The Writings of Abraham Lincoln, Complete

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Not only did that Ordinance prevail, but it was constantly looked to
whenever a step was taken by a new Territory to become a State. Congress
always turned their attention to it, and in all their movements upon this
subject they traced their course by that Ordinance of '87. When they
admitted new States, they advertised them of this Ordinance, as a part of
the legislation of the country. They did so because they had traced the
Ordinance of '87 throughout the history of this country. Begin with the
men of the Revolution, and go down for sixty entire years, and until the
last scrap of that Territory comes into the Union in the form of the
State of Wisconsin, everything was made to conform with the Ordinance of
'87, excluding slavery from that vast extent of country.

I omitted to mention in the right place that the Constitution of the
United States was in process of being framed when that Ordinance was made
by the Congress of the Confederation; and one of the first Acts of
Congress itself, under the new Constitution itself, was to give force to
that Ordinance by putting power to carry it out in the hands of the new
officers under the Constitution, in the place of the old ones, who had
been legislated out of existence by the change in the Government from the
Confederation to the Constitution. Not only so, but I believe Indiana
once or twice, if not Ohio, petitioned the General Government for the
privilege of suspending that provision and allowing them to have slaves.
A report made by Mr. Randolph, of Virginia, himself a slaveholder, was
directly against it, and the action was to refuse them the privilege of
violating the Ordinance of '87.

This period of history, which I have run over briefly, is, I presume, as
familiar to most of this assembly as any other part of the history of our
country. I suppose that few of my hearers are not as familiar with that
part of history as I am, and I only mention it to recall your attention
to it at this time. And hence I ask how extraordinary a thing it is that
a man who has occupied a position upon the floor of the Senate of the
United States, who is now in his third term, and who looks to see the
government of this whole country fall into his own hands, pretending to
give a truthful and accurate history o the slavery question in this
country, should so entirely ignore the whole of that portion of our
history--the most important of all. Is it not a most extraordinary
spectacle that a man should stand up and ask for any confidence in his
statements who sets out as he does with portions of history, calling upon
the people to believe that it is a true and fair representation, when the
leading part and controlling feature of the whole history is carefully
suppressed?

But the mere leaving out is not the most remarkable feature of this most
remarkable essay. His proposition is to establish that the leading men of
the Revolution were for his great principle of nonintervention by the
government in the question of slavery in the Territories, while history
shows that they decided, in the cases actually brought before them, in
exactly the contrary way, and he knows it. Not only did they so decide at
that time, but they stuck to it during sixty years, through thick and
thin, as long as there was one of the Revolutionary heroes upon the stage
of political action. Through their whole course, from first to last, they
clung to freedom. And now he asks the community to believe that the men
of the Revolution were in favor of his great principle, when we have the
naked history that they themselves dealt with this very subject matter of
his principle, and utterly repudiated his principle, acting upon a
precisely contrary ground. It is as impudent and absurd as if a
prosecuting attorney should stand up before a jury and ask them to
convict A as the murderer of B, while B was walking alive before them.

I say, again, if judge Douglas asserts that the men of the Revolution
acted upon principles by which, to be consistent with themselves, they
ought to have adopted his popular sovereignty, then, upon a consideration
of his own argument, he had a right to make you believe that they
understood the principles of government, but misapplied them, that he has
arisen to enlighten the world as to the just application of this
principle. He has a right to try to persuade you that he understands
their principles better than they did, and, therefore, he will apply them
now, not as they did, but as they ought to have done. He has a right to
go before the community and try to convince them of this, but he has no
right to attempt to impose upon any one the belief that these men
themselves approved of his great principle. There are two ways of
establishing a proposition. One is by trying to demonstrate it upon
reason, and the other is, to show that great men in former times have
thought so and so, and thus to pass it by the weight of pure authority.
Now, if Judge Douglas will demonstrate somehow that this is popular
sovereignty,--the right of one man to make a slave of another, without
any right in that other or any one else to object,--demonstrate it as
Euclid demonstrated propositions,--there is no objection. But when he
comes forward, seeking to carry a principle by bringing to it the
authority of men who themselves utterly repudiate that principle, I ask
that he shall not be permitted to do it.

I see, in the judge's speech here, a short sentence in these words: "Our
fathers, when they formed this government under which we live, understood
this question just as well, and even better than, we do now." That is
true; I stick to that. I will stand by Judge Douglas in that to the
bitter end. And now, Judge Douglas, come and stand by me, and truthfully
show how they acted, understanding it better than we do. All I ask of
you, Judge Douglas, is to stick to the proposition that the men of the
Revolution understood this subject better than we do now, and with that
better understanding they acted better than you are trying to act now.

I wish to say something now in regard to the Dred Scott decision, as
dealt with by Judge Douglas. In that "memorable debate" between Judge
Douglas and myself, last year, the judge thought fit to commence a
process of catechising me, and at Freeport I answered his questions, and
propounded some to him. Among others propounded to him was one that I
have here now. The substance, as I remember it, is, "Can the people of a
United States Territory, under the Dred Scott decision, in any lawful
way, against the wish of any citizen of the United States, exclude
slavery from its limits, prior to the formation of a State constitution?"
He answered that they could lawfully exclude slavery from the United
States Territories, notwithstanding the Dred Scot decision. There was
something about that answer that has probably been a trouble to the judge
ever since.

The Dred Scott decision expressly gives every citizen of the United
States a right to carry his slaves into the United States Territories.
And now there was some inconsistency in saying that the decision was
right, and saying, too, that the people of the Territory could lawfully
drive slavery out again. When all the trash, the words, the collateral
matter, was cleared away from it, all the chaff was fanned out of it, it
was a bare absurdity,--no less than that a thing may be lawfully driven
away from where it has a lawful right to be. Clear it of all the
verbiage, and that is the naked truth of his proposition,--that a thing
may be lawfully driven from the place where it has a lawful right to
stay. Well, it was because the judge could n't help seeing this that he
has had so much trouble with it; and what I want to ask your especial
attention to, just now, is to remind you, if you have not noticed the
fact, that the judge does not any longer say that the people can exclude
slavery. He does not say so in the copyright essay; he did not say so in
the speech that he made here; and, so far as I know, since his
re-election to the Senate he has never said, as he did at Freeport, that
the people of the Territories can exclude slavery. He desires that you,
who wish the Territories to remain free, should believe that he stands by
that position; but he does not say it himself. He escapes to some extent
the absurd position I have stated, by changing his language entirely.
What he says now is something different in language, and we will consider
whether it is not different in sense too. It is now that the Dred Scott
decision, or rather the Constitution under that decision, does not carry
slavery into the Territories beyond the power of the people of the
Territories to control it as other property. He does not say the people
can drive it out, but they can control it as other property. The language
is different; we should consider whether the sense is different. Driving
a horse out of this lot is too plain a proposition to be mistaken about;
it is putting him on the other side of the fence. Or it might be a sort
of exclusion of him from the lot if you were to kill him and let the
worms devour him; but neither of these things is the same as "controlling
him as other property." That would be to feed him, to pamper him, to ride
him, to use and abuse him, to make the most money out of him, "as other
property"; but, please you, what do the men who are in favor of slavery
want more than this? What do they really want, other than that slavery,
being in the Territories, shall be controlled as other property? If they
want anything else, I do not comprehend it. I ask your attention to this,
first, for the purpose of pointing out the change of ground the judge has
made; and, in the second place, the importance of the change,--that that
change is not such as to give you gentlemen who want his popular
sovereignty the power to exclude the institution or drive it out at all.
I know the judge sometimes squints at the argument that in controlling it
as other property by unfriendly legislation they may control it to death;
as you might, in the case of a horse, perhaps, feed him so lightly and
ride him so much that he would die. But when you come to legislative
control, there is something more to be attended to. I have no doubt,
myself, that if the Territories should undertake to control slave
property as other property that is, control it in such a way that it
would be the most valuable as property, and make it bear its just
proportion in the way of burdens as property, really deal with it as
property,--the Supreme Court of the United States will say, "God speed
you, and amen." But I undertake to give the opinion, at least, that if
the Territories attempt by any direct legislation to drive the man with
his slave out of the Territory, or to decide that his slave is free
because of his being taken in there, or to tax him to such an extent that
he cannot keep him there, the Supreme Court will unhesitatingly decide
all such legislation unconstitutional, as long as that Supreme Court is
constructed as the Dred Scott Supreme Court is. The first two things they
have already decided, except that there is a little quibble among lawyers
between the words "dicta" and "decision." They have already decided a
negro cannot be made free by Territorial legislation.

What is the Dred Scott decision? Judge Douglas labors to show that it is
one thing, while I think it is altogether different. It is a long
opinion, but it is all embodied in this short statement: "The
Constitution of the United States forbids Congress to deprive a man of
his property, without due process of law; the right of property in slaves
is distinctly and expressly affirmed in that Constitution: therefore, if
Congress shall undertake to say that a man's slave is no longer his slave
when he crosses a certain line into a Territory, that is depriving him of
his property without due process of law, and is unconstitutional." There
is the whole Dred Scott decision. They add that if Congress cannot do so
itself, Congress cannot confer any power to do so; and hence any effort
by the Territorial Legislature to do either of these things is absolutely
decided against. It is a foregone conclusion by that court.

Now, as to this indirect mode by "unfriendly legislation," all lawyers
here will readily understand that such a proposition cannot be tolerated
for a moment, because a legislature cannot indirectly do that which it
cannot accomplish directly. Then I say any legislation to control this
property, as property, for its benefit as property, would be hailed by
this Dred Scott Supreme Court, and fully sustained; but any legislation
driving slave property out, or destroying it as property, directly or
indirectly, will most assuredly, by that court, be held unconstitutional.

Judge Douglas says if the Constitution carries slavery into the
Territories, beyond the power of the people of the Territories to control
it as other property; then it follows logically that every one who swears
to support the Constitution of the United States must give that support
to that property which it needs. And, if the Constitution carries slavery
into the Territories, beyond the power of the people, to control it as
other property, then it also carries it into the States, because the
Constitution is the supreme law of the land. Now, gentlemen, if it were
not for my excessive modesty, I would say that I told that very thing to
Judge Douglas quite a year ago. This argument is here in print, and if it
were not for my modesty, as I said, I might call your attention to it. If
you read it, you will find that I not only made that argument, but made
it better than he has made it since.

There is, however, this difference: I say now, and said then, there is no
sort of question that the Supreme Court has decided that it is the right
of the slave holder to take his slave and hold him in the Territory; and
saying this, judge Douglas himself admits the conclusion. He says if that
is so, this consequence will follow; and because this consequence would
follow, his argument is, the decision cannot, therefore, be that way,--
"that would spoil my popular sovereignty; and it cannot be possible that
this great principle has been squelched out in this extraordinary way. It
might be, if it were not for the extraordinary consequences of spoiling
my humbug."

Another feature of the judge's argument about the Dred Scott case is, an
effort to show that that decision deals altogether in declarations of
negatives; that the Constitution does not affirm anything as expounded by
the Dred Scott decision, but it only declares a want of power a total
absence of power, in reference to the Territories. It seems to be his
purpose to make the whole of that decision to result in a mere negative
declaration of a want of power in Congress to do anything in relation to
this matter in the Territories. I know the opinion of the Judges states
that there is a total absence of power; but that is, unfortunately; not
all it states: for the judges add that the right of property in a slave
is distinctly and expressly affirmed in the Constitution. It does not
stop at saying that the right of property in a slave is recognized in the
Constitution, is declared to exist somewhere in the Constitution, but
says it is affirmed in the Constitution. Its language is equivalent to
saying that it is embodied and so woven in that instrument that it cannot
be detached without breaking the Constitution itself. In a word, it is
part of the Constitution.

Douglas is singularly unfortunate in his effort to make out that decision
to be altogether negative, when the express language at the vital part is
that this is distinctly affirmed in the Constitution. I think myself, and
I repeat it here, that this decision does not merely carry slavery into
the Territories, but by its logical conclusion it carries it into the
States in which we live. One provision of that Constitution is, that it
shall be the supreme law of the land,--I do not quote the language,--any
constitution or law of any State to the contrary notwithstanding. This
Dred Scott decision says that the right of property in a slave is
affirmed in that Constitution which is the supreme law of the land, any
State constitution or law notwithstanding. Then I say that to destroy a
thing which is distinctly affirmed and supported by the supreme law of
the land, even by a State constitution or law, is a violation of that
supreme law, and there is no escape from it. In my judgment there is no
avoiding that result, save that the American people shall see that
constitutions are better construed than our Constitution is construed in
that decision. They must take care that it is more faithfully and truly
carried out than it is there expounded.

I must hasten to a conclusion. Near the beginning of my remarks I said
that this insidious Douglas popular sovereignty is the measure that now
threatens the purpose of the Republican party to prevent slavery from
being nationalized in the United States. I propose to ask your attention
for a little while to some propositions in affirmance of that statement.
Take it just as it stands, and apply it as a principle; extend and apply
that principle elsewhere; and consider where it will lead you. I now put
this proposition, that Judge Douglas's popular sovereignty applied will
reopen the African slave trade; and I will demonstrate it by any variety
of ways in which you can turn the subject or look at it.

The Judge says that the people of the Territories have the right, by his
principle, to have slaves, if they want them. Then I say that the people
in Georgia have the right to buy slaves in Africa, if they want them; and
I defy any man on earth to show any distinction between the two
things,--to show that the one is either more wicked or more unlawful; to
show, on original principles, that one is better or worse than the other;
or to show, by the Constitution, that one differs a whit from the other.
He will tell me, doubtless, that there is no constitutional provision
against people taking slaves into the new Territories, and I tell him
that there is equally no constitutional provision against buying slaves
in Africa. He will tell you that a people, in the exercise of popular
sovereignty, ought to do as they please about that thing, and have slaves
if they want them; and I tell you that the people of Georgia are as much
entitled to popular sovereignty and to buy slaves in Africa, if they want
them, as the people of the Territory are to have slaves if they want
them. I ask any man, dealing honestly with himself, to point out a
distinction.

I have recently seen a letter of Judge Douglas's in which, without
stating that to be the object, he doubtless endeavors to make a
distinction between the two. He says he is unalterably opposed to the
repeal of the laws against the African slave trade. And why? He then
seeks to give a reason that would not apply to his popular sovereignty in
the Territories. What is that reason? "The abolition of the African slave
trade is a compromise of the Constitution!" I deny it. There is no truth
in the proposition that the abolition of the African slave trade is a
compromise of the Constitution. No man can put his finger on anything in
the Constitution, or on the line of history, which shows it. It is a mere
barren assertion, made simply for the purpose of getting up a distinction
between the revival of the African slave trade and his "great principle."

At the time the Constitution of the United States was adopted, it was
expected that the slave trade would be abolished. I should assert and
insist upon that, if judge Douglas denied it. But I know that it was
equally expected that slavery would be excluded from the Territories, and
I can show by history that in regard to these two things public opinion
was exactly alike, while in regard to positive action, there was more
done in the Ordinance of '87 to resist the spread of slavery than was
ever done to abolish the foreign slave trade. Lest I be misunderstood, I
say again that at the time of the formation of the Constitution, public
expectation was that the slave trade would be abolished, but no more so
than the spread of slavery in the Territories should be restrained. They
stand alike, except that in the Ordinance of '87 there was a mark left by
public opinion, showing that it was more committed against the spread of
slavery in the Territories than against the foreign slave trade.

Compromise! What word of compromise was there about it? Why, the public
sense was then in favor of the abolition of the slave trade; but there
was at the time a very great commercial interest involved in it, and
extensive capital in that branch of trade. There were doubtless the
incipient stages of improvement in the South in the way of farming,
dependent on the slave trade, and they made a proposition to Congress to
abolish the trade after allowing it twenty years,--a sufficient time for
the capital and commerce engaged in it to be transferred to other
channel. They made no provision that it should be abolished in twenty
years; I do not doubt that they expected it would be, but they made no
bargain about it. The public sentiment left no doubt in the minds of any
that it would be done away. I repeat, there is nothing in the history of
those times in favor of that matter being a compromise of the
constitution. It was the public expectation at the time, manifested in a
thousand ways, that the spread of slavery should also be restricted.

Then I say, if this principle is established, that there is no wrong in
slavery, and whoever wants it has a right to have it, is a matter of
dollars and cents, a sort of question as to how they shall deal with
brutes, that between us and the negro here there is no sort of question,
but that at the South the question is between the negro and the
crocodile, that is all, it is a mere matter of policy, there is a perfect
right, according to interest, to do just as you please,--when this is
done, where this doctrine prevails, the miners and sappers will have
formed public opinion for the slave trade. They will be ready for Jeff.
Davis and Stephens and other leaders of that company to sound the bugle
for the revival of the slave trade, for the second Dred Scott decision,
for the flood of slavery to be poured over the free States, while we
shall be here tied down and helpless and run over like sheep.

It is to be a part and parcel of this same idea to say to men who want to
adhere to the Democratic party, who have always belonged to that party,
and are only looking about for some excuse to stick to it, but
nevertheless hate slavery, that Douglas's popular sovereignty is as good
a way as any to oppose slavery. They allow themselves to be persuaded
easily, in accordance with their previous dispositions, into this belief,
that it is about as good a way of opposing slavery as any, and we can do
that without straining our old party ties or breaking up old political
associations. We can do so without being called negro-worshipers. We can
do that without being subjected to the jibes and sneers that are so
readily thrown out in place of argument where no argument can be found.
So let us stick to this popular sovereignty,--this insidious popular
sovereignty.

Now let me call your attention to one thing that has really happened,
which shows this gradual and steady debauching of public opinion, this
course of preparation for the revival of the slave trade, for the
Territorial slave code, and the new Dred Scott decision that is to carry
slavery into the Free States. Did you ever, five years ago, hear of
anybody in the world saying that the negro had no share in the
Declaration of National Independence; that it does not mean negroes at
all; and when "all men" were spoken of, negroes were not included?

I am satisfied that five years ago that proposition was not put upon
paper by any living being anywhere. I have been unable at any time to
find a man in an audience who would declare that he had ever known of
anybody saying so five years ago. But last year there was not a Douglas
popular sovereign in Illinois who did not say it. Is there one in Ohio
but declares his firm belief that the Declaration of Independence did not
mean negroes at all? I do not know how this is; I have not been here
much; but I presume you are very much alike everywhere. Then I suppose
that all now express the belief that the Declaration of Independence
never did mean negroes. I call upon one of them to say that he said it
five years ago.

If you think that now, and did not think it then, the next thing that
strikes me is to remark that there has been a change wrought in you,--and
a very significant change it is, being no less than changing the negro,
in your estimation, from the rank of a man to that of a brute. They are
taking him down and placing him, when spoken of, among reptiles and
crocodiles, as Judge Douglas himself expresses it.