The Writings Of Abraham Lincoln

The Writings of Abraham Lincoln, Volume 4
by Abraham Lincoln

The Lincoln-Douglas Debates II

Lincoln and Douglas Fourth Joint Debate,

At Charleston, September 18, 1858.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Then Trumbull follows on:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[A voice:"He will."]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mr. LINCOLN'S REJOINDER.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I do not mean to do anything with Mr. FICKLIN except to present his
face and tell you that he personal1y knows it to be a lie! He was a
member of Congress at the only time I was in Congress, and [FICKLIN]
knows that whenever there was an attempt to procure a vote of mine
which would indorse the origin and justice of the war, I refused to
give such indorsement and voted against it; but I never voted against
the supplies for the army, and he knows, as well as Judge Douglas,
that whenever a dollar was asked by way of compensation or otherwise
for the benefit of the soldiers I gave all the votes that FICKLIN or
Douglas did, and perhaps more.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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




FIFTH JOINT DEBATE, AT GALESBURGH,

OCTOBER 7, 1858

Mr. LINCOLN'S REPLY.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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




SIXTH JOINT DEBATE,

AT QUINCY, OCTOBER 13, 1858.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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




Mr. LINCOLN'S REJOINDER.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Judge Douglas also makes the declaration that I say the Democrats are
bound by the Dred Scott decision, while the Republicans are not. In
the sense in which he argues, I never said it; but I will tell you
what I have said and what I do not hesitate to repeat to-day. I have
said that as the Democrats believe that decision to be correct, and
that the extension of slavery is affirmed in the National
Constitution, they are bound to support it as such; and I will tell
you here that General Jackson once said each man was bound to support
the Constitution "as he understood it." Now, Judge Douglas
understands the Constitution according to the Dred Scott decision,
and he is bound to support it as he understands it. I understand it
another way, and therefore I am bound to support it in the way in
which I understand it. And as Judge Douglas believes that decision
to be correct, I will remake that argument if I have time to do so.
Let me talk to some gentleman down there among you who looks me in
the face. We will say you are a member of the Territorial
Legislature, and, like Judge Douglas, you believe that the right to
take and hold slaves there is a constitutional right The first thing
you do is to swear you will support the Constitution1, and all rights
guaranteed therein; that you will, whenever your neighbor needs your
legislation to support his constitutional rights, not withhold that
legislation. If you withhold that necessary legislation for the
support of the Constitution and constitutional rights, do you not
commit perjury? I ask every sensible man if that is not so? That is
undoubtedly just so, say what you please. Now, that is precisely
what Judge Douglas says, that this is a constitutional right. Does
the Judge mean to say that the Territorial Legislature in legislating
may, by withholding necessary laws, or by passing unfriendly laws,
nullify that constitutional right? Does he mean to say that? Does
he mean to ignore the proposition so long and well established in
law, that what you cannot do directly, you cannot do indirectly?
Does he mean that? The truth about the matter is this: Judge Douglas
has sung paeans to his "Popular Sovereignty" doctrine until his
Supreme Court, co-operating with him, has squatted his Squatter
Sovereignty out. But he will keep up this species of humbuggery
about Squatter Sovereignty. He has at last invented this sort of
do-nothing sovereignty,--that the people may exclude slavery by a
sort of "sovereignty" that is exercised by doing nothing at all. Is
not that running his Popular Sovereignty down awfully? Has it not
got down as thin as the homeopathic soup that was made by boiling the
shadow of a pigeon that had starved to death? But at last, when it
is brought to the test of close reasoning, there is not even that
thin decoction of it left. It is a presumption impossible in the
domain of thought. It is precisely no other than the putting of that
most unphilosophical proposition, that two bodies can occupy the same
space at the same time. The Dred Scott decision covers the whole
ground, and while it occupies it, there is no room even for the
shadow of a starved pigeon to occupy the same ground.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



LAST JOINT DEBATE,

AT ALTON, OCTOBER 15, 1858

Mr. LINCOLN'S REPLY

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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