?73»7L63 Bowers, John Hugh© :UB67a Little Blue Sooko No, 3Ul Lincoln-Douglas Debate LINCOLN ROOM UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY MEMORIAL the Class of 1901 founded by HARLAN HOYT HORNER and HENRIETTA CALHOUN HORNER LITTLE BLUE BOOK NO. Edited by E. Haldeman-Julius 341 Lincoln-Douglas Debate Edited by John Hugh Bowers LINCOLN ROOM UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY MEMORIAL the Class of 1901 founded by HARLAN HOYT HORNER and HENRIETTA CALHOUN HORNER TEN CENT POCKET SERIES NO. 341 Edited by E. Haldenian- Julius Lincoln-Douglas Debate John Hugh Bowers, Ph.D., LL.B. Dept. History and Social Sciences, State Teachers College, Pittsburg - , Kans. HALDEM AN- JULIUS COMPANV GIRARD, KANSAS Copyright, 1923, Haldeman-Julius Company. LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATE. The Lincoln-Douglas debate, in the senatorial campaign, in Illinois, in 1858, made Lincoln President in 1860. Students of history have declared that the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, in 1860, was the most fortunate event in the country's his- tory. This statement is based upon the infer- ence that Lincoln's policies were essential fac- tors in saving the Union, while the known pol- icies of the other candidates for that office would have lost the Union. The Lincoln-Douglas debate, though it re- sulted in the re-election of Douglas as Senator from Illinois, gave to Lincoln that increased, prestige without which he could never have been nominated or elected President in 186(7. The debate itself, — A titanic oratorical contest, — commands profound interest, because of the outstanding character of the contestants, the destiny of the institutions involved, and the immense concern of the whole American people in both immediate and remote results. The ia- tense interest in this great debate will forever be part of the fundamental interest in American progress and the longer story of human wel- fare. A careful study of this debate is profitable, because it sheds light on the critical period in 4 LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATE American history, reveals human nature deal= ing with momentous problems, and illuminates the methods by which the great art of public speech is used to influence public conduct in a great epoch. Because Lincoln and Douglas, in the course of the debate, each made references to their past records, it is necessary to have in mind the brief sketch, here given, of the life history of each. And because the debate was on the question of slavery, and referred so frequently to the history of that question, it is necessary to here give first a very brief review of at least those facts, in the history of slavery, to which the speakers refer. The speakers inferred that their hearers had fresh in memory the recent history of slavery agitation and legislation, and, accordingly, we here offer a narration of such facts as are necessary to understand the mean- ing of the debate, before giving the debate it- self. Therefore, this volume presents, first, a brief sketch of each debater, just sufficient to under- stand the references in the debate; second, just enough of the history of the slavery question to comprehend the allusions of the speakers; third, the circumstances attending the debate along with the chief arguments and replies of each speaker; fourth, the major and important portions of the speeches of Lincoln and of Doug- las are given in the exact words of the speaker. LINCOLN- DOUGLAS DEBATE 5 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. Abraham Lincoln was born in a log cabin in Kentucky, February 12, 1809. His childhood, like that of Douglas, was spent in poverty. He attended pioneer schools, in all, only a few months, but his devoted mother helped him to learn to read and write, and encouraged him to study such books as he could borrow in a pio- neer community. His father moved to Indiana, where his gentle and delicate mother died when he was nine years old. One year later his father married again. His stepmother was very kind to him and also encouraged him in spend- ing his few spare moments in profitable read- ing. His biographers regard his mother as so gen- tle and refined, and his stepmother as so wise and worthy that they do not know which he meant when in later life he expressed his ap- preciation for his mother. During the time he was President he said: "All that I am and all that I hope to be I owe to my sainted moth- er." His father moved to Illinois in 1830. There 6 LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATE Lincoln split rails, did general farm work, took a flat boat to New Orleans, where the sight of the slave market stirred his feelings. He clerked in a store, was Deputy County Surveyor, volunteered in the Blackhawk War, was elected to the Legislature, studied law and was ad- mitted to the bar. In 1837 he moved to Spring- field, the capital, where he practiced law dur- ing the remaining years of his life, except during the two years (1846 to 1848) when he served in Congress, and during the four years and forty days that he was President. In 1836, he and Douglas were both in the Legislature; Lincoln as a Whig leader, and Douglas as a leader of the Democrats. Later they were rivals for the hand of Miss Mary Todd, who became the wife of Lincoln. They met again when Lincoln went to Congress in 1847, where Douglas was in the Senate. While in the Legislature Lincoln expressed himself as opposed to slavery at a time when opposition to slavery was as yet quite unpopu- lar, thus showing that with him conscience was stronger than expediency. While in Congress he was in harmony with the Whig policy of LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATE 7 criticising the administration program for ex- panding slave territory, in the annexation of Texas, and the war with Mexico. His criticism of the administration probably prevented him from being renominated. He returned to the practice of law in Springfield and was thus engaged when the Dred Scott decision and the Kansas-Nebraska Bill both favoring the exten- sion of slavery stirred him to re-enter the po- litical arena, campaigning for the Republican nominee for President in 1856, and as the Re- publican nominee for the Senate in 1858, against Douglas. At that time Douglas was the most promi- nent Democrat in the United States, and Lin- coln challenged him for a joint debate. LINCOLN- DOUGLAS DEBATE STEPHEN ARNOLD DOUGLAS. Stephen Arnold Douglas was born at Bran- don, Vermont, April 23, 1813, and died at Chi- cago, June 3, 1861. He was the son of a phy- sician who died when Stephen was an infant, leaving him to struggle with poverty. He was apprenticed to a cabinet-maker, but his health failed and he quit after a year and a half. He then studied for three years at the academy of Canandaigua, where he gave some time to the study of law. In 1833 he went to Jackson- ville, Illinois, where he supported himself by teaching school and clerking for an auctioneer. He was admitted to the bar in 1834 and rapidly built up a good practice. In 1835 he was elected Attorney General of the State. In December, 1835, he was elected a member of the Legisla- ture. In 1837 he was appointed Registrar of the land office at Springfield. In December, 1840, he became Secretary of the State of Illi- nois. In 1841 he became a judge of the Su- preme Court of Illinois, which position he re- signed to run for Congress on the Democratic IJNCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATE 9 ticket in 1843, and was elected. He was elected to the United States Senate in 1847 and again in 1853, and in 1858. While in Congress he took an active part in the Oregon controversy in which he was posi- tively opposed to yielding up one inch of ter- ritory. He was also a leading promoter of the measures for the annexation of Texas and the war with Mexico. He was chairman of the Territorial Committee, which early brought him into prominence in discussing the question of slavery in the territories. He advocated the doctrine of "popular sovereignty," that is, that each territory should decide for itself whether it should have slavery or not. The bill for or- ganizing the territories of Kansas and Ne- braska, which Douglas reported out of Com- mittee in January, 1854, caused great popular excitement, because it repealed the Missouri Compromise, and declared the people of any state or territory free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to the Constitution of the United States. There was great indignation throughout the free states of the North, and Douglas, as the 10 LINCOLN- DOUGLAS DEBATE chief promoter of the measure, was hanged or burned in effigy in many places. He said that he could travel from Washington to Chicago by the light of his burning effigies The South was pleased with the measure; and consequently the North accused Douglas of hav- ing forsaken the cause of freedom to seek the support of Southern Democrats for the nom- ination for the Presidency. Both in 1852 and again in 1856 he was a candidate for the nom- ination on the Democratic ticket for the Presi- dency, but was not nominated. Douglas pleased the Southern Democrats and displeased the North by the Kansas-Nebraska Bill of 1854; he certainly pleased the North, and displeased the Southern Democrats, in 1857, by opposing the admission of Kansas as a slave state under the Lecompton constitution, which he maintained was fraudulently organ- ized. This Lecompton constitution for Kan- sas was supported by the Democratic adminis- tration; therefore the people of the North re- garded it as very courageous and conscientious in Douglas to oppose it. On this account some of the Northern people, — some of the old Whigs ' LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATE 11 and some of the Republicans, — thought that the Republicans of Illinois ought not to offer a candidate against him; but the Republican con- vention at Springfield, June 16, 1858, nominated Abraham Lincoln. 12 LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATE THE DEBATE'S BACKGROUND. Slavery was introduced very early, both in Northern and Southern colonies, but it proved unprofitable in the Northern colonies and very profitable in the Southern colonies; conse- quently, few slaves were kept in the North while large numbers were imported into the South. In the early days the sentiment in the two sections was not very different; there be- ing many prominent men in the South who were opposed to the institution, while North- ern navigators were busy shipping slaves from Africa to Southern ports. Gradually the Northern people got rid of their few slaves; the sentiment in that section became almost unanimous that slavery was not desirable, and then most Northern States en- acted legislation forbidding slavery within their boundaries. While the number of slaves increased rapidly in the South, a small but in- fluential minority of the white men owned nearly all the slaves. Among the slave hold- ers of the South were some who expressed re- gret concerning the existence of the institu- LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATE 13 tion; and this was especially true before the agitation of the question tended to coerce the men of each section to take sides with their neighbors and become unified against the other section. When the Ordinance of 1787, concerning the territory northwest of the Ohio River, provided that slavery should never exist in any part of that domain, it was agreed to without opposi- tion; but almost contemporaneously, in the ses- sions of that convention which framed the Con- stitution, the division between the opponents of slavery and its defenders presented a grave obstacle in the way of union. Compromise was necessary, if the union was to be estab- lished at all, and the fact that provisions, in behalf of slavery, were made in the Constitu- tion at that time shows that the friends of slavery believed that it needed protection against the sentiment that was rising against it. This feeling between North and South grew slowly and found its next positive expression in the famous Missouri Compromise of 1820. The Territory of Missouri asked for admission 14 LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATE as a state with slaves; congressmen from the North, opposed to the extension of slavery, pro- tested; the debate waxed hot, and the conten- tion seemed to threaten the existence of the Union; when the matter was compromised, by granting to the South the admission of Missouri as a slave state, and placating the North, with the provision that no more slave states should be formed north of the parallel of thirty-six de- grees and thirty minutes,- — the southern bound- ary of Missouri. This compromise, which stood the ever increasing strain for thirty-four years, came to be regarded by the people as something only less sacred than the Constitu- tion itself. Even Douglas, who led the forces for its repeal, said that it had an "origin akin to the Constitution and was canonized in the hearts of the American people as a sacred thing." Though the great majority of the northern people were not actively hostile to slavery; and though the Abolitionists were a small minority, ignored by many and despised by some of their own neighbors for their anti-slavery agitation; nevertheless, the southern people felt that their institution of slavery, being in derogation of LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATE 15 natural rights, needed legal protection. The population of the North was increasing much more rapidly than that of the South, and with a people that were naturally inimical if not hostile to slavery. Thus it became an unwrit- ten law that slave states and free states should be kept equal in number so that the South could not be outvoted in the Senate. But the North was filling up the northwestern region with non slave-holding communities, while the South had no more western territory to furnish additional slave states. Consequently, southern people pushed west- ward into Texas — territory then belonging to Mexico — secured the independence of that ter- ritory from Mexico, gained admission to the Union as a slave state, brought on the Mexican War and through the combination of conquest and purchase, secured all the territory from Texas to the Pacific; thus providing the pos- sibility of a number of additional slave states. By making these gains in possible slave ter- ritory the South aroused the dormant anti-slav- ery sentiment of the North. Therefore, when President Polk asked for an appropriation to .purchase territory from Mexico, the famous 16 LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATE Wilmot Proviso was introduced, prohibiting slavery in any of the territory thus to be ac- quired. This proviso was lost but it revealed the strength of those who were opposed to the extension of slavery. The southern hopes for expansion met early disappointment when California asked to be admitted as a free state; and again when New Mexico gave promise of becoming a free state, and was actually encouraged therein by Presi- dent Taylor, who was himself a slave holder. Southern Senators, having no slave territory from which to make a slave state to offset California, opposed the admission of California as a free state and fell back upon the appalling threat of disunion. To prevent New Mexico from being admitted as a free state, Texas laid claim to nearly all that territory. In debate against the Wilmot Proviso, southern statesmen had said that Congress had no right, under the Constitution, to interfere with the property rights of citizens in the ter- ritories, and that slaves were property. These amazing declarations were, of course, con- trary to the established ideas of the northern people, and contrary to the Missouri Com- •LN-DOUGLAS DEBATE 17 promise oj LS20 and the ordinance of the rth-West Territory of 1787. Those who loved peace and desired union seriously alarmed. To the great satis- faction of these conservative people, and to the equal disgust of the extremists, both North and South, Henry Clay again appeared in his great role of compromiser. With dramatic effect, he came forth from the retirement in which he seemed to have sought a brief respite before death should claim him; aged, feeble, with an impressive air of sadness; obviously devoting the last remnants of his failing energies to the great task of again compromis- ing threatening factions, and of saving the Union he had loved and served so long. In January, 1850, he introduced into the Sen- ate his "comprehensive scheme of adjust- ment." Not as "oil upon angry waters" was it received. Every one was offended by some part of it, and the debate which followed was one of the most momentous in American history. For more than six months that titanic de- bate involved all the prominent men of that day — Clay, Webster, Seward, Sumner, Chase, M LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATE Calhoun and Jefferson Davis each gave to the occasion his best; and the people followed it all with intense interest. Calhoun came, as from the edge of the grave into which he sank a few weeks later, and sat listening by, too feeble to talk, while his speech was read by Mason of Virginia. Clay — on his feet con- stantly — his words gaining rather than losing pov/er from his pathetic feebleness, declared "I am here expecting soon to be called hence, and owing no responsibility but to my own con- science and to God." For a long time all his heroic efforts seemed to be for naught; as his bill was sneeringly nicknamed the "Omnibus Bill," harrassed by amendments and finally de- feated. Then as if Congress had changed its mind in his direction, it took up and passed the several features of his measure one at a time. Texas was given ten million dollars for her claim on the territory of New Mexico. Cali- fornia was admitted as a free state. New Mexico was organized as a territory with the provision that when she should form a state constitution the question of slavery should be determined by popular vote of the people, and that during her territorial existence the ques- LINCOI.N-DOUGLAS DEBATE 19 lion of slavery should be determined by the Supreme Court of the United States. (Here we get the first suggestion of "Squatter Sover- eignty" and of a "Dred Scott Decision.") A more efficient Fugitive Slave Law was passed. And the slave trade in the District of Colum- bia was abolished. No one was pleased with what was done, but all felt that compromise was necessary and that a spirit of liberal acqui- escence was more important than any other consideration at that time. The masses felt intense relief at seeing the imminent disaster of civil discord averted, — or at least postponed. The farsighted few knew it was only postponed. The aggressive men on either side were not satisfied. The South saw that no other gain could offset the admission of California as a free state, thus losing to them the balance of power in the Senate. The anti slavery men in the North were alarmed at the doctrine of popular sovereignty and non- intervention by Congress, as expressed in the measure organizing the Territory of New Mexico. Lincoln recognized the futility of this whole arrangement and declared that the question of 20 LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATE slavery could never be successfully compro- mised. Nevertheless he accepted the situation as the best that could be done at the time. In the North, the few farsighted and devoted Abolitionists, knowing that the peace was only temporary, continued their work of teaching that human slavery was wrong; an<5 were con- sequently persecuted by the thoughtless majority who were opposed to agitation, and who hoped in vain to promote peace by squelching discus- sion. Though the masses were saying, "Let us have peace," all felt that the concord would at once change to discord unless the nation should, in 1852, elect a proslavery President. Conse- quently, Franklin Pierce was chosen. Lincoln made some speeches in the campaign, but un- der the circumstances, his biographer and law partner, Herndon, says that he did not speak with his usual effectiveness, because so many Northern men felt the desire for peace rather than victory. In January, 1854, Douglas introduced into the Senate, his famous "Kansas-Nebraska Bill" es- tablishing the two territories and declaring the Missouri Compromise "inoperative" therein; to which bill an amendment was added repealing < '< >i,n D( >UGL \;: DEBATE 21 the Missouri Compromise and providing to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to the Constitution of the United States." With this amendment the bill finally passed after a long fight. While Douglas, as the Democratic leader in the Senate, got the credit for the authorship of this doctrine of "popular sovereignty,' , the idea was not neces- sarily original with him, as we find it appear- ing in substance in the Compromise of 1850; and we also find that Senator Dixon of Ken- tucky offered such a measure in the Senate seven days before Douglas introduced the "Kansas-Nebraska Bill." This repeal of the Missouri Compromise fired with indignation all the antislavery forces of the North, the mild conservatives as well as the ardent radicals. Lincoln's innate antipathy for the institution of slavery was thoroughly aroused. He had been practicing law and had apparently lost some of his early enthusiasm concerning public affairs, but this new possibility of the extension of slave terri- tory stirred his sympathetic soul with fierce indignation. 22 LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATE Douglas came home in the autumn and was given a disagreeable reception by an indignant audience in Chicago. He set about to win back his Illinois. He spoke to a large audience at the great state fair.. Lincoln was called upon to answer him, and did so, effectively. Lin- coln felt a wise instinct to follow Douglas up and contest with him as often as occasion per- mitted, but Douglas finding him such a trouble- some adversary proposed a truce to which Lin- coln good-naturedly assented. Lincoln, contrary to his wisnes, was elected to the Legislature the following winter. Wish- ing to be a candidate for the Senate, he re- signed, and a reaction in Sangamon County put a Democrat in his place. In the Legislature, the Douglas-Democrats wished to reelect Gen- eral Shields, the present incumbent. On the first ballot, Lincoln got a larger number of votes than any other candidate, ana nearly a majority. He ought to have been elected, and would have been, but was opposed bitterly, by a few, on account of his antislavery sentiments. When it seemed that he could not be chosen himself he begged his staunch supporters to LINCOLN- DOUGLAS DEBATE 23 vote for Lyman Trumbull, who was an anti- Douglas and anti slavery Democrat. During the Lincoln-Douglas debate, Douglas charged that Lincoln and Trumbull had made a bargain that Lincoln was to take the place of Senator Shields in '54 while Trumbull was to have the place of Douglas in '58; and if there was ever any truth at all in that charge, it was very magnanimous on the part of Lincoln to turn this election to Trumbull at this time. Lincoln and Douglas both figured in the Presidential campaign of 1856; Douglas as a defeated aspirant for the Democratic nomina- tion; (the Democrats preferring James Buchan- an who was understood to be displeased with the repeal of the Missouri Compromise) while Lincoln, not a candidate at all, was given 110 votes for the nomination for second place on the Republican ticket in their national convention. When Lincoln heard this he remarked, "They probably thought that they were voting for the great Lincoln from Massachusetts." The immediate effect of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill was to start a contest between the anti- slavery men of the North and the proslavery men of the South to see who could first occupy 24 LINCOLN- DOUGLAS DEBATE the new territory and carry the election. The North had the advantage of a much larger population, while the South had the advantage of proximity, it being only necessary to move across the Missouri border. Antislavery mer- chants and professional men in the North sub- scribed money to pay the way of sturdy immi- grants who would move to Kansas and make their homes there. These free-state men were legitimate settlers and disposed to orderly methods, but both willing and able to fight if necessary. To the few bonafide immigrants from the South were added a number of "border ruffians'* from Missouri whose only purpose was to cross into Kansas long enough to take part in the contest and secure the Territory for the extension of slavery, by fair means or foul. These latter contestants showed a pref- erence for the methods of intimidation, yet were willing to use the ballot-box when they could see that it was stuffed with votes on their side. There followed border warfare, impris- onments, rescues, looting, burning; also the forms of law, trials, legislation and court de- cisions; in all, a strange phantasmagory of in- LINCOLN- DOUGLAS l >EBATE 25 timidation, arson, bloodshed together with politics, elections and law. It was clear that the antislavery men out- numbered the proslavery men, and that the Northerners had come to stay. The slavery party framed up the Lecomption Constitution, providing for slavery, which did not represent the will of the majority at all, but transferred the struggle to the floors of Congress. Though President Buchanan was supposed to be in sympathy with the Northern Democrats who opposed "Popular Sovereignty," he had solemnly promised that he would be governed by the result of the popular vote in the terri- tories concerned. Now he was confronted by two popular votes from Kansas; the one show- ing clearly that the antislavery men were in the majority and opposed to the Lecompton Constitution; while the other vote had framed up that Constitution in a way that had the semblance of law and orderly methods. The President chose to support the Lecompton Con- stitution and accordingly advised Congress to admit Kansas as a slave state. But Douglas, as the Democratic leader in Congress, took the side against the administra- 2G LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATE tion, declaring that the Leeompton Constitu- tion was a fraud, and due to his efforts it was defeated. For his part in this contest, Doug- las took great credit to himself. His friends cited his actions in this case as proof of his great political integrity, while his critics said that this action on his part was necessary to his reelection as Senator from Illinois in 1858. His situation was a difficult one for a politi- cian. Southern Illinois was somewhat pro- slavery, while the northern part of the state was antislavery. Also he had desired the Democratic nomination for President both in 1852 and in 1856, and he expected to be a candi- date again in 1860. He had greatly pleased the Southern Democrats by his part in repeal- ing the Missouri Compromise and opening up the way for slavery to expand into the terri- tories. But in doing this he had displeased the antislavery Democrats of the North and also the Democrats of northern Illinois. His part in preventing the fraudulent admission of Kan- sas as a slave state restored him in the- favor of many Northern Democrats and won him the favor of* some who were not Democrats. We see an instance of the political foresight of LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATE 27 Lincoln in the fact that, nearly two and a half years before the affair of the Lecompton Con- stitution, came up, he said, — "If Kansas fairly votes herself a slave State, she must be admit- ted or the Union must be dissolved. But if she votes herself a slave State unfairly? . . , Must she still be admitted or the Union be dis- solved? That will be the phase of the question when it first becomes a practical one." His prophecy was fulfilled. It was certainly very fortunate for Douglas that his opposition to the admission of Kansas as a slave state came just on the eve of his candidacy for reelection to the Senate in 1858. It was fortunate for Lincoln to have the op- portunity to debate, at that time, with the acknowledged leader of the Democrats, thus giving Lincoln a notoriety that he could have secun <] in no other way. It was fortunate for the welfare of the Union that the combination of circumstances brought Lincoln to the front and made possible his election as President two years later. From 1852 to 1860 Douglas was the most worthy man in public life in this country. Webster, Clay, John Quincy Adams, and Cal- 28 LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATE lioun had passed away. Seward, Sumner and Chase were just beginning their brilliant careers, and were organizing the party of the future. During these eight years, Douglas was more prominent than any other man. The reason for his failing to secure the nomination of the Democratic party for the Presidency in 1852, and again in 1856, was partly because he was too prominent; the tendency being to nominate a man who would be less significant, less self-confident, more submissive and manage- able. Douglas, though a politician who de- sired to be President, was not the submissive type. He was aggressive, masterful and self- reliant, as well as a brilliant campaigner, an orator and a tireless fighter. Douglas was a strong man in debate; com- bining something of the impressiveness of Web- ster with the rough and ready arts of the stump speaker. He was also a strong political ad- versary; possessing the art of popularity, the adroitness of the schemer, and the dignity of a statesman. He had done his best to retain his hold on both the Northern and Southern wings of the Democratic party. He told the Southerners that by his fortunate method of LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATE 29 popular sovereignty he had educated the public mind and accomplished the repeal of the Mis- souri Compromise. He told the Northerners to remember how peacefully the Union had en- dured under the arrangement made by the Fa- thers of the Constitution who provided that each state should govern its own domestic af- fairs. Douglas had the advantage in that Illi- nois had been a Democratic state. He also had the advantage in prestige over Lincoln who had served only one term in Congress. Meanwhile other occurrences had stirred the feelings of antipathy between North and South. The enforcement of the fugitive slave law was odious to many Northern people. Even men who believed in allowing slavery to exist where it was, did not like to see black men dragged back from freedom into captivity. The seizure of an escaped slave, Anthony Burns, in Boston, in 1854, caused a riot in which a mob attacked the Court House; one of the mob was killed, and the militia had to be called out to restore order, costing the state thousands of dollars. In 1856, Preston Brooks, a hot headed Southern- er, strode, suddenly upon Charles Sumner, seated unarmed at his desk in the Senate 30 LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATE chamber, and beat him savagely over the head with a cane. The South instead of repudiat- ing the act lauded Brooks in a way that caused righteous resentment among Northern people. The resulting reaction in each section showed how wide the breach was between them. But the most significant event coming be- tween the Compromise of 1850 and the election of 1860 was the Dred Scott Decision, handed down by the Supreme Court of the United States, in 1856, declaring that a slave is "prop- erty" and that Ms owner is entitled to be pro- tected in the possession of such property in the territories. This doctrine demolished the doc- trine of popular sovereignty which the Doug- las Democrats had with so much shrewdness established, because it gave the people no choice at ail in the matter. This decision ended the long struggle in ' Congress over the question of slavery in the territories, and ended it in the way most favorable to the slave inter- ests. It rejoiced the Southern slave holders and thoroughly aroused the indignation of all antislavery men of whatever shade of belief. It was at once apparent that if the Court could make such a decision concerning the territories LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATE 31 ild make a similar decision concerninj s as soon as public sentiment should become sufficiently tolerant. It will be remembered that Chief Justice Roger Brook Taney, who handed down this decision, was a Southern sympa- thiser, who had been appointed .on the Court by Andrew Jackson. Such was the advancement of the slavery conflict in this country in 1858, when there oc- curred that great debate between Lincoln and Douglas, resulting in the reelection of Douglas to the Senate, and the election of Lincoln as President in 1860. THE DEBATE. In the year 1856 Lincoln seemed to be ab- sorbed in the practice oT law in Springfield, and his interest in national polities had ap- parently subsided to about the level found in the average intelligent public-spirited citizen, when he was aroused by the evidence that the proslavery forces were making rapid strides in the direction of the extension of slave-territory. The repeal of the Missouri Compromise, mak- ing possible the extension of slavery; and the .32 LINCOLN- DOUGLAS DEBATE Dred Scott Decision, reducing the slave to the same status as any other property that could be carried into any territory, thoroughly aroused his indignation. Early in 1858 a convention of all opposed to slave extension was called at Bloomington. Lincoln was there and in response to repeated calls came forward and made a speech of such earnestness and power that those who heard il never forgot the impression made. Then from that enthusiastic meeting he returned to the chill atmosphere of indifference in Springfield where an attempt to call a local convention resulted in the attendance of three persons, Lincoln, his partner Herndon and one other man. This was trying, but Lincoln's wit and good humor was equal to the occasion, and he said that the meeting was larger than he knew it would be, for he knew that he and his part- ner would attend and here was another man brave enough to come out. Then he added, "while all seems dead, the age in which we live is not dead. It liveth as sure as our Maker liveth." In the presidential campaign of 1856 the Re- publicans of Illinois put Lincoln on their elec- UNI '' >LN I" iTJGLAS DEBATE 33 toral ticket and he stumped the state, making about fifty speeches, which attracted attention, made him the recognized leader of his party In the state, and brought him some recognition from neighboring states. His reputation reached the East, where it met some lack of appreciation, and in certain quarters a little hostility, which he felt to be hurtful to his prospects, as well as unjust to a prominent Republican of the West. Horace Greeley, a well meaning enthusiast, but a little lacking in foresight, the editor of the New York Tribune, cast the powerful influence of that paper against him. Greeley seemed to have always been anti-Lincoln, and he became pro-Douglas after Douglas aided in the defeat of the Lecomption Constitution. As the Sena- torial election of 1858 was approaching, and Lincoln hoped to be a candidate, he regretted this attitude of Greeley. He said, "I am afraid that Greeley's attitude will hurt me with Se- ward, Sumner, Wilson, and other friends in the East." It is interesting to note who he re- garded as his friends in the East. They were the most prominent antislavery men. His faith- ful law partner, Herndon, made a trip to the 34 LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATE East, largely for the purpose of communicat- ing a favorable impression, concerning Lincoln, to those great men of the East. In the Spring of 1358 the Democratic con- vention in Illinois endorsed the position taken by Douglas iv. the controversy concerning Kan- sas, which meant that they would support him for reelection to the Senate the following win* ter, by the State Legislature, which was to be elected that fall. In the very nature of things, the Republican convention nominated Lincoln, and the people looked forward to a battle royal between the two giants in debate. The Democrats had regularly, carried the state of Illinois in the past, but now all was uncertain, and particularly uncertain concern- ing Douglas, in the campaign of 1858. First, he had pleased the Southern Democrats and displeased the Northern Democrats by his part in repealing the Missouri Compromise and opening the Territories to the possibility of the extension of slavery. Now, more recently, he had, in turn, greatly displeased the proslaver^ Democrats, and pleased the antislavery Demo- crats by opposing the Lecompton Constitution to admit Kansas as a slave state. While South- LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATE 3.) ern Democrats were reading him out of the party, Northern Democrats were trying to per suade Republicans in Illinois that the best thing ttiat they could do for the cause of free- dom was to not nominate a candidate against Douglas at all in Illinois; and some Republicans and some of the old Whigs in the East were read:- to urge their friends in Illinois to sup- port Douglas and thus give him a hearty wel- come into the antislavery ranks. They were dazzled by his accumulation of prestige, popu- larity, his seductive eloquence, his parliament- ary skill and his mastery over men. The old lines of allegiance were broken and Democrats felt the call to do some new thinking. These who were not Democrats were even more amused. The old Whig organization was gone. The Republican party was new but had grown so rapidly as to occasion wild con- jecture as to what it might do in the way of numerical strength. Its general principle of opposition to the extension of slavery drew into its fold most of the old Whigs and some of the antislavery Democrats. The general political condition was so confused as to call upon many to make now decisions as to their affiliations, :.3 LINCOL1SL-DOUGLAS DEBATE thus insuring intense interest in the forth- coming Lincoln-Douglas contest. Lincoln expected to be nominated, and for some time had been preparing his speech of ac- ceptance with great care. Whatever else he might be doing he was also thinking about his speech, writing down portions of it on small pieces of paper, rewriting and thinking until he had it all carefully worded and committed. Time proved that he was justified in the most careful preparation, for his speech was watched for with the keenest interest, and all his words subjected to the most critical discussion. When his speech was finished, the day before he was to deliver it, he called together a group of his friends and admirers and read it to them. When he read his introductory para- graph, which has since become famous for the words: "a house divided against itself can not stand," he saw only consternation and positive disapproval in the faces of all his hearers ex- cept that of his partner, Herndon. Their con- demnation of his exordium, Lincoln heard with gravity rather than surprise, then explained that what he said was just what he thought ought to be said and that he would rather say LINCOLN l»< MCI- IS i ►BBATE 37 that and be defeated than to leave it unsaid and be elected, and accordingly the jicxl day be spoke the fateful paragraph without changing a word. The dire prediction of his friends was fully justified by the immediate and temporary re- sults; but the foresight of Lincoln was proved in the long run. To some of his friends who grumbled about his ''mistake, " he replied that the time would come when they would consider it the wisest thing that he had ever said. It is interesting to note that Seward, the most widely known Republican of the day, ex- pressed the same thought in one of his speeches just a few months later, saying: "It is an irre- pressible conflict between opposing and en- during forces, and it means that the United States must and will, sooner or later, become entirely a slaveholding nation or a free labor nation." But we need to remember that Sew- ard ranked among the extreme agitators. Men everywhere recognized in Lincoln's speech a resounding shot opening a furious forensic battle. His clearcut speech challenged the thinking of all parties. His declaration that "a house divided against itself can not 38 LINCOLN- DOUGLAS DEBATE stand," displeased many even in the North, who wished peace at any price, and were constantly insisting that the house could stand — must stand — though divided. Many in the North hated fiercely the abolitionist agitators and many were inclined to class Lincoln among them. What later proved to be wise foresight, was then regarded as foolish agitation, calcu- lated only to stir up needless strife. But Lin- coln's supporters saw in his standard the crusader's high call to duty. There were pres- ent all the elements of a fierce political strug- gle, with the people thoroughly aroused, — the champions — two of the foremost men in the na- tion, and evenly matched; many felt instinct- ively that somehow the destiny of the Republic hung in the balance. Douglas, — spoken of as "The Little Giant," — and easily regarded as the strongest antagonist in the whole Democratic party; Lincoln, confidently regarded by his friends as a match, in debate, for any man living; the Republicans said: "Lincoln must challenge Douglas to a joint debate." He did. Douglas accepted, and named seven meetings so arranged that he should open and close at four and Lincoln at three* of the engagements. LTNCOl ■: DOUGLAS DBBA I 3-9 To hear these gigantic encounters the peo- ple gathered in vast multitudes numbering thousands, even ten and twenty thousands; coming in wagons and camping, parading, building bonfires, drinking and celebrating. Lincoln fully appreciated the burden and re- sponsibility of a contest so momentous. He was thoroughly prepared, knew just what he wished to say and said it with well directed clearness, but also v/ith evident caution. From the very beginning, he had to meet a false in- terpretation of his famous opening paragraph in his speech of acceptance. His words, "A house divided against itself can not stand," which he meant for a prediction and a clear invitation to open minded thinking, were by Douglas distorted into a challenge, or an avowal of purpose to wage war against slavery until either the institution of slavery should be destroyed or the doctrine of abolitionism should be forever silenced. While Lincoln's forecast that the Nation would become "all one or all the other/' proved, a little later, to be wise, at that time it was not what most men wished to hear; for they wished peace. The Nation had endured half 40 LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATE slave and half free, and tliey could not see why it should not continue to endure thus divided. Douglas made the most of this opportunity to appeal to the superficial and short-sighted thinking of the crowd. He represented Lin- coln's words to be "revolutionary," "inviting to warfare/' designed to bring on a struggle be- tween the North and the South which should drive one or the other to the wall and make it entirely submissive to the other, subject to the rapacity and revenge of the victor. This undeserved misrepresentation annoyed Lincoln, but he answered with painstaking and patient logic, explaining carefully again and again just what he did mean, and that he did not mean the inferences which Douglas was so adroitly reading into his words. Lincoln's mind worked with cautious honesty. He thought out great principles which he believed to be true, stated them clearly, and often re- peated them again after the lapse of years. In 1855, he closed a letter with the words: "Our political problem now is: Can we, as a nation, continue together permanently — forever, half slave and half free? The problem is too mighty for me. May God ii? His mercy superintend I... i 'OLN-Iv* >UGL,AS DlTBATE 41 the solution." Thus we see an honest and mod- est conviction had been growing in his mind. He had not been trying to phrase a statement to catch the ear of the crowd and make him- self popular; but had been seeking the funda- mental truth. With art and effective plausa- bility, Douglas went on day after day, reiter- ating his misinterpretations of Lincoln's words. Lincoln was vexed, but with patience he went on explaining that he had not expressed a doc- trine, had not meant to voice a determination, nor any purpose or policy whatever. Lincoln was too courageous to leave his position in doubt. He said, "If you will carefully read that passage over, you will find that I did not say that I was in favor of anything. I only said what I expected would take place. I did not even say that I desired that slavery should be put in the course of ultimate extinction. I do say so now, however, so there need be no doubt about that." Lincoln added, "There is no way of putting an end to the slavery agitation among us but by putting it back upon the basis where our fathers placed it . . . Then the public mind will rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction." 42 LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATE Lincoln and Douglas each eloquently evoked the shades of "the fathers," who, having reached the eternal silence, could be claimed by both sides. This contention, though some- what irrelevant, was none the less strenuous; for the opinions of the fathers could not make slavery either right or wrong. Douglas con- tinually charged Lincoln with having said that "the Union could not endure as our fathers made it, with both slave and free states;" as though Lincoln were guilty of a sort of blas- phemy against our national demigods. Lincoln very aptly retorted that our fathers had not made the nation half free and half slave, but had found it so and could do no more than put the seal of their disapprobation upon slavery, which they did in many instan- ces, and left it so restricted that the popular mind rested in the belief that it was in the course of extinction. Then Lincoln charged, repeatedly, that slavery had not been left as the fathers left it, but that Douglas and others had promoted a series of changes for the pur- pose of making it universal; and through the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, the Kansas- Nebraska Bill, and The Dred Scott Decision, LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATE 43 they had advanced slavery to where all that they now needed was another Supreme Court decision making slavery lawful in all the states to accomplish their proslavery purposes; and the completion of that purpose might be accomplished as soon as Douglas could per- suade the people to accept his attitude of "do not care whether slavery be voted up or voted down." At that point in the discussion, Lincoln re- peatedly put the following question, which the adept Douglas would never answer directly: "Since another decision of the Supreme Court is all that is now lacking to make slavery alike lawful in all the states; if such a decision is made, holding that the people of the states can not exclude slavery, will Douglas support that decision, or not?" Lincoln and Douglas each stood in a difficult position, on uncertain ground, because the minds of the natural fol- lowers of each were obviously undergoing slow transition; and subsequent events proved that the speakers themselves were not perma- nently fixed in their attitudes. Douglas seemed to be trying to express a compromise between Northern and Southern Democrats; Lincoln, 44 - LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATE while being clearcut and candid in his own po- sition, expressed the position of the Republi- cans, while, at heart he seemed to feel with the more extreme abolitionists. Lincoln said: "The Republican party thinks that slavery is a moral, a social and a political wrong." "I have always hated slavery as much as any abolitionist. ,, Then he added that which did not please the abolitionists: "I have no purpose whatever to interfere with slavery where it exists — no lawful right to do so." Yet we know chat about a quadrennium later, as President, he did issue his Emancipation Proclamation. Lincoln moved his hearers with eloquent phrases concerning the ''free and equal" clauses in the Declaration of Independence; and Doug- las replied that the fathers meant "free and equal" white men and had no reference to slaves or inferior races. "Lincoln said: "I have no purpose to produce political and social equality. I am not in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes or of qualifying them to hold office or of allowing them to intermarry with white people . . . Judge Douglas infers that because I do not want a negro woman for a slave, that I must LINCOLN- DOUGLAS DEBATE 45 want her for a wife. T do not understand it that way. My understanding is that I can just let her alone . . . I have never had the least apprehension that I or my friends would marry negroes, even 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 agree with Judge Douglas that the negro is not my equal in many respects, but in the right to eat the bread which his own hand has produced, with- out the leave of anybody else, he is my equal, and the equal of Judge Douglas, and the equaj of any living man." Thus Lincoln differed from the abolitionist crusaders of the East. He also differed from them in matters of temper and attitude to- ward opponents; in which regard he differed from most political speakers of the day. We find him more temperate, fair, courteous and dignified even than Douglas in the debate. Douglas very adeptly endeavored to belittle 46 LISCQLN- DOUGLAS DEBATE Lincoln in his narration of their previous ac- quaintance with one another. Lincoln's con- duct of the debate was more generous and mag- nanimous than that of Douglas. His denuncia- tions were against slavery and not against slaveholders; he said: "I have no prejudice against the Southern people. They are just what we should be if we were in their situa- tion. If slavery did not now exist among them, they would not introduce it. If it did now exist among us, we should not instantly give it up. It does seem to me that systems of gradual emancipation might be adopted; but, for their tardiness in this, I shall not under- take to judge our brethren of the South." On one occasion he said: "If all earthly power were given to me, I would not know what to do with the existing institution. ... It might be best to have all the colored popula- tion in a state by themselves/' He mentioned possible deportation to Africa, but he did not abuse men who declined to adopt his methods. While he was dealing with ques- tions, that were arousing antagonisms, as bit- ter as men had ever known, he never showed bitterness himself. He thought slowly, cau- LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATE 47 tiously, profoundly and with absolute fairness. His entire purpose was to think out the truth and then to state it so clearly that his hearers could not misunderstand. His aim was not to defeat an adversary, but to state a truth, in such a manner that an adversary could not overcome his truth. He did not aim to say tilings that were merely most popular for that day's debate, but to say the thing that would endure the test of time and prove to be eternal justice. He loved the truth, used faultless logic, and never resorted to fallacy. Lincoln pressed Douglas severely with ques- tions as to what attitude he would take toward certain issues that might arise concerning slavery in the territories; and when Lincoln's followers advised him not to press such ques- tions, he replied, "Douglas can not answer those questions and be elected President in 1860." "The battle of 1860 is worth a hundred of this." Lincoln seemed to feel a duty beyond that of success in the present argument. He seemed to feel the burden of responsibility for present- ing the Republican position to be greater than that of personal success. To win the Senator- 43 LINCOX^N-BOUGLAS DEBATE ship seemed an insignificant part of vim ho had undertaken; his momentous duty was to stimulate a great uprising. His speeches were grave and earnest. ' In that day political gath- erings expected uproarious entertainment, but he gave them most profound problems for their thinking. Repeatedly he stigmatized slavery as a vast "moral, social and political evil;" and impressively denounced the position of an op- ponent who "cared not whether slavery be voted up or voted down." He said "slavery is not to be treated as 'only equal to the cranberry laws of Indiana; ' " that slaves are not "on a par with onions and potatoes;" that slavery might look small to Douglas but to the great body of American people it was a "vast, moral evil." He continued: "Judge Douglas contends that whatever community wants slaves has a right to have them; and so they have, if slavery is right, but if slavery is wrong they can have no right to do wrong. He says that slaves like other property may be carried into new terri- tory, and that is true if slavery is right, but if slavery is wrong there can be no such right. There can be no comparison between right and wrong. That is the issue that shall con- LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATE 41) uuc in this country when these poor tongues of ours shall be silent. It is the eternal Strug gle between the two principles of right and wrong in the world. One is the common right of humanity and the other is the divine right of kings. It is the same spirit that says: 'you work and toil and earn bread and I will eat it/ It is a false philosophy — it is a false states- manship — that undertakes to build up a* system of policy upon the basis of caring nothing about the very thing that everybody cares most about." When Lincoln's friends urged him to adopt a more popular style, he replied, "I do not seek to amuse the people but to convince them." The depth of his feelings is shown by a re- mark he once made to a friend during the cam- paign: "Sometimes in the excitement of speak- ing I seem to see the end of slavery. I feel the time is soon coming when the sun shall shine and the rain fall upon no man who goes forth to unrequited toil. How this will come, by whom it will come, when it will come I can not tell, — but that time will surely come." The immediate result of the campaign was the election of Douglas as Senator, but Lin- 50 LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATE coin's questions obliged him to say things, to suit the Democrats of Illinois, which caused the Southern Democrats to turn against him with bitterness and mark him indelibly for slaughter. It is a great tribute to the personal influence of Douglas that he could be reelected with the administration Democrats against him. The popular vote stood, Republicans, 126,084; Douglas Democrats, 121,940; Lecomp- ton Democrats, 5,091; but the apportionment of districts was such that Douglas was reelected. But the people of the Nation looking on saw the new man, Lincoln, get approximately four thousand votes more that the great leader of the Democrats. Douglas remarked, after the debate, that during his sixteen years in Con- gress he had not met so strong an antagonist. Lincoln had worked very hard. During one hundred days of the heat of summer he had traveled constantly and spoken daily, making speeches that cost the most painstaking effort. He was worn out, and felt the defeat. He knew that he had gained in reputation and he expressed the belief that he had helped to ad- vance the cause of freedom and justice. After all he was requested by the state committee to LINCOLN- DOUGLAS DEBATE 51 contribute further to the campaign fund. His reply shows his circumstances and his spirit: "I am willing to pay according to my ability, but I am the poorest hand in the world to get others to pay. I have been on expense now so long without earning anything that I am with- out money for even household expenses. Still you can put down $250 for me. This with what I have already paid will exceed my sub- scription of $500. This too is in excess of my ordinary expenses during the campaign, which being added to my loss of time bears heavily upon one no better off than I am. . . You are feeling badly; and this too shall pass away, never fear." Among the results of the debate: Lincoln was invited to come and speak in many distant places in other states. Douglas made some speeches in the campaign in Ohio and Lincoln was invited to fellow him there, which he did. He was invited to Kansas and made some speeches that were well attended and highly praised in that Territory. He was invited to speak in New York City and prepared for that occasion a speech that called forth the highest praise from many Eastern editors, including 52 LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATE Horace Greeley, who had been a supporter of Douglas. From New York he was called to Massachu- setts where he made a strong impression in speeches that were said to have contributed to the success of the Republicans in the subsequent campaign. In this Eastern campaign he begged the Republicans in the interest of peace and harmony, to say nothing from passion and ill- temper, but all the while the very issues which he must discuss were such as to leave no hope for harmony and not much hope for peace. Slavery was the one all absorbing topic every- where, and Lincoln's speeches contained the entire position of the Republican party ex- pressed with an effectiveness not surpassed, possibly not equaled, by any other man of that day. His speeches were too compact to admit of being abbreviated or condensed. His outstand- ing thought concerned the right or wrong of slavery. Slavery was either right or wrong. If it was right the South had a right to extend and protect it; but if it was wrong, the Repub- licans were right in restricting it to where it already existed and preventing its extension to new territories. That was the position of the LINCOLN-D< -I ' M.AS I >EBATE 53 Republican party at that time; and no man Btated that position more effectively than Lin- coln. Lincoln seldom mentioned, and then with the greatest care, the few ultra-Abolitionists; and though his feelings toward slavery was much like theirs, his words were very different, and he did not wish to say things that might stand in the way of the ultimate harmony of all this forces opposed to the extension of slavery. Douglas spoke often of the ultra-Abolitionists and wished his hearers to think of them in con- nection with the Republicans. At that time dis- union and secession were words in common use among the masses. Douglas never used these words; and Lincoln mentioned them but few times and with the greatest caution. This fact is fraught with meaning, for the Ameri- can people seem to understand that the chief cause and justification of the war was the Union. Even Lincoln, with as great honesty, candor and fearlessness as was ever manifested by any man who succeeded in gaining the sup- port of enough of his fellow men to be elected, must be very cautious how he spoke concern- ing issues that were paramount at the time. 54 LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATE Some writers express contempt for the ultra* Abolitionists; others give to them all the praise, with contempt for all who were not Abolition- ists; but surely both these views are too nar- row to be just. Surely, the ultra-Abolitionists, who had no thought for their own welfare, but thought only of justice to others, deserve much credit for their part in awakening the public conscience to the evil of slavery; while a prac- tical leader like Lincoln, though he win the rewards of election and fame, is to be honored for doing the best that could be done under the circumstances. We need not decide to whom belongs the greater honor, but certainly we shall not be just if we give any second place to those whose sacrifice is greatest, especially when they make that sacrifice with no hope of reward, and with full knowledge of what they will suffer, as well as with a clear vision of the great cause they serve. Lincoln and the other Republican leaders said that if the extension of slavery was prevented, then slavery was in the course of extinction. Then if slavery was right, the triumph of the Republicans justified revolution to preserve slavery; unless the preservation of the Union LINCOIiN-DOUGLAS DEBATE 55 was of greater importance than the preserva- tion of the right to have slaves. That is just what many persons in the North believed. They felt that the South had a right to keep their slaves, but had no right to destroy the Union to keep them, because the Union was of greater significance than slavery. Webster and others had preached Union until they had made the Union seem sacred. The Union, once destroyed, would not be restored in a long time if ever, but slavery tolerated for a time might at any time be restricted and put in the way of ex tinction. Though Lincoln talked slavery rather than Union during all these campaigns, he later showed that he regarded the cause of the Union to be greater than the question of slavery, by all that he said and did when he became Presi- dent. And Lincoln was indirectly and effec- tively teaching the people to save the Union in teaching them to regard slavery as wrong; for if slavery was wrong then a revolution to per- petuate slavery was a double wrong. Douglas also declared his loyalty to Lincoln and the Union as soon as the South began to secede. Thoughtful students of history declare that the 5G LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATE election of Lincoln as President in that crisis was the most fortunate event in American his- tory; and if that be true, the Lincoln-Douglas debate, which made Lincoln President will not lose its interest so long as we study the his- tory of America. At the Republican State convention, at Springfield, June 16, 1858, Lincoln was chosen as the Republican candidate for the United States Senate against Senator Douglas. Lin- coin made a speech in which he assailed the policies of Senator Douglas. This speech is considered the beginning of the Lincoln-Doug- las debate; and the paragraphs here quoted were used continuously during that contest. Lincoln said: "If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could better judge what to do and how to do it. "We are now far into the fifth year since a policy was initiated with the avowed object, and confident promise of putting an end to slavery agitation. Under the operation of that policy, that agitation not only has not ceased, but has constantly aug- mented. In my opinion it will not cease until a crisis shall have been reached and passed. EJNCOLN- DOUGLAS DEBATE 57 'A house divided against itself can not stand.' I believe that this government can not endure half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved; I do not expect the house to fall; but I do expect it to cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery shall 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 the advocates of slavery will push it for- ward until it shall become alike lawful in all the states, old as well as new, and North as well as South. Have we no tendency toward the latter condition? Let anyone who doubts carefully contemplate that now we have almost a completed legal combination-piece of ma- chinery, so to speak, compounded of the Nebras- ka doctrine and the Dred Scott decision. "Put this and that together, and we have another nice little niche, which we may, ere long, see filled with another Supreme Court decision, saying that the Constitution of the United States does not permit a State to ex- clude slavery from its limits. And this may especially be expected if the doctrine of *car« 58 LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATE not whether slavery be voted up or voted down,' shall gain upon the public mind suffici- ent hold to give promise that such a decision can be maintained when made. Such a decision is all that slavery now lacks of being alike law- ful in all the States. ''Welcome or unwelcome, such a decision is probably coming, and will be upon us, unless the power of the present political dynasty shall be met and overthrown. We shall lie down pleasantly dreaming that the people of Missouri are on the verge of making their state free, and we shall awake to the reality, instead, that the Supreme Court has made Illinois a slave state. To meet and overthrow that dynasty is the work of all those people who would pre- vent that consummation. That is what we have to do. How can we best do it? "There are those who denounce us openly to their own friends, and yet whisper to us softly that Senator Douglas is the aptest instrument there is with which to affect that object. They wish us to infer all, from the fact that he now has a little quarrel with the present head of that dynasty; and that he has regularly voted with us on a single point on which he and we LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATE ?9 have never differed. They remind us that he is very great and that the largest of us are very small ones. Let this be granted. 'But a living dog is better than a dead lion/ Judge Douglas, if not a dead lion, is for this fight, a caged and toothless one. "How can Judge Douglas oppose the advance of slavery? He does not care anything about it. His avowed mission is to impress the 'pub- lic heart' to care nothing about it. A leading Douglas Democratic newspaper thinks that Douglas's superior talent will be needed to re- sist the revival of the African slave trade. Does Douglas believe that an effort to revive that trade is approaching? He has not said so. Does he really think so? But if it is, how can he resist it? For years he has labored to prove that it is a sacred right of white men to take negro slaves into new Territories. Can he show that it is possibly less a sacred right to buy them where they can be bought cheapest? And unquestionably they can be bought cheaper in Africa than in Virginia. "He has done all in his power to reduce the question of slavery to one of mere property; and as such, how can he oppose the foreign GO LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATE slave trade? How can he refuse that trade in that 'property' shall be 'perfectly free,' unless he does it as a protection to the home produc- tion? And as the home producers will prob- ably not ask the protection, he will be wholly without ground for opposition to the slave trade. "Senator Douglas holds, we know, that a man may rightfully be wiser today than he was yesterday — that he may rightfully change when he finds himself in the wrong. But can we, for that reason, run ahead, and infer that he will make any particular change, of which he him- self has given no intimation? Can we safely base our action on any such vague inference? Now, as ever, I wish not to misrepresent Judge Douglas's position, question his motives, or do aught that could be personally offensive to him. "Whenever, if ever, he and we shall come to- gether on principle, so that our cause may have assistance from his great ability, I hope to have interposed no adventitious obstacle. But, clearly, he is not now with us, — he does not pretend to be, he does not promise ever to be, "Our cause, then, must be entrusted to, and LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATE 61 conducted by, its own undoubted friends — those whose hands are free, whose hearts are in the work — who do care for the result. Two years ago the Republicans of the Nation mustered over thirteen hundred thousand strong. We did this under the single impulse of resistance to a common danger. With every external circumstance against us, of strango, discordant, and even hostile elements, we gathered from the four winds, and formed and fought the battle through, under the constant hot fire of a disciplined, proud and pampered enemy. Did we brave all then to falter now?— Now when that same enemy is wavering, dis- severed, and belligerent? The result is not doubtful. We shall not fail. If we stand firm we shall not fail. Wise counsels may acceler- ate, or mistakes delay it; but sooner or later the victory is sure to come." Douglas said: 'Trior to 1854 the people of this country were divided into two great political parties, known as the Whig Party and the Democratic Party. Both were national and patriotic, ad- vocating principles that were universal in their application. An old -lime Whig could proclaim 02 LTNCOLN-DOUOL.AS DEBATE his principles in Louisiana and in Massa- chusetts alike. Whig principles had no bound- ary sectional line — they were not limited by the Ohio River, nor by the Potomac, nor by the line between free and slave states, but ap- plied and were proclaimed wherever the con- stitution ruled and the flag waved over the American soiL ,, "So it was and so it is with the great Democratic party, which, from the days of Jefferson until this period, has proved itself to be the historic party of this nation. "While the Whig party and the Democratic party dif- fered in regard to banking, tariff, specie cir- cular, and the subtreasury, they agreed on the great slavery question which now agitates this Union. I say that the Whig party and the Democratic party agreed on the slavery ques- tion while they differed on those questions of expediency to which I have referred. The Whig party and the Democratic party jointly adopted the compromise measure of 1850 as a basis of a proper and just solution of the ques- tion of slavery in all its forms. Clay was the great leader with Webster on his right and Cass on his left and supported by the patriots LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATE 63 in both the Whig and Democratic parties who had devised and enacted the great compromise measures in 1850." "In 1854, Mr. Abraham Lincoln and Mr. Ly- man Trumbull entered into an arrangement one with the other, and each with his respec- tive friends, to dissolve the old Whig party on the one hand and to dissolve the old Demo- cratic party on the other hand, and to connect the members of both into an Abolition party, under the name and disguise of the Republi- can party. The terms of that arrangement, between Lincoln and Trumbull, have been pub- lished by Lincoln's special friend, Jas. H. Matheny, Esq., and they were that Lincoln should have General Shield's place in the United States Senate, which was then about to become vacant, and Mr. Trumbull was to have my place at the expiration of my term. Lin- coln went to work to abolitionize the old Whig party all over the state, pretending that he was then as good a Whig as ever; and Trum- bull went to work in his part of the state preaching abolitionism in its milder forms and trying to abolitionize the Old Democratic party and bind it and bring old Democrats 64 LINC< )LN-] >OUGLAS DEBATE bound hand and Toot into the Abolition camp. In pursuance of the arrangement the parties met at Springfield in October, 1854, and pro- claimed their new platform. Lincoln was to bring into the Abolition camp the old-time Whigs and transfer them over to Giddings, Chase, Fred Douglas and Parson "Lovcjoy, who were ready to receive them and christen them into their new faith. "I desire to know whether Mr. Lincoln stands today as he did in 1854, in favor of the repeal of the Fugitive Slave Law. I desire him to say whether he stands today, as he did in 1854, against the admission of any more slave states into the Union, even if the people want them. I want to know whether he stands pledged against the admission of a state into the Union with such a Constitution as the people of that state see fit to make. I want to know whether he stands pledged today to tbe abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. I desire him to state whether he still stands pledged to the prohibition of the slave trade between the different states. I de- sire to know whether he stands pledged to prohibit slavery in all the territories, North LINCOLN-Di >UGL IS I >EB ^.TE as well as South of the Missouri Compromise line. I desire him to say whether he is op- posed to the acquisition of any more territory unless slavery is prohibited therein. I want his answer to these questions. Your affirma- tive cheers in favor of this Abolition platform are not satisfactory. I ask Abraham Lincoln to answer these questions in order that when I trot him down to lower Egypt, I may put the same questions to him there. "My principles are the same everywhere. 1 can proclaim them alike in the North and the South, in the East and the West. My prin- ciples will apply wherever the Constitution prevails and the American flag waves. I de- sire to know whether Mr. Lincoln's principles will bear transplanting from Ottawa to Jones- boro. I put these questions to him today dis- tinctly and I desire an answer. I have a right to an answer, for I quote from the platform of the Republican party as he helped to frame it at the time that party was formed, and the bargain made by Lincoln to deliver the old Whig party and transfer its members bound hand and foot to the Abolition party under the direction of Giddings and Fred Douglas. OG LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATE "In the remarks which I have made on this platform, and the position of Mr. Lincoln upon it, I mean nothing at all disrespectful to that gentleman. I have known him for nearly twenty-five years. There were many points of sympathy between us when we first got ac- quainted. Yv T e were both comparatively boys, and both struggling with poverty in a strange land. I was a school-teacher in the town of Winchester, and he a flourishing grocery- deeper in* the town of Salem. He was more successful in his occupation than I was in mine, therefore more fortunate in this world's goods. Lincoln is one of those admirable men who perform with wonderful skill whatever they undertake. I made as good school-teacher as I could, and when a cabinet maker I made good beds and desks, but my old boss said that I succeeded better with bureaus and secre- taries than with anything else; but I believe that Lincoln was always more successful in business than I was for his business enabled him to get into the Legislature. "I met him there, and had sympathy with him, because of the uphill struggle that we both had in life. He was then just as good in LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATE 67 telling anecdotes us he is now. He could beat any of the boys in wrestling, running a foot race or tossing a copper; could ruin more liquor than all the boys of the town together, and the dignity and impartiality with which he could preside at a horse race or fist fight excited the praise and won the admiration of everybody who was present and participated. I sympathised with him because he was strug- gling with difficulties, and so was I. Mr. Lin- coln served with me in the Legislature in 183 G, when we both retired, and he subsided, or be- came submerged, and was lost jight of as a public man for some years. "In 1846 when Wilmot introduced his cele- brated proviso, and the abolition tornado swept the country, Lincoln again turned up as a member of Congress from the Sangamon dis- trict. I was then in the Senate of the United States and was glad to welcome my old friend and companion. While in Congress, he dis- tinguished himself by his opposition to the Mexican War, taking the side of the common enemy against his own country; and when he returned home he found that the indignation of the people followed him everywhere, and he was again submerged, obliged to retire into private life, forgotten by his former friends. He came up again in 1854 just in time to make an Abolition or Black Republican platform, in company with Giddings, Chase, Lovejoy and Fred Douglas, for the Republican party to stand upon. "These two men, Lincoln and Trumbull, having formed this combination to abolition- ize the old Whig party and the old Demo cratic party, and put themselves into the Senate of the United States, in pursuance of their bargain are now carrying out that ar- rangement. Matheny states that Trumbull broke faith; that the bargain was that Lincoln should be the Senator in Shield's place, and Trumbull cheated Lincoln, having control of four or five abolitionized Democrats who were holding over in the State Senate; he would not let them vote for Lincoln, wmich obliged the rest of the abolitionists to vote for Trumbull in order to have an abolition Senator. There are a number of authorities for the truth of this statement besides Matheny, and I suppose that Lincoln himself will not deny it. "When Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, LIN( JOLN-DOUGL.AS DBBATJ 69 Hamilton, Jay and the other great men of that day, made this government, they divided ft into slave States and free States, and left each State perfectly free to do as it pleased on the question of slavery. Why can it not exist on the same principles on which our fathers made it? They knew when they framed the Consti- tution that in a country as wide and as broad as this, with such a variety of climate, produc- tion, and interest, the people necessarily re- quired different laws and regulations; what would suit the granite-hills of New Hampshire would be unsuited to the rice-plantations of South Carolina; and they therefore provided that each state should retain its own Legisla ture and its own sovereignty, with full and complete power to do as it pleased within its own limits in all things that were local and not national. "One of the reserved rights of the state the right to regulate the relations between mas- ter and servant on the slavery question. At the time the Constitution was framed there were thirteen States in the Union, twelve of which were slaveholding States and one a free State. Suppose that this doctrine of uniformity, 70 LINCOLN- DOUGLAS DEBATE preached by Mr. Lincoln, that the states should all be free or all be slave had prevailed. What would have been the result? Of course the twelve slave holding states would have over- ruled the one free state, and slavery would have been fastened by a constitutional provision on every inch of the American Republic, in- stead of it being left as our fathers wisely left it for each state to decide for itself. Here I assert that uniformity in the local laws of the different states is neither possible nor desir- able. If uniformity had been adopted as a prin- ciple everywhere, when the government was es- tablished, it must have either been the uniform- ity of slavery everywhere or the uniformity of aegro-citizenship and negro equality every- where. "We are told by Lincoln that he is opposed to the Dred Scott decision, and that he will not submit to it, because, as he says, it de- prives the negro of the rights and privileges of citizenship. This is the first and main rea- son which he assigns for his warfare on the Supreme Court of the United States and its decision. I ask you, are you in favor of con- ferring upon a negro the rights and privileges LINCOLN- DOUGLAS DEBATE 71 of citizenship? Do you desire to strike out of our State Constitution that clause which keeps savages and free negroes out of the State, and allow free negroes to flow over the State and establish black settlements? Do you desire to turn this beautiful State into a free negro col- ony, in order that when Missouri abolishes slavery she can send a hundred thousand eman- cipated slaves into this State to become citi- zens and voters on an equality with your- selves? "If you desire negro citizenship; if you de sire to have them come into the State and set tie with the white man; if you desire to have them vote on an equality with yourselves, and to make them eligible to office, to sit on juries, and it d judge your rights, — then support Mr. Lincoln and the Black Republican party, who are in favor of the citizenship of the negro. For one, I am opposed to negro citizenship in any and every form. T believe that this gov- ernment was made on the white basis. I be- lieve that this government was made by white men for the benefit of white men and their posterity forever; and I am in favor of confin- ing citizenship to white men of European de- 72 LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBASE scent, instead of conferring it upon negroes, In- dians and other inferior races. Mr. Lincoln, following the lead and example of all the lit- tle abolition orators who go around and lec- ture in the basement of schools and churches, reads from the Declaration of Independence that all men are created equal and then asks how in the face of God and the Declaration of Independence you can deprive the negro of that equality which God and the Declaration of In- dependence have awarded to him. He and they declare that negro equality is guaranteed by the laws of God and asserted in the Declaration of Independence. If they think so, of course they have a right to say so, and so vote. I do not question Mr. Lincoln's conscientious belief that the negro was created his equal, and hence his brother; but for my own part I do not re- gard the negro as my equal or my brother, and I deny that he is any kin to me whatever. Lin- coln has evidently learned by heart Parson Lovejoy's catechism. He can repeat it as well as Farnsworth, and is entitled to a medal from Father Giddings and Fred Douglas for his aboli- tionism. He holds that the negro was born his equal and yours, and that he was endowed with LINCOLN- DOUGLAS DEBATE 73 ■ quality by the Almighty, and that no human law can deprive him of these rights which were guaranteed to him by the Supreme Ruler of the universe. "Now I do not believe that the Almighty ever intended the negro to be the equal of the white man. If He did He has been a long time dem- onstrating that fact. For thousands of years the negro has been a race on the face of the earth, and during all that time, wherever he has wandered or been taken he has been in- ferior to the race which he has there met. He belongs to an inferior race and must always oc- cupy an inferior position. I do not hold that because the negro is our inferior that therefore he ought to be a slave. By no means can such a conclusion be drawn from what I have said. I hold that humanity and Christianity both re- quire that the negro shall have and enjoy every right, every privilege and immunity consistent with the safety of the society in which he lives. On that point, I presume there can be no dr versity of opinion. You and I are bound to id to our inferior and dependent beings every right, every privilege, every faculty and 74 LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATE every immunity consistent with the public good. "The question then arises, what rights and privileges are consistent with the public good? This is a question which each State and each Territory must decide for itself. Illinois has decided it for herself. We have provided that the negro shall not be a slave, and we have also provided that he shall not be a citizen, but we protect him in his civil rights, his right to property, his right to protection, only depriving him of all political rights whatever, and refus- ing to put him on an equality with the white man. That policy of Illinois is satisfactory to the Democratic party and to me, and if it were satisfactory to the Republican party then there would be no question on the subject; but the Republicans say that he ought to be made a citizen, and when he becomes a citizen he be- comes your equal with all your rights and privi- leges. The Republicans assert the Dred Scott decision to be monstrous because it denies that the negro is or can become a citizen under the Constitution. "Now I hold that Illinois has a right to abol- ish slavery, as she did, and I hold that Ken- LINCOLN-DOUGLAS t>E£AT£ U tucky has the same right to continue slavery and protect it that Illinois has to abolish it. I hold that New York has as much right to abol- ish slavery as Virginia has to protect it, and that each and every state of this Union is a sovereign power, with the right to do as it pleases with the question of slavery, and with all its domestic institutions. Slavery is not the only question which comes up in this con- troversy. A far more important one to you is, what shall be done with the free negro. We have settled the slavery question in Illi- nois so far as we are concerned, we have pro- hibited it in Illinois forever, and in doing so I think that we have done wisely, and there is no man in the state who would be more strenuous in his opposition to the introduc- tion of slavery into the state than I would ; but when we settled it for ourselves we ex- hausted all our power over that subject. We have done our whole duty, and can do no more. We must leave each and every other state to decide the same question for itself. "In relation to the policy to be pursued to- ward the free negroes, we have said that they shall not vote; while Maine on the other hand 76 LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATE has said that they shall vote, Maine is a sov- ereign state and has the power to regulate the qualifications of voters within her limits, I would never confer the qualification for citi- zenship and voting upon a negro, but I am not going to quarrel with Maine for differing from me in opinion* Let Maine take care of her own negroes, and fix her own qualifications for voting, without interfering with Illinois, and Illinois will not interfere with Maine, So with the state of New York. She allows the negro to vote provided he owns two hundred and fifty dollars worth of property and not otherwise. While I would not make any distinction what- ever between a negro who held property and one who did not, yet if the sovereign state of New York chooses to make that distinction it is her business and not mine, and I will not quarrel with her for it. She can do as she pleases on this question if she minds her own business, and we shall do the same thing. "Now, my friends, if we will only act con- scientiously and rigidly upon this great prin- ciple of popular sovereignty, which guarantees to each state and territory the right to do as it pleases on all things local and domestic, in- LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATE 77 stead of Congress interfering, we shall continue at peace one with another. Why should Mis- souri be at war with Illinois, or Kentucky with Ohio, or Virginia with New York merely be- cause their domestic institutions differ? The founders of the Republc knew that the North and the South, having different climates, pro- ductions and interests would need different in- stitutions. This doctrine of Mr. Lincoln, of having uniformity among the institutions of the different states, is a new doctrine, never dreamed of by Washington or Madison or any of the framers of the government. Mr. Lin- coln and the Republican party set themselves up as wiser than the men who framed this gov- ernment which has flourished for seventy years, under the principle of popular sovereignty, rec- ognizing the right of each state to do as it pleased with its domestic affairs. Under that principle we have grown from a nation of about three or four millions to a nation of about thirty millions of people; we have crossed the Allegheny mountains and filled up the whole Northwest, turning the prairies into a garden, and building up churches and schools, thus spreading Christianity where before there was 7& LINCOLN- DOUGLAS DEBATE nothing but a few savages and barbarians. Un- der that principle we have become, from a feeble nation, the most powerful on the face of the earth, and if we only adhere to that principle, we shall go forward, increasing in territory, in power, in strength, and in glory, until the Republic of America shall be the North Star that shall guide the friends of free- dom throughout the civilized world. And why can we not adhere to the great principle of self government upon which our institutions were originally based? I believe that this new doctrine preached by Mr. Lincoln and his party will dissolve the Union if it succeeds." Lincoln replied to Douglas: "When a man hears himself somewhat mis- represented, it provokes him — at least I find it so with myself; but when misrepresentation becomes very gross and palpable, it is more apt to amuse him. The first thing I see fit to notice is the fact that Judge Douglas alleges, after running through the history of the old Whig party and the old Democratic party, that Judge Trumbull and myself made an arrange- ment in 1854 by which I was to have the place of General Shields in the United States Sen- LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATE 79 ate, and Judge Trumbull was to have the plage of Judge Douglas. Now all I have to say on that subject is that I think that no man can prove it — not even Judge Douglas — because it is not true. I have no doubt he is conscien- tious' in saying it. As to those resolutions that he took such a time to read, as being the plat- form of the Republican party in 1854, I will say that I never had anything to do with them and I do not think that Trumbull ever had. Judge Douglas cannot show that either of us ever had anything to do with them. "Now about this story that Judge Douglas tells about Trumbull bargaining to sell out the old Democratic party, and Lincoln agreeing to sell out the old Whig party, I do know about that, and Judge Douglas does not know about it; and I will say that there is no substance to that story whatever. Yet I have no doubt he is conscientious about it. I know that after Mr. Lovejoy got into the Legislature that winter he complained of me that I had told all the old Whigs of his district that the old Whig party was good enough for them, and some of them voted that way because I told them so. 80 LINCOLN-DOUGLAS debate "Anything that argues me into the Idea of perfect political or social equality with the negro is but a specious and fantastic arrange- ment of words, by which a man can prove a horse-chestnut to be a chestnut horse. I will say here, while on this subject, that I have no purpose directly to interfere with the in- stitution of slavery in the States where it ex- ists. I believe that I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so. I have no purpose to introduce political and so- cial equality between the white and black races. There is a physical difference between the two, which, in my judgment, will forever forbid their living together in perfect equal- ity; and inasmuch as it becomes a necessity that there should be a difference, I, as well as Judge Douglas, am in favor of the race to which I belong having the supremacy. "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 natural 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 LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATE 81 as the white man. I agree with Judge Doug- las that he is not my equal in many respects, certainly not in color, and perhaps not in moral and intellectual endowment. But in the right to eat the bread which his own hands have earned, without the leave of anybody else, he is my equal, the equal of Judge Douglas, and the equal of every living man. "Now I pass on to consider one or two more of these little follies. The Judge is woefully at fault about his early friend Lincoln being a 'grocery-keeper'. .. .He is mistaken, Lincoln never kept a grocery anywhere in the world. And so my friend the Judge is equally at fault when he charges that when I was in Congress I opposed our soldiers who were fighting in the Mexican War. The Judge did not make his charge very distinct, but I can tell you what you can prove by the record. You can remember that I was an old Whig, and when- ever the Democrats tried to get me to vote that the war had been righteously begun by the President, I would not do it. But when- ever they asked for money to pay the soldiers, or any land-warrants for the soldiers during all that time I cast the same vote that Judge 82 LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATE Douglas did. You can think as you please as to whether that was consistent. "Such was the truth, and the Judge has a right to make all he can out of it. But when he, by a general charge, tries to convey the idea that I voted to withhold support from the soldiers who were fighting in the War, or did anything else to hinder the soldiers in the Mexican War, he is, to say the least, grossly and altogether mistaken, as a consultation of the records will prove to him. "He has read from my speech in Springfield in which I say that 'a house divided against itself can not stand.' Does the Judge say that it can stand? I do not understand whether he does or not. The Judge does not seem to be attending to me just now, but I would like to know if it is his opinion that a house divided against itself can stand. If he thinks that a house divided against itself can stand then it is a question of veracity, not between the Judge and myself, but between the Judge and an authority of a somewhat higher character. "Now, my friends, I ask your attention to this matter for the purpose of saying some- thing seriously. I know that the Judge m^- LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATE 83 readily agree with me that the maxim which was put forth by the Savior is true, but he may allege that I misapply it, and the Judge has a right to argue that in my application, I do misapply it, and then I have a right to show that I do not misapply it. "When he undertakes to say, that because I think that this nation, so far as the question of slavery is concerned, will all become one thing or all the other, that I am in favor of bringing about a dead uniformity in all the institutions of the states, he argues erroneously. The great variety of local institutions in the states, springing from differences in soil, dif- ferences in the face of the country, and in the climate, are bonds of union. They do not make a 'house divided against itself but they make a house united. If they produee in one section of the country what is wanted in an- other section, and this other section can sup- ply the wants of the first, they are not matters of discord but bonds of union — true bonds of union. "But can the institution of slavery be con- sidered as among these varieties in the in- stitutions of the country? I leave it to you 84 LINCOLN- DOUGLAS DEBATE to say whether this institution of slavery has ever been a bond of union, — and if it has not always been an apple of discord and an element of division in the house. I ask you to con- sider whether so long as the moral constitution of men's minds shall remain the same, after this generation and assemblage shall sink into the grave, and another generation shall arise with the same intellectual and moral develop- ment as we have— whether if that institution is standing in the same irritating position in which it now is, it will not continue an element of division? "If so, then I have a right to say that in re- gard to this question the Union is a house divided against itself; and when the Judge reminds me that I have often said to him that the institution of slavery has existed for seventy years in some states, and yet it does not exist in some others, I agree to the fact, and I account for it by looking at the position in which our fathers originally placed slavery — restricting it from the new territories where it had not gone, and legislating to cut off its source by abrogating the slave-trade, thus put- ting the seal of legislation against its spread. I.kXCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATE 85 The public mind did rest in the belief that it was in the course of ultimate extinction. But lately, I think — and in this I charge nothing to the Judge's motives — lately, I think that he, and those acting with him, have placed this in- stitution on a new basis, which looks to the perpetuity and nationalization of slavery. And while it is placed upon this new basis, I say, and I have said, that I believe that we shall not have peace upon this question until the opponents arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction; or, on the other hand, that its ad- vocates will push it forward until it shall become alike lawful in all the states, old as well as new, and North as well as South. Now I believe that if we could arrest the spread, and place it where Washington and Jefferson and Madison placed it, it would be in the course of ultimate extinction, and the public mind, as in the course of eighty years past, would be- lieve that it was in the course of ultimate ex- tinction. The crisis would be past, and the institution would be let alone for a hundred years — if it should live that long — in the 86 LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATE states where it exists, yet it would be going out of existence in the way that is best for both the black and white races. I ask the people here assembled and elsewhere to pay attention to the course which Judge Douglas is pursuing every day, as bearing upon this question of making slavery national. Not going back to the records, but taking the speeches he makes — the speeches he made yesterday and the day before, and is making constantly all over the country. I ask your attention to them. In the first place what is necessary to make the institution of slavery national? Not war. "There is no danger that the people of Kentucky will shoulder their muskets and with a young nigger stuck on each bayonet march into Illinois and force them upon us. There is no danger of our going over there and making war on them. Then what is necessary for the nationalization of slavery? It is simply the next Dred Scott decision. "It is merely for the Supreme Court to de- cide that no state under the Constitution can exclude it; just as they have already decided that under the Constitution neither Congress nor any Territorial Legislature can exclude it. LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATE 87 When that is decided and acquiesced in the whole thing is done. This being true, and this being the way I think, that slavery is to be made national, let us consider what Judge Douglas is doing every day to that end. In the first place, let us see what influence he is exerting upon public sentiment. In this and like communities, public sentiment is every- thing. With public sentiment nothing can fail, without it nothing can succeed. Con- sequently he who moulds public sentiment goes deeper than he who enacts statutes or pro- nounces decisions. He makes statutes and de- cisions possible or impossible to be executed. This must be borne in mind as also the ad- ditional fact that Judge Douglas is a man of vast influence, so great that it is enough for many men to profess to believe anything when they find out that Judge Douglas professes to believe in it. Consider too the attitude which he occupies at the head of a large party, a party which he claims has a majority of all the voters in the country. "This man sticks to a decision which forbids the people of a Territory to exclude slavery, and he does so, not because he says it is right 88 LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATE in itself, — lie does not give any opinion on that — but because it has been decided by the Court, and being decided by the Court, he is, and you are, bound to take it in your political action as law — not that he judges all of its merits, but because to him a decision of the Court is a 'Thus saith the Lord/ "He places it on that ground alone, and you will bear in mind that thus committing him- self to this decision, not on the merit of the decision, but it is a "Thus saith the Lord," will commit him to the next decision. It too will be a 'Thus saith the Lord.' The next decision as much as this will be a 'Thus saith the Lord.' There is nothing that can divert or turn him away from this decision. It is nothing that I point out to him that his great proto- type, General Jackson, did not believe in the binding force of decisions. It is nothing to him that Jefferson did not so believe. "But I can not shake Judge Douglas's tooth loose from the Dred Scott decision. Like some obstinate animal (I mean no disrespect) that will hang on when once he has got his teeth fixed, you may cut off a leg but he will not relax his hold. He hangs on to the Dred LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATE 89 Scott decision. These things show that there is a purpose as strong as death and eternity which causes him to hold on to this decision, and which will cause him to hold on to like decisions from the same Court. "Henry Clay, my beau-ideal of a statesman, the man for whom I fought all my humble life, Henry Clay once said, the men who would re- press all tendencies to liberty and ultimate emancipation, they must if they would do this, go back to the era of our independence, and muzzle the cannon which thunders its annual joyous return; they** must blow out the moral lights around us; they must penetrate the human soul and eradicate there the love of liberty; and then and not till then can they perpetuate slavery in this country. To my thinking, Judge Douglas is doing that very thing by his example and his vast influence in this country, when he says that the negro has no part in the Declaration of Independence, Henry Clay plainly understood the contrary. , "Judge Douglas is going back to the era of our Revolution and to the extent of his ability muzzling the cannon which thunders its joy- ous return. When he invites any people, will- 90 LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATE ing to have slavery, to establish it, he is blow- ing out the moral light around us. When he says that he 'cares not whether slavery be voted up or voted down/ that it is a sacred right of self-government, he is, in my judg- ment, penetrating the human soul and eradicat- ing the light of reason and love of liberty in this American people. And now I will only say, that when, by all these means and appli- ances, Judge Douglas shall succeed in bringing public opinion into accord with his own views, — when these vast assemblages shall echo back all his sentiments, — when gthey shall come to repeat his views and avow his principles, and assent to all that he says on these mighty questions, — then it needs only the formality of another Dred Scott decision, which he en- dorses in advance, to make slavery alike law- ful in all the states, old as well as new, and North as well as South." TEN CENT POCKET SERIES 91 Other Titles in Pocket Series Drama 295 The Master Builder. Ibsen. 90 The Mikado. W. S. Gilbert. 816 Prometheus Bound. Aeschylos. 808 She Stoops to Conquer. Oliver Goldsmith. 134 The Misanthrope. Moliere. ©9 Tartuffe. Moliere. 31 Pelleas and Melisande. Maeterlinck. 16 Ghosts. Henrik rbsen. 80 Pillars of Society. Ibsen. 46 Salome. Oscar Wilde. 64 Importance of Being Earnest. 0. Wilde. 8 Lady Windermere's Fan. O. Wilde. 131 Redemption. Tolstoi. 226 The Anti-Semites. Schnitzler. Shakespeare's Plays 240 The Tempest. 241 Merry Wives of Wind- sor. 242 As You Like It. 243 Twelfth Night. 244 Much Ado About Nothing. 245 Measure for Measure. 246 Hamlet. 247 Macbeth. 248 King Henry V. 251 Midsummer Night's Dream. 252 Othello, the Moor of Venice. 253 King Henry VIII. 254 Taming of the Shrew. 255 King Lear. 256 Venus and Adonis. 257 King Henry IV. Part I. 258 King Henry IV. Part II. 2(49 Julius Caesar. 250 Romeo and Juliet. 259 King Henry VI. Part I. 260 King Henry VI. Part II. 261 King Henry VI. Part III. 262 Comedy of Errors. 263 King John. 264 King Richard III. 2 65 King Richard II. 267 Pericles. 268 Merchant of Venice. Fiction 336 Mark of the Beast. Kipling. B07 A Tillyloss Scandal. Barrie. 357 City of Dreadful Night. Kipling. 363 Miggles, etc. Bret Harte. 333 Mulvaney Stories. Kipling. 188 Adventures of Baron Munchausen. 352 Short Stories. William Morris. 332 The Man Who Was and Other Stories." Kipling. TEN CENT POCKET SERIES 280 The Happy Prince and Other Tales. Wilde. 143 In the Time of the Ter- ror. Balzac. 182 Daisy Miller. Henry James. 162 The Murders in the Rue Morgue and Other Tales. E. A. Poe. 345 Clarimonde. Gautier. 292 Mademoiselle Fifi. De Maupassant. 199 The Tallow Ball. De Maupassant. 6 De Maupassant's Stories. 15 Balzac's Stories. 344 Don Juan and Other Stories. Balzac. 318 Christ in Flanders and Other Stories. Balzac. 230 The Fleece of Gold. Theophile Gautier. 178 One of Cleopatra's Nights. Gautier. 314 Short Stories. Daudet. 58 Boccaccio's Stories. 45 Tolstoi's Short Stories. 12 Poe's Tales of Mystery. 290 The Gold Bug. Edgar Allan Poe. 145 Great Ghost Stories. 21 Carmen. Merimee. 23 Great Stories of the Sea. 319 Comtesse de Saint- Gerane. Dumas. 38 Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Stevenson. 279 Will o' the Mill; Mark- heim. Stevenson. 311 A Lodging for the Night. Stevenson. 27 Last Days of a Con- demned Man. Hugo, 151 Man Who Would Be King. Kipling. 148 Strength of the Strong. London. 41 Christmas Carol. Dickens. 57 Rip Van Winkle. Irving. 100 Red Laugh. Andreyev, 105 Seven That Were Hanged. Andreyev. 102 Sherlock Holmes Tales. C. Doyle. 161 Country of the Blind. H. G. Wells. 85 Attack on the Mill. Zola. 156 Andersen's Fairy Tales. 158 Alice in Wonderland. 37 Dream of John Ball. William Morris. 40 House and the Brain, Bulwer Lytton. 72 Color of Life. E. Hal- deman- Julius. 198 Majesty of Justice. Anatole France. 215 The Miraculous Re- venge. Shaw. 24 The Kiss and Other Stories. Chekhov. 285 Euphorian in Texas 1 . Geo. Moore. 219 The Human Tragedy. Anatole France. 196 The Marquise. George Sand. 239 Twenty- Six Men and a Girl. Gorki. 29 Dreams. Oliver Schreiner. 232 The Three Strangers, Thos. Hardy. 277 The Man Without a Country. E. E. Hale. TEN CENT POCKET SERIES History, Biography 305 Machiavelli. Ma- cuulay. 340 Life of Jesus. Ernest Kenan. 183 Life of Jack London. 269 Contemporary Por- traits. Vol. 1. Frank Harris. 270 Contemporary Por- traits. Vol. 2. Frank Harris. 271 Contemporary Por- traits. Vol. 3. Frank Harris. 272 Contemporary Por- traits. Vol. 4. Frank Harris. 328 Joseph Addison and His Times. Finger. 312 Life and Works of Laurence Sterne. Gunn. 324 Life of Lincoln. Bowers. 323 The Life of Joan of Arc. 339 Thoreau — the Man Who Escaped From the Herd. Finger. 126 History of Rome. A. F. Giles. 128 Julius Caesar; Who He Was. 185 History of Printing. 14 9 Historic Crimes and Criminals. Finger. 175 Science of History. Froude. 104 Battle of Waterloo. Victor Hugo. 52 Voltaire. Victor Hugo. 125 War Speeches of Woodrow Wilson* 2 2 Tolstoy; His Life and Works. 142 Bismarck and the German Empire. 286 When the Puritans Were in Power. 343 Life of Columbus. 60 Crimes of the Borgias. Dumas. 287 Whistler; The Man and His Work. 51 Bruno; His Life and Martyrdom. 147 Cromwell and His Times. 236 State and Heart Af- fairs of Henry VIH. 50 Paine 's Common Sense. 88 Vindication of Paine. Ingersoll. 33 Brann; Smasher of Shams. 163 Sex Life in Greece and Rome. 214 Speeches of Lincoln. 276 Speeches and Letters of Geo. Washington. 144 Was Poe Immoral? Whitman. 223 Essay on Swinburne. 2 27 Keats. The Man and His Work. 150 Lost Civilizations. Finger. 170 Constantine and the Beginnings of Christi- anity. 201 Satan and the Saints. 67 Church History. H. M. Tichenor. 169 Voices From the Past. 266 Life of Shakespeare and Analysis of His Plays, 9t TEN CENT POCKET SERIES 123 Life of Madame D\i Barry. 139 Life of Dante. 69 Life of Mary, Queen of Scots. Dumas. 6 Life of Samuel John- son. Macaulay. 174 Trial of William Perm. Humor 291 Jumping* Frog" and Other Humorous Tales. Mark Twain. 18 Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow. Jerome. 166 English as She Is Spoke. Mark Twain. 231 Eight Humorous Sketches. Mark Twain. 205 Artemus Ward. His Book. 187 Whistler's Humor. 216 Wit of Heinrich Heine. Geo. Eliot. 20 Let's Laugh. Nasby, Literature 349 Apology for Idlers, etc. R. L. Stevenson. 858 Virginibus Puerisque. R. L. Stevenson. 109 Dante, and Other Waning Classics, Vol. 1. Mordell. 110 Dante, and Other Waning Classics. Vol. 2. Mordell. 355 Aucassin and Nico- lete. Lang. 278 Friendship and Other Essays. Thoreau. 195 Thoughts on Nature. Thoreau. 220 England in Shake- speare's Time. Finger, IU4 Lord Chesterfield's Letters. 63 A Defense of Poetry. Shelley. 97 Love Letters of King Henry VIII. 3 Eighteen Essays. Voltaire. 28 Toleration. Voltaire. 89 Love Letters of Men and Women of Genius. 186 How I Wrote "The Raven." Poe. 87 Love, an Essay. Mon- taigne. 48 Bacon's Essays. 60 Emerson's Essays. 84 Love Letters of a Portuguese Nun. 26 On Going to Church. G. B. Shaw. 135 Socialism for Mil- lionaires. G. B. Shaw. 61 Tolstoi's Essays. 176 Four Essays. Have- lock Ellis. 160 Lecture on Shake- speare. IngersolL 75 Choice of Books. Carlyle. 288 Essays on Chesterfield and Rabelais. Sainte- Beuve. 76 The Prince of Peace. W. J. Bryan 86 On Reading. Brandes. 95 Confessions of An Opium Eater. 213 Lecture on Lincoln. Ingersoll. 177 Subjection of Women. J. S. Mill. 17 On Walking. Thoreau. 70 Chas Lamb's Essays. 235 Essays. Gilbert K. Chesterton. TEN CENT POCKET SERIES 95 7 A Liberal Education. Thos. Huxley. 233 Thoughts on Litera- ture and Art. Goethe. 225 Condescension in For- eigners. Lowell. 221 Women, and Other Essays. Maeterlinck. 10 Shelley. Francis Thompson. 289 Pepys' Diary. 299 Prose Nature Notes. Whitman. 315 Pen, Pencil and Poison. Wilde. 313 The Decay of Lying. Oscar Wilde. 36 Soul of Man Under Socialism. Wilde. 293 Francois Villon; Stu- dent, Poet and House- breaker. Stevenson. Maxims and Epigrams 77 What Great Men Have Said About Women. 304 What Great Women Have Said About Men. 179 Gems From Emerson. 310 The V/isdom of Thackeray. 103 Wit and Wisdom of Charles Lamb. 56 Wisdom of Ingersoll. 106 Aphorisms. George Sand. 168 Epigrams. Oscar Wilde. 59 Epigrams of Wit and Wisdom. 35 Maxims. Rochefou- cauld. 154 Epigrams of Ibsen. 197 Witticisms and Re- flections. De Sevigne. 180 Epigrams of Geo. Bernard Shaw. 155 Maxims. Napoleon. 181 Epigrams. Thoreau. 228 Aphorisms. Huxley. 113 Proverbs of England. 348 Proverbs of Scotland. 114 Proverbs of France. 115 Proverbs of Japan. 116 Proverbs of China. 117 Proverbs of Italy. 118 Proverbs of Russia. 119 Proverbs of Ireland. 120 Proverbs of Spain. 121 Proverbs of Arabia. 380 Proverbs of Yugo- slavia. Philosophy, Religion 338 Guide to Emerson. 218 Essence of the Tal- mud. 11 Guide to Nietzsche. Hamblen. 159 A Guide to Plato. Durant. 322 The Buddhist Philos- ophy of Life. 347 A Guide to Stoicism. St. George Stock. 124 Theory of Reincarna- tion Explained. 157 Plato's Republic. 62 Schopenhauer's Essays. 94 Trial and Death of Socrates. 65 Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. 64 Rudolph Eucken; His Life and Philosophy. 4 Age of Reason. Thomas Paine. 55 Herbert Spencer; Hi3 Life and Works. 90 TEN CENT POCKET SERIES 44 Aesop's Fa Dies. 165 Discovery of the Fu- , turc. H. G. Wells. 96 Dialogues of Plato. 3 25 Essence of Buddhism. 103 Pceket Theology. Voltaire. 132 Foundations of Re- ligion. 138 Studies in Pessimism. Schopenhauer. 211 Idea of God in Nature. John Stuart Mill. 212 Life and Character. Goethe. 200 Ignorant Philosopher. Voltaire. 101 Thoughts of Pascal. 210 The Stoic Philosophy. Prof. G. Murray. 224 God; Known and Un- known. Butler. 19 Nr.tzsche; Who He W.is and What He Stood For. 204 Sin Worship and L?*er Beliefs. Tiehenor. 207 Olympian Gods. H. M. Tiehenor. 184 Primitive Beliefs. 153 Chinese Philosophy of Life. 80 What Life Means to Me. London. Poetry 301 Sailor Chanties and C wboy Songs. 346 Old English Ballads. 296 Lyric Love. Browning. 351 M- -nories of Lincoln. Whitman. . _. Today r, Poetry. Anthology. 335 Odes of Horace. Vol. I. 366 Odes of Horace. Vol. II. 152 The Kasidah. Sir Richard F. Burton. 283 Courtship of Miles Standish. Longfellow. 282 The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Coleridge. 317 L 'Allegro and Other Poems. Milton. 297 Poems. Robert South ey, 3 29 Dante's Inferno. Vol. 1. 330 Dante's Inferno. Vol. IL 306 A Shropshire Lad. Housman. 284 Poems of Robert Burns, 1 Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. 73 Walt Whitman's poems. 2 Wilde's Ballad of Read- ing Jail. 3 2 Poe's Poems. 164 Michael Angelo'a Sonnets. 71 Poems of Evolution. 146 Snow-Bound, Pied Piper. 9 Great English Poems. 79 £%och Arden. Tennyson. 68 Shakespeare's Sonnets'. 281 Lays of Ancient Rome* Macaulay. 173 Vision of Sir Launfal. Lowell. 222 The Vampire and Other Poems. Kipling. 237 Prose Poems. Baudelaire. - •>. 1 H sc I "£5 o o O 6 o >- UJ UJ Lis Di O c O 0_ (£ O ^ U UJ ^N O O. r\ -* CO z : ' : "": • ':■■"-■■■■ •■■•■:vy.^r:-'~'".~-' UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS-URBANA 973.7L63C4B67A C001 LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATE GIRARD 3 0112 031804807