L I i 
 
LINCOLN ROOM 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
 LIBRARY 
 
 MEMORIAL 
 
 the Class of 1901 
 
 founded by 
 
 HARLAN HOYT HORNER 
 
 and 
 
 HENRIETTA CALHOUN HORNER 
 
The 
 
 LINCOLN- 
 DOUGLAS 
 
 Debates 
 
 REPRESENTATIVE SELECTIONS 
 
 The Chicago Historical Society 
 1958 
 
The 
 
 LINCOLN- 
 DOUGLAS 
 
 Debates 
 
 REPRESENTATIVE SELECTIONS 
 
 With an Introduction by 
 PAUL M. ANGLE 
 
 The Chicago Historical Society 
 1958 
 
© 1958 by the University of Chicago 
 © 1958 by the Chicago Historical Society 
 
R 7 3 > 7 '/ 
 
 Preface 
 
 Late in 1956 the Chicago Historical Society inaugurated a publish- 
 ing program. With the centennial of the Lincoln-Douglas Debates 
 approaching, it was decided that the first publication should be de- 
 voted to that subject, and that it should include the text of the de- 
 bates and five other speeches that were integral parts of the cam- 
 paign, a liberal sampling of contemporary newspaper accounts, and 
 an introduction which would place this most famous of all American 
 forensic encounters in its historical setting. On Februaiy 12, 1958, 
 the book was published by the University of Chicago Press : Created 
 Equal? The Complete Lincoln-Douglas Debates of 1858. 
 
 The Trustees hoped that Created Equal? could be distributed 
 free to members of the Society, or at least be offered to them at a 
 substantial discount. Neither course turned out to be feasible. It 
 has been possible, however, to produce a condensation in an edition 
 designed solely for the Society's members. We hope that The Lin- 
 coln-Douglas Debates: Representative Selections will satisfy those 
 who are only mildly curious about the subject, and lead those whose 
 interest is stronger to the volume of which it is an abridgment. 
 
 Like Created Equal?, this publication was made possible by the 
 Philip K. Wrigley Fund. 
 
 Andrew McNally m 
 
 PRESIDENT 
 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2012 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 
 
 http://archive.org/details/lincolndouglasdebaOOIinc 
 
Introduction 
 
 One hundred years ago, in 1858, Abraham Lincoln, with the back- 
 ing of the young and vigorous Republican Party, undertook to con- 
 test the re-election of Stephen A. Douglas, Democrat, to the United 
 States Senate. For three months Lincoln and Douglas stumped the 
 state of Illinois, engaging in seven formal debates and speaking 
 more than a hundred times at their own party rallies. 
 
 In their political effect, the debates were of far-reaching im- 
 portance. Through them, Douglas won another term in the Senate, 
 but to achieve that immediate victory he was forced to defend po- 
 sitions that were unacceptable to the southern wing of his party and 
 cost him the chance — and very good it was — of being elected Presi- 
 dent in 1860. Lincoln, on the other hand, acquired the nation-wide 
 reputation without which he could not have been nominated for the 
 presidency two years later. But for the debates, it is conceivable 
 that in the next two or three years American history might have run 
 a far different course. 
 
 As important as their effect on the fortunes of the contestants was 
 the part played by the debates in crystallizing public opinion. The 
 issues the two candidates discussed were national, not local: the 
 extension of slavery to the federal territories, the status of the Negro, 
 and the power of the states and territories to regulate their "domes- 
 tic institutions" — meaning slavery and the Negro — as they saw fit. 
 
 Within seven years the Civil War, and the Thirteenth Amend- 
 ment to the Constitution, settled the first of these issues for all time 
 by abolishing slavery. For nearly a century thereafter it appeared 
 that the other two, if not definitely settled, had at least lost their 
 power to divide the nation. Events since May, 1954, when the Su- 
 preme Court of the United States handed down its decision desegre- 
 gating the public schools, have shown that the status of the Negro, 
 and the right of the states to regulate that status, are questions as 
 live today and as dangerously charged with emotion as they were 
 when Lincoln and Douglas discussed them a hundred years ago. 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 By 1858 Stephen A. Douglas, then forty-five years old, was easily 
 the most prominent member of the Democratic Party. In politics 
 all his adult life, he had risen steadily from his initial position as 
 States Attorney of Morgan County, Illinois, to the United States 
 Senate. A member of that body since 1847, he had achieved both 
 fame and notoriety when he sponsored the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 
 1854. That act, which organized the territories of Kansas and Ne- 
 braska, nullified the Missouri Compromise of 1820 and replaced it 
 with "popular sovereignty," under which the people of a territory 
 would decide for themselves whether or not to admit slavery. By 
 opening a section of the country hitherto free to at least the pos- 
 sible ixitroduction of slavery, the Kansas-Nebraska Act aroused bit- 
 ter opposition and led to the formation of the Republican Party. 
 In Kansas the application of popular sovereignty plunged the terri- 
 tory into disorder approaching civil war; throughout the North it 
 brought so many dissenting Democrats and Old Whigs into the Re- 
 publican fold that the new party nominated a national ticket in 1856 
 and polled nearly a third of the total vote. 
 
 The Kansas-Nebraska Act also induced Abraham Lincoln to re- 
 enter politics. After serving four terms as a Whig member of the 
 Illinois General Assembly and one term in Congress, Lincoln had 
 decided to devote himself solely to the practice of law. The repeal 
 of the Missouri Compromise shocked him into taking the stump in 
 opposition to the new policy. In 1855 he narrowly missed election to 
 the United States Senate. The following year he joined the Republi- 
 can Party and campaigned vigorously for its candidates. His effec- 
 tiveness as a speaker, his proved probity and ability, gave him the 
 leadership of his party in Illinois, and made him the logical person 
 to oppose Douglas' re-election. 
 
 The senatorial campaign began on June 16, 1858, when Lincoln 
 delivered his "House Divided" speech at Springfield. On that occa- 
 sion he charged that the advocates of slavery had embarked on a 
 policy which would fasten the institution on all the states of the 
 Union and that one Senator ( Douglas ) , two Presidents ( Pierce and 
 Buchanan), and a Chief Justice of the United States (Taney) had 
 entered into a conspiracy to bring about that result. At Chicago, on 
 July 9, Douglas picked up Lincoln's declaration that a house divided 
 could not stand, twisted it into an assertion "that there must be uni- 
 formity in the local laws and domestic institutions of each and all the 
 States of the Union," and countered with popular sovereignty. He 
 ignored Lincoln's conspiracy charge but scored those who were at- 
 
 • vi • 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 tacking the Supreme Court for its decision in the Dred Scott case. 1 
 In conclusion, Douglas stated candidly and at some length his con- 
 viction that the Negro was not the equal of the white man and that 
 the government of the United States rested and should rest on the 
 basis of white supremacy. 
 
 On the following day, at Chicago, Lincoln found himself on the 
 defensive. He had to deny that his "House Divided" assertion meant 
 what Douglas said it meant. He had to clear his party of the charge 
 that its members were "resisting" the Dred Scott decision. They were 
 not resisting, but they would do what they could to force the Court 
 to reverse itself. On the status of the Negro, Lincoln made a distinc- 
 tion. He admitted that the black man was not the equal of the white 
 in all respects, but, he insisted, "in relation to the principle that all 
 men are created equal, let it be as nearly reached as we can. If we 
 cannot give freedom to every creature, let us do nothing that will 
 impose slavery upon any other creature." 
 
 When Douglas spoke at Springfield on July 17 he covered much 
 the same ground as he had covered at Chicago, but in more detail. 
 Again he hit at Lincoln's "House Divided" doctrine, but here he 
 gave the argument a new twist. The Republicans, he charged, in- 
 tended to achieve uniformity in the country by abolishing slavery in 
 the states where it existed. As to the Dred Scott decision, how would 
 Lincoln reverse it? To what tribunal could he take an appeal? Lin- 
 coln's argument that the decision had destroyed popular sovereignty 
 was nonsense. Slavery could not exist unless it was sustained by 
 friendly local legislation. In conclusion, Douglas charged again that 
 Lincoln aimed at Negro equality, while he, Douglas, intended to 
 maintain both government and society on the basis of white 
 superiority. 
 
 When Lincoln spoke on the evening of the same day he called 
 attention, first, to the disadvantages under which the Republicans 
 
 1 In this case, decided on March 6, 1857, Chief Justice Taney held that Dred 
 Scott, a slave who was suing for his liberty on the ground that he had been held 
 for several years in free territory before being returned to Missouri, "was not a 
 citizen of Missouri within the meaning of the Constitution of the United States, 
 and not entitled as such to sue in its courts," and that "the Act of Congress 
 which prohibited a citizen from holding and owning" slave property north of the 
 line of 36° 30' "is not warranted by the Constitution, and is therefore void." 
 Stated simply, a Negro could not be a citizen of the United States, the Missouri 
 Compromise was unconstitutional, and Congress had no power to exclude slav- 
 ery from the national territories. 
 
 In separate opinions, six Justices agreed in substance with Taney. Two Re- 
 publicans, Benjamin R. Curtis and John McLean, dissented. 
 
 vn 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 labored: the inequitable apportionment of legislative seats, the hold- 
 over senators who no longer represented the political complexion of 
 their districts. He then restated, in essence, the points he had made 
 at Chicago, adding little to the development of the general argu- 
 ment. He concluded with a reiteration of his belief, elaborately de- 
 veloped in the "House Divided" speech, that a conspiracy existed 
 which aimed at perpetuating and nationalizing slavery. "Judge 
 Douglas," Lincoln stated, "has carefully read and re-read that speech. 
 He has not, so far as I know, contradicted those charges. ... I 
 charge him with having been a party to that conspiracy and to that 
 deception for the sole purpose of nationalizing slavery." 
 
 By this time the campaign had assumed the general pattern of a 
 debate, with one candidate (Lincoln) following the other after a 
 short interval. Lincoln moved to make the pattern a formal one. 
 "Will it be agreeable to you," he wrote to Douglas on July 24, "to 
 make an arrangement for you and myself to divide time, and address 
 the same audiences during the present canvass?" After an exchange 
 of correspondence, marked with some acerbity, the challenge was 
 accepted and the details agreed upon: the debates would be held 
 in the seven congressional districts in which neither candidate had 
 yet spoken; at each meeting the first speaker would have an hour, 
 his opponent an hour and a half for a reply, the original speaker 
 half an hour for rebuttal. The candidates would take turns in open- 
 ing the debates, with Douglas leading off. The places chosen were 
 Ottawa, Freeport, Jonesboro, Charleston, Galesburg, Quincy, and 
 Alton. 
 
 When the two candidates met at Ottawa, each had already laid 
 down the platform on which he would campaign. Douglas would 
 stand on popular sovereignty as a basic American principle, harmo- 
 nize it with the Dred Scott decision through his doctrine of un- 
 friendly local legislation, charge Lincoln with advocating sectional 
 conflict, and press the contention that the Negro was an inferior 
 being who was not entitled to the social and political equality which, 
 he alleged, Lincoln sought to bring about. To Lincoln's conspiracy 
 charge Douglas opposed a categorical denial: "All I have to say is, 
 that I am not green enough to let him make a charge which he ac- 
 knowledges he does not know to be true, and then take up my time 
 in answering it, when I know it to be false and nobody else knows 
 it to be true." Although Lincoln would repeat the allegation, he 
 failed to support it with evidence, and gave it diminishing emphasis 
 in his later speeches. 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 At Ottawa, and in the succeeding debates, Lincoln took the posi- 
 tion that the repeal of the Missouri Compromise was the breaking 
 of a contract and that the Dred Scott decision had nullified popular 
 sovereignty. To a degree, he would be on the defensive. He would 
 be compelled to explain and qualify his "'House Divided" declara- 
 tion, and he must deny that he was promoting Negro equality. This 
 necessity, however, gave him an opportunity to take a high moral 
 position on slavery and the Negro in contrast to Douglas' candid in- 
 difference. 
 
 These issues furnished the subject matter of all the debates except 
 the fourth, at Charleston, where a bitter squabble between Douglas 
 and Lyman Trumbull became the principal topic. There were, how- 
 ever, developments within the general framework. At Ottawa Doug- 
 las propounded a series of questions designed to pin Lincoln down 
 to specific avowals with which his opponent could grapple. Lincoln, 
 with characteristic caution, did not reply until the next debate at 
 Freeport, and then he accompanied his answers with interrogatories 
 of his own. The second of these would have a major place in suc- 
 ceeding encounters. It reads: "Can the people of a United States 
 territory, in any lawful way, against the wish of any citizen of the 
 United States, exclude slavery from its limits prior to the formula- 
 tion of a state constitution?" 
 
 Before asking the question, Lincoln had sought the advice of a 
 number of leading Republicans. Several advised against it. All knew 
 what the answer would be, for ever since the summer of 1857 Doug- 
 las had been contending that in spite of Supreme Court decisions 
 slavery could not exist unless it was sustained by local laws and 
 ordinances. Should he be given the opportunity to elaborate this 
 answer before many thousands? His Illinois constituents would 
 probably find it convincing. It would hurt him in the South, where a 
 nullification of what had been gained by the Dred Scott decision 
 would not be popular, and it might well cost Douglas the presiden- 
 tial nomination in 1860. But this was 1858, with an Illinois seat in 
 the Senate, and not the presidency, at stake. Lincoln pondered the 
 problem, then asked the question. 
 
 The rallies between the debates had an importance that is not 
 generally recognized. The formal meetings, with the candidates face 
 to face, offered drama which the press exploited fully, and, with the 
 exception of the one held at Jonesboro, drew large crowds. But they 
 reached only a fraction of the voters, and only a fraction of the 
 voters saw the newspapers which reported the speeches. To the 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 others, the campaign had to be brought home. This both candidates 
 succeeded in doing between early August and election day. Never 
 before had aspirants for political office undertaken such a grind. 
 Each man traveled thousands of miles on the primitive railroads of 
 the day; each had to put up with the scanty comforts and poor food 
 of small-town hotels; each had to speak almost every day in the open 
 air, taxing his voice to the limit; each had to say the right word to 
 thousands of ardent yet touchy partisans. It would not have been 
 surprising had both men broken under the strain, but there is no 
 record that either missed a single scheduled meeting. Toward the 
 end, Douglas' voice showed signs of failure, but Lincoln appeared 
 to be as fresh as he was at the beginning of the ordeal. 
 
 The campaign had no precedent in other respects. No previous 
 local election had aroused such a degree of national interest. This 
 was partly because the questions involved were national questions, 
 partly because not only the political future of Stephen A. Douglas 
 but also that of James Buchanan was at stake, and partly because 
 the campaign was the first to be reported in modern fashion. In two 
 ways, it made journalistic histoiy. For the first time correspondents 
 traveled with candidates, and for the first time a series of political 
 speeches was reported stenographically. 
 
 The two leading party organs of the state— the Chicago Press and 
 Tribune, Republican, and the Chicago Times, Democratic— were re- 
 sponsible for these innovations. The Tress and Tribune assigned 
 Horace White, a twenty-four-year-old editorial writer, to travel with 
 Lincoln and report the progress of his campaign and hired Robert 
 R. Hitt, also twenty-four, to take down the debates in shorthand. 
 Two years earlier Hitt had opened an office in Chicago to become 
 the city's first expert stenographer. The Times imported its men, hir- 
 ing Henry Binmore from the St. Louis Republican and James B. 
 Sheridan from the Philadelphia Tress. Both men could write short- 
 hand, and, unlike the Tress and Tribune team, both filed "color" 
 stories. 
 
 Throughout the campaign, each party charged the opposing party 
 paper with printing garbled reports of speeches. There seems to be 
 no real basis for the accusation. Edwin Earle Sparks, after compar- 
 ing the Tress and Tribune and Times versions of the same speech, 
 could find no discrepancies which could not be accounted for by the 
 difficulties which the reporters faced— "the open air, the rude plat- 
 forms, the lack of accommodations for writing, the jostling of the 
 crowds of people, and the occasional puffs of wind which played 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 havoc with sheets of paper— and by the natural tendency of the 
 reporters for each paper to take more care with the speeches of the 
 party candidate than with those of his opponent. 
 
 This judgment applies only to verbatim reporting. In other stories, 
 fairness was not to be expected. According to Binmore and Sheri- 
 dan, Douglas* meetings were invariably triumphs, and Lincoln's— 
 when they had an opportunity to describe them— pitiable failures. 
 Exactly the opposite impression would be given by Horace White 
 in the Press and Tribune. Misrepresentation extended even to such 
 tangibles as attendance, with Democratic reporters ever ready to 
 claim an audience for a Douglas meeting four times as large as 
 White would concede and the Republicans no less willing to make 
 similarly exaggerated claims in Lincoln's behalf. That readers could 
 have accepted such accounts at their face value seems incredible. 
 
 Who "won" the debates? From the standpoint of forensics, the 
 answer to that question must always be a matter of opinion. Certain 
 comments, however, are relevant. Some historians have argued that 
 the speakers were concerned only with slavery in the territories and 
 that the chance of slavery's being established there was so small that 
 the issue was a false one. It has been contended, moreover, that 
 experience with the Prohibition amendment in the 1920's proves that 
 Douglas' solution was an eminently practical one: that Prohibition 
 became a nullity wherever local opinion was opposed to it. 
 
 Such positions ignore a basic reality, namely, that any issue, no 
 matter how hollow, which stirs large numbers of people is a histori- 
 cal fact of first importance. Concede that the American people 
 should not have become aroused over the presence of a couple of 
 hundred slaves in Kansas, and concede that even that small number 
 could have been forced out had Douglas' doctrine of local legisla- 
 tion been adopted; the fact is that the people did become aroused 
 and by taking sides accentuated a cleavage that soon led to civil 
 war. 
 
 Moreover, the assertion that the debates dealt only with slavery in 
 the territories is simply not true. Lincoln lifted the discussion far 
 above that narrow issue when he attacked the morality of the slave 
 system. To be sure, his attitude toward the Negro, whether slave or 
 free, was essentially the same as that of Douglas. Neither would 
 place the Negro on an equality with the white man, either politi- 
 cally or socially. But Douglas made it quite clear that he would be 
 satisfied, permanently, with the Negro's inferior status, while that 
 status tortured Lincoln's conscience. Unlike Douglas, Lincoln looked 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 forward to a time when slavery would no longer stain American 
 democracy and when the Negro would at least have an equal chance 
 to advance to the limit of his capabilities. 
 
 Considered in relation to their effect on votes, the debates gave 
 neither contestant a claim to a clear victory. The Republicans could 
 boast that more Illinois voters stood with Lincoln than with Douglas 
 —125,430 as against 121,609— but even in the popular vote they had 
 to be content with a plurality, for the Buchanan Democrats polled 
 5,071. On the other hand, Douglas won re-election by a safe margin. 
 When the Illinois legislature met in joint session on January 5, 1859, 
 he received fifty-four votes to Lincoln's forty-six. Informed of the 
 result by telegraph, Douglas wired back from Washington: "Let the 
 voice of the people rule"— a singularly inept comment in view of the 
 popular vote. 
 
 But Douglas* victory was a costly one. His answer to Lincoln's 
 second Freeport question— that the territories need not have slavery 
 in spite of the Dred Scott decision— seemed to southern extremists 
 to be a prodigal discarding of a hard-won right. Douglas' position 
 was not new, but never before had he been compelled to expound, 
 reiterate, and elaborate it before a national audience. Since it labeled 
 him as indifferent to the spread of slavery, rather than as an advo- 
 cate of the institution, the extreme proslavery leaders of the Demo- 
 cratic party counted him out. In 1860 they would split the party and 
 insure Lincoln's election rather than accept Douglas as the nominee. 
 
 On the other hand, Lincoln's defeat turned out to be, in his own 
 words, "a slip and not a fall." Before the campaign of 1858 he was 
 hardly known outside of Illinois. But in the following year he 
 accepted speaking engagements in Iowa, Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin, 
 and Kansas. In 1860 he spoke at Cooper Union in New York City 
 and at many cities in New England. When the Republican National 
 Convention met in May, Lincoln was not a leading candidate. But 
 when considerations of availability killed off Seward and Chase, the 
 leading contenders, Lincoln was well enough known so that he 
 could be chosen. Without the reputation he had made in the de- 
 bates, no amount of political wirepulling could have brought about 
 his selection. 
 
 In one other respect, the debates contributed to Lincoln's success 
 in 1860. Published in the spring of that year by Follett, Foster and 
 Company of Columbus, Ohio, they became an important campaign 
 document. Some thirty thousand copies were sold, and read by 
 several times that number. 
 
 Xll 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 Toward the end of the Alton debate Lincoln had referred to the 
 "eternal struggle" between right and wrong. "That is the real issue," 
 he had said. "That is the issue that will continue in this country 
 when these poor tongues of Judge Douglas and myself shall be 
 silent/' His prophecy was sound, yet the "poor tongues" still speak. 
 
 Paul M. Angle 
 
OTTAWA: AUGUST 21, 1858 
 
 ' Ten thousand people crowd the town and raise clouds of 
 dust from its unpaved streets. 
 
 From Douglas' Opening Speech 
 
 . . . Lincoln now takes his stand and proclaims his abolition doc- 
 trines. Let me read a part of them. In his speech at Springfield to 
 the convention which nominated him for the Senate, he said: 
 
 In my opinion it will not cease until a crisis shall have been reached and 
 passed. "A house divided against itself cannot stand." I believe this govern- 
 ment cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect 
 the Union to be dissolved— I do not expect the house to fall— hut I do expect 
 it will cease to he divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other. 
 Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and 
 place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course 
 of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward till it shall 
 become alike lawful in all the states— old as well as new, North as well as 
 South. 
 
 ("Good," "good," and cheers.) 
 
 I am delighted to hear you Black Republicans say "good." 
 (Laughter and cheers.) I have no doubt that doctrine expresses 
 your sentiments ("hit them again," "that's it,") and I will prove to 
 you now, if you will listen to me, that it is revolutionary and de- 
 structive of the existence of this government. ("Hurrah for Doug- 
 las," "good," and cheers. ) Mr. Lincoln, in the extract from which I 
 have read, says that this government cannot endure permanently in 
 the same condition in which it was made by its framers— divided 
 into free and slave states. He says that it has existed for about 
 seventy years thus divided, and yet he tells you that it cannot 
 endure permanently on the same principles and in the same relative 
 condition in which our fathers made it. ("Neither can it.") Why can 
 it not exist divided into free and slave states? Washington, Jefferson, 
 Franklin, Madison, Hamilton, Jay, and the great men of that day, 
 made this government divided into free states and slave states, and 
 left each state perfectly free to do as it pleased on the subject of 
 slavery. ("Right, right.") Why can it not exist on the same prin- 
 
THE LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES 
 
 ciples on which our fathers made it? ("It can.") They knew when 
 they framed the Constitution that in a country as wide and broad as 
 this, with such a variety of climate, production and interest, the 
 people necessarily required different laws and institutions in differ- 
 ent localities. They knew that the laws and regulations which would 
 suit the granite hills of New Hampshire would be unsuited to the 
 rice plantations of South Carolina, ("right, right,") and they, there- 
 fore, provided that each state should retain its own legislature, and 
 its own sovereignty with the full and complete power to do as it 
 pleased within its own limits, in all that was local and not national. 
 ( Applause. ) One of the reserved rights of the states, was the right 
 to regulate the relations between master and servant, on the slavery 
 question. At the time the Constitution was formed, there were thir- 
 teen states in the Union, twelve of which were slaveholding states 
 and one a free state. Suppose this doctrine of uniformity preached 
 by Mr. Lincoln, that the states should all be free or all be slave had 
 prevailed and what would have been the result? Of course, the 
 twelve slaveholding states would have overruled the one free state, 
 and slavery would have been fastened by a constitutional provision 
 on every inch of the American Republic, instead of being left as our 
 fathers wisely left it, to each state to decide for itself. ("Good, 
 good," and three cheers for Douglas. ) Here I assert that uniformity 
 in the local laws and institutions of the different states is neither 
 possible or desirable. If uniformity had been adopted when the 
 government was established, it must inevitably have been the uni- 
 formity of slavery everywhere, or else the uniformity of negro citi- 
 zenship and negro equality everywhere. 
 
 We are told by Lincoln that he is utterly opposed to the Dred 
 Scott decision, and will not submit to it, for the reason that he says 
 it deprives the negro of the rights and privileges of citizenship. 
 (Laughter and applause.) That is the first and main reason which 
 he assigns for his warfare on the Supreme Court of the United 
 States and its decision. I ask you, are you in favor of conferring 
 upon the negro the rights and privileges of citizenship? ("No, no.") 
 Do you desire to strike out of our state constitution that clause 
 which keeps slaves and free negroes out of the state, and allow the 
 free negroes to flow in, ("never,") and cover your prairies with 
 black settlements? Do you desire to turn this beautiful state into a 
 free negro colony, ( "no, no," ) in order that when Missouri abolishes 
 slavery she can send one hundred thousand emancipated slaves into 
 Illinois, to become citizens and voters, on an equality with your- 
 
OTTAWA: DOUGLAS OPENING SPEECH 
 
 selves? ("Never," "no.") If you desire negro citizenship, if you de- 
 sire to allow them to come into the state and settle with the white 
 man, if you desire them to vote on an equality with yourselves, and 
 to make them eligible to office, to serve on juries, and to adjudge 
 your rights, then support Mr. Lincoln and the Black Republican 
 party, who are in favor of the citizenship of the negro. ("Never, 
 never.") For one, I am opposed to negro citizenship in any and 
 every form. (Cheers.) I believe this government was made on the 
 white basis. ("Good.") I believe it was made by white men, for the 
 benefit of white men and their posterity for ever, and I am in favor 
 of confining citizenship to white men, men of European birth and 
 descent, instead of conferring it upon negroes, Indians and other 
 inferior races. ("Good for you." "Douglas forever.") 
 
 Mr. Lincoln, following the example and lead of all the little 
 Abolition orators, who go around and lecture in the basements of 
 schools and churches, reads from the Declaration of Independence, 
 that all men were created equal, and then asks how can you deprive 
 a negro of that equality which God and the Declaration of Inde- 
 pendence awards to him. He and they maintain that negro equality 
 is guaranteed by the laws of God, and that it is asserted in the 
 Declaration of Independence. If they think so, of course they have 
 a right to say so, and so vote. I do not question Mr. Lincoln's con- 
 scientious belief that the negro was made his equal, and hence is 
 his brother, (laughter,) but for my own part, I do not regard the 
 negro as my equal, and positively deny that he is my brother or any 
 kin to me whatever. ("Never." "Hit him again," and cheers.) Lincoln 
 has evidently learned by heart Parson Lovejoy's catechism. ( Laugh- 
 ter and applause.) He can repeat it as well as Farnsworth, and he 
 is worthy of a medal from father Giddings and Fred Douglass for 
 his abolitionism. ( Laughter. ) He holds that the negro was born his 
 equal and yours, and that he was endowed with equality by the 
 Almighty, and that no human law can deprive him of these rights 
 which were guaranteed to him by the Supreme Ruler of the uni- 
 verse. Now, I do not believe that the Almighty ever intended the 
 negro to be the equal of the white man. ( "Never, never." ) If he did, 
 he has been a long time demonstrating the fact. (Cheers.) For 
 thousands of years the negro has been a race upon the earth, and 
 during all that time, in all latitudes and climates, wherever he has 
 wandered or been taken, he has been inferior to the race which he 
 has there met. He belongs to an inferior race, and must always occu- 
 py an inferior position. ( "Good," "that's so," &c. ) I do not hold that 
 
THE LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES 
 
 because the negro is our inferior that therefore he ought to be a 
 slave. By no means can such a conclusion be drawn from what I 
 have said. On the contrary, I hold that humanity and Christianity 
 both require that the negro shall have and enjoy every right, every 
 privilege, and every immunity consistent with the safety of the 
 society in which he lives. ("That's so/') On that point, I presume, 
 there can be no diversity of opinion. You and I are bound to extend 
 to our inferior and dependent being every right, every privilege, 
 every facility and immunity consistent with the public good. The 
 question then arises what rights and privileges are consistent with 
 the public good. This is a question which each state and each terri- 
 tory must decide for itself— Illinois has decided it for herself. We 
 have provided that the negro shall not be a slave, and we have also 
 provided that he shall not be a citizen, but protect him in his civil 
 rights, in his life, his person and his property, only depriving him of 
 all political rights whatsoever, and refusing to put him on an equal- 
 ity with the white man. ( "Good." ) That policy of Illinois is satisfac- 
 tory to the Democratic party and to me, and if it were to the Re- 
 publicans, there would then be no question upon the subject; but 
 the Republicans say that he ought to be made a citizen, and when 
 he becomes a citizen he becomes your equal, with all your rights 
 and privileges. ("He never shall/') They assert the Dred Scott deci- 
 sion to be monstrous because it denies that the negro is or can be 
 a citizen under the Constitution. Now, I hold that Illinois had a 
 right to abolish and prohibit slavery as she did, and I hold that 
 Kentucky has the same right to continue and protect slavery that 
 Illinois had to abolish it. I hold that New York had as much right 
 to abolish slavery as Virginia has to continue it, and that each and 
 every state of this Union is a sovereign power, with the right to do 
 as it pleases upon this question of slavery, and upon all its domestic 
 institutions. Slavery is not the only question which comes up in this 
 controversy. There is a far more important one to you, and that is, 
 what shall be done with the free negro? We have settled the slavery 
 question as far as we are concerned; we have prohibited it in Illinois 
 forever, and in doing so, I think we have done wisely, and there is 
 no man in the state who would be more strenuous in his opposition 
 to the introduction of slavery than I would; (cheers) but when we 
 settled it for ourselves, we exhausted all our power over that sub- 
 ject. We have done our whole duty, and can do no more. We must 
 leave each and every other state to decide for itself the same ques- 
 tion. In relation to the policy to be pursued towards the free ne- 
 
OTTAWA: DOUGLAS OPENING SPEECH 
 
 groes, we have said that they shall not vote; whilst Maine, on the 
 other hand, has said that they shall vote. Maine is a sovereign state, 
 and has the power to regulate the qualifications of voters within her 
 limits. I would never consent to confer the right of voting and of 
 citizenship upon a negro, but still I am not going to quarrel with 
 Maine for differing from me in opinion. Let Maine take care of her 
 own negroes and fix the qualifications of her own voters to suit her- 
 self, without interfering with Illinois, and Illinois will not interfere 
 with Maine. So with the state of New York. She allows the negro to 
 vote provided he owns two hundred and fifty dollars worth of 
 property, but not otherwise. While I would not make any distinction 
 v/hatever between a negro who held property and one who did not; 
 yet if the sovereign state of New York chooses to make that distinc- 
 tion it is her business and not mine, and I will not quarrel with her 
 for it. She can do as she pleases on this question if she minds her 
 own business, and we will do the same thing. Now, my friends, if 
 we will only act conscientiously and rigidly upon this great prin- 
 ciple of popular sovereignty which guarantees to each state and 
 territory the right to do as it pleases on all things local and domestic 
 instead of Congress interfering, we will continue at peace one with 
 another. Why should Illinois be at war with Missouri, or Kentucky 
 with Ohio, or Virginia with New York, merely because their institu- 
 tions differ? Our fathers intended that our institutions should differ. 
 They knew that the North and the South having different climates, 
 productions and interests, required different institutions. This doc- 
 trine of Mr. Lincoln's of uniformity among the institutions of the 
 different states is a new doctrine, never dreamed of by Washington, 
 Madison, or the framers of this government. Mr. Lincoln and the 
 Republican party set themselves up as wiser than these men who 
 made this government, which has flourished for seventy years under 
 the principle of popular sovereignty, recognizing the right of each 
 state to do as it pleased. Under that principle, we have grown from 
 a nation of three or four millions to a nation of about thirty millions 
 of people; we have crossed the Allegheny mountains and filled up 
 the whole North West, turning the prairie into a garden, and build- 
 ing up churches and schools, thus spreading civilization and Chris- 
 tianity where before there was nothing but savage-barbarism. Un- 
 der that principle we have become from a feeble nation, the most 
 powerful on the face of the earth, and if we only adhere to that 
 principle, we can go forward increasing in territory, in power, in 
 strength and in glory until the Republic of America shall be the 
 
THE LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES 
 
 North Star that shall guide the friends of freedom throughout the 
 civilized world. ("Long may you live," and great applause.) And 
 why can we not adhere to the great principle of self-government, 
 upon which our institutions were originally based. ("We can.") I 
 believe that this new doctrine preached by Mr. Lincoln and his 
 party will dissolve the Union if it succeeds. They are trying to array 
 all the Northern states in one body against the South, to excite a 
 sectional war between the free states and the slave states, in order 
 that the one or the other may be driven to the wall. 
 
 From Lincoln s Reply 
 
 As I have not used up so much of my time as I had supposed, I 
 will dwell a little longer upon one or two of these minor topics upon 
 with the Judge has spoken. He has read from my speech in Spring- 
 field, in which I say that "a house divided against itself cannot 
 stand." Does the Judge say it can stand? [Laughter.] I don't know 
 whether he does or not. The Judge does not seem to be attending to 
 me just now, but I would like to know if it is his opinion that a 
 house divided against itself can stand. If he does, then there is a 
 question of veracity, not between him and me, but between the 
 Judge and an authority of a somewhat higher character. [Laughter 
 and applause.] 
 
 Now, my friends, I ask your attention to this matter for the pur- 
 pose of saying something seriously. I know that the Judge may read- 
 ily enough agree with me that the maxim which was put forth by 
 the Saviour is true, but he may allege that I misapply it; and the 
 Judge has a right to urge that, in my application, I do misapply it, 
 and then I have a right to show that I do not misapply it. When he 
 undertakes to say that because I think this nation, so far as the 
 question of slavery is concerned, will all become one thing or all the 
 other, I am in favor of bringing about a dead uniformity in the 
 various states, in all their institutions, he argues erroneously. The 
 great variety of the local institutions in the states, springing from 
 differences in the soil, differences in the face of the country, and in 
 the climate, are bonds of union. They do not make "a house divided 
 against itself," but they make a house united. If they produce in one 
 section of the country what is called for by the wants of another 
 section, and this other section can supply the wants of the first, they 
 are not matters of discord but bonds of union, true bonds of union. 
 But can this question of slavery be considered as among these varie- 
 
OTTAWA: LINCOLN S REPLY 
 
 ties in the institutions of the country? I leave it to you to say 
 whether, in the history of our government, this institution of slavery 
 has not always failed to be a bond of union, and, on the contrary, 
 been an apple of discord and an element of division in the house. 
 [Cries of "Yes, yes," and applause.] I ask you to consider whether, 
 so long as the moral constitution of men's minds shall continue to be 
 the same, after this generation and assemblage shall sink into the 
 grave, and another race shall arise, with the same moral and intel- 
 lectual development we have— whether, if that institution is standing 
 in the same irritating position in which it now is, it will not continue 
 an element of division? [Cries of "Yes, yes."] If so, then I have a 
 right to say that in regard to this question, the Union is a house 
 divided against itself, and when the Judge reminds me that I have 
 often said to him that the institution of slavery has existed for eighty 
 years in some states, and yet it does not exist in some others, I agree 
 to the fact, and I account for it by looking at the position in which 
 our fathers originally placed it— restricting it from the new terri- 
 tories where it had not gone, and legislating to cut off its source by 
 the abrogation of the slave trade, thus putting the seal of legislation 
 against its spread. The public mind did rest in the belief that it was 
 in the course of ultimate extinction. [Cries of "Yes, yes."] But lately, 
 I think— and in this I charge nothing on the Judge's motives— lately, 
 I think, that he, and those acting with him, have placed that institu- 
 tion on a new basis, which looks to the perpetuity and nationaliza- 
 tion of slavery. [Loud cheers.] And while it is placed upon this new 
 basis, I say, and I have said, that I believe we shall not have peace 
 upon the question until the opponents of slavery arrest the further 
 spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the 
 belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction; or, on the other 
 hand, that its advocates will push it forward until it shall become 
 alike lawful in all the states, old as well as new, North as well as 
 South. Now, I believe if we would arrest the spread, and place it 
 where Washington, and Jefferson, and Madison placed it, it would 
 be in the course of ultimate extinction, and the public mind would, 
 as for eighty years past, believe that it was in the course of ultimate 
 extinction. The crisis would be past and the institution might be let 
 alone for a hundred years, if it should live so long, in the states 
 where it exists, yet it would be going out of existence in the way 
 best for both the black and the white races. [Great cheering.] 
 
 A Voice— Then do you repudiate popular sovereignty? 
 
 Mr. Lincoln— Well, then, let us talk about popular sovereignty! 
 
THE LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES 
 
 [Laughter.] What is popular sovereignty? [Cries of "A humbug," "a 
 humbug."] Is it the right of the people to have slavery or not have 
 it, as they see fit, in the territories? I will state— and I have an able 
 man to watch me— my understanding is that popular sovereignty, as 
 now applied to the question of slavery, does allow the people of a 
 territory to have slavery if they want to, but does not allow them 
 not to have it if they do not want it. [Applause and laughter.] I do 
 not mean that if this vast concourse of people were in a territory of 
 the United States, any one of them would be obliged to have a slave 
 if he did not want one; but I do say that, as I understand the Dred 
 Scott decision, if any one man wants slaves, all the rest have no way 
 of keeping that one man from holding them. 
 
 When I made my speech at Springfield, of which the Judge com- 
 plains, and from which he quotes, I really was not thinking of the 
 things which he ascribes to me at all. I had no thought in the world 
 that I was doing anything to bring about a war between the free 
 and slave states. I had no thought in the world that I was doing 
 anything to bring about a political and social equality of the black 
 and white races. It never occurred to me that I was doing anything 
 or favoring anything to reduce to a dead uniformity all the local 
 institutions of the various states. But I must say, in all fairness to 
 him, if he thinks I am doing something which leads to these bad 
 results, it is none the better that I did not mean it. It is just as fatal 
 to the country, if I have any influence in producing it, whether I 
 intend it or not. But can it be true, that placing this institution upon 
 the original basis— the basis upon which our fathers placed it— can 
 have any tendency to set the Northern and the Southern states at 
 war with one another, or that it can have any tendency to make the 
 people of Vermont raise sugar cane, because they raise it in Louisi- 
 ana, or that it can compel the people of Illinois to cut pine logs on 
 the Grand Prairie, where they will not grow, because they cut pine 
 logs in Maine, where they do grow? [Laughter.] The Judge says 
 this is a new principle started in regard to this question. Does the 
 Judge claim that he is working on the plan of the founders of 
 government? I think he says in some of his speeches— indeed I have 
 one here now— that he saw evidence of a policy to allow slavery to 
 be south of a certain line, while north of it it should be excluded, 
 and he saw an indisposition on the part of the country to stand 
 upon that policy, and therefore he set about studying the subject 
 upon original principles, and upon original principles he got up the 
 Nebraska Bill! I am fighting it upon these "original principles"— 
 
OTTAWA: LINCOLN S REPLY 
 
 fighting it in the Jeffersonian, Washingtonian, and Madisonian 
 fashion. [Laughter and applause.] 
 
 . . . Now my friends, I have but one branch of the subject, in the 
 little time I have left, to which to call your attention, and as I shall 
 come to a close at the end of that branch, it is probable that I shall 
 not occupy quite all the time allotted to me. Although on these ques- 
 tions I would like to talk twice as long as I have, I could not enter 
 upon another head and discuss it properly without running over my 
 time. I ask the attention of the people here assembled and else- 
 where, to the course that Judge Douglas is pursuing every day as 
 bearing upon this question of making slavery national. Not going 
 back to the records but taking the speeches he makes, the speeches 
 he made yesterday and day before and makes constantly all over the 
 country— I ask your attention to them. In the first place what is 
 necessary to make the institution national? Not war. There is no 
 danger that the people of Kentucky will shoulder the muskets and 
 with a young nigger stuck on every bayonet march into Illinois and 
 force them upon us. There is no danger of our going over there and 
 making war upon them. Then what is necessary for the nationaliza- 
 tion of slavery? It is simply the next Dred Scot decision. It is merely 
 for the Supreme Court to decide that no state under the Constitution 
 can exclude it, just as they have already decided that under the 
 Constitution neither Congress nor the territorial legislature can do it. 
 When that is decided and acquiesced in, the whole thing is done. 
 This being true, and this being the way as I think that slavery is to 
 be made national, let us consider what Judge Douglas is doing every 
 day to that end. In the first place, let us see what influence he is 
 exerting on public sentiment. In this and like communities, public 
 sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail; 
 without it nothing can succeed. Consequently he who moulds public 
 sentiment, goes deeper than he who enacts statutes or pronounces 
 decisions. He makes statutes and decisions possible or impossible to 
 be executed. This must be borne in mind, as also the additional fact 
 that Judge Douglas is a man of vast influence, so great that it is 
 enough for many men to profess to believe anything, when they 
 once find out that Judge Douglas professes to believe it. Consider 
 also the attitude he occupies at the head of a large party— a party 
 which he claims has a majority of all the voters in the country. This 
 man sticks to a decision which forbids the people of a territory from 
 excluding slavery, and he does so not because he says it is right in 
 itself— he does not give any opinion on that— but because it has been 
 
THE LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES 
 
 decided by the Court, and being decided by the Court, he is, and 
 you are bound to take it in your political action as law— not that he 
 judges at all of its merits, but because a decision of the Court is to 
 him a "Thus saith the Lord." [Applause.] He places it on that 
 ground alone, and you will bear in mind that thus committing him- 
 self unreservedly to this decision, commits him to the next one just 
 as firmly as to this. He did not commit himself on account of the 
 merit or demerit of the decision, but it is a Thus saith the Lord. The 
 next decision, as much as this, will be a thus saith the Lord. There 
 is nothing that can divert or turn him away from this decision. It is 
 nothing that I point out to him that his great prototype, Gen. Jack- 
 son, did not believe in the binding force of decisions. It is nothing to 
 him that Jefferson did not so believe. I have said that I have often 
 heard him approve of Jackson's course in disregarding the decision 
 of the Supreme Court pronouncing a national bank constitutional. 
 He says, I did not hear him say so. He denies the accuracy of my 
 recollection. I say he ought to know better than I, but I will make 
 no question about this thing, though it still seems to me that I heard 
 him say it twenty times. [Applause and laughter.] I will tell him 
 though, that he now claims to stand on the Cincinnati platform, 
 which affirms that Congress cannot charter a national bank, in the 
 teeth of that old standing decision that Congress can charter a bank. 
 [Loud applause.] And I remind him of another piece of history on 
 the question of respect for judicial decisions, and it is a piece of 
 Illinois history, belonging to a time when the large party to which 
 Judge Douglas belonged, were displeased with a decision of the 
 Supreme Court of Illinois, because they had decided that a Governor 
 could not remove a Secretary of State. You will find the whole story 
 in Ford's History of Illinois, and I know that Judge Douglas will not 
 deny that he was then in favor of overslaughing that decision by 
 the mode of adding five new judges, so as to vote down the four old 
 ones. Not only so, but it ended in the Judge's sitting down on that 
 very bench as one of the five new Judges to break down the four 
 old ones. [Cheers and laughter.] It was in this way precisely that 
 he got his title of Judge. Now, when the Judge tells me that men 
 appointed conditionally to sit as members of a court, will have to 
 be catechised beforehand upon some subject, I say "You know 
 Judge; you have tried it." [Laughter.] When he says a court of this 
 kind will lose the confidence of all men, will be prostituted and 
 disgraced by such a proceeding, I say, "You know best, Judge; you 
 have been through the mill." [Great laughter.] But I cannot shake 
 
 • 10 • 
 
OTTAWA: LINCOLN S REPLY 
 
 Judge Douglas* teeth loose from the Dred Scott decision. Like some 
 obstinate animal (I mean no disrespect,) that will hang on when 
 he has once got his teeth fixed, you may cut off a leg, or you may 
 tear away an arm, still he will not relax his hold. And so I may 
 point out to the Judge, and say that he is bespattered all over, from 
 the beginning of his political life to the present time, with attacks 
 upon judicial decisions— I may cut off limb after limb of his public 
 record, and strive to wrench him from a single dictum of the Court 
 —yet I cannot divert him from it. He hangs to the last, to the Dred 
 Scott decision. [Loud cheers.] These things show there is a purpose 
 strong as death and eternity for which he adheres to this decision, 
 and for which he will adhere to all other decisions of the same 
 Court. [Vociferous applause.] 
 
 A Hibernian— Give us something besides Dred Scott. 
 
 Mr. Lincoln— Yes; no doubt you want to hear something that 
 don't hurt. [Laughter and applause.] Now, having spoken of the 
 Dred Scott decision, one more word and I am done. Henry Clay, 
 my beau ideal of a statesman, the man for whom I fought all my 
 humble life— Henry Clay once said of a class of men who would 
 repress all tendencies to liberty and ultimate emancipation, that 
 they must, if they would do this, go back to the era of our independ- 
 ence, and muzzle the cannon which thunders its annual joyous 
 return; they must blow out the moral lights around us; they must 
 penetrate the human soul, and eradicate there the love of liberty; 
 and then and not till then, could they perpetuate slavery in this 
 country! [Loud cheers.] To my thinking, Judge Douglas is, by his 
 example and vast influence, doing that very thing in this community, 
 [cheers,] when he says that the negro has nothing in the Declara- 
 tion of Independence. Henry Clay plainly understood the contrary. 
 Judge Douglas is going back to the era of our Revolution, and to 
 the extent of his ability, muzzling the cannon which thunders its 
 annual joyous return. When he invites any people willing to have 
 slavery, to establish it, he is blowing out the moral lights around us. 
 [Cheers.] When he says he "cares not whether slavery is voted down 
 or voted up/— that it is a sacred right of self-government— he is in 
 my judgment penetrating the human soul and eradicating the light 
 of reason and the love of liberty in this American people. [Enthu- 
 siastic and continued applause.] And now I will only say that when, 
 by all these means and appliances, Judge Douglas shall succeed in 
 bringing public sentiment to an exact accordance with his own 
 views— when these vast assemblages shall echo back all these senti- 
 
 • 11 • 
 
THE LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES 
 
 ments— when they shall come to repeat his views and to avow his 
 principles, and to say all that he says on these mighty questions- 
 then it needs only the formality of the second Dred Scott decision, 
 which he endorses in advance, to make slavery alike lawful in all 
 the states— old as well as new, North as well as South. 
 My friends, that ends the chapter. 
 
 FREEPORT: AUGUST 27, 1858 
 
 The day is overcast and chilly, yet the crowd is even larger 
 than at Ottawa. 
 
 From Lincoln's Opening Speech 
 
 ... In the course of that opening argument [at Ottawa] Judge 
 Douglas proposed to me seven distinct interrogatories. In my speech 
 of an hour and a half, I attended to some other parts of his speech, 
 and incidentally, as I thought, answered one of the interrogatories 
 then. I then distinctly intimated to him that I would answer the rest 
 of his interrogatories on condition only that he should agree to an- 
 swer as many for me. He made no intimation at the time of the prop- 
 osition, nor did he in his reply allude at all to that suggestion of 
 mine. I do him no injustice in saying that he occupied at least half 
 of his reply in dealing with me as though I had refused to answer 
 his interrogatories. I now propose that I will answer any of the in- 
 terrogatories, upon condition that he will answer questions from me 
 not exceeding the same number. I give him an opportunity to re- 
 spond. The Judge remains silent. I now say to you that I will answer 
 his interrogatories, whether he answers mine or not; [applause] and 
 that after I have done so, I shall propound mine to him. [Applause.] 
 
 I have supposed myself, since the organization of the Republican 
 party at Bloomington, in May, 1856, bound as a party man by the 
 platforms of the party, then and since. If in any interrogatories 
 which I shall answer I go beyond the scope of what is within these 
 platforms it will be perceived that no one is responsible but myself. 
 
 Having said thus much, I will take up the Judge's interrogatories 
 as I find them printed in the Chicago Times, and answer them 
 seriatim. In order that there may be no mistake about it, I have 
 copied the interrogatories in writing, and also my answers to them. 
 
 • 12 • 
 
FREEPORT: LINCOLN S OPENING SPEECH 
 
 The first one of these interrogatories is in these words : 
 
 Question 1. "I desire to know whether Lincoln to-day stands, as 
 he did in 1854, in favor of the unconditional repeal of the fugitive 
 slave law?" 
 
 Answer. I do not now, nor ever did, stand in favor of the uncondi- 
 tional repeal of the fugitive slave law. [Cries of "Good," "Good."] 
 
 Q. 2. "I desire him to answer whether he stands pledged today, 
 as he did in 1854, against the admission of any more slave states 
 into the Union, even if the people want them?" 
 
 A. I do not now, nor ever did, stand pledged against the admis- 
 sion of any more slave states into the Union. 
 
 Q. 3. "I want to know whether he stands pledged against the 
 admission of a new state into the Union with such a constitution as 
 the people of that state may see fit to make." 
 
 A. I do not stand pledged against the admission of a new state 
 into the Union, with such a constitution as the people of that state 
 may see fit to make. [Cries of "good," "good."] 
 
 Q. 4. "I want to know whether he stands to-day pledged to the 
 abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia?" 
 
 A. I do not stand to-day pledged to the abolition of slavery in the 
 District of Columbia. 
 
 Q. 5. "I desire him to answer whether he stands pledged to the 
 prohibition of the slave trade between the different states?" 
 
 A. I do not stand pledged to the prohibition of the slave trade 
 between the different states. 
 
 Q. 6. "I desire to know whether he stands pledged to prohibit 
 slavery in all the territories of the United States, north as well as 
 south of the Missouri Compromise line." 
 
 A. I am impliedly, if not expressly, pledged to a belief in the right 
 and duty of Congress to prohibit slavery in all the United States 
 territories. [Great applause.] 
 
 Q. 7. "I desire him to answer whether he is opposed to the acquisi- 
 tion of any new territory unless slavery is first prohibited therein." 
 
 A. I am not generally opposed to honest acquisition of territory; 
 and, in any given case, I would or would not oppose such acquisi- 
 tion, accordingly as I might think such acquisition would or would 
 not aggravate the slavery question among ourselves. [Cries of "good, 
 good."] 
 
 Now, my friends, it will be perceived upon an examination of 
 these questions and answers, that so far I have only answered that 
 I was not pledged to this, that or the other. The Judge has not 
 
 • 13 • 
 
THE LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES 
 
 framed his interrogatories to ask me anything more than this, and 
 I have answered in strict accordance with the interrogatories, and 
 have answered truly that I am not pledged at all upon any of the 
 points to which I have answered. But I am not disposed to hang 
 upon the exact form of his interrogatory. I am rather disposed to 
 take up at least some of these questions, and state what I really 
 think upon them. 
 
 As to the first one, in regard to the fugitive slave law, I have never 
 hesitated to say, and I do not now hesitate to say, that I think, 
 under the Constitution of the United States, the people of the south- 
 ern states are entitled to a congressional fugitive slave law. Having 
 said that, I have had nothing to say in regard to the existing fugitive 
 slave law further than that I think it should have been framed so 
 as to be free from some of the objections that pertain to it, without 
 lessening its efficiency. And inasmuch as we are not now in an agi- 
 tation in regard to an alteration or modification of that law, I 
 would not be the man to introduce it as a new subject of agitation 
 upon the general question of slavery. 
 
 In regard to the other question of whether I am pledged to the 
 admission of any more slave states into the Union, I state to you 
 very frankly that I would be exceedingly sorry ever to be put in a 
 position of having to pass upon that question. I should be exceed- 
 ingly glad to know that there would never be another slave state 
 admitted into the Union; [applause]; but I must add, that if slavery 
 shall be kept out of the territories during the territorial existence of 
 any one given territory, and then the people shall, having a fair 
 chance and a clear field, when they come to adopt the constitution, 
 do such an extraordinary thing as to adopt a slave constitution, un- 
 influenced by the actual presence of the institution among them, I 
 see no alternative, if we own the country, but to admit them into 
 the Union. [Applause.] 
 
 The third interrogatory is answered by the answer to the second, 
 it being, as I conceive, the same as the second. 
 
 The fourth one is in regard to the abolition of slavery in the 
 District of Columbia. In relation to that, I have my mind very dis- 
 tinctly made up. I should be exceedingly glad to see slavery abol- 
 ished in the District of Columbia. [Cries of "good, good."] I believe 
 that Congress possesses the constitutional power to abolish it. Yet 
 as a member of Congress, I should not with my present views, be 
 in favor of endeavoring to abolish slavery in the District of Colum- 
 bia, unless it would be upon these conditions. First, that the aboli- 
 
 . 14 . 
 
FREEPORT: LINCOLN S OPENING SPEECH 
 
 tion should be gradual. Second, that it should be on a vote of the 
 majority of qualified voters in the District, and third, that compensa- 
 tion should be made to unwilling owners. With these three condi- 
 tions, I confess I would be exceedingly glad to see Congress abolish 
 slavery in the District of Columbia, and, in the language of Henry 
 Clay, "sweep from our Capital that foul blot upon our nation." 
 [Loud applause.] 
 
 In regard to the fifth interrogatory, I must say here, that as to 
 the question of the abolition of the slave trade between the different 
 states, I can truly answer, as I have, that I am pledged to nothing 
 about it. It is a subject to which I have not given that mature 
 consideration that would make me feel authorized to state a position 
 so as to hold myself entirely bound by it. In other words, that ques- 
 tion has never been prominently enough before me to induce me to 
 investigate whether we really have the constitutional power to do it. 
 I could investigate it if I had sufficient time, to bring myself to a 
 conclusion upon that subject, but I have not done so, and I say so 
 frankly to you here, and to Judge Douglas. I must say, however, 
 that if I should be of opinion that Congress does possess the con- 
 stitutional power to abolish the slave trade among the different 
 states, I should still not be in favor of the exercise of that power 
 unless upon some conservative principle as I conceive it, akin to 
 what I have said in relation to the abolition of slavery in the District 
 of Columbia. 
 
 My answer as to whether I desire that slavery should be prohib- 
 ited in all the territories of the United States is full and explicit 
 within itself, and cannot be made clearer by any comments of mine. 
 So I suppose in regard to the question whether I am opposed to the 
 acquisition of any more territory unless slavery is first prohibited 
 therein, my answer is such that I could add nothing by way of 
 illustration, or making myself better understood, than the answer 
 which I have placed in writing. 
 
 Now in all this, the Judge has me and he has me on the record. 
 I suppose he had flattered himself that I was really entertaining one 
 set of opinions for one place and another set for another place- 
 that I was afraid to say at one place what I uttered at another. What 
 I am saying here I suppose I say to a vast audience as strongly 
 tending to Abolitionism as any audience in the state of Illinois, and 
 I believe I am saying that which, if it would be offensive to any 
 persons and render them enemies to myself, would be offensive to 
 persons in this audience. 
 
 • 15 • 
 
THE LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES 
 
 I now proceed to propound to the Judge the interrogatories, so 
 far as I have framed them. I will bring forward a new installment 
 when I get them ready. [Laughter.] I will bring them forward now, 
 only reaching to number four. 
 
 The first one is— 
 
 Question 1. If the people of Kansas shall, by means entirely un- 
 objectionable in all other respects, adopt a state constitution, and 
 ask admission into the Union under it, before they have the requisite 
 number of inhabitants according to the English Bill— some ninety- 
 three thousand— will you vote to admit them? [Applause.] 
 
 Q. 2. Can the people of a United States territory, in any lawful 
 way, against the wish of any citizen of the United States, exclude 
 slavery from its limits prior to the formation of a state constitution? 
 [Renewed applause.] 
 
 Q. 3. If the Supreme Court of the United States shall decide that 
 states can not exclude slavery from their limits, are you in favor of 
 acquiescing in, adopting and following such decision as a rule of 
 political action? [Loud applause.] 
 
 Q. 4. Are you in favor of acquiring additional territory, in dis- 
 regard of how such acquisition may affect the nation on the slavery 
 question? [Cries of "good," "good."] 
 
 From Douglas' Reply 
 
 I am glad that at last I have brought Mr. Lincoln to the conclu- 
 sion that he had better define his position on certain political ques- 
 tions to which I called his attention at Ottawa. He there showed 
 no disposition, no inclination to answer them. I did not present idle 
 questions for him to answer merely for my gratification. I laid the 
 foundation for those interrogatories by showing that they consti- 
 tuted the platform of the party whose nominee he is for the Senate. 
 I did not presume that I had the right to catechise him as I saw 
 proper, unless I showed that his party, or a majority of it, stood 
 upon the platform and were in favor of the propositions upon which 
 my questions were based. I desired simply to know, inasmuch as 
 he had been nominated as the first, last, and only choice of his party, 
 whether he concurred in the platform which that party had adopted 
 for its government. In a few moments I will proceed to review the 
 answers which he has given to these interrogatories; but in order 
 
 • 16 • 
 
FREEPORT: DOUGLAS REPLY 
 
 to relieve his anxiety I will first respond to those which he has pre- 
 sented to me. Mark you, he has not presented interrogatories which 
 have ever received the sanction of the party with which I am acting, 
 and hence he has no other foundation for them than his own curios- 
 ity. ("That's a fact") 
 
 First, he desires to know if the people of Kansas shall form a 
 constitution by means entirely proper and unobjectionable and ask 
 admission into the Union as a state, before they have the requisite 
 population for a member of Congress, whether I will vote for that 
 admission. Well, now, I regret exceedingly that he did not answer 
 that interrogatory himself before he put it to me, in order that we 
 might understand, and not be left to infer, on which side he is. 
 ("Good, good.") Mr. Trumbull, during the last session of Congress, 
 voted from the beginning to the end against the admission of Ore- 
 gon, although a free state, because she had not the requisite popula- 
 tion for a member of Congress. ("That's it.") Mr. Trumbull would 
 not consent, under any circumstances, to let a state, free or slave, 
 come into the Union until it had the requisite population. As Mr. 
 Trumbull is in the field, fighting for Mr. Lincoln, I would like to 
 have Mr. Lincoln answer his own question and tell me whether he 
 is fighting Trumbull on that issue or not. ( "Good, put it to him," and 
 cheers.) But I will answer his question. In reference to Kansas; it 
 is my opinion, that as she has population enough to constitute a 
 slave state, she has people enough for a free state. (Cheers.) I will 
 not make Kansas an exceptional case to the other states of the 
 Union. ("Sound," and "hear, hear.") I hold it to be a sound rule of 
 universal application to require a territory to contain the requisite 
 population for a member of Congress, before it is admitted as a 
 state into the Union. I made that proposition in the Senate in 1856, 
 and I renewed it during the last session, in a bill providing that no 
 territory of the United States should form a constitution and apply 
 for admission until it had the requisite population. On another occa- 
 sion I proposed that neither Kansas, or any other territory, should 
 be admitted until it had the requisite population. Congress did not 
 adopt any of my propositions containing this general rule, but did 
 make an exception of Kansas. I will stand by that exception. 
 (Cheers.) Either Kansas must come in as a free state, with what- 
 ever population she may have, or the rule must be applied to all 
 the other territories alike. (Cheers.) I therefore answer at once, that 
 it having been decided that Kansas has people enough for a slave 
 state, I hold that she has enough for a free state. ("Good," and 
 
 • 17 • 
 
THE LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES 
 
 applause.) I hope Mr. Lincoln is satisfied with my answer; ("he 
 ought to be," and cheers,) and now I would like to get his answer 
 to his own interrogatory— whether or not he will vote to admit Kan- 
 sas before she has the requisite population. ("Hit him again.") 1 
 want to know whether he will vote to admit Oregon before that ter- 
 ritory has the requisite population. Mr. Trumbull will not, and the 
 same reason that commits Mr. Trumbull against the admission of 
 Oregon, commits him against Kansas, even if she should apply for 
 admission as a free state. ("YouVe got him," and cheers.) If there 
 is any sincerity, any truth in the argument of Mr. Trumbull in the 
 Senate against the admission of Oregon because she had not 93,420 
 people, although her population was larger than that of Kansas, he 
 stands pledged against the admission of both Oregon and Kansas 
 until they have 93,420 inhabitants. I would like Mr. Lincoln to 
 answer this question. I would like him to take his own medicine. 
 (Laughter.) If he differs with Mr. Trumbull, let him answer his 
 argument against the admission of Oregon, instead of poking ques- 
 tions at me. ("Right, good, good," laughter and cheers.) 
 
 The next question propounded to me by Mr. Lincoln is, can the 
 people of a territory in any lawful way against the wishes of any 
 citizen of the United States; exclude slavery from their limits prior 
 to the formation of a state constitution? I answer emphatically, as 
 Mr. Lincoln has heard me answer a hundred times from every stump 
 in Illinois, that in my opinion the people of a territory can, by law- 
 ful means, exclude slavery from their limits prior to the formation 
 of a state constitution. (Enthusiastic applause.) Mr. Lincoln knew 
 that I had answered that question over and over again. He heard 
 me argue the Nebraska Bill on that principle all over the state in 
 1854, in 1855 and in 1856, and he has no excuse for pretending to 
 be in doubt as to my position on that question. It matters not what 
 way the Supreme Court may hereafter decide as to the abstract 
 question whether slavery may or may not go into a territory under 
 the Constitution, the people have the lawful means to introduce it 
 or exclude it as they please, for the reason that slavery cannot exist 
 a day or an hour anywhere, unless it is supported by local police 
 regulations. ("Right, right.") Those police regulations can only be 
 established by the local legislature, and if the people are opposed 
 to slavery they will elect representatives to that body who will by 
 unfriendly legislation effectually prevent the introduction of it into 
 their midst. If, on the contrary, they are for it, their legislation will 
 favor its extension. Hence, no matter what the decision of the Su- 
 
 18 
 
FREEPORT: DOUGLAS REPLY 
 
 preme Court may be on that abstract question, still the right of the 
 people to make a slave territory or a free territory is perfect and 
 complete under the Nebraska Bill. I hope Mr. Lincoln deems my 
 answer satisfactory on that point. . . . 
 
 The third question which Mr. Lincoln presented is, if the Su- 
 preme Court of the United States shall decide that a state of this 
 Union cannot exclude slavery from its own limits will I submit to 
 it? I am amazed that Lincoln should ask such a question. ( "A school 
 boy knows better/') Yes, a school boy does know better. Mr. Lin- 
 coln's object is to cast an imputation upon the Supreme Court. He 
 knows that there never was but one man in America, claiming any 
 degree of intelligence or decency, who ever for a moment pretended 
 such a thing. It is true that the Washington Union, in an article 
 published on the 17th of last December, did put forth that doctrine, 
 and I denounced the article on the floor of the Senate, in a speech 
 which Mr. Lincoln now pretends was against the President. The 
 Union had claimed that slavery had a right to go into the free states, 
 and that any provision in the Constitution or laws of the free states 
 to the contrary were null and void. I denounced it in the Senate, 
 as I said before, and I was the first man who did. Lincoln's friends, 
 Trumbull, and Seward, and Hale, and Wilson, and the whole Black 
 Republican side of the Senate were silent. They left it to me to 
 denounce it. (Cheers.) And what was the reply made to me on 
 that occasion? Mr. Toombs, of Georgia, got up and undertook to 
 lecture me on the ground that I ought not to have deemed the 
 article worthy of notice, and ought not to have replied to it; that 
 there was not one man, woman or child south of the Potomac, in 
 any slave state, who did not repudiate any such pretension. Mr. 
 Lincoln knows that that reply was made on the spot, and yet now 
 he asks this question. He might as well ask me, suppose Mr. Lincoln 
 should steal a horse would I sanction it; (laughter,) and it would 
 be as genteel in me to ask him, in the event he stole a horse, what 
 ought to be done with him. He casts an imputation upon the Su- 
 preme Court of the United States by supposing that they would 
 violate the Constitution of the United States. I tell him that such a 
 thing is not possible. ( Cheers. ) It would be an act of moral treason 
 that no man on the bench could ever descend to. Mr. Lincoln him- 
 self would never in his partisan feelings so far forget what was right 
 as to be guilty of such an act. ( "Good, good." ) 
 
 The fourth question of Mr. Lincoln is, are you in favor of acquir- 
 ing additional territory in disregard as to how such acquisition may 
 
 • 19 • 
 
THE LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES 
 
 effect the Union on the slavery question. This question is very 
 ingeniously and cunningly put. 
 
 The Black Republican creed lays it down expressly, that under 
 no circumstances shall we acquire any more territory unless slavery 
 is first prohibited in the country. I ask Mr. Lincoln whether he is in 
 favor of that proposition. Are you ( addressing Mr. Lincoln ) opposed 
 to the acquisition of any more territory, under any circumstances, 
 unless slavery is prohibited in it? That he does not like to answer. 
 When I ask him whether he stands up to that article in the platform 
 of his party, he turns, Yankee-fashion, and without answering it, 
 asks me whether I am in favor of acquiring territory without regard 
 to how it may affect the Union on the slavery question. ("Good.") 
 I answer that whenever it becomes necessary, in our growth and 
 progress to acquire more territory, that I am in favor of it, without 
 reference to the question of slavery, and when we have acquired it, 
 I will leave the people free to do as they please, either to make it 
 slave or free territory, as they prefer. It is idle to tell me or you that 
 we have territory enough. Our fathers supposed that we had enough 
 when our territory extended to the Mississippi River, but a few 
 years' growth and expansion satisfied them that we needed more, 
 and the Louisiana territory, from the west branch of the Mississippi, 
 to the British possessions, was acquired. Then we acquired Oregon, 
 then California and New Mexico. We have enough now for the pres- 
 ent, but this is a young and a growing nation. It swarms as often as a 
 hive of bees, and as new swarms are turned out each year, there must 
 be hives in which they can gather and make their honey. ("Good.") 
 In less than fifteen years, if the same progress that has distinguished 
 this country for the last fifteen years continues, every foot of vacant 
 land between this and the Pacific Ocean, owned by the United States, 
 will be occupied. Will you not continue to increase at the end of fif- 
 teen years as well as now? I tell you, increase and multiply, and ex- 
 pand, is the law of this nation's existence. ("Good.") You cannot limit 
 this great republic by mere boundary lines, saying, "thus far shalt 
 thou go, and no further." Any one of you gentlemen might as well 
 say to a son twelve years old that he is big enough, and must not 
 grow any larger, and in order to prevent his growth put a hoop 
 around him to keep him to his present size. What would be the 
 result? Either the hoop must burst and be rent asunder, or the child 
 must die. So it would be with this great nation. With our natural in- 
 crease, growing with a rapidity unknown in any other part of the 
 globe, with the tide of emigration that is fleeing from despotism in the 
 
 • 20 • 
 
FREEPORT: LINCOLN S REJOINDER 
 
 old world to seek a refuge in our own, there is a constant torrent 
 pouring into this country that requires more land, more territory 
 upon which to settle, and just as fast as our interests and our destiny 
 require additional territory in the north, in the south, or on the 
 islands of the ocean, I am for it, and when we acquire it will leave 
 the people, according to the Nebraska Bill, free to do as they please 
 on the subject of slavery and every other question. ("Good, good," 
 "hurra for Douglas.") 
 
 I trust now that Mr. Lincoln will deem himself answered on his 
 four points. He racked his brain so much in devising these four 
 questions that he exhausted himself, and had not strength enough 
 to invent the others. (Laughter.) 
 
 From Lincoln's Rejoinder 
 
 The Judge complains that I did not fully answer his questions. 
 If I have the sense to comprehend and answer those questions, I 
 have done so fairly. If it can be pointed out to me how I can more 
 fully and fairly answer him, I aver I have not the sense to see how 
 it is to be done. He says I do not declare I would in any event vote 
 for the admission of a slave state into the Union. If I have been 
 fairly reported he will see that I did give an explicit answer to his 
 interrogatories. I did not merely say that I would dislike to be put 
 to the test; but I said clearly, if I were put to the test, and a terri- 
 tory from which slavery had been excluded should present herself 
 with a state constitution sanctioning slavery— a most extraordinary 
 thing and wholly unlikely ever to happen— I did not see how I could 
 avoid voting for her admission. But he refuses to understand that 
 I said so, and he wants this audience to understand that I did not 
 say so. Yet it will be so reported in the printed speech that he can- 
 not help seeing it. 
 
 He says if I should vote for the admission of a slave state I would 
 be voting for a dissolution of the Union, because I hold that the 
 Union can not permanently exist half slave and half free. I repeat 
 that I do not believe this government can endure permanently half 
 slave and half free, yet I do not admit, nor does it at all follow, that 
 the admission of a single slave state will permanently fix the charac- 
 ter and establish this as a universal slave nation. The Judge is very 
 happy indeed at working up these quibbles. [Laughter and cheers.] 
 Before leaving the subject of answering questions I aver as my 
 
 • 21 • 
 
THE LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES 
 
 confident belief, when you come to see our speeches in print, that 
 you will find every question which he has asked me more fairly and 
 boldly and fully answered than he has answered those which I put 
 to him. Is not that so? [Cries of "yes, yes.'*] The two speeches may 
 be placed side by side; and I will venture to leave it to impartial 
 judges whether his questions have not been more directly and cir- 
 cumstantially answered than mine. 
 
 JONESBORO: SEPTEMBER 15, 1858 
 
 The day is pleasant but the audience small — no more than 
 1500. 
 
 From Douglas' Opening Speech 
 
 ... I now come back to the question, why cannot this Union exist 
 forever divided into free and slave states as our fathers made it? 
 It can thus exist if each state will carry out the principles upon 
 which our institutions were founded, to wit: the right of each state 
 to do as it pleases, without meddling with its neighbors. Just act 
 upon that great principle, and this Union will not only live forever, 
 but it will extend and expand until it covers the whole continent, 
 and make this confederacy one grand ocean-bound republic. We 
 must bear in mind that we are yet a young nation growing with a 
 rapidity unequalled in the history of the world, that our national 
 increase is great, and that the emigration from the old world is in- 
 creasing, requiring us to expand and acquire new territory from 
 time to time in order to give our people land to live upon. If we 
 live upon the principle of state rights and state sovereignty, each 
 state regulating its own affairs and minding its own business, we 
 can go on and extend indefinitely, just as fast and as far as we need 
 the territory. The time may come, indeed has now come, when our 
 interests would be advanced by the acquisition of the island of 
 Cuba. (Terrific applause.) When we get Cuba we must take it as 
 we find it, leaving the people to decide the question of slavery for 
 themselves, without interference on the part of the federal govern- 
 ment, or of any state of this Union. So, when it becomes necessary 
 to acquire any portion of Mexico or Canada, or of this continent or 
 the adjoining islands, we must take them as we find them, leaving 
 the people free to do as they please, to have slavery or not, as they 
 choose. I never have inquired and never will inquire whether a new 
 
 • 22 • 
 
JONESBORO: DOUGLAS OPENING SPEECH 
 
 state applying for admission has slavery or not for one of her institu- 
 tions. If the constitution that is presented be the act and deed of 
 the people and embodies their will, and they have the requisite 
 population, I will admit them with slavery or without it just as the 
 people shall determine. ("That's good. ,, "That's right," and cheers.) 
 My objection to the Lecompton constitution did not consist in the 
 fact that it made Kansas a slave state. I would have been as much 
 opposed to its admission under such a constitution as a free state as 
 I was opposed to its admission under it as a slave state. I hold that 
 that was a question which that people had a right to decide for 
 themselves, and that no power on earth ought to have interfered 
 with that decision. In my opinion, the Lecompton constitution was 
 not the act and deed of the people of Kansas, and did not embody 
 their will, and the recent election in that territory, at which it was 
 voted down by nearly ten to one, shows conclusively that I was 
 right in saying when the constitution was presented, that it was not 
 the act and deed of the people, and did not embody their will. 
 
 If we wish to preserve our institutions in their purity, and trans- 
 mit them unimpaired to our latest posterity, we must preserve with 
 religious good faith that great principle of self-government which 
 guarantees to each and every state, old and new, the right to make 
 just such constitutions as they deserve, and come into the Union 
 with their own constitution and not one palmed upon them. 
 (Cheers.) Whenever you sanction the doctrine that Congress may 
 crowd a constitution down the throats of an unwilling people against 
 their consent, you will subvert the great fundamental principle upon 
 which all our free institutions rest. In the future I have no fear that 
 the attempt will ever be made. President Buchanan declared in his 
 annual message, that hereafter the rule adopted in the Minnesota 
 case, requiring a constitution to be submitted to the people, should 
 be followed in all future cases, and if he stands by that recommen- 
 dation there will be no division in the Democratic party on that 
 principle in the future. Hence, the great mission of the Democracy 
 is to unite the fraternal feeling of the whole country, restore peace 
 and quiet by teaching each state to mind its own business, and reg- 
 ulate its own domestic affairs, and all to unite carrying out the 
 Constitution as our fathers made it, and thus to preserve the Union 
 and render it perpetual in all time to come. Why should we not 
 act as our fathers who made the government? There was no section- 
 al strife in Washington's army. They were all brethren of a common 
 confederacy, they fought under a common flag that they might be- 
 
 • 23 • 
 
THE LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES 
 
 stow upon their posterity a common destiny, and to this end they 
 poured out their blood in common streams and shared in some 
 instances a common grave. (Three hearty cheers for Douglas.) 
 
 From Lincoln's Reply 
 
 At Freeport I answered several interrogatories that had been pro- 
 pounded to me by Judge Douglas at the Ottawa meeting. The Judge 
 has yet not seen fit to find any fault with the position that I took in 
 regard to those seven interrogatories, which were certainly broad 
 enough, in all conscience, to cover the entire ground. In my an- 
 swers, which have been printed, and all have had the opportunity 
 of seeing, I take the ground that those who elect me must expect 
 that I will do nothing which is not in accordance with those answers. 
 I have some right to assert that Judge Douglas has no fault to find 
 with them. But he chooses to still try to thrust me upon different 
 ground without paying any attention to my answers, the obtaining 
 of which from me cost him so much trouble and concern. At the 
 same time, I propounded four interrogatories to him, claiming it as 
 a right that he should answer as many interrogatories for me as I did 
 for him, and I would reserve myself for a future installment when I 
 got them ready. The Judge in answering me upon that occasion, put 
 in what I suppose he intends as answers to all four of my interroga- 
 tories. The first one of these interrogatories I have before me, and it 
 is in these words: 
 
 Question 1. If the people of Kansas shall, by means entirely unobjec- 
 tionable in all other respects, adopt a state constitution, and ask admission 
 into the Union under it, before they have the requisite number of inhabit- 
 ants according to the English Bill— some ninety-three thousand— will you 
 vote to admit them? 
 
 As I read the Judge's answer in the newspaper, and as I remem- 
 ber it as pronounced at the time, he does not give any answer which 
 is equivalent to yes or no— I will or I won't. He answers at very con- 
 siderable length, rather quarreling with me for asking the question, 
 and insisting that Judge Trumbull had done something that I ought 
 to say something about; and finally getting out such statements as 
 induce me to infer that he means to be understood he will, in that 
 supposed case, vote for the admission of Kansas. I only bring this 
 forward now for the purpose of saying that if he chooses to put a 
 different construction upon his answer he may do it. But if he does 
 
 • 24 • 
 
JONESBORO: LINCOLN S REPLY 
 
 not, I shall from this time forward assume that he will vote for the 
 admission of Kansas in disregard of the English bill. He has the 
 right to remove any misunderstanding I may have. I only mention 
 it now that I may hereafter assume this to be the true construction 
 of his answer, if he does not now choose to correct me. 
 
 The second interrogatory that I propounded to him, was this: 
 
 Q. 2 Can the people of a United States territory, in any lawful way, 
 against the wish of any citizen of the United States, exclude slavery from 
 its limits prior to the formation of a state constitution? 
 
 To this Judge Douglas answered that they can lawfully exclude 
 slavery from trie territory prior to the formation of a constitution. 
 He goes on to tell us how it can be done. As I understand him, he 
 holds that it can be done by the territorial legislature refusing to 
 make any enactments for the protection of slavery in the territory, 
 and especially by adopting unfriendly legislation to it. For the sake 
 of clearness I state it again; that they can exclude slavery from the 
 territory, 1st, by withholding what he assumes to be an indispensa- 
 ble assistance to it in the way of legislation; and 2d, by unfriendly 
 legislation. If I rightly understand him, I wish to ask your attention 
 for a while to his position. 
 
 In the first place, the Supreme Court of the United States has 
 decided that any congressional prohibition of slavery in the terri- 
 tories is unconstitutional— that they have reached this proposition as 
 a conclusion from their former proposition that the Constitution of 
 the United States expressly recognizes property in slaves, and from 
 that other constitutional provision that no person shall be deprived 
 of property without due process of law. Hence they reach the con- 
 clusion that as the Constitution of the United States expressly recog- 
 nizes property in slaves, and prohibits any person from being de- 
 prived of property without due process of law, to pass an act of 
 Congress by which a man who owned a slave on one side of a line 
 would be deprived of him if he took him on the other side, is depriv- 
 ing him of that property without due process of law. That I under- 
 stand to be the decision of the Supreme Court. I understand also 
 that Judge Douglas adheres most firmly to that decision; and the 
 difficulty is, how is it possible for any power to exclude slavery from 
 the territory unless in violation of that decision? That is the diffi- 
 culty. 
 
 In the Senate of the United States, in 1856, Judge Trumbull in a 
 speech, substantially if not directly, put the same interrogatory to 
 
 • 25 • 
 
THE LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES 
 
 Judge Douglas, as to whether the people of a territory had the law- 
 ful power to exclude slavery prior to the formation of a constitution? 
 Judge Douglas then answered at considerable length, and his answer 
 will be found in the Congressional Globe, under date of June 9th, 
 1856. The Judge said that whether the people could exclude slavery 
 prior to the formation of a constitution or not was a question to be 
 decided by the Supreme Court. He put that proposition, as will be 
 seen by the Congressional Globe, in a variety of forms, all running 
 to the same thing in substance— that it was a question for the Su- 
 preme Court. I maintain that when he says, after the Supreme 
 Court have decided the question, that the people may yet exclude 
 slavery by any means whatever, he does virtually say, that it is not 
 a question for the Supreme Court. [Applause.] He shifts his ground. 
 I appeal to you whether he did not say it was a question for the 
 Supreme Court. Has not the Supreme Court decided that question? 
 When he now says the people may exclude slavery, does he not 
 make it a question for the people? Does he not virtually shift his 
 ground and say that it is not a question for the Court, but for the 
 people? This is a very simple proposition— a very plain and naked 
 one. It seems to me that there is no difficulty in deciding it. In a 
 variety of ways he said that it was a question for the Supreme 
 Court. He did not stop then to tell us that whatever the Supreme 
 Court decides the people can by withholding necessary "police 
 regulations'' keep slavery out. He did not make any such answer. I 
 submit to you now, whether the new state of the case has not in- 
 duced the Judge to sheer away from his original ground. [Ap- 
 plause.] Would not this be the impression of every fair-minded 
 man? 
 
 I hold that the proposition that slavery cannot enter a new coun- 
 try without police regulations is historically false. It is not true at 
 all. I hold that the history of this country shows that the institution 
 of slavery was originally planted upon this continent without these 
 "police regulations" which the Judge now thinks necessary for the 
 actual establishment of it. Not only so, but is there not another fact- 
 how came this Dred Scott decision to be made? It was made upon 
 the case of a negro being taken and actually held in slavery in Min- 
 nesota Territory, claiming his freedom because the act of Congress 
 prohibited his being so held there. Will the Judge pretend that Dred 
 Scott was not held there without police regulations? There is at 
 least one matter of record as to his having been held in slavery in 
 the territory, not only without police regulations, but in the teeth of 
 
 • 26 • 
 
JONESBORO: LINCOLN S REPLY 
 
 congressional legislation supposed to be valid at the time. This 
 shows that there is vigor enough in slavery to plant itself in a new 
 country even against unfriendly legislation. It takes not only law 
 but the enforcement of law to keep it out. That is the history of this 
 country upon the subject. 
 
 I wish to ask one other question. It being understood that the 
 Constitution of the United States guarantees property in slaves in 
 the territories, if there is any infringement of the right of that prop- 
 erty, would not the United States courts, organized for the govern- 
 ment of the territory, apply such remedy as might be necessary in 
 that case? It is a maxim held by the courts, that there is no wrong 
 without its remedy; and the courts have a remedy for whatever is 
 acknowledged and treated as a wrong. 
 
 Again: I will ask you my friends, if you were elected members of 
 the legislature, what would be the first thing you would have to do 
 before entering upon your duties? Swear to support the Constitution 
 of the United States. Suppose you believe, as Judge Douglas does, 
 that the Constitution of the United States guarantees to your neigh- 
 bor the right to hold slaves in that territory— that they are his 
 property— how can you clear your oaths unless you give him such 
 legislation as is necessary to enable him to enjoy that property? 
 What do you understand by supporting the constitution of a state 
 or of the United States? Is it not to give such constitutional helps to 
 the rights established by that constitution as may be practically 
 needed? Can you, if you swear to support the constitution, and be- 
 lieve that the constitution establishes a right, clear your oath, with- 
 out giving it support? Do you support the constitution if, knowing 
 or believing there is a right established under it which needs specific 
 legislation, you withhold that legislation? Do you not violate and 
 disregard your oath? I can conceive of nothing plainer in the world. 
 There can be nothing in the words "support the constitution, ,, if you 
 may run counter to it by refusing support to any right established 
 under the constitution. And what I say here will hold with still more 
 force against the Judge's doctrine of "unfriendly legislation/' How 
 could you, having sworn to support the constitution, and believing 
 it guaranteed the right to hold slaves in the territories, assist in 
 legislation intended to defeat that right? That would be violating 
 your own view of the constitution. Not only so, but if you were to 
 do so, how long would it take the courts to hold your votes unconsti- 
 tutional and void? Not a moment. 
 
 Lastly I would ask— is not Congress, itself, under obligation to 
 
 • 27 • 
 
THE LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES 
 
 give legislative support to any right that is established under the 
 United States Constitution? I repeat the question— is not Congress, 
 itself, bound to give legislative support to any right that is es- 
 tablished in the United States Constitution? A member of Congress 
 swears to support the Constitution of the United States, and if he 
 sees a right established by that Constitution which needs specific 
 legislative protection, can he clear his oath without giving that pro- 
 tection? Let me ask you why many of us who are opposed to slavery 
 upon principle give our acquiescence to a fugitive slave law? Why 
 do we hold ourselves under obligations to pass such a law, and 
 abide by it when it is passed? Because the Constitution makes pro- 
 vision that the owners of slaves shall have the right to reclaim them. 
 It gives the right to reclaim slaves, and that right is, as Judge Doug- 
 las says, a barren right, unless there is legislation that will enforce it. 
 The mere declaration "No person held to service or labor in one 
 state under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall in conse- 
 quence of any law or regulation therein be discharged from such 
 service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to 
 whom such service or labor may be due" is powerless without spe- 
 cific legislation to enforce it. Now on what ground would a mem- 
 ber of Congress who is opposed to slavery in the abstract vote for 
 a fugitive law, as I would deem it my duty to do? Because there is a 
 constitutional right which needs legislation to enforce it. And al- 
 though it is distasteful to me, I have sworn to support the Constitu- 
 tion, and having so sworn I cannot conceive that I do support it if I 
 withheld from that right any necessary legislation to make it prac- 
 tical. And if that is true in regard to a fugitive slave law, is the 
 right to have fugitive slaves reclaimed any better fixed in the Con- 
 stitution than the right to hold slaves in the territories? For this de- 
 cision is a just exposition of the Constitution as Judge Douglas 
 thinks. Is the one right any better than the other? Is there any 
 man who while a member of Congress would give support to the 
 one any more than the other? If I wished to refuse to give legislative 
 support to slave property in the territories, if a member of Congress, 
 I could not do it holding the view that the Constitution establishes 
 that right. If I did it at all, it would be because I deny that this deci- 
 sion properly construes the Constitution. But if I acknowledge with 
 Judge Douglas that this decision properly construes the Constitution, 
 I cannot conceive that I would be less than a perjured man if I 
 should refuse in Congress to give such protection to that property as 
 in its nature it needed. 
 
 28 
 
JONESBORO: LINCOLN S REPLY 
 
 At the end of what I have said here I propose to give the Judge 
 my fifth interrogatory which he may take and answer at his leisure. 
 My fifth interrogatory is this: If the slaveholding citizens of a 
 United States territory should need and demand congressional legis- 
 lation for the protection of their slave property in such territory, 
 would you, as a member of Congress, vote for or against such legis- 
 lation? 
 
 Judge Douglas— Will you repeat that? I want to answer that 
 question. 
 
 Mr. Lincoln— If the slaveholding citizens of a United States terri- 
 tory should need and demand congressional legislation for the pro- 
 tection of their slave property in such territory, would you, as a 
 member of Congress vote for or against such legislation? 
 
 I am aware that in some of the speeches Judge Douglas has made, 
 he has spoken as if he did not know or think that the Supreme 
 Court had decided that a territorial legislature cannot exclude 
 slavery. Precisely what the Judge would say upon the subject— 
 whether he would say definitely that he does not understand they 
 have so decided, or whether he would say he does understand that 
 the Court have so decided, I do not know; but I know that in his 
 speech at Springfield he spoke of it as a thing they had not decided 
 yet; and in his answer to me at Freeport, he spoke of it so far again 
 as I can comprehend it, as a thing that had not yet been decided. 
 Now I hold that if the Judge does entertain that view I think he is 
 not mistaken in so far as it can be said that the Court has not de- 
 cided anything save the mere question of jurisdiction. I know the 
 legal arguments that can be made— that after a court has decided 
 that it cannot take jurisdiction of a case, it then has decided all that 
 is before it, and that is the end of it. A plausible argument can be 
 made in favor of that proposition, but I know that Judge Douglas 
 has said in one of his speeches that the court went forward like 
 honest men as they were and decided all the points in the case. If 
 any points are really extrajudicially decided because not necessarily 
 before them, then this one as to the power of the territorial legisla- 
 ture to exclude slavery is one of them, as also the one that the 
 Missouri Compromise was null and void. They are both extra-judi- 
 cial or neither is according as the Court held that they had no juris- 
 diction in the case between the parties, because of want of capacity 
 of one party to maintain a suit in that Court. I want, if I have suffi- 
 cient time, to show that the Court did pass its opinion, but that is 
 the only thing actually done in the case. If they did not decide, they 
 
 • 29 • 
 
THE LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES 
 
 showed what they were ready to decide whenever the matter was 
 before them. What is that opinion? After having argued that Con- 
 gress had no power to pass a law excluding slavery from a United 
 States territory, they then used language to this effect:— that inas- 
 much as Congress itself could not exercise such a power, it followed 
 as a matter of course that it could not authorize a territorial govern- 
 ment to exercise it, for the territorial legislature can do no more 
 than Congress could do. Thus it expressed its opinion emphatically 
 against the power of a territorial legislature to exclude slavery, leav- 
 ing us in just as little doubt on that point as upon any other point 
 they really decided. 
 
 From Douglas' Rejoinder 
 
 Mr. Lincoln attempts to cover up and get over his Abolitionism 
 by telling you that he was raised a little east of you, (laughter,) 
 beyond the Wabash in Indiana, and he thinks that makes a mighty 
 sound and good man of him on all these questions. I do not know 
 that the place where a man is born or raised has much to do with 
 his political principles. The worst Abolitionists I have ever known 
 in Illinois have been men who have sold their slaves in Alabama 
 and Kentucky, and have come here and turned Abolitionists whilst 
 spending the money got for the negroes they sold, ("that's so," and 
 laughter,) and I do not know that an Abolitionist from Indiana or 
 Kentucky ought to have any more credit because he was born and 
 raised among slaveholders. ("Not a bit," "not as much," &c.) I do 
 not know that a native of Kentucky is more excusable because 
 raised among slaves, his father and mother having owned slaves, he 
 comes to Illinois, turns Abolitionist, and slanders the graves of his 
 father and mother, and breathes curses upon the institutions under 
 which he was born, and his father and mother bred. True, I was not 
 born out west here. I was born away down in Yankee land, 
 ("good,") I was born in a valley in Vermont ("all right,") with the 
 high mountains around me. I love the old green mountains and 
 valleys of Vermont, where I was born, and where I played in my 
 childhood. I went up to visit them some seven or eight years ago, 
 for the first time for twenty odd years. When I got there they 
 treated me very kindly. They invited me to the commencement of 
 their college, placed me on the seats with their distinguished guests, 
 and conferred upon me the degree of LL.D. in latin, (doctor of 
 laws, ) the same as they did on old Hickory, at Cambridge, many 
 
 • 30 • 
 
JONESBORO: DOUGLAS REJOINDER 
 
 years ago, and I give you my word and honor I understood just as 
 much of the latin as he did. (Laughter.) When they got through 
 conferring the honorary degree, they called upon me for a speech, 
 and I got up with my heart full and swelling with gratitude for 
 their kindness, and I said to them, "My friends, Vermont is the 
 most glorious spot on the face of this globe for a man to be born in, 
 provided he emigrates when he is very young." ( Uproarious shouts 
 of laughter. ) 
 
 I emigrated when I was very young. I came out here when I was 
 a boy, and I found my mind liberalized, and my opinions en- 
 larged when I got on these broad prairies, with only the Heavens 
 to bound my vision, instead of having them circumscribed by the 
 little narrow ridges that surrounded the valley where I was born. 
 But, I discard all flings of the land where a man was born. I wish 
 to be judged by my principles, by those great public measures and 
 constitutional principles upon which the peace, the happiness and 
 the perpetuity of this republic now rest. 
 
 Mr. Lincoln has framed another question, propounded it to me, 
 and desired my answer. As I have said before, I did not put a ques- 
 tion to him that I did not first lay a foundation for by showing that 
 it was a part of the platform of the party whose votes he is now 
 seeking, adopted in a majority of the countries where he now hopes 
 to get a majority, and supported by the candidates of his party now 
 running in those counties. But I will answer his question. It is as fol- 
 lows : "If the slaveholding citizens of a United States territory should 
 need and demand congressional legislation for the protection of 
 their slave property in such territory, would you, as a member of 
 Congress, vote for or against such legislation?" I answer him that it 
 is a fundamental article in the Democratic creed that there should 
 be non-interference and non-intervention by Congress with slavery 
 in the states or territories. ( Immense cheering. ) Mr. Lincoln could 
 have found an answer to his question in the Cincinnati platform, if 
 he had desired it. ( Renewed applause. ) The Democratic party have 
 always stood by that great principle of non-interference and non- 
 intervention by Congress with slavery in the states and territories 
 alike, and I stand on that platform now. (Cheer after cheer was 
 here given for Douglas. ) 
 
 Now I desire to call your attention to the fact that Lincoln did 
 not define his own position in his own question. ("He can't, it's too 
 far south," and laughter. ) How does he stand on that question? He 
 put the question to me at Freeport whether or not I would vote to 
 
 • 31 • 
 
THE LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES 
 
 admit Kansas into the Union before she had 93,420 inhabitants. I 
 answered him at once that it having been decided that Kansas had 
 now population enough for a slave state, she had population enough 
 for a free state. ("Good; that's it," and cheers.) 
 
 I answered the question unequivocally, and then I asked him 
 whether he would vote for or against the admission of Kansas be- 
 fore she had 93,420 inhabitants, and he would [not] answer me. To- 
 day he has called attention to the fact that in his opinion my answer 
 on that question was not quite plain enough, and yet he has not 
 answered it himself. (Great laughter.) He now puts a question in 
 relation [to] congressional interference in the territories to me. I 
 answer him direct, and yet he has not answered the question him- 
 self. I ask you whether a man has any right, in common decency, to 
 put questions in these public discussions, to his opponent, which he 
 will not answer himself, when they are pressed home to him. I have 
 asked him three times, whether he would vote to admit Kansas 
 whenever the people applied with a constitution of their own mak- 
 ing and their own adoption, under circumstances that were fair, 
 just and unexceptionable, but I cannot get an answer from him. Nor 
 will he answer the question which he put to me, and which I have 
 just answered in relation to congressional interference in the terri- 
 tories, by making a slave code there. 
 
 It is time that he goes on to answer the question by arguing that 
 under the decision of the Supreme Court it is the duty of a man to 
 vote for a slave code in the territories. He says that it is his duty, 
 under the decision that the court has made, and if he believes in 
 that decision he would be a perjured man if he did not give the 
 vote. I want to know whether he is not bound to a decision which is 
 contrary to his opinions just as much as to one in accordance with 
 his opinions. ("Certainly.") If the decision of the Supreme Court, 
 the tribunal created by the Constitution to decide the question, is 
 final and binding, is he not bound by it just as strongly as if he was 
 for it instead of against it originally. Is every man in this land 
 allowed to resist decisions he does not like, and only support those 
 that meet his approval? What are important courts worth unless 
 their decisions are binding on all good citizens? It is the fundamen- 
 tal principle of the judiciary that its decisions are final. It is created 
 for that purpose so that when you cannot agree among yourselves 
 on a disputed point you appeal to the judicial tribunal which steps 
 in and decides for you, and that decision is then binding on every 
 good citizen. It is the law of the land just as much with Mr. Lincoln 
 
 • 32 • 
 
JONESBORO: DOUGLAS REJOINDER 
 
 against it as for it. And yet he says that if that decision is binding he 
 is a perjured man if he does not vote for a slave code in the different 
 territories of this Union. Well, if you (turning to Mr. Lincoln) are 
 not going to resist the decision, if you obey it, and do not intend to 
 array mob law against the constituted authorities, then, according to 
 your own statement, you will be a perjured man if you do not vote 
 to establish slavery in these territories. My doctrine is, that even 
 taking Mr. Lincoln's view that the decision recognizes the right of a 
 man to carry his slaves into the territories of the United States, if he 
 pleases, yet after he gets there he needs affirmative law to make that 
 right of any value. The same doctrine not only applies to slave prop- 
 erty, but all other kinds of property. Chief Justice Taney places it 
 upon the ground that slave property is on an equal footing with 
 other property. Suppose one of your merchants should move to 
 Kansas and open a liquor store; he has a right to take groceries and 
 liquors there, but the mode of selling them, and the circumstances 
 under which they shall be sold, and all the remedies must be pre- 
 scribed by local legislation, and if that is unfriendly it will drive him 
 out just as effectually as if there was a constitutional provision 
 against the sale of liquor. So the absence of local legislation to en- 
 courage and support slave property in a territory excludes it prac- 
 tically just as effectually as if there was a positive constitutional pro- 
 vision against it. Hence, I assert that under the Dred Scott decision 
 you cannot maintain slavery a day in a territory where there is an 
 unwilling people and unfriendly legislation. If the people are 
 opposed to it, our right is a barren, worthless, useless right, and if 
 they are for it, they will support and encourage it. We come right 
 back, therefore, to the practical question, if the people of a territory 
 want slavery they will have it, and if they do not want it you can- 
 not force it on them. And this is the practical question, the great 
 principle upon which our institutions rest. ("That's the doctrine.") 
 I am willing to take the decision of the Supreme Court as it was 
 pronounced by that august tribunal without stopping to inquire 
 whether I would have decided that way or not. I have had many a 
 decision made against me on questions of law which I did not like, 
 but I was bound by them just as much as if I had had a hand in 
 making them, and approved them. Did you ever see a lawyer or a 
 client lose his case that he approved the decision of the court. They 
 always think the decision unjust when it is given against them. In a 
 government of laws like ours we must sustain the Constitution as 
 our fathers made it, and maintain the rights of the states as they are 
 
 • 33 • 
 
THE LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES 
 
 guaranteed under the Constitution, and then we will have peace and 
 harmony between the different states and sections of this glorious 
 Union. ( Prolonged cheering. ) 
 
 CHARLESTON: SEPTEMBER 18, 1858 
 
 On a warm fall day between 12,000 and 15,000 people come 
 in from the country and surrounding towns to hear the fourth 
 debate. 
 
 From Lincoln's Opening Speech 
 
 . . . While I was at the hotel to-day an elderly gentleman called 
 upon me to know whether I was really in favor of producing a per- 
 fect equality between the negroes and white people. [Great laugh- 
 ter.] While I had not proposed to myself on this occasion to say much 
 on that subject, yet as the question was asked me I thought I would 
 occupy perhaps five minutes in saying something in regard to it. 
 I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing 
 about in any way the social and political equality of the white and 
 black races, [applause]— that I am not nor ever have been in favor 
 of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold 
 office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition 
 to this that there is a physical difference between the white and 
 black races which I believe will for ever forbid the two races living 
 together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as 
 they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be 
 the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other 
 man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the 
 white race. I say upon this occasion I do not perceive that because 
 the white man is to have the superior position the negro should be 
 denied everything. I do not understand that because I do not want 
 a negro woman for a slave I must necessarily want her for a wife. 
 [Cheers and laughter.] My understanding is that I can just let her 
 alone. I am now in my fiftieth year, and I certainly never have had 
 a black woman for either a slave or a wife. So it seems to me quite 
 possible for us to get along without making either slaves or wives 
 of negroes. I will add to this that I have never seen to my knowledge 
 a man, woman or child who was in favor of producing a perfect 
 equality, social and political, between negroes and white men. I 
 
 • 34 • 
 
CHARLESTON: LINCOLN S OPENING SPEECH 
 
 recollect of but one distinguished instance that I ever heard of so 
 frequently as to be entirely satisfied of its correctness— and that is 
 the case of Judge Douglas' old friend Col. Richard M. Johnson. 1 
 [Laughter.] I will also add to the remarks I have made, (for I am 
 not going to enter at large upon this subject, ) that I have never had 
 the least apprehension that I or my friends would marry negroes if 
 there was no law to keep them from it, [laughter] but as Judge 
 Douglas and his friends seem to be in great apprehension that they 
 might, if there were no law to keep them from it, [roars of laughter] 
 I give him the most solemn pledge that I will to the very last stand 
 by the law of this state, which forbids the marrying of white people 
 with negroes. [Continued laughter and applause.] I will add one 
 further word, which is this, that I do not understand there is any 
 place where an alteration of the social and political relations of the 
 negro and the white man can be made except in the state legislature 
 —not in the Congress of the United States— and as I do not really 
 apprehend the approach of any such thing myself, and as Judge 
 Douglas seems to be in constant horror that some such danger is 
 rapidly approaching, I propose as the best means to prevent it that 
 the Judge be kept at home and placed in the state legislature to 
 fight the measure. [Uproarious laughter and applause.] I do not 
 propose dwelling longer at this time on this subject. 
 
 From Douglas' Reply 
 
 I am told that I have but eight minutes more. I would like to talk 
 to you an hour and a half longer, but I will make the best use I can 
 of the remaining eight minutes. Mr. Lincoln said in his first remarks 
 that he was not in favor of the social and political equality of the 
 negro with the white man. Everywhere up north he has declared 
 that he was not in favor of the social and political equality of the 
 negro, but he would not say whether or not he was opposed to 
 negroes voting and negro citizenship. I want to know whether he 
 is for or against negro citizenship? He declared his utter opposition 
 to the Dred Scott decision, and advanced as a reason that the court 
 
 1 According to Thomas P. Abernethy in the Dictionary of American Biography, 
 Richard M. Johnson, Vice-President of the United States, 1837-41, "never 
 married, but had two daughters by Julia Chinn, a mulatto who came to him in 
 the distribution of his father's estate." 
 
 35 
 
THE LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES 
 
 had decided that it was not possible for a negro to be a citizen 
 under the Constitution of the United States. If he is opposed to the 
 Dred Scott decision for that reason he must be in favor of conferring 
 the right and privilege of citizenship upon the negro! I have been 
 trying to get an answer from him on that point, but have never yet 
 obtained one, and I will show you why. In every speech he made 
 in the north he quoted the Declaration of Independence to prove 
 that all men were created equal, and insisted that the phrase "all 
 men," included the negro as well as the white man, and that the 
 equality rested upon Divine law. Here is what he said on that point: 
 
 I should like to know if, taking this old Declaration of Independence, 
 which declares that all men are equal upon principle, and making excep- 
 tions to it where will it stop. If one man says it does not mean a negro, why 
 may not another say it does not mean some other man? If that declaration 
 is not the truth let us get the statute book in which we find it and tear it out! 
 
 Lincoln maintains there that the Declaration of Independence 
 asserts that the negro is equal to the white man, and that under 
 Divine law, and if he believes so it was rational for him to advocate 
 negro citizenship, which, when allowed, puts the negro on an equal- 
 ity under the law. ("No negro equality for us"; "down with Lin- 
 coln.") I say to you in all frankness, gentlemen, that in my opinion 
 a negro is not a citizen, cannot be, and ought not to be, under the 
 Constitution of the United States. ("That's die doctrine.") I will not 
 even qualify my opinion to meet the declaration of one of the Judges 
 of the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott case, "that a negro de- 
 scended from African parents, who was imported into this country 
 as a slave, is not a citizen, and cannot be." I say that this government 
 was established on the white basis. It was made by white men, for 
 the benefit of white men and their posterity forever, and never 
 should be administered by any except white men. (Cheers.) I de- 
 clare that a negro ought not to be a citizen, whether his parents 
 were imported into this country as slaves or not, or whether or not 
 he was born here. It does not depend upon the place a negro's 
 parents were born, or whether they were slaves or not, but upon 
 the fact that he is a negro, belonging to a race incapable of self 
 government, and for that reason ought not to be on an equality with 
 white men. (Immense applause.) 
 
 36 
 
CHARLESTON: LINCOLN S REJOINDER 
 
 From Lincoln s Rejoinder 
 
 Judge Douglas has said to you that he has not been able to get 
 from me an answer to the question whether I am in favor of negro 
 citizenship. So far as I know, the Judge never asked me the question 
 before. [Applause.] He shall have no occasion to ever ask it again, 
 for I tell him very frankly that I am not in favor of negro citizenship. 
 [Renewed applause.] This furnishes me an occasion for saying a 
 few words upon the subject. I mentioned in a certain speech of mine 
 which has been printed, that the Supreme Court had decided that 
 a negro could not possibly be made a citizen, and without saying 
 what was my ground of complaint in regard to that, or whether I 
 had any ground of complaint, Judge Douglas has from that thing 
 manufactured nearly every thing that he ever says about my dis- 
 position to produce an equality between the negroes and the white 
 people. [Laughter and applause.] If any one will read my speech, 
 he will find I mentioned that as one of the points decided in the 
 course of the Supreme Court opinions, but I did not state what 
 objection I had to it. But Judge Douglas tells the people what my 
 objection was when I did not tell them myself. [Loud applause and 
 laughter.] Now my opinion is that the different states have the 
 power to make a negro a citizen under the Constitution of the United 
 States if they choose. The Dred Scott decision decides that they 
 have not that power. If the state of Illinois had that power I should 
 be opposed to the exercise of it. [Cries of "good," "good," and ap- 
 plause.] That is all I have to say about it. 
 
 Judge Douglas has told me that he heard my speeches north and 
 my speeches south— that he had heard me at Ottawa and at Freeport 
 in the north, and recently at Jonesboro in the south, and there was 
 a very different cast of sentiment in the speeches made at the dif- 
 ferent points. I will not charge upon Judge Douglas that he wilfully 
 misrepresents me, but I call upon every fair-minded man to take 
 these speeches and read them, and I dare him to point out any dif- 
 ference between my printed speeches north and south. [Great cheer- 
 ing.] While I am here perhaps I ought to say a word, if I have the 
 time, in regard to the latter portion of the Judge's speech, which was 
 a sort of declamation in reference to my having said I entertained 
 the belief that this government would not endure, half slave and 
 half free. I have said so and I did not say it without what seemed 
 
 • 37 • 
 
THE LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES 
 
 to me to be good reasons. It perhaps would require more time than 
 I have now to set forth these reasons in detail; but let me ask you 
 a few questions. Have we ever had any peace on this slavery ques- 
 tion? ["No, no."] When are we to have peace upon it if it is kept 
 in the position it now occupies? ["Never."] How are we ever to have 
 peace upon it? That is an important question. To be sure if we will 
 all stop and allow Judge Douglas and his friends to march on in 
 their present career until they plant the institution all over the na- 
 tion, here and wherever else our flag waves, and we acquiesce in it, 
 there will be peace. But let me ask Judge Douglas how he is going 
 to get the people to do that? [Applause.] They have been wrangling 
 over this question for at least forty years. This was the cause of the 
 agitation resulting in the Missouri Compromise— this produced the 
 troubles at the annexation of Texas, in the acquisition of the terri- 
 tory acquired in the Mexican war. Again, this was the trouble which 
 was quieted by the Compromise of 1850, when it was settled "for- 
 ever" as both the great political parties declared in their national 
 conventions. That "forever" turned out to be just four years, [laugh- 
 ter] when Judge Douglas himself re-opened it. [Immense applause, 
 cries of "hit him again," &c] When is it likely to come to an end? 
 He introduced the Nebraska Bill in 1854 to put another end to the 
 slavery agitation. He promised that it would finish it all up imme- 
 diately, and he has never made a speech since until he got into a 
 quarrel with the President about the Lecompton constitution, in 
 which he has not declared that we are just at the end of the slavery 
 agitation. But in one speech, I think last winter, he did say that he 
 didn't quite see when the end of the slavery agitation would come. 
 [Laughter and cheers.] Now he tells us again that it is all over, and 
 the people of Kansas have voted down the Lecompton constitution. 
 How is it over? That was only one of the attempts at putting an end 
 to the slavery agitation— one of these "final settlements." [Renewed 
 laughter.] Is Kansas in the Union? Has she formed a constitution 
 that she is likely to come in under? Is not the slavery agitation still 
 an open question in that territory? Has the voting down of that 
 constitution put an end to all the trouble? Is that more likely to 
 settle it than every one of these previous attempts to settle the 
 slavery agitation. [Cries of "No," "No."] Now, at this day in the 
 history of the world we can no more foretell where the end of this 
 slavery agitation will be than we can see the end of the world itself. 
 The Nebraska-Kansas Bill was introduced four years and a half ago, 
 and if the agitation is ever to come to an end, we may say we are 
 
 • 38 • 
 
galesburg: Lincoln s opening speech 
 
 four years and a half nearer the end. So, too, we can say we are 
 four years and a half nearer the end of the world; and we can just 
 as clearly see the end of the world as we can see the end of this 
 agitation. [Applause.] The Kansas settlement did not conclude it. 
 If Kansas should sink to-day, and leave a great vacant space in the 
 earth's surface, this vexed question would still be among us. I say, 
 then, there is no way of putting an end to the slavery agitation 
 amongst us but to put it back upon the basis where our fathers 
 placed it, [applause] no way but to keep it out of our new territories 
 [renewed applause]— to restrict it forever to the old states where 
 it now exists. [Tremendous and prolonged cheering; cries of "That's 
 the doctrine," "Good," "Good," &c.] Then the public mind will rest 
 in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction. That is 
 one way of putting an end to the slavery agitation. [Applause.] 
 
 GALESBURG: OCTOBER 7, 1858 
 
 On this dreary day a cutting wind often keeps the speakers 
 from being heard. But the debate attracts the largest audience 
 of the campaign. 
 
 From Lincoln s Opening Speech 
 
 . . . While we were at Freeport, in one of these joint discussions, I 
 answered certain interrogatories which Judge Douglas had pro- 
 pounded to me, and there in turn propounded some to him, which 
 he in a sort of way answered. The third one of these interrogatories 
 I have with me and wish now to make some comments upon it. It 
 was in these words : "If the Supreme Court of the United States shall 
 decide that the states cannot exclude slavery from their limits, are 
 you in favor of acquiescing in, adhering to and following such de- 
 cision, as a rule of political action?" 
 
 To this interrogatory Judge Douglas made no answer in any just 
 sense of the word. He contented himself with sneering at the thought 
 that it was possible for the Supreme Court ever to make such a 
 decision. He sneered at me for propounding the interrogatory. I had 
 not propounded it without some reflection, and I wish now to ad- 
 dress to this audience some remarks upon it. 
 
 • 39 • 
 
THE LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES 
 
 In the second clause of the sixth article, I believe it is of the 
 Constitution of the United States, we find the following language: 
 "This Constitution and the laws of the United States which shall be 
 made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made or which shall be 
 made under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme 
 law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby 
 anything in the constitution or laws of any state to the contrary 
 notwithstanding." 
 
 The essence of the Dred Scott case is compressed into the sen- 
 tence which I will now read: "Now, as we have already said in an 
 earlier part of this opinion, upon a different point, the right of prop- 
 erty in a slave is distinctly and expressly affirmed in the Constitu- 
 tion." I repeat it, "The right of property in a slave is distinctly and 
 expressly affirmed in the Constitution!" What is to be "affirmed" 
 in the Constitution? Made firm in the Constitution— so made that it 
 cannot be separated from the Constitution without breaking the 
 Constitution— durable as the Constitution, and part of the Constitu- 
 tion. Now, remembering the provision of the Constitution which I 
 have read, affirming that that instrument is the supreme law of the 
 land; that the Judges of every state shall be bound by it, any law 
 or constitution of any state to the contrary notwithstanding; that the 
 right of property in a slave is affirmed in that Constitution, is made, 
 formed into and cannot be separated from it without breaking it; 
 durable as the instrument; part of the instrument;— what follows as 
 a short and even syllogistic argument from it? I think it follows, and 
 I submit to the consideration of men capable of arguing, whether as 
 I state it in syllogistic form the argument has any fault in it: 
 
 Nothing in the constitution or laws of any state can destroy a 
 right distinctly and expressly affirmed in the Constitution of the 
 United States. 
 
 The right of property in a slave is distinctly and expressly affirmed 
 in the Constitution of the United States; 
 
 Therefore, nothing in the Constitution or laws of any state can 
 destroy the right of property in a slave. 
 
 I believe that no fault can be pointed out in that argument; as- 
 suming the truth of the premises, the conclusion, so far as I have 
 capacity at all to understand it, follows inevitably. There is a fault 
 in it as I think, but the fault is not in the reasoning; but the false- 
 hood in fact is a fault of the premises. I believe that the right of 
 property in a slave is not distinctly and expressly affirmed in the 
 Constitution, and Judge Douglas thinks it is. I believe that the Su- 
 
 • 40 • 
 
GALESBURG: LINCOLN S OPENING SPEECH 
 
 preme Court and the advocates of that decision may search in vain 
 for the place in the Constitution where the right of property in a 
 slave is distinctly and expressly affirmed. I say, therefore, that I 
 think one of the premises is not true in fact. But it is true with 
 Judge Douglas. It is true with the Supreme Court who pronounced 
 it. They are estopped from denying it, and being estopped from de- 
 nying it, the conclusion follows that the Constitution of the United 
 States being the supreme law, no constitution or law can interfere 
 with it. It being affirmed in the decision that the right of property 
 in a slave is distinctly and expressly affirmed in the Constitution, the 
 conclusion inevitably follows that no state law or constitution can 
 destroy that right. I then say to Judge Douglas and to all others, that 
 I think it will take a better answer than a sneer to show that those 
 who have said that the right of property in a slave is distinctly and 
 expressly affirmed in the Constitution, are not prepared to show that 
 no constitution or law can destroy that right. I say I believe it will 
 take a far better argument than a mere sneer to show to the minds 
 of intelligent men that whoever has so said, is not prepared, when- 
 ever public sentiment is so far advanced as to justify it, to say the 
 other. ["That's so."] This is but an opinion, and the opinion of one 
 very humble man; but it is my opinion that the Dred Scott decision, 
 as it is, never would have been made in its present form if the party 
 that made it had not been sustained previously by the elections. 
 My own opinion is, that the new Dred Scott decision, deciding 
 against the right of the people of the states to exclude slavery, will 
 never be made, if that party is not sustained by the elections. [Cries 
 of "Yes, yes."] I believe, further, that it is just as sure to be made 
 as to-morrow is to come, if that party shall be sustained. ["We wont 
 sustain it, never, never."] I have said, upon a former occasion, and 
 I repeat it now, that the course of argument that Judge Douglas 
 makes use of upon this subject, (I charge not his motives in this), 
 is preparing the public mind for that new Dred Scott decision. I 
 have asked him again to point out to me the reasons for his firm 
 adherence to the Dred Scott decision as it is. I have turned his 
 attention to the fact that General Jackson differed with him in re- 
 gard to the political obligation of a Supreme Court decision. I have 
 asked his attention to the fact that Jefferson differed with him in 
 regard to the political obligation of a Supreme Court decision. Jef- 
 ferson said, that "Judges are as honest as other men, and not more 
 so." And he said, substantially, that "whenever a free people should 
 give up in absolute submission to any department of government, 
 
 • 41 • 
 
THE LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES 
 
 retaining for themselves no appeal from it, their liberties were gone." 
 I have asked his attention to the fact that the Cincinnati platform, 
 upon which he says he stands, disregards a time-honored decision 
 of the Supreme Court, in denying the power of Congress to establish 
 a national bank. I have asked his attention to the fact that he him- 
 self was one of the most active instruments at one time in breaking 
 down the Supreme Court of the state of Illinois, because it had made 
 a decision distasteful to him— a struggle ending in the remarkable 
 circumstance of his sitting down as one of the new Judges who were 
 to overslaugh that decision— [loud applause]— getting his title of 
 Judge in that very way. [Tremendous applause and laughter.] 
 
 So far in this controversy I can get no answer at all from Judge 
 Douglas upon these subjects. Not one can I get from him, except 
 that he swells himself up and says, "All of us who stand by the 
 decision of the Supreme Court are the friends of the Constitution; all 
 you fellows that dare question it in any way, are the enemies of the 
 Constitution." [Continued laughter and cheers.] Now, in this very 
 devoted adherence to this decision, in opposition to all the great 
 political leaders whom he has recognized as leaders— in opposition 
 to his former self and history, there is something very marked. And 
 the manner in which he adheres to it— not as being right upon the 
 merits, as he conceives ( because he did not discuss that at all ) , but 
 as being absolutely obligatory upon every one simply because of the 
 source from whence it comes— as that which no man can gainsay, 
 whatever it may be,— this is another marked feature of his adherence 
 to that decision. It marks it in this respect, that it commits him to 
 the next decision, whenever it comes, as being as obligatory as this 
 one, since he does not investigate it, and won't inquire whether this 
 opinion is right or wrong. So he takes the next one without inquiring 
 whether it is right or wrong. [Applause.] He teaches men this doc- 
 trine, and in so doing prepares the public mind to take the next 
 decision when it comes, without any inquiry. In this I think I argue 
 fairly (without questioning motives at all) that Judge Douglas is 
 most ingeniously and powerfully preparing the public mind to take 
 that decision when it comes; and not only so, but he is doing it in 
 various other ways. In these general maxims about liberty— in his 
 assertions that he "don't care whether slavery is voted up or voted 
 down;" that "whoever wants slavery has a right to have it;" that 
 "upon principles of equality it should be allowed to go everywhere;" 
 that "there is no inconsistency between free and slave institutions." 
 In this he is also preparing (whether purposely or not), the way 
 
 • 42 • 
 
galesburg: Lincoln s opening speech 
 
 for making the institution of slavery national! [Cries of "Yes," "Yes," 
 "That's so."] I repeat again, for I wish no misunderstanding, that I 
 do not charge that he means it so; but I call upon your minds to 
 inquire, if you were going to get the best instrument you could, and 
 then set it to work in the most ingenious way, to prepare the public 
 mind for this movement, operating in the free states, where there is 
 now an abhorrence of the institution of slavery, could you find an 
 instrument so capable of doing it as Judge Douglas? or one em- 
 ployed in so apt a way to do it? [Great cheering. Cries of "Hit him 
 again," "That's the doctrine."] 
 
 I have said once before, and I will repeat it now, that Mr. Clay, 
 when he was once answering an objection to the Colonization So- 
 ciety, that it had a tendency to the ultimate emancipation of the 
 slaves, said that "those who would repress all tendencies to liberty 
 and ultimate emancipation must do more than put down the benev- 
 olent efforts of the Colonization Society— they must go back to the 
 era of our liberty and independence, and muzzle the cannon that 
 thunders its annual joyous return— they must blot out the moral lights 
 around us— they must penetrate the human soul, and eradicate the 
 light of reason and the love of liberty!" And I do think— I repeat, 
 though I said it on a former occasion— that Judge Douglas, and who- 
 ever like him teaches that the negro has no share, humble though 
 it may be, in the Declaration of Independence, is going back to the 
 era of our liberty and independence, and, so far as in him lies, 
 muzzling the cannon that thunders its annual joyous return; ["That's 
 so"] that he is blowing out the moral lights around us, when he 
 contends that whoever wants slaves has a right to hold them; that 
 he is penetrating, so far as lies in his power, the human soul, and 
 eradicating the light of reason and the love of liberty, when he is 
 in every possible way preparing the public mind, by his vast influ- 
 ence, for making the institution of slavery perpetual and national. 
 [Great applause, and cries of "Hurrah for Lincoln," "That's the true 
 doctrine."] 
 
 From Douglas' Reply 
 
 I have a few words to say upon the Dred Scott decision, which 
 has troubled the brain of Mr. Lincoln so much. (Laughter.) He 
 insists that that decision would carry slavery into the free states, 
 notwithstanding that the decision says directly the opposite; and 
 
 • 43 • 
 
THE LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES 
 
 goes into a long argument to make you believe that I am in favor 
 of, and would sanction the doctrine that would allow slaves to be 
 brought here and held as slaves contrary to our constitution and 
 laws. Mr. Lincoln knew better when he asserted this; he knew that 
 one newspaper, and so far as is within my knowledge, but one ever 
 asserted that doctrine, and that I was the first man in either House 
 of Congress that read that article in debate, and denounced it on 
 the floor of the Senate as revolutionary. When the Washington 
 Union, on the 17th of last November published an article to that 
 effect, I branded it at once, and denounced it, and hence the Union 
 has been pursuing me ever since. Mr. Toombs, of Georgia, replied 
 to me, and said that there was not a man in any of the slave states 
 south of the Potomac River that held any such doctrine. Mr. Lincoln 
 knows that there is not a member of the Supreme Court who holds 
 that doctrine; he knows that every one of them, as shown by their 
 opinions, holds the reverse. Why this attempt, then, to bring the 
 Supreme Court into disrepute among the people? It looks as if there 
 was an effort being made to destroy public confidence in the highest 
 judicial tribunal on earth. Suppose he succeeds in destroying public 
 confidence in the court, so that the people will not respect its deci- 
 sions, but will feel at liberty to disregard them, and resist the laws 
 of the land, what will he have gained? He will have changed the 
 government from one of laws into that of a mob, in which the strong 
 arm of violence will be substituted for the decisions of the courts of 
 justice. ("That's so.") He complains because I did not go into an 
 argument reviewing Chief Justice Taney's opinion, and the other 
 opinions of the different judges, to determine whether their reason- 
 ing is right or wrong on the questions of law. What use would that 
 be? He wants to take an appeal from the Supreme Court to this 
 meeting to determine whether the questions of law were decided 
 properly. He is going to appeal from the Supreme Court of the 
 United States to every town meeting in the hope that he can excite 
 a prejudice against that court, and on the wave of that prejudice 
 ride into the Senate of the United States, when he could not get 
 there on his own principles, or his own merits. (Laughter and 
 cheers; "hit him again.") Suppose he should succeed in getting into 
 the Senate of the United States, what then will he have to do with 
 the decision of the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott case? Can he 
 reverse that decision when he gets there? Can he act upon it? Has 
 the Senate any right to reverse it or revise it? He will not pretend 
 that it has. Then why drag the matter into this contest, unless for the 
 
 . 44 . 
 
galesburg: douglas reply 
 
 purpose of making a false issue, by which he can direct public atten- 
 tion from the real issue? 
 
 He has cited General Jackson in justification of the war he is 
 making on the decision of the court. Mr. Lincoln misunderstands the 
 history of the country, if he believes there is any parallel in the two 
 cases. It is true that the Supreme Court once decided that if a bank 
 of the United States was a necessary fiscal agent of the government, 
 it was constitutional, and if not, that it was unconstitutional, and 
 also, that whether or not it was necessary for that purpose, was a 
 political question for Congress and not a judicial one for the courts 
 to determine. Hence the court would not determine the bank uncon- 
 stitutional. Jackson respected the decision, obeyed the law, executed 
 it and carried it into effect during its existence; ("that's so,") but 
 after the charter of the bank expired and a proposition was made to 
 create a new bank, General Jackson said, "It is unnecessary, and im- 
 proper, and therefore, I am against it on constitutional grounds as 
 well as those of expediency." Is Congress bound to pass every act 
 that is constitutional? Why, there are a thousand things that are 
 constitutional, but yet are inexpedient and unnecessary, and you 
 surely would not vote for them merely because you had the right to? 
 And because General Jackson would not do a thing which he had a 
 right to do, but did not deem expedient or proper, Mr. Lincoln is 
 going to justify himself in doing that which he has no right to do. 
 ( Laughter. ) I ask him, whether he is not bound to respect and obey 
 the decisions of the Supreme Court as well as me? The Constitution 
 has created that court to decide all constitutional questions in the 
 last resort, and when such decisions have been made, they become 
 the law of the land, ( "that's so," ) and you, and he, and myself, and 
 every other good citizen are bound by them. Yet, he argues that I 
 am bound by their decisions and he is not. He says that their deci- 
 sions are binding on Democrats, but not on Republicans. ( Laughter 
 and applause. ) Are not Republicans bound by the laws of the land, 
 as well as Democrats? And when the court has fixed the construction 
 of the Constitution on the validity of a given law, is not their deci- 
 sion binding upon Republicans as well as upon Democrats? ("It 
 ought to be.") Is it possible that you Republicans have the right to 
 raise your mobs and oppose the laws of the land and the constituted 
 authorities, and yet hold us Democrats bound to obey them? My 
 time is within half a minute of expiring, and all I have to say is, 
 that I stand by the laws of the land. ("That's it"; "hurrah for Doug- 
 las.") I stand by the Constitution as our fathers made it, by the laws 
 
 • 45 • 
 
THE LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES 
 
 as they are enacted, and by the decisions of the court upon all points 
 within their jurisdiction as they are pronounced by the highest 
 tribunal on earth; and any man who resists these must resort to mob 
 law and violence to overturn the government of laws. 
 
 QUINCY: OCTOBER 13, 1858 
 
 The crowd is large, though smaller than the great gathering 
 at Galesburg. 
 
 From Lincoln s Opening Speech 
 
 . . . We have in this nation this element of domestic slavery. It is a 
 matter of absolute certainty that it is a disturbing element. It is the 
 opinion of all the great men who have expressed an opinion upon it, 
 that it is a dangerous element. We keep up a controversy in regard 
 to it. That controversy necessarily springs from difference of opinion, 
 and if we can learn exactly— can reduce to the lowest elements— 
 what that difference of opinion is, we perhaps shall be better pre- 
 pared for discussing the different systems of policy that we would 
 propose in regard to that disturbing element. I suggest that the 
 difference of opinion, reduced to its lowest terms, is no other than 
 the difference between the men who think slavery a wrong and 
 those who do not think it wrong. The Republican party think it 
 wrong— we think it is a moral, a social and a political wrong. We 
 think it is a wrong not confining itself merely to the persons or the 
 states where it exists, but that it is a wrong in its tendency, to say 
 the least, that extends itself to the existence of the whole nation. 
 Because we think it wrong, we propose a course of policy that shall 
 deal with it as a wrong. We deal with it as with any other wrong, 
 in so far as we can prevent its growing any larger, and so deal with 
 it that in the run of time there may be some promise of an end to 
 it. We have a due regard to the actual presence of it amongst us 
 and the difficulties of getting rid of it in any satisfactory way, and 
 all the constitutional obligations thrown about it. I suppose that in 
 reference both to its actual existence in the nation, and to our con- 
 stitutional obligations, we have no right at all to disturb it in the 
 states where it exists, and we profess that we have no more inclina- 
 tion to disturb it than we have the right to do it. We go further than 
 
 • 46 • 
 
QUINCYI LINCOLN S OPENING SPEECH 
 
 that; we don't propose to disturb it where, in one instance, we think 
 the Constitution would permit us. We think the Constitution would 
 permit us to disturb it in the District of Columbia. Still we do not 
 propose to do that, unless it should be in terms which I don't sup- 
 pose the nation is very likely soon to agree to— the terms of making 
 the emancipation gradual and compensating the unwilling owners. 
 Where we suppose we have the constitutional right, we restrain 
 ourselves in reference to the actual existence of the institution and 
 the difficulties thrown about it. We also oppose it as an evil so far 
 as it seeks to spread itself. We insist on the policy that shall restrict 
 it to its present limits. We don't suppose that in doing this we vio- 
 late anything due to the actual presence of the institution, or any- 
 thing due to the constitutional guarantees thrown around it. 
 
 We oppose the Dred Scott decision in a certain way, upon which 
 I ought perhaps to address you a few words. We do not propose 
 that when Dred Scott has been decided to be a slave by the court, 
 we, as a mob, will decide him to be free. We do not propose that, 
 when any other one, or one thousand, shall be decided by that court 
 to be slaves, we will in any violent way disturb the rights of prop- 
 erty thus settled; but we nevertheless do oppose that decision as a 
 political rule which shall be binding on the voter, to vote for nobody 
 who thinks it wrong, which shall be binding on the members of 
 Congress or the President to favor no measure that does not actually 
 concur with the principles of that decision. We do not propose to 
 be bound by it as a political rule in that way, because we think it 
 lays the foundation not merely of enlarging and spreading out what 
 we consider an evil, but it lays the foundation for spreading that 
 evil into the states themselves. We propose so resisting it as to have 
 it reversed if we can, and a new judicial rule established upon this 
 subject. 
 
 I will add this, that if there be any man who does not believe 
 that slavery is wrong in the three aspects which I have mentioned, 
 or in any one of them, that man is misplaced, and ought to leave us. 
 While, on the other hand, if there be any man in the Republican 
 party who is impatient over the necessity springing from its actual 
 presence, and is impatient of the constitutional guarantees thrown 
 around it, and would act in disregard of these, he too is misplaced 
 standing with us. He will find his place somewhere else; for we have 
 a due regard, so far as we are capable of understanding them, for all 
 these things. This, gentlemen, as well as I can give it, is a plain 
 statement of our principles in all their enormity. 
 
 . 47 . 
 
THE LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES 
 
 From Douglas' Reply 
 
 He [Lincoln] tells you that I will not argue the question whether 
 slavery is right or wrong. I tell you why I will not do it. I hold that 
 under the Constitution of the United States, each state of this Union 
 has a right to do as it pleases on the subject of slavery. In Illinois we 
 have exercised that sovereign right by prohibiting slavery within our 
 own limits. I approve of that line of policy. We have performed our 
 whole duty in Illinois. We have gone as far as we have a right to go 
 under the Constitution of our common country. It is none of our 
 business whether slavery exists in Missouri or not. Missouri is a 
 sovereign state of this Union, and has the same right to decide the 
 slavery question for herself that Illinois has to decide it for herself. 
 ( "Good." ) Hence I do not choose to occupy the time allotted to me 
 in discussing a question that we have no right to act upon. 
 ( "Right." ) I thought that you desired to hear us upon those ques- 
 tions coming within our constitutional power of action. Lincoln will 
 not discuss these. What one question has he discussed that comes 
 within the power or calls for the action or interference of an United 
 States Senator? He is going to discuss the rightfulness of slavery 
 when Congress cannot act upon it either way. He wishes to discuss 
 the merits of the Dred Scott decision when under the Constitution, 
 a Senator has no right to interfere with the decision of judicial tri- 
 bunals. He wants your exclusive attention to two questions that he 
 has no power to act upon; to two questions that he could not vote 
 upon if he was in Congress, to two questions that are not practical, 
 in order to conceal your attention from other questions which he 
 might be required to vote upon should he ever become a member of 
 Congress. He tells you that he does not like the Dred Scott decision. 
 Suppose he does not, how is he going to help himself? He says that 
 he will reverse it. How will he reverse it? I know of but one mode 
 of reversing judicial decisions, and that is by appealing from the 
 inferior to the superior court. But I have never yet learned how or 
 where an appeal could be taken from the Supreme Court of the 
 United States! The Dred Scott decision was pronounced by the 
 highest tribunal on earth. From that decision there is no appeal this 
 side of Heaven. Yet, Mr. Lincoln says he is going to reverse that 
 decision. By what tribunal will he reverse it? Will he appeal to a 
 mob? Does he intend to appeal to violence, to lynch law? Will he 
 
 • 48 • 
 
QUINCY: DOUGLAS REPLY 
 
 stir up strife and rebellion in the land and overthrow the court by 
 violence? He does not deign to tell you how he will reverse the Dred 
 Scott decision, but keeps appealing each day from the Supreme 
 Court of the United States to political meetings in the country. 
 ( Laughter. ) He wants me to argue with you the merits of each point 
 of that decision before this political meeting. I say to you, with all 
 due respect, that I choose to abide by the decisions of the Supreme 
 Court as they are pronounced. It is not for me to inquire after a 
 decision is made whether I like it in all the points or not. When I 
 used to practice law with Lincoln, I never knew him to be beat in a 
 case that he did not get mad at the judge and talk about appealing; 
 (laughter,) and when I got beat I generally thought the court was 
 wrong, but I never dreamed of going out of the court house and 
 making a stump speech to the people against the judge, merely be- 
 cause I had found out that I did not know the law as well as he did. 
 ( Great laughter. ) If the decision did not suit me, I appealed until I 
 got to the Supreme Court, and then if that court, the highest tri- 
 bunal in the world, decided against me, I was satisfied, because it is 
 the duty of every law-abiding man to obey the constitutions, the 
 laws, and the constituted authorities. He who attempts to stir up 
 odium and rebellion in the country against the constituted authori- 
 ties, is stimulating the passions of men to resort to violence and to 
 mobs instead of to the law. Hence, I tell you that I take the decisions 
 of the Supreme Court as the law of the land, and I intend to obey 
 them as such. 
 
 But, Mr. Lincoln says that I will not answer his question as to 
 what I would do in the event of the court making so ridiculous a 
 decision as he imagines they would by deciding that the free state 
 of Illinois could not prohibit slavery within her own limits. I told 
 him at Freeport why I would not answer such a question. I told 
 him that there was not a man possessing any brains in America, 
 lawyer or not, who ever dreamed that such a thing could be done. 
 ("Right/') I told him then, as I say now, that by all the principles 
 set forth in the Dred Scott decision, it is impossible. I told him then, 
 as I do now, that it is an insult to men's understanding, and a gross 
 calumny on the court, to presume in advance that it was going to 
 degrade itself so low as to make a decision known to be in direct 
 violation of the Constitution. 
 
 A Voice— The same thing was said about the Dred Scott decision 
 before it passed. 
 
 Mr. Douglas— Perhaps you think that the Court did the same 
 
 • 49 • 
 
THE LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES 
 
 thing in reference to the Dred Scott decision: I have heard a man 
 talk that way before. The principles contained in the Dred Scott 
 decision had been affirmed previously in various other decisions. 
 What court or judge ever held that a negro was a citizen? (Laugh- 
 ter.) The state courts had decided that question over and over 
 again, and the Dred Scott decision on that point only affirmed what 
 eveiy court in the land knew to be the law. 
 
 But, I will not be drawn off into an argument upon the merits of 
 the Dred Scott decision. It is enough for me to know that the Consti- 
 tution of the United States created the Supreme Court for the pur- 
 pose of deciding all disputed questions touching the true construc- 
 tion of that instrument, and when such decisions are pronounced, 
 they are the law of the land, binding on every good citizen. Mr. 
 Lincoln has a very convenient mode of arguing upon the subject. He 
 holds that because he is a Republican that he is not bound by the 
 decisions of the Court, but that I being a Democrat am so bound. 
 (Laughter and cheers.) It may be that Republicans do not hold 
 themselves bound by the laws of the land and the Constitution of the 
 country as expounded by the courts; it may be an article in the Re- 
 publican creed that men who do not like a decision, have a right to 
 rebel against it; but when Mr. Lincoln preaches that doctrine, I 
 think he will find some honest Republican-some law-abiding man 
 in that party-who will repudiate such a monstrous doctrine. The 
 decision in the Dred Scott case is binding on every American citizen 
 alike; and yet Mr. Lincoln argues that the Republicans are not 
 bound by it, because they are opposed to it, (laughter), whilst 
 Democrats are bound by it, because we will not resist it. A Demo- 
 crat cannot resist the constituted authorities of this country. 
 ("Good.") A Democrat is a law-abiding man, a Democrat stands by 
 the Constitution and the laws, and relies upon liberty as protected 
 by law, and not upon mob or political violence. 
 
 50 
 
ALTON: LINCOLN S REPLY 
 
 ALTON: OCTOBER 15, 1858 
 
 On a warm fall afternoon between 4,000 and 5,000 come out 
 to hear the last debate. 
 
 From Lincoln s Reply 
 
 ... I have stated upon former occasions, and I may as well state 
 again, what I understand to be the real issue in this controversy 
 between Judge Douglas and myself. On the point of my wanting to 
 make war between the free and the slave states, there has been no 
 issue between us. So, too, when he assumes that I am in favor of 
 introducing a perfect social and political equality between the white 
 and black races. These are false issues, upon which Judge Douglas 
 has tried to force the controversy. There is no foundation in truth 
 for the charge that I maintain either of these propositions. The real 
 issue in this controversy— the one pressing upon every mind— is the 
 sentiment on the part of one class that looks upon the institution of 
 slavery as a wrong, and of another class that does not look upon it 
 as a wrong. The sentiment that contemplates the institution of slav- 
 ery in this country as a wrong is the sentiment of the Republican 
 party. It is the sentiment around which all their actions— all their 
 arguments circle— from which all their propositions radiate. They 
 look upon it as being a moral, social and political wrong; and while 
 they contemplate it as such, they nevertheless have due regard for 
 its actual existence among us, and the difficulties of getting rid of it 
 in any satisfactory way and to all the constitutional obligations 
 thrown about it. Yet having a due regard for these, they desire a 
 policy in regard to it that looks to its not creating any more danger. 
 They insist that it should as far as may be, be treated as a wrong, 
 and one of the methods of treating it as a wrong is to make provision 
 that it shall grow no larger. [Loud applause.] They also desire a 
 policy that looks to a peaceful end of slavery at sometime, as being 
 wrong. These are the views they entertain in regard to it as I under- 
 stand them; and all their sentiments— all their arguments and prop- 
 ositions are brought within this range. I have said and I repeat it 
 here, that if there be a man amongst us who does not think that 
 
 • 51 • 
 
THE LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES 
 
 the institution of slavery is wrong in any one of the aspects of which 
 I have spoken, he is misplaced and ought not to be with us. And 
 if there be a man amongst us who is so impatient of it as a wrong 
 as to disregard its actual presence among us and the difficulty of 
 getting rid of it suddenly in a satisfactory way, and to disregard the 
 constitutional obligations thrown about it, that man is misplaced if 
 he is on our platform. We disclaim sympathy with him in practical 
 action. He is not placed properly with us. 
 
 On this subject of treating it as a wrong, and limiting its spread, 
 let me say a word. Has any thing ever threatened the existence of 
 this Union save and except this very institution of slavery? What is 
 it that we hold most dear amongst us? Our own liberty and prosper- 
 ity. What has ever threatened our liberty and prosperity save and 
 except this institution of slavery? If this is true, how do you propose 
 to improve the condition of things by enlarging slavery— by spread- 
 ing it out and making it bigger? You may have a wen or a cancer 
 upon your person and not be able to cut it out lest you bleed to 
 death; but surely it is no way to cure it, to engraft it and spread it 
 over your whole body. That is no proper way of treating what you 
 regard a wrong. You see this peaceful way of dealing with it as a 
 wrong— restricting the spread of it, and not allowing it to go into 
 new countries where it has not already existed. That is the peaceful 
 way, the old-fashioned way, the way in which the fathers themselves 
 set us the example. 
 
 On the other hand, I have said there is a sentiment which treats 
 it as not being wrong. That is the Democratic sentiment of this day. 
 I do not mean to say that every man who stands within that range 
 positively asserts that it is right. That class will include all who pos- 
 itively assert that it is right, and all who like Judge Douglas treat 
 it as indifferent and do not say it is either right or wrong. These two 
 classes of men fall within the general class of those who do not look 
 upon it as a wrong. And if there be among you anybody who sup- 
 poses that he as a Democrat, can consider himself "as much opposed 
 to slavery as anybody," I would like to reason with him. You never 
 treat it as a wrong. What other thing that you consider as a wrong, 
 do you deal with as you deal with that? Perhaps you say it is wrong, 
 but your leader never does, and you quarrel with anybody who says 
 it is wrong. Although you pretend to say so yourself you can find 
 no fit place to deal with it as a wrong. You must not say anything 
 about it in the free states, because it is not here. You must not say 
 anything about it in the slave states, because it is there. You must 
 
 • 52 • 
 
ALTON: LINCOLN S REPLY 
 
 not say anything about it in the pulpit, because that is religion and 
 has nothing to do with it. You must not say anything about it in 
 politics, because that will disturb the security of "my place." [Shouts 
 of laughter and cheers.] There is no place to talk about [it] as be- 
 ing a wrong, although you say yourself it is a wrong. But finally you 
 will screw yourself up to the belief that if the people of the slave 
 states should adopt a system of gradual emancipation on the slavery 
 question, you would be in favor of it. You would be in favor of it. 
 You say that is getting it in the right place, and you would be glad 
 to see it succeed. But you are deceiving yourself. You all know that 
 Frank Blair and Gratz Brown, down there in St. Louis, undertook 
 to introduce that system in Missouri. They fought as valiantly as 
 they could for the system of gradual emancipation which you pre- 
 tend you would be glad to see succeed. Now I will bring you to 
 the test. After a hard fight they were beaten, and when the news 
 came over here you threw up your hats and hurrahed for Democ- 
 racy. [Great applause and laughter.] More than that, take all the 
 argument made in favor of the system you have proposed, and it 
 carefully excludes the idea that there is anything wrong in the insti- 
 tution of slavery. The arguments to sustain that policy carefully 
 excluded it. Even here to-day you heard Judge Douglas quarrel with 
 me because I uttered a wish that it might sometime come to an end. 
 Although Henry Clay could say he wished every slave in the United 
 States was in the country of his ancestors, I am denounced by those 
 pretending to respect Henry Clay for uttering a wish that it might 
 sometime, in some peaceful way, come to an end. The Democratic 
 policy in regard to that institution will not tolerate the merest breath, 
 the slightest hint, of the least degree of wrong about it. Try it by 
 some of Judge Douglas* arguments. He says he "don't care whether 
 it is voted up or voted down" in the territories. I do not care myself 
 in dealing with that expression, whether it is intended to be expres- 
 sive of his individual sentiments on the subject, or only of the na- 
 tional policy he desires to have established. It is alike valuable for 
 my purpose. Any man can say that who does not see anything wrong 
 in slavery, but no man can logically say it who does see a wrong 
 in it; because no man can logically say he don't care whether a 
 wrong is voted up or voted down. He may say he don't care whether 
 an indifferent thing is voted up or down, but he must logically have 
 a choice between a right thing and a wrong thing. He contends that 
 whatever community wants slaves has a right to have them. So they 
 have if it is not a wrong. But if it is a wrong, he cannot say people 
 
 • 53 • 
 
THE LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES 
 
 have a right to do wrong. He says that upon the score of equality, 
 slaves should be allowed to go in a new territory, like other prop- 
 erty. This is strictly logical if there is no difference between it and 
 other property. If it and other property are equal, his argument is 
 entirely logical. But if you insist that one is wrong and the other 
 right, there is no use to institute a comparison between right and 
 wrong. You may turn over everything in the Democratic policy from 
 beginning to end, whether in the shape it takes on the statute book, 
 in the shape it takes in the Dred Scott decision, in the shape it takes 
 in conversation or the shape it takes in short maxim-like arguments- 
 it everywhere carefully excludes the idea that there is anything 
 wrong in it. 
 
 That is the real issue. That is the issue that will continue in this 
 country when these poor tongues of Judge Douglas and myself shall 
 be silent. It is the eternal struggle beween these two principles- 
 right and wrong— throughout the world. They are the two principles 
 that have stood face to face from the beginning of time; and will 
 ever continue to struggle. The one is the common right of humanity 
 and the other the divine right of kings. It is the same principle in 
 whatever shape it develops itself. It is the same spirit that says, "You 
 work and toil and earn bread, and I'll eat it." [Loud applause.] No 
 matter in what shape it comes, whether from the mouth of a king 
 who seeks to bestride the people of his own nation and live by the 
 fruit of their labor, or from one race of men as an apology for en- 
 slaving another race, it is the same tyrannical principal. I was glad 
 to express my gratitude at Quincy, and I re-express it here to Judge 
 Douglas— that he looks to no end of the institution of slavery. That 
 will help the people to see where the struggle really is. It will here- 
 after place with us all men who really do wish the wrong may have 
 an end. And whenever we can get rid of the fog which obscures 
 the real question— when we can get Judge Douglas and his friends 
 to avow a policy looking to its perpetuation— we can get out from 
 among them that class of men and bring them to the side of those 
 who treat it as a wrong. Then there will soon be an end of it, and 
 that end will be its "ultimate extinction." Whenever the issue can 
 be distinctly made, and all extraneous matter thrown out so that 
 men can fairly see the real difference between the parties, this con- 
 troversy will soon be settled, and it will be done peaceably too. 
 There will be no war, no violence. It will be placed again where the 
 wisest and best men of the world, placed it. Brooks of South Caro- 
 lina once declared that when this Constitution was framed, its 
 
 54 
 
ALTON: DOUGLAS REJOINDER 
 
 framers did not look to the institution existing until this day. When 
 he said this, I think he stated a fact that is fully borne out by the 
 history of the times. But he also said they were better and wiser men 
 than the men of these days; yet the men of these days had experi- 
 ence which they had not, and by the invention of the cotton gin it 
 became a necessity in this country that slavery should be perpetual. 
 I now say that willingly or unwillingly, purposely or without pur- 
 pose, Judge Douglas has been the most prominent instrument in 
 changing the position of the institution of slavery which the fathers 
 of the government expected to come to an end ere this— and putting 
 it upon Brooks' cotton gin basis, [great applause,]— placing it where 
 he openly confesses he has no desire there shall ever be an end of it. 
 [Renewed applause.] 
 
 From Douglas' Rejoinder 
 
 Mr. Lincoln tries to avoid the main issue by attacking the truth 
 of my proposition, that our fathers made this government divided 
 into free and slave states, recognizing the right of each to decide 
 all its local questions for itself. Did they not thus make it? It is true 
 that they did not establish slavery in any of the states, or abolish 
 it in any of them; but finding thirteen states twelve of which were 
 slave and one free, they agreed to form a government uniting them 
 together, as they stood divided into free and slave states, and to 
 guarantee forever to each state the right to do as it pleased on the 
 slavery question. (Cheers.) Having thus made the government, and 
 conferred this right upon each state forever, I assert that this gov- 
 ernment can exist as they made it, divided into free and slave states, 
 if any one state chooses to retain slavery. (Cheers.) He says that 
 he looks forward to a time when slavery shall be abolished every- 
 where. I look forward to a time when each state shall be allowed 
 to do as it pleases. If it chooses to keep slavery forever, it is not my 
 business, but its own; if it chooses to abolish slavery, it is its own 
 business— not mine. I care more for the great principle of self-govern- 
 ment, the right of the people to rule, than I do for all the negroes 
 in Christendom. (Cheers.) I would not endanger the perpetuity of 
 this Union. I would not blot out the great inalienable rights of the 
 white men for all the negroes that ever existed. (Renewed ap- 
 plause. ) Hence, I say, let us maintain this government on the prin- 
 ciples that our fathers made it, recognizing the right of each state 
 
 • 55 • 
 
THE LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES 
 
 to keep slavery as long as its people determine, or to abolish it when 
 they please. (Cheers.) But Mr. Lincoln says that when our fathers 
 made this government they did not look forward to the state of 
 things now existing; and therefore he thinks the doctrine was wrong; 
 and he quotes Brooks, of South Carolina, to prove that our fathers 
 then thought that probably slavery would be abolished, by each 
 state acting for itself before this time. Suppose they did; suppose 
 they did not foresee what has occurred,— does that change the prin- 
 ciples of our government? They did not probably foresee the tele- 
 graph that transmits intelligence by lightning, nor did they foresee 
 the railroads that now form the bonds of union between the differ- 
 ent states, or the thousand mechanical inventions that have elevated 
 mankind. But do these things change the principles of the govern- 
 ment? Our fathers, I say, made this government on the principle of 
 the right of each state to do as it pleases in its own domestic affairs, 
 subject to the Constitution, and allowed the people of each to apply 
 to every new change of circumstance such remedy as they may see 
 fit to improve their condition. This right they have for all time to 
 come. (Cheers.) 
 
 Mr. Lincoln went on to tell you that he does not at all desire to 
 interfere with slavery in the states where it exists, nor does his 
 party. I expected him to say that down here. (Laughter.) Let me 
 ask him then how he is going to put slavery in the course of ulti- 
 mate extinction everywhere, if he does not intend to interfere with 
 it in the states where it exists? ( Renewed laughter. ) He says that he 
 will prohibit it in all territories, and the inference is then that unless 
 they make free states out of them he will keep them out of the 
 Union; for, mark you, he did not say whether or not he would vote 
 to admit Kansas with slavery or not, as her people might apply; 
 ("he forgot that as usual/' &c;) he did not say whether or not he 
 was in favor of bringing the territories now in existence into the 
 Union on the principle of Clay's compromise measures on the slav- 
 ery question. I told you that he would not. ("Give it to him, he 
 deserves it," &c. ) His idea is that he will prohibit slavery in all the 
 territories, and thus force them all to become free states, surround- 
 ing the slave states with a cordon of free states, and hemming them 
 in, keeping the slaves confined to their present limits whilst they 
 go on multiplying until the soil on which they live will no longer 
 feed them, and he will thus be able to put slavery in a course of ul- 
 timate extinction by starvation. ( Cheers. ) He will extinguish slavery 
 in the Southern states as the French general exterminated the Al- 
 
 • 56 • 
 
ALTON: DOUGLAS REJOINDER 
 
 gerines when he smoked them out. He is going to extinguish slavery 
 by surrounding the slave states, hemming in the slaves, and starving 
 them out of existence as you smoke a fox out of his hole. And he 
 intends to do that in the name of humanity and Christianity, in 
 order that we may get rid of the terrible crime and sin entailed 
 upon our fathers of holding slaves. (Laughter and cheers.) Mr. Lin- 
 coln makes out that line of policy, and appeals to the moral sense 
 of justice, and to the Christian feeling of the community to sustain 
 him. He says that any man who holds to the contrary doctrine is in 
 the position of the king who claimed to govern by divine right. Let 
 us examine for a moment and see what principle it was that over- 
 threw the divine right of George the Third to govern us. Did not 
 these colonies rebel because the British Parliament had no right to 
 pass laws concerning our property and domestic and private insti- 
 tutions without our consent? We demanded that the British govern- 
 ment should not pass such laws unless they gave us representation 
 in the body passing them,— and this the British government insisting 
 on doing,— we went to war, on the principle that the home govern- 
 ment should not control and govern distant colonies without giving 
 them a representation. Now, Mr. Lincoln proposes to govern the 
 territories without giving the people a representation, and calls on 
 Congress to pass laws controlling their property and domestic con- 
 cerns without their consent and against their will. Thus, he asserts 
 for his party the identical principle asserted by George III. and the 
 Tories of the Revolution. ( Cheers. ) 
 
 I ask you to look into these things, and then to tell me whether 
 the Democracy or the Abolitionists are right. I hold that the people 
 of a territory, like those of a state, (I use the language of Mr. Bu- 
 chanan in his letter of acceptance,) have the right to decide for 
 themselves whether slavery shall or shall not exist within their lim- 
 its. ("That's the idea," "Hurrah for Douglas.") The point upon 
 which Chief Justice Taney expresses his opinion is simply this, that 
 slaves being property, stand on an equal footing with other prop- 
 erty, and consequently that the owner has the same right to carry 
 that property into a territory that he has any other, subject to the 
 same conditions. Suppose that one of your merchants was to take 
 fifty or one hundred thousand dollars worth of liquors to Kansas. He 
 has a right to go there under that decision, but when he gets there 
 he finds the Maine liquor law in force, and what can he do with his 
 property after he gets there? He cannot sell it, he cannot use it, it is 
 subject to the local law, and that law is against him, and the best 
 
 • 57 • 
 
THE LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES 
 
 thing he can do with it is to bring it back into Missouri or Illinois 
 and sell it. If you take negroes to Kansas, as Col. Jeff. Davis said in 
 his Bangor speech, from which I have quoted to-day, you must take 
 them there subject to the local law. If the people want the institu- 
 tion of slavery they will protect and encourage it; but if they do not 
 want it they will withhold that protection, and the absence of local 
 legislation protecting slavery excludes it as completely as a positive 
 prohibition. ( "That's so," and cheers. ) You slaveholders of Missouri 
 might as well understand what you know practically, that you can- 
 not carry slavery where the people do not want it. ("That's so.") All 
 you have a right to ask is that the people shall do as they please; if 
 they want slavery let them have it; if they do not want it, allow 
 them to refuse to encourage it. 
 
 My friends, if, as I have said before, we will only live up to this 
 great fundamental principle there will be peace between the North 
 and the South. Mr. Lincoln admits that under the Constitution on all 
 domestic questions, except slavery, we ought not to interfere with 
 the people of each state. What right have we to interfere with 
 slavery any more than we have to interfere with any other question. 
 He says that this slavery question is now the bone of contention. 
 Why? simply because agitators have combined in all the free states 
 to make war upon it. Suppose the agitators in the states should 
 combine in one-half of the Union to make war upon the railroad 
 system of the other half? They would thus be driven to the same 
 sectional strife. Suppose one section makes war upon any other 
 peculiar institution of the opposite section, and the same strife is 
 produced. The only remedy and safety is that we shall stand by the 
 Constitution as our fathers made it, obey the laws as they are passed, 
 while they stand the proper test and sustain the decisions of the 
 Supreme Court and the constituted authorities. 
 
 58 
 
Index 
 
 Abolitionists, Douglas attacks, 30 
 Alton (111.), debate site, viii; Lincoln's 
 
 reply, 51-55; Douglas' rejoinder, 
 
 55-58 
 
 Bank of the United States, Supreme 
 Court decision, 10-11 
 
 Binmore, Henry, reports campaign, x- 
 xi 
 
 Blair, Francis P., Jr., attempts emanci- 
 pation, 53 
 
 Brooks, Preston S., on future of slav- 
 ery, 54-55 
 
 Brown, Benjamin Gratz, attempts 
 emancipation, 53 
 
 Buchanan, James, charged with con- 
 spiracy, vi; on constitution making, 
 23 
 
 Campaign, hardships of, ix-x; real is- 
 sue, 51-55 
 
 Charleston (111.), debate site, viii, ix; 
 Lincoln's opening speech, 34-35; 
 Douglas' reply, 35-36; Lincoln's re- 
 joinder, 37-39 
 
 Chicago, Douglas speaks at, vi-viii; 
 Lincoln speaks at, vii 
 
 Chicago Historical Society, publishing 
 program, iii 
 
 Chicago Press b- Tribune, reports 
 campaign, x-xi 
 
 Chicago Times, reports campaign, x-xi 
 
 Clay, Henry, and emancipation, 11, 
 43, 53 
 
 Colonization Society, 43 
 
 Congress, U. S., and popular sover- 
 eignty, 27-28 
 
 Constitution, U. S., slavery provisions, 
 2, 48-49; and popular sovereignty, 
 
 27; and extension of slavery, 40-43; 
 framers of, on slavery, 55-56 
 
 Created Equal? The Complete Lin- 
 coln-Douglas Debates of 1858, pub- 
 lished, iii 
 
 Curtis, Benjamin R., and Dred Scott 
 decision, vii n. 
 
 Debates, see Lincoln-Douglas Debates 
 
 Declaration of Independence, Lin- 
 coln's interpretation, 3, 36; Douglas' 
 interpretation, 3-4, 36 
 
 Democratic Party, position on slavery, 
 31, 52-54; and Supreme Court de- 
 cisions, 50 
 
 District of Columbia, slavery in, 13-15 
 
 Divine Right, defined, 54 
 
 Douglas, Stephen Arnold, career of, 
 vi; opens campaign, vii; accepts de- 
 bate challenge, viii; re-elected, xii; 
 and judicial decisions, 10-11, 42-43 
 
 Dred Scott decision, explained, vii, 40; 
 effect of, ix, 9-10; Lincoln attacks, 
 25-26; extension of, forecast, 41- 
 42; Douglas defends, 43-45; Re- 
 publicans oppose, 47 
 
 Emancipation, Clay's attitude, 11, 43, 
 
 53; fails in Missouri, 53 
 English Bill, 24-25 
 
 Ford, Thomas, History of Illinois, 
 cited, 10 
 
 Franklin, Benjamin, position on slav- 
 ery, 1-2 
 
 Freeport (111.), debate site, viii; Lin- 
 coln's opening speech, 12-16; Doug- 
 las' reply, 16-21; Lincoln's rejoin- 
 der, 21-22 
 
 59 
 
INDEX 
 
 "Freeport Question," ix, 16-18, 25-28 
 Fugitive Slave Law, Lincoln's position, 
 13-14, 28 
 
 Galesburg (111.), debate site, viii; Lin- 
 coln's opening speech, 39-43; Doug- 
 las' reply, 43-46 
 
 Hale, John P., mentioned, 19 
 Hamilton, Alexander, position on slav- 
 ery, 1-2 
 Hitt, Robert R., reports campaign, x-xi 
 "House Divided" Speech, vi; made 
 campaign issue, ix; Douglas attacks, 
 1-2; Lincoln defends, 6-7 
 
 Illinois, policy toward Negro, 4-5 
 
 Jackson, Andrew, and judicial deci- 
 sions, 10-11, 41, 45 
 
 Jay, John, position on slavery, 1-2 
 
 Jefferson, Thomas, position on slavery, 
 1-2, 7; and judicial decisions, 41-42 
 
 Johnson, Richard M., and Negro 
 equality, 35 
 
 Jonesboro (111.), debate site, viii; 
 Douglas' opening speech, 22-24; 
 Lincoln's reply, 24-30; Douglas' re- 
 joinder, 30-34 
 
 Judicial decisions, nature of, 10-11; 
 force of, 32-33, 41-42, 48-50 
 
 Kansas, disorder in, vi; admission of, 
 Douglas' position, 17-18, 32 
 
 Kansas-Nebraska Act, effect of, vi; 
 failure of, 38-39 
 
 Lecompton Constitution, Douglas on, 
 
 23 
 Lincoln, Abraham, opens campaign, 
 
 vi-viii; challenges Douglas, viii; wins 
 
 presidency, xii 
 Lincoln-Douglas Debates, importance, 
 
 v; arrangements for, viii; effects of, 
 
 xi-xii 
 
 McLean, John, and Dred Scott deci- 
 sion, vii n. 
 
 Madison, James, position on slavery, 
 
 1-2, 7 
 Maine, policy toward Negro, 5 
 Missouri, emancipation fails, 53 
 Missouri Compromise, repeal of, vi, ix 
 
 Negro, status of, vii, xi-xii 
 
 Negro citizenship, Douglas opposes, 
 2-6, 35-36; Lincoln's position, 37 
 
 Negro equality, made campaign issue, 
 ix; Lincoln's position, 34-35; Doug- 
 las' position, 55 
 
 New York, policy toward Negro, 5 
 
 Oregon, admission of, 17-18 
 
 Ottawa (111.), debate site, viii; debate 
 
 at, viii-ix; Douglas' opening speech, 
 
 1-6; Lincoln's reply, 6-12 
 
 Philip K. Wrigley Fund, iii 
 
 Pierce, Franklin, charged with con- 
 spiracy, vi 
 
 Popular sovereignty, Douglas advo- 
 cates, viii, 5-6,18-19, 22-24, 33, 
 57-58; Lincoln attacks, 7-9, 25-28; 
 Trumbull attacks, 25-26 
 
 Public opinion, influence of, 9-10 
 
 Quincy (111.), debate site, viii; Lin- 
 coln's opening speech, 46-47; 
 Douglas' reply, 48-50 
 
 Republican Party, growth, vi; princi- 
 ples of, 46-47; position on slavery, 
 51-52 
 
 Seward, William H., mentioned, 19 
 Sheridan, James B., reports campaign, 
 
 x-xi 
 Slave states, new, Lincoln's position, 
 
 13-14 
 Slave trade, Lincoln's position, 13-15 
 Slavery, political issue, v-viii, 46-47; 
 under Constitution, 1-2; nationaliza- 
 tion of, 9-11; in District of Colum- 
 bia, 13-15; in territories, 13-15; ex- 
 tension of, 18-20, 39-43; obligation 
 to support, 25-30, 32-33; divisive 
 
 60 
 
INDEX 
 
 Slavery, political issue — cont. 
 
 effect, 38-39; Douglas' indifference, 
 42^3; and states rights, 48; moral- 
 ity of, 51-55; interference with, in 
 states, 56-57 
 
 Sparks, Edwin Earle, characterizes re- 
 porting, x-xi 
 
 Springfield (111.), Lincoln speaks at, 
 vi-viii; Douglas speaks at, vii-viii 
 
 States rights, support of, urged, 58 
 
 Supreme Court, Illinois, and Douglas, 
 10-11 
 
 Supreme Court, U. S., and bank deci- 
 sion, 10; Douglas defends, 19, 26, 
 44-45; and extension of slavery, 41- 
 43; final authority, 48-50 
 
 Taney, Roger B., charged with con- 
 spiracy, vi; and Dred Scott decision, 
 vii n. 
 
 Territories, slavery in, 8, 13-15 
 Toombs, Robert, chides Douglas, 19, 
 
 44 
 Trumbull, Lyman, subject of debate, 
 
 ix; on admission of Oregon, 17- 
 
 18; attacks popular sovereignty, 
 
 25-26 
 
 United States, expansion of, 20-23 
 Vermont, Douglas' birthplace, 30-31 
 
 Washington, George, position on slav- 
 ery, 1-2, 7 
 
 Washington Union, Douglas de- 
 nounces, 19, 44 
 
 White, Horace, reports campaign, x-xi 
 
 Wilson, Henry, mentioned, 19 
 
 61