The Writings of Abraham Lincoln, Volume 4

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But when I have admitted all this, I ask if there is any parallel between
these things and this institution of slavery? I do not see that there is
any parallel at all between them. Consider it. When have we had any
difficulty or quarrel amongst ourselves about the cranberry laws of
Indiana, or the oyster laws of Virginia, or the pine-lumber laws of
Maine, or the fact that Louisiana produces sugar, and Illinois flour?
When have we had any quarrels over these things? When have we had perfect
peace in regard to this thing which I say is an element of discord in
this Union? We have sometimes had peace, but when was it? It was when the
institution of slavery remained quiet where it was. We have had
difficulty and turmoil whenever it has made a struggle to spread itself
where it was not. I ask, then, if experience does not speak in
thunder-tones telling us that the policy which has given peace to the
country heretofore, being returned to, gives the greatest promise of
peace again. You may say, and Judge Douglas has intimated the same thing,
that all this difficulty in regard to the institution of slavery is the
mere agitation of office-seekers and ambitious Northern politicians. He
thinks we want to get "his place," I suppose. I agree that there are
office-seekers amongst us. The Bible says somewhere that we are
desperately selfish. I think we would have discovered that fact without
the Bible. I do not claim that I am any less so than the average of men,
but I do claim that I am not more selfish than Judge Douglas.

But is it true that all the difficulty and agitation we have in regard to
this institution of slavery spring from office-seeking, from the mere
ambition of politicians? Is that the truth? How many times have we had
danger from this question? Go back to the day of the Missouri Compromise.
Go back to the nullification question, at the bottom of which lay this
same slavery question. Go back to the time of the annexation of Texas. Go
back to the troubles that led to the Compromise of 1850. You will find
that every time, with the single exception of the Nullification question,
they sprung from an endeavor to spread this institution. There never was
a party in the history of this country, and there probably never will be,
of sufficient strength to disturb the general peace of the country.
Parties themselves may be divided and quarrel on minor questions, yet it
extends not beyond the parties themselves. But does not this question
make a disturbance outside of political circles? Does it not enter into
the churches and rend them asunder? What divided the great Methodist
Church into two parts, North and South? What has raised this constant
disturbance in every Presbyterian General Assembly that meets? What
disturbed the Unitarian Church in this very city two years ago? What has
jarred and shaken the great American Tract Society recently, not yet
splitting it, but sure to divide it in the end? Is it not this same
mighty, deep-seated power that somehow operates on the minds of men,
exciting and stirring them up in every avenue of society,--in politics,
in religion, in literature, in morals, in all the manifold relations of
life? Is this the work of politicians? Is that irresistible power, which
for fifty years has shaken the government and agitated the people, to be
stifled and subdued by pretending that it is an exceedingly simple thing,
and we ought not to talk about it? If you will get everybody else to stop
talking about it, I assure you I will quit before they have half done so.
But where is the philosophy or statesmanship which assumes that you can
quiet that disturbing element in our society which has disturbed us for
more than half a century, which has been the only serious danger that has
threatened our institutions,--I say, where is the philosophy or the
statesmanship based on the assumption that we are to quit talking about
it, and that the public mind is all at once to cease being agitated by
it? Yet this is the policy here in the North that Douglas is advocating,
that we are to care nothing about it! I ask you if it is not a false
philosophy. Is it not a false statesmanship that undertakes to build up a
system of policy upon the basis of caring nothing about the very thing
that everybody does care the most about--a thing which all experience has
shown we care a very great deal about?

The Judge alludes very often in the course of his remarks to the
exclusive right which the States have to decide the whole thing for
themselves. I agree with him very readily that the different States have
that right. He is but fighting a man of straw when he assumes that I am
contending against the right of the States to do as they please about it.
Our controversy with him is in regard to the new Territories. We agree
that when the States come in as States they have the right and the power
to do as they please. We have no power as citizens of the free-States, or
in our Federal capacity as members of the Federal Union through the
General Government, to disturb slavery in the States where it exists. We
profess constantly that we have no more inclination than belief in the
power of the government to disturb it; yet we are driven constantly to
defend ourselves from the assumption that we are warring upon the rights
of the Sates. What I insist upon is, that the new Territories shall be
kept free from it while in the Territorial condition. Judge Douglas
assumes that we have no interest in them,--that we have no right whatever
to interfere. I think we have some interest. I think that as white men we
have. Do we not wish for an outlet for our surplus population, if I may
so express myself? Do we not feel an interest in getting to that outlet
with such institutions as we would like to have prevail there? If you go
to the Territory opposed to slavery, and another man comes upon the same
ground with his slave, upon the assumption that the things are equal, it
turns out that he has the equal right all his way, and you have no part
of it your way. If he goes in and makes it a slave Territory, and by
consequence a slave State, is it not time that those who desire to have
it a free State were on equal ground? Let me suggest it in a different
way. How many Democrats are there about here ["A thousand"] who have left
slave States and come into the free State of Illinois to get rid of the
institution of slavery? [Another voice: "A thousand and one."] I reckon
there are a thousand and one. I will ask you, if the policy you are now
advocating had prevailed when this country was in a Territorial
condition, where would you have gone to get rid of it? Where would you
have found your free State or Territory to go to? And when hereafter, for
any cause, the people in this place shall desire to find new homes, if
they wish to be rid of the institution, where will they find the place to
go to?

Now, irrespective of the moral aspect of this question as to whether
there is a right or wrong in enslaving a negro, I am still in favor of
our new Territories being in such a condition that white men may find a
home,--may find some spot where they can better their condition; where
they can settle upon new soil and better their condition in life. I am in
favor of this, not merely (I must say it here as I have elsewhere) for
our own people who are born amongst us, but as an outlet for free white
people everywhere the world over--in which Hans, and Baptiste, and
Patrick, and all other men from all the world, may find new homes and
better their conditions in life.

I have stated upon former occasions, and I may as well state again, what
I understand to be the real issue in this controversy between Judge
Douglas and myself. On the point of my wanting to make war between the
free and the slave States, there has been no issue between us. So, too,
when he assumes that I am in favor of producing a perfect social and
political equality between the white and black races. These are false
issues, upon which Judge Douglas has tried to force the controversy.
There is no foundation in truth for the charge that I maintain either of
these propositions. The real issue in this controversy--the one pressing
upon every mind--is the sentiment on the part of one class that looks
upon the institution of slavery as a wrong, and of another class that
does not look upon it as a wrong. The sentiment that contemplates the
institution of slavery in this country as a wrong is the sentiment of the
Republican party. It is the sentiment around which all their actions, all
their arguments, circle, from which all their propositions radiate. They
look upon it as being a moral, social, and political wrong; and while
they contemplate it as such, they nevertheless have due regard for its
actual existence among us, and the difficulties of getting rid of it in
any satisfactory way, and to all the constitutional obligations thrown
about it. Yet, having a due regard for these, they desire a policy in
regard to it that looks to its not creating any more danger. They insist
that it should, as far as may be, be treated as a wrong; and one of the
methods of treating it as a wrong is to make provision that it shall grow
no larger. They also desire a policy that looks to a peaceful end of
slavery at some time. These are the views they entertain in regard to it
as I understand them; and all their sentiments, all their arguments and
propositions, are brought within this range. I have said, and I repeat it
here, that if there be a man amongst us who does not think that the
institution of slavery is wrong in any one of the aspects of which I have
spoken, he is misplaced, and ought not to be with us. And if there be a
man amongst us who is so impatient of it as a wrong as to disregard its
actual presence among us and the difficulty of getting rid of it suddenly
in a satisfactory way, and to disregard the constitutional obligations
thrown about it, that man is misplaced if he is on our platform. We
disclaim sympathy with him in practical action. He is not placed properly
with us.

On this subject of treating it as a wrong, and limiting its spread, let
me say a word. Has anything ever threatened the existence of this Union
save and except this very institution of slavery? What is it that we hold
most dear amongst us? Our own liberty and prosperity. What has ever
threatened our liberty and prosperity, save and except this institution
of slavery? If this is true, how do you propose to improve the condition
of things by enlarging slavery, by spreading it out and making it bigger?
You may have a wen or cancer upon your person, and not be able to cut it
out, lest you bleed to death; but surely it is no way to cure it, to
engraft it and spread it over your whole body. That is no proper way of
treating what you regard a wrong. You see this peaceful way of dealing
with it as a wrong, restricting the spread of it, and not allowing it to
go into new countries where it has not already existed. That is the
peaceful way, the old-fashioned way, the way in which the fathers
themselves set us the example.

On the other hand, I have said there is a sentiment which treats it as
not being wrong. That is the Democratic sentiment of this day. I do not
mean to say that every man who stands within that range positively
asserts that it is right. That class will include all who positively
assert that it is right, and all who, like Judge Douglas, treat it as
indifferent and do not say it is either right or wrong. These two classes
of men fall within the general class of those who do not look upon it as
a wrong. And if there be among you anybody who supposes that he, as a
Democrat, can consider himself "as much opposed to slavery as anybody," I
would like to reason with him. You never treat it as a wrong. What other
thing that you consider as a wrong do you deal with as you deal with
that? Perhaps you say it is wrong--but your leader never does, and you
quarrel with anybody who says it is wrong. Although you pretend to say so
yourself, you can find no fit place to deal with it as a wrong. You must
not say anything about it in the free States, because it is not here. You
must not say anything about it in the slave States, because it is there.
You must not say anything about it in the pulpit, because that is
religion, and has nothing to do with it. You must not say anything about
it in politics, because that will disturb the security of "my place."
There is no place to talk about it as being a wrong, although you say
yourself it is a wrong. But, finally, you will screw yourself up to the
belief that if the people of the slave States should adopt a system of
gradual emancipation on the slavery question, you would be in favor of
it. You would be in favor of it. You say that is getting it in the right
place, and you would be glad to see it succeed. But you are deceiving
yourself. You all know that Frank Blair and Gratz Brown, down there in
St. Louis, undertook to introduce that system in Missouri. They fought as
valiantly as they could for the system of gradual emancipation which you
pretend you would be glad to see succeed. Now, I will bring you to the
test. After a hard fight they were beaten, and when the news came over
here, you threw up your hats and hurrahed for Democracy. More than that,
take all the argument made in favor of the system you have proposed, and
it carefully excludes the idea that there is anything wrong in the
institution of slavery. The arguments to sustain that policy carefully
exclude it. Even here to-day you heard Judge Douglas quarrel with me
because I uttered a wish that it might sometime come to an end. Although
Henry Clay could say he wished every slave in the United States was in
the country of his ancestors, I am denounced by those pretending to
respect Henry Clay for uttering a wish that it might sometime, in some
peaceful way, come to an end. The Democratic policy in regard to that
institution will not tolerate the merest breath, the slightest hint, of
the least degree of wrong about it. Try it by some of Judge Douglas's
arguments. He says he "don't care whether it is voted up or voted down"
in the Territories. I do not care myself, in dealing with that
expression, whether it is intended to be expressive of his individual
sentiments on the subject, or only of the national policy he desires to
have established. It is alike valuable for my purpose. Any man can say
that who does not see anything wrong in slavery; but no man can logically
say it who does see a wrong in it, because no man can logically say he
don't care whether a wrong is voted up or voted down. He may say he don't
care whether an indifferent thing is voted up or down, but he must
logically have a choice between a right thing and a wrong thing. He
contends that whatever community wants slaves has a right to have them.
So they have, if it is not a wrong. But if it is a wrong, he cannot say
people have a right to do wrong. He says that upon the score of equality
slaves should be allowed to go in a new Territory, like other property.
This is strictly logical if there is no difference between it and other
property. If it and other property are equal, this argument is entirely
logical. But if you insist that one is wrong and the other right, there
is no use to institute a comparison between right and wrong. You may turn
over everything in the Democratic policy from beginning to end, whether
in the shape it takes on the statute book, in the shape it takes in the
Dred Scott decision, in the shape it takes in conversation, or the shape
it takes in short maxim-like arguments,--it everywhere carefully excludes
the idea that there is anything wrong in it.

That is the real issue. That is the issue that will continue in this
country when these poor tongues of Judge Douglas and myself shall be
silent. It is the eternal struggle between these two principles--right
and wrong--throughout the world. They are the two principles that have
stood face to face from the beginning of time, and will ever continue to
struggle. The one is the common right of humanity, and the other the
divine right of kings. It is the same principle in whatever shape it
develops itself. It is the same spirit that says, "You work and toil and
earn bread, and I'll eat it." No matter in what shape it comes, whether
from the mouth of a king who seeks to bestride the people of his own
nation and live by the fruit of their labor, or from one race of men as
an apology for enslaving another race, it is the same tyrannical
principle. I was glad to express my gratitude at Quincy, and I re-express
it here, to Judge Douglas,--that he looks to no end of the institution of
slavery. That will help the people to see where the struggle really is.
It will hereafter place with us all men who really do wish the wrong may
have an end. And whenever we can get rid of the fog which obscures the
real question, when we can get Judge Douglas and his friends to avow a
policy looking to its perpetuation,--we can get out from among that class
of men and bring them to the side of those who treat it as a wrong. Then
there will soon be an end of it, and that end will be its "ultimate
extinction." Whenever the issue can be distinctly made, and all
extraneous matter thrown out so that men can fairly see the real
difference between the parties, this controversy will soon be settled,
and it will be done peaceably too. There will be no war, no violence. It
will be placed again where the wisest and best men of the world placed
it. Brooks of South Carolina once declared that when this Constitution
was framed its framers did not look to the institution existing until
this day. When he said this, I think he stated a fact that is fully borne
out by the history of the times. But he also said they were better and
wiser men than the men of these days, yet the men of these days had
experience which they had not, and by the invention of the cotton-gin it
became a necessity in this country that slavery should be perpetual. I
now say that, willingly or unwillingly--purposely or without purpose,
Judge Douglas has been the most prominent instrument in changing the
position of the institution of slavery,--which the fathers of the
government expected to come to an end ere this, and putting it upon
Brooks's cotton-gin basis; placing it where he openly confesses he has no
desire there shall ever be an end of it.

I understand I have ten minutes yet. I will employ it in saying something
about this argument Judge Douglas uses, while he sustains the Dred Scott
decision, that the people of the Territories can still somehow exclude
slavery. The first thing I ask attention to is the fact that Judge
Douglas constantly said, before the decision, that whether they could or
not, was a question for the Supreme Court. But after the court had made
the decision he virtually says it is not a question for the Supreme
Court, but for the people. And how is it he tells us they can exclude it?
He says it needs "police regulations," and that admits of "unfriendly
legislation." Although it is a right established by the Constitution of
the United States to take a slave into a Territory of the United States
and hold him as property, yet unless the Territorial Legislature will
give friendly legislation, and more especially if they adopt unfriendly
legislation, they can practically exclude him. Now, without meeting this
proposition as a matter of fact, I pass to consider the real
constitutional obligation. Let me take the gentleman who looks me in the
face before me, and let us suppose that he is a member of the Territorial
Legislature. The first thing he will do will be to swear that he will
support the Constitution of the United States. His neighbor by his side
in the Territory has slaves and needs Territorial legislation to enable
him to enjoy that constitutional right. Can he withhold the legislation
which his neighbor needs for the enjoyment of a right which is fixed in
his favor in the Constitution of the United States which he has sworn to
support? Can he withhold it without violating his oath? And, more
especially, can he pass unfriendly legislation to violate his oath? Why,
this is a monstrous sort of talk about the Constitution of the United
States! There has never been as outlandish or lawless a doctrine from the
mouth of any respectable man on earth. I do not believe it is a
constitutional right to hold slaves in a Territory of the United States.
I believe the decision was improperly made and I go for reversing it.
Judge Douglas is furious against those who go for reversing a decision.
But he is for legislating it out of all force while the law itself
stands. I repeat that there has never been so monstrous a doctrine
uttered from the mouth of a respectable man.

I suppose most of us (I know it of myself) believe that the people of the
Southern States are entitled to a Congressional Fugitive Slave law,--that
is a right fixed in the Constitution. But it cannot be made available to
them without Congressional legislation. In the Judge's language, it is a
"barren right," which needs legislation before it can become efficient
and valuable to the persons to whom it is guaranteed. And as the right is
constitutional, I agree that the legislation shall be granted to it, and
that not that we like the institution of slavery. We profess to have no
taste for running and catching niggers, at least, I profess no taste for
that job at all. Why then do I yield support to a Fugitive Slave law?
Because I do not understand that the Constitution, which guarantees that
right, can be supported without it. And if I believed that the right to
hold a slave in a Territory was equally fixed in the Constitution with
the right to reclaim fugitives, I should be bound to give it the
legislation necessary to support it. I say that no man can deny his
obligation to give the necessary legislation to support slavery in a
Territory, who believes it is a constitutional right to have it there. No
man can, who does not give the Abolitionists an argument to deny the
obligation enjoined by the Constitution to enact a Fugitive State law.
Try it now. It is the strongest Abolition argument ever made. I say if
that Dred Scott decision is correct, then the right to hold slaves in a
Territory is equally a constitutional right with the right of a
slaveholder to have his runaway returned. No one can show the distinction
between them. The one is express, so that we cannot deny it. The other is
construed to be in the Constitution, so that he who believes the decision
to be correct believes in the right. And the man who argues that by
unfriendly legislation, in spite of that constitutional right, slavery
may be driven from the Territories, cannot avoid furnishing an argument
by which Abolitionists may deny the obligation to return fugitives, and
claim the power to pass laws unfriendly to the right of the slaveholder
to reclaim his fugitive. I do not know how such an arguement may strike a
popular assembly like this, but I defy anybody to go before a body of men
whose minds are educated to estimating evidence and reasoning, and show
that there is an iota of difference between the constitutional right to
reclaim a fugitive and the constitutional right to hold a slave, in a
Territory, provided this Dred Scott decision is correct, I defy any man
to make an argument that will justify unfriendly legislation to deprive a
slaveholder of his right to hold his slave in a Territory, that will not
equally, in all its length, breadth, and thickness, furnish an argument
for nullifying the Fugitive Slave law. Why, there is not such an
Abolitionist in the nation as Douglas, after all! such an Abolitionist in
the nation as Douglas, after all!