an abolitionist was deputed as the organ of denunciation and abuse. In another place, where the Whigs were not wholly abolitionized, a half Whig was selected. In a Demo- cratic locality, the duty was assigned to any disaffected Democrat who was willing to unite with the opponents of the Nebraska Bill and denounce its author. It would only be fair that his antagonist should be one who would proclaim the same sentiments in Knoxville that were uttered in Peoria. If this were done, every true Whig in Peoria would turn his back upon the "fusion" advocates. His sentiments would be uttered in any locality. His principles were broad and national, and could be proclaimed with equal freedom in New England or New Orleans — in the east or the west — the north or the south. Not so with his opponents. Their principles were too sectional to extend beyond the Ohio, and were designed to array the North against the South. The principle of the Nebraska Bill was to allow the people of the terri- tory to decide domestic questions for themselves. It had been urged that there was no necessity for organizing the territory at this time, that it was a new idea; that no person desired it. Such assertions were now only used to deceive the people. They were not true. The people of Nebraska had held elections, and sent delegates to Congress to urge an imme- diate organization of the territory. Col. Benton himself had strenuously favored the opening of that country to settlers. Ten years ago Judge Douglas had -7- brought forward a proposition to organize a territory. Then no one objected to it. Attcr working at it for ten years, his opponents had just found out that it was unnecessary and useless to organize this territory. Hut there were good substantial reasons for the course he pursued in urging the measure. It was necessary for the protection of the large number of emigrants annually passing from the east to the distant shores of the Pacific. Under the existing law, every emigrant incurred a penalty of a thousand dollars and imprisonment for entering the Indian Territory. Should the great highway to the Pacific be blocked by the danger of fine and imprisonment? For more than a thousand miles through that region there was no protection to persons or property — no judges to enforce obedience to law. Was it right that this vast extent of country should be left in such a situation? Opponents of the Nebraska Bill do not like the principle which allows the people to settle the slavery question themselves. Is that principle right.-' Oh yes, exclaim some, but, say they, you should not disturb the Missouri Compromise. The Nebraska Bill was made to conform to the compromise of 1850, and w as taken word for word from these measures. Was not every Democrat pledged to sustain the compromise of 1850? The Democrats, at Baltimore, pledged the party to carry out those principles. The Whigs did the same, and Gen. Scott accepted the nomination under that pledge. The compromise served as a model for the Nebraska measure, because it was necessary to conform to that principle. How long have abolitionists been in favor of the Missouri Compromise? When he entered Congress, he found a line dividing slavery from freedom. It did not then occur to him that slavery south of the line was right. When the annexation of Texas was proposed, the abolitionists attempted to get up a slavery agitation; and in 1845 the line was extended to keep down that agitation. In 1848 were acquired California, Utah and New Mexico. The abolition- ists wanted the Wilmot Proviso applied to the whole country. He thought the slavery controversy might be avoided by extending the line to the Pacific. A bill for that purpose, on his own motion, passed the Senate by a majority of ten. It went to the House, and his friend Lincoln voted against it. and it was defeated. (Here, Mr. Lincoln pleasantly remarked that Douglas was a ughface." Douglas replied that "doughface" meant something soft — but Lincoln's face was hard enough.) Who, asked Judge Douglas, produced the slavery agitation in L848? Those who \oted down his proposition. Those who denounced him then tor wishing to carr) out the Missouri Compromise now denounce him tor not wish ing to carr) it out Hi^ spee< h in favoi ol extending the line was quoted against him by even abolition lecturer and writer in the countrj He was blamed I Changing. Honest men will change', and give then reasons for SO doing. He i hanged because he could not carrj out the measure. The' abolitionists changed 8 in order to be opposed to him. In 1848, every abolition paper opposed the extension of the line, and published him as the "solitary exception" in favor of it. They then called him "traitor" for being in favor of the measure, and they now apply the same epithet to him for being against it. What was the position of the parties on this question during the presi- dential election? Mr. Van Buren, nominated at Buffalo, was in favor of abol- ishing slavery everywhere in the territories. This applied to the country south of the line as well as north, and would effectually blot out the Missouri Com- promise. Such being the position of the abolitionists then — why do they de- nounce him (Douglas) for sanctioning its repeal now? They tried to repeal it in 1848, and failed. He tried recently, and suc- ceeded. Under these circumstances, he thought abolitionists had better say no more about it. How was it with the Whigs? Did they not nominate Zachary Taylor, and pass resolutions to prohibit slavery in the territories? Thus they were pledged to blot out the Missouri Compromise. Did the Whigs regard it as sacred? Opposition to it was then a Whig measure; but Douglas had now effected its repeal, and the Whigs oppose him for doing so. The Democrats nominated Gen. Cass. He wrote the "Nicholson letter," which was familiar to all, denying the right of Congress to legislate upon the subject of slavery. The Missouri Compromise was considered unconstitutional, and ought to be blotted out. Thus, six years ago, all parties were united in favor of blotting out the line. The great difficulty was to find a substitute. After the Missouri Compromise had been killed by the refusal to extend the line, he delivered its funeral oration at Springfield, and his enemies now quote that speech against him. After the death of the Missouri Compromise by abandoning the line, the slavery agitation shook the Union from one extrem- ity to another, and it became necessary to adopt some other measure to restore quiet to a distracted country. At this juncture Henry Clay left his retreat and entered the Senate, not as a partisan, but as a patriot, to give the nation the benefit of his wise counsels. Cass and Webster were his compatriots. The rest of them followed his lead for ten months, attempting to effect an adjustment of the difficulties and dangers to which the Union was then exposed. Whigs and Democrats in the Senate met daily as friends of the Union to consult upon the best policy to be adopted. They were in favor of the principle of allowing the people to settle the question for themselves; and the compromise measures rest upon that principle. On his return to Chicago, in 1850, he found the authorities in open re- bellion to the law of the land. Sick and feeble as he was, he came forward to defend and explain the compromise measures. His fellow citizens heard him, and reaction immediately occurred. The obnoxious act of the council was re- pealed, and Chicago was redeemed from the odium of treason to the govern- ment. An election was then pending in the State and the compromise measures were endorsed by a large majority of the people. When the legislature met, -9- resolutions were adopted recognizing the binding force of the compromise and instructing the senators from Illinois as to their duty in the formation of future territory. These resolutions embraced the principle of the compromise measures and the Nebraska Bill. In favoring that bill he had obeyed the in- structions of his legislature; and for so doing, he was now termed a "traitor." Was it right that he should thus be denounced, and burnt in effigy, be- cause he had obeyed the instructions of the legislature, which, at the time, was known to reflect the will of a large majority of the people of the State? Among the resolutions adopted by the House of Representatives was the following: Resolved: That our liberty and independence are based upon the right of the people to form for themselves such government as they might choose, and' that this great privilege, the birthright of freemen, the gift of heaven secured to us by the blood of our ancestors, ought to be extended to future generations, and no limitation ought to be applied to this power, in the organization of any territory of the Unit- ed States, of either a territorial government or state constitution, provided the government so established shall be republican and in conformity with the Constitution of the United States. Every Democrat and every Whig in the House voted for this resolution. The only names recorded against it are those of four abolitionists. How was this unanimity between Whigs and Democrats in favor of the great principle of the self-government brought about? Cass and Clay had first come together, and Union Whigs and Democrats afterwards united in favor of a noble prin- ciple, upon which both parties agreed to stand together. When the Whigs met at Baltimore in 1852, they nominated Gen. Scott, and adopted a platform recognizing the compromise measures as a final settle- ment of the slavery question. The principle of the compromise was to be applied whenever new States came up for admission. The platform adopted by the Demociats also pledged our party to an observance of the compromise measure. They intended that the great principle should be applied to all territory to be hereafter acquired or admitted. During the campaign, in his speeches for Pierce, he had contended that the Democratic nominee was more favorable to the principles of the compro- mise than the Whig; but the Whigs then claimed it as their measure. The principle which they then sanctioned is the same as that upon which the Ne- braska Bill is based. Two years ago both parties claimed it, and now every Whig is to be sent to perdition unless he goes with the abolitionists against Nebraska. The Whigs were to be made prisoners in the abolition camp, and consigned to the guidance of such leaders of the new party as Giddings, Cod- ding, Blanchard and company. The passage of the act organizing the territory of Washington was evi- dence that the Whigs intended the principle of the compromise of 1850 should be applied in future. - 10- That territory was organized upon the principle of the Nebraska Bill. In 1848, when Oregon was organized, the ordinance of '87 was forced upon it. President Polk signed the bill because it was consistent with the Missouri Compromise, the line of which was to be extended to the Pacific. But the com- promise of 1850 prevented that extension. Washington territory was organ- ized in 1853, and was made to conform to the compromise of 1850. The pro- hibition imposed upon Oregon was repealed, and the people of Washington were allowed to do as they pleased. Only one year ago the same principle of the Nebraska Bill was recognized in the organization of Washington territory; and the prohibition which had been placed upon Oregon was taken off to con- form to the compromise measures of 1850. The bill organizing Washington territory, with the principle of the Ne- braska Bill, passed the House of Representatives by a vote of 129 in the affirma- tive to 29 in the negative; not more than three or four northern Whigs voted against it. Here we see that, one year ago, the whole Whig party voted for the Nebraska principle. In Congress even Giddings and Yates were found favoring it. Was that "treason"? Was it "infamous" to pass the same bill for Washington territory that was passed for Nebraska? The people are expected to keep silent when Whigs commit "treason," but a terrible cry is to be raised when Democrats do the same. If Whigs believed the principle wrong they ought to have said so then. To hunt him down now for doing what they then sanctioned is to acknowledge themselves to blame. It would not do for his opponents to answer him by speaking of the horrors of slavery. That had no connection with the principle in controversy. Some might be curious to know why the Whigs had so suddenly changed their views upon the slavery question. The reasons were easily found. The Democrats had repeatedly whipped the Whigs, and they were tired of being in the minority. They must therefore sieze upon some hobby to ride into power. The abolitionists stood ready to trade with them. The terms of the trade were easily arranged. The Whigs were required to adopt the abolition creed, in consideration of which the abolitionists were to allow the Whigs to have the candidates. The bargain being closed, the Whigs were to be handed over to the abolition camp. The Whig party was thus to be sold out. In Peoria, Lincoln was expected to superintend the transfer. In Knoxville, Blanchard was selected as the agent. (Judge Douglas read portions of the abolition creed adopted in this State, to show the Whigs what principles they were now required to adopt to entitle them to a place in the new party.) A great deal had been said about the Nebraska Bill legislating slavery into that territory. He denied that it did any such thing. Every man who said the bill legislated slavery into free territory, if he had read it, stated what he knew to be untrue. If he had not read it, he would not speak of what he did not know. Opponents of Nebraska can let the people south of a given line do as they nlease, but they are not willing to trust those north of it with the same privi- lege. This was wrong. He believed the people of the north who emigrated to - 11 - new territories were as capable of managing their domestic affairs as those who remained behind. They allowed legislation upon every question affecting their welfare as a people, but they were not deemed capable of deciding the question of slavery for themselves. They were permitted to legislate upon every subject affecting the white man, but were to be told that they had not sufficient intelligence to legislate for the black man — or to decide the question of slavery for themselves. They were fully capable of self-government, and he was willing to leave to the exercise of all the right extended to other portions of the Union. Having disposed of the Nebraska question Judge Douglas devoted a few moments to an examination of the principles and objects of a new organization termed the "American party" or "Know-Nothings." Their hostility was di- rected against foreigners and those professing the Catholic religion. Men were to be proscribed on account of their birth-place and their religious sentiments. This was anti-republican and subversive of the principles of the Constitution. He referred briefly to the effect which this spirit of intolerance would have exerted if it had been adopted in the early history of our country. It would have deprived the struggling colonies of the services and assistance of a La- Fayette, a Steuben, a De Kalb, a Montgomery, and a host of other brave for- eigners who risked their lives in aiding Americans to assert and maintain the principles of self-government. This political and religious proscription would have prevented that harmonious union among a band of patriots, of various nations and creeds, who gave to the world a declaration which proclaimed civil and religious liberty to be the surest and most durable foundation of a free government. The principles of the "Know-Nothings" would have excluded such men as a Hamilton, a Gallatin, and a host of other statesmen, from par- ticipation in the affairs of the government; and would have deprived our coun- try in the last war with Mexico of the gallant services of our distinguished Senator, James Shields, who from his boyhood has been identified with our State, and whose services in civil life rank him among the statesmen of the country. Such men as he are to be ruthlessly struck down, if the "Know-Noth- ing" faction, with the aid of the abolitionists, can secure the ascendancy in Illinois. Judge Douglas particularly urged upon the Democrats to keep aloof from all such entangling alliances, and adhere to the good old principles of the Democratic party, which extended equal justice and privileges to all citizens without regard to their birth-place or their religion. At the close of Judge Douglas' speech (a very brief outline of which we have attempted to give) , Mr. Lincoln took the stand, and after alluding to the arrangement with Judge Douglas proposed that the meeting should adjourn until after supper; which was accordingly done. - 12 / / LINCOLN AND THE NEW SALEM DAYS . . . By the blazing shavings which Henry Onstot allowed him to burn in his Coopershop at night, lost in the pages of a book. "In later years Lincoln regarded his Peoria address as in some respects the ablest he had ever made, and since he wrote it out — entirely from memory, for he did not use notes, and published in successive numbers of the Springfield, 111., Daily Journal, it can be read to this day." . . . JOSEPH FORT NEWTON "I SAW AND HEARD LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS WHEN A BOY" By B. C. Bryner, Peoria, Illinois Although only a boy I recall the day perfectly. I was a strong Douglas man — how he would appeal to a boy of that period ! The Little Giant — the foremost statesman of the day. He came to our Western village, a being superior and supreme in my regard. The Peoria Republican of October 17, 1854, says: "Mr. Douglas rode into our city yesterday at the head of a tri- umphal procession, seated in a carriage drawn by four beautiful white pal- freys and preceded by a band of music. Cannon boomed in welcome to the distinguished visitor and the cheers of his friends resounded through our quiet streets." In strange contrast was the quiet, undemonstrative entry of the tall, lank, homely and awkward Lincoln, whose name and fame were to ring through the ages — child of the soil — friend of the people — the Emanci- pator of a race. The events which led up to this meeting form a fascinating page in the history of our country. The immediate cause of the famous Lin- coln-Douglas debates, of which the Peoria meeting was the forerunner, was the Kansas-Nebraska Bill introduced in the United States Senate in January, 1854, by Judge Douglas, which became a law May 31, 1854. The passage of this bill created sectional rancor and discord. The North saw in the measure a scheme to make slavery National. ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S SPEECH AT PEORIA, ILLINOIS IN REPLY TO SENATOR DOUGLAS Lincoln's Peoria speech was written out and corrected at Spring- field three days after its delivery. It is believed that this is the only one of his political addresses so revised. It gives evidence of pro- found thought and careful preparation . . . forming the basis for all of his subsequent utterances, including the debates of 1858 and his Cooper Institute speech. The speech was printed in seven numbers of the Illinois Daily Journal, Springfield, III. . . . October 21, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27 and 28, 1854. The publishers of the Illinois Journal at that time were S. and A. Francis. The two opening paragraphs are from the neivspaper accounts of that date. Lincoln s own account follows: I do not rise to speak now, if I can stipulate with the audi- ence to meet me here at half-past six or at seven o'clock. It is now several minutes past five, and Judge Douglas has spoken over three hours. If you hear me at all, I wish you to hear me through. It will take me as long as it has taken him. That will take us beyond eight o'clock at night. Now, every one of you who can remain that long can just as well get his supper, meet me at seven, and remain an hour or two later. The Judge has already informed you that he is to have an hour to reply to me. I doubt not but you have been a little surprised to learn that I have consented to give one of his high reputation and known ability this advantage of me. Indeed, my consenting to it, though reluctant, was not wholly unselfish, for I suspected, if it were understood that the Judge was entirely done, you Demo- crats would leave and not hear me; but by giving him the close, I felt confident you would stay for the fun of hearing him skin me. The audience signified their assent to the arrangement, and adjourned till seven o'clock P.M., at which time they reassembled, and Mr. Lincoln spoke as follows: Illinois Daily Journal, October 21, 1854 The repeal of the Missouri Compromise, and the propriety of its restora- tion, constitute the subject of what I am about to say. As I desire to present my own connected view of this subject, my remarks will not be specifically an answer to Judge Douglas; yet, as I proceed, the main point he has presented will arise, and will receive such respectful attention as I may be able to give - 15 - them. I wish further to say that I do not propose to question the patriotism or to assail the motives of any man or class of men, but rather to confine myself strictly to the naked merits of the question. I also wish to be no less than na- tional in all the positions I may take, and whenever I take ground which others have thought, or may think, narrow, sectional, and dangerous to the Union, I hope to give a reason which will appear sufficient, at least to some, why I think differently. And as this subject is no other than part and parcel of the larger general question of domestic slavery, I wish to make and to keep the distinction be- tween the existing institution and the extension of it so broad and so clear that no honest man can misunderstand me, and no dishonest one successfully mis- represent me. In order to a clear understanding of what the Missouri Compromise is, a short history of the preceding kindred subjects will perhaps be proper. When we established our independence, we did not own or claim the country to which this compromise applies. Indeed, strictly speaking, the Con- federacy then owned no country at all; the States respectively owned the coun- try within their limits, and some of them owned territory beyond their strict State limits. Virginia thus owned the Northwestern Territory — the country out of which the principal part of Ohio, all Indiana, all Illinois, all Michigan, and all Wisconsin have since been formed. She also owned (perhaps within her then limits) what has since been formed into the State of Kentucky. North Carolina thus owned what is now the State of Tennessee; and South Carolina and Georgia owned, in separate parts, what are now Mississippi and Alabama. Connecticut, I think, owned the little remaining part of Ohio, being the same where they now send Giddings to Congress and best all creation in making These territories, together with the States themselves, constitute all the country over which the Confederacy then claimed any sort of jurisdiction. We were then living under the Articles of Confederation, which were superseded by the Constitution several years afterward. The question of ceding the territories to the General Government was set on foot. Mr. Jefferson, — the author of the Declaration of Independence, and otherwise a chief actor in the Revolution; then a delegate in Congress; afterward, twice President; who was, is, and per- haps will continue to be, the most distinguished politician of our history; a Virginian by birth and continued residence, and withal a slaveholder, — con- ceived the idea of taking that occasion to prevent slavery ever going into the Northwestern Territory. He prevailed on the Virginia Legislature to adopt his views, and to cede the Territory, making the prohibition of slavery therein a condition of the deed.* Congress accepted the cession with the condition; and the first ordinance (which the acts of Congress were then called) for the government of the Territory provided that slavery should never be permitted therein. This is the famed "Ordinance of '87," so often spoken of. *Mr. Lincoln afterward authorized the correction of the error into which the report here falls, with regard to the prohibition being made a condition of the deed. It was not a condition. - 16- Thence forward for sixty-one years, and until, in 1848, the last scrap of this Territory came into the Union as the State of Wisconsin, all parties acted in quiet obedience to this ordinance. It is now what Jefferson foresaw and in- tended — the happy home of teeming millions of free, white, prosperous people, and no slaves among them. Thus, with the author of the Declaration of Independence, the policy of prohibiting slavery in new territory originated. Thus, away back to the Con- stitution, in the pure, fresh, free breath of the Revolution, the State of Virginia and the national Congress put that policy into practice. Thus, through more than sixty of the best years of the republic, did that policy steadily work to its great and beneficient end. And thus, in those five States, and in five millions of free, enterprising people, we have before us the rich fruits of this policy. But now new light breaks upon us. Now Congress declares this ought never to have been, and the like of it must never be again. The sacred right of self-government is grossly violated by it. We even find some men who drew their first breath — and every other breath of their lives — under this very restriction, now live in dread of absolute suffocation if they should be restricted in the "sacred right" of taking slaves to Nebraska. That perfect liberty they sigh for — the liberty of making slaves of other people — Jefferson never thought of, their own fathers never thought of, they never thought of, them- selves, a year ago. How fortunate for them they did not sooner become sensible of their great misery! Oh, how difficult it is to treat with respect such assaults upon all we have ever really held sacred. But to return to history. In 1803 we purchased what was then called Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, and Iowa; also the Territory of Minnesota, and the present bone of contention, Kansas and Nebraska. Slavery already existed among the French at New Orleans, and to some extent at St. Louis. In 1812, Louisiana came into the Union as a slave State, without controversy. In 1818 or '19, Missouri showed signs of a wish to come in with slavery. This was resisted by Northern members of Congress; and thus began the first great slavery agitation in the nation. This controversy lasted several months and be- became very angry and exciting — the House of Representatives voting steadily for the prohibition of slavery in Missouri, and the Senate voting as steadily against it. Threats of the breaking up of the Union were freely made, and the ablest public men of the day became seriously alarmed. At length a compromise was made, in which, as in all compromises, both sides yielded something. It was a law, passed on the 6th of March, 1829, providing that Missouri might come into the Union with slavery, but that in all remaining part of the terri- tory purchased of France which lies north of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes north latitude, slavery should never be permitted. This provision of law is the "Missouri Compromise." In excluding slavery north of the line, the same language is employed as in the Ordinance of 1787. It directly applied to Iowa, Minnesota, and to the present bone of contention, Kansas and Nebraska. Whether there should or should not be slavery south of the line, nothing was said in the law. But Arkansas constituted the principal remaining part south of the line; and it has since been admitted as a slave State, without serious controversy. More recently, Iowa, north of the line, came in as a free State. - 17- without controversy. Still later, Minnesota, north of the line, had a territorial organization without controversy. Texas, principally south of the line, and west of Arkansas, though originally within the purchase from France, had, in 1819, been traded off to Spain in our treaty for the acquisition of Florida. It had thus become a part of Mexico. Mexico revolutionized and became inde- pendent of Spain. American citizens began settling rapidly with their slaves in the southern part of Texas. Soon they revolutionized against Mexico, and established an independent government of their own, adopting a constitution with slavery, strongly resembling the constitutions of our slave States. By still another rapid move, Texas, claiming a boundry much farther west than when we parted with her in 1819, was brought back to the United States, and ad- mitted into the Union as a slave State. Then there was little or no settlement in the northern part of Texas, a considerable portion of which lay north of the Missouri line; and in the resolutions admitting her into the Union, the Missouri restriction was expressly extended westward across her territory. This was in 1845, only nine years ago. Thus originated the Missouri Compromise; and thus has it been respected down to 1845. And even four years later, in "1849, our distinguished Senator, in a public address, held the following language in relation to it; "The Missouri Compromise has been in practical operation for about a quarter of a century, and has received the sanction and approbation of men of all parties in every section of the Union. It has allayed all sectional jealousies and harmonized and tranquillized the whole country. It has given to Henry Clay, as its prominent champion, the proud sobriquet of the 'Great Pacificator,' and by that title, and for that service, his political friends had repeatedly ap- pealed to the people to rally under his standard as a Presidential candidate, as the man who had exhibited the patriotism and power to suppress an unholy and treasonable agitation, and preserve the Union. He was not aware that any man or any party, from any section of the Union, had ever urged as an objection to Mr. Clay that he was the great champion of the Missouri Compromise. On the contrary, the effort was made by the opponents of Mr. Clay to prove that he was not entitled to the exclusive merit of that great patriotic measure, and that the honor was equally due to others, as well as to him, for securing its adoption; that it had its origin in the hearts of all patriotic men, who desired to preserve and perpetuate the blessings of our glorious Union — and origin akin to that of the Constitution of the United States, conceived in the same spirit of fraternal affection, and calculated to remove forever the only danger which seemed to threaten, at some distant day, to sever the social bond of union. All the evidences of public opinion at that day seemed to indicate that this compro- mise had been canonized in the hearts of the American people as a sacred thing which no ruthless hand would ever be reckless enough to disturb." I do not read this extract to involve Judge Douglas in an inconsistency. If he afterward thought he had been wrong, it was right for him to change. I bring this forward merely to show the high estimate placed on the Missouri Compromise by all parties up to so late as the year 1849. But going back a little in point of time. Our war with Mexico broke out in 1846. When Congress was about adjourning that session, President Polk - 18- asked them to place two millions of dollars under his control, to be used by him in the recess, if found practicable and expedient, in negotoating a treaty of peace with Mexico and acquiring some part of her territory. A bill was duly gotten up for the purpose, and progressing swimmingly in the House of Repre- sentatives, when a member by the name of David Wilmot, a Democrat from Pennsylvania, moved as an amendment, "Provided, that in any territory thus acquired there never shall be slavery." This is the origin of the far-famed Wilmot Proviso. It created a great flutter; but it stuck like wax, was voted into the bill, and the bill passed with it through the House. The Senate, however, adjourned without final action on it, and so both appropriation and proviso were lost for the time. The war con- tinued, and at the next session the President renewed his request for the appro- priation, enlarging the amount, I think to three millions. Again came the pro- viso, and defeated the measure. Congress adjourned again, and the war went on. In December, 1847, the new Congress assembled. I was in the lower House that term. The Wilmot Proviso, or the principle of it, was constantly coming up in some shape or other, and I think I may venture to say I voted for it at least forty times during the short time I was there. The Senate, however, held it in check, and it never became a law. In the spring of 1848 a treaty of peace was made with Mexico by which we obtained that portion of her country which now constitutes the Territories of New Mexico and Utah and the present State of California. By this treaty the Wilmot Proviso was defeated, in so far as it was intended to be a condition of the acquisition of territory. Its friends, how- ever, were still determined to find some way to restrain slavery from getting into the new country. This new acquisition lay directly west of our old purchase from France, and extended west to the Pacific Ocean, and was so situated that if the Missouri line should be extended straight west, the new country would be divided by such extended line, leaving some north and some south of it. On Judge Douglas's motion, a bill, or provision of a bill, passed the Senate to so extend the Missouri line The proviso men in the House, including myself, voted it down, because, by implication, it gave up the southern part to slavery, while we were bent on having it all free. In the fall of 1848 the gold-mines were discovered in California. This attracted people to it with unprecedented rapidity, so that on, or soon after, the meeting of the new Congress in December, 1849, she already had a popula- tion of nearly a hundred thousand, had called a convention, formed a State constitution excluding slavery, and was knocking for admission into the Union. The proviso men, of course, were for letting her in, but the Senate, always true to the other side, would not consent to her admission, and there California stood, kept out of the Union because she would not let slavery into her borders. Under all the circumstances, perhaps, this was not wrong. There were other points of dispute connected with the general question of slavery, which equally needed adjustment. The South clamored for a more efficient fugitive slave law. The North clamored for the abolition of a peculiar species of slave-trade in the District of Columbia, in connection with which, in view from the windows of the Capitol, a sort of negro livery-stable, where droves of negroes were col- lected, temporarily kept, and finally taken to Southern markets, precisely like droves of horses, had been openly maintained for fifty years. Utah and New - 19- The Lincoln Home . . . Springfield, Illinois Mexico needed territorial governments; and whether slavery should or should not be prohibited within them was another question. The indefinite western boundary of Texas was to be settled. She was a slave State, and, consequently, the farther west the slavery men could push her boundary, the more slave country they secured; and the farther east the slavery opponents could thrust the boundary back, the less slave ground was secured. Thus this was just as clearly a slavery question as any of the others. These points all needed adjustment, and they were held up, perhaps wise- ly, to make them help adjust one another. The Union now, as in 1820, was thought to be in danger, and devotion to the Union rightfully inclined men to yield somewhat in points where nothing else could have so inclined them. A compromise was finally effected. The South got their new fugitive slave law, and the North got California (by far the best part of our acquisition from Mexico) as a free State. The South got a provision that New Mexico and Utah, when admitted as States, may come in with or without slavery as they may then choose; and the North got the slave-trade abolished in the District of Columbia. The North got the western boundary of Texas thrown farther back eastward than the South desired; but, in turn, they gave Texas ten millions of dollars with which to pay her old debts. This is the Compromise of 1850. Preceding the Presidential election of 1852, each of the great political parties, Democrats and Whigs, met in convention and adopted resolutions indorsing the Compromise of '50 as a "finality," a final settlement, so far as these parties could make it so, of all slavery agitation. Previous to this, in 1851, the Illinois Legislature had indorsed it. During this long period of time, Nebraska had remained substantially an uninhabited country, but now emigration to and settlement within it began to take place. The restriction of slavery by the Missouri Compromise directly applies to it — in fact was first made, and has since been maintained, expressly for it. In 1853, a bill to give it a territorial government passed the House of Representatives, and, in the hands of Judge Douglas, failed of passing only for want of time. This bill contained no repeal of the Missouri Compromise. Indeed, when it was assailed because it did not contain such repeal, Judge Douglas defended it in its existing form. On January 4, 1854, Judge Douglas introduces a new bill to give Nebraska territorial government. He accompanies this bill with a report, in which last he expressly recommends that the Missouri Compromise shall neither be affirmed nor repealed. Illinois Daily Journal, October 23, 1854 Before long the bill is so modified as to make two territories instead of one, calling the southern one Kansas. Also, about a month after the introduction of the bill, on the Judge's own motion it is so amended as to declare the Missouri Compromise inoperative and void; and, substantially, that the people who go and settle there may estab- lish slavery, or exclude it, as they may see fit. In this shape the bill passed both branches of Congress and became a law. - 21 - 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 use I shall attempt to make of it, and in it we have before us the chief material enabling us to judge correctly 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 man can be found inclined to take it. This declared indifference, but, as I must think, covert real 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; causes the real friends of freedom to doubt our sin- cerity; and especially because it forces so many good men among ourselves into an open war with the very fundamental principles of civil liberty, criticizing the Declaration of Independence, and insisting that there is no right principle of action but self-interest. Before proceeding, let me say that 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 introduce 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 North- ern ones go South and become most cruel slave-masters. When Southern people tell us that they are no more responsible for the origin of slavery than we are, 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 to 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 what- ever 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 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 for 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 whites 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, cannot be safely disregarded. We cannot then make them equals. It does seem to me that systems of gradual emancipa- - 22 - tion 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 acknowledge 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 permitting 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 slaves from Africa, and that which has so long forbidden the taking of them into 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. The arguments by which the repeal of the Missouri Compromise is sought to be justified are these: First, That the Nebraska country needed a territorial government. Second, That in various ways the public had repudiated that com- promise and demanded the repeal, and therefore should not now complain of it. And, lastly, That the repeal establishes a principle which is intrinsically right. I will attempt an answer to each of them in its turn. First, then: If that country was in need of a territorial organization, could it not have had it as well without as with a repeal ? Iowa and Minnesota, to both of which the Mis- souri restriction applied, had, without its repeal, each in succession, territorial organizations. And even the year before, a bill for Nebraska itself was within an ace of passing without the repealing clause, and this in the hands of the same men who are now the champions of repeal. Why no necessity then for repeal? But still later, when this very bill was first brought in, it contained no repeal. But, say they, because the people had demanded, or rather commanded, the repeal, the repeal was to accompany the organization whenever that should occur. Now, I deny that the public ever demanded any such thing — ever re- pudiated the Missouri Compromise, ever commanded its repeal. I deny it, and call for the proof. It is not contended, I believe, that any such command has ever been given in express terms. It is only said that it was done in principle. The support of the Wilmot Proviso is the first fact mentioned to prove that the Missouri restriction was repudiated in principle, and the second is the refusal to extend the Missouri line over the country acquired from Mexico. These are near enough alike to be treated together. The one was to exclude the chances of slavery from the whole new acquisition by the lump, and the other was to reject a division of it, by which one half was to given up to those chances. Now, whether this was a repudiation of the Missouri line in principle depends upon whether the Missouri law contained any principle requiring the line to be extended over the country acquired from Mexico. I contend it did not. I insist that it contained no general principle, but that it was, in every sense, specific. That its terms limit it to the country purchased from France is undenied and undeniable. It could have no principle beyond the intention of those who made -23- it. They did not intend to extend the line to country which they did not own. If they intended to extend it in the event of acquiring additional territory, why did they not say so? It was just as easy to say that "in all the country west of the Mississippi which we now own, or may hereafter acquire, there shall never be slavery," as to say what they did say; and they would have said it if they had meant it. An intention to extend the law is not only not mentioned in the law, but is not mentioned in any contemporaneous history. Both the law itself, and the history of the times, are a blank as to any principle of extension; and by neither the known rules of construing statutes and contracts, nor by common sense, can any such principle be inferred. Another fact showing the specific character of the Missouri law — showing that it intended no more than it expressed, showing that the line was not in- tended as a universal dividing line between free and slave territory, present and prospective, north of which slavery could never go — is the fact that by that very law Missouri came in as a slave State, north of the line. If that law con- tained any prospective principle, the whole law must be looked to in order to ascertain what the principle was. And by .this rule the South could fairly con- tend that, inasmuch as they got one slave State north of the line at the inception of the law, they have the right to have another given them north of it occa- sionally, now and then, in the indefinite westward extension of the line. This demonstrates the absurdity of attempting to deduce a prospective principle from the Missouri Compromise line. When we voted for the Wilmot Proviso we were voting to keep slavery out of the whole Mexican acquisition, and little did we think we were thereby voting to let it into Nebraska, lying several hundred miles distant. When we voted against extending the Missouri line, little did we think we were voting to destroy the old line, then of near thirty years' standing. To argue that we thus repudiated the Missouri Compromise is no less absurd than it would be to argue that because we have so far forborne to ac- quire Cuba, we have thereby, in principle, repudiated our former acquisitions and determined to throw them out of the Union. No less absurd than it would be to say that, because I may have refused to build an addition to my house, I thereby have decided to destroy the existing house! And if I catch you setting fire to my house, you will turn upon me and say I instructed you to do it! "On October 16, 18")4 Lincoln and Douglas once more met in debate in Peoria. The occasion was made memorable by the fact that when Lincoln returned home to Springfield, he wrote out his speech and the Springfield, 111., State Journal published the entire speech. The critical reader still finds it a model of brevity, directness, terse diction, exact and lucid historical statement, and full of logical propositions so short and so strong as to re- semble mathematical axioms. The main broad current of his reasoning was to vindicate and restore the policy of the fathers of the country in the restric- tion of slavery; but running through like a thread of gold was the demon- stration of the essential injustice and immorality of the system." . . . JOHN C NICOLAY and JOHN HAY 24 The most conclusive argument, however, that while for the Wilmot Pro- viso, and while voting against the extension of the Missouri line, we never thought of disturbing the original Missouri Compromise, is found in the fact that there was then, and still is, an unorganized tract of fine country, nearly as large as the State of Missouri, lying immediately west of Arkansas and south of the Missouri Compromise line, and that we never attempted to prohibit slavery as to it. I wish particular attention to this. It adjoins the original Mis- souri Compromise line by its northern boundary, and consequently is part of the country into which by implication slavery was permitted to go by that com- promise. There it has lain open ever since, and there it still lies, and yet no effort has been made at any time to wrest it from the South. In all our struggles to prohibit slavery within our Mexican acquisitions, we never so much as lifted a finger to prohibit it as to this tract. Is not this entirely conclusive that at all times we have held the Missouri Compromise as a sacred thing, even when against ourselves as well as when for us? Senator Douglas sometimes says the Missouri line itself was in principle only an extension of the line of the Ordinance of '87 — that is to say, an exten- sion of the Ohio River. I think this is weak enough on its face. I will remark, however, that, as a glance at the map will show, the Missouri line is a long way farther south than the Ohio, and that if our Senator in proposing his extension had stuck to the principle of jogging southward, perhaps it might not have been voted down so readily. But next it is said that the compromises of '50, and the ratification of them by both political parties in '52, established a new principle which required the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. This again I deny. I deny it, and de- mand the proof. I have already stated fully what the compromises of '50 are. That particular part of those measures from which the virtual repeal of the Missouri Compromise is sought to be inferred (for it is admitted they contain nothing about it in express terms) is the provision in the Utah and New Mex- ico laws which permits them when they seek admission into the Union as States to come in with or without slavery, as they shall then see fit. Now I insist this provision was made for Utah and New Mexico, and for no other place what- ever. It had no more direct reference to Nebraska than it had to the territories of the moon. But, say they, it had reference to Nebraska in principle. Let us see. The North consented to this provision, not because they considered it right in itself, but because they were compensated — paid for it. They at the same time got California into the Union as a free State. This was far the best part of all they had struggled for by the Wilmot Proviso. They also got the area of slavery somewhat narrowed in the settlement of the bound- ary of Texas. Also they got the slave-trade abolished in the District of Colum- bia. For all these desirable objects the North could afford to yield something; and they did yield to the South the Utah and New Mexico provision. I do not mean that the whole North, or even a majority, yielded, when the law passed; but enough yielded, when added to the vote of the South, to carry the measure. Nor can it be pretended that the principle of this arrangement requires us to permit the same provision to be applied to Nebraska, without any equivalent - 2<> - at all. Give us another free State; press the boundary of Texas still farther back; give us another step toward the destruction of slavery in the District, and you present us a similar case. But ask us not to repeat, for nothing, what you paid for in the first instance. If you wish the thing again, pay again. That is the principle of the compromises of '50, if, indeed, they had any principles beyond their specific terms — it was the system of equivalents. Again, if Congress, at that time, intended that all future Territories should, when admitted as States, come in with or without slavery at their own option, why did it not say so? With such a universal provision, all know the bills could not have passed. Did they, then — could they, establish a principle contrary to their own intention? Still further, if they intended to establish the principle that, whenever Congress had control, it should be left to the people to do as they thought fit with slavery, why did they not authorize the people of the District of Columbia, at their option, to abolish slavery within their limits? I personally know that this has not been left undone because it was un- thought of. It was frequently spoken of by members of Congress, and by citi- zens of Washington, six years ago; and I heard no one express a doubt that a system of gradual emancipation, with compensation to owners, would meet the approbation of a large majority of the white people of the District. But without the action of Congress they could say nothing; and Congress said "No." In the measures of 1850, Congress had the subject of slavery in the District expressly on hand. If they were then establishing the principal of allowing the people to do as they please with slavery, why did they not apply the principal to that people ? Again, it is claimed that by the resolutions of the Illinois Legislature, passed in 1851, the repeal of the Missouri Compromise was demanded. This I deny also. Whatever may be worked out by a criticism of the language of those resolutions, the people have never understood them as being any more than an indorsement of the compromises of 1850, and a release of our senators from voting for the Wilmot Proviso. The whole people are living witnesses that this only was their view. Finally, it is asked, "If we did not mean to apply the Utah and New Mexico provision to all future Territories, what did we mean when we, in 1852, indorsed the compromises of 1850 ?. For myself I can answer this question most easily. I meant not to ask a re- peal or modification of the fugitive slave law. I meant not to ask for the aboli- tion of slavery in the District of Columbia. I meant not to resist the admission of Utah and New Mexico, even should they ask to come in as slave States. I meant nothing about additional Territories, because, as I understood, we then had no Territory whose character as to slavery was not already settled. As to Nebraska, I regarded its character as being fixed by the Missouri Compromise for thirty years — as unalterably fixed as that of my own home in Illinois. As to new acquisitions, I said, "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." When we make new acquisitions, we will, as heretofore, try to manage them somehow. That is my answer; that is what I meant and said; and I appeal to the people to say each for himself whether that is not also the universal meaning of the free States. -26- Illinois Daily Journal, October 24, 1854 And now, in turn, let me ask a few questions. If, by any or all these mat- ters, the repeal of the Missouri Compromise was commanded, why was not the command sooner obeyed? Why was the repeal omitted in the Nebraska Bill of 1853? Why was it omitted in the original bill of 1854? Why in the accom- panying Bill of 1853? Why was it omitted in the original bill of 1854? Why in the accompanying report was such a repeal characterized as a departure from the course pursued in 1850 and its continued omission recommended? I am aware Judge Douglas now argues that the subsequent express repeal is no substantial alteration of the bill. This argument seems wonderful to me. It is as if one should argue that white and black are not different. He admits, however, that there is a literal change in the bill, and that he made the change in deference to other senators who would not support the bill without. This proves that those other senators thought the change a substantial one, and that the Judge thought their opinions worth referring to. His own opinions, there- fore, seem not to rest on a very firm basis, even in his own mind; and I suppose the world believes, and will continue to believe, that precisely on the substance of that change this whole agitation has arisen. I conclude, then, that the public never demanded the repeal of the Mis- souri Compromise. I now come to consider whether the appeal, with its avowed principles, is intrinsically right. I insist that it is not. Take the particular case. A contro- versy had arisen between the advocates and opponents of slavery, in relation to its establishment within the country we had purchased of France. The south- ern, and then best, part of the purchase was already in as a slave State. The controversy was settled by also letting Missouri in as a slave State; but with the agreement that all the remaining part of the purchase, north of a certain line, there should never be slavery. As to what was to be done with the remaining part, south of this line, nothing was said; but perhaps the fair implication was, it should come in with slavery if it should so choose. The southern part, except a portion heretofore mentioned, afterward did come in with slavery, as the State of Arkansas. All these many years, since 1820, the northern part had remained a wilderness. At length settlements began in it also. In due course Iowa came in as a free State, and Minnesota was given a territorial government, without removing the slavery restriction. Finally, the sole remaining part north of the line — Kansas and Nebraska — was to be organized; and it is proposed, and carried, to blot out the old dividing line of thirty-four years' standing, and to open the whole of that country to the introduction of slavery. Now this, to my mind, is manifestly unjust. After an angry and dangerous controversy, the parties made friends by dividing the bone of contention. The one party first appropriate her own share, beyond all power to be disturbed in the possession of it, and then seizes the share of the other party. It is as if two starving men had divided their only loaf, the one had hastily swallowed his half, and then grabbed the other's half just as he was putting it to his mouth. Let me here drop the main argument, to notice what I consider rather an inferior matter. It is argued that slavery will not go to Kansas and Nebraska, in any event. This is a palliation, a lullaby. I have some hope that it will not; - 27- The Lincoln Tomb . . . Springfield, Illinois but let us not be too confident. As to climate, a glance at the map shows that there are five States — Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky and Missouri, and also the District of Columbia, all north of the Missouri Compromise line. The census returns of 1850 show that within these there are eight hundred and sixty-seven thousand two hundred and seventy-six slaves, being more than one- fourth of all the slaves in the nation. It is not climate, then, that will keep slavery out of these Territories. Is there anything in the peculiar nature of the country? Missouri adjoins these Territories by her entire western boundary, and slavery is already within every one of her western counties. I have even heard it said that there are more slaves in proportion to whites in the northwestern county of Missouri than within any other county in the State. Slavery pressed entirely up to the old western boundary of the State, and when rather recently a part of that boundary at the northwest was moved out a little farther west, slavery followed on quite up to the new line. Now, when the the restriction is removed, what is to prevent it from going still farther? Climate will not; no peculiarity of the country will; nothing in nature will. Will the disposition of the people prevent it? Those nearest the scene are all in favor of the extension. The Yankees who are op- posed to it may be most numerous; but, in military phrase, the battlefield is too far from their base of operations. But it is said there now is no law in Nebraska on the subject of slavery and that, in such case, taking a slave there operates his freedom. That is good book-law, but it is not the rule of actual practice. Wherever slavery is, it has been first introduced without law. The oldest laws we find concerning it are not laws introducing it, but regulating it as an already existing thing. A white man takes his slave to Nebraska now. Who will inform the negro that he is free? Who will take him before court to test the question of his freedom? In ignorance of his legal emancipation he is kept chopping, splitting, and plowing. Others are bought, and move on in the same track. At last, if ever the time for voting comes on the question of slavery, the institution already, in fact, exists in the country, and cannot well be removed. The fact of its presence, and the difficulty of its removal, will carry the vote in its favor. Keep it out until a vote is taken, and a vote in favor of it cannot be got in any population of forty thousand on earth, who have been drawn together by the ordinary motives of emigration and settlement. To get slaves into the Territory simultaneously with the whites in the incipient stages of settlement is the precise stake played for and won in this Nebraska measure. The question is asked us: "If slaves will go in notwithstanding the gen- eral principle of law liberates them, why would they not equally go in against positive statute law — go in, even if the Missouri restriction were maintained?" I answer, because it takes a much bolder man to venture in with his property in the latter case than in the former; because the positive Congressional enact- ment is known to and respected by all, or nearly all, whereas the negative prin- ciple that no law is free law is not much known except among lawyers. We have some experience of this practical difference. In spite of the Ordinance of '87, a few negroes were brought into Illinois and held in a state of quasi-slav- ery, not enough, however, to carry a vote of the people in favor of the institu- tion when they came to form a constitution. But into the adjoining Missouri -29- country, where there was no Ordinance of '87 — was no restriction — they were carried ten times, nay, a hundred times, as fast, and actually made a slave State. This is fact — naked fact. Another lullaby argument is that taking slaves to new countries does not increase their number, does not make any one slave who would otherwise be free. There is some truth in this, and I am glad of it; but it is not wholly true. The African slavetrade is not yet effectually suppressed; and, if we make a reasonable deduction for the white people among us who are foreigners and the descendants of foreigners arriving here since 1808, we shall find the in- crease of the black population outrunning that of the white to an extent unac- countable, except by supposing that some of them, too, have been coming from Africa. If this be so, the opening of new countries to the institution increases the demand for and augments the price of slaves, and so does, in fact, make slaves of freemen, by causing them to be brought from Africa and sold into bondage. But however this may be, we know the opening of new countries to slavery tends to the perpetuation of the institution, and so does keep men in slavery who would otherwise be free. This result we do not feel like favoring, and we are under no legal obligation to suppress our feelings in this respect. Equal justice to the South, it is said, requires us to consent to the extension of slavery to new countries. That is to say, inasmuch as you do not object to my taking my hog to Nebraska, therefore I must not object to your taking your slave. Now, I admit that this is perfectly logical if there is no difference be- tween hogs and negroes. But while you thus require me to deny the humanity of the negro, I wish to ask whether you of the South, yourselves, have ever been willing to do as much? It is kindly provided that of all those who come into the world only a small percentage are natural tyrants. That percentage is no larger in the slave States than in the free. The great majority South, as well as North, have human sympathies, of which they can no more divest them- selves than they can of their sensibility to physical pain. These sympathies in the bosoms of the Southern people manifest, in many ways, their sense of the wrong of slavery, and their consciousness that, after all, there is humanity in the negro. If they deny this, let me address them a few plain questions. In 1820 you joined the North, almost unanimously, in declaring the African slave-trade piracy, and in annexing to it the punishment of death. Why did you do this? If you did not feel that it was wrong, why did you join in providing that men should be hung for it? The practice was no more than bringing wild negroes from Africa to such as would buy them. But you never thought of hanging men for catching and selling wild horses, wild buffalos, or wild bears. Again, you have among you a sneaking individual of the class of native tyrants known as the "slave-dealer." He watches your necessities, and crawls up to buy your slave, at a speculating price. If you cannot help it, you sell to him; but if you can help it, you drive him from your door. You despise him utterly. You do not recognize him as a friend, or even as an honest man. Your children must not olay with his; they may rollick freely with the little negroes, but not with the slave-dealer's children. If you are obliged to deal with him, you try to p,et through the job without so much as touching him. It is common -30- with you to join hands with the men you meet, but with the slave-dealer you avoid the ceremony — instinctively shrinking from the snaky contact. If he grows rich and retires from business, you still remember him, and still keep up the ban of nonintercourse upon him and his family. Now, why is this ? You do not so treat the man who deals in corn, cotton, or tobacco. And yet again: There are in the United States and Territories, including the District of Columbia, 433,643 free blacks. At five hundred dollars per head they are worth over two hundred millions of dollars. How comes this vast amount of property to be running about without owners? We do not see free horses or free cattle running at large. How is this? All these free blacks are the descendants of slaves, or have been slaves themselves; and they would be slaves now but for something which has operated on their white owners, induc- ing them at vast pecuniary sacrifice to liberate them. What is that something? Is there any mistaking it? In all these cases it is your sense of justice and human sympathy continually telling you that the poor negro has some natural right to himself — that those who deny it and make mere merchandise of him de- serve kickings, contempt, and death. And now why will you ask us to deny the humanity of the slave, and estimate him as only the equal of the hog? Why ask us to do what you will not do yourselves? Why ask us to do for nothing what two hundred millions of dollars could not induce you to do? But one great argument in support of the repeal of the Missouri Compro- mise is still to come. That argument is "the sacred right of self-government." It seems our distinguished Senator has found great difficulty in getting his an- tagonists, even in the Senate, to meet him fairly on this argument. Some poet has said: "Fools rush in where angels fear to tread." At the hazard of being thought one of the fools of this quotation, I meet that argument — I rush in — I take that bull by the horns. I trust I understand and truly estimate the right of self- government. My faith in the proposition that each man should do precisely as he pleases with all which is exclusively his own lies at the foundation of the sense of justice there is in me. I extend the principle to communities of men as well as to individuals. I so extend it because it is politically wise, as well as naturally just; politically wise in saving us from broils about matters which do not concern us. Here, or at Washington, I would not trouble myself with the oyster laws of Virginia, or the cranberry laws of Indiana. The doctrine of self-government is right — absolutely and eternally right — but it has no just application as here attempted. Or perhaps I should rather say that whether it has such application depends upon whether a negro is or is not a man. If he is not a man, in that case he who is a man may as a matter of self-government do just what he pleases with him. But if the negro is a man, is it not to that extent a total destruction of self-government to say that he too shall not govern him- self? When the white man governs himself, that is self-government; but when he governs himself and also governs another man, that is more than self-gov- ernment — that is despotism. If the negro is a man, why, then, my ancient faith teaches me that "all men are created equal," and that there can be no moral right in connection with one man's making a slave of another. -31- Judge Douglas frequently, with bitter irony and sarcasm, paraphrases our argument by saying: "The white people of Nebraska are good enough to gov- ern themselves, but they are not good enough to govern a few miserable negroes!" Well, I doubt not that the people of Nebraska are and will continue to be as good as the average of people elsewhere. I do not say the contrary. What I do say is that no man is good enough to govern another man without that other's consent. I say that is the leading principle, the sheetanchor of American republicanism. Our Declaration of Independence says: "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." I have quoted so much at this time merely to show that, according to our ancient faith, the just powers of government are derived from the consent of the governed. Now the relation of master and slave is, pro tanto, a total vio- lation of this principle. The master not only governs the slave without his consent, but he governs him by a set of rules altogether different from those which he prescribes for himself. Allow all the governed an equal voice in the government, and that, and that only, is self-government. Let it not be said that I am contending for the establishment of political and social equality between the whites and blacks. I have already said the con- trary. I am not combating the argument of necessity, arising from the fact that the blacks are already among us; but I am combating what is set up as moral argument for allowing them to be taken where they have never yet been — arguing against the extension of a bad thing, which, where it already exists, we must of necessity manage as we best can. In support of his application of the doctrine of self-government, Senator Douglas has sought to bring to his aid the opinions and examples of our Revo- lutionary fathers. I am glad he has done this. I love the sentiments of those old-time men, and shall be most happy to abide by their opinions. He shows us that when it was in contemplation for the colonies to break off from Great Britain, and set up a new government for themselves, several of the States instructed their delegates to go for the measure, provided each State should be allowed to regulate its domestic concerns in its own way. I do not quote; "Lincoln shows his hatred of slavery, in his Peoria speech, and pricks many a sophistical bubble cleverly blown by Douglas for vindicating himself before the people. Upon Lincoln has dawned a bright auroral promise of a new career at the age of forty-five years, in the very flowering of his highest talent. And let it not be forgotten ! that adversary and antitype of his, so long triumphant over him, he can now clutch with the grip of Ophiuchus and hale the violator of what he deems the right before the judgment-seat of the Folk-Soul, Yea of the Ages." . . . DENTON J. SNIDER 32 but this in substance. This was right; I see nothing objectionable in it. I also think it probable that it had some reference to the existence of slavery among them. I will not deny that it had. But had it any reference to the carrying of slavery into new countries? That is the question, and we let the fathers them- selves answer it. Illinois Daily Journal, October 25, 1854 This same generation of men, and mostly the same individuals of the generation who declared this principle, who declared independence, who fought the war of the Revolution through, who afterward made the Consti- tution under which we still live — these same men passed the Ordinance of '87, declaring that slavery should never go to the Northwest Territory. I have no doubt Judge Douglas thinks they were very inconsistent in this. It is a ques- tion of discrimination between them and him. But there is not an inch of ground left for his claiming that their opinions, their examples, their authority, are on his side in the controversy. Again, is not Nebraska, while a Territory, a part of us? Do we not own the country? And if we surrender the control of it, do we not surrender the right of self-government? It is part of ourselves. If you say we shall not control it, because it is only part, the same is true of every other part; and when all the parts are gone, what has become of the whole? What is then left of us? What use for the General Government, when there is nothing left for it to govern? But you say this question should be left to the people of Nebraska, be- cause they are more particularly interested. If this be the rule, you must leave it to each individual to say for himself whether he will have slaves. What better moral right have thirty-one citizens of Nebraska to say that the thirty- second shall not hold slaves than the people of the thirty-one States have to say that slavery shall not go into the thirty-second State at all ? But if it is a sacred right for the people of Nebraska to take and hold slaves there, it is equally their sacred right to buy them where they can buy them cheapest; and that, undoubtedly, will be on the coast of Africa, provided you will consent not to hang them for going there to buy them. You must re- move this restriction, too, from the sacred right of self-government. I am aware you say that taking slaves from the State of Nebraska does not make slaves of freemen; but the African slavetrader can say just as much. He does not catch free negroes and bring them here. He finds them already slaves in the hands of their black captors, and he honestly buys them at the rate of a red cotton handkerchief a head. This is very cheap, and it is a great abridgement of the sacred right of self-government to hang men for engaging in this profitable trade. Another important objection to this application of the right of self-govern- ment is that it enables the first few to deprive the succeeding many of a free exercise of the right of self-government. The first few may get slavery in, and the subsequent many cannot easily get it out. How common is the remark now in the slave States, "If we were only clear of our slaves, how much better it would be for us." They are actually deprived of the privilege of governing - 33 - themselves as they would, by the action of a very few in the beginning. The same thing was true of the whole nation at the time our Constitution was formed. Whether slavery shall go into Nebraska, or other new Territories, is not a matter of exclusive concern to the people who may go there. The whole nation is interested that the best use shall be made of these Territiories. We want them for homes of free white people. This they cannot be, to any con- siderable extent, if slavery shall be planted within them. Slave States are places for poor white people to remove from, not to remove to. New free States are the places for poor people to go to, and better their condition. For this use the nation needs these Territories. Still further: there are constitutional relations between the slave and free States which are degrading to the latter. We are under legal obligations to catch and return their runaway slaves to them; a sort of dirty, disagreeable job, which, I believe, as a general rule, the slaveholders will not perform for one another. Then again, in the control of the government — the management of the partnership affairs — they have greatly the advantage of us. By the Constitution each State has two senators, each has a number of representatives in proportion to the number of its people, and each has a number of Presi- dential electors equal to the whole number of its senators and representatives together. But in ascertaining the number of the people for this purpose, five slaves are counted as being equal to three whites. The slaves do not vote; they are only counted and so used as to swell the influence of the white people's votes. The practical effect of this is more aptly shown by a comparison of the States of South Carolina and Maine. South Carolina has six representatives, and so has Maine; South Carolina has eight Presidential electors, and so has Maine. This is precise equality so far; and of course they are equal in senators, each having two. Thus in the control of the government the two States are equals precisely. But how are they in the number of their white people? Maine has 581,813, while South Carolina has 274,567; Maine has twice as many as South Carolina, and 32,679 over. Thus, each white man in South Carolina is more than the double of any man in Maine. This is all because South Carolina, besides her free people, has 384,984 slaves. The South Carolinian has precisely the same advantage over the white man in every free State as well as in Maine. He is more than the double of any one of us in this crowd. The same advantage, but not to the same extent, is held by all the citizens of the slave States over those of the free; and it is an absolute truth, without an exception, that there is no voter in any slave State but who has more legal power in the government than any voter in any free State. There is no instance of exact equality; and the disadvantage is against us the whole chapter through. This principal, in the aggregate, gives the slave States in the present Congress twenty additional representatives, being seven more than the whole majority by which they passed the Nebraska Bill. Now all this is manifestly unfair; yet I do not mention it to complain of it; in so far as it is alreadv settled. It is in the Constitution, and I do not for that cause, or anv other cause, propose to destroy, or alter, or disregard the Constitu- tion. I stand to it, fairly, full, and firmly. -34- But when I am told I must leave it altogether to other people to say whether new partners are to be bred up and brought into the firm, on the same degrading terms against me, I respectfully demur. I insist that whether I shall be a whole man or only the half one, in comparison with others, is a question in which I am somewhat concerned, and one which no other man can have a sacred right of deciding for me. If I am wrong in this, if it really be a sacred right of self-government in the man who shall go to Nebraska to decide whether he will be the equal of me or the double of me, then, after he shall have exercised that right, and thereby shall have reduced to me a still smaller fraction of a man than I already am, I should like some gentleman, deeply skilled in the mysteries of sacred rights, to provide himself with a microscope, and peep about, and find out, if he can, what has become of my sacred rights. They will surely be too small for detection with the naked eye. Finally, I insist that if there is anything which it is the duty of the whole people to never intrust to any hands but their own, that thing is the preser- vation and perpetuity of their own liberties and institutions. And if they shall think, as I do, that the extension of slavery endangers them more than any or all other causes, how recreant to themselves if they submit the question, and with it the fate of their country, to a mere handful of men bent only on self- interest! If this question of slavery extension were an insignificant one — one having no power to do harm — it might be shuffled aside in this way; and being, as it is, the great Behemoth of danger, shall the strong grip of the nation be loosened upon him, to intrust him to the hands of such feeble keepers? I have done with this mighty argument of self-government. Go, sacred thing! Go in peace. But Nebraska is urged as a great Union-saving measure. Well, I too go for saving the Union. Much as I hate slavery, I would consent to the extension of it rather than see the Union dissolved, just as I would consent to any great evil to avoid a greater one. But when I go to Union-saving, I must believe, at least, that the means I employ have some adaption to the end. To my mind, Nebraska has no such adaption. "It hath no relish of salvation in it." It is an aggravation, rather, of the only one thing which ever endangers the Union. When it came upon us, all was peace and quiet. The nation was looking to the forming of new bonds of Union, and a long course of peace and prosperity seemed to lie before us. In the whole range of possibility, there scarcely appears to me to have been anything out of which the slavery agitation could have been revived, except the very project of repealing the Missouri Compromise. Every inch of territory we owned already had a definite settle- ment of the slavery question, by which all parties were pledged to abide. In- deed, there was no uninhabited country on the continent which we could ac- quire, if we except some extreme northern regions which are wholly out of the question. In this state of affairs the Genius of Discord himself could scarcely have invented a way of again setting us by the ears but by turning back and destroy- ing the peace measures of the past. The counsels of the Genius seem to have - 35 - The Lincoln Memorial . . . Washington, D. C. prevailed. The Missouri Compromise was repealed; and here we are in the midst of a new slavery agitation, such, I think, as we have never seen before. Who is responsible for this? Is it those who resist the measure, or those who causelessly brought it forward, and passed it through, having reason to know, and in fact knowing, it must and would be so resisted? It could not but be expected by its author that it would be looked upon as a measure for the exten- sion of slavery, aggravated by a gross breach of faith. Argue as you will and long as you will, this is the naked front and aspect of the measure. And in this aspect it could not but produce agitation. Slavery is founded in the selfishness of man's nature — opposition to it in his love of justice. These principles are at eternal antagonism, and when brought into collision so fiercely as slavery extension brings them, shocks and throes and convulsions must ceaselessly follow. Repeal the Missouri Compromise, repeal all compromises, repeal the Declaration of Independence, repeal all past his- tory, you still cannot repeal human nature. It still will be out of the abundance of man's heart that slavery extension is wrong, and out of the abundance of his heart his mouth will continue to speak. The structure, too, of the Nebraska Bill is very peculiar. The people are to decide the question of slavery for themselves; but when they are to decide, or how they are to decide, or whether, when the question is once decided, it is to remain so or is to be subject to an indefinite succession of new trials, the law does not say. Is it to be decided by the first dozen settlers who arrive there, or is it to await the arrival of a hundred? Is it to be decided by a vote of the people or a vote of the Legislature, or, indeed, by a vote of any sort? To these questions the law gives no answer. There is a mystery about this; for when a member proposed to give the Legislature express authority to exclude slavery, it was hooted down by the friends of the bill. This fact is worth remembering. Some Yankees in the East are sending emigrants to Nebraska to exclude slavery from it; and so far as I can judge, they expect the question to be decided by voting in some way or other. But the Missourians are awake too. They are within a stone's-throw of the contested ground. They hold meetings and pass resolutions in which not the slightest allusion to voting is made. They resolve that slavery already exists in the Territory; that more shall go there; that they, remaining in Missouri, will protect it, and that abolitionists shall be hung or driven away. Through all this, bowie-knives and six-shooters are seen plainly enough, but never a glimpse of the ballot-box. And, really, what is the result of all this? Each party within having nu- merous and determined backers without, is it not probable that the contest will come to blows and bloodshed? Could there be a more apt invention to bring about collision and violence on the slavery question than this Nebraska project is? I do not charge or believe that such was intended by Congress; but if they had literally formed a ring and placed champions within it to fight out the controversy, the fight could be no more likely to come off than it is. And if this fight should begin, is it likely to take a very peaceful, Union-saving turn? Will not the first drop of blood so shed be the real knell of the Union ? The Missouri Compromise ought to be restored. For the sake of the Union, it ought to be restored. We ought to elect a House of Representatives which will vote its restoration. If by any means we omit to do this, what follows? -37- Slavery may or may not be established in Nebraska. But whether it be or not, we shall have repudiated — discarded from the councils of the nation — the spirit of compromise; for who, after this, will ever trust in a national com- promise? The spirit of mutual concession — that spirit which first gave us the Constitution, and which has thrice saved the Union — we shall have strangled and cast from us forever. And what shall we have in lieu of it? The South flushed with triumph and tempted to excess; the North, betrayed as they be- lieve, brooding on wrong and burning for revenge. One side will provoke, the other resent. The one will taunt, the other defy; one aggresses, the other re- taliates. Already a few in the North will defy all constitutional restraints, resist the execution of the fugitive slave law, and even menace the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. Already a few in the South claim the constitutional right to take and to hold slaves in the free States, demand the revival of the slave-trade, and demand a treaty with Great Britain by which fugitive slaves may be reclaimed from Canada. As yet they are but few on either side. It is a grave question for lovers of the Union whether the final destruction of the Missouri Compromise, and with it the spirit of all compromise, will or will not embolden and embitter each of these, and fatally increase the number of both. But restore the compromise, and what then? We thereby restore the na- tional feeling of brotherhood. We thereby reinstate the spirit of concession and compromise, that spirit which has never failed us in past perils, and which may be safely trusted for all the future. The South ought to join in doing this. The peace of the nation is as dear to them as to us. In memories of the past and hopes of the future, they share as largely as we. It would be on their part a great act - - great in its spirit, and great in its effect. It would be worth to the nation a hundred years' purchase of peace and prosperity. And what of sacri- fice would they make? They only surrender to us what they gave us for a con- sideration long, long ago; what they have not now asked for, struggled or cared for; what has been thrust upon them, not less to their astonishment than to ours. But is is said we cannot restore it; that though we elect every member of the lower House, the Senate is still against us. It is quite true that of the sena- tors who passed the Nebraska Bill a majority of the whole Senate will retain their seats in spite of the elections of this and the next year. But if at these elections their several constituencies shall clearly express their will against Nebraska, will these senators disregard their will? Will they neither obey nor make room for those who will ? But even if we fail to technically restore the compromise, it is still a great point to carry a popular vote in favor of the restoration. The moral weight of such a vote cannot be estimated too highly. The authors of Nebraska are not at all satisfied with the destruction of the compromise — an indorsement of this principle they proclaim to be the great object. With them, Nebraska alone is p. small matter — to establish a principle for future use is what they particularly desire. Illinois Daily Journal, October 26, 1854 The future use is to be the planting of slavery wherever in the wide world local and unorganized opposition cannot prevent it. Now, if you wish to give them this indorsement, if you wish to establish this principle, do so. I shall regret it, but it is your right. On the contrary, if you are opposed to the princi- ple — intend to give it no such indorsement — let no wheedling, no sophistry, divert you from throwing a direct vote against it. Some men, mostly Whigs, who condemn the repeal of the Missouri Com- promise, nevertheless hesitate to go for its restoration, lest they be thrown in company with the abolitionists. Will they allow me, as an old Whig, to tell them, good-humoredly, that I think this is very silly? Stand with anybody that stands right. Stand with him while he is right, and part with him when he goes wrong. Stand with the abolitionist in restoring the Missouri Compromise, and stand against him when he attempts to repeal the fugitive slave law. In the latter case you stand with the Southern disunionist. What of that? You are still right. In both cases you are right. In both cases you oppose the dangerous extremes. In both you stand on middle ground, and hold the ship level and steady. In both you are national, and nothing less than national. This is the good old Whig ground. To desert such ground because of any company is to be less than a Whig — less than a man — less than an American. I particularly object to the new position which the avowed principle of this Nebraska law gives to slavery in the body politic. I object to it because it assumes that there can be moral right in the enslaving of one man by another. I object to it as a dangerous alliance for a free people — a sad evidence that, feeling prosperity, we forget right; that liberty, as a principle, we have ceased to revere. I object to it because the fathers of the republic eschewed and rejected it. The argument of "necessity" was the only argument they ever admitted in favor of slavery; and so far, and so far only, as it carried them did they ever go. They found the institution existing among us, which they could not help, and they cast blame upon the British king for having permitted its introduction. Before the Constitution they prohibited its introduction into the Northwestern Territory, the only country we owned then free from it. At the framing and adoption of the Constitution, they forebore to so much as mention the word "slave" or "slavery" in the whole instrument. In the provision for the recovery of fugitives, the slave is spoken of as a "person held to service or labor." In that prohibiting the abolition of the African slave-trade for twenty years, that trade is spoken of as "the migration or importation of such persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit," etc. These are the only provi- sions alluding to slavery. Thus the thing is hid away in the Constitution, just as an afflicted man hides away a wen or cancer which he dares not cut out at once, lest he bleed to death — with the promise, nevertheless, that the cutting may begin at a certain time. Less than this our fathers could not do, and more they would not do. Necessity drove them so far, and farther they would not go. But this is not all. The earliest Congress under the Constitution took the same view of slavery. They hedged and hemmed it in to the narrowest limits of necessity. -39- In 1794 they prohibited an outgoing slave-trade — that is, the taking of slaves from the United States to sell. In 1798 they prohibited the bringing of slaves from Africa into the Mississippi Territory, this Territory then comprising what are now the States of Mississippi and Alabama. This was ten years before they had the authority to do the same thing as to the States existing at the adoption of the Constiution. In 1800 they prohibited American citizens from trading in slaves between foreign countries, as, for instance, from Africa to Brazil. In 1803 they passed a law in aid of one or two slave-State laws in re- straint of the internal slave-trade. In 1807, in apparent hot haste, they passed the law, nearly a year in advance — to take effect the first day of 1808, the very first day the Constitution would permit — prohibiting the African slave- trade by heavy pecuniary and corporal penalties. In 1820, finding these provi- sions ineffectual, they declared the slave-trade piracy, and annexed to it the extreme penalty of death. While all this was passing in the General Govern- ment, five or six of the original slave States had adopted systems of gradual emancipation, by which the institution was rapidly becoming extinct within their limits. Thus we see that the plain, unmistakable spirit of that age toward slavery was hostility to the principle and toleration only by necessity. But now it is to be transformed into a "sacred right". Nebraska brings it forth, places it on the highroad to extension and perpetuity, and with a pat on its back says to it, "Go, and God speed you." Henceforth it is to be the chief jewel of the nation — the very figure-head of the ship of state. Little by little, but steadily as man's march to the grave, we have been giving up the old for the new faith. Near eighty years ago we began by declaring that all men are created equal; but now from that beginning we have run down to the other declaration, that for some men to enslave others is a "sacred right of self-gov- ernment." These principles cannot stand together. They are as opposite as God and Mammon; and whoever holds to the one must despise the other. When Pettit, in connection with his support of the Nebraska Bill, called the Declara- tion of Independence "a self-evident lie," he only did what consistency and candor require all other Nebraska men to do. Of the forty-odd Nebraska sena- tors who sat present and heard him, no one rebuked him. Nor am I apprised that any Nebraska newspaper, or any Nebraska orator, in the whole nation has ever yet rebuked him. If this had been said among Marion's men, Southerners though they were, what would have become of the man who said it? If this had been said to the men who captured Andre, the man who said it would nrobably have been hung sooner than Andre was. If it had been said in old Independence Hall seventy-eight years ago, the very doorkeeper would have throttled the man and thrust him into the street. Let no one be deceived. The soirit of seventy-six and the spirit of Nebraska are utter antagonisms; and the former is being rapidly displaced by the latter. "This Peoria speech, which is very long, is particularly interesting to students of Mr. Lincoln's speeches, because in it is found the germ of many of the arguments which he elaborated in the next six years and used with tremendous effect. With the Peoria speech Douglas had had enough of Lin- coln as an antagonist." . . . IDA M. TARBELL 40 Fellow-countrymen, Americans, South as well as North, shall we make no effort to arrest this? Already the liberal party throughout the world express the apprehension that "the one retrograde institution in America is undermin- ing the principles of progress, and fatally violating the noblest political system the world ever saw." This is not the taunt of enemies, but the warning of friends. Is it quite safe to disregard it — to despise it? Is there no danger to liberty itself in discarding the earliest practice and first precept of our ancient faith? In our greedy chase to make profit of the negro, let us beware lest we "cancel and tear in pieces" even the white man's charter of freedom. Our republican robe is soiled and trailed in the dust. Let us repurify it. Let us turn and wash it white in the spirit, if not the blood, of the Revolution. Let us turn slavery from its claims of "moral right" back upon its existing legal rights and its arguments of "necessity." Let us return it to the position our fathers gave it, and there let it rest in peace. Let us readopt the Declaration of Independence, and with it the practices and policy which harmonize with it. Let North and South — let all Americans — let all lovers of liberty everywhere join in the great and good work. If we do this, we shall not only have saved the Union, but we shall have so saved it as to make and to keep it forever worthy of the saving. We shall have so saved it that the succeeding millions of free, happy people the world over shall rise up and call us blessed to the latest generations. Illinois Daily Journal, October 27, 1854 At Springfield, twelve days ago, where I had spoken substantially as I have here, Judge Douglas replied to me; and as he is to reply to me here, I shall attempt to anticipate him by noticing some of the points he made there. He commenced by stating I had assumed all the way through that the principle of the Nebraska Bill would have the effect of extending slavery. He denied that this was intended or that this effect would follow. I will not reopen the argument upon this point. That such was the inten- tion the world, believed at the start, and will continue to believe. This was the countenance of the thing, and both friends and enemies instantly recognized it as such. That countenance cannot now be changed by argument. You can as easily argue the color out of the negro's skin. Like the "bloody hand," you may wash it and wash it, the red witness of guilt still sticks and stares horribly at you. Next, he says that Congressional intervention never prevented slavery anywhere; that it did not prevent it in the Northwestern Territory, nor in Illi- nois; that, in fact, Illinois came into the Union as a slave State; that the prin- ciple of the Nebraska Bill expelled it from Illinois, from several old States, from everywhere. Now this is mere quibbling all the way through. If the Ordinance of '87 did not keep slavery out of the Northwest Territory, how happens it that the northwest shore of the Ohio River is entirely free from it, while the southeast shore, less than a mile distant, along nearly the whole length of the river, is entirely covered with it ? -41 - If that ordinance did not keep it out of Illinois, what was it that made the difference between Illinois and Missouri? They lie side by side, the Mis- sissippi River only dividing them, while their early settlements were within the same latitude. Between 1810 and 1820 the number of slaves in Missouri in- creased 7,211, while in Illinois in the same ten years they decreased 51. This appears by the census returns. During nearly all of that ten years both were Territories, not States. During this time the ordinance forbade slavery to go into Illinois, and nothing forbade it to go into Missouri. It did go into Mis- souri, and did not go into Illinois. That is the fact. Can any one doubt as to the reason of it? But he says Illinois came into the Union as a slave State. Silence, perhaps, would be the best answer to this flat contradiction of the known his- tory of the country. What are the facts upon which this bold assertion is based? When we first acquired the country, as far back as 1787, there were some slaves within it held by the French inhabitants of Kaskaskia. The territorial legislation admitted a few negroes from the slave States as indentured servants. One year after the adoption of the first State constitution, the whole number of them was — what do you think? Just one hundred and seventeen, while the aggre- gate free population was 55,094 — about four hundred and seventy to one. Upon this state of facts the people framed their constitution prohibiting the further introduction of slavery, with a sort of guaranty to the owners of the few indentured servants, giving freedom to their children to be born there- after, and making no mention whatever of any supposed slave for life. Out of this small matter the Judge manufactures his argument that Illinois came into the Union as a Slave State. Let the facts be the answer to the argument. The principles of the Nebraska Bill, he says, expelled slavery from Illi- nois. The principle of that bill first planted it here — that is, first came be- cause there was no law to prevent it, first came before we owned the country; and finding it here, and having the Ordinance of '87 to prevent its increasing, our people struggled along, and finally got rid of it as best they could. But the principle of the Nebraska Bill abolished slavery in several of the old States. Well, it is true that several of the old States, in the last quarter of the last century, did adopt systems of gradual emancipation by which the in- stitution has finally become extinct within their limits; but it may or may not be true that the principle of the Nebraska Bill was the cause that led to the adop- tion of these measures. It is now more than fifty years since the last of these States adopted its system of emancipation. If the Nebraska Bill is the real author of the benevolent works, it is rather deplorable that it has for so long a time ceased working altogether. Is there not some reason to suspect that it was the principle of the Revolution, and not the principle of the Nebraska Bill, that led to emancipation in these old States? Leave it to the people of these old emancipating States, and I am quite certain they will decide that neither that nor any other good thing ever did or ever will come of the Nebraska Bill. In the course of my main argument, Judge Douglas interrupted me to say that the principle of the Nebraska Bill was very old; that it originated when God made man, and placed good and evil before him, allowing him to choose for himself, being responsible for the choice he should make. At the time I -42- thought this was merely playful, and I answered it accordingly. But in his reply to me he renewed it as a serious argument. In seriousness, then, the facts of this proposition are not true as stated. God did not place good and evil before man, telling him to make his choice. On the contrary, he did tell him there was one tree of the fruit of which he should not eat, upon pain of certain death. I should scarcely wish so strong a prohibition against slavery in Nebraska. But this argument strikes me as not a little remarkable in another parti- cular — in its strong resemblance to the old argument for the "divine right of kings." By the latter, the king is to do just as he pleases with his white sub- jects, being responsible to God alone. By the former, the white man is to do just as he pleases with his black slaves, being responsible to God alone. The two things are precisely alike, and it is but natural that they should find similar arguments to sustain them. I had argued that the application of the principle of self-government, as contended for, would require the revival of the African slave-trade; that no argument could be made in favor of a man's right to take slaves to Nebraska which could not be equally well made in favor of his right to bring them from the coast of Africa. The Judge replied that the Constitution requires the sup- pression of the foreign slave-trade, but does not require the prohibition of slavery in the Territories. That is a mistake in point of fact. The Constitution does not require the action of Congress in either case, and it does authorize it in both. And so there is still no difference between the cases. In regard to what I have said of the advantage the slave States have over the free in the matter of representation, the Judge replied that we in the free States count five free negroes as five white people, while in the slave States they count five slaves as three whites only; and that the advantage, at last, was on the side of the free States. Now, in the slave States they count free negroes just as we do; and it so happens that, besides their slaves, they have as many free negroes as we have, and thirty thousand over. Thus, their free negroes more than balance ours; and their advantage over us, in consequence of their slaves, still remains as I stated it. Illinois Daily Journal, October 29, 1854 In reply to my argument that the compromise measures of 1850 were a system of equivalents, and that the provision of no one of them could fairly be carried to other subjects without its corresponding equivalent being carried with it, the Judge denied outright that these measures had any connection with or dependence upon each other. This is mere desperation. If they had no con- nection, why are they always spoken of in connection? Why has he so spoken of them a thousand times? Why has he constantly called them a series of meas- ures? Why does everybody call them a compromise? Why was California kept out of the Union six or seven months, if it was not because of its connection with the other measures? Webster's leading definition of the verb "to compro- mise" is "to adjust and settle a difference, by mutual agreement, with conces- sions of claims by the parties." This conveys precisely the popular understand- ing of the word "compromise". -43- The Mill at New Salem, Illinois We knew, before the Judge told us, that these measures passed separately, and in distinct bills, and that no two of them were passed by the votes of pre- cisely the same members. But we also know, and so does he know, that no one of them could have passed both branches of Congress but for the understanding that the others were to pass also. Upon this understanding, each got votes which it could have got in no other way. It is this fact which gives to the measures their true character; and it is the universal knowledge of this fact that has given them the name of "compromises," so expressive of that true character. I had asked: "If, in carrying the Utah and New Mexico laws to Nebraska, you could clear away other objection, how could you leave Nebraska 'perfectly free' to introduce slavery before she forms a constitution, during her territorial government, while the Utah and New Mexico laws only authorize it when they form constitutions and are admitted into the Union?" To this Judge Douglas answered that the Utah and New Mexico laws also authorized it before; and to prove this he read from one of their laws, as follows: "That the legislative power of said Territory shall extend to all rightful subjects of legislation, con- sistent with the Constitution of the United States and the provisions of this act." Now it is perceived from the reading of this that there is nothing expressed upon the subject, but that the authority is sought to be implied merely for the general provision of "all rightful subjects of legislation." In reply to this I insist, as a legal rule of construction, as well as the plain, popular view of the matter, that the express provision for Utah and New Mexico coming in with slavery, if they choose, when they shall form constitutions, is an exclusion of all implied authority on the same subject; that Congress having the subject dis- tinctly in their minds when they made the express provision, they therein ex- pressed their whole meaning on that subject. The Judge rather insinuated that I had found it convenient to forget the Washington territorial law passed in 1853. This was a division of Oregon, organizing the northern part as the Territory of Washington. He asserted that by this act the Ordinance of '87, therefore existing in Oregon, was repealed; that nearly all the members of congress voted for it, beginning in the House of Representatives with Charles Allen of Massachusetts, and ending with Richard Yates of Illinois; and that he could not understand how those who now op- posed the Nebraska Bill so voted there, unless it was because it was then too soon after both the great political parties had ratified the compromises of 1850, and the ratification therefore was too fresh to be then repudiated. Now I had seen the Washington act before, and I have carefully examined it since; and I aver that there is no repeal of the Ordinance of '87, or of any prohibition of slavery, in it. In express terms, there is absolutely nothing in the whole law upon the subject — in fact, nothing to lead a reader to think of the subject. To my judgement it is equally free from everything from which repeal can be legally implied; but, however this may be, are men now to be entrapped by a legal implication, extracted from covert language, introduced perhaps for the very purpose of entrapping them ? I sincerely wish every man could read this law quite through, carefully watching every sentence and every line for a re- peal of the Ordinance of '87, or anything equivalent to it. -45- HAD LINCOLN LIVED // is sometimes said that Lincoln s story would have been less memorable had it not been so suddenly and so violently closed. Such surmise profits nobody. There is no reason to suppose that had he lived Lincoln would not have brought to reconstruc- tion the strong and lovely qualities that he had exercised in war. History rightly takes no note of events that were and must remain unborn. And the imagination of men, fixed on reality, disregards them also. Our delight in the story of our race is not to wonder aimlessly what might have been, but to realise the true significance of what was. To the story of Lincoln we could wish to add noth- ing, since nothing could enrich or dignify it; and that something of its splendour might have been lost in other circumstances does not trouble our delight.— LORD CHARNWOOD. Presentation Copy . . . Not For Sale Published in 1952 by EDWARD J. JACOB 2316 PEORIA AVENUE . . . PEORIA, ILLINOIS This is the thirty-seventh in a series of books of Lincolniana that I have published over the past forty-five years. • May you enjoy reading what has been referred to as "a model of brevity, directness, exact and lucid historical statement" COMPOSITION AND OFFSET LITHOGRAPHY by the LOGAN PRINTING COMPANY 105 FOURTH AVE. . . . PEORIA ILLINOIS PEORIA O the music of thy name, Peoria! When with May thy meadows flame, When the wild crab woos the bees To its bowers, and Judas-trees Tint thy budding woods with red; When from all thy groves and leas, As if grief and care were dead, And life and joy forever wed, Bluebirds, thrushes, orioles, In rapturous song pour forth their souls; Then I know 'twas first in May Thy Indian lovers came this way, And, tranced with bloom and song of bird, Coined thee this melodious word - - Sweet as far off bugle note Fall thy syllables and float — Peoria! — Edna Dean Proctor UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS-URBANA 973.7L63N18S4P19S2 C002 ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S SPEECH AT PEORIA, ILLI 30 2 031831982