AT ALTON, OCTOBER 15, 1858

Mr. LINCOLN'S REPLY

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN:--I have been somewhat, in my own mind,

complimented by a large portion of Judge Douglas's speech,--I mean

that portion which he devotes to the controversy between himself and

the present Administration. This is the seventh time Judge Douglas

and myself have met in these joint discussions, and he has been

gradually improving in regard to his war with the Administration. At

Quincy, day before yesterday, he was a little more severe upon the

Administration than I had heard him upon any occasion, and I took

pains to compliment him for it. I then told him to give it to them

with all the power he had; and as some of them were present, I told

them I would be very much obliged if they would give it to him in

about the same way. I take it he has now vastly improved upon the

attack he made then upon the Administration. I flatter myself he has

really taken my advice on this subject. All I can say now is to

re-commend to him and to them what I then commended,--to prosecute

the war against one another in the most vigorous manner. I say to

them again: "Go it, husband!--Go it, bear!"

There is one other thing I will mention before I leave this branch of

the discussion,--although I do not consider it much of my business,

anyway. I refer to that part of the Judge's remarks where he

undertakes to involve Mr. Buchanan in an inconsistency. He reads

something from Mr. Buchanan, from which he undertakes to involve him

in an inconsistency; and he gets something of a cheer for having done

so. I would only remind the Judge that while he is very valiantly

fighting for the Nebraska Bill and the repeal of the Missouri

Compromise, it has been but a little while since he was the valiant

advocate of the Missouri Compromise. I want to know if Buchanan has

not as much right to be inconsistent as Douglas has? Has Douglas the

exclusive right, in this country, of being on all sides of all

questions? Is nobody allowed that high privilege but himself? Is he

to have an entire monopoly on that subject?

So far as Judge Douglas addressed his speech to me, or so far as it

was about me, it is my business to pay some attention to it. I have

heard the Judge state two or three times what he has stated to-day,

that in a speech which I made at Springfield, Illinois, I had in a

very especial manner complained that the Supreme Court in the Dred

Scott case had decided that a negro could never be a citizen of the

United States. I have omitted by some accident heretofore to analyze

this statement, and it is required of me to notice it now. In point

of fact it is untrue. I never have complained especially of the Dred

Scott decision because it held that a negro could not be a citizen,

and the Judge is always wrong when he says I ever did so complain of

it. I have the speech here, and I will thank him or any of his

friends to show where I said that a negro should be a citizen, and

complained especially of the Dred Scott decision because it declared

he could not be one. I have done no such thing; and Judge Douglas,

so persistently insisting that I have done so, has strongly impressed

me with the belief of a predetermination on his part to misrepresent

me. He could not get his foundation for insisting that I was in

favor of this negro equality anywhere else as well as he could by

assuming that untrue proposition. Let me tell this audience what is

true in regard to that matter; and the means by which they may

correct me if I do not tell them truly is by a recurrence to the

speech itself. I spoke of the Dred Scott decision in my Springfield

speech, and I was then endeavoring to prove that the Dred Scott

decision was a portion of a system or scheme to make slavery national

in this country. I pointed out what things had been decided by the

court. I mentioned as a fact that they had decided that a negro

could not be a citizen; that they had done so, as I supposed, to

deprive the negro, under all circumstances, of the remotest

possibility of ever becoming a citizen and claiming the rights of a

citizen of the United States under a certain clause of the

Constitution. I stated that, without making any complaint of it at

all. I then went on and stated the other points decided in the case;

namely, that the bringing of a negro into the State of Illinois and

holding him in slavery for two years here was a matter in regard to

which they would not decide whether it would make him free or not;

that they decided the further point that taking him into a United

States Territory where slavery was prohibited by Act of Congress did

not make him free, because that Act of Congress, as they held, was

unconstitutional. I mentioned these three things as making up the

points decided in that case. I mentioned them in a lump, taken in

connection with the introduction of the Nebraska Bill, and the

amendment of Chase, offered at the time, declaratory of the right of

the people of the Territories to exclude slavery, which was voted

down by the friends of the bill. I mentioned all these things

together, as evidence tending to prove a combination and conspiracy

to make the institution of slavery national. In that connection and

in that way I mentioned the decision on the point that a negro could

not be a citizen, and in no other connection.

Out of this Judge Douglas builds up his beautiful fabrication of my

purpose to introduce a perfect social and political equality between

the white and black races. His assertion that I made an "especial

objection" (that is his exact language) to the decision on this

account is untrue in point of fact.

Now, while I am upon this subject, and as Henry Clay has been alluded

to, I desire to place myself, in connection with Mr. Clay, as nearly

right before this people as may be. I am quite aware what the

Judge's object is here by all these allusions. He knows that we are

before an audience having strong sympathies southward, by

relationship, place of birth, and so on. He desires to place me in

an extremely Abolition attitude. He read upon a former occasion, and

alludes, without reading, to-day to a portion of a speech which I

delivered in Chicago. In his quotations from that speech, as he has

made them upon former occasions, the extracts were taken in such a

way as, I suppose, brings them within the definition of what is

called garbling,--taking portions of a speech which, when taken by

themselves, do not present the entire sense of the speaker as

expressed at the time. I propose, therefore, out of that same

speech, to show how one portion of it which he skipped over (taking

an extract before and an extract after) will give a different idea,

and the true idea I intended to convey. It will take me some little

time to read it, but I believe I will occupy the time that way.

You have heard him frequently allude to my controversy with him in

regard to the Declaration of Independence. I confess that I have had

a struggle with Judge Douglas on that matter, and I will try briefly

to place myself right in regard to it on this occasion. I said--and

it is between the extracts Judge Douglas has taken from this speech,

and put in his published speeches:

"It may be argued that there are certain conditions that make

necessities and impose them upon us, and to the extent that a

necessity is imposed upon a man he must submit to it. I think that

was the condition in which we found ourselves when we established

this government. We had slaves among us, we could not get our

Constitution unless we permitted them to remain in slavery, we could

not secure the good we did secure if we grasped for more; and having

by necessity submitted to that much, it does not destroy the

principle that is the charter of our liberties. Let the charter

remain as our standard."

Now, I have upon all occasions declared as strongly as Judge Douglas

against the disposition to interfere with the existing institution of

slavery. You hear me read it from the same speech from which he

takes garbled extracts for the purpose of proving upon me a

disposition to interfere with the institution of slavery, and

establish a perfect social and political equality between negroes and

white people.

Allow me while upon this subject briefly to present one other extract

from a speech of mine, more than a year ago, at Springfield, in

discussing this very same question, soon after Judge Douglas took his

ground that negroes were, not included in the Declaration of

Independence:

"I think the authors of that notable instrument intended to include

all men, but they did not mean to declare all men equal in all

respects. They did not mean to say all men were equal in color,

size, intellect, moral development, or social capacity. They defined

with tolerable distinctness in what they did consider all men created

equal,--equal in certain inalienable rights, among which are life,

liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This they said, and this they

meant. They did not mean to assert the obvious untruth that all were

then actually enjoying that equality, or yet that they were about to

confer it immediately upon them. In fact they had no power to confer

such a boon. They meant simply to declare the right, so that the

enforcement of it might follow as fast as circumstances should

permit.

"They meant to set up a standard maxim for free society which should

be familiar to all,--constantly looked to, constantly labored for,

and even, though never perfectly attained, constantly approximated,

and thereby constantly spreading and deepening its influence, and

augmenting the happiness and value of life to all people, of all

colors, everywhere."

There again are the sentiments I have expressed in regard to the

Declaration of Independence upon a former occasion,--sentiments which

have been put in print and read wherever anybody cared to know what

so humble an individual as myself chose to say in regard to it.

At Galesburgh, the other day, I said, in answer to Judge Douglas,

that three years ago there never had been a man, so far as I knew or

believed, in the whole world, who had said that the Declaration of

Independence did not include negroes in the term "all men." I

reassert it to-day. I assert that Judge Douglas and all his friends

may search the whole records of the country, and it will be a matter

of great astonishment to me if they shall be able to find that one

human being three years ago had ever uttered the astounding sentiment

that the term "all men" in the Declaration did not include the negro.

Do not let me be misunderstood. I know that more than three years

ago there were men who, finding this assertion constantly in the way

of their schemes to bring about the ascendency and perpetuation of

slavery, denied the truth of it. I know that Mr. Calhoun and all the

politicians of his school denied the truth of the Declaration. I

know that it ran along in the mouth of some Southern men for a period

of years, ending at last in that shameful, though rather forcible,

declaration of Pettit of Indiana, upon the floor of the United States

Senate, that the Declaration of Independence was in that respect "a

self-evident lie," rather than a self-evident truth. But I say, with

a perfect knowledge of all this hawking at the Declaration without

directly attacking it, that three years ago there never had lived a

man who had ventured to assail it in the sneaking way of pretending

to believe it, and then asserting it did not include the negro. I

believe the first man who ever said it was Chief Justice Taney in the

Dred Scott case, and the next to him was our friend Stephen A.

Douglas. And now it has become the catchword of the entire party. I

would like to call upon his friends everywhere to consider how they

have come in so short a time to view this matter in a way so entirely

different from their former belief; to ask whether they are not being

borne along by an irresistible current,--whither, they know not.

In answer to my proposition at Galesburgh last week, I see that some

man in Chicago has got up a letter, addressed to the Chicago Times,

to show, as he professes, that somebody had said so before; and he

signs himself "An Old-Line Whig," if I remember correctly. In the

first place, I would say he was not an old-line Whig. I am somewhat

acquainted with old-line Whigs from the origin to the end of that

party; I became pretty well acquainted with them, and I know they

always had some sense, whatever else you could ascribe to them. I

know there never was one who had not more sense than to try to show

by the evidence he produces that some men had, prior to the time I

named, said that negroes were not included in the term "all men" in

the Declaration of Independence. What is the evidence he produces?

I will bring forward his evidence, and let you see what he offers by

way of showing that somebody more than three years ago had said

negroes were not included in the Declaration. He brings forward part

of a speech from Henry Clay,--the part of the speech of Henry Clay

which I used to bring forward to prove precisely the contrary. I

guess we are surrounded to some extent to-day by the old friends of

Mr. Clay, and they will be glad to hear anything from that authority.

While he was in Indiana a man presented a petition to liberate his

negroes, and he (Mr. Clay) made a speech in answer to it, which I

suppose he carefully wrote out himself and caused to be published. I

have before me an extract from that speech which constitutes the

evidence this pretended "Old-Line Whig" at Chicago brought forward to

show that Mr. Clay did n't suppose the negro was included in the

Declaration of Independence. Hear what Mr. Clay said:

"And what is the foundation of this appeal to me in Indiana to

liberate the slaves under my care in Kentucky? It is a general

declaration in the act announcing to the world the independence of

the thirteen American colonies, that all men are created equal. Now,

as an abstract principle, there is no doubt of the truth of that

declaration; and it is desirable, in the original construction of

society and in organized societies, to keep it in view as a great

fundamental principle. But, then, I apprehend that in no society

that ever did exist, or ever shall be formed, was or can the equality

asserted among the members of the human race be practically enforced

and carried out. There are portions, large portions, women, minors,

insane, culprits, transient sojourners, that will always probably

remain subject to the government of another portion of the community.

"That declaration, whatever may be the extent of its import, was made

by the delegations of the thirteen States. In most of them slavery

existed, and had long existed, and was established by law. It was

introduced and forced upon the colonies by the paramount law of

England. Do you believe that in making that declaration the States

that concurred in it intended that it should be tortured into a

virtual emancipation of all the slaves within their respective

limits? Would Virginia and other Southern States have ever united in

a declaration which was to be interpreted into an abolition of

slavery among them? Did any one of the thirteen colonies entertain

such a design or expectation? To impute such a secret and unavowed

purpose, would be to charge a political fraud upon the noblest band

of patriots that ever assembled in council,--a fraud upon the

Confederacy of the Revolution; a fraud upon the union of those States

whose Constitution not only recognized the lawfulness of slavery, but

permitted the importation of slaves from Africa until the year 1808."

This is the entire quotation brought forward to prove that somebody

previous to three years ago had said the negro was not included in

the term "all men" in the Declaration. How does it do so? In what

way has it a tendency to prove that? Mr. Clay says it is true as an

abstract principle that all men are created equal, but that we cannot

practically apply it in all eases. He illustrates this by bringing

forward the cases of females, minors, and insane persons, with whom

it cannot be enforced; but he says it is true as an abstract

principle in the organization of society as well as in organized

society and it should be kept in view as a fundamental principle.

Let me read a few words more before I add some comments of my own.

Mr. Clay says, a little further on:

"I desire no concealment of my opinions in regard to the institution

of slavery. I look upon it as a great evil, and deeply lament that

we have derived it from the parental government and from our

ancestors. I wish every slave in the United States was in the

country of his ancestors. But here they are, and the question is,

How can they be best dealt with? If a state of nature existed, and

we were about to lay the foundations of society, no man would be more

strongly opposed than I should be to incorporate the institution of

slavery amongst its elements."

Now, here in this same book, in this same speech, in this same

extract, brought forward to prove that Mr. Clay held that the negro

was not included in the Declaration of Independence, is no such

statement on his part, but the declaration that it is a great

fundamental truth which should be constantly kept in view in the

organization of society and in societies already organized. But if I

say a word about it; if I attempt, as Mr. Clay said all good men

ought to do, to keep it in view; if, in this "organized society," I

ask to have the public eye turned upon it; if I ask, in relation to

the organization of new Territories, that the public eye should be

turned upon it, forthwith I am vilified as you hear me to-day. what

have I done that I have not the license of Henry Clay's illustrious

example here in doing? Have I done aught that I have not his

authority for, while maintaining that in organizing new Territories

and societies this fundamental principle should be regarded, and in

organized society holding it up to the public view and recognizing

what he recognized as the great principle of free government?

And when this new principle--this new proposition that no human being

ever thought of three years ago--is brought forward, I combat it as

having an evil tendency, if not an evil design. I combat it as

having a tendency to dehumanize the negro, to take away from him the

right of ever striving to be a man. I combat it as being one of the

thousand things constantly done in these days to prepare the public

mind to make property, and nothing but property, of the negro in all

the States of this Union.

But there is a point that I wish, before leaving this part of the

discussion, to ask attention to. I have read and I repeat the words

of Henry Clay:

"I desire no concealment of my opinions in regard to the institution

of slavery. I look upon it as a great evil, and deeply lament that

we have derived it from the parental government and from our

ancestors. I wish every slave in the United States was in the

country of his ancestors. But here they are, and the question is,

How can they be best dealt with? If a state of nature existed, and

we were about to lay the foundations of society, no man would be more

strongly opposed than I should be to incorporate the institution of

slavery amongst its elements."

The principle upon which I have insisted in this canvass is in

relation to laying the foundations of new societies. I have never

sought to apply these principles to the old States for the purpose of

abolishing slavery in those States. It is nothing but a miserable

perversion of what I have said, to assume that I have declared

Missouri, or any other slave State, shall emancipate her slaves; I

have proposed no such thing. But when Mr. Clay says that in laying

the foundations of society in our Territories where it does not

exist, he would be opposed to the introduction of slavery as an

element, I insist that we have his warrant--his license--for

insisting upon the exclusion of that element which he declared in

such strong and emphatic language was most hurtful to him.

Judge Douglas has again referred to a Springfield speech in which I

said "a house divided against itself cannot stand." The Judge has so

often made the entire quotation from that speech that I can make it

from memory. I used this language:

"We are now far into the fifth year since a policy was initiated with

the avowed object and confident promise of putting an end to the

slavery agitation. Under the operation of this policy, that

agitation has not only not ceased, but has constantly augmented. In

my opinion it will not cease until a crisis shall have been reached

and passed. 'A house divided against itself cannot stand.' I believe

this government cannot endure permanently, half slave and half free.

I do not expect the house to fall, but I do expect it will cease to

be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other. Either

the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and

place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in

the course of ultimate extinction, or its advocates will push it

forward till it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as

well as new, North as well as South."

That extract and the sentiments expressed in it have been extremely

offensive to Judge Douglas. He has warred upon them as Satan wars

upon the Bible. His perversions upon it are endless. Here now are

my views upon it in brief:

I said we were now far into the fifth year since a policy was

initiated with the avowed object and confident promise of putting an

end to the slavery agitation. Is it not so? When that Nebraska Bill

was brought forward four years ago last January, was it not for the

"avowed object" of putting an end to the slavery agitation? We were

to have no more agitation in Congress; it was all to be banished to

the Territories. By the way, I will remark here that, as Judge

Douglas is very fond of complimenting Mr. Crittenden in these days,

Mr. Crittenden has said there was a falsehood in that whole business,

for there was no slavery agitation at that time to allay. We were

for a little while quiet on the troublesome thing, and that very

allaying plaster of Judge Douglas's stirred it up again. But was it

not understood or intimated with the "confident promise" of putting

an end to the slavery agitation? Surely it was. In every speech you

heard Judge Douglas make, until he got into this "imbroglio," as they

call it, with the Administration about the Lecompton Constitution,

every speech on that Nebraska Bill was full of his felicitations that

we were just at the end of the slavery agitation. The last tip of

the last joint of the old serpent's tail was just drawing out of

view. But has it proved so? I have asserted that under that policy

that agitation "has not only not ceased, but has constantly

augmented." When was there ever a greater agitation in Congress than

last winter? When was it as great in the country as to-day?

There was a collateral object in the introduction of that Nebraska

policy, which was to clothe the people of the Territories with a

superior degree of self-government, beyond what they had ever had

before. The first object and the main one of conferring upon the

people a higher degree of "self-government" is a question of fact to

be determined by you in answer to a single question. Have you ever

heard or known of a people anywhere on earth who had as little to do

as, in the first instance of its use, the people of Kansas had with

this same right of "self-government "? In its main policy and in its

collateral object, it has been nothing but a living, creeping lie

from the time of its introduction till to-day.

I have intimated that I thought the agitation would not cease until a

crisis should have been reached and passed. I have stated in what

way I thought it would be reached and passed. I have said that it

might go one way or the other. We might, by arresting the further

spread of it, and placing it where the fathers originally placed it,

put it where the public mind should rest in the belief that it was in

the course of ultimate extinction. Thus the agitation may cease. It

may be pushed forward until it shall become alike lawful in all the

States, old as well as new, North as well as South. I have said, and

I repeat, my wish is that the further spread of it may be arrested,

and that it may be where the public mind shall rest in the belief

that it is in the course of ultimate extinction--I have expressed

that as my wish I entertain the opinion, upon evidence sufficient to

my mind, that the fathers of this government placed that institution

where the public mind did rest in the belief that it was in the

course of ultimate extinction. Let me ask why they made provision

that the source of slavery--the African slave-trade--should be cut

off at the end of twenty years? Why did they make provision that in

all the new territory we owned at that time slavery should be forever

inhibited? Why stop its spread in one direction, and cut off its

source in another, if they did not look to its being placed in the

course of its ultimate extinction?

Again: the institution of slavery is only mentioned in the

Constitution of the United States two or three times, and in neither

of these cases does the word "slavery" or "negro race" occur; but

covert language is used each time, and for a purpose full of

significance. What is the language in regard to the prohibition of

the African slave-trade? It runs in about this way:

"The migration or importation of such persons as any of the States

now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by

the Congress prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight."

The next allusion in the Constitution to the question of slavery and

the black race is on the subject of the basis of representation, and

there the language used is:

"Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the

several States which may be included within this Union, according to

their respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the

whole number of free persons, including those bound to service for a

term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three-fifths of all

other persons."

It says "persons," not slaves, not negroes; but this "three-fifths"

can be applied to no other class among us than the negroes.

Lastly, in the provision for the reclamation of fugitive slaves, it

is said:

"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."

There again there is no mention of the word "negro" or of slavery.

In all three of these places, being the only allusions to slavery in

the instrument, covert language is used. Language is used not

suggesting that slavery existed or that the black race were among us.

And I understand the contemporaneous history of those times to be

that covert language was used with a purpose, and that purpose was

that in our Constitution, which it was hoped and is still hoped will

endure forever,--when it should be read by intelligent and patriotic

men, after the institution of slavery had passed from among us,--

there should be nothing on the face of the great charter of liberty

suggesting that such a thing as negro slavery had ever existed among

us. This is part of the evidence that the fathers of the government

expected and intended the institution of slavery to come to an end.

They expected and intended that it should be in the course of

ultimate extinction. And when I say that I desire to see the further

spread of it arrested, I only say I desire to see that done which the

fathers have first done. When I say I desire to see it placed where

the public mind will rest in the belief that it is in the course of

ultimate extinction, I only say I desire to see it placed where they

placed it. It is not true that our fathers, as Judge Douglas

assumes, made this government part slave and part free. Understand

the sense in which he puts it. He assumes that slavery is a rightful

thing within itself,--was introduced by the framers of the

Constitution. The exact truth is, that they found the institution

existing among us, and they left it as they found it. But in making

the government they left this institution with many clear marks of

disapprobation upon it. They found slavery among them, and they left

it among them because of the difficulty--the absolute impossibility--

of its immediate removal. And when Judge Douglas asks me why we

cannot let it remain part slave and part free, as the fathers of the

government made it, he asks a question based upon an assumption which

is itself a falsehood; and I turn upon him and ask him the question,

when the policy that the fathers of the government had adopted in

relation to this element among us was the best policy in the world,

the only wise policy, the only policy that we can ever safely

continue upon that will ever give us peace, unless this dangerous

element masters us all and becomes a national institution,--I turn

upon him and ask him why he could not leave it alone. I turn and ask

him why he was driven to the necessity of introducing a new policy in

regard to it. He has himself said he introduced a new policy. He

said so in his speech on the 22d of March of the present year, 1858.

I ask him why he could not let it remain where our fathers placed it.

I ask, too, of Judge Douglas and his friends why we shall not again

place this institution upon the basis on which the fathers left it.

I ask you, when he infers that I am in favor of setting the free and

slave States at war, when the institution was placed in that attitude

by those who made the Constitution, did they make any war? If we had

no war out of it when thus placed, wherein is the ground of belief

that we shall have war out of it if we return to that policy? Have

we had any peace upon this matter springing from any other basis? I

maintain that we have not. I have proposed nothing more than a

return to the policy of the fathers.

I confess, when I propose a certain measure of policy, it is not

enough for me that I do not intend anything evil in the result, but

it is incumbent on me to show that it has not a tendency to that

result. I have met Judge Douglas in that point of view. I have not

only made the declaration that I do not mean to produce a conflict

between the States, but I have tried to show by fair reasoning, and I

think I have shown to the minds of fair men, that I propose nothing

but what has a most peaceful tendency. The quotation that I happened

to make in that Springfield Speech, that "a house divided against

itself cannot stand," and which has proved so offensive to the judge,

was part and parcel of the same thing. He tries to show that variety

in the democratic institutions of the different States is necessary

and indispensable. I do not dispute it. I have no controversy with

Judge Douglas about that. I shall very readily agree with him that

it would be foolish for us to insist upon having a cranberry law here

in Illinois, where we have no cranberries, because they have a

cranberry law in Indiana, where they have cranberries. I should

insist that it would be exceedingly wrong in us to deny to Virginia

the right to enact oyster laws, where they have oysters, because we

want no such laws here. I understand, I hope, quite as well as Judge

Douglas or anybody else, that the variety in the soil and climate and

face of the country, and consequent variety in the industrial

pursuits and productions of a country, require systems of law

conforming to this variety in the natural features of the country. I

understand quite as well as Judge Douglas that if we here raise a

barrel of flour more than we want, and the Louisianians raise a

barrel of sugar more than they want, it is of mutual advantage to

exchange. That produces commerce, brings us together, and makes us

better friends. We like one another the more for it. And I

understand as well as Judge Douglas, or anybody else, that these

mutual accommodations are the cements which bind together the

different parts of this Union; that instead of being a thing to

"divide the house,"--figuratively expressing the Union,--they tend to

sustain it; they are the props of the house, tending always to hold

it up.

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 a, 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!