The Writings of Abraham Lincoln, Complete

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[Another voice: Douglas.]

Ground was taken against it by the Republicans long before Douglas did
it. The proportion of opposition to that measure is about five to one.

[A voice: Why don't they come out on it?]

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 has ever thought of uttering a word in behalf of Judge Trumbull?

[A voice: We have.]

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. Everything must be for
the Democrats! They did everything, 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 the
subject to take hold of another. I take up that part of Judge Douglas's
speech 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 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 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 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."

What is the paragraph? In this paragraph, which I have quoted in your
hearing, and to which I ask the attention of all, Judge Douglas thinks he
discovers great political 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
expresses it) the South to a war upon the North for the purpose of
nationalizing slavery. 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, perhaps. I did not even
say that I desired that slavery should be put in course of ultimate
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 regard 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 believe it has endured because during
all that time, until the introduction of the Nebraska 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 always hated it; but I have always been quiet about it
until this new era of the introduction 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 believe 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 supplied, might
be cut off by Congress? Why were all these acts? I might enumerate 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 farther 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 States and
interfere with the question of slavery at all. I have said that always;
Judge Douglas has 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 could fairly be
so construed (as, however, I believe I never have), I 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 I can, 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 Douglas'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 have 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, whatever 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 State that
interfere 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 the 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 extinction, 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 in 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 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 they 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 assented 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 Constitution, 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, 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 decision; but I should be allowed to state the nature of that
opposition, and I ask your indulgence 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 to 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
obey it as a political 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.

That is what I should 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 we will try to reverse that decision. We will try to put it
where Judge Douglas would not object, for he says he will obey it until
it is reversed. Somebody has to reverse that decision, since it is made,
and we mean to reverse it, and we mean to do it peaceably.

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 are 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 to have 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 sacredness that has never been before thrown around any other
decision. I have never heard of such a thing. Why, decisions apparently
contrary to that decision, or that good lawyers thought were contrary to
that decision, have been made by that very court before. It is the first
of its kind; it is an astonisher in legal history. It is a 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, and no decision made on any question--the first instance of a
decision made under so many unfavorable circumstances--thus placed, has
ever been held by the profession as law, and it has always needed
confirmation before the lawyers regarded it as settled law. But Judge
Douglas will have it that all hands must take this extraordinary
decision, made under these extraordinary circumstances, and give their
vote in Congress in accordance with it, yield to it, and obey it in every
possible sense. Circumstances alter cases. Do not gentlemen here remember
the case of that 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 recharter was granted by Congress. That recharter 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 General Jackson then said that the Supreme 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;
that 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 General Jackson for that act. What has now become of all
his tirade about "resistance of 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. Almost 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 his 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 extermination at his hands. As this is
dearly and unquestionably the light in which he presents that matter, I
want to ask your attention, addressing myself to the Republicans here,
that I may ask you some questions as to where you, as the Republican
party, would be placed if you sustained Judge Douglas in his present
position by a re-election? 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 nation, 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 nobody 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? [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 extension 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 what 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 hope
for its ultimate extinction. If they believe it is wrong in grasping up
the new lands of the continent 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 and
reorganize, if not by the same name, at least upon the same principles as
their 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 them; 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 you still cling to these ideas, 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 one wants to deny it; but the Judge
then goes into his passion for drawing inferences that 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 necessarily
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 alone, and
do one another much good thereby. There are white men enough to marry all
the white women, and 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.]

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 run our memory back over the pages of history for
about eighty-two years, and we discover 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 everything we deem
desirable among men; we look upon the change as exceedingly advantageous
to us and to our posterity, and we fix upon something that happened away
back, 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 grandfathers; 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 ancestors--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
Scandinavian,--men that have come from Europe 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, 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 flesh, of the men who wrote
that Declaration; and so they are. That is the electric cord in that
Declaration 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.