Speeches of Abraham Lincoln 1858 - Third Joint Debate, At Jonesboro
by Abraham Lincoln
SEPTEMBER 15, 1858
Mr. LINCOLN'S REPLY.
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN:--There is very much in the principles that Judge
Douglas has here enunciated that I most cordially approve, and over which
I shall have no controversy with him. In so far as he has insisted that
all the States have the right to do exactly as they please about all
their domestic relations, including that of slavery, I agree entirely
with him. He places me wrong in spite of all I can tell him, though I
repeat it again and again, insisting that I have no difference with him
upon this subject. I have made a great many speeches, some of which have
been printed, and it will be utterly impossible for him to find anything
that I have ever put in print contrary to what I now say upon this
subject. I hold myself under constitutional obligations to allow the
people in all the States, without interference, direct or indirect, to do
exactly as they please; and I deny that I have any inclination to
interfere with them, even if there were no such constitutional
obligation. I can only say again that I am placed improperly--altogether
improperly, in spite of all I can say--when it is insisted that I
entertain any other view or purposes in regard to that matter.
While I am upon this subject, I will make some answers briefly to certain
propositions that Judge Douglas has put. He says, "Why can't this Union
endure permanently half slave and half free?" I have said that I supposed
it could not, and I will try, before this new audience, to give briefly
some of the reasons for entertaining that opinion. Another form of his
question is, "Why can't we let it stand as our fathers placed it?" That
is the exact difficulty between us. I say that Judge Douglas and his
friends have changed it from the position in which our fathers originally
placed it. I say, in the way our father's originally left the slavery
question, the institution was in the course of ultimate extinction, and
the public mind rested in the belief that it was in the course of
ultimate extinction. I say when this government was first established it
was the policy of its founders to prohibit the spread of slavery into the
new Territories of the United States, where it had not existed. But Judge
Douglas and his friends have broken up that policy, and placed it upon a
new basis, by which it is to become national and perpetual. All I have
asked or desired anywhere is that it should be placed back again upon the
basis that the fathers of our government originally placed it upon. I
have no doubt that it would become extinct, for all time to come, if we
but readopted the policy of the fathers, by restricting it to the limits
it has already covered, restricting it from the new Territories.
I do not wish to dwell at great length on this branch of the subject at
this time, but allow me to repeat one thing that I have stated before.
Brooks--the man who assaulted Senator Sumner on the floor of the Senate,
and who was complimented with dinners, and silver pitchers, and
gold-headed canes, and a good many other things for that feat--in one of
his speeches declared that when this government was originally
established, nobody expected that the institution of slavery would last
until this day. That was but the opinion of one man, but it was such an
opinion as we can never get from Judge Douglas or anybody in favor of
slavery, in the North, at all. You can sometimes get it from a Southern
man. He said at the same time that the framers of our government did not
have the knowledge that experience has taught us; that experience and the
invention of the cotton-gin have taught us that the perpetuation of
slavery is a necessity. He insisted, therefore, upon its being changed
from the basis upon which the fathers of the government left it to the
basis of its perpetuation and nationalization.
I insist that this is the difference between Judge Douglas and
myself,--that Judge Douglas is helping that change along. I insist upon
this government being placed where our fathers originally placed it.
I remember Judge Douglas once said that he saw the evidences on the
statute books of Congress of a policy in the origin of government to
divide slavery and freedom by a geographical line; that he saw an
indisposition to maintain that policy, and therefore he set about
studying up a way to settle the institution on the right basis,--the
basis which he thought it ought to have been placed upon at first; and in
that speech he confesses that he seeks to place it, not upon the basis
that the fathers placed it upon, but upon one gotten up on "original
principles." When he asks me why we cannot get along with it in the
attitude where our fathers placed it, he had better clear up the
evidences that he has himself changed it from that basis, that he has
himself been chiefly instrumental in changing the policy of the fathers.
Any one who will read his speech of the 22d of last March will see that
he there makes an open confession, showing that he set about fixing the
institution upon an altogether different set of principles. I think I
have fully answered him when he asks me why we cannot let it alone upon
the basis where our fathers left it, by showing that he has himself
changed the whole policy of the government in that regard.
Now, fellow-citizens, in regard to this matter about a contract that was
made between Judge Trumbull and myself, and all that long portion of
Judge Douglas's speech on this subject,--I wish simply to say what I have
said to him before, that he cannot know whether it is true or not, and I
do know that there is not a word of truth in it. And I have told him so
before. I don't want any harsh language indulged in, but I do not know
how to deal with this persistent insisting on a story that I know to be
utterly without truth. It used to be a fashion amongst men that when a
charge was made, some sort of proof was brought forward to establish it,
and if no proof was found to exist, the charge was dropped. I don't know
how to meet this kind of an argument. I don't want to have a fight with
Judge Douglas, and I have no way of making an argument up into the
consistency of a corn-cob and stopping his mouth with it. All I can do
is--good-humoredly--to say that, from the beginning to the end of all
that story about a bargain between Judge Trumbull and myself, there is
not a word of truth in it. I can only ask him to show some sort of
evidence of the truth of his story. He brings forward here and reads from
what he contends is a speech by James H. Matheny, charging such a bargain
between Trumbull and myself. My own opinion is that Matheny did do some
such immoral thing as to tell a story that he knew nothing about. I
believe he did. I contradicted it instantly, and it has been contradicted
by Judge Trumbull, while nobody has produced any proof, because there is
none. Now, whether the speech which the Judge brings forward here is
really the one Matheny made, I do not know, and I hope the Judge will
pardon me for doubting the genuineness of this document, since his
production of those Springfield resolutions at Ottawa. I do not wish to
dwell at any great length upon this matter. I can say nothing when a long
story like this is told, except it is not true, and demand that he who
insists upon it shall produce some proof. That is all any man can do, and
I leave it in that way, for I know of no other way of dealing with it.
[In an argument on the lines of: "Yes, you did.--No, I did not." It bears
on the former to prove his point, not on the negative to "prove" that he
did not--even if he easily can do so.]
The Judge has gone over a long account of the old Whig and Democratic
parties, and it connects itself with this charge against Trumbull and
myself. He says that they agreed upon a compromise in regard to the
slavery question in 1850; that in a National Democratic Convention
resolutions were passed to abide by that compromise as a finality upon
the slavery question. He also says that the Whig party in National
Convention agreed to abide by and regard as a finality the Compromise of
1850. I understand the Judge to be altogether right about that; I
understand that part of the history of the country as stated by him to be
correct I recollect that I, as a member of that party, acquiesced in that
compromise. I recollect in the Presidential election which followed, when
we had General Scott up for the presidency, Judge Douglas was around
berating us Whigs as Abolitionists, precisely as he does to-day,--not a
bit of difference. I have often heard him. We could do nothing when the
old Whig party was alive that was not Abolitionism, but it has got an
extremely good name since it has passed away.
[It almost a natural law that, when dead--no matter how bad we were--we
are automatically beatified.]
When that Compromise was made it did not repeal the old Missouri
Compromise. It left a region of United States territory half as large as
the present territory of the United States, north of the line of 36
degrees 30 minutes, in which slavery was prohibited by Act of Congress.
This Compromise did not repeal that one. It did not affect or propose to
repeal it. But at last it became Judge Douglas's duty, as he thought (and
I find no fault with him), as Chairman of the Committee on Territories,
to bring in a bill for the organization of a territorial
government,--first of one, then of two Territories north of that line.
When he did so, it ended in his inserting a provision substantially
repealing the Missouri Compromise. That was because the Compromise of
1850 had not repealed it. And now I ask why he could not have let that
Compromise alone? We were quiet from the agitation of the slavery
question. We were making no fuss about it. All had acquiesced in the
Compromise measures of 1850. We never had been seriously disturbed by any
Abolition agitation before that period. When he came to form governments
for the Territories north of the line of 36 degrees 30 minutes, why could
he not have let that matter stand as it was standing? Was it necessary to
the organization of a Territory? Not at all. Iowa lay north of the line,
and had been organized as a Territory and come into the Union as a State
without disturbing that Compromise. There was no sort of necessity for
destroying it to organize these Territories. But, gentlemen, it would
take up all my time to meet all the little quibbling arguments of Judge
Douglas to show that the Missouri Compromise was repealed by the
Compromise of 1850. My own opinion is, that a careful investigation of
all the arguments to sustain the position that that Compromise was
virtually repealed by the Compromise of 1850 would show that they are the
merest fallacies. I have the report that Judge Douglas first brought into
Congress at the time of the introduction of the Nebraska Bill, which in
its original form did not repeal the Missouri Compromise, and he there
expressly stated that he had forborne to do so because it had not been
done by the Compromise of 1850. I close this part of the discussion on my
part by asking him the question again, "Why, when we had peace under the
Missouri Compromise, could you not have let it alone?"
In complaining of what I said in my speech at Springfield, in which he
says I accepted my nomination for the senatorship (where, by the way, he
is at fault, for if he will examine it, he will find no acceptance in
it), he again quotes that portion in which I said that "a house divided
against itself cannot stand." Let me say a word in regard to that matter.
He tries to persuade us that there must be a variety in the different
institutions of the States of the Union; that that variety necessarily
proceeds from the variety of soil, climate, of the face of the country,
and the difference in the natural features of the States. I agree to all
that. Have these very matters ever produced any difficulty amongst us?
Not at all. Have we ever had any quarrel over the fact that they have
laws in Louisiana designed to regulate the commerce that springs from the
production of sugar? Or because we have a different class relative to the
production of flour in this State? Have they produced any differences?
Not at all. They are the very cements of this Union. They don't make the
house a house divided against itself. They are the props that hold up the
house and sustain the Union.
But has it been so with this element of slavery? Have we not always had
quarrels and difficulties over it? And when will we cease to have
quarrels over it? Like causes produce like effects. It is worth while to
observe that we have generally had comparative peace upon the slavery
question, and that there has been no cause for alarm until it was excited
by the effort to spread it into new territory. Whenever it has been
limited to its present bounds, and there has been no effort to spread it,
there has been peace. All the trouble and convulsion has proceeded from
efforts to spread it over more territory. It was thus at the date of the
Missouri Compromise. It was so again with the annexation of Texas; so
with the territory acquired by the Mexican war; and it is so now.
Whenever there has been an effort to spread it, there has been agitation
and resistance. Now, I appeal to this audience (very few of whom are my
political friends), as national men, whether we have reason to expect
that the agitation in regard to this subject will cease while the causes
that tend to reproduce agitation are actively at work? Will not the same
cause that produced agitation in 1820, when the Missouri Compromise was
formed, that which produced the agitation upon the annexation of Texas,
and at other times, work out the same results always? Do you think that
the nature of man will be changed, that the same causes that produced
agitation at one time will not have the same effect at another?
This has been the result so far as my observation of the slavery question
and my reading in history extends. What right have we then to hope that
the trouble will cease,--that the agitation will come to an end,--until
it shall either be placed back where it originally stood, and where the
fathers originally placed it, or, on the other hand, until it shall
entirely master all opposition? This is the view I entertain, and this is
the reason why I entertained it, as Judge Douglas has read from my
Springfield speech.
Now, my friends, there is one other thing that I feel myself under some
sort of obligation to mention. Judge Douglas has here to-day--in a very
rambling way, I was about saying--spoken of the platforms for which he
seeks to hold me responsible. He says, "Why can't you come out and make
an open avowal of principles in all places alike?" and he reads from an
advertisement that he says was used to notify the people of a speech to
be made by Judge Trumbull at Waterloo. In commenting on it he desires to
know whether we cannot speak frankly and manfully, as he and his friends
do. How, I ask, do his friends speak out their own sentiments? A
Convention of his party in this State met on the 21st of April at
Springfield, and passed a set of resolutions which they proclaim to the
country as their platform. This does constitute their platform, and it is
because Judge Douglas claims it is his platform--that these are his
principles and purposes--that he has a right to declare he speaks his
sentiments "frankly and manfully." On the 9th of June Colonel John
Dougherty, Governor Reynolds, and others, calling themselves National
Democrats, met in Springfield and adopted a set of resolutions which are
as easily understood, as plain and as definite in stating to the country
and to the world what they believed in and would stand upon, as Judge
Douglas's platform Now, what is the reason that Judge Douglas is not
willing that Colonel Dougherty and Governor Reynolds should stand upon
their own written and printed platform as well as he upon his? Why must
he look farther than their platform when he claims himself to stand by
his platform?
Again, in reference to our platform: On the 16th of June the Republicans
had their Convention and published their platform, which is as clear and
distinct as Judge Douglas's. In it they spoke their principles as plainly
and as definitely to the world. What is the reason that Judge Douglas is
not willing I should stand upon that platform? Why must he go around
hunting for some one who is supporting me or has supported me at some
time in his life, and who has said something at some time contrary to
that platform? Does the Judge regard that rule as a good one? If it turn
out that the rule is a good one for me--that I am responsible for any and
every opinion that any man has expressed who is my friend,--then it is a
good rule for him. I ask, is it not as good a rule for him as it is for
me? In my opinion, it is not a good rule for either of us. Do you think
differently, Judge?
[Mr. DOUGLAS: I do not.]
Judge Douglas says he does not think differently. I am glad of it. Then
can he tell me why he is looking up resolutions of five or six years ago,
and insisting that they were my platform, notwithstanding my protest that
they are not, and never were my platform, and my pointing out the
platform of the State Convention which he delights to say nominated me
for the Senate? I cannot see what he means by parading these resolutions,
if it is not to hold me responsible for them in some way. If he says to
me here that he does not hold the rule to be good, one way or the other,
I do not comprehend how he could answer me more fully if he answered me
at greater length. I will therefore put in as my answer to the
resolutions that he has hunted up against me, what I, as a lawyer, would
call a good plea to a bad declaration. I understand that it is an axiom
of law that a poor plea may be a good plea to a bad declaration. I think
that the opinions the Judge brings from those who support me, yet differ
from me, is a bad declaration against me; but if I can bring the same
things against him, I am putting in a good plea to that kind of
declaration, and now I propose to try it.
At Freeport, Judge Douglas occupied a large part of his time in producing
resolutions and documents of various sorts, as I understood, to make me
somehow responsible for them; and I propose now doing a little of the
same sort of thing for him. In 1850 a very clever gentleman by the name
of Thompson Campbell, a personal friend of Judge Douglas and myself, a
political friend of Judge Douglas and opponent of mine, was a candidate
for Congress in the Galena District. He was interrogated as to his views
on this same slavery question. I have here before me the interrogatories,
and Campbell's answers to them--I will read them:
INTERROGATORIES:
"1st. Will you, if elected, vote for and cordially support a bill
prohibiting slavery in the Territories of the United States?
"2d. Will you vote for and support a bill abolishing slavery in the
District of Columbia?
"3d. Will you oppose the admission of any Slave States which may be
formed out of Texas or the Territories?
"4th. Will you vote for and advocate the repeal of the Fugitive Slave law
passed at the recent session of Congress?
"5th. Will you advocate and vote for the election of a Speaker of the
House of Representatives who shall be willing to organize the committees
of that House so as to give the Free States their just influence in the
business of legislation?
"6th. What are your views, not only as to the constitutional right of
Congress to prohibit the slave-trade between the States, but also as to
the expediency of exercising that right immediately?"
CAMPBELL'S REPLY.
"To the first and second interrogatories, I answer unequivocally in the
affirmative.
"To the third interrogatory I reply, that I am opposed to the admission
of any more Slave States into the Union, that may be formed out of Texas
or any other Territory.
"To the fourth and fifth interrogatories I unhesitatingly answer in the
affirmative.
"To the sixth interrogatory I reply, that so long as the Slave States
continue to treat slaves as articles of commerce, the Constitution
confers power on Congress to pass laws regulating that peculiar COMMERCE,
and that the protection of Human Rights imperatively demands the
interposition of every constitutional means to prevent this most inhuman
and iniquitous traffic.
"T. CAMPBELL."
I want to say here that Thompson Campbell was elected to Congress
on that platform, as the Democratic candidate in the Galena District,
against Martin P. Sweet.
[Judge DOUGLAS: Give me the date of the letter.]
The time Campbell ran was in 1850. I have not the exact date here. It was
some time in 1850 that these interrogatories were put and the answer
given. Campbell was elected to Congress, and served out his term. I think
a second election came up before he served out his term, and he was not
re-elected. Whether defeated or not nominated, I do not know. [Mr.
Campbell was nominated for re-election by the Democratic party, by
acclamation.] At the end of his term his very good friend Judge Douglas
got him a high office from President Pierce, and sent him off to
California. Is not that the fact? Just at the end of his term in Congress
it appears that our mutual friend Judge Douglas got our mutual friend
Campbell a good office, and sent him to California upon it. And not only
so, but on the 27th of last month, when Judge Douglas and myself spoke at
Freeport in joint discussion, there was his same friend Campbell, come
all the way from California, to help the Judge beat me; and there was
poor Martin P. Sweet standing on the platform, trying to help poor me to
be elected. That is true of one of Judge Douglas's friends.
So again, in that same race of 1850, there was a Congressional Convention
assembled at Joliet, and it nominated R. S. Molony for Congress, and
unanimously adopted the following resolution:
"Resolved, That we are uncompromisingly opposed to the extension of
slavery; and while we would not make such opposition a ground of
interference with the interests of the States where it exists, yet we
moderately but firmly insist that it is the duty of Congress to oppose
its extension into Territory now free, by all means compatible with the
obligations of the Constitution, and with good faith to our sister
States; that these principles were recognized by the Ordinance of 1787,
which received the sanction of Thomas Jefferson, who is acknowledged by
all to be the great oracle and expounder of our faith."
Subsequently the same interrogatories were propounded to Dr. Molony which
had been addressed to Campbell as above, with the exception of the 6th,
respecting the interstate slave trade, to which Dr. Molony, the
Democratic nominee for Congress, replied as follows:
"I received the written interrogatories this day, and, as you will see by
the La Salle Democrat and Ottawa Free Trader, I took at Peru on the 5th,
and at Ottawa on the 7th, the affirmative side of interrogatories 1st and
2d; and in relation to the admission of any more Slave States from Free
Territory, my position taken at these meetings, as correctly reported in
said papers, was emphatically and distinctly opposed to it. In relation
to the admission of any more Slave States from Texas, whether I shall go
against it or not will depend upon the opinion that I may hereafter form
of the true meaning and nature of the resolutions of annexation. If, by
said resolutions, the honor and good faith of the nation is pledged to
admit more Slave States from Texas when she (Texas) may apply for the
admission of such State, then I should, if in Congress, vote for their
admission. But if not so PLEDGED and bound by sacred contract, then a
bill for the admission of more Slave States from Texas would never
receive my vote.
"To your fourth interrogatory I answer most decidedly in the affirmative,
and for reasons set forth in my reported remarks at Ottawa last Monday.
"To your fifth interrogatory I also reply in the affirmative most
cordially, and that I will use my utmost exertions to secure the
nomination and election of a man who will accomplish the objects of said
interrogatories. I most cordially approve of the resolutions adopted at
the Union meeting held at Princeton on the 27th September ult.
"Yours, etc., R. S. MOLONY."
All I have to say in regard to Dr. Molony is that he was the
regularly nominated Democratic candidate for Congress in his district;
was elected at that time; at the end of his term was appointed to a
land-office at Danville. (I never heard anything of Judge Douglas's
instrumentality in this.) He held this office a considerable time, and
when we were at Freeport the other day there were handbills scattered
about notifying the public that after our debate was over R. S. Molony
would make a Democratic speech in favor of Judge Douglas. That is all I
know of my own personal knowledge. It is added here to this resolution,
and truly I believe, that among those who participated in the Joliet
Convention, and who supported its nominee, with his platform as laid down
in the resolution of the Convention and in his reply as above given, we
call at random the following names, all of which are recognized at this
day as leading Democrats:
"Cook County,--E. B. Williams, Charles McDonell, Arno Voss,
Thomas Hoyne, Isaac Cook."
I reckon we ought to except Cook.
"F. C. Sherman.
"Will,--Joel A. Matteson, S. W. Bowen.
"Kane,--B. F. Hall, G. W. Renwick, A. M. Herrington, Elijah Wilcox.
"McHenry,--W. M. Jackson, Enos W. Smith, Neil Donnelly.
La Salle,--John Hise, William Reddick."
William Reddick! another one of Judge Douglas's friends that stood on the
stand with him at Ottawa, at the time the Judge says my knees trembled so
that I had to be carried away. The names are all here:
"Du Page,--Nathan Allen.
"De Kalb,--Z. B. Mayo."
Here is another set of resolutions which I think are apposite to the
matter in hand.
On the 28th of February of the same year a Democratic District Convention
was held at Naperville to nominate a candidate for Circuit Judge. Among
the delegates were Bowen and Kelly of Will; Captain Naper, H. H. Cody,
Nathan Allen, of Du Page; W. M. Jackson, J. M. Strode, P. W. Platt, and
Enos W. Smith of McHenry; J. Horssnan and others of Winnebago. Colonel
Strode presided over the Convention. The following resolutions were
unanimously adopted,--the first on motion of P. W. Platt, the second on
motion of William M. Jackson:
"Resolved, That this Convention is in favor of the Wilmot Proviso, both
in Principle and Practice, and that we know of no good reason why any
person should oppose the largest latitude in Free Soil, Free Territory
and Free speech.
"Resolved, That in the opinion of this Convention, the time has arrived
when all men should be free, whites as well as others."
[Judge DOUGLAS: What is the date of those resolutions?]
I understand it was in 1850, but I do not know it. I do not state a thing
and say I know it, when I do not. But I have the highest belief that this
is so. I know of no way to arrive at the conclusion that there is an
error in it. I mean to put a case no stronger than the truth will allow.
But what I was going to comment upon is an extract from a newspaper in De
Kalb County; and it strikes me as being rather singular, I confess, under
the circumstances. There is a Judge Mayo in that county, who is a
candidate for the Legislature, for the purpose, if he secures his
election, of helping to re-elect Judge Douglas. He is the editor of a
newspaper [De Kalb County Sentinel], and in that paper I find the extract
I am going to read. It is part of an editorial article in which he was
electioneering as fiercely as he could for Judge Douglas and against me.
It was a curious thing, I think, to be in such a paper. I will agree to
that, and the Judge may make the most of it:
"Our education has been such that we have been rather in favor of the
equality of the blacks; that is, that they should enjoy all the
privileges of the whites where they reside. We are aware that this is not
a very popular doctrine. We have had many a confab with some who are now
strong 'Republicans' we taking the broad ground of equality, and they the
opposite ground.
"We were brought up in a State where blacks were voters, and we do not
know of any inconvenience resulting from it, though perhaps it would not
work as well where the blacks are more numerous. We have no doubt of the
right of the whites to guard against such an evil, if it is one. Our
opinion is that it would be best for all concerned to have the colored
population in a State by themselves [in this I agree with him]; but if
within the jurisdiction of the United States, we say by all means they
should have the right to have their Senators and Representatives in
Congress, and to vote for President. With us 'worth makes the man, and
want of it the fellow.' We have seen many a 'nigger' that we thought more
of than some white men."
That is one of Judge Douglas's friends. Now, I do not want to leave
myself in an attitude where I can be misrepresented, so I will say I do
not think the Judge is responsible for this article; but he is quite as
responsible for it as I would be if one of my friends had said it. I
think that is fair enough.
I have here also a set of resolutions passed by a Democratic State
Convention in Judge Douglas's own good State of Vermont, that I think
ought to be good for him too:
"Resolved, That liberty is a right inherent and inalienable in man, and
that herein all men are equal.
"Resolved, That we claim no authority in the Federal Government to
abolish slavery in the several States, but we do claim for it
Constitutional power perpetually to prohibit the introduction of slavery
into territory now free, and abolish it wherever, under the jurisdiction
of Congress, it exists.
"Resolved, That this power ought immediately to be exercised in
prohibiting the introduction and existence of slavery in New Mexico and
California, in abolishing slavery and the slave-trade in the District of
Columbia, on the high seas, and wherever else, under the Constitution, it
can be reached.
"Resolved, That no more Slave States should be admitted into the Federal
Union.
"Resolved, That the Government ought to return to its ancient policy, not
to extend, nationalize, or encourage, but to limit, localize, and
discourage slavery."
At Freeport I answered several interrogatories that had been propounded
to me by Judge Douglas at the Ottawa meeting. The Judge has not yet seen
fit to find any fault with the position that I took in regard to those
seven interrogatories, which were certainly broad enough, in all
conscience, to cover the entire ground. In my answers, which have been
printed, and all have had the opportunity of seeing, I take the ground
that those who elect me must expect that I will do nothing which will not
be in accordance with those answers. I have some right to assert that
Judge Douglas has no fault to find with them. But he chooses to still try
to thrust me upon different ground, without paying any attention to my
answers, the obtaining of which from me cost him so much trouble and
concern. At the same time I propounded four interrogatories to him,
claiming it as a right that he should answer as many interrogatories for
me as I did for him, and I would reserve myself for a future instalment
when I got them ready. The Judge, in answering me upon that occasion, put
in what I suppose he intends as answers to all four of my
interrogatories. The first one of these interrogatories I have before me,
and it is in these words:
"Question 1.--If the people of Kansas shall, by means entirely
unobjectionable in all other respects, adopt a State constitution, and
ask admission into the Union under it, before they have the requisite
number of inhabitants according to the English bill,"--some ninety-three
thousand,--"will you vote to admit them?"
As I read the Judge's answer in the newspaper, and as I remember it as
pronounced at the time, he does not give any answer which is equivalent
to yes or no,--I will or I won't. He answers at very considerable length,
rather quarreling with me for asking the question, and insisting that
Judge Trumbull had done something that I ought to say something about,
and finally getting out such statements as induce me to infer that he
means to be understood he will, in that supposed case, vote for the
admission of Kansas. I only bring this forward now for the purpose of
saying that if he chooses to put a different construction upon his
answer, he may do it. But if he does not, I shall from this time forward
assume that he will vote for the admission of Kansas in disregard of the
English bill. He has the right to remove any misunderstanding I may have.
I only mention it now, that I may hereafter assume this to be the true
construction of his answer, if he does not now choose to correct me.
The second interrogatory that I propounded to him was this:
"Question 2.--Can the people of a United States Territory, in any lawful
way, against the wish of any citizen of the United States, exclude
slavery from its limits prior to the formation of a State Constitution?"
To this Judge Douglas answered that they can lawfully exclude slavery
from the Territory prior to the formation of a constitution. He goes on
to tell us how it can be done. As I understand him, he holds that it can
be done by the Territorial Legislature refusing to make any enactments
for the protection of slavery in the Territory, and especially by
adopting unfriendly legislation to it. For the sake of clearness, I state
it again: that they can exclude slavery from the Territory, 1st, by
withholding what he assumes to be an indispensable assistance to it in
the way of legislation; and, 2d, by unfriendly legislation. If I rightly
understand him, I wish to ask your attention for a while to his position.
In the first place, the Supreme Court of the United States has decided
that any Congressional prohibition of slavery in the Territories is
unconstitutional; that they have reached this proposition as a conclusion
from their former proposition, that the Constitution of the United States
expressly recognizes property in slaves, and from that other
Constitutional provision, that no person shall be deprived of property
without due process of law. Hence they reach the conclusion that as the
Constitution of the United States expressly recognizes property in
slaves, and prohibits any person from being deprived of property without
due process of law, to pass an Act of Congress by which a man who owned a
slave on one side of a line would be deprived of him if he took him on
the other side, is depriving him of that property without due process of
law. That I understand to be the decision of the Supreme Court. I
understand also that Judge Douglas adheres most firmly to that decision;
and the difficulty is, how is it possible for any power to exclude
slavery from the Territory, unless in violation of that decision? That is
the difficulty.
In the Senate of the United States, in 1850, Judge Trumbull, in a speech
substantially, if not directly, put the same interrogatory to Judge
Douglas, as to whether the people of a Territory had the lawful power to
exclude slavery prior to the formation of a constitution. Judge Douglas
then answered at considerable length, and his answer will be found in the
Congressional Globe, under date of June 9th, 1856. The Judge said that
whether the people could exclude slavery prior to the formation of a
constitution or not was a question to be decided by the Supreme Court. He
put that proposition, as will be seen by the Congressional Globe, in a
variety of forms, all running to the same thing in substance,--that it
was a question for the Supreme Court. I maintain that when he says, after
the Supreme Court have decided the question, that the people may yet
exclude slavery by any means whatever, he does virtually say that it is
not a question for the Supreme Court. He shifts his ground. I appeal to
you whether he did not say it was a question for the Supreme Court? Has
not the Supreme Court decided that question? when he now says the people
may exclude slavery, does he not make it a question for the people? Does
he not virtually shift his ground and say that it is not a question for
the Court, but for the people? This is a very simple proposition,--a very
plain and naked one. It seems to me that there is no difficulty in
deciding it. In a variety of ways he said that it was a question for the
Supreme Court. He did not stop then to tell us that, whatever the Supreme
Court decides, the people can by withholding necessary "police
regulations" keep slavery out. He did not make any such answer I submit
to you now whether the new state of the case has not induced the Judge to
sheer away from his original ground. Would not this be the impression of
every fair-minded man?
I hold that the proposition that slavery cannot enter a new country
without police regulations is historically false. It is not true at all.
I hold that the history of this country shows that the institution of
slavery was originally planted upon this continent without these "police
regulations," which the Judge now thinks necessary for the actual
establishment of it. Not only so, but is there not another fact: how came
this Dred Scott decision to be made? It was made upon the case of a negro
being taken and actually held in slavery in Minnesota Territory, claiming
his freedom because the Act of Congress prohibited his being so held
there. Will the Judge pretend that Dred Scott was not held there without
police regulations? There is at least one matter of record as to his
having been held in slavery in the Territory, not only without police
regulations, but in the teeth of Congressional legislation supposed to be
valid at the time. This shows that there is vigor enough in slavery to
plant itself in a new country even against unfriendly legislation. It
takes not only law, but the enforcement of law to keep it out. That is
the history of this country upon the subject.
I wish to ask one other question. It being understood that the
Constitution of the United States guarantees property in slaves in the
Territories, if there is any infringement of the right of that property,
would not the United States courts, organized for the government of the
Territory, apply such remedy as might be necessary in that case? It is a
maxim held by the courts that there is no wrong without its remedy; and
the courts have a remedy for whatever is acknowledged and treated as a
wrong.
Again: I will ask you, my friends, if you were elected members of the
Legislature, what would be the first thing you would have to do before
entering upon your duties? Swear to support the Constitution of the
United States. Suppose you believe, as Judge Douglas does, that the
Constitution of the United States guarantees to your neighbor the right
to hold slaves in that Territory; that they are his property: how can you
clear your oaths unless you give him such legislation as is necessary to
enable him to enjoy that property? What do you understand by supporting
the Constitution of a State, or of the United States? Is it not to give
such constitutional helps to the rights established by that Constitution
as may be practically needed? Can you, if you swear to support the
Constitution, and believe that the Constitution establishes a right,
clear your oath, without giving it support? Do you support the
Constitution if, knowing or believing there is a right established under
it which needs specific legislation, you withhold that legislation? Do
you not violate and disregard your oath? I can conceive of nothing
plainer in the world. There can be nothing in the words "support the
Constitution," if you may run counter to it by refusing support to any
right established under the Constitution. And what I say here will hold
with still more force against the Judge's doctrine of "unfriendly
legislation." How could you, having sworn to support the Constitution,
and believing it guaranteed the right to hold slaves in the Territories,
assist in legislation intended to defeat that right? That would be
violating your own view of the Constitution. Not only so, but if you were
to do so, how long would it take the courts to hold your votes
unconstitutional and void? Not a moment.
Lastly, I would ask: Is not Congress itself under obligation to give
legislative support to any right that is established under the United
States Constitution? I repeat the question: Is not Congress itself bound
to give legislative support to any right that is established in the
United States Constitution? A member of Congress swears to support the
Constitution of the United States: and if he sees a right established by
that Constitution which needs specific legislative protection, can he
clear his oath without giving that protection? Let me ask you why many of
us who are opposed to slavery upon principle give our acquiescence to a
Fugitive Slave law? Why do we hold ourselves under obligations to pass
such a law, and abide by it when it is passed? Because the Constitution
makes provision that the owners of slaves shall have the right to reclaim
them. It gives the right to reclaim slaves; and that right is, as Judge
Douglas says, a barren right, unless there is legislation that will
enforce it.
The mere declaration, "No person held to service or labor in one State
under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall in consequence of
any law or regulation therein be discharged from such service or labor,
but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or
labor may be due," is powerless without specific legislation to enforce
it. Now, on what ground would a member of Congress, who is opposed to
slavery in the abstract, vote for a Fugitive law, as I would deem it my
duty to do? Because there is a constitutional right which needs
legislation to enforce it. And although it is distasteful to me, I have
sworn to support the Constitution; and having so sworn, I cannot conceive
that I do support it if I withhold from that right any necessary
legislation to make it practical. And if that is true in regard to a
Fugitive Slave law, is the right to have fugitive slaves reclaimed any
better fixed in the Constitution than the right to hold slaves in the
Territories? For this decision is a just exposition of the Constitution,
as Judge Douglas thinks. Is the one right any better than the other? Is
there any man who, while a member of Congress, would give support to the
one any more than the other? If I wished to refuse to give legislative
support to slave property in the Territories, if a member of Congress, I
could not do it, holding the view that the Constitution establishes that
right. If I did it at all, it would be because I deny that this decision
properly construes the Constitution. But if I acknowledge, with Judge
Douglas, that this decision properly construes the Constitution, I cannot
conceive that I would be less than a perjured man if I should refuse in
Congress to give such protection to that property as in its nature it
needed.
At the end of what I have said here I propose to give the Judge my fifth
interrogatory, which he may take and answer at his leisure. My fifth
interrogatory is this:
If the slaveholding citizens of a United States Territory should need and
demand Congressional legislation for the protection of their slave
property in such Territory, would you, as a member of Congress, vote for
or against such legislation?
[Judge DOUGLAS: Will you repeat that? I want to answer that question.]
If the slaveholding citizens of a United States Territory should need and
demand Congressional legislation for the protection of their slave
property in such Territory, would you, as a member of Congress, vote for
or against such legislation?
I am aware that in some of the speeches Judge Douglas has made, he has
spoken as if he did not know or think that the Supreme Court had decided
that a Territorial Legislature cannot exclude slavery. Precisely what the
Judge would say upon the subject--whether he would say definitely that he
does not understand they have so decided, or whether he would say he does
understand that the court have so decided,--I do not know; but I know
that in his speech at Springfield he spoke of it as a thing they had not
decided yet; and in his answer to me at Freeport, he spoke of it, so far,
again, as I can comprehend it, as a thing that had not yet been decided.
Now, I hold that if the Judge does entertain that view, I think that he
is not mistaken in so far as it can be said that the court has not
decided anything save the mere question of jurisdiction. I know the legal
arguments that can be made,--that after a court has decided that it
cannot take jurisdiction in a case, it then has decided all that is
before it, and that is the end of it. A plausible argument can be made in
favor of that proposition; but I know that Judge Douglas has said in one
of his speeches that the court went forward, like honest men as they
were, and decided all the points in the case. If any points are really
extra-judicially decided, because not necessarily before them, then this
one as to the power of the Territorial Legislature, to exclude slavery is
one of them, as also the one that the Missouri Compromise was null and
void. They are both extra-judicial, or neither is, according as the court
held that they had no jurisdiction in the case between the parties,
because of want of capacity of one party to maintain a suit in that
court. I want, if I have sufficient time, to show that the court did pass
its opinion; but that is the only thing actually done in the case. If
they did not decide, they showed what they were ready to decide whenever
the matter was before them. What is that opinion? After having argued
that Congress had no power to pass a law excluding slavery from a United
States Territory, they then used language to this effect: That inasmuch
as Congress itself could not exercise such a power, it followed as a
matter of course that it could not authorize a Territorial government to
exercise it; for the Territorial Legislature can do no more than Congress
could do. Thus it expressed its opinion emphatically against the power of
a Territorial Legislature to exclude slavery, leaving us in just as
little doubt on that point as upon any other point they really decided.
Now, my fellow-citizens, I will detain you only a little while longer; my
time is nearly out. I find a report of a speech made by Judge Douglas at
Joliet, since we last met at Freeport,--published, I believe, in the
Missouri Republican, on the 9th of this month, in which Judge Douglas
says:
"You know at Ottawa I read this platform, and asked him if he concurred
in each and all of the principles set forth in it. He would not answer
these questions. At last I said frankly, I wish you to answer them,
because when I get them up here where the color of your principles are a
little darker than in Egypt, I intend to trot you down to Jonesboro. The
very notice that I was going to take him down to Egypt made him tremble
in his knees so that he had to be carried from the platform. He laid up
seven days, and in the meantime held a consultation with his political
physicians; they had Lovejoy and Farnsworth and all the leaders of the
Abolition party, they consulted it all over, and at last Lincoln came to
the conclusion that he would answer, so he came up to Freeport last
Friday."
Now, that statement altogether furnishes a subject for philosophical
contemplation. I have been treating it in that way, and I have really
come to the conclusion that I can explain it in no other way than by
believing the Judge is crazy. If he was in his right mind I cannot
conceive how he would have risked disgusting the four or five thousand of
his own friends who stood there and knew, as to my having been carried
from the platform, that there was not a word of truth in it.
[Judge DOUGLAS: Did n't they carry you off?]
There that question illustrates the character of this man Douglas
exactly. He smiles now, and says, "Did n't they carry you off?" but he
said then "he had to be carried off"; and he said it to convince the
country that he had so completely broken me down by his speech that I had
to be carried away. Now he seeks to dodge it, and asks, "Did n't they
carry you off?" Yes, they did. But, Judge Douglas, why didn't you tell
the truth? I would like to know why you did n't tell the truth about it.
And then again "He laid up seven days." He put this in print for the
people of the country to read as a serious document. I think if he had
been in his sober senses he would not have risked that barefacedness in
the presence of thousands of his own friends who knew that I made
speeches within six of the seven days at Henry, Marshall County, Augusta,
Hancock County, and Macomb, McDonough County, including all the necessary
travel to meet him again at Freeport at the end of the six days. Now I
say there is no charitable way to look at that statement, except to
conclude that he is actually crazy. There is another thing in that
statement that alarmed me very greatly as he states it, that he was going
to "trot me down to Egypt." Thereby he would have you infer that I would
not come to Egypt unless he forced me--that I could not be got here
unless he, giant-like, had hauled me down here. That statement he makes,
too, in the teeth of the knowledge that I had made the stipulation to
come down here and that he himself had been very reluctant to enter into
the stipulation. More than all this: Judge Douglas, when he made that
statement, must have been crazy and wholly out of his sober senses, or
else he would have known that when he got me down here, that
promise--that windy promise--of his powers to annihilate me, would n't
amount to anything. Now, how little do I look like being carried away
trembling? Let the Judge go on; and after he is done with his half-hour,
I want you all, if I can't go home myself, to let me stay and rot here;
and if anything happens to the Judge, if I cannot carry him to the hotel
and put him to bed, let me stay here and rot. I say, then, here is
something extraordinary in this statement. I ask you if you know any
other living man who would make such a statement? I will ask my friend
Casey, over there, if he would do such a thing? Would he send that out
and have his men take it as the truth? Did the Judge talk of trotting me
down to Egypt to scare me to death? Why, I know this people better than
he does. I was raised just a little east of here. I am a part of this
people. But the Judge was raised farther north, and perhaps he has some
horrid idea of what this people might be induced to do. But really I have
talked about this matter perhaps longer than I ought, for it is no great
thing; and yet the smallest are often the most difficult things to deal
with. The Judge has set about seriously trying to make the impression
that when we meet at different places I am literally in his
clutches--that I am a poor, helpless, decrepit mouse, and that I can do
nothing at all. This is one of the ways he has taken to create that
impression. I don't know any other way to meet it except this. I don't
want to quarrel with him--to call him a liar; but when I come square up
to him I don't know what else to call him if I must tell the truth out. I
want to be at peace, and reserve all my fighting powers for necessary
occasions. My time now is very nearly out, and I give up the trifle that
is left to the Judge, to let him set my knees trembling again, if he can.
set my knees trembling again, if he can.