THIRD JOINT DEBATE, AT JONESBORO,

SEPTEMBER 15, 1858

Mr. LINCOLN'S REPLY.

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN:--There is very much in the principles that Judge

Douglas has here enunciated that I most cordially approve, and over which

I shall have no controversy with him. In so far as he has insisted that

all the States have the right to do exactly as they please about all their

domestic relations, including that of slavery, I agree entirely with him.

He places me wrong in spite of all I can tell him, though I repeat it

again and again, insisting that I have no difference with him upon this

subject. I have made a great many speeches, some of which have been

printed, and it will be utterly impossible for him to find anything that

I have ever put in print contrary to what I now say upon this subject. I

hold myself under constitutional obligations to allow the people in all

the States, without interference, direct or indirect, to do exactly as

they please; and I deny that I have any inclination to interfere with

them, even if there were no such constitutional obligation. I can only say

again that I am placed improperly--altogether improperly, in spite of all

I can say--when it is insisted that I entertain any other view or purposes

in regard to that matter.

While I am upon this subject, I will make some answers briefly to certain

propositions that Judge Douglas has put. He says, "Why can't this Union

endure permanently half slave and half free?" I have said that I supposed

it could not, and I will try, before this new audience, to give briefly

some of the reasons for entertaining that opinion. Another form of his

question is, "Why can't we let it stand as our fathers placed it?" That is

the exact difficulty between us. I say that Judge Douglas and his friends

have changed it from the position in which our fathers originally placed

it. I say, in the way our father's originally left the slavery question,

the institution was in the course of ultimate extinction, and the

public mind rested in the belief that it was in the course of ultimate

extinction. I say when this government was first established it was the

policy of its founders to prohibit the spread of slavery into the new

Territories of the United States, where it had not existed. But Judge

Douglas and his friends have broken up that policy, and placed it upon

a new basis, by which it is to become national and perpetual. All I have

asked or desired anywhere is that it should be placed back again upon the

basis that the fathers of our government originally placed it upon. I have

no doubt that it would become extinct, for all time to come, if we but

readopted the policy of the fathers, by restricting it to the limits it

has already covered, restricting it from the new Territories.

I do not wish to dwell at great length on this branch of the subject at

this time, but allow me to repeat one thing that I have stated before.

Brooks--the man who assaulted Senator Sumner on the floor of the

Senate, and who was complimented with dinners, and silver pitchers, and

gold-headed canes, and a good many other things for that feat--in one

of his speeches declared that when this government was originally

established, nobody expected that the institution of slavery would last

until this day. That was but the opinion of one man, but it was such an

opinion as we can never get from Judge Douglas or anybody in favor of

slavery, in the North, at all. You can sometimes get it from a Southern

man. He said at the same time that the framers of our government did not

have the knowledge that experience has taught us; that experience and

the invention of the cotton-gin have taught us that the perpetuation of

slavery is a necessity. He insisted, therefore, upon its being changed

from the basis upon which the fathers of the government left it to the

basis of its perpetuation and nationalization.

I insist that this is the difference between Judge Douglas and

myself,--that Judge Douglas is helping that change along. I insist upon

this government being placed where our fathers originally placed it.

I remember Judge Douglas once said that he saw the evidences on the

statute books of Congress of a policy in the origin of government

to divide slavery and freedom by a geographical line; that he saw an

indisposition to maintain that policy, and therefore he set about studying

up a way to settle the institution on the right basis,--the basis which he

thought it ought to have been placed upon at first; and in that speech he

confesses that he seeks to place it, not upon the basis that the fathers

placed it upon, but upon one gotten up on "original principles." When he

asks me why we cannot get along with it in the attitude where our fathers

placed it, he had better clear up the evidences that he has himself

changed it from that basis, that he has himself been chiefly instrumental

in changing the policy of the fathers. Any one who will read his speech

of the 22d of last March will see that he there makes an open confession,

showing that he set about fixing the institution upon an altogether

different set of principles. I think I have fully answered him when he

asks me why we cannot let it alone upon the basis where our fathers

left it, by showing that he has himself changed the whole policy of the

government in that regard.

Now, fellow-citizens, in regard to this matter about a contract that was

made between Judge Trumbull and myself, and all that long portion of Judge

Douglas's speech on this subject,--I wish simply to say what I have said

to him before, that he cannot know whether it is true or not, and I do

know that there is not a word of truth in it. And I have told him so

before. I don't want any harsh language indulged in, but I do not know

how to deal with this persistent insisting on a story that I know to be

utterly without truth. It used to be a fashion amongst men that when a

charge was made, some sort of proof was brought forward to establish it,

and if no proof was found to exist, the charge was dropped. I don't know

how to meet this kind of an argument. I don't want to have a fight

with Judge Douglas, and I have no way of making an argument up into the

consistency of a corn-cob and stopping his mouth with it. All I can do

is--good-humoredly--to say that, from the beginning to the end of all that

story about a bargain between Judge Trumbull and myself, there is not a

word of truth in it. I can only ask him to show some sort of evidence

of the truth of his story. He brings forward here and reads from what he

contends is a speech by James H. Matheny, charging such a bargain between

Trumbull and myself. My own opinion is that Matheny did do some such

immoral thing as to tell a story that he knew nothing about. I believe he

did. I contradicted it instantly, and it has been contradicted by Judge

Trumbull, while nobody has produced any proof, because there is none. Now,

whether the speech which the Judge brings forward here is really the

one Matheny made, I do not know, and I hope the Judge will pardon me for

doubting the genuineness of this document, since his production of those

Springfield resolutions at Ottawa. I do not wish to dwell at any great

length upon this matter. I can say nothing when a long story like this is

told, except it is not true, and demand that he who insists upon it shall

produce some proof. That is all any man can do, and I leave it in that

way, for I know of no other way of dealing with it.

[In an argument on the lines of: "Yes, you did.--No, I did not." It bears

on the former to prove his point, not on the negative to "prove" that he

did not--even if he easily can do so.]

The Judge has gone over a long account of the old Whig and Democratic

parties, and it connects itself with this charge against Trumbull and

myself. He says that they agreed upon a compromise in regard to the

slavery question in 1850; that in a National Democratic Convention

resolutions were passed to abide by that compromise as a finality upon the

slavery question. He also says that the Whig party in National Convention

agreed to abide by and regard as a finality the Compromise of 1850. I

understand the Judge to be altogether right about that; I understand

that part of the history of the country as stated by him to be correct

I recollect that I, as a member of that party, acquiesced in that

compromise. I recollect in the Presidential election which followed,

when we had General Scott up for the presidency, Judge Douglas was around

berating us Whigs as Abolitionists, precisely as he does to-day,--not a

bit of difference. I have often heard him. We could do nothing when the

old Whig party was alive that was not Abolitionism, but it has got an

extremely good name since it has passed away.

[It almost a natural law that, when dead--no matter how bad we were--we

are automatically beatified.]

When that Compromise was made it did not repeal the old Missouri

Compromise. It left a region of United States territory half as large

as the present territory of the United States, north of the line of 36

degrees 30 minutes, in which slavery was prohibited by Act of Congress.

This Compromise did not repeal that one. It did not affect or propose to

repeal it. But at last it became Judge Douglas's duty, as he thought (and

I find no fault with him), as Chairman of the Committee on Territories, to

bring in a bill for the organization of a territorial government,--first

of one, then of two Territories north of that line. When he did so, it

ended in his inserting a provision substantially repealing the Missouri

Compromise. That was because the Compromise of 1850 had not repealed it.

And now I ask why he could not have let that Compromise alone? We were

quiet from the agitation of the slavery question. We were making no fuss

about it. All had acquiesced in the Compromise measures of 1850. We

never had been seriously disturbed by any Abolition agitation before that

period. When he came to form governments for the Territories north of the

line of 36 degrees 30 minutes, why could he not have let that matter stand

as it was standing? Was it necessary to the organization of a Territory?

Not at all. Iowa lay north of the line, and had been organized as a

Territory and come into the Union as a State without disturbing that

Compromise. There was no sort of necessity for destroying it to organize

these Territories. But, gentlemen, it would take up all my time to meet

all the little quibbling arguments of Judge Douglas to show that the

Missouri Compromise was repealed by the Compromise of 1850. My own opinion

is, that a careful investigation of all the arguments to sustain the

position that that Compromise was virtually repealed by the Compromise of

1850 would show that they are the merest fallacies. I have the report that

Judge Douglas first brought into Congress at the time of the introduction

of the Nebraska Bill, which in its original form did not repeal the

Missouri Compromise, and he there expressly stated that he had forborne to

do so because it had not been done by the Compromise of 1850. I close this

part of the discussion on my part by asking him the question again, "Why,

when we had peace under the Missouri Compromise, could you not have let it

alone?"

In complaining of what I said in my speech at Springfield, in which he

says I accepted my nomination for the senatorship (where, by the way, he

is at fault, for if he will examine it, he will find no acceptance in it),

he again quotes that portion in which I said that "a house divided against

itself cannot stand." Let me say a word in regard to that matter.

He tries to persuade us that there must be a variety in the different

institutions of the States of the Union; that that variety necessarily

proceeds from the variety of soil, climate, of the face of the country,

and the difference in the natural features of the States. I agree to all

that. Have these very matters ever produced any difficulty amongst us? Not

at all. Have we ever had any quarrel over the fact that they have laws

in Louisiana designed to regulate the commerce that springs from the

production of sugar? Or because we have a different class relative to the

production of flour in this State? Have they produced any differences? Not

at all. They are the very cements of this Union. They don't make the house

a house divided against itself. They are the props that hold up the house

and sustain the Union.

But has it been so with this element of slavery? Have we not always had

quarrels and difficulties over it? And when will we cease to have quarrels

over it? Like causes produce like effects. It is worth while to observe

that we have generally had comparative peace upon the slavery question,

and that there has been no cause for alarm until it was excited by the

effort to spread it into new territory. Whenever it has been limited to

its present bounds, and there has been no effort to spread it, there has

been peace. All the trouble and convulsion has proceeded from efforts to

spread it over more territory. It was thus at the date of the Missouri

Compromise. It was so again with the annexation of Texas; so with the

territory acquired by the Mexican war; and it is so now. Whenever there

has been an effort to spread it, there has been agitation and resistance.

Now, I appeal to this audience (very few of whom are my political

friends), as national men, whether we have reason to expect that the

agitation in regard to this subject will cease while the causes that tend

to reproduce agitation are actively at work? Will not the same cause that

produced agitation in 1820, when the Missouri Compromise was formed, that

which produced the agitation upon the annexation of Texas, and at other

times, work out the same results always? Do you think that the nature of

man will be changed, that the same causes that produced agitation at one

time will not have the same effect at another?

This has been the result so far as my observation of the slavery question

and my reading in history extends. What right have we then to hope that

the trouble will cease,--that the agitation will come to an end,--until

it shall either be placed back where it originally stood, and where

the fathers originally placed it, or, on the other hand, until it shall

entirely master all opposition? This is the view I entertain, and this

is the reason why I entertained it, as Judge Douglas has read from my

Springfield speech.

Now, my friends, there is one other thing that I feel myself under some

sort of obligation to mention. Judge Douglas has here to-day--in a very

rambling way, I was about saying--spoken of the platforms for which he

seeks to hold me responsible. He says, "Why can't you come out and make

an open avowal of principles in all places alike?" and he reads from an

advertisement that he says was used to notify the people of a speech to be

made by Judge Trumbull at Waterloo. In commenting on it he desires to know

whether we cannot speak frankly and manfully, as he and his friends do.

How, I ask, do his friends speak out their own sentiments? A Convention

of his party in this State met on the 21st of April at Springfield, and

passed a set of resolutions which they proclaim to the country as their

platform. This does constitute their platform, and it is because Judge

Douglas claims it is his platform--that these are his principles and

purposes--that he has a right to declare he speaks his sentiments "frankly

and manfully." On the 9th of June Colonel John Dougherty, Governor

Reynolds, and others, calling themselves National Democrats, met

in Springfield and adopted a set of resolutions which are as easily

understood, as plain and as definite in stating to the country and to

the world what they believed in and would stand upon, as Judge Douglas's

platform Now, what is the reason that Judge Douglas is not willing that

Colonel Dougherty and Governor Reynolds should stand upon their own

written and printed platform as well as he upon his? Why must he look

farther than their platform when he claims himself to stand by his

platform?

Again, in reference to our platform: On the 16th of June the Republicans

had their Convention and published their platform, which is as clear and

distinct as Judge Douglas's. In it they spoke their principles as plainly

and as definitely to the world. What is the reason that Judge Douglas

is not willing I should stand upon that platform? Why must he go around

hunting for some one who is supporting me or has supported me at some

time in his life, and who has said something at some time contrary to that

platform? Does the Judge regard that rule as a good one? If it turn out

that the rule is a good one for me--that I am responsible for any and

every opinion that any man has expressed who is my friend,--then it is a

good rule for him. I ask, is it not as good a rule for him as it is for

me? In my opinion, it is not a good rule for either of us. Do you think

differently, Judge?

[Mr. DOUGLAS: I do not.]

Judge Douglas says he does not think differently. I am glad of it. Then

can he tell me why he is looking up resolutions of five or six years ago,

and insisting that they were my platform, notwithstanding my protest that

they are not, and never were my platform, and my pointing out the platform

of the State Convention which he delights to say nominated me for the

Senate? I cannot see what he means by parading these resolutions, if it

is not to hold me responsible for them in some way. If he says to me here

that he does not hold the rule to be good, one way or the other, I do not

comprehend how he could answer me more fully if he answered me at greater

length. I will therefore put in as my answer to the resolutions that he

has hunted up against me, what I, as a lawyer, would call a good plea to a

bad declaration. I understand that it is an axiom of law that a poor plea

may be a good plea to a bad declaration. I think that the opinions the

Judge brings from those who support me, yet differ from me, is a bad

declaration against me; but if I can bring the same things against him, I

am putting in a good plea to that kind of declaration, and now I propose

to try it.

At Freeport, Judge Douglas occupied a large part of his time in producing

resolutions and documents of various sorts, as I understood, to make me

somehow responsible for them; and I propose now doing a little of the

same sort of thing for him. In 1850 a very clever gentleman by the name

of Thompson Campbell, a personal friend of Judge Douglas and myself, a

political friend of Judge Douglas and opponent of mine, was a candidate

for Congress in the Galena District. He was interrogated as to his views

on this same slavery question. I have here before me the interrogatories,

and Campbell's answers to them--I will read them:

INTERROGATORIES:

"1st. Will you, if elected, vote for and cordially support a bill

prohibiting slavery in the Territories of the United States?

"2d. Will you vote for and support a bill abolishing slavery in the

District of Columbia?

"3d. Will you oppose the admission of any Slave States which may be formed

out of Texas or the Territories?

"4th. Will you vote for and advocate the repeal of the Fugitive Slave law

passed at the recent session of Congress?

"5th. Will you advocate and vote for the election of a Speaker of the

House of Representatives who shall be willing to organize the committees

of that House so as to give the Free States their just influence in the

business of legislation?

"6th. What are your views, not only as to the constitutional right of

Congress to prohibit the slave-trade between the States, but also as to

the expediency of exercising that right immediately?"

CAMPBELL'S REPLY.

"To the first and second interrogatories, I answer unequivocally in the

affirmative.

"To the third interrogatory I reply, that I am opposed to the admission of

any more Slave States into the Union, that may be formed out of Texas or

any other Territory.

"To the fourth and fifth interrogatories I unhesitatingly answer in the

affirmative.

"To the sixth interrogatory I reply, that so long as the Slave States

continue to treat slaves as articles of commerce, the Constitution confers

power on Congress to pass laws regulating that peculiar COMMERCE, and that

the protection of Human Rights imperatively demands the interposition of

every constitutional means to prevent this most inhuman and iniquitous

traffic.

"T. CAMPBELL."

I want to say here that Thompson Campbell was elected to Congress on that

platform, as the Democratic candidate in the Galena District, against

Martin P. Sweet.

[Judge DOUGLAS: Give me the date of the letter.]

The time Campbell ran was in 1850. I have not the exact date here. It

was some time in 1850 that these interrogatories were put and the answer

given. Campbell was elected to Congress, and served out his term. I think

a second election came up before he served out his term, and he was

not re-elected. Whether defeated or not nominated, I do not know. [Mr.

Campbell was nominated for re-election by the Democratic party, by

acclamation.] At the end of his term his very good friend Judge Douglas

got him a high office from President Pierce, and sent him off to

California. Is not that the fact? Just at the end of his term in Congress

it appears that our mutual friend Judge Douglas got our mutual friend

Campbell a good office, and sent him to California upon it. And not only

so, but on the 27th of last month, when Judge Douglas and myself spoke at

Freeport in joint discussion, there was his same friend Campbell, come

all the way from California, to help the Judge beat me; and there was poor

Martin P. Sweet standing on the platform, trying to help poor me to be

elected. That is true of one of Judge Douglas's friends.

So again, in that same race of 1850, there was a Congressional Convention

assembled at Joliet, and it nominated R. S. Molony for Congress, and

unanimously adopted the following resolution:

"Resolved, That we are uncompromisingly opposed to the extension

of slavery; and while we would not make such opposition a ground of

interference with the interests of the States where it exists, yet we

moderately but firmly insist that it is the duty of Congress to oppose

its extension into Territory now free, by all means compatible with the

obligations of the Constitution, and with good faith to our sister States;

that these principles were recognized by the Ordinance of 1787, which

received the sanction of Thomas Jefferson, who is acknowledged by all to

be the great oracle and expounder of our faith."

Subsequently the same interrogatories were propounded to Dr. Molony which

had been addressed to Campbell as above, with the exception of the 6th,

respecting the interstate slave trade, to which Dr. Molony, the Democratic

nominee for Congress, replied as follows:

"I received the written interrogatories this day, and, as you will see by

the La Salle Democrat and Ottawa Free Trader, I took at Peru on the 5th,

and at Ottawa on the 7th, the affirmative side of interrogatories 1st and

2d; and in relation to the admission of any more Slave States from Free

Territory, my position taken at these meetings, as correctly reported in

said papers, was emphatically and distinctly opposed to it. In relation

to the admission of any more Slave States from Texas, whether I shall go

against it or not will depend upon the opinion that I may hereafter form

of the true meaning and nature of the resolutions of annexation. If, by

said resolutions, the honor and good faith of the nation is pledged to

admit more Slave States from Texas when she (Texas) may apply for the

admission of such State, then I should, if in Congress, vote for their

admission. But if not so PLEDGED and bound by sacred contract, then a bill

for the admission of more Slave States from Texas would never receive my

vote.

"To your fourth interrogatory I answer most decidedly in the affirmative,

and for reasons set forth in my reported remarks at Ottawa last Monday.

"To your fifth interrogatory I also reply in the affirmative most

cordially, and that I will use my utmost exertions to secure the

nomination and election of a man who will accomplish the objects of said

interrogatories. I most cordially approve of the resolutions adopted at

the Union meeting held at Princeton on the 27th September ult.

"Yours, etc., R. S. MOLONY."

All I have to say in regard to Dr. Molony is that he was the regularly

nominated Democratic candidate for Congress in his district; was elected

at that time; at the end of his term was appointed to a land-office at

Danville. (I never heard anything of Judge Douglas's instrumentality

in this.) He held this office a considerable time, and when we were at

Freeport the other day there were handbills scattered about notifying the

public that after our debate was over R. S. Molony would make a Democratic

speech in favor of Judge Douglas. That is all I know of my own personal

knowledge. It is added here to this resolution, and truly I believe, that

among those who participated in the Joliet Convention, and who supported

its nominee, with his platform as laid down in the resolution of the

Convention and in his reply as above given, we call at random the

following names, all of which are recognized at this day as leading

Democrats:

"Cook County,--E. B. Williams, Charles McDonell, Arno Voss, Thomas Hoyne,

Isaac Cook."

I reckon we ought to except Cook.

"F. C. Sherman.

"Will,--Joel A. Matteson, S. W. Bowen.

"Kane,--B. F. Hall, G. W. Renwick, A. M. Herrington, Elijah Wilcox.

"McHenry,--W. M. Jackson, Enos W. Smith, Neil Donnelly.

La Salle,--John Hise, William Reddick."

William Reddick! another one of Judge Douglas's friends that stood on the

stand with him at Ottawa, at the time the Judge says my knees trembled so

that I had to be carried away. The names are all here:

"Du Page,--Nathan Allen.

"De Kalb,--Z. B. Mayo."

Here is another set of resolutions which I think are apposite to the

matter in hand.

On the 28th of February of the same year a Democratic District Convention

was held at Naperville to nominate a candidate for Circuit Judge. Among

the delegates were Bowen and Kelly of Will; Captain Naper, H. H. Cody,

Nathan Allen, of Du Page; W. M. Jackson, J. M. Strode, P. W. Platt, and

Enos W. Smith of McHenry; J. Horssnan and others of Winnebago. Colonel

Strode presided over the Convention. The following resolutions were

unanimously adopted,--the first on motion of P. W. Platt, the second on

motion of William M. Jackson:

"Resolved, That this Convention is in favor of the Wilmot Proviso, both in

Principle and Practice, and that we know of no good reason why any person

should oppose the largest latitude in Free Soil, Free Territory and Free

speech.

"Resolved, That in the opinion of this Convention, the time has arrived

when all men should be free, whites as well as others."

[Judge DOUGLAS: What is the date of those resolutions?]

I understand it was in 1850, but I do not know it. I do not state a thing

and say I know it, when I do not. But I have the highest belief that this

is so. I know of no way to arrive at the conclusion that there is an error

in it. I mean to put a case no stronger than the truth will allow. But

what I was going to comment upon is an extract from a newspaper in De Kalb

County; and it strikes me as being rather singular, I confess, under the

circumstances. There is a Judge Mayo in that county, who is a candidate

for the Legislature, for the purpose, if he secures his election, of

helping to re-elect Judge Douglas. He is the editor of a newspaper [De

Kalb County Sentinel], and in that paper I find the extract I am going to

read. It is part of an editorial article in which he was electioneering

as fiercely as he could for Judge Douglas and against me. It was a curious

thing, I think, to be in such a paper. I will agree to that, and the Judge

may make the most of it:

"Our education has been such that we have been rather in favor of the

equality of the blacks; that is, that they should enjoy all the privileges

of the whites where they reside. We are aware that this is not a very

popular doctrine. We have had many a confab with some who are now strong

'Republicans' we taking the broad ground of equality, and they the

opposite ground.

"We were brought up in a State where blacks were voters, and we do not

know of any inconvenience resulting from it, though perhaps it would not

work as well where the blacks are more numerous. We have no doubt of

the right of the whites to guard against such an evil, if it is one. Our

opinion is that it would be best for all concerned to have the colored

population in a State by themselves [in this I agree with him]; but if

within the jurisdiction of the United States, we say by all means they

should have the right to have their Senators and Representatives in

Congress, and to vote for President. With us 'worth makes the man, and

want of it the fellow.' We have seen many a 'nigger' that we thought more

of than some white men."

That is one of Judge Douglas's friends. Now, I do not want to leave myself

in an attitude where I can be misrepresented, so I will say I do not think

the Judge is responsible for this article; but he is quite as responsible

for it as I would be if one of my friends had said it. I think that is

fair enough.

I have here also a set of resolutions passed by a Democratic State

Convention in Judge Douglas's own good State of Vermont, that I think

ought to be good for him too:

"Resolved, That liberty is a right inherent and inalienable in man, and

that herein all men are equal.

"Resolved, That we claim no authority in the Federal Government to abolish

slavery in the several States, but we do claim for it Constitutional power

perpetually to prohibit the introduction of slavery into territory now

free, and abolish it wherever, under the jurisdiction of Congress, it

exists.

"Resolved, That this power ought immediately to be exercised in

prohibiting the introduction and existence of slavery in New Mexico and

California, in abolishing slavery and the slave-trade in the District of

Columbia, on the high seas, and wherever else, under the Constitution, it

can be reached.

"Resolved, That no more Slave States should be admitted into the Federal

Union.

"Resolved, That the Government ought to return to its ancient policy,

not to extend, nationalize, or encourage, but to limit, localize, and

discourage slavery."

At Freeport I answered several interrogatories that had been propounded to

me by Judge Douglas at the Ottawa meeting. The Judge has not yet seen fit

to find any fault with the position that I took in regard to those seven

interrogatories, which were certainly broad enough, in all conscience, to

cover the entire ground. In my answers, which have been printed, and all

have had the opportunity of seeing, I take the ground that those who elect

me must expect that I will do nothing which will not be in accordance with

those answers. I have some right to assert that Judge Douglas has no fault

to find with them. But he chooses to still try to thrust me upon different

ground, without paying any attention to my answers, the obtaining of

which from me cost him so much trouble and concern. At the same time I

propounded four interrogatories to him, claiming it as a right that he

should answer as many interrogatories for me as I did for him, and I would

reserve myself for a future instalment when I got them ready. The Judge,

in answering me upon that occasion, put in what I suppose he intends

as answers to all four of my interrogatories. The first one of these

interrogatories I have before me, and it is in these words:

"Question 1.--If the people of Kansas shall, by means entirely

unobjectionable in all other respects, adopt a State constitution, and ask

admission into the Union under it, before they have the requisite

number of inhabitants according to the English bill,"--some ninety-three

thousand,--"will you vote to admit them?"

As I read the Judge's answer in the newspaper, and as I remember it as

pronounced at the time, he does not give any answer which is equivalent

to yes or no,--I will or I won't. He answers at very considerable length,

rather quarreling with me for asking the question, and insisting that

Judge Trumbull had done something that I ought to say something about, and

finally getting out such statements as induce me to infer that he means

to be understood he will, in that supposed case, vote for the admission of

Kansas. I only bring this forward now for the purpose of saying that if he

chooses to put a different construction upon his answer, he may do it. But

if he does not, I shall from this time forward assume that he will vote

for the admission of Kansas in disregard of the English bill. He has the

right to remove any misunderstanding I may have. I only mention it now,

that I may hereafter assume this to be the true construction of his

answer, if he does not now choose to correct me.

The second interrogatory that I propounded to him was this:

"Question 2.--Can the people of a United States Territory, 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?"

To this Judge Douglas answered that they can lawfully exclude slavery from

the Territory prior to the formation of a constitution. He goes on to tell

us how it can be done. As I understand him, he holds that it can be done

by the Territorial Legislature refusing to make any enactments for

the protection of slavery in the Territory, and especially by adopting

unfriendly legislation to it. For the sake of clearness, I state it again:

that they can exclude slavery from the Territory, 1st, by withholding

what he assumes to be an indispensable assistance to it in the way of

legislation; and, 2d, by unfriendly legislation. If I rightly understand

him, I wish to ask your attention for a while to his position.

In the first place, the Supreme Court of the United States has decided

that any Congressional prohibition of slavery in the Territories is

unconstitutional; that they have reached this proposition as a conclusion

from their former proposition, that the Constitution of the United

States expressly recognizes property in slaves, and from that other

Constitutional provision, that no person shall be deprived of property

without due process of law. Hence they reach the conclusion that as the

Constitution of the United States expressly recognizes property in slaves,

and prohibits any person from being deprived of property without due

process of law, to pass an Act of Congress by which a man who owned a

slave on one side of a line would be deprived of him if he took him on the

other side, is depriving him of that property without due process of law.

That I understand to be the decision of the Supreme Court. I understand

also that Judge Douglas adheres most firmly to that decision; and the

difficulty is, how is it possible for any power to exclude slavery

from the Territory, unless in violation of that decision? That is the

difficulty.

In the Senate of the United States, in 1850, Judge Trumbull, in a speech

substantially, if not directly, put the same interrogatory to Judge

Douglas, as to whether the people of a Territory had the lawful power to

exclude slavery prior to the formation of a constitution. Judge Douglas

then answered at considerable length, and his answer will be found in the

Congressional Globe, under date of June 9th, 1856. The Judge said that

whether the people could exclude slavery prior to the formation of a

constitution or not was a question to be decided by the Supreme Court.

He put that proposition, as will be seen by the Congressional Globe, in a

variety of forms, all running to the same thing in substance,--that it was

a question for the Supreme Court. I maintain that when he says, after the

Supreme Court have decided the question, that the people may yet exclude

slavery by any means whatever, he does virtually say that it is not a

question for the Supreme Court. He shifts his ground. I appeal to you

whether he did not say it was a question for the Supreme Court? Has not

the Supreme Court decided that question? when he now says the people may

exclude slavery, does he not make it a question for the people? Does he

not virtually shift his ground and say that it is not a question for the

Court, but for the people? This is a very simple proposition,--a very

plain and naked one. It seems to me that there is no difficulty in

deciding it. In a variety of ways he said that it was a question for the

Supreme Court. He did not stop then to tell us that, whatever the

Supreme Court decides, the people can by withholding necessary "police

regulations" keep slavery out. He did not make any such answer I submit

to you now whether the new state of the case has not induced the Judge to

sheer away from his original ground. Would not this be the impression of

every fair-minded man?

I hold that the proposition that slavery cannot enter a new country

without police regulations is historically false. It is not true at all.

I hold that the history of this country shows that the institution of

slavery was originally planted upon this continent without these "police

regulations," which the Judge now thinks necessary for the actual

establishment of it. Not only so, but is there not another fact: how came

this Dred Scott decision to be made? It was made upon the case of a negro

being taken and actually held in slavery in Minnesota Territory, claiming

his freedom because the Act of Congress prohibited his being so held

there. Will the Judge pretend that Dred Scott was not held there without

police regulations? There is at least one matter of record as to his

having been held in slavery in the Territory, not only without police

regulations, but in the teeth of Congressional legislation supposed to

be valid at the time. This shows that there is vigor enough in slavery

to plant itself in a new country even against unfriendly legislation. It

takes not only law, but the enforcement of law to keep it out. That is the

history of this country upon the subject.

I wish to ask one other question. It being understood that the

Constitution of the United States guarantees property in slaves in the

Territories, if there is any infringement of the right of that property,

would not the United States courts, organized for the government of the

Territory, apply such remedy as might be necessary in that case? It is a

maxim held by the courts that there is no wrong without its remedy; and

the courts have a remedy for whatever is acknowledged and treated as a

wrong.

Again: I will ask you, my friends, if you were elected members of the

Legislature, what would be the first thing you would have to do before

entering upon your duties? Swear to support the Constitution of the United

States. Suppose you believe, as Judge Douglas does, that the Constitution

of the United States guarantees to your neighbor the right to hold slaves

in that Territory; that they are his property: how can you clear your

oaths unless you give him such legislation as is necessary to enable

him to enjoy that property? What do you understand by supporting the

Constitution of a State, or of the United States? Is it not to give such

constitutional helps to the rights established by that Constitution as may

be practically needed? Can you, if you swear to support the Constitution,

and believe that the Constitution establishes a right, clear your oath,

without giving it support? Do you support the Constitution if, knowing

or believing there is a right established under it which needs specific

legislation, you withhold that legislation? Do you not violate and

disregard your oath? I can conceive of nothing plainer in the world. There

can be nothing in the words "support the Constitution," if you may run

counter to it by refusing support to any right established under the

Constitution. And what I say here will hold with still more force against

the Judge's doctrine of "unfriendly legislation." How could you, having

sworn to support the Constitution, and believing it guaranteed the right

to hold slaves in the Territories, assist in legislation intended

to defeat that right? That would be violating your own view of the

Constitution. Not only so, but if you were to do so, how long would

it take the courts to hold your votes unconstitutional and void? Not a

moment.

Lastly, I would ask: Is not Congress itself under obligation to give

legislative support to any right that is established under the United

States Constitution? I repeat the question: Is not Congress itself bound

to give legislative support to any right that is established in the

United States Constitution? A member of Congress swears to support the

Constitution of the United States: and if he sees a right established

by that Constitution which needs specific legislative protection, can he

clear his oath without giving that protection? Let me ask you why many of

us who are opposed to slavery upon principle give our acquiescence to a

Fugitive Slave law? Why do we hold ourselves under obligations to pass

such a law, and abide by it when it is passed? Because the Constitution

makes provision that the owners of slaves shall have the right to reclaim

them. It gives the right to reclaim slaves; and that right is, as Judge

Douglas says, a barren right, unless there is legislation that will

enforce it.

The mere declaration, "No person held to service or labor in one State

under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall in consequence of any

law or regulation therein be discharged from such service or labor, but

shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor

may be due," is powerless without specific legislation to enforce it. Now,

on what ground would a member of Congress, who is opposed to slavery in

the abstract, vote for a Fugitive law, as I would deem it my duty to do?

Because there is a constitutional right which needs legislation to enforce

it. And although it is distasteful to me, I have sworn to support the

Constitution; and having so sworn, I cannot conceive that I do support

it if I withhold from that right any necessary legislation to make it

practical. And if that is true in regard to a Fugitive Slave law, is

the right to have fugitive slaves reclaimed any better fixed in the

Constitution than the right to hold slaves in the Territories? For this

decision is a just exposition of the Constitution, as Judge Douglas

thinks. Is the one right any better than the other? Is there any man who,

while a member of Congress, would give support to the one any more than

the other? If I wished to refuse to give legislative support to slave

property in the Territories, if a member of Congress, I could not do it,

holding the view that the Constitution establishes that right. If I did it

at all, it would be because I deny that this decision properly construes

the Constitution. But if I acknowledge, with Judge Douglas, that this

decision properly construes the Constitution, I cannot conceive that I

would be less than a perjured man if I should refuse in Congress to give

such protection to that property as in its nature it needed.

At the end of what I have said here I propose to give the Judge my fifth

interrogatory, which he may take and answer at his leisure. My fifth

interrogatory is this:

If the slaveholding citizens of a United States Territory should need

and demand Congressional legislation for the protection of their slave

property in such Territory, would you, as a member of Congress, vote for

or against such legislation?

[Judge DOUGLAS: Will you repeat that? I want to answer that question.]

If the slaveholding citizens of a United States Territory should need

and demand Congressional legislation for the protection of their slave

property in such Territory, would you, as a member of Congress, vote for

or against such legislation?

I am aware that in some of the speeches Judge Douglas has made, he has

spoken as if he did not know or think that the Supreme Court had decided

that a Territorial Legislature cannot exclude slavery. Precisely what the

Judge would say upon the subject--whether he would say definitely that he

does not understand they have so decided, or whether he would say he does

understand that the court have so decided,--I do not know; but I know

that in his speech at Springfield he spoke of it as a thing they had not

decided yet; and in his answer to me at Freeport, he spoke of it, so far,

again, as I can comprehend it, as a thing that had not yet been decided.

Now, I hold that if the Judge does entertain that view, I think that he

is not mistaken in so far as it can be said that the court has not

decided anything save the mere question of jurisdiction. I know the legal

arguments that can be made,--that after a court has decided that it cannot

take jurisdiction in a case, it then has decided all that is before it,

and that is the end of it. A plausible argument can be made in favor of

that proposition; but I know that Judge Douglas has said in one of his

speeches that the court went forward, like honest men as they were,

and decided all the points in the case. If any points are really

extra-judicially decided, because not necessarily before them, then this

one as to the power of the Territorial Legislature, to exclude slavery

is one of them, as also the one that the Missouri Compromise was null and

void. They are both extra-judicial, or neither is, according as the

court held that they had no jurisdiction in the case between the parties,

because of want of capacity of one party to maintain a suit in that court.

I want, if I have sufficient time, to show that the court did pass its

opinion; but that is the only thing actually done in the case. If they did

not decide, they showed what they were ready to decide whenever the matter

was before them. What is that opinion? After having argued that Congress

had no power to pass a law excluding slavery from a United States

Territory, they then used language to this effect: That inasmuch as

Congress itself could not exercise such a power, it followed as a matter

of course that it could not authorize a Territorial government to exercise

it; for the Territorial Legislature can do no more than Congress could

do. Thus it expressed its opinion emphatically against the power of a

Territorial Legislature to exclude slavery, leaving us in just as little

doubt on that point as upon any other point they really decided.

Now, my fellow-citizens, I will detain you only a little while longer; my

time is nearly out. I find a report of a speech made by Judge Douglas

at Joliet, since we last met at Freeport,--published, I believe, in the

Missouri Republican, on the 9th of this month, in which Judge Douglas

says:

"You know at Ottawa I read this platform, and asked him if he concurred in

each and all of the principles set forth in it. He would not answer these

questions. At last I said frankly, I wish you to answer them, because when

I get them up here where the color of your principles are a little darker

than in Egypt, I intend to trot you down to Jonesboro. The very notice

that I was going to take him down to Egypt made him tremble in his knees

so that he had to be carried from the platform. He laid up seven days, and

in the meantime held a consultation with his political physicians; they

had Lovejoy and Farnsworth and all the leaders of the Abolition party,

they consulted it all over, and at last Lincoln came to the conclusion

that he would answer, so he came up to Freeport last Friday."

Now, that statement altogether furnishes a subject for philosophical

contemplation. I have been treating it in that way, and I have really come

to the conclusion that I can explain it in no other way than by believing

the Judge is crazy. If he was in his right mind I cannot conceive how he

would have risked disgusting the four or five thousand of his own friends

who stood there and knew, as to my having been carried from the platform,

that there was not a word of truth in it.

[Judge DOUGLAS: Did n't they carry you off?]

There that question illustrates the character of this man Douglas exactly.

He smiles now, and says, "Did n't they carry you off?" but he said then

"he had to be carried off"; and he said it to convince the country that

he had so completely broken me down by his speech that I had to be carried

away. Now he seeks to dodge it, and asks, "Did n't they carry you off?"

Yes, they did. But, Judge Douglas, why didn't you tell the truth? I would

like to know why you did n't tell the truth about it. And then again "He

laid up seven days." He put this in print for the people of the country to

read as a serious document. I think if he had been in his sober senses he

would not have risked that barefacedness in the presence of thousands of

his own friends who knew that I made speeches within six of the seven days

at Henry, Marshall County, Augusta, Hancock County, and Macomb, McDonough

County, including all the necessary travel to meet him again at Freeport

at the end of the six days. Now I say there is no charitable way to look

at that statement, except to conclude that he is actually crazy. There is

another thing in that statement that alarmed me very greatly as he states

it, that he was going to "trot me down to Egypt." Thereby he would have

you infer that I would not come to Egypt unless he forced me--that I

could not be got here unless he, giant-like, had hauled me down here. That

statement he makes, too, in the teeth of the knowledge that I had made the

stipulation to come down here and that he himself had been very reluctant

to enter into the stipulation. More than all this: Judge Douglas, when

he made that statement, must have been crazy and wholly out of his sober

senses, or else he would have known that when he got me down here, that

promise--that windy promise--of his powers to annihilate me, would n't

amount to anything. Now, how little do I look like being carried away

trembling? Let the Judge go on; and after he is done with his half-hour, I

want you all, if I can't go home myself, to let me stay and rot here; and

if anything happens to the Judge, if I cannot carry him to the hotel and

put him to bed, let me stay here and rot. I say, then, here is something

extraordinary in this statement. I ask you if you know any other living

man who would make such a statement? I will ask my friend Casey, over

there, if he would do such a thing? Would he send that out and have his

men take it as the truth? Did the Judge talk of trotting me down to Egypt

to scare me to death? Why, I know this people better than he does. I was

raised just a little east of here. I am a part of this people. But the

Judge was raised farther north, and perhaps he has some horrid idea of

what this people might be induced to do. But really I have talked about

this matter perhaps longer than I ought, for it is no great thing; and yet

the smallest are often the most difficult things to deal with. The Judge

has set about seriously trying to make the impression that when we meet

at different places I am literally in his clutches--that I am a poor,

helpless, decrepit mouse, and that I can do nothing at all. This is one

of the ways he has taken to create that impression. I don't know any other

way to meet it except this. I don't want to quarrel with him--to call him

a liar; but when I come square up to him I don't know what else to call

him if I must tell the truth out. I want to be at peace, and reserve all

my fighting powers for necessary occasions. My time now is very nearly

out, and I give up the trifle that is left to the Judge, to let him set my

knees trembling again, if he can. set my knees trembling again, if he can.