I/I B RAR.Y 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVLRSITY 
 OF ILLINOIS 
 
 973.1L63 
 C4L63b 
 I860J 
 
 REMOTE STOftA6e
 
 Return this book on or before the 
 Latest Date stamped below. 
 
 University of Illinois Library 
 
 L161 H41
 
 , ITOSTER, & CO., 
 
 Publishers, Columbus, Ohio. 
 
 TO THE BOOK TRADE AND NEWS DEALERS. 
 
 Will liavo Ready Juno 
 
 LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES OF 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 AND 
 
 Including Congressional and other Speeches. 
 BY W. D. HOWELLS, ESQ. 
 
 One "Volume, 12nao., witli Steel Portraits. I*riee, One 33ollai. 
 
 From the Daily Press, Cincinnati. 
 
 " Follett, Foster & Company, Columbus, Ohio, will soon publish a Biography of Lincoln, -written by Wni. J). 
 Howells, who is favorably known by his poetical contributions to the ' Atlantic,' and his published poetry in the 
 'Poems of Two Friends,' and whose felicitous style enables us to say of his treatment of this subject, as Johnson 
 said when Goldsmith undertook to write a Natural History ' He will make it as entertaining as a Persian tale.* 
 
 *' The work will contain Lincoln's speeches and writings, except the debate with^Douglaa, which would be in- 
 complete without both sides. The taste of Mr. Howells will avoid any effort to distort Mr. Lincoln into the rough, 
 half-borse, half-alligator character, whose chief virtue consists in his having mauled mils, as it seems to be the 
 anxiety of -trading politicians to represent him ; but he will present him in his proper character, as a specimen cf 
 true American manhood ; one who has worked out an honorable position by the force of his own intellect and 
 energy ; who haw fought the battle of life on his own muscle ; and with no aid from the accidents of fortune, ha* 
 iitted himself to occupy the highest position in the nation. This we take to be the character of the man." 
 
 Also, a Campaign Edition, without the Speeches. Paper Cover. Price, 25 Cents. 
 
 (^ The Trade and Agents will be supplied on liberal terms. Send in your or- 
 ders at once, as our advance orders are heavy. 
 
 FOLLETT, FOSTER & COMPANY.
 
 THE OltE^T EXPOSE 
 
 OF THE 
 
 OF OUR GOVERNMENT AGAINST THE SLAVES! 
 
 TIKE 
 
 EXILES OF FLOEIDA. 
 
 BY JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS, 
 
 For twenty years a Member of Congress from Ohio. 
 
 Illustrated. >vitU Six JTine 
 
 One Volume, 12mo. 338 Pages. Price, $1. 
 
 OF THIS BOOK EIGHT THOUSAND COPIES HAVE BEEN PRINTED. 
 
 This work portrays with eminent ability the crimes committed by our Government 
 against the Maroons who fled from South Carolina and other Slave States, seeking 
 protection under Spanish laws. It shows the bad faith exercised towards the Indians 
 of Florida, and presents a true view of the long-fought Florida "War. 
 
 "The distinguished author of this volume has selected a theme of peculiar interest, both on account of its nov- 
 elty and its bearing on several questions intimately related to the cause of humanity. 
 
 " No one who wishes to comprehend the policy of the Government in the inception and conduct of the Seminole 
 wars, should fail to become familiar with its contents. 
 
 " Mr. Giddings is entitled to the gratitude of every friend of freedom, for his faithful and startling revelations , 
 while every reader must admire the courage and zeal with which he has brought unwelcome facts from their hiding- 
 places to the light of day." New fork Tribune. 
 
 "A cruel story this, Mr. Giddings tells us. Too cruel, but too true. It is full of pathetic and tragic interest, 
 and melts and stirs the heart at* once with pity for the sufferers, and with anger that sins not, at their mean and 
 ruthless oppressors. Every American citizen should read it, for it is an indictment which recites crimes which have 
 been committed in his name, perpetrated by troops and officials in his service, and all done at his expense. 
 
 l( Mr. Giddings has done his task admirably well. It is worthy to be the crowning work of his long life of public 
 service. His style is of that best kind which is never remarked upon, but serves as a clear medium through which 
 the events he portrays are seen without distortion or exaggeration. He has done his country one more service, in 
 entire consistency with those that have filled up the whole course ef his honorable and beneficent life." Atlantic 
 Monthly. 
 
 "The style is simple and plain, the sincerity of the writer most obvious, and the facts of great importance in 
 many points of view." Boston Journal. 
 
 ' ' The work of Mr. Giddings is written in a style at once simple and elegant. Its statements bear the appearance 
 of authenticity, and are in most cases sustained by extracts from, and reference to, official authority. 
 
 " That it will be popular there is little doubt, and that its influence will be beneficial there is reason to believe." 
 Cincinnati Commercial. 
 
 " The history is full of romantic incidents, of heroic daring and patient suffering, on the one hand ; and bloody 
 carnage, cruel duplicity and lengthened persecution, upon the other." Detroit Tribune. 
 
 FOLLETT, FOSTER & CO., Publishers, Columbus. 

 
 THE THREE CONDITIONS OF THE SLATE: 
 
 In SLA. VERY, 
 
 In the FREE STA.TES, 
 
 And 
 
 AS CONTRASTED IN THE STORY OP 
 
 ADELA, THE OCTOROON. 
 
 BY H. L. HOSMER, ESQ. 
 
 One Volume, 12mo. 400 Pages. Price, $1. 
 
 " It is a finely wrought story, interspersed with beautiful passages ? each chapter weaving its own fascinating 
 spell around the inind, until the last paragraph is read." Banner of Light. 
 
 " It is a temperate and truthful view of slave and ' free negro ' life in the South." Cleveland Herald. 
 " It is a narrative of absorbing interest." Detroit Advertiser. 
 
 " Depends for merit and power to interest, upon the character of its pictures, and its delineation of character " 
 Chicago Times. 
 
 ' ' In this volume, the lawyer author has laid aside his brief, to indulge his taste for literature and romance ; and 
 certainly few of his profession have done it so gracefully or so successfully. He has made a very beautiful and in- 
 tensely interesting story." Boston Atlas. 
 
 " ' Adela, The Octoroon,' creates quite a stir here, as it is in gome respects a political novel, and Douglas, Sew 
 ard and other prominent politicians figure in it. It ia a capital thing." Washington Correspondent Springfield 
 (Mass.) Republican. 
 
 ' The novel is well written and interesting." Boston Transcript. 
 
 Great Inducements offered Agents to sell the Above. 
 (& PRICE, ONLY ONE DOLLAR. 
 
 15,000 Copies Sold 
 
 OF 
 
 LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS DEBATES. 
 
 Every Body Reads Them ! 
 
 FOLLETT, FOSTER & CO., Publishers, Columbus, 

 
 LETTER FROM MR. LINCOLN, 
 
 In response to a request of the Republican State Central Commit- 
 tee, the Board of Equalization, and Republican State Officers of Ohio, 
 requesting for publication copies of the Speeches made in the Illinois 
 Campaign of 1858, Mr. Lincoln made the following reply : 
 
 SPRINGFIELD, ILLS., Dec. 19, 1859. 
 Messrs. GEO. M. PARSONS, and others, Central Executive Committee, etc.: 
 
 Gentlemen Your letter of the 7th inst., accompanied by a similar one from the 
 Governor elect, the Republican State officers, and the Republican members of the 
 State Board of Equalization of Ohio, both requesting of me, for publication in per- 
 manent form, copies of the political debates between Senator Douglas and myself last 
 year, has been received. With my grateful acknowledgments to both you and them 
 for the very flattering terms in which the request is communicated, I transmit you the 
 copies. The copies I send you are as reported and printed, by the respective friends 
 of Senator Douglas and myself, at the time that is, his by his friends, and mine by 
 mine. It would be an unwarrantable liberty for us to change a word or a letter in 
 his, and the changes I have made in mine, you perceive, are verbal only, and very 
 few in number. I wish the reprint to be precisely as the copies I send, without any 
 comment whatever. Yours, very truly, 
 
 A. LINCOLN,
 
 POLITICAL DEBATES 
 
 BETWEEN 
 
 HON. ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 AND 
 
 HON. STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS, 
 
 In the Celebrated Campaign of 1858, in Illinois ; 
 
 INCLUDING THE PRECEDING SPEECHES OF EACH, AT CHI- 
 
 CAGO, SPRINGFIELD, ETC.; ALSO, THE TWO GREAT 
 
 SPEECHES OF MR. LINCOLN IN OHIO, IN 1859, 
 
 CAREFULLY PREPARED BY THE REPORTERS OP EACH PARTY, AND PUBLISHED 
 AT THE TIMES OF THEIR DELIVERY. 
 
 COLUMBUS: 
 
 FOLLETT, FOSTER AND COMPANY. 
 I860.
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1860, 
 
 Br FOLLETT, FOSTER & CO., 
 In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of Ohio. 
 
 FOLLETT, FOSTER & CO.. 
 
 Printers, Stereotypers, Binders 
 and Publishers. 
 
 COLl'Sir.US, OHIO.
 
 . 7L6>3 
 
 TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 FAQS 
 
 Speech of Mr. Lincoln, at Springfield, June 17. 1858 I 
 
 " " " at Chicago, July 10, 1858 15 
 
 " " at Springfield, July 17, 1858 54 
 
 ' " " at Columbus. Ohio, September, 1859 240 
 
 " at Cincinnati, Ohio. September, 1859 255 
 
 Speech of Mr. Douglas, at Chicago, July 9, 1858 5 
 
 " " at Bloomington, July 16, 1858 24 
 
 " " " at Springfield, July 17, 1858 40 
 
 Correspondence between Messrs. Lincoln and Douglas, preliminary to the Debates 64 
 
 First Joint Debate, at Ottawa, August 21, 1858 65 
 
 Mr. Douglas's Opening Speech 65 
 
 Mr. Lincoln's Reply 73 
 
 Mr. Douglas's Rejoinder 83 
 
 Second Joint Debate, at Freeport, August 27, 1858 ... , 87 
 
 Mr. Lincoln's Opening Speech 87 
 
 Mr. Douglas's Reply 93 
 
 Mr. Lincoln's Rejoinder 106 
 
 Third Joint Debate, at Jonesboro, Sept. 15, 1858 110 
 
 Mr. Douglas's Speech 110 
 
 Mr. Lincoln's Reply 119 
 
 Mr. Douglas's Rejoinder 130 
 
 Fourth Joint Debate, at Charleston, Sept. 18, 1858 '. 136 
 
 Mr. Lincoln's Speech * 136 
 
 Mr. Douglas's Reply 144 
 
 UMr. Lincoln's Rejoinder 156 
 
 Extract from Mr. Trumbull's Speech at Alton 161 
 
 Extract from Douglas's Speech at Jacksonville 165 
 
 FHlh Joint Debate, at Galcsburgh, Oct. 7, 1858 170 
 
 Mr. Douglas's Speech 170 
 
 Mr. Lincoln's Reply 178 
 
 Mr. Douglas's Rejoinder 188 
 
 *^ 
 
 Sixth Joint Debate, at Quincy, Oct. 13, 1858 192 
 
 - Mr. Lincoln's Speech 192 
 
 Mr. Douglas's Reply 199 
 
 Mr. Lincoln's Rejoinder 210 
 
 Seventh and Last Joint Debate, at Alton, Oct. 15, 1858 215 
 
 Mr. Douglas's Speech 215 
 
 Mr. Lincoln's Reply 223 
 
 Mr. Douglas's Rejoinder 235 
 
 1 022905
 
 SPEECH OF HON. ABRAHAM LINCOLN, 
 
 At Springfield, June 17, 1858. 
 
 [The following speech was delivered at Springfield, 111., at the close of the Re- 
 publican State Convention held at that time and place, and by which Convention 
 Mr. Lincoln had been named as their candidate for U. S. Senator. Mr. Douglas 
 was not present.] 
 
 MR. PRESIDENT, AND GENTLEMEN OF THE CONVENTION : If we could first 
 know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could better judge what to do, 
 and how to do it. We are now far into the fifth year, since a policy was initiated 
 with the avowed object, and confident promise, of putting an end to slavery agita- 
 tion. Under the operation of that policy, that agitation has not only not ceased, but 
 has constantly augmented. In my opinion, it will not cease, until a crisis shall have 
 been reached and passed. "A house divided against itself cannot stand." I be- 
 lieve this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do 
 not expect the Union to be dissolved I do not expect the house to fall but I do 
 expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other. 
 Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it 
 where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate ex- 
 tinction ; or its advocates will push it forward, till it shall become alike lawful in all 
 the States, old as well as new North as well as South. 
 
 Have we no tendency to the latter condition ? 
 
 Let any one who doubts, carefully contemplate that now almost complete legal 
 combination piece of machinery, so to speak compounded of the Nebraska doc- 
 trine, and the Dred Scott decision. Let him consider not only what work the ma- 
 chinery is adapted to do, and how well adapted ; but also, let him study the history 
 of its construction, and trace, if he can, or rather fail, if he can, to trace the evi- 
 dences of design, and concert of action, among its chief architects, from the be- 
 ginning. 
 
 The new year of 1854 found slavery excluded from more than half the States by 
 State Constitutions, and from most of the national territory by Congressional pro- 
 hibition. Four days later, commenced the struggle which ended in repealing that 
 Congressional prohibition. This opened all the national territory to slavery, and 
 was the first point gained. 
 
 But. so far, Congress only had acted ; and an indorsement by the people, real or 
 apparent, was indispensable, to save the point already gained, and give chance for 
 more. 
 
 This necessity had not been overlooked ; but had been provided for, ns well a3 
 might be, in the notable argument of "squatter sovereignty," otherwise called "sa-
 
 creel right of self-government," which latter phrase, though expressive of the only 
 rightful basis of any government, was so perverted in this attempted use of it as to 
 amount to just this : That if any one man choose to enslave another, no third 
 man shall be allowed to object. That argument was incorporated into the Nebraska 
 bill itself, in the language which follows : " It being the true intent and meaning 01 
 this act not to legislate slavery into any Territory or State, nor to exclude it there- 
 from; but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their do- 
 mestic institutions in their own way, subject only to the Constitution of the United 
 States." Then opened the roar of loose declamation in favor of " Squatter Sove- 
 reignty," and "sacred right of self-government." "But," said opposition members, 
 " let us amend the bill so as to expressly declare that the people of the Territory 
 may exclude slavery." " Not we," said the friends of the measure ; and down they 
 voted the amendment. 
 
 While the Nebraska bill was passing through Congress, a law case involving the 
 question of a negro's freedom, by reason of his owner having voluntarily taken him 
 first into a free State and then into a Territory covered by the Congressional prohi- 
 bition, and held him as a slave for a long time in each, was passing through the U. 
 S. Circuit Court for the District of Missouri ; and both Nebraska bill and law suit 
 were brought to a decision in the same month of May, 1854. The negro's name 
 was " Dred Scott," which name now designates the decision finally made in the case. 
 Before the then next Presidential election, the law case came to, and was argued in, 
 the Supreme Court of the United States ; but the decision of it was deferred until 
 after the election. Still, before the election, Senator Trumbull, on the floor of the 
 Senate, requested the leading advocate of the Nebraska bill to state his opinion 
 whether the people of a Territory can constitutionally exclude slavery from their 
 limits ; and the latter answers : " That is a question for the Supreme Court." 
 
 The election came. Mr. Buchanan was elected, and the indorsement, such as it 
 was, secured. That was the second point gained. The indorsement, however, fell 
 short of a clear popular majority by nearly four hundred thousand votes, and so, 
 perhaps, was not overwhelmingly reliable and satisfactory. The outgoing President, 
 in his last annual message, as impressively as possible echoed back upon the people 
 the weight and authority of the indorsement. The Supreme Court met again ; did 
 not announce their decision, but ordered a re-argument. The Presidential inaugu- 
 ration came, and still no decision of the court ; but the incoming President in his 
 inaugural address, fervently exhorted the people to abide by the forthcoming decision, 
 whatever it might be. Then, in a few days, came the decision. 
 
 The reputed author of the Nebraska bill finds an early occasion to make a 
 speech at this capital indorsing the Dred Scott decision, and vehemently denounc- 
 ing all opposition to it. The new President, too, seizes the early occasion of the 
 Silliman letter to indorse and strongly construe that decision, and to express his 
 astonishment that any different view had ever been entertained ! 
 
 At length a squabble springs up between the President and the author of the 
 Nebraska bill, on the mere question of fact, whether the Lecompton Constitution 
 was or was not, in any just sense, made by the people of Kansas ; and in that quar- 
 rel the latter declares that all he wants is a fair vote for the people, and that 
 he (-ares not whether slavery be voted down or voted up. I do not understand his 
 declaration that he cares not whether slavery be voted down or voted up, to be in- 
 tended by him other than as an apt definition of the policy he would impress 
 upon the public mind the principle for which he declares he has suffered 
 
 " squatter sovereignty " squatted out of existence, tumbled down like temporary 
 scaffolding like the mould at the foundry served through one blast and fell back 
 into loose sand helped to carry an election, and then was kicked to the winds. 
 His late joint struggle with the Republicans, against the Lecompton Constitution,
 
 involves nothing of the original Nebraska doctrine. That struggle was made on a 
 point the right of a people to make their own constitution upon which he 
 and the: Republicans have never differed. 
 
 The several points of the Dred Scott decision, in connection with Senator Douglas's 
 '* cure not " policy, constitute the piece of machinery, in its present state of advance- 
 ment. This was the third point gained. The working points of that machinery are : 
 
 First, That no negro slave, imported as such from Africa, and no descendant of 
 such slave? can ever be a citizen of any State, in the sense of that term as used in 
 the Constitution of the United States. This point is made in order to deprive the 
 negro, in every possible event, of the benefit of that provision of the United States 
 Constitution, which declares that "The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all 
 privileges an/1 immunities of citizens in the several States." 
 
 Secondly, That " subject to the Constitution of the United States," neither Con- 
 gress nor a Territorial Legislature can exclude slavery from any United States terri- 
 tory. This point is made in order that individual men may fill up the Territories 
 with slaves, without danger of losing them as property, and thus to enhance the 
 chances of permanency to the institution through all the future. 
 
 Thirdly, That whether the holding a negro in actual slavery in a free State, makes 
 him free, as against the holder, the United States courts will not decide, but will leave 
 to be decided by the courts of any slave State the negro may be forced into by the 
 master. This point is made, not to be pressed immediately ; but, if acquiesced in 
 for awhile, and apparently indorsed by the people at an election, then to sustain the 
 logical conclusion that what Dred Scott's master might lawfully do with Dred Scott, 
 in the free State of Illinois, every other master may lawfully do with any other one, 
 or one thousand slaves, in Illinois, or in any other free State. 
 
 Auxiliary to all this, and working hand in hand with it, the Nebraska doctrine, or 
 what is left of it, is to educate and mould public opinion, at least Northern public 
 opinion, not to care whether slavery is voted down or voted up. This shows exactly 
 where we now are ; and partially, also, whither we are tending. 
 
 It will throw additional light on the latter, to go back, and run the mind over the 
 string of historical facts already stated. Several things will now appear less dark and 
 mysterious than they did when thuy were transpiring. The people were to be left " per- 
 fectly free," " subject only to the Constitution." What the Constitution had to do 
 with it, outsiders could not then see. Plainly enough now, it was an exactly fitted 
 niche, for the Dred Scott decision to afterward come in, and declare the perfect free- 
 dom of the people to be just no freedom at all. Why was the amendment, expressly 
 declaring the right of the people, voted down ? Plainly enough now : the adoption 
 of it would have spoiled the niche for the Dred Scott decision. Why was the court 
 decision held up ? Why even a Senator's individual opinion withheld, till after the 
 Presidential election ? Plainly enough now : the speaking out then would have dam- 
 aged the perfectly free argument upon which the election was to be carried. Why 
 the outgoing President's felicitation on the indorsement ? Why the delay of a re* 
 argument? Why the incoming President's advance exhortation in favor of the de- 
 cision ? These things look like the cautious patting and petting of a spirited horse 
 preparatory to mounting him, when it is dreaded that he may give the rider a fall. 
 And why the hasty after-indorsement of the decision by the President and others? 
 
 We cannot absolutely know that all these exact adaptations are the result of pre- 
 concert. But when we see a lot of framed timbers, different portions of which we 
 know have been gotten out at different times and places and by different workmen 
 Stephen, Franklin, Roger and James, for instance and when we see these timbers 
 joined together, and see they exactly make the frame of a house or a mill, all the 
 tenons and mortices exactly fitting, and all the lengths and proportions of the differ- 
 ent pieces exactly adapted to their respective placed, and not a piece too many or too 
 few not omitting even scaffolding or, if a single piece be lacking, we see the place 
 in the frame exactly fitted and propjuvd yet to bring Mich piece in in such a au?e, 
 we find it impossible not to believe thai Stephen and Franklin and Roger and James
 
 4 
 
 all understood one another from the beginning, and all worked upon a common plan 
 or draft drawn up before the first blow was struck. 
 
 It should not be overlooked that, by the Nebraska bill, the people of a State as 
 well as Territory, were to be left "perfectly free," "subject only to the Constitution." 
 Why mention a State ? They were legislating for Territories, and not for or about 
 States. Certainly the people of a State are and ought to be subject to the Constitu- 
 tion of the United States ; but why is mention of this lugged into this merely Terri- 
 torial law ? Why are the people of a Territory and the people of a State therein 
 lumped together, and their relation to the Constitution therein treated as being pro 
 cisely the same ? While the opinion of the court, by Chief Justice Taney. in the 
 Dred Scott case, and the separate opinions of all the concurring Judges, expressly 
 declare that the Constitution of the United States neither permits Congress nor a 
 Territorial Legislature to exclude slavery from any United States Territory, they all 
 omit to declare whether or not the same Constitution permits a State, or the people 
 of a State, to exclude it. Possibly, this is a mere omission ; but who can be quite 
 sure, if Mr Lean or Curtis had sought to get into the opinion a declaration of unlim- 
 ited power in the people of a State to exclude slavery from their limits, just as Chase 
 and Mace sought to get such declaration, in behalf of the people of a Territory, into 
 the Nebraska bill ; I ask, who can be quite sure that it would not have been voted 
 down in the one case as it had been in the other ? The nearest approach to the point 
 of declaring the power of a State over slavery, is made by Judge Nelson. He ap- 
 proaches it more than once, using the precise idea, and almost the language, too, of 
 the Nebraska act. On one occasion, his exact language is, "except in cases where 
 the power is restrained by the Constitution of the United States, the law of the 
 State is supreme over the subject of slavery within its jurisdiction." In what cases 
 the power of the States is so restrained by the United States Constitution, is left an 
 open question, precisely as the same question, as to the restraint on the power of the 
 Territories, was left open in the Nebraska act. Put this and that together, and we 
 have another nice little niche, which we may, ere long, see filled with another Su- 
 preme Court decision, declaring that the Constitution of the United States does not 
 permit a State to exclude slavery from its limits. And this may especially be ex- 
 pected if the doctrine of " care not whether slavery be voted down or voted up," 
 shall gain upon the public mind sufficiently to give promise that such a decision can 
 be maintained when made. 
 
 Such a decision is all that slavery now lacks of being alike lawful in all the States. 
 Welcome, or unwelcome, such decision is probably coming, and will soon be upon us, 
 unless the power of the present political 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 the power of that 
 dynasty, is the work now before all those who would prevent 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 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 the dynasty ; and that he has regularly voted with us on a single 
 point, upon which he and we have never differed. They remind us that he is a 
 great man, and that the largest of us are very small ones. Let this be granted. 
 But " a living dog is better than a dead lion." Judge Douglas, if not a dead lion, 
 for this work, is at least a caged and toothless one. How can he oppose the advances 
 of slavery? He don't care anything about it. His avowed mission is impressing 
 the " public heart " to care nothing about it. A leading Douglas democratic news- 
 paper thinks Douglas's superior talent will be needed to resist the revival of the Afri- 
 can slave trade. Does Douglas believe an effort to revive that trade is approaching? 
 He has not said so. Does he really think so? But if it is, how can he resist it? 
 For years he has labored to prove it a sacred right of white men to take negro slaves
 
 into the new Territories. Can lie possibly show that it is less a sacred right to buy 
 them where they can be bought cheapest? And unquestionably they can be bought 
 cheaper in Africa than in Virginia. He has done all in his power to reduce the 
 whole question of slavery to one of a mere right of property ; and as such, how can 
 he oppose the foreign slave trade how can he refuse that trade in that " property * 
 shall be " perfectly free " unless he does it as a protection to the home production? 
 And as the home producers will probably not ask the protection, he will be wholly 
 without a ground of opposition. 
 
 Senator Douglas holds, we know, that a man may rightfully be wiser to-day than 
 he was yesterday that he may rightfully change when he finds himself wrong. 
 But can we, for that reason, run ahead, and infer that he will make any particular 
 change, of which he, himself, has given no intimation ? Can we safely base our ac- 
 tion upon any such vague inference ? Now, as ever, I wish not to misrepresent 
 Judge Douglas's position, question his motives, or do aught that can be personally 
 offensive to him. Whenever, if ever, he and we can come together on principle so 
 that our cause may have assistance from his great 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 intrusted to, and conducted by, its own undoubted friends 
 those whose hands are free, whose hearts are in the work who do care for the result* 
 Two years ago the Republicans of the nation mustered over thirteen hundred thou- 
 sand strong. We did this under the single impulse of resistance to a common danger, 
 with every external circumstance against us. Of strange, discordant, and even hos- 
 tile 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, 
 dissevered and belligerent ? The result is not doubtful. We shall not fail if we 
 stand firm, we shall not fail. Wise counsels may accelerate, or mistakes delay it* 
 but, sooner or later, the victory is sure to come. 
 
 * SPEECH OF SENATOR DOUGLAS, 
 
 On the occasion of his Public Reception at Chicago, Friday evening, July Qth, 1858* 
 ** (Mr. Lincoln was present.) 
 
 MR. DOUGLAS said : 
 
 MR. CHAIRMAN AND FELLOW-CITIZENS I can find no language which can ade- 
 quately express my profound gratitude for the magnificent welcome which you have 
 extended to me on this occasion. This vast sea of human faces indicates how deep 
 an interest is felt by our people in the great questions which agitate the public 
 mind, and which underlie the foundations of our free institutions. A reception like 
 this, so great in numbers that no human voice can be heard to its countless thousands 
 so enthusiastic that no one individual can be the object of such enthusiasm 
 clearly shows that there is some great principle which sinks deep in the heart of the 
 masses, and involves the rights and the liberties of a whole people, that has brought 
 you together with a unanimity and a cordiality never before excelled, if, indeed, 
 equaled on any occasion. I have not the vanity to believe that it is any personal 
 compliment to me. 
 
 It is an expression of your devotion to that great principle of self-government, to
 
 which my life for many years past has been, and in the future will be, devoted. If 
 there is any one principle dearer and more sacred than all others in free governments, 
 it is that which asserts the exclusive right of a free people to form and adopt their 
 own fundamental law, and to manage and regulate their own internal affairs and do- 
 mestic institutions. 
 
 When I found an effort being made during the recent session of Congress to force 
 a Constitution upon the people of Kansas against their will, and to force that State 
 into the Union with a Constitution which her people had rejected by more than 10,000, 
 I felt bound us a man of honor and a representative of Illinois, bound by every con- 
 sideration of duty, of fidelity, and of patriotism, to resist to the utmost of my power 
 the consummation of that fraud. With others I did resist it, and resisted it success- 
 fully until the attempt was abandoned. We forced them to refer that Constitution 
 back to the people of Kansas, to be accepted or rejected as they shall decide at an 
 election, which is fixed for the first Monday in August next. It is true that the modi* 
 of reference, and the form of the submission, was not such as I could sanction with 
 my vote, for the reason that it discriminated between Free States and Slave States ; 
 providing that if Kansas consented to come in under the Lecompton Constitution it 
 should be received with a population of 35,000 ; but that if she demanded another 
 Constitution, more consistent with the sentiments of her people and their feelings, 
 that it should not be received into the Union until she has 93,420 inhabitants. I did 
 not consider that mode of submission fair, for the reason that any election is a mock- 
 ery which is not free that any election is a fraud upon the rights of the people which 
 holds out inducements for affirmative votes, and threatens penalties for negative votes. 
 But whilst I was not satisfied with the mode of submission, whilst I resisted it to the 
 last, demanding a fair, a just, a free mode of submission, still, when the law passed 
 placing it within the power of the people of Kansas at that election to reject the Le- 
 compton Constitution, and then make another in harmony with their principles and 
 their opinions, I did not believe that either the penalties on the one hand, or the in- 
 ducements on the other, would force that people to accept a Constitution to which 
 they are irreconcilably opposed. All I can say is, that if their votes can be control- 
 led by such considerations, all the sympathy which has been expended upon them has 
 been misplaced, and all the efforts that have been made in defense of their right to 
 self-government have been made in an unworthy cause. 
 
 Hence, my friends, I regard the Lecompton battle as having been fought and the 
 victory won, because the arrogant demand for the admission of Kansas under the Le- 
 compton Constitution unconditionally, whether her people wanted it or not, has been 
 abandoned, and the principle which recognizes the right of the people to decide for 
 themselves has been submitted in its place. 
 
 Fellow-citizens : While I devoted my best energies all my energies, mental and 
 physical to the vindication of the great principle, and whilst the result has been 
 such as will enable the people of Kansas to come into the Union, with such a Consti- 
 tution as they desire, yet the credit of this great moral victory is to be divided among 
 a large number of men of various and different political creeds. I was rejoiced when 
 I found in this great contest the Republican party coming up manfully and sustaining 
 the principle that the people of each Territory, when coming into the Union, have; the 
 right to decide for themselves whether slavery shall or shall not exist within their 
 limits. I have seen the time when that principle was controverted. I have seen the 
 time when all parties did not recognize the right of a people to have slavery or free- 
 dom, to tolerate or prohibit slavery, as they deemed best; but claimed that power for 
 the Congress of the United States, regardless of the wishes of the people to be affec- 
 ted by it, and when I found upon the Crittenden-Montgomery bill the Republicans 
 and Americans of the North, and I may say, too, some glorious Americans and old 
 line Whigs from the South, like Crittenden and his patriotic associates, joined with 
 a port ion of the Democracy to carry out and vindicate the right of the people to de- 
 title whether slavery should or should not exist within the limits of Kansas, I was
 
 rejoiced within my secret soul, for I saw an indication that the American people, 
 when they come to understand the principle, would give it their cordial support. 
 
 The Crittenden-Montgomery bill was as fair and as perfect an exposition of the doc- 
 trine of popular sovereignty as could be carried out by any bill that man ever devised. 
 It proposed to refer the Lecompton Constitution back to the people of Kansas, and 
 give them the right to accept or reject it as they pleased, at a fair election, held in 
 pursuance of law, and in the event of their rejecting it and forming another in its 
 stead, to permit them to come into the Union on an equal footing with the original 
 States. It was fair and just in all of its provisions! I gave it my cordial support, 
 and was rejoiced when I found that it passed the House of Representatives, and at 
 one time, I entertained high hope that it would pass the Senate. 
 
 I regard the great principle of popular sovereignty, as having been vindicated and 
 made triumphant in this land, as a permanent rule of public policy in the organiza- 
 tion of Territories and the admission of new States. Illinois took her position upon 
 this principle many years ago. You all recollect that in 1850, after the passage of 
 the Compromise measures of that year, when I returned to my home, there was great 
 dissatisfaction expressed at my course in supporting those measures. I appeared be- 
 fore the people of Chicago at a mass meeting, and vindicated each and every one of 
 those measures ; and by reference to my speech on that occasion, which was printed 
 and circulated broad-cast throughout the State at the time, you will find that I then 
 and there said that those measures were all founded upon the great principle that ev- 
 ery people ought to possess the right to form and regulate their own domestic insti- 
 tutions in their own way, and that that right being possessed by the people of the 
 States, I saw no reason why the same principle should not be extended to all of the 
 Territories of the United States. A general election was held in this State a few 
 months afterward, for members of the Legislature, pending which all these questions 
 were thoroughly canvassed and discusssed, and the nominees of the different parties 
 instructed in regard to the wishes of their constituents upon them. When that elec- 
 tion was over, and the Legislature assembled, they proceeded to consider the merits 
 of those Compromise measures and the principles upon which they were predicated. 
 And what was the result ot their action ? They passed resolutions, first repealing 
 the Wilmot proviso instructions, and in lieu thereof adopted another resolution, in 
 which they declared the great principle which asserts the right of the people to make 
 their own form of government and establish their own institutions. That resolution 
 is as follows : 
 
 Resolved, That our liberty and independence are based upon the right of the people to form for 
 themselves such a government as they may choose ; that this great principle, the birthright of 
 freemen, the gift of Heaven, secured to us by the blood of our ancestors, ought to be secured to 
 future generations, and no limitation ought to be applied to this power in the organization of any 
 Territory of the United States, of either Territorial Government or State Constitution, provided the 
 Government so established shall be .Republican, and in conformity with the Constitution of the 
 Unikd States. 
 
 That resolution, declaring the great principle of self-government as applicable to 
 the Territories and new States, passed the House of Representatives of this State 
 by a vote of sixty-one in the affirmative, to only four in the negative. Thus you 
 tind that an expression of public opinion, enlightened, educated, intelligent public 
 opinion on this question by the representatives of Illinois, in 1851, approaches near- 
 er to unanimity than has ever been obtained on any controverted question. That 
 resolution was entered on the journal of the Legislature of the State of Illinois, and 
 it has remained there from that day to this, a standing instruction to her Senators 
 and a request to her Representatives in Congress, to carry out that principle in all 
 future cases. Illinois, therefore, stands pre-eminent as the State which stepped for- 
 ward early and established a platform applicable to this slavery question, concurred in 
 alike by Whigs and Democrats, in which it was declared to be the wish of our people 
 that thereafter the people of the Territories should be left perfectly free to form and
 
 8 
 
 regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, and that no limitation should b 
 placed upon that right in any form. 
 
 Hence what was my duty, in 1854, when it became necessary to bring forward 
 a bill for the organization of the Territories of Kansas and Nebraska? Was it not 
 my duty, in obedience to the Illinois platform, to your standing instructions to your 
 Senators, adopted with almost entire unanimity, to incorporate in that bill the great 
 principle of self-government, declaring that it was "the true intent and meaning of 
 the act not to legislate slavery into any State or Territory, or to exclude it therefrom, 
 but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic in- 
 stitutions in their own way, subject only to the Constitution of the United States ? H 
 I did incorporate that principle in the Kansas-Nebraska bill, and perhaps I did as 
 much as any living man in the enactment of that bill, thus establishing the doctrine 
 in the public policy of the country. I then defended that principle against assaults 
 from one section of the Union. During this last winter it became my duty to vindi- 
 cate it against assaults from the other section of the Union. I vindicated it boldly 
 and fearlessly, as the people of Chicago can bear witness, when it was assailed by 
 Freesoilers; and during this winter I vindicated and defended it as boldly and fear- 
 lessly when it was attempted to be violated by the almost unite 1 South. I pledged 
 myself to you on every stump in Illinois in 1854, I pledged myself to the people of 
 other States, North and South wherever I spoke and in the United States Senate 
 and elsewhere, in every form in which I could reach the public mind or the public 
 ear, I gave the pledge that I, so far as the power should be in my hands, would vin- 
 dicate the principle of the right of the people to form their own institutions, to es- 
 tablish Free States or Slave States as they chose, and that that principle should never 
 be violated cither by fraud, by violence, by circumvention, or by any other means, if 
 it was in my power to prevent it. I now submit to you, my fellow-citizens, wheth- 
 er I have not redeemed that pledge in good faith ! Yes, my friends, I have re- 
 deemed it in good faith, and it is a matter of heart-felt gratification to me to s^e these 
 assembled thousands here to-night bearing their testimony to the fidelity with which 
 I have advocated that principle and redeemed my pledges in connection with it 
 
 I will be entirely frank with you. My object was to secure the right of the peo- 
 ple of each State and of each Territory, North or South, to decide the question for 
 themselves, to have slavery or not, just as they chose ; and my opposition to the Le- 
 compton Constitution was not predicated upon the ground that it was a pro-slavery 
 Constitution, nor would my action have been different had it been a Freesoil Consti- 
 tion. My speech against the Lecompton fraud was made on the 9th of December, 
 while the vote on the slavery clause in that Constitution was not taken until the 21st 
 of the same month, nearly two weeks after. I made my speech against the Le- 
 compton monstrosity solely on the ground that it was a violation of the fundamental 
 principles of free government ; on the ground that it was not the act and deed of the 
 people of Kansas ; that it did not embody their will ; that they were averse to it ; 
 and hence I denied the right of Congress to force it upon them, either as a free State 
 or a slave State. I deny the right of Congress to force a slaveholding State upon 
 an unwilling people. I deny their right to force a free State upon an unwilling peo- 
 ple. I deny their right to force a good thing upon a people who are unwilling to 
 receive it. The great principle is the right of every community to judge and decide 
 for itself, whether a thing is right or wrong, whether it would be good or evil 
 for them to adopt it ; and the right of free action, the right of free thought, the 
 right of free judgment upon the question is dearer to every true American than any 
 other under a free government. My objection to the Lecompton contrivance was, that 
 it undertook to put a Constitution on the people of Kansas against their will, in oppo- 
 sition to their wishes, and thus violated the great principle upon which all our insti- 
 tutions rest. It is no answer to this argument to say that slavery is an evil, and 
 hence should not be tolerated. You must allow the people to decide for themselves 
 whether it is a good or an evil. You allow them to decide for themselves 
 whether they desire a Maine liquor law or not; you allow them to decide for them-
 
 selves what kind of common schools they will have ; what system of banking they 
 will adopt, or whether they will adopt any at all ; you allow them to decide for them- 
 selves the relations between husband and wife, parent and child, guardian and ward ; 
 in fact, you allow them to decide for themselves all other questions, and why not upon 
 this question ? Whenever you put a limitation upon the right of any people to de- 
 cide what laws they want, you have destroyed the fundamental principle cf self-gov- 
 ernment. 
 
 In connection with this subject, perhaps, it will not be improper for me on this oc- 
 casion to allude to the position of those who have chosen to arraign my conduct on 
 tins same subject. I have observed from the public prints, that but a few days ago 
 the Republican party of the State of Illinois assembled in Convention at Springfield, 
 and not only laid down their platform, but nominated a candidate for the United 
 States Senate, as my successor. I take great pleasure in saying that I have known, 
 personally and intimately, for about a quarter of a century, the worthy gentleman 
 who has been nominated for my place, and I will say that I regard him as a kind, 
 amiable, and intelligent gentleman, a good citizen and an honorable opponent ; and 
 whatever issue I may have with him will be of principle, and not involving personal- 
 ities. Mr. Lincoln made a speech before that Republican Convention which unan- 
 imously nominated him for the Senate a speech evidently well prepared and care- 
 fully written in which he states the basis upon which he proposes to carry on the 
 campaign during this summer. In it he lays down two distinct propositions which I 
 shall notice, and upon which I shall take a direct and bold issue with him. 
 
 His first and main proposition I will give in his own language, scripture quotations 
 and all [laughter]; I give his exact language " 'A house divided against itself can- 
 not stand.' I believe this government cannot endure, permanently, half slave and 
 half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved. I do not expect the house to 
 fall ; but I do expect it to cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all 
 the other." 
 
 In other words, Mr. Lincoln asserts, as a fundamental principle of this government, 
 that there must be uniformity in the local laws and domestic institutions of each and 
 all the States of the Union ; and he therefore invites all the non-slaveholding States 
 to band together, organize as one body, and make war upon slavery in Kentucky, 
 upon slavery in Virginia, upon the Carolinas, upon slavery in all of the slaveholding 
 States in this Union, and to persevere in that war until it shall be extermina- 
 ted. He then notifies the slaveholding States to stand together as a unit and make an 
 aggressive war upon the free States of this Union with a view of establishing slavery 
 in them all ; of forcing it upon Illinois, of forcing it upon New York, upon New 
 England, and upon every other free State, and that they shall keep up the warfare 
 until it has been formally established in them all. In other words, Mr. Lincoln advo- 
 cates boldly and clearly a war of sections, a war of the North against the South, of 
 the free States against the slave States a war of extermination to be continued 
 relentlessly until the one or the other shall be subdued, and all the States shall either 
 become free or become slave. 
 
 Now, my friends, I must say to you frankly, that I take bold, unqualified issue 
 with him upon that principle. I assert that it is neither desirable nor possible that 
 there should be uniformity in the local institutions and domestic regulations of the 
 different States of this Union. The framers of our government never contemplated 
 uniformity in its internal concerns. The fathers of the Revolution, and the sages 
 who made the Constitution, well understood that the laws and domestic institutions 
 which would suit the granite hills of New Hampshire would be totally unfit for the 
 rice plantations of South Carolina; they Avell understood that the laws which would 
 suit the agricultural districts of Pennsylvania and New York would be totally unfit 
 for the large mining regions of the Pacific, or the lumber regions of Maine, 
 They well understood that the great varieties of soil, of production and of interests, 
 in a Republic as large as this, required different local and domestic regulations in 
 each locality, adapted to the wants and interests of each separate State, and for that
 
 reason it was provided in the Federal Constitution that the thirteen original States 
 should remain sovereign and supreme within their own limits in regard to all that 
 was local, and internal, and domestic, while the Federal Government should have cer- 
 tain specified powers which were general and national, and could be exercised only by 
 federal authority. 
 
 The framers of the Constitution well understood that each locality, having sepa- 
 rate and distinct interests, required separate and distinct laws, domestic institutions, 
 and police regulations adapted to its own wants and its own condition ; and they 
 acted on the presumption, also, that these laws and institutions would be as diversi- 
 fied and as dissimilar as the States would be numerous, and that no two would be 
 precisely alike, because the interests of no two would be precisely the same. 
 Hence, I assert, that the great fundamental principle which underlies our com- 
 plex system of State and Federal Governments, contemplated diversity and 
 dissimilarity in the local institutions and domestic affairs of each and every 
 State then in the Union, or thereafter to be admitted into the Confederacy. I 
 therefore conceive that my friend, Mr. Lincoln, has totally misapprehended the 
 great principles upon which our government rests. Uniformity in local and domestic 
 affairs would be destructive of State rights, of State sovereignty, of personal liberty 
 and personal freedom. Uniformity is the parent of despotism the world over, not 
 only in politics, but in religion. Wherever the doctrine of uniformity is proclaimed, 
 that all the States must be free or all slave, that all labor must be white or all black, 
 that all the citizens of the different States must have the same privileges or be gov- 
 erned by the same regulations, you have destroyed the greatest safeguard which our 
 institutions have thrown around the rights of the citizen. 
 
 How could this uniformity be accomplished, if it was desirable and possible? 
 There is but one mode in which it could be obtained, and that must be by abolishing 
 the State Legislatures, blotting out State sovereignty, merging the rights and sove- 
 reignty of the States in one consolidated empire, and vesting Congress with the ple- 
 nary power to make all the police regulations, domestic and local laws, uniform through- 
 out the limits of the Republic. When you shall have done this, you will have uni- 
 formity. Then the States will all be slave or all be free ; then negroes will vote 
 everywhere or nowhere; then you will have a Maine liquor law in every State or 
 none ; then you will have uniformity in all things, local and domestic, by the authority 
 of the Federal Government. But when you attain that uniformity, you will have 
 converted these thirty-two sovereign, independent States into one consolidated em- 
 pire, with the uniformity of disposition reigning triumphant throughout the length 
 and breadth of the land. 
 
 From this view of the case, my friends, I am driven irresistibly to the conclusion 
 that diversity, dissimilarity, variety in all our local and domestic institutions, is the 
 great safeguard of our liberties ; and that the framers of our institutions were wise, 
 sagacious, and patriotic, when they made this government a confederation of sove- 
 reign States, with a Legislature for each, and conferred upon each Legislature the 
 power to make all local and domestic institutions to suit the people it represented, 
 without interference from any other State or from the general Congress of the Union. 
 II' we expect to maintain our liberties, we must preserve the rights and sovereignty 
 of the States ; we must maintain and carry out that great principle of self-govern- 
 ment incorporated in the compromise measures of 1850; indorsed by the Illinois 
 Legislature in 1851 ; emphatically embodied and carried out in the Kansas-Nebraska 
 bill, and vindicated this year by the refusal to bring Kansas into the Union with a 
 Constitution distasteful to her people. 
 
 The other proposition discussed by Mr. Lincoln in his speech consists in a crusade 
 against the Supreme Court of the United States on account of the Dred Scott de- 
 cision. On this question, also, I desire to say to you unequivocally, that I take di- 
 rect and distinct issue with him. I have no warfare to make on the Supreme Court 
 of the United States, either on account of that or any other decision which they have 
 pronounced from that bench. The Constitution of the United States has provided that
 
 11 
 
 the powers of government (and the Constitution of each State has the same pro- 
 vision) shall be divided into three departments executive, legislative, and judicial. 
 The right and the province of expounding the Constitution, and constructing the 
 law, is vested in the judiciary established by the Constitution. As a lawyer, I feel 
 at liberty to appear before the Court and controvert any principle of law while the 
 question is pending before the tribunal; but when the decision is made, my private 
 opinion, your opinion, all other opinions must yield to the majesty of that authorita- 
 tive adjudication. I wish you to bear in mind that this involves a great principle, 
 upon which our rights, our liberty and our property all depend. What security have 
 you for your property, for your reputation, and for your personal rights, if the courts 
 are not upheld, and their decisions respected when once fairly rendered by the highest 
 tribunal known to the Constitution? I do not choose, therefore, to go into any argu- 
 ment with Mr. Lincoln in reviewing the various decisions which the Supreme Court 
 has made, either upon the Dred Scott case or any other. I have no idea of appeal- 
 ing from the decision of the Supreme Court upon a Constitutional question to the 
 decisions of a tumultuous town meeting. I am aware that once an eminent lawyer 
 of this city, now 'no more, said that the State of Illinois had the most perfect judicial 
 system in the world, subject to but one exception, which could be cured by a slight 
 amendment, and that amendment was to so change the law as to allow an appeal 
 from the decisions of the Supreme Court of Illinois, on all Constitutional questions, 
 to Justices of the Peace. 
 
 My friend, Mr. Lincoln, who sits behind me, reminds me that that proposition was 
 made when I was Judge of the Supreme Court. Be that as it may, I do not thirik 
 that fact adds any greater weight or authority to the suggestion. It matters not with 
 me who was on the bench, whether Mr. Lincoln or myself, whether a Lockwood or a 
 Smith, a Taney or a Marshall ; the decision of the highest tribunal known to the 
 Constitution of the country must be final till it has been reversed by an equally high 
 authority. Hence, I am opposed to this doctrine of Mr. Lincoln, by which he pro- 
 poses to take an appeal from the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, 
 upon this high constitutional question, to a Republican caucus sitting in the country. 
 Yes, or any other caucus or town meeting, whether it be Republican, American, or 
 Democratic. I respect the decisions of that august tribunal ; I shall always bow in 
 deference to them. I am a law-abiding man. I will sustain the Constitution of my 
 country as our fathers have made it. I will yield obedience to the laws, whether I 
 like them or not, as I find them on the statute book. I will sustain the judicial 
 tribunals and constituted authorities in all matters within the pale of their juris<Jic- 
 tion as defined by the Constitution. 
 
 But I am equally free to say that the reason assigned by Mr. Lincoln for resisting 
 the decision of the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott case, does not in itself meet my 
 approbation. He objects to it because that decision declared that a negro descended 
 from African parents, who were brought here and sold as slaves, is not, and cannot 
 be. a citizen of the United States. He says it is wrong, because it deprives the negro 
 of the benefits of that clause of the Constitution which says that citizens of one State 
 shall enjoy all the privileges and immunities of citizens of the several States ; in 
 other words, he thinks it wrong because it deprives the negro of the privileges, im- 
 munities and rights of citizenship, which pertain, according to that decision, only to 
 the white man. I am free to say to you that in my opinion this government of ours 
 is founded on the white basis. It was made by the white man, for the benefit of the 
 white man, to be administered by white men, in such manner as they should deter- 
 mine. It is also true that a negro, an Indian, or any other man of inferior race to 
 a white man, should be permitted to enjoy, and humanity requires that he should 
 have all the rights, privileges arid immunities which he is capable of exercising coa- 
 sistent with the safety of society. I would give him every right and every privilege 
 which his capacity would enable him to enjoy, consistent with the good of the society 
 in which he lived. But you may ask me, what are these rights and these privileges? 
 My answer is, that each State must decide for itself the nature mid extent of these
 
 12 
 
 rights. Illinois has decided for herself. We have decided that the negro shall not 
 be a slave, and we have at the same time decided that he shall not vote, or serve on 
 juries, or enjoy political privileges. I am content with that system of policy which 
 we have adopted for ourselves. I deny the right of any other State to complain of 
 our policy in that respect, or to interfere with it, or to attempt to change it. On the 
 other hand, the State of Maine has decided that in that State a negro man may vote 
 on an equality with the white man. The sovereign power of Maine had the right 
 to prescribe that rule for herself. Illinois has no right to complain of Maine for 
 conferring the right of negro suffrage, nor has Maine any right to interfere with, or 
 complain of Illinois because she has denied negro suffrage. 
 
 The State of New York has decided by her Constitution that a negro may vote, 
 .provided that he own $250 worth of property, but not otherwise. The rich negro 
 can vote, but the poor one cannot. Although that distinction does not commend 
 itself to my judgment, yet I assert that the sovereign power of New York had a 
 right to prescribe that form of the elective franchise. Kentucky, Virginia and other 
 States have provided that negroes, or a certain class of them in those States, shall be 
 slaves, having neither civil or political rights. Without indorsing the wisdom of 
 that decision, I assert that Virginia has the same power by virtue of her sovereignty 
 to protect slavery within her limits, as Illinois has to banish it forever from our own 
 borders. I assert the right of each State to decide for itself on all these questions, 
 and I do not subscribe to the doctrine of my friend, Mr. Lincoln, that uniformity is 
 either desirable or possible. I do not acknowledge that the States must all be free 
 or must all be slave. 
 
 I do not acknowledge that the negro must have civil and political rights every- 
 where or nowhere. I do not acknowledge that the Chinese must have the same righte 
 in California that we would confer upon him here. I do not acknowledge that the 
 Cooley imported into this country must necessarily be put upon an eqality with the 
 white race. I do not acknowledge any of these doctrines of uniformity in the local 
 and domestic regulations in the different States. 
 
 Thus you see, my fellow-citizens, that the issues between Mr. Lincoln and myself, 
 as respective candidates for the U. S. Senate, as made up, are direct, unequivocal, 
 and irreconcilable. He goes for uniformity in our domestic institutions, for a war of 
 sections, until one or the other shall be subdued. I go for the great principle of the 
 Kansas-Nebraska bill, the right of the people to decide for themselves. 
 
 On the other point, Mr. Lincoln goes for a warfare upon the Supreme Court of the 
 United States, because of their judicial decision in the Dred Scott case. I yield 
 obedience to the decisions in that court to the final determination of the highest ju- 
 dicial tribunal known to our constitution. He objects to the Dred Scott decision be- 
 cause it does not put the negro in the possession of the rights of citizenship on an 
 equality with the white man. I am opposed to negro equality. I repeat that this 
 nation is a white people a people composed of European descendants a people 
 that have established this government for themselves and their posterity, arid I am in 
 favor of preserving not only the purity of the blood, but the purity of the government 
 from any mixture or amalgamation with inferior races. I have seen the effects of 
 this mixture of superior and inferior races this amalgamation of white men and 
 Indians and negroes ; we have seen it in Mexico, in Central America, in South Amer- 
 ica, and in all the Spanish-American States, and its result has been degeneration, 
 demoralization, and degradation below the capacity for self-government. 
 
 I am opposed to taking any step that recognizes the negro man or the Indian as 
 the equal of the white man. I am opposed to giving him a voice in the administra- 
 tion of the government. I would extend to the negro, and the Indian, and to all 
 dependent races every right, every privilege, and every immunity consistent witli the 
 safety and welfare of the white races ; but equality they never should have, either 
 political or social, or in any other respect whatever. 
 
 My friends, you see that the issues are distinctly drawn. I stand by the same 
 platform that I have so often proclaimed to you and to the people of Illinois hereto-
 
 13 
 
 fore. 1 stand by the Democratic organization, yield obedience to its usages, and sup 
 port its regular nominations. I indorse and approve the Cincinnati platform, and I 
 adhere to and intend to carry out, as part of that platform, the great principle of 
 self-government, which recognizes the right of the people in each State and Territory 
 to decide for themselves their domestic institutions. In other words, if the Lecornp- 
 ton issue shall arise again, you have only to turn back and see where you have found 
 me during the last six months, and then rest assured that you will find me in the 
 same position, battling for the same principle, and vindicating it from assault from 
 whatever quarter it may come, so long as I have the power to do it. 
 
 Fellow-citizens, you now have before you the outlines of the propositions which I 
 intend to discuss before the people of Illinois during the pending campaign. I have 
 Hpoken without preparation and in a very desultory manner, and may have omitted 
 some points which I desired to discuss, and may have been less implicit on others 
 than I could have wished. I have made up my mind to appeal to the people against 
 the combination which has been made against me. The Republican leaders have 
 formed an alliance, an unholy, unnatural alliance with a portion of the unscrupu- 
 lous federal office-holders. I intend to fight that allied army wherever I meet them. 
 I know they deny the alliance while avoiding the common purpose, but yet these 
 men who are trying to divide the Democratic party for the purpose of electing a 
 Republican Senator in my place, are just as much the agents, the tools, the support- 
 ers of Mr. Lincoln as if they were avowed Republicans, and expect their reward for 
 their services when the Republicans come into power. I shall deal with these allied 
 forces just as the Russians dealt with the allies at Sebatopol. The Russians, when 
 they fired a broadside at the common enemy, did riot stop to inquire whether it hit a 
 Frenchman, an Englishman, or a Turk, nor will I stop, nor shall I stop to inquire 
 whether my blows hit the Republican leaders or their allies, who are holding the 
 federal offices and yet acting in concert with the Republicans to defeat the Democratic 
 party and its nominees. I do not include all of the federal office-holders in this re- 
 mark. Such of them as are Democrats and show their Democracy by remaining 
 inside of the Democratic organization and supporting its nominees, I recognize as 
 Democrats, but those who, having been defeated inside of the organization, go out- 
 side and attempt to divide and destroy the party in concert with the Republican 
 leaders, have ceased to be Democrats, and belong to the allied army, whose avowed 
 object is to elect the Republican ticket by dividing and destroying the Democratic 
 party. 
 
 My friends, I have exhausted myself, and I certainly have fatigued you, in the 
 long and desultory remarks which I have made. It is now two nights since I have 
 been in bed, and I think I have a right to a little sleep. I will, however, have an 
 opportunity of meeting you face to face, and addressing you on more than one occa- 
 sion before the November election. In conclusion, I must again say to you, justice 
 10 my own feelings demands it, that my gratitude for the welcome you have extended 
 to ine o"n this occasion knows no bounds, and can be described by no language which 
 I can command. I see that I am literally at home when among my constituents. 
 This welcome has amply repaid me for every effort that I have made in the public 
 service during nearly twenty-five years that I have held office at your hands. It 
 noi only compensates me for the past, but it furnishes an inducement and incentive 
 tor future effort which no man, no matter how patriotic, can feel who has not wit- 
 ucssed tLe magnificent reception you have extended to me to-night on my return.
 
 14 
 
 SPEECH OF HON. ABRAHAM LINCOLN, 
 
 IN REPLY TO SENATOR DOUGLAS. 
 
 Delivered at Chicago Saturday evening, July 10, 1858. (Mr. Douglas was not 
 
 present.) 
 
 Mr. Lincoln was introduced by C. L. Wilson, Esq., and as he made his appearance 
 he was greeted with a perfect storm of applause. For some moments the enthusiasm 
 continued unabated. At last, when by a wave of his hand partial silence was re- 
 stored, Mi\ Lincoln said : 
 
 MY FELLOW-CITIZENS : On yesterday evening, upon the occasion of the recep- 
 tion given to Senator Douglas, I was furnished with a seat very convenient for hear- 
 ing him, and was otherwise very courteously treated by him and his friends, and for 
 which I thank him and them. During the course of his remarks my name was 
 mentioned in such a way as, I suppose, renders it at least not improper that I should 
 make some sort of reply to him. I shall not attempt to follow him in the precise 
 order in which he addressed the assembled multitude upon that occasion, though I 
 shall perhaps do so in the main. 
 
 There was one question to which he asked the attention of the crowd, which I 
 deem of somewhat less importance at least of propriety for me to dwell upon 
 than the others, which he brought in near the close of his speech, and which I think 
 it would not be entirely proper for me to omit attending to, and yet if I were not to 
 give some attention to it now, I should probably forget it altogether. While I 
 am upon this subject, allow me to say that I do not intend to indulge in that incon- 
 venient mode sometimes adopted in public speaking, of reading from documents; 
 but I shall depart from that rule so far as to read a little scrap from his speech, which 
 notices this first topic of which I shall speak that is, provided I can find it in the 
 paper. 
 
 " I have made up my mind to appeal to the people against the combination that 
 has been made against me ! the Republican leaders having formed an alliance, an 
 unholy and unnatural alliance, with a portion of unscrupulous federal office-holders. 
 I intend to fight that allied army wherever I meet them. I know they deny the alli- 
 ance, but yet these men who are trying to divide the Democratic party for the pur- 
 pose of electing a Republican Senator in my place, are just as much the agents and 
 tools of the supporters of Mr. Lincoln. Hence I shall deal with this allied army 
 just as the Russians dealt with the allies at Sebastopol that is, the Russians did not 
 stop to inquire, when they fired a broadside, whether it hit an Englishman, a French- 
 man, or a Turk. Nor will I stop to inquire, nor shall I hesitate, whether my blows 
 shall hit these Republican leaders or their allies, who are holding the federa' jffices 
 and yet acting in concert with them." 
 
 Well, now, gentlemen, is not that very alarming? Just to think of it! right at 
 the outset ot his canvass, I, a poor, kind, amiable, intelligent gentleman, I am to be 
 slain in this way. Why, my friend, the Judge, is not only, as it turns out, not a 
 dead lion, nor even a living one he is the rugged Russian Bear ! 
 
 But if they will have it for he says that we deny it that there is any such alli- 
 ance, as he says there is and I don't propose hanging very much upon this question 
 of veracity but if he will have it that there is such an alliance that the Adminis- 
 tration men and we are allied, and we stand in the attitude of English, French and 
 Turk, he occupying the position of the Russian, in that case, I beg that he will in- 
 dulge us while we barely suggest to him that these allies took Sebastopol.
 
 15 
 
 Gentlemen, only a few more words as to this alliance. For my part, I have to 
 say, that whether there be sueh an alliance, depends, so far as I know, upon what 
 may be a right definition of the term alliance. If for the Republican party to see 
 the other great party to which they are opposed divided among themselves, and not 
 try to stop the division and rather be glad of it if that is an alliance, I confess I am 
 in ; but if it is meant to be said that the Republicans had formed an alliance going . 
 beyond that, by which there is contribution of money or sacrifice of principle on the 
 one side or the other, so far as the Republican party is concerned, if there be any 
 such thing, I protest that I neither know any thing of it, nor do I believe it. I will, 
 however, say as I think this branch of the argument is lugged in I would before 
 I leave it, state, for the benefit of those concerned, that one of those same Buchanan 
 men did once tell me of an argument that he made for his opposition to Judge Doug- 
 las. He said that a friend of our Senator Douglas had been talking to him, and had 
 among other things said to him : "Why, you don't want to beat Douglas ?" "Yes," 
 said he, ** I do want to beat him, and 1 will tell you why. I believe his original Ne- 
 braska bill was right in the abstract, but it was wrong in the time that it was brought 
 forward. It was wrong in the application to a Territory in regard to which the ques- 
 tion had been settled ; it was brought forward at a time when nobody asked him ; it 
 was tendered to the South when the South had not asked for it, but when they could 
 not well refuse it ; and for this same reason he forced that question upon our party ; 
 it has sunk the best men all over the nation, everywhere ; and now Avhen our Presi- 
 dent, struggling with the difficulties of this man's getting up, has reached the very 
 hardest point to turn in the case, he deserts him, and I am for putting him where he 
 will trouble us no more." 
 
 Now, gentlemen, that is not my argument that is not my argument at all. I 
 have only been stating to you the argument of a Buchanan man. You will judge 
 if there is any force in it. 
 
 Popular sovereignty ! everlasting popular sovereignty ! Let us for a moment in- 
 quire into this vast matter of popular sovereignty. What is popular sovereignty ? 
 We recollect that at an rtarly period in the history of this struggle, there was another 
 name for the same thing Squatter Sovereignty. It was not exactly Popular Sov- 
 ereignty, but Squatter Sovereignty. What do those terms mean ? What do those 
 terms mean when used now ? And vast credit is taken by our friend, the Judge, in 
 regard to his support of it, when he declares the last years of his life have been, and 
 all the future years of his life shall be, devoted to this matter of popular sovereignty. 
 What is it ? Why, it is the sovereignty of the people ! What was Squatter Sov- 
 ereignty ? I suppose if it had any significance at all it was the right of the people to 
 govern themselves, to be sovereign in their own affairs while they were squatted 
 down in a country not their own, while they had squatted on a Territory that did not 
 belong to them, in the sense that a State belongs to the people who inhabit it when 
 it belonged to the nation such right to govern themselves was called "Squatter 
 Sovereignty." 
 
 Now I wish you to mark. What has become of that Squatter Sovereignty? 
 "What has become of it? Can you get any body to tell you now that the people of a 
 Territory have any authority to govern themselves, in regard to this mooted question 
 of slavery, before they form a State Constitution? No such thing at all, although 
 there i? a general running fire, and although there has been a hurra made in every 
 speech on that side, assuming that policy had given the people of a Territory the 
 right to govern themselves upon this question ; yet the point is dodged. To-day it 
 has been decided no more than a year ago it was decided by the Supreme Court of 
 the United States, and is insisted upon to-day, that the people of a Territory have no 
 right to exclude slavery from a Territory, that if anyone man chooses to take -laves 
 into a Territory, all the rest of the people have no right to keep them out. T:;i* be- 
 ing so, and this decision being made one of the points that the .Judge approval, and 
 one in the approval of" which he says he means to keep me down jmr :n > tlown I 
 should not say, for I have never been up. He says he is in favor of it, a ul sticks to
 
 16 
 
 to, and expects to win his battle on that decision, which says that there is no such 
 thing as Squatter Sovereignty ; but that any one man may take slaves into a Terri- 
 tory, and all the other men in the Territory may be opposed to it, and yet by reasou 
 f the Constitution they cannot prohibit it. When that is so, how much is left of 
 this vast matter of Squatter Sovereignty I should like to know ? 
 
 When we get back, we get to the point of the right of the people to make a Con- 
 stitution. Ka* sas was settled, for example, in 1854. It was a Territory yet, without 
 having formed a Constitution, in a very regular way, for three years. All this time 
 negro slavery could be taken in by any few individuals, and by that decision of the 
 Supreme Court, which the Judge approves, all the rest of the people cannot keep it 
 out ; but when they come to make a Constitution they may say they will not have 
 slavery. But it is there ; they are obliged to tolerate it some way, and all experience 
 shows it will be so for they will not take the negro slaves and absolutely deprive 
 die owners of them. All experience shows this to be so. All that space of time 
 that runs from the beginning of the settlement of the Territory until there is suffi- 
 ciency of people to make a State Constitution all that portion of time popular sov- 
 ereignty is given up. The seal is absolutely put down upon it by the Court decision, 
 *mi Judge Douglas puts his own upon the top of that, yet he is appealing to the peo- 
 ple, to give him vast credit for his devotion to popular sovereignty. 
 
 Again, when we get to the question of the right of the people to form a State 
 Constitution as they please, to form it with slavery or without slavery if that is any 
 thing new, I confess I don't know it. Has there ever been a time when any body 
 said that, any other than the people of a Territory itself should form a Constitution ? 
 What is now in it that Judge Douglas should have fought several years of his life, 
 and pledge himself to fight all the remaining years of his life for? Can Judge 
 Douglas find any body on earth that said that any body else should form a Constitu- 
 tion for a people ? [A voice, "Yes."] Well, I should like you to name him; I 
 *U)auld like to know who he was. [Same voice, "John Calhoun."] 
 
 Mr. Lincoln No, Sir, I never heard of even John Calhoun saying such a thing. 
 Ho insisted on the same principle as Judge Douglas ; but his mode of applying it, in 
 fkct, was wrong. It is enough for my purpose to ask this crowd, when ever a Re- 
 publican said anything against it ? They never said anything against it, but they 
 have constantly spoken for it ; and whosoever will undertake to examine the platform, 
 *nd the speeches of responsible men of the party, and of irresponsible men, too, if 
 you please, will be unable to find one word from anybody in the Republican ranks, 
 opposed to that Popular Sovereignty which Judge Douglas thinks that he has in- 
 vented. I suppose that Judge Douglas will claim in a little while, that he is the in- 
 ventor of the idea that the people should govern themselves ; that nobody ever thought 
 of such a thing until he brought it forward. We do not remember, that in that old 
 Declaration of Independence, it is said that "We hold these truths to be self-evi- 
 rtont, that all men are created equal ; that they are endowed by their Creator with 
 certain inalienable rights ; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of hap- 
 piness ; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving 
 their just powers from the consent of the governed." There is the origin of Popu- 
 lar Sovereignty. Who, then, shall come in at this day and claim that he invented it? 
 
 The Lecompton Constitution connects itself with this question, for it is in this 
 matter of the Lecompton Constitution that our friend Judge Douglas claims such 
 vast credit. I agree that in opposing the Lecompton Constitution, so far as I can 
 perceive, he was right. I do not deny that at all ; and, gentlemen, you will readily 
 see why I could not deny it, even if I wanted to. But I do not wish to ; for all the 
 Republicans in the nation opposed it, and they would have opposed it just as much 
 without Judge Douglas's aid as with it They had all taken ground against it long 
 before h3 did. Why, the reason that he urges against that Constitution, I urged 
 against him a year before. I have the printed speech in my hand. The argument 
 that he makes, why that Constitution should not be adopted, that the people were 
 not fairly represented nor allowed to vote, I pointed out in a speech a year ago,
 
 17 
 
 which I hold in my hand now, that no fair chance was to be given to the people. 
 [" Read it," "read it."] I shall not waste your time by trying to read it ["Read 
 it," " read it."] Gentlemen, reading from speeches is a very tedious business, par- 
 ticularly for an old man that has to put on spectacles, and more so if the man be so 
 tall that he has to bend over to the light 
 
 A little more, now, as to this matter of Popular Sovereignty and the Lecomptoa 
 Constitution. The Lecompton Constitution, as the Judge tells us, was defeated 
 The defeat of it was a good thing or it was not. He thinks the defeat of it was a 
 good thing, and so do I, arid we agree in that. Who defeated it ? 
 
 A voice "Judge Douglas." 
 
 Mr. Lincoln Yes, he furnished himself, and if you suppose he controlled the 
 other Democrats that went with him, he furnished three votes, while the Republicans 
 furnished twenty. 
 
 That is what he did to defeat it In the House of Representatives he and 
 his friends furnished some twenty votes, and the Republicans furnished ninety odd 
 Now who was it that did the work ? 
 
 A voice " Douglas." 
 
 Mr. Lincoln Why, yes, Douglas did it ! To be sure he did. 
 
 Let us, however, put that proposition another way. The Republicans could not 
 have done it without Judge Douglas. Could he have done it without them ? Which 
 could have come the nearest to doing it without the other ? 
 
 A voice "Who killed the bill?" 
 
 Another voice " Douglas." 
 
 Mr. Lincoln Ground was taken against it by the Republicans long before Dou# 
 las did it. The proportion of opposition to that measure is about five to one. 
 
 A voice " Why don't they come out on it ? " 
 
 Mr. Lincoln You don't know what you are talking about, my friend. I am 
 quite willing to answer any gentleman in the crowd who asks an intelligent 
 question. 
 
 Now who, in all this country, has ever found any of our friends of Judge 
 Douglas's way of thinking, and who have acted upon this main question, that hag 
 ever thought of uttering a word in behalf of Judge Trumbull ? 
 
 A voice " AVe have." 
 
 Mr. Lincoln I defy you to show a printed resolution passed in a Democratic 
 meeting I take it upon myself to defy any man to show a printed resolution of a 
 Democratic meeting, large or small, in favor of Judge Trumbull, or any of the five 
 to one Republicans who beat that bill. Every thing must be for the Democrats 1 
 They did every thing, and the five to the one that really did the thing, they snub 
 over, and they do not seem to remember that they have an existence upon the face 
 of the earth. 
 
 Gentlemen, I fear that I shall become tedious. I leave this branch of "he sub- 
 ject to take hold of another. I take up that part of Judge Douglas's spec 4* in which 
 he respectfully attended to me. 
 
 Judge Douglas made two points upon my recent speech at Springfield. He says 
 they are to be the issues of this campaign. The first one of these points he bases 
 upon the language in a speech which I delivered at Springfield, which I believe I 
 can quote correctly from memory. I said there that " we are now far into the fifth 
 year since a policy was instituted for the avowed object, and with the confident prom- 
 ise, of putting an end to slavery agitation ; under the operation of that policy, thai 
 agitation had only not ceased, but had constantly augmented." " I believe it will not 
 cease until a crisis shall have been reached and passed. ' A house divided against 
 itself cannot stand.' I believe this Government cannot endure permanently half 
 slave and half free." " I do not expect the Union to be dissolved " I am quoting 
 from my speech " I do not expect the house to fall, but I do expect it will cease 
 to be divided. It will become all one thing or the other. Either the opponents of 
 Blavery will arrest the spread of it and place it where the public mind shall rest, in
 
 18 
 
 the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction, or its advocates will pusl' 
 it forward until it shall become alike lawful in all the States, North as well as 
 South." . 
 
 What is the paragraph ? In this paragraph which I have quoted in your hearing, 
 and to \vhich I ask the attention of all, Judge Douglas thinks he discovers great po- 
 litical heresy I want your attention particularly to what he has inferred from it. 
 He says I am in favor of making all the States of this Union uniform in all 
 their internal regulations ; that in all their domestic concerns I am in favor of 
 making them entirely uniform. He draws this inference from the language I have 
 quoted to you. He says that I am in favor of making war by the North upon the 
 South for the extinction of slavery; that I am also in favor of inviting (as he ex- 
 presses it) the South to a war upon the North, for the purpose of nationalizing sla- 
 very. Now, it is singular enough, if you will carefully read that passage over, that 
 I did not say that I was in favor of anything in it. I only said what I expected 
 would take place. I made a prediction only it may have been a foolish one per- 
 haps. I did not even say that I desired that slavery should be put in course of ulti- 
 mate extinction. I do say so now, however, so there need be no longer any difficulty 
 about that. It may be written down in the great speech. 
 
 Gentlemen, Judge Douglas informed you that this speech of mine was probably 
 carefully prepared. I admit that it was. I am not master of language ; I have not 
 a fine education ; I am not capable of entering into a disquisition upon dialectics, as 
 I believe you call it ; but I do not believe the language I employed bears any such 
 construction as Judge Douglas puts upon it. But I don't care about a quibble in re- 
 gard to words. I know what I meant, and I will not leave this crowd in doubt, if I 
 can explain it to them, what I really meant in the use of that paragraph. 
 
 I am not, in the first place, unaware that this Government has endured eighty -two 
 years, half slave and half free. I know that. I am tolerably well acquainted with 
 the history of the country, and I know that it has endured eighty-two years, half 
 slave and half free. I believe and that is what I meant to allude to there I be- 
 lieve it has endured, because during all that time, until the introduction of the Ne- 
 braska bill, the public mind did rest all the time in the belief that slavery was in 
 course of ultimate extinction. That was what gave us the rest that we had through 
 that period of eighty-two years ; at least, so I believe. I have always hated slavery, 
 I think, as much as any Abolitionist I have been an Old Line Whig I have al- 
 ways hated it, but I have always been quiet about it until this new era of the intro- 
 duction of the Nebraska bill began. I always believed that everybody was against 
 it, and that it was in course of ultimate extinction. [Pointing to Mr. Browning, 
 who stood near by.] Browning thought so ; the great mass of the nation have rested 
 in the belief that slavery was in course of ultimate extinction. They had reason so 
 to believe. 
 
 The adoption of the Constitution and its attendant history led the people to be- 
 lieve so ; and that such was the belief of the framers of the Constitution itself, why 
 did those old men, about the time of the adoption of the Constitution, decree that 
 slavery should not go into the new Territory, where it had not already gone ? Why- 
 declare that within twenty years the African Slave Trade, by which slaves are sup- 
 plied, might be cut off by Congress ? Why were all these acts ? I might enumer- 
 ate more of these acts but enough. What were they but a clear indication that the 
 framers of the Constitution intended and expected the ultimate extinction of that 
 institution ? And now, when I say, as I said in my speech that Judge Douglas has 
 quoted from, when I say that I think the opponents of slavery will resist the far- 
 ther spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest with the belief that 
 it is in course of ultimate extinction, I only mean to say, that they will place it 
 where the founders of this Government originally placed it. 
 
 I have said a hundred times, and I have now no inclination to take it back, that I 
 believe there is no right, and ought to be no inclination in the people of the free States 
 to enter into the slave Stales, and interfere with the question of slavey at all. I have
 
 19 
 
 Raid that always ; Judge Douglas lias heard me say it if not quite a hundred times, at 
 least as good as a hundred times; and when it is said that I am in favor of interfering 
 with slavery where it exists, I know it is unwarranted by anything I have ever intended, 
 and, as I believe, by anything I have ever said. If, by any means, I have ever used 
 language which eouid fairly be so construed (as, however, I believe I never have), 
 1 now correct it. 
 
 So much, then, for the inference that Judge Douglas draws, that I am in favor of 
 setting the sections at war with one another. I know that I never meant any such 
 thing, and I believe that no fair mind can infer any such thing from anything I have 
 ever said. 
 
 Now in relation to his inference that I am in favor of a general consolidation of 
 all the local institutions of the various States. I will attend to that for a little while, 
 and try to inquire, if lean, how on earth it could be that any man could draw such 
 an inference from anything I said. I have said, very many times, in Judge Doug- 
 las's hearing that no man believed more than I in the principle of self-government ; 
 that it lies at the bottom of all my ideas of just government, from beginning to end. 
 I havr denied that his use of that term applies properly. But for the thing itself, I 
 deny that any man has ever gone ahead of me in his devotion to the principle, what- 
 ever he may have done in efficiency in advocating it. I think that I have said it in 
 your hearing that I believe each individual is naturally entitled to do as he pleases 
 with himself and the fruit of his labor, so far as it in no wise interferes with any 
 other man's rights that each community, as a State, has a right to do exactly 
 as it pleases with all the concerns within that Slate that interferes with the right 
 of no other State, and that the General Government, upon principle, has no right 
 to interfere with anything other than that general class of things that does concern 
 the whole. I have said that at all times. I have said as illustrations, that I do not 
 believe in tne right of Illinois to interfere with the cranberry laws of Indiana, the 
 oyster laws of Virginia, or the liquor laws of Maine. I have said these things 
 over and over again, and I repeat them here as my sentiments. 
 
 How is it, then, that Judge Douglas infers, because I hope to see slavery put 
 where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate ex- 
 tinction, that I am in favor of Illinois going over and interfering with the cranberry 
 laws of Indiana? What can authorize him to draw any such inference? I suppose 
 there might be one thing that at least enabled him to draw such an inference that 
 would not be true with me or many others, that is, because he looks upon all this 
 matter of slavery as an exceedingly little thing this matter of keeping one-sixth of 
 the population of the whole nation in a state of oppression and tyranny unequaled 
 in the world. He looks upon it as being an exceedingly little thing only equal to 
 the question of the cranberry laws of Indiana as something having no moral question iu 
 it as something on a par with the question of whether a man shall pasture his land with 
 cattle, or plant it with tobacco so little and so small a thing, that he concludes, if I 
 could desire that if anything should be done to bring about the ultimate extinction of 
 that little thing, I must be in favor of bringing about an amalgamation of all the 
 other little things in the Union. Now, it so happens and there, I presume, is the 
 foundation of this mistake that the Judge thinks thus; and it so happens that there 
 is a vast portion of the American people that do not look upon that matter as being 
 this very little thing. They look upon it as a vast moral evil; they can prove it 
 as such by the writings of those who gave us the blessings of liberty which we enjoy, 
 and that thj>y so looked upon it, and not as an evil merely confining itself to the 
 States where it is situated ; and while we agree that, by the Constitution we assent- 
 ed to, in the States where it exists we have no right to interfere with it, because it is 
 in the Constitution; and we are by both duty and inclination to stick by that Consti- 
 tution, in all its letter and spirit, from beginning to end. 
 
 So much then as to my disposition my wish to have all the State Legislatures 
 blotted out, and to have one consolidated government, and a uniformity of domestic 
 regulations in all the States by which I suppose it is meant, if we raise corn here,
 
 20 
 
 we must make sugar-cane grow here too, and we must make those which grow North 
 grow in the South. All this I suppose he understands I am in favor of doing. 
 Now, so much for all this nonsense for I must call it so. The Judge can have no 
 issue with me on a question of establishing uniformity in the domestic regulations of 
 the States. 
 
 A little now on the other point the Dred Scott decision. Another of the issues 
 he says that is to be made with me, is upon his devotion to the Dred Scott decision, 
 and my opposition to it. 
 
 I have expressed heretofore, and I now repeat, my opposition to the Dred Scott de- 
 cision, but 1 should be allowed to state the nature of that opposition, and I ask your in- 
 dulgence while I do so. What is fairly implied by the term Judge Douglas has used, 
 ** resistance to the decision ?" I do not resist it. If I wanted tv> take Dred Scott 
 from his master, I would be interfering with property, and that terrible difficulty 
 that Judge Douglas speaks of, of interfering with property would arise. But I am 
 doing no such thing as that, but all that I am doing is refusing to c bey it as a politi- 
 cal rule. If I were in Congress, and a vote should come up on a question whether 
 slavery should be prohibited in a new Territory, in spite of the Dred Scott decision, 
 I would vote that it should. 
 
 Mr. Lincoln That is what I would do. Judge Douglas said last night, that 
 before the decision he might advance his opinion, and it might be contrary to the 
 decision when it was made; but after it was made he would abide by it until it was 
 reversed. Just so! We let this property abide by the decision, but WP, will try to 
 reverse that decision. We will try to put it where Judge Douglas wouM not object, 
 for he says he will obey it until it is reversed. Somebody has to reverse that de- 
 cision, since it is made, and we mean to reverse it, and we mean to do it ptviceably. 
 
 What are the uses of decisions of courts? They have two uses. As rules of 
 property they have two uses. First they decide upon the question before the 
 court. They decide in this case that Dred Scott is a slave. Nobody resists that. 
 Not only that, but they say to everybody else, that persons standing just as Dred 
 Scott stands, is as he is. That is, they say that when a question comes up upon 
 another person, it will be so decided again, unless the court decides in another way, 
 unless the court overrules its decision. Well, we mean to do what we can tc Lave 
 the court decide the other way. That is one thing we mean to try to do. 
 
 The sacredness that Judge Douglas throws around this decision, is a degree of s 
 credness that has never been before thrown around any other decision. I have neve 
 heard of such a thing. Why, decisions apparently contrary to that decision, or tiia 
 good lawyers thought were contrary to that decision, have been made by that ver^ 
 court before. It is the first of its kind ; it is an aatonisher in legal history. It is i 
 new wonder of the world. It is based upon falsehood in the main as to the facts 
 allegations of facts upon which it stands are not facts at all in many instances, anc 
 no decision made on any question the first instance of a decision made under st 
 many unfavorable circumstances thus placed, has ever been held by the professioi 
 as law, and it has always needed confirmation before the lawyers regarded it as set 
 tied law. But Judge Douglas will have it that all hands must take this extraordinary 
 decision, made under these extraordinary circumstances, and give their vote i* 
 Congress in accordance with it, yield to it and obey it in every possible sense 
 Circumstances alter cases. Do not gentlemen here remember the ca^e of thai 
 same Supreme Court, some twenty-five or thirty years ago, deciding that a National 
 Bank was constitutional ? I ask, if somebody does not remember that a National 
 Bank was declared to be constitutional ? Such is the truth, whether it be remembered 
 or not. The Bank charter ran out, and a re-charter was granted by Congress. That 
 re-charter was laid before General Jackson. It was urged upon him, when he 
 denied the constitutionality of the Bank, that the Supreme Court had decided 
 that it was constitutional ; and that General Jackson then said that the Su- 
 preme Court had no right to lay down a rule to govern a coordinate branch of the 
 Government, the members of which had sworn to support the Constitution thai
 
 21 
 
 each member had sworn to support that Constitution as he understood it. I will 
 venture here to say, that I have heard Judge Douglas say that he approved of Gen- 
 eral Jackson for that act. What has now become of all his tirade about " resistance 
 to the Supreme Court?" 
 
 My fellow-citizens, getting back a little, for I pass from these points, when Judge 
 Douglas makes his threat of annihilation upon the " alliance," he is cautious to 
 say that that warfare of his is to fall upon the leaders of the Republican party. Al- 
 most every word he utters and every distinction he makes, has its significance. He 
 means for the Republicans who do not count themselves as leaders, to be hi* friends ; 
 he makes no fuss over them ; it is the leaders that he is making war upon. He 
 wants it understood that the mass of the Republican party are really his friends. It 
 is only the leaders that are doing something, that are intolerant, and that require ex- 
 termination at his hands. As this is clearly and unquestionably the light in which 
 he presents that matter, I want to ask your attention, addressing myself to the Re- 
 publicans here, that I may ask you some questions, as to where you, as the Repub- 
 lican party, would be placed if you sustained Judge Douglas in his present position 
 by a reelection ? I do not claim, gentlemen, to be unselfish"; I do not pretend that 
 I would not like to go to the United States Senate, I make no such hypocritical 
 pretense, but I do say to you that in this mighty issue, it is nothing to you nothing 
 to the mass of the people of the nation, whether or not Judge Douglas or myself 
 shall ever be heard of after this night ; it may be a trifle to either of us, but in 
 connection with this mighty question, upon which hang the destinies of the na- 
 tion, perhaps, it is absolutely nothing ; but where will you be placed if you reindorse 
 Judge Douglas ? Don't you know how apt he is how exceedingly anxious he is at 
 all times to seize upon anything and everything to persuade you that something he 
 has done you did yourselves ? Why, he tried to persuade you last night that our 
 Illinois Legislature instructed him to introduce the Nebraska bill. There was no- 
 body in that Legislature ever thought of such a thing ; and when he first introduced 
 the bill, he never thought of it ; but still he fights furiously for the proposition, and 
 that he did it because there was a standing instruction to our Senators to be always 
 introducing Nebraska bills. He tells you he is for the Cincinnati platform, he 
 tells you he is for the Dred Scott decision. He tells you, not in his speech 
 last night, but substantially in a former speech, that he cares not if slavery is 
 voted up or down he tells you the struggle on Lecompton is past it may come up 
 again or not, and if it does he stands where he stood when in spite of him and his 
 opposition you built up the Republican party. If you indorse him, you tell him 
 you do not care whether slavery be voted up or down, and he will close, or try 
 to close your mouths with his declaration, repeated by the day, the week, the month, 
 and the year. Is that what you mean ? f Cries of "no," one voice "yes."] Yes, I 
 have no doubt you who have always been for him, if you mean that. No doubt of 
 that, soberly I have said, and I repeat it. I think, in the position in which Judge 
 Douglas stood in opposing the Lecompton Constitution, he was right ; he does 
 not know that it will return, but if it does we may know where to find him, and 
 if it does not we may know where to look for him, and that is on the Cincinnati 
 platform. Now I could ask the Republican party, after all the hard names that 
 Judge Douglas has called them by all his repeated charges of their inclination 
 to marry with and hug negroes all his declarations of Black Republicanism by 
 the way, we are improving, the black has got rubbed off but with all that, if he 
 be indorsed by Republican votes, where do you stand ? Plainly, you stand ready- 
 saddled, bridled and harnessed, and waiting to be driven over to the slavery exten- 
 sion camp of the nation just ready to be driven over, tied together in a lot to be 
 driven over, every man with a rope around his neck, that halter being held by 
 Judge Douglas. That is the question. If Republican men have been in earnest 
 in wluit they have done, I think they had better not do it ; but I think that the 
 Republican party is made up of those who, as far as they can peaceably, will 
 oppose the extension of slavery, and who will tope for its ultimate extino
 
 22 
 
 lion. If they believe it is wrong in grasping up the new lands of the conti 
 nerit, and keeping them from the settlement of free white laborers, who want 
 the land to bring up their families upon ; if they are in earnest, although they may 
 make a mistake, they will grow restless, and the time will come when they will come 
 back again ami reorganize, if not by the same name, at least upon the same princi- 
 ples IH (heir party now has. It is better, then, to save the work while it is begun. 
 You have done the labor ; maintain it keep it. If men choose to serve you, go- 
 with Llu-in ; but as you have made up your organization upon principle, stand by it; 
 for, as surely as God reigns over you, and has inspired your mind, and given you a 
 sense of propriety, and continues to give you hope, so surely will yon slill cling to 
 these i*ieas, and you will at last come back again after your wanderings, merely to do 
 your work over again. 
 
 We were often more than once at least in the course of Judge Douglas's speech 
 last, night, reminded that this government was made for white men that he believed 
 it was made, for white men. Well, that is putting it into a shape in which no on? 
 wants to deny it ; but the Judge then goes into his passion for drawing inferences 
 tltal are not warranted. I protest, now and forever, against that counterfeit logic 
 which presumes that because I did not want a negro woman for a slave, I do neces- 
 sarily want her for a wife. My understanding is that I need not have her for 
 either, but, as God made us separate, we can leave one another alo'-e, and do 
 one another much good thereby. There are white men enough to many all 
 the white women, arid enough black men to marry all the black women, and in 
 God's name let them be so married. The Judge regales us with the terrible 
 enormities that take place by the mixture of races ; that the inferior race bears the 
 superior down. Why, Judge, if we do not let them get together in the Territories 
 they won't mix there. 
 
 A voice " Three cheers for Lincoln." (The cheers were given with a hearty 
 good will.) 
 
 Mr. Lincoln I should say at least that that is a self-evident truth. 
 
 Now, it happens that we meet together once every year, sometimes about the 4th 
 of July, for some reason or other. These 4th of July gatherings I suppose have 
 their uses. If you will indulge me, I will state what I suppose to be some of them. 
 
 We are now a mighty nation ; we are thirty, or about thirty millions of people, and 
 we own and inhabit about one-fifteenth part of the dry land of the whole earth. We 
 rur> our im-mory back over the pages of history for about eighty-two years, and we 
 disco er that, we were then a very small people in point of numbers, vastly inferior 
 to what we are now, with a vastly less extent of country, with vastly less of every- 
 thing we deem desirable among men we look upon the change as exceedingly ad- 
 vantageous to us and to our posterity, and we fix upon something that happened 
 away bank, as in some way or other being connected with this rise of prosperity. 
 We find a race of men living in that day whom we claim as our fathers and grand- 
 fathers ; they were iron men ; they fought for the principle that they were contending 
 for ; and we understood that by what they then did it has followed that the degree 
 of prosperity which we now enjoy has come to us. We hold this annual celebration 
 to remind ourselves of all the good done in this process of time, of how it was done 
 and who did it, and how we are historically connected with it ; and we go from these 
 meetings in better humor with ourselves we feel more attached the one to the other, 
 and more firmly bound to the country we inhabit. In every way we are better men 
 in the age, and race, and country in which we live, for these celebrations. But after 
 we have done all this we have not yet reached the whole. There is something else 
 connected with it. We have besides these, men descended by blood from our an- 
 cestors among us, perhaps half our people, who are not descendants at all of these 
 men ; they are men who have come from Europe German, Irish, French and Scan- 
 dinavian men that have come from Kurope themselves, or whose ancestors have 
 come hither and settled here, finding themselves our equals in all things. If they 
 look back through this history to trace their connection with those days by blood,
 
 23 
 
 they find they have none, they cannot carry themselves back into that glorious epoch 
 and make themselves feel that they are part of us, but when they look through that 
 old Declaration of Independence, they find that those old men say that " We hold 
 these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal," and then they feel 
 that that moral sentiment taught in that day evidences their relation to those men, 
 that it is the father of all moral principle in them, and that they have a right to claim 
 it as though they were blood of the blood, and flesh of the llesh. of the men who 
 wrote that Declaration, and so they are. That is the electric torcl in that Declara- 
 tion that links the hearts of patriotic and liberty-loving men together, that will link 
 those patriotic hearts as long as the love of freedom exists in the minds of men 
 throughout the world. 
 
 Now, sirs, for the purpose of squaring things with this idea of " don't care if 
 slavery is voted up or voted down," for sustaining the Dred Scott decision, for 
 holding {hat the Declaration of Independence did not mean anything at all, 
 we have Judge Douglas giving his exposition of what the Declaration of In- 
 dependence means, and we have him saying that the people of America are 
 equal to the people of England. According to his construction, you Germans are 
 not connected with it. Now I ask you in all soberness, if all these things, if in- 
 dulged in, if ratified, if confirmed and indorsed, if taught to our children, and re 
 peated to them, do not tend to rub out the sentiment of liberty in the country, and to 
 transform this Government into a Government of some other form. Those argu- 
 ments that are made, that the inferior race are to be treated witli as much allowance 
 as they are capable of enjoying; that as much is to be done for them as their condi- 
 tion will allow. What are these arguments ? They are the arguments that kings 
 have made for enslaving the people in all ages of the world. You will find that all 
 the arguments in favor of king-craft were of this class ; they always bestrode the 
 necks of the people, not that they wanted to do it, but because the people were better 
 off for being ridden. That is their argument, and this argument of the Judge is the 
 same old serpent that says you work and I eat, you toil and I will enjoy the fruits of 
 it. Turn in whatever way you will whether it come from the mouth of a King, 
 an excuse for enslaving the people of his country, or from the mouth of men of one 
 race as a reason for enslaving the men of another race, it is all the same old serpent, 
 and I hold if that course of argumentation that is made for the purpose of convinc- 
 ing the public mind that we should not care about this, should be granted, it does not 
 stop with the negro. I should like to know if, taking this old Declaration of Inde- 
 pendence, which declares that all men are equal upon principle, and making excep- 
 tions to it, where will it stop ? If one man says it does not mean a negro, why not 
 another say it does not mean some other man? If that declaration is not the truth, 
 let us get the Statute book, in which we find it, and tear it out ! Who is so bold as 
 to do it ! If it is not true let us tear it out ! [cries of " no, no"] ; let us stick to 
 it then, let us stand firmly by it then. 
 
 It may be argued that there are certain conditions that make necessities ;md im- 
 pose them upon us, and to the extent that a necessity is imposed upon a man, lie 
 must submit to it. I think that was the condition in which we found ourselves when 
 we established this Government. We had slavery among us, we could not get our 
 Constitution unless we permitted them to remain in slavery, we could not secure the 
 good we did secure if we grasped for more, and having by necessity submitted to 
 that much, it does not destroy the principle that is the charter of our liberties. Let 
 that charter stand as our standard. 
 
 My friend has said to me that I am a poor hand to quote Scripture. I will try it 
 again, however. It is said in one of the admonitions of our Lord, "As your Father 
 in Heaven is perfect, be ye also perfect." The Savior, I suppose, did not expect 
 that any human creature could be perfect as the Father in Heaven ; but He said, 
 "As your Father in Heaven is perfect, be ye also perfect." He set that up as a 
 standard, and he who did most toward reaching that standard, attained the highest 
 degree, of moral perfection. So I say in relation to the principle that all men are
 
 24 
 
 created equal, let it be as nearly reached as we can. If we cannot give freedom to 
 every creature, let us do nothing that will impose slavery upon any other creature. 
 Let us then turn this Government back into the channel in which the framers of the 
 Constitution originally placed it. Let us stand firmly by each other. If we do not 
 do so we are turning in the contrary direction, that our friend Judge Douglas pro- 
 poses not intentionally as working in the traces tend to make this one univer- 
 sal slave nation. He is one that runs in that direction, and as such I resist him. 
 
 My friends, I have detained you about as long as I desired to do, and I have only 
 to say, let us discard all this quibbling about this man and the other man this race 
 and that race and the other race being inferior, and therefore they must be placed in 
 an inferior position discarding our standard that we have left us. Let us discard 
 all these things, and unite as one people throughout this land, until we shall once 
 more stand up declaring that all men are created equal. 
 
 My friends, I could not, without launching off upon some new topic, which would 
 detain you too long, continue to-night I thank you for this most extensive audience 
 that you have furnished me to-night. I leave you, hoping that the lamp of liberty 
 will burn in your bosoms until there shall no longer be a doubt that all men are 
 created free and equal. 
 
 SPEECH OF SENATOR DOUGLAS, 
 
 Delivered at Bloomington, Itt., July IGtk, 1858. (Mr. Lincoln was present) 
 
 Senator DOUGLAS said: 
 
 MR. CHAIRMAN, AND FELLOW-CITIZENS OF MCLEAN COUNTY : To say that 
 I am profoundly touched by the hearty welcome you have extended me, and by the 
 kind and complimentary sentiments you have expressed toward me, is but a feeble 
 expression of the feelings of my heart. 
 
 I appear before you this evening for the purpose of vindicating the course which 
 I have felt it my duty to pursue in the Senate of the United States, upon the great 
 public questions which have agitated the country since I last addressed you. I am 
 aware that my Senatorial course has been arraigned, not only by political foes, but 
 by a few men pretending to belong to the Democratic party, and yet acting in al- 
 liance with the enemies of that party, for the purpose of electing Republicans to 
 Congress in this State, in place of the present Democratic delegation. I desire your 
 attention whilst I address you, and then I will ask your verdict, whether I have not 
 in all things acted in entire good faith, and honestly carried out the principles, the 
 professions, and the avowals which I made before my constituents, previous to my 
 going to the Senate. 
 
 During the last session of Congress, the great question of controversy has been 
 the admission of Kansas into the Union under the Lecompton Constitution. I need 
 not inform you that from the beginning to the end I took bold, determined, and un- 
 relenting ground in opposition to that Lecompton Constitution. My reason for that 
 course is contained hi the fact that that instrument was not the act and deed of the 
 people of Kansas, and did not embody their will. I \old it to be a fundamental prin- 
 ciple in all free governments a principle asserted in the Declaration of Independ 
 ence, and underlying the Constitution of the United States, as well as the Constitu- 
 tion of every State of the Union that every people ought to have the right to 
 form, adopt and ratify the Constitution under which they are to live. When I intro-
 
 duced the Nebraska bill in the Senate of the United States, in 1854, I incorporated 
 in it the provision that it was the true intent and meaning of the bill, not to legislate 
 slavery into any Territory or State, or to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people 
 thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their own domestic institutions in their own 
 way, subject only to the Constitution of the United States. In that bill the pledge was 
 distinctly made that the people of Kansas should be left not only free, but perfectly 
 free to form and regulate their own domestic institutions to suit themselves ; and the 
 question arose, when the Lecompton Constitution was sent into Congress, and the 
 admission of Kansas not only asked, but attempted to be forced under it, whether or 
 not that Constitution was the free act and deed of the people of Kansas ? No man 
 pretends that it embodied their will. Every man in America knows that it was re- 
 jected by the people of Kansas, by a majority of over ten thousand, before the at- 
 tempt was made in Congress to force the Territory into the Union under that Con- 
 stitution. I resisted, therefore, the Lecompton Constitution because it was a violation 
 of the great principle of self-government, upon which all our institutions rest. I do 
 not wish to mislead you, or to leave you in doubt as to the motives of my action. 1 
 did not oppose the Lecompton Constitution upon the ground of the slavery clause 
 contained in it. I made my speech against that instrument before the vote was taken 
 on the slavery clause. At the time I made it I did not know whether that clause 
 would be voted in or out ; whether it would be included in the Constitution, or ex- 
 cluded from it, and it made no difference with me what the result of the vote was, 
 for the reason that I was contending for a principle, under which you have no 
 more right to force a free State upon a people against their will, than you have 
 to force a slave State upon them without their consent. The error consisted 
 in attempting to control the free action of the people of Kansas in any respect 
 whatever. It is no argument with me to say that such and such a clause of 
 the Constitution was not palatable, that you did not like it ; it is a matter of no con- 
 sequence whether you in Illinois like any clause in the Kansas Constitution or not ; 
 it is not a question for you, but it is a question for the people of Kansas. They 
 have the right to make a Constitution in accordance with their own wishes, and if 
 you do not, like it you are not bound to go there and live under it. We in Illinois 
 have made a Constitution to suit ourselves, and we think we have a tolerably good 
 one ; but whether we have or not, it is nobody's business but our own. If the peo- 
 ple in Kentucky do not like it, they need not come here to live under it ; if the peo- 
 ple of Indiana are not satisfied with it, what matters it to us ? We, and we alone, 
 have the right to a voice in its adoption or rejection. Reasoning thus, my friends, 
 my efforts were directed to the vindication of the great principle involving the right 
 of the people of each State and each Territory to form and regulate their own 
 domestic institutions to suit themselves, subject only to the Constitution of our 
 common country. I am rejoiced to be enabled to say to you that we fought 
 that battle until we forced the advocates of the Lecoinpton instrument to abandon 
 the attempt of inflicting it upon the people of Kansas, without first giving them an 
 opportunity of rejecting it. When we compelled them to abandon that effort, they 
 resorted to a scheme. They agreed to refer the Constitution back to the people of 
 Kansas, thus conceding the correctness of the principle for which I had contended, 
 and granting all I had desired, provided the mode of that reference and the mode of 
 submission to the people had been just, fair and equal. I did not consider the mode 
 of submission provided, in what is known as the " English " bill, a fair submission, 
 and for this simple reason, among others : It provided, in effect, that if the people 
 of Kansas would accept the Lecompton Constitution, that they might come in with 
 35,000 inhabitants, but that, if they rejected it, in order that they might form a Con- 
 stitution agreeable to their own feelings, and conformable to their own principles, that 
 they should not be received into the Union until they had 93,420 inhabitants. In 
 o.ther words, it said to the people, if you will come into the Union as a slaveholding 
 State, you shall be admitted with 35,000 inhabitants, but if you insist on being a 
 free State, you shall not be admitted until you have 93,420. I was not willing to
 
 26 
 
 discriminate between free States and slave States in this Confederacy. I will not 
 put a restriction upon a slave State that I would not put upon a free State, and 
 I wiJl not permit, if I can prevent it, a restriction being put upon a free State 
 whijh is not applied with the same force to the slaveholding States. Equality 
 among the States is a cardinal and fundamental principle in our Confederacy, and 
 cannot be violated without overturning our system of Government. Hence I 
 demanded that the free States and the slaveholding States should be kept on 
 an exact equality, ono with the other, as the Constitution of the United States had 
 placed them. If the people of Kansas want a slaveholding State, let them have 
 it, and if they want a free State they have a right to it, and it is not for the people 
 of Illinois, or Missouri, or New York, or Kentucky, to complain, whatever the de- 
 cision of the people of Kansas may be upon that point. 
 
 But while I was not content with the mode of submission contained in the English 
 bill, and while I could not sanction it for the reason that, in my opinion, it violated the 
 great principle of equality among the different States, yet when it became the law 
 of the land, and under it the question was referred back to the people of Kansas for 
 their decision, at an election to be held on the first Monday in August next, I bowed 
 in deference, because whatever decision the people shall make at that election must 
 be final and conclusive of the whole question. If the people of Kansas accept the 
 proposition submitted by Congress, from that moment Kansas will become a State of 
 the Union, and there is no way of keeping her out if you should try. The act of 
 admission would become irrepealable : Kansas would be a State, and there would be 
 an end of the controversy. On the other hand, if at that election the people of Kan- 
 sas shall reject the proposition, as it is now generally thought will be the case, from 
 that moment the Lecompton Constitution is dead, and again there is an end of the 
 controversy. So you see that either way, on the 3d of August next, the Lecompton 
 controversy ceases and terminates forever ; and a similar question can never arise 
 unless some man shall attempt to play the Lecompton game over again. But, my 
 fellow-citizens, I am well convinced that that game will never be attempted again ; 
 it has been so solemnly and thoroughly rebuked during the last session of Congress, 
 that it will find but few advocates in the future. The President of the United States, 
 in his annual message, expressly recommends that the example of the Minnesota 
 case, wherein Congress required the Constitution to be submitted to the vote of the 
 people for ratification or rejection, shall be followed in all future cases ; and all 
 we have to do is to sustain as one man that recommendation, and the Kansas contro- 
 versy can never again arise. 
 
 My friends, I do not desire you to understand me as claiming for myself any spe- 
 cial merit for the course I have pursued on this question. I simply did my duty, a 
 duty enjoined by fidelity, by honor, by patriotism ; a duty which I could not have 
 shrunk from, in my opinion, without dishonor and faithlessness to my constituency. 
 Besides, I only did what it was in the power of any one man to do. There were 
 others, men of eminent ability, men of wide reputation, renowned all over America, 
 who led the van, and are entitled to the greatest share of the credit. Foremost 
 among them all, as he was head and shoulders above them all, was Kentucky's great 
 and gallant statesman, John J. Crittenden. By his course upon this question he has 
 shown himself a worthy successor of the immortal Clay, and well may Kentucky 
 be proud of him. I will not withhold, either, the meed of praise due the Repub- 
 lican party in Congress for the course which they pursued. In the language of the 
 New York Tribune, they came to the Douglas platform, abandoning their own, be- 
 lieving that under the peculiar circumstances they would in that mode best subserve 
 the interests of the country. My friends, when I am battling for a great principle, I 
 want aid and support from whatever quarter I can get it in order to carry out that 
 principle. I never hesitate in my course when I find those who on all former oc- 
 ca>ons differed from me upon the principle finally coming to its support. Nor is it 
 for me to inquire into the motives which animated the Republican members of 
 Congress in supporting the Crittenden-Montgomery bill. It is enough for me that
 
 27 
 
 in that ca^e they came square up and indorsed the great principle ot the Kansas-Ne- 
 braska bill, which declared that Kansas should be received into the l;uion, with sla- 
 very or without, as its Constitution should prescribe. I was the more rejc iced at the 
 action of the Republicans on that occasion for another reason. I could not forget, 
 you will not soon forget, how unanimous that party was, in 1854, in declaring 
 that never should another slave State be admitted into this Union under any cir- 
 cumstances whatever, and yet we find that during this last winter they came up 
 and voted to a man declaring that Kansas should come in as a State with slavery 
 under the Lecompton Constitution, if her people desired it, and that if they did 
 not that they might form a new Constitution, with slavery or without, just as they 
 pleased. I do not question the motive when men do a good act ; I give them credit 
 for the act; and if they will stand by that principle in the future, and abandon their 
 heresy of " no more slave States even if the people want them," I will then give 
 them still more credit. I am afraid, though, .that they will not stand by it in the fu- 
 ture. If they do, I will freely forgive them all the abuse they heaped upon me in 
 1854, for having advocated and carried out that same principle in the Kansas- 
 Nebraska bill. 
 
 Illinois stands proudly forward as a State which early took her position in favor 
 of the principle of popular sovereignty as applied to the Territories of the United 
 States. When the compromise measure of 1850 passed, predicated upon that prin- 
 ciple, you recollect the excitement which prevailed throughout the northern portion 
 of this State. I vindicated those measures then, and defended myself for having 
 voted for them, upon the ground that they embodied the principle that every people 
 ought to have the privilege of forming and regulating their own institutions to suit 
 themselves that each State had that right, and I saw no reason why it should not 
 be extended to the Territories. When the people of Illinois had an opportunity of 
 passing judgment upon those measures, they indorsed them by a vote of their repre- 
 sentatives in the Legislature sixty -one in the affirmative and only four in the nega- 
 tive in which they asserted that the principle embodied in the measures was the 
 birthright of freemen, the gift of Heaven, a principle vindicated by our revolu- 
 tionary fathers, and that no limitation should ever be placed upon it, either in the 
 organization of a Territorial Government, or the admission of a State into the 
 Union. That resolution still stands unrepealed on the journals of the Legisla- 
 ture of Illinois. In obedience to it, and in exact conformity with the principle, I 
 brought in the Kansas-Nebraska bill, requiring that the people should be left per- 
 fectly free in the formation of their institutions, and in the organization of their 
 Government. I now submit to you whether I have not in good faith redeemed 
 that pledge, that the people of Kansas should be left perfectly free to form and 
 regulate their institutions to suit themselves. And yet, while no man can arise 
 in any crowd and deny that I have been faithful to my principles, and redeemed 
 my pledge, we find those who are struggling to crush and defeat me, for the very 
 reason that I have been faithful in carrying out those measures. We find the 
 Republican leaders forming an alliance with professed Lecompton men to defeat 
 every Democratic nominee and elect Republicans in their places, and aiding and 
 defending them in order to help them break down Anti-Lecompton men, whom they 
 acknoAvledge did right in their opposition to Lecompton. The only hope that Mr. 
 Lincoln has of defeating me for the Senate rests in the fact, that I was faithful 
 to my principles, and that he may be able in consequence of that fact to form a coa- 
 lition with Lecompton men, who wish to defeat me for that fidelity. 
 
 This is one element of strength upon which he relies to accomplish his object. 
 He hopes he can secure the few men claiming to be friends of the Lecompton Con- 
 stitution, and for that reason you will find he does not say a word against the Le- 
 oompton Constitution or its supporters. He is as silent as the grave upon that sub- 
 ject. Behold Mr. Lincoln courting Lecompton votes, in order that he may go to the 
 Senate as the representative of Republican principles ! You know that the alli- 
 ance exists. I think you will find that it will ooze out before the contest is over.
 
 28 
 
 Every Republican paper takes ground with my Leeompton enemies, encourag- 
 ing them, stimulating them in their opposition to me and- styling my friends bolters 
 from the Democratic party, and their Leeompton allies the true Democratic party of 
 the country. If they think that they can mislead and deceive the people of Illinois, 
 or the Democracy of Illinois, by that sort of an unnatural and unholy alliance, I 
 think they show very little sagacity, or give the people very little credit for intelli- 
 gence. It must be a contest of principle. Either the radical abolition principles 
 of Mr. Lincoln must be maintained, or the strong, constitutional, national Demo- 
 cratic principles with which I am identified must be carried out. 
 
 There can be but two great political parties in this country. The contest this 
 year and in 1860 must necessarily be between the Democracy and the Republicans, 
 if we can judge from present indications. My whole life has been identified with 
 the Democratic party. I have devoted all of my energies to advocating its princi- 
 ples and sustaining its organization. In this State the party was never better united 
 or more harmonious than at this time. The State Convention which assembled on 
 the 2d of April, and nominated FONDEY and FRP;NCH, was regularly called by 
 the State Central Committee, appointed by the previous State Convention for that 
 purpose. The meetings in each county in the State for the appointment of delegates 
 to the Convention were regularly called by the county committees, and the pro- 
 ceedings in every county in the State, as well as in .the State Convention, were 
 regular in all respects. No Convention was ever more harmonious in its action, or 
 showed a more tolerant and just spirit toward brother Democrats. The leaders 
 of the party there assembled declared their unalterable attachment to the time- 
 honored principles and organization of the Democratic party, and to the Cincinnati 
 platform. They declared that that platform was the only authoritative exposition 
 of Democratic principles, and that it must so stand until changed by another National 
 Convention ; that in the meantime they would make no new tests, and submit to none; 
 that they would proscribe no Democrat or permit the proscription of Democrats be- 
 cause of their opinion upon Lecomptonism, or upon any other issue which has arisen ; 
 but would recognize all men as Democrats who remained inside of the organization, 
 preserved the usages of the party, and supported its nominees. These bolting Dem- 
 ocrats who now claim to be the peculiar friends of the National Administration, and 
 have formed an alliance with Mr. Lincoln and the Republicans for the purpose of 
 defeating the Democratic party, have ceased to claim fellowship with the Demo- 
 ocratic organization ; have entirely separated themselves from it, and are endeavor- 
 ring to build up a faction in the State, not with the hope or expectation of electing 
 any one man who professes to be a Democrat to office in any county in the State, 
 but merely to secure the defeat of the Democratic nominees and the election of 
 Republicans in their places. What excuse can any honest Democrat have for aban- 
 doning the Democratic organization and joining with the Republicans to defeat our 
 nominees, in view of the platform established by the State Convention ? They cannot 
 pretend that they were proscribed because of their opinions upon Leeompton or 
 any other question, for the Convention expressly declared that they recognized all as 
 good Democrats who remained inside of the organization, and abided by the nomimi- 
 tions. If the question is settled or is to be considered as finally disposed of by 
 the V3te on the 3d of August, what possible excuse can any good Democrat make 
 for keeping up a division for the purpose of prostrating his party, after that election 
 is over and the controversy has terminated ? It is evident that all who shall keep up 
 this warfare for the purpose of dividing and destroying the party, have made up 
 their minds to abandon the Democratic organization for ever, and to join those for 
 whose benefit they are now trying to distract our party, and elect Republicans in 
 die place of the Democratic nominees. 
 
 I submit the question to you whether I hare been right or wrong in the course 
 I have pursued in Congress. Arid I submit, also, whether I have not redeemed in 
 good faith every pledge I have made to you? Then, my friends, the question 
 recurs, whether I shall be sustained or rejected ? If you are of opinion that Mr.
 
 29 
 
 Lincoln will advance the interests of Illinois better than I can ; that he will sustain 
 her honor and her dignity higher than it has been in my power to do; that your in- 
 terests, and the interests of your children, require his election instead of mine, it is 
 your duty to give him your support. If, on the contrary, you think that my adher- 
 ence to these great fundamental principles upon which our Government is founded 
 is the true mode of sustaining the peace and harmony of the country, and maintain- 
 ing the perpetuity of the Republic, I then ask you to stand by me in the efforts I 
 have made to that end. 
 
 And this brings me to the consideration of the two points at issue between Mr. 
 Lincoln and myself. The Republican Convention, when it assembled at Springfield, 
 did me and the country the honor of indicating the man who was to be their standard- 
 bearer, and the embodiment of their principles, in this State. I owe them my grati- 
 tude for thus making up a direct issue between Mr. Lincoln and myself. I shall 
 have no controversies of a personal character with Mr. Lincoln. 1 have known him 
 well for a quarter of a century. I have known him, as you all know him, a kind- 
 hearted, amiable gentleman, a right good fellow, a worthy citizen, of eminent ability 
 as a lawyer, and I have no doubt, sufficient ability to make a good Senator. The 
 question, then, for you to decide is, whether his principles are more in accordance 
 with the genius of our free institutions, the peace and harmony of the Republic, than 
 those which I advocate. He tells you, in his speech made at Springfield, before the 
 Convention which gave him his unanimous nomination, that : 
 
 " A house divided against itself cannot stand." 
 
 " I believe this Government cannot endure permanently, half slave and half free.** 
 
 " I do not expect the Union to be dissolved I don't expect the house to fall but 
 I do expect it will cease to be divided.'* 
 
 " It will become all one thing or all the other." 
 
 That is the fundamental principle upon which he sets out in this campaign. Well, 
 I do not suppose you will believe one word of it when you come to examine it 
 carefully, and see its consequences. Although the Republic has existed from 1789 to 
 this day, divided into free States and slave States, yet we are told that in the future 
 it cannot endure unless they shall become all free or all slave. For that reason he 
 says, as the gentleman in the crowd says, that they must be all free. He wishes 
 to go to the Senate of the United States in order to carry out that line of public 
 policy which will compel all the States in the South to become free. How is he 
 going to do it ? Has Congress any power over the subject of slavery in Ken- 
 tucky, or Virginia, or any other State of this Union ? How, then, is Mr. Lincoln 
 going to carry out that principle which he says is essential to the existence of this 
 Union, to wit : That slavery must be abolished in all the States of the Union, or 
 must be established in them all? You convince the South that they must either 
 establish slavery in Illinois, and in every other free State, or submit to its abolition- 
 in every Southern State, and you invite them to make a warfare upon the Northern 
 States an order to establish slavery, for the sake of perpetuating it at home. Thus, 
 Mr. Lincoln invites, by his proposition, a war of sections, a war between Illinois and 1 
 Kentucky, a war between the free States and the slave States, a war between the 
 North and the South, for the purpose of either exterminating slavery in every South 
 frn State, or planting it in every Northern State. He tells you that the safety of 
 this Republic, that the existence of this Union, depends upon that warfare being car- 
 ried on until one section or the other shall be entirely subdued. The States must all 
 be free or slave, for a house divided against itself cannot stand. That is Mr. Lin- 
 coln's argument upon that question. My friends, is it possible to preserve peace be- 
 tween the North and the South if such a doctrine shall prevail in either section of 
 the Union ? "Will you ever submit to a warfare waged by the Southern States to 
 establish slavery in Illinois ? What man in Illinois would not lose the last drop 
 of his heart's blood before he would submit to the institution of slavery being 
 forced upon us by the other States, against our will ? And if that be true of us, 
 what Southern man would not shed the last drop of his heart's blood to prevent lili- 
 3
 
 so 
 
 nois, 01 any other Northern State, from interfering to abolish slavery in his Stater 
 Each of these States is sovereign under the Constitution; and if we wish to pre- 
 serve our liberties, the reserved rights and sovereignty of each and every State must 
 be maintained. I have said on a former occasion, and I here repeat, that it is neither 
 desirable nor possible to establish uniformity in the local and domestic institutions of 
 all the States of this Confederacy. And why? Because the Constitution of the 
 United States rests upon the right of every State to decide all its local and domestic 
 institutions for itself. It is not possible, therefore, to make them conform to 
 each other unless we subvert the Constitution of the United States. No, sir. 
 that cannot be done. God forbid that any man should ever make the attempt. Let 
 that Constitution ever be trodden under foot and destroyed, and there will not be 
 wisdom and patriotism enough left to make another that, will work half so well. 
 Our safety, our liberty, depends upon preserving the Constitution of the United 
 States as our fathers made it, inviolate, at the same time maintaining the reserved 
 rights and the sovereignty of each State over its local and domestic institutions, against 
 Federal authority, or any outside interference. 
 
 The difference between Mr. Lincoln and myself upon this point is, that he goes for 
 a combination of the Northern States, or the organization of a sectional political 
 party in the free States to make war on the domestic institutions of the Southern 
 States, and to prosecute that war until they shall all be subdued, and made to conform 
 to such rules as the North shall dictate to them. I am aware that Mr. Lincoln, on 
 Saturday night last, made a speech at Chicago for the purpose, as he said, of ex- 
 plaining his position on this question. I have read that speech with great care, and 
 will do him the justice to say that it is marked by eminent ability and great success 
 in concealing what he did mean to say in his Springfield speech. His answer to 
 this point, which I have been arguing, is, that he never did mean, and that I ought to 
 know that he never intended to convey the idea, that he wished the " people of the 
 free States to enter into the Southern States and interfere with slavery." Well, I 
 never did suppose that he ever dreamed of entering into Kentucky, to make war upon 
 her .institutions ; nor will any Abolitionist ever enter into Kentucky to wage such war. 
 Their mode of making war is not to enter into those States where slavery exists, and 
 there interfere, and render themselves responsible for the consequences. Oh no ! They 
 stand on this side of the Ohio river and shoot across. They stand in Bloomington, 
 and shake their fists at the people of Lexington ; they threaten South Carolina from 
 Chicago. And they call that bravery ! But they are very particular, as Mr. 
 Lincoln says, not to enter into those States for the purpose of interfering with 
 the institution of slavery there. I am not only opposed to entering into the slave 
 States, for the purpose of interfering with their institutions, but I am opposed to 
 a sectional agitation to control the institutions of other States. I am opposed to or 
 ganizing a sectional party, which appeals to Northern pride, and Northern pas 
 sion and prejudice, against Southern institutions, thus stirring up ill feeling and hot 
 blood between brethren of the same Republic. I am opposed to that whole system 
 of sectional agitation, which can produce nothing but strife, but discord, but hostir ty, 
 anfl, finally, disunion. And yet Mr. Lincoln asks you to send him to the Senate of 
 the United States, in order that he may carry out that great principle of his, 
 tl at all the States must be slave or all must be free. I repeat, how is he to curry 
 it out when he gets to the Senate ? Does he intend to introduce a bill to abolisn 
 slavery in Kentucky ? Does he intend to introduce a bill to interfere with slavery 
 in Virginia? How is he to accomplish what he professes must be done in order to 
 save the Union ? Mr. Lincoln is a lawyer, sagacious and able enough to tell you 
 how he proposes to do it. I ask Mr. Lincoln how it is that he proposes ultimately 
 to bring about this uniformity in each and all the States of the Union. There 
 is but one possible mode which I can see, and perhaps Mr. Lincoln intends 
 to pursue it; that is, to introduce a proposition into the Senate to change the 
 Constitution of the United States, in order that all the State Legislatures may 
 be abolished, State sovereignty blotted out, and tJ power conferred upon Con-
 
 31 
 
 gress to make local laws and establish the domestic institutions and police regu- 
 lations uniformly throughout the United States. Are you prepared for such a 
 change in the institutions of your country? Whenever you shall have blotted 
 out the State sovereignties, abolished the State Legislatures, and consolidated 
 all the power in the Federal Government, you will have established a consolidat- 
 ed Empire as destructive to the liberties of the people and the rights of the 
 citizen as that of Austria, or Russia, or any other despotism that rests upon the necks 
 of the people. How is it possible for Mr. Lincoln to carry out his cherished princi- 
 ple of abolishing slavery everywhere or establishing it everywhere, except by th- 
 mode which I have pointed out by an amendment to the Constitution to the effect 
 that I have suggested ? There is no other possible mode. Mr. Lincoln intends re- 
 sorting to that, or else he means nothing by the great principle upon which he desires 
 to be elected. My friends, I trust that we will be able to get him to define what he 
 does mean by this Scriptural quotation that " A house divided against itself cannot 
 stand;" that the Government cannot endure permanently, half slave and half free; 
 that it must be all one thing or all the other. Who among you expects to live, or 
 have his children live, until slavery shall be established in Illinois or abolished in 
 South Carolina? Who expects to see that occur during the lifetime of ourselves or 
 our children ? 
 
 There is but one possible way in which slavery can be abolished, and that is by 
 leaving a State, according to the principle of the Kansas-Nebraska bill, perfectly 
 free to form and regulate its institutions in its own way. That was the principle 
 upon which this Republic was founded, and it is under the operation of that prin- 
 ciple that we have been able to preserve the Union thus far. Under its opera- 
 tions, slavery disappeared from New Hampshire, from Rhode Island, from Con- 
 necticut, from New York, from New Jersey, from Pennsylvania, from six of the 
 twelve original slaveholding States ; and this gradual system of emancipation went, 
 on quietly, peacefully and steadily, so long as we in the free States minded our own 
 business, and left our neighbors alone. But the moment the Abolition Societies were 
 organized throughout the North, preaching a violent crusade against slavery in the 
 Southern States, this combination necessarily caused a counter-combination in the 
 South, and a sectional line was drawn which was a barrier to any further emancipa- 
 tion. Bear in mind that emancipation has not taken place in any one State since the 
 Freesoil party was organized as a political party in this country. Emancipation went 
 on gradually in State after State so long as the free States were content with man- 
 aging their own affairs and leaving the South perfectly free to do as they pleased ; 
 but the moment the North said we are powerful enough to control you of the South, 
 the moment the North proclaimed itself the determined master of the South, that 
 moment the South combined to resist the attack, and thus sectional parties were 
 formed and gradual emancipation ceased in all the Northern slaveholding States. 
 And yet Mr. Lincoln, in view of these historical facts, proposes to keep up 
 this sectional agitation, band all the Northern States together in one political party, 
 elect a President by Northern votes alone, and then, of course, make a Cabinet 
 composed of Northern men, and administer the Government by Northern men 
 only, denying all the Southern States of this Union any participation in the adminis- 
 tration of affairs whatsoever. I submit to you, my fellow-citizens, whether such a 
 line of policy is consistent with the peace and harmony of the country? Can the 
 Union endure under such a system of policy ? He has taken his position in favor of 
 sectional agitation and sectional warfare. I have taken mine in favor of securing 
 peace, harmony and good- will among all the States, by permitting each to mind its 
 own business, and discountenancing any attempt at interference on the part of one 
 State with the domestic concerns of the others. 
 
 Mr. Lincoln makes another issue with me, and he wishes to confine the contest to 
 these two issues. I accept the other as readily as the one to which I have already 
 referred. The other issue is a crusade against the Supreme Court of the United 
 States, because of its decision in the Dred Scott case. .Mv fellow-citizens, I have no
 
 32 
 
 issue to make with the Supreme Court. I have no crusade to preach against 
 tbat august body. I have no warfare to make upon it. I receive the decision 
 of the Judges of that Court, when pronounced, as the final adjudication upon 
 fcll questions within their jurisdiction. It would be perfectly legitimate and proper 
 for Mr. Lincoln, myself, or any other lawyer, to go before the Supreme Court 
 Mhd argue any question tliat might arise there, taking either side of it, and en- 
 forcing it with all our ability, zeal, and energy, but when the decision is pronounced. 
 that decision becomes the law of the land, and he, and you, and myself, and every 
 other good citizen, must bow to it, and yield obedience to it. Unless we respect 
 am bow in deference to the final decisions of the highest judicial tribunal in 
 <MH country, we are driven at once to anarchy, to violence, to mob law, and 
 tht?n3 is no security left for our property, or our own civil rights. What 
 tpiofects your property but the law, and who expounds the law but the judicial 
 tribunals ; and if an appeal is to be taken from the decisions of the Supreme 
 Court of the United States, in all cases where a person does not like the adjudi- 
 cation, to whom is that appeal to be taken ? Are we to appeal from the Supreme 
 Court to a county meeting like this ? And shall we here re-argue the question and re- 
 verse the decision ? If so, how are we to enforce our decrees after we have pronounced 
 them ? Does Mr. Lincoln intend to appeal from the decision of the Supreme Court to 
 V Republican caucus, or a town meeting ? To whom is he going to appeal ? [" To 
 
 nd Love- 
 
 " and shouts of laughter.] Why, if I understand aright, Lincoln and 
 joy. are co-appellants in a joint suit, and inasmuch as they are so, he would not cer- 
 tainly appeal from the Supreme Court to his own partner to decide the case for him. 
 Mr. Lincoln tells you that he is opposed to the decision of the Supreme Court 
 tn the Dred Scott case. Well, suppose he is ; what is he going to do about it ? 
 I never got beat in a law suit in my life that I was not opposed to the 
 d,!ci.-iion, and if I hud it before the Circuit Court I took it up to the Supreme Court, 
 where, if I got beat again, I thought it better to say no more about it, as I did not 
 know of any lawful mode of reversing the decision of the highest tribunal on earth. 
 To whom is Mr. Lincoln going to appeal? Why, he says he is going to appeal to 
 Congress. Let us see how he will appeal to Congress. He tells us that on the 8th of 
 March, 1820, Congress passed a law called the Missouri Compromise, prohibiting 
 slavery forever in all the territory West of the Mississippi and North of the Missouri 
 Iwe of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes, that Dred Scott, a slave in Missouri, 
 was taken by his master to Fort Snelling, in the present State of Minnesota, situated 
 on the West branch of the Mississippi river, and consequently in the Territory where 
 slavery was prohibited by the Act of 1820, and that when Dred Scott appealed for 
 hid freedom in consequence of having been taken into a free Territory, the Supreme 
 Court of the United States decided that Dred Scott did not become free by being 
 taken into that Territory, but that having been carried back to Missouri, was yet a 
 slave. Mr. Lincoln is going to appeal from that decision and reverse it. He doe* 
 not intend to reverse it as to Dred Scott. Oh, no ! But he will reverse it so that 
 i, shall not stand as a rule in the future. How will he do it ? He says that if he is 
 elected to the Senate, he will introduce and pass a law just like the Missouri Com- 
 promise, prohibiting slavery again in all the Territories. Suppose he does re- 
 enaot the same law which the Court has pronounced unconstitutional, will that 
 make it constitutional? If the Act of 1820 was unconstitutional in consequence 
 of Congress having no power to pass it, will Mr. Lincoln make it constitutional by 
 passing it again ? What clause of the Constitution of the United States provides for 
 an appeal from the decision of the Supreme Court to Congress ? If my reading of 
 that instrument is correct, it is to the effect that that Constitution and all laws made in 
 pursuance of it are of the supreme law of the land, anything in the Constitution or 
 laws of a State to the contrary notwithstanding. Hence, you will find that only such 
 acts of Congress are laws as are made in pursuance of the Constitution. When 
 Congress has passed an act, and put it on the statute book as law, who is to decide 
 whether that act Lt '<*. conformity with the Constitution or not? The Constitution of
 
 33 
 
 the United States tells you. It has provided that the judicial power of the United 
 States shall be vested in a Supreme Court, and sucli interior Courts as Congress may 
 from time to time ordain and establish. Thus, by the Constitution, the Supreme 
 Court is declared, in so many words, to be the tribunal, and the only tribunal, which 
 is competent to adjudicate upon the constitutionality of an act of Congress. He tell* 
 you tha,, that Court has adjudicated the question, and decided that an act of Congress 
 prohibiting slavery in the Territory is unconstitutional and void ; and yet he says he 
 is going to pass another like it. What for ? Will it be any more valid ? Will bu 
 be able to convince the Court that the second act is valid when the first is invalid ami 
 void ? What good does it do to pass a second act ? Why, it will have the effect .& 
 arraign the Supreme Court before the people, and to bring them into all the political 
 discussions of the country. Will that do any good ? Will it inspire any more con- 
 fidence in the judicial tribunals of the country ? What good can it do to wage this 
 war upon the Court, arraying it against Congress, and Congress against the Court? 
 The Constitution of theUuited States has said that this Government shall be divided 
 into three separate and distinct branches, the executive, the legislative and the judi- 
 cial, and of course each one is supreme and independent of the other within the circle 
 of its own powers. The functions of Congress are to enact the statutes, the province 
 of the Court is to pronounce upon their validity, and the duty of the Executive is to 
 carry the decision into effect when rendered by the Court. And yet, notwithstanding 
 the Constitution makes the decision of the Court final in regard to the validity of an 
 act of Congress, Mr. Lincoln is going to reverse that decision by passing another act 
 of Congress. When he has become convinced of the folly of the proposition, 
 perhaps he will resort to the same subterfuge that I have found others of his 
 party resort to, which is to agitate and agitate until he can change the Supreme 
 Court and put other men in the places of the present incumbents. I wonder whether 
 Mr. Lincoln is i-ight sure that he can accomplish that reform. He certainly will not 
 be able to get rid of the present Judges until they die, and from present appear- 
 ances I think they have as good security of life as he has himself. I am afraid 
 that my friend Lincoln would not accomplish this task during his own life- 
 time, and yet he wants to go to Congress to do it all in six years. Do you 
 think that he can persuade nine Judges, or a majority of them, to die in that 
 six years, just to accommodate him ? They are appointed Judges for life, and 
 according to the present organization, new ones cannot be appointed during 
 that time ; but he is going to agitate until they die, and then have the Presi- 
 dent appoint good Republicans in their places. He had better be quite sure 
 that he gets a Republican President at the same time to appoint them. He 
 wants to have a Republican President elected by Northern votes, not a Southern 
 man participating, and elected for the purpose of placing none but Republicans 
 on the bench, and consequently, if he succeeds in electing that President, 
 and succeeds in persuading the present Judges to die, in order that their vacan- 
 cies may be filled, that the President will then appoint their successors. And by 
 what process will he appoint them ? He first looks for a man who has the legal 
 Qualifications, perhaps he takes Mr. Lincoln, and says, " Mr. Lincoln, would you not 
 like to go on the Supreme bench ?" " Yes," replies Mr. Lincoln. " Well," le- 
 turns the Republican President, "I cannot appoint you until you give m<; a 
 pledge as to how you will decide in the event of a particular question com- 
 ing before you." What would you think of Mr. Lincoln if he would consent 
 to give that pledge? And yet he is going to prosecute a war until he get* 
 the present Judges out, and then catechise each man and require a pledge before his 
 appointment as to how he will decide each question that may arise upon points affect- 
 ing the Republican party. Now, my friends, suppose this scheme was practi- 
 cal, I ask you what confidence you would have in a Court thus constituted 
 a Court composed of partisan Judges, appointed on political grounds, selected with a 
 view to the decision of questions in a particular way, and pledged in regard to a de- 
 cision before the argument, and without reference to the peculiar state of the facts.
 
 34 
 
 Would such a Court command the respect of the country? If the Repub- 
 lican party cannot trust Democratic Judges, how can they expect us to trust 
 Republican Judges, when they have been selected in advance for the purpose of 
 packing a decision in the event of a case arising ? My fellow-citizens, whenever par- 
 tisan politics shall be carried on to the bench ; whenever the Judges shall be arraigned 
 upon the stump, and their judicial conduct reviewed in town meetings and caucuses; 
 whenever the independence and integrity of the judiciary shall be tampered with to 
 the extent of rendering them partial, blind and suppliant tools, what security will you 
 have for your rights and your liberties? I therefore take issue with Mr. Lin- 
 coln directly in regard to this warfare upon the Supreme Court of the United 
 States. I accept the decision of that Court as it was pronounced. Whatever my 
 individual opinions may be, I, as a good citizen, am bound by the laws of the land, 
 as the Legislature makes them, as the Court expounds them, and as the exei utive 
 officers administer them. I am bound by our Constitution as our fathers made it, 
 and as it is our duty to support it. I am bound, as a good citizen, to sustain the 
 constituted authorities, and to resist, discourage, and beat down, by all lawful and 
 peaceful means, all attempts at exciting mobs, or violence, or any other revolutionary 
 proceedings against the Constitution and the constituted authorities of the country. 
 
 Mr. Lincoln is alarmed for fear that, under the Dred Scott decision, slavery will 
 go into all the Territories of the United States. All I have to say is that, with or 
 without that decision, slavery will go just where the people want it, and not one inch 
 further. You have had experience upon that subject in the case of Kansas. You 
 have been told by the Republican party that, from 1854, when the Kansas-Nebraska 
 bill passed, down to last winter, that slavery was sustained and supported in Kansas 
 by the laws of what they called a "bogus" Legislature. And how many slaves 
 were there in the Territory at the end of last winter? Not as many at the end of 
 that period as there w r ere on the day the Kansas-Nebraska bill passed. There was 
 quite a number of slaves in Kansas, taken there under the Missouri Compromise, 
 and in spite of it, before the Kansas-Nebraska bill passed, and now it is asserted that 
 there are not as many there as there were before the passage of the bill, notwith- 
 standing that they had local laws sustaining and encouraging it, enacted, as the Re- 
 publicans say, by a " bogus " Legislature, imposed upon Kansas by an invasion from 
 Missouri. Why has not slavery obtained a foothold in Kansas under these circum- 
 stances ? Simply because there was a majority of her people opposed to slavery, 
 and every slaveholder knew that if he took his slaves there, the moment that majority 
 got possession of the ballot-boxes, and a fair election was held, that moment slavery 
 would be abolished and he would lose them. For that reason, such owners as took 
 their slaves there brought them back to Missouri, fearing that if they remained they 
 would be emancipated. Thus you see that under the principle of popular sovereignty, 
 slavery has been kept out of Kansas, notwithstanding the fact that for the first three 
 years they had a Legislature in that Territory favorable to it. I tell you, my friends, 
 il is impossible under our institutions to force slavery on an unwilling people. If 
 this principle of popular sovereignty asserted in the Nebraska bill be fairly carried 
 out, by letting the people decide the question for themselves, by a fair vote, at a fair 
 election, and with honest returns, slavery will never exist one day, or one hour, in 
 any Territory against the unfriendly legislation of an unfriendly people. I care not 
 how the Dred Scott decision may have settled the abstract question g;o far as the 
 practical result is concerned; for, to use the language of an eminent Southern Sena- 
 tor, on this very question : 
 
 " I do not care a fig which way the decision shall be, for it is of no particular con- 
 sequence ; slavery cannot exist a day or an hour, in any Territory or State, unless it 
 has affirmative laws sustaining and supporting it, furnishing police regulations and 
 remedies, and an omission to furnish them would be as fatal as a constitutional pro- 
 hibition. Without affirmative legislation in its favor, slavery could not exist any 
 longer than a new-born infant could survive under the heat of the sun, on a barren 
 rock, without prote Hion. It would wilt and die for the want of support."
 
 35 
 
 Hence, if the people of a Territory want slavery, they will encourage it by pass- 
 ing affirmatory law.-, and the necessary police regulations, patrol laws ami slave code ; 
 if they do not want it they will withhold that legislation, and by withholding it slavery 
 is as dead as it' it was prohibited by a constitutional prohibition, especially 
 if, in addition, their legislation is unfriendly, as it would be if they were opposed to 
 it. They could pass such local laws and police regulations as would drive slavery 
 out in one day, or one hour, if they were opposed to it, and therefore, so far as the 
 question of slavery in the Territories is concerned, so far as the principle of popular 
 sovereignty is concerned, in its practical operation, it matters not how the Dred & ott 
 case may be decided with reference to the Territories. My own opinion on that law 
 point is well known. It is shown by my votes and speeches in Congress. But bt; 
 it as it may, the question was an abstract question, inviting no practical results, and 
 whether slavery shall exist or shall not exist in any State or Territory, will depend 
 upot whether the people are for or against it, and which ever way they shall decide 
 it in any Territory or in any State, will be entirely satisfactory to me. 
 
 But I must now bestow a few words upon Mr. Lincoln's main objection to the 
 Dred Scott decision. He is not going to submit to it. Not that he is going to make 
 war upon it with force of arms. But he is going to appeal and reverse it in some 
 way ; he cannot tell us how. I reckon not by a writ of error, because I do not 
 know where he would prosecute that, except before an Abolition Society. 
 And when he appeals, he does not exactly tell us to whom he will appeal, 
 except it be the Republican party, and I have yet to learn that the Repub- 
 lican party, under the Constitution, has judicial powers ; but he is going to 
 appeal from it and reverse it, either by an act of Congress, or by turning out the 
 judges, or in some other way. And why ? Because he says that that decision de- 
 prives the negro of the benefits of that clause of the Constitution of the United 
 States which entitles the citizens of each State to all the privileges and immunities 
 of citizens of the several States. Well, it is very true that the decision does have 
 that effect. By deciding that a negro is not a citizen, of course it denies to him the 
 rigiits arid privileges awarded to citizens of the United States. It is this that Mr. 
 Lincoln will not submit to. Why ? For the palpable reason that he wishes to con- 
 fer upon the negro all the rights, privileges and immunities of citizens of the several 
 States. I will not quarrel with Mr. Lincoln for his views on that subject. I have 
 no doubt he is conscientious in them. I have not the slightest idea but that he con- 
 scientiously believes that a negro ought to enjoy and exercise all the rights and priv- 
 ileges given to white men ; but I do not agree with him, and hence I cannot concur 
 with him. I believe that this Government of ours was founded on the white basis. 
 I believe that it was established by white men ; by men of European birth, 
 or descended of European races, for the benefit of white men and their pos 
 terity in all time to come. I do not believe that it was the design or intention 
 of the signers of the Declaration of Independence or the frarners of the 
 Constitution iv include negroes, Indians, or other inferior races, with white 
 men, as citizens. Our fathers had at that day seen the evil consequences of 
 conferring civil and political rights upon the Indian and negro in the Spanish 
 and French colonies on the American continent and the adjacent islands. 
 In Mexico, in Central America, in South America and in the West India Islands*, 
 where the Indian, the negro, and men of all colors and all races are put on an equality 
 by law, the effect of political amalgamation can be seen. Ask any of those gallant 
 young men in your own county, who went to Mexico to fight the battles of their 
 country, in what friend Lincoln considers an unjust and unholy war, and hear what 
 they will tell you in regard to the amalgamation of races in that country. Amalga- 
 mation there, first political, then social, has led to demoralization and degradation, 
 until it has reduced that people below the point of capacity for self-government. 
 Our fathers knew what the effect of it would be, and from the time they planted 
 foot on the American continent, not only those who landed at Jamestown, but at 
 Plymouth Rock and all other points on the coast, they pursued the policy of confining
 
 36 
 
 civil and political rights to the white race, and excluding the negro in all cases. 
 Still Mr. Lincoln conscientiously believes that it is his duty to advocate negro citi- 
 zenship. He wants to give the negro the privilege of citizenship. He quotes Scrip- 
 ture again, and says : " As your Father in Heaven is perfect, be ye also perfect.** 
 And he applies that Scriptural quotation to all classes ; not that he expects us all to 
 be as perfect as our Master, but as nearly perfect as possible. In other words, he is 
 willing to give the negro an equality under the law, in order that he may approach as 
 near perfection, or an equality with the white man, as possible. To this same end he 
 quotes the Declaration of Independence in these words: "We hold these truths to 
 be self-evident, that all men were created equal, and endowed by their Creator with 
 certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happi- 
 ness ; " and goes on to argue that the negro was included, or intended to be ir.cluded 
 hi that Declaration by the signers of the paper. He says that by the Declaration of 
 Independence, therefore, all kinds of men, negroes included, were created equal and 
 endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, and further, that the right 
 of the negro to be on an equality with the white man is a Divine right conferred by 
 the Almighty, and rendered inalienable according to the Declaration of Indepen- 
 dence. Hence no human law or constitution can deprive the negro of that equality 
 with the white man to which he is entitled by Divine law. ["Higher law/'] Yes, 
 higher law. Now, I do not question Mr. Lincoln's sincerity on this point. He be- 
 lieves that the negro, by the Divine law, is created the equal of the white man, and 
 that no human law can deprive him of that equality, thus secured ; and he contends 
 that the negro ought therefore to have all the rights and privileges of citizenship on 
 an equality with the white man. In order to accomplish this, the first thing that 
 would have to be done in this State would be to blot out of our State Constitution 
 that clause which prohibits negroes from coming into this State, and making it an 
 African colony, and permit them to come and spread over these charming prairies 
 until in midday they shall look black as night. When our friend Lincoln gets all 
 his colored brethren around him here, he will then raise them to perfection as fast as 
 possible, and place them on an equality with the white man, first removing all legal 
 restrictions, because they are our equals by Divine law, and there should be no such 
 restrictions. He wants them to vote. I am opposed to it. If they had a vote, I 
 reckon they would all vote for him in preference to me, entertaining the views I do. 
 But that matters not. The position he has taken on this question not only 
 presents him as claiming for them the right to vote, but their right under the 
 Divine law and the Declaration of Independence, to be elected to office, to become 
 members of the Legislature, to go to Congress, to become Governors, or United 
 States Senators, or Judges of the Supreme Court; and I suppose that when 
 they control that court they will probably reverse the Dred Scott decision. 
 He is going to bring negroes here, and give them the right of citizenship, the 
 right of voting, and the right of holding office and sitting on juries, and what 
 else? Why, he would permit them to marry, would he not? And if he 
 gives them that right, I suppose he will let them marry whom they please, provided 
 they marry their equals. If the Divine law declares that the white man is the 
 equal of the negro woman that they are on a perfect equality, I suppose he admits 
 the right of the negro woman to marry the white man. In other words, his doctrine 
 .Rat the negro, by Divine law, is placed on a perfect equality with the white man, 
 and that that equality is recognized by the Declaration of Independence, leads him 
 necessarily to establish negro equality under the law ; but whether even then they 
 would be so in fact would depend upon the degree of virtue and intelligence they 
 possessed, and certain other qualities that are matters of taste rather than of law 
 I do not understand Mr. Lincoln as saying that he expects to make them our equalo 
 socially, or by intelligence, nor in fact as citizens, but that he wishes to make them 
 our equals under the law, and then say to them, " as your Master in Heaven is per- 
 fect, be ye also perfect." 
 
 Well, I confess to you, my fellow-citizens, that I am utterly opposed to that sys-
 
 37 
 
 tern of abolition philosophy. I do not believe that the signers of the Declara- 
 tion of Independence had any reference to negroes when they used the expres- 
 sion that all men were created equal, or that they had any reference to the 
 Chinese or Coolies, the Indians, the Japanese, or any other inferior race. They 
 were speaking of the white race, the European race on this continent, and 
 their descendants, and emigrants who should come here. They were speaking 
 only of the white race, and never dreamed that their language would be construed 
 to include the negro. And now for the evidence of that fact. At the time the 
 Declaration of Independence was put forth, declaring the equality of all men, 
 every one of the thirteen colonies was a slaveholding colony, and every man 
 who signed that Declaration represented a slaveholding constituency. Did they in- 
 tend, when they put their signatures to that instrument, to declare that their own 
 slaves were on an equality with them ; that they were made their equals by Di- 
 vine law, and that any human law reducing them to an inferior position, was void, 
 as being in violation of Divine law ? Was that the meaning of the signers of the 
 Declaration of Independence? Did JEFFERSON and HENRY, and LEE did any 
 of the signers of that instrument, or all of them, on the day they signed it, give 
 their slaves freedom ? History records that they did not. Did they go further, and 
 put the negro on an equality with the white man throughout the country ? They 
 did not. And yet if they had understood that Declaration as including the negro, 
 which Mr. Lincoln holds they did, they would have been bound, as conscientious 
 men, to have restored the negro to that equality which he thinks the Almighty in- 
 tended they should occupy with the white man. They did not do it. Slavery 
 was abolished in only one State before the adoption of the Constitution in 1789, 
 and then in others gradually, down to the time this abolition agitation began, and 
 it has not been abolished in one since. The history of the country shows that 
 neither the signers of the Declaration, or the framers of the Constitution, ever sup- 
 posed it possible that their language would be used in an attempt to make this 
 nation a mixed nation of Indians, negroes, whites and mongrels. I repeat, that our 
 whole history confirms the proposition, that from the earliest settlement of the col- 
 onies down to the Declaration of Independence and the adoption of the Constitution 
 of the United States, our fathers proceeded on the white basis, making the white 
 people the governing race, but conceding to the Indian and negro, and all inferior 
 races, all the rights and all the privileges they could enjoy consistent with the safety 
 of the society in which they lived. That is my opinion now. I told you 
 that humanity, philanthropy, justice and sound policy required that we should 
 give the negro every right, every privilege, every immunity consistent with 
 the safety and welfare of the State. The question then naturally arises, what 
 are those rights and privileges, and what is the nature and extent of them? 
 My answer is, that that is a question which each State and each Territory 
 must decide for itself. We have decided that question. We have said that in this 
 State the negro shall not be a slave, but that he shall enjoy no political rights that 
 negro equality shall not exist. I am content with that position. My friend Lincoln 
 is not. He thinks that our policy and our laws on that subject are contrary to the Decla- 
 ration of Independence. He thinks that the Almighty made the negro his equal and 
 his brother. For my part I do not consider the negro any kin to me, 
 nor to any other white man; but I would still carry my humanity arid my 
 philanthropy to the extent of giving him every privilege and every immunity 
 that he coull enjoy, consistent with our own good. We in Illinois have the 
 right to decide upon that question for ourselves, and we are bound to allow 
 every other State to do the same. Maine allows the negro to vote on an 
 equality with the white man. I do not quarrel with our friends in Maine for that. 
 If they think it wise and proper in Maine to put the negro on an equality with the 
 white man, and allow him to go to the polls and negative the vote of a white 
 man, it is their business and not mine. On the other hand, New York permits a
 
 negro to vote, provided he owns $250 worth of property. New York thinks that a 
 negro ought to be permitted to vote, provided he is rich, but not otherwise. They 
 allow the aristocratic negro to vote there. I never saw the wisdom, the pro- 
 priety or the justice of that decision on the part of New Tork, and yet it 
 never occurred to rne that I had a right to find fault with that State. It is her bus- 
 iness ; she is a sovereign State, and has a right to do as she pleases, and if she will 
 takv care of her own negroes, making such regulations concerning them as suit her, 
 and let. us alone, I will mind my business, and not interfere with her. In Ken- 
 tucky they will not give a negro any political or any civil rights. I shall not 
 argue th f ^ question whether Kentucky in so doing has decided right or wrong, 
 wisely or unwisely. It is a question for Kentucky to decide for herself. I be- 
 lieve that the Kentuckians have consciences as well as ourselves ; they have as 
 keen a perception of their religious, moral and social duties as we have, mid I am 
 willing that they shall decide this slavery question for themselves, and be ac- 
 countable to their God for their action. It is not for me to arraign them for 
 what they do. I will not judge them lest I shall be judged. Let Kentucky 
 mind her own business, and take care of her negroes, and we attend to our own 
 afllujs, and take care of our negroes, and we will be the best of friends; but if 
 Kentucky attempts to interfere with us, or we with her, there will be strife, there 
 will be discord, there will be relentless hatred, there will be everything but fra- 
 ternal feeling and brotherly love. It is not necessary that you should enter Ken- 
 tucky and interfere in that State, to use the language of Mr. Lincoln. It is just 
 as offensive to interfere from this State, or send your missiles over there. I care 
 not whether an enemy, if he is going to assault us, shall actually come into our 
 State, or come along the line, and throw his bomb-shells over to explode in our 
 midst. Suppose England should plant a battery on the Canadian side of the 
 Niagara river, opposite Buffalo, and throw bomb-shells over, which would ex- 
 plode in Main street, in that city, and destroy the buildings, and that, when we 
 protested, she would say, in the language of Mr. Lincoln, that she never dreamed 
 of coming into the United States to interfere with us, arid that she was just throwing 
 her bombs over the line from her own side, which she had a right to do, would that 
 explanation satisfy us? So it is with Mr. Lincoln. He is not going into Kentucky, 
 but he will plant his batteries on this side of the Ohio, where he is safe and secure for 
 a retreat, and will throw his bomb-shells his abolition documents over the river, 
 and will carry on a political warfare, and get up strife between the North and the 
 South until he elects a sectional President, reduces the South to the condition of de- 
 pendent colonies, raises the negro to an equality, and forces the South to submit 
 to the doctrine that a house divided against itself cannot stand that the Union 
 divided into half slave States and half free cannot endure that they must all be 
 slave or they must all be free, and that as we in th,e North are in the majority, we 
 will not permit them to be all slave, and therefore they in the South must consent to 
 the States all being free. Now, fellow-citizens, I submit to you whether these doctrines 
 are consistent with the peace and harmony of this Union ? I submit to you whether 
 they are consistent with our duties as citizens of a common confederacy; whether they 
 are consistent with the principles which ought to govern brethern of the same family? 
 I recognize all the people of these States, North and South, East and Wesl, old or 
 new, Atlantic or Pacific, as our brethren, flesh of one flesh, and I will do no act unto 
 them that I would not be willing they should do unto us. I would apply the 
 same Christian rule to the States of this Union that we are taught to apply to 
 individuals, u do unto others as you would have others do unto you/' and this 
 would secure peace. Why should this slavery agitation be kept up? Does 
 it benefit the white man or the slave? Who does it benefit except the Re- 
 publican politicians, who use it as their hobby to ride into office? Why, I re- 
 peat, should it be continued? Why cannot we be content to administer this 
 Government as it was made a confederacy of sovereign and independent States? 
 Let us recognize the sovereignty and independence of each State, refrain from
 
 39 
 
 interfering with the domestic institutions and regulations of other States, permit the 
 Territories and new States to decide their institutions for themselves, as we did 
 wh?n we were in their condition; blot out these lines of North and South, and 
 resort back to these lines of State boundaries which the Constitution has marked 
 out, and engraved upon the face of the country; have no other dividing lines 
 but these, and we will be one united, harmonious people, with fraternal feelings, and 
 no discord or dissension. 
 
 These are my views arid these are the principles to which I have devoted all my 
 energies since 1850, when I acted side by side with the immortal Clay and the irod- 
 like Webster in that memorable struggle in which Whigs and Democrat** united 
 upon a common platform of patriotism and the Constitution, throwing aside paitisan 
 feelings in order to restore peace and harmony to a distracted country. And when 
 I stood beside the death-bed of Mr. Clay, and heard him refer with feelings and 
 emotions of the deepest solicitude to the welfare of the country, and saw that he 
 looked upon the principle embodied in the great Compromise measures of 1850, the 
 principle of the Nebraska bill, the doctrine of leaving each State and Territory free 
 to decide its institutions for itself, as the only means by which the peace of the 
 country could be preserved and the Union perpetuated, I pledged him, on 
 that death-bed of his, that so long as I lived my energies should be devoted 
 to the vindication of that principle, and of his fame as connected with it. 
 I gave the same pledge to the great expounder of the Constitution, he who 
 has been called the " god-like Webster." I looked up to Clay and him as a 
 son would to a father, and I call upon the people of Illinois, and the people of the 
 whole Union, to bear testimony, that never since the sod has been laid upon the 
 graves of these eminent statesmen have I failed, on any occasion, to vindicate the 
 principle with which the last great, crowning acts of their lives were identified, or to 
 vindicate their names whenever they have been assailed ; and now my life and 
 energy are devoted to this great work as the means of preserving this Union. 
 This Union can only be preserved by maintaining the fraternal feeling between the 
 North and the South, the East and the West. If that good feeling can be preserved, 
 the Union will be as perpetual as the fame of its great founders. It can be main- 
 tained by preserving the sovereignty of the States, the right of each State and each 
 Territory to settle its domestic concerns for itself, and the duty of each to refrain 
 from interfering with the other in any of its local or domestic institutions. Let that 
 be done, and the Union will be perpetual ; let that be done, and this Republic, which 
 began with thirteen States, and which now numbers thirty-two, which, when it be- 
 gan, only extended from the Atlantic to the Mississippi, but now reaches to the Pa- 
 cifii!, may yet expand, North and South, until it covers the whole Continent, and 
 becomes one vast ocean-bound confederacy. Then, my friends, the path of duty, 
 of honor, of patriotism, is plain. There are a few simple principles to be pre- 
 served. Bear in mind the dividing line between State rights and Federal authority; 
 let us maintain the great principles of popular sovereignty, of State rights, and of 
 the Federal Union as the Constitution has made it, and this Republic will endure 
 forever. 
 
 I thank you kindly for the patience with which you have listened to me. I 
 fear I have wearied you. I have a heavy day's work before me to-morrow. 
 I have several speeches to make. My friends, in whose hands I am, are tax- 
 ing me beyond human endurance, but I shall take the helm and control them 
 hereafter. T am profoundly grateful to the people of McLean for the reception they 
 have given me, and the kindness with which they have listened to me. I remember 
 that when I first came among you here, twenty-five years ago, that I was prosecuting 
 attorney in this district, and that my earliest efforts were made here, when my defi- 
 ciencies were too apparent, I am afraid, to be concealed from any one. I remember 
 the courtesy and kindness with which I was uniformly treated by you all, and when- 
 ever I can recognize the face of one of your old citizens, it is like meeting an old 
 and cherished friend. I come among you with a heart filled with gratitude for past
 
 40 
 
 favors. I have been with you but little for the past few years on account of my 
 official duties. I intend to visit you again before the campaign is over. I wish to 
 speak to your whole people. I wish them to pass judgment upon the coriectness of 
 my course, and the soundness of the principles which I have proclaimed. If you do 
 not approve my principles, I cannot ask your support. If you believe that the elec- 
 tion of Mr. Lincoln would contribute more to preserve the harmony of the country, 
 to perpetuate the Union, and more to the prosperity and the honor and glory of the 
 State, then it is your duty to give him the preference. If, on the contrary, you be- 
 lieve that I have been faithful to my trust, and that by sustaining me you will give 
 greater strength and efficiency to the principles which I have Expounded, I shall then 
 be grateful for your support. 1 renew my profound thanks for your attention. 
 
 SPEECH OF SENATOR DOUGLAS, 
 
 Delivered July 17, 1858, at Springfield, Hi. (Mr. Lincoln was not present.) 
 
 MR. CHAIRMAN, AND FELLOW-CITIZENS OP SPRINGFIELD AND OLD SANGAMON 
 My heart is filled with emotions at the allusions which have been so happily and so 
 kindly made in the welcome just extended to me a welcome so numerous and so 
 enthusiastic, bringing me to my home among my old friends, that language cannot 
 express my gratitude. I do feel at home whenever I return to old Sangamon and 
 receive those kind and friendly greetings which have never failed to meet me when 
 I have come among you ; but never bafore have I had such occasion to be grateful 
 and to be proud of the manner of the reception as on the present. While I am 
 willing, sir, to attribute a part of this demonstration to those kind and friendly per- 
 sonal relations to which you have referred, I cannot conceal from myself that the 
 controlling and pervading element in this great mass of human beings is devotion to 
 that principle of self-government to which so many years of my life have been de- 
 voted ; and rejoice more in considering it an approval of my support of a cardinal 
 principle than I would if I could appropriate it to myself as a personal compliment. 
 
 You but speak rightly when you assert that during the last session of Congress 
 there was an attempt to violate one of the fundamental principles upon which our 
 free institutions rest. The attempt to force the Lecompton Constitution upon the 
 people of Kansas against their will, would have been, if successful, subversive of the 
 great fundamental principles upon which all our institutions rest. If there is any 
 one principle more sacred and more vital to the existence of a free government than 
 all others, it is the right of the people to form and ratify the Constitution under 
 which they are to live. It is the corner-stone of the temple of liberty, it is the 
 foundation upon which the whole structure rests, and whenever it can be successfully 
 evaded self-government has received a vital stab. I deemed it my duty, as a citizen 
 and as a representative of the State of Illinois, to resist, with all my energies and 
 with whatever of ability I could command, the consummation of that effort to force a 
 Constitution upon an unwilling people. 
 
 I am aware that other questions have been connected, or attempted to be connect- 
 ed, with that great struggle, but they were mere collateral questions, not affecting 
 the main point. My opposition to the Lecompton Constitution rested solely upon 
 the fact that it was not the act and deed of that people, and that it did not embody 
 their will. I did not object to it upon the ground of the slavery clause contained in 
 it. I should have resisted it with the same energy and determination even if it had
 
 41 
 
 been a free State instead of a slaveholding State ; and as an evidence of this fact I 
 wish you to bear in mind that my speech against that Lecornpton act was made on 
 the 9th day of December, nearly two weeks before the vote was taken on the accept- 
 ance or rejection of the slavery clause. I did not then know, I could not have 
 known, whether the slavery clause would be accepted or rejected ; the general impres- 
 sion was that it would be rejected, and in my speech I assumed that impression to be 
 true ; that probably it would be voted down ; and then I said to the U. S. Senate, a? 
 I now proclaim to you, my constituents, that you have no more right to force a free 
 State upon an unwilling people than you have to force a slave State upon them 
 against their will. You have no right to force either a good or a bad thing 
 upon a people who do not choose to receive it. And then, again, the highest 
 privilege of our people is to determine for themselves what kind of institu- 
 tions are good and what kind of institutions are bad, and it may be true that the 
 jtame people, situated in a different latitude and different climate, and with different 
 productions and different interests, might decide the same question one way in the 
 North and another way in the South, in order to adapt their institutions to the want; 
 and wishes of the people to be affected by them. 
 
 You all are familiar with the Lecompton struggle, and I will occupy no more time 
 upon the subject, except to remark that when we drove the enemies of the principle 
 of popular sovereignty from the effort to force the Lecompton Constitution upon the 
 people of Kansas, and when we compelled them to abandon the attempt and to refer 
 that Constitution to that people for acceptance or rejection, we obtained a concession 
 of the principle for which I had contended throughout the struggle. When I saw 
 that the principle was conceded, and that the Constitution was not to be forced on 
 Kansas against the wishes of the people, I felt anxious to give the proposition my 
 support ; but, when I examined it, I found that the mode of reference to the people 
 and the form of submission, upon which the vote was taken, was so objectionable as 
 to make it unfair and unjust. 
 
 Sir, it is an axiom with me that in every free government an unfair election is no 
 election at all. Every election should be free, should be fair, with the same privileges 
 and the same inducements for a negative as for an affirmative vote. The objection 
 to what is called the " English " proposition, by which the Lecompton Constitution 
 was referred back to the people of Kansas, was this, that if the people chose to ac- 
 cept the Lecompton Constitution they could come in with only 35,000 inhabitants, 
 while if they determined to reject it in order to form another more in accordance 
 with their wishes and sentiments, they were compelled to stay out until they should 
 have 93,420 inhabitants. In other words, it was making a distinction and discrimi- 
 nation between free States and slave States under the Federal Constitution. I deny 
 the justice, I deny the right, of any distinction or discrimination between the State* 
 North arid South, free or slave. Equality among the States is a fundamental prin- 
 ciple of this government. Hence, while I will never consent to the passage of a 
 law that a slave State may come in with 35,000, while a free State shall not come 
 in unless it have 93,000, on the other hand, I shall not consent to admit a free State 
 with a population of 35,000, and require 93,000 in a slaveholding State. 
 
 My principle is to recogni/e each State of the Union as independent, sovereign 
 and equal in its sovereignty. I will apply that principle not only to the original 
 thirteen States, but to the Slates which have since been brought into the Union, and 
 also to every State that, shall hereafter be received, " as long as water shall run 
 and grass grow." For these reasons I felt compelled, by a sense of duty, by a 
 conviction of principle, to record my vote against what is called the English bill ; 
 but yet the bill became a law, and under that law an election has been ordered to be 
 held on the first Monday in August for the purpose of determining the question of 
 the acceptance or rejection of the proposition submitted by Congress. I have no 
 hesitation in saying to you, as the chairman of your committee has justly said 
 in his address, that whatever the decision of the people of Kansas may be at thai 
 election, it must be final and conclusive of the whole subject; for if at that
 
 42 
 
 election a majority of the people of Kansas shall vote for the acceptance of the Con- 
 gressional proposition, Kansas from that moment becomes a State of the Union, the 
 law admitting her becomes irrepealable, and thus the controversy terminates forever; 
 if, on the other hand, the people of Kansas shall vote down that proposition, 
 as it is now generally admitted they will, by a large majority, then from that 
 instant the Lecompton Constitution is dead, dead beyond the power of resur- 
 rection, and thus the controversy terminates. And when the monster shall die I 
 shall be willing, and trust that all of you will be willing, to acquiesce in the 
 death of the Lecompton Constitution. The controversy may now be considered as 
 terminated, for in three weeks from now it will be finally settled, and all the ill-feeling, 
 all the embittered feeling which grew out of it shall cease, unless an attempt should 
 b'j made in the future to repeat the same outrage upon popular rights. I need not 
 tell you that my past course is a sufficient guarantee that if the occasion shall ever 
 arise again while I occupy a seat in the United States Senate, you will find me car- 
 rying out the same principle that I have this winter, 'with all the energy and all the 
 power I may be able to command. I have the gratification of saying to you that I 
 do not believe that that controversy will ever arise again ; first, because the fate of 
 Lecompton is a warning to the people of every Territory and of every State 
 to be cautious how the example is repeated; and secondly, because the President 
 of the United States, in his annual message, has said that he trusts the example in 
 the Minnesota case, wherein Congress passed a law, called an enabling act, requiring 
 the Constitution to be submitted to the people for acceptance or rejection, will be 
 followed in all future cases. [" That was right."] I agree with you that it was 
 right. I said so on the day after the message was delivered, in my speech in the 
 Senate on the Lecompton Constitution, and I have frequently in the debate tendered 
 to the President and his friends, tendered to the Lecomptonites, my voluntary pledge 
 that if he will stand by that recommendation, and they will stand by it, that they 
 will find me working hand in hand with them in the effort to carry it out. 
 All we have to do, therefore, is to adhere firmly in the future, as we have done 
 in the past, to the principle contained in the recommendation of the President 
 in his annual message, that the example in the Minnesota case shall be car- 
 ried out in all future cases of the admission of Territories into the Union as 
 States. Let that be done and the principle of popular sovereignty will be main- 
 tained in all of its vigor and all of its integrity. I rejoice to kn-^vv that Illinois 
 stands prominently and proudly forward among the States which first took their po- 
 sition firmly and immovably upon this principle of popular sovereignty, applied to 
 the Territories as well as to the States. You all recollect when in 1850 the peace 
 of the country was disturbed in consequence of the agitation of the slavery question, 
 and the effort to force the Wilmot Proviso upon all the Territories, that it required 
 all the talent and all the energy, all the wisdom, all the patriotism, of a Clay and a 
 Webster, united with other great party leaders, to devise a system of measures by 
 which feace and harmony could be restored to our distracted country. Those com- 
 promise measures eventually passed and were recorded on the statute book, not only 
 as the settlement of the then existing difficulties, but as furnishing a rule of action 
 which should prevent in all future time the recurrence of like evils, if they were 
 firmly and fairly carried out. Those compromise measures rested, as I said in. my 
 speech at Chicago, on my return home that year, upon the principle that every people 
 ought to have the right to form and regulate their own domestic institutions in their 
 own way, subject only to the Constitution. They were founded upon the principle 
 that, while every State possessed that right under the Constitution, that the same 
 right ought to be extended to and exercised by the people of the Territories. 
 When the Illinois Legislature assembled, a few months after the adoption of these 
 measures, the first thing the members did was to review their action upon this slavery 
 agitation, and to correct the errors into which their predecessors had fallen. You 
 remember that their first act was to repeal the Wilmot Proviso instructions to our 
 U. S. Senators, which had been previously passed, and in lieu of them to record an-
 
 43 
 
 other resolution upon the journal, with which you must all be familiar a resolution 
 brought forward by Mr. Ninian Edwards, and adopted by the House of Representa- 
 tives by a vote of 61 in the affirmative to 4 in the negative. That resolution I can 
 quote to you in almost its precise language. It declared that the great principle of 
 self-government was the birthright of freemen ; was the gift of heaven ; was achieved 
 by the blood of our revolutionary fathers, and must be continued and carried out in the 
 organization of all the Territories and the admission of all new States. That became 
 the Illinois platform by the united voices of the Democratic party and of the Whig par- 
 ty in 1851 ; all the Whigs and all the Democrats in the Legislature uniting in an af- 
 firmative vote upon it, and there being only 4 votes in the negative, of Abolitionists, 
 of course, that resolution stands upon the journal of your Legislature to this day and 
 hour unrepealed, as a standing, living, perpetual instruction to the Senators from Illinois 
 in all time to come to carry out that principle of self-government and allow no limita- 
 tion upon it in the organization of any Territories or the admission of any new 
 States. In 1854, when it became my duty as the chairman of the committee on Ter- 
 ritories to bring forward a bill for the organization of Kansas and Nebraska, I incor- 
 porated that principle in it and Congress passed it, thus 1 carrying the principle into 
 practical effect. I will not recur to the scenes which took place all over the country 
 in 1854 when that Nebraska bill passed. I could then travel from Boston to Chicago 
 by the light of my own effigies, in consequence of having stood up for it. I leave 
 it to you to say how I met that storm, and whether I quailed under it; whether I 
 did not "face the music," justify the principle, and pledge my life to carry it out. 
 
 A friend here reminds me, too, that when making speeches then, justifying 
 the Nebraska bill and the great principle of self-government, that I predicted 
 that in less than five years yon would have to get out a search warrant to 
 find an anti-Nebraska man. Well, I believe I did make that prediction. I 
 did not claim the power of a prophet, but it occurred to me that among a 
 free people, and an honest people, and an intelligent people, that five years 
 was long enough for them to come to an understanding that the great prin- 
 ciple of self-government was right, not only in the States, but in the Territories. 
 I rejoiced this year to see my prediction, in that respect, carried out and fulfilled 
 by the unanimous vote, in one form or another, of both Houses of Congress. If 
 you will remember that pending this Lecompton controversy that gallant old 
 Roman, Kentucky's favorite son, the worthy successor of the immortal Clay I 
 allude, as you know, to the gallant John J. Crittenden brought forward a 
 bill, now known as the Crittenden-Montgomery bill, in which it was proposed 
 that the Lecompton Constitution should be referred back to the people of Kan- 
 sas, to be decided for or against it, at a fair election, and if a majority of the 
 people were in favor of it, that Kansas should come into the Union as a slave- 
 holding State, but that if a majority were against it, that they should make a new 
 Constitution, and come in with slavery or without it, as they thought proper. 
 [ " That was right."] Yes, my dear sir, it was not only right, but it was carry- 
 ing out the principle of the Nebraska bill in its letter and in its spirit. Of 
 course I voted for it, and so did every Republican Senator and Representative 
 in Congress. I have found some Democrats so perfectly straight that they blame 
 me for voting for the principle of the Nebraska bill because the Republicans voted 
 the same way. [Great laughter. " What did they say ?"] 
 
 What did they say ? Why, many of them said that Douglas voted with the 
 Republicans. Yes! not only that, but with the black Republicans. Well, there 
 are different modes of stating that proposition. The New York Tribune says that 
 Douglas did not vote with the Republicans, but that on that question the Repub- 
 licans went over to Douglas and voted with him. 
 
 My friends, I have never yet abandoned a principle because of the support 
 I found men yielding to it, and I shall never abandon my Democratic principles 
 merely because Republicans come to them. For what do we travel over the coun- 
 try and make speeches in every political canvass, if it is not to enlighten the minds
 
 44 
 
 of these Republicans ; to remove the scales from their eyes, and to impart to them 
 the light of democratic vision, so that they may be able to carry out the Constitu- 
 tion of our country as our lathers made it. And if by preaching our principled 
 to the people we succeed in convincing the Republicans of the errors of their 
 ways, and bring them over to us, are we bound to turn traitors to our princijftes, 
 merely because they give them their support ? All I have to say is that I hope 
 the Republican party will stand firm, in the future, by the vote they gave on 
 the Crittenden-Montgomery bill. I hope we will find, in the resolutions of their 
 County and Congressional Conventions, no declarations of "no more slave States 
 to be admitted into this Union," but in lieu of that declaration that we will find 
 the principle that the people of every State and every Territory shall come into 
 the Union with slavery or without it, just as they please, without any interfer- 
 ence on the part of Congress. 
 
 My friends, whilst I was at Washington, engaged in this great battle for sound 
 constitutional principles, I find from the newspapers that the Republican party of 
 this State assembled in this Capital, in State Convention, and not only nominated, 
 as it was wise and propef for them to do, a man for my successor in the Sen- 
 ate, but laid down a platform, and their nominee made a speech, carefully writ- 
 ten and prepared, and well delivered, which that Convention accepted as con- 
 taining the Republican creed. I have no comment to make on that part of Mr. 
 Lincoln's speech, in which he represents me as forming a conspiracy with the 
 Supreme Court, and with the late President of the United States and the present 
 chief magistrate, having for my object the passage of the Nebraska bill, the Dretl 
 Scott decision and the extension of slavery a scheme of political tricksters, 
 composed of Chief Justice Taney and his eight associates, two Presidents of the 
 United States, and one Senator of Illinois. If Mr. Lincoln deems me a conspi- 
 rator of that kind, all I have to say is that I do not think so badly of the President 
 of the United States, and the Supreme Court of the United Stales, the highest judi- 
 cial tribunal on earth, as to believe that they were capable in their action and decision 
 of entering into political intrigues for partisan purposes. I therefore shall only 
 notice those parts of Mr. Lincoln's speech, in which he lays down his platform 
 of principles, and tells you what he intends to do if he is elected to the 
 Senate of the United States. 
 
 [An old gentleman here rose on the platform and said : " Be particular now, 
 Judge, be particular."] 
 
 Mr. Douglas My venerable friend here says that he will be gratified if I 
 will be particular, and in order that I may be so, I will re,ad the language of 
 Mr. Lincoln as reported by himself and published to the country. Mr. Lincoln 
 lays down his main proposition in these words : 
 
 " * A house divided against itself cannot stand.' I believe this Union cannot 
 endure permanently half fref and half slave. I do not expect the Union will 
 be dissolved. I do not expect the house to fall, but I do expect it to cease to 
 be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other." 
 
 Mr. Lincoln does not think this Union can continue to exist composed of half 
 ulave and half free States ; they must all be free or all slave. I do not doubt 
 that this is Mr. Lincoln's conscientious conviction. I do not doubt that he 
 thinks it is the highest duty of every patriotic citizen to preserve thiti glorious 
 Union, and to adopt these measures as necessary to its preservation. He tells 
 you that the only mode to preserve the Union is to make all the States free 
 or all slave. It must be the one or it must be the other. Now that being essen- 
 tial, in his estimation, to the preservation of this glorious Union, how is he going 
 to accomplish it ? He says that he wants to go to the Senate in order to carry 
 out this favorite patriotic policy of his, of making all the States free, so that 
 the house shall no longer be divided against itself. When he gets to the Sen- 
 ate, by what means is he going to accomplish it ? By an act of Congress ? Will 
 he contend that Congress has any power under the Constitution to abolish slavery
 
 45 
 
 in any State of this Union, or to interfere with it directly or indirectly ? Of 
 course he will not contend that. Then what is to be his mode of carrying out 
 his principle, by which slavery shall be abolished in all of the States? Mr. Lin- 
 coln certainly does riot speak at random. He is a lawyer, an eminent lawyer, 
 arid his profession is to know the remedy for every wrong. What is his remedy for 
 this imaginary wrong which he supposes to exist? The Constitution of the United 
 States provides that it may be amended by Congress passing an amendment by a 
 two-thirds majority of each house, which shall be ratified by three-fourths of the States, 
 am 1 the inference is that Mr. Lincoln intends to carry this slavery agitation into 
 Congress with the view of amending the Constitution so that slavery can be abol- 
 ished -n all the States of the Union. In other words, he is not going to allow one 
 portion of the Union to be slave and another portion to be free ; he is not going to 
 permit the house to be divided against itself. He is going to remedy it by lawful 
 Mid constitutional means. What are to be these means ? How can he abolish slavery 
 in those States where it exists ? There is but one mode by which a political organiza- 
 tion, composed of men in the free States, can abolish slavery in the slaveholding States, 
 and that would be to abolish the State Legislatures, blot out of exit-fence the State 
 sovereignties, invest Congress with full and plenary power over all the local and do- 
 mestic and police regulations of the different States of this Union. Then there 
 would be uniformity in the local concerns and domestic institutions of the different 
 States; then the house would be no longer divided against itself ; then the States 
 would all be, free, or they would all be slave ; then you would have uniformity pre- 
 vailing throughout this whole land in the local and domestic institutions, but it would 
 be a uniformity not of liberty, but a uniformity of despotism that would triumph. I 
 pubmit to you, my fellow-citizens, whether this is not the logical consequence of 
 Mr. Lincoln's proposition ? I have called on Mr. Lincoln to explain what he did 
 mean, if he did not mean this, and he has made a speech at Chicago, in which he at- 
 tempts to explain. And how does he explain ? I will give him the benefit of his own 
 language, precisely as it was reported in the Republican papers of that city, after 
 undergoing his revision. 
 
 " I have said a hundred times, and have now no inclination to take it back, that I 
 believe there is no right and ought to be no inclination in the people of the free States 
 to enter into the slave States arid interfere with the question of slavery at all." 
 
 He believes there is no right on the part of the free people of the free States to 
 enter the slave States aud interfere with the question of slavery, hence he does not 
 propose to go into Kentucky and stir up a civil war and a servile war between the 
 blacks and the whites. All he proposes is to invite the people of Illinois and every 
 other free State to band together as one sectional party, governed and divided by a 
 jreog *aphical line, to make war upon the institution of slavery in the slaveholding. 
 State s. He is going to carry it out by means of a political party, that has its adhe- 
 rcntf only in the free States ; a political party, that does not pretend that it can give 
 a solitary vote in the slave States of the Union ; and by this sectional vote he is 
 going to elect a President of the United States ; form a Cabinet and administer the 
 Government on sectional grounds, being the power of the North over that of the 
 South. In other words, he invites a war of the North against the South, a warfare 
 cf the free States against the slaveholding States. He asks all men in the free States 
 to conspire to exterminate slavery in the Southern States, so as to make them all 
 free, and then he notifies the South that unless they are going to submit to our efforts 
 *o exterminate their institutions, they must band together and plant slavery in Illi- 
 nois and every Northern State. He says that the States must all be free or must all 
 be slave. On this point I take issue with him directly. I assert that Illinois has a 
 right to decide the slavery question 7 for herself. We have decided it, and I think we 
 have done it wisely ; but whether wisely or unwisely, it is our business, and the peo- 
 ple of no other State have any right to interfere with us, directly or indirectly. 
 Claiming as we do this right for ourselves, we must concede it to every other State, 
 to be exercised by them respectively.
 
 46 
 
 Now, Mr. Lincoln says that lie will not enter into Kentucky to abolish slavery 
 there, but that all he will do is to fight slavery in Kentucky from Illinois. He will 
 not go over there to set fire to the match. I do not think he would. Mr. Lincoln 
 is a very prudent man. He would not deem it wise to go over into Kentucky to 
 stir up this strife, but he would do it from this side of the river. Permit me to in- 
 quire whether the wrong, the outrage of interference by one State with the local 
 concerns of another, is worse when you actually invade them than it would be if you 
 carried on the warfare from another State? For the purpose of illustration, suppose 
 the British Government should plant a battery on the Niagara river opposite Buffalo 
 and throw their shells over into Buffalo, where, they should explode and blow up the 
 houses and destroy the town. We call the British Government to an account, and 
 they say, in the language of Mr. Lincoln, we did not enter into the limits ol the 
 United States to interfere with you ; we planted the battery on our own soil, and had a 
 right to shoot from our own soil, and if our shells and balls fell in Buffalo and killed your 
 inhabitants, why, it is your look-out, not ours. Thus, Mr. Lincoln is going to plant his 
 Abolition batteries all along the banks of the Ohio river, and throw his shells into 
 Virginia and Kentucky and into Missouri, and blow up the institution of slavery, and 
 when we arraign him for his unjust interference with the institutions of the other 
 States, he says, " Why, I never did enter into Kentucky to interfere with her ; I do 
 not propose to do it ; I only propose to take care of my own head by keeping on this 
 side of the river, out of harm's way." But yet, he says he is going to persevere in 
 this system of sectional warfare, and I have no doubt he is sincere in what he says. 
 He says that the existence of the Union depends upon his success in firing into these 
 slave States until he exterminates them. He says that unless he shall play his batter- 
 ies successfully, so as to abolish slavery in every one of the States, that the Union 
 shall be dissolved ; and he says that a dissolution of the Union would be A terrible 
 calamity. Of course it would. We are all friends of the Union. We all believe 
 I do that our lives, our liberties, our hopes in the future depend upon the preserva- 
 tion and perpetuity of this glorious Union. I believe that the hopes of the friends 
 of liberty throughout the world depend upon the perpetuity of the American Union. 
 But while I believe that my mode of preserving the Union is a very different one from 
 that of Mr. Lincoln, I believe that the Union can only be preserved by maintaining 
 inviolate the Constitution of the United States as our fathers have made it. That 
 Constitution guarantees to the people of every State the right to have slavery or not 
 have it ; to have negroes or not have them ; to have Maine liquor laws or not have 
 them ; to have just such institutions as they choose, each State being left free to 
 decide for itself. The framers of that Constitution never conceived the idea that 
 uniformity in the domestic institutions of the different States was either desirable 01 
 possible. They well understood that the laws and institutions which would be wel'/ 
 adapted to the granite hills of New Hampshire, would be unfit for the rice plantations 
 of South Carolina ; they well understood that each one of the thirteen States had 
 distinct and separate interests, and required distinct and separate local laws and local 
 institutions. And in view of that fact they provided that each State should retain its 
 sovereign power within its own limits, with the right to make just such laws and just 
 such institutions as it saw proper, under the belief that no two of them would be alike. 
 If they had supposed that uniformity was desirable and possible, why did they provide 
 for a separate Legislature for each State ? AVhy did they not blot out State sovereignty 
 and State Legislatures, and give all the power to Congress, in order that the laws might 
 be uniform ? for the very reason that uniformity, in their opinion, was neither desira- 
 ble or possible. We have increased from thirteen States to thirty-two States, and 
 just in proportion as the number of States increases and our territory expands, there 
 will be a still greater variety and dissimilarity of climate, of production and of in- 
 terest, requiring a corresponding dissimilarity and variety in the local laws and insti- 
 tutions adapted thereto. The laws that are necessary in the mining regions of Cali- 
 fornia, would be totally useless and vicious on the prairies of Illinois; the laws that 
 would suit the lumber regions of Maine or of Minnesota, would be totally useless
 
 47 
 
 and valueless in the tobacco regions of Virginia and Kentucky; the laws which 
 would suit the manufacturing districts of New England, would be totally unsuited to 
 the planting regions of the Carolinas, of Georgia, and of Louisiana. Each State is 
 supposed to have interests separate and distinct from each and eveiy other, and hence 
 must have laws different from each and every other State, in order that its laws shall 
 be adapted to the condition and necessities of the people. Hence I insist that 
 our institutions rest on the theory that there shall be dissimilarity and variety 
 in the local laws and institutions of the different States instead of all being 
 uniform ; and you find, my friends, that Mr. Lincoln and myself differ radically 
 }nd totally on the fundamental principles of this Government. He goes for consoli- 
 dation, ibr uniformity in our local institutions, for blotting out State rights and State 
 sovereignty, and consolidating all the power in the Federal Government, for convert- 
 ing these thirty-two sovereign States into one Empire, and making uniformity through- 
 out the length and breadth of the land. On the other hand, I go for maintaining the 
 authority of the Federal Government within the limits marked out by the Constitu- 
 tion, and then for maintaining and preserving the sovereignty of each and all of the 
 States of the Union, in order that each State may regulate and adopt its own locul 
 institutions in its own way, without interference from any power whatsoever. 
 Thus you find there is a distinct issue of principles principles irreconcilable be- 
 tween Mr. Lincoln and myself. He goes for consolidation and uniformity in our Gov- 
 ernment. I go for maintaining the confederation of the sovereign States under the 
 Constitution, as our fathers made it, leaving each State at liberty to manage its own 
 affairs and own internal institutions. 
 
 Mr. Lincoln makes another point upon me, and rests his whole case upon these 
 two points. His last point is, that he will wage a warfare upon the Supreme Court 
 of the United States because of the Dred Scott decision. He takes occasion, in his 
 speech made before the Republican Convention, in my absence, to arraign me, not 
 only for having expressed my acquiesence in that decision, but to charge me with 
 being a conspirator with that court in devising that decision three years before Dred 
 Scott ever thought of commencing a suit for his freedom. The object of his speech 
 was to convey the idea to the people that the court could not be trusted, that the late 
 President could not be trusted, that the present one could not be trusted, and that Mr. 
 Douglas could not be trusted ; that they were all conspirators in bringing about that 
 corrupt decision, to which Mr. Lincoln is determined he will never yield a willing 
 obedience. 
 
 He makes two points upon the Dred Scott decision. The first is that he objects to 
 it because the court decided that negroes descended of slave parents are not citizens 
 of the United States ; and secondly, because they have decided that the act of Con- 
 gress, passed 8th of March, 1820, prohibiting slavery in all of the Territories north 
 of 36 30', was unconstitutional and void, and hence did not have effect in emanupa- 
 ting a slave brought into that Territory. And he will not submit to that decision. 
 He says that he will not fight the Judges or the United States Marshals in order to 
 liberate Dred Scott, but that he will not respect that decision, as a rule of law bind- 
 ing o>i this country, in the future. Why not ? Because, he says, it is unjust. How 
 is he going to remedy it ? Why, he says he is going to reverse it. How ? He is 
 going to take an appeal. To whom is he going to appeal? The ConstitutioD 
 of the United States provides that the Supreme Court is the ultimate tribu- 
 nal, the highest judicial tribunal on earth, and Mr. Lincoln is going to appeal from 
 that. To whom ? I know he appealed to the Republican State Convention of Illi- 
 nois, and I believe that Convention reversed the decision, but I am not 
 aware that they have yet carried it into effect. How are they going to 
 make that reversal effectual ? Why, Mr. Lincoln tells us in his late Chi- 
 cago speech. He explains it as clear as light. He says to the people of Illinois 
 that if you elect him to the Senate he will introduce a bill to re-enact the law which 
 the Court pronounced unconstitutional. [Shouts of laughter, and voices, " Spot the 
 law."] Yes, he is going to spot the law. The court pronounces that law, prohibit-
 
 48 
 
 ing slavery, unconstitutional and void, and Mr. Lincoln is going to pass an act rev erp- 
 ing that decision and making it valid. I never heard before of an appeal being taken 
 from the Supreme Court to the Congress of the United States to reverse its decision. 
 I have heard of appeals being taken from Congress to the Supreme Court to declare 
 a statute void. That has been done from the earliest days of Chief Justice Marshall, 
 down to the present time. 
 
 The Supreme Court of Illinois do not hesitate to pronounce an act of the Legia- 
 lat are void, as being repugnant to the Constitution, and the Supreme Court of the 
 United States is vested by the Constitution with that very power. The Constitution 
 i;ay,<3 that the judicial power of the United States shall be vested in the Supreme 
 Court, and such inferior courts as Congress shall, from time to time, ordain and 
 establish. Hence it is the province and duty of the Supreme Court to pronounce 
 judgment on the validity and constitutionality of an act of Congress. In this case 
 they have done so, and Mr. Lincoln will not submit to it, and he is going to reverse 
 it by another act of Congress of the same tenor. My opinion is that Mr. 
 Lincoln ought to be on the supreme bench himself, when the Republicans gel 
 into power, if that kind of law knowledge qualifies a man for the bench. But Mr. 
 Lincoln intimates that there is another mode by which he can reverse the Dred Scott 
 decision. How is that ? Why, he is going to appeal to the people to elect a Presi- 
 dent who will appoint judges who will reverse the Dred Scott decision. Well, let UH 
 see how that is going to be done. First, he has to carry on his sectional organiza- 
 tion, a party confined to the free States, making war upon the slaveholding States 
 until he gets a Republican President elected. ["He never will, sir."] I do 
 not believe he ever will. But suppose he should ; when that Republican President 
 shall have taken his seat (Mr. Seward, for instance), will he then proceed to ap- 
 point judges ? No ! he will have to wait until the present judges die before he 
 can do that, and perhaps his four years would be out before a majority of these 
 judges found it agreeable to die ; and it is very possible, too, that Mr. Lincoln's sen- 
 atorial term would expire before these judges would be accommodating enough to die. 
 If it should so happen I do not see a very great prospect for Mr. Lincoln to reverse the 
 Dred Scott decision. But suppose they should die, then how are the new judges to 
 be appointed? Why, the Republican President is to call upon the candidates and 
 catechise them, and ask them, "How will you decide this case if I appoint you 
 judge?" Suppose, for instance, Mr. Lincoln to be a candidate for a vacancy on the 
 supreme bench to fill Chief Justice Taney's place, and when he applied to Seward, 
 the latter would say, "Mr. Lincoln, I cannot appoint you until I know how you will 
 decide the Dred Scott case ?" Mr. Lincoln tells him, and then asks him how he 
 will decide Tom Jones's case, and Bill Wilson's case, and thus catechises the judge 
 as to how he will decide any case which may arise before him. Suppose you get a 
 Supreme Court composed of such judges, who have been appointed by a partisan 
 President upon their giving pledges how they would decide a case before it arose, 
 what confidence would you have in such a court ? 
 
 Would not your court be prostituted beneath the contempt of all mankind? What 
 man would feel that his liberties were safe, his right of person or property was 
 secure, if the supreme bench, that august tribunal, the highest on earth, was brought 
 down to that low, dirty pool wherein the judges are to give pledges in advance how 
 they will decide all the questions which may be brought before them? It is a prop- 
 osition to make that court the corrupt, unscrupulous tool of a political party. But 
 Mr Lincoln cannot conscientiously submit, he thinks, to the decision of a court 
 composed of a majority of Democrats. If he cannot, how can he expect us to 
 have confidence in a court composed of a majority of Republicans, selected for the 
 purpose of deciding against the Democracy, and in favor of the Republicans ? The 
 very proposition carries with it the demoralization and degradation destructive of 
 die judicial department of the Federal Government, 
 
 I say to you, fellow-citizens, that I have no warfare to make upon the Supreme 
 Court because of the Dred Scott decision, I have no complaints to make against
 
 49 
 
 that court, because of that decision. My private opinions on some points of the case 
 may have been one way arid on other points of the case another; in some things 
 concurring with the court and in others dissenting, but what have my private opin- 
 ions in a question of law to do with the decision after it has been pronounced by the 
 highest judicial tribunal known to the Constitution? You, sir [addressing the 
 chairman], as an eminent lawyer, have a right to entertain your opinions on 
 any question that comes before the court and to appear before the tribunal and main- 
 tain them boldly and with tenacity until the final decision shall have been pronounced, 
 ,Hiid then, sir, whether you are sustained or overruled your duty as a lawyer and a 
 (Citizen is to bow in deference to that decision. I intend to yield obedience to the 
 dcvi^uns of the highest tribunals in the land in all cases whether their opinions are 
 in conformity with my views as a lawyer or not. When we refuse to abide by judi- 
 cial decisions what protection is there lefl for life and property? To whom shall 
 you appeal? To mob law, to partisan caucuses, to town meetings, to revolution? 
 Where is the remedy when you refuse obedience to the constituted authorities ? 1 
 will not stop to inquire whether I agree or disagree with all the opinions expressed 
 by Judge Tariey or any other judge. It is enough for me to know that the decision 
 has been made. It has been made by a tribunal appointed by the Constitution to 
 make it; it was a point within their jurisdiction, and I am bound by it. 
 
 But, my friends, Mr. Lincoln says that this Dred Scott decision destroys the doc- 
 trine of popular sovereignty, for the reason that the court has decided that Congress 
 had no power to prohibit slavery in the Territories, and hence he infers that it would 
 decide that the Territorial Legislatures could not prohibit slavery there. I will not 
 stop to inquire whether the court will carry the decision that far or not. It would 
 be interesting as a matter of theory, but of no importance in practice ; for this reason, 
 that if the people of a Territory want slavery they will have it, and if they do not 
 want it they will drive it out, and you cannot force it on them. Slavery cannot exist 
 a day in the midst of an unfriendly people with unfriendly laws. There is truth and 
 wisdom in a remark made to me by an eminent southern Senator, when speaking of 
 this technical right to take slaves into the Territories. Said he, " I do not care a fig 
 which way the decision shall be, for it is of no particular consequence ; slavery cannot 
 exist a day or an hour in any Territory or State unless it has affirmative laws sustain- 
 ing and supporting it, furnishing police regulations and remedies, and an omission to 
 furnish them would be as fatal as a constitutional prohibition. Without affirmative leg- 
 islation in its favor slavery could not exist any longer than a new-born infant could sur- 
 vive under the heat of the sun, on a barren rock, without protection. It would wilt 
 and die for the want of support," So it would be in the Territories. See the illus- 
 tration in Kansas. The Republicans have told you, during the whole history of that 
 Territory, down to last winter, that the pro-slavery party in the Legislature had 
 passed a pro-slavery code, establishing and sustaining slavery in Kansas, but that this 
 pro-slavery Legislature did not truly represent the people, but was imposed upon 
 them by an invasion from Missouri, and hence the Legislature were one way and the 
 people another. Granting all this, and what has been the result? With laws sup- 
 porting slavery, but the people against, there is not as many slaves in Kansas to-day 
 a% there were on the day the Nebraska bill passed and the Missouri Compromise wa? 
 repealed. Why? Simply because slave owners knew that if they took their 
 slaves into Kansa<, where a majority of the people were opposed to slavery, 
 that it would soon be abolished, ancl they would lose their right of property in conse- 
 quence of taking them there. For that reason they would not take or keep them 
 there. If there had been a majority of the people in favor of slavery and the cli- 
 mate had been favorable, they would have taken them there, but the climate not being 
 suitable, the interest of the people being opposed to it, and a majority of them against 
 it, the slave owner did not find it profitable to take his slaves there, and consequently 
 there are not as many slaves there to-day as on the day the Missouri Compromise 
 was repealed. This shows clearly that if the people do not want slavery they will 
 keep it out, and if they do want it they will protect it.
 
 50 
 
 You have a good illustration of this in the territorial history of this State, Yo-s 
 all remember that bj the Ordinance of 1787, slavery was prohibited in Illinois, 
 yet you all know, particularly you old settlers, who were here in territorial times, 
 that the Territorial Legislature, in defiance of that Ordinance, passed a law allowing 
 you to go into Kentucky, buy slaves and bring them into the Territory, having 
 them sign indentures to serve you and your posterity ninety-nine years, and their 
 posterity thereafter to do the same. This hereditary slavery was introduced in 
 defiance of the act of Congress. That was the exercise of popular sovereignty, 
 the right of a Territory to decide the question for itself in defiance of the act 
 of Congress. On the other hand, if the people of a Territory are hostile to sla- 
 very they will drive it out. Consequently this theoretical question raised upon 
 the Dred Scott decision, is worthy of no consideration whatsoever, for it is only 
 brought into these political discussions and used as a hobby upon which to ride 
 into office, or out of which to manufacture political capital. 
 
 But Mr. Lincoln's main objection to the Dred Scott decision I have reserved 
 for my conclusion. His principal objection to that decision is that it was in- 
 tended to deprive the negro of the rights of citizenship in the different States of 
 the Union. Well, suppose it was, and there is no doubt that that was its legal 
 erfect, what is his objection to it ? Why, he thinks that a negro ought to be per- 
 mitted to have the rights of citizenship. He is in favor of negro citizenship, 
 and opposed to the Dred Scott decision, because it declares that a negro is not 
 a citizen, and hence is not entitled to vote. Here I have a direct issue with Mr. 
 Lincoln. I am not in favor of negro citizenship. I do not believe that a negro is 
 a citizen or ought to be a citizen. I believe that this Government of ours was found- 
 ed, and wisely founded, upon the white basis. It was made by white men for the 
 benefit of white men and their posterity, to be executed and managed by white 
 men. I freely concede that humanity requires us to extend all the protection, all the 
 privileges, all the immunities, to the Indian and the negro which they are capable of 
 enjoying consistent with the safety of society. You may then ask me what 
 are those rights, what is the nature and extent of the rights which a 
 negro ought to have? My answer is that this is a question for each State and 
 each Territory to decide for itself. In Illinois we have decided that a negro 
 is not a slave, but we have at the same time determined that he is not a citi- 
 zen and shall not enjoy any political rights. I concur in the wisdom of that 
 policy and am content with it. I assert that the sovereignty of Illinois 
 had a right to determine that question as we have decided it, and I de*ay 
 that any other State has a right to interfere with us or call us to account 
 for that decision. In the State of Maine they have decided by their Con- 
 stitution that the negro shall exercise the elective franchise and hole? office on 
 an equality with the white man. Whilst I do not concur in the good sense or 
 correct taste of that decision on the part of Maine, I have no disposition to quar- 
 rel with her. It is her business and not ours. If the people of Maine desire to be 
 put on an equality with the negro, I do not know that anybody in this State 
 will attempt to prevent it. If the white people of Maine think a negro their 
 equal, and that he has a right to come and kill their vote by a negro vote, 
 they have a right to think so, I suppose, and I have no disposition to inter- 
 fere with them. Then, again, passing over to New York, we find in that 
 State they have provided that a negro may vote provided he holds $250 worth of 
 property, but that he shall not unless he does; that is to say, they will allow a 
 r.e^ro to vote if he is rich, but a poor fellow they will not allow to vote. In New 
 York they think a rich negro is equal to a white man. Well, that is a matter of 
 taste with them. If they think so in that State, and do not carry the 
 doctrine outside of it and propose to interfere with us, I have no quarrel to make 
 with them. It is their business. There is a great deal of philosophy and good sense 
 in a saying of Fridley of Kane. Fridley had a law suit before a justice of the 
 peac?, and the justice decided it against him. This he did not like, and standing up
 
 51 
 
 and looking at the justice for a momi ^t, " Well, Square," said he, " if a man choose? 
 to make a darnation fool of himself I suppose there is no law against it/ 
 That is all I have to say about these negro regulations and this negro voting 
 in otHr States where they have systems different from ours. If it is their wish 
 to have it so, be it so. There is no cause to complain. Kentucky has decided that 
 it is not consistent with her safety and her prosperity to allow a negro to have either 
 political rights or his freedom, and hence she makes him a slave. That is her busi- 
 ness, not mine. It is her right under the Constitution of the country. The sover- 
 eignty of Kentucky, and that alone, can decide that question, and when she decides 
 it there is no power on earth to which you can appeal to reverse it. Therefore, leave 
 Kentucky as the Constitution has left her, a sovereign, independent State, with the 
 exclusive right to have slavery or not, as she chooses, and so long as I hold power 
 ] ill maintain and defend her rights against any assaults from whatever quarter 
 they may come. 
 
 I will never stop to inquire whether I approve or disapprove of the domestic in- 
 stitutions of a State. I maintain her sovereign rights. I defend her sovereignty 
 from all assault, in the hope that she will join in defending us when we are assailed 
 by any outside power. How are we to protect our sovereign rights, to keep 
 slavery out, unless we protect the sovereign rights to every other State to 
 decide the question for itself. Let Kentucky, or South Carolina, or any other 
 State, attempt to interfere in Illinois, and tell us that we shall establish 
 slavery, in order to make it uniform, according to Mr. Lincoln's proposition, through- 
 out the Union ; let them come here and tell us that we must and shall 
 have slavery, and I will call on you to follow me, and shed the last drop of our 
 heart's blood in repelling the invasion and chastising their insolence. And if we 
 would fight for our reserved rights and sovereign power in our own limits, we must 
 respect the sovereignty of each other State. 
 
 Hence, you find that Mr. Lincoln and myself come to a direct issue on this whole 
 doctrine of slavery. He is going to wage a war against it every where, not only in 
 Illinois, but in his native State of Kentucky. And why? Because he says that the 
 Declaration of Independence contains this language : " We hold these truths to 
 be self-evident, that all men are created equal ; that they are endowed by their Crea- 
 tor with certain inalienable rights ; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit 
 of happiness," and he asks whether that instrument does not declare that all men 
 are created equal. Mr. Lincoln then goes on to say that that clause of the De- 
 claration of Independence includes negroes. [ " I say not."] Well, if you say not, 
 I do not think you will vote for Mr. Lincoln. Mr. Lincoln goes on to argue that 
 the language "all men" included the negroes, Indians, and all inferior races. 
 
 In his Chicago speech he says, in so many words, that it includes the negroes, 
 that they were endowed by the Almighty with the right of equality with the white 
 man, and therefore that that right is Divine a right under the higher law ; that the 
 law of God makes them equal to the white man, and therefore that the law of the 
 white man cannot deprive them of that right. This is Mr. Lincoln's argument. He 
 is conscientious in his belief. I do not question his sincerity, I do not doubt that he, 
 in his conscience, believes that the Almighty made the negro equal to the white 
 man. He thinks that the negro is his brother. I do not think that the negro is 
 Hny kin of mine at all. And here is the difference between us. I believe that the 
 Declaration of Independence, in the words "all men are created equal," was inten- 
 led to allude only to the people of the United States, to men of European birth or 
 descent, being white men, that they were created equal, and hence that Great Britain 
 had no right to deprive them of their political and religious privileges ; but the sign- 
 ers of that paper did not intend to include the Indian or the negro in that declara- 
 tion, for if they had would they not have been bound to abolish slavery in 
 every State and Colony from that day. Remember, too, that at the time the 
 Declaration was put forth, every one of the thirteen colonies were slaveholding 
 colonies ; every man who signed that Declaration represented slaveholding constitu-
 
 cuts. Did those signers mean by that act to charge themselves, and all their 
 constituents with having violated the law of God, in holding the negro in an in 
 ferior condition to the white man? And yet, if they included negroes in 
 that term, they were bound, as conscientious men, that day and that hour r 
 not only to have abolished slavery throughout the land, but to have conferred 
 political rights and privileges on the negro, and elevated him to an equality with the 
 white man. [ " They did not do it"] I know they did not do it, and the very fact 
 that they did not shows that they did not understand the language they used to ii> 
 elude any but the white race. Did they mean to say that the Indian, on this con- 
 tinent, was created equal to the white man, and that he was endowed by the Al- 
 mighty with inalienable rights rights so sacred that they could not be taken away 
 by any Constitution or law that man could pass ? Why, their whole action toward 
 the Indian showed that they never dreamed that they were bound to put him on ar 
 equality. I am not only opposed to negro equality, but I am opposed to Indiaii 
 equality. I am opposed to putting the coolies, HOAV importing into this country, on 
 an equality with us, or putting the Chinese or any inferior race on an equality with 
 us. I hold that the white race, the European race, I care not whether Irish, Ger- 
 man, French, Scotch, English, or to what nation they belong, so they are the white 
 race, to be our equals. And I am for placing them, as our fathers did, on an equali- 
 ty with us. Emigrants from Europe, and their descendants, constitute the peo- 
 ple of the United States. The Declaration of Independence only included the white 
 people of the United States. The Constitution of the United States was framed by 
 the white people, it ought to be administered by them, leaving each State to make 
 such regulations concerning the negro as it chooses, allowing him political rights or 
 not, as it chooses, and allowing him civil rights or not, as it may determine for 
 itself. 
 
 Let us only carry out those principles, and we will, have peace and harmony in 
 the different States. But Mr. Lincoln's conscientious scruples on this point govern 
 his actions, and I honor him ibr following them, although I abhor the doctrine which 
 he preaches. His conscientious scruples lead him to believe that the negro is enti- 
 tled by Divine right to the civil and political privileges of citizenship on an equality 
 witfy the white man. 
 
 For that reason he says he wishes the Dred Scott decision reversed. He wishes 
 to confer those privileges of citizenship on the negro. Let us see how he will do it. 
 He will first be called upon to strike out of the Constitution of Illinois that clause 
 which prohibits free negroes and slaves from Kentucky or any other State coming 
 into Illinois. When he blots out that clause, when he lets down the door or opens 
 the gate for all the negro population to flow in and cover our prairies, until in mid 
 day they will look dark and black as night; when he shall have done this, his mission 
 will yet be unfulfilled. Then it will be that lie will apply his principles of negrfc 
 equality, that is, if he can get the Dred Scott decision reversed in the meantime. He 
 will then change the Constitution again, and allow negroes to vote and hold office, 
 and will make them eligible to the Legislature, so that thereafter they can h;ve 
 the right men for U. S. Senators. He will allow them to vote to elect the Leg- 
 islature, the Judges and the Governor, and will make them eligible to the 
 office of Judge or Governor, or to the Legislature. He will put them on an 
 equality with the white man. What then ? Of course, after making them eligi- 
 ble to the judiciary, when he gets Cuffee elevated to the bench, he certainly will not 
 refuse his judge the privilege of marrying any woman he may select ! I submit to 
 you whether these are not the legitimate consequences of his doctrine ? If it be 
 true, as he says, that by the Declaration of Independence and by Divine law, 
 the negro is created the equal of the white man ; if it be true that the Dred 
 Scott decision is unjust and wrong, because it deprives the negro of citizenship and 
 equality with the white man, then does it not follow that if he had the power he 
 would make negroes citizens, and give them all the rights and all the privileges of 
 citizenship on an equality with white men ? I think that is the inevitable conclusion.
 
 53 
 
 I do not doubt Mr. Lincoln's conscientious conviction on the subject, and I do not 
 doubt that lie will carry out that doctrine if he ever has the power; but I resist it 
 because I am utterly opposed to any political amalgamation or any other amalgama- 
 tion on this continent. We are witnessing the result of giving civil and political 
 rights to inferior races in Mexico, in Central America, in South America, and in the 
 West India Islands. Those young men who went from here to Mexico, to fight the 
 battles of their country in the Mexican war, can tell you the fruits of negro equality 
 with the white man. They will tell you that the result of that equality is social 
 amalgamation, demoralization and degradation, below the capacity for self-government. 
 
 My friends, if we wish to preserve this Government we must maintain it on the 
 basis on which it was established, to wit: the white basis. We must preserve the 
 purity of the race not only in our politics but in our domestic relations. We must 
 then preserve the sovereignty of the States, and we must maintain the Federal Union 
 by preserving the Federal Constitution inviolate. Let us do that, and our Union will 
 not only be perpetual but may extend until it shall spread over the entire continent. 
 
 Fellow-citizens, I have already detained you too long. I have exhausted my- 
 self and wearied you, and owe you an apology for the desultory manner in which I 
 have discussed these topics. I will have an opportunity of addressing you again be- 
 fore the November election comes off. I come to you to appeal to your judgment 
 as American citizens, to take your verdict of approval or disapproval upon the 
 discharge of my public duty and my principles as compared with those of Mr. 
 Lincoln. If you conscientiously believe that his principles are more in harmony 
 with the feelings of the American people and the interests and honor of the Repub- 
 lic, elect him. If, on the contrary, you believe that my principles are more con- 
 sistent with those great principles upon which our fathers framed this Government, 
 then I shall ask you to so express your opinion at the polls. I am aware that it is a 
 bitter and severe contest, but I do not doubt what the decision of the people of Il- 
 linois will be. I do not anticipate any personal collision between Mr. Lincoln and 
 myself. You all know that I am an amiable, good-natured man, and I take great 
 pleasure in bearing testimony to the fact that Mr. Lincoln is a kind-hearted, amiable, 
 good-natured gentleman, with whom no man has a right to pick a quarrel, even if 
 he wanted one. He is a worthy gentleman. I have known him for twenty-five 
 years, and there is no better citizen, and no kinder-hearted man. He is a fine law- 
 yer, possesses high ability, and there is no objection to him, except the monstrous 
 revolutionary doctrines with which he is identified and which he conscientiously en- 
 tertains, and is determined to carry out if he gets the power. 
 
 He has one element of strength upon which he relies to accomplish his object, and 
 that is his alliance with certain men in this State claiming to be Democrats, whose 
 avowed object is to use their power to prostrate the Democratic nominees. He hopes 
 he can secure the few men claiming to be friends of the Lecompton Constitution, and 
 for that reason you will find he does not say a word against the Lecompton Constitu- 
 tion or its supporters. He is as silent as the grave upon that subject. Behold 
 Mr. Lincoln courting Lecompton votes, in order that he may go to the Senate ts 
 the representative of Republican principles! You know that that alliance exists. 
 I think you will find that it will ooze out before the contest is over. It must be a 
 contest of principle. Either the radical abolition principles of Mr. Lincoln must b 
 maintained, or the strong, constitutional, national Democratic principles with 
 which I am identified must be carried out. I shall be satisfied whatever way 
 you decide. I have been sustained by the people of Illinois with a steadiness, a 
 firmness and an enthusiasm which makes my heart overflow with gratitude. If I 
 was now to be consigned to private life, I would have nothing to complain of. I 
 would even then owe you a debt of gratitude which the balance of my life could not 
 repay. But, my friends, you have discharged every obligation you owe to me. I 
 have been a thousand times paid by the welcome you have extended to me since I 
 have entered the State on my return home this time. Your reception not only dis- 
 charges all obligations, but it furnishes inducement to renewed efforts to serve you in
 
 54 
 
 die future. If you think Mr. Lincoln will do more to advance the interests and 
 elevate the character of Illinois than myself, it is your duty to elect him; if you 
 think he would do more to preserve the peace of the country and perpetuate the 
 Union than myself, then elect him. I leave the question in your hands, and again 
 tender you my profound thanks for the cordial and heart-felt welcome tendered to 
 me this evening. 
 
 SPEECH OF HON. ABRAHAM LINCOLN, 
 
 Delivered in Springfield, Saturday evening, July 17, 1858. (Mr. Douglas was not 
 
 present) 
 
 FELLOW-CITIZENS : Another election, which is deemed an important one, is ap- 
 proaching, and, as I suppose, the Republican party will, without much difficulty, elect 
 their State ticket. But in regard to the Legislature, we, the Republicans, labor un- 
 der some disadvantages. In the first place, we have a Legislature to elect upon an 
 apportionment of the representation made several years ago, when the proportion of 
 the population was far greater in the South (as compared with the North) than it 
 now is ; and inasmuch as our opponents hold almost entire sway in the South, and 
 we a correspondingly large majority in the North, the fact that we are now to be rep- 
 resented as we were years ago, when the population was different, is, to us, a very 
 great disadvantage. We had in the year 1855, according to law, a census or enu- 
 meration of the inhabitants, taken for the purpose of a new apportionment of repre- 
 sentation. We know what a fair apportionment of representation upon that census 
 would give us. We know that it could not, if fairly made, fail to give the Republican 
 party from six to ten more members of the Legislature than they can probably get 
 as the law now stands. It so happened at the last session of the Legislature, that 
 our opponents, holding the control of both branches of the Legislature, steadily 
 refused to give us such an apportionment as we were rightly entitled to have upon 
 tbs census already taken. The Legislature steadily refused to give us such an ap- 
 portionment as we were rightfully entitled to have upon the census taken of the 
 population of the State. The Legislature would pass' no bill upon that subject, ex- 
 cept such as was at least as unfair to us as the old one, and in which, in some instances, 
 two men in the Democratic regions were allowed to go as far toward sending a mem- 
 ber to the Legislature as three were in the Republican regions. Comparison was 
 made at the time as to representative and senatorial districts, which completely de- 
 monstrated that such was the fact. Such a bill was passed and tendered to the Re- 
 publican Governor for his signature ; but principally for the reasons I have stated, 
 he withheld his approval, and the bill fell without becoming a law. 
 
 Another disadvantage under which we labor is, that there are one or two Demo- 
 cratic Senators who will be members of the next Legislature, and will vote for the 
 election of Senator, who are holding over in districts in which we could, on all rea- 
 sonable calculation, elect men of our own, if we only had the chance of an election. 
 When we consider that there are but twenty-five Senators in the Senate, taking two 
 from the side where they rightfully belong and adding them to the other, is to us a 
 disadvantage not to be lightly regarded. Still, so it is; we have this to contend with. 
 Perhaps there is no ground of complaint on our part. In attending to the many 
 things involved in the last general election for President, Governor, Auditor, Treas- 
 urer, Superintendent of Public Instruction, Members of Congress, of the Legislature, 
 County Officers, and so on, we allowed these things to happen by want of sufficient
 
 55 
 
 attention, and we have no cause to complain of our adversaries, so far as this matter 
 is concerned. But we have some cause to complain of the refusal to give us a fair 
 apportionment. 
 
 There is still another disadvantage under which we labor, and to which I will ask 
 your attention. It arises out of the relative positions of the two persons who stand 
 before the State as candidates for the Senate. Senator Douglas is of woi Id-wide 
 renown. All the anxious politicians of his party, or who have been of his party for 
 years past, have been looking upon him as certainly, at no distant day, to be the 
 President of the United States. They have seen in his round, jolly fruitful face, 
 post-offices, land-offices, marshalships and cabinet appointments, chargt ships and for- 
 eign missions, bursting and sprouting out in wonderful exuberance, ready to be laid 
 hold of by their greedy hands. And as they have been gazing upon this attractive 
 picture so long, they cannot, in the little distraction that has taken place in the party, 
 bring themselves to give up the charming hope ; but with greedier anxiety they rush 
 About him, sustain him, and give him marches, triumphal entries, and receptions be- 
 yond what even in the days of his highest prosperity they could have brought about 
 IL .us favor. On the contrary, nobody has ever expected me to be President. In 
 my poor, lean, lank face, nobody has ever seen that any cabbages were sprouting out 
 These are disadvantages all, taken together, that the Republicans labor under. We 
 have to fight this battle upon principle, and upon principle alone. I am, in a certain 
 sense, made the standard-bearer in behalf of the Republicans. I was made so merely 
 because there had to be some one so placed I being in nowise preferable to any 
 other one of the twenty-five perhaps a hundred we have in the Republican ranks. 
 Then I say I wish it to be distinctly understood and borne in mind, that we have to 
 fight this battle without many perhaps without any of the external aids which are 
 brought to bear against us. So I hope those with whom I am surrounded have prin- 
 ciple enough to nerve themselves for the task and leave nothing undone, that can be 
 fairly done, to bring about the right result 
 
 After Senator Douglas left Washington, as his movements were made known by 
 the public prints, he tarried a considerable time in the city of New York ; and it was 
 heralded that, like another Napoleon, he was lying by and framing the plan of his 
 campaign. It was telegraphed to Washington City, and published in the Union, that 
 he was framing his plan for the purpose of going to Illinois to pounce upon and an- 
 nihilate the treasonable and disunion speech which Lincoln had made here on the 
 16th of June. Now, I do suppose that the Judge really spent some time in New 
 York maturing the plan of the campaign, as his friends heralded for him. I have 
 been able, by noting his movements since his arrival in Illinois, to discover evidences 
 confirmatory of that allegation. I think I have been able to see what are the mate- 
 lial points of that plan. I will, for a little while, ask your attention to some of them. 
 What I shall point out, though not showing the whole plan, are, nevertheless, the 
 main points, as I suppose. 
 
 They are not very numerous. The first is Popular Sovereignty. The second and 
 third are attacks upon my speech made on the 16th of June. Out of these three 
 points drawing within the range of popular sovereignty the question of the Le- 
 eompton Constitution he makes his principal assault. Upon these his successive 
 speeches are substantially one and the same. On this matter of popular sovereignty 
 I wish to be a little careful. Auxiliary to these main points, to be sure, are their 
 thunderirigs of cannon, their marching and music, their fizzle-gigs and fire-works ; but 
 I will not waste time with them. They are but the little trappings of the campaign. 
 
 Coining to the substance the first point "popular sovereignty." It is to be 
 labeled upon the cars in which he travels ; put upon the hacks he rides in ; to be 
 flaunted upon the arches he passes under, and the banners which wave over him. It 
 is to be dished up in as many varieties as a French cook can produce soups from po- 
 tatoes. Now, as this is so great a staple of the plan of the campaign, it is worth 
 while to examine it can.'fully; and if we examine only a very little, and do not allow 
 ourselves to be misled, we shall be able to see that the whole thing is the most arrant
 
 Quixotism that was ever enacted before a community. What is the matter of pop- 
 ular sovereignty ? The first thing, in order to understand it, is to get a good defini- 
 tion of what it is, and after that to see how it is applied. 
 
 I suppose almost every one knows that, in this controversy, whatever has been 
 said has had reference to the question of negro slavery. "We have not been in a 
 controversy about the right of the people to govern themselves in the ordinary mat- 
 ers of domestic concern in the States and Territories. Mr. Buchanan, in one of his 
 Into messages (I think when he sent up the Lecompton Constitution), urged that the 
 main points to which the public attention had been directed, was not in regard to the 
 great variety of small domestic matters, but was directed to the question of negro 
 slavery ; and he asserts, that if the people had had a fair chance to vote on that 
 question, there was no reasonable ground of objection in regard to minor questions. 
 Now, while I think that the people had not had given, or offered them, a fair chance 
 upon that slavery question ; still, if there had been a fair submission to a vote upon 
 that main question, the President's proposition would have been true to the utter- 
 most. Hence, when hereafter I speak of popular sovereignty, I wish to be under- 
 stood as applying what I say to the question of slavery only, not to other minor 
 domestic matters of a Territory or a State. 
 
 Does Judge Douglas, when he says that several of the past years of his life 
 have been devoted to the question of "popular sovereignty," and that all the 
 remainder of his life shall be devoted to it, does he mean to say that he has been 
 devoting his life to securing to the people of the Territories the right to exclude 
 slavery from the Territories? If he means so to say, he means to deceive; because 
 he and every one knows that the decision of the Supreme Court, which he 
 approves and makes especial ground of attack upon me for disapproving, forbids 
 the people of a Territory to exclude slavery. This covers the whole ground, from 
 the settlement of a Territory till it reaches the degree of maturity entitling it to 
 form a State Constitution. So far as all that ground is concerned, the Judge is 
 not sustaining popular sovereignty, but absolutely opposing it. He sustains the 
 decision which declares that the popular will of the Territories has no constitutional 
 power to exclude slavery during their territorial existence. This being so, the 
 period of time from the first settlement of a Territory till it reaches the point of 
 forming a State Constitution, is not the thing that the Judge has fought for or is 
 fighting for, but on the contrary, he has fought for, and is fighting for, the thing 
 that annihilates and crushes out that same popular sovereignty. 
 
 Well, so much being disposed of, what is left ? Why, he is contending for the 
 right of the people, when they come to make a State Constitution, to make it for 
 themselves, and precisely as best suits themselves. I say again, that is Quixotic. 
 I defy contradiction when I declare that the Judge can find no one to oppose him 
 on that proposition. I repeat, there is nobody opposing that proposition on prin- 
 ciple. Let me not be misunderstood. I know that, with reference to the Le- 
 compton Constitution, I may be misunderstood ; but when you understand me 
 correctly, my proposition will be true and accurate. Nobody is opposing, or has 
 opposed, the right of the people, when they form a Constitution, to form it for 
 themselves. Mr. Buchanan and his friends have not done it ; they, too, as well 
 as the Republicans and the Anti-Lecompton Democrats, have not done it ; but, on 
 the contrary, they together have insisted on the right of the people to form a 
 Constitution for themselves. The difference between the Buchanan men on the 
 one hand, and the Douglas men and the Republicans on the other, has not been on 
 a question of principle, but on a question of fact. 
 
 The dispute was upon the question of fact, whether the Lecompton Constitution 
 had been fairly formed by the people or not. Mr. Buchanan and his friends have 
 not contended for the contrary principle any more than the Douglas men or the 
 Republicans. They have insisted that whatever of small irregularities existed in 
 getting up the Lecompton Constitution, were such as happen in the settlement of 
 all new Territories. The question was, was it a fair emanation of the people ? It
 
 was a question of fact and not of principle. As to the principle, all were agreed 
 Judge Douglas voted with the Republicans upon that matter of fact, 
 
 He and they, by their voices and votes, denied that it was a fair emanation of 
 the people. The Administration affirmed that it was. With respect to the evi- 
 dence bearing upon that question of fact, I readily agree that Judge Douglas and 
 the Republicans had the right on their side, and that the Administration was 
 wrong. But I state again that, as a matter of principle, there is no dispute upon the 
 right of a people in a Territory, merging into a State to form a Constitution for 
 themselves without outside interference from any quarter. This being so, what is 
 Judge Douglas going to spend his life for ? Is he going to spend his life in main- 
 taining a principle that nobody on earth opposes ? Does he expect to stand up in 
 majestic dignity, and go through his apotheosis and become a god, in the maintain- 
 ing of a principle which neither man nor mouse in all God's creation is opposing? 
 ^< T OW something in regard to the Lecompton Constitution more specially ; for I 
 pass from this other question of popular sovereignty as the most arrant humbug 
 that has ever been attempted on an intelligent community. 
 
 As to the Lecompton Constitution, I have already said that on the question of fact 
 as to whether it was a fair emanation of the people or not, Judge Douglas with 
 the Republicans and some Americans had greatly the argument against the Ad- 
 ministration ; and Avhile I repeat this, I wish to know what there is in the opposi- 
 tion of Judge Douglas to the Lecompton Constitution that entitles him to be con- 
 sidered the only opponent to it as being par excellence the very quintessence of 
 that opposition. I agree to the rightfulness of his opposition. He in the Senate 
 and his class of men there formed the number three and no more. In the House 
 of Representatives his class of men the Anti-Lecompton Democrats formed a 
 number of about twenty. It took one hundred and twenty to defeat the measure, 
 against one hundred and twelve. Of the votes of that one hundred and twenty, 
 Judge Douglas's friends furnished twenty, to add to which there were six Ameri- 
 cans and ninety-four Republicans. I do not say that I am precisely accurate in 
 their numbers, but I am sufficiently so for any use I am making of it. 
 
 Why is it that twenty shall be entitled to all the credit of doing that work, and 
 the hundred none of it ? Why, if, as Judge Douglas says, the honor is to be 
 divided and due credit is to be given to other parties, why is just so much given as 
 is consonant with the wishes, the interests and advancement of the twenty ? My 
 understanding is, when a common job is done, or a common enterprise prosecuted, 
 if I put in five dollars to your one, I have a right to take out five dollars to your 
 one. But he does not go understand it. He declares the dividend of credit for 
 defeating Lecompton upon a basis which seems unprecedented and incompre- 
 hensible. 
 
 Let us see. Lecompton in the raw was defeated. It afterward took a sort of 
 cooked up shape, and was passed in the English bill. It is said by the Judge ;hat 
 the defeat was a good and proper thing. If it was a good thing, why is he en- 
 titled to more credit than others, for the performance of that good act, unless there 
 was something in the antecedents of the Republicans that might induce every on> 
 to expect them to join in that good work, and at the same time, something leading 
 them to doubt that he would ? Does he place his superior claim to credit, on the 
 ground that he performed a good act which was never expected of him ? He says 
 I have a proneness for quoting scripture. If I should do so now, it occurs that 
 perhaps he places himself somewhat upon the ground of the parable of the lost 
 sheep which went astray upon the mountains, and when the owner of the hundred 
 sheep found the one that was lost, and threw it upon his shoulders, and came homo 
 rejoicing, it was said that there was more rejoicing over the one sheep that was 
 lost and had been found, than over the ninety and nine iri the fold. The applica- 
 tion is made by the Saviour in this parable, thus : " Verily, I say unto you, there 
 is more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, than over ninety and 
 nine just persons that need no repentance."
 
 58 
 
 And now, if the Judge claims the benefit of this parable, let him repent. Lei 
 him not come up here and say : " I am the only just person ; and you are the 
 ninety-nine sinners !" Repentance before forgiveness is a provision of the Christian 
 system, and on that condition alone will the Republicans grant his forgiveness. 
 
 How will he prove that we have ever occupied a different position in regard to 
 the Lecompton Constitution or any principle in it ? He says he did not make his 
 opposition on the ground as to whether it was a free or slave Constitution, and he 
 would have you understand that the Republicans made their opposition because it 
 ultimately became a slave Constitution. To make proof in favor of himself on 
 this point, he reminds us that he opposed Lecompton before the vote was taken 
 declaring whether the State was to be free or slave. But he forgets to say 
 that our Republican Senator, Trumbull, made a speech against Lecompton even 
 before he did. 
 
 Why did he oppose it ? Partly, as he declares, because the members of the 
 Convention who framed it were not fairly elected by the people ; that the people 
 were not allowed to vote unless they had been registered ; and that the people of 
 whole counties, in some instances, were not registered. , For these reasons he de- 
 clares the Constitution was not an emanation, in any true sense, from the people. 
 He also has an additional objection as to the mode of submitting the Constitution 
 back to the people. But bearing on the question of whether the delegates were 
 fairly elected, a speech of his, made something more than twelve months ago, from this 
 stand, becomes important. It was made a little while before the election of the dele- 
 gates who made Lecompton. In that speech he declared there was every reason 
 to hope and believe the election would be fair ; and if any one failed to vote, it 
 would be his own culpable fault. 
 
 I, a few days after, made a sort of answer to that speech. In that answer, I 
 made, substantially, the very argument with which he combatted his Lecompton 
 adversaries in the Senate last winter. I pointed to the facts that the people could 
 not vote without being registered, and that the time for registering had gone by. 
 I commented on it as wonderful that Judge Douglas could be ignorant of these 
 facts, which every one else in the nation so well knew. 
 
 I now pass from popular sovereignty and Lecompton. I may have occasion to 
 refer to one or both. 
 
 When he was preparing his plan of campaign, Napoleon-like, in New York, as 
 appears by two speeches I have heard him deliver since his arrival in Illinois, he 
 gave special attention to a speech of mine, delivered here on the 16th of June last. 
 He says that he carefully read that speech. He told us that at Chicago a week ago 
 last night, and he repeated it at Bloomington last night. Doubtless, he repeated it 
 again to-day, though I did not hear him. In the the two first places Chicago and 
 Bloomington I heard him ; to-day I did not. He said he had carefully examined 
 that speech ; when, he did not say ; but there is no reasonable doubt it was when ho 
 was in New York preparing his plan of campaign. I am glad he did read it care- 
 fully. He says it was evidently prepared with great care. I freely admit it was 
 prepared with care. I claim not to be more free from errors than others perhaps 
 scarcely so much ; but I was very careful not to put anything in that speech as a 
 matter of fact, or make any inferences which did not appear to me to be true, and 
 fully warrantable. If I had made any mistake I was willing to be corrected ; if I 
 had drawn any inference in regard to Judge Douglas, or any one else, which was not 
 warranted, I was fully prepared to modify it as soon as discovered. I planted my- 
 self upon the truth and the truth only, so far as I knew it, or could be brought to 
 know it. 
 
 Having made that speech with the most kindly feelings toward Judge Douglas, as 
 manifested therein, I was gratified when I found that he had carefully examined it, and 
 had detected no error of fact, nor any inference against him, nor any misrepresenta- 
 tions, of which he thought fit to complain. In neither of the two speeches I have 
 mentioned, did he make any such complaint. I will thank any one who will inform
 
 59 
 
 me that he, in his speech to-day, pointed out anything I had stated, respecting him, 
 its being erroneous. I presume there is no such thing. I have reason to be gratified 
 that the can; and caution used in that speech, left it so that lie, most of all others in- 
 terested iu discovering error, has not been able to point out one thing against him 
 which he could say was wrong. He seizes upon the doctrines he supposes to be in- 
 cluded in that speech, and declares that upon them will turn the issues of this cam- 
 paign. He then quotes, or attempts to quote, from my speech. I will, not say that he 
 willfully misquotes, but he does fail to quote accurately. His attempt at quoting IF 
 from a passage which I believe I can quote accurately from memory. 1 shall make 
 the quotation now, with some comments upon it, as I have already said, in order \hat 
 the Judge shall be left entirely without excuse for misrepresenting me. I do so now, 
 as I hope, for the last time. I do this in great caution, in order that if he repeats his 
 misrepresentation, it shall be plain to all that he does so willfully. If, after all, he 
 still persists, I shall be compelled to reconstruct the course I have marked out for 
 myself, and draw upon such humble resources as I have, for a new course, better 
 su.Hed to the real exigencies of the ease. I set out, in this campaign, with the inten- 
 tion of conducting it strictly as a gentleman, in substance at least, if not in the outside 
 poli>h. The latter I shall never be, but that which constitutes the inside of a gentle- 
 man I hope I understand, and am not less inclined to practice than others. It was 
 my purpose and expectation that this canvass would be conducted upon principle, and 
 with fairness on both sides, and it shall not be my fault if this purpose and expecta- 
 tion shall be given up. 
 
 He charges, in substance, that I invite a war of sections ; that I propose all the 
 local institutions of the different States shall become consolidated and uniform. What 
 is there in the language of that speech which expresses such purpose, or bears such 
 const ruction? I have again and again said that I would not enter into any of the 
 States to disturb the institution of slavery. Judge Douglas said, at Bloomington, 
 that I used language most able and ingenious for concealing what I really meant; 
 and that while I had protested against entering into the slave States, I nevertheless 
 did mean to go on the banks of the Ohio and throw missiles into Kentucky, to disturb 
 them in their domestic institutions. 
 
 I said, in that speech, and I meant no more, that the institution of slavery ought 
 to be placed in the very attitude where the framers of this Government placed it and 
 left it. I do not understand that the framers of our Constitution left the people of 
 the free Stales in the attitude of firing bombs or shells into the slave States. I was 
 not using that passage for the purj)ose for which he infers I did use it. I said : "We 
 arc now far advanced into the fifth year since a policy was created for the avowed 
 object and with the confident promise of putting an end to slavery agitation. Under 
 the operation of that policy that agitation has not only not ceased, but has constantly 
 augmented. In my opinion it will not cease till a crisis shall have been reached and 
 passed. * A house divided against itself cannot stand.' I believe that this Govern- 
 ment cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. It will become all one 
 thing or all the other. Kither the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread 
 of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the 
 course of ultimate extinction, or its advocates will push it forward till it shall become 
 alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new, North as well as South." 
 
 Now you all see, from that quotation, I did not express my wish on anything. In 
 that passage I indicated no wish or purpose; of my own; I simply expressed my expecta- 
 /< n. Cannot the Judge perceive a distinction between a purpose and an expectation? 
 I have often expressed an expectation to die, but I have never expressed a ivish to 
 die. I said at Chicago, and now repeat, that I am quite aware this Government has 
 endured, half slave and half free, for eighty-two years. I understand that little bit 
 of history. I expressed the opinion I did, because I perceived or thought I per 
 ceived a new set of causes introduced. I did say at Chicago, in rny speech there, 
 that I do wish to see the spread of slavery arrested, and to see it placed where the 
 public min 1 shall rest in the belief that it is i:i the course of ultirrufe < Ktinction. I
 
 60 
 
 said that because I supposed, when the public mind shall rest in that belief, \ve shall 
 have peace on the slavery question. I have believed and now believe the public 
 mind did rest on that belief up to the introduction of the Nebraska bill. 
 
 Although I have ever been opposed to slavery, so far I rested in the hope and be- 
 lief that it was in the course of ultimate extinction. For that reason, it had been a 
 minor question with me. I might have been mistaken ; but I had believed, and now 
 believe, that the whole public mind, that is, the mind of the great majority, had rested 
 in that belief up to the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. But upon that event, 
 I became convinced that either I had been resting in a delusion, or the institution 
 was being placed on a new basis a basis for making it perpetual, national and uni- 
 versal. Subsequent events have greatly confirmed me in that belief. I believe that 
 bill to be the beginning of a conspiracy for that purpose. So believing, I have since 
 then considered that question a paramount one. So believing, I thought the public 
 mind will never rest till the power of Congress to restrict the spread of it shall again 
 be acknowledged and exercised on the one hand, or on the other, all resistance 
 be entirely crushed out. I have expressed that opinion, and I entertain it to-night, 
 It is denied that there is any tendency to the nationalization of slavery in these States. 
 
 Mr. Brooks, of South Carolina, in one of his speeches, when they were presenting 
 him canes, silver plate, gold pitchers and the like, for assaulting Senator Sumner, 
 distinctly affirmed his opinion that when this Constitution was formed, it was the be- 
 lief of no man that slavery would last to the present day. 
 
 He said, what I think, that the framers of our Constitution placed the institution 
 of slavery where the public mind rested in the hope that it was in the course of ulti- 
 mate extinction. But he went on to say that the men of the present age, by their 
 experience, have become wiser than the framers of the Constitution ; arid the inven- 
 tion of the cotton gin had made the perpetuity of slavery a necessity in this country. 
 
 As another piece of evidence tending to this same point : Quite recently in Vir- 
 ginia, a man the owner of slaves made a will providing that after his death certain of 
 his slaves should have their freedom if they should so choose, and go to Liberia, rather 
 than remain in slavery. They chose to be liberated. But the persons to whom they 
 would descend as property, claimed them as slaves. A suit was instituted, which 
 finally came to the Supreme Court of Virginia, and was therein decided against the 
 slaves, upon the ground that a negro cannot make a choice that they had no legal 
 power to choose could not perform the condition upon which their freedom de- 
 pended. 
 
 I do not mention this with any purpose of criticising it, but to connect it with the 
 arguments as affording additional evidence of the change of sentiment upon this 
 question of slavery in the direction of making it perpetual and national. I argue 
 new as I did before, that there is such a tendency, and I am backed not merely by 
 th facts, but by the open confession in the slave States. 
 
 And now, as to the Judge's inference, that because I wish to see slavery placed in 
 the course of ultimate extinction placed where our fathers originally placed it I 
 wi-h to annihilate the State Legislatures to force cotton to grow upon the tops of 
 the Green Mountains to freeze ice in Florida to cut lumber on the broad Illi- 
 nois prairies that I am in favor of all these ridiculous and impossible things. 
 
 It seems to me it is a complete answer to all this to ask, if, when Congress did 
 have the fashion of restricting slavery from free territory ; when courts did have 
 the fashion of deciding that taking a slave into a free country made him free I 
 say it is a sufficient answer to ask, if any of this ridiculous nonsense about consoli- 
 dation, and uniformity, did actually follow? Who heard of any such thing, because 
 of the Ordinance of '87 ? because of the Missouri Restriction ? because of the nu- 
 merous court decisions of that character ? 
 
 Now, as to the Bred Scott decision ; for upon that he makes his last point at me, 
 He 'boldly takes ground in favor of that decision. 
 
 This is one-half the onslaught, and one-third of the entire plan of the campaign. 
 I am opposed to that decision in a certain sense, but not in the sense which he puts
 
 61 
 
 on it. I say that in so far as it decided in favor of Dred Scott's master, and against 
 Dred Scott and his family, I do not propose to disturb or resist the decision. 
 
 I never have proposed to do any such thing. I think, that in respect for judicial 
 authority, my humble history would not suffer in comparison with that of Judge 
 Douglas. lie would have the citizen conform his vote to that decision ; the member 
 of Congress, his ; the President, his use of the veto power. He would make it a 
 rule of political action for the people and all the departments of the Government. 
 I would not. By resisting it as a political rule, I disturb no right of property, create 
 no disorder, excite no mobs. 
 
 When he spoke at Chicago, on Friday evening of last week, he made this same 
 point upon me. On Saturday evening I replied, and reminded him of a Supreme 
 Court decision which he opposed for at least several years. Last night, at Bloom- 
 ington, he took some notice of that reply ; but entirely forgot to remember that part 
 of it. 
 
 He renews his onslaught upon rne, forgetting to remember that I have turned the 
 tables against himself on that very point. I renew the effort to draw his attention 
 to it. I wish to stand erect before the country, as well as Judge Douglas, on this 
 question of judicial authority ; and therefore J add something to the authority in fa- 
 vor of my own position. I wish to show that I am sustained by authority, in addi- 
 tion to that heretofore presented. I do not expect to convince the Judge. It is part 
 of the plan of his campaign, and he will cling to it with a desperate gripe. Even, 
 turn it upon him the sharp point against him, and gaff him through he will 
 till cling to it till he can invent some new dodge to take the place of it. 
 
 In public speaking it is tedious reading from documents ; but I must beg to indulge 
 the practice to a limited extent. I shall read from a letter written by Mr. Jefferson 
 in 1820, and now to be found in the seventh volume of his correspondence, at page 
 177. It seems he had been presented by a gentleman of the name of Jarvis with 
 a book, or essay, or periodical, called the " Republican," and he was writing in ac- 
 knowledgment of the present, and noting some of its contents. After expressing 
 the hope that the work will produce a favorable effect upon the minds of the young, 
 he proceeds to say: 
 
 " That it will have this tendency may be expected, and for that reason I feel an 
 urgency to note what I deem an error in it, the more requiring notice as your opin- 
 ion is strengthened by that of many others. You seem, in page 84 and 148, to con- 
 sider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions a very dan- 
 gerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an 
 oligarchy. Our judges are as honest as other men, and not more so. They have, 
 with others, the same passions for party, for power, and the privilege of their corps. 
 Their maxim is, ' boni judicis est ampliare jurisdietionem ;' and their power is the 
 more dangerous as they are in office for life, and not responsible, as the other func- 
 tionaries are, to the elective control. The Constitution has erected no such single 
 tribunal, knowing that, to whatever hands confided, with the corruptions of time and 
 party, its members would become despots. It has more wisely made all the depart* 
 ments coequal and cosovereign with themselves." 
 
 Thus we see the power claimed for the Supreme Court by Judge Douglas, Mr. 
 Jefferson holds, would reduce us to the despotism of an oligarchy. 
 
 Now, I have said no more than this in fact, never quite so much as this at 
 least I am sustained by Mr. Jefferson. 
 
 Let us go a little further. You remember we once had a National Bank. Some 
 one owed the bank a debt ; he was sued and sought to avoid payment, on the ground 
 that the bank was uncon ilitutional. The case went to the Supreme Court, and there- 
 in it was decided that the bank was constitutional. The whole Democratic party re- 
 volted against that decision.- General Jackson himself asserted that he, as President 
 would not be bound to hold a National Bank to be constitutional, even though the 
 court had decided it to be so. He fell in precisely with the view of Mr. Jefferson, 
 and acted upon it under his official oath, in vetoing a charter for a National Bank. 
 5
 
 62 
 
 The declaration that Congress does not possess this constitutional power to charter a 
 bank, has gone into the Democratic platform, at their National Conventions, and was 
 brought forward and reaffirmed in their last Convention at Cincinnati. They have 
 contended for thai declaration, in the very teeth of the Supreme Court, for more than 
 a quarter of a. century. In fact, they have reduced the decision to an absolute nullity. 
 That decision, I repeat, is repudiated in the Cincinnati platform ; and still, as if to 
 show that effrontry can go no farther, Judge Douglas vaunts in the very speeches in 
 which he denounces me for opposing the Dred Scott decision, that he stands on the 
 Cincinnati platform. 
 
 Now, I wish to know what the Judge can charge upon me, with respect to decis- 
 ions of the Supreme Court, which does not lie in all its length, breadth, and propor- 
 tions at his own door. The plain truth is simply this : Judge Douglas is for Su- 
 preme Court decisions when he likes and against them when he does not like them. 
 He is for the Dred Scott decision because it tends to nationalize slavery because 
 it is part of the original combination for that object. It so happens, singularly 
 enough, that I never stood opposed to a decision of the Supreme Court till this. On 
 the contrary, I have no recollection that he was ever particularly in favor of one till 
 this. He never was in favor of any, nor opposed to any, till the present one, which 
 helps to nationalize slavery. 
 
 Free men of Sangamon free men of Illinois free men everywhere judge 
 ye between him and me, upon this issue. 
 
 He says this Dred Scott case is a very small matter at most that it has no prac- 
 tical effect ; that at best, or rather, I suppose, at worst, it is but an abstraction. 1 
 submit that the proposition that the thing which determines whether a man is free 01 
 a slave, is rather concrete than abstract. I think you would conclude that it was, if 
 your liberty depended upon it, and so would Judge Douglas if his liberty depended 
 upon it. But suppose it was on the question of spreading slavery over the new Ter- 
 ritories that he considers it as being merely an abstract matter, and one of no prac- 
 tical importance. How has the planting of slavery in new countries always been 
 effected? It has now been decided that slavery cannot be kept out of our new Ter- 
 ritories by any legal means. In what does our new Territories now differ in this re- 
 spect from the old Colonies when slavery was first planted within them ? It was 
 planted as Mr. Clay once declared, and as history proves true, by individual men in 
 spite of the wishes of the people ; the Mother Government refusing to prohibit it, 
 and withholding from the people of the Colonies the authority to prohibit it for them- 
 selves. Mr. Clay says this was one of the great aud just causes of complaint against 
 Great Britain by the Colonies, and the best apology we cnn now make for having ilie 
 institution amongst us. In that precise condition our Nebraska politicians have at 
 last succeeded in placing our own new Territories ; the Government will not prohibit 
 slavery within them, nor allow the people to prohibit it. 
 
 I defy any man to find any difference between the policy which originally 
 planted slavery in these Colonies and that policy which now prevails in our new 
 Territories. If it does not go into them, it is only because no individual wishes it 
 to go. The Judge indulged himself, doubtless to-day, with the question as to what I 
 am going to do with or about the Dred Scott decision. Well, Judge, will you please 
 tell me what you did about the bank decision? Will you not graciously allow us to 
 do with the Dred Scott decision precisely as you did with the bank decision ? You 
 succeeded in breaking down the moral effect of that decision ; did you find it neces- 
 sary to amend the Constitution? or to set up a court of negroes in order to do it? 
 
 There is one other point. Judge Douglas has a very affectionate leaning toward 
 the Americans and Old Whigs. Last evening, in a sort of weeping tone, he described 
 to us a death -bed scene. He had been called to the side of Mr. Clay, in his last mo- 
 ments, in order that the genius of " popular sovereignty " might duly descend from 
 the dying man arid settle upon him, the living and most worthy successor. He could 
 do no less than promise that he would devote the remainder of his life to " popular 
 sovereignty ; " and then the great statesman departs in peace. By this part of the
 
 63 
 
 " plan of the campaign," the Judge has evidently promised himself that tears shall 
 be drawn down the cheeks of all Old Whigs, as large as half-grown apples. 
 
 Mr. Webster, too, was mentioned ; but it did not quite come to a death-bed scene, 
 as to him. It would be amusing, if it were not disgusting, to see how quick these 
 compromise-breakers administer on the political effects of their dead adversaries, 
 trumpirg up claims never before heard of, and dividing the assets among themselves. 
 If I rihould be found dead to-morrow morning, nothing but my insignificance could 
 prevent a speech being made on my authority, before the end of next week. It so 
 happens that in that " popular sovereignty " with which Mr. Clay was identified, the 
 Missouri Compromise was expressly reserved ; and it was a little singular if Mr. 
 Clay cast his mantle upon Judge Douglas on purpose to have that compromise re- 
 pealed. 
 
 Again, the Judge did not keep faith with Mr. Clay when he first brought in his 
 Nebraska bill. He left the Missouri Compromise unrepealed, and in his report ac- 
 companying the bill, he told the world he did it on purpose. The manes of Mr. 
 Clay must have been in great agony, till thirty days later, when " popular sovereign- 
 ty " stood forth in all its glory. 
 
 One more thing. Last night Judge Douglas tormented himself with horrors 
 about my disposition to make negroes perfectly equal with white men in social and 
 political relations. He did not stop to show that I have said any such thing, or that 
 it legitimately follows from any thing I have said, but he rushes on with his asser- 
 tions. I adhere to the Declaration of Independence. If Judge Douglas and his 
 friends are not willing to stand by it, let them come up and amend it. Let them 
 make it read that all men are created equal except negroes. Let us have it decided, 
 whether the Declaration of Independence, in this blessed year of 1858, shall be thus 
 amended. In his construction of the Declaration last year, he said it only meant 
 that Americans in America were equal to Englishmen in England. Then, when I 
 pointed out to him that by that rule he excludes the Germans, the Irish, the Portu- 
 guese, and all the other people who have come amongst us since the Revolution, he 
 reconstructs his construction. In his last speech he tells us it meant Europeans. 
 
 I press him a little further, and ask if it meant to include the Russians in Asia ? 
 or does he mean to exclude that vast population from the principles of our Declara- 
 tion of Independence ? I expect ere long he will introduce another amendment to 
 his definition. He is not at all particular. He is satisfied with any thing which does 
 not endanger the nationalizing of negro slavery. It may draw white men down, but 
 it must not lift negroes up. Who shall say, " I am the superior, and you are the in- 
 ferior ? " 
 
 My declarations upon this subject of negro slavery may be misrepresented, but 
 cannot be misunderstood. I have said that I do not understand the Declaration to 
 mean that all men were created equal in all respects. They are not our equal in 
 color ; but I suppose that it does mean to declare that all men are equal in some re- 
 spects ; they are equal in their right to " life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.* 
 Certainly the negro is not our equal in color perhaps not in many other respects j 
 still, in the right to put into his mouth the bread that his own hands have earned, he 
 is the equal of every other man, white or black. In pointing out that more has been 
 given you, you cannot be justified in taking away the little which has been given 
 him. All I ask for the negro is that if you do not like him, let him alone. If God 
 gave him but little, that little let him enjoy. 
 
 W hen our Government was established, we had the institution of slavery among 
 us. We were in a certain sense compelled to tolerate its existence. It was a sort 
 of necessity. We had gone through our struggle, and secured our own independ- 
 ence. The framers of the Constitution found the institution of slavery amongst 
 their other institutions at the time. They found that by an effort to eradicate it, 
 they might lose much of what they had already gained. They were obliged to bow 
 to the necessity. They gave power to Congress to abolish the slave trade at the 
 end of twenty years. Tiiey also prohibited it in the Territories where it did not ex-
 
 64 
 
 isi. They did what they could and yielded to the necessity for the rest. I also yield 
 to all which follows from that necessity. What I would most desire would be the 
 separation of the white and black races. 
 
 One more point on this Springfield speech which Judge Douglas says he has read 
 o carefully. I expressed rny belief in the existence of a conspiracy to perpetuate 
 and nationalize slavery. I did not profess to know it, nor do I now. I showed the 
 part Judge Douglas had played in the string of facts, constituting to my mind the 
 proof of that conspiracy. I showed the parts played by others. 
 
 I charged that the people had been deceived into carrying the last Presidential 
 election, by the impression that the people of the Territories might exclude slavery 
 if they chose, when it was known in advance by the conspirators, that the court was 
 to decide that neither Congress nor the people could so exclude slavery. These 
 charges are more distinctly made than anything else in the speech. 
 
 Judge Douglas has carefully read and re-read that speech. He has not, so far as 
 I know, contradicted those charges. In the two speeches which I heard, he certainly 
 did not. On his own tacit admission I renew that charge. I charge him with hav- 
 ing been a party to that conspiracy and to that deception for the sole purpose of 
 nationalizing slavery. 
 
 THE following is the correspondence betwen the two rival candidates for the 
 United States Senate: 
 
 Mr. Lincoln to Mr. Douglas. 
 
 CHICAGO, ILL., July 24, 1858. 
 
 Hon. S. A. DOUGLAS My Dear Sir: Will it be agreeable to you to make an arrangement for 
 you and myself to divide time, and address the same audiences the present canvass ? Mr. Judd, 
 who will band you this, is authorized to receive your answer ; and, if agreeable to you, to enter 
 into the terms of such arrangement. Your obedient servant, 
 
 A. LINCOLN. 
 
 Mir. Douglas to Mr. Lincoln. 
 
 CHICAGO, July 24, 1858. 
 
 HOD A. LINCOLN Dear Sir: Your note of this date, in which you inquire if it would be 
 agreeable to me to make an arrangement to divide the time and address the same audiences 
 during the present canvass, was handed me by Mr. Judd. Recent events have interposed difficul- 
 ties in the way of such an arrangement. 
 
 I went to Springfield last week for the purpose of conferring with the Democratic State Central 
 Committee upon the mode of conducting the canvass, and with them, and under their advice, 
 made a list of appointments covering the entire period until late in October. The people of the 
 several localities have been notified of the times and places of the meetings. Those appointments 
 have all been made for Democratic meetings, and arrangements have been made by which the 
 O^mocratic candidates for Congress, for the Legislature, and other offices, will be present and 
 address the people. It is evident, therefore, that these various candidates, in connection with 
 ray*elf, will occupy the whole time of the day and evening, and leave no opportunity for other 
 
 Besides, there is another consideration which should be kept in mind. It has been suggested 
 recently that an arrangement had been made to bring out a third candidate for the United States 
 Senate, who, with yourself, should canvass the State in opposition to me, with no other purpose 
 than to insure my defeat, by dividing the Democratic party for your benefit. If I should make 
 this arrangement with you, it is more than probable that this other candidate, who has a common 
 object with you, would desire to become a party to it, and claim the right to speak from the same 
 stand ; so that he and you, in concert, might be able to take the opening and closing speech in every 
 
 186. 
 
 I cannot refrain from expressing my surprise, if it was your original intention to invite such an
 
 65 
 
 arrangement, that you should have waited until after I had made my appointments, inasmuch m 
 we were both here in Chicago together for several days after my arrival, and again at Blooming- 
 ton, Atlanta, Lincoln and Springfield, where it was well known I went for the purpose of coo- 
 suiting with the State Central Committee, and agreeing upon the plan of the campaign. 
 
 While, under these circumstances, I do not feel at liberty to make any arrangements whicb 
 would deprive the Democratic candidates for Congress, State; officers, and the Legislature froip 
 participating in the discussion at the various meetings designated by the Democratic State Central 
 Committee, I will, in order to accommodate you as far as it is in my power to do so, take th 
 responsibility of making an arrangement with you for a discussion between us at one prominent 
 point in each Congressional District in the State, except the second and sixth districts, where w* 
 have both spoken, and in each of which cases you had the concluding speech. If agreeable to 
 you, I will indicate the following places as those most suitable in the several Congressional Di^ 
 tricts at which we should speak, to wit : Freeport, Ottawa, Galesburg, Quincy, Alton, Jonesboro 
 and Charleston. I will confer with you at the earliest convenient opportunity in regard to the 
 mode of conducting the debate, the times of meeting at the several places, subject to the condi- 
 tion, that where appointments have already been made by the Democratic State Central Committt* 
 at any of those places, I must insist upon you meeting me at the times specified. 
 Very respectfully, your most obedient servant, 
 
 S. A. DOUGLAS 
 
 Mr. Lincoln to Mr. Douglas. 
 
 SPRINGFIELD, July 29, 1858. 
 
 Hon. S. A DOUGLAS Dear Sir: Yours of the 24th in relation to an arrangement to divide 
 time, and address the same audiences, is received ; and, in apology for not sooner replying, allow 
 me to say, that when I sat by you at dinner yesterday, I was not aware that you had answered 
 my note, nor, certainly, that my own note had been presented to you. An hour after, I saw a 
 copy of your answer in the Chicago Times, and, reaching home, I found the original awaiting me. 
 Protesting that your insinuations of attempted unfairness on my part are unjust, and with the 
 hope that you did not very considerately make them, I proceed to reply. To your statement that 
 ; ' It has been suggested, recently, that an arrangement had been made to bring out a third candi- 
 date for the U. S. Senate, who, with yourself, should canvass the State in opposition to me," etc., 
 I can only say, that such suggestion must have been made by yourself, for certainly none such 
 has been made by or to me, or otherwise, to my knowledge. Surely you did not deliberately con- 
 clude, as you insinuate, that I was expecting to draw you into an arrangement of terms, to be 
 agreed on by yourself, by which a third candidate and myself, "in concert, might be able to take 
 the opening and closing speech in every case." 
 
 As to your surprise that I did not sooner make the proposal to divide time with you, I can only 
 say, I made it as soon as I resolved to make it. I did not know but that such proposal would 
 come from you ; I waited, respectfully, to see. It may have been well known to you that you 
 went to Springfield for the purpose of agreeing on the plan of campaign ; but it was not so known 
 tome. When your appointments were announced in the papers, extending only to the 2 1st of 
 August, I, for the first time, considered it certain that you would make no proposal to me, and then 
 resolved that, if my friends concurred, I would make one to you. As soon thereafter as I could 
 see and consult with friends satisfactorily, I did make the proposal. It did not occur to me that 
 the proposed arrangement could derange your plans after the latest of your appointments already 
 made. After that, there was, before the election, largely over two months of clear time. 
 
 For you to say that we have already spoken at Chicago and Springfield, and that on both occa- 
 sions I had the concluding speech, is hardly a fair statement. The truth rather is this : At 
 Chicago, July 9th, you made a carefully-prepared conclusion on my speech of June 16th. Twenty- 
 four hours after, I made a hasty conclusion on yours of the 9th. You had six days to prepare, 
 and concluded on me again at Bloomington on the 16th. Twenty-four hours after, I concluded 
 again on you at Springfield. In the meantime, you had made another conclusion on me at Spring- 
 field, which I did not hear, and of the contents of which I knew nothing when I spoke ; so that 
 your speech made in daylight, and mine at night, of the 17th, at Springfield, were both made in 
 perfect independence of each other. The dates of making all these speeches will show, I tbink. 
 that in the matter of time for preparation, the advantage has all been on your side ; and that 
 none of the external circumstances have stood to my advantage. 
 
 I agree to an arrangement for us to speak at the seven places you have named, and at your 
 own times, provided you name the times at once, so that I, as well as you, can have to myself the 
 time not covered by the arrangement. As to the other details, I wish perfect reciprocity, and no 
 more. I wish as much time as you, and that conclusions shall alternate. That is all. 
 
 Your obedient servant, 
 
 A. LINCOLN. 
 
 P. S. As matters now stand, I shall be at no more of your exclusive meetings ; and for about 
 a week from to-day a letter from you will reach me at Springfield. A. L.
 
 66 
 
 Mr. Douglas to Mr. Lincoln. 
 
 BEMENT, PIATT Co., ILL., July 30, 1858. 
 
 Dear Sir: ^Your letter, dated yesterday, accepting my proposition for a joint discussicai at on 
 prominent point in each Congressional District, as stated in my previous letter, was received thia 
 morning. 
 
 The times and places designated are as follows : 
 
 Ottawa, La Salle County August 21st, 1858. 
 
 Freeport, Stephenson County " 27th, " 
 
 Jonesboro, Union County September 15th, " 
 
 Charleston, Coles County 18th, " 
 
 Galesburgh, Knox County October 7th, " 
 
 Quiucy, Adams County " 13th, " 
 
 Alton, Madison County " 15th, " 
 
 1 agree to your suggestion that we shall alternately open and close the discussion. I will speak 
 *l Ottawa one honr, you can reply, occupying an hour and a half, and I will then follow for half 
 an hour. At Freeport, you shall open the discussion and speak one hour, I will follow for an 
 hour and a half, and you can then reply for half an hour. We will alternate in like manner in 
 each successive place. 
 
 Very respectfully, your obedient servant, 
 
 S. A. DOUGLAS. 
 Hon. A. LIXCOI.X, Springfield, 111. 
 
 Mr. Lincoln to Mr. Douglas. 
 
 SPRINGFIELD, July 31. 1858. 
 
 Hon. S. A. DOUGLAS Dear Sir: Yours of yesterday, naming places, times and terms, for 
 joint discussions between us, was received this morning. Although, by the terms, as you pro- 
 pose, you take four openings and closes, to my three, I accede, and thus close the arrangement. I 
 direct this to you at Hillsboro, and shall try to have both your letter and this appear in the 
 Journal and Register of Monday morning. Your obedient servant, 
 
 A. LINCOLN. 
 
 FIRST JOINT DEBATE, AT OTTAWA, 
 
 August 21, 1858. 
 
 MR. DOUGLAS'S SPEECH. 
 
 LADIES AND GENTLEMEN : I appear before you to-day for the purpose of dis- 
 cussing the leading political topics which now agitate the public mind. By an ar- 
 rangement between Mr. Lincoln and myself, we are present here to-day for the pur- 
 pose of having a joint discussion, as the representatives of the two great political 
 parties of the State and Union, upon the principles in issue between those parties ; 
 and this vast concourse of people shows the deep feeling which pervades the public 
 mind in regard to the questions dividing us. 
 
 Prior to 1854 this country was divided into two great political parties, known as 
 the Whig and Democratic parties. Both were national and patriotic, advocating 
 principles that were universal in their application. An old line Whig could proclaim 
 his principles in Louisiana and Massachusetts alike. Whig principles had no boun- 
 dary sectional line they were not limited by the Ohio river, nor by the Potomac, 
 nor by the line of the free and slave States, but applied and were proclaimed wher- 
 ever the Constitution ruled or the American flag waved over the American soil. So 
 it was, and so it is with the great Democratic party, which, from the days of Jeffer- 
 son until this period, has proven itself to be the historic party of this nation. While 
 the Whig and Democratic parties differed in regard to a bank, the tariff, distribution,
 
 67 
 
 the specie circular and the sub-treasury, they agreed on the great slavery question 
 which now agitates the Union. I .say that the Whig party anil the Democratic party 
 agreed on this slavery question, while they differed on those matters of expediency 
 to which 1 have referred. The Whig party and the Democratic party jointly adopted 
 the Compromise measures of 18.30 as the basis of a proper and just solution of this 
 slavery question in all its forms. Clay was the great leader, with Webster on his 
 right and Cass on his left, and sustained by the patriots in the Whig and Democratic 
 ranks, who had devised and enacted the Compromise measures of 1850. 
 
 In 1851, the Whig party and the Democratic party united in Illinois in adopting 
 resolutions indorsing and approving the principles of the Compromise measures of 
 1850, as the proper adjustment of that question. In 1852, when the Whig party 
 assembled in Convention at Baltimore for the purpose of nominating a. candidate for 
 the Presidency, the first thing it did was to declare the Compromise measures of 
 1850, in substance and in principle, a suitable adjustment of that question. [Here 
 the speaker was interrupted by loud and long-continued applause.] My friends, 
 silence will be more acceptable to me in the discussion of these questions than ap- 
 plause. I desire to address myself to your judgment, your understanding, and your 
 consciences, and not to your passions or your enthusiasm. When the Democratic 
 Convention assembled in Baltimore in the same year, for the purpose of nominating 
 a Democratic candidate for the Presidency, it also adopted the Compromise measures 
 of 1850 as the basis of Democratic action. Thus you see that up to 1853-'54, the 
 Whig party and the Democratic party both stood on the same platform with regard 
 to the slavery question. That platform was the right of the people of each State 
 and each Territory to decide their local and domestic institutions for themselves, sub- 
 ject only to the Federal Constitution. 
 
 During the session of Congress of 1853-'54, 1 introduced into the Senate of the United 
 States a bill to organize the Territories of Kansas and Nebraska on that principle 
 which had been adopted in the Compromise measures of 1850, approved by the Whig 
 party and the Democratic party in Illinois in 1851, and indorsed by the Whig party 
 and the Democratic party in National Convention in 1852. In order that there 
 might be no misunderstanding in relation to the principle involved in the Kansas and 
 Nebraska bill, I put forth the true intent and meaning of the act in these words : " It 
 is the true intent and meaning of this act not to legislate slavery into any State or Ter- 
 ritory, or to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form 
 and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to the Federal 
 Constitution." Thus, you see, that up to 1854, when the Kansas and Nebraska bill 
 was brought into Congress for the purpose of carrying out the principles which both 
 parries had up to that time indorsed and approved, there had been no division in this 
 country in regard to that principle except the opposition of the Abolitionists. In 
 the House of Representatives of the Illinois Legislature, upon a resolution asserting 
 that principle, every Whig and every Democrat in the House voted in the affirma- 
 tive, and only four men voted against it, and those four were old line Abolitionists. 
 
 In 1854, Mr. Abraham Lincoln and Mr. Trumbull entered into an arrangement, 
 one with the other, and each with his respective friends, to dissolve the old Whig 
 party on the one hand, and to dissolve the old Democratic party on the other, and to 
 connect the members of both into an Abolition party, under the name and disguise of 
 a Republican party. The terms of that arrangement between Mr. Lincoln and Mr. 
 Trumbull have been published to the world by Mr. Lincoln's special friend, James 
 H. Matheny, Esq., and they were, that Lincoln should have Shields's place in the 
 United States Senate, which was then about to become vacant, and that Trumbull 
 should have my seat when my term expired. Lincoln went to work to Abolitionize 
 the old Whig party all over the State, pretending that he was then as good a Whig 
 as ever ; and Trumbull went to work in his part of the State preaching Abolitionism 
 in its milder and lighter form, and trying to Abolitionize the Democratic party, and 
 bring old Democrats handcuffed and bound hand and foot into the Abolition camp. 
 Jo pursuance of the arrangement, the parties met at Springfield iii October, 1854,
 
 68 
 
 and proclaimed their new platform. Lincoln was to bring into the Abolition camp 
 the old line "Whigs, and transfer them over to Giddings, Chase, Fred. Douglass, and 
 Parson Lovejoy, who were ready to receive them and christen them in their new 
 faith. They laid down on that occasion a platform for their new Republican party, 
 which was to be thus constructed. I have the resolutions of their State Convention 
 then held, which was the first mass State Convention ever held in Illinois by the 
 Black Republican party, and I now hold them in my hands and will read a part of 
 them, and cause the others to be printed. Here are the most important and material 
 resolutions of this Abolition platform : 
 
 1. Resolved, That we believe this truth to be self-evident, that when parties become subversiva 
 of the ends for which they are established, or incapable of restoring the Government to the true 
 principles of the Constitution, it is the right and duty of the people to dissolve the political bands 
 by which they may have been connected therewith, and to organize new parties upon such princi- 
 ples and with such views as the circumstances and exigencies of the nation may demand. 
 
 2. Resolved, That the times imperatively demand the reorganization of parties, and, repudiating 
 all previous party attachments, names and predilections, we unite ourselves together in defense of 
 the liberty and Constitution of the country, and will hereafter cooperate as the Republican party, 
 pledged to the accomplishment of the following purposes : To bring the administration of the 
 Government back to the control of first principles ; to restore Nebraska and Kansas to the position 
 of free Territories ; that, as the Constitution of the United States vests in the States, and not in 
 Congress, the power to legislate for the extradition of fugitives from labor, to repeal and entirely 
 abrogate the Fugitive Slave law ; to restrict slavery to those States in which it exists ; to prohibit 
 the admission of any more slave States into the Union ; to abolish slavery in the District of Co- 
 lumbia ; to exclude slavery from all the Territories over which the General Government has ex- 
 clusive jurisdiction ; and to resist the acquirements of any more Territories unless the practice of 
 slavery therein forever shall have been prohibited. 
 
 3. Resolved, That in furtherance of these principles we will use such Constitutional and lawful 
 means as shall seem best adapted to their accomplishment, and that we will support no man for 
 office, under the General or State Government, who is not positively and fully committed to the 
 support of these principles, and whose personal character and conduct is not a guaranty that he 
 is reliable, arid who shall not have abjured old party allegiance and ties. 
 
 Now, gentlemen, your Black Republicans have cheered every one of those prop- 
 ositions, and yet I venture to say that you cannot get Mr. Lincoln to come out and 
 say that he is now in favor of each one of them. That these propositions, one and 
 all, constitute the platform of the Black Republican party of this day, I have no 
 doubt ; and when you were not aware for what purpose I was reading them, your 
 Black Republicans cheered them as good Black Republican doctrines. My object in 
 reading these resolutions, was to put the question to Abraham Lincoln this day, 
 whether he now stands and will stand by each article in that creed, and carry it out. 
 I desire to know whether Mr. Lincoln to-day stands as he did in 1854, in favor of 
 the unconditional repeal of the Fugitive Slave law. I desire him to answer whether 
 he stalls pledged to-day, as he did in 1854, against the admission of any more slave 
 States into the Union, even if the people want them. I want to know whether he 
 stands pledged against the admission of a new State into the Union with such a Con- 
 stitution as the people of that State may see fit to make. I want to know whether 
 he stands to-day pledged to the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. I 
 desire him to answer whether he stands pledged to the prohibition of the slave trade 
 between the different States. I desire to know whether he stands pledged to prohibit 
 slavery in all the Territories of the United States, Nortk as well as South of the 
 Missouri Compromise line. I desire him to answer whether he is opposed to the ac- 
 quisition of any more territory unless slavery is prohibited therein. I want his an- 
 swer io these questions. Your affirmative cheers in favor of this Abolition platform 
 is 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. My 
 principles are the same everywhere. I can proclaim them alike in the North, the 
 South, the East, and the West. My principles will apply wherever the Constitution ( 
 prevails and the American flag waves. I desire to know whether Mr. Lincoln's prin- 
 ciples will bear transplanting from Ottawa to Jonesboro ? I put these questions to 
 him to-day distinctly, and ask an answer. I have a right to an answer, for I quote
 
 69 
 
 from the pfatform of the Republican party, made by himself and others at the time 
 that party was formed, and the bargain made by Lincoln to dissolve and kill th<. old 
 Whig party, and transfer its members, bound hand and foot, to the Abolition party, 
 under the direction of Giddings and Fred Douglass. In the remarks I have made 
 on this platform, and the position of Mr. Lincoln upon it, I mean nothing personally 
 disrespectful or unkind to that gentleman. I have known him for nearly twenty -five 
 years. There were many points of sympathy between us when we first got ac- 
 quainted. We were both comparatively boys, and both struggling with poverty in a 
 strange land. I was a school-teacher in the 'town of Winchester, and he a flourishing 
 grocery-keeper in the town of Salem. He was more successful in his occupation 
 than I was in mine, and hence more fortunate in this world's goods. Lincoln is one 
 of those peculiar men who perform with admirable skill everything which they un- 
 dertake. I made as good a school-teacher as I could, and when a cabinet maker I 
 made a good bedstead and tables, although my old boss said I succeeded better with 
 bureaus and secretaries than with anything else ; but I believe that Lincoln was al- 
 ways more successful in business than I, for his business enabled him to get into the 
 Legislature. I met him there, however, and had a sympathy with him, because of 
 the up-hill struggle we both had in life. He was then just as good at telling an anec- 
 dote as now. He could beat any of the boys wrestling, or running a foot-race, in 
 pitching quoits or tossing a copper; could ruin more liquor than all the boys of the 
 town together, and the dignity and impartiality with which he presided at a horse- 
 race or fist-fight, excited the admiration and won the praise of everybody that was 
 present and participated. I sympathised with him, because he was struggling with 
 difficulties, and so was I. Mr. Lincoln served with me in the Legislature in 1836, 
 when we both retired, and he subsided, or became submerged, and he was lost sight 
 of as a public man for some years. In 1846, when Wilmot introduced his celebrated 
 proviso, and the Abolition tornado swept over the country, Lincoln again turned up 
 as a member of Congress from the Sangamon district I was then in the Senate of 
 the United States, and was glad to welcome my old friend and companion. Whilst 
 in Congress, he distinguished himself by his opposition to the Mexican war, talcing 
 the side of the common enemy against his own country ; and when he returned home 
 he found that the indignation of the people followed him everywhere, and he was 
 again submerged or obliged to retire into private life, forgotten by his former friends. 
 He came up again in 1854, just in time to make this Abolition or Black Republican 
 platform, in company with Giddings, Lovejoy, Chase and Fred Douglass, for the 
 Republican party to stand upon. Trumbull, too, was one of our own cotemporaries. 
 He was born and raised in old Connecticut, was bred a Federalist, but removing to 
 Georgia, turned Nullifier, when nullification was popular, and as soon as he disposed 
 of his clocks and wound up his business, migrated to Illinois, turned politician and 
 lawyer here, and made his appearance in 1841, as a member of the Legislature. He 
 became noted as the author of the scheme to repudiate a large portion of the State 
 debt of Illinois, which, if successful, would have brought infamy and disgrace jpon 
 the fair escutcheon of our glorious State. The odium attached to that measure con- 
 signed him to oblivion for a time. I helped to do it. I walked into a public meet- 
 ing in the hall of the House of Representatives, and replied to his repudiating 
 speeches, and resolutions were carried over his head denouncing repudiation, and as- 
 serting the moral and legal obligation of Illinois to pay every dollar of the debt she 
 owed and every bond that bore her seal. Trumbull's malignity has followed me since 
 I thus defeated his infamous scheme. 
 
 These two men having formed this combination to abolitionize the old Whig party 
 and the old Democratic party, and put themselves into the Senate of the United 
 States, in pursuance of their baigain, are now carrying out that arrangement. 
 Matheny states that Trumbull broke faith ; that the bargain was that Lincoln should 
 be the Senator in Shields's place, and Trumbull was to wait for mine ; and the story 
 goes, that Trumbull cheated Lincoln, having control of four or five abolitionized 
 Democrats who were holding over in the Senate ; he would not let them vote for
 
 70 
 
 Lincoln, and which obliged the rest of the Abolitionists to support him in order to 
 secure tin Abolition Senator. There are a number of authorities for the truth oi 
 this besides Matheny, and I suppose that even Mr. Lincoln will not deny it. 
 
 Mr. Lincoln demands that he shall have the place intended tor Trumbnll, as 
 Truvnbull cheated him and got his, and Trumbull is stumping the State traducing 
 me for the purpose of securing the position for Lincoln, in order to quiet him. It 
 was in consequence of this arrangement that the Republican Convention was itnpan- 
 neled to instruct for Lincoln arid nobody else, and it was on this account that they 
 passed resolutions that he was their first, their last, and their only choice. Archy 
 Williams was nowhere, Browning was nobody, Wentworth was not to be considered; 
 they had no man in the Republican party for the place except Lincoln, for the reason 
 that lie demanded that they should carry out the arrangement. 
 
 Having formed this new party for the benefit of deserters from Whiggery, and 
 deserters from Democracy, and having laid down the Abolition platform which I 
 have read, Lincoln now takes his stand and proclaims his Abolition doctrines. Let 
 me read a part of them. In his speech* at Springfield to the Convention, which 
 nominated him for the Senate, he said : 
 
 "In my opinion it will not cease until a crisis shall have been reached and passed. 
 'A house divided against itself cannot stand.' I believe this government cannot 
 endure permanently half Slave and half Free. I do not expect the Union to be dis- 
 solved I do not expect the house to fall but I do expect it will cease to be divided* 
 It will become all one thing, or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will 
 arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the 
 belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction: or its advocates will push it 
 forward till it shall become alike lawful in all the States old as well as new, North 
 as well as South." 
 
 ["Good," "good," and cheers.] 
 
 1 am delighted to hear you Black Republicans say "good." I have no doubt that 
 doctrine expresses your sentiments, and I \vill prove to you now, if you will listen 
 to me, that it is revolutionary and destructive of the existence of this Government. 
 Mr. Lincoln, in the extract from which I have read, says that this Government can- 
 not endure permanently in the same condition in which it was made by its framers 
 divided into free and slave States. He says that it has existed for about seventy 
 years thus divided, and yet he tells you that it cannot endure permanently on the 
 same principles and in the same relative condition in which our fathers made it. 
 "Why can it not exist divided into free and slave States ? Washington, Jefferson, 
 'Franklin, Madison, Hamilton, Jay, and the great men of that day, made this Gov- 
 ernment divided into free States and slave States, and left each State perfectly free 
 to do as it pleased on the subject of slavery. Why can it not exist on the same 
 principles on which our fathers made it? They knew when they framed the Consti- 
 tution that in a country as wide and broad as this, with such a variety of climate, 
 production and interest, the people necessarily required different laws and institutions 
 in different localities. They knew that the laws and regulations which would suit the 
 granite hills of New Hampshire would be unsuited to the rice plantations of South 
 Carolina, and they, therefore, provided that each State should retain its own Legisla- 
 ture and its own sovereignty, with the full and complete power to do as il pleased 
 within its own limits, in all that was local and riot national. One of the reserved 
 rights of the States, was the right to regulate the relations between Master and 
 Servant, on the slavery question. At the time the Constitution was framed, there 
 were thirteen States in the Union, twelve of which were slaveholding States and one 
 a free State. Suppose this doctrine of uniformity preached by Mr. Lincoln, that the 
 States should all be free or all be slave had prevailed, and what would have been the 
 result? Of course, the twelve slaveholding States would have overruled the. one 
 free State, and slavery would have been fastened by a Constitutional provision on 
 every inch or' the American Republic, instead of being left as our fathers wisely left 
 it, to each State to decide for itself. Here I assert that uniformity in the local laws
 
 71 
 
 and institutions of the different States is neither possible or desirable. If uniformity 
 had been adopted when the Government was established, it must inevitably have 
 been the uniformity of slavery everywhere, or else the uniformity of negro citizen- 
 ship and negro equality everywhere. 
 
 \\Ve are told by Lincoln that he is utterly opposed to the Dred Scott decision, and 
 will not submit to it, for the reason that he says it deprives the negro of the rights 
 and privileges of citizenship. That is the first and main reason which he assigns for 
 hiS warfare on the Supreme Court of the United States and its decision. \I ask you,' 
 are }ou in favor of conferring upon the negro the rights and privileges of citizenship? 
 Do you desire to strike out of our State Constitution that clause which keeps slaves 
 and free negroes out of the State, and allow the free negroes to flow in, and cover 
 your prairies with black settlements? Do you desire to turn this beautiful Suite 
 into a free negro colony, in order that when Missouri abolishes slavery she can send 
 one hundred thousand emancipated slaves into Illinois, to become citizens and voters, 
 on an equality with yourselves? If you desire negro citizenship, if you desire to 
 allow them to come into the State and settle with the white man, if you desire them 
 to vote on an equality with yourselves, and to make'them eligible to office, to serve 
 on juries, and to adjudge your rights, then support Mr. Lincoln and the Black Repub- 
 lic an party, who are in favor of the citizenship of the negro. For one, I am opposed 
 to negro citizenship in any and every form. I believe this Government was made on 
 the wiiite basis. I believe it was made by white men, for the benefit of white men 
 and their posterity for ever, and I am in favor of confining citizenship to white men, 
 men of European birth and descent, instead of conferring it upon negroes, Indians, 
 and other inferior races. 
 
 Mr. Lincoln, following the example and lead of all the little Abolition orators, who 
 go around and lecture in the basements of schools and churches, reads from the 
 Declaration of Independence, that all men were created equal, and then asks, how 
 can you deprive a negro of that equality which God and the Declaration of Inde- 
 pendence awards to him? He and they maintain that negro equality is guarantied 
 by the laws of God, and that it is asserted in the Declaration of Independence. If 
 they think so, of course they have a right to say so, and so vote. I do not question 
 Mr. Lincoln's conscientious belief that the negro was made his equal, and hence is 
 his brother ; but for my own part, I do not regard the negro as my equal, and posi- 
 tively deny that he is my brother or any kin to me whatever. Lincoln has evidently 
 learned by heart Parson Lovejoy's catechism. He can repeat it as well as Farns- 
 worth, and he is worthy of a medal from Father Giddings and Fred Douglass for his 
 Abolitionism. He holds that the negro was born his equal and yours, and that he 
 was endowed with equality by the Almighty, and that no human law can deprive 
 him of these rights which were guarantied to him by the Supreme ruler of the Uni- 
 verse. Now, 1 do not believe that the Almighty ever intended the negro to be the 
 equal of the white man. If he did, he has been a long time demonstrating the fact. 
 For thousands of years the negro has been a race upon the earth, and during all that 
 time, in all latitudes and climates, wherever he has wandered or been taken, he has 
 been inferior to the race which he has there met. He belongs to an inferior race, 
 nd must always occupy an inferior position. I do not hold that because the negro 
 is oar inferior that therefore he ought to be a slave. By no means can such a con- 
 clusion be drawn from what I have said. On the contrary, I hold that humanity 
 and Christianity both require that the negro shall have and enjoy every right, every 
 privilege, and every immunity consistent with the safety of the society in which he 
 lives. On that point, I presume, there can be no diversity of opinion. You and I 
 are bound to extend to our inferior and dependent beings every right, every privilege, 
 every facility and immunity consistent with the public good. The question then 
 arises, what rights and privileges are consistent with the public good ? This is a 
 question which each State and each Territory must decide for itself Illinois has 
 decided it for herself. We have provided that the negro shall not be a slave, and 
 we hare also provided that he shall not be a citizen, but protect him in his civil
 
 72 
 
 rights, in his life, his person and his property, only depriving him of all political 
 rights whatsoever, and refusing to put him on an equality with the white man. That 
 policy of Illinois is satisfactory to the Democratic party and to me, and if it were to 
 the Republicans, there would then be no question upon the subject ; but the Repub- 
 licans say that he ought to be made a citizen, and when he becomes a citizen he 
 becomes your equal, with all your rights and privileges. They assert the Dred 
 Scott decision to be monstrous because it denies that the negro is or can be a citizen 
 under the Constitution. Now, I hold that Illinois had a right to abolish and pro- 
 hibit slavery as she did, and I hold that Kentucky has the same right to continue arid 
 protect slavery that Illinois had to abolish it. I hold that New York had as much 
 right to abolish slavery as Virginia has to continue it, and that each and every State 
 of this Union is a sovereign power, with the right to do as it pleases upon this ques- 
 tion of slavery, and upon all its domestic institutions. Slavery is not the only ques- 
 tion which comes up in this controversy. There is a far mor important one to you, 
 and that is, what shall be done with the free negro ? We have settled the slavery 
 question as far as we are concerned ; we have prohibited it in Illinois forever, and in 
 doing so, I think we have done wisely, and there is no man in the State who would 
 be more strenuous in his opposition to the introduction of slavery than I would ; but 
 when we settled it for ourselves, we exhausted all our power over that subject. We 
 have done our whole duty, and can do no more. We must leave each and every 
 other State to decide for itself the same question. In relation to the policy to be 
 pursued toward the free negroes, we have said that they shall not vote ; whilst 
 Maine, on the other hand, has said that they shall vote. Maine is a sovereign State, 
 and has the power to regulate the qualifications of voters within her limits. I would 
 never consent to confer the right of voting and of citizenship upon a negro, but still 
 I am not going to quarrel with Maine for differing from me in opinion. Let Maine 
 take care of her own negroes and fix the qualifications of her own voters to suit her- 
 self, without interfering with Illinois, and Illinois will not interfere with Maine. So 
 with the State of New York. She allows the negro to vote provided he owns two 
 hundred and fifty dollars' worth of property, but not otherwise. While I would not. 
 make any distinction whatever between a negro who held property and one who did 
 not ; yet if the sovereign State of New ^igrk chooses to make that distinction it is 
 her business and not mine, and I will not quarrel with her for it. She can do as she 
 pleases on this question if she minds her own business, and we will do the same thing. 
 Now, my friends, if we will only act conscientiously and rigidly upon this great prin- 
 ciple of popular sovereignty, which guaranties to each State and Territory the right 
 to do as it pleases on all things, local and domestic, instead of Congress interfering, 
 we will continue at peace one with another. Why should Illinois be at war with 
 Missouri, or Kentucky with Ohio, or Virginia with New York, merely because their 
 institutions differ? Our fathers intended that our institutions should differ. They 
 knew that the North and the South, having different climates, productions and 
 interests, required different institutions. This doctrine of Mr. Lincoln, of uniformity 
 among the institutions of the different States, is a new doctrine, never dreamed of by 
 Washington, Madison, or the framers of this Government. Mr. Lincoln and the 
 Republican party set themselves up as wiser than these men who made this Govern 
 ment, which has flourished for seventy years under the principle of popular 
 sovereignty, recognizing the right of each State to do as it pleased. Under that 
 principle, we have grown from a nation of three or four millions to a nation of about 
 thirty millions of people ; we have crossed the Allegheny mountains and filled up the 
 whole North-west, turning the prairie into a garden, and building up churches and 
 schools, thus spreading civilization and Christianity where before there was nothing 
 but savage barbarism. Under that principle we have become, from a feeble nation, 
 the most powerful on the face of the earth, and if we only adhere to that principle, 
 we can go forward increasing in territory, in power, in strength and in glory until the 
 Republic of America shall be the North Star that shall guide the friends of freedom 
 throughout the civilized world. And why can we not adhere to the great principle
 
 73 
 
 of self-government, upon which our institutions were originally based? I believe that 
 this new doctrine preached by Mr. Lincoln and his party will dissolve the Union if 
 it succeeds. They are trying to array all the Northern States in one body against 
 the South, to excite a sectional war between the free States and the slave States, in 
 order that the one or the other may be driven t the wall. 
 
 I am told that my time is out. Mr. Lincoln will now address you for an hour 
 and a half, and I will then occupy an half hour in replying to him. 
 
 MR. LINCOLN'S REPLY. 
 
 Mr FELLOW-CITIZENS : When a man hears himself somewhat misrepresented, 
 it provokes him at least, I find it so with myself; but when misrepresentation be- 
 comes 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 Democratic and the old Whig parties, that Judge Trumbull and myself 
 made an arrangement in 1854, by which I was to have the place of Gen. Shields in 
 the United States Senate, and Judge Trumbull was to have the place of Judge 
 Douglas. Now, all I have to say upon that subject is, that I think no man not 
 even Judge Douglas can prove it, because it is not true. I have no doubt he is 
 " conscientious " in saying it. As to those resolutions that he took such a length of 
 time to read, as being the platform of the Republican party in 1854, I say I never 
 had anything to do with them, and I think Trumbull never had. Judge Douglas 
 cannot show that either of us ever did have anything to do with them. I believe 
 this is true about those resolutions : There was a call for a Convention to form a 
 Republican party at Springfield, and I think that my friend, Mr. Lovejoy, who is 
 here upon this stand, had a hand in it I think this is true, and I think if he will 
 remember accurately, he will be able to recollect that he tried to get me into it, and 
 I would not go in. I believe it is also true that I went away from Springfield when 
 the Convention was in session, to attend court in Tazewell county. It is true they 
 did place my name, though without authority, upon the committee, and afterward 
 wrote me to attend the meeting of the committee, but I refused to do so, and I never 
 had anything to do with that organization. This is the plain truth about all that 
 matter of the resolutions. 
 
 Now, about this story that Judge Douglas tells of Trumbull bargaining to sell out 
 the old Democratic party, and Lincoln agreeing to sell out the old Whig party, I 
 have the means of knowing about that ; Judge Douglas cannot have ; and I know 
 there is no substance to it whatever. Yet I have no doubt he is " conscientious " 
 about it. I know that after Mr. Lovejoy got into the Legislature that winter, he 
 complained of me that I had told all the old Whigs of Ms district that the old Whig 
 party was good enough for them, and some of them voted against him because I told 
 them so. Now, I have no means of totally disproving such charges as this which 
 the Judge makes. A man cannot prove a negative, but he has a right to claim that 
 when a man makes an affirmative charge, he must offer some proof to show the 
 truth of what he says. I certainly cannot introduce testimony to show the negative 
 about things, but I have a right to claim that if a man says he knows a thing, then 
 he must show how he knows it. I always have a right to claim this, and it is not 
 satisfactory to me that he may be " conscientious " on the subject. 
 
 Now, gentlemen, I hate to waste my time on such things, but in regard to that 
 general Abolition tilt that Judge Douglas makes, when he says that I was engaged 
 at that time in selling out and abolitionizing the old Whig party I hope you 
 will permit me to read a part of a printed speech that I made then at Peoria, 
 which will show altogether a different view of the position I took in that contest 
 of 1854. 
 
 Voice <; Put on your specs."
 
 74 
 
 Mr. Lincoln Yes, sir, I am obliged to do so. I am no longer a young man. 
 
 " This is the repeal of the Missouri Compromise.* The foregoing history may 
 not be precisely accurate in every particular; but I am sure it is sufficiently so for 
 all the uses I shall attempt to make of it, and in it we have before us, the chief ma- 
 teiials enabling us to correctly judge whether the repeal of the Missouri Compromise 
 is right or .wrong. 
 
 " I think, and shall try to show, that it is wrong ; wrong in its direct effect, letting 
 slavery into Kansas and Nebraska and wrong in its prospective principle, allowing 
 it to spread to every other part of the wide world, where men can be found inclined 
 to take it. 
 
 ' This declared indifference, but, as I must think, covert real zeal for the spread 
 of slavery, I cannot but hate. I hate it because of the monstrous injustice of sla- 
 very itself. I hate it because it deprives our republican example of its just influence 
 iii the world enables the enemies of free institutions, with plausibility, to taunt us 
 .as hypocrites causes the real friends of freedom to doubt our sincerity, and espe- 
 cially because it forces so many really good men amongst ourselves into an c^pen war 
 with the very fundamental principles of civil liberty criticising the Declaration of 
 Independence, and insisting that there is no right principle of action but self- 
 interest. 
 
 " Before proceeding, let me say I think I have no prejudice against the Southern 
 people. They are just what we would be in their situation. If slavery did not 
 now exist among them, they would not introduce it. If it did now exist amongst us, 
 we should not instantly give it up. This I believe of the masses North and South. 
 Doubtless there are individuals on both sides, who would not hold slaves under any 
 circumstances ; and others who would gladly introduce slavery anew, if it were out 
 of existence. We know that some Southern men do free their slaves, go North, and 
 become tip-top Abolitionists ; while some Northern ones go South, and become most 
 cruel slave-masters. 
 
 " When Southern people tell us they are no more responsible for the origin of 
 slavery than we, I acknowledge the fact. When it is said that the institution exists, 
 and that it is very difficult to get rid of it, in any satisfactory way, I can understand 
 and appreciate the saying. I surely will not blame them for not doing what I should 
 not know how to do myself. If all earthly power were given me, I should not 
 know what to do, as to the existing institution. My first impulse would be to free 
 all the slaves, and send them to Liberia to their own native land. But a moment's 
 reflection would convince me, that whatever of high hope (as I think there is) there 
 may be in this, in the long run, its sudden execution is impossible. If they were all 
 landed there in a day, they would all perish in the next ten days ; and there are not 
 surplus shipping and surplus money enough in the world to carry them there in 
 many times ten days. What then ? Free them all, and keep them among us us 
 underlings ? Is it quite certain that this betters their condition ? I think 1 would 
 not hold one in slavery at any rate ; yet the point is not clear enough to me to de- 
 nounce people upon. What next? Free them, and make them politically and 
 socially our equals ? My own feelings will not admit of this ; and if mine would, 
 we well know that those of the great mass of white people will not. Whether this 
 feeling accords with justice and sound judgment, is not the sole question, if, indeed, 
 it is any part of it. A universal feeling, whether well or ill-founded, cannot be 
 safely disregarded. We cannot, then, make them equals. It does seem to me that 
 systems of gradual emancipation might be adopted ; but for their tardiness in this, 
 I will not undertake to judge our brethren of the South. 
 
 " When they remind us of their constitutional rights, I acknowledge them, not 
 grudgingly, but fully and fairly ; and I would give them any legislation for the re- 
 claiming of their fugitives, which should not, in its stringency, be more likely 
 
 *This extract from Mr. Lincoln's Peoria speech of 1854, was read by him in the Ottawa debate, but was not 
 reported fully or accurately in either the Times or Press and Tribune. It is inserted now as necessary to a com- 
 plete report of the debate.
 
 75 
 
 to carry a free man into slavery, than our ordinary criminal laws are to hang an 
 innocent one. 
 
 ** But all this, to my judgment, furnishes no more excuse for permitting slavery to 
 go into our own free territory, than it would for reviving the African slave-trade hy 
 law. The law which forbids the bringing of slaves from Africa, and that which has 
 BO long forbid the taking of them to Nebraska, can hardly be distinguished on any 
 moral principle ; and the repeal of the former could find quite as plausible excuses 
 as that of the latter." 
 
 I have reason to know that Judge Douglas knows that I said this. I think he has 
 the answer here, to one of the questions he put to me. I do not mean to allow him 
 to catechise me unless he pays back for it in kind. I will not answer questions one 
 after another, unless he reciprocates ; but as he has made this inquiry, and I have 
 answered it before, he has got it without my getting anything in return. He has got 
 my answer on the Fugitive Slave law. 
 
 Now, gentlemen, I don't want to read at any greater length, but this is the true com- 
 plexion of all I have ever said in regard to the institution of slavery and the black i ace. 
 This is the whole of it, and anything that argues me into his idea of perfect social and 
 political equality with the negro, is. but a specious and fantastic arrangement of words, 
 by which a man can prove a horse-chestnut to be a chestnut horse. I will say here, 
 while upon this subject, that I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere 
 with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no 
 lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so. I have no purpose to in- 
 troduce political and social equality between the white and the black races. There 
 is a physical difference between the two, which, in my judgment, will probably fpr- 
 ever forbid their living together upon the footing of perfect equality, and inasmuch 
 as it becomes a necessity that there must be a difference, I, as well as Judge Doug- 
 las, am in favor of the race to which I belong having the superior position. I have 
 never said anything to the contrary, but I hold that, notwithstanding all this, there is 
 no reason in the world why the negro is not entitled to all the natural rights enu- 
 merated in the Decimation of Independence, the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit 
 of happiness. I hold that he is as much entitled to these as the white man. I agree 
 with Judge Douglas he is not my equal in many respects certainly not in color, 
 perhaps not in moral or intellectual endowment. But in the right to eat the bread, 
 without the leave of anybody else, which his own hand earns, he is my equal and 
 the equal of 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 
 'Arofully at fault ohout his early friend Lincoln being a " grocery-keeper." I don't 
 know as it would be a great sin, if I had been ; but he is mistaken. Lincoln never 
 kept a grocery anywhere in the world. It is true that Lincoln did work the latter 
 part of one winter in a little still-house, up at the head of a hollow. And so I think 
 my friend, the Judge, is equally at fault when he charges me at the time when I 
 uras in Congress of having opposed our soldiers who were fighting in the Mexican 
 *rar. The Judge did not make his charge very distinctly, but I can tell you what 
 *e can prove, by referring to the record. You remember I was an old Whig, and 
 whenever the Democratic party tried to get me to vote that the war had been right- 
 eously begun by the President, I would not do it. But whenever they asked for any 
 aioney, or land-warrants, or anything to pay the soldiers there, during all that time, 
 I gave the same vote that Judge Douglas did. You can think as you please as to 
 whether that was consistent. Such is the truth ; and the Judge has the right to 
 make all he can out of it. But when he, by a general charge, conveys the idea that 
 I withheld supplies from the soldiers who were fighting in the Mexican war, or did 
 anything else to hinder the soldiers, he is, to say the least, grossly and altogether 
 mistaken, as a consultation of the records will prove to him. 
 
 As I have not used up so much of my time as I had supposed, I will dwell, a 
 little longer upon one or two of these minor topics upon which the Judge has spoken. 
 He has read from my speech in Springfield, in which I say that " a house divided
 
 76 
 
 against itself cannot stand." Does the Judge say it can stand? I don't know 
 whether he does or not. The Judge does not seem to be attending to me just now, 
 but I would like to know if it is his opinion that a house divided against itself can 
 stand. If he does, then there is a question of veracity, not between him and me, 
 but between the Judge and an authority of a somewhat higher character. 
 
 Now, my friends, I ask your attention to this matter for the purpose of saying 
 something seriously. I know that the Judge may readily enough agree with, me 
 that the maxim which was put forth by the Saviour is true, but he may allege that 
 I misapj >ly it ; and the Judge has a right to urge that, in my application, I do mis- 
 apply it, and then I have a right to show that I do not misapply it. When he under- 
 takes to say that because I think this nation, so far as the question of slavery is 
 concerned, will all become one thing or all the other, 1 am in favor of bringing about 
 a dead uniformity in the various States, in all their institutions, he argues errone- 
 ously. The great variety of the local institutions in the States, springing from dif- 
 ferences in the soil, differences in the face of the country, and in the climate, are 
 bonds of Union. They do not make " a house divided against itself," but they make 
 a house united. If they produce in one section of the country what is called for by 
 the wants of another section, and this other section can supply the wants of the first, 
 they are not matters of discord but bonds of union, true bonds of union. But can 
 this question of slavery be considered as among these varieties in the institutions of 
 the country ? I leave it to you to say whether, in the history of our Government, 
 this institution of slavery has not always failed to be a bond of union, and, on the 
 contrary, been an apple of discord, and an element of division in the house. I ask 
 you to consider whether, so long as the moral constitution of men's minds shall con- 
 tinue to be the same, after this generation and assemblage shall sink into the grave, 
 and another race shall arise, with the same moral and intellectual development we 
 have whether, if that institution is standing in the same irritating position in which 
 it now is, it will not continue an element of division ? If so, then I have a right to 
 say that, in regard to this question, the Union is a house divided against itself; and 
 when the Judge reminds me that I have often said to him that the institution of 
 slavery has existed for eighty years in some States, and yet it does not exist in some 
 others, I agree to the fact, arid I account for it by looking at the position in which 
 our fathers originally placed it restricting it from the new Territories where it had 
 not gone, and legislating to cut off its source by the abrogation of the slave-trade 
 thus putting the seal of legislation against its spread. The public mind did rest in 
 the belief that it was in the course of ultimate extinction. But lately, I think and 
 in this I charge nothing on the Judge's motives lately, I think, that he, and those 
 acting with him, have p] '?d that institution on a new basis, which looks to the per- 
 petuity and nationalization of slavery. And while it is placed upon this new basis, 
 I say, and I have said, that I believe we shall not have peace upon the question 
 until the opponents of slavery arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the 
 public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction ; or, 
 on the other hand, that its advocates will push it forward until it shall become alike 
 lawful in all the States, old as well as new, North as well as South. Now, I believe 
 if we could arrest the spread, and place it where Washington, and Jefferson, and 
 Madison placed it, it would be in the course of ultimate extinction, and the public 
 mind would, as for eighty years past, believe that it was in the course of ultimate 
 extinction. The crisis would be past and the institution might be let alone for a 
 hundred years, if it should live so long, in the States where it exists, yet it 
 would be going out of existence in the way best for both the black and the white 
 races. 
 
 A Voice " Then do you repudiate Popular Sovereignty ? " 
 
 Mr. Lincoln Well, then, let us talk about Popular Sovereignty ! What is Pop- 
 ular Sovereignty ? Is it the right of the people to have slavery or not have it, 
 as they see fit, in the Territories ? I will state and I have an able man to walch 
 me my understanding is that Popular Sovereignty, as now applied to the quest/ on
 
 77 
 
 of slavery, does allow the people of a Territory to have slavery if they want to, but 
 docs not allow them not to have it if they do not want it. I do not mean that if 
 this vast concourse of people were in a Territory of the United States, any one of 
 them would be obliged to have a slave if he did not want one ; but I do say that, as 
 I understand the Dred Scott decision, if any one man wants slaves, all the, rest have 
 uo way of keeping that one man from holding them. 
 
 When I made my speech at Springfield, of which the Judge complains, and from 
 which he quotes, I really was not thinking of the things which he ascribes to me at 
 all. 1 had no thought in the world that I was doing anything to bring about a war 
 between the free and slave States. I had no thought in the world that I was doing 
 anything to bring about a political and social equality of the black and white race.s, 
 It never occurred to me that I was doing anything or favoring anything to reduce to 
 a dead uniformity all the local institutions of the various States. But I must say, 
 in all fairness to him, if he thinks 1 am doing something which leads to these bad 
 results, it is none the better that I did not mean it. It is just as fatal to the country, 
 if I have any influence in producing it, whether I intend it or not. But can it be 
 true, that placing this institution upon the original basis the basis upon which our 
 fathers placed it can have any tendency to set the Northern and the Southern 
 States at war with one another, or that it can have any tendency to make the people 
 of Vermont raise sugar-cane, because they raise it in Louisiana, or that it can com- 
 pel the people of Illinois to cut pine logs on the Grand Prairie, where they will not 
 grow, because they cut pine logs in Maine, where they do grow ? The Judge says 
 this is a new principle started in regard to this question. Does the Judge claim that 
 he is working on the plan of the founders of Government ? I think he says in some 
 of his speeches indeed, I have one here now that he saw evidence of a policy to 
 allow slavery to be south of a certain line, while north of it it should be excluded, 
 and he saw an indisposition on the part of the country to stand upon that policy, and 
 therefore he set about studying the subject upon original principles, and upon orig- 
 inal principles he got up the Nebraska bill ! I am fighting it upon these " orig- 
 inal principles" lighting it in the Jeffcrsonian, Washingtonian, and Madisonian 
 fashion. 
 
 Now, my friends, I wish you to attend for a little while to one or two other things 
 in that Springfield speech. My main object was to show, so far as my humble abil- 
 ity was capable of showing to the people of this country, what I believed was the 
 truth that there was a tendency, if not a conspiracy among those who have engi- 
 neered this slavery question for the last four or five years, to make slavery perpetual 
 and universal in this nation. Having made that speech principally for that object, 
 after arranging the evidences that I thought tended to prove my proposition, I con- 
 cluded with this bit of comment : 
 
 "We cannot absolutely know that these exact adaptations are the result of pre- 
 concert, but when we see a lot of framed timbers, different portions of which we 
 know have been gotten out at different times and places, and by different workmen 
 Stephen, Franklin, Roger and James, for instance and when we see these timbers 
 joined together, and see they exactly make the frame of a house or a mill, all the 
 tenons and mortices exactly fitting, and all the lengths and proportions of the different 
 pieces exactly adapted to their respective places, and not a piece too many or too 
 few not omitting even the scaffolding or if a single piece be lacking, we see the 
 place in the frame exactly fitted and prepared yet to bring such piece in in such a 
 case we feel it impossible not to believe that Stephen and Franklin, and Roger and 
 James, all understood one another from the beginning, and all worked upon a common 
 plan or draft drawn before the first blow was struck." 
 
 When my friend, Judge Douglas, came to Chicago, on the 9th of July, this speech 
 having been delivered on the 16th of June, he made an harangue there, in which he 
 took hold of this speech of mine, showing that he had carefully read it ; and while 
 he paid no attention to this matter at all, but complimented me as being a " kind, 
 amiable and intelligent gentleman," notwithstanding I had said this, he goes on and 
 6
 
 78 
 
 eliminates, or draws out, from my speech this tendency of mine to set the States at 
 war with one another, to make all the institutions uniform, and set the niggers and 
 white people to marrying together. Then, as the Judge had complimented me with 
 these pleasant titles (I must confess to my weakness), I was a little " taken," for it 
 came from a great man. I was not very much accustomed to flattery, and it came 
 the sweeter to me. I was rather like the Hoosier, with the gingerbread, when he 
 said he reckoned he loved it better than any other man, and got leas of it. As the 
 Judge had so flattered me, I could not make up my mind that he meant to deal un- 
 fairly with me ; so I went to work to show him that he misunderstood the whota 
 scope of my speech, and that I really never intended to set the people at war with 
 one another. As an illustration, the next time I met him, which was at Springfield. 
 I used this expression, that I claimed no right under the Constitution, nor had I anv 
 inclination, to enter into the slave States and interfere with the institutions of slavery 
 He says upon that : Lincoln will not enter into the slave States, but will go to the 
 banks of the Ohio, on this side, and shoot over ! He runs on, step by step, in the 
 horse-chestnut style of argument, until in the Springfield speech he says, ** Unless 
 he shall be successful in firing his batteries, until he shall have extinguished slavery 
 in all the States, the Union shall be dissolved." Now I don't think that was exactly 
 the way to treat u a kind, amiable, intelligent gentleman." I know if I had asked the 
 Judge to show when or where it was I had said that, if I didn't succeed in firing into 
 the slave States until slavery should be extinguished, the Union should be dissolved, 
 he could not have shown it. I understand what he would do. He would say, " 1 
 don't mean to quote from you, but this was the result of what you say." But 1 have 
 the right to ask, and I do ask now, Did you not put it in such a form that an ordi- 
 nary reader or listener would take it as an expression from me ? 
 
 In a speech at Springfield, on the night of the 17th, I thought I might as well at- 
 tend to my own business a little, and I recalled his attention as well as I could to this 
 charge of conspiracy to nationalize slavery. I called his attention to the fact that 
 he had acknowledged, in rny hearing twice, that he had carefully read the speech, 
 and, in the language of the lawyers, as he had twice read the speech, and still had put 
 in no plea or answer, I took a default on him. I insisted that I had a right then to 
 renew that charge of conspiracy. Ten days afterward I met the Judge at Clinton 
 that is to say, I was on the ground, but not in the discussion and heard him make a 
 speech. Then he comes in with his plea to this charge, for the first time, and his 
 plea when put in, as well as I can recollect it, amounted to this : that he never had 
 any talk with Judge Taney or the President of the United States with regard to the 
 Dred Scott decision before it was made. I (Lincoln) ought to know that the man 
 who makes a charge without knowing it to be true, falsifies as much as he who know- 
 ingly tells a falsehood ; and lastly, that he would pronounce the whole thing a false- 
 hood ; but he would make no personal application of the charge of falsehood, not 
 because of any regard for the " kind, amiable, intelligent gentleman," but because of 
 his own personal self-respect ! I have understood since then (but [turning to Judge 
 Douglas] will not hold the Judge to it if he is not willing) that he has broken 
 through the " self-respect," and has got to saying the thing out. The Judge nods to 
 me that it is so. It is fortunate for me that I can keep as good-humored' as I do, 
 when the Judge acknowledges that he has been trying to make a question of veracity 
 with me. I know the Judge is a great man, while I am only a small man, but I feel 
 that I have got him. I demur to that plea. I waive all objections that it was not 
 filed till after default was taken, and demur to it upon the merits. What if Judge 
 Douglas never did talk with Chief Justice Taney and the President, before the Dred 
 Scott decision was made, does it follow that he could not have had as perfect an un- 
 derstanding without talking as with it ? I am not disposed to stand upon my legal 
 advantage. I am disposed to take his denial as being like an answer in chancery, 
 that he neither had any knowledge, information or belief in the existence of such a 
 conspiracy. I am. disposed to take his answer as being as broad as though he had 
 put it in these words. And now, I ask, even if he had done so, have not I a right
 
 79 
 
 to prove it on him, and to offer the evidence of more than two witnesses, by whom 
 to prove it ; and if the evidence proves the existence of the conspiracy, does his 
 broad answer denying all knowledge, information, or belief, disturb the fact ? It can 
 only show that he was used by conspirators, and was not a leader of them. 
 
 Now, in regard to his reminding me of the moral rule that persons who tell what 
 they do not know to be true, falsify as much as those who knowingly tell falsehoods. 
 I remember the rule, and it must be borne in mind that in what I have read to you, 
 I do not say that I know such a conspiracy to exist. To that I reply, / believe it. 
 If the Judge says that I do not believe it, then he says what he does not know, and 
 (alls within his own rule, that he who asserts a thing which he does not know to bo 
 true, falsifies as much as he who knowingly tells a falsehood. I want to call your 
 attention to a little discussion on that branch of the case, and the evidence which 
 brought my mind to the conclusion which I expressed as my belief. If, in arraying 
 that evidence, I had stated anything which was false or erroneous, it needed but that 
 Judge Douglas should point it out, and I would have taken it back with all the kind 
 ness in the world. I do not deal in that way. If I have brought forward anything 
 not a fact, if he will point it out, it will not even ruffle me to take it back. But if h 
 will not point out anything erroneous in the evidence, is it not rather for him to show, 
 by a comparison of the evidence, that I have reasoned falsely, than to call the "kind, 
 amiable, intelligent gentleman " a liar ? If I have reasoned to a false conclusion, it 
 is the vocation of an able debater to show by argument that I have wandered to an 
 erroneous conclusion. I want to ask your attention to a portion of the Nebraska 
 bill, which Judge Douglas has quoted : " It being the true intent and meaning of 
 this act, not to legislate slavery into any Territory or State, nor to exclude it there- 
 from, but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their domes- 
 tic institutions in their own way, subject only to the Constitution of the United 
 States." Thereupon Judge Douglas and others began to argue in favor of " Popular 
 Sovereignty" the right of the people to have slaves if they wanted them, and to 
 exclude slavery if they did not want them. " But," said, in substance, a Senator 
 from Ohio (Mr. Chase, I believe), "we more than suspect that you do not mean to 
 allow the people to exclude slavery if they wish to, and if you do mean it, accept an 
 amendment which I propose expressly authorizing the people to exclude slavery." 
 I believe I have the amendment here before me, which was offered, and under which 
 the people of the Territory, through their proper representatives, might, if they saw 
 fit, prohibit the existence of slavery therein. And now I state it as a fact, to be 
 taken back if there is any mistake about it, that Judge Douglas and those acting 
 with him voted that amendment down. I now think that those men who voted it 
 down, had a real reason for doing so. They know what that reason was. It looks 
 to us, since we have seen the Dred Scott decision pronounced, holding that, " under 
 the Constitution," the people cannot exclude slavery I say it looks to outsiders, poor, 
 simple, " amiable, intelligent gentlemen," as though the niche was left as a place to 
 put that Dred Scott decision in a niche which would have been spoiled by adopting 
 the amendment. And now, I say again, if this was not the reason, it will avail the 
 Judge much more to calmly and good-humoredly point out to these people what that 
 other reason was for voting the amendment down, than, swelling himself up, to vo- 
 ciferate that he may be provoked to call somebody a liar. 
 
 Again : there is in that same quotation from the Nebraska bill this clause "It 
 being the true intent and meaning of this bill not to legislate slavery into any Terri- 
 tory or State" I have always been puzzled to know what business the word "State" 
 had in that connection. Judge Douglas knows. Ht put it there. He knows what 
 lie put it there for. We outsiders cannot say what he put it there for. The law 
 they were passing was not about S'P' , and was not making provisions for States. 
 What was it placed there for ? ^:ver seeing the Dred Scott decision, which holds 
 that the people cannot exclude slavery from a Territory, if another Dred Scott de- 
 cision shall come, holding that they cannot exclude it from a State, we shall discover 
 that when the word was originally put there, it was in view of something which was
 
 80 
 
 to come in due time, we shall see that it was the other half of something-. I now saj 
 again, if there is any different reason for putting it there, Judge Douglas, in a good 
 humored way, without ealling anybody a liar, can tell ivhat the reason ivas. 
 
 When the Judge spoke at Clinton, he came very near making a charge of false- 
 hood against me. He used, as I found it printed in a newspaper, which, I remember, 
 was very nearly like the real speech, the following language : 
 
 "I did not answer the charge [of conspiracy] before, for the reason that I did not 
 suppose there was a man in America with a heart so corrupt as to believe such a 
 charge could be true. I have too much respect for Mr. Lincoln to suppose he is se- 
 rious in making the charge." 
 
 I confess this is rather a curious view, that out of respect for me he should con- 
 sider I was making what I deemed rather a grave charge in fun. I confess it strikes 
 me rather strangely. But I let it pass. As the Judge did not for a moment believe 
 that there was a man in America whose heart was so " corrupt " as to make such a 
 charge, and as he places me among the "men in America" who have hearts base 
 enough to make such a charge, I hope he will excuse me if I hunt out another charge 
 very like this ; and if it should turn out that in hunting I should find that other, and 
 it should turn out to be Judge Douglas himself who made it, I hope he will recon- 
 sider this question of the deep corruption of heart he has thought fit to ascribe to 
 me. In Judge Douglas's speech of March 22d, 1858, which I hold in iny hand, he 
 says: 
 
 " In this connection there is another topic to which I desire to allude. I seldom 
 refer to the course of newspapers, or notice the articles which they publish in regard 
 to myself; but the course of the Washington Union has been so extraordinary,. for 
 the last two or three months, that I think it well enough to make some allusion to it. 
 It has read me out of the Democratic party every other day, at least for two or three 
 months, and keeps reading me out, and, as if it had riot succeeded, still continues to 
 read me out, using such terms as " traitor," " renegade," " deserter/' and other kind 
 and polite epithets of that nature. Sir, I have no vindication to make of my De- 
 mocracy against the Washington Union, or any other newspapers. I am willing to 
 allow my history and action for the last twenty years to speak for themselves as to 
 my political principles, and my fidelity to political obligations. The Washington 
 Union has a personal grievance. When its editor was nominated for public printer 
 I declined to vote for him, and stated that at some time I might give my reasons for 
 doing so. Since I declined to give that vote, this scurrilous abuse, these vindictive 
 and constant attacks have been repeated almost daily on me. Will my friend from 
 Michigan read the article to which I allude ? " 
 
 This is a part of the speech. You must excuse me from reading the entire article 
 of the Washington Union, as Mr. Stuart read it for Mr. Douglas. The Judge goe* 
 on and sums up, as I think, correctly: 
 
 " Mr. President, you here find several distinct propositions advanced boldly by the 
 Washington Union editorially, and apparently authoritatively, and any man who 
 questions any of them is denounced as an Abolitionist, a Freesoiler, a fanatic. 
 The propositions are, first, that the primary object of all government at its original 
 institution is the protection of person and property; second, that the Constitution of 
 the United States declares that the citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the 
 privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States; and that, therefore, 
 thirdly, all State laws, whether organic or otherwise, which prohibit the citizens of 
 one State from settling in another with their slave property, and especially declaring 
 it forfeited, are direct violations of the original intention of the Government arm 
 Constitution of the United States ; and, fourth, that the emancipation of the slaves 
 of the Northern States was a gross outrage v/r the rights of property, inasmuch *w 
 it was involuntarily done on the part of the owne;. 
 
 " Remember that this article was published in the Union on the 17th of Novem- 
 ber, and on the 18th appeared the first article giving the adhesion of the Union to the 
 Lecompton Constitution. It was in these words :
 
 81 
 
 " ' KANSAS AND HER CONSTITUTION. The vexed question is settled. The prob 
 lem is solved. The dead point of danger is passed. All serious trouble to Kansas 
 affairs is over and gone' 
 
 '* And a column, nearly, of the same sort. Then, when you come to look into the 
 Lecompton Constitution, you find the same doctrine incorporated in it which was put 
 forth editorially in the Union. What is it ? 
 
 "'ARTICLE 7, Section 1. The right of property is before and higher than any 
 Constitutional sanction ; and the right of the owner of a slave to such slave and its 
 increase is the same and as inviolable as the right of the owner of any property 
 whatever.' 
 
 " Then in the schedule is a provision that the Constitution may be amended after 
 1 8C4 by a two-thirds vote. 
 
 44 ' But no alteration shall be made to affect the right of property in the ownership 
 of slaves.' 
 
 " It will be seen by these clauses in the Lecompton Constitution, that they are 
 identical in spirit with the authoritative article in the Washington Union of the day- 
 previous to its indorsement of this Constitution." 
 
 I pass over some portions of the speech, and I hope that any one who feels inter- 
 ested in this matter Avill read the entire section of the speech, and see whether I do 
 the Judge injustice. He proceeds : 
 
 " When I saw that article in the Union of the 1 7th of November, followed by the 
 glorification of the Lecompton Constitution on the 18th of November, and this clause 
 in the Constitution asserting the doctrine that a State has no right to prohibit slavery 
 within its limits, I saw that there was a fatal blow being struck at the sovereignty of 
 the States of this Union." 
 
 I stop the quotation there, again requesting that it may all be read. I have read 
 all of the portion I desire to comment upon. What is this charge that the Judge 
 thinks I must have a very corrupt heart to make ? It was a purpose on the part of 
 certain high functionaries to make it impossible for the people of one State to pro- 
 hibit the people of any other State from entering it with their "property," so called, 
 and making it a slave State. In other words, it was a charge implying a design to 
 make the institution of slavery national. And now I ask your attention to what 
 Judge Douglas has himself done here. I know he made that part of the speech as 
 a reason why he had refused to vote for a certain man for public printer, but when 
 we get at it, the charge itself is the very one I made ngainst him, that he thinks I 
 arn so corrupt for uttering. Now, W 7 hom does he make that charge against ? Does 
 he make it against that newspaper editor merely ? No ; he says it is identical in 
 spirit with the Lecompton Constitution, and so the framers of that Constitution are 
 brought in with the editor of the newspaper in that "fatal blow being struck." He 
 did not call it a " conspiracy." In his language it is a " fatal blow being struck." 
 And if the words carry the meaning better when changed from a " conspiracy " into 
 a " fatal blow being struck," I will change my expression and call it " fatal blow 
 being struck." We see the charge made not merely against the editor of the Union, 
 but all the framers of the Lecompton Constitution; and not only so, but the article 
 was an authoritative article. By whose authority ? Is there any question but he 
 iiK-uns it was by the authority of the President and his Cabinet the Administration ? 
 
 Is there any sort of question but he means to make that charge ? Then there are 
 the editors of the Union, the framers of the Lecompton Constitution, the President 
 of the United States and his Cabinet, and all the supporters of the Lecompton Con- 
 stitution, in Congress and out of Congress, who are all involved in this " fatal blow 
 being struck." I commend to Judge Douglas's consideration the question of how 
 corrupt a man's heart must be to make such a charge ! 
 
 Now, my friends, I have but one branch of the subject, in the little time I have 
 left, to which to call your attention, and as I .shall come to a close at the end of that 
 branch, it is probable that I shall not occupy quite all the time allotted to me. Al- 
 though on these questions I would like to talk twice as long as I have, I could not
 
 82 
 
 enter upon another head and discuss it properly without running over my time. I 
 ask the attention of the people here assembled and elsewhere, to the course that 
 Judge Douglas is pursuing every day as bearing upon this question of making slavery 
 national. Not going back to the records, but taking the speeches he makes, the 
 speeches he made yesterday and day before, and makes constantly all over the coun- 
 try I ask your attention to them. In the first place, what is necessary to make the 
 institution national ? Not war. There is no danger that the people of Kentucky 
 will shoulder their muskets, and, with a young nigger stuck on every bayonet, march 
 into Illinois and force them upon us. There is no danger of our going over there 
 and making war upon them. Then what is necessary for the nationalization of sla- 
 very ? It is simply the next Dred Scott decision. It is merely for the Supreme 
 Court to decide that no State under the Constitution can exclude it, just as they have 
 already decided that under the Constitution neither Congress nor the Territorial Leg- 
 islature can do it. When that is decided and acquiesced in, the whole thing is done. 
 This being true, and this being the way, as I think, that slavery is to be made na- 
 tional, let us consider what Judge Douglas is doing every day to that end. In the 
 first place, let us see what influence he is exerting on public sentiment. In this and 
 like communities, public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing 
 can fail ; without it nothing can succeed. Consequently he who moulds public sen- 
 timent, goes deeper than he who enacts statutes or pronounces decisions. He makes 
 statutes and decisions possible or impossible to be executed. This must be borne in 
 mind, as also the additional fact that Judge Douglas is a man of vast influence, so 
 great that it is enough for many men to profess to believe anything, when they once 
 find out that Judge Douglas professes to believe it. Consider also the attitude he 
 occupies at the head of a large party a party which he claims lias a majority of all 
 the voters in the country. This man sticks to a decision which forbids the people of 
 a Territory from excluding slavery, and he does so not because he says it is right in 
 itself he does not give any opinion on that but because it has been decided by the 
 court, and being decided by the court, he is, and you are bound to take it in your po- 
 litical action as law not that he judges at all of its merits, but because a decision 
 of the court is to him a " Thus saith the Lord" He places it on that ground alone, 
 and you will bear in mind that, thus committing himself unreservedly to this decis- 
 ion, commits him to the next one just as firmly as to this. He did not commit him- 
 self on account of the merit or demerit of the decision, but it is a Thus saith the 
 Lord. The next decision, as much as this, will be a Thus saith the Lord. There is 
 nothing that can divert or turn him away from this decision. It is nothing that I 
 point out to Mm that his great prototype, Gen. Jackson, did not believe in the bind- 
 ing force of decisions. It is nothing to him that Jefferson did not so believe. I have 
 said that I have often heard him approve of Jackson's course in disregarding the de- 
 cision of the Supreme Court pronouncing a National Bank constitutional. He says, 
 I did not hear him say so. He denies the accuracy of my recollection. I say he 
 ought to know better than I, but I will make no question about this thing, though it 
 still seems to me that I heard him say it twenty times. I will tell him though, that 
 he now claims to stand on the Cincinnati platform, which affirms that Congress can- 
 not charter a National Bank, in the teeth of that old standing decision that Congress 
 can charter a bank. And I remind him of another piece of history on the question 
 of respect for judicial decisions, and it is a piece of Illinois history, belonging to a 
 time when the large party to which Judge Douglas belonged, were displeased with a 
 decision of the Supreme Court of Illinois, because they had decided that a Governor 
 could not remove a Secretary of State. You will find the whole story in Ford's 
 History of Illinois, and I know that Judge Douglas will not deny that he was then 
 in favor of overslaughing that decision by the mode of adding five new Judges, so 
 as to vote down the four old ones. Not only so, but it ended in the Judge's sitting 
 down on that very bench as one of the Jive new Judges to break down the four old 
 ones. ' It was in this way precisely that he got his title of Judge. Now, when the 
 Judge tells me that men appointed conditionally to sit as members of a court, will
 
 83 
 
 
 
 have to be catechised beforehand upon some subject, I say, " You know, Judge ; yon 
 have tried it." When he says a court of this kind will lose the confidence of all 
 men, will be prostituted and disgraced by such a proceeding, I say, " You know 
 best, Judge ; you have been through the mill." But I cannot shake Judge Doug- 
 las's teeth loose from the Dred Scott decision. Like some obstinate animal (I mean 
 no disrespect), that will hang on when he has once got his teeth fixed ; you may cut 
 off a leg, or you may tear away an arm, still he will not relax his hold. And so I 
 may point out to the Judge, and say that he is bespattered all over, from the begin- 
 ning of his political life to the present time, with attacks upon judicial decisions^ I 
 may out off limb after limb of his public record, and strive to wrench him from a 
 single dictum of the court yet I cannot divert him from it. He hangs, to the last, 
 to the Dred Scott decision. These things show there is a purpose strong as death 
 and eternity for which he adheres to this decision, and for which he will adhere to 
 all other decisions of the same court. 
 
 A Hibernian " Give us something besides Drid Scott" 
 
 Mr. Lincoln Yes ; no doubt you want to hear something that don't hurt. Now, 
 having spoken of the Dred Scott decision, one more word and I am done. Henry 
 Clay, my beau ideal of a statesman, the man for whom I fought all my humble life 
 Henry Clay once said of a class of men who would repress all tendencies to liberty 
 and ultimate emancipation, that they must, if they would do this, go back to the era 
 of our Independence, and muzzle the cannon which thunders its annual joyous re- 
 turn ; they must blow out the moral lights around us ; they must penetrate the hu- 
 man soul, and eradicate there the love of liberty ; and then, and not till then, could 
 they perpetuate slavery in this country! To my thinking, Judge Douglas is, by his 
 example and vast influence, doing that very thing in this community, when he says 
 that the negro has nothing in the Declaration of Independence. Henry Clay plainlj 
 understood the contrary. Judge Douglas is going back to the era of our Revolution, 
 arid to the extent of his ability, muzzling the cannon which thunders its annual joy- 
 ous return. When he invites any people, willing to hav-e slavery, to establish it, he 
 Is blowing out the moral lights around us. When he says he "cares not whether 
 slavery is voted down or voted up" that it is a sacred right of self-government 
 he is, in my judgment, penetrating the human soul and eradicating the light of rea- 
 bon and the love of liberty in this American people. And now I will only say that 
 when, by all these means and appliances, Judge Douglas shall succeed in bringing 
 public sentiment to an exact accordance with his own views when these vast assem- 
 blages shall echo back all these sentiments when they shall come to repeat his views 
 and to avow his principles, and to say all that he says on these mighty questions 
 then it needs only the formality of the second Dred Scott decision, which he indorses 
 in advance, to make slavery alike lawful in all the Stated old as well as new, North 
 as well as South. 
 
 My friends, that ends the chapter. The Judge can take his half hour. 
 
 MR. DOUGLAS'S REPLY. 
 
 FELLOW-CITIZENS : I will now occupy the half hour allotted to me in replying 
 to Air. Lincoln. The firtt point to which I will call your attention is, as to what I 
 said about the organization of the Republican party in 18o4, and the platform that 
 was formed on the fifth of October, of that year, and I will then put the question to 
 Mr. Lincoln, whether or not, he approves of each article in that platform, and ask 
 for a specific answer. I did not charge him with being a member of the committee 
 which reported that platform. I charged that that platform was the platform of the 
 Republican party adopted by them. The fact that it was the platform of the Repub- 
 lican party is not denied, but Mr. Lincoln now says, that although his name was on 
 the committee which reported it, that he does not think he was there, but thinks he
 
 was in Tazewell, holding court Now, I want to remind Mr. Lincoln that ho was 
 at Springfield when that Convention was held and those resolutions adopted. 
 
 The point I am going to remind Mr. Lincoln of is this : that after I had made my 
 speech in 1854, during the fair, he gave me notice that he was going to reply to me 
 the next day. I was sick at the time, but I staid over in Springfield to hear his re- 
 ply and to reply to him. On that day this very Convention, the resolutions adopted 
 by which I have read, was to meet in the Senate chamber. He spoke in the hall of 
 the House ; and when he got through his speech my recollection is distinct, and 1 
 shall never forget it Mr. Codding walked in as I took the stand to reply, and gave 
 notice that the Republican State Convention would meet instantly in the Sonata 
 chamber, and called upon the Republicans to retire there and go into this very Con 
 vention, instead of remaining and listening to me. 
 
 In the first place, Mr. Lincoln was selected by the very men who made the Re- 
 publican organization, on that day, to reply to me. He spoke for them and for that 
 party, and he was the leader of the party ; and on the very day he made his speech 
 in reply to me, preaching up this same doctrine of negro equality, under the Decla 
 ration of Independence, this Republican party met in Convention. Another evidence 
 that he was acting in concert with them is to be found in the fact that that Conven 
 tion waited an hour after its time of meeting to hear Lincoln's speech, and Codding 
 one of their leading men, marched in the moment Lincoln got through, and gave no 
 tice that they did not want to hear me, and would proceed with the business of th* 
 Convention. Still another fact. I have here a newspaper printed at Springfield. 
 Mr. Lincoln's own town, in October, 1854, a few days afterward, publishing thes< 
 resolutions, charging Mr. Lincoln with entertaining these sentiments, and trying to 
 prove that they were also the sentiments of Mr. Yates, then candidate for Congress. 
 This has been published on Mr. Lincoln over and over again, and never before has 
 he denied it. 
 
 But, my friends, this denial of his that he did not act on the committee, is a miser- 
 able quibble to avoid the main issue, which is, that this Republican platform declares 
 in favor of the unconditional repeal of the Fugitive Slave law. Has Lincoln an- 
 swered whether he indorsed that or not ? I called his attention to it when I first ad- 
 dressed you, and asked him for an answer, and I then predicted that he would not 
 answer. How does he answer ? AVhy, that he was not on the committee that wrote 
 the resolutions. I then repeated the next proposition contained in the resolutions, 
 which was to restrict slavery in those States in which it exists, and asked him whether 
 he indorsed it. Does he answer yes, or no ? He says in reply, " I was not on the 
 committee at the time ; I was up in Tazewell." The next question I put to him was, 
 whether he was in favor of prohibiting the admission of any more slave States into 
 the Union. I put the question to him distinctly, whether, if the people of the Terri- 
 tory, when they had sufficient population to make a State, should form their Consti- 
 tution recognizing slavery, he would vote for or against its admission. He is a can- 
 didate for the United States Senate, and it is possible, if he should be elected, that 
 he would have to vote directly on that question. I asked him to answer me and you, 
 whether he would vote to admit a State into the Union, with slavery or without it, as 
 its own people might choose. He did not answer that question. He dodges that 
 question also, under the cover that he was not on the Committee at the time, that he 
 was not present when the platform was made. I want to know if he should hap- 
 pen to be in the Senate when a State applied for admission, with a Constitution 
 acceptable to her own people, he would vote to admit that State, if slavery was one 
 of its institutions. He avoids the answer. 
 
 It is true he gives the Abolitionists to understand by a hint that he would not vote 
 to admit such a State. And why ? He goes on to say that the man who would talk 
 about giving each State the right to have slavery, or not, as it pleased, was akin to 
 the man who would muzzle the guns which thundered forth the annual joyous return 
 of the day of our independence. He says that that kind of talk is casting a blight 
 on the glory of this country. What is the meaning of that ? That he is not in favor
 
 85 
 
 * 
 
 of each State to have the right of doing as it pleases on the slavery q jcstion ? I 
 will put the question to him again and again, and I intend to force it out of him. 
 
 Then again, this platform which was made at Springfield by his own party, when 
 he was its acknowledged head, provides that Republicans will insist on the abolition 
 of slavery in the District of Columbia, and I asked Lincoln specifically whether he 
 agreed with them in that ? [" Did you get an answer?"] He is afraid to answer it. 
 He knows I will trot him down to Egypt. I intend to make him answer there, or I 
 will show the people of Illinois that he does not intend to answer these questions. 
 The Convention to which I have been alluding goes a little further, and pledges itself 
 to exclude slavery from all the Territories over which the General Government has 
 exclusive jurisdiction north of 36 deg. 30 min., as well as South. Now I want to 
 know whether he approves that provision. I want him to answer, and when he does, 
 I want to know his opinion on another point, which is, whether he will redeem the 
 pledge of this platform and resist the acquirement of any more territory unless sla- 
 very therein shall be forever prohibited. I want him to answer this last question. 
 Each of the questions I have put to him are practical questions questions based 
 upon the fundamental principles of the Black Republican party, and I want to know 
 whether he is the first, last, and only choice of a party with whom he does not agree 
 in principle. He does not deny but that that principle was unanimously adopted by 
 the Republican party ; he does not deny that the whole Republican party is pledged 
 to it ; he does not deny that a man who is not faithful to it is faithless to the Repub- 
 lican party ; and now I want to know whether that party is unanimously in favor of 
 a man who does not adopt that creed and agree with them in their principles : I 
 want to know whether the man who does not agree with them, and who is afraid to 
 avow his differences, and who dodges the issue, is the first, last, and only choice of 
 the Republican party. 
 
 A voice " How about the conspiracy ? " 
 
 Mr. Douglas Nevermind, I will come to that soon enough. But the platform 
 which I have read to you, not only lays down these principles, but it adds : 
 
 Resolved, That in furtherance of these principles we will use such constitutional and law- 
 ful means as shall seem best adapted to their accomplishment, and that we will support no 
 man for office, under the General or State Government, who is not positively and fully com- 
 mitted to the support of these principles, and whose personal character and conduct is not a 
 guaranty that he is reliable, and who shall not have abjured old party allegiance and ties. 
 
 The Black Republican party stands pledged that they will never support Lincoln 
 until he has pledged himself to that platform, but he cannot devise his answer ; he 
 has not made up his mind whether he will or not. He talked about everything else 
 he could think of to occupy his hour and a half, and when he could not think of any- 
 thing more to say, without an excuse for refusing to answer, these questions, he sat 
 down long before his time was out. 
 
 In relation to Mr. Lincoln's charge of conspiracy against me, I have a word to say. 
 In his speech to-day he quotes a playful part of his speech at Springfield, about 
 Stephen, and James, and Franklin, and Roger, and says that I did not take exception 
 to it. I did not answer it, and he repeats it again. I did not take exception 
 to this figure of his. He has a right to be as playful as he pleases in throwing his 
 arguments together, and I will not object ; but I did take objection to his second 
 Springfield speech, in which he stated that he intended his first speech as a charge of 
 xHTuptiori or conspiracy against the Supreme Court of the United States, President 
 Pierce, President Buchanan, and myself. That gave the offensive character to the 
 charge. He then said that when he made it he did not know whether it was true or 
 not, but inasmuch as Judge Douglas had not denied it, although he had replied to the 
 other parts of his speech three times, he repeated it as a charge of conspiracy against 
 me, thus charging me with moral turpitude. When he put it in that form, I did say, 
 that inasmuch as he repeated the charge simply because I had not denied it, I would 
 deprive him of the opportunity of ever repeating it again, by declaring that it was,
 
 86 
 
 . 
 
 in all its bearings, an infamous lie. lie says he will repeat it until I answer his 
 
 folly and nonsense, about Stephen, and Franklin, and Roger, and Bob, and James. 
 
 He studied that out prepared that one sentence with the greatest care, committed 
 it to memory, and put it in his first Springfield speech, and now he carries that 
 speech around and reads that sentence to show how pretty it is. His vanity is 
 wcunded because I will not go into that beautiful figure of his about the building 
 of a house. All I have to say is, that I am not green enough to let him make ji 
 charge whit h he acknowledges he does not know to be true, and then take up 
 my time in answering it, when I know it to be false and nobody else knows it to 
 t>3 true. 
 
 I have not brought a charge of moral turpitude against him. "When he, or any- 
 other man, brings one against me, instead of disproving it, I will say that it is a lie, 
 and let him prove it if he can. 
 
 I have lived twenty-five years in Illinois. I have served you with all the fidelity 
 and ability which I possess, and Mr. Lincoln is at liberty to attack my public ac- 
 tion, my votes, and my conduct ; but when he dares to attack my moral integrity, by 
 a charge of conspiracy between myself, Chief Justice Taney and the Supreme Court, 
 and two Presidents of the United States, I will repel it. 
 
 Mr. Lincoln has not character enough for integrity and truth, merely on his own 
 ipse dixitj to arraign President Buchanan, President Pierce, and nine Judges of the 
 Supreme Court, not one of whom would be complimented by being put on an equal- 
 ity with him. There is an unpardonable presumption in a man putting himself up 
 before thousands of people, and pretending that his ipse dixit, without proof, with- 
 out fact and without truth, is enough to bring down and destroy the purest and best 
 of living men. 
 
 Fellow-citizens, my time is fast expiring ; I must pass on. Mr. Lincoln wants to 
 know why I voted against Mr. Chase's amendment to the Nebraska bill. I will tell 
 him. In the first place, the bill already conferred all the power which Congress had, 
 by giving the people the whole power over the subject. Chase offered a proviso 
 that they might abolish slavery, which by implication would convey the idea that 
 they could prohibit by not introducing that institution. Gen. Cass asked him to mod- 
 ify his amendment, so as to provide that the people might either prohibit or intro- 
 duce slavery, and thus make it fair and equal. Chase refused to so modify his 
 proviso, and then Gen. Cass and all the rest of us, voted it down. Those facts ap- 
 pear on the journals and debates of Congress, where Mr. Lincoln found the charge, 
 and if he had told the whole truth, there would have been no necessity for me to oc- 
 cupy your time in explaining the matter. 
 
 Mr. Lincoln wants to know why the word " State," as well as " Territory," was 
 put into the Nebraska bill ? I will tell him. It was put there to meet just such 
 false arguments as he has been adducing. That first, not only the people of the 
 Territories should do as they pleased, but that when they come to be admitted as 
 States, they should come into the Union with or without slavery, as the people de 
 terrain ed. I meant to knock in the head this Abolition doctrine of Mr. Lincoln's, 
 that there shall be no more slave States, even if the people want them. And it does 
 not do for him to say, or for any other Black Republican to say, that there is nobody 
 in favor of the doctrine of no more slave States, and that nobody wants to interfere 
 with the right of the people to do as they please. What was the origin of the Mis- 
 souri difficulty and the Missouri Compromise ? The people of Missouri formed a 
 Constitution as a slave State, and asked admission into the Union, but the Freesoil 
 party of the North being in a majority, refused to admit her because she had slavery 
 as one of her institutions. Hence this first slavery agitation arose upon a State and 
 not upon a Territory, and yet Mr. Lincoln does not know why the word State was 
 placed in the Kansas-Nebraska bill. The whole Abolition agitation arose on that 
 doctrine of prohibiting a State from coming in with Slavery or not, as it pleased, 
 and that same doctrine is here in this Republican platform of 1854 ; it has never 
 been repealed ; and every Black Republican stands pledged by that platform, nevei
 
 87 
 
 to vote for any man who is not in favor of it. Yet Mr. Lincoln does not know that 
 there is a man in the world who is in favor of preventing a State from coming in 
 as it pleases, notwithstanding. The Springfield platform says that they, the Repub- 
 lican party, will not allow a State to come in under such circumstances. He is an 
 ignorant man. 
 
 Now you see that upon these very points I am as far from bringing Mr. Lincoln 
 up to the line as I ever was before. He does not want to avow his principles. I do 
 it:*** to avow mine, as clear as sunlight in mid-day. Democracy is founded upon the 
 eternal principle of right. The plainer these principles are avowed before the peo- 
 ple, the stronger will be the support which they will receive. I only wish 1 had the 
 power to make them so clear that they would shine in the heavens for every man, 
 woman, and child to read. The first of those principles that I would proclaim would 
 be; in opposition to Mr. Lincoln's doctrine of uniformity between the different States, 
 and I would declare instead the sovereign right of each State to decide the slavery 
 question as well as all other domestic questions for themselves, without interference 
 from any other State or power whatsoever. 
 
 When that principle is recognized, you will have peace and harmony and frater 
 nal feeling between all the States of this Union ; until you do recognize that doo 
 trine, there will be sectional warfare agitating and distracting the country. What 
 does Mr. Lincoln propose? He says that the Union cannot exist divided into 
 free and slave States. If it cannot endure thus divided, then he must strive to 
 make them all free or all slave, which will inevitably bring about a dissolution of the 
 Union. 
 
 Gentlemen, I am told that my time is out, and I am obliged to stop. 
 
 SECOND JOINT DEBATE, AT FKEEPORT, 
 
 August 27, 1858. 
 
 MR. LINCOLN'S SPEECH. 
 
 LADIES AND GENTLEMEN : On Saturday last, Judge Douglas and myself first 
 met in public discussion. He spoke one hour, I an hour and a half, and he replied 
 for half an hour. The order is now reversed. I am to speak an hour, he an hour 
 and a half, and then I am to reply for half an hour. I propose to devote myself 
 during the first hour to the scope of what was brought within the range of his half- 
 hour speech at Ottawa. Of course there was brought within the scope in that half- 
 hour's speech something of his own opening speech. In the course of that opening 
 aigumtnt Judge Douglas proposed to me seven distinct interrogatories. In my 
 speech of an hour and a half, I attended to some other parts of his speech, and inci- 
 dentally, as I thought, answered one of the interrogatories then. I then distinctly 
 intimated to him that I would answer the rest of his interrogatories on condition 
 only that he should agree to answer as many for me. He made no intimation at the 
 time of the proposition, nor did he in his reply allude at all to that suggestion of 
 mine. I do him no injustice in saying that he occupied at least half of his reply in 
 dealing with me as though I had refused to answer his interrogatories. I now pro- 
 pose that I will answer any of the interrogatories, upon condition that he will answer 
 questions from me not exceeding the same number. I give him an opportunity to 
 respond. The Judge remains silent. I now say that I will answer lu's interrogate-
 
 88 
 
 ries, whether he answers mine or not ; and that after I have done so, I shall pro- 
 pound mine to him. 
 
 I have supposed myself, since the organization of the Republican party at Bloom- 
 ington, in May, 1856, bound as a party man by the platforms of the party, then and 
 since. If in any interrogatories which I shall answer I go beyond the scope of what 
 is within these platforms, it will be perceived that no one is responsible but myself. 
 
 Having said thus much, I will take up the Judge's interrogatories as I find them 
 printed in the Chicago Times, and answer them seriatim. In order that there may 
 be no mistake about it, I have copied the interrogatories in writing, and also my an- 
 swers to them. The first one of these interrogatories is in these words : 
 
 Question 1. "I desire to know whether Lincoln to-day stands, as he did in 1854, 
 in favor of the unconditional repeal of the Fugitive Slave law ?" 
 
 Answer. I do not now, nor ever did, stand in favor of the unconditional repeal 
 of the Fugitive Slave law. 
 
 Q. 2. " I desire him to answer whether he stands pledged to-day, as he did in 
 1854, against the admission of any more slave States into the Union, even if the 
 people want them?" 
 
 A. I do not now, or ever did, stand pledged against the admission of any more 
 nlave States into the Union. 
 
 Q. 3. "I want to know whether he stands pledged against the admission of 
 a new State into the Union with such a Constitution as the people of that State may 
 see fit to make?" 
 
 A. I do not stand pledged against the admission of a new State into the Union, 
 with such a Constitution as the people of that State may see fit to make. 
 
 Q. 4. "I want to know whether he stands to-day pledged to the abolition of sla- 
 very in the District of Columbia?" 
 
 A. I do not stand to-day pledged to the abolition of slavery in the District of 
 Columbia. 
 
 Q. 5. " I desire him to answer whether he stands pledged to the prohibition of 
 the slave-trade between the different States?" 
 
 A. I do not stand pledged to the prohibition of the slave-trade between the dif- 
 icrent States. 
 
 Q. 6. " I desire to know whether he stands pledged to prohibit slavery in all 
 the Territories of the United States, North as well as South of the Missouri Com- 
 promise line?" 
 
 A. I am impliedly, if not expressly, pledged to a belief in the right and duty of 
 Congress to prohibit slavery in all the United States Territories. 
 
 Q. 7. " I desire him to answer whether he is opposed to the acquisition of any 
 new territory unless slavery is first prohibited therein?" 
 
 A, I am not generally opposed to honest acquisition of territory ; and, in any 
 given case, I would or would not oppose such acquisition, accordingly as I might 
 think ,uch acquisition would or would not aggravate the slavery question among our- 
 selves. 
 
 Now, my friends, it will be perceived upon an examination of these questions and 
 a.iswers, that so far I have only answered that I was not pledged to this, that or the 
 other. The Judge has not framed his interrogatories to ask me anything more than 
 this, and I have answered in strict accordance with the interrogatories, and have an- 
 swered truly that I am not pledged at all upon any of the points to which I have 
 answered. But I am not disposed to hang upon the exact form of his interrogatory. 
 I am rather disposed to take up at least some of these questions, and state what I 
 really think upon them. 
 
 As to the first one, in regard to the Fugitive Slave law, I have never hesitated to 
 say, and I do not now hesitate to say, that I think, under the Constitution of the 
 United States, the people of the Southern States are entitled to a Congressional Fu- 
 gitive Slave law. Having said that, I have had nothing to say in regard to the ex- 
 isting Fugitive Slave law, further than that I think it should have been framed so as
 
 89 
 
 to be free from some of the objections that pertain to it, without lessening its efficien- 
 cy. And inasmuch as we are not now in an agitation in regard to an alteration or 
 modification of that law, I would not be the man to introduce it as a new subject of 
 agitation upon the general question of slavery. 
 
 In regard to the other question, of whether I am pledged to the admission of any 
 more slave States into the Union, I state to you very frankly that I would be exceed- 
 ingly sorry ever to be put in a position of having to pass upon that question. I 
 .should be exceedingly glad to know that there would never be another slave State 
 admitted into the Union ; but I must add, that if slavery shall be kept out of tho 
 Territories during the territorial existence of any one given Territory, and then the 
 people shall, having a fair chance and a clear field, when they come to adopt the Con- 
 stitution, do such an extraordinary thing as to adopt a slave Constitution, uninfluenced 
 by the actual presence of the institution among them, I see no alternative, if we own 
 the country, but to admit them into the Union. 
 
 The third interrogatory is answerei by the answer to the second, it being, as I con- 
 ceive, the same as the second. 
 
 The fourth one is in regard to the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. 
 In relation to thaf, I have my mind very distinctly made up. I should be exceed- 
 ingly glad to see slavery abolished in the District of Columbia. I believe that Con- 
 gress possesses the constitutional power to abolish it. Yet as a member of Congress, 
 I should not with my present views, be in favor of endeavoring to abolish slavery in 
 the District of Columbia, unless it would be upon these conditions : First , that the 
 abolition should be gradual. Second, that it should be on a vote of the majority of 
 qualified voters in the District ; and third, that compensation should be made to un- 
 willing owners. With these three conditions, I confess I would be exceedingly glad 
 to see Congress abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, and, in the language of 
 Henry Clay, " sweep from our Capital that foul blot upon our nation." 
 
 In regard to the fifth interrogatory, I must say here, that as to the question of the 
 abolition of the slave-trade between the different States, I can truly answer, as I 
 have, that I am pledged to nothing about it. It is a subject to which I have not 
 given that mature consideration that would make me feel authorized to state a po- 
 sition so as to hold myself entirely bound by it. In other words, that question has 
 never been prominently enough before me to induce me to investigate whether we 
 really have the constitutional power to do it. I could investigate it if I had sufficient 
 time, to bring myself to a conclusion upon that subject ; but I have not done so, and 
 I say so frankly to you here, and to Judge Douglas. I must say, however, that if I 
 should be of opinion that Congress does possess the constitutional power to abolish 
 the slave-trade among the different States, I should still not be in favor of the exer- 
 cise of that power unless upon some conservative principle as I conceive it, akin to 
 what I have said in relation to the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. 
 
 My answer as to whether I desire that slavery should be prohibited in all the Ter- 
 ritories of the United States, is full and explicit within itself, and cannot be made 
 clearer by any comments of mine. So I suppose in regard to the question whether 
 I am opposed to the acquisition of any more territory unless slavery is first prohib- 
 ited therein, my answer is such that I could add nothing by way of illustration, or 
 making myself better understood, than the answer which I have placed in writing. 
 
 Now in all this, the Judge has me, and he has me on the record. I suppose he 
 had flattered himself that I was really entertaining one set of opinions for one place 
 and another set for another place that I was afraid to say at one place what I ut- 
 tered at another. What I am saying here I suppose I say to a vast audience as 
 strongly tending to Abolitionism as any audience in the State of Illinois, and I believe 
 I am saying that which, if it would be offensive to any persons and render them ene- 
 mies to myself, would be offensive to persons in this audience. 
 
 I now proceed to propound to the Judge the interrogatories, so far as I have framed 
 them. I will bring forward a new installment when I get them ready. I will bring 
 them forward now, only reaching to number four.
 
 90 
 
 The first one is : 
 
 Question 1. If the people of Kansas shall, by means entirely unobjectionable in 
 all other respects, adopt a State Constitution, and ask admission into the Union under 
 it, before they have the requisite number of inhabitants according to the English bill 
 some ninety -three thousand will you vote to admit them ? 
 
 Q. 2. Can the people of a United States Territory, in any lawful way, against 
 the wish of any citizen of the United States, exclude slavery from its limits prior to 
 the formation of a State Constitution ? 
 
 Q. 3. If the Supreme Court of the United States shall decide that States cannot 
 exclude slavery from their limits, are you in favor of acquiescing in, adopting and 
 following such decision as a rule of political action ? 
 
 Q. 4. Are you in favor of acquiring additional territory, in disregard of how such 
 acquisition may affect the nation on the slavery question ? 
 
 As introductory to these interrogatories which Judge Douglas propounded to me 
 at Ottawa, he read a set of resolutions which he said Judge Trumbull and myself 
 had participated in adopting, in the first Republican State Convention, held at Spring- 
 field, in October, 1854. lie insisted that I and Judge Trumbull, and perhaps the 
 entire Republican party, were responsible for the doctrines contained in the set of 
 resolutions which he read, and I understand that it was from that set of resolutions 
 that he deduced the interrogatories which he propounded to me, using these resolu- 
 tions as a sort of authority for propounding those questions to me. Now I say here 
 to-day that I do not answer his interrogatories because of their springing at all from 
 that set of resolutions which he read. I answered them because Judge Douglas 
 thought fit to ask them. I do not now, nor never did, recognize any responsibility 
 upon myself in that set of resolutions. When I replied to him on that occasion, I 
 assured him that I never had anything to do with them. I repeat here to-day, that 
 I never in any possible form had anything to do with that set of resolutions. It 
 turns out, I believe, that those resolutions were never passed in any Convention held 
 in Springfield. It turns out that they were never passed at jfhy Convention or any 
 public meeting that I had any part in. I believe it turns out in addition to all this, 
 that there was not, in the fall of 1854, any Convention holding a session in Spring- 
 field, calling itself a Republican State Convention ; yet it is true there was a Con- 
 vention, or assemblage of men calling themselves a Convention, at Springfield, that 
 did pass some resolutions. But so little did I really know of the proceedings of that 
 Convention, or what set of resolutions they had passed, though having a general 
 knowledge that there had been such an assemblage of men there, that when Judge 
 Douglas read the resolutions, I really did not know but they had been the resolutions 
 passed then and there. I did not question that they were the resolutions adopted. 
 For I could not bring myself to suppose that Judge Douglas could say what he did 
 upon this subject without hiowing that it was true. I contented myself, on that oc- 
 casion, with denying, as I truly could, all connection with them, not denying or affirm- 
 ing whether they were passed at Springfield. Now it turns out that he had got hold 
 of some resolutions passed at some Convention or public meeting in Kane county 
 I wish to say here, that I don't conceive that in any fair and just mind this discovery 
 relieves me at all. I had just as much to do with the Convention in Kane county as 
 that at Springfield. I am just as much responsible for the resolutions at Kane 
 county as those at Springfield, the amount of the responsibility being exactly nothing 
 in either case ; no more than there would be in regard to a set of resolutions passed 
 in the moon. 
 
 I allude to this extraordinary matter in this canvass for some further purpose than 
 anything yet advanced. Judge Douglas did not make his statement upon that oc- 
 casion as matters that he believed to be true, but he stated them roundly as being 
 true, in such form as to pledge his veracity for their truth. When the whole matter 
 turns out as it does, and when we consider who Judge Douglas is that he is a dis- 
 tinguished Senator of the United States that he has served nearly twelve years as 
 euch that his character is not at all limited as an ordinary Senator of the United
 
 91 
 
 States, but that his name has become of world-wide renown it is mos*. extraordinary 
 that he should so far forget all the suggestions of justice to an adversary, or of pru 
 donee to himself, as to venture upon the assertion of that which the slightest inves 
 tigation would have shown him to be wholly false. I can only account for his hav- 
 ing done so upon th e supposition that that evil genius which has attended him 
 through his life, giving to him an apparent astonishing prosperity, such as to lead 
 very many good men to doubt there being any advantage in virtue over vice I say 
 I can only account for it on die supposition that that evil genius has at last made up 
 its mind to forsake him. 
 
 And I may add that another extraordinary feature of the Judge's conduct in this 
 canvass made more extraordinary by this incident is, that he is in the habit, in 
 almost all the speeches he makes, of charging falsehood upon his adversaries, myself 
 and others. I now ask whether lie is able to find in any thing that Judge Trumbull, 
 for instance, has said, or in any thing that I have said, a justification at all compared 
 with what we have, in this instance, for that sort of vulgarity. 
 
 I have been in the habit of charging as a matter of belief on my part, that, in 
 the introduction of the Nebraska bill into Congress, there was a conspiracy to make 
 slavery perpetual and national. I have arranged from time to time the evidence 
 which establishes and proves the truth of this charge. I recurred to this charge at 
 Ottawa. I shall not now have time to dwell upon it at very great length ; but, in- 
 asmuch as Judge Douglas in his reply of half an hour, made some points upon me 
 in relation to it, I propose noticing a few of them. 
 
 The Judge insists that, in the first speech I made, in which I very distinctly made 
 that charge, he thought for a good while I was in fun ! that I was playful that 
 1 was not sincere about it and that he only grew angry and somewhat excited 
 when he found that I insisted upon it as a matter of earnestness. He says he char- 
 acterized it as a falsehood as far as I implicated his moral character in that transac- 
 tion. Well, I did not know, till he presented that view, that I had implicated his 
 moral character. He is very much in the habit, when he argues me up into a posi- 
 tion I never thought of occupying, of very cosily saying he has no doubt Lincoln is 
 " conscientious " in saying so. He should remember that I did not know but what 
 he was ALTOGKTIIKII u CONSCIENTIOUS " in that matter. I can conceive it possible 
 for men to conspire to do a good thing, and I really find nothing in Judge Douglas's 
 course or arguments that is contrary to or inconsistent with his belief of a conspir- 
 acy to nationalize and spread slavery as being a good and blessed thing, and so I hopa 
 he will understand that I do not at all question but that in all this matter he is en- 
 tirely " conscientious." 
 
 But to draw your attention to one of the points I made in this case, beginning at 
 the beginning. When the Nebraska bill was introduced, or a short time afterward, 
 by an amendment, I believe, it was provided that it must be considered " the true 
 intent and meaning of this act not to legislate slavery into any State or Territory, 
 or to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and 
 regulate their own domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to the Consti- 
 tution of the United States." I have called his attention to the fact that when he 
 and some others began arguing that they were giving an increased degree of liberty 
 to the people in the Territories over and above what they formerly had on the 
 question of slavery, a question was raised whether the law was enacted to give 
 such unconditional liberty to the people, and to test the sincerity of this mode of 
 argument, Mr. Chase, of Ohio, introduced an amendment, in which he made the 
 law if the amendment were adopted expressly declare that the people of the 
 Territory should have the power to exclude slavery if they saw fit. I have asked 
 attention also to the fact that Judge Douglas and those who acted with him, voted that 
 amendment down, notwithstanding it expressed exactly the thing they said was the 
 true intent and meaning of the law. I have called attention to the fact that in sub- 
 sequent times, a decision of the Supreme Court has been made, in which it has been 
 declared that a Territorial Legislature has no constitutional right to exclude slavery.
 
 And I have argued and said that for men who did intend that the people of the 
 Territory should have the right to exclude slavery absolutely and unconditionally, 
 the voting down of Chase's amendment is wholly inexplicable. It is a puzzle a 
 riddle. But I have said, that with men who did look forward to such a decision, 
 or who had it in contemplation, that such a decision of the Supreme Court would or 
 might be made, the voting down of that amendment would be perfectly rational 
 and intelligible. It would keep Congress from coming in collision with the decision 
 when it was made. Any body can conceive that if there was an intention or ex- 
 pectation that such a decision was to follow, it would not be a very desirable party 
 attitude to get into for the Supreme Court all or nearly all its members belonging 
 to the same party to decide one way, when the party in Congress had decided the 
 other way. Hence it would be \ ery rational for men expecting such a decision, to 
 keep the niche in that law clear for it. After pointing this out, I tell Judge Douglas 
 that it looks to me as though here was the reason why Chase's amendment wa 
 voted down. I tell him that as he did it, and knows why he did it, if it was done 
 for a reason different from this, he knows what that reason was, and can tell us what 
 it was. I tell him, also, it will be vastly more satisfactory to the country for him to 
 give some other plausible, intelligible reason why it was voted down than to stand 
 upon his dignity and call people liars. Well, on Saturday he did make his answer, 
 and what do you think it was ? lie says if I had only taken upon myself to tell 
 the whole truth about that amendment of Chase's, no explanation would have been 
 necessary on his part or words to that effect. Now, I say here, that I am quite un- 
 conscious of having suppressed any thing material to the case, and I am very frank to 
 admit if there is any sound reason other than that which appeared to me material, 
 it is quite fair for him to present it. What reason does he propose ? Tliat when 
 Chase came forward with his amendment expressly authorizing the people to ex- 
 clude slavery from the limits of every Territory, Gen. Cass proposed to Chase, if 
 he (Chase) would add to his amendment that the people should have the power to 
 introduce or exclude, they would let it go. This is substantially all of his reply 
 And because Chase would not do that, they voted his amendment down. Well, il 
 turns out, I believe, upon examination, that General Ca^s took some part in the little 
 running debate upon that amendment, and then ran away and did not vote on it at 
 all. Is not that the fact ? So confident, as I think, was General Cass that there 
 was a snake somewhere about, he chose to run away from the whole thing. This is 
 an inference I draw from the fact that, though he took part in the debate, his name does 
 not appear in the ayes and noes. But does Judge Douglas's reply amount to a sat- 
 isfactory answer? \_ Cries of "yes," "yes," and "no," "no/'] There is some little 
 difference of opinion here. But I ask attention to a few more views bearing on the 
 question of whether it amounts to a satisfactory answer. The men who were de- 
 termined that that amendment should riot ;et into the bill and spoil the place where 
 the Dred Scott decision was to come in, sought an excuse to get rid of it somewhere. 
 One of these ways one of these excuses was to ask Chase to add to his proposed 
 amendment a provision that the people might introduce slavery if they wanted to. 
 They very well knew Chase would do no such tiling that Mr. Chase was one of 
 tli A men differing from them on the broad principle of his insisting that freedom was 
 better than slavery a man who would not consent to enact a law, penned with m>: 
 own hand, by which he was made to recognize slavery on the one hand and liberty 
 on the other as precisely equal ; and when they insisted on his doing this, they very 
 well knew they insisted on that which he would not for a moment think of doing, 
 and that they were only bluffing him. I believe (I have not, since he made his an- 
 swer, had a chance to examine the journals or Congressional Globe, and therefore 
 speak from memory) I believe the state of the bill at that time, according to parlia- 
 mentary rules, was such that no member could propose an additional amendment to 
 Chase's amendment. I rather think this is the truth the Judge shakes his head, 
 Very well. I would like to know, then, if they wanted Chase's amendment Jixed 
 over, why somebody else could not have offered to do it ? If they wanted it amended.
 
 93 
 
 why did they not offer the amendment ? Why did they stand there taunting and 
 quibbling at Chase ? Why did they not put it in themselves? But to put it on the 
 other ground ; suppose that there was such an amendment offered, and Chase's was 
 au amendment to an amendment ; until one is disposed of by parliamentary law, 
 you cannot pile another on. Then all these gentlemen had to do was to vote Chase's 
 on, and then in the amended form in which the whole stood, add their own amend- 
 ment to it if they wanted to put it in that shape. This was all they were obliged to 
 do, and the ayes and noes show that there were thirty-six who voted it down, against 
 ten who voted in favor of it. The thirty-six held entire sway and control. They 
 could in some form or other have put that bill in the exact shape they wanted. If 
 tliore was a rule preventing their amending it at the time, they could pass that, and 
 tben Chase's amendment being merged, put it in the shape they wanted. They did 
 not choose to do so, but they went into a quibble with Chase to get him to add what 
 they knew he would not add, and because he would not, they stand upon that flimsy 
 pretext for voting down what they argued was the meaning and intent of their own 
 bill. They left room thereby for this Dred Scott decision, which goes very far to 
 make slavery national throughout the United States. 
 
 I pass one or two points I have because my time will very soon expire, but I 
 must be allowed to say that Judge Douglas recurs again, as he did upon one or two 
 other occasions, to the enormity of Lincoln an insignificant individual like Lincoln 
 upon his ipse dixit charging a conspiracy upon a large number of members of Con- 
 gress, the Supreme Court and two Presidents, to nationalize slavery. I want to say 
 that, in the first place, I have made no charge of this sort upon my ipse dixit. I 
 have only arrayed the evidence tending to prove it, and presented it to the under- 
 standing of others, saying what I think it proves, but giving you the means of judg- 
 ing whether it proves it or not. This is precisely what I have done. I have not 
 placed it upon my ipse dixit at all. On this occasion, I wish to recall his attention to 
 a piece of evidence which I brought forward at Ottawa on Saturday, showing that 
 he had made substantially the same charge against substantially the same persons, 
 excluding his dear self from the category. I ask him to give some attention to the 
 evidence which I brought forward, that he himself had discovered a 4< fatal blow 
 being struck" against the right of the people to exclude slavery from their limits, 
 which fatal blow he assumed as in evidence in an article in the Washington Union, 
 published "by authority." I ask by whose authority? He discovers a similar or 
 identical provision in the Lecompton Constitution. Made by whom? The framers 
 of that Constitution, Advocated by whom ? By all the members of the party in 
 the nation, who advocated the introduction of Kansas into the Union under the 
 Lecompton Constitution. 
 
 I have asked his attention to the evidence that he arrayed to prove that such a 
 fatal blow was being struck, and to the facts which he brought forward in support of 
 that charge being identical with the one which he thinks so villainous in me. He 
 pointed it not at a newspaper editor merely, but at the President and his Cabinet 
 and the members of Congress advocating the Lecompton Constitution and those 
 framing that instrument. I must again be permitted to remind him, that although 
 my ipse dixit may not be as great as his, yet it somewhat reduces the force of his 
 calling my attention to the enormity of my making a like charge against him. 
 
 Go on, Judge Douglas. 
 
 MR. DOUGLAS'S SPEECH. 
 
 LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: The silence with which you have listened to Mr. 
 Lincoln during his hour is creditable to this vast audience, composed of men of 
 various political parties. Nothing is more honorable to any large mass of people 
 assembled for the purpose of a fair discussion, than that kind and respectful attention 
 
 7
 
 94 
 
 that is yielded not only to your political friends, but to those who are opposed to you 
 in politics. 
 
 I am glad that at last I have brought Mr. Lincoln to the conclusion that he had 
 better define his position on certain political questions to winch I called his attention 
 at Ottawa. He there showed no disposition, no inclination, to answer them. I did 
 not present idle questions for him to answer merely for my gratification. I laid the 
 foundation for those interrogatories by showing that they constituted the platform of 
 the party whose nominee he is for the Senate. I did not presume that I had the 
 right to catechise him as I saw proper, unless I showed that his party, or a majority 
 of it, stood upon the platform and were in favor of the propositions upon which my 
 questions were based. I desired simply to know, inasmuch as he had been nomina- 
 ted as the first, last, and only choice of his party, whether he concurred in the plat- 
 form which that party had adopted for its government. In a few moments I will 
 proceed to review the answers which he has given to these interrogatories ; but in 
 order to relieve his anxiety I will first respond to these which he has presented to 
 me. Mark you, he has not presented interrogatories which have ever received the 
 sanction of the party with which I am acting, and hence he has no other foundation 
 tor them than his own curiosity. 
 
 First, he desires to know if the people of Kansas shall form a Constitution by 
 means entirely proper and unobjectionable and ask admission into the Union as a 
 State, before they have the requisite population for a member of Congress, whether 
 I will vote for that admission. Well, now, I regret exceedingly that he did not 
 answer that interrogatory himself before he put it to me, in order that we might 
 understand, and not be left to infer, on which side he is. Mr. Trumbull, during the 
 last session of Congress, voted from the beginning to the end against the admission 
 of Oregon, although a free State, because she had not the requisite population for a 
 member of Congress. Mr. Trumbull would not consent, under any circumstances, 
 to let a State, free or slave, come into the Union until it had the requisite population. 
 As Mr. Trumbull is in the field, fighting for Mr. Lincoln, I would like to have Mr. 
 Lincoln answer his own question and tell me whether he is fighting Trumbull on that 
 issue or not. But I will answer his question. In reference to Kansas, it is my 
 opinion, that as she has population enough to constitute a slave State, she has people 
 enough for a free State. I will not make Kansas an exceptional case to the other 
 States of the Union. I hold it to be a sound rule of universal application to require 
 a Territory to contain the requisite population for a member of Congress, before it 
 is admitted as a State into the Union. I made that proposition in the Senate in 
 1856, and I renewed it during the last session, in a bill providing that no Territory 
 of the United States should form a Constitution and apply for admission until it had 
 the requisite population. On another occasion I proposed that neither Kansas, or 
 any other Territory, should be admitted until it had the requisite population. Con- 
 gress did not adopt any of my propositions containing this general rule, but did make 
 an exception of Kansas. I will stand by that exception. Either Kansas must come 
 in as a free State, with whatever population she may have, or the rule must be 
 applied to aB. the other Territories alike. I therefore answer at once, that it having 
 been decided that Kansas has people enough for a slave State, I hold that she has 
 enough for a free State. I hope Mr. Lincoln is satisfied with my answer ; and now 
 I would like to get his answer to his own interrogatory whether or not he will vote 
 to admit Kansas before she has the requisite population. I want to know whether 
 he will vote to admit Oregon before that Territory has the requisite population. Mr. 
 Trumbull will not, and the same reason that commits Mr. Trumbull against tJbe 
 admission of Oregon, commits him against Kansas, even if she should apply for 
 admission as a free State. If there is any sincerity, any truth, in the argument of 
 Mr. Trumbull in the Senate, against the admission of Oregon because she had not 
 93,420 people, although her population was larger than that of Kansas, he stands 
 pledged against the admission of both Oregon and Kansas until they have 93,420 
 inhabitants. I would like Mr. Lincoln to answer this question. I would like him
 
 95 
 
 to take his own medicine. If he differs with Mr. Trumbull, let him answer his 
 argument against the admission of Oregon, instead of poking questions at me. 
 
 The next question propounded to me by Mr. Lincoln is, can the people of a Ter- 
 ritory in any lawful way, against the wishes of any citizen of the United States, 
 exclude slavery from their limits prior to the formation of a State Constitution ? I 
 answer emphatically, as Mr. Lincoln has heard me answer a hundred times from 
 every stump in Illinois, that in my opinion the people of a Territory can, by lawful 
 means, exclude slavery from their limits prior to the formation of a Stftte Constitu- 
 tion. Mr. Lincoln knew that I had answered that question over and over again. 
 He heard me argue the Nebraska bill on that principle all over the State in 1854, 
 in 1855, and in 1856, and he has no excuse for pretending to be in doubt as to my 
 position on that question. It matters not what way the Supreme Court may here- 
 after decide as to the abstract question whether slavery may or may not go into a 
 Territory under the Constitution, the people have the lawful means to introduce it 
 or exclude it as they please, for the reason that slavery cannot exist a day or an 
 hour anywhere, unless it is supported by local police regulations. Those police reg- 
 ulations can only be established by the local legislature, and if the people are 
 opposed to slavery they will elect representatives to that body who will by unfriendly 
 legislation effectually prevent the introduction of it into their midst. If, on the con- 
 trary, they are for it, their legislation will favor its extension. Hence, no matter 
 what the decision of the Supreme Court may be on that abstract question, still the 
 right of the people to make a slave Territory or a free Territory is perfect and 
 complete under the Nebraska bill. I hope Mr. Lincoln deems my answer satisfactory 
 on that point. 
 
 In this connection, I will notice the charge which he has introduced in relation to 
 Mr. Chase's amendment. I thought that I had chased that amendment out of Mr. 
 Lincoln's brain at Ottawa ; but it seems that still haunts his imagination, and lie is 
 not yet satisfied. I had supposed that he would be ashamed to press that question 
 further. He is a lawyer, and has been a member of Congress, and has occupied his 
 time and amused you by telling you about parliamentary proceedings. He ought to 
 have known better than to try to palm off his miserable impositions upon this intelli- 
 gent audience. The Nebraska bill provided that the legislative power, and authority 
 of the said Territory, should extend to all rightful subjects of legislation consistent 
 with the organic act and the Constitution of the United States. It did not make any 
 exception as to slavery, but gave all the power that it was possible for Congress to 
 give, without violating the Constitution to the Territorial Legislature, with no excep- 
 tion or limitation on the subject of slavery at all. The language of that bill which 
 I have quoted, gave the full power and the full authority over the subject of slavery, 
 affirmatively and negatively, to introduce it or exclude it, so far as the Constitution 
 of the United States would permit. What more could Mr. Chase give by his 
 amendment ? Nothing. He offered his amendment for the identical purpose for 
 which Mr. Lincoln is using it, to enable demagogues in the country to try and deceive 
 the people. 
 
 His amendment was to this effect. It provided that the Legislature should have 
 the power to exclude slavery: and General Cass suggested, "why not give the power 
 to introduce as well as exclude ?" The answer was, they have the power already in 
 the bill to do both. Chase was afraid his amendment would be adopted if he put 
 the alternative proposition and so make it fair both ways, but would not yield. He 
 offered it for the purpose of having it rejected. He offered it, as he has himself 
 avowed over and over again, simply to make capital out of it for the stump. He 
 expected that it would be capital for small politicians in the country, and that they 
 would make an effort to deceive the people with it, and he was not mistaken, for Lincoln 
 is carrying out the plan admirably. Lincoln knows that the Nebraska bill, without 
 Chase's amendment, gave all the power which the Constitution would permit. Could 
 Congress confer any more? Could Congress go beyond the Constitution of the 
 country? We gave all a full grant, with no exception in regard to slavery one
 
 96 
 
 way or the other. We left that question as we left all others, to be decided by the 
 people for themselves, just as they pleased. I will not occupy my time on this 
 question. I have argued it before all over Illinois. I have argued it in this beau- 
 tiful city of Freeport ; I have argued it in the North, the South, the East, and the 
 West, avowing the same sentiments and the same principles. I have not been 
 afraid to avow my sentiments up here for fear I would be trotted down into Egypt. 
 
 The third question which Mr. Lincoln presented is, if the Supreme Court of the 
 United States shall decide that a State of this Union cannot exclude slavery from its 
 j>wr limits, will I submit to it? I am amazed that Lincoln should ask such a ques- 
 tion. [ " A school-boy knows better."] Yes, a school-boy does know better. Mr. 
 Lincoln's object is to cast an imputation upon the Supreme Court. He knows that 
 th-Te never was but one man in America, claiming any degree of intelligence or de- 
 cency, who ever for a moment pretended such a thing. It is true that the Washing- 
 ton Union, in an article published on the 17th of last December, did put forth that 
 doctrine, and I denounced the article on the floor of the Senate, in a speech which 
 Mr. Lincoln now pretends was against the President. The Union had claimed that 
 slavery had a right to go into the free States, and that any provision in the Constitu- 
 tion or laws of the free States to the contrary were null and void. I denounced it 
 in the Senate, as I said before, and I was the first man who did. Lin corn's friends, 
 Trumbull, and Seward, and Hale, and Wilson, and the whole Black Republican side 
 of the Senate, were silent. They left it to me to denounce it. And what was the 
 reply made to me on that occasion ? Mr. Toombs, of Georgia, got up and undertook 
 to lecture me on the ground that I ought not to have deemed the article worthy of 
 notice, and ought not to have replied to it ; that there was not one man, woman or 
 child south of the Potomac, in any slave State, who did not repudiate any such pre- 
 tension. Mr. Lincoln knows that that reply was made on the spot, and yet now he 
 asks this question. He might as well ask me, suppose Mr. Lincoln should steal a 
 horse, would I sanction it ; and it would be as genteel in me to ask him, in the event 
 lie stole a horse, what ought to be done with him. He casts an imputation upon the 
 Supreme Court of the United States, by supposing that they would violate the Consti- 
 tution of the United States. I tell him that such a thing is not possible. It would 
 be an act of moral treason that no man on the bench could ever descend to. Mr. 
 Lincoln himself would never in his partisan feelings so far forget what was right as 
 to be guilty of such an act. 
 
 The fourth question of Mr. Lincoln is, are you in favor of acquiring additional 
 territory, in disregard as to how such acquisition may affect the Union on the slavery 
 questions ? This question is very ingeniously and cunningly put. 
 
 The Black Republican creed lays it down expressly, that under no circumstances 
 sluill we acquire any more territory unless slavery is first prohibited in the country. 
 I ask Mr. Lincoln whether he is in favor of that proposition. Are you [addressing 
 Mr. Lincoln] opposed to the acquisition of any more territory, under any circum- 
 stances, unless slavery is prohibited in it? That he does not like to answer. When 
 T ask him whether he stands up to that article in the platform of his party, he 
 turns, Yankee-fashion, and without answering it, asks me whether I am in favor of 
 acquiring territory without regard to how it may affect the Union on the slavery 
 question. I answer that whenever it becomes necessary, in our growth and progress, 
 to acquire more territory, that I am in favor of it, without reference to the question 
 vi slavery, and when we have acquired it, I will leave the people free to do as they 
 please, either to make it slave or free territory, as they prefer. It is idle to tell me 
 or you that we have territory enough. Our fathers supposed that we had enough 
 when our territory extended to the Mississippi river, but a few years' growth and 
 expansion satisfied them that we needed more, and the Louisiana territory, from the 
 West branch of the Mississippi to the British possessions, was acquired. Then we 
 acquired Oregon, then California and New Mexico. We have enough now for the 
 present, but this is a young and a growing nation. It swarms as often as a hive of 
 bees, and as new swarms are turned out each year, there must be hives in which
 
 97 
 
 they can gather and make their honey. In less than fifteen years, if the same pro- 
 gress that has distinguished this country for the last fifteen years continues, every 
 foot of vacant land between this and the Pacific ocean, owned by the United States, 
 will be occupied. Will you not continue to increase at the end of fifteen years as 
 well as now ? I tell you, increase, and multiply, and expand, is the law of this na- 
 tion's existence. You cannot limit this great Republic by mere boundary lines, say- 
 ing, " thus far shalt thou go, and no further." Any one of you gentlemen might as 
 well say to a son twelve years old that he is big enough, and must not grow any lar- 
 ger, and in order to prevent his growth put a hoop around him to keep him to his 
 present size. What would be the result ? Either the hoop must burst and be rent 
 asunder, or the child must die. So it would be with this great nation. With our 
 natural increase, growing with a rapidity unknown in any other part of the globe, 
 with the tide of emigration that is fleeing from despotism in the old world to seek ref- 
 uge in our own, there is a constant torrent pouring into this country that requires 
 more land, more territory upon which to settle, and just as fast as our interests and 
 our destiny require additional territory in the North, in the South, or on the Islands 
 of the ocean, I am for it, and when we acquire it, will leave the people, according to 
 the Nebraska bill, free to do as they please on the subject of slavery and every other 
 question. 
 
 I trust now that Mr. Lincoln will deem himself answered on his four points. He 
 racked his brain so much in devising these four questions that he exhausted himself, 
 and had not strength enough to invent the others. As soon as he is able to hold a 
 council with his advisers, Lovejoy, Farnsworth, and Fred Douglass, he will frame 
 and propound others. [ " Good, good." ] You Black Republicans who say good, I 
 have no doubt think that they are all good men. I have reason to recollect that some 
 people in this country think that Fred Douglass is a very good man. The last time 
 I came here to make a speech, while talking from the stand to you, people of Free- 
 port, as I am doing to-day, I saw a carriage, and a magnificent one it was, drive up 
 and take a position on the outside of the crowd ; a beautiful young lady was sitting 
 on the box-seat, whilst Fred Douglass and her mother reclined inside, and the owner 
 of the carriage acted as driver. I saw this in your own town. [ " What of it ? " ] 
 All I have to say of it is this, that if you, Black Republicans, think that the negix> 
 ought to be on a social equality with your wives and daughters, and ride in a carriage 
 with your wife, whilst you drive the team, you have perfect right to do so. I am 
 told that one of Fred Douglass's kinsmen, another rich black negro, is now traveling 
 in this part of the State making speeches for his friend Lincoln as the champion 
 of black men. [ " What have you to say against it ? "] All I have to say on that 
 subject is, that'those of you who believe that the negro is your equal and ought to be 
 on an equality with you socially, politically, and legally, have a right to enteftain 
 those opinions, and of course will vote for Mr. Lincoln. 
 
 I have a word to say on Mr. Lincoln's answer to the interrogatories contained in 
 my speech at Ottawa, and which he has pretended to reply to here to-day. Mr. 
 Lincoln makes a great parade of the fact that I quoted a platform as having been 
 adopted by the Black Republican party at Springfield in 1854, which, it turns out, 
 was adopted at another place. Mr. Lincoln loses sight of the thing itself in his ec- 
 stacies over the mistake I made in stating the place where it was done. He thinks 
 that that platform was not adopted on the right " spot" 
 
 When I put the direct questions to Mr. Lincoln to ascertain whether he now 
 stands pledged to that creed to the unconditional repeal of the Fugitive Slave law, 
 a refusal to admit any more slave States into the Union even if the people want 
 them, a determination to apply the Wilmot Proviso, not only to all the territory we 
 now have, but all that we may hereafter acquire, he refused to answer, and his fol- 
 lowers say, in excuse, that the resolutions upon which I based my interrogatories 
 were not adopted at the " right spot" Lincoln and his political friends are great 
 on "spots" In Congress, as a representative of this State, he declared the Mexican 
 war to be unjust and infamous, and would not support it, or acknowledge his own
 
 98 
 
 country to be right in the contest, because he said that American blood was n<*i 
 shed on American soil in the " right spot" And now he cannot answer the ques- 
 tions I put to him at Ottawa because the resolutions I read were not adopted at the 
 u right spot." It may be possible that I was led into an error as to the spot on which 
 /!he resolutions I then read were proclaimed, but I was not, and am not in error* as to 
 the fact of their forming the basis of the creed of the Republican party when that 
 party was first organized. I will state to you the evidence I had, and upon which 
 [ relied for my statement that the resolutions in question were adopted at Springfield 
 on the 5th of October, 1854.* Although I was aware that such resolutions had 
 been passed in this district, and nearly all the northern Congressional Districts and 
 County Conventions, I had not noticed whether or not they had been adopted by 
 any State Convention. In 1856, a debate arose in Congress between Major 
 Thomas L. Harris, of the Springfield District, and Mr. Norton, of the Joliet Dis- 
 trict, on political matters connected with our State, in the course of which, Major 
 Harris quoted those resolutions as having been passed by the first Republican State 
 Convention that ever assembled in Illinois. I knew that Major Harris was re- 
 markable for his accuracy, that he was a very conscientious and sincere man, and I 
 also noticed that Norton did not question the accuracy of this statement. I therefore 
 took it for granted that it was so, and the other day when I concluded to use the 
 resolutions at Ottawa, I wrote to Charles H. Lanphier, editor of the State Register, 
 at Springfield, calling his attention to them, telling him that I had been informed 
 that Major Harris was lying sick at Springfield, and desiring him to call upon him 
 and ascertain all the facts concerning the resolutions, the time and the place where they 
 were adopted. In reply, Mr. Lanphier sent me two copies of his paper, which I 
 have here. The first is a copy of the State Register, published at Springfield, 
 Mr. Lincoln's own town, on the 16th of October, 1854, only eleven days after the 
 adjournment of the Convention, from which I desire to read the following : 
 
 " During the late discussions in this city, Lincoln made a speech, to which Judge 
 Douglas replied. In Lincoln's speech he took the broad ground that, according to 
 the Declaration of Independence, the whites and blacks are equal. From this he 
 drew the conclusion, which he several times repeated, that the white man had no 
 right to pass laws for the government of the black man without the nigger's consent. 
 This speech of Lincoln's was heard and applauded by all the Abolitionists assembled 
 in Springfield. So soon as Mr. Lincoln was done speaking, Mr. Codding arose and 
 requested all the delegates to the Black Republican Convention to withdraw into the 
 Senate chamber. They did so, and after long deliberation, they laid down the fol- 
 lowing Abolition platform as the platform on which they stood. We call the particu- 
 lar Attention of all our readers to it." 
 
 Then follows the identical platform, word for word, which I read at Ottawa. Now, 
 that was published in Mr. Lincoln's own town, eleven days after the Convention was 
 held, and it has remained on record up to this day never contradicted. 
 
 When I quoted the resolutions at Ottawa and questioned Mr. Lincoln in relation 
 to them, he said that his name was on the committee that reported them, but he did 
 not serve, nor did he think he served, because he was, or thought he was, in Taze- 
 vrell county at the time the Convention was in session. He did not deny that the 
 resolutions were passed by the Springfield Convention. He did not know better, 
 and evidently thought that they were, but afterward his friends declared that they 
 had discovered that they varied in some respects from the resolutions passed by that 
 Convention. I have shown you that I had good evidence for believing that the res- 
 olutions had been passed at Springfield. Mr. Lincoln ought to have known better ; 
 but not a word is said about his ignorance on the subject, whilst I, notwithstanding 
 the circumstances, am accused of forgery. 
 
 Now, I will show you that if I have made a mistake as to the place where these 
 resolutions were adopted and when I get down to Springfield I will investigate the 
 matter and see whether or not I have that the principles they enunciate were 
 adopted as the Black Republican platform [" white, white"], in the various counties and
 
 99 
 
 Congressional Districts throughout the north end of the State in 1854. This plat- 
 form was adopted in nearly every county that gave a Black Republican majority for 
 the Legislature in that year, and here is a man [pointing to Mr. Denio, who sat on 
 the stand near Deacon Bross] who knows as well as any living man that it was the 
 creed of the Black Republican party at that time. I would be willing to call Denio 
 as a witness, or any other honest man belonging to that party. I will now read the 
 resolutions adopted at the Rockford Convention on the 30th of August, 1854, which 
 nominated Washburne for Congress. You elected him on the following platform : 
 
 Resolved, That the continued and increasing aggressions of slavery in our country are destructive 
 of the best rights of a I'ree people, and that such aggressions cannot be successfully resisted with- 
 out the united political action of all good men. 
 
 Resolved, That the citizens of the United States hold in their hands peaceful, constitutional and 
 efficient remedy against the encroachments of the slave power, the ballot-box, and, if that remedy 
 is boldly and wisely applied, the principles of liberty and eternal justice will be established. 
 
 Resolved, That we accept this issue forced upon us by the slave power, and, in defense of free- 
 dom, will co-operate and be known as Republicans, pledged to the accomplishment of the follow- 
 ing purposes : 
 
 To bring the Administration of the Government back to the control of -first principles ; to restore 
 Kansas and Nebraska to the position of free Territories : to repeal and entirely abrogate the Fugi- 
 tive Slave law 5 to restrict slavery to those States in which it exists ; to prohibit the admission of 
 any more slave States into the Union ; to exclude slavery from all the Territories over which the 
 General Government has exclusive jurisdiction, and to resist the acquisition of any more Territo- 
 ries unless the introduction of slavery therein forever shall have been prohibited. 
 
 Resolved, That in furtherance of these principles we will use such constitutional and lawful 
 means as shall seem best adapted to. their accomplishment, and that we will support no man for 
 office under the General or State Government who is not positively committed to the support of 
 these principles, and whose personal character and conduct is not a guaranty that he is reliable 
 and shall abjure all party allegiance and ties. 
 
 Resolved, That we cordially invite persons of all former political parties whatever in favor of 
 the object expressed in the above resolutions to unite with us in carrying them, into efl'ect. 
 
 Well, you think that is a very good platform, do you not ? If you do, if you ap- 
 prove it now, and think it is all right, you will not join with those men who say that 
 I libel you by calling these your principles, will you ? Now, Mr. Lincoln complains ; 
 Mr. Lincoln charges that I did you and him injustice by saying that this was the 
 platform of your party. I am told that Washburne made a speech in Galena last 
 night, in which he abused me awfully for bringing to light thi* platform, on which he 
 was elected to Congress. He thought that you had forgotten it, as he and Mr. Lin- 
 coln desires to. He did not deny but that you had adopted it, and that he had sub- 
 scribed to and was pledged by it, but he did not think it was fair to call it up and 
 remind the people that it was their platform. 
 
 But I am glad to find that you are more honest in your abolitionism than your 
 leaders, by avowing that it is your platform, and right in your opinion. 
 
 In the adoption of that platform, you not only declared that you would resist the 
 admission of any more slave States, and work for the repeal of the Fugitive Slave 
 law, but you pledged yourselves not to vote for any man for State or Federal offices 
 who was not committed to these principles. You were thus committed. Similar 
 resolutions to those were adopted in your county Convention here, and now with 
 your admissions that they are your platform and embody your sentiments now as 
 they did then, what do you think of Mr. Lincoln, your candidate for the U. S. Sen- 
 ate, who is attempting to dodge the responsibility of this platform, because it was act 
 adopted in the right spot. I thought that it was adopted in Springfield, but it turns 
 out it was not, that it was adopted at Rockford, and in the various counties which 
 comprise this Congressional District. When I get into the next district, I will show 
 that the same platform was adopted there, and so on through the State, until I nail 
 the responsibility of it upon the back of the Black Republican party throughout the 
 State. 
 
 A voice " Couldn't you modify and call it brown ? " 
 
 Mr. Douglas Not a bit. I thought that you were becoming a little brown when 
 your members in Congress voted for the Crittenden-Montgomery bill, but since you
 
 100 
 
 have backed out from that position and gone back to Abolitionism, you are black and 
 not brown. 
 
 Gentlemen, I have shown you what your platform was in 1854. You still adhere 
 to it. The same platform was adopted by nearly all the counties where the Black 
 Republican party had a majority in 1854. I wish now to call your attention to the 
 action of your representatives in the Legislature when they assembled together at 
 Springfield. In the first place, you must remember that this was the organization, 
 of a new party. It is so declared in the resolutions themselves, which say that you 
 are going to dissolve all old purty ties and call the new party Republican. The old 
 Whig party was to have its throat cut from ear to ear, and the Democratic party 
 was to be annihilated and blotted out of existence, whilst in lieu of these parties the 
 Black Republican party was to be organized on this Abolition platform. You know 
 who the chief leaders were in breaking up and destroying these two great parties. 
 Lincoln on the one hand and Trumbull on the other, being disappointed politicians, 
 and having retired or been driven to obscurity by an outraged constituency because 
 of their political sins, formed a scheme to abolitionize the two parties and lead the 
 old line Whigs and old line Democrats captive, bound hand and foot, into the Ab- 
 olition camp. Giddings, Chase, Fred Douglass and Lovejoy were here to christen 
 them whenever they Avere brought in. Lincoln went to work to dissolve the old 
 line Whig party. Clay was dead, and although the sod was not yet green on his 
 grave, this man undertook to bring into disrepute those great Compromise measures 
 of 1850, with which Clay and Webster were identified. Up to 1854 the old Whig 
 party and the Democratic party had stood on a common platform so far as this sla- 
 very question was concerned. You Whigs and we Democrats differed about the 
 bank, the tariff, distribution, the specie circular and the sub-treasury, but we agreed 
 on this slavery question and the true mode of preserving the peace and harmony of 
 the Union. The Compromise measures of 1850 were introduced by Clay, were de- 
 fended by Webster, and supported by Cass, and were approved by Fillmore, and 
 sanctioned by the National men of both parties. They constituted a common plank 
 upon which both Whigs and Democrats stood. In 1852 the Whig party, in its last 
 National Convention at Baltimore, indorsed and approved these measures of Clay, 
 and so did the National Convention of the Democratic party held that same year. 
 Thus the old line Whigs and the old line Democrats stood pledged to the great 
 principle of self-government, which guaranties to the people of each Territory the 
 right to decide the slavery question for themselves. In 1854, after the death of 
 Clay and Webster, Mr. Lincoln, on the part of the Whigs, undertook to Abolitionize 
 the Whig party, by dissolving it, transferring the members into the Abolition camp 
 and making them train under Giddings, Fred Douglass, Lovejoy, Chase, Farnsworth, 
 and other Abolition leaders. Trumbull undertook to dissolve the Democratic party 
 by taking old Democrats into the Abolition camp. Mr. Lincoln was aided in his 
 efforts by many leading W T higs throughout the State. Your member of Congress, 
 Mr. Washburne, being one of the most active. Trumbull was aided by many rene- 
 gades from the Democratic party, among whom were John Wentworth, Tom Turner, 
 and others, with whom you are familiar. 
 
 [Mr. Turner, who was one of the moderators, here interposed and said that he 
 had drawn the resolutions which Senator Douglas had read.] 
 
 Mr. Douglas. Yes, and Turner says that he drew these resolutions. [" Hurra 
 for Turner," " Hurra for Douglas."] That is right, give Turner cheers for drawing 
 the resolutions if you approve them. If he drew those resolutions he will not deny 
 that they are the creed of the Black Republican party. 
 
 Mr. Turner " They are our creed exactly." 
 
 Mr. Douglas And yet Lincoln denies that he stands on them. Mr. Turner says 
 that the creed of the Black Republican party is the admission of no more slave 
 States, and yet Mr. Lincoln declares that he would not like to be placed in a position 
 where he would have to vote for them. All I have to say to friend Lincoln is, that 
 I do not think there is much danger of his being placed in such a position. As Mr.
 
 101 
 
 Lincoln would be very sorry to be placed in such an embarrassing position as to be 
 obliged to vote on the admission of any more slave States, I propose, out of mere 
 kindness, to relieve him from any such necessity. 
 
 When the bargain between Lincoln and Trumbull was completed for Abolitionizing 
 the Whig and Democratic parties, they " spread " over the State, Lincoln still pre- 
 tending to be an old line Whig, in order to " rope in " the Whigs, and Trumbull 
 pretending to be as good a Democrat as he ever was, in order to coax the Democrats 
 over into the Abolition ranks. They played the part that " decoy ducks " play 
 down on the Potomac river. In that part of the country they make artificial ducks 
 and put them on the water in places where the wild ducks are to be found, for the 
 purpose of decoying them. Well, Lincoln and Trumbull played the part of these 
 ** decoy ducks " and deceived enough old line Whigs and old line Democrats to 
 elect a Black Republican Legislature. When that Legislature met, the first thing 
 it did was to elect as Speaker of the House, the very man who is now boasting that 
 he wrote the Abolition platform on which Lincoln will not stand. I want to know 
 of Mr. Turner whether or not, when he was elected, he was a good embodiment of 
 Republican principles ? 
 
 Mr. Turner " I hope I was then and am now." 
 
 Mr. Douglas He swears that he hopes he was then and is now. He wrote that 
 Black Republican platform, and is satisfied with it now. I admire and acknowledge 
 Turner's honesty. Every man of you know that what he says about these resolu- 
 tions being the platform of the Black Republican party is true, and you also know 
 that each one of these men who are shuffling and trying to deny it are only trying 
 to cheat the people out of their votes for the purpose of deceiving them still more 
 after the election. I propose to trace this thing a little further, in order that you 
 can see what additional evidence there is to fasten this revolutionary platform upon 
 the Black Republican party. When the Legislature assembled, there was an United 
 States Senator to elect in the place of Gen. Shields, and before they proceeded to 
 ballot, Lovejoy insisted on laying down certain principles by which to govern the 
 party. It has been published to the world and satisfactorily proven that there was, 
 at the time the alliance was made between Trumbull and Lincoln to Abolition} ze 
 the two parties, an agreement that Lincoln should take Shields's place in the United 
 States Senate, and Trumbull should have mine so soon as they could conveniently 
 get rid of me. When Lincoln was beaten for Shields's place, in a manner I will 
 refer to in a few minutes, he felt very sore and restive ; his friends grumbled, and 
 some of them came out and charged that the most infamous treachery had been prac- 
 ticed against him ; that the bargain was that Lincoln was to have had Shields's place, 
 and Trumbull was to have waited for mine, but that Trumbull having the control of 
 a few Abolitionized Democrats, he prevented them from voting for Lincoln, thus 
 keeping him within a few votes of an election until he succeeded in forcing the party 
 to drop him and elect Trumbull. Well, Trumbull having cheated Lincoln, his friends 
 made a fuss, and in order to keep them and Lincoln quiet, the party were obliged to 
 come forward, in advance, at the last State election, and make a pledge that they 
 would go for Lincoln and nobody else. Lincoln could not be silenced in any other 
 way. 
 
 Now, there are a great many Black Republicans of you who do not know this 
 thing was done. ["White, white," and great clamor.] I wish to remind you that while 
 Mr Lincoln was speaking there was not a Democrat vulgar and blackguard enough 
 to interrupt him. But I know that the shoe is pinching you. I am clinching Lin- 
 coln now, and you are scared to death for the result. I have seen this thing be- 
 fore. I have seen men make appointments for joint discussions, and the moment 
 their man has been heard, try to interrupt and prevent a fair hearing of the other 
 side. I have seen your mobs before, and defy your wrath. [Tremendous ap- 
 plause.] My friends, do not cheer, for I need my whole time. The object of the 
 opposition is to occupy my attention in order to prevent me from giving the whole 
 evidence and nailing this double dealing on the Black Republican party. As I have-
 
 102 
 
 before said, Lovejoy demanded a declaration of principles on the part of the Black 
 Republicans of the Legislature before going into an election for United States Sen- 
 ator. He offered the following preamble and resolutions which I hold in my hand: 
 
 WHEREAS. Human slavery is a violation of the principles of natural and revealed rights ; arid 
 whereas, the fathers of the Revolution, fully imbued with the spirit of these principles, declared 
 freedom to be the inalienable birthright of all men ; and whereas, the preamble to the Constitu- 
 tion of the United States avers that that instrument was ordained to establish justice, and secure 
 the blessings of libery to ourselves and our posterity ; and whereas, in furtherance of the above 
 principles, slavery was forever prohibited in the old North-west Territory, and more recently in 
 all that Territory lying west and north of the State of Missouri, by the act of the Federal Gov- 
 ernment ; and whereas, the repeal of the prohition last referred to, was contrary to the wishes of 
 the people of Illinois, a violation of an implied compact, long deemed sacred by the citizens of 
 the United States, and a wide departure from the uniform action of the General Government in 
 relation to the extension of slavery ; therefore, 
 
 Resolved, by the House of Representatives, the Senate concurring therein, That our Senators in Congress 
 be instructed, and our Representatives requested to introduce, if not otherwise introduced, and to 
 vote for a bill to restore such prohibition to the aforesaid Territories, and also to extend a similar 
 prohibition to all territory which now belongs to the United States, or which may hereafter come 
 under their jurisdiction. 
 
 Resolved, That our Senators in Congress be instructed, and our Representatives requested, to 
 vote against the admission of any State into the Union, the Constitution of which does not pro- 
 hibit slavery, whether the territory out of which such State may have been formed shall 
 have been acquired by conquest, treaty, purchase, or from original territory of the United 
 States. 
 
 Resolved, That our Senators in Congress be instructed, and our Representatives requested, to 
 introduce and vote for a bill to repeal an act entitled " an act respecting fugitives from justice 
 and persons escaping from the service of their masters ; and, failing in that, for such a modification 
 of it as shall secure the right of habeas corpus and trial by jury before the regularly-constituted 
 authorities of the State, to all persons claimed as owing service'or labor. 
 
 Those resolutions were introduced by Mr. Lovejoy immediatey preceding the 
 election of Senator. They declared first, that the Wilinot Proviso must be applied 
 to all territory north of 36 deg. 30 min. Secondly, that it must be applied to all 
 territory south of 36 deg. 30 rnin. Thirdly, that it must be applied to all the ter- 
 ritory now owned by the United States, and finally, that it must be applied to all 
 territory hereafter to be acquired by the United States. The next resolution declares 
 that no more slave States shall be admitted into this Union under any circumstances 
 whatever, no matter whether they are formed out of territory now owned by us or 
 that we may hereafter acquire, by treaty, by Congress, or in any manner whatever. 
 The next resolution demands the unconditional repeal of the Fugitive Slave law, al- 
 though its unconditional repeal would leave no provision for carrying out that clause 
 of the Constitution of the United States which guaranties the surrender of fugitives. 
 If they could not get an unconditional repeal, they demanded that that law should be 
 so modified as to make it as nearly useless as possible. Now, I want to show you who 
 voted for these resolutions. When the vote was taken on the first resolution it was 
 decided in the affirmative yeas 41, nays 32. You will find that this is a stricl 
 party vote, between the Democrats on the one hand, and the Black Republicans on 
 the other. [Cries of " White, white," and clamor.] I know your name, and always 
 call things by their right name. The point I wish to call your attention to, is this : 
 that these resolutions were adopted on the 7th day of February, and that on the 8th 
 the)- went into an election for a United States Senator, and that day every man who 
 voted for these resolutions, with but two exceptions, voted for Lincoln for the 
 United States Senate. [" Give us their names."] I will read the names over to you 
 if you want them, but I believe your object is to occupy my time. 
 
 On the next resolution the vote stood yeas 33, nays 40, and on the third resolution 
 yeas 35, nays 47. I wish to impress it upon you, that every man who voted for those 
 resolutions, with but two exceptions, voted on the next day for Lincoln for U. S. Senator. 
 Bear in mind that the members who thus voted for Lincoln were elected to the Leg- 
 islature pledged to vote for no man for office under the State or Federal Govern- 
 ment who was not committed to this Black Republican platform. They were all so 
 * pledged. Mr. Turner, who stands by me, and who then represented you, and who
 
 103 
 
 says that he wrote those resolutions, voted for Lincoln, when he was pledged not to 
 do so unless Lincoln was in favor of those resolutions. I now ask Mr. Turner 
 [turning to Mr. Turner], did you violate your pledge in voting for Mr. Lincoln, or 
 did he commit himself to your platform before you cast your vote for him ? 
 
 I could go through the whole list of names here and show you that all the Black 
 Republicans in the Legislature, who voted for Mr. Lincoln, had voted on the day 
 previous for these resolutions. For instance, here are the names of Sargent and 
 Little of Jo Daviess and Carroll, Thomas J. Turner of Stephenson, Lawrence of 
 Boone and McHeriry, Swan of Lake, Pinckney of Ogle county, and Lynian of 
 Winnebago. Thus you see every member from your Congressional District voted 
 for Mr. Lincoln, and they were pledged not to vote for him unless he was committed 
 to the doctrine of no more slave States, the prohibition of slavery in the Territories, 
 an<? the repeal of the Fugitive Slave law. Mr. Lincoln tells you to-day that he is 
 not pledged to any such doctrine. Either Mr. Lincoln was then committed to those 
 propositions, or Mr. Turner violated his pledges to you when he voted for him. 
 Either Lincoln was pledged to each one of those propositions, or else every Black Re- 
 publican Representative from this Congressional District violated his pledge of honor 
 to his constituents by voting for him. I ask you which horn of the dilemma will you 
 take? Will you hold Lincoln up to the platform of his party, or will you accuse every 
 Representative you had in the Legislature of violating his pledge of honor to his con- 
 stituents? There is no escape for you. Either Mr. Lincoln was committed to those 
 propositions, or your members violated their faith. Take either horn of the dilemma 
 you choose. There is no dodging the question ; I want Lincoln's answer. He says 
 he was not pledged to repeal the Fugitive Slave law, that he does not quite like to do 
 it ; he will not introduce a law to repeal it, but thinks there ought to be some law ; 
 he does not tell what it ought to be ; upon the whole, he is altogether undecided, 
 and don't know what to think or do. That is the substance of his answer upon the 
 repeal of the Fugitive Slave law. I put the question to him distinctly, whether he in- 
 dorsed that part of the Black Republican platform which calls for the entire abroga- 
 tion and repeal of the Fugitive Slave law. He answers no ! that he does not indorse 
 that, but he does not tell what he is for, or what he will vote for. His answer 
 is, in fact, no answer at all. Why cannot he speak out and say what he is for and 
 what lie will do ? 
 
 In regard to there being no more slave States, he is not pledged to that. He 
 would not like, he says, to be put in a position where he would have to vote one way 
 or another upon that question. I pray you, do not put him in a position that would 
 embarrass him so much. Gentlemen, if he goes to the Senate, he may be put in 
 that position, and then which way will he vote ? 
 
 [A Voice " How will you vote ?"] 
 
 Mr. Douglas I will vote for the admission of just such a State as by the form 
 of their Constitution the people show they want ; if they want slavery, they shall 
 have it ; if they prohibit slavery it shall be prohibited. They can form their insti- 
 tutions to please themselves, subject only to the Constitution ; and I for one stand 
 ready to receive them into the Union. Why cannot your Black Republican candi- 
 dates talk out as plain as that when they are questioned ? 
 
 I do not want to cheat any man out of his vote. No man is deceived in regard 
 to my principles if I have the power to express myself in terms explicit enough to 
 convey my ideas. 
 
 Mr. Lincoln made a speech when he was nominated for the United States Senate 
 which covers all these Abolition platforms. He there lays down a proposition so 
 broad in its abolitionism as to cover the whole ground. 
 
 <; In my opinion it [the slavery agitation] will not cease until a crisis shall have 
 been reached and passed. ' A house divided against itself cannot stand.' I believe 
 this Government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not 
 expect the house to fall but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become 
 all one thing or all the other. Either the opponents of Slavery will arrest the fur-
 
 104 
 
 ther spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that i 
 is in the course of ultimate extinction, or its advocates will push it forward till it 
 shall become alike lawful in all the States old as well as new, North as well as 
 South." 
 
 There you find that Mr. Lincoln lays down the doctrine that this Union cannot 
 endure divided as our fathers made it, with free and slave States. He says they 
 must all become one thing, or aU the other ; that they must all be free or all slave, 
 or else the Union cannot continue to exist. It being his opinion that to admit any 
 more slave States, to continue to divide the Union into free and slave States, will 
 dissolve it I want to know of Mr. Lincoln whether he will vote for the admission 
 of another slave State. 
 
 He tells you the Union cannot exist unless the States are all free or all slave ; he 
 tells you that he is opposed to making them all slave, and hence he is for making 
 them all free, in order that the Union may exist ; and yet he will not say that he 
 will not vote against another slave State, knowing that the Union must be dissolved 
 if he votes for it. I ask you if that is fair dealing ? The true intent and inevitable 
 conclusion to be drawn from his first Springfield speech is, that he is opposed to the 
 admission of any more slave States under any circumstance. If he is so opposed, 
 why not say so ? If he believes this Union cannot endure divided into free and 
 slave States, that they must all become free in order to save the Union, he is bound 
 as an honest man, to vote against any more slave States. If he believes it he is 
 bound to do it. Show me that it is my duty in order to save the Union to do a par- 
 ticular act, and I will do it if the Constitution does not prohibit it. I am not for the 
 dissolution of the Union under any circumstances. I will pursue no course of con- 
 duct that will give just cause for the dissolution of the Union. The hope of the 
 friends of freedom throughout the world rests upon the perpetuity of this Union. 
 The down-trodden and oppressed people who are suffering under European despot- 
 ism all look with hope and anxiety to the American Union as the only resting place 
 and permanent home of freedom and self-government. 
 
 Mr. Lincoln says that he believes that this Union cannot continue to endure with 
 slave States in it, and yet he will not tell you distinctly whether he will vote for or 
 against the admission of any more slave States, but says he would not like to be put 
 to the test. I do not think he will be put to the test. I do not think that the people 
 of Illinois desire a man to represent them who would not like to be put to the test on 
 the performance of a high constitutional duty. I will retire in shame from the Sen- 
 ate of the United States when I am not willing to be put to the test in the perform- 
 ance of my duty. I have been put to severe tests. I have stood by my principles 
 in fair weather and in foul, in the sunshine and in the rain. I have defended the 
 great principles of self-government here among you when Northern sentiment ran in 
 a torrent against me, and I have defended that same great principle when Southern 
 sentiment came down like an avalanche upon me. I was not afraid of any test they 
 put to me. I knew I was right I knew my principles were sound I knew that the 
 people would see in the end that I had done right, and I knew that the God of 
 Heaven would smile upon me if I was faithful in the performance of my duty. 
 
 Mr. Lincoln makes a charge of corruption against the Supreme Court of the 
 United States, and two Presidents of the United States, and attempts to bolster it up 
 by saying that I did the same against the Washington Union. Suppose I did make 
 that charge of corruption against the Washington Union, when it was true, does that 
 justify him in making a false charge against me and others ? That is the question I 
 would put. He says that at the time the Nebraska bill was introduced, and before it 
 was passed, there was a conspiracy between the Judges of the Supreme Court, Pres- 
 ident Pierce, President Buchanan and myself by that bill, and the decision of the 
 court to break down the barrier and establish slavery all over the Union. Does he 
 not know that that charge is historically false as against President Buchanan ? He 
 knows that Mr. Buchanan was at that time in England, representing this country 
 with distinguished ability at the Court of St. James, that he was there for a long
 
 106 
 
 time before, and did not return for a year or more after. He knows that to be true, 
 and that fact proves his charge to be false as against Mr. Buchanan. Then again, I 
 wish to call his attention to the fact that at the time the Nebraska bill was passed, the 
 Dred Scott case was not before the Supreme Court at all ; it was not upon the docket 
 of the Supreme Court ; it had not been brought there, and the Judges in all proba- 
 bility knew nothing of it. Thus the history of the country proves the charge to be 
 false as against them. As to President Pierce, his high character as a man cf in- 
 tegrity and honor is enough to vindicate him from snch a charge ; and as to myself, 
 I pronounce the charge an infamous lie, whenever and wherever made, and by whom- 
 soever made. I am willing that Mr. Lincoln should go and rake up every public act 
 of mine, every measure I have introduced, report I have made, speech delivered, 
 and criticise them, but when he charges upon me a corrupt conspiracy for the pur- 
 pose of perverting the institutions of the country, I brand it as it deserves. I say 
 the history of the country proves it to be false, and that it could not have been pos- 
 sible at the time. But now he tries to protect himself in this charge, because I made 
 a charge against the Washington Union. My speech in the Senate against the 
 Washington Union was made because it advocated a revolutionary doctrine, by de- 
 claring that the free States had not the right to prohibit slavery within their own 
 limits. Because I made that charge against the Washington Union, Mr. Lincoln 
 says it was a charge against Mr. Buchanan. Suppose it was ; is Mr. Lincoln the 
 peculiar defender of Mr. Buchanan ? Is he so interested in the Federal Adminis- 
 tration, and so bound to it, that he must jump to the rescue and defend it from every 
 attack that I may make against it ? I understand the whole thing. The Washing- 
 ton Union, under that most corrupt of all men, Cornelius Wendell, is advocating Mr. 
 Lincoln's claim to the Senate. Wendell was the printer of the last Black Republican 
 House of Representatives ; he was a candidate before the present Democratic House, 
 but was ignominiously kicked out, and then he took the money which he had made 
 out of the public printing by means of the Black Republicans, bought the Washing- 
 ton Union, and is now publishing it in the name of the Democratic party, and advo- 
 cating Mr. Lincoln's election to the Senate. Mr. Lincoln therefore considers an at- 
 tack upon Wendell and his corrupt gang as a personal attack upon him. This only 
 proves what I have charged, that there is an alliance between Lincoln and his sup- 
 porters, and the Federal office-holders of this State, and Presidential aspirants out 
 of it, to break me down at home. 
 
 Mr. Lincoln feels bound to come in to the rescue of the Washington Union. In 
 that speech which I delivered in answer to the Washington Union, I made it dis- 
 tinctly against the Union, and against the Union alone. I did not choose to go be- 
 yond that. If I have occasion to attack the President's conduct, I will do it in lan- 
 guage that will not be misunderstood. When I differed with the President, I spoke 
 out so that you all heard me. That question passed away ; it resulted in the triumph 
 of my principle by allowing the people to do as they please, and there is an end of 
 the controversy. Whenever the great principle of self-government the right of the 
 people to make their own Constitution, and come into the Union with slavery or with- 
 out it, as they see proper, shall again arise, you will find me standing firm in defense 
 of that principle, and fighting whoever fights it. If Mr. Buchanan stands, as I doubt 
 not he will, by the recommendation contained in his Message, that hereafter all State 
 Constitutions ought to be submitted to the people before the admission of the State 
 itito the Union, he will find me standing by him firmly, shoulder to shoulder, in car- 
 rying it out I know Mr. Lincoln's object ; he wants to divide the Democratic party, 
 in order that he may defeat me and get to the Senate. 
 
 Mr. Douglas's time here expired, and he stopped on the moment
 
 106 
 
 MR. LINCOLN'S REJOINDER. 
 
 MY FRIENDS : It will readily occur to you that I cannot, in half an hour, notice 
 all the things that so able a man as Judge Douglas can say in an hour and a half; 
 and I hope, therefore, if there be any thing that he has said upon which you would 
 like to hear something from me, but which I omit to comment upon, you will bear in 
 mind that it would be expecting an impossibility for me to go over his whole ground. 
 I can but take up some of the points that he has dwelt upon, and employ my half- 
 hour specially on them. 
 
 The first thing I have to say to you is a word in regard to Judge Douglas's dec- 
 laration about the "vulgarity and blackguardism" in the audience that no such 
 thing, as he says, was shown by any Democrat while I was speaking. Now, I only 
 wish, by way of reply on this subject, to say that while / was speaking, / used no 
 " vulgarity or blackguardism " toward any Democrat. 
 
 Now, my friends, I come to all this long portion of the Judge's speech perhaps 
 half of it which he has devoted to the various resolutions and platforms that have 
 been adopted in the different counties in the different Congressional Districts, and in 
 the Illinois Legislature which he supposes are at variance with the positions I have 
 assumed before you to-day. It is true that many of these resolutions are at variance 
 with the positions I have here assumed. All I have to ask is that we talk reasona- 
 bly and rationally about it. I happen to know, the Judge's opinion to the contrary 
 notwithstanding, that I have never tried to conceal my opinions, nor tried to deceive 
 any one in reference to them. He may go and examine all the members who voted 
 for me for United States Senator in 1855, after the election of 1854. They were 
 pledged to certain things here at home, and were determined to have pledges from 
 me, and if he will find any of these persons who will tell him any thing inconsistent 
 with what I say now, I will resign, or rather retire from the race, and give him no 
 more trouble. The plain truth is this : At the introduction of the Nebraska policy, 
 we believed there was a new era being introduced in the history of the Republic, 
 which tended to the spread and perpetuation of slavery. But in our opposition to 
 that measure we did not agree with one another in every thing. The people in the 
 north end of the State were for stronger measures of opposition than we of the cen- 
 tral and Southern portions of , the State, but we were all opposed to the Nebraska 
 doctrine. We had that one feeling and that one sentiment in common. You at the 
 north end met in your Conventions and passed your resolutions. We in the middle 
 of the State and further south did not hold such Conventions and pass the same res- 
 olutions, although we had in general a common view and a common sentiment. So 
 that these meetings which the Judge has alluded to, and the resolutions he has read 
 from, were local, and did not spread over the whole State. We at last met together 
 in 1856, from all parts of the State, and we agreed upon a common platform. You, 
 who held more extreme notions, either yielded those notions, or if not wholly yield- 
 ing them, agreed to yield them practically, for the sake of embodying the opposition 
 to the measures which the opposite party were pushing forward at that time. We 
 met you then, and if there was any thing yielded, it was for practical purposes. We 
 agreed then upon a platform for the party throughout the entire State of Illinois, and 
 now we are all bound as a party, to that platform. And I say here to you, if any 
 one expects of me in the case of my election that I will do any thing not signified 
 by our Republican platform and my answers here to-day, I tell you very frankly 
 that person will be deceived. I do not ask for the vote of any one who supposes 
 that I have secret purposes or pledges that I dare not speak out. Cannot the Judge 
 be satisfied ? If he fears, in the unfortunate case of my election, that my going to 
 Washington will enable me to advocate sentiments contrary to those which I ex- 
 pressed when you voted for and elected me, I assure him that his fears are wholly 
 needless and groundless. Is the Judge really afraid of any such thing ? I'll tell 
 you what he is afraid of. He is afraid we'll all pull together. This is what alarms
 
 107 
 
 him more than any thing else. For my part, I do hope that all of us, entertaining a 
 common sentiment in opposition to what appears to us a design to nationalize and 
 perpetuate slavery, will waive minor differences on questions which either belong to 
 the dead past or the distant future, and all pull together in this struggle. What are 
 your sentiments ? If it be true, that on the ground which I occupy ground which 
 I occupy as frankly and boldly as Judge Douglas does his my views, though partly 
 coinciding with yours, are not as perfectly in accordance with your feelings as his 
 are, I do say to you in all candor, go for him and not for me. I hope to deal in all 
 things fairly with Judge Douglas, and with the people of the State, in this contest. 
 And if I should never be elected to any office, I trust I may go down with no stain 
 of falsehood upon my reputation notwithstanding the hard opinions Judge Douglas 
 chooses to entertain of me. 
 
 The Judge has again addressed himself to the abolition tendencies of a speech of 
 mine, made at Springfield in June last. I have so often tried to answer what he is 
 always saying on that melancholy theme, that I almost turn with disgust from the 
 discussion from the repetition of an answer to it. I trust that nearly all of this 
 intelligent audience have read that speech. If you have, I may venture to leave it 
 to you to inspect it closely, and see whether it contains any of those " bugaboos " 
 which frighten Judge Douglas. 
 
 The Judge complains that I did not fully answer his questions. If I have the 
 sense to comprehend and answer those questions, I have done so fairly. If it can be 
 pointed out to me how I can more fully and fairly answer him, I aver I have not the 
 sense to see how it is to be done. He says I do not declare I would in any event 
 vote for the admission of a slave State into the Union. If I have been fairly 
 reported he will see that I did give an explicit answer to his interrogatories, I did 
 not merely say that I would dislike to be put to the test ; but I said clearly, if I were 
 put to the test, and a Territory from which slavery had been excluded should present 
 herself with a State Constitution sanctioning slavery a most extraordinary thing and 
 wholly unlikely to happen I did not see how I could avoid voting for her admission. 
 But he refuses to understand that I said so, and he wants this audience to under- 
 stand that I did not say so. Yet it will be so reported in the printed speech that he 
 cannot help seeing it. 
 
 He says if I should vote for the admission of a slave State I would be voting for 
 a dissolution of the Union, because I hold that the Union cannot permanently exist 
 half slave and half free. I repeat that I do not believe this Government can endure 
 permanently half slave and half free, yet I do not admit, nor does it at all follow, 
 that the admission of a single slave State will permanently fix the character and 
 establish this as a universal slave nation. The Judge is very happy indeed at work- 
 ing up these quibbles. Before leaving the subject of answering questions I aver as 
 my confident belief, when you come to see our speeches in print, that you will find 
 every question which he has asked me more fairly and boldly and fully answered 
 than he has answered those which I put to him. Is not that so ? The two speeches 
 may be placed side by side ; and I will venture to leave it to impartial judges 
 whether his questions have not been more directly and circumstantially answered 
 than mine. 
 
 Judge Douglas says he made a charge upon the editor of the Washington Union, 
 alone, of entertaining a purpose to rob the States of their power to exclude slavery 
 from their limits. I undertake to say, and I make the direct issue, that he did not 
 make his charge against the editor of the Union alone. I will undertake to prove 
 by the record here, that he made that charge against more and higher dignitaries 
 than the editor of the Washington Union. I am quite aware that he was shirking 
 and dodging around the form in which he put it, but I can make it manifest that he 
 leveled his "fatal blow" against more persons than this Washington editor. Will 
 he dodge it now by alleging that I am trying to defend Mr. Buchanan against the 
 charge ? Not at all. Am I not making the same charge myself? I am trying to 
 show that you, Judge Douglas, are a witness on my side. I am not defending
 
 108 
 
 Buchanan, and I will tell Judge Douglas that in my opinion, when he made that 
 charge, he had an eye farther north than he was to-day. He was then fighting 
 against people who called him a Black Republican and an Abolitionist. It is 
 mixed all through his speech, and it is tolerably manifest that his eye was a 
 great deal farther north than it is to-day. The Judge says that though he made 
 this charge, Toombs got up and declared there was not a man in the United 
 Slates, except the editor of the Union, who was in favor of the doctrines put 
 *brth in that article. And thereupon, I understand that the Judge withdrew the 
 charge. Although he had taken extracts from the newspaper, and then from the 
 Lecoinpton Constitution, to show the existence of a conspiracy to bring about a 
 u fatal blow," by which the States were to be deprived of the right of excluding 
 slavery, it all went to pot as soon as Toombs got up and told him it was not 
 true. It reminds me of the story that John Phoenix, the California railroad 
 surveyor, tells. He says they started out from the I 3 laza to the Mission of 
 Dolores. They had two ways of determining distances. One was by a chain 
 and pins taken over the ground. The other was by a "go-it-ometer" an inven- 
 tion of his own a three-legged instrument, with which he computed a series of tri- 
 angles between the points. At night he turned to the chain-man to ascertain what 
 distance they had come, and found that by some mistake he had merely dragged the 
 chain over the ground without keeping any record. By the "go-it-ometer" he 
 found he had made ten miles. Being skeptical about this, he asked a drayman who 
 was passing how far it was to the plaza. The drayman replied it was just half a 
 mile, and the surveyor put it down in his book -just as Judge Douglas says, 
 after he had made his calculations and computations, he took Toombs's statement. 
 I have no doubt that after Judge Douglas had made his charge, he was as easily 
 satisfied about its truth as* the surveyor was of the drayman's statement of the dis- 
 tance to the plaza. Yet it is a fact that the man who put forth {ill that matter which 
 Douglas deemed a "fatal alow" at State sovereignty, was elected by the Democrats 
 as public printer. 
 
 Now, gentlemen, you may take Judge Douglas's speech of March 22d, 1858. 
 beginning about the middle of page 21, and reading to the bottom of page 24, and 
 you will find the evidence on which I say that he did riot make his charge against 
 the editor of the Union alone. I cannot stop to read it, but I will give it to the 
 reporters. Judge Douglas said : 
 
 "Mr. President, you here find several distinct propositions advanced boldly by the 
 Washington Union editorially and apparently authoritatively, and every man who 
 questions any of them is denounced as an Abolitionist, a Freesoiler, a fanatic. The 
 propositions are, first, that the primary object of all government at its original insti- 
 tution is the protection of persons and property ; second, that the Constitution of tin- 
 United States declares that the citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the 
 privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States; and that, therefore, 
 thirdly, all State laws, whether organic or otherwise, which prohibit the citizens of 
 one State from settling in another with their slave property, and especially declaring 
 it forfeited, are direct violations of the original intention of the Government and 
 Constitution of the United States ; and fourth, that the emancipation of the slaves 
 of the Northern States was a gross outrage on the rights of property, inasmuch as it 
 was involuntarily done on the part of the owner." 
 
 "Remember that this article was published in the Union on the 17th of November, 
 and on the 18th appeared the first article giving the adhesion of the Union to tJwt 
 Lecompton Constitution. It was in these words : 
 
 "'KANSAS AND HER CONSTITUTION. The vexed question is settled. The prob- 
 lem is solved. The dead point of danger is passed. All serious trouble to Kansas 
 affairs is over and gone' 
 
 "And a column, nearly, of the same sort. Then, when you come to look into the 
 Lecompton Constitution, you find the same doctrine incorporated in it which was put 
 forth editorially in the Union. What is it?
 
 109 
 
 "'ARTICLE 7, Section 1. The right of property is before and higher than anj 
 constitutional sanction ; and the right of the owner of a slave to such slave and its 
 increase is the same and as invariable as the right of the owner of any property 
 whatever.' 
 
 ' Then in the schedule is a provision that the Constitution may be amended after 
 18G4 by a two-thirds vote. 
 
 " ' But no alteration shall be made to affect the right of property in the ownership 
 of slaves.' 
 
 "It will be seen by these clauses in the Lecompton Constitution that they are idea 
 tical in spirit with this authoritative article in the Washington Union of the day 
 previous to its indorsement of this Constitution. 
 
 "When I saw that article in the Union of the 17th of November, followed by the 
 glorification of the Lecompton Constitution on the 18th of November, and this 
 clause in the Constitution asserting the doctrine that a State has no right to prohibit 
 slavery within its limits, I saw that there was a fatal blow being struck at the sov- 
 ereignty of the States of this Union." 
 
 Here he says, "Mr. President, you here find several distinct propositions advanced 
 boldly, and apparently authoritatively" By whose authority, Judge Douglas? 
 Again, he says in another place, " It will be seen by these clauses in the Lecompton 
 Constitution, that they are identical in spirit with this authoritative article." By 
 whose authority 1 } Who do you mean to say authorized the publication -of these 
 articles ? He knows that the Washington Union is considered the organ of the 
 Administration. / demand of Judge Douglas by whose authority he meant to say 
 those articles were published, if not by the authority of the President of the United 
 States and his Cabinet ? I defy him to show whom he referred to, if not to these 
 high functionaries in the Federal Government. More than this, he says the articles 
 in that paper and the provisions of the Lecompton Constitution are "identical," 
 and being identical, he argues that the authors are co-operating and conspiring 
 together. He does not use the word "'conspiring," but what other construction can 
 you put upon it ? He winds up with this : 
 
 "When I saw that article in the Union of the 17th of November, followed by the 
 glorification of the Lecompton Constitution on the 18th of November, and this 
 clause in the Constitution asserting the doctrine that a State has no right to prohibit 
 slavery within its limits, I saw that there was a fatal blow being struck at the 
 sovereignty of the States of this Union." 
 
 I ask him if all this fuss was made over the editor of this newspaper. It would 
 be a terribly "fatal blow" indeed which a single man could strike, when no Presi- 
 dent, no Cabinet officer, no member of Congress, was giving strength and efficiency 
 to the moment. Out of respect to Judge Douglas's good sense I must believe he 
 did'nt manufacture his idea of the "fatal" character of that blow out of such a mis- 
 erable scapegrace as he represents that editor to be. But the Judge's eye is farther 
 south now. Then, it was very peculiarly and decidedly north. His hope rested on 
 the idea of visiting the great "Black Republican" party, and making it the tail of 
 ;is new kite. He knows he was then expecting from day to day to turn Republican 
 and place himself at the head of our organization. He has found that these 
 despised "Black Republicans" estimate him by a standard which he has taught 
 them none too well. Hence he is crawling back into his old camp, and you will fiod 
 him eventually installed in full fellowship among those whom he was then battling, 
 and with whom he now pretends to be at such fearful variance. {[Loud applause 
 and cries of "go on, go on."] I cannot, gentlemen, my time has expired. 
 
 8
 
 110 
 
 THIRD JOINT DEBATE, AT JONESBORO, 
 
 September 15, 1858. 
 
 MR. DOUGLAS'S SPEECH. 
 
 LADIES AND GENTLEMEN : I appear before you to-day in pursuance of a pre- 
 rious notice, and have made arrangements with Mr. Lincoln to divide time, and 
 discuss with him the leading political topics that now agitate the country. 
 
 Prior to 1854 this country was divided into two great political parties known as 
 Whig and Democratic. These parties differed from each other on certain ques- 
 tions which were then deemed to be important to the best interests of the Re- 
 public. Whig and Democrats differed about a bank, the tariff, distribution, the 
 specie circular and the sub-treasury. On those issues we went before the countiy 
 and discussed the principles, objects and measures of the two great parties. Kach 
 of the parties could proclaim its principles in Louisiana as well as in Massachu- 
 setts, in Kentucky as well as in Illinois. Since that period, a great revolution 
 has taken place in the formation of parties, by which they now seem to be divided 
 by a geographical line, a large party in the North being arrayed under the Abolition 
 or Republican bannei'j in hostility to the Southern States, Southern people, and 
 Southern institutions. It becomes important for us to inquire how this transforma- 
 tion of parties has occurred, made from those of national principles to geographical 
 factions. You remember that in 1850 this country was agitated from its cen- 
 ter to its circumference about this slavery question it became necessary for the 
 leaders of the great Whig party and the leaders of the great Democratic party to 
 postpone, for the time being, their particular disputes, and unite first to save the 
 Union before they should quarrel as to the mode in which it was to be governed. 
 During the Congress of 1849-'50, Henry Clay was the leader of the Union men, 
 eupported by Cass and Webster, and the leaders of the Democracy and the lead- 
 ers of the Whigs, in opposition to Northern Abolitionists or Southern Disunionists. 
 That great contest of 1850 resulted in the establishment of the Compromise 
 Measures of that year, which measures rested on the great principle that the peo- 
 ple of each State and each Territory of this Union ought to be permitted to 
 regulate their own domestic institutions in their own way, subject to no other 
 limitation than that which the Federal Constitution imposes. 
 
 I now wish to ask you whether that principle was right or wrong which guaran- 
 tied to every State and every community the right to form and regulate their do- 
 mestic institutions to suit themselves. These measures were adopted, as I have 
 previously said, by the joint action of the Union Whigs and Union Democrats 
 in opposition to Northern Abolitionists and Southern Disunionists. In 1858, when 
 the Whig party assembled at Baltimore, in National Convention for the last tim, 
 they adopted the principle of the Compromise Measures of 1850 as their rule of 
 party action in the future. One month thereafter the Democrats assembled at the 
 sumo place to nominate a candidate for the Presidency, and declared the same 
 great principle as the rule of action by which the Democracy would be governed. 
 The Presidential election of 1852 was fought on that \tasls. It is true that the 
 Whigs claimed special merit for the adoption of those measures, because they as- 
 serted that their great Clay originated them, their god-like Webster defended them 
 and their Fillmore signed the bill making them the law of the land ; but on the 
 other hand, the Democrats claimed special credit for the Democracy, upon the
 
 Ill 
 
 ground that we gave twice as many votes in both Houses of Congress for the passage 
 of these measures as the Whig party. 
 
 Thus you see that in the Presidential election of 1852, the Whigs were pledged 
 by their platform and their candidate to the principle of the Compromise Measures 
 of 1850, and the Democracy were likewise pledged by our principles, our platform, 
 and our candidate to the same line of policy, to preserve peace and quiet between 
 the different sections of this Union. Since that period the Whig party has been 
 transformed into a sectional party, under the name of the Republican party, whilst 
 the Democratic party continues the same national party it was at that day. All 
 sectional men, all men of Abolition sentiments and principles, no matter whether 
 they were old Abolitionists or had been Whigs or Democrats, rally under the 
 sectional Republican banner, and consequently all national men, all Union-loving 
 men, whether Whigs. Democrats, or by whatever name they have been known, ought 
 to rally under the stars and stripes in defense of the Constitution as our fathers 
 made it, and of the Union as it has existed under the Constitution. 
 
 How has this departure from the faith of the Democracy and the faith of the 
 Whig party been accomplished? In 1854, certain restless, ambitious, and disap- 
 pointed politicians throughout the land took advantage of the temporary excitement 
 created by the Nebraska bill to try and dissolve the old Whig party and the old 
 Democratic party, to abolitionize their members, and lead them, bound hand and 
 foot, captives into the Abolition camp. In the State of New York a Convention 
 was held by some of these men and a platform adopted, every plank of which was 
 as black as night, each one relating to the negro, and not one referring to the 
 interests of the white man. That example was followed throughout the Northern 
 State?, the effect being made to combine all the free States in hostile array against 
 the slave States. The men who thus thought that they could build up a great 
 Fectional party, and through its organization control the political destinies of this 
 country, based all their hopes on the single fact that the North was the stronger 
 division of the nation, and hence, if the North could be combined against the 
 South, a sure victory awaited their efforts. I am doing no more than justice to 
 the truth of history when I say that in this State Abraham Lincoln, on behalf of 
 the Whigs, and Lymari Trumbull, on behalf of the Democrats, were the leaders 
 who undertook to perform this grand scheme of abolitionizing the two parties to 
 which they belonged. They had a private arrangement as to what should 
 be the political destiny of each of the contracting parties before they went 
 into the operation. The arrangement was that Mr. Lincoln was to take the 
 old line Whigs with him, claiming that he was still as good a Whig as ever, over 
 to the Abolitionists, and Mr. Trumbull was to run for Congress in the Belleville 
 District, and, claiming to be a good Democrat, coax the old Democrats into the Abo- 
 lition camp, and when, by the joint efforts of the abolitionized Whigs, the aboli- 
 tionized Democrats, and the old line Abolition and Freesoil party of this State, 
 they should secure a majority in the Legislature. Lincoln was then to be made 
 United States Senator in Shields's place, Trumbull remaining in Congress until I 
 should be accommodating enougli to die or resign, and give him a chance to follow 
 Lincoln. That was a very nice little bargain so far as Lincoln and Trumbull were 
 concerned, if it had been carried out in good faith, and friend Lincoln had attained 
 to Senatorial dignity according to the contract. They went into the contest in every 
 pm t of the State, calling upon all disappointed politicians to join in the crusad* 
 against the Democracy, and appealed to the prevailing sentiments and prejudices iu 
 all the northern counties of the State. In three Congressional Districts in the north 
 end of the State they adopted, as the platform of this new party thus formed by 
 Lincoln and Trumbull in the connection with the Abolitionists, all of those princi- 
 ples which aimed at a warfare on the part of the North against the South. They 
 declared in that platform that the Wilmot Proviso was to be applied to all the Ter- 
 ritories of the United States, North as well as South of 36 deg. 30 min., and not 
 only to all the territory we then had, but all that we might hereafter acquire ; that
 
 112 
 
 hereafter no more slave States should be admitted into this Union, even if the 
 people of such State desired slavery ; that the Fugitive Slave law should be abso- 
 lutely and unconditionally repealed; that slavery should be abolished in the Dis- 
 trict of Columbia; that the slave-trade should be abolished between the different 
 States, and, in fact, every article in their creed related to this slavery question, 
 and pointed to a Northern geographical party in hostility to the Southern States 
 of this Union. Such were their principles in Northern Illinois. A little further 
 South they became bleached and grew paler just in proportion as public, senti- 
 ment moderated and changed in this direction. They were Republicans or Abo- 
 litionists in the North, anti-Nebraska men down about Springfield, and in this 
 neighborhood they contented themselves with talking about the inexpediency cf 
 the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. In the extreme northern counties they 
 brought out men to canvass the State whose complexion suited their political 
 <ireed, and hence Fred Douglass, the negro, was to be found there, following Gen. 
 Cass, and attempting to speak on behalf of Lincoln, Trumbull and Abolitionism, 
 against that illustrious Senator. Why, they brought Fred Douglass to Freeport, 
 when I was addressing a meeting there, in a carriage driven by the white owner, 
 the negro sitting inside with the white lady and her daughter. When I got 
 through canvassing the northern counties that year, and progressed as far south 
 as Springfield, I was met and opposed in discussion by Lincoln, Lovejoy, Trum- 
 bull, and Sidney Breese, who were on one side. Father Giddings, the high-priest 
 of Abolitionism, had just been there, and Chase came about the time I left. [" Why 
 didn't you shoot him?"] I did take a running shot at them, but as I was single-handed 
 against the white, black and mixed drove, I had to use a shot-gun and fire into the 
 crowd instead of taking them off singly with a rifle. Trumbull had for his lieutenants, 
 in aiding him to abolitionize the Democracy, such men as John Wentworth, of Chicago, 
 Gov. Reynolds, of Belleville, Sidney Breese, of Carlisle, and John Dougherty, of 
 Union, each of whom modified his opinions to suit the locality he was in. Dough- 
 erty, for instance, would not go much further than to talk about the inexpediency 
 of the Nebraska bill, whilst his allies at Chicago, advocated negro citizenship and 
 negro equality, putting the white man and the negro on the same basis under the 
 law. Now these men, four years ago, were engaged in a conspiracy to break 
 down the Democracy; to-day they are again acting together for the same pur- 
 pose! They do not hoist the same flag; they do not own the same principles, 
 or profess the same faith; but conceal their union for the sake of policy. In 
 the northern counties, you find that all the Conventions are called in the name 
 of the Black Republican party ; at Springfield, they dare not call a Republican 
 Convention, but invite all the enemies of the Democracy to unite, and when they 
 get down into Egypt, Trumbull issues notices calling upon the "Free Democracy" 
 to assemble and hear him speak. I have one of the handbills calling a Trum- 
 bull meeting at Waterloo the other day, which I received there, which is iu th-e 
 following language: 
 
 A meeting of the Free Democracy will take place in Waterloo, on Monday, Sept. 13th inst., 
 wheieat Hon. Lyrnan Trumbull, Hoii. John Baker and others, will address the people upon the 
 dirtl'reut political topics of the day. Members of all parties are cordially invited to be present, 
 and heai and determine for themselves. THE MOX&OE FJIEE DKMOCK vcv. 
 
 What is that name of " Free Democrats " put forth for unless to deceive the 
 people, and mase them believe that Trumbull and his followers are riot the same 
 party as that which raises the black flag of Abolitionism in the northern part of this 
 State, and makes war upon the Democratic party throughout the State. When 
 I put that question to them at Waterloo on Saturday last, one of them rose and 
 stated that they had changed their name for political effect in order to get votes. 
 There was a candid admission. Their object in changing their party organization 
 and principles in different localities was avowed to be an attempt to cheat and de- 
 ceive some portion of the people until after the election. Why cannot a political
 
 113 
 
 party that is conscious of the rectitude of its purposes and the soundness of its prin- 
 ciples declare them every where alike ? I would disdain to hold any political prin- 
 ciples that I could not avow in the same terms in Kentucky that I declared in Illi- 
 nois, in Charleston as well as in Chicago, in New Orleans as well as in New York. 
 So long as we live under a Constitution common to all the States, our political faith 
 ought to be as broad, as liberal, and just as that Constitution itself, and should be 
 proclaimed alike in every portion of the Union. But it is apparent that our oppo- 
 nents find it necessary, for partisan effect, to change their colors in different coun- 
 ties in order to catch the popular breeze, and hope with these discordant materials 
 combined together to secure a majority in the Legislature for the purpose of putting 
 down the Democratic party. This combination did succeed in 1854 so far as to 
 elect a majority of their confederates to the Legislature, and the lirst important act 
 winch they performed was to elect a Senator in the place of the eminent and gallant 
 Senator Shields. His term expired in the United States Senate at that time, and 
 lie had to be crushed by the Abolition coalition for the simple reason that he would 
 not join in their conspiracy to wage war against one-half of the Union. That was 
 the only objection to General Shields. He had served the people of the State with 
 ability in the Legislature, he had served you with fidelity and ability as Auditor, 
 he had performed his duties to the satisfaction of the whole country at the head 
 of the Land Department at Washington, he had covered the State and the Union 
 with immortal glory on the bloody fields of Mexico in defense of the honor of our 
 flag, and yet he had to be stricken down by this unholy combination. And for what 
 cause ? Merely because he would not join a combination of one-half of the States 
 to make war upon the other half) after having poured out his heart's blood for all 
 the States in the Union. Trumbull was put in his place by Abolitionism. How 
 did Trumbull get there ? Before the Abolitionists would consent to go into an 
 election for United States Senator they required all the members of this new com- 
 bination to show their hands upon this question of Abolitionism. Lovejoy, one of 
 their high-priests, brought in resolutions defining the Abolition creed, and required 
 them to commit themselves on it by their votes yea or nay. In that creed, as 
 laid down by Lovejoy, they declared first, that the Wilmot Proviso must be put 
 on all the Territories of -the United States, North as well as South of 36 deg. 30 
 min., and that no more territory should ever be acquired unless slavery was at 
 r irst prohibited therein ; second, that no more States should ever be received into 
 the Union unless slavery was first prohibited, by Constitutional provision, in such 
 States ; third, that the Fugitive Slave law must be immediately repealed, or, failing 
 in that, then such amendments were to be made to it as would render it useless 
 and inefficient for the objects for which it was passed, etc. The next day after these 
 resolutions were offered they were voted upon, part of them carried, and the others 
 <U f eated, the same men who voted for them, with only two exceptions, voting soon 
 aftt,r for Abraham Lincoln as their candidate for the United States Senate. He 
 came within one or two votes of being elected, but he could not quite get the num- 
 ber required, for the simple reason that his friend Trumbull, who was a party to the 
 bargain by which Lincoln was to take Shields's place, controlled a few abolitionized 
 Democrats in the Legislature, and would not allow them all to vote for him, thus 
 wronging Lincoln by permitting him on each ballot to be almost elected, but not 
 quite, until he forced them to drop Lincoln and elect him (Trumbull), in order to 
 unite the party. Tims you find, that although the Legislature was carried that year 
 by the bargain between Trumbull, Lincoln, and the Abolitionists, and the union of 
 these discordant elements in one harmonious party ; yet Trumbull violated his pledge, 
 and played a Yankee trick on Lincoln when the^ came to divide the spoils. Per- 
 haps you would like a little evidence on this point. If you would, I will call Col. 
 James H. Matheny, of Springfield, to the stand, Mr. Lincoln's especial confidential 
 friend for the last twenty years, and see what he will say upon the subject of this 
 bargain. Matheny is now the Black Republican or Abolition candidate for Con- 
 gress in the Springfield District against the gallant Col. Harris, and is making
 
 114 
 
 speeches all over that part of the State againftt me and in favor of Lincoln, hi 
 concert with Trumbull. He ought to be a good witness, and I will read an extract 
 from a speech which he made in 1856, when he was mad because his friend Lincoln 
 had been cheated. It is one of numerous speeches of the same tenor that were 
 made about that time, exposing this bargain between Lincoln, Trumbull and the Abo- 
 litionists. Matheny then said : 
 
 " The Whigs, Abolitionists, Know Nothings and renegade Democrats made a sol- 
 emn compact for the purpose of carrying this State against the Democracy, on this 
 plan : 1st. That they would all combine and elect Mr. Trumbull to Congress, and 
 thereby carry his district for the Legislature, in order to throw all the strength that 
 could be obtained into that body against the Democrats. 2d. That when the Legis- 
 lature should meet, the officers of that body, such as speaker, clerks, door-keepers, 
 etc., would be given to the Abolitionists ; and 3d. That the Whigs were to have the 
 United States Senator. That, accordingly, in good faith, Trumbull was elected to 
 Congress, and his district carried for the Legislature, and, when it convened, the 
 Abolitionists got all the officers of that body, and thus far the " bond " was fairly 
 executed. The Whigs, on their part, demanded the election of Abraham Lincoln 
 to the United States Senate, that the bond might be fulfilled, the other parties to 
 the contract having already secured to themselves all that was called for. But, in 
 the most perfidious manner, they refused to elect Mr. Lincoln ; and the mean, low- 
 lived, sneaking Trumbull succeeded, by pledging all that was required by any party, 
 in thrusting Lincoln aside and foisting himself, an excrescence from the rotten bowels 
 of the Democracy, into the United States Senate ; and thus it has ever been, that 
 an honest man makes a bad bargain when he conspires or contracts with rogues." 
 
 Matheny thought that his friend Lincoln made a bad bargain when he conspired 
 and contracted with such rogues as Trumbull and his Abolition associates in that 
 campaign. Lincoln was shoved off the track, and he and his friends all at once be- 
 gan to mope ; became sour and mad, and disposed to tell, but dare not ; and thus 
 they stood for a long time, until the Abolitionists coaxed and flattered him back by 
 their assurances that he should certainly be a Senator in Douglas's place. In that 
 way the Abolitionists have been enabled to hold Lincoln to the alliance up to this 
 time, and now they have brought him into a fight against me, and he is to see if he 
 is again to be cheated by them. Lincoln this time, though, required more of them 
 than a promise, and holds their bond, if not security, that Lovejoy shall not cheat 
 him as Trumbull did. 
 
 When the Republican Convention assembled at Springfield, in Juno last, for the 
 purpose of nominating State officers only, the Abolitionists could not get Lincoln 
 and his friends into it until they would pledge themselves that Lincoln should be 
 their candidate for the Senate ; and you will find, in proof of this, that that Conven- 
 tion passed a resolution unanimouly declaring that Abraham Lincoln was the " first, 
 last and only choice " of the Republicans for United States Senator. He was not; 
 willing to have it understood that he was merely their first choice, or their last 
 choice, but their only choice. The Black Republican party had nobody else. 
 Browning was nowhere ; Gov. Bissell was of no account ; Archie Williams was not 
 to be taken into consideration ; John Wentworth was not worth mentioning ; John 
 M. Palmer was degraded ; and their party presented the extraordinary spectacle of 
 having but one the first, the last, and only choice for the Senate. Suppose that 
 Lincoln should die, what a horrible condition the Republican party would be in ! 
 They would have nobody left. They have no other choice, and it was necessary for 
 them to put themselves before the world in this ludicrous, ridiculous attitude of hav- 
 ing no other choice in order to quiet Lincoln's suspicions, and assure him that he 
 was not to be cheated by Lovejoy, and the trickery by which Trumbull outgener- 
 aled him. Well, gentlemen, I think they will have a nice time of it before they 
 get through. I do not intend to give them any chance to cheat Lincoln at all this 
 time. I intend to relieve him of all anxiety upon that subject, and spare them
 
 115 
 
 the mortification of more exposures of contracts violated, and the pledged honor of 
 rogues forfeited. 
 
 But I wish to invite your attention to the chief points at issue between Mr. Lin- 
 coln and myself in this discussion. Mr. Lincoln knowing that he was to be the can- 
 didate of his party on account of the arrangement of which I have already spoken, 
 knowing that be was to receive the nomination of the Convention for the United 
 States Senate, had his speech, accepting that nomination, all written and committed 
 to memory, ready to be delivered the moment the nomination was announced. Ac- 
 cordingly, when it was made, he was in readiness, and delivered his speech, a 
 portion of which I will read, in order that I may state his political principles fairly, 
 by repeating them in his own language : 
 
 * ; We are now far into the fifth year since a policy was instituted for the avowed 
 4 bjtct, and with the confident promise of putting an end to slavery agitation ; under 
 the operation of that policy, that agitation has not only not ceased, but has constantly 
 augmented. I believe it will not cease until a crisis shall have been reached and 
 passed. * A house divided against itself cannot stand.' I believe this Government 
 cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to 
 be dissolved. I do not expect the house to fall, but 1 do expect it will cease to be 
 divided. It will become all one thing or all the other. Either the opponents of 
 slavery will arrest the spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in 
 the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction, or its advocates will push 
 it forward until it shall become alike lawful in all the States, North as well as 
 South." 
 
 There you have Mr. Lincoln's first and main proposition, upon which he basea his 
 claims, stilted in his own language. He tells you that this Republic cannot endure 
 permanently divided into slave and free States, as our fathers made it He saya 
 that they must all become free or all become slave, that they must all be one thing 
 or all be the other, or this Government cannot last. Why can it not last, if we will 
 execute the Government in the same spirit and upon the same principles upon which 
 it is founded? Lincoln, by his proposition, says to the South, "If you desire to 
 maintain your institutions as they are now, you must not be satisfied with minding 
 your own business, but you must invade Illinois and all the other Northern States, 
 establish slavery in them, and make it universal ;" and in the same language he 
 says to the North, " You must not be content with regulating your own affairs, and 
 minding your own business, but if you desire to maintain your freedom, you must 
 invade the Southern States, abolish slavery there and every where, in order to have 
 the States all one thing or all the other." I say that this is the inevitable and irre- 
 sistible result of Mr. Lincoln's argument, inviting a warfare between the North and 
 the South, to be carried on with ruthless vengeance, until the one section or the 
 other shall be driven to the wall, and become the victim of the rapacity of the other. 
 What good would follow such a system of warfare? Suppose the North should succeed 
 in conquering the South, how much would she be the gainer ? or suppose the South 
 should conquer the North, could the Union be preserved in that way ? Is this sec- 
 tional warfare to be waged between Northern States and Southern States until they 
 ull shall become uniform in their local and domestic institutions merely because Mr. 
 Lincoln says that a house divided against itself cannot stand, and pretends tliat this 
 scriptural quotation, this language of our Lord and Master, is applicable to the 
 American Union and the American Constitution ? Washington and his compeers, in 
 the Convention that framed the Constitution, made this Government divided inlo free 
 and slave States. It was composed then of thirteen sovereign and independent 
 States, each having sovereign authority over its local and domestic institutions, and 
 all bound together by the Federal Constitution. Mr. Lincoln likens that bond 
 of the Federal Constitution, joining free and slave States together, to a house 
 divided against itself, arid says that it is contrary to the law of God and cannot 
 stand. When did he learn, and by what authority does he proclaim, that this Gov- 
 ernment is contrary to the law of God and cannot stand ? It has stood thus divided
 
 116 
 
 into free and slave States from its organization up to this day. During that period 
 we have increased from four millions to thirty millions of people ; we have extended 
 our territory from the Mississippi to the Pacih'e ocean ; we have acquired the Flori- 
 das and Texas, and other territory sufficient to double our geographical extent ; we 
 have increased in population, in wealth, and in power beyond any example on earth ; 
 we have risen from a weak and feeble power to become the terror and admiration of 
 the civilized world; and all this has been done under a Constitution which Mr. Lin- 
 coln, in substance, says is in violation of the law of God, and under a Union divided 
 into free and slave States, which Mr. Lincoln thinks, because of such division, can- 
 not stand. Surely, Mr. Lincoln is a wiser man than those who framed the Govern- 
 ment. Washington did not believe, nor did his compatriots, that the local laws and 
 domestic institutions that were well adapted to the Green Mountains of Vermont 
 were suited to the rice plantations of South Carolina ; they did not believe at that 
 day that in a Republic so broad and expanded as this, containing such a variety of 
 climate, soil, and interest, that uniformity in the local laws and domestic institutions 
 was either desirable or possible. They believed then as our experience has proved 
 to us now, that each locality, having different interests, a different climate and dif- 
 ferent surroundings, required different local laws, local policy and local institutions, 
 adapted to the wants of that locality. Thus our Government was formed on 
 the principle of diversity in the local institutions and laws, and not on that of 
 uniformity. 
 
 As my time flies, I can only glance at these points and not present them as fully 
 as I would wish, because I desire to bring all the points in controversy between the 
 two parties before you in order to have Mr. Lincoln's reply, lie makes war on the 
 decision of the Supreme Court, in the case known as the Dred Scott case. I wish 
 to say to you, fellow-citizens, that I have no war to make on that decision, or any 
 other ever rendered by the Supreme Court. I am content to take that decision as 
 it stands delivered by the highest judicial tribunal on earth, a tribunal established 
 by the Constitution of the United States for that purpose, and hence that decision 
 becomes the law of the land, binding on you, on me, and on every other good citizen, 
 whether we like it or not. Hence I do not choose to go into an argument to prove, 
 before this audience, whether or not Chief Justice Taney understood the law better 
 than Abraham Lincoln. 
 
 Mr. Lincoln objects to that decision, first and mainly because it deprives the negro 
 of the rights of citizenship. I am as much opposed to his reason for that objection 
 as I am to the objection itself. I hold that a negro is not and never ought to be a 
 citizen of the United States. I hold that this Government was made on the white 
 basis, by white men, for the benefit of white men and their posterity forever, and 
 should be administered by white men and none others. I do not believe that the 
 Almighty made the negro capable of self-government. I am aware that all the Ab- 
 olition lecturers that you find traveling about through the country, are in the habit 
 of reading the Declaration of Independence to prove that all men were created eq r jal 
 and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, 
 liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Mr. Lincoln is very much in the habit of 
 following in the track of Lovejoy in this particular, by reading that part of the Dec- 
 laration of Independence to prove that the negro was endowed by the Almighty 
 with the inalienable right of equality with white men. Now, I say to you, my 
 fellow-citizens, that in my opinion, the signers of the Declaration had no reference 
 to the negro whatever, when they declared all men to be created equal. They de- 
 sired to express by that phrase white men, men of European birth and European 
 descent, and had no reference either to the negro, the savage Indians, the Fejee, the 
 Malay, or any other inferior and degraded race, when they spoke of the equality of 
 men. One great evidence that such was their understanding, is to be found in the 
 fact that at that time every one of the thirteen colonies was a slaveholding colony, 
 every signer of the Declaration represented a slaveholding constituency, and we 
 know that no one of them emancipated lu's slaves, much less offered citizenship to
 
 117 
 
 them when they signed the Declaration ; and yet, if they intended to declare that 
 the negro was the equal of the white man, and entitled by divine right to an equal- 
 ity with him, they were bound, as honest men, that day and hour to have put 
 their negroes on an equality with themselves. Instead of doing so, with uplifted 
 eyes to heaven they implored the divine blessing upon them, during the seven years' 
 bloody war they had to fight to maintain that Declaration, never dreaming that they 
 were violating divine law by still holding the negroes in bondage and depriving them 
 of equality. 
 
 My friends, I am in favor of preserving this Government as our fathers made it 
 It does not follow by any means that because a negro is not your equal or mine, that 
 hence he must necessarily be a slave. On the contrary, it does follow that we ought to 
 extand to the negro every right, every privilege, every immunity which lie is capa- 
 ble of enjoying, consistent with the good of society. When you ask me what these 
 rights are, what their nature and extent is, I tell you that that is a question which 
 each State of this Union must decide for itself. Illinois has already decided the 
 question. We have decided that the negro must not be a slave within our limit*, 
 but we have also decided that the negro shall not be a citizen within our limits ; that 
 he shall not vote, hold office, or exercise any political rights. I maintain that Illi- 
 nois, as a sovereign State, has a right thus to fix her policy with reference to the 
 relation between the white man and the negro ; but while we had that right to de- 
 cide the question for ourselves, we must recognize the same right in Kentucky and 
 in every other State to make the same decision, or a different one. Having decided 
 our own policy with reference to the black race, we must leave Kentucky and Mis- 
 souri and every other State perfectly free to make just such a decision as they see 
 proper on that question. 
 
 Kentucky has decided that question for herself. She has said that within her 
 limits a negro shall not exercise any political rights, and she has also said that a por- 
 tion of the negroes under the laws of that State shall be slaves. She had as much 
 right to adopt that as her policy as we had to adopt the contrary for our policy. 
 New York has decided that in that State a negro may vote if he has $250 worth of 
 property, and if he owns that much he may vote upon an equality with the white 
 man. I, for one, am utterly opposed to negro suffrage any where and under any cir- 
 cumstances ; yet, inasmuch as the Supreme Court have decided in the celebrated 
 Dred Scott case that a State has a right to confer the privilege of voting upon free 
 negroes, I am not going to make war upon New York because she has adopted a 
 policy repugnant to my feelings. But New York must mind her own business, and 
 keep her negro suffrage to herself, and not attempt to force it upon us. 
 
 In the State of Maine they have decided that a negro may vote and hold office 
 on an equality with a white man. I had occasion to say to the Senators from 
 Maine, in a discussion last session, that if they thought that the white people within 
 the limits of their State were no better than negroes, I would not quarrel with them 
 for it, but they must not say that my white constituents of Illinois were no better 
 than negroes, or we would be sure to quarrel. 
 
 The Dred Scott decision covers the whole question, and declares that eaeli Slate 
 has the right to settle this question of suffrage for itself, and all questions as to the 
 relations between the white man and the negro. Judge Taney expressly lays down 
 the doctrine. I receive it as law, and I say that while those States are adopting reg- 
 ulations on that subject disgusting and abhorrent, according to my views, I will not 
 make war on them if they will mind their own business and let us alone. 
 
 I now come back to the question, why cannot this Union exist forever divided into 
 free and slave States, as our fathers made it ? It can thus exist if each State will 
 carry out the principles upon which our institutions were founded, to wit : the right 
 of each State to do as it pleases, without meddling with its neighbors. Just act upon 
 that great principle, and this Union will not only live forever, but it will extend and 
 expand until it covers the whole continent, and makes this confederacy one grand, 
 ocean-bound Republic. We must bear in mind that we are yet a young nation,
 
 118 
 
 growing with a rapidity unequaled in the history of the world, that our national in- 
 crease is great, and that the emigration from the old world is increasing, requiring 
 us to expand and acquire new territory from time to time, in order to give our peo 
 plo land to live upon. If we live upon the principle of State rights and State sov- 
 ereignty, each State regulating its own affairs and minding its own business, we can 
 go on and extend indefinitely, just as fast and as far as we need the territory. The 
 time may come, indeed has now come, when our interests would be advanced by the 
 acquisition of the Island of Cuba. When we get Cuba we must take it as we find 
 it, leaving the people to decide the question of slavery for themselves, without inter- 
 ference on the part of the Federal Government, or of any State of this Union. So, 
 when it becomes necessary to acquire any portion of Mexico or Canada, or of this 
 contirent or the adjoining islands, we must take them as we find them, leaving tho 
 people free to do as they please to have slavery or not, as they choose. I never 
 have inquired and never will inquire whether a new State, applying for admission, 
 has slavery or not for one of her institutions. If the Constitution that is presented 
 be the act and deed of the people, and embodies their will, and they have the 
 requisite population, I will admit them with slavery or without it, just as that people 
 shall determine. My objection to the Lecompton Constitution did not consist in the 
 fact that it made Kansas a slave State. I would have been as much opposed to its 
 admission under such a Constitution as a free State as I was opposed to its admission 
 under it as a slave State. I hold that that was a question which that people had a 
 right to decide for themselves, and that no power on earth ought to have interfered 
 with that decision. In my opinion, the Lecompton Constitution was not the act 
 and deed of the people of Kansas, and did not embody their will, and the recent 
 election in that Territory, at which it was voted down by nearly ten to one, 
 shows conclusively that I was right in saying, when the Constitution was pre- 
 sented, that it was not the act and deed of the people, and did not embody 
 their will. 
 
 If we wish to preserve our institutions in their purity, and transmit them nnim- 
 paired to our latest posterity, we must preserve with religious good faith that great 
 principle of self-government which guaranties to each and every State, old and new, 
 the right to make just such Constitutions as they desire, and come into the Union 
 with their own Constitution, and not one palmed upon them. Whenever you sanc- 
 tion the doctrine that Congress may crowd a Constitution down the throats of an 
 unwilling people, against their consent, you will subvert the great fundamental prin- 
 ciple upon which all our free institutions rest. In the future I have no fear that the 
 attempt will ever be made. President Buchanan declared in his annual message, that 
 hereafter the rule adopted in the Minnesota case, requiring a Constitution to be sub- 
 mitted to the people, should be followed in all future cases, and if he stands by that 
 recommendation there will be no division in the Democratic party on that principle 
 in the future. Hence, the great mission of the Democracy is to unite the fraternal 
 feeling of the whole country, restore peace and quiet, by teaching each State to 
 mind its own business, and regulate its own domestic affairs, and all to unite in car- 
 rying out the Constitution as our fathers made it, and thus to preserve the Union 
 and render it perpetual in all time to come. Why should we not act as our fathers 
 who made the Government ? There was no sectional strife in Washington's army. 
 They were all brethren of a common confederacy ; they fought under a common 
 flag that they might bestow upon their posterity a common destiny, and to this end 
 they poured out their blood in common streams, and shared, in some instances, a 
 common grave.
 
 119 
 
 MR. LINCOLN'S REPLY. 
 
 LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: There is very much in the principles that Judge 
 Douglas has here enunciated that I most cordially approve, and over which I shall 
 have no controversy with him. In so far as he has insisted that all the States have 
 the right to do exactly as they please about all their domestic relations, including 
 that of slavery, I agree entirely with him. He places me wrong in spite of all I 
 can tell him, though I repeat it again and again, insisting that I have no difference 
 with him upon this subject. I have made a great many speeches, some of which 
 have been printed, and it will be utterly impossible for him to find any thing that I 
 have ever put in print contrary to what I now say upon this subject. I hold myself 
 under constitutional obligations to allow the people in all the States, without interfer- 
 ence, direct or indirect, to do exactly as they please, and I deny that I have any in- 
 clination to interfere with them, even if there were no such constitutional obligation. 
 I can only say again that I am placed improperly altogether improperly, in spite of 
 all I can say when it is insisted that I entertain any other view or purposes in re- 
 gard to that matter. 
 
 While I am upon this subject, I will make some answers briefly to certain propo- 
 sitions that Judge Douglas has put. He says, " Why can't this Union endure per- 
 manently, half slave and half free ?" I have said that I supposed it could not, and 
 I will try, before this new audience, to give briefly some of the reasons for entertain- 
 ing that opinion. Another form of his question is, " Why can't we let it stand as 
 our fathers placed it ?" That is the exact difficulty between us. I say, that Judge 
 Douglas and his friends have changed them from the position in which our fathers 
 originally placed it. I say, in the way our fathers originally left the slavery question, 
 the institution was in the course of ultimate extinction, and the public mind rested 
 in the belief that it was in the course of ultimate extinction. I say when this Gov- 
 ernment was first established, it was the policy of its founders to prohibit the spread 
 of slavery into the new Territories of the United States, where it had not existed. 
 But Judge Douglas and his friends have broken up that policy, and placed it upon a 
 new basis by which it is to become national and perpetual. All I have asked or 
 desired any where is that it should be placed back again upon the basis that the 
 fathers of our Government originally placed it upon. I have no doubt that it would 
 become extinct, for all time to come, if we but readopted the policy of the fathers 
 by restricting it to the limits it has already covered restricting it from the new 
 Territories. 
 
 I do not wish to dwell at great length on this branch of the subject at this time, 
 but allow me to repeat one thing that I have stated before. Brooks, the man who 
 assaulted Senator Sumner on the floor of the Senate, and who was complimented 
 with dinners, and silver pitchers, and gold-headed canes, and a good many other 
 things for that feat, in one of his speeches declared that when this Government was 
 originally established, nobody expected that the institution of slavery would last until 
 this day. That was but the opinion of one man, but it was such an opinion as we 
 can never get from Judge Douglas or anybody in favor of slavery in the North at 
 all. You can sometimes get it from a Southern man. He said at the same time 
 that the framers of our Government did not have the knowledge that experience has 
 taught us that experience and the invention of the cotton-gin have taught us that 
 the perpetuation of slavery is a necessity. He insisted, therefore, upon its being 
 changed from the basis upon which the fathers of the Government left it to the basis 
 of its perpetuation and nationalization. 
 
 I insist that this is the difference between Judge Douglas and myself that Judge 
 Douglas is helping that change along. I insist upon this Government being placed 
 where our fathers originally placed it. 
 
 I remember Judge Douglas once said that he saw the evidences on the statute 
 books of Congress, of a policy in the origin of Government to divide slavery and
 
 120 
 
 freedom by a geographical line that he saw an indisposition to maintain that policy, 
 and therefore he set about studying up a way to settle the institution on the right 
 basis the basis which he thought it ought to have been placed upon at first ; and 
 in that speech he confesses that he seeks to place it, not upon the basis that the 
 fathers placed it upon, but upon one gotten up on " original principles." When he 
 asks me why we cannot get along with it in the attitude where our fathers placed it, 
 he had better clear up the evidences that h<3 has himself changed it from that basis ; 
 '.hat he has himself been chiefly instrumental in changing the policy of the fathers. 
 Any one who will read his speech of the 22d of last March, will see that he there 
 makes an open confession, showing that he set about fixing the institution upon an 
 altogether different set of principles. I think I have fully answered him when he 
 asks me why we cannot let it alone upon the basis where our fathers left it, by 
 showing that he has himself changed the whole policy of the Government in that 
 regard. 
 
 Now, fellow-citizens, in regard to this matter about a contract that was made be- 
 tween Judge Trumbull and myself, and all that long portion of Judge Douglas's 
 speech on this subject I wish simply to say what I have said to him before, that he 
 cannot know whether it is true or not, and I do know that there is not a word of 
 truth in it. And I have told him so before. I don't want any harsh language in- 
 dulged in, but I do not know how to deal with this persistent insisting on a story 
 that I know to be utterly without truth. It used to be a fashion amongst men that 
 when a charge was made, some sort of proof was brought forward to establish it, and 
 if no proof was found to exist, the charge was dropped. I don't know how to meet 
 this kind of an argument. I don't want to have a fight with Judge Douglas, and I 
 have no way of making an argument up into the consistency of a corn-cob and stop- 
 ping his mouth with it. All I can do is, good-humoredly to say that, from the be- 
 ginning to the end of all that story about a bargain between Judge Trumbull and 
 myself, there is not a word of truth in it. I can only ask him to show some sort of 
 evidence of the truth of his story. He brings forward here and reads from what he 
 contends is a speech by James H. Matheny, charging such a bargain between Trum- 
 bull and myself. My own opinion is that Matheny did do some such immoral thing 
 as to tell a story that he knew nothing about. I believe he did. I contradicted it in- 
 stantly, and it has been contradicted by Judge Trumbull, while nobody has produced 
 any proof, because there is none. Now, whether the speech which the Judge brings 
 forward here is really the one Matheny made I do not know, and I hope the Judge 
 will pardon me for doubting the genuineness of this document, since his production 
 of those Springfield resolutions at Ottawa. I do not wish to dwell at any great 
 length upon this matter. I can say nothing when a long story like this is told, ex- 
 cept it is not true, and demand that he who insists upon it shall produce some proof. 
 That is all any man can do, and I leave it in that way, for I know of no other way 
 of dealing with it. 
 
 The Judge has gone over a long account of the old Whig and Democratic parties, 
 and it connects itself with this charge against Trumbull and myself. He says that 
 they agreed upon a compromise in regard to the slavery question in 1850 ; that 
 in a National Democratic Convention resolutions were passed to abide by that com- 
 promise as a finality upon the slavery question. He also says that the Whig party 
 in National Convention agreed to abide by and regard as a finality the Compromise 
 of 1850. I understand the Judge to be altogether right about that; I understand 
 that part of the history of the country as stated by him to be correct. I recollect 
 that I, as a member of that party, acquiesced in that compromise. I recollect in 
 the Presidential election which followed, when we had General Scott up for the 
 Presidency, Judge Douglas was around berating us Whigs as Abolitionists, precisely 
 as he does to-day not a bit of difference. I have often heard him. We could do 
 nothing when the old Whig party was alive that was not Abolitionism, but it has got 
 an extremely good name since it has passed away. 
 
 When that Compromise was made it did not repeal the old Missouri Compromise.
 
 It left a region of United States territory half as large as the present territory of 
 die United States, north of the line of 36 degrees 30 minutes, in which slavery was 
 prohibited by aet of Congress. This compromise did not repeal that one. It did 
 not affect or propose to repeal it. But at last it became Judge Douglas's duty, as 
 he thought (and I find no fault with him), as Chairman of the Committee on Terri- 
 tories, to bring in a bill for the organization of a Territorial Government first of one, 
 then of two Territories north of that line. When he did so it ended in his inserting 
 a provision substantially repealing the Missouri Compromise. That was because 
 the Compromise of 1850 had not repealed it. And now I ask why he could not 
 have let that compromise alone ? We were quiet from the agitation of the sla-s erj 
 question. We were making no fuss about it. All had acquiesced in the Compromise 
 measures of 1850. We never had been seriously disturbed by any abolition agita- 
 tion before that period. When he came to form governments for the Territories 
 north of the line of 36 degrees 30 minutes, why could he not have let that matter 
 stand as it was standing ? Was it necessary to the organization of a Territory ? 
 Not at all. Iowa lay north of the line and had been organized as a Territory and 
 come into the Union as a State without disturbing that Compromise. There was no 
 sort of necessity for destroying it to organize these Territories. But, gentlemen, it 
 would take up all my time to meet all the little quibbling arguments of Judge Doug- 
 las to show that the Missouri Compromise was repealed by the Compromise of 1850. 
 My own opinion is, that a careful investigation of all the arguments to sustain the posi- 
 tion that that Compromise was virtually repealed by the Compromise of 1850, would 
 show that they are the merest fallacies. I have the Report that Judge Douglas first 
 brought into Congress at the time of the introduction of the Nebraska bill, which 
 in its original form did not repeal the Missouri Compromise, and he there expressly 
 ntated that he had forborne to do so because it had not been done by the Compro- 
 mise of 1850. I close this part of the discussion on my part by asking him the 
 question again, " Why, when we had peace under the Missouri Compromise, could 
 you not have let it alone?" 
 
 In complaining of what I said in my speech at Springfield, in which he says I ac- 
 cepted my nomination for the Senatorship (where, by the way, he is at fault, for if 
 he will examine it, he will find no acceptance in it), he again quotes that portion ir 
 which I said that " a house divided against itself cannot stand." Let me say a word 
 tri regard to that matter. 
 
 He tries to persuade us that there must be a variety in the different institution* 
 of the States of the Union ; that that variety necessarily proceeds from the variety 
 of soil, climate, of the face of the country, and the difference in the natural feature*, 
 of the States. I agree to all that. Have these very matters ever produced any 
 difficulty amongst us ? Not at all. Have we ever had any quarrel over the fact 
 that they have laws in Louisiana designed to regulate the commerce that springs 
 from the production of sugar ? Or because we have a different class relative to the 
 production of flour in this State ? Have they produced any differences ? Not at 
 all. They are the very cements of this Union. They don't make the house a 
 house divided against itself They are the props that hold up the house and sustain 
 the Union. 
 
 But has it been so with this element of slavery ? Have we not qfWays had quar- 
 rels and difficulties over it? And when will we cease to have quarrels over i\ * 
 Like causes produce like effects. It is worth while to observe that we have gene; 
 ally had comparative peace upon the slavery question, and that there has been i 
 cause for alarm until it was excited by the effort to spread it into ncit territory 
 Wlienever it has been limited to its present bounds, and there has been no effort U 
 spread it, there has been peace. All the trouble and convulsion has proceeded frou 
 efforts to spread it over more territory. It was thus at the date of the Missouri 
 Compromise. It was so again with the annexation of Texas ; so with the territory 
 acquired by the Mexican war, and it is so now. Whenever there has been an effort 
 to spread it there has been agitation and resistance. Now, I appeal to this audience
 
 122 
 
 (very few of whom are my political friends), as national men, whether we have 
 reason to expect that the agitation in regard to this subject will cease while the 
 causes that tend to reproduce agitation are actively at work ? Will not the same 
 cause that produced agitation in 1820, when the Missouri Compromise was formed 
 that which produced the agitation upon the annexation of Texas, and at other 
 times work out the same results always ? Do you think that the nature of man 
 will be changed that the same causes that produced agitation at one time will not 
 have the same effect at another ? 
 
 This has been the result so far as my observation of the slavery question and my 
 reading in history extends. What right have we then to hope that the trouble will 
 cease that the agitation will come to an end until it shall either be placed back 
 where it originally stood, and where the fathers originally placed it, or, on the other 
 hand, until it shall entirely master all opposition ? This is the view I entertain, and 
 this is the reason why I entertained it, as Judge Douglas has read from my Spring- 
 field speech. 
 
 Now, my friends, there is one other thing that I feel myself under some sort of 
 obligation to mention. Judge Douglas has here to-day in a very rambling way. I 
 was about saying spoken of the platforms for which he seeks to hold me responsi- 
 ble. He says, "Why can't you come out and make an open avowal of principles in 
 all places alike ?" and he reads from an advertisement that he says was used to notify 
 the people of a speech to be made by Judge Trumbull at Waterloo. In commenting 
 on it he desires to know whether we cannot speak frankly and manfully as he and 
 his friends do ! How, I ask, do his friends speak out their own sentiments ? A Con- 
 vention of his party in this State met on the 21st of April, at Springfield, and passed 
 a set of resolutions which they proclaim to the country as their platform. This does 
 constitute their platform, and it is because Judge Douglas claims it is his platform 
 that these are his principles and purposes that he has a right to declare he speaks 
 his sentiments * frankly and manfully." On the 9th of June, Col. John Dougherty, 
 Gov. Reynolds and others, calling themselves National Democrats, met in Springfield 
 and adopted a set of resolutions which are as easily understood, as plain and as 
 definite in stating to the country and to the world what they believed in and would 
 stand upon, as Judge Douglas's platform. Now, what is the reason, that Judge 
 Douglas is not willing that Col. Dougherty and Gov. Reynolds should stand upon 
 their own written and printed platform as well as he upon his ? Why must he 
 look farther than their platform when he claims himself to stand by his platform ? 
 
 Again, in reference to our platform: On the 16th of June the Republicans had 
 their Convention and published their platform, which is as clear and distinct as 
 Judge Douglas's. In it they spoke their principles as plainly and as definitely to the 
 world. What is the reason that Judge Douglas is not willing I should stand upon that 
 platform ? Why must he go around hunting for some one who is supporting me, or 
 has supported me at some time in his life, and who has said something at some time 
 contrary to that platform ? Does the Judge regard that rule as a good one ? If it 
 turn out that the rule is a good one for me that I am responsible' for any and every 
 opinion that any man has expressed who is my friend then it is a good rule for 
 him. I ask, is it not as good a rule for him as it is for me ? In my opinion, it ia 
 not a good rule for either of us. Do you think differently, Judge ? 
 
 Mr. Douglas " I do not." 
 
 Mr. Lincoln Judge Douglas says he does not think differently. I am glad of it. 
 Then can he tell me why he is looking up resolutions of five or six years ago, and 
 insisting that they were my platform, notwithstanding my protest that they are not, 
 and never were my platform, and my pointing out the platform of the State Conven- 
 tion which he delights to say nominated me for the Senate ? I cannot see what he 
 means by parading these resolutions, if it is not to hold me responsible for them in 
 some way. If he says to me here, that he does not hold the rule to be good, one 
 way or the other, I do not comprehend how he could answer me more fully if he 
 answered me at greater length. I will therefore put in as my answer to the resoiu
 
 123 
 
 tions that he has hunted up against me, what I, as a lawyer, would call a good plea 
 to a bad declaration. I understand that it is a maxim of law, that a poor plea may 
 be a good plea to a bad declaration. I think that the opinions the Judge brings from 
 those who support me, yet differ from me, is a bad declaration against me ; but if I 
 can bring the same things against him, I am putting in a good plea to that kind of 
 declaration, and now I propose to try it. 
 
 At Freeport Judge Douglas occupied a large part of his time in producing reso- 
 lutions and documents of various sorts, as I understood, to make me somehow respon- 
 sible for them ; and I propose now doing a little of the same sort of thing for him. 
 In 1850 a very clever gentleman by the name of Thompson Campbell, a personal 
 fri.nd of Judge Douglas and myself, a political friend of Judge Douglas and oppo- 
 nent of mine, was a candidate for Congress in the Galena District. He was interro- 
 gated as to his views on this same slavery question. I have here before me the 
 interrogatories and Campbell's answers to them. I will read them : 
 
 INTERROGATORIES. 
 
 Ipf, Will you. ir' el ctod, vote for and cordially support a bill prohibiting slavery in the Ter- 
 ritories oi' the United States? 
 
 id. Will you vote lor and support a bill abolishing slavery in the District of Columbia? 
 
 M. Will you oppose the admission of any slave States which may be formed out of Texas or 
 the Territories? 
 
 4th. Will you vote for and advocate the repeal of the Fugitive Slave law passed at the recent 
 session of Congress? 
 
 5th. Will you advocate and vote for the election of a Speaker of the House of Representatives 
 who shall be willing to organize the committee of that House so as to give the free States their 
 just influence in the business of legislation? 
 
 6th. What are your views, not only as to the constitutional right of Congress to prohibit the 
 slave-trade between the States, but also as to the expediency of exercising that right immediately? 
 
 CAMPBELL'S REPLY. 
 
 To the first and second interrogatories, I answer unequivocally in the affirmative. 
 
 To the third interrogatory I reply, that I am opposed to the admission of any more slave States 
 into the Union, that may be formed out of Texan or any other Territory. 
 
 To the fourth and fifth interrogatories I unhesitatingly answer in the affirmative. 
 
 To the sixth interrogatory I reply, that so long as the slave States continue to treat slaves as 
 articles of commerce, the Constitution confers power on Congress to pass laws regulating that 
 peculiar COMMERCE, and that the protection of Human Rights imperatively demands the inter- 
 position of every constitutional means to prevent this most inhuman and iniquitous traffic. 
 
 T. CAMPBELL. 
 
 I want to say here that Thompson Campbell was elected to Congress on that plat- 
 form, as the Democratic candidate in the Galena District, against Martin P. Sweet. 
 
 Judge Douglas " Give me the date of the letter." 
 
 Mr. Lincoln The time Campbell ran was in 1850. I have not the exact date 
 here. It was some time in 1850 that these interrogatories were put and the answer 
 given. Campbell was elected to Congress, and served out his term. I think a sec- 
 ond election came up before he served out his term and he was not re-elected. 
 Whether defeated or not nominated, I do not know. [Mr. Campbell was nominated 
 for re-election by the Democratic party, by acclamation. J At the end of his term 
 his very good friend, Judge Douglas, got him a high office from President Pierce, 
 and sent him off to California. Is not that the fact? Just at the end of his term in 
 Congress it appears that our mutual friend Judge Douglas got our mutual friend 
 Campbell a good office, and sent him to California upon it. And not only so, but on 
 the 27th of last month, when Judge Douglas and myself spoke at Freeport in joint 
 discussion, there was his same friend Campbell, come all the way from California, to 
 help the Judge beat me ; and there was poor Martin P. Sweet standing on the plat- 
 form, trying to help poor me to be elected. That is true of one of Judge Douglas's 
 friend-. 
 
 So again, in that same race of 1850, there was a Congressional Convention 
 assembled at Joliet, and it nominated It. S. Molony for Congress, and unanimous!/ 
 adopted the following resolution :
 
 124 
 
 Resolved-, That we arc uncompromisingly opposed to the extension of slavery 5 and while we 
 would not make such opposition a ground of interference with the interests of the States where it 
 exists, yet we moderately but firmly insist that it is the duty of Congress to oppose its extension 
 into Territory now free, by all means compatible with the obligations of the Constitution, and with 
 good faith to our sister States ; that these principles were recognized by the Ordinance of 1787, 
 which received the sanction of Thomas Jefferson, who is acknowledged by all to be the great 
 oracle and expounder of our faith. 
 
 Subsequently the same interrogatories were propounded to Dr. Molony which had 
 bceu addressed to Campbell, as above, with the exception of the 6th, respecting the 
 inter-State slave-trade, to which Dr. Molony, the Democratic nominee for Congress* 
 replied as follows : 
 
 I received the written interrogatories this day, and as you will see by the La Salle Democrat and 
 Ottawa Free Trader, I took at Peru on the 5th and at Ottawa on the 7th, the affirmative side of 
 interrogatories 1st and 2d, and in relation to the admission of any more slave States from freo. 
 Territory, my position taken at these meetings, as correctly reported in said papers, was empliaticatty 
 and distinctly opposed to it. In relation to the admission of any more slave States from Texas, 
 whether I shall go against it or not will depend upon the opinion that I may hereafter form of the 
 true meaning and nature of the resolutions of annexation. If. by said resolutions, the honor and 
 good faith of the nation is pledged to admit more slave States from Texas when she (Texas) 
 may apply for the admission of such State, then I should, if in Congress, vote for their admission. 
 But if not so PLEDGED and bound by sacred contract, then a bill for the admission of more slave 
 States from Texas would iiever receive my vote. 
 
 To your fourth interrogatory I answer most decidedly in the affirmative, and for reasons set forth 
 in my reported remarks at Ottawa last Monday. 
 
 To your fifth interrogatory I also reply in the affirmative most cordially, and that I will use roy 
 utmost exertions to secure the nomination and election of a man who will accomplish the objects 
 of said interrogatories. I most cordially approve of the resolutions adopted at the union meeting 
 held at Princeton on the 27th September ult. Yours, etc., 
 
 K. S. MOLONY. 
 
 All I have to say in regard to Dr. Molony is, that he was the regularly nominated 
 Democratic candidate for Congress in his district was elected at that time, at the 
 end of his term was appointed to a land-office at Danville. (I never heard any thing 
 of Judge Douglas's instrumentality in this.) He held this office a considerable time, 
 and when we were at Freeport the other day, there were handbills scattered about 
 notifying the public that after our debate was over, R. S. Molony would make a 
 Democratic speech in favor of Judge Douglas. That is all I know of my own per- 
 sonal knowledge. It is added here to this resolution, arid truly I believe, that 
 
 "Among those who participated in the Joliet Convention, and who supported its 
 nominee, with his platform as laid down in the resolution of the Convention and in 
 his reply as above given, we call at random the following names, all of which are 
 recognized at this day as leading Democrats :" 
 
 "Cook County E. B. Williams, Charles McDonel], Arno Voss, Thomas Hoyne, 
 Isaac Cook." 
 
 I reckon we ought to except Cook. 
 
 "F. C. Sherman." 
 
 "Will Joel A, Matteson, S. W. Bowen." 
 
 Kane B. F. Hall, G. W. Renwick, A. M. Herrington, Elijah Wilcox." 
 
 "Melienry W. M. Jackson, Enos W. Smith. Neil Donnelly." 
 
 "La Salle John Hise, William Reddick." 
 
 William Reddick! another one of Judge Douglas's friends that stood on the stand 
 with him at Ottawa, at the time the Judge says my knees trembled so that I had to 
 !l>e carried away. The names are all here : 
 
 ' ; Du Page Nathan Allen." 
 
 "DeKalb Z. B. Mayo." 
 
 Here is another set of resolutions which I think are apposite to the matter in 
 hp.nd. 
 
 On the 28th of February of the same year, a Democratic District Convention 
 ft'as held at Naperville, to nominate a candidate for Circuit Judge. Among the del- 
 egates were Bowcn and Kelly, of Will ; Captain Naper, H. H. Cody, Nathan Allen,
 
 125 
 
 of DuPage ; W. M. Jackson, J. M. Strode, P. W. Platt and Enos W. Smith, of 
 McHenry ; J. Horsman and others, of Winnebago. Col. Strode presided over the 
 Convention. The following resolutions were unanimously adopted the first OB 
 motion of P. W. Platt, the second on motion of William M. Jackson : 
 
 Resolved, That this Convention is in favor of the Wilmot Proviso, both in Principle and Practice, 
 aud that we know of up good reafion why any person should oppose the largest latitude in }*ree 
 &jil, Free Territory and Free Speech. 
 
 Rtxolred, That in the opinion of this Convention, the time has arrived when all men should befrer, 
 whites us well as others. 
 
 Judge Douglas " What is the date of those resolutions?* 
 
 Mr. Lincoln I undeistand it was in 1850, but I do not know it I do not state a 
 thing and say I know it, when I do not. But I have the highest belief that this is 
 BO. I know of no way to arrive at the conclusion that there is an error in it. I 
 mean to put a case no stronger than the truth will allow. But what I was going 
 to comment upon is an extract from a newspaper in DeKalb county, and it strikes 
 me as being rather singular, I confess, under the circumstances. There is a Judge 
 Mayo in that county, who is a candidate ibr the Legislature, for the purpose, if he 
 secures his election, of helping to re-elect Judge Douglas. He is the editor of a 
 newspaper DeKalb 'County Sentinel^, and in that paper I find the extract I am 
 going to read. It is part of an editorial article in which he was electioneering as 
 fiercely as he could for Judge Douglas and against me. It was a curious thing, I 
 think, to be in such a paper. I will agree to that, and the Judge may make the 
 most of it : 
 
 " Our education has been such, that we have ever been rather in favor of the 
 equality of the blacks ; that is, that tliey should enjoy jj.ll the privileges of the whites 
 where they reside. We are aware that this is not a very popular doctrine. We 
 have had many a confab with some who are now strong ' Republicans,' we taking the 
 broad ground of equality and they the opposite ground. 
 
 44 We were brought up in a State where blacks were voters, and we do not know 
 of any inconvenience resulting from it, though perhaps it would not work as well 
 where the blacks are more numerous. W r e have no doubt of the right of the whites 
 to guard against such an evil, if it is one. Our opinion is that it would be best for 
 all concerned to have the colored population in a State by themselves [in this I 
 agree with him] ; but if within the jurisdiction of the United States, we say by ail 
 means they should have the right to have their Senators and Representatives in 
 Congress, and to vote for President. With us ' worth makes the man, and want 
 of it the fellow.' We have seen many a * nigger ' that we thought more of than 
 some white men." 
 
 That is one of Judge Douglas's friends. Now I do not want to leave myself in 
 an attitude where I can be misrepresented, so I will say I do not think the Judge is 
 responsible for this article ; but he is quite as responsible for it as 1 would be if one 
 of my friends had said it. I think that is fair enough. 
 
 I have here also a set of resolutions passed by a Democratic State Convention in 
 Judge Douglas's own good old State of Vermont, that I think ought to be good for 
 him too : 
 
 Resolved, That liberty is a right inherent aod inalienable in man, and that herein all men are 
 equal. 
 
 Resolved, That we claim no authority in the Federal Government to abolish slavery in the 
 several States, but we do claim for it Constitutional power perpetually to prohibit the introduc- 
 tion of slavery into territory now free, and abolish it wherever, under the jurisdiction of Congress, 
 it exists. 
 
 Resolved, That this power ought immediately to be exercised in prohibiting the introduction 
 and existence of slavery in New Mexico and California, in abolishing slavery and the slave* 
 trade in the District of Columbia, on the high seas, and wherever else, under the Constitution, 
 it can be reached. 
 
 Resolvtd, That no more slave States should be admitted into the Federal Union. 
 
 Resolved, That the Government ouTht to return to its ancient, policy, not to extend, nation 
 or encourage, but Lo limit, localize and discourage slavery. 
 9
 
 126 
 
 At Freeport T answered several interrogatories that had been propounded to me 
 by Judge Douglas at the Ottawa meeting. The Judge has yet not seen fit to find 
 any fault with the position that I took in regard to those seven interrogatories, which 
 were certainly broad enough, in all conscience, to cover the entire ground. In my 
 answers, which have been printed, and all have had the opportunity of seeing, I take 
 the ground that those who elect me must expect that I will dq nothing which will not 
 be in accordance with those answers* I have some right to assert that Judge Doug- 
 las has no fault to find with them. But he chooses to still try to thrust me upon 
 different ground without paying any attention to my answers, the obtaining of which 
 from me cost him so much trouble and concern. At the same time, I propounded 
 four interrogatories to him, claiming it as a right that he* should answer as many 
 interrogatories for me as I did for him, and I would reserve myself for a future in- 
 stallment when I got them ready. The Judge in answering me upon that occasion, 
 put in what I suppose he intends as answers to all four of my interrogatories. Tin; 
 first one of these interrogatories I have before me, and it is in these words : 
 
 "Question 1. If the people of Kansas shall, by means entirely unobjectionable in 
 all other respects, adopt a State Constitution, and ask admission into the Union un- 
 der it, before they have the requisite number of inhabitants according to the English 
 bill some ninety -three thousand will you vote to admit them?" 
 
 As I read the Judge's answer in the newspaper, and as I remember it as pro- 
 nounced at the time, he does not give any answer which is equivalent to yes or no 
 I will or I wont. He answers at very considerable length, rather quarreling with 
 me for asking the question, and insisting that Judge Trumbull had done something 
 that I ought to say something about; and finally getting out such statements as in- 
 duce me to infer that he means to be understood he will, in that supposed case, vote 
 for the admission of Kansas. I only bring this forward now for the purpose of say- 
 ing that if he chooses to put a different construction upon his answer he may do 
 it. But if he does not, I shall from this time forward assume that he will vote 
 for the admission of Kansas in disregard of the English bill. He has the right to 
 remove any misunderstanding I may have. I only mention it now that I may here- 
 after assume this to be the true construction of his answer, if he does not now 
 ehoose to correct me. 
 
 The second interrogatory that I propounded to him, was this : 
 
 " Question 2. Can the people of a United States Territory, in any lawful way, 
 against the wish of any citizer of the United States, exclude slavery from its limits 
 prior to the formation of a State Constitution ? " 
 
 To this Judge Douglas answered that they can lawfully exclude slavery from the 
 Territory prior to the formation of a Constitution. He goes on to tell us how it 
 can be done. As I understand him, he holds that it can be done by the Territorial 
 Legislature refusing to make any enactments for the protection of slavery in the 
 Territory, and especially by adopting unfriendly legislation to it. For the sake of 
 clearness I state it again ; that they can exclude slavery from the Territory, 1st, 
 by withholding what he assumes to be an indispensable assistance to it in the 
 way of legislation ; and, 2d, by unfriendly legislation. If I rightly understand him, 
 I wish to ask your attention for a while to his position. 
 
 In the first place, the Supreme Court of the United States has decided that any 
 Congressional prohibition of slavery in the Territories is unconstitutional that they 
 have reached this proposition as a conclusion from their former proposition, that the 
 Constitution of the United States expressly recognizes property in slaves, and from 
 that other Constitutional provision, that no person shall be deprived of property 
 without due process of law. Hence they reach the conclusion that as the Constitu- 
 tion of the United States expressly recognizes property in slaves, and prohibits any 
 person from being deprived of property without due process of law, to pass an act 
 of Congress by which a man who owned a slave on one side of a line would be de- 
 prived of him if he took him on the other side, is depriving him of that property 
 without due process of law. That I understand to be the decision of the Su-
 
 127 
 
 preme Court. I understand also that Judge Douglas adheres most firmly to that 
 decision ; and the difficulty is, how is it possible for any power to exclude slavery 
 from the Territory unless in violation of that decision ? That is the difficulty. 
 
 In the Senate of the United States, in 1850, Judge Trumbull, in a speech, sub- 
 stantially, if not directly, put the same interrogatory to Judge Douglas, as to whether 
 the people of a Territory had the lawful power to exclude slavery prior to the for- 
 mation of a Constitution ? Judge Douglas then answered at considerable length, 
 and his answer will be found in the Congressional Globe, under date of June 9th, 
 1856. The Judge said that whether the people could exclude slavery prior" to 
 the formation of a Constitution or not was a question to be decided by the Supreme 
 Court. He put that proposition, as will be seen by the Congressional Globe, in a 
 variety of forms, all running to the same thing in substance that it was a question 
 for the Supreme Court. I maintain that when he says, after the Supreme Court 
 have decided the question, that the people may yet exclude slavery by any means 
 whatever, he does virtually say, that it is not a question for the Supreme Court. 
 He shifts his ground. I appeal to you whether he did not say it was a question for 
 the Supreme Court ? Has not the Supreme Court decided that question ? When 
 he now says the people may exclude slavery, does he not make it a question for the 
 people ? Does he not virtually shift his ground arid say that it is not a question for 
 the court, but for the people ? This is a very simple proposition a very plain and 
 naked one. It seems to me that there is no difficulty in deciding it. In a variety 
 of ways he said that it was a question for the Supreme Court. He did not stop 
 then to tell us that whatever the Supreme Court decides, the people can by with- 
 holding necessary " police regulations " keep slavery out. He did not make any 
 such answer. I submit to you now, whether the new state of the case has not 'in- 
 duced the Judge to sheer away from his original ground. Would not this be the im- 
 pression of every fair-minded man ? 
 
 I hold that the proposition that slavery cannot enter a new country without police 
 regulations is historically false. It is not true at all. I hold that the history of this 
 country shows that the institution of slavery was originally planted upon this 'conti- 
 nent without these "police regulations " which the Judge now thinks necessary for the 
 actual establishment of it. Not only so, but is there not another fact how came this 
 Dred Scott decision to be made ? It was made upon the case of a negro being 
 taken and actually held in slavery in Minnesota Territory, claiming his freedom be- 
 cause the act of Congress prohibited his being so held there. Will the Judge pre- 
 tend that Dred Scott was not held there without police regulations ? There is at 
 least one matter of record as to his having been held in slavery in the Territory, 
 not only without police regulations, but in the teeth of Congressional legislation sup- 
 posed to be valid at the time. This shows that there is vigor enough in slavery to 
 plant itself in a new country even against unfriendly legislation. It takes not only 
 law but the enforcement of law to keep it out. That is the history of this country 
 upon the subject. 
 
 I wish to ask one other question. It being understood that the Constitution" of 
 the United States guaranties property in slaves in the Territories, if there is any in- 
 fringement of the right of that property, would not the United States Courts, organ- 
 ized for the government of the Territory, apply such remedy as might bo necessary 
 in that case? It is a maxim held by the courts, that there is no \vrong without its 
 remedy ; and the courts have a remedy for whatever is acknowledged and treated 
 as a wrong. 
 
 Again : I will ask you, my friends, if you were elected members of the Legisla- 
 ture, what would be the first thing you would have to do before entering upon your 
 duties ? Swear to support the Constitution of the United States. Suppose you 
 believe, as Judge Douglas does, that the Constitution of the United States guaran- 
 ties to your neighbor the right to hold slaves in that Territory that they are his 
 property how can you clear your oaths unless you give him such legislation as is 
 necessary to enable him to enjoy that property ? What do you understand by sup
 
 128 
 
 porting the Constitution of a State, or of the United States? Is it not to give snci 
 Constitutional helps to the rights established by that Constitution as may be practi- 
 cally needed ? Can you, if you swear to support the Constitution, and believe that 
 fche Constitution establishes a right, clear your oath, without giving it support? Do 
 you support the Constitution if, knowing or believing there is a right established 
 tinder it which needs specific legislation, you withhold that legislation ? Do you not 
 violate and disregard your oath ? I can conceive of nothing plainer in the world. 
 There can be nothing in the words " support the Constitution," if you may rui 
 .counter to it by refusing support to any right established under the Constitution 
 And what I say here will hold with still more force against the Judge's doctrine oi 
 '* unfriendly legislation." How could you, having sworn to support the Constitution 
 and believing it guarantied the right to hold slaves in the Territories, assist in legis- 
 lation intended to defeat that right ? That would be violating your own view of the 
 Constitution. Not only so, but if you were to do so, how long would it take th& 
 courts to hold your votes unconstitutional and void ? Not a moment. 
 
 Lastly I would ask is not Congress, itself, under obligation to give legislative 
 support to any right that is established under the United States Constitution ? I re- 
 peat the question is not Congress, itself, bound to give legislative support to an} 
 right that is established in the United States Constitution ? A member of Congress 
 swears to support the Constitution of the United States, and if he sees a right estab- 
 lished by that Constitution which needs specific legislative protection, can he clear hw 
 oath without giving that protection ? Let me ask you why many of us who are op- 
 posed to slavery upon principle, give our acquiescence to a Fugitive Slave law ? 
 Why do we hold ourselves under obligations to pass such a law, and abide- by it when 
 it is passed ? Because the Constitution makes provision that the owners of slaves 
 shall have the right to reclaim them. It gives the right to reclaim slaves, and that 
 right is, as Judge Douglas says, a barren right, unless there is legislation that will 
 enforce it 
 
 The mere declaration, " No person held to service or labor in one State under the 
 laws thereof, escaping into another, shall in consequence of any law or regulation 
 (herein be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim 
 of the party to whom such service or labor may be due," is powerless without specific 
 legislation to enforce it. Now, on what ground would a member of Congress who is 
 opposed to slavery in the abstract, vote for a Fugitive law, as. I would deem it my 
 duty to do ? Because there is a Constitutional right which needs legislation to en- 
 force it And although it is distasteful to me, I have sworn to support the Constitu- 
 tion, and having so sworn, I cannot conceive that I do support it if I withhold from 
 that right any necessary legislation to make it practical. And if that is true in regard 
 to a Fugitive Slave law, is the right to have fugitive slaves reclaimed any better fix^i 
 in the Constitution than the right to hold slaves in the Territories ? For this de- 
 cision is a just exposition of the Constitution, as Judge Douglas thinks. Is the one 
 ri^ht any better than the other ? Is ttiere any man who, while a member of Con- 
 gress, would give support to the one any more than the other ? If I wished to re- 
 fuse to give legislative support to slave property in the Territories, if a member of 
 Congress, I could not do it, holding the view that the Constitution establishes that 
 right If I did it at all, it would be because I deny that this decision properly con- 
 strues the Constitution. But if I acknowledge, with Judge Douglas, that this decision 
 properly construes the Constitution, I cannot conceive that I would be less than a 
 perjured man if I should refuse in Congress to give such protection to that property 
 as in its nature it needed. 
 
 At the end of what I have said here* I propose to give the Judge my fifth inter- 
 rogatory, which he may take and answer at his leisure. My fifth interrogatory is 
 tins : 
 
 If the slaveholding citizens of a United States Territory should need and demand 
 Congressional legislation for the protection of their slave property in such Territory, 
 would you, as a member of Congress, vote for or against such legislation ?
 
 129 
 
 Judge Douglas " Will you repeat that ? 1 want to answer that question." 
 
 Mr. Lincoln If the slaveholding citizens of a United States Territory should need 
 and demand Congressional legislation for the protection of their slave property in 
 such Territory, would you, as a member of Cougrevss, vote for or against such legis- 
 lation ? 
 
 I am aware that in some of the speeches Judge Douglas has made, he has spoken 
 as if he did not know or think that the Supreme Court had decided that a Territorial 
 Legislature cannot exclude slavery. Precisely what the Judge would say upon the 
 subject whether he would say definitely that he does not understand they have 50 
 decided, or whether he would say he does understand that the court have so decided, 
 I do not know ; but I know that in his speech at Springfield he spoke of it as a thing 
 they had not decided yet ; and in his answer to me at Freeport, he spoke of it so far 
 again, as I can comprehend it, as a thing that had not yet been decided. Now ) 
 hold that if the Judge does entertain that view, I think that he is not mistaken in so 
 far as it can be said that the court has not decided any thing save the mere question 
 of jurisdiction. I know the legal arguments that can be made that after a court 
 has decided that it cannot take jurisdiction in a case, it then has decided all that is 
 before it, and that is the end of it. A plausible argument can be made in favor of 
 that proposition, but I know that Judge Douglas has said in one of his speeches that 
 the court went forward, like honest men as they were, and decided all the points in 
 the case. If any points are really extra-judicially decided because not necessarily 
 before them, then this one as to the power of the Territorial Legislature to exclude 
 slavery is one of them, as also the one that the Missouri Compromise was null arxi 
 void. They are both extra-judicial, or neither is, according as the court held that 
 they had no jurisdiction in the case between the parties, because of want of capacity 
 of one party to maintain a suit in that court. 1 want, if I have sufficient time, to 
 show that the court did pass its opinion, but that is the only thing actually done in 
 the case. If they did not decide, they showed what they were ready to decide when- 
 ever the matter was before them. What is that opinion ? After having argued that 
 Congress had no power to pass a law excluding slavery from a United States Terri- 
 tory, they then used language to this effect : That inasmuch as Congress itself could 
 not exercise such a power, it followed as a matter of course that it could not authorize 
 a Territorial Government to exercise it, for the Territorial Legislature can do no 
 more than Congress could do. Thus it expressed its opinion emphatically against the 
 power of a Territorial Legislature to exclude slavery, leaving us in just as little 
 doubt on that point as upon any other point they really decided. 
 
 Now, my fellow-citizens, I will detain you only a little while longer. My time is 
 nearly out. I find a report of a speech made by Judge Douglas at Joliet, since we 
 last met at Freeport published, I believe, in the Missouri Republican on the 9th 
 of this month, in which Judge Douglas says 
 
 " You know at Ottawa, I read this platform, and asked him if he concurred in each 
 arid all of the principles set forth in it. He would not answer these questions. At 
 last I said frankly, I wish you to answer them, because when I get them up here 
 where the color of your principles are a little darker than in Egypt, I intend to trol 
 you down to Jonesboro. The very notice that I was going to take him down to 
 Egypt made him tremble in the knees so that he had to be carried from the platform. 
 He laid up seven days, and in the meantime held a consultation with his political phy- 
 sicians ; they had Lovejoy and Farnsworth and all the leaders of the Abolition partj, 
 they consulted it all over, and at last Lincoln came to the conclusion that he would 
 answer, so he came up to Freeport last Friday." 
 
 Now that statement altogether furnishes a subject for philosophical contemplation. 
 I have been treating it in that way, and I have really come to the conclusion that I 
 can explain it in no other way than by believing the Judge is crazy. If he was in 
 his right mind, I cannot conceive how he would have risked disgusting the four or 
 five thousand of his own friends who stood there, and knew, as to my having beeo 
 carried from the platform, that there was not a word of truth in it.
 
 130 
 
 Judge Douglas " Didn't they carry you off? " 
 
 Mr. Lincoln There ; that question illustrates the character of this man Douglas, 
 exactly. He smiles now and says, " Didn't they carry you off?" But he said then, 
 " he had to be carried off;" and he said it to convince the country that he had so 
 completely broken me down by his speech that I had to be carried away. Now he 
 seeks to dodge it, and asks, " Didn't they carry you off?" Yes, they did. But, 
 Judge Douglas, why didn't you tell the truth?" I would like to know why you iidn't 
 tell the truth about it. And then again, " He laid up seven days." He puts this in 
 print for the people of the country to read as a serious document, I think if he had 
 been in his sober senses he would not have risked that barefacedness in the presence 
 of thousands of his own friends, who knew that I made speeches within six of the 
 ,seven days at Henry. Marshall county ; Augusta, Hancock county, and Macomb, 
 McDonough county, including all the necessary travel to meet him again at Freeport 
 at the end of the six days. Now, I say, there is no charitable way to look at that 
 statement, except to conclude that he is actually crazy. There is another thing in 
 that statement that alarmed me very greatly as he states it, that he was going to 
 u trot me down to Egypt." Thereby he would have you to infer that I would not 
 come to Egypt unless he forced me that I could not be got here, unless he, giant- 
 like, had hauled me down here. That statement he makes, too, in the teeth of the 
 knowledge that I had made the stipulation to come down here, and that he himself 
 had been very reluctant to enter into the stipulation. More than all this, Judge Doug- 
 las, when he made that statement, must have been crazy, and wholly out of his sober 
 senses, or else he would have known that when he got me down here that promise 
 that windy promise of his powers to annihilate me, wouldn't amount to anything. 
 Now, how little do I look like being carried away trembling ? Let the Judge go on, 
 .and after he is done with his half hour, I want you all, if 1 can't go home myself, to 
 let me stay and rot here ; and if anything happens to the Judge, if I cannot carry 
 him to the hotel and put him to bed, let me stay here and rot. I say, then, there is 
 something extraordinary in this statement. I ask you if you know any other living 
 man who would make such a statement ? I will ask my friend Casey, over there, if 
 he would do such a a thing? Would he send that out and have his men take it as 
 the truth? Did the Judge talk of trotting me down to Egypt to scare me to death ? 
 Why, I know this people better than he does. I was raised just a little east of here. 
 I am a part of this people. But the Judge was raised further north, and perhaps he 
 has some horrid idea of what this people might be induced to do. But really I have 
 talked about this matter perhaps longer than I ought, for it is no great thing, a*iJ yet 
 the smallest are often the most difficult things to deal with. The Judge has set about 
 seriously trying to make the impression that when we meet at different places I am 
 literally in his clutches that I am a poor, helpless, decrepit mouse, and that I can 
 do nothing at all. This is one of the ways he has taken to create that impression. 
 I don't know any other way to meet it, except this. I don't want to quarrel with him 
 to call him a liar but when I come square up to him I don't know what else to 
 sail him, if 1 must tell the truth out. I want to be at peace, and reserve all my 
 fighting powers for necessary occasions. My time, now, is very nearly out, and I 
 give up the trifle that is left to the Judge, to let him set my knees trembling again, 
 if he can. 
 
 MR. DOUGLAS'S REPLY. 
 
 My friends, while I am very grateful to you for the enthusiasm which you show 
 for me, I will say in all candor, that your quietness will be much more agreeable 
 than your applause, inasmuch as you deprive me of some part of my time whenever 
 you cheer. 
 
 I will commence where Mr. Lincoln left off, and make a remark upon this serious
 
 131 
 
 complaint of his about my speech at Joliet. I did say there in a playful manner 
 that when I put these questions to Mr. Lincoln at Ottowa he failed to answer, and 
 that he trembled and had to be carried off the stand, and required seven days to 
 set up his reply. That he did not walk off from that stand he will not deny. 
 That when the crowd went away from the stand with me, a few persons carried him 
 home on their shoulders and laid him down, he will admit. I wish to say to you 
 that whenever I degrade my friends and myself by allowing them to carry me on 
 their backs along through the public streets, when I am able to walk, I am willing to 
 be deemed crazy. I did not say whether I beat him or he beat me in the argu- 
 ment. It is true I put these questions to him, and I put them not as mere idle ques- 
 tions, but showed that I based them upon the creed of the Black Republican 
 party as declared by their Conventions in that portion of the State which he de- 
 pends upon to elect him, and desired to know whether he indorsed that creed. He 
 would not answer. When I reminded him that I intended bringing him into Kgypt 
 and renewing my questions if he refused to answer, he then consulted and did get 
 up his answers one week after, answers which I may refer to in a few minutes and 
 show you how equivocal they are. My object was to make him avow whether or 
 not he stood by the platform of his party ; the resolutions I then read, and upon 
 which I based my questions, had been adopted by his party in the Galena Congres- 
 sional District, and the Chicago and Bloomington Congressional Districts, composing 
 a large majority of the counties in this State that give Republican or Abolition ma- 
 jorities. Mr. Lincoln cannot and will not deny that the doctrines laid down in these 
 resolutions were in substance put forth in Lovejoy's resolutions, which were voted 
 for by a majority of his party, some of them, if not all, receiving the support of ev- 
 ery man of his party. Hence, I laid a foundation for my questions to him before 
 I asked him whether that was or was not the platform of his party. He says 
 that he answered niy questions. One of them was whether he would vote to 
 admit any more slave States into the Union. The creed of the Republican party 
 as set forth in the resolutions of their various Conventions was, that they would 
 under no circumstances vote to admit another slave State. It was put forth in the 
 Lovejoy resolutions in the Legislature ; it was put forth and passed in a majority of 
 all the counties of this State which give Abolition or Republican majorities, or elect 
 members to the Legislature of that school of politics. I had a right to know 
 whtulu-r he would vote for or against the admission of another slave State in the 
 event the people wanted it. lie tirst answered that he was not pledged on the sub- 
 ject, and then said, "In regard to the other question, of whether I am pledged to 
 die admission of any more slave States into the Union, I state fo you very franldj 
 that I would be exceedingly sorry ever to be put in the position of having to pass 
 on that question. I should be exceedingly glad to know that there would never 
 be another slave State admitted into the Union ; but I must add that if slavery shall 
 b<3 kept out of the Territories during the territorial existence of any one given Ter- 
 ritory, and then the people, having a fair chance and clean field when they come to 
 adopt a Constitution, do such an extraordinary thing as adopt a slave Constitution, 
 uninfluenced by the actual presence of the institution among them, I see no alterna- 
 tive, if we own the country, but to admit them into the Union." 
 
 Nc w analyze that answer. In the first place he says he would be exceedingly 
 sorry to be put in a position where he would have to vote on the question of the 
 admission of a slave State. Why is he a candidate for the Senate if he would be 
 sorry to be put in that position ? I trust the people of Illinois will not put Irm *o 
 a position w r hich he w r ould be so sorry to occupy. The next position .he takes is 
 that he would be glad to know that there would never be another slave State, yet, 
 in certain contingencies, he might have to vote for one. What is that contingency ? 
 '" If Congress keeps slavery out by law while it is a Territory, and then the people 
 should have a fair chance and should adopt slavery, uninfluenced by the presence of 
 the institution," he supposed he would have to admit the State. Suppose Congress 
 should not keep slaveiy out during their territorial existence, then how would he
 
 132 
 
 vote when the people applied for admission into the Union with a slave Constitution? 
 That he does not answer, and that is the condition of every Territory we have now 
 got Slavery is not kept out of Kansas by act of Congress, and when I put the 
 question to Mr. Lincoln, whether he will vote for the admission with or without sla- 
 very, as her people may desire, he will not answer, and you have not got an answer 
 from him. In Nebraska slavery is not prohibited by act of Congress, but the peo- 
 ple are allowed, under the Nebraska bill, to do as they please on the subject ; and 
 when I ask him whether he will vote to admit Nebraska with a slave Constitution 
 if her people desire it, he will not answer. So with New Mexico, Washington Ter- 
 ritory, Arizonia, and the four new States to be admitted from Texas. You cannot 
 get an answer from him to these questions. His answer only applies to a given 
 case, to a condition things which he knows does not exist in any one Territory in 
 the Union. He tries to give you to understand that he would allow the people to do 
 as they please, and yet he dodges the question as to every Territory in the Union. 
 I now ask why cannot Mr. Lincoln answer to each of these Territories ? He has 
 not done it, and he will not do it. The Abolitionists up North understand that this 
 answer is made with a view of not committing himself on any one Territory now in 
 existence. It is so understood there, and you cannot expect an answer from him 
 on a case that applies to any one Territory, or applies to the new States which by 
 compact we are pledged to admit out of Texas, when they have the requisite popu- 
 lation and desire admission. I submit to you whether he has made a frank answer, 
 so that you can tell how he would vote in any one of these cases. " He would be 
 sorry to be put in the position." Why would he be sorry to be put in this position 
 if his duty required him to give the vote ? If the people of a Territory ought to 
 be permitted to come into the Union as a State, with slavery or without it, as they 
 pleased, why not give the vote admitting them cheerfully ? If in his opinion they 
 ought not to come in with slavery, even if they wanted to, why not say that he would 
 cheerfully vote against their admission ? His intimation is that conscience would not 
 let him vote " No," and he would be sorry to do that which his conscience would 
 compel him to do as an honest man. 
 
 In regard to the contract or bargain between Trumbull, the Abolitionists and him, 
 which he denies, I wish to say that the charge can be proved by notorious histori- 
 cal facts. Trumbull, Lovejoy, Giddings, Fred Douglass, Hale, and Banks, were 
 traveling the State at that time making speeches on the same side and in the same 
 cause with him. He contents himself with the simple denial that no such thing oc- 
 curred. Does he deny that he, and Trumbull, and Breese, and Giddings, and Chase, 
 and Fred Douglass, and Lovejoy, and all those Abolitionists and deserters from the 
 Democratic party, did make speeches all over this State in the same common cause ? 
 Does he deny that Jim Matheny was then, and is now, his confidential friend, and 
 does he deny that Matheny made the charge of the bargain and fraud in his own 
 language, as I have read it from his printed speech. Matheny spoke of his own per- 
 sonal knowledge of that bargain existing between Lincoln, Trumbull, and the Aboli- 
 tionists. He still remains Lincoln's confidential friend, and is now a candidate for 
 Congress, and is canvassing the Springfield District for Lincoln. I assert that I 
 can prove the charge to be true in detail if I can ever get it where I can summon 
 and compel the attendance of witnesses. I have the statement of another man to 
 the same effect as that made by Matheny, which I am not permitted to use yet, but 
 Jin: Matheny is a good witness on that point, and the history of the country is con- 
 clusive upon it. That Lincoln up to that time had been a Whig, and then under- 
 took to Abolitionize the Whigs and bring them into the Abolition camp, is beyond 
 denial ; thai Trumbull up to that time had been a Democrat, and deserted, and un- 
 dertook to Abolitionize the Democracy, and take them into the Abolition camp, is 
 beyond denial ; that they are both now active, leading, distinguished members of 
 this Abolition Republican party, in full communion, is a fact that cannot be ques- 
 tioned or denied. 
 
 But Lincoln is not willing to be responsible for the creed of his party. He com-
 
 133 
 
 plains because I hold him responsible, and in order to avoid the issue, he attempts 
 to show that individuals in the Democratic party, many years ago, expressed Abo- 
 lition sentiments. It is true that Tom Campbell, when a candidate for Congress in 
 1850, published the letter which Lincoln read. When I asked Lincoln for the 
 date of that letter he could not give it. The date of the letter has been sup- 
 pressed by other speakers who have used it, though I take it for granted that 
 Lincoln did not know the date. If he will take the trouble to examine, he will 
 find that the letter was published only two days before the election, and was never 
 seen until after it, except in one county. Tom Campbell would have been beat to 
 death by the Democratic party if that letter had been made public in his district- 
 As to Molony, it is true he uttered sentiments of the kind referred to by Mr. Lin- 
 coln, and the best Democrats would not vote for him for that reason. I returned 
 from Washington after the passage of the Compromise Measures in 1850, and when 
 I found Molony running under John Wentworth's tutelage, and on his platform, I 
 denounc ed him, and declared that he was no Democrat. In my speech at Chicago, 
 just bsibre the election that year, I went before the infuriated people of that city 
 and vindicated the Compromise Measures of 1850. Remember the city council had 
 passed resolutions nullifying acts of Congress and instructing the police to withhold 
 their assistance from the execution of the laws, and as I was the only man in the 
 city of Chicago who was responsible for the passage of the Compromise Measures, 
 I went before the crowd, justified each and every one of those measures, and let it be 
 said to the eternal honor of the people of Chicago, that when they were convinced 
 by my exposition of those measures that they were right and they had done wrong 
 in opposing them, they repealed their nullifying resolutions and declared that they 
 would acquiesce in and support the laws of the land. These facts are well known, 
 and Mr. Lincoln can only get up individual instances, dating back to 1849-'50, which 
 are contradicted by the whole tenor of the Democratic creed. 
 
 But Mr. Lincoln does not want to be held responsible for the Black Republican 
 doctrine of no more slave States. Farnsworth is the candidate of his party to-day 
 in the Chicago District, and he made a speech in the last Congress in which he called 
 upon God to palsy his right arm if he ever voted for the admission of another slave 
 State, whether the people wanted it or not. Lovejoy is making speeches all over 
 the State for Lincoln now, and taking ground against any more slave States. Wash- 
 burne, the Black Republican candidate for Congress in the Galena District, is mak- 
 ing speeches in favor of this same Abolition platform declaring no more slave States. 
 Why are men running for Congress in the northern districts, and taking that Aboli- 
 tion platform for their guide, when Mr. Lincoln does not want to be held to it down 
 here in Egypt and in the center of the State, and objects to it so as to get votes 
 here. Let me tell Mr. Lincoln that his party in the northern part of the State hold 
 to that Abolition platform, and that if they do not in the South and in the center 
 they present the extraordinary spectacle of a " house divided against itself," and 
 hence " cannot stand." I now bring down upon him the vengeance of hi;$ own scrip- 
 tural quotation, and give it a more appropriate application than he did, when I say 
 to him that his party, Abolition in one end of the State and opposed to it in the other, 
 is a house divided against itself, and cannot stand, and ought not to stand, for it at- 
 tempts to cheat the American people out of their votes by disguising its sentiments. 
 
 Mr. Lincoln attempts to cover up and get over his Abolitionism by telling you that 
 he was raised a little east of you, beyond the Wabash in Indiana, and he thinks that 
 makes a mighty sound and good man of him on all these questions. I do not know 
 that the place where a man is born or raised has much to do with his political prin- 
 ciples. The worst Abolitionist I have ever known in Illinois have been men who 
 have sold their slaves in Alabama and Kentucky, and have come here and turned 
 Abolitionists whilst spending the money got for the negroes they sold, and I do not 
 know that an Abolitionist from Indiana or Kentucky ought to have any more credit 
 because he was born and raised among slaveholders. I do not know that a native of 
 Kentucky is mort excusable because raised among slaves, his father and mother
 
 134 
 
 having owned slaves, he comes to Illinois, turns Abolitionist, ami slanders the graves 
 of his lather and mother, and breathes curses upon the institutions under which he 
 was born, and his father and mother bred. True, I was not born out weot here. 1 
 was born away down in Yankee land, I was born in a valley in Vermont, with the 
 high mountains around me. I love the old green mountains and valleys of Vermont, 
 where I was born, and where I played in my childhood. I went up to visit them 
 some seven or eight years ago, for the first time for twenty odd years. When I got 
 there they treated me very kindly. They invited me to the commencement of their 
 college, placed me on the seats with their distinguished guests, and conferred upon 
 me the degree of LL. D. in Latin (doctor of laws), the same as they did old Hickory, 
 at Cambridge, many years ago, and I give you my word and honor I understood juf*t 
 as much of the Latin as he did. When they got through conferring the honorary 
 degree, they called upon me for a speech, and I got up with rny heart lull and swell- 
 ing witli gratitude for their kindness, and I said to them, "My friends, Vermont is 
 the most glorious spot on the face of this globe for a man to be born in, provided he 
 emigrates when he is very young." 
 
 I emigrated when I was very young. I came out here when I was a boy, and I 
 found rny mind liberalized, and rny opinions enlarged when I got on these broad 
 prairies, with only the Heavens to bound my vision, instead of having them circum- 
 scribed by the little narrow ridges that surrounded the valley where I was born. 
 But, I discard all flings of the land where a man was born. I wish to be judged by 
 my principles, by those great public measures and Constitutional principles upon 
 which the peace, the happiness and the perpetuity of this Republic now rest. 
 
 Mr. Lincoln has framed another question, propounded it to me, and desired my 
 answer. As I have said before, I did not put a question to him that I did not first 
 lay a foundation for by showing that it was a part of the platform of the party whose 
 votes he is now seeking, adopted in a majority of the counties where he now hopes 
 to get a majority, and supported by the candidates of his party now running in those 
 counties. But I will answer his question. It is as follows : "If the slaveholding citi- 
 zens of a United States Territory should need and demand Congressional legislation 
 for the protection of their slave property in such Territory, would you, as a member 
 of Congress, vote for or against such legislation ?" I answer him that it is a funda- 
 mental article in the Democratic creed that there should be non-interference and 
 non-intervention by Congress with slavery in the States or Territories. Mr. Lin- 
 coln could have found an answer to his question in the Cincinnati platform, if he had 
 desired it. The Democratic party have always stood by that great principle of non- 
 interference and non-intervention by Congress with slavery in the States and Terri- 
 tories alike, and I stand on that platform now. 
 
 Now I desire to call your attention to the fact that Lincoln did not define his own 
 position in his own question. How does he stand on that question? He put the 
 question to me at Freeport whether or riot I would vote to admit Kansas into the 
 Union before she had 93,420 inhabitants. I answered him at once that it having 
 been decided that Kansas had now population enough for a slave State, she had pop- 
 ulation enough for a free State. 
 
 I answered the question unequivocally, and then I asked him whether he would 
 vote for or against the admission of Kansas before she had 93,420 inhabitants, and 
 he would not answer me. To-day he has called attention to the fact that, in his 
 opinion, my answer on that question was not quite plain enough, and yet he has 
 not answered it himself. He now puts a question in relation to Congressional 
 interference in the Territories to me. I answer him direct, and yet he has not 
 answered the question himself. I ask you whether n man has any right, in 
 common decency, to put questions in these public discussions, to his opponent, 
 which he will not answer himself, when they are pressed home to him. I have 
 asked him three times, whether he would vote to admit Kansas whenever the 
 people applied with a Constitution of their own making and their own adoption, 
 under circumstances that were fair, just and unexceptionable, but I cannot get
 
 135 
 
 V 
 
 an answer from him. Nor will he answer the question which he put to me, 
 and which I have just answered in relation to Congressional interference in the 
 Territories, by making a slave code there. 
 
 It is true that he goes on to answer the question by arguing that under the 
 decision of the Supreme Court it is the duty of a man to vote for a slave code in the 
 Territories. He says that it is his duty, under the decision that the court has made, 
 and if he believes in that decision he would be a perjured man if he did not give the 
 vote. I want to know whether he is not bound to a decision which is contrary to 
 his opinions just as much as to one in accordance with his opinions. If the decision 
 of the Supreme Court, the tribunal created by the Constitution to decide the ques- 
 tion, is final and binding, is he not bound by it just as strongly as if he was for it 
 instead of against it originally ? Is every man in this land allowed to resist decis- 
 ions he does not like, arid only support those that meet his approval ? What are 
 important courts worth unless their decisions are binding on all good citizens ? It is 
 the fundamental principles of the judiciary that its decisions are final. It is created 
 for that purpose, so that when you cannot agree among yourselves on a disputed point 
 you appeal to the judicial tribunal which steps in and decides for you, and that decis- 
 ion is then binding on every good citizen. It is the law of the land just as much 
 with Mr. Lincoln against it as for it. And yet he says that if that decision is bind- 
 ing he is a perjured man if he does not vote for a slave code in the different Terri- 
 tories of this Union. Well, if you [turning to Mr. Lincoln^] are not going to resist 
 the decision, if you obey it, and do not intend to array mob law against the constitu- 
 ted authorities, then, according to your own statement, you will be a perjured man if 
 you do not vote to establish slavery in these Territories. My doctrine is, that even 
 taking Mr. Lincoln's view that the decision recognizes the right of a man to carry 
 his slaves into the Territories of the United States, if he pleases, yet after he gets 
 there he needs affirmative law to make that right of any value. The same doctrine 
 not only applies to slave property, but all other kinds of property. Chief Justice 
 Taney places it upon the ground that slave property is on an equal footing with other 
 property. Suppose one of your merchants should move to Jansas and open a liquor 
 store; he has a right to take groceries an! liquors there, but the mode of selling 
 them, and the circumstances under which they shall be sold, and all the remedies 
 must be prescribed by local legislation, and if that is unfriendly it will drive him 
 out just as effectually as if there was a Constitutional provision against the sale of 
 liquor. So the absence of local legislation to encourage and support slave property 
 in a Territory excludes it practically just as effectually as if there was a positive 
 Constitutional provision against it. Hence, I assert that under the Dred Scott decis- 
 ion you cannot maintain slavery a day in a Territory where there is an unwilling 
 people and unfriendly legislation. If the people are opposed to it, our right is a 
 barren, worthless, useless right, and if they are for it, they will support and encour- 
 age it. We come right back, therefore, to the practical question, if the people of a 
 Territory want slavery they will have it, and if they do not want it you cannot force 
 it on them. And this is the practical question, the great principle, upon which our 
 institutions rest. I am willing to take the decision of the Supreme Court as it was 
 pronounced by that august tribunal without stopping to inquire whether I would 
 have decided that way or not I have had many a decision made against me on 
 questions of law which I did not like, but I was bound by them just as much as if I 
 hud had a hand in making them, and approved them. Did you ever see a lawyer or 
 a client lose his case that he approved the decision of the court? They always think 
 the decision unjust when it is given against them. In a Government of laws like 
 ours we must sustain the Constitution as our fathers made it, and maintain the rights 
 of the States as they are guarantied under the Constitution, and then we will 
 have peace and harmony between the different States and sections of this glorious 
 Union.
 
 136 
 
 FOURTH JOINT DEBATE, AT CHARLESTON, 
 
 September 18, 1858. 
 
 MR. LINCOLN'S SPEECH. 
 
 LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: It will be very difficult for an audience so large as 
 this to hear distinctly what a speaker says, and consequently it is important that as 
 profound silence be preserved as possible. 
 
 While I was at the hotel to-day, an elderly gentleman called upon me to know 
 whether I was really in favor of producing a perfect equality between the negroes 
 and white people. While I had not proposed to myself on this occasion to say much 
 on that subject, yet as the question was asked me I thought I would occupy perhaps 
 five minutes in saying something in regard to it I will say then that I am not, nor 
 ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality 
 of the white and black races that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making 
 voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry 
 with white people ; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical differ- 
 ence between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two 
 races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they 
 cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior 
 and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior po- 
 sition assigned to the white race. I say upon this occasion I do not . perceive that 
 because the white man is to have the superior position the negro should be denied 
 every thing. I do not understand that because I do not want a negro woman for a 
 slave I must necessarily want her for a wife. My understanding is that I can just 
 let her alone. I am now in my fiftieth year, and I certainly never have had a black 
 woman for either a slave or a wife. So it seems to me quite possible for us to get 
 along without making either slaves or wives of negroes. I will add to this that I 
 have never seen, to my knowledge, a man, woman or child who was in favor of pro- 
 ducing a perfect equality, social and political, between negroes and white men. I 
 recollect of but one distinguished instance that I ever heard of so frequently as to be 
 entirely satisfied of its correctness and that is the case of Judge Douglas's old 
 friend Col. Richard M. Johnson. I will also add to the remarks I have made (for I 
 am not going to enter at large upon this subject), that I have never had the least appre- 
 hension that I or my friends would marry negroes if there was no law to keep them 
 from it ; but as Judge Douglas and his friends seem to be in great apprehension that 
 they might, if there were no law to keep them from it, I give him the most solemn 
 pledge that I will to the very last stand by the law of this State, which forbids the 
 marrying of white people with negroes. I will add one further word, which is this : 
 that I do not understand that there is any place where an alteration of the social and 
 political relations of the negro and the white man can be made except in the State 
 Legislature not in the Congress of the United States and as I do not really ap- 
 prehend the approach of any such thing myself, and as Judge Douglas seems to be 
 in constant horror that some such danger is rapidly approaching, I propose as the 
 best means to prevent it that the Judge be kept at home and placed in the State 
 Legislature to fight the measure. I do not propose dwelling longer at this time on 
 this subject. 
 
 When Judge Trumbull, our other Senator in Congress, returned to Illinois in the 
 month of August, he made a speech at Chicago, in which he made what may be 
 called a charge against Judge Douglas, which 1 understand proved to be very offen-
 
 137 
 
 give to him. The Judge was at that time out upon one of his speaking tours through 
 the country, and when the news of it reached him, as I am informed, he denounced 
 Judge Trumbull in rather harsh terms for having said what he did in regard to that 
 matter. I was traveling at that time, and speaking at the same places with Judge 
 Douglas on subsequent days, and when I heard of what Judge Trumbull had paid of 
 Douglas, and what Douglas had said back again, I felt that I was in a position whore 
 I could not remain entirely silent in regard to the matter. Consequently, upon two 
 or three occasions I alluded to it, and alluded to it in no otherwise than to say tha< 
 in regard to the charge brought by Trumbull against Douglas, I personally knew no 
 thing, and sought to say nothing about it that I did personally know Judge 1 ram 
 } )U H that I believed him to be a man of veracity that I believed him to be a mat 
 of capacity sufficient to know very well whether an assertion he was making, as a 
 conclusion drawn from a set of facts, was true or false ; and as a conclusion oi' my 
 own from that, I stated it as my belief, if Trumbull should ever be called upon, be 
 would prove every thing he had said. I said this upon two or three occasions. Upon 
 a subsequent occasion, Judge Trumbull spoke again before an audience at Alton, and 
 upon that occasion not only repeated his charge against Douglas, but arrayed the evi- 
 dence he relied upon to substantiate it. This speech was published at length ; and 
 subsequently at Jacksonville Judge Douglas alluded to the matter. In the course of 
 his speech, and near the close of it, he stated in regard to myself what I will now 
 read : " Judge Douglas proceeded to remark that he should not hereafter occupy his 
 time in refuting such charges made by Trumbull, but that Lincoln having indorsed 
 the character of Trumbull for veracity, he should hold him (Lincoln) responsible for 
 the slanders." I have done simply what I have told you, to subject me to this invi- 
 tation to notice the charge. I now wish to say that it had not originally been my 
 purpose to discuss that matter at all. But inasmuch as it seems to be the wish of 
 Judge Douglas to hold me responsible for it, then for once in my life I will play Gen- 
 eral Jackson, and to the just extent I take the responsibility. 
 
 I wish to say at the beginning that I will hand to the reporters that portion of 
 Judge TrumbulTs Alton speech which was devoted to this matter, and also that por- 
 tion of Judge Douglas's speech made at Jacksonville in answer to it. I shall thereby 
 furnish the readers of this debate with the complete discussion between Trumbull 
 and Douglas. J cannot now read them, for the reason that it would take half of my 
 first hour to do so. I can only make some comments upon them. Trumbull's charge 
 is in the following words : " Now, the charge is, that there was a plot entered into 
 to have a Constitution formed for Kansas, and put in force, without giving the people 
 an opportunity to vote upon it, and that Mr. Douglas was in the plot." I will stale, 
 without quoting further, for all will have an opportunity of reading it hereafter, that 
 Judge Trumbull brings forward what he regards as sufficient evidence to substantiate 
 this charge.* 
 
 It will be perceived Judge Trumbull shows that Senator Bigler, upon the floor of 
 the Senate, had declared there had been a conference among the Senators, in whioh 
 conference it was determined to have an Enabling Act passed for the people of Kan- 
 sas to form a Constitution under, and in this conference it was agreed among them 
 that it was best not to have a provision for submitting the Constitution to a vote of 
 the people after it should be formed. He then brings forward to show, and showing, 
 as he deemed, that Judge Douglas reported the bill back to the Senate with that 
 clause stricken out. He then shows that there was a new clause inserted into the 
 bill, which would in its nature prevent a reference of the Constitution back for a vote 
 of the people if, indeed, upon a mere silence in the law, it could be assumed that 
 they had the right to vote upon it. These are the general statements that he has 
 made. 
 
 I propose to examine the points in Judge Douglas's speech, in which he attempts 
 to answer that speech of Judge Trumbull's. When you come to examine Judge 
 
 * See Trumbull's speech at the close of this dubate.
 
 138 
 
 Douglas's speech, you will find that the first point he makes is: u Suppose it wre 
 true that there was such a change in the bill, and that I struck it out is that a proof 
 of a plot to force a Constitution upon them against their will?" His striking out 
 such a provision, if there was such a one in the bill, he argues, does not establish the 
 proof that it was stricken out for the purpose of robbing the people of that right. I 
 would say, in the first place, that that would be a most manifest reason for it It is 
 true, as Judge Douglas states, that many Territorial bills have passed without having 
 such a provision in them. I believe it is true, though I am not certain, that in some 
 instances, Constitutions framed under such bills have been submitted to a vote of the 
 people, with the law silent upon the subject, but it does not appear that they once 
 had their Enabling Acts framed with an express provision for submitting the Con- 
 stitution to be framed to a vote of the people, and then that they were stricken oui 
 when Congress did not mean to alter the effect of the law. That there have been 
 bills which never had the provision in, I do not question ; but when was that pro- 
 vision taken out of one that it was in? More especially does this evidence tend to 
 prove the proposition that Trumbull advanced, when we remember that the provision 
 was stricken out of the bill almost simultaneously with the time that Bigler says 
 there was a conference among certain Senators, and in which it was agreed that a bill 
 should be passed leaving that out. Judge Douglas, in answering Trumbull, omits to 
 attend to the testimony of Bigler, that there was a meeting in which it was agreed 
 they should so frame the bill that there should be no submission of the Constitution 
 to a vote of the people. The Judge does not notice this part of it. If you take this 
 as one piece of evidence, and then ascertain that simultaneously Judge Dougla? 
 struck out a provision that did require it to be submitted, and put the two together, I 
 think it will make a pretty fair show of proof that Judge Douglas did, as Trumbull 
 says, enter into a plot to put in force a Constitution for Kansas without giving the 
 people any opportunity of voting upon it. 
 
 But I must hurry on. The next proposition that Judge Douglas puts is this : 
 * But upon examination it turns out that the Toombs bill never did contain a clause 
 requiring the Constitution to be submitted." This is a mere question of fact, and 
 can be determined by evidence. I only want to ask this question why did not 
 Judge Douglas say that these words were not stricken out of the Tooinbs bill, or 
 this bill from which it is alleged the provision was stricken out a bill which goes 
 by the name of Toornbs, because he originally brought it forward ? I ask why, if 
 the Judge wanted to make a direct issue with Trumbull, did he not take the exact 
 proposition Trumbull made in his speech, and say it was not stricken out? Trum- 
 bull has given the exact words that he says were in the Toornbs bill, and he alleges 
 that when the bill came back, they were stricken out. Judge Douglas does not say 
 that the words which Trumbull says were stricken out, were not so stricken out, but 
 he says there was no provision in the Toombs bill to submit the Constitution to a 
 vote of the people. We see at once that he is merely making an issue upon the 
 meaning of the words. He has not undertaken to say that Trumbull tells a lie 
 about these words being stricken out ; but he is really, when pushed up to it, only 
 taking an issue upon the meaning of the words. Now, then, if there be any issue 
 upon the meaning of the words, or if there be upon the question of fact as to whether 
 these words were stricken out, I have before me what I suppose to be a genuine copy 
 of the Toombs bill, in which it can be shown that the words Trumbull says were in 
 it, were, in fact, originally there. If there be any dispute upon the fact, I have got 
 the documents here to show they were there. If there be any controversy upon the 
 sense of the words whether these words which were stricken out really constituted 
 a provision for submitting the matter to a vote of the people, as that is a matter of 
 argument, I think I may as well use Trumbull's own argument. He says that the 
 proposition is in these words : 
 
 "That the following propositions be and the same are hereby offered to the said 
 Convention of the people of Kansas when formed, for their free acceptance or rejec- 
 tion ; which, if accepted by the Convention and ratified by the people at the election
 
 139 
 
 for the adoption of the Constitution, shall be obligatory upon the United States and 
 the said State of Kansas." 
 
 Now, Trumbull alleges that these last words were stricken out of the bill when it 
 came back, and he says this was a provision for submitting the Constitution to a vote 
 of the people, and his argument is this : " Would it have been possible to ratify the 
 land propositions at the election for the adoption of the Constitution, unless such an 
 election was to be held?" That is Trumbull's argument. Now Judge Douglas does 
 not meet the charge at all, but he stands up and says there was no such proposition 
 in that bill for submitting the Constitution to be framed to a vote of the people. 
 Trumbull admits that the language is not a direct provision for submitting it, but it is 
 a provision necessarily implied from another provision. He asks you how it is pos- 
 sible to ratify the land proposition at the election for the adoption of the Constitution, 
 if there was no election to be held for the adoption of the Constitution. And he 
 goes on to show that it is not any less a law because the provision is put in that indi- 
 rect shape than it would be if it was put directly. But I presume I have said 
 enough to draw attention to this point, and I pass it by also. 
 
 Another one of the points that Judge Douglas makes upon Trumbull, and at very 
 great length, is, that Trumbull, while the bill was pending, said in a speech in the 
 Senate that he supposed the Constitution to be made would have to be submitted to 
 the people. He asks, if Trumbull thought so then, what ground is there for any body 
 thinking otherwise now ? Fellow-citizens, this much may be said in reply : That bill 
 had been in the hands of a party to which Trumbull did not belong. It had been in 
 the hands of the committee at the head of which Judge Douglas stood. Trumbull 
 perhaps had a printed copy of the original Toombs bill. I have not the evidence on 
 that point, except a sort of inference I draw from the general course of business 
 there. What alterations, or what provisions in the way of altering, were going on 
 in committee, Trumbull had no means of knowing, until the altered bill was reported 
 back. Soon afterward, when it was reported back, there was a discussion over it, 
 and perhaps Trumbull in reading it hastily in the altered form did not perceive all 
 the bearings of the alterations. He was hastily borne into the debate, and it does' 
 riot follow that because there was something in it Trumbull did not perceive, that 
 something did not exist. More than this, is it true that what Trumbull did can have 
 any effect on what Douglas did ? Suppose Trumbull had been in the plot with these 
 other men, would that let Douglas out of it? Would it exonerate Douglas that 
 Trumbull didn't then perceive he was in the plot? He also asks the question : Why 
 didn't Trumbull propose to amend the bill if he thought it needed any amendment ? 
 Why, I believe that every thing Judge Trumbull had proposed, particularly in con- 
 nection with this question of Kansas and Nebraska, since he had been on the floor 
 of the Senate, had been promptly voted down by Judge Douglas and his friends. 
 He had no promise that an amendment offered by him to any thing on this subject 
 would receive the slightest consideration. Judge Trumbull did bring to the notice of 
 the Senate at that time to the fact that there was no provision for submitting the Con- 
 stitution about to be made for the people of Kansas, to a vote of the people. I 
 believe I may venture to say that Judge Douglas made some reply to this speech of 
 Judge Trumbull's, hit he never noticed that part of it at all. And so the thing 
 passed by. I think, then, the fact that Judge Trumbull offered no amendment, does 
 not throw much blame upon him ; and if it did, it does not reach the question of fact 
 as fo what Judge Douglas was doing. I repeat, that if Trumbull had himself been 
 in the plot, it would not at all relieve the others who were in it from blame. If I 
 should be indicted for murder, and upon the trial it should be discovered that I had 
 been implicated in that murder, but that the prosecuting witness was guilty too, that 
 would not at all touch the question of my crime. It would be no relief to my 
 neck that they discovered this other man who charged the crime upon me to be 
 guilty too. 
 
 Another one of the points Judge Douglas makes upon Judge Trumbull is, that 
 when he spoke in Chicago he made his charge to rest upon the fact that the
 
 140 
 
 bill had the provision in it for submitting the Constitution to a vote of the 
 people, when it went into his (Judge Douglas's) hands, that it was missing when he 
 reported it to the Senate, and that in a public speech he had subsequently said the 
 alteration in the bill was made while it was in committee, and that they were made 
 in consultation between him (Judge Douglas) and Toombs. And Judge Douglas 
 goes on to comment upon the fact of TrumbuH's adducing in his Alton speech the 
 proposition that the bill not only came back with that proposition stricken out, but 
 with another clause and another provision in it, saying that "until the complete exe- 
 cution of this act there shall be no election in said Territory," which Trumbull 
 argued was not only taking the provision for submitting to a vote of the people out 
 of the bill, but was adding an affirmative one, in that it prevented the people from 
 exercising the right under a bill that was merely silent on the question. Now in 
 regard to what he says, that Trumbull shii'ts the issue that he shifts his ground and 
 I believe he uses the term, that "it being proven false, he has changed ground" I 
 call upon all of you, when you come to examine that portion of TrumbuH's speech 
 (for it will make a part of mine), to examine whether Trumbull has shifted his 
 ground or hot. I say he did not shift his ground, but that he brought forward his 
 original charge and the evidence to sustain it yjet more fully, but precisely as he 
 originally made it. Then, in addition thereto, he brought in a new piece of evidence. 
 He shifted no ground. He brought no no new piece of evidence inconsistent with 
 his former testimony, but he brought a new piece, tending, as he thought, and as I 
 think, to prove his proposition. To illustrate : A man brings an accusation against 
 another, and on trial the man making the charge introduces A and B to prove the 
 accusation. At a second trial he introduces the same witnesses, who tell the same 
 story as before, and a third witness, who tells the same thing and in addition, gives 
 further testimony corroborative of the charge. So with Trumbull. There was no 
 shifting of ground, nor inconsistency of testimony between the new piece of evidence 
 and what he originally introduced. 
 
 Rut Judge Douglas says that he himself moved to strike out that last provision of 
 the bill, and that on his motion it was stricken out and a substitute inserted. That 
 I presume is the truth. I presume it is true that that last proposition was stricken 
 out by Judge Douglas. Trumbull has not said it was not. Trumbull has himself 
 said that it was so stricken out. He says: "I am speaking of the bill as Judge 
 Douglas reported it back. It was amended somewhat in the Senate before it passed, 
 but I am speaking of it as lie brought it back." Now when Judge Douglas parades 
 the fact that the provision was stricken out of the bill when it came back, he asserts 
 nothing contrary to what Trumbull alleges. Trumbuli has only said that he origin- 
 ally put it in not that he did not strike it out. Trumbull says it was not in the bill 
 when it went to the committee. When it came back it was in, and Judge Douglas 
 said the alterations were made by him in consultation with Toornbs. Trumbull 
 alleges theref >re, as his conclusion, that Judge Douglas put it in. Then if Douglas 
 wants to contradict Trumbuli and call him a liar, let him say he did not put it in, 
 and not that he didn't take it out again. It is said that a bear is sometimes hard 
 enough pushed to drop a cub, and so I presume it was in this case. I presume the 
 truth is that Douglas put it in and afterward took it out. That I take it is the truth 
 about it. Judge Trumbull says one thing ; Douglas says another thing, and the two 
 don't contradict one another at all. The question is, what did tie put it in for ? In 
 the first place what did he take the other provision out of the bill for? the provis- 
 ion which Trumbull argued was necessary for submitting the Constitution to a vote 
 of the people? What did he tak'e that out for? and having taken it out, what did he 
 put this in for? I say that in the run of things, it is not unlikely forces conspire to 
 render it vastly expedient for Judge Douglas to take that latter clause out again. 
 The question that Trumbull has made is that Judge Douglas put it in, and he don't 
 meet Trumbull at all unless he denies that. 
 
 In the clause of Judge Douglas's speech upon this subject he uses this language 
 toward Judge Trumbull. He says : " He forges his evidence from beginning to
 
 141 
 
 nd, and by falsifying the record ho endeavors to bolster up his false charge." 
 Well, that is a pretty serious statement. Trumbull forges his evidence from begin- 
 ning to end. Now upon my own authority I say that it is not true. What is a for- 
 gery ? Consider the evidence that Trumbull has brought forward. When you come 
 to read the speech, as you will be able to, examine whether the evidence is a forgery 
 from beginning to end. He had the bill or document in his hand like that [holding 
 up *, paper]. He says that is a copy of the Toombs bill the amendment offered 
 by Toombs. He says that is a copy of the bill as it was introduced and went into 
 Judge Douglas's hands. Now, does Judge Douglas say that is a forgery ? That is 
 one thing Trumbull brought forward. Judge Douglas says he forged it from be- 
 ginning to end! That is the k< beginning" we will say. Docs Douglas say that is a 
 forgery ? Let him say it to-day and we will have a subsequent examination upon 
 this subject. Trumbull then holds up another document like this and says, that is 
 :m exact copy of the bill as it came back in the amended form out of Judge Doug- 
 las's hands. Does Judge Douglas say that is a forgery? Does he say it in his 
 general sweeping charge ? Does he say so now ? If he does not, then take this 
 Toombs bill and the bill in the amended form, and it only needs to compare them to 
 see that the provision is in the one and not in the other ; it leaves the inference in- 
 evitable that it was taken out. 
 
 But while I am dealing with this question, let us see what TnimbuU's other 
 evidence is. One other piece of evidence I will read. Trumbull says there are in 
 this original Toombs bill these words: "That the following propositions be, and the 
 same are hereby offered to the said Convention of the people of Kansas, when 
 formed, for their free acceptance or rejection ; which, if accepted by the Convention 
 and ratified by the people at the election for the adoption of the Constitution, shall 
 be obligatory upon the United States and the said State of Kansas." Now, if it is 
 said that this is a forgery, we will open the paper here and see whether it is or not. 
 Again, Trumbull says, as he goes along, that Mr. Bigler made the following state- 
 ment in his place in the Senate, December 9, 1857 : 
 
 " I was present when that subject was discussed by Senators before the bill was 
 introduced, and the question was raised and discussed, whether the Constitution, when 
 formed, should be submitted to a vote of the people. It was held by those most in- 
 telligent on the subject, that in view of all the difficulties surrounding that Territory, 
 the danger of any experiment at that time of a popular vote, it would be better 
 there should be no such provision in the Toombs bill ; and it was my understanding, 
 in all the intercourse I had, that the Convention would make a Constitution, and send 
 it herf without submitting it to the popular vote." 
 
 Then Trumbull follows on : "In speaking of this meeting again on the 21st De- 
 cember, 1857 [Congressional Globe, same vol., page 113], Senator Bigler said: 
 
 " ' Nothing was further from my mind than to allude to any social or confiden- 
 tial in .cr view. The meeting was not of that character. Indeed, it was semi-official 
 and called to promote the public good. My recollection was clear that I left the con- 
 ference under the impression that it had been deemed best to adopt measures to ad- 
 mit Kansas as a State through the agency of one popular election, and tbf it for dele- 
 gates to this Convention. This impression was stronger because I thought the spirit 
 of the bill infringed upon the doctrine of non-intervention, to which I had great 
 aversion ; but with the hope of accomplishing a great good, and as no movement had 
 been made in that direction in the Territory, I waived this objection, and concluded 
 to support the measure. I have a few items of testimony as to the correctness of 
 these impressions, and with their submission I shall be content I have before me 
 the bill reported by the Senator from Illinois on the 7th of March, 1856, providing 
 for the admission of Kansas as a State, the third section of which reads as follows : 
 
 " ' That the following propositions be, and the same are hereby offered to the said 
 Convention of the people of Kansas, when formed, for their free acceptance or re- 
 jection ; which, if accepted by the Convention and ratified by the people at the elec- 
 10
 
 142 
 
 tion for the adoption of the Constitution, shall be obligatory upon the United States 
 and the said State of Kansas.' 
 
 " * The bill read in his place by the Senator from Georgia, on the 25th of June, 
 and referred to the Committee on Territories, contained the same section word for word. 
 Both these bills were under consideration at the conference referred to ; but, sir, 
 when the Senator from Illinois reported the Toomba bill to the Senate with amend- 
 ments, the next morning it did not contain that portion of the third section which in- 
 dicated to the Convention that the Constitution should be approved by th^ }tAi;ple. 
 The words, * and ratified by the people, at the election for the adoption of the Consti- 
 tution] had been stricken out.' " 
 
 Now these things Trumbull says were stated by Bigler upon the floor of the Sen 
 ate on certain days, and that they are recorded in the Congressional Globe on certain 
 pages. Does Judge Douglas say this is a forgery ? Does he say there is no such 
 thing in the Congressional Globe ? What does he mean when he says Judge Trum- 
 bull forges his evidence from beginning to end ? So again he says in another place. 
 that Judge Douglas, in his speech December 9, 1857 [Congressional Globe, part 1, 
 page J o], stated : 
 
 That during the last session of Congress, I [Mr. Douglas] reported a bill from 
 the Committee on Territories, to authorize the people of Kansas to assemble and 
 form a Constitution for themselves. Subsequently the Senator from Georgia [Mr. 
 Toombs] brought forward a substitute for my bill, which, after having been modified 
 by him and myself in consultation, was passed by the Senate." 
 
 Now Trumbull says this is a quotation from a speech of Douglas, and is recorded 
 in the Congressional Globe. Is it a forgery ? Is it there or not ? It may not be 
 there, but I want the Judge to take these pieces of evidence, and distinctly say they 
 are forgeries if he dare do it. 
 
 A voice " Pie will." 
 
 Mr. Lincoln Well, sir, you had better not commit him. He gives other quota- 
 tions another from Judge Douglas. He says : 
 
 " I will ask the Senator to show me an intimation, from any one member of the 
 Senate, in the whole debate on the Toombs bill, and in the Union, from any quarter, 
 that the Constitution was not to be submitted to the people. I will venture to say 
 that on all sides of the chamber it was so understood at the time. If the opponents' 
 of the bill had understood it was not, they would have made the point on it ; and if 
 they had made it, we should certainly have yielded to it, and put in the clause. Thai 
 is a discovery made since the President found out that it was not safe to take it foi 
 granted that that would be done, which ought in fairness to have been done." 
 
 Judge Trumbull says Douglas made that speech, and it is recorded. Does Judge 
 Douglas say it is a forgery, and was not true ? Trumbull says somewhere, and I 
 propose to skip it, but it will be found by any one who will read this debate, that he 
 did distinctly bring it to the notice of those who were engineering the bill, that it 
 lacked tL;it provision, and then he goes on to give another quotation from Judge 
 Douglas, where Judge Trumbull uses this language : 
 
 " Judge Douglas, however, on the same day and in the same debate, probably recol- 
 lecting or being reminded of the fact that I had objected to the Toombs bill when 
 pending that it did not provide for a submission of the Constitution to the people, 
 made another statement, which is to be found in the same volume of the Globe, page 
 22, in which he says : 
 
 " ' That the bill was silent on this subject was true, and my attention was called to 
 that about the time it was passed ; and I took the fair construction to be, that powers 
 not delegated were reserved, and that of course the Constitution would be submitted 
 to the people.' m 
 
 "Whether this statement is consistent with the statement just before made, that had 
 the point been made it would have been yielded to, or that it was a new discovery, 
 you .will determine." 
 
 So I sny. I do not know whether Judge Douglas will dispute this, and yet main-
 
 143 
 
 tain his position that TrumbuIFs evidence " was forged from beginning to end." I 
 will remark that I have not got these Congressional Globes with me. They are 
 large books and difficult to carry about, and if Judge Douglas shall say that on these 
 points where Trumbull has quoted from them, there are no such passages there, I 
 shall not be able to prove they are there upon this occasion, but I will have another 
 chance. Whenever he points out the forgery and says, " I declare that this particu- 
 lar thing which Trumbull has uttered is not to be found where he says it is," then 
 my attention will be drawn to that, and I will arm myself for the contest stating 
 now that I have not the slightest doubt on earth that I will find every quotation just 
 where Trumbull says it is. Then the question is, how can Douglas call that a for- 
 gery ? How can he make out that it is a forgery ? What is a forgery ? It is the 
 bringing forward something in writing or in print purporting to be of certain effect 
 when it is altogether untrue. If you come forward with my note for one hundred 
 dollars when I have never given such a note, there is a forgery. If you come for- 
 ward with a letter purporting to be written by me which I never wrote, there is an- 
 other forgery. If you produce any thing in writing or in print saying it is so and so, 
 the document not being genuine, a forgery has been committed. How do you make 
 this a forgery when every piece of the evidence is genuine ? If Judge Douglas 
 does say these documents and quotations are false and forged, he has a full right to 
 do so, but until he does it specifically we don't know how to get at him. If he does 
 say they are false and forged, I will then look further into it, and I presume I can 
 procure the certificates of the proper officers that they are genuine copies. I have 
 no doubt each of these extracts will be found exactly where Trumbull says it is. 
 Then I leave it to you if Judge Douglas, in making his sweeping charge that Judge 
 TruinbulPs evidence is forged from beginning to end, at all meets the case if that is 
 the way to get at the facts. I repeat again, if he will point out which one is a for- 
 gery, I will carefully examine it, and if it proves that any one of them is really a 
 forgery it will not be me who will hold to it any longer. I have always wanted to 
 deal with every one I meet candidly and honestly. If I have made any assertion 
 not warranted by facts, and it is pointed out to me, I will withdraw it cheerfully. 
 But I do not choose to see Judge Trumbull calumniated, and the evidence he has 
 brought forward branded in general terms, " a forgery from beginning to end." This 
 is not the legal way of meeting a charge, and I submit to all intelligent persons, both 
 friends of Judge Douglas and of myself, whether it is. 
 
 The point upon Judge Douglas is this. The bill that went into his hands had the 
 provision in it for a submission of the Constitution to the people ; and I say its lan- 
 guage amounts to an express provision for a submission, and that he took the provis- 
 ion out. He says it was known that the bill was silent in this particular; but I say., 
 Judge Douglas, it was not silent wlien you got it. It was vocal with the declaration 
 when you got it, for a submission of the Constitution to the people. And noAv, my 
 direct question to Judge Douglas is, to answer why, if he deemed the bill silent on 
 this point, he found it necessary to strike out those particular harmless words. If 
 he had found the bill silent and without this provision, he might say what he does 
 now. If he supposes it was implied that the Constitution would be submitted to a 
 vote of the people, how could these two lines so encumber the statute as to make it 
 necessary to strike them out? How could he infer that a submission was still im- 
 plied, after its express provision had been stricken from the bill ? I find the bill vo- 
 cal with the provision, while he silenced it. He took it out, and although he took out 
 the other provision preventing a submission to a vote of the people, I ask, why did 
 you first put it in t- I ask him whether he took the original provision out, which 
 Trumbull alleges was in the bill ? If he admits that he did take it, / ask him 
 what he did for it f It looks to us as if he had altered the bill. If it looks differently 
 to him if he has a different reason for his action from the one we assign him he can 
 tell it. I insist upon knowing why he made the bill silent upon that point when it was 
 vocal before he put his hands upon it.
 
 144 
 
 I was told, before ray last paragraph, that my time was within three minutes of 
 being out. I presume it is expired now. I therefore close. 
 
 SENATOR DOUGLAS'S SPEECH. 
 
 LADIES AND GENTLEMEN : I had supposed that we assembled here to-day for 
 the purpose of a joint discussion between Mr. Lincoln and myself, upon the political 
 questions that now agitate the whole country. The rule of such discussions is, that 
 the opening speaker shall touch upon ah 1 the points he intends to discuss, in order that 
 his opponent, in reply, shall have the opportunity of answering them. Let me ask 
 you what questions of public policy, relating to the welfare of this State or the Un- 
 ion, has Mr. Lincoln discussed before you ? Mr. Lincoln simply contented himself at 
 the outset by saying, that he was not in favor of social and political equality between 
 the white man and the negro, and did not desire the law so changed as to make the latter 
 voters or eligible to office. I am glad that I have at last succeeded in getting an an- 
 swer out of him upon this question of negro citizenship and eligibility to office, for I 
 have been trying to bring him to the point on it ever since this canvass commenced. 
 
 I will now call your attention to the question which Mr. Lincoln has occupied his 
 entire time in discussing. He spent his whole hour in retailing a charge made by 
 Senator Trumbull against me. The circumstances out of which that charge was man- 
 ufactured, occurred prior to the last Presidential election, over two years ago. If 
 the charge was true, why did not Trumbull make it in 1856, when I was discussing 
 the questions of that day all over this State with Lincoln and him, and when it wa^s 
 pertinent to the then issue? He was then as silent as the grave on the subject. If 
 that charge was true, the time to have brought it forward was the canvass of 1856, 
 the year when the Toombs bill passed the Senate. When the facts were fresh in the 
 public mind, when the Kansas question was the paramount question of the day, and 
 when such a charge would have had a material bearing on the election, why did 
 he and Lincoln remain silent then, knowing that such a charge could be made and 
 proven if true ? Were they not false to you and false to the country in going through 
 that entire campaign, concealing their knowledge of this enormous conspiracy which, 
 Mr. Trumbull says, he then knew and would not tell ? Mr. Lincoln intimates, in his 
 speech, a good reason why Mr. Trumbull would not tell, for, he says, that it might 
 be true, as I proved that it was at Jacksonville, that Trumbull was also in the 
 plot, yet that the fact of Trumbull's being in the plot would not in any way relievo 
 me. He illustrates this argument by supposing himself on trial for murder, and says 
 that it would be no extenuating circumstance if, on his trial, another man was found 
 to be a party to his crime. Weil, if Trumbull was in the plot, and concealed it in 
 order to escape the odium which would have fallen upon himself, I ask you 
 whether you can believe him now when he turns State's evidence, and avows his own 
 infamy in order to implicate me. I am amazed that Mr. Lincoln should now come 
 forward and indorse that charge, occupying his whole hour in reading Mr. Trumbull's 
 speech in support of it. Why, I ask, does not Mr. Lincoln make a speech of his 
 own instead of taking up his time reading TrumbulFs speech at Alton ? I supposed 
 that Mr. Lincoln was capable of making a public speech on his own account, or I 
 should not hav3 accepted the banter from him for a joint discussion. ["How about 
 the charges?"] Do not trouble yourselves, I am going to make my speech in my 
 own way, and I trust, as the Democrats listened patiently and respectfully to Mr. 
 Lincoln, that his friends will not interrupt me when I am answering him. When 
 Mr. Trumbull returned from the East, the first thing he did when he landed at Chi- 
 cago was to make a speech wholly devoted to assaults upon my public character and 
 public action. Up to that time I had never alluded to his course in Congress, or to 
 him directly or indirectly, and hence his assaults upon me were entirely without prov- 
 ocation and without excuse. Since then he has been traveling from one end of the
 
 145 
 
 
 
 State to the other repeating his vile charge. I propose now to read it in his own 
 language : 
 
 " Now, fellow-citizens, I make the distinct charge, that there was a preconcerted 
 arrangement and plot entered into by the very men who now claim credit for oppos- 
 ing a Constitution formed and put in force without giving the people any opportunity 
 to pass upon it. This, my friends, is a serious charge, but I charge it to-night that 
 th<3 very men who traverse the country under banners proclaiming popular sover- 
 eignty, by design concocted a bill on purpose to force a Constitution upon that peo- 
 pie." 
 
 In answer to some one in the crowd, who asked him a question, Trumbull said: 
 
 "And you want to satisfy yourself that he was in the plot to force a Constitution 
 upon that people? I will satisfy you. I will crarn the truth down any honest man's 
 throat until he cannot deny it. And to the man who does deny it, I will cram the 
 lie down his throat till he shall cry enough. 
 
 " It is preposterous it is the most damnable effrontery that man ever put on, to 
 conceal a scheme to defraud and cheat the people out of their rights and then claim 
 credit for it." 
 
 That is the polite language Senator Trumbull applied to me, his colleague, when 
 I was two hundred miles off. Why did he not speak out as boldly in the Senate of 
 the United States, and cram the lie down my throat when I denied the charge, first 
 made by Bigler, and made him take it back? You all recollect how Bigler assaulted 
 me when I was engaged in a hand-to-hand fight, resisting a scheme to force a Con- 
 stitution on the people of Kansas against their will. He then attacked me with this 
 charge ; but I proved its utter falsity ; nailed the slander to the counter, and made 
 him take the back track. There is not an honest man in America who read that 
 debate who will pretend that the charge is true. Trumbull was then present in the 
 Senate, face to face with me, and why did he not then rise and repeat the charge, 
 and say he would cram the lie down my throat ? I tell you that Trumbull then knew 
 it was a lie. He knew that Toombs denied that there ever was a clause in the bill 
 he brought forward, calling for and requiring a submission of the Kansas Constitu- 
 tion to the people. 1 will tell you what the facts of the case were. I introduced a 
 bill to authorize the people of Kansas to form a Constitution, and come into the 
 Union as a State whenever they should have the requisite population for a member 
 of Congress, and Mr. Toombs proposed a substitute, authorizing the people of Kan- 
 sas, with their then population of only 25,000, to form a Constitution, and come in 
 at once. The question at issue was, whether we would admit Kansas with a popu- 
 lation of 25,000, or, make her wait until she had the ratio entitling her to a repre- 
 sentative in Congress, which was 93,4*20. That was the point of dispute in the Com- 
 mittee of Territories, to which both my bill and Mr. Toombs's substitute had been 
 referred. I was overruled by a majority of the committee, my proposition rejected, 
 ;md Mr. Toombs's proposition to admit Kansas then, with her population of 25,000, 
 adopted. Accordingly, a bill to carry out his idea of immediate admission was re- 
 ported as a substitute for mine the only points at issue being, as I have already 
 said, the question of population, and the adoption of safeguards against frauds at the 
 election. Trumbull knew this the whole Senate knew it and hence he was silent 
 at that time. He waited until I became engaged in this canvass, and finding that I 
 was showing up Lincoln's Abolitionism and negro equality doctrines, that I was driv- 
 ing Lincoln to the wall, and white men would not support his rank Abolitionism, he 
 came back from the East and trumped up a system of charges against me, hoping 
 that I would be compelled to occupy my entire time in defending myself, so that I 
 would not be able to show up the enormity of the principles of the Abolitionists. 
 Now the only reason, and the true reason, why Mr. Lincoln has occupied the whole 
 of his first hour in this issue between Trumbull and myself, is, to conceal from this 
 vast audience the real questions which divide the two great parties. 
 
 I am not going to allow them to waste much of my time with these personal mat- 
 ters. I have lived in this State twenty-five years, most of that time have been in
 
 146 
 i 
 
 public life, and my record is open to you all. If that record is not enough to vindi- 
 cate me from these petty, malicious assaults, I despise ever to be elected to office by 
 slandering my opponents and traducing other men. Mr. Lincoln asks you to elect 
 him to the United States Senate to-day solely because he and Trumbull can slander 
 me. Has he given any other reason ? Has he avowed what he was desirous to do 
 in Ccagress on any one question ? He desires to ride into office, not upon his own 
 merits, not upon the merits and soundness of his principles, but upon his success in 
 fastening a stale old slander upon me. 
 
 I wish you to bear in mind that up to the time of the introduction of the Toombs 
 bill, and after its introduction, there had never been an act of Congress for the ad- 
 mission of a new State which contained a clause requiring its Constitution to be sub- 
 mitted to the people. The general rule made the law silent on the subject, taking it 
 for granted that the people would demand and compel a popular vote on the ratifica- 
 tion of their Constitution. Such was the general rule under Washington, Jefferson, 
 Madison, Jackson and Polk, under the Whig Presidents and the Democratic Presi- 
 dents from the beginning of the Government down, and nobody dreamed that an ef- 
 fort would ever be made to abuse the power thus confided to the people of a Terri- 
 tory. For this reason our attention was not called to the fact of whether there was 
 or was not a clause in the Toombs bill compelling submission, but it was taken for 
 granted that the Constitution would be submitted to the people whether the law com- 
 pelled it or not. 
 
 Now, I will read from the report by me as Chairman of the Committee on Terri- 
 tories at the time I reported back the Toombs substitute to the Senate. It contained 
 several things which I had voted against in committee, but had been overruled by a 
 majority of the members, and it was my duty as chairman of the committee to re- 
 port the bill back as it was agreed upon by them. The main point upon which I 
 had been overruled was the question of population. In my report accompanying the 
 Toombs bill, I said : 
 
 * In the opinion of your Committee, whenever a Constitution shall be formed in 
 any Territory, preparatory to its admission into the Union as a State, justice, the 
 genius of our institutions, the whole theory of our republican system, imperatively 
 demand that the voice of the people shall be fairly expressed, and their will embodied 
 in that fundamental law, without fraud, or violence, or intimidation, or any other 
 improper or unlawful influence, and subject to no other restrictions than those im- 
 posed by the Constitution of the United States." 
 
 There you find that we took it for granted that the Constitution was to be sub- 
 mitted to the people, whether the bill was silent on the subject or not. Suppose I 
 had reported it so, following the example of Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madi- 
 son Monroe, Adams, Jackson, Van Buren, Harrison, Tyler, Polk, Taylor, Fillmore, 
 anC Pierce, would that fact have been evidence of a conspiracy to force a Constitu- 
 tion upon the people of Kansas against their will ? If the charge which Mr. Lin- 
 coln makes be true against me, it is true against Zachary Taylor, Millard Fillmore, 
 and every Whig President, as well as every Democratic I 3 resident, and against 
 Henry Clay, who, in the Senate or House, for forty years advocated bills similar to 
 the one I reported, no one of them containing a clause compelling the submission of 
 the Constitution to the people. Are Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Trumbull prepared tc 
 charge upon all those eminent men from the beginning of the Government down to 
 the present day, that the absence of a provision compelling submission, in the various 
 bills passed by them, authorizing the people of Territories to form State Constitu- 
 tions, is evidence of a corrupt design on their part to force a Constitution upon an 
 unwilling people ? 
 
 I ask you to reflect on these things, for I tell you that there is a conspiracy to 
 carry this election for the Black Republicans by slander, and not by, fair means. Mr. 
 Lincoln's speech this day is conclusive evidence of the fact. He has devoted his 
 entire time to an issue between Mr. Trumbull and myself, and has not uttered a 
 word about the politics of the day. Are you going to elect Mr. Trumbull's col
 
 147 
 
 league upon an issue between Mr. Trumbull and me ? I thought I was running 
 against Abraham Lincoln, that he claimed to be my opponent, had challenged me to 
 a discussion of the public questions of the day with him, and was discussing these 
 questions with me ; but it turns out that his only hope is to ride into office on Trum- 
 bull's back, who will carry him by falsehood. 
 
 Permit me to pursue this subject a little further. An examination of the record 
 proves that Truinbull's charge that the Toombs bill originally contained a clause 
 requiring the Constitution to be submitted to the people is false. The printed 
 copy of the bill which Mr. Lincoln held up before you, and which he pretends con- 
 tains such a clause, merely contains a clause requiring a submission of the land 
 grant, and there is no clause in it requiring a submission of the Constitution. Mr. 
 Lincoln cannot find such a clause in it. My report shows that we took it for granted 
 that the people would require a submission of the Constitution, and secure it for 
 themselves. There never was a clause in the Toombs bill requiring the Constitu- 
 tion to be submitted ; Trumbull knew it at the time, and his speech made on the night 
 of its passage discloses the fact that he knew it was silent on the subject ; Lincoln 
 pretends, and tells you that Trumbull has not changed his evidence in support of his 
 charge since he made his speech in Chicago. Let us see. The Chicago Time* 
 took up Trumbull's Chicago speech, compared it with the official records of Con- 
 gress, and proved that speech to be false in its charge that the original Toombs bill 
 required a submission of the Constitution to the people. Trumbull then saw that 
 he was caught and his falsehood exposed and he went to Alton, and, under the 
 very walls of the penitentiary, made a new speech, in which he predicated his as- 
 sault upon me in the allegation that I had caused to be voted into the Toombs bill a 
 clause which prohibited the Convention from submitting the Constitution to the peo- 
 ple, and quoted what he pretended was the clause. Now, has not Mr. Trumbull en- 
 tirely changed the evidence on which he bases his charge ? The clause which he quoted 
 in his Alton speech (which he has published and circulated broadcast over the State) 
 as having been put into the Toombs bill by me, is in the following words : 
 
 " And until the complete execution of this act, no other election shall be held in 
 said Territory*" 
 
 Trumbull says that the object of that amendment was to prevent the Convention 
 from submitting the Constitution to a vote of the people. 
 
 Now, I will show you that when Trumbull made that statement at Altoii he knew 
 it to be untrue. I read from Trumbull's speech in the Senate on the Toombs bill 
 on the night of its passage. He then said : 
 
 " There is nothing said in this bill, so far as I have discovered, about submitting 
 the Constitution, which is to be formed, to the people for their sanction or rejec- 
 tion. Perhaps the Convention will have the right to submit it, if it should think 
 proper, but it is certainly not compelled to do so according to the provisions of 
 the bill." 
 
 Thus you see that Trumbull, when the bill was on its passage in the Senate, said 
 that it was silent on the subject of submission, and that there was nothing in the bill 
 one way or the other on it. In his Alton speech he says there was a clause in the bill 
 preventing its submission to the people, and that I had it voted in as an amendment. 
 I'll us I convict him of falsehood and slander by quoting from him on the passage of 
 the Toombs bill in the Senate of the United States, his own speech, made on the 
 night of July 2, 185G, and reported in the Congressional Globe for the first session 
 of the thirty -fourth Congress, vol. 33. What will you think of a man who makes a 
 false charge and falsifies the records to prove it? I will now show you that the clause 
 which Trumbull says was put in the bill on my motion, was never put in at all by 
 me, but was stricken out. on my motion arid another substituted in its place. I call 
 your attention to the same volume of the Congressional Globe to which I have al- 
 ready referred, page 795, where you will find the following report of the proceedings 
 of the Senate : 
 
 u Mr. Douglas I have an amendment to offer from the Committee on Territories.
 
 148 
 
 On page 8, section 11, strike out the words ' until the complete execution of this act, 
 no other election shall be held in said Territory,' and insert the amendment which I 
 hold in my hand." 
 
 You see from this that I moved to strike out the very words that Trumbull saya 
 I put in. The Committee on Territories overruled me in Committee and put the 
 clause in, but as soon as I got the bill back into the Senate, I moved to strike it out 
 and put another clause in its place. On the same page you will find that my amend- 
 ment was agreed to unanimously. I then offered another amendment, recognizing 
 the right of the people of Kansas, under the Toombs bill, to order just such elections 
 as they saw proper. You can find it on page 706 of the same volume. I will 
 read it : 
 
 " Mr. Douglas I have another amendment to offer from the Committee, to fol- 
 low the amendment which has been adopted. The bill reads now: * And until the 
 complete execution of this act, no other election shall be held in said Territory/ 
 It has been suggested that it should be modified in this way : * And to avoid conflict 
 in the complete execution of this act, all other elections in said Territory are hereby 
 postponed until such time as said Convention shall appoint,' so that they can appoint 
 the day in the event that there should be a failure to conic into the Union." 
 
 The amendment was unanimously agreed to clearly and distinctly recognizing 
 the right of the Convention to order just as many elections as they saw proper in 
 the execution of the act. Trumbull concealed in his Alton speech the fact that the 
 clause he quoted had been stricken out in my motion, and the other fact that this 
 other clause was put in the bill on my motion, and made the false charge that I -in- 
 corporated into the bill a clause preventing submission, in the face of the fact, that, 
 on my motion, the bill was so amended before it passed as to recognize in express 
 words the right and duty of submission. 
 
 On this record that I have produced before you, I repeat rny charge that Trum- 
 bull did falsify the public records of the country, in order to make his charge against 
 me, and I tell Mr. Abraham Lincoln that if lie will examine these records, lie will 
 then know that what I state is true. Mr. Lincoln has this day indorsed Mr. Trum- 
 bull's veracity after he had my word for it that that veracity was proved to be vio- 
 lated and forfeited by the public records. It will not do for Mr. Lincoln in parad- 
 ing his calumnies against me, to put Mr. Trumbull between him and the odium and 
 responsibility which justly attaches to such calumnies. I tell him that I am as 
 ready to prosecute the indorser as the maker of a forged note. I regret the neces- 
 sity of occupying my time with these petty personal matters. It is unbecoming the 
 dignity of a canvass for an office of the character for which we are candidates. 
 When I commenced the canvass at Chicago, I spoke of Mr. Lincoln in terms of 
 kindness as an old friend I said that he was a good citizen, of unblemished charac- 
 ter,, against whom I had nothing to say. I repeated these complimentary remarks 
 about him in my successive speeches, until he became the indorser for these and 
 other slanders against me. If there is any thing personally disagreeable, uncourteous 
 or disreputable in these personalities, the sole responsibility rests on Mr. Lincoln, 
 Mr. Trumbull and their backers. 
 
 I will show you another charge made by Mr. Lincoln against me, as an offset to 
 his determination of willingness to take back any thing that is incorrect, and to cor- 
 rect any false statement he may have made. He has several times charged that the 
 Supreme Court, President Pierce, President Buchanan, and myself, at the time 
 I introduced the Nebraska bill in January, 1854, at Washington, entered into a con- 
 spiracy to establish slavery all over this country. I branded this charge as a false- 
 hood, and then he repeated it, asked me to analyze its truth and answer it. I told 
 him, " Mr. Lincoln, I know what you are after you want to occupy my time in 
 personal matters, to prevent me from showing up the revolutionary principles which 
 the Abolition party whose candidate you are have proclaimed to the world." 
 But he asked me to analyze his proof, and I did so. I called his attention to the 
 fact that at the time the Nebraska bill was introduced, there was no such case as the
 
 149 
 
 Dred Scott case pending yi the Supreme Court, nor was it brought there for years 
 afterward, and hence that it was impossible there could have been any such con- 
 spiracy between the Judges of the Supreme Court and the other parties involved. 
 I proved by the record that the charge was false, and what did he answer ? Did he 
 take it back like an honest man and say that he had been mistaken ? No ; he re- 
 peated the charge, and said, that although there was nc such case pending that year, 
 there was an understanding between the Democratic owners of Dred Scolt and the 
 Judges of the Supreme Court and other parties involved, that the case should be 
 brought up. I then demanded to know who these Democratic owners of Dred Scott 
 were. He could not or would not tell ; he did not know. In truth, there were no 
 Democratic owners of Dred Scott on the face of the land. Dred Scott was owned 
 at that time by the Rev. Dr. Chaffee, an Abolition member of Congress from 
 Springfield, Massachusetts, and his wife ; and Mr. Lincoln ought to have known that 
 Dred Scott was so owned, for the reason that as soon as the decision was announced 
 by the court, Dr. Chaffee and his wife executed a deed emancipating him, and put 
 that deed on record. It was a matter of public record, therefore, that at the time 
 the case was taken to the Supreme Court, Dred Scott was owned by an Abolition 
 member of Congress, a friend of Lincoln's, and a leading man of his party, while 
 the defense was conducted by Abolition lawyers and thus the Abolitionists man- 
 aged both sides of the case. I have exposed these facts to Mr. Lincoln, and yet he 
 will not withdraw his charge of conspiracy. I now submit to you whether you can 
 place any confidence in a man who continues to make a charge when its utter falsity 
 is proven by the public records. I will state another fact to show how utterly reck- 
 less and unscrupulous this charge against the Supreme Court, President Pierce, 
 President Buchanan and myself is. Lincoln says that President Buchanan was 
 in the conspiracy at Washington in the winter of 1854, when the Nebraska bill 
 was introduced. The history of this country shows that James Buchanan was at 
 that time representing this country at the Court of St. James, Great Britain, with 
 distinguished ability and usefulness, that he had not been in the United States for 
 nearly a year previous, and that he did not return until about three years after. Yet 
 Mr. Lincoln keeps repeating this charge of conspiracy against Mr. Buchanan when 
 the public records prove it to be untrue. Having proved it to be false as far as the 
 Supreme Court and President Buchanan are concerned, I drop it, leaving the pub- 
 lic to say whether I, by myself, without their concurrence, could have gone into a 
 conspiracy with them. My friends, you see that the object clearly is to conduct the 
 canvass on personal matters, and hunt me down with charges that are proven to be 
 false by the public records of the country. I am willing to throw open my whole 
 public and private life to the inspection of any man, or all men who desire to inves- 
 tigate it. Having resided among you twenty-five years, Curing nearly the whole of 
 which time a public man, exposed to more assaults, perhaps more abuse than any 
 man living of my age, or who ever did live, and having survived it all and still com- 
 mtnded your confidence, I am willing to trust to your knowledge of me and my pub- 
 lic conduct without making any more defense against these assaults. 
 
 Fellow-citizens, I came here for the purpose of discussing the leading political 
 topics which now agitate the country. I have no charges to make against Mr. Lin- 
 coln, none against Mr. Trumbull, and none against any man who is a candidate, ex- 
 cept in repelling their assaults upon me. If Mr. Lincoln is a man of bad character, 
 I leave you to find it out ; if his votes in the past are not satisfactory, I leave others 
 to ascertain the fact ; if his course on the Mexican war was not in accordance with 
 your notions of patriotism and fidelity to our own country as against a public enemy, 
 I leave you to ascertain the fact. I have no assaults to make upon him, except to 
 trace his course on the questions that now divide the country and engross so much of 
 the people's attention. 
 
 You know that prior to 1854 this country was divided into two great political par- 
 ties, one; the Whig, the other the Democratic. I, as a Democrat for twenty years 
 prior to that time, had been in public discussions in this State as an advocate of Dem-
 
 150 
 
 ocratic principles, and I can appeal with confidence to every old line Whig within 
 the hearing of my voice to bear testimony that during all that period I fought you 
 Whigs like a man on every question that separated the two parties. I had the high- 
 est respect for Henry Clay as a gallant party leader, as an eminent statesman, and as 
 one of the bright ornaments of this country ; but I conscientiously believed that the 
 Democratic party was right on the questions which separated the Democrats from 
 the Whigs. The man does not live who can say that I ever personally assailed 
 Henry Clay or Daniel Webster, or any one of the leaders of that great party, whilst 
 I combated with all my energy the measures they advocated. What did we differ 
 about in those days? Did Whigs and Democrats differ about this slavery question? 
 On the contrary, did we not, in 1850, unite to a man in favor of that system of Com- 
 promise measures which Mr. Clay introduced, ^Webster defended, Cass supported, 
 and Fillmore approved and made the law of the land by his signature. While we 
 agreed on those Compromise measures, we differed about a bank, the tariff, distribu- 
 tion, the specie circular, the sub-treasury, and other questions of that description. 
 Now, let me ask you, which one of those questions on which Whigs and Democrats 
 then differed now remains to divide the two great parties ? Every one of those ques- 
 tions which divided Whigs and Democrats has passed away, the country has outgrown 
 them, they have passed into history. Hence it is immaterial whether you were right 
 or I was right on the bank, the sub-treasury, and other 'questions, because they no 
 longer continue living issues. What, then, has taken the place of those questions 
 about which we once differed ? The slavery question has now become the leading 
 and controlling issue ; that question on which you and I agreed, on which the Whigs 
 and Democrats united, has now become the leading issue between the National De- 
 mocracy on the one side, and the Republican or Abolition party on the other. 
 
 Just recollect for a moment the memorable contest of 1850, when this country was 
 agitated from its center to its circumference by the slavery agitation. All eyes in 
 this nation were then turned to the three great lights that survived the days of the 
 Revolution. They looked to Clay, then in retirement at Ashland, and to Webster 
 and Cass in the United States Senate. Clay had retired to Ashland, having, as he 
 supposed, performed his mission on earth, and was preparing himself for a better 
 sphere of existence in another world. In that retirement he heard the discordant, 
 harsh and grating sounds of sectional strife and disunion, and he aroused and came 
 forth and resumed his seat in the Senate, that great theater of his great deeds. From 
 the moment that Clay arrived among us he became the leader of all the Union men, 
 whether Whigs or Democrats. For nine months we each assembled, each day, in the 
 council-chamber, Clay in the chair, with Cass upon his right hand and Webster upon 
 liis left, and the Democrats and Whigs gathered around, forgetting differences, and 
 only animated by one common, patriotic sentiment to devise means and measures by 
 which we could defeat the mad and revolutionary scheme of the Northern Abolition- 
 its and Southern disunionists. We did devise those means. Clay brought them for- 
 ward, Cass advocated them, the Union Democrats and Union Whigs voted for them, 
 Fillmore signed them, and they gave peace and quiet to the country. Those Com- 
 promise measures of 1850 were founded upon the great fundamental principle that 
 the people of each State and each Territory ought to be left free to form and regu- 
 late their own domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to the Federal 
 Constitution. I will ask every old line Democrat and every old line Whig within the 
 hearing of my voice, if I have not truly stated the issues as they then presented 
 themselves to the country. You recollect that the Abolitionists raised a howl of in- 
 dignation, and cried for vengeance and the destruction of Democrats and Whigs both, 
 who supported those Compromise measures of 1850. When I returned home to 
 Chicago, I found the citizens inflamed and infuriated against the authors of those 
 great measures. Being the only man in that city who was held responsible for af- 
 firmative votes on all those measures, 1 came forward and addressed the assembled 
 inhabitants, defended each and every one of Clay's Compromise measures as they 
 passed the Senate and the House, and were approved by President Fillmore. Fre-
 
 151 
 
 vious to that time, the city council had passed resolutions nullifying the act of Con- 
 gress, and instructing the police to withhold all assistance from its execution ; but 
 the people of Chicago listened to my defense, and like candid, frank, conscientious 
 men, when' they became convinced that they had done an injustice to Clay, Webster, 
 Cass, and all of us who had supported those measures, they repealed their nullifying 
 resolutions and declared that the laws should be executed and the supremacy of the 
 Constitution maintained. Let it always be recorded in history to the immortal honor 
 of the people of Chicago, that they returned to their duty when they found that they 
 were wrong, and did justice to those whom they had blamed and abused unjustly. 
 When the Legislature of this State assembled that year, they proceeded to pass res- 
 olutions approving the Compromise measures of 1850. When the Whig party as- 
 sembled in 1852 at Baltimore in National Convention for the last time, to nominate 
 Scott for the Presidency, they adopted as a part of their platform the Compromise 
 measures of 1850 as the cardinal plank upon which every Whig would stand and 
 by which he would regulate his future conduct. When the Democratic party assem- 
 bled at the same place one month after, to nominate General Pierce, we adopted the 
 same platform so far as those Compromise measures were concerned, agreeing that 
 we would stand by those glorious measures as a cardinal article in the Democratic 
 faith. Thus you see that in 1852 all the old Whigs and all the old Democrats stood 
 on a common plank so far as this slavery question was concerned, differing on other 
 questions. 
 
 Now, let me ask, how is it that since that time so many of you Whigs have wan- 
 dered from the true path marked out by Clay and carried out broad and wide by the 
 great Webster? How is it that so many old line Democrats have abandoned the 
 old faith of their party, and joined with Abolitionism and Freesoilism. to overturn 
 the platform of the old Democrats, and the platform of the old Whigs ? You can- 
 not deny that since 1854 there has been a great revolution on this one question. 
 How has it been brought about ? I answer, that no sooner was the sod grown green 
 over he grave of the immortal Clay, no sooner was the rose planted on the tomb of 
 the god-like Webster, than many of the leaders of the Whig party, such as Seward, 
 of New York, and his followers, led off and attempted to abolitionize the Whig 
 party, and transfer all your old Whigs, bound hand and foot, into the Abolition camp. 
 Seizing hold of the temporary excitement produced in this country by the introduc- 
 tion of the Nebraska bill, the disappointed politicians in the Democratic party united 
 with the disappointed politicians in the Whig party, and endeavored to ibrm a new 
 party composed of all the Abolitionists, of abolitionized Democrats and abolitionized 
 Whigs, banded together in an Abolition platform. 
 
 And who led that crusade against National principles in this State? I answer, 
 Abraham Lincoln on behalf of the Whigs, and Lyman Trumbull on behalf of the 
 Democrats, formed a scheme by which they would abolitionize the two great paries 
 in this State on condition that Lincoln Should be sent to the United States Senate in 
 place of General Shields, and that Trumbull should go to Congress from the Belle- 
 ville District, until I would be accommodating enough either to die or resign for his 
 benefit, and then he was to go to the Senate in my place. You all remember that 
 during the year 1854, these two worthy gentlemen, Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Trumbull, 
 one an old line Whig and the other an old line Democrat, were hunting in partner- 
 ship to elect a Legislature against the Democratic party. I canvassed the State that 
 year from the time I returned home until the election came off, and spoke in every 
 county that I could reach during that period. In the northern part of the State I 
 found Lincoln's ally, in the person of FRED DOUGLASS, THE NEGRO, preaching Abo- 
 lition doctrines, while Lincoln was discussing the same principles down here, and 
 Trumbull, a little farther down, was advocating the election of members to the Legis- 
 lature who would act in concert with Lincoln's and Fred Douglass's friends. I wit- 
 nessed an effort made at Chicago by Lincoln's then associates, and now supporters, 
 to put Fred Douglass, the negro, on the stand at a Democratic meeting, to reply to 
 the illustrious General Cass, when he was addressing the people there. They had
 
 152 
 
 the same negro hunting me down, and they now have a negro traversing the northern 
 counties of the State, and speaking in behalf of Lincoln. Lincoln knows that when 
 we were at Freeport in joint discussion, there was a distinguished colored friend of 
 his there then who was on the stump for him, and who made a speech there the night 
 before we spoke, and another the night after, a short distance from Freeport, in favor 
 of Lincoln, and in order to show how much interest the colored brethren felt in the 
 success of their brother Abe, I have with me here, and would read it if it would not 
 occupy too much of my time, a speech made by Fred Douglass in Poughkeepsie, N. 
 Y., 9. short time since, to a large Convention, in which he conjures all the friends of 
 negro equality and negro citizenship to rally as one man around Abraham Lincoln, 
 the perfect embodiment of their principles, and by all means to defeat Stephen A. 
 Douglas. Thus you find that this Republican party in the northern part of the 
 State had colored gentlemen for their advocates in 1854, in company with Lincoln 
 and Trumbull, as they have now. When, in October, 1854, 1 went down to Spring- 
 field to attend the State Fair, I found the leaders of this party all assembled together 
 under the title of an anti-Nebraska meeting. It was Black Republicans up north, 
 and anti-Nebraska at Springfield. I found Lovejoy, a high-priest of Abolitionism, 
 and Lincoln, one of the leaders who was towing the old line Whigs into the Abo- 
 lition camp, and Trumbull, Sidney Breese, and Governor Reynolds, all making 
 speeches against the Democratic party and myself, at the same place and in the same 
 cause. The same men who are now fighting the Democratic party and the regular 
 Democratic nominees in this State, were fighting us then. They did not then ac- 
 knowledge that they had become Abolitionists, and many of them deny it now. 
 Breese, Dougherty and Reynolds were then fighting the Democracy under the title 
 of anti-Nebraska men, and now they are fighting the Democracy under the pretense 
 that they are simon pure Democrats, saying that they are authorized to have every 
 office-holder in Illinois beheaded who prefers the election of Douglas to that of Lin- 
 coln, or the success of the Democratic ticket in preference to the Abolition ticket for 
 members of Congress, State officers, members of the Legislature, or any office in the 
 State. They canvassed the State against us in 1854, as they are doing now, owning 
 different names and different principles in different localities, but having a common 
 object in view, viz : The defeat of all men holding national principles in opposition 
 to this sectional Abolition party. They carried the Legislature in 1854, and when 
 it assembled in Springfield they proceeded to elect a United States Senator, all voting 
 for Lincoln with one or two exceptions, which exceptions prevented them from quite 
 electing him. And why should they not elect him ? Had not Trumbull agreed that 
 Lincoln should have Shields's place? Had not the Abolitionists agreed to it? Was 
 it not the solemn compact, the condition on which Lincoln agreed to abolitionize the 
 old Whigs that he should be Senator ? Still, Trumbull having control of a few abo- 
 htionized Democrats, would not allow them all to vote for Lincoln on any one ballot, 
 and thus kept him for some time within one or two votes of an election, until he wor- 
 ried out Lincoln's friends, and compelled them to drop him and elect Trumbull in 
 violation of the bargain. I desire to read you a piece of testimony in confirmation 
 of the notoriously public facts which I have stated to you. Col. James H. Matheny, 
 of Springfield, is, and for twenty years has been, the confidential personal and polit- 
 ical friend and manager of Mr. Lincoln. Matheny is this very day the candidate of 
 the Republican or Abolition party for Congress against the gallant Major Thos. L. 
 Harris, in the Springfield District, and is making speeches for Lincoln and against 
 me. I will read you the testimony of Matheny about this bargain between Lincoln 
 and Trumbull when they undertook to abolitionize Whigs and Democrats only four 
 years ago. Matheny being mad at Trumbull for having played a Yankee trick on 
 Lincoln, exposed the bargain in a public speech two years ago, and I will read the 
 published report of that speech, the correctness of which Mr. Lincoln will not deny : 
 "The Whigs, Abolitionists, Know Nothings, and renegade Democrats, made a 
 solemn compact for the purpose of carrying this State against the Democracy on this 
 plan: 1st. That they would all combine and elect Mr. Trumbull to Congress, and
 
 153 
 
 thereby carry his district for tin- Legislature, in order to throw all the strength that 
 could be obtained into that body against the Democrats. 2d. That when the Legis- 
 ture should meet, the officers of that body, such as speaker, clerks, door-keepers, etc., 
 would be given to the Abolitionists ; and 3d. That the Whigs were to have the 
 United States Senator. That, accordingly, in good faith Trumbull was elected to 
 Congress, and his district carried for the Legislature, and when it convened the Abo- 
 litionists got all the officers of that body, and thus far the 'bond* was fairly executed. 
 The Whigs, on their part, demanded the election of Abraham Lincoln to the United 
 States Senate, that the bond might bs fulfilled, the other parties to the contract hav- 
 ing already secured to themselves all that was called for. But, in the most perfidious 
 manner, they refused to elect Mr. Lincoln ; and the mean, low-lived, sneaking Trum- 
 bull succeeded by pleading all that was required by any party, in thrusting Lincoln 
 aside and foisting himselfj an excrescence from the rotten bowels of the Democracy, 
 into the United States Senate ; and thus it has ever been, that an honest man makes 
 a bad bargain when he conspires or contracts with rogues." 
 
 Lincoln's confidential friend, Matheny, thought that Lincoln made a bad bargain 
 when he conspired with such rogues as Trumbull and the Abolitionists. I would like 
 to know whether Lincoln had as high opinion of Trumbull's veracity when the latter 
 agreed to support him for the Senate, and then cheated him as he does now, when 
 Trumbull comes forward and makes charges against me. You could not then prove 
 Trumbull an honest man either by Lincoln, by Matheny, or by any of Lincoln's 
 friends. They charged every where that Trumbull had cheated them out of the bar- 
 gain, and Lincoln found sure enough that it was a bad bargain to contract and con- 
 spire with rogues. 
 
 And now I will explain to you what has been a mystery all over the State and 
 Union, the reason why Lincoln was nominated for the United States Senate by the 
 Black Republican Convention. You know it has never been usual for any party, or 
 any Convention, to nominate a candidate for United States Senator. Probably this 
 was the first time that such a thing was ever done. The Black Republican Conven- 
 tion had not been called for that purpose, but to nominate a State ticket, and 
 every man was surprised and many disgusted when Lincoln was nominated. 
 Archie Williams thought he was entitled to it, Browning knew that he deserved 
 it, Wehtworth was certain that he would get it, Peck had hopes, Judd felt sure that 
 he was the man, and Palmer had claims and had made arrangements to secure it ; 
 but to their utter amazement, Lincoln was nominated by the Convention, and not 
 only that, but he received the nomination unanimously, by a resolution declaring that 
 Abraham Lincoln was "the first, last, and only choice" of the Republican party 
 How did this occur ? Why, because they could not get Lincoln's friends to make 
 another bargain with "rogues," unless the whole party would come up as one man 
 and pledge their honor that they would stand by Lincoln first, last and all the time, 
 and that he should not be cheated by Lovejoy this time, as he was by Trumbull 
 before. Thus, by passing this resolution, the Abolitionists are all for him, Lovejoy 
 and Farnsworth are canvassing for him, Giddings is ready to come here in his 
 behalf, and the negro speakers are already on the stump for him, and he is sure not 
 to be cheated this time. He would not go into the arrangement until he got their 
 bond for it, and Trumbull is compelled now to take the stump, get up false charges 
 against me, and travel all over the State to try and elect Lincoln, in order to keep 
 Lincoln's friends quiet about the bargain in which Trumbull cheated them four years 
 ago. You see, now, why it is that Lincoln and Trumbull are so mighty fond of 
 each other. They have entered into a conspiracy to break me down by these 
 assaults on my public character, in order to draw my attention from a fair exposure 
 of the mode in which they attempted to abolitionize the old Whig and the old Dem- 
 ocratic parties and lead them captive into the Abolition camp. Do you not all 
 remember that Lincoln went around here four years ago making speeches to you, 
 and telling that you should all go for the Abolition ticket, and swearing that he was 
 as good a Whig as he ever was ; and that Trumbull went all over the State making
 
 154 
 
 pledges to the old Democrats, and trying to coax them into the Abolition camp, 
 swearing by his Maker, with the uplifted hand, that he was still a Democrat, always 
 intended to be, and that never would he desert the Democratic party. He got your 
 votes to elect an Abolition Legislature, which passed Abolition resolutions, attempted 
 to pass Abolition laws, and sustained Abolitionists for office, State and National. 
 Now, the same game is attempted to be played over again. Then Lincoln and Trum- 
 bull made captives of the old Whigs and old Democrats and carried them into the 
 Abolition camp, where Father Giddings, the high-priest of Abolitionism, received 
 and christened them in the dark cause just as fast as they were brought in. Gid- 
 dings found the converts so numerous that he had to have assistance, and he sent for 
 John P. Hale, N. P. Banks, Chase, and other Abolitionists, and they came on, and 
 with Lovejoy and Fred Douglass, the negro, helped to baptize these new converts 
 as Lincoln, Trumbull, Breese, Reynolds, and Dougherty could capture them and 
 bring them within the Abolition clutch. Gentlemen, they are now around making 
 the same kind of speeches. Trumbull was down in Monroe county the other day 
 assailing me, and making a speech in favor of Lincoln, and I will show you under 
 what notice his meeting was called You see these people are Black Republicans or 
 Abolitionists up north, while at Springfield to-day, they dare not call their Conven- 
 tion "Republican," but are obliged to say "a Convention of all men opposed to the 
 Democratic party," and in Monroe county and lower Egypt Trumbull advertises their 
 meetings as follows : 
 
 A meeting of the Free Democracy will take place at Waterloo, on Monday, September 12th 
 inst, whereat Hon. Lyman Trumbull, Hon. John Baker, and others, will address the people upon 
 the different political topics of the day. Members of all parties are cordially invited to be pres- 
 ent, and hear and determine for themselves. 
 
 September 9, 1858. THE FREE DEMOCRACY. 
 
 Did you ever before hear of this new party called the " Free Democracy ?" 
 What object have these Black Republicans in changing their name in every 
 county ? They have one name in the north, another in the center, and another in 
 the South. When I used to practice law before my distinguished judicial friend, 
 whom I recognize in the crowd before me, if a man was charged with horse-stealing 
 and the proof showed that he went by one name in Stephenson county, another 
 in Sangamon, a third in Monroe, and a fourth in Randolph, we thought that the 
 fact of his changing his name so often to avoid detection, was pretty strong evi- 
 dence of his guilt. I would like to know why it is that this great Freesoil 
 Abolition party is not willing to avow the same name in all parts of the State ? If 
 this party believes that its course is just, why does it not avow the same principles in 
 the North, and in the South, in the East and in the West, wherever the American 
 flag waves over American soil ? 
 
 A voice "The party does not call itself Black Republican in the North." 
 Mr. Douglas Sir if you,will get a copy of the paper published at Waukegan, fifty 
 miles from Chicago, which advocates the election of Mr. Lincoln, and has his name 
 flying at its mast-head, you will find that it declares that "this paper is devoted to 
 the cause" of Slack Republicanism. I had a copy of it and intended to bring it down 
 here into Egypt to let you see what name the party rallied under up in the northern 
 part of the State, and to convince you that their principles are as different in the 
 two sections of the State as is their name. I am sorry that I have mislaid it and 
 have not got it here. Their principles in the north are jet-black, in the center they 
 are in color a decent mulatto, and in lower Egypt they are almost white. Why, I 
 admired many of the white sentiments contained in Lincoln's speech at Jonesboro, 
 and could not help but contrast them with the speeches of the same distinguished 
 orator made in the northern part of the State. Down here he denies that the Black 
 Republican party is opposed to the admission of any more slave States, under any 
 circumstances, and says that they are willing to allow the people of each State, when 
 it wants to come into the Union, to do just as it pleases on the question of slavery. 
 . In the North, you find Lovejoy, their candidate for Congress in the Bloomington
 
 155 
 
 District, Famsworth, their candidate in the Chicago District, and Washburne, their 
 candidate in the Galena District, all declaring that never will they consent, under any 
 circumstances, to admit another slave State, even if the people want it. Thus, while 
 they avow one set of principles up there, they avow another and entirely different set 
 down here. And here let me recall to Mr. Lincoln the scriptural quotation which 
 he has applied to the Federal Government, that a house divided against itself cannot 
 stand, and ask him how does he expect this Abolition party to stand when in one- 
 half of the Suite it advocates a set of principles which it has repudiated in the other 
 half? 
 
 I am told that I have but eight minutes more. I would like to talk to you an 
 hour and a half longer, but I will make the best use I can of the remaining eight 
 minutes. Mr. Lincoln said in his first remarks that he was not in favor of the social 
 uiul political equality of the negro with the white man. Every where up north he 
 hst; declared that he was not in favor of the social and political equality of the 
 negro, but he would not say whether or not he was opposed to negroes voting and 
 negro citizenship. I want to know whether he is for or against negro citizenship? 
 lie declared his utter opposition to the Dred Scott decision, and advanced as a reason 
 that the court had decided that it was not possible for a negro to be a citizen under 
 the Constitution. of the United States. If he is opposed to the Dred Scott decision 
 for that reason, he must be in favor of centering the right and privilege of citizenship 
 upon the negro ! I have been trying to get an answer from him on that point, but 
 have never yet obtained one, and I will show you why. In every speech he made 
 in the north he quoted the Declaration of Independence to prove that all men were 
 created, equal, and insisted that the phrase "all men," included the negro as well 
 as the white man, and that, the equality rested upon Divine law. Here is what he 
 said on that point : 
 
 "1 should like to know if, taking this old Declaration of Independence, which 
 declares that all men are equal upon principle, and making exceptions to it, where 
 will it stop? If one man says it does not mean a negro, why may not another say it 
 does not mean some other man ? If that declaration is not the truth, let us get the 
 statute hook in which we find it and bear it out." 
 
 Lincoln maintains there that the Declaration of Independence asserts that the negro 
 is equal to the white man, and that under Divine law, and if he believes so it was 
 rational for him to advocate negro citizenship, which, when allowed, puts the negro 
 on tin equality under the law. I say to you in all frankness, gentlemen, that in my 
 opinion a negro is not a citizen, cannot be, and ought not to be, under the Constitu- 
 tion o-f the United States. I will not even qualify my opinion to meet the declara- 
 tion of one of the Judges of the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott case, " that a 
 negro descended from African parents, who was imported into this country as a slave 
 is not a citizen, and cannot be." I say that this Government was established on the 
 white basis. It was made by white men, for the benefit of white men and their 
 posterity forever, and never should be administered by any except white men. I 
 declare that a negro ought not to be a citizen, whether his parents were imported 
 into this country as slaves or not, or whether or not he was born here. It does not 
 depend upon the place a negro's parents were born, or whether they were slaves or 
 not, but upon the fact that he is a negro, belonging to a race incapable of self-gov- 
 ernment, and for that reason ought not to be on an equality with white men. 
 
 My friends, I am sorry that I have not time to pursue this argument further, as I 
 might have done but for the fact that Mr. Lincoln compelled me to occupy a portion 
 of my turn} in repelling those gross slanders and falsehoods that Trumbull has invent- 
 ed against me and put in circulation. In conclusion, let me ask you why should 
 this Government be divided by a geographical line arraying all men North in one 
 great hostile, party against all men South ? Mr. Lincoln tells you, in his speech at 
 Springfield, "that a house divided against itself cannot stand; that this Government, 
 divided into free and slave States, cannot endure permanently ; that they must either 
 be ali free or all slave ; all one thing or all the other." Why cannot this Govern-
 
 156 
 
 merit endure divided into free and slave States, as our fathers made it? When this 
 Government was established by Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Jay, Hamilton, 
 Franklin, and the other sages and patriots of that day, it was composed of free 
 States and slave States, bound together by one common Constitution. We have 
 existed and prospered from that day to this thus divided, and have increased with a 
 rapidity never before equaled in wealth, the extension of territory, and all the ele- 
 ments of power and greatness, until we have become the first nation on the face of 
 the globe. Why can we not thus continue to prosper ? We can if we will live up 
 to and execute the Government upon those principles upon which our fathers estab- 
 lished it. During the whole period of our existence Divine Providence has smiled 
 upon us, and showered upon our nation richer and more abundant blessings than 
 have ever been conferred upon any other. 
 
 MR. LINCOLN'S REJOINDER. 
 
 FELLOW-CITIZENS : It follows as a matter of course that a half-hour answer to a 
 speech of an hour and a half can be but a very hurried one. I shall only be able 
 to touch upon a few of the points suggested by Judge Douglas, and give them a brief 
 attention, while I shall have to totally omit others for the want of time. 
 
 Judge Douglas has said to you that he has not been able to get from me an answer 
 to the question whether I am in favor of negro citizenship. So far as I know, the 
 Judge never asked me the question before. He shall have no occasion to ever ask 
 it again, for I tell him very frankly that I am not in favor of negro citizenship. 
 This furnishes me an occasion for saying a few words upon the subject. I mentioned 
 in a certain speech of mine which has been printed, that the Supreme Court had 
 decided that a negro could not possibly be made a citizen, and without saying what 
 was my ground of complaint in regard to that, or whether I had any ground of com- 
 plaint, Judge Douglas has from that thing manufactured nearly every thing that he 
 ever says about my disposition to produce an equality between the negroes and the 
 white people. If any one will read my speech, he will find I mentioned that as one 
 of the points decided in the course of the Supreme Court opinions, but I did not 
 state what objection I had to it. But Judge Douglas tells the people what my 
 objection was when I did not tell them myself. Now my opinion is that the different 
 States have the power to make a negro a citizen under the Constitution of the United 
 States if they choose. The Dred Scott decision decides that they have not that 
 power. If the State of Illinois had that power I should be opposed to the exercise 
 of it. That is all I have to say about it. 
 
 Judge Douglas has told me that lie heard my speeches north and my speeches 
 south that he had heard me at Ottawa and at Freeport in the north, and recently 
 at Jonesboro in the south, and there was a very different cast of sentiment in the 
 speeches made at the different points. I will not charge upon Judge Douglas that 
 he willfully misrepresents me, but I call upon every lair-minded man to take these 
 speeches and read them, and I dare him to point out any difference ttetween my speeches 
 north and south. While I' am here perhaps I ought to say a word, if 1 have the 
 time, in regard to the latter portion of the Judge's speech, which was a sort of decla- 
 mation in reference to my having said I entertained the belief that this Government 
 would not endure, half slave and half free. I have said so, and I did not say it, 
 without what seemed to me to be good reasons. It perhaps would require more time 
 than I have now to set forth these reasons in detail ; but let me ask you a few ques- 
 tions. Have we ever had any peace on this slavery question ? When are we to 
 have peace upon it if it is kept in the position it now occupies? How are we ever 
 to -have peace upon it? That is an important question. To be sure, if we will all 
 stop and allow Judge Douglas and his friends to march on in their present career 
 until they plant the institution all over the nation, here and wherever else our flag
 
 157 
 
 waves, and we acquiesce in it, there will be peace. But let me ask Judge Douglas 
 how he is going to get the people to do that ? They have been wrangling over this 
 question for at least forty years. This was the cause of the agitation resulting in 
 the Missouri Compromise this produced the troubles at the annexation of Texas, 
 in the acquisition of the territory acquired in the Mexican war. Again, this was 
 the trouble which was quieted by the Compromise of 1850, when it was settled 
 "forever" as both the great political parties declared in their National C<.:r??ntions. 
 That "forever" turned out to be just four years, when Judge Douglas* nimself 
 reopened it. When is it likely to come to an end ? He introduced the Nebraska 
 bill in 1854 to put another end to the slavery agitation. He promised that it 
 would finish it all up immediately, arid he has never made a speech since until he 
 got into a quarrel with the President about the Lecompton Constitution, in which he 
 has not declared that we are just at the end of the slavery agitation. But in one 
 speech, I think last winter, he did say that he didn't quite see when the end of the 
 slavery agitation would come. Now he tells us again that it is all over, and 
 the people of Kansas have voted down the Lecompton Constitution. How is it 
 over ? That was only one of the attempts at putting an end to the slavery agi- 
 tation one of these "final settlements." Is Kansas in the Union? Has she 
 formed a Constitution that she is likely to come in under? Is not the slavery 
 agitation still an open question in that Territory? Has the voting down of that 
 Constitution put an end to all the trouble ? Is that more likely to settle it than 
 every one of these previous attempts to settle the slavery agitation ? Now, at this 
 day in the history of the world we can no more foretell where the end of this slavery 
 agitation will be than we can see the end of the world itself. The Nebraska-Kan- 
 sas bill was introduced four years and a half ago, and if the agitation is ever to 
 come to an end, we may say we are four years and a half nearer the end. So, too, 
 we can say we are four years and a half nearer the end of the world; and we can 
 just as clearly see the end of the world as we can see the end of this agitation. The 
 Kansas settlement did not conclude it. If Kansas should sink to-day, and leave a great 
 vacant space in the earth's surface, this vexed question would still be among us. I 
 say, then, there is no way of putting an end to the slavery agitation amongst us but 
 to put it back upon the basis where our fathers placed it, no way but to keep it out of 
 our new Territories to restrict it forever to the old States where it now exists. 
 Then the public mind will rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinc- 
 tion. That is one way of putting an end to the slavery agitation. 
 
 The other way is for us to surrender and let Judge Douglas and his friends have 
 their way and plant slavery over all the States cease speaking of it as in any way 
 a wrong regard slavery as one of the common matters of property, and speak of 
 negroes as we do of our horses and cattle. But while it drives on in its state of pro- 
 gress as it is now driving, and as it has driven for the last five years, I have ven- 
 tured the opinion, and I say to-day, that we will have no end to the slavery agitation 
 until it takes one turn or the other. I do not mean that when it takes a turn toward 
 ultimate extinction it will be in a day, nor in a year, nor in two years. I do not 
 suppose that in the most peaceful way ultimate extinction would occur in less than a 
 hundred years at least ; but that it will occur in the best way for both races, in (rod's 
 own good time, I have no doubt. But, my friends, I have used up more of my 
 time than I intended on this point. 
 
 Now, in regard to this matter about Trumbull and myself having made a 
 bargain to sell out the entire Whig and Democratic parties in 1854 Judge 
 Douglas brings forward no evidence to sustain his charge, except the speech 
 Matheny is said to have made in 1856, in which he told a cock-and-bull story of that 
 sort, upon the same moral principles that Judge Douglas tells it here to-day. This 
 is the simple truth. I do not care greatly for the story, but this is the truth of it, 
 and I have twice told Judge Douglas to his face, that from beginning to end there 
 is not one word of truth in it. I have called upon him for the proof, and he does 
 not at all meet me as Trumbull met him upon that of which we were just talking,
 
 158 
 
 by producing the record. He didn't bring the record, because there was no 
 record for him to bring. When he asks if I am ready to indorse Trumbull's verac- 
 ity after he has broken a bargain with me, I reply that if Trumbull had broken a 
 bargain with me, I would not be likely to indorse his veracity ; but I am ready to 
 indorse his veracity because neither in that thing, nor in any other, in all the 
 years that I have known Lyman Trumbull, have I known him to fail of his word 
 or tell a falsehood, large or small. It is for that reason that I indorse Lyman 
 Trumbull. 
 
 Mr. James Brown (Douglas Post Master) "What does Ford's history say 
 it bout him ?" 
 
 Mr. Lincoln Some gentleman asks me what Ford's History says about him. My 
 own recollection is, that Ford speaks of Trumbull in very disrespectful terms in sev- 
 eral portions of his book, and that he talks a great deal worse of Judge Douglas. I 
 refer you, sir, to the history for examination. 
 
 Judge Douglas complains, at considerable length, about a disposition on the part 
 of Trumbull and myself to attack him personally. I want to attend to that sugges- 
 tion a moment. I don't want to be unjustly accused of dealing illiberally or unfairly 
 with an adversary, either in court, or in a political canvass, or any where else. I 
 would despise myself if I supposed myself ready to deal less liberally with an ad- 
 versary than I was willing to be treated myself. Judge Douglas, in a general 
 way^. without putting it in a direct shape, revives the old charge against me in refer- 
 ence to the Mexican war. He does not take the responsibility of putting it in a 
 very definite form, but makes a general reference to it. That charge is more than 
 ten years old. He complains of Trumbull and myself, because he says we bring 
 charges against him one or two years old. He knows, too, that in regard to the 
 Mexican war story, the more respectable papers of his own party throughout the 
 State have been compelled to take it back and acknowledge that it was a lie. 
 
 Here Mr. Lincoln turned to the crowd on the platform, and selecting Hon. Orlan- 
 do B. Ficklin, led him forward and said : 
 
 I do not mean to do any thing with Mr. Ficklin, except to present his face and tell 
 you that he personally knows it to be a lie ! He was a member of Congress at the 
 only time I was in Congress, and he [Ficklin] knows that whenever there was an 
 attempt to procure a vote of mine which would indorse the origin and justice of the 
 war, I refused to give such indorsement, and voted against it ; but I never voted 
 against the supplies for the army, and he knows, as well as Judge Douglas, that 
 whenever a dollar was asked by way of compensation or otherwise, for the benefit 
 of the soldiers, / gave all the votes that Ficklin or Douglas did, and perhaps more. 
 
 Mr. Ficklin My friends, I wish to say this in reference to the matter. Mr. Lin- 
 coln and myself are just as good personal friends as Judge Douglas and myself. 
 In reference to this Mexican war, my recollection is that when Ashmun's resolu- 
 tion [amendment] was offered by Mr. Ashmun of Massachusetts, in which he de- 
 clared that the Mexican war was unnecessarily and unconstitutionally commenced 
 by the President my recollection is that Mr. Lincoln voted for that resolution. 
 
 Mr. Lincoln That is the truth. Now you all remember that was a resolu- 
 tion censuring the President for the manner in which the war was begun. You 
 know they have charged that I voted against the supplies, by which I starved 
 the soldiers who were out fighting the battles of their country. I say that Ficklin 
 knows it is false. When that charge was brought forward by the Chicago Times, 
 the Springfield Register [Douglas organ] reminded the Times that the charge 
 really applied to John Henry ; and I do know that John Henry is now making 
 speeches and fiercely battling for Judge Douglas. If the Judge now says that he 
 offers this as a sort of a set-off to what I said to-day in reference to Trumbull's 
 charge, then I remind him that he made this charge before I said a word about 
 Trumbull's. He brought this forward at Ottawa, the first time we met face to face ; 
 and in the opening speech that Judge Douglas made, he attacked me ir regard to a
 
 159 
 
 matter ten years old. Isn't he a pretty man to be whining about people making 
 charges against him only two years old ! 
 
 The Judge thinks it is altogether wrong that I should have dwelt upon this charge 
 of Trumbull's at all. I gave the apology for doing so in my opening speech. Per- 
 haps it didn't fix your attention. 1 said that when Judge Douglas was speaking at 
 places where I spoke on the succeeding day, he used very harsh language about this 
 charge. Two or three times afterward I said I had confidence in Judge Trumbull's 
 veracity and intelligence ; and my own opinion was, from what I knew of the char- 
 acter of Judge Trumbull, that he would vindicate his position, and prove whatever 
 he had stated to be true. This I repeated two or three times ; and then I dropped 
 it, without saying any thing more on the subject for weeks perhaps a month. I 
 passed it by without noticing it at all till I found at Jacksonville, Judge Douglas, in 
 the plenitude of his power, is not willing to answer Trumbull and let me alone ; but 
 he comes out there and uses this language : " He should not hereafter occupy his 
 time in refuting such charges made by Trumbull, but that Lincoln, having indorsed 
 the character of Trumbull for veracity, he should hold him [Lincoln] responsible 
 for the slanders." What was Lincoln to do ? Did he not do right, when he had the 
 fit opportunity of meeting Judge Douglas here, to tell him he was ready for the re- 
 sponsibility ? I ask a candid audience whether in doing thus Judge Douglas was not 
 the assailant rather than I ? Here I meet him face to lace and say I am ready to 
 take the responsibility so far as it rests on me. 
 
 Having done so, I ask the attention of this audience to the question whether I 
 have succeeded in sustaining the charge, and whether Judge Douglas has at all suc- 
 ceeded in rebutting it ? You all heard me call upon him to say which of these pieces 
 of evidence was a forgery? Does he say that what I present here as a copy of the 
 original Toombs bill is a forgery ? Does he say that what I present as a copy of 
 the bill reported by himself is a forgery ? Or what is presented as a transcript from 
 the Globe, of the quotations from Bigler's speech, is a forgery ? Does he say the 
 quotations from his own speech are forgeries ? Does he say this transcript from 
 Trumbull's speech is a forgery? [" He didn't deny one of them."] 1 would then 
 like to know how it comes about,, "that when each piece of a story is true, the whole 
 story turns out false ? I take it these people have some sense ; they see plainly 
 that Judge Douglas is playing cuttle-fish, a small species of fish that has no mode of 
 defending itself when pursued except by throwing out a black fluid, which makes 
 the water so dark the enemy cannot see it, and thus it escapes. Ain't the Judge 
 playing the cuttle-fish ? 
 
 Now I would ask very special attention to the consideration of Judge Doug- 
 las's speech at Jacksonville ; and when you shall read his speech of to-day, I ask 
 you to watch closely and see which of these pieces of testimony, every one of 
 which he says is & forgery, he has shown to be such. Not one of them has Jte 
 tkown to be a forgery. Then I ask the original question, if each of the pieces 
 of testimony is true, how is it possible that the whole is a falsehood f 
 
 In regard to Trumbull's charge that he {[Douglas] inserted a provision into the 
 bill to prevent the Constitution being submitted to the people, what was his an- 
 swer? He corner here and reads from the Congressional Globe to show that on his 
 motion that provision was struck out of the bill. Why, Trumbull has not said ?t 
 was not stricken out, but Trumbull says he [Douglas] put it in, and :t is no answer 
 to the charge to say he afterward took it out. Both are perhaps true. It was 
 in regard to that thing precisely that I told him he had dropped the cub. Trum- 
 bull shows you that by his introducing the bill it was his cub. It is no answer 
 to that assertion to call Trumbull a liar merely because he did not specially say 
 that Douglas struck it out. Suppose that were the case, does it answer Trumb all ? 
 1 assert that you [pointing to an individual] are here to-day, and you undertake to 
 prove me a liar by showing that you were in Mattoon yesterday. I say that you took 
 your hat off your head, and you prove me a liar by putting it on your head. That 
 ia the whole force of Douglas's argument
 
 160 
 
 Now, I want to come back to my original question. Trumbull says that Judge 
 Douglas had a bill with a provision in it for submitting a Constitution to be 
 made to a vote of the people of Kansas. Does Judge Douglas deny that fact? 
 Does he deny that the provision which Trumbull reads was put in that bill? Then 
 Trumbull says he struck it out. Does he dare to deny that ? He does not, and I 
 have the right to repeat the question why Judge Douglas took it out? Bigler 
 has said there was a combination of certain Senators, among whom he did not in- 
 clude Judge Douglas, by which it was agreed that the Kansas bill should have 
 'ft clause in it not to have the Constitution formed under it submitted to a vote of the 
 people. He did not say that Douglas was among them, but we prove by another 
 source that about the same time Douglas comes into the Senate with that pro- 
 vision stricken out of the hill. Although Bigler cannot say they were all working 
 in concert, yet it looks very much as if the thing was agreed upon and done with 
 a mutual understanding after the conference ; and while we do not know that it was 
 absolutely so, 'yet it looks so probable that we have a right to call upon the man 
 who knows the true reason why it was done, to tell what the true reason was. 
 When he will not tell what the true reason was, he stands in the attitude of an 
 accused thief who has stolen goods in his possession, and when called to account, 
 refuses to tell where he got them. Not only is this the evidence, but when he 
 comes in with the bill having the provision stricken out, he tells us in a speech, 
 not then, but since, that these alterations and modifications in the bill had been made 
 by HIM, in consultation with Toombs, the originator of the bill. He tells us the 
 game to-day. He says there were certain modifications made in the bill in Com- 
 mittee that he did not vote for. I ask you to remember while certain amendments 
 were made which he disapproved of, but which a majority of the Committee voted 
 .in, he has himself told us that in this particular the alterations and modifications 
 were made by him upon consultation with Toombs. We have his own word that 
 these alterations were made by him and not by the Committee. Now, I ask what 
 is the reason Judge Douglas is so chary about coming to the exact question? What 
 is the reason he will not tell you any thing about now it was ma^de, BY WHOM it 
 was made, or that he remembers it being made at all ? Why does he stand 
 playing upon the meaning of words, and quibbling around the edges of the evidence ? 
 If he can explain all this, but leaves it unexplained, I have a right to infer that 
 Judge Douglas understood it was the purpose of his party, in engineering that bill 
 through, to make a Constitution, and have Kansas come into the Union with that 
 Constitution, without its being submitted to a vote of the people. If he wiJl ex- 
 plain his action on this question, by giving a better reason for the facts that happened, 
 than he has done, it will be satisfactory. But until he does that until he gives a 
 better or more plausible reason than he has offered against the evidence in the case 
 / suggest to him it will not avail him at all that he swells himself up, takes on 
 dignity, and calls people liars. Why, sir, there is not a word in Trumbull's speech 
 that depends on Trumbuli's veracity at all. He has only arrayed the evidence and 
 told you what follows as a matter of reasoning. There is not a statement in the 
 whole speech that depends on Trumbull's word. If you have ever studied geome- 
 try, you remember that by a course of reasoning, Euclid proves that all the angles 
 in a triangle are equal to two right angles. Euclid has shown you how to work it 
 out. Now, if you undertake to disprove that proposition, and to show that it is 
 erroneous, would you prove it to be false by calling Euclid a liar? They tell ma 
 that my time is out, and therefore I close.
 
 161 
 
 Kxtract from Mr. TmmbulTs Speech made at Alton, referred to by Mr. Lincoln 
 in his opening at Cfiarleston. 
 
 I come now to another extract from a speech of Mr. Douglas, made at Beards- 
 town, and reported in the Missouri Republican. This extract has reference to a 
 statement made by me at Chicago, wherein I charged that an agreement had been 
 entered into by the very persons now claiming credit for opposing a Constitution not 
 submitted to the people, to have a Constitution formed and put in force without giving 
 the people of Kansas an opportunity to pass upon it. Without meeting this charge, 
 which 1 substantiated by a reference to the record, my colleague is reported to have 
 said : 
 
 " For when this charge was once made in a much milder form, in the Senate of the 
 United States, I did brand it as a lie in the presence of Mr. Trumbull, and Mr. 
 Trumbull sat and heard it thus branded, without daring to say it was true. I tell 
 you he knew it to be false when he uttered it at Chicago ; and yet he says he is 
 going to cram the lie down his throat until he should cry enough. The miserable 
 craven-hearted wretch ! he would rather have both ears cut off than to use tiiat lan- 
 guage in my presence, where I could call him to account. I see the object is to draw 
 me into a personal controversy, with the hope thereby of concealing from the public 
 the enormity of the principles to which they are committed. I shall not allow much 
 of my time in this canvass to be occupied by these personal assaults I have none to 
 make on Mr. Lincoln ; I have none to make on Mr. Trumbull ; I have none to make 
 on any other political opponent. If I cannot stand on my own public record, on my 
 own private and public character as history will record it, I will not attempt to rise 
 by traducing the character of other men. I will not make a blackguard of myself 
 by imitating the course they have pursued against me. I have no charges to make 
 against them." 
 
 This is a singular statement taken altogether. After indulging in language which 
 would disgrace a loafer in the filthiest purlieus of a fish-market, he winds up by say- 
 ing that he will not make a blackguard of himself, that he has no charges to make 
 against me. So I suppose he considers, that to say of another that he knew a thing 
 to be false when he uttered it, that he was a "miserable craven-hearted wretch," does 
 not amount to a personal assault, and does not make a man a blackguard. A dis- 
 criminating public will judge of that for themselves ; but as he says he has " no 
 charges to make on Mr. Trumbull," I suppose politeness requires I should believe 
 him. At the risk of again offending this mighty man of war, and losing something 
 *uoi e than my ears, I shall have the audacity to again read the record upon him and 
 prove and pin upon him, so that he cannot escape it, the truth of every word I ut- 
 tered at Chicago. You, fellow-citizens, are the judges to determine whether I do 
 this. My colleague says he is willing to stand on his public record. By that he 
 shall be tried, and if he had been able to discriminate between the exposure ol a pub- 
 lic act by the record, and a personal attack upon the individual, he would have dis- 
 covered that there was nothing personal in my Chicago remarks, unless the condem- 
 nation of himself by his own public record is personal, and then you must judge 
 who is most to blame for the torture his public record inflicts upon him, he for mak- 
 ing, or I for reading it after it was made. As an individual I care very little about 
 Judge Douglas one way or the other. It is his public acts with which I have to do, 
 and if they condemn, disgrace and consign him to oblivion, he has only himself j not 
 me, to blame. 
 
 Now, the charge is that there was a plot entered into to have a Constitution formed 
 for Kansas, and put in force, without giving the people an opportunity to pass upon 
 it, and that Mr. Douglas was in the plot. This is as susceptible of proof by the rec- 
 ord as is the fact that the State of Minnesota was admitted into the Union at the last 
 session of Congress. 
 
 On the 25th of June, 1856, a bill was pending in the United States Senate to ail-
 
 162 
 
 thorize the people of Kansas to form a Constitution and come into the Union. On 
 that day Mr. Toombs offered an amendment which he intended to propose to the bill 
 which was ordered to be printed, arid, with the original bill and other amendments, 
 recommended to the Committee on Territories, of which Mr. Douglas was Chairman. 
 This amendment of Mr. Toombs, printed by order of the Senate, and a copy of 
 which I have here present, provided for the appointment of commissioners who were 
 to take a census of Kansas, divide the Territory into election districts, and superin- 
 tend the election of delegates to form a Constitution, and contains a clause in the 
 18th section which I will read to you, requiring the Constitution which should be 
 formed to be submitted to the people for adoption. It reads as follows : 
 
 " That the following propositions be and the same are hereby offered to the said 
 Convention of the people of Kansas, when formed, for their free acceptance or re- 
 jection, which, if accepted by the Convention, and ratified by the people at the elec- 
 tion for the adoption of the Constitution, shall be obligatory on the United States, 
 and upon the said State of Kansas," etc. 
 
 It has been contended by some of the newspaper press, that this section did not 
 require the Constitution which should be formed to be submitted to the people for 
 approval, and that it was only the land propositions which were to be submitted. 
 You will observe the language is that the propositions are to be " ratified by the peo- 
 ple at the election for the adoption of the Constitution." Would it have been possi- 
 ble to ratify the land propositions " at the election for the adoption of the Constitu- 
 tion," unless such an election was to be held ? 
 
 When one thing is required by a contract or law to be done, the doing of which is 
 made dependent upon and cannot be performed without the doing of some other thing, 
 is not that other thing just as much required by the contract or law as the first? It 
 matters not in what part of the act, nor in what phraseology the intention of the 
 Legislature is expressed, so you can clearly ascertain what it is ; and whenever that 
 intention is ascertained from an examination of the language used, such intention is 
 part of and a requirement of the law. Can any candid, fair-minded man, read the 
 section I have quoted, and say that the intention to have the Constitution which 
 should be formed submitted to the people for their adoption, is not clearly expressed? 
 In my judgment there can be no controversy among honest men upon a proposition 
 so plain as this. Mr. Douglas has never pretended to deny, so far as I am aware, 
 that the Toombs amendment, as originally introduced, did require a submission of the 
 Constitution to the people. This amendment of Mr. Toombs was referred to the 
 committee of which Mr. Douglas was Chairman, and reported back by him on the 
 30th of June, with the words, "And ratified by the people at the election for the 
 adoption of the Constitution " stricken out. I have here a copy of the bill as report- 
 ed back by Mr. Douglas to substantiate the statement I make. Various other alter- 
 ations were also made in the bill to which I shall presently have occasion to call at- 
 tention. There was no other clause in the original Toombs bill requiring a submis- 
 sion of the Constitution to the people than the one I have read, and there was no 
 clause whatever, after that was struck out, in the bill, as reported back by Judge 
 Douglas, requiring a submission. I will now introduce a witness whose testimony 
 cannot be impeached, he acknowledging himself to have been one of the conspirators 
 and privy to the fact about which he testifies. 
 
 Senator Bigler alluding to the Toombs bill, as it was called, and which, after sun- 
 dry amendments, passed the Senate, and to the propriety of submitting the Constitu- 
 tion which should be formed to a vote of the people, made the following statement in 
 his place in the Senate, December 9th, 1857. I read from part 1, Congressional 
 Globe of last session, paragraph 2 1 : 
 
 a I was present when that subject was discussed by Senators, before the bill was 
 introduced, and the question was raised and discussed whether the Constitution, when 
 formed, should be submitted to a vote of the people. It was held by the most intel- 
 ligent on the subject, that in view of all the difficulties surrounding that Territory, 
 the danger of any experiment at that time of a popular vote, it would be better that
 
 163 
 
 there should be no such provision in the Toombs bill ; and it is my understanding, in 
 all the intercourse I had, that that Convention would make a Constitution and send 
 it here without submitting it to the popular vote." 
 
 In speaking of this meeting again on the 21st December, 1857 ( Congressional 
 Globe, same vol., page 113), Senator Bigler said: 
 
 " Nothing was farther from my mind than to allude to any social or confidential in- 
 terview. The meeting was not of that character. Indeed, it was semi-official, and 
 called to promote the public good. My recollection was clear that I left the confer- 
 ence under the impression that it had been deemed best to adopt measures to admit 
 Kansas as a State through the agency of one popular election, and that for delegates 
 to the Convention. This impression was the stronger, because I thought the spirit 
 of the bill infringed upon the doctrine of non-intervention, to which I had great aver- 
 sion ; but with the hope of accomplishing great good, and as no movement had been 
 made in that direction in the Territory, I waived this objection, and concluded to sup- 
 port the measure. I have a few items of testimony as to the correctness of these 
 impressions, and with their submission I shall be content. I have before me the bill 
 reported by the Senator from Illinois, on the 7th of March, 1856, providing for the 
 admission of Kansas as a State, the third section of which reads as follows : 
 
 " ' That the following propositions be, and the same are hereby offered to the said 
 Convention of the people of Kansas, when formed, for their free acceptance or re- 
 jection ; which, if accepted by the Convention and ratified by the people at the elec- 
 tion for the adoption of the Constitution, shall be obligatory upon the United States, 
 and upon the said State of Kansas.' 
 
 " The bill read in place by the Senator from Georgia, on the 25th of June, and re- 
 ferred to the Committee on Territories, contained the same section, word for word. 
 Both these bills were under consideration at the conference referred to, but, sir, when 
 the Senator from Illinois reported the Toombs bill to the Senate, with amend- 
 ments, the next morning, it did not contain that portion of the third section which in- 
 dicated to the Convention that the Constitution should be approved by the people. 
 The words ' and ratified by the people at the election for the adoption of the Consti- 
 tution ' had been stricken out." 
 
 I am not now seeking to prove that Douglas was in the plot to force a Constitu- 
 tion upon Kansas without allowing the people to vote directly upon it. I shall at- 
 tend to that branch of the subject by and by. My object now is to prove the exist- 
 ence of the plot, what the design was, and I ask if I have not already done so. 
 Here are the facts : 
 
 The introduction of a bill on the 7th of March, 1856, providing for the calling of 
 a Convention in Kansas, to form a State Constitution, and providing that the Consti- 
 tution should be submitted to the people for adoption ; an amendment to this bill, 
 proposed by Mr. Toombs, containing the same requirement ; a reference of these va- 
 rious bills to the Committee on Territories ; a consultation of Senators to determine 
 whether it was advisable to have the Constitution submitted for ratification ; the de- 
 termination that it was not advisable ; and a report of the bill back to the Senate 
 next morning, with the clause providing for the submission stricken out. Could evi- 
 dence be more complete to establish the first part of the charge I have made of a 
 plot having been entered into by somebody, to have a Constitution adopted without 
 submitting it to the people ? 
 
 Now, for the other part of the charge, that Judge Douglas was in this plot, whether 
 knowingly or ignorantly, is not material to my purpose. The charge is that he was 
 an instrument co-operating in the project to have a Constitution formed and put into 
 operation, without affording the people an opportunity to pass upon it. The first evi- 
 dence to sustain the charge is the fact that he reported back the Toombs amendment 
 with the clause providing for the submission stricken out. This, in connection with 
 his speech in the Senate on the 9th of December, 1857 (Congressional Globe, part 1, 
 page 14), wherein he stated: 
 
 *' That during the last Congress, I [Mr. Douglas] reported a bill from the Com
 
 164 
 
 mittee on Territories, to authorize the people of Kansas to assemble and form a Con- 
 stitution for themselves. Subsequently the Senater from Georgia (Mr. Toombs) 
 brought forward a substitute for my bill, which, after having been modified by him 
 and myself in consultation, was passed by the Senate." 
 
 This of itself ought to be sufficient to show that my colleage was an instrument in 
 the plot to have a Constitution put in force without submitting it to the people, and 
 to forever close his mouth from attempting to deny. No man can reconcile his acts 
 and former declarations with his present denial, and the only charitable conclusion 
 would be that he was being used by others without knowing it. Whether he is en- 
 titled to the benefit of even this excuse, you must judge on a candid hearing of the 
 facts I shall present. When the charge was first made in the United States Senate, 
 by Mr. Bigler, that my colleague had voted for an Enabling Act which put a Govern- 
 ment in operation without submitting the Constitution to the people, my colleague 
 (Congressional Globe, last session, part 1, page 24) stated: 
 
 "I will ask the Senator to show me an intimation from any one member of the 
 Senate, in the whole debate on the Toombs bill, and in the Union from any quarter, 
 that the Constitution was not to be submitted to the people. I will venture to say 
 that on all sides of the chamber it was so understood at the time. If the opponents 
 of the bill had understood it was not, they would have made the point on it ; and if 
 they had made it we should certainly have yielded to it, and put in the clause. That 
 is a discovery made since the President found out that it was not safe to take it for 
 granted that that would be done which ought in fairness to have been done." 
 
 I knew at the time this statement was made, that I had urged the very objection 
 to the Toombs bill two years before, that it did not provide for the submission of the 
 Constitution. You will find my remarks, made on the 2d of July, 1856, in the ap- 
 pendix to the Congressional Globe of that year, page 179, urging this very objection. 
 Do you ask why I did not expose him at the time ? I will tell you Mr. Douglas 
 was then doing good service against the Lecompton iniquity. The Republicans were 
 then engaged in a hand-to-hand fight with the National Democracy, to prevent the 
 bringing of Kansas into the Union as a slave State against the wishes of its inhabi- 
 tants, and of course I was unwilling to turn our guns from the common enemy to 
 strike down an ally. Judge Douglas, however, on the same day, and in the same de- 
 bate, probably recollecting, or being reminded of the fact, that I had objected to the 
 Toombs bill when pending, that it did not provide for the submission of the Constitu- 
 tion to the people, made another statement which is to be found in the same volume 
 of the Congressional Globe, page 22, in which he says : 
 
 " That the bill was silent on the subject is true, and my attention was called to 
 that about the time it was passed ; and I took the fair construction to be, that powers 
 not delegated were reserved, and that of course the Constitution would be submitted 
 to the people. Whether this statement is consistent with the statement just before 
 made, that had the point been made it would have been yielded to, or that it was a 
 new discovery, you will determine ; for if the public records do not convict and con- 
 demn him, he may go uncondernned, so far as I am concerned. I make no use here 
 of the testimony of Senator Bigler to show that Judge Douglas must have been privy 
 to the consultation held at his house, when it was determined not to submit the Con- 
 stitution to the people, because Judge Douglas denies it, and I wish to use his own 
 acts and declarations, which are abundantly sufficient for my purpose. 
 
 I come to a piece of testimony which disposes of all these various pretenses which 
 have been set up for striking out of the original Toombs proposition, the clause re- 
 quiring a submission of the Constitution to the people, and shows that it was not done 
 either by accident, by inadvertence, or because it was believed that the bill, being 
 silent on the subject, the Constitution would necessarily be submitted to the people 
 for approval. What will you think, after listening to the facts already presented, to 
 ahow that there was a design with those who concocted the Toombs bill as amended, 
 not to submit the Constitution to the people, if I now bring before you the amended 
 hill as Judge Douglas reported it back, and show the clause of the original bill re-
 
 165 
 
 quiring submission, was not only struck out, but that other clauses were inserted in 
 the bill putting it absolutely out of the power of the Convention to submit the Con- 
 stitution to the people for approval, had they desired to do so? If I can produce 
 such evidence as that, will you not all agree that it clinches and establishes forever 
 all I charged at Chicago, and more too ? 
 
 I propose now to furnish that evidence. It will be remembered that Mr. Toombs's 
 bill provided for holding an election for delegates to form a Constitution under the 
 supervision of commissioners to be appointed by the President, and in the bill as re- 
 ported back by Judge Douglas, these words, not to be found in the oriyinul bill, are 
 inserted at the close of the llth section, viz: 
 
 4fc And until the complete execution of this act no other election shall be held in 
 laid Territory." 
 
 Tl is clause put it out of the power of the Convention to refer to the people for 
 adoption ; it absolutely prohibited the holding of any other election than that for the 
 election of delegates, till that act was completely executed, which would not have 
 been until Kansas was admitted as a State, or at all events till her Constitution was 
 fully prepared and ready for submission to Congress for admission Other amerxl- 
 ments reported by Judge Douglas to the original Toombs bill, clearly show that the 
 intention was to enable Kansas to become a State without any further action than 
 simply a resolution of admission. The amendment reported by Mr. Douglas, that 
 " until the next Congressional apportionment, the said State shall have one represen- 
 tative," clearly shows this, no such provision being contained in the original Toombs 
 bill. For what other earthly purpose could the clause to prevent any other election 
 in Kansas, except that of delegates, till it was admitted as a State, have been inserted 
 except to prevent a submission of the Constitution, when formed, to the people ? 
 
 The Toombs bill did not pass in the exact shape in which Judge Douglas reported 
 it. Several amendments were made to it in the Senate. I am now dealing with the 
 action of Judge Douglas as connected with that bill, and speak of the bill as he re- 
 commended it. The facts I have stated in regard to this matter appear upon the 
 records, which I have here present to show to any man who wishes to look at them. 
 They establish beyond the power of controversey, all the charges I have made, and 
 show that Judge Douglas was made use of as an instrument by others, or else know- 
 ingly was a party to the scheme to have a Government put in force over the people 
 of Kansas, without giving them an opportunity to pass upon it. That others high in 
 position in the so-called Democratic party were parties to such a scheme is confessed 
 by Gov. Bigler ; and the only reason why the scheme was not carried, and Kansas 
 long ago forced into the Union as a slave State, is the fact, that the Republicans were 
 sufficiently strong in the House of Representatives to defeat the measure. 
 
 Extract from Mr. Douglas's Speech made at Jacksonville, and referred to ly Mr 
 Lincoln in his opening at Charleston. 
 
 I have been reminded by a friend behind me that there is another topic upon 
 which there has been a desire expressed that I should speak. I am told that Mr. 
 Lyman Trumbull, who has the good fortune to hold a seat in the United States Sen- 
 ate, in violation of the bargain between him and Lincoln, was here the other day 
 and occupied his time in making certain charges against me, involving, if they be 
 true, moral turpitude. I am also informed that the charges he made here were sub- 
 stantially the same as those made by him in the city of Chicago, which were printed 
 in the newspapers of that city. I now propose to answer those charges and to anni- 
 hilate every pretext that an honest man has ever had for repeating them. 
 
 In order that I may meet these charges fairly, I will read them, as made by Mr. 
 Trumbull, in his Chicago speech, in his own language. He says : 
 
 " Now, fellow-citizens, I make the distinct charge that there was a preconcerted
 
 167 
 
 In order to give more pertinency to that question, I will read an extract from 
 rrumbull's speech in the Senate, on the Toombs bill, made on the 2d of July, 1856. 
 He said : 
 
 " We are asked to amend this bill, and make it perfect, and a liberal spirit seems 
 to be manifested on the part of some Senators to have a fair bill. It is difficult, I 
 admit, to frame a bill that will give satisfaction to all, but to approach it, or come 
 near it, I think two things must be done." 
 
 The first, then, he goes on to say, was the application of the Wilmot Proviso to 
 the Territories, and the second the repeal of all the laws passed by the Territorial Leg- 
 islature. He did not then say that it was necessary to put in a clause requiring the 
 submission of the Constitution. Why, if he thought such a provision necessary, did 
 he not introduce it ? He says in his speech that he was invited to offer amend- 
 ments Why did he not do so ? He cannot pretend that he had no chance to do 
 this, for he did offer some amendments, but none requiring submission. 
 
 I now proceed to show that Mr. Trumbull knew at the time that the bill was 
 silent as to the subject of submission, and also that he, and every body else, took it 
 for granted that the Constitution would be submitted. Now for the evidence. In 
 his second speech he says : " The bill in many of its features meets, my approbation." 
 So he did not think it so very bad. 
 
 Further on he says : 
 
 " In regard to the measure introduced by the Senator from Georgia [Mr. Toombs}, 
 and recommended by the Committee, I regard it, in many respects, as a most excel- 
 lent bill ; but we must look at it in the light of surrounding circumstances. In the 
 condition of things now existing in the country, I do not consider it as a safe meas- 
 ure, nor one which will give peace, and I will give my reasons. First, it affords no 
 immediate relief. It provides for taking a census of the voters in the Territory, 
 for an election in November, and the assembling of a Convention in December, to 
 form, if it thinks proper, a Constitution for Kansas, preparatory to its admission into 
 the Union as a State. It is not until December that the Convention is to meet. It 
 would take some time to form a Constitution. I suppose tfiat Constitution would 
 have to be ratified by the people before it becomes valid" 
 
 He there expressly declared that he supposed, under the bill, the Constitution 
 would have to be submitted to the people before it became valid. He went on 
 to say : 
 
 " No provision is made in this bill for such a ratification. This is objectionable to 
 my mind. I do not think the people should be bound by a Constitution, without 
 passing upon it directly, themselves." 
 
 Why did he not offer an amendment providing for such a submission, if he 
 thought it necessary ? Notwithstanding the absence of such a clause, he took it 
 for granted that the Constitution would have to be ratified by the people, under 
 the bill. 
 
 In another part of the same speech, he says : 
 
 " There is nothing said in this bill, so far as I have discovered, about submitting 
 the Constitution which is to be framed, to the people, for their sanction or rejection. 
 Perhaps the Convention would have the right to submit it, if it should think proper; 
 but it is certainly not compelled to do so, according to the provisions of the bill. If 
 it is to be submitted to the people, it will take time, and it will not be until some 
 time next year that this new Constitution, affirmed and ratified by the people, would 
 be submitted here to Congress for its acceptance, and what is to be the condition of 
 that people in the meantime ?" 
 
 You see that his argument then was that the Toombs bill would not get Kansas 
 into the Union quick enough and was objectionable on that account. He had 
 no fears about this submission, or why did he not introduce an amendment to meet 
 the case ? 
 
 A voice " Why didn't you ? You were Chairman of the Committee." 
 
 Mr. Douglas I will answer that question for you.
 
 166 
 
 arrangement and plot entered into bj the very men who now claim credit for oppos- 
 ing a Constitution not submitted to the people, to have a Constitution formed and 
 put in force without giving the people an opportunity to pass upon it. This, my 
 friends, is a serious charge, but I charge it to-night, that the very men who traverse 
 the country under banners, proclaiming popular sovereignty, by design, concocted a 
 bill on purpose to force a Constitution upon that people." 
 
 Again, speaking to some one in the crowd, he says : 
 
 "And you want to satisfy yourself that he was in the plot to force a Constitution 
 upon that people? I will satisfy you. I will cram the truth down any honest man's 
 throat, until he cannot deny it, and to the man who does deny it, I will cram the lie 
 down his throat till he shall cry enough ! It is preposterous it is the most damnable 
 effrontery that man ever put on to conceal a scheme to defraud and cheat the people 
 out of their rights, and then claim credit for it." 
 
 That is polite and decent language for a Senator of the United States. Remem- 
 ber that that language was used without any provocation whatever from me. I had 
 not alluded to him in any manner in any speech that I had made, hence without 
 provocation. As soon as he sets his foot within the State, he makes the direct 
 charge that I was a party to a plot to force a Constitution upon the people of 
 Kansas against their will, and knowing that it would be denied, he talks about 
 cramming the lie down the throat of any man who shall deny it, until he cries 
 enough. 
 
 Why did he take it for granted that it would be denied, unless he knew it to be 
 false ? Why did he deem it necessary to make a threat in advance that he would 
 " cram the lie " down the throat of any man that should deny it ? I have no doubt 
 that the entire Abolition party consider it very polite for Mr. Trumbull to go round 
 uttering calumnies of that kind, bullying and talking of cramming lies down men's 
 throats ; but if I deny any of his lies by calling him a liar, they are shocked at the 
 indecency of the language ; hence, to-day, instead of calling him a liar I intend to 
 prove that he is one. 
 
 I wish in the first place to refer to the evidence adduced by Trumbull, at Chicago, 
 to sustain his charge. He there declared that Mr. Toombs, of Georgia, intro- 
 duced a bill into Congress authorizing the people of Kansas to form a Constitution 
 and come into the Union, that when introduced it contained a clause requiring the 
 Constitution to be submitted to the people, and that I struck out the words of that 
 clause. 
 
 Suppose it were true that there was such a clause in the bill, and that I struck it 
 out, is that proof of a plot to force a Constitution upon a people against their will ? 
 Bear in mind, that from the days of George Washington to the Administration of 
 Franklin Pierce, there had never been passed by Congress a bill requiring the 
 submission of a Constitution to the people. If Trumbull's charge, that I struck 
 out that clause, were true, it would only prove that I had reported the bill in 
 the exact shape of every bill of like character that passed under Washington, 
 Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Jackson, or any other President, to the time of the then 
 present Administration. I ask you, would that be evidence of a design to force a 
 Constitution on a people against their will ? If it were so, it would be evidence 
 against Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Jackson, Van Buren, and every other 
 President. 
 
 But upon examination, it turns out that the Toombs bill never did contain a clause 
 requiring the Constitution to be submitted. Hence no such clause was ever stricken 
 out by me or any body else. It is true, however, that the Toombs bill and its au- 
 thors all took it for granted that the Constitution would be submitted. There had 
 never been, in the history of this Government, any attempt made to force a Consti- 
 tution upon an unwilling people, and nobody dreamed that any such attempt would 
 be made, or deemed it necessary to provide for such a contingency. If such a clause 
 was necessary in Mr. Trumbull's opinion, why did he not offer an amendment to that 
 effect ?
 
 168 
 
 In (lie first place, no such provision had ever before been put in any similar act 
 passed by Congress. I did not suppose that there was an honest man who would pre- 
 tend that the omission of such a clause furnished evidence of a conspiracy or attempt 
 to impose on the people. It eould not be expected that such of us as did not think 
 that omission was evidence of such a scheme, would offer such an amendment; but 
 if Trumbull then believed what he now says, why did he not oiler the amend- 
 ment, and try to prevent it, when he was, as he says, invited to do so ? 
 
 In this connection I will tell you what the main point of discussion was: There 
 was a bill pending to admit Kansas whenever she should have a population of 
 93,420, that being the ratio required for a member of Congress. Under that bill 
 Kansas could not have become a State for some years, because she could not have 
 had the requisite population. Mr. Tooinbs took it into his head to bring in a bill to 
 admit Kansas then, with only twenty-five or thirty thousand people, and the question 
 was whether we would allow Kansas to come in under this bill, or keep her out 
 under mine until she had 93,420 people. The Committee considered that question, 
 and overruled me by deciding in favor of the immediate admission of Kansas, and I 
 reported accordingly . I hold in my hand a copy of the Report which I made at that 
 dine. I will read from it : 
 
 4i The point upon which your Committee have entertained the most serious and 
 grave doubts in regard to the propriety of indorsing the proposition, relates to the 
 fact that, in the absence of any census of the inhabitants, there is reason to appre- 
 hend that the Territory does not contain sufficient population to ettitle them to de- 
 mand admission under the treaty with France, if we take the ratio of representation 
 for a member of Congress as the rule." 
 
 Thus you see that in the written report accompanying the bill, I said that the 
 great difficulty with the Committee was the question of population. In the same 
 report I happened to refer to the question of submission. Now, listen to what I said 
 about that : 
 
 " In the opinion of your Committee, whenever a Constitution shall be formed in 
 any Territory, preparatory to its admission into the Union as a State, justice, the 
 genius of our institutions, the whole theory of our republican system, imperatively 
 demands that the voice of the people shall be fairly expressed, and their will em- 
 bodied in that fundamental law without fraud or violence, or intimidation, or any 
 other improper or unlawful influence, and subject to no other restrictions than those 
 imposed by the Constitution of the United States." 
 
 I read this from the Report I made at the time, on the Tooinbs bill. I will read 
 yet another passage from the same Report ; after setting out the features of the 
 Tooinbs bill, I contrast it with the proposition of Senator Seward, saying : 
 
 " The revised proposition of the Senator from Georgia refers all matters in dis- 
 pute to the decision of the present population, with guaranties of fairness and safe- 
 guards against frauds and violence, to which no reasonable man can find just grounds 
 of exception, while the Senator from New York, if his proposition is designed to 
 recognize and impart vitality to the Topeka Constitution, proposes to disfranchise not 
 only all the emigrants who have arrived in the Territory this year, but all the law- 
 abiding men who refused to join in the act of open rebellion against the constituted 
 authorities of the Territory last year by making the unauthorized and unlawful 
 action of a political party the fundamental law of the whole people." 
 
 Then, again, I repeat that under that bill the question is to be referred to the pres- 
 ent population to decide for or against coming into the Union under the Constitution 
 they may adopt. 
 
 Mr. Trumbull, when at Chicago, rested his charge upon the allegation that the 
 clause requiring submission was originally in the bill, and was stricken out by me. 
 When that falsehood was exposed by a publication of the record, he went to Alton 
 and made another speech, repeating the charge and referring to other and different 
 evidence to sustain it. He saw that he was caught in his first falsehood, so he 
 changed the issue, and instead of resting upon the allegation of striking out, he made
 
 169 
 
 It rest upon the declaration that I had introduced a clause into the bill prohibiting 
 the people from voting upon the Constitution. I am told that he made the same 
 charge here that he made at Alton, that I had actually introduced and incorporated 
 into the bill, a clause which prohibited the people from voting upon their Constitu- 
 tion. I hold his Alton speech in my hand, and will read the amendment, which he 
 alleges that I offered. It is in these words : 
 
 "And until the complete execution of this act no other election shall be held in 
 said Territory." 
 
 Trumbull says the object of that amendment was to prevent the Convention frm 
 submitting the Constitution to a vote of the people. I will read what lie said at 
 Alton on that subject : 
 
 " This clause put it out of the power of the Convention, had it been so disposed, 
 to submit the Constitution to the people for adoption; for it absolutely prohibited the 
 holding of any other election, than that for the election of delegates, till that act was 
 completely executed, which would not have been till Kansas was admitted as a State, 
 or, at all events, till her Constitution was fully prepared and ready for submission to 
 Congress for admission." 
 
 Now, do you suppose that Mr. Trumbull supposed that that clause prohibited the 
 Convention from submitting the Constitution to the people, when, in his speech in the 
 Senate, he declared that the Convention had a right to submit it? In his Alton 
 speech, as will be seen by the extract which I have read, he declared that the clause 
 put it out of the power of the Convention to submit the Constitution, and in his 
 speech in the Senate he said : 
 
 ft There is nothing said in this bill, so far as I have discovered, about submitting 
 the Constitution which is to be formed, to the people, for their sanction or rejection. 
 Perhaps the Convention could have the right to submit it, if it should think proper, 
 but it is certainly not compelled to do so according to the provisions of the bill." 
 
 Thus you see that, in Congress, he declared the bill to be silent on the subject, and 
 a few days since, at Alton, he made a speech, and said that there was a provision in 
 the bill prohibiting submission. 
 
 I have two answers to make to that. In the first place, the amendment which he 
 quotes as depriving the people of an opportunity to vote upon the Constitution, was 
 stricken out on my motion absolutely stricken out and not voted on at all ! In the 
 second place, in lieu of it, a provision was voted in authorizing the Convention to 
 order an election whenever it pleased. I will read. After Trumbull had made his 
 speech in the Senate, declaring that the Constitution would probably be submitted 
 to the people, although the bill was silent upon that subject, I made a few remarks, 
 and offered two amendments, which you may tind in the Appendix to the Con 
 gressional Globe, volume thirty-three, first session of the thirty-fourth Congress, 
 page 795. 
 
 I quote : 
 
 " Mr. Douglas I have an amendment to offer from the Committee on Territories. 
 On page 8, section 11, strike out the words * until the complete execution of this act 
 no other election shall be held in said Territory,' and insert the amendment which I 
 hold in my hand." 
 
 The amendment was as follows : 
 
 " That all persons who shall possess the other qualifications prescribed for voters 
 under this act, and who shall have been bonafide inhabitants of said Territory since 
 its organization, and who shall have absented themselves therefrom in consequence 
 of the disturbances therein, and who shall return before the first day of October 
 next, and become bonafide inhabitants of the Territory, with the intent of making 
 it their permanent home, and shall present satisfactory evidence of these facts to the 
 Board of Commissioners, shall be entitled to vote at said election, and shall have 
 their names placed on said corrected list of voters for that purpose." 
 
 That amendment was adopted unanimously. After its adoption, the record shows 
 the following :
 
 170 
 
 " Mr. Douglas I have another amendment to offer from the Committee, to follow 
 the amendment which has been adopted. The bill reads now, ' and until the com- 
 plete execution of this act, no other election shall be held in said Territory.' It has 
 been suggested that it should be modified in this way, 'and to avoid all conflict in 
 the complete execution of this act, all other elections in said Territory are hereby 
 postponed until such time as said Convention shall appoint,' so that they can appoint 
 the day in the event that there should be a failure to come into the Union." 
 
 This amendment was also agreed to without dissent. 
 
 Thus you see that the amendment quoted by Trumbull, at Alton, as evidence 
 against me, instead of being put into the bill by me, was stricken out on my motion, 
 and never became a part thereof at all. You also see that the substituted clause 
 expressly authorized the Convention to appoint such day of election as it should 
 deem proper. 
 
 Mr. Trumbull when he made that speech knew these facts. He forged his evi- 
 dence from beginning to end, and by falsifying the record he endeavors to bolster up 
 his false charge. I ask you what you think of Trumbull thus going around the 
 country, falsifying and garbling the public records. I ask you whether you will 
 sustain a man who will descend to the infamy of such conduct. 
 
 Mr. Douglas proceeded to remark that he should not hereafter occupy his time in 
 refuting such charges made by Trumbull, but that Lincoln having indorsed the char- 
 acter of Trumbull for veracity, he should hold him [Lincoln] responsible for the 
 glanders. 
 
 FIFTH JOINT DEBATE, AT GALESBURGH, 
 
 October 7, 1858. 
 
 MR. DOUGLAS'S SPEECH. 
 
 LADIES AND GENTLEMEN : Four years ago I appeared before the people of 
 Knox county for the purpose of defending my political action upon the Compromise 
 measures of 1850 and the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska bill. Those of you be- 
 fore me, who were present then, will remember that I vindicated myself for support- 
 ing those two measures by the fact that they rested upon the great fundamental prin- 
 ciple that the people of each State and each Territory of this Union have the right, 
 and ought to be permitted to exercise the right, of regulating their own domestic con- 
 cerns in their own way, subject to no other limitation or restriction than that which 
 the Constitution of the United States imposes upon them. I then called upon the 
 people of Illinois to decide whether that principle of self-government was right or 
 wrong. If it was and is right, then the Compromise measures of 1850 wore right, 
 and. consequently, the Kansas and Nebraska bill, based upon the same principle, 
 must necessarily have been right. 
 
 The Kansas and Nebraska bill declared, in so many words, that it was the true 
 intent and meaning of the act not to legislate slavery into any State or Territory, nor 
 to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and 
 regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to the Constitution 
 of the United States. For the last four years I have devoted all my energies, in 
 private and public, to commend that principle to the American people. Whatever 
 else may be said in condemnation or support of my political course, I apprehend
 
 171 
 
 that no honest man will doubt the fidelity with which, under all circumstances, I have 
 stood by it. 
 
 During the last year a question arose in the Congress of the United States whether 
 or not that principle would be violated by the admission of Kansas into the Union 
 under the Lecompton Constitution. In my opinion, the attempt to force Kansas in 
 under that Constitution, was a gross violation of the principle enunciated in the Com- 
 promise measures of 1850, and Kansas and Nebraska bill of 1854, and therefore I 
 led off in the fight against the Lecompton Constitution, and conducted it until the 
 effort to carry that Constitution through Congress was abandoned. And I can appeal 
 to all men, friends and foes, Democrats and Republicans, Northern men and South- 
 ern men, that during the whole of that fight I carried the banner of Popular Sov- 
 ereignty aloft, and never allowed it to trail in the dust, or lowered rny flag until vic- 
 tory perched upon our arms. When the Lecompton Constitution was defeated, the 
 question arose in the minds of those who had advocated it what they should next 
 resort to in order to carry out their views. They devised a measure known as the 
 English bill, and granted a general amnesty and political pardon to all men who had 
 fought against the Lecompton Constitution, provided they would support that bill. I 
 for one did not choose to accept the pardon, or to avail myself of the amnesty granted 
 on that condition. The fact that the supporters of Lecompton were willing to forgive 
 all differences of opinion at that time in the event those who opposed it favored the 
 English bill, was an admission they did not think that opposition to Lecompton im- 
 paired a man's standing in the Democratic party. Now the question arises, what 
 was that English bill which certain men are now attempting to make a test of politi- 
 cal orthodoxy in this country. It provided, in substance, that the Lecompton Con- 
 stitution should be sent back to the people of Kansas for their adoption or rejection, 
 at an election which was held in August last, and in case they refused admission un- 
 der it, that Kansas should be kept out of the Union until she had 93,420 inhabitants. 
 I was in favor of sending the Constitution back in order to enable the people to say 
 whether or not it was their act and deed, and embodied their will ; but the other 
 proposition, that if they refused to come into the Union under it, they should be kept 
 out until they had double or treble the population they then had, I never would sanc- 
 tion by my vote. The reason why I could not sanction it is to be found in the fact that 
 by the English bill, if the people of Kansas had only agreed to become a slavehold- 
 ing vState under the Lecompton Constitution, they could have done so with 35,000 
 people, but if they insisted on being a free State, as they had a right to do, then 
 they were to be punished by being kept out of the Union until they had nearly three 
 times that population. I then said in my place in the Senate, as I now say to you, 
 that whenever Kansas has population enough for a slave State she has population 
 enough for a free State. I have never yet given a vote, and I never intend to record 
 one, making an odious and unjust distinction between the different States of this 
 Union. I hold it to be a fundamental principle in our republican form of govern- 
 ment that all the States of this Union, old and new, free and slave, stand on an exact 
 equaMty. Equality among the different States is a cardinal principle on which all 
 mr institutions rest. Wherever, therefore, you make a discrimination, saying to a 
 slave State that it shall be admitted with 35,000 inhabitants, and to a free State that 
 it hall not be admitted until it has 93,000 or 100,000 inhabitants, you are throwing 
 the whole weight of the Federal Government into the scale in favor of one class of 
 States against the other. Nor would I on the other hand any sooner sanction the 
 doctrine that a free State could be admitted into the Union with 35,000 people, 
 while a slave State was kept out until it had 93,000. I have always declared in the 
 Senate my willingness, and I am willing now to adopt the rule, that no Territory 
 shall ever become a State, until it has the requisite population for a member of Con- 
 gress, according to the then existing ratio. But while I have always been, arid am 
 now willing to adopt that general rule, I was not willing and would not consent to 
 make an exception of Kansas, as a punishment for her obstinacy, in demanding the 
 right to do as she pleased in the formation of her Constitution. It is proper that I
 
 172 
 
 should remark here, that my opposition to the Lecompton Constitution did not rest 
 upon the peculiar position taken by Kansas on the subject of slavery. I held then, 
 and hold now, that if the people of Kansas want a slave State, it is their right to 
 make one arid be received into the Union under it ; if, on the contrary, they want a 
 free State, it is their right to have it, and no man should ever oppose their admission 
 because they ask it under the one or the other. I hold to that great principle of 
 self-government which asserts the right of every people to decide for themselves the 
 nature and character of the domestic institutions arid fundamental law under which 
 tlit. y are to live. 
 
 The effort has been and is now being made in this State by certain postmasters 
 and other Federal office-holders, to make a test of faith on the support of the English 
 bill. These men are now making speeches all over the State against me and in 
 favor of Lincoln, either directly or indirectly, because I would not sanction a dis- 
 crimination between slave and free States by voting for the English bill. But while, 
 that bill is made a test in Illinois for the purpose of breaking up the Democratic or- 
 ganization in this State, how is it in the other States? Go to Indiana, and there you 
 find English himself, the author of the English bill, who is a candidate for re-elec- 
 tion to Congress, has been forced by public opinion to abandon his own darling 
 project, and to give a promise that he will vote for the admission of Kansas at once, 
 whenever she forms a Constitution in pursuance of law, and ratifies it by a majority 
 vote of her people. Not only is this the case with English himself, but I am in- 
 formed that every Democratic candidate for Congress in Indiana takes the same 
 ground. Pass to Ohio, and there you find that Groesbeck, and Pendleton, and Cox, 
 and all the other anti-Lecompton men who stood shoulder to shoulder with me 
 against the Lecompton Constitution, but voted for the English bill, now repudiate it 
 and take the same ground that I do on that question. So it is with the Joneses and 
 others of Pennsylvania, and so it is with every other Lecompton Democrat in the 
 free States. They now abandon even the English bill, and come back to the true 
 platform which I proclaimed at the time in the Senate, and upon which the Democ- 
 racy of Illinois now stand. And yet, notwithstanding the fact, that every Lecomp- 
 ton and anti-Lecompton Democrat in the free States has abandoned the English bill, 
 you are told that it is to be made a test upon me, while the power and patronage of 
 the Government are all exerted to elect men to Congress in the other States who 
 occupy the same position with reference to it that I do. It seems that my political 
 offense consists in the fact that I first did not vote for the English bill, and thus 
 pledge myself to keep Kansas out of the Union until she has a population of 
 93,4*20, and then return home, violate that pledge, repudiate the bill, and take the 
 opposite ground. If I had done this, perhaps the Administration would now be ad- 
 vo siting my re-election, as it is that of the others who have pursued this course. I 
 did not choose to give that pledge, for the reason that I did not intend to carry out 
 thai principle. I never will consent, for the sake of conciliating the frowns of power, 
 to pledge myself to do that which I do not intend to perform. I now submit 
 the question to you as my constituency, whether I was not right, first, in resisting 
 the adoption of the Lecompton Constitution ; and secondly, in resisting the English 
 bill. I repeat, that I opposed the Lecompton Constitution because it was not the 
 act and deed of the people of Kansas, and did not embody their will. I denied the 
 right of any power on earth, under our system of Government, to force a Constitu- 
 tion on an unwilling people. There was a time when some men could pretend to 
 believe that the Lecompton Constitution embodied the will of the people of Kansas, 
 but that time has passed. The question was referred to the people of Kansas under 
 the English bill last August, and then, at a fair election, they rejected the Lecomp- 
 ton Constitution by a vote of from eight to ten against it to one in its favor. Since 
 it has been voted down by so overwhelming a majority, no man can pretend that it 
 was the act and deed of that people. I submit the question to you whether or not, 
 if it had not been for me, that Constitution would have been crammed down the 
 throats of the people of Kansas against their consent. While at least ninety -nine
 
 173 
 
 out of every hundred people here present, agree that I was right in defeating that 
 project, yet my enemies use the fact that I did defeat it by doing right, to break me 
 down and put another man in the United States in my place. The very men who 
 acknowledge that I was right in defeating Lecompton, now form an alliance with 
 Federal office-holders, professed Lecompton men, to defeat me, because I did right. 
 My political opponent, Mr. Lincoln, has no hope on earth, and has never dreamed that 
 he had a chance of success, were it not for the aid that he is receiving from Federal 
 office-holders, who are using their influence and the patronage of the Government 
 against me in revenge for my having defeated the Lecompton Constitution. What 
 do you Republicans think of a political organization that will try to make an unholy 
 and unnatural combination with its professed foes to beat a man merely because he 
 has done right ? You know such is the fact with regard to your own party. You 
 know that the <ix of decapitation is suspended over every man in office in Illinois, and 
 the terror of proscription is threatened every Democrat by the present Administra- 
 tion, unless he supports the Republican ticket in preference to my Democratic asso- 
 ciates and myself. I could find an instance in the postmaster of the city of Gales- 
 burgh, and in every other postmaster in this vicinity, all of whom have been stricken 
 down simply because they discharged the duties of their offices honestly, and supported 
 the regular Democratic ticket in this State in the right. The Republican party is avail- 
 ing itself of every unworthy means in the present contest to carry the election, be- 
 cause its leaders know that if they let this chance slip they will never have another, 
 and their hopes of making this a Republican State will be blasted forever. 
 
 Now, let me ask you whether the country has any interest in sustaining this or- 
 ganization, known as the Republican party. That party is unlike all other political 
 organizations in this country. All other parties have been national in their charac- 
 ter have avowed their principles alike in the slave and free States, in Kentucky as 
 well as Illinois, in Louisiana as well as in Massachusetts. Such was the case with 
 the old Whig party, and such was and is the case with the Democratic party. 
 Whigs and Democrats could proclaim their principles boldly and fearlessly in the 
 North and in the South, in the East and in the West, wherever the Constitution 
 ruled and the American flag waved over American soil. 
 
 But now you have a sectional organization, a party which appeals to the North- 
 ern section of the Union against the Southern, a party which appeals to Northern 
 passion, Northern pride, Northern ambition, and Northern prejudices, against 
 Southern people, the Southern States, and Southern institutions. The leaders of 
 that party hope that they will be able to unite the Northern States in one great sec- 
 tional party, and inasmuch as the North is the strongest section, that they will thus 
 be enabled to out vote, conquer, govern, and control the South. Hence you find 
 that they now make speeches advocating principles and measures which cannot be 
 defended in any slavenolding State of this Union. Is there a Republican residing 
 in Galesburgh who can travel into Kentucky and carry his principles with him across 
 the Ohio? What Republican from Massachusetts can visit the Old Dominion with- 
 out leaving his principles behind him when he crosses Mason and Dixon's line? 
 Permit me to say to you in perfect good humor, but in all sincerity, that no politi- 
 cal creed is sound which cannot be proclaimed fearlessly in every State of this Union 
 where the Federal Constitution is not the supreme law of the land. Not only is 
 this Republican party unable to proclaim its principles alike in the North and in the 
 South, in the free States and in the slave States, but it cannot even proclaim them 
 in the same forms and give them the same strength and meaning in all parts of the 
 same State. My friend Lincoln finds it extremely difficult to manage a debate in 
 the center part of the State, where there is a mixture of men from the North and 
 the South. In the extreme Northern part of Illinois he can proclaim as bold 
 and radical Abolitionism as ever Giddings, Lovejoy, or Garrison enunciated, but 
 when he gets down a little further South he claims that he is an old line Whig, a 
 disciple of Henry Clay, and declares that he still adheres to the old line Whig creed, 
 and has nothing whatever to do with Abolitionism, or negro equality, or negro citi- 
 12
 
 174 
 
 zenship. I once before hinted this of Mr. Lincoln in a public speech, and at 
 Charleston he defied me to show that there was any difference between his speeches 
 in the North and in the South, and that they were not in strict harmony. I will now 
 call your attention to two of them, and you can then say whether you would be apt 
 to believe that the same man ever uttered both. In a speech in reply to me at Chi- 
 cago in July last, Mr. Lincoln, in speaking of the equality of the negro wan tlnv 
 white man. used the following language : 
 
 " I should like to know, if taking this old Declaration of Independence, which de- 
 clares that all men are equal upon principle, and making exceptions to it, where will 
 it stop ? If one man says it does not mean a negro, why may not another man say 
 it does not mean another man ? If the Declaration is not the truth, let us get thn 
 statute book in which we find it and tear it out. Who is so bold as to do it ? If it. 
 is not true, let us tear it out." 
 
 You find that Mr. Lincoln there proposed that if tke doctrine of the Declaration 
 of Independence, declaring all men to be born equal, did not include the negro and 
 put him on an equality with the white man, that we should take the statute book and 
 tear it out. He there took the ground that the negro race is included in the Decla- 
 ration of Independence as the equal of the white race, and that there could be no 
 such thing as a distinction in the races, making one superior and the other inferior. 
 I read now from the same speech : 
 
 " My friends [he says], I have detained you about as long as I desire to do, and 
 I have only to say let us discard all this quibbling about this man and the other 
 man this race and that race and the other race being inferior, and therefore 
 they must be placed in an inferior position, discarding our standard that we have 
 left us. Let us discard all these things, and unite as one people throughout this 
 land, until we shall once more stand up declaring that all men are created equal." 
 
 [ u That's right," etc.] 
 
 Yes, I have no doubt that you think it is right, but the Lincoln men down in 
 Coles, Tazewell and Sangamon counties do not think it is right. In the conclusion 
 of the same speech, talking to the Chicago Abolitionists, he said : " I leave you, 
 hoping that the lamp of liberty will bum in your bosoms until there shall no longer 
 be a doubt that all men are created free and equal." [ " Good, good."] Well, 
 you say good to that, and you are going to vote for Lincoln because he holds 
 that doctrine. I will not blame you for supporting him on that ground, but I will 
 show you in immediate contrast with that doctrine, what Mr. Lincoln said down 
 in Egypt in order to get votes in that locality where they do not hold to such a 
 doctrine. In a joint discussion between Mr. Lincoln and myself, at Charleston, I 
 think, on the 18th of last month, Mr. Lincoln, referring to this subject, used the fol- 
 lowing language : 
 
 " I will say then, that I am not nor never have been in favor of bringing about 
 in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races ; that I 
 am not nor never have been in favor of making voters of the free negroes, or 
 jurors, or qualifying them to hold office, or having them to marry with white peo- 
 ple. I will say in addition, that there is a physical difference between the white 
 ancl black race?, which, I suppose, will forever forbid the two races living together 
 upon terms of social and political equality, and inasmuch as they cannot so live, 
 that while they do remain together, there must be the position of superior and in- 
 ferior, that I as much as any other man am in favor of the superior position being 
 assigned to the white man." 
 
 [ " Good for Lincoln."] 
 
 Fellow-citizens, here you find men hurraing for Lincoln and saying that he did 
 right, when in one part of the State he stood up for negro equality, and in an- 
 other part for political effect, discarded the doctrine and declared that there al- 
 ways must be a superior and inferior race. Abolitionists up north are expected 
 and required to vote for Lincoln because he goes for the equality of the races, 
 holding that by the Declaration of Independence the white man and the negro 
 
 O <f , . , , .' . * f*
 
 175 
 
 were created equal, and endowed by the Divine law with that equality, ami down 
 south lie tells the old Whigs, the Keniuckians, Virginians, and Tenne^seeans, that 
 there is a physical difference in the races, making one superior and the other in- 
 ferior, and that he is in favor of maintaining the superiority of the white race over 
 the negro. Now, how can you reconcile those two positions of Mr. Lincoln ? He 
 is to be voted for in the south as a pro-slavery man, and he. .is to be voted for in the 
 north as an Abolitionist. Up here he thinks it is all nonsense to talk about a differ- 
 ence between the races, and says that we must " discard all quibbling about this race 
 and that race and the other race being inferior, and therefore they must be placed in 
 un inferior position.*' Down south he makes this ** quibble " about this race and tliat 
 ruce ?.nd the other race being inferior as the creed of his party, and declares that tho 
 iiegr : can never be elevated to the position of the white man. You find that his politi- 
 cal meetings are called by different names in different counties in the State. Here they 
 arc called Republican meetings, but in old Tazewell, where Lincoln made a speech 
 last Tuesday, he did not address a Republican meeting, but " a grand rally of the 
 Lincoln men." There are very few Republicans there, because Tazewell county ^s 
 filled with old Virginians and Ken tuck ians, all of whom are Whigs or Democrats, and 
 if Mr. Lincoln had called an Abolition or Republican meeting there, he would not gel 
 many votes. Go down into Kgypt and you find that he and his party are operat- 
 ing under an alias there, which his friend Trumbull has given them, in order that 
 they may cheat the people. When 1 was down in Monroe county a few weeks ago 
 addressing the people, I saw handbills posted announcing that Mr. Trnrabull was go-: 
 ing to speak in behalf of Lincoln, and what do you think the name of his party was 
 there ? Why the " Free Democracy." Mr. Trumbull and Mr. Jehu Baker were 
 announced to address the Free Democracy of Monroe county, and the bill was 
 signed u Many Free Democrats." The reason that Lincoln and his party adopted 
 the name of " Free Democracy " down there was because Monroe county has al- 
 ways been an old-fashioned Democratic county, and hence it was necessary to make 
 the people believe that they were Democrats, sympathized with them, and were fight- 
 ing for Lincoln as Democrats. Come up to Springfield, where Lincoln now lives 
 and always has lived, and you find that the Convention of his party which assembled 
 to nominate candidates for Legislature, who are expected to vote for him if elected, 
 dare not adopt the name of Republican, but assembled under the title of " all op- 
 posed to the Democracy." Thus you find that Mr. Lincoln's creed cannot travel 
 through even one half of the counties of this State, but that it changes its hues 
 and becomes lighter and lighter, as it travels from the extreme north, until it is near- 
 ly white, when it reaches the extreme south end of the State. I ask you, my friends, 
 why cannot Republicans avow their principles alike every where ? I would despise 
 myself if I thought that I was procuring your votes by concealing my opinions, 
 and by avowing one set of principles in one part of the State, and a different set 
 in another part. If I do not truly and honorably represent your feelings and prin- 
 ciples, then I ought not to be your Senator ; and I will never conceal my opinions, 
 or modify or change them a hair's breadth in order to get votes. I tell you that this 
 Chicago doctrine of Lincoln's declaring that the negro and the white- man are made 
 equal by the Declaration of Independence and by Divine Providence is a mon- 
 strous heresy. The signers of the Declaration of Independence never dreamed of 
 the negro when they were writing that document. They referred to white men, 
 to men of European birth and European descent, when they declared the equality 
 of all men. I see a gentleman there in the crowd shaking his head. Let ine 
 remind him that when Thomas Jefferson wrote that document, he was the owner, 
 and BO continued until his death, of a large number of slaves. Did he intend to say 
 in that Declaration, that his negro slaves, which he held and treated as property, 
 were created his equals by Divine law, and that he was violating the law of God 
 every day of his life by holding them as slaves ? It must be borne in mind that 
 when that Declaration was put forth, every one of the thirteen Colonies were slave- 
 holding Colonies, and every man who signed that instrument represented a slave
 
 170 
 
 holding constituency. Recollect, also, that no one of them emancipated his slaves, 
 much less put them on an equality with himself, after he signed the Declaration. On 
 the contrary, they all continued to hold their negroes as slaves during the revolution- 
 ary war. Now, do you believe are you willing to have it said that every man 
 who signed the Declaration of Independence declared the negro his equal, and then 
 was hypocrite enough to continue to hold him as a slave, in violation or what he be- 
 lieved to be the Divine law ? And yet when you say that the Declaration of Inde- 
 pendence includes the negro, you charge the signers of it with hypocrisy. 
 
 I say to you, frankly, that in my opinion, this Government was made by our fathers 
 on the white basis. It was made by white men for the benefit of white men and 
 their posterity forever, and was intended to be administered by white men in all time 
 to come. But while I hold that under our Constitution and political system the ne- 
 gro is not a citizen, cannot be a citizen, and ought not to be a citizen, it does notfol 
 low by any means that he should be a slave. On the contrary it does follow that the 
 negro, as an interior race, ought to possess every right, every privilege, every immu- 
 nity which he can safely exercise consistent with the safety of the society in which 
 he lives. Humanity requires, and Christianity commands, that you shall extend to 
 every inferior being, and every dependent being, all the privileges, immunities and 
 advantages which can be granted to them consistent with the safety of society. If 
 you ask me the nature and extent of these privileges, I answer that that is a ques- 
 tion which the people of each State must decide for themselves. Illinois has decided 
 that question for herself. We have said that in this State the negro shall not be 
 a slave, nor shall he be a citizen. Kentucky holds a different doctrine. New York 
 holds one different from either, and Maine one different from all. Virginia, in her 
 policy on this question, differs in many respects from the others, and so on, until 
 there is hardly two States whose policy is exactly alike in regard to the relation 
 of the white man and the negro. Nor can you reconcile them and make them alike. 
 Each State must do as it pleases. Illinois had as much right to adopt the policy 
 which we have on that subject as Kentucky had to adopt a different policy. The 
 great principle of this Government is, that each State has the right to do as it 
 pleases on all these questions, and no other State, or power on earth has the right 
 to interfere with us, or complain of us merely because our system differs from 
 theirs. In the Compromise Measures of 1850, Mr. Clay declared that this great 
 principle ought to exist in the Territories as well as in the States, and I reasserted 
 his doctrine in the Kansas and Nebraska bill in 1854. 
 
 But Mr. Lincoln cannot be made to understand, and those who are determined to 
 vote for him, no matter whether he is a pro-slavery man in the south and a negro 
 equality advocate in the north, cannot be made to understand how it is that in a 
 Territory the people can do as they please on the slavery question under the Dred 
 Scott decision. Let us see whether I cannot explain it to the satisfaction of all 
 impartial men. Chief Justice Taney has said in his opinion in the Dred Scott case, 
 that a negro slave being property, stands on an equal footing with other prop- 
 erty, and that the owner may carry them into United States territory the same 
 as he does other property. Suppose any two of you, neighbors, should conclude 
 to go to Kansas, one carrying $100,000 worth of negro slaves and the other 
 $100,000 worth of mixed merchandise, including quantities of liquors. You both 
 agree that under that decision you may carry your property to Kansas, but when 
 you get it there, the merchant who is possessed of the liquors is met by the 
 Maine liquor law, which prohibits the sale or use of his property, and the owner 
 of the slaves is met by equally unfriendly legislation, which makes his property 
 worthless after he gets it there. What is the right to carry your property into 
 the Territory worth to either, when unfriendly legislation in the Territory renders 
 it worthless after you get it there ? The slaveholder when he gets his slaves 
 there finds that there is no local law to protect him in holding them, no slave code, 
 no police regulation maintaining and supporting him in his right, and he discovers at 
 once that the absence of such friendly legislation excludes his property from the
 
 177 
 
 Territory, just as irresistibly as if there was a positive Constitutional prohibition 
 excluding it. Thus you find it is with any kind of property in a Territory, it 
 depends for its protection on the local and municipal law. If the people of a Terri- 
 tory want slavery, they make friendly legislation to introduce it, but if they do not 
 want it, they withhold all protection from it, and then it cannot exist there. Such 
 was the \ lew taken on the subject by different Southern men when the Nebraska bill 
 passed. See the speech of Mr. Orr, of South Carolina, the present Speaker of the 
 House of Representatives of Congress, made at that time, and there you will find 
 this whole doctrine argued out at full length. Read the speeches of other Southern 
 Congressmen, Senators and Representatives, made in 1854, and you will find that 
 they took the same view of the subject as Mr. Orr that slavery could never be 
 forced on a people who did not want it. I hold that in this country there is no 
 power on the face of the globe that can force any institution on an unwilling people. 
 The great fundamental principle of our Government is that the people of each State 
 and each Territory shall be left perfectly free to decide for themselves what shall be 
 the nature and character of their institutions. When this Government was made, it 
 was based on that principle. At the time of its formation there were twelve slave- 
 holding States and one free State in this Union. Suppose this doctrine of Mr. Lin- 
 coln and the Republicans, of uniformity of laws of all the States on the subject of 
 fclavery, had prevailed ; suppose Mr. Lincoln himself had been a member of the 
 Convention which framed the Constitution, and that he had risen in that august 
 body, and addressing the father of his country, had said as he did at Spring- 
 field : 
 
 ''A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this Government cannot 
 endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dis- 
 solved I do not expect the house to fall, but I do expect it will cease to be divided 
 It will become all one thing or all the other." 
 
 AVhat do you think would have been the result? Suppose he had made that Con- 
 vention believe that doctrine and they had acted upon it, what do you think would 
 have been the result ? Do you believe that the one free State would have outvoted 
 the twelve slaveholding States, and thus abolish slavery? On the contrary, would 
 not the twelve slaveholding States have outvoted the one free State, and under his 
 doctrine have fastened slavery by an irrevocable Constitutional provision upon every 
 inch of the American Republic? Thus you see that the doctrine he now advocates, 
 if proclaimed at the beginning of the Government, would have established slavery 
 every where throughout the American continent, and are you willing, now that we 
 have the majority section, to exercise a power which we never would have submit- 
 ted to when we were in the minority ? If the Southern States had attempted to con- 
 trol our institutions, and make the States all slave when they had the power, I ask 
 would you have submitted to it? If you would not, are you willing now, that we 
 have become the strongest under that great principle of self-government that allows 
 each State to do as it pleases, to attempt to control the Southern institutions? Then, 
 my friends, I say to you that there is but one patli of peace in tin's Republic, and 
 that is to administer this Government as our fathers made it, divided into free and 
 slave States, allowing each State to decide for itself whether it wants slavery or not. 
 If Illinois will settle the slavery question for herself, and mind her own business 
 and let her neighbors alone, we will be at peace with Kentucky, and every other 
 Southern State. If every other State in the Union will do the same there will be 
 peace between the North and the South, and in the whole Union.
 
 178 
 
 MR, LINCOLN'S REPLY. 
 
 MY FELLOW-CITIZENS : A very large portion of the speech which Judge Doug- 
 lias has addressed to you has previously been delivered and put in print. I do not 
 mean that for a hit upon the Judge at all. If I had not been interrupted, I was going 
 to eay that such an answer as I was able to make to a very large portion of it, had 
 already been more than once made and published. There has been an opportunity 
 afforded to the public to see our respective views upon the topics discussed in a large 
 portion of the speech which he has just delivered. I make these remarks for the 
 purpose of excusing myself for not passing over the entire ground that the Judge 
 lias traversed. I however desire to take up some of the points that he has attended 
 to, and ask your attention to them, and I shall follow him backwards upon some 
 notes which I have taken, reversing the order by beginning where he con- 
 cluded. 
 
 The Judge has alluded to the Declaration of Independence, arid insisted that 
 negroes are not included in that Declaration ; and that it is a slander upon the framers 
 of that instrument, to suppose that negroes were meant therein ; and he asks you : 
 1$ it possible to believe that Mr. Jefferson, who penned the immortal paper, could 
 have supposed himself applying the language of that instrument to the negro race, 
 and yet held a portion of that race in slavery ? Would he not at once have freed 
 them? I only have to remark upon this part of the Judge's speech (and that, 
 too, very briefly, for I shall not detain myself, or you, upon that point for any great 
 length of time), that I believe the entire records of the world, from the date of the 
 Declaration of Independence up to within three years ago, may be searched in vain 
 for one single affirmation, from one single man, that the negro was not included in 
 the Declaration of Independence; I think I may defy Judge Douglas to show that 
 he ever said so, that Washington ever said so, that any President ever said so, that 
 any member of Congress ever said so, or that any living man upon the whole earth 
 ever said so, until the necessities of the present policy of the Democratic party, in 
 regard to slavery, had to invent that affirmation. And I will remind Judge 
 Douglas and this audience, that while Mr. Jefferson was the owner of slaves, as 
 undoubtedly he was, in speaking upon this very subject, he used the strong lan- 
 guage that "he trembled for his country when he remembered that God was just;" 
 and I will offer the highest premium in my power to Judge Douglas if he will 
 show that he, in all his life, ever uttered a sentimcut at all akin to that of 
 Jefferson. 
 
 The next thing to which I will ask your attention is the Judge's comments upon 
 the fact, as he assumes it to be, that we cannot call our public meetings ns Republi- 
 can meetings ; and he instances Tazewell county as one of the places where the 
 friends of Lincoln have called a public meeting and have not dared to name it a 
 Republican meeting. He instances Monroe county as another where Judge Trum- 
 bull and Jehu Baker addressed the persons whom the Judge assumes to be the 
 friendi of Lincoln, calling them tho "Free Democracy." I have the honor to inform 
 Judge Douglas that he spoke in that very county of Tazewell last Saturday, 
 and I was there on Tuesday last, and when he spoke there he spoke under a call not 
 venturing to use the word "Democrat." [Turning to Judge Douglas.] What think 
 you of this? 
 
 So again, there is another thing to which I would ask the Judge's attention upon 
 this subject. In the contest of 1856 his party delighted to call themselves together 
 as the "National Democracy," but now, if there should be a notice put up any where 
 for a meeting of the "National Democracy," Judge Douglas and his friends would 
 not come. They would not suppose themselves invited. They would understand 
 that it was a call for those hateful postmasters whom he talks about. 
 
 Now a few words in regard to these extracts from speeches of mine, which 
 Judge Douglas has read to you, and which he supposes are in very great contrast to
 
 179 
 
 each other. Those speeches have been before the public for a considerable time, 
 ana" if they have any inconsistency in them, if there is any conflict in them, the pub- 
 lic have been able to detect it. When the Judge says, in speaking on this subject, 
 that I make speeches of one sort for the people of the northen end of the State, 
 and of a different sort for the southern people, lie assumes that I do not understand 
 that rny speeches will be put in print and read north and south. I knew all the 
 while that the speech that I made at Chicago, and the one I made at Jonesboro and 
 the one at Charleston, would all be put in print and all the reading and intelligent 
 men in the community would see them and know all about my opinions. And I 
 have not supposed, and do not now suppose, that there is any conflict whatever 
 between them. But the Judge will have it that if we do not confess that there is a 
 sort of inequality between the white and black races, which justifies us in, making 
 them slaves, we must, then, insist that there is a degree of equality that requires us 
 to make them our wives. Now, I have all the while taken a broad distinction in 
 regard to that matter ; and that is all there is in these different speeches which he 
 arrays here, and the entire reading of either of the speeches will show that that dis- 
 tinction was made. Perhaps by taking two parts of the same speech, he could have 
 got up as much of a conflict as the one he has found. I have all the while main- 
 tained, that in so far as it should be insisted that there was an equality between the 
 white and black races that should produce a perfect social and political equality, it 
 was an impossibility. This you have seen in my printed speeches, and with it I have 
 said, that in their right to " life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," as proclaimed 
 in that old Declaration, the inferior races are our equals. And these declarations 
 I have constantly made in reference to the abstract moral question, to contemplate 
 and consider when we are legislating about any new country which is not already 
 cursed with the actual presence of the evil slavery. I have never manifested any 
 impatience with the necessities that spring from the actual presence of black people 
 amongst us, and the actual existence of slavery amongst us where it does already ex- 
 ist ; but I have insisted that, in legislating for new countries, where it does not exist, 
 there is no just rule other than that of moral and abstract right ! With reference to 
 those new countries, those maxims as to the right of a people to " life, liberty and 
 the pursuit of happiness," were the just rules to be constantly referred to. There is 
 no misunderstanding this, except by men interested to misunderstand it. I take it 
 that I have to address an intelligent and reading community, who will peruse what I 
 say, weigh it, and then judge whether I advance improper or unsound views, or 
 whether I advance hypocritical, and deceptive, and contrary views in different por- 
 tions of the country. I believe myself to be guilty of no such thing as the latter, 
 though, of course, I cannot claim that I am entirely free from all error in the opin- 
 ions I advance. 
 
 The Judge has also detained us awhile in regard to the distinction between his 
 party and our party. His he assumes to be a national party ours a sectional one. 
 He does this in asking the question whether this country ha^ any interest in the main- 
 tenance of the Republican party ? He assumes that our party is altogether sectional 
 that the party to which he adheres is national ; and the argument is, that no party 
 can be a rightful party can be based upon rightful principles unless it can an- 
 nounce its principles every where. I presume that Judge Douglas could not go into 
 Russia and announce the doctrine of our national Democracy ; he could not denonr-ee 
 the doctrine of kings and emperors and monarchies in Russia ; and it may be true 
 of this country, that in some places we may not be able to proclaim a doctrine as 
 clearly true as the truth of Democracy, because there is a section so directly opposed 
 to it that they will not tolerate us in doing so. Is it the true test of the soundness 
 of a doctrine, that in some places people won't let you proclaim it ? Is that the way 
 to test the truth of any doctrine ? Why, I understood that at one time the people of 
 Chicago would not let Judge Douglas preach a certain favorite doctrine of his. I 
 commend to his consideration the question, whether he takes that as a test of the 
 unsoundncss of what he wanted to preach.
 
 180 
 
 There is another thing to which I wish to ask attention for a little while on this 
 occasion. What has always been the evidence brought forward to prove that the 
 Republican party is a sectional party ? The main one was that in the Southern por- 
 tion of the Union the people did not let the Republicans proclaim their doctrines 
 amongst them. That has been the main evidence brought forward that they had 
 no supporters, or substantially none, in the slave States. The South have not taken 
 hold of our principles as we announce them; nor does Judge Douglas now grapple 
 with those principles. We have a Republican State Platform, laid down in Spring- 
 field in June last, stating our position all the way through the questions before the 
 country. We are now far advanced in this canvass. Judge Douglas and I hare 
 made perhaps forty speeches apiece, and we have now for the fifth time met face to 
 face in debate, and up to this day I have not found either Judge Douglas or any 
 friend of his taking hold of the Republican platform or laying his finger upon any- 
 thing in it that is wrong. I ask you all to recollect that. Judge Douglas tuins away 
 from the platform of principles to the fact that he can find people somewhere who 
 will not allow us to announce those principles. If he had great confidence that our 
 principles were wrong, he would take hold of them and demonstrate them to be 
 wrong. But he does not do so. The only evidence he has of their being wrong is 
 in the ^act that there are people who won't allow us to preach them. I ask again is 
 that the way to test the soundness of a doctrine ? 
 
 I ask his attention also to the fact that by the rule of nationality he is himself fast 
 becoming sectional. I ask his attention to the fact that his speeches would not go as 
 current now south of the Ohio river as they have formerly gone there. I ask his 
 attention to the fact that he felicitates himself to-day that all the Democrats of the 
 free States are agreeing with him, while he omits to tell us that the Democrats of 
 any slave State agree with him. If he has not thought of this, I commend to his 
 consideration the evidence in his own declaration, on this day, of his becoming sec- 
 tional too. I see it rapidly approaching. Whatever may be the result of this ephe- 
 meral contest between Judge Douglas and myself, I see the day rapidly approaching 
 when his pill of sectionalism, which he has been thrusting down the throats of Re- 
 publicans for yea'rs past, will be crowded down his own throat. 
 
 Now in regard to what Judge Douglas said (in the beginning of his speech) about 
 the Compromise of 1850, containing the principle of the Nebraska bill, although I 
 have often presented my views upon that subject, yet as I have not done so in this 
 canvass, I will, if you please, detain you a little with them. I have always maintained, 
 so far as I was able, that there was nothing of the principle of the Nebraska bill in 
 the Compromise of 1850 at all nothing whatever. Wliere can you find the prin- 
 ciple of the Nebraska bill in that Compromise ? If any where, in the two pieces of 
 the Compromise organizing the Territories of New Mexico and Utah. It was ex- 
 pressly provided in these two acts, that, when they came to be admitted into the 
 Union, they should be admitted with or without slavery, as they should choose, by 
 their own Constitutions. Nothing was said in either of those acts as to what was to 
 be done in relation to slavery during the territorial existence of those Territories, 
 while Henry Clay constantly made the declaration (Judge Douglas recognizing him 
 as a leader) that, in his opinion, the old Mexican laws would control that question 
 during the territorial existence, and that these old Mexican laws excluded slavery. 
 How can that be used as a principle for declaring that during the territorial existence 
 as well as at the time of framing the Constitution, the people, if you please, might 
 have slaves if they wanted them ? I am not discussing the question whether it is 
 right or wrong ; but how are the New Mexican and Utah laws patterns for the Ne- 
 braska bill ? I maintain that the organization of Utah and New Mexico did not 
 establish a general principle at all. It had no feature of establishing a general prin- 
 ciple. The acts to which I have referred were a part of a general system of Com- 
 promises. They did not lay down what was proposed as a regular policy for the 
 Territories ; only an agreement in this particular case to do in that way, because 
 other things were done that were to be a compensation for it. They were allowed
 
 181 
 
 to come in in that shape, because in another way it was paid for considering that as a 
 part of that system of measures called the Compromise of 1850, which finally included 
 half a dozen acts. It included the admission of California as a free State, which waa 
 kept out of the Union for half a year because it had formed a free Constitution. It 
 included the settlement of the boundary of Texas, which had been undefined before, 
 which was in itself a slavery question ; for, if you pushed the line farther west, you 
 made Texas larger, and made more slave Territory ; while, if you drew the line to- 
 ward the east, you narrowed the boundary and diminished the domain of slavery, and 
 by so much increased free Territory. It included the abolition of the slave-trade in 
 the District of Columbia. It included the passage of a new Fugitive Slave law. 
 AK these things were put together, and though passed in separate acts, were never- 
 theless in legislation (as the speeches at the time will show), made to depend upon 
 each other. Each got votes, with the understanding that the other measures were to 
 pass, and by this system of Compromise, in that series of measures, those two bills 
 the New Mexico and Utah bills -were passed ; and I say for that reason they 
 could not be taken as models, framed upon their own intrinsic principle, for all fu* 
 ture Territories. And I have the evidence of this in the fact that Judge Douglas, 
 a year afterward, or more than a year afterward, perhaps, when he first introduced 
 bills for the purpose of framing new Territories, did not attempt to follow these bills 
 of New Mexico and Utah ; and even when he introduced this Nebraska bill, I think 
 you will discover that he did not exactly follow them. But I do not wish to dwell at 
 great length upon this branch of the discussion. My own opinion is, that a thorough 
 investigation will show most plainly that the New Mexico and Utah bills were part 
 of a system of Compromise, and not designed as patterns for future territorial legis- 
 lation ; and that this Nebraska bill did not follow them as a pattern at all. 
 
 The Judge tells, in proceeding, that he is opposed to making any odious distinc- 
 tions between free and slave States. I am altogether unaware that the Republicans 
 are in favor of making any odious distinctions between the free and slave States. 
 But there still is a difference, I think, between Judge Douglas and the Republicans 
 in this. I suppose that the real difference between Judge Douglas and his friends, 
 and the Republicans on the contrary, is, that the Judge is not in favor of making any 
 difference between slavery and liberty that he is in favor of eradicating, of pressing 
 out of view, the questions of preference in this country for free or slave institutions ; 
 and consequently every sentiment he utters discards the idea that there is any wrong 
 in slavery. Every thing that emanates from him or his coadjutors in their course of 
 policy, carefully excludes the thought that there is any thing wrong in slavery. All 
 their arguments, if you will consider them, will be seen to exclude the thought that 
 there is any thing whatever wrong in slavery. If you will take the Judge's speeches, 
 and select the short and pointed sentences expressed by him as his declaration that 
 he " don't care whether slavery is voted up or down " you will see at once that this 
 is perfectly logical, if you do not admit that slavery is wrong. If you do admit that 
 it is wrong. Judge Douglas cannot logically say he don't care whether a wrong is 
 voted up or voted down. Judge Douglas declares that if any community want sla- 
 very they have a right to have it. He can say that logically, if he says that there 
 is no wrong in slavery ; but if you admit that there is a wrong in it, he cannot logi- 
 oall) say that any body has a right to do wrong. He insists that, upon the score of 
 equality, the owners of slaves and owners of property of horses and every other 
 sort of property should be alike and hold them alike in a new Territory. That is 
 perfectly logical, if the two species of property are alike and are equally founded in 
 right. But if you admit that one of them is wrong, you cannot institute any equali- 
 ty between right and wrong. And from this difference of sentiment the belief on 
 the part of one that the institution is wrong, and a policy springing from that belief 
 which looks to the arrest of the enlargement of that wrong ; and this other senti- 
 ment, that it is no wrong, and a policy sprung from that sentiment which will toler- 
 ate no idea of preventing that wrong from growing larger, and looks to there never 
 being an end of it through all the existence of things, arises the real difference be-
 
 182 
 
 tween Judge Douglas and his friends on the one hand, and the Republicans on the 
 other. Now, I confess myself as belonging to that class in the country who contem- 
 plate slavery as a moral, social and political evil, having due regard for its actual ex- 
 istence amongst us and the difficulties of getting rid of it in any satisfactory way, 
 and to all the Constitutional obligations which have been thrown about it ; but, never- 
 theless, desire a policy that looks to the prevention of it as a wrong, and looks hope- 
 fully to the time when as a wrong it may come to an end. 
 
 Judge Douglas has again, for, I believe, the fifth time, if not the seventh, in my 
 presence, reiterated his charge of a conspiracy or combination between the Na- 
 tional Democrats and Republicans. What evidence Judge Douglas has upon this 
 subject I know not, inasmuch as he never favors us with any. I have said upon a 
 former occasion, and I do not choose to suppress it now, that I have no objection to 
 the division in the Judge's party. He got it up himself. It was all his and their 
 work. He had, I think, a great deal more to $o with the steps that led to the Le- 
 compton Constitution than Mr. Buchanan had ; though at last, when they reached it, 
 they quarreled over it, and their friends divided upon it. I am very free to confess 
 to Judge Douglas that I have no objection to the division ; but 1 defy the Judge to 
 show any evidence that I have in any way promoted that division, unless he insists 
 on being a witness himself in merely saying so. I can give all fair friends of Judge 
 Douglas here to understand exactly the view that Republicans take in regard to that 
 division. Don't you remember how two years ago the opponents of the Democratic 
 party were divided between Fremont and Fillmore ? I guess you do. Any Demo- 
 crat who remembers that division, will remember also that he was at the 
 time very glad of it, and then he will be able to see all there is between the Na- 
 tional Democrats and the Republicans. What we now think of the two divisions of 
 Democrats, you then thought of the Fremont and Fillmore divisions. That is all 
 there is of it. 
 
 But, if the Judge continues to put forward the declaration that there is an unholy 
 and unnatural alliance between the Republican and the National Democrats, I now 
 want to enter my protest against receiving him as an entirely competent witness 
 upon that subject. I want to call to the Judge's attention an attack he made upon 
 me in the first one of these debates, at Ottawa, on the 21st of August. In order 
 to fix extreme Abolitionism upon me, Judge Douglas read a set of resolutions which 
 he declared had been passed by a Republican State Convention, in October, 1854, 
 at Springfield, Illinois, and he declared I had taken part in that Convention. It 
 turned out that although a few men calling themselves an anti-Nebraska State Con- 
 vention had sat at Springfield about that time, yet neither did I take any part in it, 
 nor did it pass the resolutions or any such resolutions as Judge Douglas read. So 
 apparent had it become that the resolutions which he read had not been passed at 
 Springfield at all, nor by a State Convention in which I had taken part, that seven 
 days afterward, at Freeport, Judge Douglas declared that he had been misled by 
 Charles II. Lanphier, editor of the State Register, and Thomas L. Harris, member 
 of Congress in that District, and he promised in that speech that when he went to 
 Springfield he would investigate the matter. Since then Judge Douglas has been 
 to Springfield, and I presume has made the investigation ; but a month has passed 
 since he has been there, and so far as I know, he has made no report of the result 
 of his investigation. I have waited as I think sufficient time for the report of that 
 investigation, and I have some curiosity to see and hear it. A fraud an absolute 
 forgery was committed, and the perpetration of it was traced to the three Lanphier, 
 Harris and Douglas. Whether it can be narrowed in any way so as to exonerate 
 any one of them, is what Judge Douglas's report would probably show. 
 
 It is true that the set of resolutions read by Judge Douglas were published in the 
 Illinois State Register on the IGth of October, 1854, as being the resolutions of aa 
 anti-Nebraska Convention, which had sat in that same month of October, at Spring- 
 field. But it is also true that the publication in the Register was a forgery then, 
 and the question is still behind, which of the three, if not all of them, committed that
 
 183 
 
 forgery ? The idea that it was done by mistake, is absurd. The article in the Il- 
 linois State Register contains part of the real proceedings of that Springfield Conven- 
 tion, showing that the writer of the article had the real proceedings before him, and 
 purposely threw out the genuine resolutions passed by the Convention, and fraudu- 
 lently substituted the others. Lanphier then, as now, was the editor of the Register, 
 so that there seems to be but little room for his escape. But then it is to be borne 
 in mind that Lanphier had less interest in the object of that forgery than either of 
 the other two. The main object of that forgery at that time was to beat Yates and 
 elect Harris to Congress, and that object was known to be exceedingly dear to 
 Judge Douglas at that time. Harris and Douglas were both in Springfield when the 
 Convention was in session, and although they both left before the fraud appeared in 
 the Register, subsequent events show that they have both had their eyes fixed upon 
 that Convention. 
 
 The fraud having been apparently successful upon the occasion, both Hams and 
 Douglas have more than once since then been attempting to pat it to new uses. As 
 the fisherman's wife, whose drowned husband was brought home with his body full 
 of eel?;, said when she was asked, "What was to be done with him?" " Take the 
 eels out and set him again ; " so Harris and Douglas have shown a disposition to 
 take the eels out of that stale fraud by which they gained Harris's election, and set 
 the fraud again more than once. On the 9th of July, 1856, Douglas attempted a 
 repetition of it upon Trumbull on the floor of the Senate of the United States, as 
 will appear from the appendix of the Congressional Globe of that date. 
 
 On the 9th of August, Harris attempted it again upon Norton in the House of 
 Representatives, as will appear by the same documents the appendix to the Con- 
 gressional Globe of that date. On the 21st of August last, all three Lanphier, 
 Douglas and Harris reattempted it upon me at Ottawa. It has been clung to and 
 played out again and again as an exceedingly high trump by this blessed trio. And 
 now that it has been discovered publicly to be a fraud, we find that Judge Douglas 
 manifests no surprise at it at all. He makes no complaint of Lanphier, who must 
 have known it to be a fraud from the beginning. He, Lanphier and Harris, are just 
 as cozy now, and just as active in the concoction of new schemes as they were be- 
 fore the general discovery of this fraud. Now all this is very natural if they are 
 all alike guilty in that fraud, and it is very unnatural if any one of them is innocent. 
 Lanphier perhaps insists that the rule of honor among thieves does not quite require 
 him to take all upon himself, and consequently my friend Judge Douglas finds it dif- 
 ficult to make a satisfactory report upon his investigation. But meanwhile the three 
 are agreed that each is " a most honorable man" 
 
 Judge Douglas requires an indorsement of his truth and honor by a re-election 
 to the United States Senate, and he makes and reports against me and against Judge 
 Trumbull. day after day, charges which we know to be utterly untrue, without for a 
 moment Deeming to think that this one unexplained fraud, which he promised to 
 investigate, will be the least drawback to his claim to belief. Harris ditto. He asks 
 a re-election to the lower House of Congress without seeming to remember at all 
 I hat he is involved in this dishonorable fraud! The Illinois State Register, edited by 
 Lanphier, then, as now, the central organ of both Harris and Douglas, continues to 
 din the public ear with this assertion without seeming to suspect that these assertions 
 are at all lacking in title to belief. 
 
 After all, the question still recurs upon us, how did that fraud originally get into 
 the State Register ? Lanphier then, as now, was the editor of that paper. Lan- 
 pliicr knows. Lanphier cannot be ignorant of how and by whom it was originally 
 concocted. Can he be induced to tell, or if he has told, can Judge Douglas be in- 
 duced to tell how it originally was concocted ? It may be true that Lanphier insists 
 that the two men for whose benefit it was originally devised, shall at least bear their 
 share of it ! How that is, I do not know, and while it remains unexplained, I hope 
 to be pardoned if I insist that the mere fact of Judge Douglas ^ making charges 
 against Trumbull and myself is not quite sufficient evidence to establish them!
 
 184 
 
 While w? were at Freeport, in one of these joint discussions, I ajswered certain 
 interrogatories which Judge Douglas had propounded to me, and there in turn pro- 
 pounded some to him, which he in a sort of way answered. The third one of these 
 interrogatories I have with me and wish now to make some comments upon it. It 
 was in these words : u If the Supreme Court of the United States shall decide that 
 the States cannot exclude slavery from their limits, are you in favor of acquiescing 
 in, adhering to and following such decision, as a rule of political action ? " 
 
 To this interrogatory Judge Douglas made no answer in any just sense of the 
 word. lie contented himself with sneering at the thought that it was possible for 
 the Supreme Court ever to make such a decision. He sneered at me for propound- 
 ing the interrogatory. I had not propounded it without some reflection, and I wish 
 now to address to this audience some remarks upon it. 
 
 In the second clause of the sixth article, I believe it is, of the Constitution of the 
 United States, we find the following language : " This Constitution and the laws of 
 the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, 
 or which shall be made under the authority of the United States, shall be the su- 
 preme law of the land ; and the judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any 
 thing in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding." 
 
 The essence of the Dred Scott case is compressed into the sentence which I will 
 now read : " Now, as we have already said in an earlier part of this opinion, upon a 
 different point, the right of property in a slave is distinctly and expressly affirmed in 
 the Constitution." I repeat it, " The right of property in a slave is distinctly and 
 expressly affirmed in the Constitution I " What is it to be " affirmed " in the Consti- 
 tution ? Made firm in the Constitution so made that it cannot be separated from the 
 Constitution without breaking the Constitution durable as the Constitution, and part 
 of the Constitution. Now, remembering the provision of the Constitution which I 
 have read, affirming that that instrument is the supreme law of the land ; that the 
 Judges of every State shall be bound by it, any law or Constitution of any State to the 
 contrary notwithstanding ; that the right of property in a slave is affirmed in that 
 Constitution, is made, formed into, and cannot be separated from it without breaking 
 it ; durable as the instrument ; part of the instrument ; what follows as a short and 
 even syllogistic argument from it ? I think it follows, and I submit to the considera- 
 tion of men capable of arguing, whether as I state it, in syllogistic form, the argument 
 has any fault in it ? 
 
 Nothing in the Constitution or laws of any State can destroy a right distinctly and 
 expressly affirmed in the Constitution of the United States. 
 
 The right of property in a slave is distinctly and expressly affirmed in the Con 
 stitution of the United States. 
 
 Therefore, nothing in the Constitution or laws of any State can destroy the right 
 of property in a slave. 
 
 I believe that no fault can be pointed out in that argument; assuming the truth 
 of the premises, the conclusion, so far as I have capacity at all to understand it, 
 follows inevitably. There is a fault in it as I think, but the fault is not in the rea- 
 soning ; but the falsehood in fact is a fault of the premises. I believe that the right 
 of property in a slave is not distinctly and expressly affirmed in the Constitution, 
 and Judge Douglas thinks it is. I believe that the Supreme Court and the advo- 
 cates of that decision may search in vain for the place in the Constitution where the 
 right of a slave is distinctly and expressly affirmed. I say, therefore, that I think 
 one of the premises is not true in fact. But it is true with Judge Douglas. It is 
 true with the Supreme Court who pronounced it. They are estopped from denying 
 it, and being estopped from denying it, the conclusion follows that the Constitution of 
 the United States being the supreme law, no constitution or law can interfere with 
 it. It being affirmed in the decision that the right of property in a slave is distinctly 
 and expressly affirmed in the Constitution, the conclusion inevitably follows that no 
 State law or constitution can destroy that right. I then say to Judge Douglas and 
 to all others, that I think it will take a better answer than a sneer to show that those.
 
 185 
 
 who have said that the right of property in a slave is distinctly and expressly affirm- 
 ed in the Constitution, are not prepared to show that no constitution or law can 
 destroy that right. I say I believe it will take a far better argument than a mere 
 sneer to show to the minds of intelligent men that whoever has so said, is not pre- 
 pared, whenever public sentiment is so far advanced as to justify it, to say the other. 
 This is but an opinion, and the opinion' of one very humble man; but it is my 
 opinion that the Dred Scott decision, as it is, never would have been madt in its 
 present form if the party that made it had not been sustained previously by the 
 elections. My own opinion is, that the new Dred Scott decision, deciding against 
 the right of the people of the States to exclude slavery, will never be made, if thai 
 party is not sustained by the elections. I believe, further, that it is just as sure to 
 be made as to-morrow is to come, if that party shall be sustained. I have said, upon 
 a former occasion, and I repeat it now, that the course of argument that Judge 
 Douglas makes use of upon this subject (I charge not his motives in this), is pre- 
 paring the public mind for that new Dred Scott decision. I have asked him again 
 to point out to me the reasons for his first adherence to the Dred Scott decision as it 
 is. I have turned his attention to the fact that General Jackson differed with him in 
 regard to the political obligation of a Supreme Court decision. I have asked his 
 attention to the fact that Jefferson differed with him in regard to the political obliga- 
 tion of a Supreme Court decision. Jefferson said, that "Judges are as honest as 
 other men. and not more so." And he said, substantially, that "whenever a free 
 people should give up in absolute submission to any department of government, 
 retaining for themselves no appeal from it, their liberties were gone." I have asked 
 his attention to the fact that the Cincinnati platform, upon which he says he stands, dis- 
 regards a time-honored decision of the Supreme Court, in denying the power of Con- 
 gress to establish a National Bank. I have asked his attention to the fact that he 
 himself was one of the most active instruments at one time in breaking down the 
 Supreme Court of the State of Illinois, because it had made a decision distasteful to 
 him a struggle ending in the remarkable circumstance of his sitting down as one 
 of the new Judges who were to overslaugh that decision getting his title of Judge 
 in that very way. 
 
 So far in this controversy I can get no answer at all from Judge Douglas upon 
 these subjects. Not one can I get from him, except that he swells himself up and 
 says, "All of us who stand by the decision of the Supreme Court are the friends of 
 the Constitution ; all you fellows that dare question it in any way, are the enemies 
 of the Constitution." Now, in this very devoted adherence to this decision, in op- 
 position to all the great political leaders whom he has recognized as leaders in 
 opposition to his former self and history, there is something very marked. And the 
 manner in which he adheres to it not as being right upon the merits, as he conceives 
 (because he did not discuss that at all), but as being absolutely obligatory upon every 
 one simply because of the source from whence it comes as that which no man 
 can gainsay, whatever it may be this is another marked feature of his adherence 
 to that decision. It marks it in this respect, that it commits him to the next decision, 
 whenever it comes, as being as obligatory as this one, since he does not investigate 
 it, and won't inquire whether this opinion is right or wrong. So ho takes tho next 
 one without inquiring whether it is right or wrong. He teaches men this dcctrine, 
 and in so doing prepares the public mind to take the next decision when it comes, 
 without any inquiry. In this I think I argue fairly (without questioning motives 
 at all), that Judge Douglas is most ingeniously and powerfully preparing the public 
 mind to take that decision when it comes; and not only so, but he is doing i-t in 
 various other ways. In these general maxims about liberty in his assertions that 
 he "don't care whether slavery is voted up or voted down;" that "whoever wants 
 slavery has a right to have it;" that "upon principles of equality it should be allow- 
 ed to go every where;*' that "there is no inconsistency between free and slave insti- 
 tutions." In this he is also preparing (whether purposely or not) the way for making 
 the institution of slavery national! I repeat again, for I wish no misunderstand-
 
 186 
 
 ng, that I do not charge that he means it so; but I call upon your minds to inquiry 
 if you were going to get the best instrument you could, and then set it to work in the 
 most ingenious way, to prepare the public mind for this movement, operating in the 
 free States, where there is now an abhorrence of the institution of slavery, could 
 you find an instrument so capable of doing it as Judge Douglas? or one employed 
 in so apt a way to do it? 
 
 I have said once before, and I will repeat it now, that Mr. Clay, when he was 
 once answering an objection to the Colonization Society, that it had a tendency to 
 the ultimate emancipation of the slaves, said that "those who would repress all ten- 
 dencies to liberty and ultimate emancipation must do more than put down the benev- 
 olent efforts of the Colonization Society they must go back to the era of our liberty 
 and independence, and muzzle the cannon that thunders its annual joyous return 
 they must blot out the moral lights around us they must penetrate the human soul, 
 and eradicate the light of reason and the love of liberty!" And I do think 
 I repeat, though I said it on a former occasion that Judge Douglas, and whoever like 
 him teaches that the negro has no share, humble though it may be, in the Declara- 
 tion of Independence, is going back to the era of our liberty and independence, and, 
 so far as in him lies, muzzling the cannon that thunders its annual joyous return ; 
 that he is blowing out the moral lights around us, when he contends that whoever 
 wants slaves has a right to hold them; that he is penetrating, so far as lies in his 
 power, the human soul, and eradicating the light of reason and the love of liberty, 
 when he is in every possible way preparing the public mind, by his vast influence, 
 for making the institution of slavery perpetual and national. 
 
 There is, my friends, only one other point to which I will call your attention for 
 the remaining time that I have left me, and perhaps I shall not occupy the entire 
 time that I have, as that one point may not take me clear through it. 
 
 Among the interrogatories that Judge Douglas propounded to me at Freeport, 
 there was one in about this language: "Are you opposed to the acquisition of any 
 further territory to the United States, unless slavery shall first be prohibited therein?" 
 I answered as I thought, in this way, that I am not generally opposed to the acqui- 
 sition of additional territory, and that I would support a proposition for the acquisi- 
 tion of additional territory, according as my supporting it was or was not calculated 
 to aggravate this slavery question amongst us. I then proposed to Judge Douglas 
 another interrogatory, which was correlative to that: "Are you in favor of acquiring 
 additional territory in disregard of how it may affect us upon the slavery question?" 
 Judge Douglas answered, that is, in his own way he answered it. I believe that, 
 although he took a good many words to answer it, it was a little more fully answered 
 than any other. The substance of his answer was. that this country would continue 
 to expand that it would need additional territory that it was as absurd to suppose 
 that we could continue upon our present territory, enlarging in population a-s we are, 
 as it would be to hoop a boy twelve years of age, and expect him to grow to man's 
 size without bursting the hoops. 1 believe it was something like that. Conse- 
 quently he was in favor of the acquisition of further territory, as fast as we might 
 ne^d it, in disregard of how it might affect the slavery question. I do not say thw 
 as giving his exact language, but he said so substantially, and he would leave the 
 question of slavery where the territory was acquired, to be settled by the people of 
 the acquired territory. [" That's the doctrine."] May be it is ; let us consider thai 
 for a while. This will probably, in the run of tilings, become one of the concrete 
 manifestations of this slavery question. If Judge Douglas's policy upon this question 
 succeeds and gets fairly settled down, until all opposition is crushed out, the next thing 
 will be a grab for the territory of poor Mexico, an invasion of the rich lands of 
 South America, then the adjoining islands will follow, each one of which promises 
 additional slave fields. And this question is to be left to the people of those coun- 
 tries for settlement. When we shall get Mexico, I don't know whether the Judge 
 will be in favor of the Mexican people that we get with it settling that question for 
 themselves and all others; because we know the Judge has a great horror for mou-
 
 187 
 
 grels, and I understand that the people of Mexico are most decidedly a race of 
 mongrels. I understand that there is not more than one person there out of eight 
 who is pure white, and I suppose from the Judge's previous declaration that when 
 we get Mexico or any considerable portion of it, that he will be in favor of these 
 mongrels settling the question, which would bring him somewhat into collision with 
 his horror of an inferior race. 
 
 It id to be remembered, though, that this power of acquiring additional territory 
 is a power confided to the President and Senate of the United States. It is a power 
 not under the control of the representatives of the people any further than they, the 
 President and the Senate, can be considered the representatives of the people. Let 
 me illustrate that by a case we have in our history. When we acquired the territory 
 from Mexico in the Mexican war, the House of Representatives, composed of the 
 immediate representatives of the people, all the time insisted that the territory thus 
 to be acquired should be brought in upon condition that slavery should be forever 
 prohibited therein, upon the terms and in the language that slavery had been pro- 
 hibited from coming into this country. That was insisted upon constantly, and never 
 failed to call forth an assurance that any territory thus acquired should have that 
 prohibition in it, so far as the House of Representatives was concerned. But at last 
 the President and Senate acquired the territory without asking the House of Repre- 
 sentatives any thing about it, and took U without that prohibition. They have the 
 power of acquiring territory without the immediate representatives of the people 
 being called upon to say any thing about it, and thus furnishing a very apt and pow- 
 erful means of bringing new territory into the Union, and when it is once brought 
 into the country, involving us anew in this slavery agitation. It is, therefore, as I 
 think, a very important question for the consideration of the American people, 
 whether the policy of bringing in additional territory, without considering at all how 
 it will operate upon the safety of the Union in reference to this one great disturbing 
 element in our national politics, shall be adopted as the policy of the country. You 
 will bear in mind that it is to be acquired, according to the Judge's view, as fast as 
 it is needed, and the indefinite part of this proposition is that we have only Judge 
 Douglas and his class of men to decide how fast it is needed. We have no clear 
 and certain way of determining or demonstrating how fast territory is needed by the 
 necessities of the country. Whbever wants to go out filibustering, then, thinks that 
 more territory is needed. Whoever wants wider slave fields, feels sure that some 
 additional territory is needed as slave territory. Then it is as easy to show the 
 necessity of additional slave territory as it is to assert any thing that is incapable of 
 absolute demonstration. Whatever motive a man or a set of men may have for 
 making annexation of property or territory, it is very easy to assert, but much less 
 easy to disprove, that it is necessary for the wants of the country. 
 
 And now it only remains for me to say that I think it is a very grave question for 
 the people of this Union to consider whether, in view of the fact that this slavery 
 question has been the only one that has ever endangered our Republican insti- 
 tutions the only one that has ever threatened or menaced a dissolution of the 
 Union that has ever disturbed us in mch a way as to make us fear for the perpe- 
 tuity of our liberty in view of these facts, I think it is an exceedingly interesting 
 and important question for this people to consider, whether we shall engage in the 
 policy of acquiring additional territory, discarding altogether from our consideration, 
 while obtaining new territory, the question how it may affect us in regard to this the 
 only endangering element to our liberties and national greatness. The Judge's view- 
 has been expressed. I, in my answer to his question, have expressed mine. I think 
 it will become an important arid practical question. Our views are before the pub- 
 lic. I am willing and anxious that they should consider them fully that they 
 should turn it about and consider the importance of the question, and arrive at a 
 just conclusion as to whether it is or is not wise in the people of this Union, in the 
 acquisition of new territory, to consider whether it will add to the disturbance that is 
 existing amongst us whether it will add to the one only danger that has ever
 
 188 
 
 threatened the perpetuity of the Union or our own liberties. I think it is extremely 
 important that they shall decide, and rightly decide, that question before entering upon 
 that policy. 
 
 And now, my friends, having said the little I wish to say upon this head, whether 
 I have occupied the whole of the remnant of my time or not, I believe I could not 
 enter upon any new topics so as to treat it fully without transcending my time, 
 which I would not for a moment think of doing. I give way to Judge Doaglas. 
 
 MR. DOUGLAS'S REPLY. 
 
 GENTLEMEN: The highest compliment you can pay ine during the brief half hour 
 that I have to conclude is by observing a strict silence. I desire to be heard rather 
 than to be applauded. 
 
 The first criticism that Mr. Lincoln makes on my speech was that it was in sub- 
 stance what I have said every where else in the State where I have addressed the 
 people. I wish I could say the same of his speech. Why, the reason I complain 
 of him is because he makes one speech north and another south. Because he has 
 one set of sentiments for the Abolition counties and another set for the counties 
 opposed to Abolitionism. My point of complaint against him is that I cannot induce 
 him to hold up the same standard, to carry the same flag in all parts of the State. 
 He does not pretend, and no other man will, that I have one set of principles for 
 Galesburgh and another for Charleston. He does not pretend that I hold to one doc- 
 trine in Chicago and an opposite one in Jonesboro. I have proved that he has a 
 diifer3nt set of principles for each of these localities. All I asked of him was that, 
 he should deliver the speech that he has made here to-day in Coles county instead 
 of in old Knox. It would have settled the question between us in that doubtful 
 county. Here I understand him to reaffirm the doctrine of negro equality, and to 
 assert that by the Declaration of Independence the negro is declared equal to the 
 white man. He tells you to-day that the negro was included in the Declaration of 
 Independence when it asserted that all men were created equal. ["We believe it,"] 
 Very well. 
 
 Mr. Lincoln asserts to-day as he did at Chicago, that the negro was included in 
 that clause of the Declaration of Independence which says that all men were crea- 
 ted equal and endowed by the Creator with certain inalienable rights, among which 
 are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. If the negro was made his equal and 
 mine, if that equality was established by Divine law, and was the negro's inalienable 
 right, how came he to say at Charleston to the Kentuckians residing in that section 
 of our State, that the negro was physically inferior to the white man, belonged to an 
 inferior race, and he was for keeping him always in that inferior condition. I wish 
 you to bear these things in mind. At Charleston he said that the negro belonged to 
 an inferior race, and that he was for keeping him in that inferior condition. There 
 he gave the people to understand that there was no moral question involved, because 
 the inferiority being established, it was only a question of degree and not a question 
 of right ; here, to day, instead of making it a question of degree, he makes it a 
 moral question, says that it is a great crime to hold the negro in that inferior condi- 
 tion. [ u He's right."] Is he right now or was he right in Charleston ? [" Both."] 
 He is right then, sir, in your estimation, not because he is consistent, but because he 
 can trim his principles any way in any section, so as to secure votes. All I desire of 
 him is that he will declare the same principles in the south that he does in the north. 
 
 But did you notice how he answered my position that a man should hold the same 
 doctrines throughout the length and breadth of this Republic? He said, "Would 
 Judge Douglas go to Russia and proclaim the same principles lie does here ?" I 
 would remind him that Russia is not under the American Constitution. If Russia 
 was a part of the American Republic, under our Federal Constitution, and I was
 
 189 
 
 to support the Constitution, 1 would maintain the same doctrine in Russia that 
 I do in Illinois. The slaveholding States are governed by the same Federal Consti- 
 tution as ourselves, and hence a man's principles, in order to be in harmony with the 
 Constitution, must be the same in the south as they are in the north, the same in the 
 free States as they are in the slave States. Whenever a man advocates one set of 
 prin:iples in one section, and another set in another section, his opinions are in vio- 
 lation of the spirit of the Constitution which he has sworn to support. When Mr. 
 Lincoln went to Congress in 1847, and laying his hand upon the Holy Evangelists, 
 made n solemn vow in the presence of high Heaven that he would be faithful to the 
 Constitution what did he mean ? the Constitution as he expounds it in Galesburgh. 
 or the Constitution as he expounds it in Charleston. 
 
 Mr. Lincoln has devoted considerable time to the circumstance that at Ottawa I 
 road a series of resolutions as having been adopted at Springfield, in this State, on 
 the 4th or 5th of October, 1854, which happened not to have been adopted there. 
 He has used hard names ; has dared to talk about fraud, about forgery, and has 
 insinuated that there was a conspiracy between Mr. Lanphier, Mr. Harris, and my- 
 self to perpetrate a forgery. Now, bear in mind that he does not deny that these 
 resolutions were adopted in a majority of all the Republican counties of this State 
 in that year ; he does not deny that they were declared to be the platform of this 
 Republican party in the first Congressional District, in the second, in the third, and 
 in many counties of the fourth, and that they thus became the platform of his party 
 in a majority of the counties upon which he now relies for support ; he does not deny 
 the truthfulness of the resolutions, but takes exception to the spot on which they 
 were adopted. He takes to himself great merit because he thinks they were not 
 adopted on the right spot for me to use them against him, just as he was very severe 
 in Congress upon the Government of his country when he thought that he had dis- 
 covered that the Mexican war was not begun in the right spot, and was therefore 
 unjust. He tries very hard to make out that there is something very extraordinary 
 in the place where the thing was done, and not in the thing itself. I never believed 
 before that Abraham Lincoln would be guilty of what he has done this day in regard 
 to those resolutions. In the first place, the moment it was intimated to me that they 
 had been adopted at Aurora and Rocktbrd instead of Springfield, I did not wait for 
 him to call my attention to the fact, but led off and explained in my first meeting 
 after the Ottawa debate, what the mistake was, and how it had been made. I sup- 
 posed that for an honest man, conscious of his own rectitude, that explanation would 
 be sufficient. I did not wait for him, after the mistake was made, to call niy atten- 
 tion to it, but frankly explained it at once as an honest man would. I also gave the 
 authority on which I had stated that these resolutions were adopted by the Spring- 
 lit 1 Id Republican Convention. That I had seen them quoted by Major Harris in a 
 debate in Congress, as having been adopted by the first Republican State Conven- 
 tion in Illinois, and that I had written to him and asked him for the authority as to 
 the time and place of their adoption; that Major Harris being extremely ill, 
 Charles H. Lanphier had written to me for him, that they were adopted at Spring- 
 field, on the 5th of October, 1854, "and had sent me a copy of the Springfield paper 
 containing them. I read them from the newspaper just as Mr. Lincoln reads the 
 proceedings of meetings held years ago from the newspapers. After giving that 
 explanation, I did not think there was an honest mmi in the State of Illinois who 
 doubted that I had been led into the error, if it was such, innocently, in the way 1 
 detailed ; and I will now say that I do not now believe that there is an honest man 
 on the face of the globe who will not regard with abhorrence and disgust Mr. Lin- 
 coln's insinuations of my complicity in that forgery, if it was a forgery. Does Mr. 
 Lincoln wi li to push these things to the point of personal difficulties here ? I com- 
 menced this contest by treating him courteously and kindly ; I always spoke of him 
 in words of respect, mid in return he has sought, and is now seeking, to divert public 
 attention from the enormity of his revolutionary principles by impeaching men's sin*- 
 cerity and integrity, and inviting personal quarrels. 
 13
 
 190 
 
 I desired to conduct this contest with him like a gentleman, but I spurn the insin- 
 uation of complicity and fraud made upon the simple circumstance of an editor of a 
 newspaper having made a mistake as to the place where a thing was done, but not 
 a.s to the thing itself. These resolutions were the platform of this Republican party 
 of Mr. Lincoln's of that year. They were adopted in a majority of the Republican 
 counties in the State; and when I asked him at Ottawa whether they formed the 
 platform upon which he stood, he did not answer, and I could not get an answer out 
 of him. lie then thought, as I thought, that those resolutions were adopted at the 
 Springfield Convention, but excused himself by -saying that he was not there when 
 they nere adopted, but had gone to Tazewell court in order to avoid being present 
 at the Convention. He saw them published as having been adopted at Sprimi" field, 
 and so did I, and he knew that if there was a mistake in regard to them, that I had 
 nothing under heaven to do with it. Besides, you find that in all these northern 
 counties where the Republican candidates are running pledged to him, that the Con- 
 ventions which nominated them adopted that identical platform. One cardinal point 
 in that platform which he shrinks from is this that there shall be no more slave 
 States admitted into the Union, even if the people want them. Lovejoy stands 
 pledged against the admission of any more slave States. [" Right, so do we."] So 
 do you, you say. Farnsworth stands pledged against the admission of any more 
 slave States. Washburne stands pledged the same way. The candidate ibr the 
 Legislature who is running on Lincoln's ticket in Henderson and Warren, stands 
 committed by his vote in the Legislature to the same thing, and I am informed, but 
 do not know of the fact, that your candidate here is also so pledged. " Hurra for 
 him, good."] Now, you Republicans all hurra for him, and for the doctrine of "no 
 more slave States," and yet Lincoln tells you that his conscience will not permit him 
 to sanction that doctrine. And complains because the resolutions I read at Ottawa 
 made him, as a member of the party, responsible for sanctioning the doctrine of no 
 more slave States. You are one way, you confess, and he is or pretends to be the 
 other, and yet you are both governed by principle in supporting one another. If it 
 be true, as I have shown it is, that the whole Republican party in the northern part 
 of the State stands committed to the doctrine of no more slave States, and that this 
 same doctrine is repudiated by the Republicans in the other part of the State, I 
 wonder whether Mr. Lincoln and his party do not present the case which he cited 
 from the Scriptures, of a house divided against itself which cannot stand ! I desire 
 to know what are Mr. Lincoln's principles and the principles of his party ? I hold, 
 and the party with which I am identified hold, that the people of each State, old and 
 new, have the right to decide the slavery question for themselves, and when I used 
 the remark that I did not care whether slavery was voted up or down, I used it in 
 the connection that I was for allowing Kansas to do just as she pleased on the slavery 
 question. I said that I did not care whether they voted slavery up or down, because 
 they had the right to do as they pleased on the question, and therefore my action 
 would not be controlled by any such consideration. Why cannot Abraham Lincoln, 
 and the party with which he acts, speak out their principles so that they may be 
 understood? Why do they claim to be one thing in one part of the State and another 
 in the other part? Whenever I allude to the Abolition doctrines, which he considers 
 a slander to be charged with being in favor of, you all indorse them, and hurra for 
 them, not knowing that your candidate is ashamed to acknowledge them. 
 
 I have a few words to say upon the Dred Scott decision, which has troubled the 
 brain of Mr. Lincoln so much. He insists that that decision would carry slavery into 
 the free States, notwithstanding that the decision says directly the opposite ; and goes 
 into a long argument to make you believe that I am in favor of, and would sanction 
 the doctrine that would allow slaves to be brought here and held as slaves contrary 
 to our Constitution and laws. Mr. Lincoln knew better when he asserted this ; he 
 knew that one newspaper, and so far as is within my knowledge but one, ever assert- 
 ed that doctrine, and that I was the first man in either House of Congress that read 
 that article in debate, and denounced it on the floor of the Senate as revolutionary
 
 191 
 
 When the Washington L T nion, on the 17th of last November, published an article to 
 that effect, I branded it at once, and denounced it, and hence the Union has been 
 pursuing me ever since. Mr. Toombs, of Georgia, replied to me, and said that there 
 was not a man in any of the slave States south of the Potomac river that held any 
 such doctrine, Mr. Lincoln knows that there is not a member of the Supreme Court 
 who holds that doctrine ; he knows that every one of them, as shown by their opin- 
 ions, holds the reverse. Why this attempt, then, to bring the Supreme Court into 
 disrepute among the people ? It looks as if there was an effort being made to 
 destroy public confidence in the highest judicial tribunal on earth. Suppose he suc- 
 ceeds in destroying public confidence in the court, so that the people will not respect 
 its decisions, but will feel at liberty to disregard them, and resist the laws of the land, 
 what will he have gained ? He will have changed the Government from one of laws 
 into that of a mob, in which the strong arm of violence will be substituted for the 
 decisions of the courts of justice. He complains because I did not go into an argu- 
 ment reviewing Chief Justice Taney's opinion, and the other opinions of the different 
 judges, to determine whether their reasoning is right or wrong on the questions of 
 law. What use would that be ? He wants to take an appeal from the Supreme 
 Court to this meeting to determine whether the questions of law were decided prop- 
 erly. He is going to appeal from the Supreme Court of the United States to every 
 town meeting in the hope that he can excite a prejudice against that court, and on 
 the wave of that prejudice ride into the Senate of the United States, when he could 
 not get there on his own principles, or his own merits. Suppose he should succeed 
 in getting into the Senate of the United States, what then will he have to do with 
 the decision of the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott case ? Can he reverse that 
 decision when he gets there ? Can he act upon it ? Has the Senate any right to 
 reverse it or revise it ? He will not pretend that it has. Then why drag the matter 
 into this contest, unless for the purpose of making a false issue, by which he can 
 direct public attention from the real issue. 
 
 He has cited General Jackson in justification of the war he is making on the 
 decision of the court. Mr. Lincoln misunderstands the history of the country, if he 
 believes there is any parallel in the two cases. It is true that the Supreme Court 
 once decided that if a Bank of the United States was a necessary fiscal agent of the 
 Government, it was Constitutional, and if not, that it was unconstitutional, and also, 
 that whether or not it was necessary for that purpose, was a political question for 
 Congress and not a judicial one for the courts to determine. Hence the court would 
 not determine the bank unconstitutional. Jackson respected the decision, obeyed the 
 law, executed it and carried it into effect during its existence ; but after the charter 
 of the bank expired and a proposition was made to create a new bank, General 
 Jackson said, "it is unnecessary and improper, and, therefore, I am against it on 
 ( Constitutional grounds as well as those of expediency." Is Congress bound to pass 
 every act that is Constitutional? Why, there are a thousand things that are Consti- 
 tutional, but yet are inexpedient and unnecessary, and you surely would not vote for 
 them merely because you had the right to? And because General Jackson would 
 not do a thing which he had a right to do, but did not deem expedient or proper, 
 Mr. Lincoln is going to justify himself in doing that which he has no right to do. I 
 ask him, whether he is not bound to respect and obey the decisions of the Supreme 
 Court as well as me ? The Constitution has created that court to decide all Consti- 
 tutional questions in the last resort, and when such decisions have been made, they 
 become the law of the land, and you, and he, and myself, and every other good citi- 
 zen are bound by them. Yet, he argues that I am bound by their decisions and he 
 is not. He says that their decisions are binding on Democrats, but not on Republi- 
 cans. Are not Republicans bound by the laws of the land as well as Democrats ? 
 And when the court has fixed the construction of the Constitution on the validity of 
 a given law, is not their decision binding upon Republicans as well as upon Demo- 
 crats ? Is it possible that you Republicans have the right to raise your mobs and 
 oppose the laws of the land and the constituted authorities, and yet l>okl us Demo-
 
 192 
 
 crats bound to obey them ? My time is within half a minute of expiring, and all I 
 have to say is, that I stand by the laws of the land. I stand by the Constitution as 
 our fathers made it, by the laws as they are enacted, and by the decisions of the 
 court upon all points within their jurisdiction as they are pronounced by the highest 
 tribunal on earth ; and any man who resists these must resort to mob law and vio- 
 lence to overturn the government of laws. 
 
 SIXTH JOINT DEBATE, AT QUINCY, 
 
 October ^13, 1858. 
 
 MR. LINCOLN'S SPEECH. 
 
 LADIES AND GENTLEMEN : I have had no immediate conference with Judge 
 Douglas, but I will venture to say that he and I will perfectly agree that your 
 entire silence, both when I speak and when he speaks, will be most agreeable 
 to us. 
 
 In the month of May, 1856, the elements in the State of Illinois, which have 
 Huice been consolidated into the Republican party, assembled together in a State 
 Convention at Bloomington. They adopted at that time, what, in political language, 
 In called a platform. In June of the same year, the elements of the Republican 
 party in the nation assembled together in a National Convention at Philadelphia. 
 They adopted what is called the National Platform. In June, 1858 the present 
 year the Republicans of Illinois reassembled at Springfield, in State Convention, 
 and adopted again their platform, as I suppose, not differing in any essential particu- 
 lar from either of the former ones, but perhaps adding something in relation to the 
 new developments of political progress in the country. 
 
 The Convention that assembled in June last did me the honor, if it be one, and I 
 esteem it such, to nominate me as their candidate for the United States Senate. 
 I have supposed that, in entering upon this canvass, I stood generally upon these plat' 
 forms. We are now met together on the 13th of October of the same year, only 
 four months from the adoption of the last platform, and I am unaware that m 
 this canvass, from the beginning until to-day, any one of our adversaries has 
 taken hold of our platforms, or laid his finger upon any thing that he calls wrong 
 in them. 
 
 In the very first one of these joint discussions between Senator Douglas and my- 
 self, Senator Douglas, without alluding at all to these platforms, or any one of them, 
 of which I have spoken, attempted to hold me responsible for a set of resolutions 
 passed long before the meeting of either one of these Conventions of which I have 
 spoken. And as a ground for holding me responsible for these resolutions, he as- 
 sumed that they had been passed at a State Convention of the Republican party, 
 and that I took part in that Convention. It was discovered afterward that this was 
 erroneous, that the resolutions which he endeavored to hold me responsible for, had 
 not been passed by any State Convention any where had not been passed at 
 Springfield, where he supposed they had, or assumed that they had, and that they 
 had been passed in no Convention in which I had taken part. The Judge, never- 
 theless, was hot willing to give up the point that he was endeavoring to make upon 
 me, and he therefore thought to still hold me to the point that he was endeavoring to 
 make, by showing that the resolutions that he read, had been passed at a local Con-
 
 193 
 
 vention in the northern part of the State, although it was not a local Convention 
 that embraced my residence at all, nor one that reached, as I suppose, nearer than 
 one hundred and fifty or two hundred miles of where I was when it met, nor one in 
 which T took any part at all. He also introduced other resolutions, passed at othei 
 meetings, and by combining the whole, although they were all antecedent to the 
 two State Conventions, and the one National Convention I have mentioned, still 
 he insisted and now insists, as I understand, that I am in some way responsible for 
 them. 
 
 At Jonesboro, on our third meeting, I insisted to the Judge that I was in no way right- 
 fully held responsible for the proceedings of this local meeting or Convention in which 
 I had taken no part, and in which I was in no way embraced ; but I insisted to him 
 that if he thought I was responsible for every man or every set of men every where, 
 who happen to be my friends, the rule ought to work both ways, and he ought to be re- 
 sponsible for the acts and resolutions of all men or sets of men who were or are now 
 his supporters and friends, and gave him a pretty long string of resolutions, passed 
 by men who are now his friends, and announcing doctrines for which he does not de- 
 sire to be held responsible. 
 
 This still does not satisfy Judge Douglas. He still adheres to his proposition, 
 that I am responsible for what some of my friends in different parts of the State 
 have done ; but that he is not responsible for what his have done. At least, so I 
 understand him. But in addition to that, the Judge, at our meeting in Galesburgh, 
 last week, undertakes to establish that I am guilty of a species of double-dealing 
 with the public that I make speeches of a certain sort in the north, among the 
 Abolitionists, which I would not make in the south, and that I make speeches of a 
 certain sort in the south which I would not make in the north. I apprehend, in the 
 course I have marked out for myself, that I shall not have to dwell at very great 
 length upon this subject. 
 
 As this was done in the Judge's opening speech at Galesburgh, I had an opportu- 
 nity, as I had the middle speech then, of saying something in answer to it. He 
 brought forward a quotation or two from a speech of mine, delivered at Chicago, and 
 then to contrast with it, he brought forward an extract from a speech of mine at 
 Charleston, in which he insisted that I was greatly inconsistent, and insisted that his 
 conclusion followed that I was playing a double part, and speaking in one region one 
 way, and in another region another way. I have not time now to dwell on this as 
 long as I would like, and wish only now to requote that portion of my speech 
 at Charleston, which the Judge quoted, and then make some comments upon it. 
 This he quotes from me as being delivered at Charleston, and I believe correctly : 
 " I will say, then, that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about 
 in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races that I am 
 not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qua)- 
 fying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people ; and I will say in ad- 
 dition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races 
 which will ever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political 
 equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together, there 
 must be the position of superior and inferior. I am as much as any other man in 
 favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race." This, I believo,, 
 is the entire quotation from the Charleston speech, as Judge Douglas made it. His 
 comments are as follows : 
 
 "Yes, here you find men who hurra for Lincoln, and say he is right when 
 he discards all distinction between races, or when he declares that he discards the 
 doctrine that there is such a thing as a superior and inferior race ; and Abolitionists 
 are required and expected to vote for Mr. Lincoln because he goes for the equality 
 of races, holding that in the Declaration of Independence the white man and negro 
 were declared equal, and endowed by divine law with equality. And down south 
 with the old line Whigs, with the Kentuckians, the Virginians, and the Tennessee- 
 ans, he tells vou that there is a physical difference between the races, making the
 
 194. 
 
 one superior, the other inferior, and he is in favor of maintaining the superiority jf 
 the white race over the negro." 
 
 Those are the Judge's comments. Now I wish to show you, that a month, or, 
 only lacking three days of a month, before I made the speech at Charleston, which 
 the Judge quotes from, he had himself heard me say substantially the same thing. 
 It was in our first meeting, at Ottawa and I will say a word about where it was, 
 and the atmosphere it was in, after awhile but at our first meeting, at Ottawa, I 
 read an extract from an old speech of mine, made nearly four years ago, not merely 
 to show my sentiments, but to show that my sentiments were long entertained and 
 openly expressed ; in which extract I expressly declared that my own feelings would 
 not admit a social and political equality between the white and black races, and that 
 even if my own feelings would admit of it, I still knew that the public sentiment of 
 the country would not, and that such a thing was an utter impossibility, or substan- 
 tially that. That extract i'rom my old speech, the reporters, by some sort of acci- 
 dent, passed over, and it was not reported. I lay no blame upon any body. I sup- 
 pose they thought that I would hand it over to them, and dropped reporting while I 
 was reading it, but afterward went away without getting it from me. At the end of 
 that quotation from my old speech, which I read at Ottawa, I made the comments 
 which were reported at that time, and which I will now read, and ask you to notice 
 how very nearly they are the same as Judge Douglas says were delivered by me, 
 down in Egypt. After reading I added these words : " Now, gentlemen, I don't 
 want to read at any great length, but this is the true complexion of all I have ever 
 said in regard to the institution of slavery or the black race, and this is the whole of 
 it ; any thing that argues me into his idea of perfect social and political equality 
 with the negro, is but a specious and fantastical arrangement of words by which a 
 man can prove a horse-chestnut to be a chestnut horse. I will say here, while upon 
 this subject, that I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the insti- 
 tution in the States where it exists. I believe I have no right to do so. I have no 
 inclination- to do so. I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality 
 between the white and black races. There is a physical difference between the 
 two, which, in my judgment, will probably forever forbid their living together on the 
 footing of perfect equality, and inasmuch as it becomes a necessity that there must 
 be a difference, I, as well as Judge Douglas, am in favor of the race to which I be- 
 long having the superior position. I have never said any thing to the contrary, but 
 I hold that, notwithstanding all this, there is no reason in the world why the negro 
 is not entitled to all the rights enumerated in the Declaration of Independence the 
 right of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I hold that he is as much enti- 
 tled to these as the white man. I agree with Judge Douglas that he is not my 
 equal in many respects, certainly not in color perhaps not in intellectual and moral 
 endowments ; but in the right to eat the bread without the leave of any body else 
 which his own hand earns, he is my equal and the equal of Judge Douglas, and the 
 equal of every other man." 
 
 I have chiefly introduced this for the purpose of meeting the Judge's charge that 
 the quotation he took from my Charleston speech was what I would say down south 
 among the Kentuckians, the Virginians, etc., but would not say in the regions in 
 which was supposed to be more of the Abolition element. I now make this com- 
 ment : That speech from which I have now read the quotation, and which is there 
 given correctly, perhaps too much so for good taste, was made away up north in the 
 Abolition District of this State par excellence in the Lovejoy District in the per- 
 sonal presence of Lovejoy, for he was on the stand with us when I made it. It had 
 been made and put in print in that region only three days less than a month before 
 the speech made at Charleston, the like of which Judge Douglas thinks I would not 
 make where there was any Abolition element I only refer to this matter to say 
 that I am altogether unconscious of having attempted any double-dealing any where 
 that upon one occasion I may say one thing and leave other things unsaid, and vice 
 versa; but that I have said any thing on one occasion that is inconsistent with what 
 
 "
 
 195 
 
 I have said elsewhere, I deny at least I deny it so far as the intention is concerned. 
 I find that I have devoted to this topic a larger portion of my time than I had in- 
 tended. I wished to show, hut I will pass it upon this occasion, that in the senti- 
 ment I have occasionally advanced upon the Declaration of Independence, I am en- 
 tirely borne out by the sentiments advanced by our old Whig leader, Henry Clay, 
 and I have the book here to show it from ; but because I have already occupied 
 more time than I intended to do on that tbpic, I pass over it. 
 
 At Galesburgh, 1 tried to show that by the Dred Scott decision, pushed to its legit- 
 imate consequences, slavery would be established in all the States as well as in the 
 Territories. I did this because, upon a former occasion, I had asked Judge Douglas 
 whether, if the Supreme Court should make a decision declaring that the States had 
 not the power to exclude slavery from their limits, he would adopt and follow that de- 
 cision as a rule of political action ; and because he had not directly answered that 
 question, but had merely contented himself with sneering at it, I again introduced it, 
 and tried to show that the conclusion that I stated followed inevitably and logically 
 from the proposition already decided by the court. Judge Douglas had the privilege 
 of replying to me at Galesburgh, and again he gave me no direct answer as to whether 
 he would or would not sustain such a decision if made. I give him this third chance 
 to say yes or no. He is not obliged to do either probably he will not do either 
 but I give him the third chance. I tried to show then that this result this conclu- 
 sion inevitably followed from the point already decided by the court. The Judge, in 
 his reply, again sneers at the thought of the court making any such decision, and in 
 the course of his remarks upon this subject, uses the language which I will now read. 
 Speaking of me the Judge says : 
 
 " He goes on and insists that the Dred Scott decision would carry slavery into the 
 free States, notwithstanding the decision itself says the contrary." And he adds : 
 " Mr. Lincoln knows that there is no member of the Supreme Court that holds that 
 doctrine. He knows that every one of them in their opinions held the reverse." 
 
 I especially introduce this subject again for the purpose of saying that I have the 
 Dred Scott decision here, and I will thank Judge Douglas to lay his finger upon the 
 place in the entire opinions of the court where any one of them " says the contrary." 
 It is very hard to affirm a negative with entire coniidt-nce. I say, however, that I 
 have examined that decision with a good deal of care, as a lawyer examines a decision, 
 and *! far as I have been able to do so, the court has no where in its opinions said 
 that the States have the power to exclude slavery, nor have they used other language 
 substantially that I also say, so far as I can find, not one of the concurring Judges 
 has said that the States can exclude slavery, nor said any thing that was substantially 
 that. The nearest approach that any one of them has made to it, so far as I can 
 find, was by Judge Nelson, and the approach he made to it was exactly, in substance, 
 the 'Nebraska Bill that the States had the exclusive power over the question of sla- 
 very, so far as they are not limited by the Constitution of the United States. I 
 asked the question therefore, if the non-concurring Judges, McLean or Curtis, had 
 asked to get an express declaration that the States could absolutely exclude slavery 
 from their limits, what reason have we to believe that it would not have been voted 
 down by the majority of the Judges, just as Chase's amendment was voted down by 
 Judge Douglas and his compeers when it was offered to the Nebraska Bill. 
 
 Also at Galesburgh, I said something in regard to those Springfield resolutions that 
 Judge Douglas had attempted to use upon me at Ottawa, and commented at some 
 length upon the fact that they were, as presented, not genuine. Judge Douglas in 
 his reply to me seemed to be somewhat exasperated. He said he would never have 
 believed that Abraham Lincoln, as he kindly called me, would have attempted such 
 a thing as I had attempted upon that occasion ; and among other expressions which 
 he used toward me, was that I dared to say forgery that I had dared to say forgery 
 [turning to Judge Douglas]. Yes, Judge, I did dare to say forgery. But in thi* 
 political canvass, the Judge ought to remember that I was not the first who dared to 
 say forgery. At Jacksonville Judge Douglas made a speech in answer to something
 
 196 
 
 said by Judge Trumbnll, and at the close of what he said upon that subject, he dared 
 to say that Trumbull had forged his evidence. He said, too. that he should not con- 
 cern himself with Trumbull any more, but thereafter he should hold Lincoln responsible 
 for the slanders upon him. When I met him at Charleston after that, although I 
 think that I should not have noticed the subject if he had not said he would hold me 
 responsible for it, I spread out before him the statements of the evidence that Judge 
 Trumbull had used, and I asked Judge Douglas, piece by piece, to put his finger up- 
 on one piece of all that evidence that he would say was a forgery ! When I went 
 through with each and every piece, Judge Douglas did not dare then to say that any 
 piece of it was a forgery. So it seems that there are some things that Judge Doug- 
 las dares to do, and some that he dares not to do. 
 
 A voice " It's the same thing with you." 
 
 Mr. Lincoln Yes, sir, it's the same thing with me. I do dare to say forgery 
 when its true, and don't dare to say forgery when it's false. Now. I will say here to 
 this audience and to Judge Douglas, I have not dared to say he committed a forgery, 
 and I never shall until I know it ; but I did dare to say just to suggest to the Judge 
 that a forgery had been committed, which by his own showing had been traced to 
 him and two of his friends. I dared to suggest to him that he had expressly prom- 
 ised in one of his public speeches to investigate that matter, and I dared to suggest 
 to him that there was an implied promise that when he investigated it he would make 
 known the result. I dared to suggest to the Judge that he could not expect to be 
 quite clear of suspicion of that fraud, for since the time that promise was made he 
 had been with those friends, and had not kept his promise in regard to the investiga- 
 tion and the report upon it. I am not a very daring man, but I dared that much, 
 Judge, and I am not much scared about it yet. When the Judge says he would'nt 
 have believed of Abraham Lincoln that he w r ould have made such an attempt as that, 
 he reminds me of the fact that he entered upon this canvass with the purpose to treat 
 me courteously ; that touched me somewhat. It sets me to thinking. I was aware, 
 when it was first agreed that Judge Douglas and I were to have these seven joint 
 discussions, that they were the successive acts of a drama perhaps I should say, to 
 be enacted not merely in the face of audiences like this, but in the face of the nation, 
 and to some extent, by my relation to him, and not from any thing in myself, in the 
 face of the world ; and I am anxious that they should be conducted with dignity and 
 in the good temper which would be befitting the vast audience before which it was 
 conducted. But when Judge Douglas got home from Washington and made his first 
 speech in Chicago, the evening afterward I made some sort of a reply to it. His 
 second speech was made at Bloomington, in which he commented upon my speech 
 at Chicago, and said that I had used language ingeniously contrived to conceal my 
 intentions, or words to that effect. Now, I understand that this is an imputation up- 
 on my veracity and my candor. I do not know what the Judge understood by it 
 but in our first discussion at Ottawa, he led off by charging a bargain, somewhat cor- 
 rupt in its character, upon Trumbull and myself that we had entered into a bargain, 
 one of the terms of which was that Trumbull was to abolitionize the old Democratic 
 party, and I (Lincoln) was to abolitionize the old Whig party I pretending to be 
 as good an old line Whig as ever. Judge Douglas may not understand that he im- 
 plicated my truthfulness and my honor, when he said I was doing one thing and pre- 
 tending another ; and I misunderstood him if he thought he was treating me in a dig- 
 nified way, as a man of honor and truth, as he now claims he was disposed to treat 
 me. Even after that time, at Galesburgh, when he brings forward an extract from a 
 speech made at Chicago, and an extract from a speech made at Charleston, to prove 
 that I was trying to play a double part that I was trying to cheat the public, and 
 get votes upon one set of principles at one place and upon* another set of principles 
 at another place I do not understand but what he impeaches my honor, my veraci- 
 ty and my candor, and because he does this, I do not understand that I am bou^d, if 
 I see a truthful ground for it, to keep my hands off of him. As soon as I learned 
 that Judge Douglas was disposed to treat me in this way, I signified in ou^ of my
 
 197 
 
 speeches that I should be driven to draw upon whatever of humble resources I might 
 have to adopt a new course with him. I was not entirely sure that I should be 
 able to hold my own with him, but I at least had the purpose made to do as well as 
 I could upon him ; and now I say that I will not be the first to cry " hold." I think 
 it originated with the Judge, and when he quits, I probably will. But I shall not 
 ask any favors at all. He asks me, or he asks the audience, if I wish to push this 
 matter to the point of personal difficulty. I tell him, no. He did not make a mis- 
 take, in one of his early speeches, when he called me an "amiable" man, though 
 perhaps he did when he called me an " intelligent " man. It really hurts me very 
 much to suppose that I have wronged any body on earth. I again tell him, no ! I 
 very much prefer, when this canvass shall be over, however it may result, that we at 
 least part without any bitter recollections of personal difficulties. 
 
 The Judge, in his concluding speech at Galesburgh, says that I was pushing this 
 matter to a personal difficulty, to avoid the responsibility for the enormity of my 
 principles. I say to the Judge and this audience now, that I will again state our 
 principles as well as I hastily can in all their enormity, and if the Judge hereafter 
 chooses to confine himself to a war upon these principles, he will probably not find 
 me departing from the same course. 
 
 We have in this nation this element of domestic slavery. It is a matter of absolute 
 certainty that it is a disturbing element. It is the opinion of all the great men who have 
 axpressed an opinion upon it, that it is a dangerous element. We keep up a controversy 
 in regard to it. That controversy necessarily springs from difference of opinion, and if 
 we can learn exactly can reduce to the lowest elements what that difference of opin- 
 ion is, we perhaps shall be better prepared for discussing the different systems of policy 
 that we would propose in regard to that disturbing element. I suggest that the difference 
 of opinion, reduced to its lowest terms, is no other than the difference between the men 
 who think slavery a wrong and those who do not think it wrong. The Republican 
 party think it wrong we think it is a moral, a social and a political wrong. We 
 think it as a wrong not confining itself merely to the persons or the States where it 
 exists, but that it is a wrong in its tendency, to say the least, that extends itself to 
 the existence of the whole nation. Because we think it wrong, we propose a course 
 of policy that shall deal with it as a wrong. We deal with it as with any other 
 wrong, in so far as we can prevent its growing any larger, and so deal with it that in 
 the run of time there may he some promise of an end to it. We have a due regard 
 to the actual presence of it amongst us and the difficulties of getting rid of it in any 
 satisfactory way, and all the Constitutional obligations thrown about it. I suppose 
 that in reference both to its actual existence in the nation, and to our Constitutional 
 obligations, we have no right at all to disturb it in the States where it exists, arid we 
 profess that we have no more inclination to disturb it than we have the right to do it 
 We go further than that ; we don't propose to disturb it where, in one instance, we 
 think the Constitution would permit us. We think the Constitution would permit us 
 to disturb it in the District of Columbia. Still we do not propose to do that, unless 
 it should be in terms which I don't suppose the nation is very likely soon to agiee to 
 the terms of making the emancipation gradual and compensating the unwilling 
 owners. Where we suppose we have the Constitutional right, we restrain ourselvtj 
 in reference to the actual existence of the institution and the difficulties thrown about 
 it. We also oppose it as an evil so far as it seeks to spread itself. We insist on the 
 policy that shall restrict it to its present limits. We don't suppose that in doing this 
 we violate any thing due to the actual presence of the institution, or any thing due to 
 the Constitutional guaranties thrown around it. 
 
 We oppose the Dred Scott decision in a certain way, upon which I ought perhaps 
 to address you a few words. We do not propose that when Dred Scott lias been de- 
 cided to be a slave by the court, we, as a mob, will decide him to be free. We do 
 not propose that, when any other one, or one thousand, shall be decided by that court 
 to be slaves, we will in any violent way disturb the rights of property thus settled 
 but we nevertheless do oppose that decision as a political rule, which shall be bind
 
 198 
 
 ing on the voter to vote for nobody who thinks it wrong, which shall be binding on 
 the members of Congress or the President to favor no measure that does not actually 
 concur with the principles of that decision. We do not propose to be bound by it 
 as a political rule in that way, because we think it lays the foundation not merely of 
 enlarging and spreading out what we consider an evil, but it lays the foundation for 
 spreading that evil into the States themselves. We propose so resisting it as to 
 have it reversed if we can, and a new judicial rule established upon this subject. 
 
 I will add this, that if there be any man who does not believe that slavery is 
 wrong in the three aspects which I have mentioned, or in any one of them, that man 
 is misplaced, and ought to leave us. While, on the other hand, if there be any man 
 in the Republican party who is impatient over the necessity springing from its ac- 
 tual presence, and is impatient of the Constitutional guaranties thrown around it, 
 and would act in disregard of these, he too is misplaced, standing with us. lie will 
 find his place somewhere else ; for we have a due regard, so far as we are capable 
 of understanding them, for all these things. This, gentlemen, as well as I can give 
 it, is a plain statement of our principles in all their enormity. 
 
 I will Miy now that there is a sentiment in the country contrary to me a sen- 
 timent which holds that slavery is not wrong, and therefore it goes for the policy that 
 does not propose dealing with it as a wrong. That policy is the Democratic policy, 
 and that sentiment is the Democratic sentiment. If there be a doubt in the mind 
 of any one of this vast audience that this is really the central idea of the Democrat- 
 ic party, in relation to this subject, 1 ask him to bear with me while I state a few 
 things tending, as I think, to prove that proposition. In the first place, the leading 
 man I think I may do my friend Judge Douglas the honor of calling him such 
 advocating the present Democratic policy, never himself says it is wrong. He 
 has the high distinction, so far as I know, of never having said slavery is either 
 right or wrong. Almost every body else says one or the other, but the Judge never 
 does. If there be a man in the Democratic party who thinks it is wrong, and yet 
 clings to that party, I suggest to him in the first place that his leader don't talk as 
 he does, for he never says that it is wrong. In the second place, I suggest to him 
 that it' he will examine the policy proposed to be carried forward, he will find that 
 he carefully excludes the idea that there is any thing wrong in ir. If you will 
 examine the arguments that are made on it, you will find that every one carefully 
 excludes the idea that there is any thing wrong in slavery. Perhaps that Demo- 
 crat who says he is as much opposed to slavery as I am, will tell me that I am 
 wrong about this. I wish him to examine his own course in regard to this mat- 
 ter a moment, and then see if his opinion will not be changed a little. You say 
 it is wrong ; but don't you constantly object to any body else saying so ? Do you 
 not constantly argue that this is not the right place to oppose it ? You say it must 
 not be opposed in the free States, because slavery is not here ; it must not be op- 
 posed in the slave States, because it is there ; it must not be opposed in politics, be- 
 cause that will make a fuss ; it must not be opposed in the pulpit, because it is not 
 religion. Then where is the place to oppose it ? There is no suitable place to op 
 pose it. There is no plan in the country to oppose this evil overspreading the 
 continent, which you say yourself is coming. Frank Blair and Gratz Brown tried 
 to get up a system of gradual emancipation in Missouri, had an election in Au- 
 gust arid got beat, and you, Mr. Democrat, threw up your hat, and hallooed " hur- 
 ra for Democracy." So I say again, that in regard to the arguments that are 
 made, when Judge Douglas says he " don't care whether slavery is voted up or voted 
 down," whether he means that as an individual expression of sentiment, or only 
 as a sort of statement of his views on national policy, it is alike true to say that 
 he can thus argue logically if he don't see any thing wrong in it ; but he can- 
 not say so logically if he admits that slavery is wrong. He cannot say that he 
 would as soon see a wrong voted up as voted down. When Judge Douglas says 
 that whoever or whatever community wants slaves, they have a right to have them, 
 Be is perfectly logical if there is nothing wrong in the institution ; but if you admit
 
 199 
 
 that it is wrong, he cannot logically say that any body has a right to do wrong. When 
 he says that slave property and horse and hog property are, alike, to be allowed to go 
 into the Territories, upon the principles of equality, he is reasoning truly, if there 
 is no difference between them as property ; but if the one is property, held right- 
 fully, and the other is wrong, then there is no equality between the right and wrong ; 
 so that, turn it in any way you can, in all the arguments sustaining the Democratic 
 policy, and in that policy itself, there is a careful, studied exclusion of the idea that 
 there is any thing wrong in slavery. Let us understand this. I am not, just herej 
 trying to prove that we are right and they are wrong. I have been stating where 
 we and they stand, and trying to show what is the real difference between us ; 
 aril I now say that whenever we can get the question distinctly stated can get all 
 these men who believe that slavery is in some of these respects wrong, to stand and 
 act with us in treating it as a wrong then, and not till then, I think we will in 
 some way come to an end of this slavery agitation. 
 
 MR. DOUGLAS'S REPLY. 
 
 LADIES AND GENTLEMEN : Permit me to say that unless silence is observed it 
 will be impossible for me to be heard by this immense crowd, and my friends 
 can confer no higher favor upon me than by omitting all expressions of applause 
 or approbation. 1 desire to be heard rather than to be applauded. I wish to ad- 
 dress myself to your reason, your judgment, your sense of justice, and not to your 
 passions. 
 
 I regret that Mr. Lincoln should have deemed it proper for him to again in- 
 dulge in gross personalities and base insinuations in regard to the Springfield reso- 
 lutions. It has imposed upon me the necessity of using some portion of my time 
 for the purpose of calling your attention to the facts of the case, and it will then 
 be for you to say what you think of a man who can predicate such a charge 
 upon the circumstances as he has in this. I had seen the platform adopted by a Re- 
 publican Congressional Convention held in Aurora, the Second Congressional Dis-- 
 trict, in September, 1854, published as purporting to be the platform of the Re- 
 publican party. That platform declared that the Republican party was pledged 
 never to admit another slave State into the Union, and also that it pledged to 
 prohibit slavery in all the Territories of the United States, not only all that we 
 then had, but all that we should thereafter acquire, and to repeal unconditionally 
 the Fugitive Slave law, abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, and prohibit 
 the slave-trade between the different States. These and other articles against sla- 
 very were contained in this platform, and unanimously adopted by the Republican 
 Congressional Convention in that District. I had also seen that the Republican 
 Congressional Conventions at Rockford, in the First District, and at Bloomington, 
 in the Third, had adopted the same platform that year, nearly word for word, and 
 Nid declared it to be the platform of the Republican party. I had noticed that 
 Majti Thomas L. Harris, a member of Congress from the Springfield District, 
 had referred to that platform in a speech in Congress as having been adopted by 
 the first Republican State Convention which assembled in Illinois. When I had 
 occasion to use the fact in this canvass, I wrote to Major Harris to know on what 
 day that Convention was held, and to ask him to send me its proceedings. He being 
 sick, Charles H. Lanphier answered my letter by sending me the published proceed- 
 ings of the Convention held at Springfield on the 5th of October, 1854, as they ap- 
 peared in the report of the State Register. I read those resolutions from that 
 newspaper the same as any of you would refer back arid quote any fact from the 
 files of a newspaper which had published it. Mr. Lincoln pretends that after I 
 had so quoted those resolutions he discovered that they had never been adopted at 
 Springfield. He does not deny their adoption by the Republican party at Aurora,
 
 200 
 
 at Bloomington, and at Rockford, and by nearly all the Republican County Conven- 
 tions in Northern Illinois where his party is in a majority, but merely because they 
 were not adopted on the " spot " on which I said they were, he chooses to quibble 
 about the place rather than meet and discuss the merits of the resolutions themselves. 
 I stated when I quoted them that I did so from the State Register. I gave my au- 
 thority. Lincoln believed at the time, as he has since admitted, that they had beei. 
 adopted at Springfield, as published. Does he believe now, that I did not tell the 
 truth when I quoted those resolutions ? He knows, in his heart, that I quoted 
 them in good faith, believing, at the time, that they had been adopted at Springfield. 
 I would consider myself an infamous wretch, if, under such circumstances, I could 
 charge any man with being a party to a trick or a fraud. And I will tell him, too, 
 that it will not do to charge a forgery on Charles H. Lanphier or Thomas L. Harris. 
 No man on earth, who knows them, and knows Lincoln, would take his oath against 
 their word. There are not two men in the State of Illinois who have higher charac- 
 ters for truth, for integrity, for moral character, and for elevation of tone, as gentle- 
 men, than Mr. Lanphier and Mr. Harris. Any man who attempts to make such 
 charges as Mr. Lincoln has indulged in against them, only proclaims himself a slan- 
 derer. 
 
 I will now show you that I stated with entire fairness, as soon as it was made 
 known to me, that there was a mistake about the spot where the resolutions had been 
 adopted, although their truthfulness, as a declaration of the principles of the Repub- 
 lican party, had not and could not be questioned. I did not wait for Lincoln to point 
 out the mistake ; but the moment I discovered it, I made a speech, and published it 
 to the world, correcting the error. I corrected it myself, as a gentleman, and an 
 honest man, and as I always feel proud to do when I have made a mistake. I wish 
 Mr. Lincoln could show that he has acted with equal fairness, and truthfulness, when 
 I have convinced him that he has been mistaken. I will give you an illustration to 
 show you how he acts in a similar case : In a speech at Springfield, he charged 
 Chief Justice Taney, and his associates, President Pierce, President Buchanan, and 
 myself, with having entered into a conspiracy at the time the Nebraska bill was in- 
 troduced, by which the Dred Scott decision was to be made by the Supreme Court, 
 in order to carry slavery every where under the Constitution. I called his attention 
 to the fact, that at the time alluded to, to wit : the introduction of the Nebraska bill, 
 it was not possible that such a conspiracy could have been entered into, for the rea- 
 son that the Dred Scott case had never been taken before the Supreme Court, and 
 was not taken before it for a year after ; and I asked him to take back that charge. 
 Did he do it ? I showed him that it was impossible that the charge could be true ; 
 1 proved it by the record, and I then called upon him to retract his false charge. 
 What was his answer ? Instead of coming oujt like an honest man and doing so, 
 he iciterated the charge, and said that if the case had not gone up to the Supreme 
 Court from the courts of Missouri at the time he charged that the Judges of the Su- 
 preme Court entered into the conspiracy, yet, that there was an understanding with 
 the Democratic owners of Dred Scott that they would take it up. I have since 
 asked him who the Democratic owners of Dred Scott were, but he could not tell, and 
 why ? Because there were no such Democratic owners in existence. Dred Scott 
 at the time was owned by the Rev. Dr. Chaffee, an Abolition member of Congress, 
 of Springfield, Massachusetts, in right of his wife. He was owned by one of Lin- 
 coln's friends, and not by Democrats at all ; his case was conducted in court by Abo- 
 lition lawyers, so that both the prosecution and the defense were in the hands of the 
 Abolition political friends of Mr. Lincoln. Notwithstanding I thus proved by the 
 record that his charge against the Supreme Court was false, instead of taking it back, 
 he resorted to another false charge to sustain the infamy of it. He also charged 
 President Buchanan with having been a party to the conspiracy. I directed his at- 
 tention to the fact that the charge could not possibly be true, for the reason that at 
 the time specified, Mr. Buchanan was not in America, but was three thousand miles 
 off, representing the United States at the Court of St. James, and had been there
 
 201 
 
 for a year previous, and did not return until three years afterward. Yet, I never 
 could get Mr. Lincoln to take back his false charge, although I have called upon him 
 over and over again. He refuses to do it, and either remains silent, or resorts to 
 other tricks to try and palm his slander off on the country. Therein you will find 
 the difference between Mr. Lincoln and myself. When I make a mistake, as an 
 honest man, I correct it without being asked to do so, but when he nrokes a false 
 charge he sticks to it, and never corrects it One word more in regard to these reso- 
 lutions : I quoted them at Ottawa merely to ask Mr. Lincoln whether he stood on 
 that platform. That was the purpose for which I quoted them. I did not think 
 that I had a right to put idle questions to him, and I first laid a foundation for my 
 questions by showing that the principles which I wished him either to affirm or deny 
 had been adopted by some portion of his friends, at least as their creed. Hence I 
 read the resolutions, and put the questions to him, and he then refused to answer 
 them. Subsequently, one week afterward, he did answer a part of them, but the 
 others he has not answered up to this day. 
 
 Now, let me call your attention for a moment to the answers which Mr. Lincoln 
 made at Freeport to the questions which I propounded him at Ottawa, based upon 
 the platform adopted by a majority of the Abolition counties of the State, which now 
 as then supported him. In answer to my question whether he indorsed the Black 
 Republican principle of "no more slave States," he answered that he was riot 
 pledged against the admission of any more slave States, but that he would be very 
 sorry if he should ever be placed in a position where he would have to vote on the 
 question ; that he would rejoice to know that no more slave States would be admitted 
 into the Union; "but," he added, "if slavery shall be kept out of the Territories 
 during the territorial existence of any one given Territory, and then the people shall, 
 having a fair chance and a clear field when they come to adopt the Constitution, do 
 such an extraordinary thing as to adopt a slave Constitution, uninfluenced by the 
 actual presence of the institution among them, I see no alternative, if we own the 
 country, but to admit them into 'the Union." The point I wish him to answer is 
 this : Suppose Congress should not prohibit slavery in the Territory, and it applied 
 for admission with a Constitution recognizing slavery, then how would he vote ? His 
 answer at Freeport does not apply to any territory in America. I ask you [turn- 
 ing to Lincoln], will you vote to admit Kansas into the Union, with just such a Con- 
 stitution as her people want, with slavery or without, as they shall determine ? He 
 will not answer. I have put that question to him time and time again, and have not 
 been able to get an answer out of him. I ask you again, Lincoln, will you vote to 
 admit New Mexico when she has the requisite population with such a Constitution a& 
 her people adopt, either recognizing slavery or not, as they shall determine ? He will 
 not answer. I put the same question to him in reference to Oregon and the 
 new States to be carved out of Texas', in pursuance of the contract between Texa 
 and the United States, and he will not answer. He will not answer these questions 
 in reference to any territory now in existence ; but says, that if Congress should pro- 
 hibit slavery in a Territory, and when its people asked for admission as a State, they 
 should adopt slavery as one of their institutions, that he supposes he would have to 
 let it come in. I submit to you whether that answer of his to my question does not 
 justify roe in saying that he has a fertile genius in devising language to conceal his 
 thoughts. I ask you whether there is an intelligent man in America who does not 
 believe, that that answer was made for the purpose of concealing what he intended 
 to do. He wished to make the old line Whigs believe that he would stand by the 
 Compromise measures of 1850, which declared that the States might come into the 
 Union with slavery, or without, as they pleased, while Lovejoy and his Abolition 
 allies up North, explained to the Abolitionists, that in taking this ground he preached 
 good Abolition doctrine, because his proviso would not apply to any territory in 
 America, and therefore there was no chance of his being governed by it. It would 
 have been quite easy for him to have said, that he would let the people of a State do just 
 as they pleased, if he desired to convey such an idea. Why did he not do it? He
 
 202 
 
 would not answer my question directly, because up north, the Abolition creed de- 
 clares that there shall be no more slave States, while down south, in Adams county, 
 in Coles, and in Sangaraon, he and his friends are afraid to advance that doctrine. 
 Therefore, he gives an evasive and equivocal answer, to be construed one way in the 
 south and another way in the north, which, when analyzed, it is apparent is not an 
 answer at all with reference to any territory now in existence. 
 
 Mr. Lincoln complains that, in my speech the other day at Galesburgh, I read an 
 extract from a speech delivered by him at Chicago, and then another from his 
 peech at Charleston, and compared them, thus showing the people that he had 
 one set of principles in one part of the State and another in the other part. 
 And how does he answer that charge ? Why, he quotes from his Charleston speech 
 as I quoted from it, and then quotes another extract from a Speech which he made 
 at another place, which he says is the same as the extract from his speech at Charles- 
 ton ; but he does not quote the extract from his Chicago speech, upon wliich I con- 
 victed him of double-dealing. I quoted from his Chicago speech to prove that he 
 held one set of principles up north among the Abolitionists, and from his Charleston 
 speech to prove that he held another set down at Charleston and in southern Illinois. 
 In his answer to this charge, he ignores entirely his Chicago speech, and merely 
 argues that he said the same thing which he said at Charleston at another place. 
 If he did, it follows that he has twice, instead of once, held one creed in one part of 
 the State and a different creed in another part. Up at Chicago, in the opening of the 
 campaign, he reviewed my reception speech, and undertook to answer my argument 
 attacking his favorite doctrine of negro equality. I had shown that it was a falsifi- 
 cation of the Declaration of Independence to pretend that that instrument applied to 
 and included negroes in the clause declaring that all men were created equal. What 
 was Lincoln's reply ? I will read from his Chicago speech and the one which he did 
 not quote, and dare not quote, in this part of the State. He said : 
 
 " I should like to know, if taking this old Declaration of Independence, which de- 
 clares that all men are equal upon principle, and making exceptions to it, where will 
 it stop ? If one man says it does not mean a negro, why may not another man say 
 it does not mean another man ? If that declaration is not the truth, let us get this 
 statute book in which we find it and tear it out/' 
 
 There you find that Mr. Lincoln told the Abolitionists of Chicago that if the Dec- 
 laration of Independence did not declare that the negro was created by the Almighty 
 the equal of the white man, that you ought to take that instrument and tear out the 
 clause which says that all men were created equal. But let me call your attention 
 to another part of the same speech. You know that in his Charleston speech, an 
 extract from which he has read, he declared that the negro belongs to an inferior 
 race; is physically inferior to the white man, and should always be kept in an infe- 
 rior position. I will now read to you what -he said at Chicago on that point. In 
 concluding his speech at that place, he remarked : 
 
 " My friends, I have detained you about as long as I desire to do, and I have 
 only to say let us discard all this quibbling about this man and the other man this 
 race and that race, and the other race being inferior, and therefore they must be 
 placed in an inferior position, discarding our standard that we have left us. Let us 
 discard all these things, and unite as one people throughout this land until we shall 
 once more stand up declaring that all men are created equal." 
 
 Thus you see, that when addressing the Chicago Abolitionists he declared that all 
 distinctions of race must be discarded and blotted out, because the negro stood on an 
 equal footing with the white man ; that if one man said the Declaration of Independ- 
 ence did not mean a negro when it declared all men created equal, that another man 
 would say that it did not mean another man ; and hence we ought to discard all dif- 
 ference between the negro race and all other races, and declare them all created 
 equal. Did old Giddings, when he came down among you four years ago, preach 
 more radical Abolitionism than this ? Did Lovejoy, or Lloyd Garrison, or Wendell 
 Phillips, or Fred Douglass, ever take higher Abolition grounds than that? Lincoln
 
 203 
 
 told you that I had charged him with getting up these personal attacks to conceal 
 the enormity of his principles, and then commenced talking about something else, 
 omitting to quote this part of his Chicago speech which contained the enormity of 
 his principles to which I alluded. He knew that I alluded to his negro-equality 
 doctrines when I spoke of the enormity of his principles, yet he did not find it con- 
 venient to answer on that point. Having shown you what he said in his Chicago 
 speech in reference to negroes being created equal to white men, and about discarding 
 all distinctions between the two races, I will again read to you what he said at 
 Charleston : 
 
 " I will say then, that I am not nor ever have been in favor of bringing about 
 in any way, the social and political equality of the white and black races ; that I am 
 not nor ever have been in favor of making voters of the the free negroes, or jurors, 
 or qualifying them to hold office, or having them to marry with white people. I 
 will say in addition, that there is a physical difference between the white and 
 black races, which, I suppose, will forever forbid the two races living together upon 
 terms of social and political equality, and inasmuch as they cannot so live, that while 
 they do remain together, there must be the position of superior and inferior, that I 
 as much as any other man am in favor of the superior position being assigned to the 
 white man." 
 
 A voice" That's the doctrine." 
 
 Mr. Douglas Yes, sir, that is good doctrine, but Mr. Lincoln is afraid to advo- 
 cate it in the latitude of Chicago, where he hopes to get his votes. It is good doctrine 
 in the anti- Abolition counties for him, and his Chicago speech is good doctrine in the 
 Abolition counties. I assert, on the authority of these two speeches of Mr. Lincoln, 
 that he holds one set of principles in the Abolition counties, and a different and con- 
 tradictory set in the other counties. I do not question that he said at Ottawa what 
 he quoted, but that only convicts him further, by proving that he has twice contra- 
 dicted himself instead of once. Let me ask him why he cannot avow his principles 
 the same in the North as in the South the same in every county, if he has a con- 
 viction that they are just? But I forgot he would not be a Republican, if his 
 principles would apply alike to every part of the country. The party to which he 
 belongs is bounded and limited by geographical lines. With their principles they 
 cannot even cross the Mississippi river on your ferry-boats. They cannot cross 
 over the Ohio into Kentucky. Lincoln himself cannot visit the land of his fathers, 
 the scenes of his childhood, the graves of his ancestors, and carry his Abolition prin- 
 ciples, as he declared them at Chicago^ with him. 
 
 This Republican organization appeals to the North against the South ; it appeals to 
 northern passion, northern prejudice, and northern ambition, against southern people, 
 southern States, and southern institutions, and its only hope of success is by that 
 appeal. Mr. Lincoln goes on to justify himself in making a war upon slavery, upon 
 the ground that Frank Blair and Gratz Brown did not succeed in their warfare upon 
 the institutions in Missouri. Frank Blair was elected to Congress in 1856, from 
 the State of Missouri, as a Buchanan Democrat, and he turned Freemonter after the 
 people elected him, thus belonging to one party before his election, and another after- 
 ward. What right then had he to expect, after having thus cheated his constituency, 
 that they would support him at another election ? Mr. Lincoln thinks that it is his 
 duty to preach a crusade in the free States against slavery, because it is a crime, as 
 he believes, and ought to be extinguished ; and because the people of the slave 
 States will never abolish it. How is he going to abolish it ? Down in the southern 
 part of the State he takes the ground openly that he will not interfere with slavery 
 where it exists, and says that he is not now and never was in favor of interfering 
 with slavery where it exists in the States. Well, if he is not in favor of that, how 
 does he expect to bring slavery in a course of ultimate extinction ? How can he 
 extinguish it in Kentucky, in Virginia, in all the slave States by his policy, if he 
 will not pursue a policy which will interfere with it hi the States where it exists ?
 
 204 
 
 In his speech at Springfield before the Abolition or Republican Convention, he 
 declared his hostility to any more slave States in this language : 
 
 " Under the operation of that policy the agitation has not only not ceased, but has 
 constantly augmented. In my opinion it will not cease until a crisis shall have been 
 reached and passed. 'A house divided against itself cannot stand.' I believe this 
 Government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect 
 the Union to be dissolved I do not expect the house to fall but I do expect it will 
 cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other. Either the oppo- 
 nents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, arid place it where the public 
 mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction ; or, its 
 advocates will push it forward until it shall become alike lawful in all the States 
 old as well as new, north as well as south." 
 
 Mr. Lincoln there told his Abolition friends that this Government could not endure 
 permanently, divided into free and slave States as our fathers made it, and that it 
 must become all free or all slave, otherwise, that the Government could not exist. 
 How then does Lincoln propose to save the Union, unless by compelling all the 
 States to become free, so that the house shall not be divided against itself? He 
 intends making them all free ; he will preserve the Union in that way, arid yet, he is 
 not going to interfere with slavery any where it now exists. How is he going to 
 bring it about? Why, he will agitate, he will induce the North to agitate until the 
 South shall be worried out, and forced to abolish slavery. Let us examine the policy 
 by which that is to be done. He first tells you that he would prohibit slavery every 
 where in the Territories. He would thus confine slavery within its present limits. 
 When he thus gets it confined, and surrounded, so that it cannot spread, the natural 
 laws of increase will go on until the negroes will be so plenty that they cannot live 
 on the soil. He will hem them in until starvation seizes them, and by starving them 
 to death, he will put slavery in the course of ultimate extinction. If he is not going 
 to interfere with slavery in the States, but intends to interfere and prohibit it in the 
 Territories, and thus smother slavery out, it naturally follows, that he can extinguish 
 it only by extinguishing the negro race, for his policy would drive them to starvation. 
 This is the humane and Christian remedy that he proposes for the great crime of 
 slavery. 
 
 He tells you that I will not argue the question whether slavery is right or wrong. 
 I tell you why I will not do it. I hold that under the Constitution of the United 
 States, each State of this Union has a right to do as it pleases on the subject of 
 slavery. In Illinois we have exercised that sovereign right by prohibiting slavery 
 within our own limits. I approve of that line of policy. We have performed our 
 whole duty in Illinois. We have gone as far as we have a right to go under the 
 Constitution of our common country. It is none of our business whether slavery 
 exists in Missouri or not. Missouri is a sovereign State of this Union, and has the 
 same right to decide the slavery question for herself that Illinois has to decide it for 
 herself. Hence I do not choose to occupy the time allotted to me in discussing a 
 question that we have no right to act upon. I thought that you desired to hear us 
 upon those questions coming within our Constitutional power or action. Lincoln will 
 not discuss these. What one question has he discussed that comes within the power 
 or calls for the action or interference of an United States Senator ? He is going to 
 discuss the rightfulness of slavery when Congress cannot act upon it either way 
 He wishes to discuss the merits of the Dred Scott decision when, under the Consti- 
 tution, a Senator has no right to interfere with the decision of judicial tribunals. 
 He wants your exclusive attention to two questions that he has no power to act 
 upon ; to two questions that he could not vote upon if he was in Congress, to two 
 questions that are not practical, in order to conceal your attention from other ques 
 tions which he might be required to vote upon should he ever become a member ot 
 Congress. Ho tells you that he does not like the Dred Scott decision. Suppose he 
 does not, how is he going to help himself? He says that he will reverse it. How 
 will he reverse it ? I know of bufr one mode of reversing judicial decisions, and
 
 205 
 
 that is by appealing from the inferior to the superior court. But I have never yet 
 learned how or where an appeal could be taken from the Supreme Court of the 
 United States ! The Dred Scott decision was pronounced by the highest tribunal on 
 earth. From that decision there is no appeal this side of Heaven. Yet, Mr. Lin- 
 coln says he is going to reverse that decision. By what tribunal will he reverse it ? 
 Will he appeal to a mob? Does he intend to appeal to violence, to Lynch law? 
 Will he stir up strife and rebellion in the land and overthrow the court by violence ? 
 He does not deign to tell you how he will reverse the Dred Scott decision, but 
 keeps appealing each day from the Supreme Court of the United States to political 
 meetings in the country. He wants me to argue with you the merits of each point 
 of that decision before this political meeting. I say to you, with all due respect, that 
 I choose to abide by the decisions of the Supreme Court as they are pronounced. 
 It is not for me to inquire after a decision is made whether I like it in all the point* 
 or not. When I used to practice law with Lincoln, I never knew him to be beat in 
 a, case that he did not get mad at the judge and talk about appealing ; and when I 
 got beat I generally thought the court was wrong, but I never dreamed of going out 
 of the court-house and making a stump speech to the people against the judge, 
 merely because I had found out that I did not know the law as well as he did. If 
 the decision did not suit me, I appealed until I got to the Supreme Court, and then 
 if that court, the highest tribunal in the world, decided against me, I was satisfied, 
 because it is the duty of every law-abiding man to obey the constitutions, the laws, 
 and the constituted authorities. He who attempts to stir up odium and rebellion in 
 the country against the constituted authorities, is stimulating the passions of men to 
 resort to violence and to mobs instead of to the law. Hence, I tell you that I take 
 the decisions of the Supreme Court as the law of the land, and I intend to obey 
 them as such. 
 
 But Mr. Lincoln says that I will not answer his question as to what I would do in 
 the event of the court making so ridiculous a decision as he imagines they would by 
 deciding that the free State of Illinois could not prohibit slavery within her own 
 limits. I told him at Freeport why I would not answer such a question. I told 
 him that there was not a man possessing any brains in America, lawyer or not, who 
 ever dreamed that such a thing could be done. I told him then, as I do now, that 
 by all the principles set forth in the Dred Scott decision, it is impossible. I told him 
 then, as I do now, that it is an insult to men's understanding, and a gross calumny on 
 the court, to presume in advance that it was going to degrade itself so low as to 
 make a decision known to be in direct violation of the Constitution. 
 
 A voice " The same thing was said about the Dred Scott decision before it passed." 
 
 Mr. Douglas Perhaps you think that the court did the same thing in reference 
 to the Dred Scott decision : I have heard a man talk that way before. The princi- 
 ples contained in the Dred Scott decision had been affirmed previously in various 
 other decisions. What court or judge ever held that a negro was a citizen ? The 
 State courts had decided that question over and over again, and the Dred Scott 
 decision on that point only affirmed what every court in the land knew to be the 
 law. 
 
 But, I will not be drawn off into an argument upon the merits of the Dred Scott 
 decision. It is enough for me to know that the Constitution of the United States crea- 
 ted the Supreme Court for the purpose of deciding all disputed questions touching 
 the true construction of that instrument, and when such decisions are pronounced, 
 they are the law of the land, binding on every good citizen. Mr. Lincoln has a 
 veiy convenient mode of arguing upon the subject. He holds that because he is a 
 Republican that he is not bound by the decisions of the court, but that I being a 
 Democrat am so bound. It may be that Republicans do not hold themselves bound 
 by the laws of the land and the Constitution of the country as expounded by the 
 courts ; it may be an article in the Republican creed that men who do not like a 
 decision, have a right to rebel against it ; but when Mr. Lincoln preaches that doc- 
 trine, I think he will find some honest Republican some law-abiding man in that 
 14
 
 206 
 
 party who will repudiate such a monstrous doctrine. The decision in the Dred 
 Scott case is binding on every American citizen alike ; and yet Mr. Lincoln argues 
 that the Republicans are not bound by it, because they are opposed to it, whilst 
 Democrats are bound by it, because we will not resist it. A Democrat cannot 
 resist the constituted authorities of this country. A Democrat is a law-abiding man, 
 a Democrat stands by the Constitution and the laws, and relies upon liberty as pro- 
 tected by law, and not upon mob or political violence. 
 
 I have never yet been able to make Mr. Lincoln understand, or can I make any 
 man who is determined to support him, right or wrong, understand how it is that 
 under the Dred Scott decision the people of a Territory, as well as a State, can have 
 slavery or not, just as they please. I believe that I can explain that proposition to 
 all Constitution-loving, law-abiding men in a way that they cannot fail to understand 
 it. Chief Justice Taney, in his opinion in the Dred Scott case, said that slaves 
 being property, the owner of them has a right to take them into a Territory the 
 same as he would any other property ; in other words, that slave property, so far as 
 the right to enter a Territory is concerned, stands on the same footing with other 
 property. Suppose we grant that proposition. Then any man has a right to go to 
 Kansas and take his property with him, but when he gets there he must rely upon 
 the local law to protect his property, whatever it may be. In order to illustrate this, 
 imagine that three of you conclude to go to Kansas. One takes $10,000 worth of 
 slaves, another $10,000 worth of liquors, and the third $10,000 worth of dry goods. 
 When the man who owns the dry goods arrives out there and commences selling 
 them, he finds that he is stopped and prohibited from selling until he gets a license, 
 which will destroy all the profits he can make on his goods to pay for. When the 
 man with the liquors gets there and tries to sell he finds a Maine liquor law in force 
 which prevents him. Now, of what use is his right to go there with his property 
 unless he is protected in the enjoyment of that right after he gets there ? The man 
 who goes there with his slaves finds that there is no law to protect him when he 
 arrives there. He has no remedy if his slaves run away to another country : there 
 is no slave code or police regulations, and the absence of them excludes his slaves 
 from the Territory just as effectually and as positively as a Constitutional prohibition 
 could. 
 
 Such was the understanding when the Kansas and Nebraska bill was pending in 
 Congress. Read the speech of Speaker Orr, of South Carolina, in the House of 
 Representatives, in 1856, on the Kansas question, and you will find that he takes the 
 ground that while the owner of a slave has a right to go into a Territory, and carry his 
 slaves with him, that he cannot hold them one day or hour unless there is a slave 
 code to protect him. He tells you that slavery would not exist a day in South Car- 
 olina, or any other State, unless there was a friendly people and friendly legislation. 
 Read the speeches of that giant in intellect, Alexander H. Stephens, of Georgia, and 
 you will find them to the same effect. Read the speeches of Sam Smith, of Tennes- 
 see, and of all Southern men, and you will find that they all understood this doctrine 
 then as we understand it now. Mr. Lincoln cannot be made to understand it, how- 
 ever. Down at Jonesboro, he went on to argue that if it be the law that a man has 
 a right to take his- slaves into territory of the United States under the Constitution, 
 that then a member of Congress was perjured if he did not vote for a slave code. I 
 ask him whether the decision of the Supreme Court is not binding upon him as well 
 as on me ? If so, and he holds that he would be perjured if he did not vote for a 
 slave code under it, I ask him whether, if elected to Congress, he will so vote ? I 
 have a right to his answer, and I will tell you why. He put that question to me 
 down in Egypt, and did it with an air of triumph. This was about the form of it: " In 
 the event of a slaveholding citizen of one of the Territories should need and demand 
 a slave code to protect his slaves, will you vote for it?" I answered him that a fun- 
 damental article in the Democratic creed, as put forth in the Nebraska bill and the 
 Cincinnati platform, was non-intervention by Congress with slavery in the States and 
 Territories, and hence, that I would not vote in Congress for any code of laws, either
 
 207 
 
 for or against slavery in any Territory. I will leave the people perfectly free to de- 
 cide that question for themselves. 
 
 Mr. Lincoln and the Washington Union both think this a monstrous bad doctrine. 
 Neither Mr. Lincoln nor the Washington Union like my Freeport speech on that sub- 
 ject. The Union, in a late number, has been reading me out of the Democratic 
 party because I hold that the people of a Territory, like those of a State, have the 
 right to have slavery or not, as they please. It has devoted three and a half col- 
 umns to prove certain propositions, one of which I will read. It says : 
 
 " We propose to show that Judge Douglas's action in 1850 and 1854 was taken with 
 especial reference to the announcement of doctrine and programme which was made 
 at Freeport. The declaration at Freeport was, that ' in his opinion the people can, 
 by lawful means, exclude slavery from a Territory before it comes in as a State;' and 
 he declared that his competitor had ' heard him argue the Nebraska bill on that prin- 
 ciple all over Illinois in 1854, 1855 and 1856, and had no excuse to pretend to have 
 any doubt upon that subject.' " 
 
 The Washington Union there charges me with the monstrous crime of now pro- 
 claiming on the stump, the same doctrine that I carried out in 1850, by supporting 
 Clay's Compromise measures. The Union also charges that I am now proclaiming 
 the same doctrine that I did in 1854 in support of the Kansas and Nebraska bill. 
 It is shocked that I should now stand where I stood in 1850, when I was supported 
 by Clay, Webster, Cass, and the great men of that day, and where I stood in 1854, 
 and in 1856, when Mr. Buchanan was elected President. It goes on to prove and 
 succeeds in proving, from my speeches in Congress on Clay's Compromise measures, 
 that I held the same doctrines at that time that I do now, and then proves that by 
 the Kansas and Nebraska bill I advanced the same doctrine that I now advance. 
 It remarks : 
 
 u So much for the course taken by Judge Douglas on the Compromises of 1850. 
 The record shows, beyond the possibility of cavil or dispute, that he expressly inten- 
 ded in those bills to give the Territorial Legislatures power to exclude slavery. How 
 stands his record in the memorable session of 1854, with reference to the Kansas- 
 Nebraska bill itself? We shall not overhaul the votes that were given on that notable 
 measure. Our space will not afford it. We have his own words, however, delivered 
 in his speech closing the great debate on that bill on the night of March 3, 1854, to 
 show that he meant to do in 1854 precisely what he had meant to do in 1858. The 
 Kansas-Nebraska bill being upon its passage, he said : " 
 
 It then quotes my remarks upon the passage of the bill as follows : 
 
 " The principle which we propose to carry into effect by this bill is this : That 
 Congress shall neither legislate slavery into any Territory or State nor out of the 
 same ; but the people shall be left free to regulate their domestic concerns in their 
 own way, subject only to the Constitution of the United States. In order to carry this 
 principle into practical operation, it becomes necessary to remove whatever legal ob- 
 stacles might be found in the way of its free exercise. It is only for the purpose of 
 carrying out this great fundamental principle of self-government that the bill renders 
 the eighth section of the Missouri act inoperative and void. 
 
 " Now, let me ask, will those Senators who have arraigned me, or any one of them, 
 have the assurance to rise in his place and declare that this great principle was never 
 thought of or advocated as applicable to territorial bill?, in 1850 ; that, from that ses- 
 sion until the present, nobody ever thought of incorporating this principle in all new 
 territorial organizations, etc., etc. I will begin with the Compromises of 1850. Any 
 Senator who will take the trouble to examine our journals will find that on the 25th 
 of March of that year I reported from the Committee on Territories two bills, inclu- 
 ding the following measures : the admission of California, a territorial government 
 for Utah, a territorial government for New Mexico, and the adjustment of the Texas 
 boundary. These bills proposed to leave the people of Utah and New Mexico free 
 to decide the slavery question for themselves, in the precise language of the Nebraska 
 bill now under discussion. A few weeks afterward the committee of thirteen took
 
 208 
 
 those bills and put a wafer between them and reported them back to the Senate aa 
 one bill, with some slight amendments. One of these amendments ivas, that the Terri- 
 torial Legislatures should not legislate upon the subject of African slavery. I objected 
 to this provision, upon the ground that it subverted the great principle of self-gov- 
 ernment, upon which the bill had been originally framed by the Territorial Committee. 
 On the first trial the Senate refused to strike it out, but subsequently did so, upon full 
 debate, m order to establish that principle as the rule of action in territorial organi- 
 zations." 
 
 The Union comments thus upon my speech on that occesion. 
 
 " Thus it is seen that, in framing the Nebraska- Kansas bill, Judge Donglas framed 
 it in the terms and upon the model of those of Utah and New Mexico, and that in 
 the debate he took pains expressly to revive the recollection of the voting which had 
 taken place upon amendments affecting the powers of the Territorial Legislatures over 
 the subject of slavery in the bills of 1850, in order to give the same meaning, force, 
 and effect to the Nebraska-Kansas bill on this subject as had been given to those of 
 Utah and New Mexico." 
 
 The Union proves the following propositions : First, that I sustained Clay's Com- 
 promise measures on the greund that they established the principle of self-govern- 
 ment in the Territories. Secondly, that I brought in the Kansas and Nebraska bill 
 founded upon the same principles as Clay's Compromise measures of 1 850 ; and 
 thirdly, that my Freeport speech is in exact accordance with those principles. And 
 what do you think is the imputation that the Union casts upon me for all this ? It 
 says that my Freeport speech is not Democratic, and that I was not a Democrat in 
 1854 or in 1850! Now is not that funny? Think that the author of the Kansas 
 and Nebraska bill was not a Democrat when he introduced it. The Union says I 
 was not a sonnd Democrat in 1850, nor in 1854, nor in 1856, nor am I in 1858, be- 
 cause I have always taken and now occupy the ground that the people of a Territory, 
 like those of a State, have the right to decide for themselves whether slavery shall 
 or shall not exist in a Territory. I wish to cite for the benefit of the Washington 
 Union and the followers of that sheet, one authority on that point, and I hope the 
 authority will be deemed satisfactory to that class of politicians. I will read from 
 Mr. Buchanan's letter accepting the nomination of the Democratic Convention, for 
 the Presidency. You know that Mr. Buchanan, after he was nominated, declared 
 to the Keystone Club, in a public speech, that he was no longer James Buchanan, 
 but the embodiment of the Democratic platform. In his letter to the committee 
 which informed him of his nomination accepting it, he defined the meaning of the 
 Kansas and Nebraska bill and the Cincinnati platform in these words : 
 
 " The recent legislation of Congress respecting domestic slavery, derived as it has 
 been from the orignal and pure fountain of legitimate political power, the will of the 
 majority, promises ere long to allay the dangerous excitement. This legislation is 
 founded upon principles as ancient as free government itself, and in accordance with 
 them has simply declared that the people of a Territory, like those of a State, shall 
 decide for themselves whether slavery shall or shall not exist within their limits." 
 
 Thus you see that James Buchanan accepted the nomination at Cincinnati, on the 
 conditions that the people of a Territory, like those of a State, should be left to de- 
 cide for themselves whether slavery should or should not exist within their limits. 
 I sustained James Buchanan for the Presidency on that platform as adopted at Cin- 
 cinnati, and expounded by himself. He was elected President on that platform, and now 
 we are told by the Washington Union that no man is a true Democrat who stands on 
 the platform on which Mr. Buchanan was nominated, and which he has explained 
 and expounded himself. We are told that a man is not a Democrat who stands by 
 Clay, Webster, and Cass, and the Compromise measures of 1850, and the Kansas 
 and Nebraska bill of 1854. Whether a man be a Democrat or not on that platform, 
 I intend to stand there as long as I have life. I intend to cling firmly to that great 
 principle which declares that the right of each State and each Territory to settle the 
 question of slavery, and every other domestic question, for themselves. I hold that
 
 209 
 
 if they want a slave State, they have a right under the Constitution of the 
 United States to make it so, and if they want a free State, it is their right to have it 
 But the Union, in advocating the claims of Lincoln over me to the Senate, lays down 
 two unpardonable heresies which it says I advocate. The first, is the right of the 
 people of a Territory, the same as a State, to decide for themselves the question 
 whether slavery shall exist within their limits, in the language of Mr'. Buchanan ; 
 and the second is, that a Constitution shall be submitted to the people of a Territory 
 for its adoption or rejection before their admission as a State under it. It so happens 
 that Mr. Buchanan is pledged to both these heresies, for supporting which the Wash- 
 ington Union has read me out of the Democratic church. In his annual message he 
 said he trusted that the example of the Minnesota case would be followed in all 
 future cases, requiring a submission of the Constitution ; and in his letter of accept- 
 ance, he said that the people of a Territory, the same as a State, had the right to 
 decide for themselves whether slavery should exist within their limits. Thus you 
 find that this little corrupt gang who control the Union, and wish to elect Lincoln in 
 preference to me because, as they say, of these two heresies which I support de- 
 nounce President Buchanan when they denounce me, if he stands now by the 
 principles upon which he was elected. Will they pretend that he does not now stand 
 by the principles on which he was elected ? Do they hold that he has abandoned the 
 Kansas-Nebraska bill, the Cincinnati platform, and his own letter accepting his nom- 
 ination, all of which declare the right of the people of a Territory, the same as a 
 State, to decide the slavery question for themselves ? I will not believe that he has 
 betrayed or intends to betray the platform which elected him ; but if he does, I will 
 not follow him. I will stand by that great principle, no matter who may desert it. I 
 intend to stand by it for the purpose of preserving peace between the North and 
 the South, the free and the slave States. If each State will only agree to mind its 
 own business, and let its neighbors alone, there will be peace forever between us. 
 We in Illinois tried slavery when a Territory, and found it was not good for us in this 
 climate, and with our surroundings, and hence we abolished it. We then adopted a 
 free State Constitution, as we had a right to do. In this State we have declared that 
 a negro shall not be a citizen, and we have also declared that he shall not be a slave. 
 We had a right to adopt that policy. Missouri has just as good a right to adopt the 
 other policy. I am now speaking of rights under the Constitution, and not of moral 
 or religious rights. I do not discuss the morals of the people of Missouri, but let 
 them settle that matter for themselves. I hold that the people of the slaveholding 
 States are civilized men as well as ourselves ; that they bear consciences as well as 
 we, and that they are accountable to God and their posterity, and not to us. It is 
 for them to decide, therefore, the moral and religious right of the slavery question for 
 themselves within their own limits. I assert that they had as much right under the 
 Constitution to adopt the system of policy which they have as we had to adopt ours. 
 So it is with every other State in this Union. Let each State stand firmly by that great 
 Constitutional right, let each State mind its own business and let its neighbors alone, 
 and there will be no trouble on this question. If we will stand by that principle, 
 then Mr. Lincoln will find that this Republic can exist forever divided into free and 
 slave States, as our fathers made it and the people of eac'h State have decided. 
 Stand by that great principle, and we can go on as we have done, increasing in wealth, 
 in population, in power, and in all the elements of greatness, until we shall be the 
 admiration and and terror of the world. We can go on and enlarge as our popula- 
 tion increase, require more room, until we make this continent one ocean-bound 
 republic. Under that principle the United States can perform that great mission, 
 that destiny, which Providence has marked out for us. Under that principle we can 
 receive with entire safety that stream of intelligence which is constantly flowing from 
 the Old World to the New, filling up our prairies, clearing our wildernesses and 
 building cities, towns, railroads and other internal improvements, and thus make this 
 the asylum of the oppressed of the whole earth. We have this great mission toper- 
 form, and it can only be performed by adhering faithfully to that principle of self-
 
 210 
 
 government on which our institutions were all established. I repeat that the princS 
 pie is the right of each State, each Territory, to decide this slavery question for itself, 
 to have slavery or not, as it chooses, and it does not become Mr. Lincoln, or any- 
 body else, to tell the people of Kentucky that they have no consciences, that they 
 are living in a state of iniquity, and that they are cherishing an institution to their 
 bosoms in violation of the law of God. Better for him to adopt the doctrine of 
 "judge not lest ye shall be judged." Let him perform his own duty at home, and 
 he will have a better fate in the future. I think there are objects of charity enough 
 in the free States to excite the sympathies and open the pockets of all the benevo- 
 lence we have amongst us, without going abroad in search of negroes, of whose con- 
 dition we know nothing. We have enough objects of charity at home, and it is our 
 duty to take care of our own poor, and our own suffering, before we go abroad to in- 
 termeddle with other people's business. 
 
 My friends, I am told that my time is within two minutes of expiring. I have 
 omitted many topics that I would liked to have discussed before you at length. 
 There were many points touched by Mr. Lincoln that I have not been able to take 
 up for the want of time. I have hurried over each subject that I have discussed as 
 rapidly as possible, so as to omit but few, but one hour and a half is not time suffi- 
 cient for a man to discuss at length one half of the great questions which are now 
 dividing the public mind. 
 
 In conclusion, I desire to return to you my grateful acknowledgments for the kind- 
 ness and the courtesy with which you have listened to me. It is something remark- 
 able that in an audience as vast as this, composed of men of opposite politics and 
 views, with their passions highly excited, there should be so much courtesy, kind- 
 ness and respect exhibited not only toward one another, but toward the speakers, and 
 I feel that it is due to you that I should thus express my gratitude for the kindness 
 with wliich you have treated me. 
 
 MR. LINCOLN'S REJOINDER. 
 
 MY FRIENDS : Since Judge Douglas has said to you in his conclusion that he 
 had not time in an hour and a half to answer all I had said in an hour, it follows of 
 course that I will not be able to answer in half an hour all that he said in an how 
 and a half. 
 
 I wish to return to Judge Douglas my profound thanks for his public annunciation 
 here to-day, to be put on record, that his system of policy in regard to the institution 
 of slavery contemplates that it shaU last forever. We are getting a little nearer the 
 true issue of this controversy, and I am profoundly grateful for this one sentence. 
 Judge Douglas asks you, " Why cannot the institution of slavery, or rather, why 
 cannot the nation, part slave and part free, continue as our fathers made it forever?" 
 In the first place. I insist that our fathers did not make this nation half slave and 
 half free, or part slave and part free. I insist that they found the institution of 
 slavery existing here. They did not make it so, but they left it so because they 
 knew of no way to get rid of it at that time. When Judge Douglas undertakes to 
 say that, as a matter of choice, the fathers of the Government made this nation part 
 slave and part free, he assumes what is historically a falsehood. More than that : 
 when the fathers of the Government cut off the source of slavery by the abolition 
 of the slave-trade, and adopted a system of restricting it from the new Territories 
 where it had not existed, I maintain that they placed it where they understood, and 
 all sensible men understood, it was in the course of ultimate extinction ; and when 
 Judge Douglas asks me why it cannot continue as our fathers made it, I ask him 
 why he and his friends could not let it remain as our fathers made it? 
 
 It is precisely all I ask of him in relation to the institution of slavery, that it shall 
 b placed upon the basis that our fathers placed it upon. Mr. Brooks, of South
 
 211 
 
 Carolina, once said, and truly said, that when this Government was established, no 
 one expected the institution of slavery to last until this day ; and that the men who 
 formed this Government were wiser and better than the men of these days ; but 
 the men of these days had experience which the fathers had not, and that ex- 
 perience had taught them the invention of the cottori-gin, and this had made the 
 perpetuation of the institution of slavery a necessity in this country. Judge Doug- 
 las could not let it stand upon the basis which our fathers placed it, but removed it, 
 and put it upon the cotton-gin basis. It is a question, therefore, for him and his 
 friends to answer why they could not let it remain where the fathers of the Gov- 
 ernment originally placed it. 
 
 I hope nobody has understood me as trying to sustain the doctrine that we have a 
 right to quarrel with Kentucky, or Virginia, or any of the slave States, about the 
 institution of slavery thus giving the Judge an opportunity to make himself elor 
 quent and valiant against us in fighting for their rights. 1 expressly declared in 
 my opening speech, that I had neither the inclination to exercise, nor the belief in 
 the existence of the right to interfere with the States of Kentucky or Virginia in 
 doing as they pleased with slavery or any other existing institution. Then what be- 
 comes of all his eloquence in behalf of the rights of States, which are assailed by 
 no living man ? 
 
 But I have to hurry on, for I have but a half hour. The Judge has informed me, 
 or informed this audience, that the Washington Union is laboring for my election to 
 the United States Senate. This is news to me not very ungrateful news either. 
 [Turning to Mr. W. H. Carlin, who was on the stand] I hope that Carlin will be 
 elected to the State Senate and will vote for me. [Mr. Carlin shook his head.] 
 Carlin don't fall in, I perceive, and I suppose he will not do much for me, but I am 
 glad of all the support I can get any where, if I can get it without practicing any 
 deception to obtain it. In respect to this large portion of Judge Douglas's speech, 
 in which he tries to show that in the controversy between himself and the Adminis- 
 tration party, he is in the right, I do not feel myself at all competent or inclined to 
 answer him. I say to him, " Give it to them give it to them just all you can " 
 and, on the other hand, I say to Carlin, and Jake Davis, and to this man Wogley 
 up here in Hancock, " Give it to Douglas -just pour it into him." 
 
 Now, in regard to this matter of the Dred Scott decision, I wish to say a word or 
 two. After all, the Judge will not say whether, if a decision is made, holding that 
 the people of the States cannot exclude slavery, he will support it or not. He ob- 
 stinately refuses to say what he will do in that case. The Judges of the Supreme 
 Court as obstinately refused to say what they would do on this subject. Before this 
 I reminded him that at Galesburgh he said the Judges had expressly declared the 
 contrary, and you remember that in my opening speech I told him 1 had the book 
 containing that decision here, and I would thank him to lay his finger cm the place 
 where any such thing was said. He has occupied his hour and a half, and he has 
 not ventured to try to sustain his assertion. He never will. But he is desirous of 
 knowing how we are going to reverse the Dred Scott decision. Judge Douglas 
 oii^ht to know how. Did not he and his politcal friends find a way to reverse the 
 decision of that same court in favor the Constitutionality of the National Bank ? 
 Didn't they find a way to do it so effectually that they have reversed it as com- 
 pletely as any decision ever was reversed, so far as its practical operation is concerned ? 
 And let me ask you, didn't Judge Douglas find a way to reverse the decision of 
 our Supreme Court, when it decided that Carlin's father old Governor Carlin 
 had not the Constitutional power to remove a Secretary of State ? Did he not 
 appeal to the " MOBS," as he calls them ? Did he not make speeches in the lobby to 
 show how villainous that decision was, and how it ought to be overthrown ? Did he 
 not succeed, too, in getting an act passed by the Legislature to have it overthrown ? 
 And didn't he himself sit down on that bench as one of the five added judges, who 
 were to overslaugh the four old ones getting his name of " Judge " in that way and 
 QO other? If there is a villainy in u^ing disrespect or making opposition to Supremo
 
 Court decisions, I commend it to Judge Douglas's earnest consideration. I know of 
 no man in the State of Illinois who ought to know so well about how much villainy 
 it takes to opppose a decision of the Supreme Court as our honorable friend, Stephen 
 A. Douglas. 
 
 Judge Douglas also makes the declaration that I eay the Democrats are bound by 
 the Dred Scott decision, while the Republicans are not. In the sense in whicli he 
 argues, I never said it ; but I will tell you what I have said and what I do not hes- 
 itate to repeat to-day. I have said that, as the Democrats believe that decision to 
 be correct, and that the extension of slavery is affirmed in the National Constitution, 
 they are bound to support it as such ; and I will tell you here that General Jackson 
 once said each man was bound to support the Constitution " as he understood it." 
 Now, Judge Douglas understands the Constitution according to the Dred Scott de- 
 cision, and he is bound to support it as he understands it. I understand it another 
 way, and therefore I am bound to support it in the way in which I understand it. 
 And as Judge Douglas believes that decision to be correct, I will remake that argu- 
 ment if I have time to do so. Let me talk to some gentleman down there among 
 you who looks me in the face. We will say you are a member of the Territorial 
 Legislature, and like Judge Douglas, you believe that the right to take and hold 
 slaves there is a Constitutional right. The first thing you do, is to swear 
 you will support the Constitution and all rights guarantied therein ; that you 
 will, whenever your neighbor needs your legislation to support his Constitutional 
 rights, not withhold that legislation. If you withhold that necessary legislation 
 for the support of the Constitution and Constitutional rights, do you not commit per- 
 jury ? I ask every sensible man, if that is not so ? That is undoubtedly just so, 
 say what you please. Now, that is precisely what Judge Douglas says, that this is 
 a Constitutional right. Does the Judge mean to say that the Territorial Legislature 
 in legislating may, by withholding necessary laws, or by passing unfriendly laws, 
 nullify that Constitutional right ? Does he mean to say that ? Does he mean to 
 ignore the proposition so long and well established in law, that what you cannot do 
 directly, you cannot do indirectly ? Does he mean that ? The truth about the mat- 
 ter is this : Judge Douglas has sung paeans to his " Popular Sovereignty " doctrine 
 until his Supreme Court, co-operating with him, has squatted his Squatter Sover- 
 eignty out. But he will keep up this species of humbuggery about Squatter Sover- 
 eignty. He has at last invented this sort of do-nothing Sovereignty that the 
 people may exclude slavery by a sort of " Sovereignty " that is exercised by doing 
 nothing at all. Is not that running his Popular Sovereignty down awfully? Has it 
 not got down as thin as the homoeopathic soup that was made by boiling the shadow 
 of a pigeon that had starved to death ? But at last, when it is brought to the test 
 of close reasoning, there is not even that thin decoction of it left. It is a presump- 
 tion impossible in the domain of thought. It is precisely no other than the putting 
 of that most unphilosophical proposition, that two bodies can occupy the same space 
 at the same time. The Dred Scott decision covers the whole ground, and while it 
 occupies it, there is no room even for the shadow of a starved pigeon to occupy the 
 same ground. 
 
 Judge Douglas, in reply to what I have said about having upon a previous occa- 
 sion made the speech at Ottawa as the one he took an extract from, at Charleston^ 
 says it only shows that I practiced the deception twice. Now, my friends, are any 
 of you obtuse enough to swallow that? Judge Douglas had said I had made a 
 speech at Charleston that I would not make up north, and I turned around and an- 
 swered him by showing I had made that same speech up north had made it at Ot- 
 tawa made it in his hearing made it in the Abolition District in Lovejoy's Dis- 
 trict in the personal presence of Lovejoy himself in the same atmosphere exactly 
 in which I had made my Chicago speech, of whicli he complains so much. 
 
 Now, in relation to my not having said any thing about the quotation from the Chi- 
 cago speech : He thinks that is a terrible subject for me to handle. Why, gentle- 
 men, I can show you that the substance of the Chicago speech I delivered two years
 
 213 
 
 ago in " Egypt," a& he calls it. It was down at Springfield. That speech is here in 
 this book, and I could turn to it and read it to you but for the lack of time. I have 
 not now the time to read it. [" Read it, read it."] No, gentlemen, I am obliged to 
 use discretion in disposing most advantageously of my brief time. The Judge has 
 taken great exception to my adopting the heretical statement in the Declaration of 
 Independence, that "all men are created equal," and he has a great deal to say about 
 negro equality. I want to say that in sometimes alluding to the Declaration of In- 
 dependence, I have only uttered the sentiments that Henry Clay used to hold. Al- 
 low me to occupy your time a moment with what he said. Mr. Clay was at one 
 time called upon in Indiana, and in a way that I suppose was very insulting, to liber- 
 ate his slaves, and he made a written reply to that application, and one portion of it 
 is in these words: 
 
 " What is the foundation of this appeal to me in Indiana, to liberate the slaves 
 under my care in Kentucky ? It is a general declaration in the act announcing to 
 the world the independence of the thirteen American colonies, that ' men are created 
 equal' Now, as an abstract principle, there is no doubt of the truth of that declara- 
 tion, and it is desirable in the original construction of society, and in organized socie- 
 ties, to keep it in view as a great fundamental principle." 
 
 When I sometimes, in relation to the organization of new societies in new countries, 
 where the soil is clean and clear, insisted that we should keep that principle in view, 
 Judge Douglas will have it that I want a negro wife. He never can be brought to under- 
 stand that there is any middle ground on this subject. I have lived until my fiftieth 
 year, and have never had a negro woman either for a slave or a wife, and I think 1 
 can live fifty centuries, for that matter, without having had one for either. I main- 
 tain that you may take Judge Douglas's quotations from my Chicago speech, and 
 from my Charleston speech, and the Galesburgh speech, in his speech of to-day, 
 and compare them over, and I am willing to trust them with you upon his proposi- 
 tion that they show rascality or double-dealing. I deny that they do. 
 
 The Judge does not seem at all disposed to have peace, but I find he is disposed to 
 have a personal warfare with me. He says that my oath would not be taken against 
 the bare word of Charles H. Lanphier or Thomas L. Harris. Well, that is alto- 
 gether a matter of opinion. It is certainly not for me to vaunt my word against 
 oaths of these gentlemen, but I will tell Judge Douglas again the facts upon which I 
 u dared " to say they proved a forgery. I pointed out at Galesburgh that the publi- 
 cation of these resolutions in the Illinois State Register could not have been the re- 
 sult of accident, as the proceedings of that meeting bore unmistakable evidence of 
 being done by a man who knew it was a forgery ; that it was a publication partly 
 taken from the real proceedings of the Convention, and partly from the proceedings 
 of a Convention at another place ; which showed that he had the real proceedings 
 before him, and taking one part of the resolutions, he threw out another part and 
 substituted false and fraudulent ones in their stead. I pointed that out to him, and 
 also that his friend Lanphier, who was editor of the Register at that time and now is, 
 mut have known how it was done. Now whether he did it or got some friend to do 
 it for him, I could not tell, but he certainly knew all about it. I pointed out to 
 Judge Douglas that in his Freeport speech he had promised to investigate that mattei. 
 Does he now say he did not make that promise ? I have a right to ask why he did 
 not keep it ? I call upon him to tell here to-day why he did not keep that promise ? 
 That fraud has been traced up so that it lies between him, Harris and Lanphier 
 There is little room for escape for Lanphier. Lanphier is doing the Judge good ser- 
 vice, and Douglas desires his word to be taken for the truth. He desires Lanphier 
 to be taken as authority in what he states in his newspaper. He desires Harris to 
 be taken as a man of vast credibility, and when this thing lies among them, they will 
 not press it to show where the guilt really belongs. Now, as he has said that he 
 would investigate it, and implied that he would tell us the result of his investigation, 
 I demand of him to tell why he did not investigate it, if he did not ; and if he did, 
 why he won't tell the result. I call upon him for that.
 
 214 
 
 This is the third time that Judge Douglas has assumed that he learned about these 
 resolutions by Harris's attempting to use them against Norton on the floor of Con- 
 gress. I tell Judge Douglas the public records of the country show that he himself 
 attempted it upon Trumbull a month before Harris tried them on Norton that Har- 
 ris had the opportunity of learning it from him, rather than he from Harris. I now 
 ask his attention to that part of the record on the case. My friends, I am not dis- 
 posed to detain you longer in regard to that matter. 
 
 I am told that I still have five minutes left, There is another matter I wish to 
 call attention to. He says, when he discovered there was a mistake in that case, he 
 came forward magnanimously, without my calling his attention to it, and explained ii. 
 I will tell you how he became so magnanimous. "When the newspapers of our side 
 had discovered and published it, and put it beyond his power to deny it, then he came 
 forward and made a virtue of necessity by acknowledging it. Now he argues that 
 all the point there was in those resolutions, although never passed at Springfield, is 
 retained by their being passed at other localities. Is that true ? He said I had a 
 hand in passing them, in his opening speech that I was in the Convention and 
 helped to pass them. Do the resolutions touch me at all ? It strikes me there is 
 some difference between holding a man responsible for an act which he has not done, 
 and holding him responsible for an act that he has done. You will judge whether 
 there is any difference in the " spots." And he has taken credit for great magnan- 
 imity in coming forward and acknowledging what is proved on him beyond even the 
 capacity of Judge Douglas to deny, and he has more capacity in that way than any 
 oj-her living man. 
 
 * Then he wants to know why I won't withdraw the charge in regard to a conspira- 
 cy to make slavery national, as he has withdrawn the one he made. May it please 
 his worship, I will withdraw it when it is proven false on me as that was proven false 
 on him. I will add a little more than that. I will withdraw it whenever a reasona- 
 ble man shall be brought to believe that the charge is not true. I have asked Judge 
 Douglas's attention to certain matters of fact tending to prove the charge of a con- 
 spiracy to nationalize slavery, and he says he convinces me that this is all untrue be- 
 cause Buchanan was not in the country at that time, and because the Dred Scott case 
 had not then got into the Supreme Court ; and he says that I say the Democratic 
 owners of Dred Scott got up the case. I never did say that. I defy Judge Douglas 
 to show that I ever said so, for I never uttered it. [One of Mr. Douglas's reporters 
 gesticulated affirmatively at Mr. Lincoln.] I don't care if your hireling does say I 
 did, I tell you myself that I never said the " Democratic " owners of Dred Scott got 
 up the cas-e. I have never pretended to know whether Dred Scott's owners were 
 Democrats or Abolitionists, or Freesoilers or Border Ruffians. I have said that 
 there is evidence about the case tending to show that it was a made up case, for the 
 purpose of getting that decision. I have said that that evidence was very strong in 
 the fact that when Dred Scott was declared to be a slave, the owner of him made 
 him free, showing that he had had the case tried and the question settled for such use 
 as could be made of that decision ; he cared nothing about the property thus declared 
 to be his by that decision. But my time is out and I can say no more.
 
 215 
 
 THE LAST JOINT DEBATE, AT ALTON, 
 
 October 15, 1858. 
 
 SENATOR DOUGLAS'S SPEECH. 
 
 LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: It is now nearly four months since the canvass be- 
 tween Mr. Lincoln and myself commenced. On the 16th of June the Republican 
 Convention assembled at Springfield and nominated Mr. Lincoln as their candidate 
 for the United States Senate, and he, on that occasion, delivered a speech in which he 
 laid down what he understood to be the Republican creed and the platform on which 
 he proposed to stand during the contest. The principal points in that speech of Mr. 
 Lincoln's were : First, that this Government could not endure permanently divided 
 into free and slave States, as our fathers made it; that they must all become free or 
 all become slave ; all become one thing or all become the other, otherwise this Union 
 could not continue to exist. I give you his opinions almost in the identical language 
 he used. His second proposition was a crusade against the Supreme Court of the 
 United States because of the Dred Scott decision ; urging as an especial reason for 
 his opposition to that decision that it deprived the negroes of the rights and benefits 
 of that clause in the Constitution of the United States which guaranties to the citi- 
 zens of each State all the rights, privileges, and immunities of the citizens of the 
 several States. On the 10th of July I returned home, and delivered a speech to the 
 people of Chicago, in which I announced it to be my purpose to appeal to the people 
 of Illinois to sustain the course I had pursued in Congress. In that speech I joined 
 issue with Mr. Lincoln on the points which he had presented. Thus there was an 
 issue clear and distinct made up between us on these two propositions laid down in the 
 speech of Mr. Lincoln at Springfield, and controverted by me in my reply to him at 
 Chicago. On the next day, the llth of July, Mr. Lincoln replied to me at Chicago, 
 explaining at some length, and reaffirming the positions which he had taken in his 
 Springfield speech. In that Chicago speech he even went further than he had be- 
 fore, and uttered sentiments in regard to the negro being on an equality with the 
 white man. He adopted in support of this position the argument which Lovejoy and 
 Codding, and other Abolition lecturers had made familiar in the northern and central 
 portions of the State, to wit : that the Declaration of Independence having declared 
 all men free and equal, by Divine law, also that negro equality was an inalienable 
 right, of which they could not be deprived. He insisted, in that speech, that the 
 Declaration of Independence included the negro in the clause, asserting that all men 
 were created equal, and went so far as to say that if one man was allowed to take 
 the position, that it did not include the negro, others might take the position that it 
 did not include other men. He said that all these distinctions between this man and 
 that man, this race and the other race, must be discarded, and we must all stand by 
 the Declaration of Independence, declaring that all men were created equal. 
 
 The issue thus being made up between Mr. Lincoln and myself on three points, 
 we went before the people of the State. During the following seven weeks, between 
 the Chicago speeches and our first meeting at Ottawa, he and I addressed large as- 
 semblages of the people in many of the central counties. In my speeches I con- 
 fined myself closely to those three positions which he had taken, controverting his 
 proposition that this Union could not exist as our fathers made it, divided into free 
 and slave States, controverting his proposition of a crusade against the Supreme 
 Court because of the Dred Scott decision, and controverting his proposition that the 
 Declaration of Independence included and meant the negroes as well as the white 
 men, when it declared all men to be created equal. I supposed at that time that
 
 216 
 
 these propositions constituted a distinct issue between us, and tLat the opposite posi- 
 tions we had taken upon them we would be willing to be held to in every part of the 
 State, I never intended to waver one hair's breadth from that issue either in the 
 north or the south, or wherever I should address the people of Illinois. I hold that 
 when the time arrives that I cannot proclaim my political creed in the same terms 
 not only in the northern but the southern part of Illinois, not only in the Northern 
 but the Southern States, and wherever the American flag waves over American 
 soil, that then there must be something wrong in that creed. So long as we 
 live under a common Constitution, so long as we live in a confederacy of sover- 
 eign and equal States, joined together as one for certain purposes, that any 
 political creed is radically wrong which cannot be proclaimed in every State, and 
 every section of that Union, alike. I took up Mr. Lincoln's three propositions in my 
 several speeches, analyzed them, and pointed out what I believed to be the radical errors 
 contained in them. First, in regard to his doctrine that this Government was in vio- 
 lation of the law of God, which says that a house divided against itself cannot stand, 
 I repudiated it as a slander upon the immortal framers of our Constitution. I then 
 said, I have often repeated, and now again assert, that in my opinion our Government 
 can endure forever, divided into free and slave States as our fathers made it, each 
 State having the right to prohibit, abolish or sustain slavery, just as it pleases. This 
 Government was made upon the great basis of the sovereignty of the States, the 
 right of each State to regulate its own domestic institutions to suit itself, and that 
 right was conferred with the understanding and expectation that inasmuch as each local- 
 ity had separate interests, each locality must have different and distinct local and do- 
 mestic institutions, corresponding to its wants and interests. Our fathers knew when 
 they made the Government, that the laws and institutions which were well adapted 
 to the green mountains of Vermont, were unsuited to the rice plantations of South 
 Carolina. They knew then, as well as we know now, that the laws and institutions 
 which would be well adapted to the beautiful prairies of Illinois would not be suited 
 to the mining regions of California. They knew that in a Republic as broad as this, 
 having such a variety of soil, climate and interest, there must necessarily be a cor- 
 responding variety of local laws the policy and institutions of each State adapted 
 to its condition and wants. For this reason this Union was established on the right 
 of each State to do as it pleased on the question of slavery, and every other question ; 
 and the various States were not allowed to complain of, much less interfere with the 
 policy, of their neighbors. 
 
 Suppose the doctrine advocated by Mr. Lincoln arid the Abolitionists of this day 
 had prevailed when the Constitution was made, what would have been the result ? 
 Imagine for a moment that Mr. Lincoln had been a member of the Convention that 
 framed the Constitution of the United States, and that when its members were about 
 to sign that wonderful document, he had arisen in that Convention as he did at Spring- 
 field this summer, and addressing himself to the President, had said, "A house divid- 
 ed against itself cannot stand ; this Government, divided into free and slave States, 
 cannot endure, they must all be free or all be slave, they must all be one thing or all 
 the other, otherwise, it is a violation of the law of God, and cannot continue to exist ; " 
 suppose Mr. Lincoln had convinced that body of sages that that doctrine was 
 sound, what would have been the result ? Remember that the Union was then com- 
 posed of thirteen States, twelve of which were slaveholding and one free. Do you 
 think that the one free State would have outvoted the twelve slaveholding States, and 
 thus have secured the abolition of slavery ? On the other hand, would not the twelve 
 slaveholding States have outvoted the one free State, and thus have fastened slavery, 
 by a Constitutional provision, on every foot of the American Republic forever? 
 You see that if this Abolition doctrine of Mr. Lincoln had prevailed when the Gov- 
 ernment was made, it would have established slavery as a permanent institution, in 
 all the States, whether they wanted it or not, and the question for us to determine in 
 Illinois now as one of the free States is, whether or not we are willing, having be- 
 come the majority section, to enforce a doctrine on the minority, which we would
 
 217 
 
 have resisted with our heart's blood had it been attempted on us when we were in a 
 minority. How has the South lost her power as the majority section in this Union, 
 arid how have the free States gained it, except under the operation of that principle 
 which declares the right of the people of each State and each Territory to form and 
 regulate their domestic institutions in their own way. It was under* that principle 
 that slavery was abolished in New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York. 
 New Jersey, and Pennsylvania ; it was under that principle that one half of the 
 slaveholding States became free ; it was under that principle that the number of free 
 States increased until from being one out of twelve States, we have grown to be the 
 majority of States of the whole Union, with the power to control the House of 
 Representatives and Senate, and the power, consequently, to elect a President by 
 Northern votes without the aid of a Southern State. Having obtained this power 
 under the operation of that great principle, are you now prepared to abandon the 
 principle and declare that merely because we have the power you will wage a war 
 against the Southern States and their institutions until you force them to abolish sla- 
 very every where. 
 
 After having pressed these arguments home on Mr. Lincoln for seven weeks, pub- 
 lishing a number of my speeches, we met at Ottawa in joint discussion, and he then 
 began to crawfish a little, and let himself down. I there propounded certain ques- 
 tions to him. Amongst others, I asked him whether he would vote for the admission 
 of any more slave States in the event the people wanted them. He would not an- 
 swer. I then told him that if he did not answer the question there I would renew it 
 at Freeport, and would then trot him down into Egypt and again put it to him. 
 Well, at Freeport, knowing that the next joint discussion took place in Egypt, and 
 being in dread of it, he did answer my question in regard to no more slave States in 
 a mode which he hoped would be satisfactory to me, and accomplish the object he 
 had in view. I will show you what his answer was. After saying that he was not 
 pledged to the Republican doctrine of " no more slave States," he declared : 
 
 " I state to you freely, frankly, that I should be exceedingly sorry to ever be put 
 in the position of having to pass upon that question. I should be exceedingly glad 
 to know that there never would be another slave State admitted into this Union." 
 
 Here permit me to remark, that I do not think the people will ever force him into 
 a position against his will. He went on to say : 
 
 " But I must add in regard to this, that if slavery shall be kept out of the Terri- 
 tory during the territorial existence of any one given Territory, and then the people 
 should, having a fair chance and a clear field when they come to adopt a Constitu- 
 tion, if they should do the extraordinary thing of adopting a slave Constitution, un- 
 influenced by the actual presence of the institution among them, I see no alterna- 
 tive, if we own the country, but we must admit it into the Union." 
 
 That answer Mr. Lincoln supposed would satisfy the old line "Whigs, composed of 
 Kentuckians and Virginians, down in the southern part of the State. Now, what 
 does it amount to ? I desired to know whether he would vote to allow Kansas to 
 come into the Union with slavery or not, as her people desired. He would not anr 
 swer ; but in a roundabout way said that if slavery should be kept out of a Territo- 
 ry during the whole of its territorial existence, and then the people, when they adopt- 
 ed a State Constitution, asked admission as a slave State, he supposed he would have 
 to let the State come in. The case I put to him was an entirely different one. I 
 desired to know whether he would vote to admit a State if Congress had not prohib- 
 ited slavery in it during its territorial existence, as Congress never pretended to do 
 under Clay's Compromise measures of 1850. He would not answer, and I have not 
 yet been able to get an answer from him. I have asked him whether he would vote 
 to admit Nebraska if her people asked to come in as a State with a Constitution re- 
 cognizing slavery, and he refused to answer. I have put the question to him with 
 reference to New Mexico, and he has not uttered a word in answer. I have enu- 
 merated the Territories, one after another, putting the same question to him with ref- 
 erence to each, and he has not said, and will not say, whether, if elected to Congress,
 
 218 
 
 he will vote to admit any Territory now in existence with such a Constitution as her 
 people may adopt. He invents a case which does riot exist, and cannot exist under 
 this Government, and answers it ; but he will not answer the question I put to him 
 in connection with any of the Territories now in existence. The contract we entered 
 into with Texas when she entered the Union obliges us to allow four States to be 
 formed out of the old State, and admitted with or without slavery as the respective 
 inhabitants of each may determine. I have asked Mr. Lincoln three times in our 
 joint discussions whether he would vote to redeem that pledge, and he has never yet 
 answered. He is as silent as the grave on the subject He would rather answer a* 
 to a state of the wise which will never arise than commit himself by telling what he 
 would do in a case which would come up for his action soon after his election to Con- 
 gress. Why can he not say whether he is willing to allow the people of each State 
 to have slavery or not as they please, and to come into the Union when they have, 
 the requisite population as a slave or a free State as they decide ? I have no trouble 
 in answering the question. I have said every where, and now repeat it to you, that 
 if the people of Kansas want a slave State they have a right, under the Constitution 
 of the United States, to form such a State, and I will let them come into the Union 
 with slavery or without, as they determine. If the people of any other Territory 
 desire slavery, let them have it. If they do not want it, let them prohibit it. It is 
 their business, not mine. It is none of our business in Illinois whether Kansas is a 
 free State or a slave State. It is none of your business in Missouri whether Kansas 
 shall adopt slavery or reject it. It is the business of her people and none of yours. 
 The people of Kansas have as much right to decide that question for themselves as 
 you have in Missouri to decide it for yourselves, or we in Illinois to decide it for our- 
 selves. 
 
 And here I may repeat what I have said in every speech I have made in Illinois, 
 that I fought the Lecompton Constitution to its death, not because of the slavery 
 clause in it, but because it was not the act and deed of the people of Kansas. I said 
 then in Congress, and I say now, that if the people of Kansas want a slave State, 
 they have a right to have it. If they wanted the Lecompton Constitution, they had 
 a right to have it. I was opposed to that Constitution because I did not believe that 
 it was the act and deed of the people, but on the contrary, the act of a small, pitiful 
 minority acting in the name of the majority. When at last it was determined to 
 send that Constitution back to the people, and accordingly, in August last, the ques- 
 tion of admission under it was submitted to a popular vote, the citizens rejected it 
 by nearly ten to one, thus showing conclusively, that I was right when I said that 
 the Lecompton Constitution was not the act and deed of the people of Kansas, and 
 did not embody their will. 
 
 I hold that there is no power on earth, under our system of Government, which 
 has the right to force a Constitution upon an unwilling people. Suppose that there 
 had been a majority of ten to one in favor of slavery in Kansas, and suppose there 
 had been an Abolition President, and an Abolition Administration, and by some 
 means the Abolitionists succeeded in forcing an Abolition Constitution on those slave- 
 holding people, would the people of the South have submitted to that act for one in- 
 stant ? Well, if you of the South would not have submitted to it a day, how can you, 
 as fair, honorable and honest men, insist on putting a slave Constitution on a people 
 who desire a free State ? Your safety and ours depend upon both of us acting in 
 good faith, and living up to that great principle which asserts the right of every peo- 
 ple to form and regulate their domestic institutions to suit themselves, subject only 
 to the Constitution of the United States. 
 
 Most of the men who denounced my course on the Lecompton question, objected 
 to it not because I was not right, but because they thought it expedient at that time, 
 for the sake of keeping the party together, to do wrong. I never knew the Demo- 
 cratic party to violate any one of its principles out of policy or expediency, that it 
 did not pay the debt with sorrow. There is no safety or success for our party unless 
 we always^do right, and trust the consequences to God and the people. I chose not
 
 219 
 
 to depart from principle for the sake of expediency in the Lecompton question, and 
 I never intend to do it on that or any other question. 
 
 But I am told that I would have been all right if I had only voted for the Eng- 
 lish bill after Lecompton was killed. You know a general pardon was granted to 
 all political offenders on the Lecompton question, provided they would only vote 
 for the English bill. I did not accept the benefits of that pardon, for the reason that 
 I had been right in the course I had pursued, and hence did not require any forgive- 
 ness. Let us see how the result has been worked out. English brought in his bill 
 referring the Lecompton Constitution back to the people, with the provision that if 
 it was rejected Kansas should be kept out of the Union until she had the full ratio 
 of population required for a member of Congress, thus in effect declaring that if the 
 people of Kansas would only consent to come into the Union under the Lecompton 
 Constitution, and have a slave State when they did not want it, they should be 
 admitted with a population of 35,000, but that if they were so obstinate as to in- 
 sist upon having just such a Constitution as they thought best, and to desire admis- 
 sion as a free State, then they should be kept out until they had 93,420 inhabi- 
 tants. I then said, and I now repeat to you, that whenever Kansas has people 
 enough for a slave State she has people enough for a free State. I was and am will- 
 ing to adopt the rule that no State shall ever come into the Union until she has the 
 full ratio of population for a member of Congress, provided that rule is made uni- 
 form. I made that proposition in the Seriate last winter, but a majority of the Sena- 
 tors would not agree to it ; and I then said to them if you will not adopt the general 
 rule I will not consent to make an exception of Kansas. 
 
 I hold that it is a violation of the fundamental principles of this Government to 
 throw the weight of federal power into the scale, either in favor of the free or the 
 slave States. Equality among all the States of this Union is a fundamental prin- 
 ciple in our political system. We have no more right to throw the weight of the 
 Federal Government into the scale in favor of the slaveholding than the free States, 
 and last of all should our friends in the South consent for a moment that Congress 
 should withhold its powers either way when they know that there is a majority 
 against them in both Houses of Congress. 
 
 Fellow-citizens, how have the supporters of the English bill stood up to their 
 pledges not to admit Kansas until she obtained a population of 93,420 in the event 
 she rejected the Lecompton Constitution ? How ? The newspapers inform us that 
 English himself, whilst conducting his canvass for re-election, and in order to secure 
 it, pledged himself to his constituents that if returned he would disregard his own 
 bill and vote to admit Kansas into the Union with such population as she might have 
 when she made application. We are informed that every Democratic candidate for 
 Congress in all the States where elections have recently been held, was pledged 
 against the English bill, with perhaps one or two exceptions. Now, if I had only 
 done as these anti-Lecompton men who voted for the English bill in Congress, 
 pledging themselves to refuse to admit Kansas if she refused to become a slave State 
 until she had a population of 93,420, and then returned to their people, forfeited 
 their pledge, and made a new pledge to admit Kansas at any time she applied, with- 
 out regard to population, I would have had no trouble. You saw the whole power 
 and patronage of the Federal Government wielded in Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsyl- 
 vania to re-elect anti-Lecompton men to Congress who voted against Lecompton, 
 then voted for the English bill, and then denounced the English bill, and pledged 
 themselves to their people to disregard it. My sin consists in not having given a 
 pledge, and then in not having afterward forfeited it. For that reason, in this State, 
 every postmaster, erery route agent, every collector of the ports, and every federal 
 office-holder, forfeits his head the moment he expresses a preference for the Demo- 
 cratic candidates against Lincoln and his Abolition associates. A Democratic Ad- 
 mini-stration which we helped to bring into power, deems it consistent with its fidelity 
 to principle and its regard to duty, to wield its power in this State in behalf of the 
 Republican Abolition candidates in every county and every Congressional District
 
 220 
 
 against the Democratic party. All I have to say in reference to the matter is, that 
 if that Administration have not regard enough for principle, if they are not sufficient- 
 ly attached to the creed of the Democratic party to bury forever their personal hos- 
 tilities in order to succeed in carrying out our glorious principles, I have. I have 
 no personal difficulty with Mr. Buchanan or his cabinet. He chose to make certain 
 recommendations to Congress, as he had a right to do, on the Lecompton question. I 
 could not vote- in favor of them. I had as much right to judge for myself how I 
 should vote as he had how he should recommend. He undertook to say to me, if 
 you do not vote as I tell you, I will take off the heads of your friends. I replied to 
 him, " You did not elect me, I represent Illinois and I am accountable to Illinois, as 
 my constituency, and to God, but not to the President or to any other power on 
 earth." 
 
 And now this warfare is made on me because I would not surrender my connec- 
 tions of duty, because I would not abandon my constituency, and receive the orders 
 of the executive authorities how I should vote in the Senate of the United States. 
 I hold that an attempt to control the Senate on the part of the Executive is subver- 
 sive of the principles of our Constitution. The Executive department is independent 
 of the Senate, and the Seriate is independent of the President. In matters of leg- 
 islation the President has a veto on the action of the Senate, and in appointments 
 and treaties the Senate has a veto on the President. He has no more right to tell 
 me how I shall vote on his appointments than I have to tell him whether he shall 
 veto or approve a bill that the Senate has passed. Whenever you recognize the 
 right of the Executive to say to a Senator, " Do this, or I will take off the heads of 
 your friends," you convert this Government from a republic into a despotism. When- 
 ever you recognize the right of a President to say to a member of Congress, " Vote 
 as I tell you, or I will bring a power to bear against you at home which will crush 
 you," you destroy the independence of the representative, and convert him into a 
 tool of Executive power. I resisted this invasion of the constitutional rights of a 
 Senator, and I intend to resist it as long as I have a voice to speak, or a vote to give. 
 Yet, Mr. Buchanan cannot provoke me to abandon one iota of Democratic principles 
 out of revenge or hostility to his course. I stand by the platform of the Democratic 
 party, and by its organization, and support its nominees. If there are any who 
 choose to bolt, the fact only shows that they are not as good Democrats as I am. 
 
 My friends, there never was a time when it was as important for the Democratic 
 party, for all national men, to rally and stand together as it is to-day. We find all 
 sectional men giving up past differences and continuing the one question of slavery, 
 and when we find sectional men thus uniting, we should unite to resist them and their 
 treasonable designs. Such was the case in 1850, when Clay left the quiet and peace 
 of his home, and again entered upon public life to quell agitation and restore peace 
 to a distracted Union. Then we Democrats, with Cass at our head, welcomed Henry 
 Clay, whom the whole nation regarded as having been preserved by God for the 
 times. He became our leader in that great fight, and we rallied around him the same 
 as the Whigs rallied around old Hickory in 1832, to put down nullification Thus 
 you see that whilst Whigs and Democrats fought fearlessly in old times about banks, 
 the tariff, distribution, the specie circular, and the sub-treasury, all united as a band 
 of brothers when the peace, harmony, or integrity of the Union was imperiled. It 
 was so in 1850, when Abolitionism had even so far divided this country, North and 
 South, as to endanger the peace of the Union ; Whigs and Democrats united in es- 
 tablishing the Compromise measures of that year, and restoring tranquillity and good 
 feeling. These measures passed on the joint action of the two parties. They rested 
 on the great principle that the people of each State and each Territory should be left 
 perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions to suit themselves. You 
 Whigs and we Democrats justified them in that principle. In 1854, when it became 
 necessary to organize the Territories of Kansas and Nebraska, I brought forward the 
 bill on the same principle. In the Kansas-Nebraska bill you find it declared to be 
 the true intent and meaning of the act not to legislate slavery into any State or Ter
 
 221 
 
 ritory, nor to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to 
 form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way. I stand on that same 
 platform in 1858 that I did in 1850, 1854, and 1856. The Washington Union pre- 
 tending to be the organ of the Administration, in the number of the 5th of this 
 month, devotes three columns and a half to establish these propositions:' First, that 
 Douglas, in his Freeport speech, held the same doctrine that he did in his Nebraska 
 bill in 1854; second, that in 1854 Douglas justified the Nebraska bill upon the 
 ground that it was based upon the same principle as Clay's Compromise measures of 
 185(! The Union thus proved that Douglas was the same in 1858 that he was in 
 1856, 4 854, and 1850, and consequently argued that he was never a Democrat. Ig 
 it not funny that I was never a Democrat ? There is no pretense that I have changed 
 a hair's breadth. The Umon proves by my speeches that I explained the Compromise 
 measures of 1850 just as I do now, and that I explained the Kansas and Nebraska 
 bill in 1854 just as I did in my Freeport speech, and yet says that I am not a Dem- 
 ocrat, and cannot be trusted, because I have not changed during the whole of that time. 
 It has occured to me that in 1854 the author of the Kansas and Nebraska bill was 
 considered a pretty good Democrat. It has occurred to me that in 1856, when I 
 was exerting every nerve and every energy for James Buchanan, standing on the 
 same platform then that I do now, that I was a pretty good Democrat. They now 
 tell me that I am not a Democrat, because I assert that the people of a Territory, as 
 well as those of a State, have the right to decide for themselves whether slavery can 
 or cannot exist in such Territory. Let me read what James Buchanan said on that 
 point when he accepted the Democratic nomination for the Presidency in 1856. In 
 his letter of acceptance, he used the following language : 
 
 " The recent legislation of Congress respecting domestic slavery, derived as it lias- 
 been from the original and pure fountain of legitmate political power, the will of the 
 majority, promises ere long to allay the dangerous excitement. This legislation is 
 founded upon principles as ancient as free government itself, and in accordance with 
 them has simply declared that the people of a Territory, like those of a State, shall 
 decide for themselves whether slavery shall or shall not exist within their limits." 
 
 Dr. Hope will there find my answer to the question he propounded to me before I 
 commenced speaking. Of course no man will consider it an answer, who is outside 
 of the Democratic organization, bolts Democratic nominations, and indirectly aids to 
 put Abolitionists into power over Democrats. But whether Dr. Hope considers it an 
 answer or not, every fair-minded man will see that James Buchanan has answered 
 the question, and has asserted that the people of a Territory, like those of a State, 
 shall decide for themselves whether slavery shall or shall not exist within their limits. 
 1 answer specifically if you want a further answer, and say that while under the de- 
 cision of the Supreme Court, as recorded in the opinion of Chief Justice Tancy, 
 slaves are property like all other property, and can be carried into any Territory of 
 the United States the same as any other description of property, yet when you get 
 them there they are subject to the local law of the Territory just like all other prop- 
 erty. You will find in a recent speech delivered by that able and eloquent statesman, 
 Hon. Jefferson Davis, at Bangor, Maine, that he took the same view of this subjc'Ct 
 that I did in my Freeport speech. He there said : 
 
 " If the inhabitants of any Territory should refuse to enact such laws and police 
 regulations as would give security to their property or to his, it would be rendered 
 more or less valueless in proportion to the difficulties of holding it without such pro- 
 tection. In the case of property in the labor of man, or what is usually called slave 
 property, the insecurity would be so great that the owner could not ordinarily retain 
 it. Therefore, though the right would remain, the remedy being withheld, it would 
 follow that the owner would be practically debarred, by the circumstances of the 
 case, from taking slave property into a Territory where the sense of the inhabitants 
 was opposed to its introduction. So much for the oft-repeated fallacy of forcing 
 slavery upon any community." 
 
 You will also find that the distinguished Speaker of the present House of Rep- 
 15
 
 222 
 
 resentative?, Hon. Jas. L. Or, construed the Kansas and Nebraska bill in this same 
 way in 1856, and also that great intellect of the South, Alex. H. Stephens, put the 
 same construction upon it in Congress that I did in my Freeport speech. The whole 
 South are rallying to the support of the doctrine that if the people of a Territory 
 want' slavery they have a right to have it, and if they do not want it that no power 
 on earth can force it upon them. I hold that there is no principle on earth more 
 sacred to all the friends of freedom than that which says /hat no institution, no law, 
 no constitution, .should be forced on an unwilling people contrary to their wishes ; and 
 I assert that the Kansas and Nebraska bill contains that principle. It is the greai 
 principle contained in that bill. It is the principle on which James Buchanan wna 
 made President. Without that principle he never would have been made President 
 of the United States. I will never violate or abandon that doctrine if I have to stand 
 alone. I have resisted the blandishments and threats of power on the one side, and 
 seduction on the other, and have stood immovably for that principle, fighting for it 
 when assailed by Northern mobs, or threatened by Southern hostility. I have de- 
 fended it against the North and the South, and I will defend it against whoever 
 assails it, and I will follow it wherever its logical conclusions lead me. I say to you 
 that there is but one hope, one safety for this country, and that is to stand immovably 
 by that principle which declares the right of each State and each Territory to decide 
 these questions for themselves. This Government was founded on that principle, and 
 must be administered in the same sense in which it was founded. 
 
 But the Abolition party really think that under the Declaration of Independence 
 the negro is equal to the white man, and that negro equality is an inalienable right 
 conferred by the Almighty, and hence that all human laws in violation of it are null 
 and void. With such men it is no use for me to argue. I hold that the signers of 
 the Declaration of Independence had no reference to negroes at all when they de- 
 clared all men to be created equal. They did not mean negro, nor the savage Indians, 
 nor the Fejee Islanders, nor any other barbarous race. They were speaking of 
 white men. They alluded to men of European birth and European descent to white 
 men, and to none others, when they declared that doctrine. I hold that this Govern- 
 ment was established on the white basis. It was established by white men for the 
 benefit of white men and their posterity forever, and should be administered by white 
 men, and none others. But it does not follow, by any means, that merely because 
 the negro is not a citizen, and merely because he is not our equal, that, therefore, he 
 should be a slave. On the contrary, it does follow that we ought to extend to the 
 negro race, and to all other dependent races all the rights, all the privileges, and al? 
 the immunities which they can exercise consistently with the safety of society. Hu 
 manity requires that we should give them all these privileges ; Christianity command-/ 
 that we should extend those privileges to them. The question then arises what art' 
 those privileges, and what is the nature and extent of them. My answer is that that 
 is a question which each State must answer for itself. We in Illinois have decided 
 it for ourselves. We tried slavery, kept it up for twelve years, and finding lluit it 
 was not profitable, we abolished it for that reason, and became a free State. We 
 adopted in its stead the policy that a negro in this State shall not be a slave and t hall 
 not be a citizen. -We have a right to adopt that policy. For my part I think it i.s 
 a wise and sound policy for us. You in Missouri must judge for yourselves whether 
 it is a wise policy for you. If you choose to follow our example, very good ; if you 
 reject it, still well, it is your business, not ours. So with Kentucky. Let Kentucky 
 adopt a policy to suit herself. If we do not like it we will keep away from it, and 
 if she does not like ours let her stay at home, mind her own business and let us alone. 
 If the people of all the States will act on that great principle, and each State mind 
 its own business, attend to its own affairs, take care of its own negroes and not meddle 
 with its neighbors, then there will be peace between the North and the South, the 
 East and the West, throughout the whole Union. Why can we not thus have peace ? 
 Why should we thus allow a sectional party to agitate this country, to array the 
 North against the South, and convert us into enemies instead of friends, merely that
 
 223 
 
 a few ambitious men may ride into power on a sectional hobby ? How long is it 
 since these ambitious Northern men wished for a sectional organization ? Did any 
 one of them dream of a sectional party as long as the North was the weaker section 
 and the South the stronger ? Then all were opposed to sectional parties ; but the 
 moment the North obtained the majority in the House and Senate by the admission 
 of California, and could elect a President without the aid of Southern votes, that 
 moment ambitious Northern men formed a scheme to excite the North against the 
 South, and make the people be governed in their votes by geographical lines, thinking 
 ihat the North, being the stronger section, would outvote the South, and consequently 
 they, the leaders, would ride into office on a sectional hobby. I am told that my 
 hour is out. It was very short 
 
 MR. LINCOLN'S REPLY 
 
 LADIES AND GENTLEMEN : I have been somewhat, in my own mind, compli- 
 mented by a large portion of Judge Douglas's speech I mean that portion which he 
 devotes to the controversy between himself and the present Administration. This is 
 the seventh time Judge Douglas and myself have met in these joint discussions, and 
 lie has been gradually improving in regard to his war with the Administraton. At 
 Quincy, day before yesterday, he was a little more severe upon the Administration 
 than I had heard him upon any occasion, and 1 took pains to compliment him for it. 
 I then told him to " Give it to them with all the power he had ; " and as some of 
 them were present, I told them I would be very much obliged if they would give it to 
 him in about the same way. I take it he has now vastly improved upon the attack 
 he made then upon the Administration. I flatter myself he has really taken my advice 
 on this subject. All I can say now is to re-commend to him and to them what I then 
 commended to prosecute the war against one another in the most vigorous manner. 
 I say to them again " Go it, husband ! Go it, bear ! " 
 
 There is one other thing I will mention before I leave this branch of the discus- 
 sion although I do not consider it much of my business, any way. I refer to that 
 part of the Judge's remarks where he undertakes to involve Mr. Buchanan in an 
 inconsistency. He reads something from Mr. Buchanan, from which he undertakes 
 to involve him in an inconsistency; and he gets something of a cheer for having done 
 HO. I would only remind the Judge that while he is very valiantly fighting for the 
 Nebraska bill and the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, it has been but a little 
 while since he was the valiant advocate of the Missouri Compromise. I want to 
 know if Buchanan has not as much right to be inconsistent as Douglas has ? Has 
 Douglas the exclusive right, in this country, of being on all sides of all questions ? 
 Is nobody allowed that high privilege but himself? Is he to have an entire monopoly 
 on that subject ? 
 
 So far as Judge Douglas addressed his speech to me, or so far as it was about me, 
 it is my business to pay some attention to it. I have heard the Judge state two or 
 three times what he has stated to-day that in a speech which I made at Springfield, 
 Illinois, I had in a very especial manner complained that the Supreme Court in the 
 Dred Scott case had decided that a negro could never be a citizen of the Unite / l 
 States. I have omitted by some accident heretofore to analyze this statement, and 
 it is required of me to notice it now. In point of fact it is untrue. I never have 
 complained especially of the Dred Scott decision because it held that a negro could 
 not be a citizen, and the Judge is always wrong when he says I ever did so complain 
 of it. I have the speech here, and I will thank him or any of his friends to show 
 where I said that a negro should be a citizen, and complained especially of the 
 Dred Scott decision because it declared he could not be one. I have done no such 
 thing, and Judge Douglas so persistently insisting that I have done so, lias strongly 
 impressed me with the belief of a predetermination on his part to misrepresent me.
 
 224 
 
 He could not get his foundation for insisting that I was in favor of this negro equal- 
 ity any where else as well lie could by assuming that untrue proposition. Let me 
 tell this audience what is true in regard to that matter; and the means by which they 
 may correct me if I do not tell them truly is by a recurrence to the speech itself 
 I spoke of the Dred Scott decision in my Springfield speech, and I was then endeav- 
 oring to prove that the Dred Scott decision was a portion of a system or scheme to 
 make slavery national in this country. I pointed out what things had been decided 
 by the court. I mentioned as a fact that they had decided that a negro could not be 
 a citizen that they had done so, as I supposed, to deprive the negro, under all 
 circumstances, of the remotest possibility of ever becoming a citizen and claiming 
 the rights of a citizen of the United States under a certain clause of the Constitution. 
 I stated that, without making any complaint of it at all. I then went on and stated 
 the other points decided in the case, namely : that the bringing of a negro into the. 
 State of Illinois and holding him in slavery for two years here was a matter in 
 regard to which they would riot decide whether it Avould make him free or not ; that 
 they decided the further point that taking him into a United States Territory where? 
 slavery was prohibited by act of Congress, did not make him free, because that act 
 of Congress, as they held, was unconstitutional. I mentioned these three things a* 
 making up the points decided in that case. I mentioned them in a lump taken in 
 connection with the introduction of the Nebraska bill, and the amendment of Chase, 
 offered at the time, declaratory of the right of the people of the Territories to exclude 
 slavery, which was voted down by the friends of the bill. I mentioned all these 
 things together, as evidence tending to prove a combination and conspiracy to make 
 the institution of slavery national. In that connection and in that way I mentioned 
 the decision on the point that a negro could not be a citizen, and in no other con- 
 nection. 
 
 Out of this, Judge Douglas builds up his beautiful fabrication of my purpose to 
 introduce a perfect, social, arid political equality between the white and black races. 
 His assertion that I made an u especial objection " (that is his exact language) to 
 the decision on this account, is untrue in point of fact. 
 
 Now, while I am upon this subject, and as Henry Clay has been alluded to, I de- 
 sire to place myself, in connection with Mr. Clay, as nearly right before this people 
 as may be. I am quite aware what the Judge's object is here by all these allusion?. 
 He knows that we are before an audience, having strong sympathies southward by 
 relationship, place of birth, and so on. He desires to place me in an extremely 
 Abolition attitude. Ho read upon a former occasion, and alludes without reading to- 
 day, to a portion of a speech which I delivered in Chicago. In his quotations from that 
 speech, as he has made them upon former occasions, the extracts were taken, in such a 
 way as, I suppose, brings them within the definition of what is called garbling taking 
 portions of a speech which, when taken by themselves, do not present the entire 
 sense of the speaker as expressed at the time. I propose, therefore, out of that same 
 speech, to show how one portion of it which he skipped over (taking an extract be- 
 fore and an extract after) will give a different idea, and the true idea I intended to 
 convey. It will take me some little time to read it, but I believe I will occupy the 
 time that way. 
 
 You have heard him frequently allude to my controversy with him in regard to 
 the Declaration of Independence. I confess that I have had a struggle with Judge 
 Douglas on that matter, and I will try briefly to place myself right in regard to it 
 on this occasion. I said and it is between the extracts Judge Douglas has taken 
 from this speech, and put in his published speeches : 
 
 " It may be argued that there are certain conditions that make necessities and im- 
 pose them upon us, and to the extent that a necessity is imposed upon a man he must 
 submit to it. I think that was the condition in which we found ourselves when we es- 
 tablished this Government. We had slaves among us, we could not get our Constitution 
 unless we permitted them to remain in slavery, we could not secure the good we did se- 
 cure if we grasped for more ; and having by necessity submitted to that much, it does
 
 225 
 
 not destroy the principle that is the charter of our liberties. Let the charter re- 
 main as our standard." 
 
 Now I have upon all occasions declared as strongly as Judge Douglas against the 
 disposition to interfere with the existing institution of slavery. You hear me read 
 it from the same speech from which he takes garbled extracts for the purpose of 
 proving upon me a disposition to interfere with the institution of slavery, and estab- 
 lish a perfect social and political equality between negroes and white people. 
 
 Allow me while upon this subject briefly to present one other extract from a speech 
 of mine, more than a year ago, at Springfield, in discussing this very same ques- 
 tion, soon after Judge Douglas took his ground that negroes were not included in the 
 Declaration of Independence : 
 
 " I think the authors of that notable instrument intended to include all men, but 
 they did not mean to declare all men equal in all respects. They did riot mean to 
 say all men were equal in color, size, intellect, moral development or social capacity. 
 They defined with tolerable distinctness in what they did consider all men created 
 equal equal in certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pur- 
 suit of happiness. This they said, and this they meant. They did not mean to 
 assert the obvious untruth, that all were then actually enjoying that equality, or yet, 
 that they were about to confer it immediately upon them. In fact they had no power 
 to confer such a boon. They meant simply to declare the right, so that the enforce- 
 ment of it might follow as fast as circumstances should permit. 
 
 " They meant to set up a standard maxim for free society which should be familiar 
 to all : constantly looked to, constantly labored for, and even, though never perfectly 
 attained, constantly approximated, and thereby constantly spreading and deepening 
 its influence and augmenting the happiness and value of life to all people, of all 
 colors, every where." 
 
 There again are the sentiments I have expressed in regard to the Declaration of 
 Independence upon a former occasion sentiments which have been put in print and 
 read wherever anybody cared to know what so humble an individual as myself chose 
 to say in regard to it. 
 
 At Galesburgh the other day, I said in answer to Judge Douglas, that three 
 years ago there never had been a man, so far as I knew or believed, in the whole 
 world, who had said that the Declaration of Independence did not include negroes in 
 the term "all men." I reassert it to-day. I assert that Judge Douglas and all his 
 friends may search the whole records of the country, and it will be a matter of great 
 astonishment to me if they shall be able to find that one human being three years 
 ago had ever uttered the astounding sentiment that the term "all men" in the De- 
 claration did not include the negro. Do not let me be misunderstood. I know that 
 more then three years ago there were men who, finding this assertion constantly in 
 the way of their schemes to bring about the ascendancy and perpetuation of slavery, 
 denied the truth of it. I know that Mr. Calhoun and all the politicians of his school 
 denied the truth of the Declaration. I know that it ran along in the mouth of some 
 Southern men for a period of years, ending at last in that shameful though rather 
 forcible declaration of Pettit of Indiana, upon the floor of the United States Senate, 
 that the Declaration of Independence was in that respect " a self-evident lie," rather 
 ihan a self-evident truth. But I say, with a perfect knowledge of all this hawking 
 at the Declaration without directly attacking it, that three years ago there never had 
 lived a man who had ventured to assail it in the sneaking way of pretending to be- 
 lieve it and then asserting it did not include the negro. I believe the first man who 
 ever said it was Chief Justice Taney in the Dred Scott case, and the next to him 
 was our friend, Stephen A. Douglas. And now it has become the catch-word of the 
 entire party. I would like to call upon his friends every where to consider how 
 they have come in so short a time to view this matter in a way so entirely different 
 from their former belief? to ask whether they are not being borne along by an irre- 
 bistible current whither, they know not? 
 
 In answer to my proposition at Galesburgh last week, I see that some man in
 
 226 
 
 Chicago has got up a letter addressed to the Chicago Times, to show, as he professes, 
 that somebody had said so before; and he signs himself "An Old Line Whig," if I 
 remember correctly. In the first place I would say he was not an old line Whig. 
 I am somewhat acquainted with old line Whigs. I was with the old line Whigs 
 from the origin to the end of that party ; I became pretty well acquainted with them, 
 and I know they always had some sense, whatever else you could ascribe to them. 
 I know there nerer was one who had not more sense than to try to show by the 
 evidence he produces that some man had, prior to the time I named, said that negroes 
 were not included in the term " all men " in the Declaration of Independence. What 
 is the evidence he produces ? I will bring forward his evidence and let you see 
 what he offers by way of showing that somebody more than three years ago had 
 said negroes were not included in the Declaration. He brings forward part of a 
 speech from Henry Clay the part of the speech of Henry Clay which I used to 
 bring forward to prove precisely the contrary. I guess we are surrounded to some 
 extent to-day by the old friends of Mr. Clay, and they will be glad to hear any thing 
 from that authority. While he was in Indiana a man presented a petition to liberate 
 his negroes, and he (Mr. Clay) made a speech in answer to it, which I suppose he 
 carefully wrote out himself and caused to be published. I have before me an ex- 
 tract from that speech which constitutes the evidence this pretended "Old Line Whig" 
 at Chicago brought forward to show that Mr. Clay didn't suppose the negro was in- 
 cluded in the Declaration of Independence. Hear what Mr. Clay said : 
 
 " And what is the foundation of this appeal to me in Indiana, to liberate the slaves 
 under my care in Kentucky ? It is a general declaration in the act announcing to 
 the world the independence of the thirteen American colonies, that all men are 
 created equal. Now, as an abstract principle, there is no doubt of the truth of that 
 declaration ; and it is desirable, in the original construction of society, and in organ- 
 ized societies, to keep it in view as a great fundamental principle. But, then, I ap- 
 prehend that in no society that ever did exist, or ever shall be formed, was or can the 
 equality asserted among the members of the human race, be practically enforced and 
 carried out. There are portions, large portions, women, minors, insane, culprits, 
 transient sojourners, that will always probably remain subject to the government of 
 another portion of the community. 
 
 "That declaration, whatever may be the extent of its import, was made by the 
 delegations of the thirteen States. In most of them slavery existed, and had 
 long existed, and was established by law. It was introduced and forced upon the 
 colonies by the paramount law of England. Do you believe, that in making that 
 declaration the States that concurred in it intended that it should be tortured into a 
 virtual emancipation of all the slaves within their respective limits ? Would Vir- 
 ginia and other Southern States have ever united in a declaration which was to be 
 interpreted into an abolition of slavery among them ? Did any one of the thirteen 
 colonies entertain such a design or expectation ? To impute such a secret and una- 
 vowed purpose, would be to charge a political fraud upon the noblest band of patriots 
 that ever assembled in council a fraud upon the Confederacy of the Revolution 
 a fraud upon the union of those States whose Constitution not only recognized the 
 lawfulness of slavery, but permitted the importation of slaves from Africa until the 
 year 1808." 
 
 This is the entire quotation brought forward to prove that somebody previous to 
 three years ago had said the negro was not included in the term " all men " in 
 the Declaration. How does it do so ? In what way has it a tendency to prove, 
 that ? Mr. Clay says it is true as an abstract principle that all men are created 
 equal, but that we cannot practically apply it in all cases. He illustrates this by 
 bringing forward *he cases of females, minors, and insane persons, with whom it can- 
 not be enforced; out he says it is true as an abstract principle in the organization 
 of society as well as in organized society, and it should be kept in view as a funda- 
 mental principle. Let me read a few words more before I add some comments of 
 my own. Mr. Clay says a little further on :
 
 227 
 
 " I desire no concealment of my opinions in regard to the institution of slavery, 
 I look upon it as a great evil, and deeply lament that we have derived it from the 
 parental Government, and from our ancestors. But here they are, and the question 
 is, how can they be best dealt with ? If a state of nature existed, and we were 
 about to lay the foundations of society, no man would be more strongly opposed than 
 I should be, to incorporating the institution of slavery among its elements." 
 
 Now, here in this same book in this same speech in this same extract brought 
 forward to prove that Mr. Clay held that the negro was not included in the Decla- 
 ration of Independence no such statement on his part, but the declaration that it is 
 a great fundamental truth, which should be constantly kept in view in the organiza- 
 tion of society and in societies already organized. But if I say a word about it if I 
 attempt, as Mr. Clay said all good men ought to do, to keep it in view if, in this "or- 
 ganized society," I ask to have the public eye turned upon it if I ask, in relation to 
 the organization of new Territories, that the public eye should be turned upon it 
 forthwith I am villified as you hear me to-day. What have I done, that I have not 
 the license of Henry Clay's illustrious example here in doing ? Have I done aught 
 that I have not his authority for, while maintaining that in organizing new Territories 
 and societies, this fundamental principle should be regarded, and in organized society- 
 holding it up to the public view and recognizing what he recognized as the great 
 principle of free government ? 
 
 And when this new principle this new proposition that no human being ever 
 thought of three years ago is brought forward, I combat it as having an evil ten- 
 dency, if not an evil design. I combat it as having a tendency to dehumanize the 
 negro to take away from him the right of ever striving to be a man. I combat it 
 as being one of the thousand things constantly done in these days to prepare the 
 public mind to make property, and nothing but property, of the negro in all the States 
 of this Union. 
 
 But there is a point that I wish, before leaving this part of the discussion, to ask 
 attention to. I have read and I repeat the words of Henry Clay : 
 
 " I desire no concealment of my opinions in regard to the institution of slavery. 
 I look upon it as a great evil, and deeply lament that we have derived it from 
 the parental Government, and from our ancestors. I wish every slave in the United 
 States was in the country of his ancestors. But here they are ; the question is hovr 
 they can best be dealt with ? If a state of nature existed, and we were about to 
 lay the foundations of society, no man would be more strongly opposed than I should 
 be, to incorporate the institution of slavery among its elements." 
 
 The principle upon which I have insisted in this canvass, is in relation to laying 
 the foundations of new societies. I have never sought to apply these principles to 
 the old States for the purpose of abolishing slavery in those States. It is nothing 
 but a miserable perversion of what I have said, to assume that I have declared Mis- 
 souri, or any other slave State, shall emancipate her slaves. I have proposed no 
 such thing. But when Mr. Clay says that in laying the foundations of societies in 
 our Territories where it does not exist, he would be opposed to the introduction of 
 slavery as an element, I insist that we have his ivarrant his license for insisting 
 upon the exclusion of that element which he declared in such strong and emphatic 
 language was most hateful to him. 
 
 Judge Douglas has again referred to a Springfield speech in which I said "a 
 house divided against itself cannot stand." The Judge has so often made (he 
 entire quotation from that speech that I can make it Irom memory. I used this 
 language : 
 
 '' We are now far into the fifth year, since a policy was initiated with the avowed 
 object and confident promise of putting an end to the slavery agitation. Under the 
 operation of this policy, that agitation has not only not ceased, but has constantly 
 augmented. In my opinion it will not cease until a crisis shall have been reached 
 and passed. ' A house divided against itself cannot stand.' I believe this Govern- 
 ment cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the
 
 228 
 
 house to fall but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all oa 
 thing, or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further 
 spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is 
 in the course of ultimate extinction, or its advocates will push it forward till it 
 shall become alike lawful in all the States old as well as new, North as well as 
 South." 
 
 That extract and the sentiments expressed in it, have been extremely offensive 
 to Judge Douglas. He has warred upon them as Satan wars upon the Bible. His 
 perversions upon it are endless. Here now are my views upon it in brief. 
 
 I said we were now far into the fifth year, since a policy was initiated with the 
 avowed object and confident promise of putting an end to the slavery agitation. Is 
 it not so ? When that Nebraska bill was brought forward four years ago last Janu- 
 ary, was it not for the " avowed object " of putting an end to the slavery agitation ? 
 We were to have no more agitation in Congress it was all to be banished to the 
 Territories. By the way, I will remark here that, as Judge Douglas is very fond of 
 complimenting Mr. Crittenden in these days, Mr. Crittenden has said there was a 
 falsehood in that whole business, for there was no slavery agitation at that time to 
 allay. We were for a little while quiet on the troublesome thing, and that very al- 
 laying plaster of Judge Douglas's stirred it up again. But was it not understood or 
 intimated with the " confident promise " of putting an end to the slavery agitation ? 
 Surely it was. In every speech you heard Judge Douglas make, until he got into 
 this " imbroglio," as they call it, with the Administration about the Lecompton Con- 
 stitution, every speech on that Nebraska bill was full of his felicitations that we were 
 just at the end of the slavery agitation. The hist tip of the last joint of the old ser- 
 pent's tail was just drawing out of view. But has it proved so ? I have asserted 
 that under that policy that agitation " has not only not ceased, but has constantly 
 augmented." When was there ever a greater agitation in Congress than last winter? 
 When was it as great in the country as to-day ? 
 
 There was a collateral object- in the introduction of that Nebraska policy which 
 was to clothe the people of the Territories with a superior degree of self-government, 
 beyond what they had ever had before. The first object and the main one of con- 
 ferring upon the people a higher degree of " self-government," is a question of fact 
 to be determined by you in answer to a single question. Have you ever heard or 
 known of a people any where on earth who had as little to do, as, in the first in- 
 stance of its use, the people of Kansas had with this same right of " self-govern- 
 ment?" In its main policy and in its collateral object, it has been nothing but a liv- 
 ing, creeping lie from the time of its introduction till to-day. 
 
 I have intimated that I thought the agitation would not cease until a crisis should 
 have been reached and passed. I have stated in what way I thought it would be 
 reached and passed. I have said that it might go one way or the other. We might, 
 by arresting the further spread of it, and placing it where the fathers originally 
 placed it, put it where the public mind should rest in the belief that it was in the 
 course of ultimate extinction. Thus the agitation may cease. It may be pushed 
 forward until it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new, North 
 as well as South. I have said, and I repeat, my wish is that the further spread of 
 it may be arrested, and that it may be placed where the public mind shall rest in the 
 belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction. I have expressed that as rny wish. 
 I entertain the opinion upon evidence sufficient to my mind, that the fathers of tins 
 Government placed that institution where the public mind did rest in the belief that 
 it was in the course of ultimate extinction. Let me ask why they made provision 
 that the source of slavery the African slave-trade should be cut off at the end of 
 twenty years ? Why did they make provision that in all the new territory we 
 owned at that time, slavery should be forever inhibited ? Why stop its spread in 
 one direction and cut off its source in another, if they did not look to its being placed 
 in the course of ultimate extinction ? 
 
 Again; the institution of slavery is only mentioned in the Constitution of the
 
 229 
 
 United States two or three times, and in neither of these cases does the word 
 ** slavery " or " negro race " occur ; but covert language is used each time, and for a 
 purpose full of significance. What is the language in regard to the prohibition of 
 the African slave-trade ? It runs in about this way : " The migration or importa- 
 tion of such persons as any of the States now existing shall think preper to admit, 
 shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the year one thousand eight hundred 
 and eight." 
 
 The next allusion in the Constitution to the question of slavery and the black 
 race, is on the subject of the basis of representation, and there the language used is, 
 " Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several States 
 which may be included within this Union, according to their respective numbers, 
 which shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons, in- 
 cluding those bound to service for a term of years, and excluding Indians not 
 taxed three-fifths of all other persons." 
 
 It says "persons," not slaves, not negroes ; but this "three-fifths" can be applied 
 to no other class among us than the negroes. 
 
 Lastly, in the provision for the reclamation of fugitive slaves, it is said : " No per- 
 son held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into an- 
 other, shall in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such 
 service or labor, but shall be delivered up, on claim of the party to whom such ser- 
 vice or labor may be due." There again there is no mention of the word " negro " 
 or of slavery. In all three of these places, being the only allusions to slavery in the 
 instrument, covert language is used. Language is used not suggesting that slavery 
 existed or that the black race were among us. And I understand the cotempora- 
 neous history of those times to be that covert language was used with a purpose, and 
 that purpose was that in our Constitution, which it was hoped and is still hoped will 
 endure forever when it should be read by intelligent and patriotic men, after the in- 
 stitution of slavery had passed from among us there should be nothing on the face 
 of the great charter of liberty suggesting that such a thing as negro slavery had 
 ever existed among us. This is part of the evidence that the fathers of the Govern- 
 ment expected and intended the institution of slavery to come to an end. They ex- 
 pected and intended that it should be in the course of ultimate extinction. And 
 when I say that I desire to see the further spread of it arrested, I only say I desire 
 to see that done which the fathers have first done. When I say I desire to see it 
 placed where the public mind will rest in the belief that it is in the course of ulti- 
 mate extinction, I only say I desire to see it placed where they placed it. It is not 
 true that^our fathers, as Judge Douglas assumes, made this Government part slave 
 and part free. Understand the sense in which he puts it. He assumes that slavery 
 is a rightful thing within itself was introduced by the framers of the Constitution. 
 The exact truth is, that they found the institution existing among us, and they left 
 it as they found it. But in making the Government they left this institution with 
 many clear marks of disapprobation upon it. They found slavery among them, and 
 they left it among them because of the difficulty the absolute impossibility of its 
 immediate removal. And when Judge Douglas asks me why we cannot let it re- 
 main part slave and part free, as the fathers of the Government made it, he asks a 
 question based upon an assumption which is itself a falsehood ; and I turn upv.A. him 
 and ask him the question, when the policy that the fathers of the Government had 
 adopted in relation to this element among us was the best policy in the world the 
 only wise policy the only policy that we can ever safely continue upon lhat will 
 ever give us peace, unless this dangerous element masters us all and becomes a nation- 
 al institution I turn upon him and ask him why he could not leave it alone. I turn 
 and ask him why he was driven to the necessity of introducing a new policy in re- 
 gard to it. He has himself said he introduced a new policy. He said so in his 
 speech on the 22d of March of the present year, 1858. I ask him why he could not 
 let it remain where our fathers placed it. I ask, too, of Judge Douglas and his 
 friends why we shall not again place this institution upon the basis on which the
 
 280 
 
 fathers left it. I ask you, when he infers that I am in favor of setting the free and 
 slave States at Avar, when the institution was placed in that attitude by those who 
 made the Constitution, did they make any war? If we had no war out of it, when 
 thus placed, wherein is the ground of beh'ef that we shall have war out of it, if we 
 return to that policy ? Have we had any peace upon this matter springing from any 
 other basis ? I maintain that we have not, I have proposed nothing more than a 
 return to the policy of the fathers. 
 
 I confess, when I propose a certain measure of policy, it is not enough for me that 
 1 do not intend any thing evil in the result, but it is incumbent on me to show that 
 it has not a tendency to that result. I have met Judge Douglas in that point of view. 
 I have not only made Uie declaration that I do not mean to produce a conflict between 
 the States, but I have tried to show by fair reasoning, and I think I have shown to 
 the minds of fair men, that I propose nothing but what has a most peaceful tendency. 
 The quotation that I happened to make in that Springfield speech, that "a house 
 divided against itself cannot stand," and which has proved so offensive to the Judge, 
 was part and parcel of the same tiling. He tries to show that variety in the domes- 
 tic institutions of the different States is necessary and indispensable. I do not dis- 
 pute it. I have no controversy with Judge Douglas about that. I shall very readily 
 agree with him that it would be foolish for us to insist upon having a cranberry law 
 here, in Illinois, where we have no cranberries, because they have a cranberry law 
 in Indiana, where they have cranberries. I should insist that it would be exceedingly 
 wrong in us to deny to Virginia the right to enact oyster laws, where they have 
 oysters, because we want no such laws here. I understand, I hope, quite as well as 
 Judge Douglas or any body else, that the variety in the soil and climate and face of 
 the country, and consequent variety in the industrial pursuits and productions of a 
 country, require systems of law conforming to this variety in the natural features of 
 the country. I understand quite as well as Judge Douglas, that if we here raise a 
 barrel of Hour more than we want, and the Louisianiaus raise a barrel of sugar more 
 than they want, it is of mutual advantage to exchange. That produces commerce, 
 brings us together, and makes us better friends. We like one another the more for it. 
 And I understand as well as Judge Douglas, or any body else, that these mutual 
 accommodations are the cements which bind together the different parts of this 
 Union that instead of being a thing to "divide the house" figuratively expressing 
 the Union they tend to sustain it ; they are the props of the house tending always 
 to hold it up. 
 
 But when I have admitted all this, I ask if there is any parallel between these 
 things and this institution of slavery ? I do not see that there is any parallel at all 
 between them. Consider it. When have we had any difficulty or quarrel amongst 
 ourselves about the cranberry laws of Indiana, or the oyster laws of Virginia, or the 
 pine lumber laws of Maine, or the fact that Louisiana produces sugar, arid Illinois 
 flour ? When have we had any quarrels over these things ? When have we had 
 perfect peace in regard to this thing which I say is an element of discord in this 
 Union ? We have sometimes had peace, but when was it ? It was when the insti- 
 tution of slavery remained quiet where it was. We have had difficulty and turmoil 
 whenever it has made a struggle to spread itself where it was not. I ask, then, if 
 experience does not speak in thunder-tones, telling us that the policy which has 
 given peace to the country heretofore, being returned to, gives the greatest promise 
 of peace again. You may say, and Judge Douglas has intimated the same thing,, 
 that all this difficulty in regard to the institution of slavery is the mere agitation of 
 office-seekers and ambitious northern politicians. He thinks we want to get "his 
 place," I suppose. I agree that there are office-seekers amongst us. The Bible 
 says somewhere that we are desperately selfish. I think we would have discovered 
 that fact without the Bible. I do not claim that I am any less so than the average 
 of men, but I do claim that I am not more selfish than Judge Douglas. 
 
 But is it true that all the difficulty and agitation we have in regard to this institu- 
 tion of slavery springs from office-seeking from the mere ambition of politicians ?
 
 231 
 
 Is that the truth? How many times have we had danger from this question? Go 
 back to the day of the Missouri Compromise. Go back to the Nullification ques- 
 tion, at the bottom of which lay this same slavery question. Go back to the time of 
 the Annexation of Texas. Go back to the troubles that led to the Compromise of 
 1850. You will find that every time, with the single exception of the Nullification 
 question, they sprung from an endeavor to spread this institution. There never was 
 a party in the history of this country, and there probably never will be, of sufficient 
 strength to disturb the general peace of the country. Parties themselves may be 
 divided and quarrel on minor questions, yet it extends not beyond the parties 
 themselves. But does not this question make a disturbance outside of political 
 circles? Does it not enter into the churches and rend them asunder? What 
 divided the great Methodist Church into two parts, North and South? What 
 has raised this constant disturbance in every Presbyterian General Assembly 
 that meets ? What disturbed the Unitarian Church in this very city two years 
 ago? What has jarred and shaken the great American Tract Society recently, 
 not yet splitting it, but sure to divide it in the end? Is it not this same mighty, 
 deep-seated power that somehow operates on the minds of men, exciting and 
 stirring them up in every avenue of society in politics, in religion, in literature, 
 in morals, in all the manifold relations of life ? Is this the work of politicians ? 
 Is that irresistible power which for fifty years has shaken the Government and 
 agitated the people to be stilled and subdued by pretending that it is an exceed- 
 ingly simple thing, and we ought not to talk about it ? If you will get every body else 
 to stop talking about it, I assure you I will quit before they have half done so. But 
 where is the philosophy or statesmanship which assumes that you can quiet that dis- 
 turbing element in our society which has disturbed us for more than half a century, 
 which has been the only serious danger that has threatened our institutions I say, 
 where is the philosophy or the statesmanship based on the assumption that we are to 
 quit talking about it, and that the public mind is all at once to cease being agitated 
 by it? Yet this is the policy here in the north that Douglas is advocating that we 
 are to care nothing about it ! I ask you if it is not a false philosophy ? Is it not a 
 false statesmanship that undertakes to build up a system of policy upon the basis of 
 oaring nothing about the very thing that every body does care the most about ? a thing 
 which all experience has shown we care a very great deal about? 
 
 The Judge alludes very often in the course of his remarks to the exclusive right 
 whk'h the States have to decide the whole thing for themselves. I agree with him 
 very readily that the different States have that right. He is but fighting a man of 
 straw when he assumes that I am contending against the right of the States to do as 
 they plea-se about it. Our controversy with him is in regard to the new Territories. 
 We agree that when the States come in as States they have the right and the power 
 to do as they please. We have no power as citizens of the free States or in our 
 federal capacity as members of the Federal Union through the General Government, 
 to disturb slavery in the States where it exists. We profess constantly that we have 
 no more inclination than belief in the power of the Government to disturb it ; yet 
 we are driven constantly to defend ourselves from the assumption that we are war- 
 ring upon the rights of the States. What I insist upon is, that the new Territories 
 shall be kept free from it while in the Territorial condition. Judge Douglas assumes 
 that we have no interest in them that we have no right whatever to interfere. I 
 think we have some interest. I think that as white men we have. Do we not wish for 
 an outlet for our surplus population, if I may so express myself? Do we not feel an in- 
 terest in getting to that outlet with such institutions as we would like to have prevail 
 there ? If you go to the Territory opposed to slavery and another man comes upon the 
 same ground with his slave, upon the assumption that the things are equal, it turns out 
 that he has the equal right all his way and you have no part of it your way. If he goes 
 in and makes it a slave Territory, and by consequence a slave State, is it not time that 
 those who desire to have it a free State were on equal ground. Let me suggest it 
 in a different way. How many Democrats are there about here ["A thousand "J
 
 232 
 
 have left slave States and come into the free State of Illinois to ge rid of the 
 institution of slavery? [Another voice "A thousand and one."] I reckon there 
 are a thousand and one. I will ask you, if the policy you are now advocating had 
 prevailed when thw country was in a Territorial condition, where would you have 
 gone to get rid of it? Where would you have found your free State or Territory to 
 go to ? And when hereafter, for any cause, the people in this place shall desire to 
 find new homes, if they wish to be rid of the institution, where will they find the 
 place to go to? 
 
 Now irrespective of the moral aspect of this question as to whether there is a 
 right or wrong in enslaving a negro, I am still in favor of our new Territories being 
 in such a condition that white men may find a home may find some spot where 
 they can better their condition where they can settle upon new soil and better their 
 condition in life. I am in favor of this not merely (I must say it here as I have 
 elsewhere) for our own people who are born amongst us, but as an outlet for free 
 white people every where, the world over in which Hans and Baptiste and Patrick, 
 and all other men from all the world, may find new homes and better their conditions 
 in life. 
 
 I have stated upon former occasions, and I may as well state again, what I under- 
 stand to be the real issue in this controversy between Judge Douglas and myself. 
 On the point of my wanting to make war between the free and the slave States, 
 there has been no issue between us. So, too, when he assumes that I am in favor 
 of introducing a perfect social and political equality between the white and black 
 races. These are false issues, upon which Judge Douglas has tried to force the con- 
 troversy. There is no foundation in truth for the charge that I maintain either of 
 these propositions. The real issue in this controversy the one pressing upon every 
 mind is the sentiment on the part of one class that looks upon the institution of 
 slavery as a wrong, and of another class that does not look upon it as a wrong. 
 The sentiment that contemplates the institution of slavery in this country as a wrong 
 is the sentiment of the Republican party. It is the sentiment around which all their 
 actions all their arguments circle from which all their propositions radiate. They 
 look upon it as being a moral, social and political wrong ; and while they contemplate 
 it as such, they nevertheless have due regard for its actual existence among us, and 
 the difficulties of getting rid of it in any satisfactory way and to all the constitutional 
 obligations thrown about it. Yet having a due regard for these, they desire a policy 
 in regard to it that looks to its not creating any more danger. They insist that it 
 should as far as may be, be treated as a wrong, and one of the methods of treating 
 it us a wrong is to make provision that it shall grow no larger. They also desire a 
 policy that looks to a peaceful end of slavery at sometime, as being wrong. These 
 are the views they entertain in regard to it as I understand them ; and all their sen- 
 timents all their arguments and propositions are brought within this range. I have 
 said and I repeat it here, that if there be a man amongst us who does not think that 
 the institution of slavery is wrong in any one of the aspects of which I have spoken, 
 he is misplaced and ought not to be with us. And if there be a man amongst us 
 who is so impatient of it as a wrong as to disregard its actual presence among us 
 and the difficulty of getting rid of it suddenly in a satisfactory way, and to disregard 
 the constitutional obligations thrown about it, that man is misplaced if he is on our 
 platform. We disclaim sympathy with him in practical action. He is not placed 
 properly with us. 
 
 On this subject of treating it as a wrong, and limiting its spread, let me say a 
 word. Has any thing ever threatened the existence of this Union save and except 
 this very institution of slavery ? What is it that we hold most dear amongst us ? 
 Our own liberty and prosperity. What has ever threatened our liberty and prosper- 
 ity save and except this institution of slavery ? If this is true, how do you propose 
 to improve the condition of things by enlarging slavery by spreading it out and 
 making it bigger? You may have a wen or cancer upon your person and not be 
 able to cut it out lest you bleed to death ; but surely it is no way to cure it, to engraf*
 
 233 
 
 it and spread it over your whole body. That is no proper way of treating what you 
 regard a wrong. You see this peaceful way of dealing with it as a wrong restrict- 
 ing the Spread of it, and not allowing it to go into new countries where it has nol 
 already existed. That is the peaceful way, the old-fashioned way, the way in which 
 the fathers themselves set us the example. , 
 
 On the other hand, I have said there is a sentiment which treats it as not bein 
 *rong. That is the Democratic sentiment of this day. I do not mean to say thai 
 {very man who stands within that range positively asserts that it is right. Thai 
 class will include all who positively assert that it is right, and all who like Judg 
 Douglas treat it as indifferent and do not say it is either right or wrong. These twc 
 classes of men fall within the general class of those who do not look upon it as u 
 wrong. And if there be among you any body who supposes that he, as a Democrat 
 i^an consider himself "as much opposed to slavery as anybody," I would like t<f 
 reason with him. You never treat it as a wrong. What other thing that you con 
 sider as a wrong, do you deal with as you deal with that ? Perhaps you say it is 
 wrong, but your leader never does, and you quarrel with any body who says it is ivrong. 
 Although you pretend to say so yourself you can find no fit place to deal with it as 
 a wrong. You must not say any thing about it in the free States, because it is not 
 here. You must not say any thing about it in the slave States, because it is there. 
 You must not say any thing about it in the pulpit, because that is religion and has 
 nothing to do with it. You must not say any thing about it in politics, because that 
 will disturb the security of "my place" There is no place to talk about it as being a 
 wrong, although you say yourself it is a wrong. But finally you will screw yourself 
 up to the belief that if the people of the slave Suites should adopt a system of 
 gradual emancipation on the slavery question, you would be in favor of it. You 
 would be in favor of it. You say that is getting it in the right place, and you would 
 be glad to see it succeed. But you are deceiving yourself. You all know that 
 Frank Blair and Gratz Brown, down there in St. Louis, undertook to introduce that 
 system in Missouri. They fought as valiantly as they could for the system of grad- 
 ual emancipation which you pretend you would be glad to see succeed. Now I will 
 bring you to the test. After a hard fight they were beaten, and when the news came 
 over here you threw up your hats and hurraed for Democracy. More than that, 
 take all the argument made in favor of the system you have proposed, and it care- 
 fully excludes the idea that there is any thing wrong in the institution of slavery. 
 The arguments to sustain that policy carefully excluded it. Even here to-day you 
 heard Judge Douglas quarrel with me because I uttered a wish that it might some- 
 time come to an end. Although Henry Clay could say he wished every slave in the 
 United States was in the country of his ancestors, I am denounced by those pretend- 
 ing to respect Henry Clay for uttering a wish that it might sometime, in some peace- 
 ful way, come to an end. The Democratic policy in regard to that institution will 
 not tolerate the merest breath, the slightest hint, of the least degree of wrong about 
 it. Try it by some of Judge Douglas's arguments. He says he "don't care whether 
 it is voted up or voted down" in the Territories. I do not care myself in dealing 
 v/ith tliat expression, whether it is intended to be expressive of his individual senti- 
 ments on the subject, or only of the national policy he desires to have established. 
 It is alike valuable for my purpose. Any man can say that who does not see any 
 thing wrong in slavery, but no man can logically say it who does see a wrong in it ; 
 because no man can logically s*iy he don't care whether a wrong is voted up or voted 
 down. He may say he don't care whether an indifferent thing is voted up or down, 
 but he must logically have a choice between a right thing and a wrong thing. He 
 contends that whatever community wants slaves has a right to have them. So they 
 have if it is not a wrong. But if it is a wrong, he cannot say people have a right to 
 do wrong. He says that upon the score of equality, slaves should be allowed to go 
 hi ft new Territory, like other property. This is strictly logical if there is no dif- 
 forence between it and other property. If it and other property are equal, his argu- 
 ment is entirely logical. But if you insist that one is wrong and the other right,
 
 234 
 
 there is no use to institute a comparison between right and wrong. You may turn 
 over every thing in the Democratic policy from beginning to end, whether in the 
 shape it takes on the statute book, in the shape it takes in the Dred Scott decision, 
 in the shape it takes in conversation, or the shape it takes in short maxim-like 
 arguments it every where carefully excludes the idea that there is any thing wrong 
 in it. 
 
 That is the real issue. That is the issue that will continue in this country when 
 these poor tongues of Judge Douglas and myself shall be silent. It is the eternal 
 .struggle between these two principles right and wrong throughout the world. 
 They are the two principles that have stood face to face from the beginning of time ; 
 and will ever continue to struggle. The one is the common right of humanity and 
 the other the divine right of kings. It is the same principle in whatever shape it 
 develops itself. It is the same spirit that says, "You work and toil and earn bread, 
 and I'll eat it." No matter in what shape it comes, Whether from the mouth of a 
 king who seeks to bestride the people of his own nation and live by the fruit of their 
 labor, or from one race of men as an apology for enslaving another race, it is the 
 same tyrannical principle. I was glad to express my gratitude at Quincy, and I 
 re-express it here to Judge Douglas that he looks to no end of the institution of 
 slavery. That will help the people to see where the struggle really is. It will here- 
 after place with us all men who really do wish the wrong may have an end. And 
 whenever we can get rid of the fog which obscures the real question when we can 
 get Judge Douglas and his friends to avow a policy looking to its perpetuation we 
 can get out from among that class of men and bring them to the side of those who 
 treat it as a wrong. Then there will soon be an end of it, and that end will be its 
 " ultimate extinction." Whenever the issue can be distinctly made, and all extrane- 
 ous matter thrown out so that men can fairly see the real difference between the 
 parties, this controversy will soon be settled, and it will be done peaceably too. 
 There will be no war, no violence. It will be placed again where the wisest and 
 best men of the world placed it. Brooks of South Carolina once declared that when 
 this Constitution was framed, its framers did not look to the institution existing until 
 this day. When he said this, I think he stated a fact that is fully borne out by the 
 history of the times. But he also said they were better and wiser men than the men 
 of these days ; yet the men of these days had experience which they had not, and by 
 the invention of the cotton-gin it became a necessity in this country that slavery 
 should be perpetual. I now say that, willingly or unwillingly, purposely or without 
 purpose, Judge Douglas has been the most prominent instrument in changing the 
 petition of the institution of slavery which the fathers of the Government expected 
 to come to an end ere this and putting it upon Brooks's cotton-gin basis placing it 
 where he openly confesses he has no desire there shall ever be an end of it. 
 
 I understand I have ten minutes yet. I will employ it in saying something about 
 this argument Judge Douglas uses, while he sustains the Dred Scott decision, that 
 the people of the Territories can still somehow exclude slavery. The first thing I 
 ask attention to is the fact that Judge Douglas constantly said, before the decision, 
 that whether they could or not, was a question for the Supreme Court. But after 
 the court has made the decision he virtually says it is not a question for the Supreme 
 Court, but for the people. And how' is it he tells us they can exclude it? lie says 
 it needs "police regulations," and that admits of "unfriendly legislation." Although 
 it is a right established by the Constitution of the United States to take a slaves into 
 a Territory of the United States and hold him as property, yet unless the Territo- 
 rial Legislature will give friendly legislation, and, more especially, if they adopt 
 unfriendly legislation, they can practically exclude him. Now, without meeting this 
 proposition as a matter of fact, I pass to consider the real Constitutional obligation. 
 Let me take the gentleman who looks me in the face before me, and let us suppose 
 that he is a member of the Territorial Legislature. The first thing he will do will 
 be to swear that he will support the Constitution of the United States. His neigh- 
 bor by his side in the Territory has slaves and needs Territorial legislation to enable
 
 235 
 
 him to enjoy that Constitutional rigkt. Can lie withhold the legislation which his 
 neighbor needs for the enjoyment of a right which is fixed in his favor in the Consti- 
 tution of the United States which he has sworn to support? Can he withhold it 
 without violating his oath ? And more especially, can he pass unfriendly legislation 
 to violate his oath ? Why, this is a monstrous sort of talk about the Constitution of 
 the United States ! There has never been as outlandish or lawkss a doctrine from 
 the mouth of any respectable man on earth. I do not believe it is a Constitutional 
 right to hold slaves in a Territory of the United States. I believe the decision was 
 improperly made and I go for reversing it. Judge Douglas is furious against those 
 who go for reversing a decision. But he is for legislating it out of all force while 
 the law itself stands. I repeat that there has never been so monstrous a doctrine 
 uttered from the mouth of a respectable man. 
 
 I suppose most of us (I know it of myself) believe that the people of the South- 
 ern States are entitled to a Congressional Fugitive Slave law that is a right fixed in 
 (be Constitution. But it cannot be made available to them without Congressional 
 legislation. In the Judge's language, it is a "barren right" which needs legislation 
 before it can become efficient arid valuable to the persons to whom it is guarantied. 
 And as the right is Constitutional I agree that the legislation shall be granted to it 
 -and that not that we like the institution of slavery. We profess to have no taste for 
 running and catching niggers at least I profess no taste for that job at all. Why 
 then do I yield support to a Fugitive Slave law? Because I do not understand that 
 the Constitution, which guaranties that right, can be supported without it. And 
 if I believed that the right to hold a slave in a Territory was equally fixed in the 
 Constitution with the right to reclaim fugitives, I should be bound to give it the leg- 
 islation necessary to support it. I say that no man can deny his obligation to give 
 the necessary legislation to support slavery in a Territory, who believes it is a Con- 
 stitutional right to have it there. No man can, who does not give the Abolitionists 
 an argument to deny the obligation enjoined by the Constitution to enact a Fugitive 
 Slave law. Try it now. It is the strongest Abolition argument ever made. 1 
 say if that Dred Scott decision is correct, then the right to hold slaves in a Territory 
 is equally a Constitutional right with the right of a slaveholder to have his runaway 
 returned. No one can show the distinction between them. The one is express, so 
 that we cannot deny it. The other is construed to be in the Constitution, so that he 
 who believes the decision to be correct believes in the right. And the man who 
 argues that by unfriendly legislation, in spite of that Constitutional right, slavery 
 riKiy be driven from the Territories, cannot avoid furnishing an argument by which 
 Abolitionists may deny the obligation to return fugitives, and claim the power to 
 pass laws unfriendly to the right of the slaveholder to reclaim his fugitive. I do not 
 know how such an argument may strike a popular assembly like this, but I defy 
 any body to go before a body of men whose minds are educated to estimating evidence 
 and reasoning, and show that there is an iota of difference between the Constitutional 
 right to reclaim a fugitive, and the Constitutional right to hold a slave, in a Terri- 
 tory, provided this Dred Scott decision is correct. I defy any man to make an argu- 
 ment that will justify unfriendly legislation to deprive a slaveholder of his right to 
 hoM his slave in a Territory, that will not equally, in all its length, breadth and 
 tiiickness, furnish an argument for nullifying the Fugitive Slave law. Why, there is 
 not such an Abolitionist in the nation as Douglas, after all. 
 
 MR. DOUGLAS'S REPLY. 
 
 Mr. Lincoln has concluded his remarks by saying that there is not such an Abolition- 
 ist as I am in all America. If he could make the Abolitionists of Illinois believe that, 
 he would not have much show for the Senate. Let him make the Abolitionists be- 
 lieve the truth of that statement and his political back is broken.
 
 His first criticism upon me is the expression of his hope that tho war of the Ad- 
 ministration will be prosecuted against me and the Democratic party of this State 
 with vigor. He wants that war prosecuted with vigor ; I have no doubt of it. His 
 hopes of success, and the hopes of his party depend solely upon it. They have no 
 chance of destroying the Democracy of this State except by the aid of federal pat- 
 ronage. He has all the federal office-holders here as his allies, running separate tick- 
 ets against the Democracy to divide the party, although the leaders all intend to vote 
 directly the Abolition ticket, and only leave the greenhorns to vote this separate 
 ticket who refuse to go into the Abolition camp. There is something really refresh- 
 ing in the thought that Mr. Lincoln is in favor of prosecuting one war vigorously. 
 It is the first war I ever knew him to be in favor of prosecuting. It is the first 
 war that I ever knew him to believe to be just or Constitutional. When the Mex- 
 ican war was being waged, and the American army was surrounded by the enemy in 
 Mexico, he thought that war was unconstitutional, unnecessary, and unjust. He thought 
 it was not commenced on the right spot. 
 
 When I made an incidental allusion of that kind in the joint discussion over at 
 Charleston some weeks ago, Lincoln, in replying, said that I, Douglas, had charged 
 him with voting against supplies for the Mexican war, and then he reared up, full 
 length, and swore that he never voted against the supplies that it was a slander 
 and caught hold of Ficklin, who sat on the stand, and said, " Here, Ficklin, tell the 
 people that it is a lie." Well, Ficklin, who had served in Congress with him, stood 
 up and told them all that he recollected about it. It was that when George Ash- 
 mun, of Massachusetts, brought forward a resolution declaring the war unconstitu- 
 tional, unnecessary, and unjust, that Lincoln had voted for it. "Yes," said Lincoln, 
 "I did." Thus he confessed that he voted that the war was wrong, that our country 
 was in the wrong, and consequently that the Mexicans were in the right ; but charged 
 that I had slandered him by saying that he voted against the supplies. I never 
 charged him with voting against the supplies in my life, because I knew that he was 
 not in Congress when they were voted. The war was commenced on the loth day of 
 May, 1846, and on that day we appropriated in Congress ten millions of dollars and 
 fifty thousand men to prosecute it. During the same session we voted more men 
 and more money, and at the next session we voted more men and more money, so 
 that by the time Mr. Lincoln entered Congress we hud enough men and enough 
 money to carry on the war, and had no occasion to vote for any more. When he 
 got into the House, being opposed to the war, and not being able to stop the supplies, 
 because they had all gone forward, all he could do was to follow the lead of Corwin, 
 and prove that the war was not begun on the right spot, and that it was unconstitu- 
 tional, unnecessary, and wrong. Remember, too, that this he did after the war had 
 been begun. It is one thing 10 be opposed, to the declaration of a war, another and very 
 different thing to take sides with the enemy against your own country after the war 
 has been commenced. Our army was in Mexico at the time, many battles had been 
 fought; our citizens, who were defending the honor of their country's' flag, were sur- 
 rounded by the daggers, the guns and the poison of the enemy. Then it was that 
 Corwin made his speech in which he declared that the American soldiers ought to 
 be welcomed by the Mexicans with bloody hands arid hospitable graves ; then it was 
 that Ashmun and Lincoln voted in the House of Representatives that the war was 
 unconstitutional and unjust; andAshrnun's resolution, Corwin's speech, and Lincoln's 
 vote, were sent to Mexico and read at the head of the Mexican army, to prove to 
 them that there was a Mexican party in the Congress of the United States who were 
 doing all in their power to aid them. That a man who takes sides with the common 
 enemy against his own country in time of war should rejoice in a war being made 
 on me now, is very natural. And in my opinion, no other kind of a man would re- 
 joice in it. 
 
 Mr. Lincoln has told you a great deal to-day about his being an old line Clay 
 Whig. Bear in mind that there are a great many old Clay Whigs down in this 
 region. It is more agreeable, therefore, for him to talk about the old Clay Whig
 
 237 
 
 party than it is for him to talk Abolitionism. We did not hear much about 
 the old Clay Whig party up in the Abolition districts. How much of an old 
 line Henry Clay Whig was he? Have you read General Singleton's speech 
 at Jacksonville ? You know that Gen. Singleton was, for twenty -five years, the con- 
 fidential friend of Heniy Clay in Illinois, and he testified that in 1847, w,hen the Con- 
 stitutional Convention of this State was in session, the Whig members were invited 
 to a Whig caucus at the house of Mr. Lincoln's brother-in-law, where Mr. Lincoln 
 proposed to throw Henry Clay overboard and take up Gen. Taylor in his place, 
 giving, as his reason, that if the Whigs did not take up Gen. Taylor the Democrat? 
 would. Singleton testifies that Lincoln, in that speech, urged, as another reason lor 
 throwing Henry Clay overboard, that the Whigs had fought long enough for prin- 
 ciple and ought to begin to fight for success. Singleton also testifies that Lincoln's 
 speech did have the effect of cutting Clay's throat, and that he (Singleton) and others 
 withdrew from fhe caucus in indignation. He further states that when they got to 
 Philadelphia to attend the National Convention of the Whig party, that Lincoln was 
 there, the bitter and deadly enemy of Clay, and that he tried to keep him (Singleton) 
 out of the Convention because he insisted on voting for Clay, and Lincoln was de- 
 termined to have Taylor. Singleton says that Lincoln rejoiced with very great joy 
 when he found the mangled remains of the murdered Whig statesman lying cold 
 before him. Now, Mr. Lincoln tells you that he is an old line Clay Whig! Gen. 
 Singleton testifies to the facts I have narrated, in a public speech which has been 
 printed and circulated broadcast over the State for weeks, yet not a lisp have we 
 heard from Mr. Lincoln on the subject, except that he is an old Clay Whig. 
 
 What part of Henry Clay's policy did Lincoln ever advocate ? He was in Con- 
 gress in 18489, when the Wilmot proviso warfare disturbed the peace and harmony 
 of the country, until it shook the foundation of the Republic from its center to ite 
 circumference. It was that agitation that brought Clay forth from his retirement 
 at Ashland again to occupy his seat in the Senate of the United States, to see 
 if he could not, by his great wisdom and experience, and the renown of his name, 
 do something to restore peace and quiet to a disturbed country. Who got up that 
 sectional strife that Clay had to be called upon to quell? I have heard Lincoln boast 
 that he voted forty-two times for the Wilmot proviso, and that he would have voted 
 as many times more if he could. Lincoln is the man, in connection with Seward, 
 Chase, Giddings, and other Abolitionists, who got up that strife that I helped Clay 
 to put down. Henry Clay came back to the Senate in 1849, and saw that he must do 
 something to restore peace to the country. The Union Whigs and the Union Dem- 
 ocrats welcomed him the moment he arrived, as the man for the occasion. We believed 
 that he, of all men on earth, had been preserved by Divine Providence to guide us 
 out of our difficulties, and we Democrats rallied under Clay then, as you Whigs in 
 . nullification time rallied under the banner of old Jackson, forgetting party when the 
 country was in danger, in order that we might have a country first, and parties after- 
 ward. 
 
 And this reminds me that Mr. Lincoln told you that the slavery question was the 
 only thing that ever disturbed the peace and harmony of the Union. Did not nulli- 
 fication once raise its head and disturb the peace of this Union in 1832 ? Was that 
 the slavery question, Mr. Lincoln ? Did not disunion raise its monster head during 
 the last war with Great Britain ? Was that the slavery question, Mr. Lincoln ? The 
 peace of this country has been disturbed three times, once during the war with Great 
 Britain, once on the tariff question, and once on the slavery question. His argument, 
 therefore, that slavery is the only question that has ever created dissension in the 
 Union falls to the ground. It is true that agitators are enabled now to use this 
 slavery question for the purpose of sectional strife. He admits that in regard to all 
 things else, the principle that I advocate, making each State and Territory free to de- 
 cide for itself, ought to prevail. He instances the cranberry laws, and the oyster 
 laws, and he might have gone through the whole list with the same effect. I say 
 that all these laws are local and domestic, and that local and domestic concerns should 
 16
 
 238 
 
 be left to each State and each Territory to manage for itself. If agitators would ac- 
 quiesce in that principle, there never would be any danger to the peace and harmony 
 of the Union. 
 
 Mr. Lincoln tries to avoid the main issue by attacking the truth of my proposition, 
 that our fathers made this Government divided into free and slave States, recogniz- 
 ing the right of each to decide all its local questions for itself. Did they not thus 
 make it ? It is true that they did not establish slavery in any of the States, or abol- 
 ish it in any of them ; but finding thirteen States, twelve of which were slave and 
 one free, they agreed to form a government uniting them together, as they stood di- 
 vided into free and slave States, and to guaranty forever to each State the right to 
 do as it pleased on the slavery question. Having thus made the government, and 
 conferred this right upon each State forever, I assert that this Government can exist 
 as they made it, divided into free and slave States, if any one State chooses to retain 
 slavery. He says that he looks forward to a time when slavery shall be abolished 
 every where. I look forward to a time when each State shall be allowed to do as it 
 pleases. If it chooses to keep slavery forever, it is not my business, but its own ; if 
 it chooses to abolish slavery, it is its own business not mine. I care more for the 
 great principle of self-government, the right of the people to rule, than I do for all 
 the negroes in Christendom. I would not endanger the perpetuity of this Union, I 
 would not blot out the great inalienable rights of the white men for all the negroes 
 that ever existed. Hence, I say, let us maintain this Government on the principles 
 that our fathers made it, recognizing the right of each State to keep slavery as long 
 as its people determine, or to abolish it when they please. But Mr. Lincoln says 
 tiiat when our fathers made this Government they did not look forward to the state 
 of things now existing, and therefore he thinks the doctrine was wrong ; and 
 he quotes Brooks, of South Carolina, to prove that our fathers then thought that prob- 
 ably slavery would be abolished by each State acting for itself before this time. 
 Suppose they did; suppose they did not foresee what has occurred, does that change the 
 principles of our Government ? They did not probably foresee the telegraph that trans- 
 mits intelligence by lightning, nor did they foresee the railroads that now form the 
 bonds of union between the different States, or the thousand mechanical inventions 
 that have elevated mankind. But do these things change the principles of the Gov- 
 ernment ? Our fathers, I say, made this Government on the principle of the right 
 of each State to do as it pleases in its own domestic affairs, subject to the Constitu- 
 tion, and allowed the people of each to apply to every new change of circum- 
 stances such remedy as they may see fit to improve their condition. This right they 
 have for all time to come. 
 
 Mr. Lincoln went on to tell you that he does not at all desire to interfere with 
 slavery in the States where it exists, nor does his party. I expected him to say that 
 down here. Let me ask him then how he expects to put slavery in the course of 
 ultimate extinction every where, if he does not intend to interfere with it in the States 
 where it exists ? He says that he will prohibit it in all Territories, and the infer- 
 ence is, then, that unless they make free States out of them he will keep them out of the 
 Union ; for, mark you, he did not say whether or not he would vote to admit Kan- 
 sas with slavery or not, as her people might apply (he forgot that as usual, etc.) ; 
 he did not say whether or not he was in favor of bringing the Territories now in ex- 
 istence into the Union on the principle of Clay's Compromise measures on the slavery 
 question. I told you that he would not. His idea is that he will prohibit slavery 
 in all the Territories and thus force them all to become free States, surrounding the 
 slave States with a cordon of free States and hemming them in, keeping the slaves 
 confined to their present limits whilst they go on multiplying until the soil on which 
 they live will no longer feed them, and he will thus be able to put slavery 
 in a course of ultimate extinction by starvation. He will extinguish slavery in the 
 Southern States as the French general exterminated the Algerines when he smoked 
 them out. He is going to extinguish slavery by surrounding the slave States, hem- 
 ming in the slaves and starving them out of existence, as you smoke a fox out of his
 
 239 
 
 hole. He intends to do that in the name of humanity and Christianity, in order that 
 we may get rid of the terrible crime and sin entailed upon our fathers of holding 
 slaves. Mr. Lincoln makes out that line of policy, and appeals to the moral sense 
 of justice and to the Christian feeling of the community to sustain him. He says 
 that any man who holds to the contrary doctrine is in the position of the king who 
 claimed to govern by Divine right Let us examine fora moment and see what principle 
 it was that overthrew the Divine right of George the Third to govern us. Did not 
 these colonies rebel because the British parliament had no right to pass laws con- 
 cerning our property and domestic and private institutions without our consent ? We 
 demanded that the British Government should not pass such laws unless they gave us 
 representation in the body passing them, and this the British government insisting 
 on doing, we went to war, on the principle that the Home Government should not 
 control and govern distant colonies without giving them a representation. Now, Mr. 
 Lincoln proposes to govern the Territories without giving them a representation, and 
 calls on Congress to pass laws controlling their property and domestic concerns with- 
 out their consent and against their will. Thus, he asserts for his party the identical 
 principle asserted by George III. and the Tories of the Revolution. 
 
 I ask you to look into these things, and then tell me whether the Democracy or 
 the Abolitionists are right. I hold that the people of a Territory, like those of a 
 State (I use the language of Mr. Buchanan in his letter of acceptance), have the 
 right to decide for themselves whether slavery shall or shall not exist within their 
 limits. The point upon which Chief Justice Taney expresses his opinion is simply 
 this, that slaves being property, stand on an equal footing with other property, and con- 
 sequently that the owner has the same right to carry that property into a Territory 
 that he has any other, subject to the same conditions. Suppose that one of your 
 merchants was to take fifty or one hundred thousand dollars' worth of liquors to Kan- 
 sas. He has a right to go there under that decision, but when he gets there he finds 
 the Maine liquor law in force, and what can he do with his property after he gets it 
 there ? He cannot sell it, he cannot use it, it is subject to the local law, and that law 
 is against him, and the best thing he can do with it is to bring it back into Missouri 
 or Illinois and sell it. If you take negroes to Kansas, as Col. Jeff. Davis said in his 
 Bangor speech, from which I have quoted to-day, you must take them there subject 
 to the local law. If the people want the institution of slavery they will protect and 
 encourage it ; but if they do not want it they will withhold that protection, and the 
 absence of local legislation protecting slavery excludes it as completely as a positive 
 prohibition. You slaveholders of Missouri might as well understand what you know 
 practically, that you cannot carry slavery where the people do not want it. All you 
 have a right to ask is that the people shall do as they please ; if they want slavery 
 let them have it ; if they do not want it, allow them to refuse to encourage it. 
 
 My friends, if, as I have said before, we will only live up to this great fundamental 
 principle, there will be peace between the North and the South. Mr. Lincoln admits 
 that under the Constitution on all domestic questions, except slavery, we ought not to 
 interfere with the people of each State. What right have we to interfere with 
 slavery any more than we have to interfere with any other question ? He says that 
 this slavery question is now the bone of contention. Why ? Simply because agita- 
 tors have combined in all the free States to make war upon it. Suppose the agitators 
 in the States should combine in one-half of the Union to make war upon the rail- 
 road system of the other half? They would thus be driven to the same sectional 
 strife. Suppose one section makes war upon any other peculiar institution of the 
 opposite section, and the same strife is produced. The only remedy and safety is 
 that we shall stand by the Constitution as our fathers made it, obey the laws as they 
 are passed, while they stand the proper test and sustain the decisions of the Supreme 
 Court and the constituted authorities.
 
 240 
 
 SPEECH OF HON. ABRAHAM LINCOLN, 
 
 At Columbus, Ohio, September, 1859. 
 
 FELLOW-CITIZENS OP THE STATE OF OHIO: I cannot fail to remember that I 
 appear for the first time before an audience in this now great State an audience 
 that is accustomed to hear such speakers as Corwin, and Chase, and Wade, and 
 many other renowned men ; and, remembering this, I feel that it will be well for you, 
 as for me, that you should not raise your expectations to that standard to which you 
 would have been justified in raising them had one of these distinguished men ap- 
 peared before you. You would perhaps be only preparing a disappointment for 
 yourselves, and, as a consequence of your disappointment, mortification to me. I 
 hope, therefore, that you will commence with very moderate expectations ; and per- 
 haps, if you will give me your attention, I shall be able to interest you to a moderate de- 
 gree. 
 
 Appearing here for the first time in my life, I have been somewhat embarrassed 
 for a topic by way of introduction to my speech ; but I have been relieved from that 
 embarrassment by an introduction which the Ohio Statesman newspaper gave me 
 this morning. In this paper I have read an article, in which, among other state- 
 ments, I find the following : 
 
 " In debating with Senator Douglas during the memorable contest of last fall, Mr. 
 Lincoln declared in favor of negro suffrage, and attempted to defend that vile concep- 
 tion against the Little Giant." 
 
 I mention this now, at the opening of my remarks, for the purpose of making 
 three comments upon it. The first I have already announced it furnishes me an in- 
 troductory topic ; the second is to show that the gentleman is mistaken ; thirdly, to 
 give him an opportunity to correct it. 
 
 In the first place, in regard to this matter being a mistake. I have found that it 
 is not entirely safe, when one is misrepresented under his very nose, to allow the 
 misrepresentation to go uncontradicted. I therefore propose, here at the outset, not 
 only to say that this is a misrepresentation, but to show conclusively that it is so ; and 
 you will bear with me while I read a couple of extracts from that very " memora- 
 ble" debate with Judge Douglas last year, to which this newspaper refers. In the 
 first pitched battle which Senator Douglas and myself had, at the town of Ottawa, I 
 ,used the language which I will now read. Having been previously reading an ex- 
 tract, I continued as follows : 
 
 " Now, gentlemen, I don't want to read at any greater length, but this is the true 
 complexion of all I have ever said in regard to the institution of slavery and the 
 b ] ack race. This is the whole of it, and any thing that argues me intp his idea of 
 ^perfect social and political equality with the negro, is but a specious and fantastic ar- 
 rangement of words, by which a man can prove a horse-chestnut to be a chestnut horse. 
 I will say here, while upon this subject, that I have no purpose directly or indirectly 
 to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I 
 have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so. I have no purpose 
 to introduce political and social equality between the white and the black races. 
 There is a physical difference between the two which, in my judgment, will probably 
 forbid their ever living together upon the footing of perfect equality, and inasmuch as 
 it becomes a necessity that there must be a difference, I, as well as Judge Douglas, 
 am in favor of the race to which I belong having the superior position. I have 
 never said any thing 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 enumer-
 
 241 
 
 ated in the Declaration of Independence, the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of 
 happiness. I hold that he is as much entitled to these as the white man. I agree 
 with Judge Douglas, he is not my equal in many respects certainly not in color, 
 perhaps not in moral or intellectual endowments. But in the right to 'eat the bread, 
 without leave of any body else, which his own hand earns, he is my equal, and th* 
 equal of Judge Douglas, and the equal of every living man" 
 
 Upon a subsequent occasion, when the reason for making a statement like this re- 
 curred. I said : 
 
 " While I was at the hotel to-day an elderly gentleman called upon me to kn<^w 
 whether I was really in favor of producing perfect equality between the negroes and 
 white people. While I had not proposed to myself on this occasion to say much on 
 that subject, yet as the question was asked me I thought I would occupy perhaps five 
 minutes in saying something in. regard to it. I will say then, that I am not nor ever 
 have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of 
 the white and black races that I am not or ever have been in favor of making 
 voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, or intermarry with 
 the white people ; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference be- 
 tween the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living 
 together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot 
 so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and in- 
 ferior, and I, as much as any other man, am in favor of having the superior position 
 assigned to the white race. I say upon this occasion I do not perceive that because 
 the white man is to have the superior position, the negro should be denied every thing. 
 I do not understand that because I do not want a negro woman for a slave, I must 
 necessarily want her for a wife. My understanding is that I can just let her alone. 
 I am now in my fiftieth year, and I certainly never have had a black woman for 
 either a slave or a wife. So it seems to me quite possible for us to get along without 
 making either slaves or wives of negroes. I will add to this that I have never seen to my 
 knowledge a man, woman or child, who was in favor of producing perfect equality, 
 social and political, between negroes and white men. I recollect of but one distin- 
 guished instance that I ever heard of so frequently as to be satisfied of its correctness 
 and that is the case of Judge Douglas's old friend. Col. Richard M. Johnson. I 
 will also add to the remarks I have made (for I am not goinjr to enter at large upon 
 this subject), that I have never had the least apprehension that I or my friends would 
 marry negroes, if there was no law to keep them from it ; but as Judge Douglas and 
 his friends seem to be in great apprehension that they might, if there were no law to 
 keep them from it, I give him the most solemn pledge that I will to the very last 
 &tand by the law of the State, which forbids the marrying of white people with ne- 
 groes." 
 
 There, my friends, you have briefly what I have, upon former occasions, said upon 
 the subject to which this newspaper, to the extent of its ability, has drawn the public 
 attention. In it you not only perceive, as a probability, that in that contest I did not 
 at any time say I was in favor of negro suffrage ; but the absolute proof that twice 
 once substantially and once expressly I declared against it. Having shown you 
 this, there remains but a word of comment upon that newspaper article. It is 
 this : that I presume the editor of that paper is an honest and truth-loving man, and 
 that he will be greatly obliged to me for furnishing him thus early an opportunity 
 to correct the misrepresentation he has made, before it has run so long that malicious 
 people can call him a liar. 
 
 The Giant himself has been here recently. I have seen a brief report of his 
 speech. If it were otherwise unpleasant to me to introduce the subject of the negro 
 as a topic for discussion, I might be somewhat relieved by the fact that he dealt ex- 
 clusively in that subject while he was here. I shall, therefore, without much hesita- 
 tion or diffidence, enter upon this subject 
 
 The American people, on the first day of January, 1854, found the African slave- 
 trade prohibited by a law of Congress. In a majority of the States of this Union,
 
 242 
 
 they found African slavery, or any other sort of slavery, prohibited ly State Consti 
 tutions. They also found a law existing, supposed to be valid, by which slavery was 
 excluded from almost all the territory the United States then owned. This was the 
 condition of the country, with reference to the institution of slavery, on the first of Janu- 
 ary, 1854. A few days after that, a bill was introduced into Congress, which ran through 
 its regular course in the two branches of the National Legislature, and finally passed 
 into a law in the month of May, by which the act of Congress prohibiting slavery 
 from going into the Territories of the United States was repealed. In connection 
 with the law itself, and, in fact, in the terms of the law, the then existing prohibition 
 was not only repealed, but there was a declaration of a purpose on the part of Con- 
 gress never thereafter to exercise any power that they might have, real or supposed, 
 to prohibit the extension or spread of slavery. This was a very great change ; for 
 the Inw thus repealed was of more than thirty years' standing. Following rapidly 
 upon the heels of this action of Congress, a decision of the Supreme Court is made, 
 by which it is declared that Congress, if it desires to prohibit the spread of slavery 
 into the Territories, has no Constitutional power to do so. Not only so, but that de- 
 cision lays down principles, which, if pushed to their logical conclusion I say pushed 
 to their logical conclusion would decide that the Constitutions of free States, for- 
 bidding slavery, are themselves unconstitutional. Mark me, I do not say the Judge 
 said this, and let no man say I affirm the Judge used these words ; but I only say it 
 is my opinion that what they did say, if pressed to its logical conclusion, will inevita- 
 bly result thus. 
 
 Looking at these things, the Republican party, as I understand its principles and 
 policy, believe that there is great danger of the institution of slavery being spread 
 out and extended, until it is ultimately made alike lawful in all the States of this 
 Union ; so believing, to prevent that incidental and ultimate consummation, is the 
 original and chief purpose of the Republican organization. I say " chief purpose " 
 of the Republican organization ; for it is certainly true that if the National House 
 shall fall into the hands of the Republicans, they will have to attend to all the other 
 matters of National House-keeping, as well as this. The chief and real purpose of 
 the Republican party is eminently conservative. It proposes nothing save and ex- 
 cept to restore this Government to its original tone in regard to this element of slavery, 
 and there to maintain it, looking for no further change in reference to it, than that 
 which the original framers of the Government themselves expected and looked for- 
 ward to. 
 
 The chief danger to this purpose of the Republican party is not just now the re- 
 vival of the African slave-trade, or the passage of a Congressional slave code, or the 
 declaring of a second Dred Scott decision, making slavery lawful in all the States. 
 These are not pressing us just now. They are not quite ready yet. The authors of 
 these measures know that we are too strong for them ; but they will be upon us in 
 due time, and we will be grappling with them hand to hand, if they are not now 
 headed oif. They are not now the chief danger to the purpose of the Republican 
 organization ; but the most imminent danger that now threatens that purpose is thai 
 insidious Douglas Popular Sovereignty. This is the miner and sapper. While it 
 does not propose to revive the African slave-trade, nor to pass a slave code, nor to 
 make a second Dred Scott decision, it is preparing us for the onslaught and charge 
 of these ultimate enemies when they shall be ready to come on and the word of com- 
 mand for them to advance shall be given. I say this Douglas Popular Sovereignty 
 for there is a broad distinction, as I now understand it, between that article and a 
 genuine Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 I believe there is a genuine popular sovereignty. I think a definition of genuine 
 popular sovereignty, in the abstract, would be about this : That each man shall do pre- 
 cisely as he pleases with himself, and with all those things which exclusively concern 
 him. Applied to Government, this principle would be, that a General Government 
 shall do all those things which pertain to it, and all the local Governments shall do 
 precisely as they please in respect to those matters which exclusively concern them.
 
 243 
 
 I understand that this Government of the United States, under which we live, is 
 based upon this principle ; and I am misunderstood if it is supposed that I have any 
 war to make upon that principle. 
 
 Now, what is Judge Douglas's Popular Sovereignty? It is, as a principle, no 
 other than that, if one man chooses to make a slave of another marr., neither that 
 other man nor any body else has a right to object. Applied in Government, as he 
 seeks to apply it, it is this : If, in a new Territory into which a few people are begin- 
 ning to enter for the purpose of making their homes, they choose to either exclude 
 slavery from their limits, or to establish it there, however one or the other may affect 
 the persons to be enslaved, or the infinitely greater number of persons who are after- 
 ward to inhabit that Territory, or the other members of the families of communities, 
 of which they are but an incipient member, or the general head of the family of 
 State* as parent of all however their action may affect one or the other of these, 
 there is no power or right to interfere. That is Douglas's popular sovereignty ap- 
 plied. 
 
 He has a good deal of trouble with popular sovereignty. His explanations ex- 
 planatory of explanations explained are interminable. The most lengthy, and, as I 
 suppose, the most maturely considered of his long series of explanations, is his great 
 essay in Harper's Magazine. I will not attempt to enter on any very thorough in- 
 vestigation of his argument, as there made and presented. I will nevertheless occupy 
 a good portion of your time here in drawing your attention to certain points in it. 
 Such of you as may have read this document will have perceived that the Judge, 
 early in the document, quotes from two persons as belonging to the Republican party, 
 without naming them, but who can readily be recognized as being Gov. Seward of 
 New York and myself. It is true, that exactly fifteen months ago this day, I believe, I 
 for the first time expressed a sentiment upon this subject, and in such a manner that it 
 should get into print, that the public might see it beyond the circle of my hearers ; 
 and my expression of it at that time is the quotation that Judge Douglas makes. 
 He has not made the quotation with accuracy, but justice to him requires me to say 
 that it is sufficiently accurate not to change its sense. 
 
 The sense of that quotation condensed is this that this slavery element is a dur- 
 able element of discord among us, and that we shall probably not have perfect peace in 
 this country with it until it either masters the free principle in our Government, or 
 is so far mastered by the free principle as for the public mind to rest in the belief 
 that it is going to its end. This sentiment, which I now express in this way, was, at 
 no great distance of time, perhaps in different language, and in connection with some 
 collateral ideas, expressed by Gov. Seward. Judge Douglas has been so much an- 
 noyed by the expression of that sentiment that he has constantly, I believe, in almost 
 all his speeches since it was uttered, been referring to it. I find he alluded to it in 
 his speech here, as well as in the copy-right essay. I do not now enter upon thig 
 for the purpose of making an elaborate argument to show that we were right in the 
 expression of that sentiment. In other words, I shall not stop to say all that might 
 properly be said upon this point; but I only ask your attention to it for the purpose 
 of making one or two point upon it. 
 
 If you will read the copy-right essay, you will discover that Judge Douglas him- 
 self says a controversy between the American Colonies and the Government of Great 
 Britain began on the slavery question in 1699, and continued from that time until 
 tie Revolution; and, while he did not say so, we all know that it has continued with 
 more or less violence ever since the Revolution. 
 
 Then we need not appeal to history, to the declarations of the framers of the Gov- 
 ernment, but we know from Judge Douglas himself that slavery began to be an ele- 
 ment of discord among the white people of this country as far back as 1699, or one 
 hundred and sixty years ago, or five generations of men counting thirty years to a 
 generation. Now it would seem to me that it might have occurred to Judge Douglas, 
 or any body who had turned his attention to these facts, that there was something in 
 the nature of that thing, slavery, somewhat durable for mischief and discord.
 
 244 
 
 There is another point I desire to make in regard to this matter, before I leave 
 it From the adoption of the Constitution down to 1820 is the precise period of our 
 history when we had comparative peace upon this question the precise period of 
 time when we came nearer to having peace about it than any other time of that 
 entire one hundred and sixty years, in which he says it began, or of the eighty years 
 of our own Constitution. Then it would be worth our while to stop and examine 
 into the probable reason of our coming nearer to having peace then than at any other 
 time. This was the precise period of time in which our fathers adopted, and during 
 which they followed, a policy restricting the spread of slavery, and the whole Union 
 was acquiescing in it. The whole country looked forward to the ultimate extinction 
 of the institution. It was when a policy had been adopted and was prevailing, which 
 led all just and right-minded men to suppose that slavery was gradually corning to 
 an end, and that they might be quiet about it, watching it as it expired. I think 
 Judge Douglas might have perceived that too, and whether he did or not, it is worth 
 the attention of fair-minded men, here and elsewhere, to consider whether that is not 
 the truth of the case. If he had looked at these two facts, that this matter has been 
 an element of discord for one hundred and sixty years among this people, and that 
 the only comparative peace we have had about it was when that policy prevailed in 
 this Government, which he now wars upon, he might then, perhaps, have been 
 brought to a more just appreciation of what I said fifteen months ago that " a 
 house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe that this Government cannot 
 endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the house to fall. I 
 do not expect the Union to dissolve ; but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It 
 will become all one thing or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will 
 arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind will rest in the 
 belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction ; or its advocates will push it 
 forward, until it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new, north 
 as well as south." That was my sentiment at that time. In connection with it, I 
 said, " we are now far into the fifth year, since a policy was inaugurated with the 
 avowed object and confident promise of putting an end to slavery agitation. Under 
 the operation of the policy, that agitation has not only not ceased, but has constantly 
 augmented." I now say to you here that we are advanced still farther into the 
 sixth year since that policy of Judge Douglas that Popular Sovereignty of his, for 
 quieting the slavery question was made the national policy. Fifteen months more 
 have been added since I uttered that sentiment, and I call upon you, and all other 
 right-minded men, to say whether that fifteen months have belied or corroborated my 
 words. 
 
 While I am here upon this subject, I cannot but express gratitude that this true 
 view of this element of discord among us as I believe it is is attracting more and 
 more attention. I do not believe that Gov. Seward uttered that sentiment because 
 I had done so before, but because he reflected upon this subject and saw the truth 
 of it. Nor do I believe, because Gov. Seward or I uttered it, that Mr. Hickman 
 of Pennsylvania, in different language, since that time, has declared his belief in the 
 utter antagonism which exists between the principles of liberty and slavery. You 
 se<? we are multiplying. Now, while I am speaking of Hickman, let me say, I know 
 but little about him. I have never seen him, and know scarcely any thing about the 
 man ; but I will say this much of him : Of all the anti-Lecompton Democracy that 
 have been brought to my notice, he alone has the true, genuine ring of the metal. 
 And now, without indorsing any thing else he has said, I will ask this audience to 
 give three cheers for Hickman. [The audience responded with three rousing cheers 
 tor Hickman.] 
 
 Another point in the copy-right essay to which I would ask your attention, is 
 rather a feature to be extracted from the whole thing, than from any express 
 declaration of it at any point. It is a general feature of that document, and 
 indeed, of all of Judge Douglas's discussions of this question, that the Terri- 
 tories of the United States and the States of this Union are exactly alike
 
 245 
 
 that there is no difference between them at all that the Constitution applies 
 to the Territories precisely as it does to the States and that the United States Gov- 
 ernment, under the Constitution, may not do in a State what it may not do in a Ter- 
 ritory, and what it must do in a State, it must do in a Territory. Gentlemen, is that 
 a true view of the case ? It is necessary for this squatter sovereignty ; but is it true ? 
 
 Let us consider. What does it depend upon ? It depends altogether upon the 
 proposition that the States must, without the interference of the General Govern- 
 ment, do all those things that pertain exclusively to themselves that are local in 
 their nature, that have no connection with the General Government. After Judge 
 Douglas has established this proposition, which nobody disputes or ever has disputed, 
 he proceeds to assume, without proving it, that slavery is one of those little, unim- 
 portant, trivial matters which are of just about as much consequence as the question 
 would be to me, whether my neighbor should raise horned cattle or plant tobacco ; 
 that there is no moral question about it, but that it is altogether a matter of dollars 
 and cents ; that when a new Territory is opened for settlement, the first man who 
 goes into it may plant there a thing which, like the Canada thistle or some other of 
 those pests of the soil, cannot be dug out by the millions of men who will come there- 
 after ; that it is one of those little things that is so trivial in its nature that it has no 
 effect upon any body save the few men who first plant upon the soil ; that it is not a 
 thing which in any way affects the family of communities composing these States, 
 nor any way endangers the General Government. Judge Douglas ignores altogether 
 the very well known fact, that we have never had a serious menace to our political 
 existence, except it sprang from this thing, which he chooses to regard as only upon 
 a par with onions and potatoes. 
 
 Turn it, and contemplate it in another view r . He says, that according to his Pop- 
 ular Sovereignty, the General Government may give to the Territories governors, 
 judges, marshals, secretaries, and all the other chief men to govern them, but they 
 must not touch upon this other question. Why ? The question of who shall be Gov- 
 ernor of a Territory for a year or two, and pass away, without his track being left 
 upon the soil, or an act which he did for good or for evil being left behind, is a ques- 
 tion of vast national magnitude. It is so much opposed in its nature to locality, that 
 the nation itself must decide it ; while this other matter of planting slavery upon a 
 soil a thing which once planted cannot be eradicated by the succeeding millions who 
 have as much right there as the first comers, or if eradicated, not without infinite dif- 
 ficulty and a long struggle he considers the power to prohibit it, as one of these lit- 
 tle, local, trivial things that the nation ought not to say a word about ; that it affects 
 nobody save the few men who are there. 
 
 Take these two things and consider them together, present the question of planting 
 a State with the institution of slavery by the side of a question of who shall be Gov- 
 ernor of Kansas for a year or two, and is there a man here, is there a man on earth, 
 who would not say the Governor question is the little one,.and the slavery question 
 is the great one ? I ask any honest Democrat if the small, the local, and the trivial 
 and temporary question is not, who shall be Governor ? While the durable, the im- 
 portant and the mischievous one is, shall this soil be planted with slavery ? 
 
 This is an idea, I suppose, which has arisen in Judge Douglas's mind from his pe- 
 culiar structure. I suppose the institution of slavery really looks small to him. He 
 is so put up by nature that a lash upon his back would hurt him, but a lash upon any 
 body else's back does not hurt him. That is the build of the man, and consequently 
 he looks upon the matter of slavery in this unimportant light. 
 
 Judge Douglas ought to remember when he is endeavoring to force this policy up- 
 on the American people that while he is put up in that way a good many are not. 
 He ought to remember that there was once in this country a man by the name of 
 Thomas Jefferson, supposed to be a Democrat a man whose principles and policy 
 are not very prevalent amongst Democrats to-day, it is true ; but that man did not 
 take exactly this view of the insignificance of the element of slavery which our friend 
 Judge Douglas does. In contemplation of this thing, we all know he was led to ex-
 
 246 
 
 claim, " I tremble for my country when I remember that God is just ! " We know 
 how he looked upon it when he thus expressed himself. There was danger to this 
 country danger of the avenging justice of God in that little unimportant Popular 
 Sovereignty question of Judge Douglas. He supposed there was a question of God's 
 eternal justice wrapped up in the enslaving of any race of men, or any man, and that 
 those who did so braved the arm of Jehovah that when a nation thus dared the Al- 
 mighty, every friend of that nation had cause to dread his wrath. Choose ye be- 
 tween Jefferson and Douglas as to what is the true view of this element among us. 
 
 There is another little difficulty about this matter of treating the Territories and 
 States alike in all things, to which I ask your attention, and I shall leave this branch 
 of the case. If there is no difference between them, why not make the Territories 
 States at once ? What is the reason that Kansas was not fit to come into the Union 
 when it was organized into a Territory, in Judge Douglas's view ? Can any of you 
 tell any reason why it should not have come into the Union at once ? They are fit, 
 as he thinks, to decide upon the slavery question the largest and most important 
 with which they could possibly deal what could they do by coming into the Union 
 that they are not fit to do, according to his view, by staying out of it ? Oh, they are 
 not fit to sit in Congress and decide upon the rates of postage, or questions of ad va- 
 lorem or specific duties on foreign goods, or live oak timber contracts ; they are not 
 fit to decide these vastly important matters, which are national in their import, but 
 they are fit, " from the jump," to decide this little negro question. But, gentlemen, 
 the case is too plain ; I occupy too much time on this head, and I pass on. 
 
 Near the close of the copy-right essay, the Judge, I think, comes very near kicking 
 his own fat into the fire. I did not think, when I commenced these remarks, that I 
 would read from that article, but I now believe I will : 
 
 " This exposition of the history of these measures, shows conclusively that the au- 
 thors of the Compromise Measures of 1850 and of the Kansas-Nebraska act of 
 1854, as well as the members of the Continental Congress of 1774, and the found- 
 ers of our system of Government subsequent to the Revolution, regarded the people 
 of the Territories and Colonies as political communities which were entitled to a free 
 and exclusive power of legislation in their provisional legislatures, where their repre- 
 sentation could alone be preserved, in all cases of taxation and internal polity." 
 
 When the Judge saw that putting in the word " slavery " would contradict his own 
 history, he put in what he knew would pass as synonymous with it : " internal poli- 
 ty." Whenever we find that in one of his speeches, the substitute is used in this 
 manner ; and I can tell you the reason. It would be too bald a contradiction to say 
 slavery, but "internal polity" is a general phrase, which would pass in some quar- 
 ters, and which he hopes will pass with the reading community for the same thing : 
 
 " This right pertains to the people collectively, as a law-abiding and peaceful com- 
 munity, and not in the isolated individuals who may wander upon the public domain 
 in violation of the law. It can only be exercised where there are inhabitants suffi- 
 cient to constitute a Government, and capable of performing its various functions and 
 duties, a fact to be ascertained and determined by" who do you think ? Judge 
 Douglas says " By Congress ! " 
 
 " Whether the number shall be fixed at ten, fifteen or twenty thousand inhabitants, 
 does not affect the principle." 
 
 Now I have only a few comments to make. Popular Sovereignty, by his own 
 words, does not pertain to the few persons who wander upon the public domain in vi- 
 olation of law. We have his words for that. When it does pertain to them, is when 
 they are sufficient to be formed into an organized political community, and he fixes 
 the minimum for that at 10,000, and the maximum at 20,000. Now I would like 
 to know what is to be done with the 9,000 ? Are they all to be treated, until they 
 are large enough to be organized into a political community, as wanderers upon the 
 public land in violation of law ? And if so treated and driven out, at what point of 
 time would there ever be ten thousand ? If they were not driven out, but remained 
 there as trespassers upon the public land in violation of the law, can they establish
 
 247 
 
 slavery there ? No, the Judge says Popular Sovereignty don't pertain to them 
 then. Can they exclude it then ? No, Popular Sovereignty don't pertain to them 
 then. I would like to know, in the case covered by the Essay, what condition the 
 people of the Territory are in before they reach the number of ten thousand ? 
 
 But the main point I wish to ask attention to is, that the question as to when they 
 shall have reached a sufficient number to be formed into a regular organized commu- 
 nity, is K be decided "by Congress." Judge Douglas says so. Well, gentlemen, 
 that is about all we want. No, that is all the Southerners want. That is what all 
 those who are for slavery want. They do not want Congress to prohibit slavery from 
 coming into the new Territories, and they do not want Popular Sovereignty to hin- 
 der it; and as Congress is to say when they are ready to be organized, all that the 
 South has to do, is to get Congress to hold off. Let Congress hold off until they are 
 ready to be admitted as a State, and the South has all it wants in taking slavery into 
 and planting it in all the Territories that we now have, or hereafter may have. In 
 a word, the whole thing, at a dash of the pen, is at last put in the power of Con- 
 gress ; for if they do not have this Popular Sovereignty until Congress organizes 
 them, I ask if it at last does not come from Congress ? If, at last, it amounts to any 
 thing at all, Congress gives it to them. I submit this rather for your reflection than 
 for comment. After all that is said, at last by a dash of the pen, every thing thai 
 has gone before is undone, and he puts the whole question under the control of Con- 
 gress. After fighting through more than three hours, if you undertake to read it, he 
 at last places the whole matter under the control of that power which he had been 
 contending against, and arrives at a result directly contrary to what he had been la- 
 boring to do. He at last leaves the whole matter to the control of Congress. 
 
 There are two main objects, as I understand it, of this Harper's Magazine essay. 
 One was to show, if possible, that the men of our revolutionary times were in favor 
 of his Popular Sovereignty ; and the other was to show that the Dred Scott decision 
 had not entirely squelched out this Popular Sovereignty. I do not propose, hi re- 
 gard to this argument drawn from the history of former times, to enter into a detailed 
 examination of the historical statements he has made. I have the impression that 
 they are inaccurate in a great many instances. Sometimes in positive statement, but 
 very much more inaccurate by the suppression of statements that really belong to the 
 history. But I do not propose to affirm that this is so to any very great extent ; or to 
 enter into a very minute examination of his historical statements. I avoid doing so 
 upon this principle that if it were important for me to pass out of this lot in the 
 least period of time possible, and I came to that fence and saw by a calculation of 
 my known strength and agility that I could clear it at a bound, it would be folly for 
 me to stop and consider whether I could or not crawl through a crack. So I say of 
 the whole history, contained in his essay, where he endeavored to link the men of the 
 Revolution to Popular Sovereignty. It only requires an effort to leap out of it a 
 single bound to be entirely successful. If you read it over you will find that he 
 quotes here and there from documents of the revolutionary times, tending to show 
 that the people of the colonies were desirous of regulating their own concerns in their 
 own way, that the British Government should not interfere ; that at one time they 
 struggled with the British Government to be permitted to exclude the African slave- 
 trade ; if not directly, to be permitted to exclude it indirectly by taxation sufficient 
 to discourage and destroy it. From these and many things of this sort, Judge Doug- 
 la:, argues that they were in favor of the people of our own Territories excluding 
 slavery if they wanted to, or planting it there if they wanted tc, doing just as they 
 pleased from the time they settled upon the Territory. Now, however his history 
 may apply, and whatever of his argument there may be that is sound and accurate 
 or unsound and inaccurate, if we can find out what these men did themselves do up- 
 on this very question of slavery in the Territories, does it riot end the whole thing? 
 If after all this labor and effort to show that the men of the Revolution were in favor 
 of his Popular Sovereignty and his mode of dealing with slavery in the Territories, 
 we can show that these very men took hold of that subject, and dealt with it, we can
 
 248 
 
 see for ourselves how they dealt with it. It is not a matter of argument or infer- 
 ence, but we know what they thought about it 
 
 It is precisely upon that part of the history of the country, that one important 
 omission is made by Judge Douglas. He selects parts of the history of the United 
 States upon the subject of slavery, and treats it as the whole, omitting from his histor- 
 ical sketch the legislation of Congress in regard to the admission of Missouri, by 
 which the Missouri Compromise was established, and slavery excluded from a country 
 half as large as the present United States. All this is left out of his history, and in 
 nowise alluded to by him, so far as I can remember, save once, when he makes a 
 remark, that upon his principle the Supreme Court were authorized to pronounce a 
 decisioi that the act called the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional. All that 
 history has been left out. But this part of the history of the country was not made 
 by the men of the Revolution. 
 
 There was another part of our political history made by the very men who were 
 the actors in the Revolution, which has taken the name of the Ordinance of '87. 
 Let me bring that history to your attention. In 1784, I believe, this same Mr. Jef- 
 ferson drew up an ordinance for the government of the country upon which we now 
 stand ; or rather a frame or draft of an ordinance for the government of this coun- 
 try, here in Ohio, our neighbors in Indiana, us who live in Illinois, our neighbors in 
 Wisconsin and Michigan. In that ordinance, drawn up not only for the government 
 of that Territory, but for the Territories south of the Ohio River, Mr. Jefferson 
 expressly provided for the prohibition of slavery. Judge Douglas says, and perhaps 
 is right, that that provision was lost from that ordinance. I believe that is true. 
 When the vote was taken upon it, a majority of all present in the Congress of the 
 Confederation voted for it ; but there were so many absentees that those voting for 
 it did not make the clear majority necessary, and it was lost. But three years after 
 that the Congress of the Confederation were together again, and they adopted a new 
 ordinance for the government of this Northwest Territory, not contemplating terri- 
 tory south of the river, for the States owning that territory had hitherto refrained 
 from giving it to the General Government ; hence they made the ordinance to apply 
 only to what the Government owned. In that, the provision excluding slavery was 
 inserted and passed unanimously, or at any rate it passed and became a part of the 
 law of the land. Under that ordinance we live. First here in Ohio you were a 
 Territory, then an enabling act was passed, authorizing you to form a Constitution 
 and State Government, provided it was republican and not in conflict with the Ordi- 
 nance of '87. When you framed your Constitution and presented it for admission, 
 I think you will find the legislation upon the subject will show that, " whereas you 
 had formed a Constitution that was republican, and not in conflict with the Ordinance of 
 '87," therefore, you were admitted upon equal footing with the original States. The 
 same process in a few years was gone through with in Indiana, and so with Illinois, 
 and the same substantially with Michigan and Wisconsin. 
 
 Not only did that ordinance prevail, but it was constantly looked to whenever a 
 step was taken by a new Territory to become a State. Congress always turned 
 their attention to it, and in all their movements upon this subject, they traced their 
 course by that Ordinance of '87. When they admitted new States, they advertised 
 them of this ordinance as a part of the legislation of the country. They did so be- 
 cause they had traced the Ordinance of '87 throughout the history of this country. 
 Begin with the men of the Revolution, and go down for sixty entire years, and until 
 the last scrap of that Territory comes into the Union in the form of the State of 
 Wisconsin every thing was made to conform with the Ordinance of '87, excluding 
 slavery from that vast extent of country. 
 
 I omitted to mention in the right place that the Constitution of the United States 
 was in process of being framed when that ordinance was made by the Congress 
 of the Confederation ; and one of the first acts of Congress itself, under the new 
 Constitution itself, was to give force to that ordinance by putting power to carry it 
 out in the hands of the new officers under the Constitution, in the place of the old
 
 249 
 
 ones, who had been legislated out of existence by the change in the Government 
 from the Confederation to the Constitution. Not only so, but I believe Indiana once 
 or twice, if not Ohio, petitioned the General Government for the privilege of sus- 
 pending that provision and allowing them to have slaves. A report made by Mr. 
 Randolph, of Virginia, himself a slaveholder, was directly against it, and the action 
 was to refuse them the privilege of violating the Ordinance of '87. 
 
 This period of history, which I have run over briefly, is, I presume, as familiar to 
 most of this assembly as any other part of the history of our country. I suppose 
 that few of my hearers are not as familiar with that part of history as I am, and I 
 only mention it to recall your attention to it at this time. And hence I ask how ex- 
 traordinary a thing it is that a man who has occupied a position upon the floor of the 
 Senate of the United Slates, who is now in his third term, and who looks to see the 
 Government of this whole country fall into his own hands, pretending to give a 
 truthful and accurate history of the slavery question in this country, should so en- 
 tirely ignore the whole of that portion of our history the most important of all. 
 Is it not a most extraordinary spectacle, that a man should stand up and ask for any 
 confidence in his statements, who sets out as he does with portions of history, calling 
 upon the people to believe that it is a true and fair representation, when the leading 
 part, and controlling feature, of the whole history is carefully suppressed ? 
 . But the mere leaving out is not the most remarkable feature of this most remark- 
 able essay. His proposition is to establish that the leading men of the Revolution 
 were for his great principle of non-intervention by the Government in the question 
 of slavery in the Territories ; while history shows that they decided in the cases 
 actually brought before them, in exactly the contrary way, and he knows it. Not 
 only did they so decide at that time, but they stuck to it during sixty years, through 
 thick and thin, as long as there was one of the revolutionary heroes upon the stage 
 of political action. Through their whole course, from first to last, they clung to 
 freedom. And now he asks the community to believe that the men of the Revolu- 
 tion were in favor of his great principle, when we have the naked history that they 
 themselves dealt with this very subject-matter of his principle, and utterly re- 
 pudiated his principle, acting upon a precisely contrary ground. It is as im- 
 pudent and absurd as if a prosecuting attorney should stand up before a jury, 
 and ask them to convict A as the murderer of B, while B was walking alive before 
 them. 
 
 I say again, if Judge Douglas asserts that the men of the Revolution acted upon 
 principles by which, to be consistent with themselves, they ought to have adopted his 
 popular sovereignty, then, upon a consideration of his own argument, he had a right 
 to make you believe that they understood the principles of government, but misap- 
 plied them that he has arisen to enlighten the world as to the just application of 
 tJbis principle. He has a right to try to persuade you that he understands their 
 principles better than they did, and, therefore, he will apply them now, not as they 
 did, but as they ought to have done. He has a right to go before the community, 
 and try to convince them of this ; but he has no right to attempt to impose upon 
 any one the belief that these men themselves approved of his great principle. 
 There are two ways of establishing a proposition. One is by trying to demonstrate 
 it upon reason ; and the other is, to show that great men in former times have 
 thought so and so, and thus to pass it by the weight of pure authority. Now, if Judge 
 Douglas will demonstrate somehow that this is popular sovereignty the right of one 
 man to make a slave of another, without any right in that other, or any one else to 
 object demonstrate it as Euclid demonstrated propositions there is no objection. 
 But when he comes forward, seeking to carry a principle by bringing to it the au- 
 thority of men who themselves utterly repudiate that principle, I ask that he shall 
 not be permitted to do it. 
 
 I see, in the Judge's speech here, a short sentence in these words : " Our fathers, 
 when they formed this Government under which we live, understood this question 
 just as well and even better than we do now." That is true ; I stick to that. I
 
 250 
 
 will stand by Judge Douglas in that to the bitter end. And now, Judge Douglas, 
 come and stand by me, and truthfully show how they acted, understanding it better 
 than we do. All I ask of you, Judge Douglas, is to stick to the proposition that the 
 men of the Revolution understood this subject better than we do now, and with thai 
 better understanding they acted better than you are trying to act now. 
 
 I wish to say something now in regard to the Dred Scott decision, as dealt with 
 by Judge Douglas. In that " memorable debate " between Judge Douglas and my- 
 self, last year, the Judge thought fit to commence a process of catechising me, and 
 at Freeport I answered his questions, and propounded some to him. Among others 
 propounded to him was one that I have here now. The substance, as I remember 
 it, is, " Can the people of a United States Territory, under the Dred Scott decision, 
 in any lawful way, against the wish of any citizen of the United States, exclude 
 slavery from its limits, prior to the formation of a State Constitution?" He answered 
 that they could lawfully exclude slavery from the United States Territories, notwith- 
 standing the Dred Scott decision. There was something about that answer that has 
 probably been a trouble to the Judge ever since. 
 
 The Dred Scott decision expressly gives every citizen of the United States a 
 right to carry his slaves into the United States Territories. And now there was 
 some inconsistency in saying that the decision was right, and saying, too, that the 
 people of the Territory could lawfully drive slavery out again. When all the trash, 
 the words, the collateral matter, was cleared away from it all the chaff was fanned 
 out of it, it was a bare absurdity no less than that a thing may be lawfully driven 
 aio ay from where it has a lawful right to be. Clear it of all the verbiage, and that 
 is the naked truth of his proposition that a thing may be lawfully driven from the 
 place where it has a lawful right to stay. Well, it was because the Judge couldn't 
 help seeing this, that he has had so much trouble with it ; and what I want to ask 
 your especial attention to, just now, is to remind you, if you have not noticed the 
 fact, that the Judge does not any longer say that the people can exclude slavery. 
 He does not say so in the copy-right essay ; he did not say so in the speech that he 
 made here ; and, so far as I know, since his re-election to the Senate, he has never 
 said, as he did at Freeport, that the people of the Territories can exclude slavery. 
 He desires that you, who wish the Territories to remain free, should believe that he 
 stands by that position, but he does not say it himself. He escapes to some extent 
 the absurd position I have stated by changing his language entirely. What he says 
 now is something different in language, and we will consider whether it is not differ- 
 ent in sense too. It is now that the Dred Scott decision, or rather the Constitution 
 under that decision, does not carry slavery into the Territories beyond the power of 
 the people of the Territories to control it as other property. He does not say the 
 people can drive it out, but they can control it as other property. The language is 
 different ; we should consider whether the sense is different. Driving a horse out of 
 this lot is too plain a proposition to be mistaken about ; it is putting him on the other 
 side of the fence. Or it might be a sort of exclusion of him from the lot if you 
 were to kill him and let the worms devour him ; but neither of these things is the 
 same as u controlling him as other property." That would be to feed him, to pam- 
 per him, to ride him, to use and abuse him, to make the most money out of him " as 
 other property ;" but please you, what do the men who are in favor of slavery want 
 more than this? What do they really want, other than that slavery, being in the 
 Territories, shall be controlled as other property ? 
 
 If they want any thing else, I do not comprehend it. I ask your attention to this, 
 first, tor the purpose of pointing out the change of ground the Judge has made ; and, 
 in the second place, the importance of the change that that change is not such as to 
 give you gentlemen who want his popular sovereignty the power to exclude the in- 
 stitution or drive it out at all. I know the Judge sometimes squints at the argument 
 that in controlling it as other property by unfriendly legislation they may control it to 
 death, as you might in the case of a horse, perhaps, feed him so lightly and ride him 
 so much that he would die. But when you come to legislative control, there is some-
 
 251 
 
 thing more to be attended to. I have no doubt, myself, that if the Territories should 
 undertake to control slave property as other property that is, control it in such a 
 way that it would be the most valuable as property, and make it bear its just propor- 
 tion in the way of burdens as property really deal with it as property the Supreme 
 Court of the United States will say, " God speed you and amen." But I undertake 
 to give the opinion, at least, that if the Territories attempt by any direct legislation to 
 drive the man with his slave out of the Territory, or to decide that his slave is free be- 
 cause of his being taken in there, or to tax him to such an extent that he cannot keep 
 him there, the Supreme Court will unhesitatingly decide all such legislation uncon- 
 stitutional, as long as that Supreme Court is constructed as the Dred Scott Supreme 
 Court is. The first two things they have already decided, except that there is a little 
 quibble among lawyers between the words dicta and decision. They have already 
 decided a negro cannot be made free by territorial legislation. 
 
 What is that Dred Scott decision ? Judge Douglas labors to show that it is one 
 thing, while I think it is altogether different. It is a long opinion, but it is all em- 
 bodied in this short statement : " The Constitution of the United States forbids 
 Congress to deprive a man of his property, without due process of law ; the right 
 of property in slaves is distinctly and expressly affirmed in that Constitution ; there- 
 fore if Congress shall undertake to say that a man's slave is no longer his slave, when 
 he crosses a certain line into a Territory, that is depriving him of his property without 
 due process of law, and is unconstitutional." There is the whole Dred Scott decis- 
 ion. They add that if Congress cannot do so itself, Congress cannot confer any 
 power to do so, and hence any effort by the Territorial Legislature to do either of 
 these things is absolutely decided against. It is a foregone conclusion by that court 
 
 Now, as to this indirect mode by " unfriendly legislation," all lawyers here will 
 readily understand that such a proposition cannot be tolerated for a moment, because 
 a legislature cannot indirectly do that which it cannot accomplish directly. Then I 
 say any legislation to control this property, as property, for its benefit as property, 
 would be hailed by this Dred Scott Supreme Court, and fully sustained ; but any 
 legislation driving slave property out, or destroying it as property, directly or indi- 
 rectly, will most assuredly, by that court, be held unconstitutional. 
 
 Judge Douglas says if the Constitution carries slavery into the Territories, beyond 
 the power of the people of the Territories to control it as other property, then it fol- 
 lows logically that every one who swears to support the Constitution of the United 
 States, must give that support to that property which it needs. And if the Constitu- 
 tion carries slavery into the Territories, beyond the power of the people to control it 
 as other property, then it also carries it into the States, because the Constitution is 
 the supreme law of the land. Now, gentlemen, if it were not for my excessive modesty 
 I would say that I told that very thing to Judge Douglas quite a year ago. This 
 argument is here in print, and if it were not for my modesty, as I said, I might call 
 your attention to it. If you read it, you will find that I not only made that argument, 
 but made it better than he has made it since. 
 
 There is, however, this difference. I say now, and said then, there is no sort of 
 question that the Supreme Court has decided that it is the right of the slaveholder to 
 take his slave and hold him in the Territory ; and saying this. Judge Douglas him- 
 self admits the conclusion. He says if that is so, this consequence will follow ; and 
 because this consequence would follow, his argument is, the decision cannot, therefore, 
 be that way " that would spoil my Popular Sovereignty, and it cannot be possible 
 that this great principle has been squelched out in this extraordinary way. It might 
 be, if it were not for the extraordinary consequences of spoiling my humbug." 
 
 Another feature of the Judge's argument about the Dred Scott case is, an effort to 
 show that that decision deals altogether in declarations of negatives ; that the Consti- 
 tution does not affirm any thing as expounded by the Dred Scott decision, but it only 
 declares a want of power a total absence of power, in reference to the Territories. 
 It seems to be his purpose to make the whole of that decision to result in a mere 
 negative declaration of a want of power in Congress to do any thing in relation to this
 
 252 
 
 matter in the Territories. I know the opinion of the Judges states that there is a 
 total absence of power ; but that is, unfortunately, not all it states ; for the Judges 
 add that the right, of property in a slave is distinctly and expressly affirmed in the 
 Constitution. It does not stop at saying that the right of property in a slave is rec- 
 ognized in the Constitution, is declared to exist somewhere in the Constitution, but 
 says it is affirmed in the Constitution. Its language is equivalent to saying that it is 
 embodied and so woven into that instrument that it cannot be detached without break- 
 ing the Constitution itself. In a word, it is part of the Constitution. 
 
 Douglas is singularly unfortunate in his effort to make out that decision to be al- 
 together negative, when the express language at the vital part is that this is distinct- 
 ly affirmed in the Constitution. I think myself, and I repeat it here, that this decis- 
 ion does not merely carry slavery into the Territories, but by its logical conclusion it 
 carries it into the States in which we live. One provision of that Constitution is, that 
 it shall be the supreme law of the land I do not quote the language any Constitu- 
 tion or law of any State to the contrary notwithstanding. This Dred Scott decision 
 says that the right of property in a slave is affirmed in that Constitution, which is 
 the supreme law of the land, any State Constitution or law notwithstanding. Then 
 I say that to destroy a thing which is distinctly affirmed and supported by the su- 
 preme law of the land, even by a State Constitution or law, is a violation of that 
 supreme law, and there is no escape from it. In my judgment there is no avoiding 
 that result, save that the American people shall see that Constitutions are better con- 
 strued than our Constitution is construed in that decision. They must take care that 
 it is more faithfully and truly carried out than it is there expounded. 
 
 I must hasten to a conclusion. Near the beginning of my remarks, I said that this 
 insidious Douglas Popular Sovereignly is the measure that now threatens the pur- 
 pose of the Republican party, to prevent slavery from being nationalized in the United 
 States. I propose to ask your attention for a little while to some propositions in af- 
 firmance o&that statement. Take it just as it stands, and apply it as a principle ; 
 extend and apply that principle elsewhere and consider where it will lead you. I now 
 put this proposition, that Judge Douglas's Popular Sovereignty applied will reopen the 
 African slave-trade ; and I will demonstrate it by any variety of ways in which you 
 can turn the subject or look at it. 
 
 The Judge says that the people of the Territories have the right, by his principle, 
 to have slaves, if they want them. Then I say that the people in Georgia have the 
 right to buy slaves in Africa, if they want them, and I defy any man on earth to 
 show any distinction between the two things to show that the one is either more 
 wicked or more unlawful ; to show, on original principles, that one is better or worse 
 than the other ; or to show by the Constitution, that one differs a whit from the other. 
 He will tell me, doubtless, that there is no Constitutional provision against people 
 taking slaves into the new Territories, and I tell him that there is equally no Constitu- 
 tional provision against buying slaves in Africa. He will tell you that a people, in 
 the exercise of popular sovereignty, ought to do as they please about that thing, and 
 have slaves if they want them ; and I tell you that the people of Georgia are as 
 much entitled to popular sovereignty and to buy slaves in Africa, if they want them, 
 as the people of the Territory are to have slaves if they want them. I ask any 
 man, dealing honestly with himself, to point out a distinction. 
 
 I have recently seen a 1 )tter of Judge Douglas' in which, without stating that to 
 lie the object, he doubtless endeavors to make a distinction between the two. He says 
 he is unalterably opposed to the repeal of the laws against the African slave-trade. 
 And why ? He then seeks to give a reason that would not apply to his popular 
 sovereignty in the Territories. What is that reason? "The abolition of the Afri- 
 can slave-trade is a compromise of the Constitution !" I deny it. There is no truth 
 in the proposition that the abolition of the African slave-trade is a compromise of the 
 Constitution. No man can put his finger on any thing in the Constitution, or on the 
 line of history, which shows it. It is a mere barren assertion, made simply for the
 
 253 
 
 purpose of getting up a distinction between the revival of the African slave-trade 
 and his " great principle." 
 
 At the time the Constitution of the United States was adopted it was expected 
 that the slave-trade would be abolished. I should assert, and insist upon that, if 
 Judge Douglas denied it But I know that it was equally expected that slavery 
 would be excluded from the Territories, and I can show by history, that m regard to 
 these two things, public opinion was exactly alike, while in regard to positive action, 
 there was more done in the Ordinance of '87 to resist the spread of slavery than 
 was ever done to abolish the foreign slave-trade. Lest I be misunderstood, I say 
 again that at the time of the formation of the Constitution, public expectation was 
 /hat the slave-trade would be abolished, but no more so than the spread of slavery in 
 >he Territories should be restrained. They stand alike, except that in the Ordinance 
 if '87 there was a mark left by public opinion, showing that it was more committed 
 igainst the spread of slavery in the Territories than against the foreign slave- 
 trade. 
 
 Compromise ! What word of compromise was there about it. Why, the public 
 sense was then in favor of the abolition of the slave-trade ; but there was at the 
 time a very great commercial interest involved in it and extensive capital in that 
 branch of trade. There were doubtless the incipient stages of improvement in the 
 South in the way of farming, dependent on the slave-trade, and they made a propo- 
 sition to Congress to abolish the trade after allowing it twenty years, a sufficient time 
 for the capital and commerce engaged in it to be transferred to other channels. They 
 made no provision that it should be abolished ki twenty years ; I do not doubt that they 
 expected it would be ; but they made no bargain about it. The public sentiment left 
 no doubt in the minds of any that it would be done away. I repeat, there is nothing 
 in the history of those times in favor of that matter being a compromise of the Con- 
 stitution. It was the public expectation at the time, manifested in a thousand ways, 
 that the spread of slavery should also be restricted. 
 
 Then I say if this principle is established, that there is no wrong in slavery, and 
 whoever wants it has a right to have it, is a matter of dollars and cents, a sort of 
 question as to how they shall deal with brutes, that between us and the negro here 
 there is no sort of question, but that at the South the question is between the negro 
 and the crocodile. That is all. It is a mere matter of policy ; there is a perfect 
 right according to interest to do just as you please when this is done, where this 
 doctrine prevails, the miners and sappers will have formed public opinion for the 
 slave-trade. They will be ready for Jeff. Davis and Stephens and other leaders of 
 that company, to sound the bugle for the revival of the slave-trade, for the second 
 Dred Scott decision, for the flood of slavery to be poured over the free States, while 
 we shall be here tied down and helpless and run over like sheep. 
 
 It is to be a part arid parcel of this same idea, to say to men who want to adhere 
 to the Democratic party, who have always belonged to that party, and are only look- 
 ing about for some excuse to stick to it, but nevertheless hate slavery, that Douglas's 
 popular sovereignty is as good a way as any to oppose slavery. They allow them- 
 selves to be persuaded easily in accordance with their previous dispositions, into this 
 belief, that it is about as good a way of opposing slavery as any, and we can do that 
 without straining our old party ties or breaking up old political associations. We 
 can do so without being called negro worshipers. We can do that without being 
 subjected to the jibes and sneers that are so readily thrown out in place of argument 
 where no argument can be found. So let us stick to this popular sovereignty this 
 insidious popular sovereignty. Now let me call your attention to one thing that has 
 really happened, which shows this gradual and steady debauching of public opinion, 
 this course of preparation for the revival of the slave-trade, for the territorial slave 
 code, and the new Dred Scott decision that is to carry slavery into the free States. 
 Did you ever, five years ago, hear of any body in the world saying that the negro 
 had no share in the Declaration of National Independence; that it did not 
 17
 
 254 
 
 mean negroes at all; and when "all men" were spoken of negroes were not 
 included ? 
 
 I am satisfied that five years ago that proposition was not put upon paper bj any 
 living being any where. I have been unable at any time to find a man in an 
 audience who would declare that he had ever known of any body saying so five years 
 ago. But last year there was not a Douglas popular sovereign in Illinois who did 
 not say it. Is there one in Ohio but declares his firm belief that the Declaration of 
 Independence did not mean negroes at all ? I do not know how this is ; I have not 
 been here much ; but I presume you are very much alike every where. Then I 
 suppose that all now express the belief that the Declaration of Independence 
 never did mean negroes. I call upon one of them to say that he said it five 
 years ago. 
 
 If you think that now, and did not think it then, the next thing that strikes me is 
 to remark that there has been a change wrought in you, and a very significant change 
 it is, being no less than changing the negro, in your estimation, from the rank of a 
 man to that of a brute. They are taking him down, and placing him, when spoken 
 of, among reptiles and crocodiles, as Judge Douglas himself expresses it. 
 
 Is not this change wrought in your minds a very important change? Public 
 opinion in this country is every thing. In a nation like ours this popular 
 sovereignty and squatter sovereignty have already wrought a change in the public; 
 mind to the extent I have stated. There is no man in this crowd who can con- 
 tradict it. 
 
 Now, if you are opposed to slavery honestly, as much as any body, I ask you to 
 note that fact, and the like of which is to follow, to be plastered on, layer after layer, 
 until very soon you are prepared to deal with the negro every where as with the brute. 
 If public sentiment has not been debauched already to this point, a new turn of the 
 screw in that direction is all that is wanting ; and this is constantly being done by 
 the teachers of this insidious popular sovereignty. You need but one or two turns 
 further until your minds, now ripening under these teachings, will be ready for all 
 these things, and you will receive and support, or submit to, the slave-trade, revived 
 with all its horrors, a slave code enforced in our Territories, and a new Dred Scott 
 decision to bring slavery up into the very heart of the free North. This, I must 
 say, is but carrying out those words prophetically spoken by Mr. Clay, many, many 
 years ago I believe more than thirty years, when he told an audience that if they 
 would repress all tendencies to liberty and ultimate emancipation, they must go back to 
 the era of our independence and muzzle the cannon which thundered its annual joyous 
 return on the Fourth of July ; they must blow out the moral lights around us ; they 
 must penetrate the human soul and eradicate the love of liberty ; but until they did 
 these things, and others eloquently enumerated by him, they could not repress all 
 tendencies to ultimate emancipation. 
 
 I ask attention to the fact that in a pre-eminent degree these popular sovereigns 
 are at this work; blowing out the moral lights around us; teaching that the 
 negro is no longer a man but a brute ; that the Declaration has nothing to do 
 with him ; that he ranks with the crocodile and the reptile ; that man, with body 
 and soul, is a matter of dollars and cents. I suggest to this portion of the Ohio 
 Republicans, or Democrats, if there be any present, the serious consideration of this 
 fact, that there is now going on among you a steady process of debauching public 
 opinion on this subject. With this, my friends, I bid you adieu.
 
 255 
 
 SPEECH OF HON. ABRAHAM LINCOLN, 
 
 At Cincinnati, Ohio, September, 1859. 
 
 MY FELLOW-CITIZENS OF THE STATE OP OHIO: This is the first time in my 
 life that I have appeared before an audience in so great a city as this. I therefore 
 though I am no longer a young man make this appearance under some degree 
 of embarrassment. But, I have found that when one is embarrassed, usually the 
 shortest way to get through with it is to quit talking or thinking about it, and go at 
 something else. 
 
 I understand that you have had recently with you my very distinguished friend, 
 Judge Douglas, of Illinois, and I understand, without having had an opportunity 
 (not greatly sought to be sure) of seeing a report of the speech that he made here, 
 that he did me the honor to mention my humble name. I suppose that he did so for 
 the purpose of making some objection to some sentiment at some time expressed by 
 me. I should expect, it is true, that Judge Douglas had reminded you, or informed 
 you, if you had never before heard it, that I had once in my life declared it as my 
 opinion that this Government cannot "endure permanently half slave and half free; 
 that a house divided against itself cannot stand," and, as I had expressed it, I did 
 not expect the house to fall ; that I did not expect the Union to be dissolved ; but 
 that I did expect that it would cease to be divided; that it would become all one 
 thing or all the other ; that either the opposition of slavery would arrest the further 
 spread of it, and place it where the public mind would rest in the belief that it was 
 in the course of ultimate extinction ; or the friends of slavery will push it forward 
 until it becomes alike lawful in all the States, old or new, free as well as slave. I 
 did, fifteen months ago, express that opinion, and upon many occasions Judge Douglas 
 has denounced it, and has greatly, intentionally or unintentionally, misrepresented 
 my purpose in the expression of that opinion. 
 
 I presume, without having seen a report of his speech, that he did so here. I 
 presume that he alluded also to that opinion in different language, having been ex- 
 pressed at a subsequent time by Governor Seward of New York, and that he took 
 the two in a lump and denounced them ; that he tried to point out that there was 
 something couched in this opinion which led to the making of an entire uniformity 
 of the local institutions of the various States of the Union, in utter disregard of the dif- 
 ferent States, which in their nature would seem to require a variety of institutions, 
 and a variety of laws, conforming to the differences in the nature of the different States 
 
 Not only so ; I presume he insisted that this was a declaration of war between the 
 free and slave States that it was the sounding to the onset of continual war between 
 the different States, the slave and free States. 
 
 This charge, in this form, was made by Judge Douglas, on, I believe, the 9th of 
 July, 1858, in Chicago, in my hearing. On the next evening, I made some reply to 
 it I informed him that many of the inferences he drew from that expression of 
 mine were altogether foreign to any purpose entertained by me, and in so far as he 
 should ascribe these inferences to me, as my purpose, he was entirely mistaken ; and 
 in so far as he might argue that whatever might be my purpose, actions, conforming 
 to my views, would lead to these results, he might argue and establish if he could; 
 but, so far as purposes were concerned, he was totally mistaken as to me. 
 
 When I made that reply to him when I told him, on the question of declaring 
 war between the different States of the Union, that I had not said that I did not 
 expect any peace upon this question until slavery was exterminated ; that I had only 
 said I expected peace when that institution was put where the public mind should
 
 256 
 
 rest in the belief that it was in course of ultimate extinction ; that I believed from 
 the organization of our Government, until a very recent period of time, the institu- 
 tion had been placed and continued upon such a basis ; that we had had comparative 
 peace upon that question through a portion of that period of time, only because the 
 public mind rested in that belief in regard to it, and that when we returned to that 
 position in relation to that matter, I supposed we should again have peace as we pre- 
 viously had. I assured him, as I now assure you, that I neither then had, nor have, 
 or ever had, any purpose in any way of interfering with the institution of slavery, 
 where it exists. I believe we have no power, under the Constitution of the United 
 States ; or rather under the form of Government under which we live, to interfere 
 with the institution of slavery, or any other of the institutions of our sister States, be 
 they free ol slave States. I declared then, and I now redeclare, that I have as little 
 inclination to interfere with the institution of slavery where it now exists, through 
 the instrumentality of the General Government, or any other instrumentality, as I be- 
 lieve we have no power to do so. I accidentally used this expression : I had no 
 purpose of entering into the slave States to disturb the institution of slavery ! So, 
 upon the first occasion that Judge Douglas got an opportunity to reply to me, he 
 passed by the whole body of what I had said upon that subject, and seized upon the 
 particular expression of mine, that I had no purpose of entering into the slave States 
 to disturb the institution of slavery. " Oh, no," said he, " he (Lincoln) won't enter 
 into the slave States to disturb the institution of slavery ; he is too prudent a man to 
 do such a thing as that ; he only means that he will go on to the line between the 
 free and slave States, and shoot over at them. This is all he means to do. He 
 means to do them all the harm he can, to disturb them all he can, in such a way as 
 to keep his own hide in perfect safety." 
 
 Well, now, I did not think, at that time, that that was either a very dignified or 
 very logical argument ; but so it was, I had to get along with it as well as I could. 
 
 It has occured to me here to-night, that if I ever do shoot over the Hue at the 
 people on the other side of the line into a slave State, and purpose to do so, keeping 
 my skin safe, that I have now about the best chance I shall ever have. I should 
 not wonder that there are some Kentuckians about this audience ; we are close to 
 Kentucky ; and whether that be so or not, we are on elevated ground, and by speaking 
 distinctly, I should not wonder if some of the Kentuckians would hear me on the 
 other side of the river. For that reason I propose to address a portion of what I 
 have to say to the Kentuckians. 
 
 I say, then, in the first place, to the Kentuckians, that I am what they call, as I 
 understand it, a "Black Republican." I think slavery is wrong, morally and politi- 
 cally. I desire that it should be no further spread in these United States, and I 
 should not object if it should gradually terminate in the whole Union. While I say 
 this for myself, I say to you Kentuckians, that I understand you differ radically with 
 me upon this proposition ; that you believe slavery is a good thing ; that slavery is 
 right; that it ought to be extended and perpetuated in this Union. Now, there bo- 
 ing this broad difference between us, I do not pretend in addressing myself to you 
 KentiK-kians, to attempt proselyting you; that would be a vain effort. I do not en- 
 ter upon it. I only propose to try to show you that you ought to nominate for the 
 next Presidency, at Charleston, my distinguished friend, Judge Douglas. In all that 
 there is a difference between you and him, I understand he is sincerely for you, and 
 mere wisely for you, than you are for yourselves. I will try to demonstrate that 
 proposition. Understand now, I say that I believe he is as sincerely for you, and 
 more wisely for you, than you are for yourselves. 
 
 What do you want more than any thing else to make successful your views of sla- 
 very to advance the outspread of it, and to secure and perpetuate the nationality 
 of it? What do you want more than any thing else? What is needed absolutely? 
 What is indispensable to you 9 Why ! if I may be allowed to answer the question, 
 it is to retain a hold upon the North it is to retain support and strength from the 
 free States. If you can get this support and strength from the free States you can
 
 257 
 
 succeed. If you do not get this support and this strength from the free States, you 
 are in the minority, and you are beaten at ones. 
 
 If that proposition be admitted and it is undeniable then the next thing I say to 
 you is, that Douglas of all the men in this nation is the only man that affords you 
 any hold upon the free States ; that no other man can give you any strength in the 
 free States. This being so, if you doubt the other branch of the proposition, whether 
 he is for you whether he is really for you, as I have expressed it, I propose asking 
 your attention for a while to a few facts. 
 
 The issue between you and me, understand, is, that I think slavery is wrong, and 
 ought not to be outspread, and you think it is right and ought to be extended and per 
 petuated. [A voice, " Oh, Lord."] That is my Kentuckian I am talking to now. 
 
 I now proceed to try to show you that Douglas is as sincerely for you and more 
 wisely for you than you are for yourselves. 
 
 In the first place we know that in a Government like this, in a Government of the 
 people, where the voice of all the men of that country, substantially, enters into the 
 execution or administration rather of the Government in such a Government, 
 what lies at the bottom of all of it, is public opinion. I lay down the proposition, 
 that Judge Douglas is not only the man that promises you in advance a hold upon 
 the North, and support in the North, but that he constantly moulds public opinion to 
 your ends ; that in every possible way he can, he constantly moulds the public opin- 
 ion of the North to your ends ; and if there are a few things in which he seems to 
 be against you a few things which he says that appear to be against you, and a 
 few that he forbears to say which you would like to have him say you ought to 
 remember that the saying of the one, or the forbearing to say the other, would 
 lose his hold upon the North, and, by consequence, would lose his capacity to serve 
 you. 
 
 Upon this subject of moulding public opinion, I call your attention to the fact for 
 a well-established fact it is that the Judge never says your institution of slavery is 
 wrong ; he never says it is right, to be sure, but he never says it is wrong. There is 
 not a public man in the United States, I believe, with the exception of Senator Doug- 
 las, who has not, at some time in his life, declared his opinion whether the thing is 
 right or wrong; but, Senator Douglas never declares it is wrong. He leaves himself 
 at perfect liberty to do all in your favor which he would be hindered from doing if he 
 were to declare the thing to be wrong. On the contrary, he takes all the chances 
 that he has for inveigling the sentiment of the North, opposed to slavery, into your 
 support, by never saying it is right. This you ought to set down to his credit. \ r ou 
 ought to give him full credit for this much, little though it be, in comparison to the 
 whole which he does for you. 
 
 Some other things I will ask your attention to. He said upon the floor of the 
 United States Senate, and he has repeated it as I understand a great many times, 
 that he does not care whether slavery is "voted up or voted down." This again 
 shows you, or ought to show you, if you would reason upon it. that he does not be- 
 lieve it to be wrong, for a man may say, when he sees nothing wrong in a thing, that 
 lie does not care whether it be voted up or voted down ; but no man can logically say 
 that he cares not whether a thing goes up or goes down, which to him appears to be 
 wrong. You therefore have a demonstration in this, that to Judge Douglas's mind 
 your favorite institution which you would have spread out, and made perpetual, is no 
 wrong. 
 
 Another thing he tells you, in a speech made at Memphis, in Tennessee, shortly 
 after the canvass in Illinois, last year. He there distinctly told the people, that there 
 was a "line drawn by the Almighty across this continent, on the one side of which 
 the soil must always be cultivated by slaves;" that he did not pretend to know exact- 
 ly where that line was, but that there was such a line. I want to ask your attention 
 to that proposition again ; that there is one portion of this continent where the Al- 
 mighty has designed the soil shall always be cultivated by slaves ; that its being cul- 
 tivated by slaves at that place is right; that it has the direct sympathy and authori*
 
 258 
 
 ty of the Almighty. Whenever you can get these Northern audiences to adopt the 
 opinion that slavery is right on the other side of the Ohio ; whenever you can get 
 them, in pursuance of Douglas's views, to adopt that sentiment, they will very readi- 
 ly make the other argument, which is perfectly logical, that that which is right on 
 that side of the Ohio, cannot be wrong on this, and that if you have that property on 
 that side of the Ohio, under the seal and stamp of the Almighty, when by any means 
 it escapes over here, it is wrong to have Constitutions and laws " to devil " you about 
 it. So Douglas is moulding the public opinion of the North, first to say that the 
 thing is right in your State over the Ohio river, and hence to say that that which is 
 right there is not wrong here, and that all laws and Constitutions here, recognizing it 
 as being wrong, are themselves wrong, and ought to be repealed and abrogated. He 
 will tell you, men of Ohio, that if you choose here to have laws against slavery, it is 
 in conformity to the idea that your climate is not suited to it, that your climate is not 
 suited to slave labor, and therefore you have Constitutions and laws against it. 
 
 Let us attend to that argument for a little while and see if it be sound. You do 
 not raise sugar-cane (except the new-fashioned sugar-cane, and you won't raise that 
 long), but they do raise it in Louisiana. You don't raise it in Ohio because you can't 
 raise it profitably, because the climate don't suit it. They do raise it in Louisiana 
 because' there it is profitable. Now, Douglas will tell you that is precisely the sla- 
 very question. That they do have slaves there because they are profitable, and you 
 don't have them here because they are not profitable. If that is so, then it leads to 
 dealing with the one precisely as with the other. Is there then any thing in the Con- 
 stitution or laws of Ohio against raising sugar-cane ? Have you found it necessary 
 to put any such provision in your law ? Surely not ! No man desires to raise sugar- 
 cane in Ohio ; but, if any man did desire to do so, you would say it was a tyrannical 
 law that forbids his doing so, and whenever you shall agree with Douglas, whenever 
 your minds are brought to adopt his argument, as surely you will have reached the 
 conclusion, that although slavery is not profitable in Ohio, if any man wants it, it is 
 wrong to him not to let him have it. 
 
 In this matter Judge Douglas is preparing the public mind for you of Kentucky, 
 to make perpetual that good thing in your estimation, about which you and I differ. 
 
 In this connection let me ask your attention to another thing. I believe it is safe 
 to assert that five years ago, no living man had expressed the opinion that the negro 
 had no share in the Declaration of Independence. Let me state that again : five 
 years ago no living man had expressed the opinion that the negro had no share in 
 the Declaration of Independence. If there is in this large audience any man who 
 ever knew of that opinion being put upon paper as much as five years ago, I will be 
 obliged to him now or at a subsequent time to show it. 
 
 If that be true I wish you then to note the next fact ; that within the space of five 
 years Senator Douglas, in the argument of this question, has got his entire party, so 
 far as I know, without exception, to join in saying that the negro has no share in the 
 Declaration of Independence. If there be now in all these United States one Doug- 
 las man that does not say this, I have been unable upon any occasion to scare him 
 up. Now if none of you said this five years ago, and all of you say it now, that is 
 a matter that you Kentuckians ought to note. That is a vast change in the Northern 
 public sentiment upon that question. 
 
 Of what tendency is that change ? The tendency of that change is to bring the 
 public mind to the conclusion that when men are spoken of, the negro is not meant ; 
 that when negroes are spoken of, brutes alone are contemplated. That change 
 in public sentiment has already degraded the black man in the estimation of Doug- 
 las and his followers from the condition of a man of some sort, and assigned him to 
 the condition of a brute. Now, you Kentuckians ought to give Douglas credit for 
 this. That is the largest possible stride that can be made in regard to the perpetua- 
 tion of your thing of slavery. 
 
 A voice " Speak to Ohio men, and not to Kentuckians !" 
 
 Mr. Lincoln I beg permission to speak as I please.
 
 259 
 
 In Kentucky perhaps, in many of the slave States certainly, you are trying to 
 establish the rightfulness of slavery by reference to the Bible. You are trying to 
 show fhat slavery existed in the Bible times by divine ordinance. Now, Douglas 
 is wiser than you, for your own benefit, upon that subject. Douglas ^nows that 
 whenever you establish that slavery was right by the Bible, it will occur that that 
 slavery was the slavery of the white man of men without reference to color and 
 he knows very well that you may entertain that idea in Kentucky as much as you 
 please, but you will never win any Northern support upon it. He makes a wiser 
 argument for you ; he makes the argument that the slavery of the black man, the 
 slavery of the man who has a skin of a different color from your own, is right. He 
 thereby brings to your support Northern voters who could not for a moment be 
 brought by your own argument of the Bible-right of slavery. Will you not give 
 him credit for that ? Will you not say that in this matter he is more wisely for you 
 than you are for yourselves ? 
 
 Now, having established with his entire party this doctrine having been entirely 
 successful in that branch of his efforts in your behalf, he is ready for another. 
 
 At this same meeting at Memphis, he declared that, while in all contests between 
 the negro and the white man, he was for the white man, but that in all questions be- 
 tween the negro and the crocodile he was for the negro. He did not make that dec- 
 laration accidentally at Memphis. He made it a great many times in the canvass in 
 Illinois last year (though I don't know that it was reported in any of his speeches 
 there), but he frequently made it. I believe he repeated it at Columbus, and I 
 should not wonder if he repeated it here. It is, then, a deliberate way of express- 
 ing himself upon that subject. It is a matter of mature deliberation with him thus 
 to express himself upon that point of his case. It therefore requires some deliber- 
 ate attention. 
 
 The first inference seems to be that if you do not enslave the negro you are 
 wronging the white man in some way or other ; and that whoever is opposed to the 
 negro being enslaved, is, in some way or other, against the white man. Is not that 
 a falsehood ? If there was a necessary conflict between the white man and the 
 negro, I should be for the white man as much as Judge Douglas ; but I say there is 
 no such necessary conflict. I say that there is room enough for us all to be free, 
 and that it not only does not wrong the white man that the negro should be free, but 
 it positively wrongs the mass of the white men that the negro should be enslaved ; 
 that the mass of white men are really injured by the effects of slave labor in the 
 vicinity of the fields of their own labor. 
 
 But I do not desire to dwell upon this branch of the question more than to say 
 that this assumption of his is false, and I do hope that that fallacy will not long pre- 
 vail in the minds of intelligent white men. At all events, you ought to thank Judge 
 Douglas for it. It is for your benefit it is made. 
 
 The other branch of it is, that in a struggle between the negro and the crocodile, 
 he is for the negro. Well, I don't know 'that there is any struggle between the 
 negro and the crocodile, either. I suppose that if a crocodile (or as we old Ohio 
 River boatmen used to call them, alligators) should come across a white man, he 
 would kill him if he could, and so he would a negro. But what, at last, is Ihis prop- 
 osition ? I believe that it is a sort of proposition in proportion, which may be stated 
 thus: "As the negro is to the white man, so is the crocodile to the negro; and as 
 the negro may rightfully treat the crocodile as a beast or reptile, so the white man 
 may rightfully treat the negro as a beast or a reptile. That is really the " knip " of 
 all that argument' of his. 
 
 Now, my brother Kentuckians, who believe in this, you ought to thank Judge 
 Douglas for having put that in a much more taking way than any of yourselves have 
 done. 
 
 Again, Douglas's great principle, " Popular Sovereignty," as he calls it, gives you, 
 by natural consequence, the revival of the slave-trade whenever you want it. If
 
 260 
 
 you question this, listen awhile, consider awhile, what I shall advance in support of 
 that proposition. 
 
 He says that it is the sacred right of the man who goes into the Territories, to 
 have slavery if he wants it. Grant that for argument's sake. Is it not the sacred 
 right of the man who don't go there equally to buy slaves in Africa, if he wants 
 them ? Can you point out the difference ? The man who goes into the Territories 
 of Kansas and Nebraska, or any other new Territory, with the sacred right of tak- 
 ing a slave there which belongs to him, would certainly have no more right to take 
 one there than I would, who own no slave, but who would desire to buy one and take 
 him there. You will not say you, the friends of Judge Douglas but that the 
 man who does not own a slave, has an equal right to buy one and take him to the 
 Territory, as the other does ? 
 
 A roice " I want to ask a question. Don't foreign nations interfere with the 
 slave-trade ?" 
 
 Mr. Lincoln Well ! I understand it to be a principle of Democracy to whip for- 
 eign nations whenever they interfere with us. 
 
 Voice " I only asked for information. I am a Republican myself." 
 
 Mr. Lincoln You and I will be on the best terms in the world, but I do not wish 
 to be diverted from the point I was trying to press. 
 
 I say that Douglas's Popular Sovereignty, establishing his sacred right in the peo- 
 ple, if you please, if carried to its logical conclusion, gives equally the sacred right 
 to the people of the States or the Territories themselves to buy slaves, wherever they 
 can buy them cheapest ; and if any man can show a distinction, I should like to 
 hear him try it. If any man can show how the people of Kansas have a better 
 right to slaves because they want them, than the people of Georgia have to buy 
 them in Africa, I want him to do it. I think it cannot be done. If it is " Popular 
 Sovereignty " for the people to have slaves because they want them, it is Popular 
 Sovereignty for them to buy them in Africa, because they desire to do so. 
 
 I know that Douglas has recently made a little effort not seeming to notice that 
 he had a different theory has made an effort to get rid of that He has written 
 a letter, addressed to somebody I believe who resides in Iowa, declaring his opposi- 
 tion to the repeal of the laws that prohibit the African slave-trade. He bases his 
 opposition to such repeal upon the ground that these laws are themselves one of the 
 compromises of the Constitution of the United States. Now it would be very inter- 
 esting to see Judge Douglas or any of his friends turn to the Constitution of the 
 United States and point out that compromise, to show where there is any compro- 
 mise in the Constitution, or provision in the Constitution, express or implied, by 
 which the administrators of that Constitution are under any obligation to repeal 
 the African slave-trade. I know, or at least I think I know, that the framers of 
 that Constitution did expect that the African slave-trade would be abolished at the 
 end of twenty years, to which time their prohibition against its being abolished ex- 
 tended. I think there is abundant cotemporaneous history to show that the framers 
 of the Constitution expected it to be abolished. But while they so expected, they 
 gave nothing for that expectation, and they put no provision in the Constitution re- 
 quiring it should be so abolished. The migration or importation of such persons as the 
 States shall see fit to admit shall not be prohibited, but a certain tax might be levied 
 upon such importation. But what was to be done after that time ? The Constitu- 
 tion is as silent about that as it is silent, personally, about myself. There is abso- 
 lutely nothing in it about that subject there is only the expectation of the framers 
 of the Constitution that the slave-trade would be abolished at the end of that time, 
 and they expected it would be abolished, owing to public sentiment, before that time, 
 and they put that provision in, in order that it should not be abolished before that 
 time, for reasons which I suppose they thought to be sound ones, but which I will not 
 now try to enumerate before you. 
 
 But while they expected the slave-trade would be abolished at that time, they ex- 
 pected that the spread of slavery into the new Territories should also be restricted
 
 261 
 
 It is as easy to prove that the framers of the Constitution of the United States ex- 
 pected that slavery should be prohibited from extending into the new Territories, as 
 it is to prove that it was expected that the slave-trade should be abolished. Both 
 these tilings were expected. One was no more expected than the other, and one was 
 no more a compromise of the Constitution than the other. There was nothing said 
 in the Constitution in regard to the spread of slavery into the Territory. I grant 
 that, but there was something very important said about it by the same generation 
 of men in the adoption of the old Ordinance of '87, through the influence of which 
 you here in Ohio, our neighbors in Indiana, we in Illinois, our neighbors in Michigan 
 and Wisconsin are happy, prosperous, teeming millions of free men. That gen- 
 eration of men, though not to the full extent members of the Convention that framed 
 the Constitution, were to some extent members of that Convention, holding seats at 
 the same time in one body and the other, so that if there was any compromise on 
 either of these subjects, the strong evidence is that that compromise was in favor of 
 the restriction of slavery from the new Territories. 
 
 But Douglas says that he is unalterably opposed to the repeal of those laws ; 
 because, in his view, it is a compromise of the Constitution. You Kentuckians, no 
 doubt, are somewhat offended with that ! You ought not to be ! You ought to be 
 patient ! You ought to know that if he said less than that, he would lose the power 
 of "lugging" the Northern States to your support Really, what you would push 
 him to do would take from him his entire power to serve you. And you ought to 
 remember how long, by precedent, Judge Douglas holds himself obliged to stick by 
 compromises. You ought to remember that by the time you yourselves think you 
 are ready to inaugurate measures for the revival of the African slave-trade, that 
 sufficient time will have arrived, by precedent, for Judge Douglas to break through 
 that compromise. He says now nothing more strong than he said in 1849 when he 
 declared in favor of the Missouri Compromise that precisely four yours and a 
 quarter after he declared that compromise to be a sacred thing, which "no ruthless 
 hand would ever dare to touch," he, himself, brought forward the measure, ruthlessly 
 to destroy it. By a mere calculation of time it will only be four years more until 
 he is ready to take back his profession about the sacredness of the Compromise 
 abolishing the slave-trade. Precisely as soon as you are ready to have his services 
 in that direction, by fair calculation, you may be sure of having them. 
 
 But you remember and set down to Judge Douglas's debt, or discredit, that he, 
 last year, said the people of Territories can, in spite of the Dred Scott decision, 
 exclude your slaves from those Territories; that he declared by "unfriendly 
 legislation," the extension of your property into the new Territories may be 
 cat off in the teeth of the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States. 
 
 He assumed that position at Freeport on the 27th of August, 1858. He said that 
 the people of the Territories can exclude slavery, in so many words. You ought, 
 however, to bear in rnind that he has never said it since. You may hunt in every 
 speech that he has since made, and he has never used that expression once. He has 
 never seemed to notice that he is stating his views differently from what he did then ; 
 but, by some sort of accident, he has always really stated it differently. He has 
 always since then declared that "the Constitution does not carry slavery into the 
 Territories of the United States beyond the power of the people legally to control 
 it, as other property." Now, there is a difference in the language used upon that 
 former occasion and in this latter day. There may or may not be a difference in the 
 meaning, but it is worth while considering whether there is not also a difference in 
 meaning. 
 
 What is it to exclude ? Why, it is to drive it out. It is in some way to put it 
 out of the Territory. It is to force it across the line, or change its character, so that 
 as property it is out of existence. But what is the controlling of it "as other prop- 
 erty?" Is controlling it as other property the same thing as destroying it, or driving it 
 away ? I should think not. I should think the controlling of it as other property 
 would be just about what you in Kentucky should want I understand the control-
 
 262 
 
 ling of property means the controlling of it for the benefit of the owner of it. While 
 I have no doubt the Supreme Court of the United States would say "God speed" 
 to any of the Territorial Legislatures that should thus control slave property, they 
 would sing quite a different tune, if by the pretense of controlling it they were to 
 undertake to pass laws which virtually excluded it, and that upon a very well known 
 principle to all lawyers, that what a Legislature cannot directly do, it cannot do by 
 indirection ; that as the Legislature has not the power to drive slaves out, they have 
 no power by indirection, by tax, or by imposing burdens in any way on that property, 
 to effect the same end, and that any attempt to do so would be held by the Dred 
 Scott court unconstitutional. 
 
 Douglas is not willing to stand by his first proposition that they can exclude it, 
 because we have seen that that proposition amounts to nothing more nor less than 
 the naked absurdity, that you may lawfully drive out that which has a lawful right 
 to remain. He admitted at first that the slave might be lawfully taken into the Ter- 
 ritories under the Constitution of the United States, and yet asserted that he might 
 be lawfully driven out. That being the proposition, it is the absurdity I have stated. 
 He is not willing to stand in the face of that direct, naked and impudent absurdity ; 
 he has, therefore, modified his language into that of being "controlled as other 
 property." 
 
 The Kentuckians don't like this in Douglas ! I will tell you where it will go. 
 He now swears by the court. He was once a leading man in Illinois to break down 
 a court, because it had made a decision he did not like. But he now not only swears 
 by the court, the courts having got to working for you, but he denounces all men 
 that do not swear by the courts, as unpatriotic, as bad citizens. When one of these 
 acts of unfriendly legislation shall impose such heavy burdens as to, in effect, destroy 
 property in slaves in a Territory and show plainly enough that there can be no mis- 
 take in the purpose of the Legislature to make them so burdensome, this same 
 Supreme Court will decide that law to be unconstitutional, and he will be ready to 
 say for your benefit, " I swear by the court ; I give it up ;" and wliile that is going 
 on he has been getting all his men to swear by the courts, and to give it up with him. 
 In this again he serves you faithfully, and as I say, more wisely than you serve 
 yourselves. 
 
 Again : I have alluded in the beginning of these remarks to the fact, that Judge 
 Douglas has made great complaint of my having expressed the opinion that this 
 Government "cannot endure permanently half slave and half free." He has com- 
 plained of Seward for using different language, and declaring that there is an "irre- 
 pressible conflict" between the principles of free and slave labor. [A voice "He 
 says it is not original with Seward. That is original with Lincoln."] I will attend 
 to that immediately, sir. Since that time, Hickman of Pennsylvania expressed the 
 same sentiment. He has never denounced Mr. Hickman : why ? There is a little 
 chance, notwithstanding that opinion in the mouth of Hickman, that he may yet be 
 a Douglas man. That is the difference ! It is not unpatriotic to hold that opinion, 
 if a man is a Douglas man. 
 
 But neither I nor Seward, nor Hickman, is entitled to the enviable or unenviable 
 distinction of having first expressed that idea. That same idea was expressed by 
 (lie Richmond Enquirer in Virginia, in 1856 ; quite two years before it was expressed 
 by the first of us. And while Douglas was pluming himself, that in his conflict with 
 my humble self^ last year, he had "squelched out" that fatal heresy, as he delighted 
 to call it, and had suggested that if he only had had a chance to be in New York 
 and meet Seward he would have "squelched" it there also, it never occurred to him to 
 breathe a word against Pryor. I don't think that you can discover that Douglas 
 ever talked of going to Virginia to "squelch" out that idea there. No. More than 
 that. That same Roger A. Pryor was brought to Washington City and made the 
 editor of the par excellence Douglas paper, after making use of that expression, 
 which, in us, is so unpatriotic and heretical. From all this, my Kentucky friends 
 may see that this opinion is heretical in his view only when it is expressed by men
 
 263 
 
 suspected of a desire that the country shall all become free, and not when expressed 
 by those fairly known to entertain the desire that the whole country shall become 
 slave. When expressed by that class of men, it is in nowise offensive to him. In this 
 again, my friends of Kentucky, you have Judge Douglas with you. 
 
 There is another reason why you Southern people ought to noiiiinate Douglas at 
 your Convention at Charleston. That reason is the wonderful capacity of the man ; 
 the power he has of doing what would seem to be impossible. Let me call your 
 attention to one of these apparently impossible things. 
 
 Douglas had three or lour very distinguished men of the most extreme anti- 
 slavery views of any men in the Republican party, expressing their desire for his 
 re-election to the Senate last year. That would, of itself, have seemed to be a little 
 wonderful, but that wonder is heightened when we see that Wise of Virginia, a man 
 exactly opposed to them, a man who believes in the Divine right of slavery, was 
 also expressing his desire that Douglas should be re-elected; that another man that 
 may be said to be kindred to Wise, Mr. Breckinridge, the Vice President, and of 
 your own State, was also agreeing with the anti-slavery men in the North, that 
 Douglas ought to be re-elected. Still, to heighten the wonder, a Senator from Ken- 
 tucky, who I have always loved with an affection as tender and endearing as I have 
 *iver loved any man ; who was opposed to the anti-slavery men for reasons which 
 seemed sufficient to him, and equally opposed to Wise and Breckinridge, was writing 
 letters into Illinois to secure the re-election of Douglas. Now that all these conflict- 
 ing elements should be brought, while at daggers' points, with one another, to sup- 
 port him, is a feat that is worthy for you to note and consider. It is quite probable 
 that each of these classes of men thought, by the re-election of Douglas, their pecu- 
 liar views would gain something ; it is probable that the anti-slavery men thought 
 their views would gain somethiug; that Wise and Breckinridge thought so too, as 
 regards their opinions; that Mr. Crittenden thought that his views would gain some- 
 thing, although he was opposed to both these other men. It is probable that each 
 and all of them thought that they were using Douglas, and it is yet an unsolved 
 problem whether he was not using them all. If he was, then it is for you to 
 consider whether that power to perform wonders, is one for you lightly to throw 
 away. 
 
 There is one other thing that I will say to you in this relation. It is but my 
 opinion, I give it to you without a fee. It is my opinion that it is for you to take 
 him or be defeated ; and that if you do take him you may be beaten. You will 
 surely be beaten if you do not take him. We, the Republicans and others forming 
 the opposition of the country, intend to "stand by our guns," to be patient and firm, 
 and in the long run to beat you whether you take him or not. We know that before 
 we fairly beat you, we have to beat you both together. We know that you are "all 
 of a feather," and that we have to beat you altogether, and we expect to do it. We 
 don't intend to be very impatient about it. We mean to be as deliberate and calm 
 about it as it is possible to be, but as firm and resolved as it is possible for men 
 to be. When we do as we say, beat you, you perhaps want to know what we will do 
 with you. 
 
 I will tell you, so far as I arn authorized to speak for the opposition, what we 
 mean to do with you. We mean to treat you, as near as we possibly can, as 
 Washington, Jefferson and Madison treated you. We mean to leave you alone, and 
 in no way to interfere with your institution ; to abide by all and every compromise 
 of the Constitution, and, in a word, coming back to the original proposition, to treat 
 you, so far as degenerated men (if we have degenerated) may, according to the 
 examples of those noble fathers Washington, Jefferson and Madison. We mean 
 to remember that you are as good as we ; that there is no difference between us 
 other than the difference of circumstances. We mean to recognize and bear in 
 mind always that you have as good hearts in your bosoms as other people, or as we 
 slairc. to havo, and treat you accordingly. Wo mean to marry your girls when we
 
 264 
 
 have a chance the white ones I mean, and I have the honor to inform you that 1 
 once did have a chance in that way. 
 
 I have told you what we mean to do. I want to know, now, when that thing takes 
 place, what do you mean to do. I often hear it intimated that you mean to divide the 
 Union whenever a Republican or any thing like it, is elected President of the United 
 States. [A voice " That is so."] " That is so," one of them says ; I wonder if he 
 is a Kentuckian ? [A voice " lie is a Douglas man."] Well, then, I want to know 
 what you are going to do with your half of it ? Are you going to split the Ohio down 
 through, and push your half off a piece ? Or are you going to keep it right alongside 
 of us outrageous fellows? Or are you going to build up a wall some way between your 
 country and ours, by which that movable property of yours can't come over here 
 any more, to the danger of your losing it ? Do you think you can better your- 
 selves on that subject, by leaving us here under no obligation whatever to return 
 those specimens of your movable property that come hither ? You have divided the 
 Union because we would not do right with you, as you think, upon that subject ; when 
 we cease to be under obligations to do any thing for you, how much better off do you 
 think you will be ? Will you make war upon us and kill us all ? Why, gentlemen, 
 I think you are as gallant and as brave men as live ; that you can fight as bravely in a 
 good cause, man for man, as any other people living ; that you have shown yourselves 
 capable of this upon various occasions ; but man for man, you are not better than we 
 are, and there are not so many of you as there are of us. You will never make 
 much of a hand at whipping us. If we were fewer in numbers than you, I think 
 that you could whip us ; if we were equal it would likely be a drawn battle ; but 
 being inferior in numbers, you will make nothing by attempting to master us. 
 
 But perhaps I have addressed myself as long, or longer, to the Kentuckians than 
 I ought to have done, inasmuch as I have said that whatever course you take we in- 
 tend in the end to beat you. I propose to address a few remarks to our friends, by 
 way of discussing with them the best means of keeping that promise, that I have in 
 good faith made. 
 
 It may appear a little episodical for me to mention the topic of which I shall speak 
 now. It is a favorable proposition of Douglas's that the interference of the General 
 Government, through the Ordinance of '87, or through any other act of the General 
 Government, never has made or ever can make a Free State ; that the Ordinance 
 of '87 did not make Free States of Ohio, Indiana or Illinois. That these States are 
 free upon his " great principle " of Popular Sovereignty, because the people of those 
 several States have chosen to make them so. At Columbus, and probably here, he 
 undertook to compliment the people that they themselves have made the State of 
 Ohio free, and that the Ordinance of '87 was not entitled in any degree to divide the 
 honor with them. I have no doubt that the people of the State of Ohio did make 
 her free according to their own will and judgment, but let the facts be remembered. 
 
 In 1802, I believe, it was you who made your first Constitution, with the clause 
 prohibiting slavery, and you did it I suppose very nearly unanimously ; but you should 
 bear in mind that you speaking of you as one people that you did so unembarrassed 
 by the actual presence of the institution amongst you ; that you made it a Free State, 
 not with the embarrassment upon you of already having among you many slaves, 
 "which if they had been here, and you had sought to make a Free State, you would 
 not know what to do with. If they had been among you, embarrassing difficulties, 
 most probably, would have induced you to tolerate a slave Constitution instead of a 
 free one, as indeed these very difficulties have constrained every people on this con- 
 tinent who have adopted slavery. 
 
 Pray what was it that made you free ? What kept you free ? Did you not find 
 your country free when you came to decide that Ohio should be a Free State ? It 
 is important to inquire by what reason you found it so ? Let us take an illustration 
 between the States of Ohio and Kentucky. Kentucky is separated by this River Ohio, 
 not a mile wide. A portion of Kentucky, by reason of the course of the Ohio, is fur- 
 ther north than this portion of Ohio, in which we now stand. Kentucky is entirely
 
 265 
 
 covered with slavery Ohio is entirely free from it. "What made that difference? 
 Was it climate ? No ! A portion of Kentucky was further north than this portion 
 of Ohio. Was it soil ? No ! There is nothing in the soil of the one more favorable 
 to slave labor than the other. It was not climate or soil that caused one side of the 
 line to be entirely covered with slavery and the other side free of it. What was it? 
 Study over it. Tell us, if you can, in all the range of conjecture, if there be any 
 thing you can conceive of that made that difference, other than that there was no law 
 of any soi\ keeping it out of Kentucky ? while the Ordinance of '87 kept it out of 
 Ohio. If there is any other reason than this, I confess that it is wholly beyond my 
 power to conceive of it. This, then, I offer to combat the idea that that ordinance 
 has never made any State free. 
 
 I don't stop at this illustration. I come to the State of Indiana ; and what I have 
 said as between Kentucky and Ohio, I repeat as between Indiana and Kentucky ; it 
 is equally applicable. One additional argument is applicable also to Indiana. In 
 her Territorial condition she more than once petitioned Congress to abrogate the or- 
 dinance entirely, or at least so far as to suspend its operation for a time, in order that 
 they should exercise the " Popular Sovereignty " of having slaves if they wanted 
 them. The men then controlling the General Government, imitating the men of the 
 Revolution, refused Indiana that privilege. And so we have the evidence that In- 
 diana supposed she could have slaves, if it were not for that ordinance ; that she be- 
 sought Congress to put that barrier out of the way ; that Congress refused to do so, 
 and it all ended at last in Indiana being a Free State. Tell me not then that the 
 Ordinance of '87 had nothing to do with making Indiana a free state, when we find 
 some men chafing against and only restrained by that barrier. 
 
 Come down again to our State of Illinois. The great North-west Territory, in- 
 cluding Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin, was acquired first, I believe, 
 by the British Government, in part at least, from the French. Before the estab- 
 lishment of our independence, it becomes a part of Virginia ; enabling Virginia 
 afterward to transfer it to the General Government. There were French settlements 
 in what is now Illinois, and at the same time there were French settlements in what 
 is now Missouri in the tract of country that was not purchased till about 1803. In 
 these French settlements negro slavery had existed for many years perhaps more 
 than a hundred, if not as much as two hundred years at Kaskaskia, in Illinois, and 
 at St. Genevieve, or Cape Girardeau, perhaps, in Missouri. The number of slaves 
 was not very great, but there was about the same number in each place. They were 
 there when we acquired the Territory. There was no effort made to break up the 
 relation of master and slave, and even the Ordinance of 1787 was not so enforced as to 
 destroy that slavery in Illinois ; nor did the ordinance apply to Missouri at all. 
 
 What I want to ask your attention to, at this point, is that Illinois and Missouri 
 came into the Union about the same time, Illinois in the latter part of 1818, and, Mis- 
 souri, after a struggle, I believe sometime in 1820. They had been filling up with 
 American people about the same period of time ; their progress enabling them to come 
 into the Union about the same. At the end of that ten years, in which they had been 
 so preparing (for it was about that period of time), the number of slaves in Illinois 
 had actually decreased ; while in Missouri, beginning with very few, at the end of 
 that ten years, there were about ten thousand. This being so, and it being remem- 
 bered that Missouri and Illinois are, to a certain extent, in the same parallel of latr 
 itude that the northern half of Missouri and the southern half of Illinois are in 
 the same parallel of latitude so that climate would have the same effect upon oiie 
 as upon the other, and that in the soil there is no material difference so far as bears 
 upon the question of slavery being settled upon one or the other there being none 
 of those natural causes to produce a difference in filling them, and yet there being a 
 broad difference in their filling up, we are led again to inquire what was the cause of 
 that difference. 
 
 It is most natural to say that in Missouri there was no law to keep that country 
 from filling up with slaves, while in Illinois there was the Ordinance of '87. The
 
 266 
 
 ordinance being there, slavery decreased during that ten years the ordinance not 
 being in the other, it increased from a few to ten thousand. Can any body doubt the 
 reason of the difference ? 
 
 I think all these facts most abundantly prove that my friend Judge Douglas's prop- 
 osition, that the Ordinance of '87, or the national restriction of slavery, never had a 
 tendency to make a Free State, is a fallacy a proposition without the shadow or 
 substance of truth about it. 
 
 Douglas sometimes says that all the States (and it is part of this same proposition 
 I have been discussing) that have become free, have become so upon his " great prin- 
 ciple ;" that the State of Illinois itself came into the Union as a slave State, and that 
 the people, upon the " great principle " of Popular Sovereignty, have since made it a 
 Free State. Allow me but a little while to state to you what facts there are to 
 justify him in saying that Illinois came into the Union as a Slave State. 
 
 I have mentioned to you that there were a few old French slaves there. They 
 numbered, I think, one, or two hundred. Besides that, there had been a Territorial 
 law for indenturing black persons. Under that law, in violation of the Ordinance of 
 '87, but without any enforcement of the ordinance to overthrow the system, there 
 had been a small number of slaves introduced as indentured persons. Owing to this 
 the clause for the prohibition of slavery was slightly modified. Instead of running 
 like yours, that neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except for crime, of which 
 the party shall have been duly convicted, should exist in the State, they said that 
 neither slavery nor involuntary servitude should thereafter be introduced, and that 
 the children of indentured servants should be born free ; and nothing was said about 
 the few old French slaves. Out of this fact, that the clause for prohibiting slavery 
 was modified because of the actual .presence of it, Douglas asserts again and again 
 that Illinois came into the Union as a Slave State. How far the facts sustain the 
 conclusion that he draws, it is for intelligent and impartial men to decide. I leave 
 it with you with these remarks, worthy of being remembered, that that little thing, 
 those few indentured servants being there, was of itself sufficient to modify a Con- 
 stitution made by a people ardently desiring to have a free Constitution ; showing 
 the power of the actual presence of the institution of slavery to prevent any people, 
 however anxious to make a Free State, from making it perfectly so. 
 
 I have been detaining you longer perhaps than I ought to do. 
 
 I am in some doubt whether to introduce another topic upon which I could talk 
 awhile. [Cries of " Go on," and " Give us it."] It is this then : Douglas's Popu- 
 lar Sovereignty, as a principle, is simply this : If one man chooses to make a slave of an- 
 other man, neither that man or any body else has a right to object. Apply it to Gov- 
 ernment, as he seeks to apply it, and it is this : if, in a new Territory, into which a 
 few people are beginning to enter for the purpose of making their homes, they choose 
 to eitfcer exclude slavery from their limits, or to establish it there, however one or 
 the Jther may affect the persons to be enslaved, or the infinitely greater number of 
 persons who are afterward to inhabit that Territory, or the other members of the fam- 
 ily of communities, of which they are but an incipient member, or the general head 
 of the family of States as parent of all however their action may affect one or the 
 other of these, there is no power or right to interfere. That is Douglas's Popular 
 Sovereignty applied. Now I think that there is a real Popular Sovereignty in the world. 
 I think a definition of Popular Sovereignty, in the abstract, would be about this 
 that each man shall do precisely as he pleases with himself, and with all those things 
 which exclusively concern him. Applied in government, this principle would be, 
 that a general government shall do all those things which pertain to it, and all the 
 local governments shall do precisely as they please in respect to those matters which 
 exclusively concern them. 
 
 Douglas looks upon slavery as so insignificant that the people must decide that 
 question for themselves, and yet they are not fit to decide who shall be their Gover- 
 nor, Judge or Secretary, or who shall be any of their officers. These are vast na- 
 tional matters, in his estimation, but the little matter in his estimation is that of plant-
 
 267 
 
 ing slavery there. That is purely of local interest, which nobody should be allowed 
 to say a word about. 
 
 Labor is the great source from which nearly all, if not all, human comforts and 
 necessities are drawn. There is a difference in opinion about the elements of labor 
 in society. Some men assume that there is a necessary connection between capital 
 and labor, and that connection draws within it the whole of the labor of the commu- 
 nity. They assume that nobody works unless capital excites them to work. They 
 begin next to consider what is the best way. They say there are but two ways ; one 
 is to hire men and to allure them to labor by their consent ; the other is to buy the 
 men and drive them to it, and that is slavery. Having assumed that, they proceed 
 to discuss the question of whether the laborers themselves are better off in the con- 
 dition of slaves or of hired laborers, and they usually decide that they are better off 
 is: the condition of slaves. 
 
 In the first place, I say that the whole thing is a mistake. That there is a certain 
 relation between capital and labor, I admit. That it does exist, and rightfully exists, 
 I think is true. That men who are industrious, and sober, and honest in the pursuit 
 of their own interests should after a while accumulate capital, and after that should 
 be allowed to enjoy it in peace, and also if they should choose, when they have accumula- 
 ted it, to use it to save themselves from actual labor and hire other people to labor 
 for them, is right. In doing so they do not wrong the man they employ, for they 
 find men who have not of their own land to work upon, or shops to work in, and who 
 are benefited by working for others, hired laborers, receiving their capital for it. 
 Thus a few men that own capital, hire a few others, and these establish the relation 
 of capital and labor rightfully. A relation of which I make no complaint. But I 
 insist that that relation after all does not embrace more than one-eighth of the labor 
 of the country. 
 
 [The speaker proceeded to argue that the hired laborer, with his ability to become an 
 employer, must have every precedence over him who labors under the inducement of 
 force. He continued :] 
 
 I have taken upon myself in the name of some of you to say, that we expect upon 
 these principles to ultimately beat them. In order to do so, I think we want and 
 must have a national policy in regard to the institution of slavery, that acknowl- 
 edges and deals with that institution as being wrong. Whoever desires the preven- 
 tion of the spread of slavery and the nationalization of that institution, yields all, 
 when he yields to any policy that either recognizes slavery as being right, or as being 
 an indifferent thing. Nothing will make you successful but setting up a policy which 
 shall treat the thing as being wrong. When I say this, I do not mean to say 
 that this General Government is charged with the duty of redressing or preventing all 
 the wrongs in tlie world ; but I do think that it is charged with preventing and redress- 
 ing all wrongs which are wrongs to itself. This Government is expressly charged 
 with the duty of providing for the general welfare. We believe that the spreading 
 out and perpetuity of the institution of slavery impairs the general welfare. We 
 believe nay, we know, that that is the only thing that has ever threatened the per- 
 petuity of the Union itself. The only thing which has ever menaced the destruction 
 of the government under which we live, is this very thing. To repress this thing, 
 we think, is providing for the general welfare. Our friends in Kentucky differ from 
 us. We need not make our argument for them, but we who think it is wrong in all 
 its relations, or in some of them at least, must decide as to our own actions, and our 
 own course, upon our own judgment. 
 
 1 say that we must not interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where 
 it exists, because the Constitution forbids it, and the general welfare does not require 
 us to do so. We must not withhold an efficient Fugitive Slave law because the Con 
 stitution requires us, as I understand it, not to withhold such a law. But we must 
 prevent the outspreading of the institution, because neither the Constitution nor gen- 
 eral welfare requires us to extend it. We must prevent the revival of the African 
 slave-trade, and the enacting by Congress of a Territorial slave code. We must pre-
 
 268 
 
 vent each of these things being done by either congresses or courts. The f eople of these 
 United States are the rightful masters of both congresses and courts, not to over- 
 throw the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution. 
 
 To do these things we must employ instrumentalities. We must hold conventions ; 
 we must adopt platforms, if we conform to ordinary custom ; we must nominate can- 
 didates, and we must carry elections. In all these things, I think that we ought to 
 keep in view our real purpose, and in none do any thing that stands adverse to our 
 purpose. If we shall adopt a platform that fails to recognize or express our purpose, 
 or elect a man that declares himself inimical to our purpose, we not only take noth- 
 ing by our success, but we tacitly admit that we act upon no other principle than a de- 
 sir o to have " the loaves and fishes," by which, in the end, our apparent success is really 
 an injury to us. 
 
 I know that this is very desirable with me, as with every body else, that all the 
 elements of the Opposition shall unite in the next Presidential election and in all fu- 
 ture time. I am anxious that that should be, but there are things seriously to be 
 considered in relation to that matter. If the terms can be arranged, I am in favor 
 of the Union. But suppose we shall take up some man and put him upon one end 
 or the other of the ticket, who declares himself against us in regard to the prevention 
 of the spread of slavery who turns up his nose and says he is tired of hearing any 
 thing more about it, who is more against us than against the enemy, what will be 
 the issue ? Why, he will get no slave States after all he has tried that already un- 
 til being beat is the rule for him. If we nominate him upon that ground, he will 
 not carry a slave State, and not only so, but that portion of our men who are high- 
 strung upon the principle we really fight for, will not go for him, and he won't get 
 a single electoral vote any where, except, perhaps, in the State of Maryland. There 
 is no use in saying to us that we are stubborn and obstinate, because we won't do 
 some such thing as this. We cannot do it. We cannot get our men to vote it. I 
 speak by the card, that we cannot give the State of Illinois in such case by fifty thou- 
 sand. We would be flatter down than the " Negro Democracy " themselves have 
 the heart to wish to see us. 
 
 After saying this much, let me say a little on the other side. There are plenty of 
 men in the slave States that are altogether good enough forme to be either President 
 or Vice President, provided they will profess their sympathy with our purpose, and 
 will place themselves on the ground that our men, upon principle, can vote for them. 
 There are scores of them, good men in their character for intelligence and talent and 
 integrity. If such a one will place himself upon the right ground, I am for his oc- 
 cupying one place upon the next Republican or Opposition ticket. I will heartily 
 go for him. But, unless he does so place himself, I think it a matter of perfect non- 
 sense to attempt to bring about a union upon any other basis ; that if a union be 
 made, the elements will scatter so that there can be no success for such a ticket, nor 
 any thing like success. The good old maxims of the Bible are applicable, and truly 
 applicable, to human affairs, and in this, as in other things, we may say here that he 
 who is not for us is against us ; he who gathereth not with us scattereth. I should 
 be glad to have some of the many good, and able, and noble men of the South to 
 place themselves where we can confer upon them the high honor of an election upon 
 one or the other end of our ticket. It would do my soul good to do that thing. It 
 would enable us to teach them that, inasmuch as we select one of their own number 
 to carry out our principles, we are free from the charge that we mean more than we 
 say. 
 
 But, my friends, I have detained you much longer than I expected to do. I believe 
 I may do myself the compliment to say that you have stayed and heard me with 
 great patience, for which I return you my most sincere thanks.
 
 This book is given special protection for the reason in- 
 dicated below: 
 
 Condition Miniature book 
 
 Fine binding Original binding or covers 
 
 Format UStraTcity 
 
 Giftbook Subject 
 
 2M 1-48 37583 
 
 H.E.H. 
 
 DUPL.
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOI9-URBANA 
 
 30112047572901