The Writings of Abraham Lincoln, Complete

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The several points of the Dred Scott decision, in connection with Senator
Douglas's "care not" policy, constitute the piece of machinery, in its
present state of advancement. This was the third point gained. The
working points of that machinery are:

Firstly, 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 and immunities of citizens in the several States."

Secondly, That, "subject to the Constitution of the United States,"
neither Congress nor a Territorial Legislature can exclude slavery from
any United States Territory. 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 a while, 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, wither 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 they were
transpiring. The people were to be left "perfectly 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
freedom 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 damaged
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 reargument? Why the incoming President's advance exhortation
in favor of the decision? 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 preconcert. 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 mortises
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 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 find 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 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 Constitution of the United States; but
why is mention of this lugged into this merely Territorial law? Why are
the people of a Territory and the people of a State therein lumped
together, and their relation to the Constitution therefore treated as
being precisely 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 McLean or Curtis had sought to get into the
opinion a declaration of unlimited 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 approaches 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 Supreme 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
expected 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 friends, and yet whisper
to us softly that Senator Douglas is the aptest instrument there is with
which to effect 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 newspaper thinks Douglas's superior talent
will be needed to resist the revival of the African 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 he 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 action 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 obstacles. 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 thousand 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 hostile
elements we gathered from the four winds, and formed and fought the
battle through, under the constant hot fire of a disciplined, proud, and
pampered enemy. Did we brave all then to falter now,--now, when that same
enemy is wavering, 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 AT CHICAGO, JULY 10, 1858.

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 restored, Mr. LINCOLN said,]

MY FELLOW-CITIZENS:--On yesterday evening, upon the occasion of the
reception given to Senator Douglas, I was furnished with a seat very
convenient for hearing 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 inconvenient 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 alliance; 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 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 Frenchman, or a Turk. Nor will I stop to inquire,
nor shall I hesitate, whether my blows shall hit the Republican leaders
or their allies, who are holding the Federal offices, and yet acting in
concert with them."

Well, now, gentlemen, is not that very alarming? Just to think of it!
right at the outset of 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 alliance, 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 Administration 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 indulge us while
we barely suggest to him that these allies took Sebastopol.

Gentlemen, only a few more words as to this alliance. For my part, I have
to say that whether there be such 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
anything 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 Douglas. 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 I will tell you why. I believe his original Nebraska 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 question 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, when our President,
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
inquire into this vast matter of popular sovereignty. What is popular
sovereignty? We recollect that at an early period in the history of this
struggle there was another name for the same thing,--"squatter
sovereignty." It was not exactly popular sovereignty, 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 sovereignty? 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 anybody 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 is a general running
fire, and although there has been a hurrah 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 any one man chooses to take slaves into a Territory, all the rest
of the people have no right to keep them out. This being so, and this
decision being made one of the points that the Judge approved, and one in
the approval of which he says he means to keep me down,--put me down I
should not say, for I have never been up,--he says he is in favor of it,
and sticks to it, 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 Territory, and all the other men in the
Territory may be opposed to it, and yet by reason of 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 constitution. Kansas 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 the 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 sufficiency of people to make
a State constitution,--all that portion of time popular sovereignty is
given up. The seal is absolutely put down upon it by the court decision,
and Judge Douglas puts his own upon the top of that; yet he is appealing
to the people 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 anything new, I confess I don't know it. Has there
ever been a time when anybody 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
anybody on earth that said that anybody else should form a constitution
for a people? [A voice, "Yes."] Well, I should like you to name him; I
should like to know who he was. [Same voice, "John Calhoun."]

No, sir, I never heard of even John Calhoun saying such a thing. He
insisted on the same principle as Judge Douglas; but his mode of applying
it, in fact, was wrong. It is enough for my purpose to ask this crowd
whenever a Republican said anything against it. They never said anything
against it, but they have constantly spoken for it; and whoever will
undertake to examine the platform, and 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 invented. I
suppose that Judge Douglas will claim, in a little while, that he is the
inventor 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-evident, that all men are created equal;
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights;
that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to
secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their
just powers from the consent of the governed."

There is the origin of popular 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 he 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, 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, particularly
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
Lecompton 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, and we agree in
that. Who defeated it?

[A voice: Judge Douglas.]

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.]

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?]