The Writings of Abraham Lincoln, Complete

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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 progress as it is now
driving, and as it has driven for the last five years, I have ventured
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 God'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, by producing the record. He did n't bring the record
because there was no record for him to bring. When he asks if I am ready
to indorse Trumbull's veracity 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 postmaster): "What does Ford's History say
about him?"]

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 several 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 suggestion 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 anywhere else. I would despise myself if I supposed
myself ready to deal less liberally with an adversary 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 reference 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. ORLANDO B. FICKLIN, led him forward and said:]

I do not mean to do anything 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 [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 I 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. Lincoln 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 resolution [amendment] was offered by Mr. Ashmun of
Massachusetts, in which he declared that the Mexican War was unnecessary
and unconstitutionally commenced by the President-my recollection is that
Mr. Lincoln voted for that resolution.]

That is the truth. Now, you all remember that was a resolution 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's 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 setoff 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 in regard to
a matter ten years old. Is n'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. Perhaps it did n't fix your attention. I said that when
Judge Douglas was speaking at place--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 character
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 anything 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 responsibility? I ask a candid audience
whether in doing thus Judge Douglas was not the assailant rather than I?
Here I meet him face to face, 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 succeeded 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."]

I 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
Douglas'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 a forgery, he has shown to be
such. Not one of them has he shown 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?

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 answer? He comes 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 it was not stricken out, but Trumbull says he
[Douglas] put it in; and it is no answer to the charge to say he
afterwards took it out. Both are perhaps true. It was in regard to that
thing precisely that I told him he had dropped the cub. Trumbull 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 Trumbull? I 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 is the whole
force of Douglas's argument.

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 include Judge
Douglas, by which it was agreed that the Kansas Bill should have a 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 provision stricken out of the bill. 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 same to-day. He says
there were certain modifications made in the bill in committee 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
anything about How it was made, 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 the 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 will explain 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--I
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 Trumbull'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 geometry, 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 me that my time is out, and therefore I close.




FIFTH JOINT DEBATE, AT GALESBURGH,

OCTOBER 7, 1858

Mr. LINCOLN'S REPLY.

MY FELLOW-CITIZENS: A very large portion of the speech which Judge
Douglas 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 say 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 has 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 concluded.

The Judge has alluded to the Declaration of Independence, and 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: Is 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 language 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 sentiment 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 as Republican 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 Trumbull and Jehu Baker addressed the
persons whom the Judge assumes to be the friends of Lincoln calling them
the "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 anywhere 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 each other. Those speeches have been before the public for a
considerable time, and if they have any inconsistency in them, if there
is any conflict in them, the public 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 northern end of the State, and of a different sort
for the southern people, he assumes that I do not understand that my
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 distinction 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 maintained 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 exist; 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 advanced improper or unsound views, or whether I
advanced hypocritical, and deceptive, and contrary views in different
portions 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 opinions 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 has any interest in the maintenance 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--and be based upon rightful principles--unless it can
announce its principles everywhere. I presume that Judge Douglas could
not go into Russia and announce the doctrine of our national Democracy;
he could not denounce 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 unsoundness of what he wanted to
preach.

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 portion 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
Springfield 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 have 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 anything in it that is
wrong. I ask you all to recollect that. Judge Douglas turns 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 fact 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 sectional too. I see it rapidly approaching. Whatever may be
the result of this ephemeral 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 Republicans for years past, will
be crowded down his own throat.