The Writings of Abraham Lincoln, Complete

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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 misrepresentations 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 me that he, in
his speech to-day, pointed out anything I had stated respecting him as
being erroneous. I presume there is no such thing. I have reason to be
gratified that the care and caution used in that speech left it so that
he, most of all others interested in 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 included in that speech, and
declares that upon them will turn the issues of this campaign. He then
quotes, or attempts to quote, from my speech. I will not say that he
wilfully misquotes, but he does fail to quote accurately. His attempt at
quoting is from a passage which I believe I can quote accurately from
memory. I shall make the quotation now, with some comments upon it, as I
have already said, in order that 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 wilfully. 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 suited to the real exigencies of the
case. I set out in this campaign with the intention of conducting it
strictly as a gentleman, in substance at least, if not in the outside
polish. The latter I shall never be; but that which constitutes the
inside of a gentleman 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 expectation 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 construction? 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 States in the attitude of
firing bombs or shells into the slave States. I was not using that
passage for the purpose for which he infers I did use it. I said:

"We are 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 government
cannot endure permanently half slave and half free; 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."

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 expectation. 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 wish 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 perceived--a new set of causes introduced. I did
say at Chicago, in my speech there, that I do wish to see the spread of
slavery arrested, and to see it placed where the public mind shall rest
in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction. I said
that because I supposed, when the public mind shall rest in that belief,
we 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 belief 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 universal. 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 belief 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 ultimate 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, and the invention
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 Virginia, 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
depended.

I do not mention this with any purpose of criticizing 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 now as I did before, that there is such a
tendency; and I am backed, not merely by the 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 wish 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 Illinois prairie,--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 consolidation 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 numerous court
decisions of that character?

Now, as to the Dred 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 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. He 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 Bloomington, he took some notice of that reply, but entirely
forgot to remember that part of it.

He renews his onslaught upon me, 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 I add something to the authority in favor of my own position. I
wish to show that I am sustained by authority, in addition 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
grip. Even turn it upon him,--the sharp point against him, and gaff him
through,--he will still 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 acknowledgment
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 opinion is strengthened by that of many others. You seem,
in pages 84 and 148, to consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of
all constitutional questions,--a very dangerous 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 jurisdictionem'; and their power is
the more dangerous as they are in office for life, and not responsible,
as the other functionaries 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 departments co-equal and
co-sovereign 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 unconstitutional. The case went to the
Supreme Court, and therein it was decided that the bank was
constitutional. The whole Democratic party revolted 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. 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 that 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 effrontery can
go no further, 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
decisions of the Supreme Court, which does not lie in all its length,
breadth, and proportions at his own door. The plain truth is simply this:
Judge Douglas is for Supreme 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 practical effect; that at best, or rather, I suppose, at worst, it is
but an abstraction. I submit that the proposition that the thing which
determines whether a man is free or 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 Territories that he considers it as being merely an abstract matter,
and one of no practical 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 Territories by any legal means. In what do
our new Territories now differ in this respect 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 themselves. Mr. Clay says this was one of the great and just causes
of complaint against Great Britain by the Colonies, and the best apology
we can now make for having the 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
necessary 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 moments, in order that the genius of
"popular sovereignty" might duly descend from the dying man and 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 "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, trumping up claims never before heard of, and
dividing the assets among themselves. If I should 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 reversed; and it was a little singular if Mr.
Clay cast his mantle upon Judge Douglas on purpose to have that
compromise repealed.

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 accompanying 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 sovereignty" 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 anything I have
said, but he rushes on with his assertions. 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 Portuguese, and all the other people who have
come among 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 Declaration of Independence? I expect ere long he will
introduce another amendment to his definition. He is not at all
particular. He is satisfied with anything 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 inferior"?

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 respects; 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; 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.

When 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 independence. The framers of the Constitution found the
institution of slavery amongst their own 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.
They also prohibited it in the Territories where it did not exist. 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 so carefully. I expressed my 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 reread 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 this own tacit admission, I renew that
charge. I charge him with having been a party to that conspiracy and to
that deception for the sole purpose of nationalizing slavery.




CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS

[The following is the correspondence between the two rival candidates for
the United States Senate]

MR. LINCOLN TO MR. DOUGLAS.

CHICAGO, ILL., July 24, 1558.
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 hand 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.




Mr. DOUGLAS TO Mr. LINCOLN.

BEMENT, PLATT Co., ILL., July 30, 1858.

Dear Sir,--Your letter dated yesterday, accepting my proposition for a
joint discussion at one prominent point in each Congressional District,
as stated in my previous letter, was received this 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,
Quincy, Adams County " 13th,
Alton, Madison County " 15th,

I agree to your suggestion that we shall alternately open and close the
discussion. I will speak at Ottawa one hour, 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.