Seventh and Last Debate Between

LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS.

At Alton, Friday, October 15th.

Mr. Douglas’ Speech.

Mr. Douglas, on being introduced was received with cheers.

Dr. Hope, (in the audience.)—Judge, before you commence speaking, allow me to ask you one question, if you please. Do you that the Territorial Legislatures ought to pass laws to protect slavery in the Territories?

Judge Douglas—You will get the answer in the course of my remarks.

Gentlemen and Ladies:—It is now nearly four months since these debates between Mr. Lincoln and myself commenced. On the 16th of June, the Republican Convention assembled at Springfield, and nominated Mr. Lincoln as their candidate for the Presidency and Senatorship, (laughter,)1 and he at the same time delivered a speech, in which he laid down what he insisted to be the Republican creed, and the platform upon which he proposed to stand during the canvass. The principal points in that speech of Lincoln’s were, first—that this Government could not endure permanently divided into free and slave States, as our fathers made it—that they must all become free or all become slave—that they must all be one thing, or all be the other, otherwise the Union could not exist. I give you the substance of his position in almost, perhaps quite, his exact language. The next proposition was a crusade against the Supreme Court of the United States, because of their decision in the Dred Scott case, alleging specially as a reason against that decision, that it deprived negroes of the rights and benefits of that clause in the Constitution of the United States which guarantees to the citizens of each and every State all the rights, privileges and immunities of the citizens of the several States. On the 11th of July I returned home, and delivered a speech to the people of Chicago, in which I announced my purpose of appealing to the people of Illinois to sustain the course that I had pursued; and in that speech I joined issue with Mr. Lincoln on the points which he had presented. Thus there was an issue made up between us, clear and distinct, on these two propositions, by the speech at Springfield and my reply at Chicago. On the next day, the 11th of July, Mr. Lincoln replied to me at Chicago, explaining at some length, and re-affirming the positions which he had taken in his Springfield speech. In that speech at Chicago, he also went further, and uttered sentiments which he had often advanced previously in regard to the equality of the negro with the white man. He then adopted the argument which Lovejoy and Giddings and the other Abolition lecturers had made for him to the northern and central portions of the State. He then took the ground that the Declaration of Independence having declared all men equal, and equal also by Divine right, that the negro equality was an inalienable right of which they could not be deprived. He insisted in that speech that the Declaration of Independence, declaring all men to be created equal, included the negro. And he went so far as to say that if one man was allowed to take the position that it didn’t include the negro, others might take the position that it didn’t include other men. Hence he said that all those distinctions between this man and that man, this race and that race, must be discarded, and we must stand by the declaration that all men were created equal. The issue thus being made up between Mr. Lincoln and myself, upon three points, we went before the people of the State. During the seven weeks that followed between the Chicago speech and our joint meeting at Ottawa, he and I had addressed the people in large numbers in many of the central counties, and in my speeches I held closely to these three propositions—controverting his proposition that this Union could not exist as our fathers made it, divided into free and slave States—controverting his proposition of a crusade against the Supreme Court on the Dred Scott decision, and controverting his proposition that the Declaration of Independence included and meant negroes as well as white men, when it declared all men to be created equal. I had supposed at that time that we had arrived at a distinct issue, that each was willing to be held to in every part of the State. I never intended to waver one hair’s breadth from the issue either in the north or in the south, or wherever I should address the people of Illinois. I hold that whenever I can’t proclaim my political creed in the same terms, not only in the north but the south part of Illinois, not only in the northern but in the southern States, wherever the American flag waves over American soil, then there must be something wrong in that creed. (Applause.) So long as I live under a common Constitution—so long as I live under a confederacy of sovereign and equal States, joined together as one, for certain purposes, I shall consider any political creed wrong which cannot be proclaimed in every State and in every section of that Union alike. Hence I took up his three propositions in my several speeches, analyzed them, and pointed out what I believed to be the radical error. The doctrines advanced by Lincoln in his Springfield speech were in violation of the declaration of the law of God, which says that a house divided against itself cannot stand. I repudiated it as a slander upon the makers of this government. (Applause.) I then said, and have often repeated it, and now again assert that in my opinion this government can endure, forever divided into free and slave States as our fathers made it, each State having the right to prohibit, abolish, or sustain slavery, just as it pleases. This government was made on the great basis of the sovereignty of the States—the right of each State to regulate its own domestic institutions to suit itself, and that right was conferred with the understanding and expectation that inasmuch as each locality had separate and distinct interests, each State must have different and distinct local and domestic institutions, corresponding to the wants and interests of each locality. Our fathers knew when they made this government that the laws and institutions which were well adapted to the Green Mountains of Vermont were unsuited to the rice plantations of South Carolina. They knew then, as well as we know now, that the laws and institutions which would be adapted to the beautiful prairies of Illinois would not be suited to the mining regions of California. They knew that in a Republic as broad as this, having such a variety of soil, of climate and of interests, there must necessarily be a corresponding variety in the local laws, and policy, and institutions of each State, adapted to its own wants and condition. For these reasons this Union was established on the right of each State to do as it plsased on the subject of slavery, and every other question, negativing the right of every other State to complain, much less interfere with such policy. Suppose this doctrine of Lincoln’s and the Abolitionists of this day had prevailed when the Constitution was made, what would have been the result? Only imagine for a moment that Lincoln had been then a member of the Convention that framed the Constitution of the United States, and when they were about to sign that immortal document, he had arisen in that Convention, as he did at Springfield this summer, and addressing himself to the President, had said, “a house divided against itself cannot stand—this government divided into free and slave States cannot endure—they must all be free or they must all be slave—they must all be the one thing, or all be the other; otherwise it is a violation of the law of God, and they cannot endure.” Suppose Lincoln had convinced that body of sages that that doctrine was sound, what would have been the result, remembering that the Union was composed of thirteen States, twelve of which were slaveholding and one was free? Do you think that one free State would have out-voted the twelve slaveholding States, and thus have abolished slavery everywhere? On the other hand, would not the twelve slaveholding States have out-voted the one free State, and thus have fastened slavery by a constitutional provision on every foot of the American Republic forever?

Thus you see that if the Abolition doctrine had prevailed when the government was made, it would have established slavery as a permanent institution in all the States, whether they wanted it or not. The question for us in Illinois to determine is, are we willing, when we have become the section which is in the majority, to enforce a doctrine on the minority which we would have resisted with our hearts blood, when we were in the minority? Now, how has the South acted and how have the free States increased in this Union, except under that principle which declares the right of the people in each State and of each Territory to form and regulate their own domestic institutions in their own way? Remember that it was under that principle that slavery was abolished in New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. Under that principle one-half the original slaveholding States became free. Under that principle we have increased from being one out of twelve, until we have become the majority of the whole Union, having the power in the House of Representatives, the power in the Senate, and consequently the power to elect a President by Northern votes without a Southern State. And having achieved this ascendency under the operation of that great principle, are you now prepared to abandon that principle and assert, merely because we have the power, we will wage a warfare against the Southern States and their institutions, until we force them to abolish slavery everywhere? (Applause.) After having pressed home this argument on Lincoln for seven weeks, publishing several of my speeches, when I got him to the joint discussion Ottawa, he began to flinch a little and back down. I then propounded a certain question to him—whether he would vote for any more slave States, even in the event the people wanted them, and he would not answer. I then told him if he didn’t answer the questions there, I would renew them again in Freeport, and then after that I would trot him down into Egypt and put them to him again there. (Applause.)

Well, at Freeport, in dread of Egypt, knowing that that was the next joint discussion, he did answer the question of no more slave States in a mode that he hoped would accomplish an object. I will show you what that answer was. After saying he was not pledged on the subject, he declared that “in regard to that matter of whether I am pledged to the admission of any more slave States into the Union, I say to vou very frankly that I would be exceedingly sorry ever to be put in the position of having to pass upon that question.” Here permit me to remark that I don’t think the people will ever force him into a position where he will have to vote upon it. (Applause.) Then he he went on to say, “I should be exceedingly glad to know that there would never be another slave State admitted into the Union, but I must add that if slavery should be kept out of the Territory during its territorial existence—of any one given Territory—that the people having a fair chance and clear field when they come to adopt a State Constitution, did such an extraordinary thing as [?] adopt a slave constitution, uninfienced by the actual presence of the institution among them, I see no other alternative, if we own the country, but to admit them.” (Applause, and cries of “Hurrah for Lincoln,” “Hurrah for Douglas.”) Gentlemen, your silence is more acceptable than your applause, for I desire to address exclusively your judgment. That answer was supposed by Mr. Lincoln to be suited to the Old Line Whigs, Kentuckians and Virginians down South. Now let me say what the answer is I desired to know whether he would allow Kansas to come into the Union with slavery or not, as her own people desired. He would not answer. He said if Congress should prohibit slavery in a given Territory, and keep up the prohibition during the whole territorial existence, and then they should make a slave constitution, then he supposed he would have to let it come. But suppose Congress did not prohibit slavery while it was a Territory, as under Clay’s Compromise measures of 1850, how will he vote? He must tell. I have put the question to him over and over again to get him to answer whether he will let Kansas do as she pleases on the slavery question, and he won’t tell. (Applause). I have put the question with reference to Nebraska and he won’t answer. I have put it to him in reference to New Mexico, and I can’t get a word out of him. I have gone through each Territory and put the question to him, and he won’t say whether he would allow any Territory now in existence to come into the Union as she pleases, or not. He answers as to a state of things that don’t exist, and won’t answer as to any Territory now in existence. For instance, as to the compact with Texas to allow four more new States formed out of that State, to come into the Union as they pleased. I have put the question to him whether he world vote to redeem that pledge. I have put it to him three times in joint discussions, and he has not answered. He is silent as the grave on that point. He would rather answer on a question he would never have to vote on, than one that would come up before him soon after he was elected. Now, why can’t he say whether he is willing to allow the people of each Territory to have slavery or not, as they please, and then come into the Union when they have the requisite population, either as a slave State or as a free State, as they shall decide. I have no trouble in answering that question. I have said everywhere—I repeat to you now, if the people of Kansas want a slave State, they have the right under the Constitution to make it. I will let them come with slavery or without it, as they please. (Applause.) If the people of any other Territory desires it, let them have it; if they don’t want it, let them prohibit it. It is their business, not mine. It is none of our business in Illinois whether Kansas is a free State or a slave State. It is none of your business in Missouri whether Kansas shall adopt slavery or reject it. It is her business, not yours. The people of Kansas have as much right to decide that question for themselves, as you have in Missouri, or we have in in Illinois. Here I will remark what I have said in every speech I have made in Illinois, and what I now repeat, that I will fight the Lecompton Constitution to the death, not because of the slavery clause in it, but because it was not the act and deed of the people of Kansas. (Applause.) I said then, and say now, that if the people of Kansas wanted a slave State, they had a right to have it. If they wanted the Lecompton Constitution, let them have it. I was against it because I did not believe that it was the act of a majority of that people; but on the contrary, the act of a small pitiful minority coming in the name of the majority. At last that Constitution was sent back to the people for a vote in August last, for or against admission under the Lecompton Constitution, and at that election it was rejected by nearly ten to one, thus showing that I was right, when I said it was not the act and deed of the people of Kansas and did not embody their will. I hold that there is no power on earth which has a right under our system of government to ram a Constitution down the throats of an unwilling people. Suppose there had been a majority of ten to one in favor of slavery in Kansas, and suppose there had been an Abolition President, and an Abolition Administration, and suppose in some mode the Abolitionists had got up an Abolition Constitution to be forced upon slaveholding people, would the people South have submitted to the act for an instant? Well, if you of the South would not have submitted to it a day, how can you as fair-minded, honest men insist on putting a Slave Constitution on a Free State. Your safety and success depends upon both of us acting up to that great principle which asserts the right of every people to form and regulate their own domestic institutions to suit themselves, subject only to the federal constitution. Most of the men who denonnce my course on the Lecompton question object to it, not because I was not right, but because it was expedient at one time, for the sake of keeping the party together, to do wrong. (Applause.) I never knew the Democratic party to violate any one of its principles for the sake of policy or expediency, that it did not pay the debt with sorrow. There is no other safety except always to do right and trust the consequences to God and the people. And I am not going to depart from principle in that one instance, nor do I ever intend to do it. But I am told that it would all have been right if I had only voted for the English bill after the Lecompton was killed. (Laughter.) You know a general pardon was granted to all political offenders on the Lecompton provided they would only vote for the English bill. I did not acccpt the benefits of that pardon for the reason that I was right in my opinion, and hence did not require any forgiveness. But let us see how the result was worked out. English brought in his bill referring the Lecompton Constitution back, with the declaration that if it was rejected, then Kansas should stay out of the Union until she had the full ratio for a member of Congress, thus in effect providing that if the people of Kansas would only consent to come into the Union under the Lecompton Constitution, and have a slave State when they didn’t want it, then they might come in with 35,000; but if they were so obstinate as to insist upon having just such a Constitution as they wanted—insisted upon their right to make a free State if they desired, then they should be kept out until they had 93,420. I then said, and now repeat to you, that whenever Kansas should have people enough for a slave State, she had enough for a free State. (Applause.) I was willing to adopt tho rule that no State shall ever come into the Union until it has the full ratio for a member of Congress, provided you make that rule universal. And I made that proposition in the Senate last winter, and they wouldn’t take it. Then I said, if you won’t take the general rule, I will not consent to make an exception of Kansas. I hold it is a violation of the fundamental principle of this Government to to throw the weight of the federal power either into the scale of free States or slave States. Unity among all the States of this Union is a fundamental principle in our political system, and we have no more right to throw the federal government into the scale of the slaveholding State than we have in that of the free State. Least of all should our friends South consent for a moment that Congress should wield its power either way, when they know that there is a majority against them in both Houses of Congress. But how have these supporters of the English bill stood up to their pledge not to let Kansas in until she had 93,000? The newspapers inform us that Mr. English himself voted against his own bill, in order to get re-elected. We are informed that every candidate for Congress in all the States where elections have taken place recently, are pledged against the English bill, with perhaps one or two exceptions. Now, if I had only done as these Anti-Lecompton men did who voted for the English Bill, I would have had no trouble, that I pledged myself to stand by it, and then forfeit my pledge and go against it. You see the whole power and patronage of the Federal Government wielded in Ohio, Indiana and Pennsylvania, to elect Anti-Lecompton men to Congress, to elect men who voted for the English Bill, and then denounce the English Bill and go against it. My sins consist in not having given a pledge and then forfeited it, and for that reason in this State every postmaster, every route-agent, and every Federal office-holder in the State is removed the moment he expresses preference for the Democratic candidate over his abolition associates. (Applause.) The Democratic Administration which we helped to bring into power deemed it consistent with its fidelity to principle and duty, to wield its power in this State in behalf of the Republican Abolition candidates in every county, in every Congressional district, against the Democratic party. All I have got to say on that point is, if they have not regard enough for principle, if they have not attachment enough to the creed of the Democratic party to bury forever their personal hostility to carrying out these principles I have no personal difficulties with Mr. Buchanan or his cabinet. He chose to make certain recommendations, as he had a right to do, on the Lecompton Constitution. I could not vote for them. I had as much right to judge for myself how I should vote as he had as to how he should recommend. He undertook to say to me, if you dont vots as I tell you I will take off the heads of your friends. (Laughter). I said to him in reply: “You did not elect me. I represent Illinois. I am accountable to Illinois as my constituency, and to God, but not to the President, nor any other power on earth.” (Applause). And this warfare is made on me because I wouldn’t surrender my convictions of duty—because I would not abandon my constituency and receive orders from the Executive authority how I should vote under oath in the Senate of the United States. I hold that any attempt to control the Senate by the Executive is subversive of the principles of our Constitution. The executive department is independent of the Senate, and the Senate is independent of the President. On matters of legislation the President has a veto on the acts of the Senate, and in appointments and treaties the Senate has a veto on the President. He has no more right to tell me how I shall vote as to appointments, than I have to tell him whether he shall veto a law that the Senate has passed. And wherever you recognize the right of the Executive to say to a Senator: “Do this, or I will take off the heads of your friends,” you convert this Government from a Republic into a despotism. Whenever you recognize the right of the President to say to a member of Congress, “vote as I shall tell you, or I will bring the power to bear against you,” you destroy the independence of the Representative and convert him into a tool of Executive power. I resisted this invasion of the constitutional rights of the Senate; I intend to resist it as long as I have a voice to speak or a vote to give; and yet he can never get me to abandon one iota of Democracy out of revenge or personal hostility to his course. I will stand on the platform of the Democratic party and by its organization, and support its nominees, and if they choose to bolt the t[i?]cket I will only show them that they are not as good Democrats as I am. (Applause).

My friends, there never was a time when it was as important for the Democratic party—for all national men—to rally and stand together as at this day. We find all sectional men giving up all past differences and combining on the one question of slavery. When sectional men unite on the one side, the national men should unite on the other hand. Such was the case in 1850, when Clay came out from his retirement in order to quell the sectional agitation and restore peace to the Union. Then we Democrats, with Cass at our head, welcomed the gallant Kentuckian as the man reserved by God for the times. He became our leader in the great fight. We then rallied around Clay as the Old Line Whigs in 1832 rallied around “Old Hickory,” to put down nullification. Thus you see old Whigs and Democrats in old times fought fiercely about Banks and Tariffs, and the Specie Circular and Distribution and the Sub-Treasury. We united whenever the peace, or harmony, or integrity of the Union was imperilled. (Applause.) Thus it was in 1829,2 when Abolitionism had so far divided the country north and south as to endanger the peace of the Union. Whigs and Democrats united in establishing the compromise measures of 1850. They rested on that great principle that the people of each State and each Territory should be perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions to suit themselves. You Whigs and we Democrats justified them on that principle. Now, in 1854, when it became necessary to organize the Territories of Kansas and Nebraska, I brought forward the bills on the same principle. In the Kansas Nebraska bill you will find it declared to be the true intent and meaning of the act, not to legislate slavery into any State or Territory, or to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way. Now, I stand on that same platform in 1858, that I did in 1850, ’54 and ’56. But the Washington Union, pretending to be the organ of the Administration, in the number of the 5th of this month, devotes three and a half columns to establish these propositions: first, that Douglas in his Freeport speech, avowed the same doctrine that he did when arguing the Nebraska bill in 1854. Second, that in 1854, Douglas justified the Nebraska bill on the same ground that he did Clay’s measures of 1850—that he is the same now that he was in 1856, ’54 and ’50, and consequently never was a Democrat. (Applause. Now, wasn’t that funny that I was never a Democrat. No pretense that I have changed a hair’s breadth. The Union proves by my spceches that I expounded the Compromise Measures of 1850, just as I do now—that I advocated the Kansas-Nebraska bill in its passage, just as I do now—just as I did in my Freeport speech, and yet it says I am not a Democrat and cannot be trusted, because I have not changed during the whole time. Now it did occur to me that in 1854, the author of the Kansas-Nebraska bill was considered a pretty good Democrat. It did occur to me that in 1856, when I was exerting every nerve and every energy for James Buchanan, then standing on that identical platform I was on, that I was a pretty good Democrat. But they tell us that I am not a Democrat, because I assert that the people of a Territory, as well as those of a State, have the right to decide for themselves whether slavery can or cannot exist in such Territory. Let me read to you what James Buchanan said on that point, when he accepted the nomination for the Presidency in 1856. He said in his letter of acceptance as follows:

“This leg[i?]slation is founded upon principles as ancient as free government itself and in accordance with them has simply declared that the people of a territory like those of a State shall decide for themselves whether slavery shall or shall not exist within their limits.”

There, Dr. Hope, that is an answer to the question you put. (Applause.) Of course no man considers it an answer who is outside the Democratic organization, bolts Democratic parties, and indirectly aids to put Abolitionists in power over Democrats. But whether he considers it an answer or not, James Buchanan has answered the question. The people of a territory, as well as those of a State, can regulate that question for themselves. I answer specifically, if you want it further, and say that under the new decision of the Supreme Court, according to the opinion of Chief Justice Taney, slaves are property, like all other property, and the owner can carry them to a territory the same as other property. Yet when they go there they are subject to local law, just like all other property. And you will find in a speech delivered in Maine the same construction given to that thing that I gave in my Freeport speech. You will find that Mr. Orr of South Carolina, when Speaker of Congress, considered the Kansas Nebraska Bill in the same way, in 1856. You will find that Alexander H. Stevens, the great intellect of the South at this day, put the same construction on the Nebraska Bill in Congress that I do in my Freeport speech. The whole South are rallying to the doctrine, that if the people of a Territory want slavery they have a right to have it; and if they don’t want it, no power on earth should force it upon them. (Applause.) I hold that there is no principle on earth more sacred to all the friends of freedom than that which says that no institution, no laws, no constitution, should be forced upon an unwilling people contrary to their wishes. I assert that under the Kansas Nebraska Bill such is the case. It is the great principle contained in that bill. It is the principle on which James Buchanan was made President. Without that principle he never could have been President. And I will never violate nor abandon that doctrine, even though I stand alone. I have stood and resisted the blandishments and threats of power on the one side, and seduction on the other, standing immovable for that principle, fighting for it when assailed by Northern mobs, and fighting for it when denounced by Southern hostility. I have defended it against the South and against the North. I will defend it against whoever assaults it, and I will follow it wherever its logical conclusions lead me. But I say to you that there is one, and but one, path of safety for this country, and that is to stand immovably by that principle which declares the right of each State, and each Territory, to decide this question for themselves. This Government was founded on that principle, and must be administered in that same sense in which it was founded.

But the Abolition party really think that the Declaration of Independence declared the negroes to be equal to white men—that negro equality is an inalienable right conferred by the Almighty, and hence that all human laws in violation of it are null and void. Well, with such men it is no use for me to argue. I hold that the signers of the Declaration of Independence had no reference to the negro at all, when they declared all men to be created equal. They did not mean negroes nor the savage Indian, nor the Fejee Islander, nor any other barbarous race—they were speaking of white men. They alluded to European men—of European birth and European descent—white men, and none others, when they declared that doctrine. I hold that this government is established on the white basis. It was established by white men, for the benefit of white men and their posterity forever, and should be administered by white men and none others. But it does not follow by any means, that merely because a negro is not a citizen, merely because he is not an equal, that therefore he should be a slave. On the contrary, it does follow that we ought to extend to the negro race and to all other dependent races, all the privileges, all the immunities which they can exercise consistently with the safety of society. Humanity requires that we should give them all of these privileges. Christianity commands that we should extend these privileges to them. Then the question is, what are these privileges—what the nature and extent of them? My answer is this is a question which each State must decide for itself. We in Illinois have decided it for ourselves. We tried slavery—kept it up for twelve years, found it was not profitable and abolished it for that reason, and then became a free State. We now adopt the policy that in this state a negro shall not be a slave, nor shall he be a citizen. We have a right to adopt that policy. For my part, I think it a wise and sound policy for us. You in Missouri must judge for yourselves, whether it is a wise policy for you. If you choose to follow our example, very good. If you reject it, it is your business, not ours. Let Kentucky adopt her own policy to suit herself. If we don’t like that, we will keep away from her. If she don’t like ours, she can stay at home and let us alone. If the people of all the States will stand on that principle, and let each State mind its own business, attend to its own affairs and let their neighbors alone there will be peace between the North and the South, and the whole Union. Why, cannot we thus have peace. Why should we allow a sectional party to agitate this country and convulse it—array the North against the South, convert friends into enemies, merely that ambitious men may ride into power on a sectional hobby. How long is it since these ambitious, sectional, northern men wished to have a sectional organization. They never dreamed of s sectional party so long as the north was the weaker section. So long as the South was the stronger, they were all against a sectional party, but the moment, by the admission of California, the North became the strongest, with a majority in the House and Senate, with the power to elect a President, Northern ambitious men formed a scheme of uniting the people of the North against the South, and making the people vote by sections, and the North being the most populous would out-vote the South, and consequently the leaders of the North would ride into office on that hobby. I am told my hour is out. It was very short. (Loud applause.)

Mr. Lincoln’s Reply.

On being introduced to the audience, after the cheering had subsided Mr. Lincoln said:

Ladies and Gentlemen:—I have been somewhat, in my own mind, complimented by a large portion of Judge Douglas’ speech—I mean that portion which he devotes to the controversy between himself and the present Administration. (Cheers and laughter.) 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. (Laughter, “That’s so.”) At Quincy, day before yesterday, he was a little more severe upon the Administration than I had heard him upon any former 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. (Uproarious laughter and cheers.) 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!” (Great laughter.)

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, any way. 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. (Cheers.) I want to know if Buchanan has not as much right to be inconsistent as Douglas has? (Loud applause and laughter; “Good, good!” “Hurrah for Lincoln!”) 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? (Great laughter.)

So far as Judge Douglas addressed his speech to me, or so far as it was about men, 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 pre-determination 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 conntry. 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 made him free or not; that they decided the further point that taking him into a United State 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 quottations 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 in 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 mat-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 [t?]his 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 that 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. The did not mean to say all men were equal in color, size, intellect, moral development or social capacity. They defined with tolerable distin[c?]tness in wh[a?]t 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 actua[l?]ly enjoying that equality, nor yet, that they were about to c[o?]nfer 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; constantl[y?] looked to, constantly labored for, and even though never perfectly attained, constantly approximated and thereby constantly spreading [a?]nd deepening its influence and augmenting the happiness and value of life to a[l?]l 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 Galesburg 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 re-assert 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 even 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 ascendancy 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 mouths 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 t[h?]e 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 hawkiag 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. (Cheers.) 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. (Cheers and laughter.) And now it has become the catch-word 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? (Great applause.)

In answer to my proposition at Galesburg 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 firat place I would say he was not an Old Line Whig. I am somewhat acquainted with Old Line Whigs. I was with the 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. (Great laughter.) I know there never was one who had not more sense than to try to show that some man 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. (Laughter.) I guess we are surrounded to some extent to-day, but 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 him 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 Live Whig” at Chicago brought forward to show that Mr. Clay did’nt suppose the negro was included in the Declaration of Independence. Hear what Mr. Clay said:

“And w[h?]at is the foundation of this appeal to me in Indiana, to liberate the s[l?]aves under my care in K[e?]ntucky? It is a gener[a?]l declaration in the act announcing to [t?]he world the independence of the thirteen American c[o?]lonies, that all men ar[e?] created equal. Now, as an abstract pri[n?]ciple, 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, t[h?]en, I apprehend that in no society that ever did exist, or ever sha[l?]l be [f?]ormed, was or can the equality asse[r?]ted among the members of the human race be practically enforced and carried out[.?] There are portions; large portions, wome[n?], mi[n?]ors, insane, culprits, transient sojourners, that will alw[a?]ys pr[o?]bably rema[i?]n subject to the government of another portion of [t?]he community.

That declaration whatever may be the extent of its import, was ma[d?]e 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 Dec[l?]aration the States that concurred in it intended that it should be tortured into a virtu[a?]l emancipa[t?]ion of all the slaves within their respective limits? Would Virginia and other Southern States have ever united in a dec[l?]aration which was to be interpreted into an ab[o?]lition of slavery among them? did any one of the thirteen colonies entertain such a design or expectation? To impu[t?]e such a secret and unavowed purpose would be to charge a political fraud upon the noblest band of patrio[t?]s that eve[r?] assembled in council; a fraud upon the confe[d?]eracy of the R[e?]volution; a fraud upon the union of those States whose constitution not o[n?]ly recognized the lawfulness of slavery, but permit[t?]ed 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 cases. 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 insti[t?]ution of slavery. I look upon it as a great evil; and deeply lament that we have derived i[t?] from the parental government; and fr[o?]m our a[n?]cesto[r?]s. [B?]u[t?] here they are and the question is, how can they be best dealt with? If a s[t?]ate 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 incorporating the institution of slavery among 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 inclnded in the Declaration of Independence—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 organizod. But if I say a word about it—if I attempt, as Mr. Clay said all good men aught 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 villified 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 ought 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? (Great applause, and cries of “Hurrah for Lincoln.”)

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 tendancy 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. (Tremendous applause. “Hurrah for Lincoln.” “Hurrah for Trumbull.”)

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 Henry Clay:

“I desire no concealment of my opinions in regard to the institution of slavery. I look upon it as a gre[a?]t evil and deep[l?]y lament that we have derived it from the parental government, and from our ancestors. I wish eve[r?]y slave in the U[n?]ited States was in the country of his ancestors. But here they are; the question is how they can best be dea[l?]t with? If a state of nature existed [a?]nd we were about to lay the foundation of society, no man would be more strongly opposed than I should be to incorporate the institution of slavery among 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 sa[i?]d, 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 societies 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 hateful to him. (Loud applause.)

Judge Douglas has again referred to a Springfield speecd 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 obj[e?]ct 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 re[a?]ched 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 expact it will cease to be [d?]ivi[d?]ed. 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 sha[l?]l [r?]est in the belief th[a?]t [i?]t is in the course of ultim[a?]te extinction, or its advocates will push it forward till it shall become alike law[f?]ul in all the States—old as well as new, North as well as South.”

That extract and the sentiments expressed in it, have been extremly offensive to Judge Douglas. He has warred upon them as Satan does upon the Bible. (Laughter.) 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’ stirred it up again. (Applause and laughter.) But it was 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. (Cheers and laughter.) But has it proved so? I have asserted that under that policy that agitation “has not only 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 Nebrasda 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 any where 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?” (Loud applause.) 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. (Loud cheers.)

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 placed where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction. (Great applause.) 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 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 case 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 delivered up, on claim of the party to 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 Constition, 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 has 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. (Enthusiastic applause) 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, 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 let it alone? (Great and prolonged cheering) 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? (“No” “no” and cheers.) 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? (“No, no.”) 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 perceive 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 domestic 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. (Laughter, “good, good.”) 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. (Renewed laughter.) 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 nataral features of the country. I understand quite as well as Judge Douglas, that if we here raise a barrel of flour more that 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 speok 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. (Yes,” “yes,” “yes.”) 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. (Cheers and laughter.) 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. (Roars of laugher and applause.)

But is it true that all the difficulty and agitation we have in regard to this institution of slavery springs 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 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? (Applause.) Is this the work of politicians? Is that irresistible power which for fifty years has shaken the government and agitated the people to be stilled and subdued by pretending that it is in exceedingly simple thing, and we ought not to talk about it? (Great cheers and laughter.) If you will get everybody else to stop talking about it, I assure I will quit before they have half done so. (Renewed laughter.) 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 (applause), 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 every body does care the most about? (“Yes, yes,” and applause)—a thing which all experience has shown we care a very great deal about? (Laughter and applause.)

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 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 States. 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. (Laughter.) I will ask you, if the policy you are now advocating had preeailed when this country was in a Territorial condition, where would you have gone to get rid of it? (Applause.) 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 it? (Loud cheers.)

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. (Great and continued cheering.) 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. (Loud and long continued applause.)

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 introducing a perfect social and political equality between the white and black races. These are false issues upon which Judge Douglas has tried to force the controversy. There is no foundation in truth for the charge that I maintain either of these propositions. The real issue in this controversy—the one pressing upon every mind—is the sentiment on the part of one class that looks upon the institution of slavery as a wrong, and of another class that does not look upon it as a wrong. The sentiment that contemplates the institution of slavery in this country as a wrong is the sentiment of the Republican party. It is the sentiment around which all their actions—all their arguments circle—from which all their propositions radiate. They look upon it as being a moral, social and political wrong; and while they contemplate it as such, they nevertheless have due regard for its actual existence among us, and the difficulties of getting rid of it in any satisfactory way and to all the constitutional obligations thrown about it. Yet having a due regard for these, they desire a policy in regard to it that looks to its not creating any more danger. They insist that it should as far as may be, be treated as a wrong, and one of the methods of treating it as a wrong is to make provision that it shall grow no larger. (Loud applause.) They also desire a policy that looks to a peaceful end of slavery at sometime, as being wrong. 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 any thing 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 a 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 whe 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 it in the free States, because it is not here. You must not say anything about 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.” (Shouts of laughter and cheers.) There is no place to talk about 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 valiently 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. (Great applause and laughter.) 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 excluded 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’ 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 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, his 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 statue 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.” (Loud applause.) 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 them 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 in upon Brooks’ cotton gin basis, (Great applause,)—placing it where he openly confesses he has no desire there shall ever be an end of it. (Renewed applause.)

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 not, was a question for the Supreme Court. (Cheers.) But after the Court has made the decision he virtually says it is not a question for the Supreme Court, but for the people. (Renewed applause.) And how is it he tells us they can exclude it? H[e?] says it needs “police regulatiens,” 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 Terr[i?]tory 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! (Great applause.) There has never been as outlandish or lawless a doctrine from the mouth of any respectable man on earth. (Tremendous cheers.) 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. (Loud cheers.)

I suppose most of us, (I know if of myself,) believe that the people of the Southern States are entitled to a Congressional fugitive slave law—that it 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 Abolitionist an argument to deny the obligation enjoined by the constititution to enact a fugtive slave 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 exp[r?]ess, 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 argument 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. (Cheers.) 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. (Loud and enthusiastic applause.)

Mr. Douglas’ Rejoinder.

Mr. Douglas said in reply:

Mr. Lincoln has closed his remarks by saying that there is not such an Abolitionist in all America as I am. If he could make the Abolitionists of Illinois believe it, he would not have much show for the Senate. [Laughter.] Make the Abolitionists believe the truth of that, and his political back is broken. (Laughter.) The back of his party is broken when Abolitionism is withdrawn. His first criticism on me is the hope that the war of the Administration will be prosecuted with vigor. I have no doubt of it. His hope of success, and the hopes of his party depend upon it. They have no hope of destroying the Democracy except through the aid of the federal patronage in this State. He has all of the federal office-holders here as his allies, running separate tickets against the Democracy to divide the party, but still the leaders all intend to vote directly the Abolition ticket, only leaving the green ones to vote for the separate ticket, who must go into the Abolition camp. And there is something really refreshing in the thought that Lincoln is in favor of prosecuting any war vigorously. (Laughter.) It is the first war I ever knew him to be in favor of prosecuting. (Applause.) It is the first one I ever knew him to believe to be either just or constitutional. When the Mexican war was waged and the American army was surrounded by the enemy in Mexico, he thought that war was unconstitutional, unnecessary and unjust. (Laughter.) He though it was not commenced on the right spot. When I made an incidental allusion to that in our joint meeting at Charleston, some weeks ago, Lincoln caught it up and said, “Douglas has charged me with voting against supples,” and then he reared up at full length, and said he did not vote against supplies—said it was a slander, and caught hold of Ficklin, who sat on the stand, and said, “Here, Ficklin, tell them it is a lie.” (Applause.) Well, Ficklin stood up and told them that all he recollected about it was that Ashmun brought forward a resolution declaring the war unconstitutional, unnecessary and unjust, and that Lincoln voted for it. Lincoln said, “Yes, I did.” Yes, he confesses that he voted that the war was wrong—that our country was in the wrong—that, consequently, the Mexicans were in the right; and he said I had slandered him in saying he had voted against supplies. I never charged him with voting against supplies in my life. I knew he was not there when they were voted. (Applause.) The war was commenced on the 13th of May, 1846, and on that day we appropriated ten millions of money, and fifty

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thousond men, to prosecute the war. During the same session we voted more men and more money. During the next session we again voted more men and more money, and thus gave men and money enough before Lincoln came to Congress. Getting there, and being opposed to the war, and not being able to stop the supplies, because they were all gone forward, all he could do was to follow the lead of Tom Corwin, and prove the war was not begun on the right spot; that it was unconstitutional, unnecessary, and therefore wrong. And remember, too, that this was done after the war began. It is one thing to be opposed to the declaration of war, and another thing to take the side of the enemy against your own country, for the war was commenced, and our army was in Mexico at the time. Many bills had been voted—they were surrounded by the dangers, and the guns, and the poison of the enemy, and then it was that Corwin made his speech, stating that the American soldiers ought to be welcomed to hospitable graves with bloody hands, and Ashmun and Lincoln voted in the House that the war was unconstitutional and unjust, and Ashmun’s resolutions and Corwin’s speech and Lincoln’s vote were sent to Mexico, and read to the army to prove to the army of the Mexicans that there was a Mexican party in the Congress of the United States. (Applause.) That the man who took the side of the common enemy against his own country in time war would rejoice in the war being made on me now is very natural. (Applause.) And in my opinion no other man would rejoice at it. (“Go it, Stephen. All right, my covey.”)

Mr. Lincoln has told you a great deal to-day about his being an Old Line Clay Whig. Remember there are a great many Old Clay Whigs in this region. It is more agreeable here to talk about Old Clay Whigs than Abolitionists; but we don’t hear much about this old Whig party up in those Abolition Districts. How much of an old Whig was he? Have you read Singleton’s speech at Jacksonville. You know Gen. Singleton. He was 25 years the confidential friend of Henry Clay in Illinois. He testifies that in 1847, when the State Convention in this State was in session, the Whig members were invited to a Whig caucus by Lincoln’s brother-in-law, and there, when they were organized, Lincoln made a speech in favor of throwing Clay overboard and taking up Taylor in his place, and gave as a reason that if the Whigs didn’t take Taylor, the Democrats would. (Applause) Singleton also testified that Lincoln in that speech urged as a reason for throwing Clay overboard, that the Whigs had voted long enough for principle and should now go for success. Singleton testifies that Lincoln’s speech did have the effect to cut Henry Clay’s throat, and that he and others withdrew from the caucus in indignation. He testified that when he went to the Philadelphia Convention, that Lincoln then was the bitter, deadly enemy of Clay, and tried to keep Singleton out of the Convention because he would vote for Clay. Singleton testified that Lincoln rejoiced with very great joy when he found the mangled remains of the murdered Whig statesman lying cold before him, and now he tells you he is an Old Line Clay Whig. (Applause.) Singleton testifies to these facts in a speech that has been printed and circulated broadcast for weeks, and offers to prove every fact, but not a lisp have we yet heard from Lincoln, except that he is an Old Clay Whig. What part of Clay’s policy did he ever advocate. He was in Congress in 1848 and ’49, when this Wilmot Proviso warfare disturbed the peace and harmony of the country, until it shook from its centre to circumference. It was that sectional agitation that brought Clay forth from his retirement to the Senate of the United States to see if he could not, by his great wisdom and experience and the renown of his name, do something to restore quiet to the country. Who got up that sectional strife that Clay came there to quell? I have heard Lincoln boast in a public speech that he then voted 42 times for the Wilmot Proviso, and as many more times to carry it. Lincoln is the man, in connection with Seward and Chase and Giddings and the other Abolitionists, that got up that strife that I helped Clay in putting down. Clay came there in 1849 to see if he could not do something to restore peace to the country. All the Union Whigs and the Union Democrats welcomed him the moment he arrived as the man for the occasion. We believed that he of all men on earth had been preserved by Divine Providence to guide us out of these difficulties, and we Democrats rallied under Clay then as you Whigs railed under the banner of old Jackson in Nullification times, forgetting party when the country was in danger, in order that we might have the country first and parties afterward. (Applause.)

And this reminds me that Lincoln has told you that the Slavery question was the only one that ever disturbed the peace and harmony of the Union. Didn’t Nullification once raise its head and disturb the peace of the Union, in 1832? Was that the Slavery question? Didn’t this question raise its monster head through the last war with Great Britain? Was that the Slavery question? The peace of the country has been disturbed three times: once in the war with Great Britain, once on the Tariff question, and once on the Slavery question. Hence his argument fails that this question of Slavery is the only one that has created any disunion. It is true that agitators now are enabled to use the Slavery question for the purpose of sectional strife. He admits that in all things else the principle which I advocate of leaving each State and Territory free to decide for itself ought to prevail. He instances his “Cranberry laws,” (laughter)—his “Oyster laws”—I might go through the whole list of them. I say the whole of them are local and domestic, and all local and domestic concerns should be left to each State and each Territory for itself, and if these agitators will acquiesce in that principle, there would never be any danger to the peace and harmony of the Union. But he tries to avoid the main issue by denying the truth of the proposition that I made that our fathers made this government, divided into free and slave States, with the right of each to decide all local questions for itself. It is true they didn’t make Slavery in the States, and make them free or slave, but finding 13 States, 12 of them slave and one free, they agreed to make a government uniting them together as they stood, although divided into free and slave States, and guaranteed for ever a right to each State to do as it pleased in the slavery question. (Applause) Having thus made the government with the right of each to do as it pleased forever, I assert that this government can exist as they made it, divided into free and slave States, forever, if any one State should retain slavery. (Applause)

He complains that I don’t look forward to the time when slavery shall be abolished everywhere. I look forward to the time when each State shall be allowed to do as it pleases. (Applause.) If it chooses to keep slavery forever, it is its business, and not ours. If it chooses to abolish, very good, it is its business and not mine. I care more for the great principle of self-government—the right of the people to rule themselves—than I do for all the niggers in Christendom. (Applause.) I would not dissolve this Union; I would not endanger its perpetuity; I would not blot out the great inalienable rights of the white man for all the niggers that ever existed. (Applause.) Then I say, let us maintain this Government on the principles that our fathers made it, with the right to each State to keep slavery as long as it pleases, and abolish it when it pleases. But Mr. Lincoln says that our fathers, when they made the Government, didn’t look forward to this state of things that now exists, and therefore that the doctrine is wrong, is his inference. He quotes Brooks, of South Carolina, to prove that our fathers then thought that slavery would be abolished by each State acting for itself before this time. Suppose they did. Suppose they didn’t foresee what has occurred. Does that change the principles of the Government? They didn’t foresee, probably, the telegraph that transmits intelligence by lightning. They didn’t foresee the railroads that are the bonds of union between the different States of the Union. They didn’t foresee a thousand other inventions of benefit to mankind throughout the world; but do these facts change the principles of the Government. They made the Government on the principle I state—the right of the people to do as they pleased, and then let the people of each State apply it to each change of condition, to each improvement, as they may arise in all time to come. (Applause.) Mr. Lincoln goes on to tell you that he don’t want to interfere with slavery in the States at all, nor does his party, I expected that he would say that down here. Let me ask him, then, how is he going to put slavery in the condition of ultimate extinction everywhere in the States, if he is not going to interfere with it in the States. (Applause.) He says he will prohibit it in all the Territories, aud the inference is, then, that unless they make it a free State, he will keep them out. For mark you, he didn’t say whether he would bring Kansas in with slavery or without it as they want. He didn’t say whether he would bring in any new Territory now in existence on the principle of Clay’s Compromise of 1850, with or without slavery as the people want, but I tell you he won’t. (Applause.) His idea is to prohibit slavery in all the Territories and force them to become free States, and thus surround the slave States with a cordon of free States, and hem them in, and then let them increase and multiply until they got so numerous that the soil on which they live wouldn’t feed them, thus putting slavery in the process of ultimate extinction by starvation. (Applause.) He will extinguish slavery in the Southern States as the French General exterminated the Algerines—by sm[o?]king them out; and he is going to extinguish slavery by smothering, as you would smoke a fox out of his hole, and do it in the name of humanity and Christianity and in order to get rid of the terrible crime and sin entailed by our fathers of holding slaves. This is the line of policy that he marks out, and appeals to the moral sense and the justice and the Christian feeling of the North to sustain him. Then he says that those who hold the contrary doctrine to him are on the basis of kings who claim a government by divine right. Let us look for a moment and see on what principle they threw over the divine right of George III. who governed us. Didn’t these colonies rebel on the principle that that the British Parliament had no right to pass laws concerning our property, and private and domestic institutions, without our consent? They demanded that the British Government should not pass such laws unless it gave us a full representation. The British said they would, and we went to war on that principle, that the home government should not control or govern these territories without representation. (Applause.) Now what is the principle on which he proposes to govern the Territories? Give them no representation, and then call upon Congress to pass laws controlling their property and domestic concerns, without their consent, against their will. Thus he asserts for his party the identical principle of the party of George III., and the Tories of the Revolution. (Applause.) I hold that the people of a Territory like those of a State (I use the language of Mr. Buchanan in his letter of acceptance) have the right to decide for themselves whether slavery shall exist within their limits. The point upon which Chief Justice Taney expressed his opinion was, that slaves being property, stand on an equal footing with other property, and consequently the owner has the same right to carry that property into a Territory that he has any other, and of course suject to the same conditions. Suppose one of your merchants should take $100,000 worth of groceries to Kansas. You have a right to go there under the decision, but when you get there, you find the Maine Liquor Law in force. You cannot use it—cannot sell it. It is subject to the local laws, and that law is against you. What can you do with it?

A Voice.—You would drink it.

Judge Douglas.—The best you can do is to bring it back to Illinois and sell it. If you take your negroes there, and as Col. Jefferson Davis says in his Bangor speech, you must take them there subject to the local law.3 If they want it they will protect and encourage it; if they don’t want it, they will withhold that protection. The absence of local legislation excludes it as completely as postive prohibition. You slaveholders of Missouri understand practically that you cannot carry slavery where the people don’t want it, and all that you have a right to ask is that the people shall do as they please. If they want it, let them have it, and if they don’t want it, let them refuse to encourage it.

No, my friends, if we will only live up to these great fundamental principles, there will be peace between the North and the South. Lincoln admits that all the domestic questions are left to each State under the Constitution in regard to all other questions except slavery, without the right to interfere with them. What right have we with slavery any more than with any other? But he says this slavery question is now the bone of contention. Why? Because agitators are banded together in the free States to make war on it. Suppose the agitators in all the States in one half of the Union should combine to make war upon the railroad system in the other half, you would have the same sectional strife. Suppose you should make war upon any other domestic institution, it would produce the same strife. The only remedy or safety is that we shall stand by the Constitution as our fathers made it; obey the laws as they are passed, while they strnd on the statute book, and sustain the decision of the Supreme Court and the constituted authorities as they perform their duties under the Constitution. I am told my time is up. (Applause.).