The Writings of Abraham Lincoln, v5

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Ti­tle: The Writ­ings of Abra­ham Lin­coln, v5

Au­thor: Abra­ham Lin­coln

Re­lease Date: May, 2001 [Etext #2657] [Yes, we are more than one year ahead of sched­ule] [Most re­cent­ly up­dat­ed: De­cem­ber 4, 2001]

Edi­tion: 11

Lan­guage: En­glish

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THE WRIT­INGS OF ABRA­HAM LIN­COLN, Vol­ume Five

CON­STI­TU­TION­AL EDI­TION

TO SYD­NEY SPRING, GRAYVILLE, ILL.

SPRING­FIELD, June 19, 1858.

SYD­NEY SPRING, Esq.

MY DEAR SIR:–Your let­ter in­tro­duc­ing Mr. Fa­ree was du­ly re­ceived. There was no open­ing to nom­inate him for Su­per­in­ten­dent of Pub­lic In­struc­tion, but through him Egypt made a most valu­able con­tri­bu­tion to the con­ven­tion. I think it may be fair­ly said that he came off the li­on of the day–or rather of the night. Can you not elect him to the Leg­is­la­ture? It seems to me he would be hard to beat. What ob­jec­tion could be made to him? What is your Sen­ator Mar­tin say­ing and do­ing? What is Webb about?

Please write me. Yours tru­ly,

A. LIN­COLN.

TO H. C. WHIT­NEY.

SPRING­FIELD, June 24, 1858

H. C. WHIT­NEY, ESQ.

DEAR SIR:–Your let­ter en­clos­ing the at­tack of the Times up­on me was re­ceived this morn­ing. Give your­self no con­cern about my vot­ing against the sup­plies. Un­less you are with­out faith that a lie can be suc­cess­ful­ly con­tra­dict­ed, there is not a word of truth in the charge, and I am just con­sid­er­ing a lit­tle as to the best shape to put a con­tra­dic­tion in. Show this to whomev­er you please, but do not pub­lish it in the pa­per.

Your friend as ev­er,

A. LIN­COLN.

TO J. W. SOMERS.

SPRING­FIELD, June 25, 1858.

JAMES W. SOMERS, Esq.

MY DEAR SIR:–Yours of the 22nd, in­clos­ing a draft of two hun­dred dol­lars, was du­ly re­ceived. I have paid it on the judg­ment, and here­with you have the re­ceipt. I do not wish to say any­thing as to who shall be the Re­pub­li­can can­di­date for the Leg­is­la­ture in your dis­trict, fur­ther than that I have full con­fi­dence in Dr. Hull. Have you ev­er got in the way of con­sult­ing with McKin­ley in po­lit­ical mat­ters? He is true as steel, and his judg­ment is very good. The last I heard from him, he rather thought Wel­don, of De Witt, was our best tim­ber for rep­re­sen­ta­tive, all things con­sid­ered. But you there must set­tle it among your­selves. It may well puz­zle old­er heads than yours to un­der­stand how, as the Dred Scott de­ci­sion holds, Congress can au­tho­rize a Ter­ri­to­ri­al Leg­is­la­ture to do ev­ery­thing else, and can­not au­tho­rize them to pro­hib­it slav­ery. That is one of the things the court can de­cide, but can nev­er give an in­tel­li­gi­ble rea­son for.

Yours very tru­ly,

A. LIN­COLN.

TO A. CAMP­BELL.

SPRING­FIELD, June 28, 1858.

A. CAMP­BELL, Esq.

MY DEAR SIR:–In 1856 you gave me au­thor­ity to draw on you for any sum not ex­ceed­ing five hun­dred dol­lars. I see clear­ly that such a priv­ilege would be more avail­able now than it was then. I am aware that times are tighter now than they were then. Please write me at all events, and whether you can now do any­thing or not I shall con­tin­ue grate­ful for the past.

Yours very tru­ly,

A. LIN­COLN.

TO J. GILLE­SPIE.

SPRING­FIELD, Ju­ly 16, 1858.

HON. JOSEPH GILLE­SPIE.

MY DEAR SIR:–I write this to say that from the spec­imens of Dou­glas Democ­ra­cy we oc­ca­sion­al­ly see here from Madi­son, we learn that they are mak­ing very con­fi­dent cal­cu­la­tion of beat­ing you and your friends for the low­er house, in that coun­ty. They of­fer to bet up­on it. Billings and Job, re­spec­tive­ly, have been up here, and were each as I learn, talk­ing large­ly about it. If they do so, it can on­ly be done by car­ry­ing the Fill­more men of 1856 very dif­fer­ent­ly from what they seem to [be] go­ing in the oth­er par­ty. Be­low is the vote of 1856, in your dis­trict:

Coun­ties.

Coun­ties. Buchanan. Fre­mont. Fill­more. Bond ………… 607 153 659 Madi­son ……… 1451 1111 1658 Mont­gomery …… 992 162 686 —- —- —- 3050 1426 3003

By this you will see, if you go through the cal­cu­la­tion, that if they get one quar­ter of the Fill­more votes, and you three quar­ters, they will beat you 125 votes. If they get one fifth, and you four fifths, you beat them 179. In Madi­son, alone, if our friends get 1000 of the Fill­more votes, and their op­po­nents the re­main­der, 658, we win by just two votes.

This shows the whole field, on the ba­sis of the elec­tion of 1856.

Whether, since then, any Buchanan, or Fre­mon­ters, have shift­ed ground, and how the ma­jor­ity of new votes will go, you can judge bet­ter than I.

Of course you, on the ground, can bet­ter de­ter­mine your line of tac­tics than any one off the ground; but it be­hooves you to be wide awake and ac­tive­ly work­ing.

Don’t ne­glect it; and write me at your first leisure. Yours as ev­er,

A. LIN­COLN.

TO JOHN MATH­ERS, JACK­SONVILLE, ILL.

SPRING­FIELD, JU­LY 20, 1858.

JNO. MATH­ERS, Esq.

MY DEAR SIR:–Your kind and in­ter­est­ing let­ter of the 19th was du­ly re­ceived. Your sug­ges­tions as to plac­ing one’s self on the of­fen­sive rather than the de­fen­sive are cer­tain­ly cor­rect. That is a point which I shall not dis­re­gard. I spoke here on Sat­ur­day night. The speech, not very well re­port­ed, ap­pears in the State jour­nal of this morn­ing. You doubt­less will see it; and I hope that you will per­ceive in it that I am al­ready im­prov­ing. I would mail you a copy now, but have not one [at] hand. I thank you for your let­ter and shall be pleased to hear from you again.

Yours very tru­ly,

A. LIN­COLN.

TO JOSEPH GILLE­SPIE.

SPRING­FIELD, JU­LY 25, 1858.

HON. J. GILLE­SPIE.

MY DEAR SIR:–Your dole­ful let­ter of the 8th was re­ceived on my re­turn from Chica­go last night. I do hope you are worse scared than hurt, though you ought to know best. We must not lose the dis­trict. We must make a job of it, and save it. Lay hold of the prop­er agen­cies, and se­cure all the Amer­icans you can, at once. I do hope, on clos­er in­spec­tion, you will find they are not half gone. Make a lit­tle test. Run down one of the poll-​books of the Ed­wardsville precinct, and take the first hun­dred known Amer­ican names. Then qui­et­ly as­cer­tain how many of them are ac­tu­al­ly go­ing for Dou­glas. I think you will find less than fifty. But even if you find fifty, make sure of the oth­er fifty, that is, make sure of all you can, at all events. We will set oth­er agen­cies to work which shall com­pen­sate for the loss of a good many Amer­icans. Don’t fail to check the stam­pede at once. Trum­bull, I think, will be with you be­fore long.

There is much he can­not do, and some he can. I have rea­son to hope there will be oth­er help of an ap­pro­pri­ate kind. Write me again.

Yours as ev­er,

A. LIN­COLN.

TO B. C. COOK.

SPRING­FIELD, Aug. 2, 1858.

Hon. B. C. COOK.

MY DEAR SIR:–I have a let­ter from a very true and in­tel­li­gent man in­sist­ing that there is a plan on foot in La Salle and Bu­reau to run Dou­glas Re­pub­li­cans for Congress and for the Leg­is­la­ture in those coun­ties, if they can on­ly get the en­cour­age­ment of our folks nom­inat­ing pret­ty ex­treme abo­li­tion­ists.

It is thought they will do noth­ing if our folks nom­inate men who are not very ob­nox­ious to the charge of abo­li­tion­ism. Please have your eye up­on this. Signs are look­ing pret­ty fair.

Yours very tru­ly,

A. LIN­COLN.

TO HON. J. M. PALMER.

SPRING­FIELD, Aug. 5, 1858.

HON. J. M. PALMER.

DEAR SIR:–Since we part­ed last evening no new thought has oc­curred to [me] on the sub­ject of which we talked most yes­ter­day.

I have con­clud­ed, how­ev­er, to speak at your town on Tues­day, Au­gust 31st, and have promised to have it so ap­pear in the pa­pers of to-​mor­row. Judge Trum­bull has not yet reached here.

Yours as ev­er,

A. LIN­COLN.

TO ALEXAN­DER SYMP­SON.

SPRING­FIELD, Aug. 11, 1858.

ALEXAN­DER SYMP­SON, Esq.

DEAR SIR:–Yours of the 6th re­ceived. If life and health con­tin­ue I shall pret­ty like­ly be at Au­gus­ta on the 25th.

Things look rea­son­ably well. Will tell you more ful­ly when I see you.

Yours tru­ly,

A. LIN­COLN.

TO J. O. CUN­NING­HAM.

OT­TAWA, Au­gust 22, 1858.

J. O. CUN­NING­HAM, Esq.

MY DEAR SIR:–Yours of the 18th, signed as sec­re­tary of the Re­pub­li­can club, is re­ceived. In the mat­ter of mak­ing speech­es I am a good deal pressed by in­vi­ta­tions from al­most all quar­ters, and while I hope to be at Ur­bana some time dur­ing the can­vass, I can­not yet say when. Can you not see me at Mon­ti­cel­lo on the 6th of Septem­ber?

Dou­glas and I, for the first time this can­vass, crossed swords here yes­ter­day; the fire flew some, and I am glad to know I am yet alive. There was a vast con­course of peo­ple–more than could get near enough to hear.

Yours as ev­er,

A. LIN­COLN.

ON SLAV­ERY IN A DEMOC­RA­CY.

Au­gust ??, 1858

As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a mas­ter. This ex­press­es my idea of democ­ra­cy. What­ev­er dif­fers from this, to the ex­tent of the dif­fer­ence, is no democ­ra­cy.

A. LIN­COLN.

TO B. C. COOK.

SPRING­FIELD, Au­gust 2, 1858

HON. B. C. COOK.

MY DEAR SIR:–I have a let­ter from a very true friend, and in­tel­li­gent man, writ­ing that there is a plan on foot in La Salle and Bu­reau, to run Dou­glas Re­pub­li­can for Congress and for the Leg­is­la­ture in those coun­ties, if they can on­ly get the en­cour­age­ment of our folks nom­inat­ing pret­ty ex­treme abo­li­tion­ists. It is thought they will do noth­ing if our folks nom­inate men who are not very [un­de­ci­pher­able word looks like “ob­nox­ious”] to the charge of abo­li­tion­ism. Please have your eye up­on this. Signs are look­ing pret­ty fair.

Yours very tru­ly,

A. LIN­COLN.

TO DR. WILLIAM FITHI­AN, DANVILLE, ILL.

BLOOM­ING­TON, Sept. 3, 1858

DEAR DOC­TOR:–Yours of the 1st was re­ceived this morn­ing, as al­so one from Mr. Har­mon, and one from Hi­ram Beck­with on the same sub­ject. You will see by the Jour­nal that I have been ap­point­ed to speak at Danville on the 22d of Sept.,–the day af­ter Dou­glas speaks there. My re­cent ex­pe­ri­ence shows that speak­ing at the same place the next day af­ter D. is the very thing,–it is, in fact, a con­clud­ing speech on him. Please show this to Messrs. Har­mon and Beck­with; and tell them they must ex­cuse me from writ­ing sep­arate let­ters to them.

Yours as ev­er,

A. LIN­COLN

P. S.–Give full no­tice to all sur­round­ing coun­try. A.L.

FRAG­MENT OF SPEECH AT PARIS, ILL.,

SEPT. 8, 1858.

Let us in­quire what Judge Dou­glas re­al­ly in­vent­ed when he in­tro­duced the Ne­bras­ka Bill? He called it Pop­ular Sovereign­ty. What does that mean? It means the sovereign­ty of the peo­ple over their own af­fairs– in oth­er words, the right of the peo­ple to gov­ern them­selves. Did Judge Dou­glas in­vent this? Not quite. The idea of pop­ular sovereign­ty was float­ing about sev­er­al ages be­fore the au­thor of the Ne­bras­ka Bill was born–in­deed, be­fore Colum­bus set foot on this con­ti­nent. In the year 1776 it took form in the no­ble words which you are all fa­mil­iar with: “We hold these truths to be self-​ev­ident, that all men are cre­at­ed equal,” etc. Was not this the ori­gin of pop­ular sovereign­ty as ap­plied to the Amer­ican peo­ple? Here we are told that gov­ern­ments are in­sti­tut­ed among men de­riv­ing their just pow­ers from the con­sent of the gov­erned. If that is not pop­ular sovereign­ty, then I have no con­cep­tion of the mean­ing of words. If Judge Dou­glas did not in­vent this kind of pop­ular sovereign­ty, let us pur­sue the in­quiry and find out what kind he did in­vent. Was it the right of em­igrants to Kansas and Ne­bras­ka to gov­ern them­selves, and a lot of “nig­gers,” too, if they want­ed them? Clear­ly this was no in­ven­tion of his be­cause Gen­er­al Cass put forth the same doc­trine in 1848 in his so called Nichol­son let­ter, six years be­fore Dou­glas thought of such a thing. Then what was it that the “Lit­tle Gi­ant” in­vent­ed? It nev­er oc­curred to Gen­er­al Cass to call his dis­cov­ery by the odd name of pop­ular sovereign­ty. He had not the face to say that the right of the peo­ple to gov­ern “nig­gers” was the right of the peo­ple to gov­ern them­selves. His no­tions of the fit­ness of things were not mould­ed to the brazen­ness of call­ing the right to put a hun­dred “nig­gers” through un­der the lash in Ne­bras­ka a “sa­cred” right of self-​gov­ern­ment. And here I sub­mit to you was Judge Dou­glas’s dis­cov­ery, and the whole of it: He dis­cov­ered that the right to breed and flog ne­groes in Ne­bras­ka was pop­ular sovereign­ty.

SPEECH AT CLIN­TON, ILLI­NOIS,

SEPTEM­BER 8, 1858.

The ques­tions are some­times asked “What is all this fuss that is be­ing made about ne­groes? What does it amount to? And where will it end?” These ques­tions im­ply that those who ask them con­sid­er the slav­ery ques­tion a very in­signif­icant mat­ter they think that it amounts to lit­tle or noth­ing and that those who ag­itate it are ex­treme­ly fool­ish. Now it must be ad­mit­ted that if the great ques­tion which has caused so much trou­ble is in­signif­icant, we are very fool­ish to have any­thing to do with it–if it is of no im­por­tance we had bet­ter throw it aside and busy our­selves with some­thing else. But let us in­quire a lit­tle in­to this in­signif­icant mat­ter, as it is called by some, and see if it is not im­por­tant enough to de­mand the close at­ten­tion of ev­ery well-​wish­er of the Union. In one of Dou­glas’s re­cent speech­es, I find a ref­er­ence to one which was made by me in Spring­field some time ago. The judge makes one quo­ta­tion from that speech that re­quires some lit­tle no­tice from me at this time. I re­gret that I have not my Spring­field speech be­fore me, but the judge has quot­ed one par­tic­ular part of it so of­ten that I think I can rec­ol­lect it. It runs I think as fol­lows:

“We are now far in­to the fifth year since a pol­icy was ini­ti­at­ed with the avowed ob­ject and con­fi­dent promise of putting an end to slav­ery ag­ita­tion. Un­der the op­er­ation of that pol­icy that ag­ita­tion has not on­ly not ceased but has con­stant­ly aug­ment­ed. In my opin­ion it will not cease un­til a cri­sis shall have been reached and passed.

“A house di­vid­ed against it­self can­not stand. I be­lieve this gov­ern­ment can­not en­dure per­ma­nent­ly half slave and half free. I do not ex­pect the Union to be dis­solved. I do not ex­pect the house to fall, but I do ex­pect it will cease to be di­vid­ed. It will be­come all one thing or all the oth­er. Ei­ther the op­po­nents of slav­ery will ar­rest the fur­ther spread of it and place it where the pub­lic mind shall rest in the be­lief that it is in the course of ul­ti­mate ex­tinc­tion; or its ad­vo­cates will push it for­ward till it shall be­come alike law­ful in all the States, old as well as new, North as well as South.”

Judge Dou­glas makes use of the above quo­ta­tion, and finds a great deal of fault with it. He deals un­fair­ly with me, and tries to make the peo­ple of this State be­lieve that I ad­vo­cat­ed dan­ger­ous doc­trines in my Spring­field speech. Let us see if that por­tion of my Spring­field speech of which Judge Dou­glas com­plains so bit­ter­ly, is as ob­jec­tion­able to oth­ers as it is to him. We are, cer­tain­ly, far in­to the fifth year since a pol­icy was ini­ti­at­ed with the avowed ob­ject and con­fi­dent promise of putting an end to slav­ery ag­ita­tion. On the fourth day of Jan­uary, 1854, Judge Dou­glas in­tro­duced the Kansas-​Ne­bras­ka bill. He ini­ti­at­ed a new pol­icy, and that pol­icy, so he says, was to put an end to the ag­ita­tion of the slav­ery ques­tion. Whether that was his ob­ject or not I will not stop to dis­cuss, but at all events some kind of a pol­icy was ini­ti­at­ed; and what has been the re­sult? In­stead of the qui­et and good feel­ing which were promised us by the self-​styled au­thor of Pop­ular Sovereign­ty, we have had noth­ing but ill-​feel­ing and ag­ita­tion. Ac­cord­ing to Judge Dou­glas, the pas­sage of the Ne­bras­ka bill would tran­quil­ize the whole coun­try– there would be no more slav­ery ag­ita­tion in or out of Congress, and the vexed ques­tion would be left en­tire­ly to the peo­ple of the Ter­ri­to­ries. Such was the opin­ion of Judge Dou­glas, and such were the opin­ions of the lead­ing men of the Demo­crat­ic Par­ty. Even as late as the spring of 1856 Mr. Buchanan said, a short time sub­se­quent to his nom­ina­tion by the Cincin­nati con­ven­tion, that the ter­ri­to­ry of Kansas would be tran­quil in less than six weeks. Per­haps he thought so, but Kansas has not been and is not tran­quil, and it may be a long time be­fore she may be so.

We all know how fierce the ag­ita­tion was in Congress last win­ter, and what a nar­row es­cape Kansas had from be­ing ad­mit­ted in­to the Union with a con­sti­tu­tion that was de­test­ed by nine­ty-​nine hun­dredths of her cit­izens. Did the an­gry de­bates which took place at Wash­ing­ton dur­ing the last sea­son of Congress lead you to sup­pose that the slav­ery ag­ita­tion was set­tled?

An elec­tion was held in Kansas in the month of Au­gust, and the con­sti­tu­tion which was sub­mit­ted to the peo­ple was vot­ed down by a large ma­jor­ity. So Kansas is still out of the Union, and there is a prob­abil­ity that she will re­main out for some time. But Judge Dou­glas says the slav­ery ques­tion is set­tled. He says the bill he in­tro­duced in­to the Sen­ate of the Unit­ed States on the 4th day of Jan­uary, 1854, set­tled the slav­ery ques­tion for­ev­er! Per­haps he can tell us how that bill set­tled the slav­ery ques­tion, for if he is able to set­tle a ques­tion of such great mag­ni­tude he ought to be able to ex­plain the man­ner in which he does it. He knows and you know that the ques­tion is not set­tled, and that his ill-​timed ex­per­iment to set­tle it has made it worse than it ev­er was be­fore.

And now let me say a few words in re­gard to Dou­glas’s great hob­by of ne­gro equal­ity. He thinks–he says at least–that the Re­pub­li­can par­ty is in fa­vor of al­low­ing whites and blacks to in­ter­mar­ry, and that a man can’t be a good Re­pub­li­can un­less he is will­ing to el­evate black men to of­fice and to as­so­ciate with them on terms of per­fect equal­ity. He knows that we ad­vo­cate no such doc­trines as these, but he cares not how much he mis­rep­re­sents us if he can gain a few votes by so do­ing. To show you what my opin­ion of ne­gro equal­ity was in times past, and to prove to you that I stand on that ques­tion where I al­ways stood, I will read you a few ex­tracts from a speech that was made by me in Peo­ria in 1854. It was made in re­ply to one of Judge Dou­glas’s speech­es.

(Mr. Lin­coln then read a num­ber of ex­tracts which had the ring of the true met­al. We have rarely heard any­thing with which we have been more pleased. And the au­di­ence af­ter hear­ing the ex­tracts read, and com­par­ing their con­ser­va­tive sen­ti­ments with those now ad­vo­cat­ed by Mr. Lin­coln, tes­ti­fied their ap­proval by loud ap­plause. How any rea­son­able man can hear one of Mr. Lin­coln’s speech­es with­out be­ing con­vert­ed to Re­pub­li­can­ism is some­thing that we can’t ac­count for. Ed.)

Slav­ery, con­tin­ued Mr. Lin­coln, is not a mat­ter of lit­tle im­por­tance, it over­shad­ows ev­ery oth­er ques­tion in which we are in­ter­est­ed. It has di­vid­ed the Methodist and Pres­by­te­ri­an church­es, and has sown dis­cord in the Amer­ican Tract So­ci­ety. The church­es have split and the so­ci­ety will fol­low their ex­am­ple be­fore long. So it will be seen that slav­ery is ag­itat­ed in the re­li­gious as well as in the po­lit­ical world. Judge Dou­glas is very much afraid in the tri­umph that the Re­pub­li­can par­ty will lead to a gen­er­al mix­ture of the white and black races. Per­haps I am wrong in say­ing that he is afraid, so I will cor­rect my­self by say­ing that he pre­tends to fear that the suc­cess of our par­ty will re­sult in the amal­ga­ma­tion of the blacks and whites. I think I can show plain­ly, from doc­uments now be­fore me, that Judge Dou­glas’s fears are ground­less. The cen­sus of 1800 tells us that in that year there were over four hun­dred thou­sand mu­lat­toes in the Unit­ed States. Now let us take what is called an Abo­li­tion State– the Re­pub­li­can, slav­ery-​hat­ing State of New Hamp­shire–and see how many mu­lat­toes we can find with­in her bor­ders. The num­ber amounts to just one hun­dred and eighty-​four. In the Old Do­min­ion–in the Demo­crat­ic and aris­to­crat­ic State of Vir­ginia–there were a few more mu­lat­toes than the Cen­sus-​tak­ers found in New Hamp­shire. How many do you sup­pose there were? Sev­en­ty-​nine thou­sand, sev­en hun­dred and sev­en­ty-​five–twen­ty-​three thou­sand more than there were in all the free States! In the slave States there were in 1800, three hun­dred and forty-​eight thou­sand mu­lat­toes all of home pro­duc­tion; and in the free States there were less than six­ty thou­sand mu­lat­toes –and a large num­ber of them were im­port­ed from the South.

FRAG­MENT OF SPEECH AT ED­WARDSVILLE, ILL.,

SEPT. 13, 1858.

I have been re­quest­ed to give a con­cise state­ment of the dif­fer­ence, as I un­der­stand it, be­tween the Demo­crat­ic and Re­pub­li­can par­ties, on the lead­ing is­sues of the cam­paign. This ques­tion has been put to me by a gen­tle­man whom I do not know. I do not even know whether he is a friend of mine or a sup­port­er of Judge Dou­glas in this con­test, nor does that make any dif­fer­ence. His ques­tion is a prop­er one. Lest I should for­get it, I will give you my an­swer be­fore pro­ceed­ing with the line of ar­gu­ment I have marked out for this dis­cus­sion.

The dif­fer­ence be­tween the Re­pub­li­can and the Demo­crat­ic par­ties on the lead­ing is­sues of this con­test, as I un­der­stand it, is that the for­mer con­sid­er slav­ery a moral, so­cial and po­lit­ical wrong, while the lat­ter do not con­sid­er it ei­ther a moral, a so­cial or a po­lit­ical wrong; and the ac­tion of each, as re­spects the growth of the coun­try and the ex­pan­sion of our pop­ula­tion, is squared to meet these views. I will not af­firm that the Demo­crat­ic par­ty con­sid­er slav­ery moral­ly, so­cial­ly and po­lit­ical­ly right, though their ten­den­cy to that view has, in my opin­ion, been con­stant and un­mis­tak­able for the past five years. I pre­fer to take, as the ac­cept­ed max­im of the par­ty, the idea put forth by Judge Dou­glas, that he don’t care whether slav­ery is vot­ed down or vot­ed up.” I am quite will­ing to be­lieve that many Democrats would pre­fer that slav­ery should be al­ways vot­ed down, and I know that some pre­fer that it be al­ways vot­ed up”; but I have a right to in­sist that their ac­tion, es­pe­cial­ly if it be their con­stant ac­tion, shall de­ter­mine their ideas and pref­er­ences on this sub­ject. Ev­ery mea­sure of the Demo­crat­ic par­ty of late years, bear­ing di­rect­ly or in­di­rect­ly on the slav­ery ques­tion, has cor­re­spond­ed with this no­tion of ut­ter in­dif­fer­ence whether slav­ery or free­dom shall out­run in the race of em­pire across to the Pa­cif­ic–ev­ery mea­sure, I say, up to the Dred Scott de­ci­sion, where, it seems to me, the idea is bold­ly sug­gest­ed that slav­ery is bet­ter than free­dom. The Re­pub­li­can par­ty, on the con­trary, hold that this gov­ern­ment was in­sti­tut­ed to se­cure the bless­ings of free­dom, and that slav­ery is an un­qual­ified evil to the ne­gro, to the white man, to the soil, and to the State. Re­gard­ing it as an evil, they will not mo­lest it in the States where it ex­ists, they will not over­look the con­sti­tu­tion­al guards which our fa­thers placed around it; they will do noth­ing that can give prop­er of­fence to those who hold slaves by le­gal sanc­tion; but they will use ev­ery con­sti­tu­tion­al method to pre­vent the evil from be­com­ing larg­er and in­volv­ing more ne­groes, more white men, more soil, and more States in its de­plorable con­se­quences. They will, if pos­si­ble, place it where the pub­lic mind shall rest in the be­lief that it is in course of ul­ti­mate peace­able ex­tinc­tion in God’s own good time. And to this end they will, if pos­si­ble, re­store the gov­ern­ment to the pol­icy of the fa­thers, the pol­icy of pre­serv­ing the new Ter­ri­to­ries from the bane­ful in­flu­ence of hu­man bondage, as the North­west­ern Ter­ri­to­ries were sought to be pre­served by the Or­di­nance of 1787, and the Com­pro­mise Act of 1820. They will op­pose, in all its length and breadth, the mod­ern Demo­crat­ic idea, that slav­ery is as good as free­dom, and ought to have room for ex­pan­sion all over the con­ti­nent, if peo­ple can be found to car­ry it. All, or near­ly all, of Judge Dou­glas’s ar­gu­ments are log­ical, if you ad­mit that slav­ery is as good and as right as free­dom, and not one of them is worth a rush if you de­ny it. This is the dif­fer­ence, as I un­der­stand it, be­tween the Re­pub­li­can and Demo­crat­ic par­ties.

My friends, I have en­deav­ored to show you the log­ical con­se­quences of the Dred Scott de­ci­sion, which holds that the peo­ple of a Ter­ri­to­ry can­not pre­vent the es­tab­lish­ment of slav­ery in their midst. I have stat­ed what can­not be gain­said, that the grounds up­on which this de­ci­sion is made are equal­ly ap­pli­ca­ble to the free States as to the free Ter­ri­to­ries, and that the pe­cu­liar rea­sons put forth by Judge Dou­glas for in­dors­ing this de­ci­sion com­mit him, in ad­vance, to the next de­ci­sion and to all oth­er de­ci­sions corn­ing from the same source. And when, by all these means, you have suc­ceed­ed in de­hu­man­iz­ing the ne­gro; when you have put him down and made it im­pos­si­ble for him to be but as the beasts of the field; when you have ex­tin­guished his soul in this world and placed him where the ray of hope is blown out as in the dark­ness of the damned, are you quite sure that the de­mon you have roused will not turn and rend you? What con­sti­tutes the bul­wark of our own lib­er­ty and in­de­pen­dence? It is not our frown­ing bat­tle­ments, our bristling sea coasts, our army and our navy. These are not our re­liance against tyran­ny All of those may be turned against us with­out mak­ing us weak­er for the strug­gle. Our re­liance is in the love of lib­er­ty which God has plant­ed in us. Our de­fense is in the spir­it which prizes lib­er­ty as the her­itage of all men, in all lands ev­ery­where. De­stroy this spir­it and you have plant­ed the seeds of despo­tism at your own doors. Fa­mil­iar­ize your­selves with the chains of bondage and you pre­pare your own limbs to wear them. Ac­cus­tomed to tram­ple on the rights of oth­ers, you have lost the ge­nius of your own in­de­pen­dence and be­come the fit sub­jects of the first cun­ning tyrant who ris­es among you. And let me tell you, that all these things are pre­pared for you by the teach­ings of his­to­ry, if the elec­tions shall promise that the next Dred Scott de­ci­sion and all fu­ture de­ci­sions will be qui­et­ly ac­qui­esced in by the peo­ple.

VERSE TO “LIN­NIE “

Septem­ber 30,? 1858.

TO “LIN­NIE”:

A sweet plain­tive song did I hear And I fan­cied that she was the singer. May emo­tions as pure as that song set astir Be the wont that the fu­ture shall bring her.

NE­GROES ARE MEN

TO J. U. BROWN.

SPRING­FIELD, OCT 18, 1858

HON. J. U. BROWN.

MY DEAR SIR:–I do not per­ceive how I can ex­press my­self more plain­ly than I have in the fore-​go­ing ex­tracts. In four of them I have ex­press­ly dis­claimed all in­ten­tion to bring about so­cial and po­lit­ical equal­ity be­tween the white and black races and in all the rest I have done the same thing by clear im­pli­ca­tion.

I have made it equal­ly plain that I think the ne­gro is in­clud­ed in the word “men” used in the Dec­la­ra­tion of In­de­pen­dence.

I be­lieve the dec­la­ra­tion that “all men are cre­at­ed equal “is the great fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ple up­on which our free in­sti­tu­tions rest; that ne­gro slav­ery is vi­ola­tive of that prin­ci­ple; but that, by our frame of gov­ern­ment, that prin­ci­ple has not been made one of le­gal obli­ga­tion; that by our frame of gov­ern­ment, States which have slav­ery are to re­tain it, or sur­ren­der it at their own plea­sure; and that all oth­ers–in­di­vid­uals, free States and na­tion­al Gov­ern­ment– are con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly bound to leave them alone about it.

I be­lieve our Gov­ern­ment was thus framed be­cause of the ne­ces­si­ty spring­ing from the ac­tu­al pres­ence of slav­ery, when it was framed.

That such ne­ces­si­ty does not ex­ist in the Ter­ri­to­ries when slav­ery is not present.

In his Menden­hall speech Mr. Clay says: “Now as an ab­stract prin­ci­ple there is no doubt of the truth of that dec­la­ra­tion (all men cre­at­ed equal), and it is de­sir­able, in the orig­inal con­struc­tion of so­ci­ety, to keep it in view as a great fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ple.”

Again, in the same speech Mr. Clay says: “If a state of na­ture ex­ist­ed and we were about to lay the foun­da­tions of so­ci­ety, no man would be more strong­ly op­posed than I should to in­cor­po­rate the in­sti­tu­tion of slav­ery among its el­ements.”

Ex­act­ly so. In our new free Ter­ri­to­ries, a state of na­ture does ex­ist. In them Congress lays the foun­da­tions of so­ci­ety; and in lay­ing those foun­da­tions, I say, with Mr. Clay, it is de­sir­able that the dec­la­ra­tion of the equal­ity of all men shall be kept in view as a great fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ple, and that Congress, which lays the foun­da­tions of so­ci­ety, should, like Mr. Clay, be strong­ly op­posed to the in­cor­po­ra­tion of slav­ery and its el­ements.

But it does not fol­low that so­cial and po­lit­ical equal­ity be­tween whites and blacks must be in­cor­po­rat­ed be­cause slav­ery must not. The dec­la­ra­tion does not so re­quire.

Yours as ev­er,

A. LIN­COLN

[News­pa­per cut­tings of Lin­coln’s speech­es at Peo­ria, in 1854, at Spring­field, Ot­tawa, Chica­go, and Charleston, in 1858. They were past­ed in a lit­tle book in which the above let­ter was al­so writ­ten.]

TO A. SYMP­SON.

BLANDINSVILLE, Oct 26, 1858

A. SYMP­SON, Esq.

DEAR SIR:–Since part­ing with you this morn­ing I heard some things which make me be­lieve that Ed­munds and Mor­rill will spend this week among the Na­tion­al Democrats, try­ing to in­duce them to con­tent them­selves by vot­ing for Jake Davis, and then to vote for the Dou­glas can­di­dates for sen­ator and rep­re­sen­ta­tive. Have this head­ed off, if you can. Call Wa­gley’s at­ten­tion to it and have him and the Na­tion­al Demo­crat for Rep. to coun­ter­act it as far as they can.

Yours as ev­er,

A. LIN­COLN.

SEN­ATO­RI­AL ELEC­TION LOST AND OUT OF MON­EY

TO N. B. JUDD.

SPRING­FIELD, NOVEM­BER 16, 1858

HON. N. B. JUDD

DEAR SIR:–Yours of the 15th is just re­ceived. I wrote you the same day. As to the pe­cu­niary mat­ter, I am will­ing to pay ac­cord­ing to my abil­ity; but I am the poor­est hand liv­ing to get oth­ers to pay. I have been on ex­pens­es so long with­out earn­ing any­thing that I am ab­so­lute­ly with­out mon­ey now for even house­hold pur­pos­es. Still, if you can put in two hun­dred and fifty dol­lars for me to­ward dis­charg­ing the debt of the com­mit­tee, I will al­low it when you and I set­tle the pri­vate mat­ter be­tween us. This, with what I have al­ready paid, and with an out­stand­ing note of mine, will ex­ceed my sub­scrip­tion of five hun­dred dol­lars. This, too, is ex­clu­sive of my or­di­nary ex­pens­es dur­ing the cam­paign, all of which, be­ing added to my loss of time and busi­ness, bears pret­ty heav­ily up­on one no bet­ter off in [this] world’s goods than I; but as I had the post of hon­or, it is not for me to be over nice. You are feel­ing bad­ly,–“And this too shall pass away,” nev­er fear.

Yours as ev­er,

A. LIN­COLN.

THE FIGHT MUST GO ON

TO H. AS­BURY.

SPRING­FIELD, Novem­ber 19, 1858.

HEN­RY AS­BURY, Esq.

DEAR SIR:–Yours of the 13th was re­ceived some days ago. The fight must go on. The cause of civ­il lib­er­ty must not be sur­ren­dered at the end of one or even one hun­dred de­feats. Dou­glas had the in­ge­nu­ity to be sup­port­ed in the late con­test both as the best means to break down and to up­hold the slave in­ter­est. No in­ge­nu­ity can keep these an­tag­onis­tic el­ements in har­mo­ny long. An­oth­er ex­plo­sion will soon come.

Yours tru­ly,

A. LIN­COLN.

RE­AL­IZA­TION THAT DE­BATES MUST BE SAVED

TO C. H. RAY.

SPRING­FIELD, Nov.20, 1858

DR. C. H. RAY

MY DEAR SIR:–I wish to pre­serve a set of the late de­bates (if they may be called so), be­tween Dou­glas and my­self. To en­able me to do so, please get two copies of each num­ber of your pa­per con­tain­ing the whole, and send them to me by ex­press; and I will pay you for the pa­pers and for your trou­ble. I wish the two sets in or­der to lay one away in the [un­de­ci­pher­able word] and to put the oth­er in a scrap­book. Re­mem­ber, if part of any de­bate is on both sides of the sheet it will take two sets to make one scrap-​book.

I be­lieve, ac­cord­ing to a let­ter of yours to Hatch, you are “feel­ing like h-​ll yet.” Quit that–you will soon feel bet­ter. An­oth­er “blow up” is com­ing; and we shall have fun again. Dou­glas man­aged to be sup­port­ed both as the best in­stru­ment to down and to up­hold the slave pow­er; but no in­ge­nu­ity can long keep the an­tag­onism in har­mo­ny.

Yours as ev­er,

A. LIN­COLN

TO H. C. WHIT­NEY.

SPRING­FIELD, Novem­ber 30, 1858

H. C. WHIT­NEY, ESQ.

MY DEAR SIR :–Be­ing de­sirous of pre­serv­ing in some per­ma­nent form the late joint dis­cus­sion be­tween Dou­glas and my­self, ten days ago I wrote to Dr. Ray, re­quest­ing him to for­ward to me by ex­press two sets of the num­bers of the Tri­bune which con­tain the re­ports of those dis­cus­sions. Up to date I have no word from him on the sub­ject. Will you, if in your pow­er, pro­cure them and for­ward them to me by ex­press? If you will, I will pay all charges, and be great­ly obliged, to boot. Hop­ing to vis­it you be­fore long, I re­main

As ev­er your friend,

A. LIN­COLN.

TO H. D. SHARPE.

SPRING­FIELD, Dec. 8, 1858.

H. D. SHARPE, Esq.

DEAR SIR:–Your very kind let­ter of Nov. 9th was du­ly re­ceived. I do not know that you ex­pect­ed or de­sired an an­swer; but glanc­ing over the con­tents of yours again, I am prompt­ed to say that, while I de­sired the re­sult of the late can­vass to have been dif­fer­ent, I still re­gard it as an ex­ceed­ing small mat­ter. I think we have fair­ly en­tered up­on a durable strug­gle as to whether this na­tion is to ul­ti­mate­ly be­come all slave or all free, and though I fall ear­ly in the con­test, it is noth­ing if I shall have con­tribut­ed, in the least de­gree, to the fi­nal right­ful re­sult.

Re­spect­ful­ly yours,

A. LIN­COLN.

TO A. SYMP­SON.

SPRING­FIELD, Dec.12, 1858.

ALEXAN­DER SYMP­SON, Esq.

MY DEAR SIR:–I ex­pect the re­sult of the elec­tion went hard with you. So it did with me, too, per­haps not quite so hard as you may have sup­posed. I have an abid­ing faith that we shall beat them in the long run. Step by step the ob­jects of the lead­ers will be­come too plain for the peo­ple to stand them. I write mere­ly to let you know that I am nei­ther dead nor dy­ing. Please give my re­spects to your good fam­ily, and all in­quir­ing friends.

Yours as ev­er,

A. LIN­COLN.

ON BANKRUPT­CY

NOTES OF AN AR­GU­MENT.

De­cem­ber [?], 1858.

Leg­is­la­tion and ad­ju­di­ca­tion must fol­low and con­form to the progress of so­ci­ety.

The progress of so­ci­ety now be­gins to pro­duce cas­es of the trans­fer for debts of the en­tire prop­er­ty of rail­road cor­po­ra­tions; and to en­able trans­fer­ees to use and en­joy the trans­ferred prop­er­ty, leg­is­la­tion and ad­ju­di­ca­tion be­gin to be nec­es­sary.

Shall this class of leg­is­la­tion just now be­gin­ning with us be gen­er­al or spe­cial?

Sec­tion Ten of our Con­sti­tu­tion re­quires that it should be gen­er­al, if pos­si­ble. (Read the sec­tion.)

Spe­cial leg­is­la­tion al­ways trench­es up­on the ju­di­cial de­part­ment; and in so far vi­olates Sec­tion Two of the Con­sti­tu­tion. (Read it.)

Just rea­son­ing–pol­icy–is in fa­vor of gen­er­al leg­is­la­tion–else the Leg­is­la­ture will be load­ed down with the in­ves­ti­ga­tion of small­er cas­es–a work which the courts ought to per­form, and can per­form much more per­fect­ly. How can the Leg­is­la­ture right­ly de­cide the facts be­tween P. & B. and S.C.

It is said that un­der a gen­er­al law, when­ev­er a R. R. Co. gets tired of its debts, it may trans­fer fraud­ulent­ly to get rid of them. So they may–so may in­di­vid­uals; and which–the Leg­is­la­ture or the courts–is best suit­ed to try the ques­tion of fraud in ei­ther case?

It is said, if a pur­chas­er have ac­quired le­gal rights, let him not be robbed of them, but if he needs leg­is­la­tion let him sub­mit to just terms to ob­tain it.

Let him, say we, have gen­er­al law in ad­vance (guard­ed in ev­ery pos­si­ble way against fraud), so that, when he ac­quires a le­gal right, he will have no oc­ca­sion to wait for ad­di­tion­al leg­is­la­tion; and if he has prac­ticed fraud let the courts so de­cide.

A LE­GAL OPIN­ION BY ABRA­HAM LIN­COLN.

The 11th Sec­tion of the Act of Congress, ap­proved Feb. 11, 1805, pre­scrib­ing rules for the sub­di­vi­sion of sec­tions of land with­in the Unit­ed States sys­tem of sur­veys, stand­ing un­re­pealed, in my opin­ion, is bind­ing on the re­spec­tive pur­chasers of dif­fer­ent parts of the same sec­tion, and fur­nish­es the true rule for sur­vey­ors in es­tab­lish­ing lines be­tween them. That law, be­ing in force at the time each be­came a pur­chas­er, be­comes a con­di­tion of the pur­chase.

And, by that law, I think the true rule for di­vid­ing in­to quar­ters any in­te­ri­or sec­tion or sec­tions, which is not frac­tion­al, is to run straight lines through the sec­tion from the op­po­site quar­ter sec­tion cor­ners, fix­ing the point where such straight lines cross, or in­ter­sect each oth­er, as the mid­dle or cen­tre of the sec­tion.

Near­ly, per­haps quite, all the orig­inal sur­veys are to some ex­tent er­ro­neous, and in some of the sec­tions, great­ly so. In each of the lat­ter, it is ob­vi­ous that a more eq­ui­table mode of di­vi­sion than the above might be adopt­ed; but as er­ror is in­finite­ly var­ious per­haps no bet­ter sin­gle rules can be pre­scribed.

At all events I think the above has been pre­scribed by the com­pe­tent au­thor­ity.

SPRING­FIELD, Jany. 6, 1859.

A. LIN­COLN.

TO M. W. DE­LA­HAY.

SPRING­FIELD, March 4, 1859.

M. W. DE­LA­HAY, Esq.

MY DEAR SIR: Your sec­ond let­ter in re­la­tion to my be­ing with you at your Re­pub­li­can con­ven­tion was du­ly re­ceived. It is not at hand just now, but I have the im­pres­sion from it that the con­ven­tion was to be at Leav­en­worth; but day be­fore yes­ter­day a friend hand­ed me a let­ter from Judge M. F. Car­away, in which he al­so ex­press­es a wish for me to come, and he fix­es the place at Os­sawatomie. This I be­lieve is off of the riv­er, and will re­quire more time and la­bor to get to it. It will push me hard to get there with­out in­jury to my own busi­ness; but I shall try to do it, though I am not yet quite cer­tain I shall suc­ceed.

I should like to know be­fore com­ing, that while some of you wish me to come, there may not be oth­ers who would quite as lief I would stay away. Write me again.

Yours as ev­er,

A. LIN­COLN.

TO W. M. MOR­RIS.

SPRING­FIELD, March 28, 1859.

W. M. MOR­RIS, Esq.

DEAR SIR:–Your kind note invit­ing me to de­liv­er a lec­ture at Gales­burg is re­ceived. I re­gret to say I can­not do so now; I must stick to the courts awhile. I read a sort of lec­ture to three dif­fer­ent au­di­ences dur­ing the last month and this; but I did so un­der cir­cum­stances which made it a waste of no time what­ev­er.

Yours very tru­ly,

TO H. L. PIERCE AND OTH­ERS.

SPRING­FIELD, ILLI­NOIS, April 6, 1859.

GEN­TLE­MEN:–Your kind note invit­ing me to at­tend a fes­ti­val in Boston, on the 28th in­stant, in hon­or of the birth­day of Thomas Jef­fer­son, was du­ly re­ceived. My en­gage­ments are such that I can­not at­tend.

Bear­ing in mind that about sev­en­ty years ago two great po­lit­ical par­ties were first formed in this coun­try, that Thomas Jef­fer­son was the head of one of them and Boston the head­quar­ters of the oth­er, it is both cu­ri­ous and in­ter­est­ing that those sup­posed to de­scend po­lit­ical­ly from the par­ty op­posed to Jef­fer­son should now be cel­ebrat­ing his birth­day in their own orig­inal seat of em­pire, while those claim­ing po­lit­ical de­scent from him have near­ly ceased to breathe his name ev­ery­where.

Re­mem­ber­ing, too, that the Jef­fer­son par­ty was formed up­on its sup­posed su­pe­ri­or de­vo­tion to the per­son­al rights of men, hold­ing the rights of prop­er­ty to be sec­ondary on­ly, and great­ly in­fe­ri­or, and as­sum­ing that the so-​called Democ­ra­cy of to-​day are the Jef­fer­son, and their op­po­nents the an­ti-​Jef­fer­son, par­ty, it will be equal­ly in­ter­est­ing to note how com­plete­ly the two have changed hands as to the prin­ci­ple up­on which they were orig­inal­ly sup­posed to be di­vid­ed. The Democ­ra­cy of to-​day hold the lib­er­ty of one man to be ab­so­lute­ly noth­ing, when in con­flict with an­oth­er man’s right of prop­er­ty; Re­pub­li­cans, on the con­trary, are for both the man and the dol­lar, but in case of con­flict the man be­fore the dol­lar.

I re­mem­ber be­ing once much amused at see­ing two par­tial­ly in­tox­icat­ed men en­gaged in a fight with their great-​coats on, which fight, af­ter a long and rather harm­less con­test, end­ed in each hav­ing fought him­self out of his own coat and in­to that of the oth­er. If the two lead­ing par­ties of this day are re­al­ly iden­ti­cal with the two in the days of Jef­fer­son and Adams, they have per­formed the same feat as the two drunk­en men.

But sober­ly, it is now no child’s play to save the prin­ci­ples of Jef­fer­son from to­tal over­throw in this na­tion. One would state with great con­fi­dence that he could con­vince any sane child that the sim­pler propo­si­tions of Eu­clid are true; but nev­er­the­less he would fail, ut­ter­ly, with one who should de­ny the def­ini­tions and ax­ioms. The prin­ci­ples of Jef­fer­son are the def­ini­tions and ax­ioms of free so­ci­ety. And yet they are de­nied and evad­ed, with no small show of suc­cess. One dash­ing­ly calls them “glit­ter­ing gen­er­al­ities.” An­oth­er blunt­ly calls them “self-​ev­ident lies.” And oth­ers in­sid­ious­ly ar­gue that they ap­ply to “su­pe­ri­or races.” These ex­pres­sions, dif­fer­ing in form, are iden­ti­cal in ob­ject and ef­fect– the sup­plant­ing the prin­ci­ples of free gov­ern­ment, and restor­ing those of clas­si­fi­ca­tion, caste, and le­git­ima­cy. They would de­light a con­vo­ca­tion of crowned heads plot­ting against the peo­ple. They are the van­guard, the min­ers and sap­pers, of re­turn­ing despo­tism. We must re­pulse them, or they will sub­ju­gate us. This is a world of com­pen­sa­tion; and he who would be no slave must con­sent to have no slave. Those who de­ny free­dom to oth­ers de­serve it not for them­selves, and, un­der a just God, can­not long re­tain it. All hon­or to Jef­fer­son to the man who, in the con­crete pres­sure of a strug­gle for na­tion­al in­de­pen­dence by a sin­gle peo­ple, had the cool­ness, fore­cast, and ca­pac­ity to in­tro­duce in­to a mere rev­olu­tion­ary doc­ument an ab­stract truth, ap­pli­ca­ble to all men and all times, and so to em­balm it there that to-​day and in all com­ing days it shall be a re­buke and a stum­bling-​block to the very harbingers of reap­pear­ing tyran­ny and op­pres­sion.

Your obe­di­ent ser­vant,

A. LIN­COLN.

TO T. CAN­ISIUS.

SPRING­FIELD, May 17, 1859.

DR. THEODORE CAN­ISIUS.

DEAR SIR:–Your note ask­ing, in be­half of your­self and oth­er Ger­man cit­izens, whether I am for or against the con­sti­tu­tion­al pro­vi­sion in re­gard to nat­ural­ized cit­izens, late­ly adopt­ed by Mas­sachusetts, and whether I am for or against a fu­sion of the Re­pub­li­cans and oth­er op­po­si­tion el­ements for the can­vass of 1860, is re­ceived.

Mas­sachusetts is a sovereign and in­de­pen­dent State; and it is no priv­ilege of mine to scold her for what she does. Still, if from what she has done an in­fer­ence is sought to be drawn as to what I would do, I may with­out im­pro­pri­ety speak out. I say, then, that, as I un­der­stand the Mas­sachusetts pro­vi­sion, I am against its adop­tion in Illi­nois, or in any oth­er place where I have a right to op­pose it. Un­der­stand­ing the spir­it of our in­sti­tu­tions to aim at the el­eva­tion of men, I am op­posed to what­ev­er tends to de­grade them. I have some lit­tle no­to­ri­ety for com­mis­er­at­ing the op­pressed ne­gro; and I should be strange­ly in­con­sis­tent if I could fa­vor any project for cur­tail­ing the ex­ist­ing rights of white men, even though born in dif­fer­ent lands, and speak­ing dif­fer­ent lan­guages from my­self. As to the mat­ter of fu­sion, I am for it if it can be had on Re­pub­li­can grounds; and I am not for it on any oth­er terms. A fu­sion on any oth­er terms would be as fool­ish as un­prin­ci­pled. It would lose the whole North, while the com­mon en­emy would still car­ry the whole South. The ques­tion of men is a dif­fer­ent one. There are good, pa­tri­ot­ic men and able states­men in the South whom I would cheer­ful­ly sup­port, if they would now place them­selves on Re­pub­li­can ground, but I am against let­ting down the Re­pub­li­can stan­dard a hairs­breadth.

I have writ­ten this hasti­ly, but I be­lieve it an­swers your ques­tions sub­stan­tial­ly.

Yours tru­ly,

A. LIN­COLN.

TO THE GOV­ER­NOR, AU­DI­TOR, AND TREA­SUR­ER OF THE STATE OF ILLI­NOIS.

GEN­TLE­MEN:

In re­ply to your in­quiry; re­quest­ing our writ­ten opin­ion as to what your du­ty re­quires you to do in ex­ecut­ing the lat­ter clause of the Sev­enth Sec­tion of “An Act in re­la­tion to the pay­ment of the prin­ci­pal and in­ter­est of the State debt,” ap­proved Feb’y 22, 1859, we re­ply that said last clause of said sec­tion is cer­tain­ly in­def­inite, gen­er­al, and am­bigu­ous in its de­scrip­tion of the bonds to be is­sued by you; giv­ing no time at which the bonds are to be made payable, no place at which ei­ther prin­ci­pal or in­ter­est are to be paid, and no rate of in­ter­est which the bonds are to bear; nor any oth­er de­scrip­tion ex­cept that they are to be coupon bonds, which in com­mer­cial us­age means in­ter­est-​pay­ing bonds with obli­ga­tions or or­ders at­tached to them for the pay­ment of an­nu­al or semi­an­nu­al in­ter­est; there is we sup­pose no dif­fi­cul­ty in as­cer­tain­ing, if this act stood alone, what ought to be the con­struc­tion of the terms “coupon bonds” and that it, would mean bonds bear­ing in­ter­est from the time of is­su­ing the same. And un­der this act con­sid­ered by it­self the cred­itors would have a right to re­quire such bonds. But your in­quiry in re­gard to a class of bonds on which no in­ter­est is to be paid or shall be­gin to run un­til Jan­uary 1, 1860, is whether the Act of Febru­ary 18, 1857, would not au­tho­rize you to refuse to give bonds with any coupons at­tached payable be­fore the first day of Ju­ly, 1860. We have very ma­ture­ly con­sid­ered this ques­tion and have ar­rived at the con­clu­sion that you have a right to use such mea­sures as will se­cure the State against the loss of six months’ in­ter­est on these bonds by the in­def­inite­ness of the Act of 1859. While it can­not be de­nied that the let­ter of the laws fa­vor the con­struc­tion claimed by some of the cred­itors that in­ter­est-​bear­ing bonds were re­quired to be is­sued to them, inas­much as the re­stric­tion that no in­ter­est is to run on said bonds un­til 1st Jan­uary, 1860, re­lates sole­ly to the bonds is­sued un­der the Act of 1857. And the Act of 1859 di­rect­ing you to is­sue new bonds does not con­tain this re­stric­tion, but di­rects you to is­sue coupon bonds. Nev­er­the­less the very in­def­inite­ness and gen­er­al­ity of the Act of 1859, giv­ing no rate of in­ter­est, no time due, no place of pay­ment, no post­pone­ment of the time when in­ter­est com­mences, nec­es­sar­ily im­plies that the Leg­is­la­ture in­tend­ed to in­vest you with a dis­cre­tion to im­pose such terms and re­stric­tions as would pro­tect the in­ter­est of the State; and we think you have a right and that it is your du­ty to see that the State Bonds are so is­sued that the State shall not lose six months’ in­ter­est. Two plans present them­selves ei­ther of which will se­cure the State. 1st. If in lit­er­al com­pli­ance with the law you is­sue bonds bear­ing in­ter­est from 1st Ju­ly, 1859, you may deduct from the bonds pre­sent­ed three thou­sand from ev­ery $100,000 of bonds and is­sue $97,000 of coupon bonds; by this plan $3000 out of $100,000 of prin­ci­pal would be ex­tin­guished in con­sid­er­ation of pay­ing $2910 in­ter­est on the first of Jan­uary, 1860–and the in­ter­est on the $3000 would for­ev­er cease; this would be no doubt most ad­van­ta­geous to the State. But if the Au­di­tor will not con­sent to this, then, 2nd. Cut off of each bond all the coupons payable be­fore 1st Ju­ly, 1860.

One of these plans would un­doubt­ed­ly have been pre­scribed by the Leg­is­la­ture if its at­ten­tion had been di­rect­ed to this ques­tion.

May 28, 1859.

ON LIN­COLN’S SCRAP BOOK

TO H. C. WHIT­NEY.

SPRING­FIELD, De­cem­ber 25, 1858.

H. C. WHIT­NEY, ESQ.

MY DEAR SIR:–I have just re­ceived yours of the 23rd in­quir­ing whether I re­ceived the news­pa­pers you sent me by ex­press. I did re­ceive them, and am very much obliged. There is some prob­abil­ity that my scrap-​book will be reprint­ed, and if it shall, I will save you a copy.

Your friend as ev­er,

A. LIN­COLN.

1859

FIRST SUG­GES­TION OF A PRES­IDEN­TIAL OF­FER.

TO S. GAL­LOWAY.

SPRING­FIELD, ILL., Ju­ly 28, 1859.

HON. SAMUEL GAL­LOWAY.

MY DEAR SIR:–Your very com­pli­men­ta­ry, not to say flat­ter­ing, let­ter of the 23d in­st. is re­ceived. Dr. Reynolds had in­duced me to ex­pect you here; and I was dis­ap­point­ed not a lit­tle by your fail­ure to come. And yet I fear you have formed an es­ti­mate of me which can scarce­ly be sus­tained on a per­son­al ac­quain­tance.

Two things done by the Ohio Re­pub­li­can con­ven­tion–the re­pu­di­ation of Judge Swan, and the “plank” for a re­peal of the Fugi­tive Slave Law–I very much re­gret­ted. These two things are of a piece; and they are viewed by many good men, sin­cere­ly op­posed to slav­ery, as a strug­gle against, and in dis­re­gard of, the Con­sti­tu­tion it­self. And it is the very thing that will great­ly en­dan­ger our cause, if it be not kept out of our na­tion­al con­ven­tion. There is an­oth­er thing our friends are do­ing which gives me some un­easi­ness. It is their lean­ing to­ward “pop­ular sovereign­ty.” There are three sub­stan­tial ob­jec­tions to this: First, no par­ty can com­mand re­spect which sus­tains this year what it op­posed last. Sec­ond­ly, Dou­glas (who is the most dan­ger­ous en­emy of lib­er­ty, be­cause the most in­sid­ious one) would have lit­tle sup­port in the North, and by con­se­quence, no cap­ital to trade on in the South, if it were not for his friends thus mag­ni­fy­ing him and his hum­bug. But last­ly, and chiefly, Dou­glas’s pop­ular sovereign­ty, ac­cept­ed by the pub­lic mind as a just prin­ci­ple, na­tion­al­izes slav­ery, and re­vives the African slave trade in­evitably.

Tak­ing slaves in­to new Ter­ri­to­ries, and buy­ing slaves in Africa, are iden­ti­cal things, iden­ti­cal rights or iden­ti­cal wrongs, and the ar­gu­ment which es­tab­lish­es one will es­tab­lish the oth­er. Try a thou­sand years for a sound rea­son why Congress shall not hin­der the peo­ple of Kansas from hav­ing slaves, and, when you have found it, it will be an equal­ly good one why Congress should not hin­der the peo­ple of Geor­gia from im­port­ing slaves from Africa.

As to Gov­er­nor Chase, I have a kind side for him. He was one of the few dis­tin­guished men of the na­tion who gave us, in Illi­nois, their sym­pa­thy last year. I nev­er saw him, but sup­pose him to be able and right-​mind­ed; but still he may not be the most suit­able as a can­di­date for the Pres­iden­cy.

I must say I do not think my­self fit for the Pres­iden­cy. As you pro­pose a cor­re­spon­dence with me, I shall look for your let­ters anx­ious­ly.

I have not met Dr. Reynolds since re­ceiv­ing your let­ter; but when I shall, I will present your re­spects as re­quest­ed.

Yours very tru­ly,

A. LIN­COLN.

IT IS BAD TO BE POOR.

TO HAWKINS TAY­LOR

SPRING­FIELD, ILL. Sept. 6, 1859.

HAWKINS TAY­LOR, Esq.

DEAR SIR:–Yours of the 3d is just re­ceived. There is some mis­take about my ex­pect­ed at­ten­dance of the U.S. Court in your city on the 3d Tues­day of this month. I have had no thought of be­ing there.

It is bad to be poor. I shall go to the wall for bread and meat if I ne­glect my busi­ness this year as well as last. It would please me much to see the city and good peo­ple of Keokuk, but for this year it is lit­tle less than an im­pos­si­bil­ity. I am con­stant­ly re­ceiv­ing in­vi­ta­tions which I am com­pelled to de­cline. I was press­ing­ly urged to go to Min­neso­ta; and I now have two in­vi­ta­tions to go to Ohio. These last are prompt­ed by Dou­glas go­ing there; and I am re­al­ly tempt­ed to make a fly­ing trip to Colum­bus and Cincin­nati.

I do hope you will have no se­ri­ous trou­ble in Iowa. What thinks Grimes about it? I have not known him to be mis­tak­en about an elec­tion in Iowa. Present my re­spects to Col. Carter, and any oth­er friends, and be­lieve me

Yours tru­ly,

A. LIN­COLN.

SPEECH AT COLUM­BUS, OHIO.

SEPTEM­BER 16, 1859.

FEL­LOW-​CIT­IZENS OF THE STATE OF OHIO: I can­not fail to re­mem­ber that I ap­pear for the first time be­fore an au­di­ence in this now great State,–an au­di­ence that is ac­cus­tomed to hear such speak­ers as Cor­win, and Chase, and Wade, and many oth­er renowned men; and, re­mem­ber­ing this, I feel that it will be well for you, as for me, that you should not raise your ex­pec­ta­tions to that stan­dard to which you would have been jus­ti­fied in rais­ing them had one of these dis­tin­guished men ap­peared be­fore you. You would per­haps be on­ly prepar­ing a dis­ap­point­ment for your­selves, and, as a con­se­quence of your dis­ap­point­ment, mor­ti­fi­ca­tion to me. I hope, there­fore, that you will com­mence with very mod­er­ate ex­pec­ta­tions; and per­haps, if you will give me your at­ten­tion, I shall be able to in­ter­est you to a mod­er­ate de­gree.

Ap­pear­ing here for the first time in my life, I have been some­what em­bar­rassed for a top­ic by way of in­tro­duc­tion to my speech; but I have been re­lieved from that em­bar­rass­ment by an in­tro­duc­tion which the Ohio States­man news­pa­per gave me this morn­ing. In this pa­per I have read an ar­ti­cle, in which, among oth­er state­ments, I find the fol­low­ing:

“In de­bat­ing with Sen­ator Dou­glas dur­ing the mem­orable con­test of last fall, Mr. Lin­coln de­clared in fa­vor of ne­gro suf­frage, and at­tempt­ed to de­fend that vile con­cep­tion against the Lit­tle Gi­ant.”

I men­tion this now, at the open­ing of my re­marks, for the pur­pose of mak­ing three com­ments up­on it. The first I have al­ready an­nounced,– it fur­nish­es me an in­tro­duc­to­ry top­ic; the sec­ond is to show that the gen­tle­man is mis­tak­en; third­ly, to give him an op­por­tu­ni­ty to cor­rect it.

In the first place, in re­gard to this mat­ter be­ing a mis­take. I have found that it is not en­tire­ly safe, when one is mis­rep­re­sent­ed un­der his very nose, to al­low the mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tion to go un­con­tra­dict­ed. I there­fore pro­pose, here at the out­set, not on­ly to say that this is a mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tion, but to show con­clu­sive­ly that it is so; and you will bear with me while I read a cou­ple of ex­tracts from that very “mem­orable” de­bate with Judge Dou­glas last year, to which this news­pa­per refers. In the first pitched bat­tle which Sen­ator Dou­glas and my­self had, at the town of Ot­tawa, I used the lan­guage which I will now read. Hav­ing been pre­vi­ous­ly read­ing an ex­tract, I con­tin­ued as fol­lows:

“Now, gen­tle­men, I don’t want to read at any greater length, but this is the true com­plex­ion of all I have ev­er said in re­gard to the in­sti­tu­tion of slav­ery and the black race. This is the whole of it; and any­thing that ar­gues me in­to his idea of per­fect so­cial and po­lit­ical equal­ity with the ne­gro, is but a specious and fan­tas­tic ar­range­ment of words, by which a man can prove a horse-​chest­nut to be a chest­nut horse. I will say here, while up­on this sub­ject, that I have no pur­pose di­rect­ly or in­di­rect­ly to in­ter­fere with the in­sti­tu­tion of slav­ery in the States where it ex­ists. I be­lieve I have no law­ful right to do so, and I have no in­cli­na­tion to do so. I have no pur­pose to in­tro­duce po­lit­ical and so­cial equal­ity be­tween the white and the black races. There is a phys­ical dif­fer­ence be­tween the two which, in my judg­ment, will prob­ably for­bid their ev­er liv­ing to­geth­er up­on the foot­ing of per­fect equal­ity; and inas­much as it be­comes a ne­ces­si­ty that there must be a dif­fer­ence, I, as well as Judge Dou­glas, am in fa­vor of the race to which I be­long hav­ing the su­pe­ri­or po­si­tion. I have nev­er said any­thing to the con­trary, but I hold that, notwith­stand­ing all this, there is no rea­son in the world why the ne­gro is not en­ti­tled to all the nat­ural rights enu­mer­at­ed in the Dec­la­ra­tion of In­de­pen­dence,–the right to life, lib­er­ty and the pur­suit of hap­pi­ness. I hold that he is as much en­ti­tled to these as the white man. I agree with judge Dou­glas, he is not my equal in many re­spects,–cer­tain­ly not in col­or, per­haps not in moral or in­tel­lec­tu­al en­dow­ments. But in the right to eat the bread, with­out leave of any­body else, which his own hand earns, he is my equal, and the equal of Judge Dou­glas, and the equal of ev­ery liv­ing man.”

Up­on a sub­se­quent oc­ca­sion, when the rea­son for mak­ing a state­ment like this oc­curred, I said:

“While I was at the ho­tel to-​day an el­der­ly gen­tle­man called up­on me to know whether I was re­al­ly in fa­vor of pro­duc­ing per­fect equal­ity be­tween the ne­groes and white peo­ple. While I had not pro­posed to my­self on this oc­ca­sion to say much on that sub­ject, yet, as the ques­tion was asked me, I thought I would oc­cu­py per­haps five min­utes in say­ing some­thing in re­gard to it. I will say, then, that I am not, nor ev­er have been, in fa­vor of bring­ing about in any way the so­cial and po­lit­ical equal­ity of the white and black races; that I am not, nor ev­er have been, in fa­vor of mak­ing vot­ers or ju­rors of ne­groes, nor of qual­ify­ing them to hold of­fice, or in­ter­mar­ry with the white peo­ple; and I will say in ad­di­tion to this that there is a phys­ical dif­fer­ence be­tween the white and black races which I be­lieve will for­ev­er for­bid the two races liv­ing to­geth­er on terms of so­cial and po­lit­ical equal­ity. And inas­much as they can not so live, while they do re­main to­geth­er there must be the po­si­tion of su­pe­ri­or and in­fe­ri­or, and I, as much as any oth­er man, am in fa­vor of hav­ing the su­pe­ri­or po­si­tion as­signed to the white race. I say up­on this oc­ca­sion I do not per­ceive that be­cause the white man is to have the su­pe­ri­or po­si­tion, the ne­gro should be de­nied ev­ery­thing. I do not un­der­stand that be­cause I do not want a ne­gro wom­an for a slave, I must nec­es­sar­ily want her for a wife. My un­der­stand­ing is that I can just let her alone. I am now in my fifti­eth year, and I cer­tain­ly nev­er have had a black wom­an for ei­ther a slave or a wife. So it seems to me quite pos­si­ble for us to get along with­out mak­ing ei­ther slaves or wives of ne­groes. I will add to this that I have nev­er seen, to my knowl­edge, a man, wom­an, or child, who was in fa­vor of pro­duc­ing per­fect equal­ity, so­cial and po­lit­ical, be­tween ne­groes and white men. I rec­ol­lect of but one dis­tin­guished in­stance that I ev­er heard of so fre­quent­ly as to be sat­is­fied of its cor­rect­ness, and that is the case of Judge Dou­glas’s old friend Colonel Richard M. John­son. I will al­so add to the re­marks I have made (for I am not go­ing to en­ter at large up­on this sub­ject), that I have nev­er had the least ap­pre­hen­sion that I or my friends would mar­ry ne­groes, if there was no law to keep them from it; but as judge Dou­glas and his friends seem to be in great ap­pre­hen­sion that they might, if there were no law to keep them from it, I give him the most solemn pledge that I will to the very last stand by the law of the State which for­bids the mar­ry­ing of white peo­ple with ne­groes.”

There, my friends, you have briefly what I have, up­on for­mer oc­ca­sions, said up­on this sub­ject to which this news­pa­per, to the ex­tent of its abil­ity, has drawn the pub­lic at­ten­tion. In it you not on­ly per­ceive, as a prob­abil­ity, that in that con­test I did not at any time say I was in fa­vor of ne­gro suf­frage, but the ab­so­lute proof that twice–once sub­stan­tial­ly, and once ex­press­ly–I de­clared against it. Hav­ing shown you this, there re­mains but a word of com­ment up­on that news­pa­per ar­ti­cle. It is this, that I pre­sume the ed­itor of that pa­per is an hon­est and truth-​lov­ing man, and that he will be great­ly obliged to me for fur­nish­ing him thus ear­ly an op­por­tu­ni­ty to cor­rect the mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tion he has made, be­fore it has run so long that ma­li­cious peo­ple can call him a liar.

The Gi­ant him­self has been here re­cent­ly. I have seen a brief re­port of his speech. If it were oth­er­wise un­pleas­ant to me to in­tro­duce the sub­ject of the ne­gro as a top­ic for dis­cus­sion, I might be some­what re­lieved by the fact that he dealt ex­clu­sive­ly in that sub­ject while he was here. I shall, there­fore, with­out much hes­ita­tion or dif­fi­dence, en­ter up­on this sub­ject.

The Amer­ican peo­ple, on the first day of Jan­uary, 1854, found the African slave trade pro­hib­it­ed by a law of Congress. In a ma­jor­ity of the States of this Union, they found African slav­ery, or any oth­er sort of slav­ery, pro­hib­it­ed by State con­sti­tu­tions. They al­so found a law ex­ist­ing, sup­posed to be valid, by which slav­ery was ex­clud­ed from al­most all the ter­ri­to­ry the Unit­ed States then owned. This was the con­di­tion of the coun­try, with ref­er­ence to the in­sti­tu­tion of slav­ery, on the first of Jan­uary, 1854. A few days af­ter that, a bill was in­tro­duced in­to Congress, which ran through its reg­ular course in the two branch­es of the na­tion­al leg­is­la­ture, and fi­nal­ly passed in­to a law in the month of May, by which the Act of Congress pro­hibit­ing slav­ery from go­ing in­to the Ter­ri­to­ries of the Unit­ed States was re­pealed. In con­nec­tion with the law it­self, and, in fact, in the terms of the law, the then ex­ist­ing pro­hi­bi­tion was not on­ly re­pealed, but there was a dec­la­ra­tion of a pur­pose on the part of Congress nev­er there­after to ex­er­cise any pow­er that they might have, re­al or sup­posed, to pro­hib­it the ex­ten­sion or spread of slav­ery. This was a very great change; for the law thus re­pealed was of more than thir­ty years’ stand­ing. Fol­low­ing rapid­ly up­on the heels of this ac­tion of Congress, a de­ci­sion of the Supreme Court is made, by which it is de­clared that Congress, if it de­sires to pro­hib­it the spread of slav­ery in­to the Ter­ri­to­ries, has no con­sti­tu­tion­al pow­er to do so. Not on­ly so, but that de­ci­sion lays down prin­ci­ples which, if pushed to their log­ical con­clu­sion,–I say pushed to their log­ical con­clu­sion,–would de­cide that the con­sti­tu­tions of free States, for­bid­ding slav­ery, are them­selves un­con­sti­tu­tion­al. Mark me, I do not say the judges said this, and let no man say I af­firm the judges used these words; but I on­ly say it is my opin­ion that what they did say, if pressed to its log­ical con­clu­sion, will in­evitably re­sult thus.

Look­ing at these things, the Re­pub­li­can par­ty, as I un­der­stand its prin­ci­ples and pol­icy, be­lieves that there is great dan­ger of the in­sti­tu­tion of slav­ery be­ing spread out and ex­tend­ed un­til it is ul­ti­mate­ly made alike law­ful in all the States of this Union; so be­liev­ing, to pre­vent that in­ci­den­tal and ul­ti­mate con­sum­ma­tion is the orig­inal and chief pur­pose of the Re­pub­li­can or­ga­ni­za­tion. I say “chief pur­pose” of the Re­pub­li­can or­ga­ni­za­tion; for it is cer­tain­ly true that if the Na­tion­al House shall fall in­to the hands of the Re­pub­li­cans, they will have to at­tend to all the oth­er mat­ters of na­tion­al house-​keep­ing, as well as this. The chief and re­al pur­pose of the Re­pub­li­can par­ty is em­inent­ly con­ser­va­tive. It pro­pos­es noth­ing save and ex­cept to re­store this gov­ern­ment to its orig­inal tone in re­gard to this el­ement of slav­ery, and there to main­tain it, look­ing for no fur­ther change in ref­er­ence to it than that which the orig­inal framers of the Gov­ern­ment them­selves ex­pect­ed and looked for­ward to.

The chief dan­ger to this pur­pose of the Re­pub­li­can par­ty is not just now the re­vival of the African slave trade, or the pas­sage of a Con­gres­sion­al slave code, or the declar­ing of a sec­ond Dred Scott de­ci­sion, mak­ing slav­ery law­ful in all the States. These are not press­ing us just now. They are not quite ready yet. The au­thors of these mea­sures know that we are too strong for them; but they will be up­on us in due time, and we will be grap­pling with them hand to hand, if they are not now head­ed off. They are not now the chief dan­ger to the pur­pose of the Re­pub­li­can or­ga­ni­za­tion; but the most im­mi­nent dan­ger that now threat­ens that pur­pose is that in­sid­ious Dou­glas pop­ular sovereign­ty. This is the min­er and sap­per. While it does not pro­pose to re­vive the African slave trade, nor to pass a slave code, nor to make a sec­ond Dred Scott de­ci­sion, it is prepar­ing us for the on­slaught and charge of these ul­ti­mate en­emies when they shall be ready to come on, and the word of com­mand for them to ad­vance shall be giv­en. I say this “Dou­glas pop­ular sovereign­ty”; for there is a broad dis­tinc­tion, as I now un­der­stand it, be­tween that ar­ti­cle and a gen­uine pop­ular sovereign­ty.

I be­lieve there is a gen­uine pop­ular sovereign­ty. I think a def­ini­tion of “gen­uine pop­ular sovereign­ty,” in the ab­stract, would be about this: That each man shall do pre­cise­ly as he pleas­es with him­self, and with all those things which ex­clu­sive­ly con­cern him. Ap­plied to gov­ern­ment, this prin­ci­ple would be, that a gen­er­al gov­ern­ment shall do all those things which per­tain to it, and all the lo­cal gov­ern­ments shall do pre­cise­ly as they please in re­spect to those mat­ters which ex­clu­sive­ly con­cern them. I un­der­stand that this gov­ern­ment of the Unit­ed States, un­der which we live, is based up­on this prin­ci­ple; and I am mis­un­der­stood if it is sup­posed that I have any war to make up­on that prin­ci­ple.

Now, what is judge Dou­glas’s pop­ular sovereign­ty? It is, as a prin­ci­ple, no oth­er than that if one man choos­es to make a slave of an­oth­er man nei­ther that oth­er man nor any­body else has a right to ob­ject. Ap­plied in gov­ern­ment, as he seeks to ap­ply it, it is this: If, in a new Ter­ri­to­ry in­to which a few peo­ple are be­gin­ning to en­ter for the pur­pose of mak­ing their homes, they choose to ei­ther ex­clude slav­ery from their lim­its or to es­tab­lish it there, how­ev­er one or the oth­er may af­fect the per­sons to be en­slaved, or the in­finite­ly greater num­ber of per­sons who are af­ter­wards to in­hab­it that Ter­ri­to­ry, or the oth­er mem­bers of the fam­ilies of com­mu­ni­ties, of which they are but an in­cip­ient mem­ber, or the gen­er­al head of the fam­ily of States as par­ent of all, how­ev­er their ac­tion may af­fect one or the oth­er of these, there is no pow­er or right to in­ter­fere. That is Dou­glas’s pop­ular sovereign­ty ap­plied.

He has a good deal of trou­ble with pop­ular sovereign­ty. His ex­pla­na­tions ex­plana­to­ry of ex­pla­na­tions ex­plained are in­ter­minable. The most lengthy, and, as I sup­pose, the most ma­ture­ly con­sid­ered of this long se­ries of ex­pla­na­tions is his great es­say in Harp­er’s Mag­azine. I will not at­tempt to en­ter on any very thor­ough in­ves­ti­ga­tion of his ar­gu­ment as there made and pre­sent­ed. I will nev­er­the­less oc­cu­py a good por­tion of your time here in draw­ing your at­ten­tion to cer­tain points in it. Such of you as may have read this doc­ument will have per­ceived that the judge ear­ly in the doc­ument quotes from two per­sons as be­long­ing to the Re­pub­li­can par­ty, with­out nam­ing them, but who can read­ily be rec­og­nized as be­ing Gov­er­nor Se­ward of New York and my­self. It is true that ex­act­ly fif­teen months ago this day, I be­lieve, I for the first time ex­pressed a sen­ti­ment up­on this sub­ject, and in such a man­ner that it should get in­to print, that the pub­lic might see it be­yond the cir­cle of my hear­ers; and my ex­pres­sion of it at that time is the quo­ta­tion that Judge Dou­glas makes. He has not made the quo­ta­tion with ac­cu­ra­cy, but jus­tice to him re­quires me to say that it is suf­fi­cient­ly ac­cu­rate not to change the sense.

The sense of that quo­ta­tion con­densed is this: that this slav­ery el­ement is a durable el­ement of dis­cord among us, and that we shall prob­ably not have per­fect peace in this coun­try with it un­til it ei­ther mas­ters the free prin­ci­ple in our gov­ern­ment, or is so far mas­tered by the free prin­ci­ple as for the pub­lic mind to rest in the be­lief that it is go­ing to its end. This sen­ti­ment, which I now ex­press in this way, was, at no great dis­tance of time, per­haps in dif­fer­ent lan­guage, and in con­nec­tion with some col­lat­er­al ideas, ex­pressed by Gov­er­nor Se­ward. Judge Dou­glas has been so much an­noyed by the ex­pres­sion of that sen­ti­ment that he has con­stant­ly, I be­lieve, in al­most all his speech­es since it was ut­tered, been re­fer­ring to it. I find he al­lud­ed to it in his speech here, as well as in the copy­right es­say. I do not now en­ter up­on this for the pur­pose of mak­ing an elab­orate ar­gu­ment to show that we were right in the ex­pres­sion of that sen­ti­ment. In oth­er words, I shall not stop to say all that might prop­er­ly be said up­on this point, but I on­ly ask your at­ten­tion to it for the pur­pose of mak­ing one or two points up­on it.

If you will read the copy­right es­say, you will dis­cov­er that judge Dou­glas him­self says a con­tro­ver­sy be­tween the Amer­ican Colonies and the Gov­ern­ment of Great Britain be­gan on the slav­ery ques­tion in 1699, and con­tin­ued from that time un­til the Rev­olu­tion; and, while he did not say so, we all know that it has con­tin­ued with more or less vi­olence ev­er since the Rev­olu­tion.

Then we need not ap­peal to his­to­ry, to the dec­la­ra­tions of the framers of the gov­ern­ment, but we know from judge Dou­glas him­self that slav­ery be­gan to be an el­ement of dis­cord among the white peo­ple of this coun­try as far back as 1699, or one hun­dred and six­ty years ago, or five gen­er­ations of men,–count­ing thir­ty years to a gen­er­ation. Now, it would seem to me that it might have oc­curred to Judge Dou­glas, or any­body who had turned his at­ten­tion to these facts, that there was some­thing in the na­ture of that thing, slav­ery, some­what durable for mis­chief and dis­cord.

There is an­oth­er point I de­sire to make in re­gard to this mat­ter, be­fore I leave it. From the adop­tion of the Con­sti­tu­tion down to 1820 is the pre­cise pe­ri­od of our his­to­ry when we had com­par­ative peace up­on this ques­tion,–the pre­cise pe­ri­od of time when we came near­er to hav­ing peace about it than any oth­er time of that en­tire one hun­dred and six­ty years in which he says it be­gan, or of the eighty years of our own Con­sti­tu­tion. Then it would be worth our while to stop and ex­am­ine in­to the prob­able rea­son of our com­ing near­er to hav­ing peace then than at any oth­er time. This was the pre­cise pe­ri­od of time in which our fa­thers adopt­ed, and dur­ing which they fol­lowed, a pol­icy re­strict­ing the spread of slav­ery, and the whole Union was ac­qui­esc­ing in it. The whole coun­try looked for­ward to the ul­ti­mate ex­tinc­tion of the in­sti­tu­tion. It was when a pol­icy had been adopt­ed, and was pre­vail­ing, which led all just and right-​mind­ed men to sup­pose that slav­ery was grad­ual­ly com­ing to an end, and that they might be qui­et about it, watch­ing it as it ex­pired. I think Judge Dou­glas might have per­ceived that too; and whether he did or not, it is worth the at­ten­tion of fair-​mind­ed men, here and else­where, to con­sid­er whether that is not the truth of the case. If he had looked at these two facts,–that this mat­ter has been an el­ement of dis­cord for one hun­dred and six­ty years among this peo­ple, and that the on­ly com­par­ative peace we have had about it was when that pol­icy pre­vailed in this gov­ern­ment which he now wars up­on, he might then, per­haps, have been brought to a more just ap­pre­ci­ation of what I said fif­teen months ago,–that “a house di­vid­ed against it­self can­not stand. I be­lieve that this gov­ern­ment can­not en­dure per­ma­nent­ly, half slave and half free. I do not ex­pect the house to fall, I do not ex­pect the Union to dis­solve; but I do ex­pect it will cease to be di­vid­ed. It will be­come all one thing, or all the oth­er. Ei­ther the op­po­nents of slav­ery will ar­rest the fur­ther spread of it, and place it where the pub­lic mind will rest in the be­lief that it is in the course of ul­ti­mate ex­tinc­tion, or its ad­vo­cates will push it for­ward un­til it shall be­come alike law­ful in all the States, old as well as new, North as well as South.” That was my sen­ti­ment at that time. In con­nec­tion with it, I said: “We are now far in­to the fifth year since a pol­icy was in­au­gu­rat­ed with the avowed ob­ject and con­fi­dent promise of putting an end to slav­ery ag­ita­tion. Un­der the op­er­ation of the pol­icy that ag­ita­tion has not on­ly not ceased, but has con­stant­ly aug­ment­ed.” I now say to you here that we are ad­vanced still far­ther in­to the sixth year since that pol­icy of Judge Dou­glas–that pop­ular sovereign­ty of his–for qui­et­ing the slav­ery ques­tion was made the na­tion­al pol­icy. Fif­teen months more have been added since I ut­tered that sen­ti­ment; and I call up­on you and all oth­er right-​mind­ed men to say whether that fif­teen months have be­lied or cor­rob­orat­ed my words.

While I am here up­on this sub­ject, I can­not but ex­press grat­itude that this true view of this el­ement of dis­cord among us–as I be­lieve it is–is at­tract­ing more and more at­ten­tion. I do not be­lieve that Gov­er­nor Se­ward ut­tered that sen­ti­ment be­cause I had done so be­fore, but be­cause he re­flect­ed up­on this sub­ject and saw the truth of it. Nor do I be­lieve be­cause Gov­er­nor Se­ward or I ut­tered it that Mr. Hick­man of Penn­syl­va­nia, in, dif­fer­ent lan­guage, since that time, has de­clared his be­lief in the ut­ter an­tag­onism which ex­ists be­tween the prin­ci­ples of lib­er­ty and slav­ery. You see we are mul­ti­ply­ing. Now, while I am speak­ing of Hick­man, let me say, I know but lit­tle about him. I have nev­er seen him, and know scarce­ly any­thing about the man; but I will say this much of him: Of all the an­ti-​Lecomp­ton Democ­ra­cy that have been brought to my no­tice, he alone has the true, gen­uine ring of the met­al. And now, with­out in­dors­ing any­thing else he has said, I will ask this au­di­ence to give three cheers for Hick­man. [The au­di­ence re­spond­ed with three rous­ing cheers for Hick­man.]

An­oth­er point in the copy­right es­say to which I would ask your at­ten­tion is rather a fea­ture to be ex­tract­ed from the whole thing, than from any ex­press dec­la­ra­tion of it at any point. It is a gen­er­al fea­ture of that doc­ument, and, in­deed, of all of Judge Dou­glas’s dis­cus­sions of this ques­tion, that the Ter­ri­to­ries of the Unit­ed States and the States of this Union are ex­act­ly alike; that there is no dif­fer­ence be­tween them at all; that the Con­sti­tu­tion ap­plies to the Ter­ri­to­ries pre­cise­ly as it does to the States; and that the Unit­ed States Gov­ern­ment, un­der the Con­sti­tu­tion, may not do in a State what it may not do in a Ter­ri­to­ry, and what it must do in a State it must do in a Ter­ri­to­ry. Gen­tle­men, is that a true view of the case? It is nec­es­sary for this squat­ter sovereign­ty, but is it true?

Let us con­sid­er. What does it de­pend up­on? It de­pends al­to­geth­er up­on the propo­si­tion that the States must, with­out the in­ter­fer­ence of the Gen­er­al Gov­ern­ment, do all those things that per­tain ex­clu­sive­ly to them­selves,–that are lo­cal in their na­ture, that have no con­nec­tion with the Gen­er­al Gov­ern­ment. Af­ter Judge Dou­glas has es­tab­lished this propo­si­tion, which no­body dis­putes or ev­er has dis­put­ed, he pro­ceeds to as­sume, with­out prov­ing it, that slav­ery is one of those lit­tle, unim­por­tant, triv­ial mat­ters which are of just about as much con­se­quence as the ques­tion would be to me whether my neigh­bor should raise horned cat­tle or plant to­bac­co; that there is no moral ques­tion about it, but that it is al­to­geth­er a mat­ter of dol­lars and cents; that when a new Ter­ri­to­ry is opened for set­tle­ment, the first man who goes in­to it may plant there a thing which, like the Cana­da this­tle or some oth­er of those pests of the soil, can­not be dug out by the mil­lions of men who will come there­after; that it is one of those lit­tle things that is so triv­ial in its na­ture that it has nor ef­fect up­on any­body save the few men who first plant up­on the soil; that it is not a thing which in any way af­fects the fam­ily of com­mu­ni­ties com­pos­ing these States, nor any way en­dan­gers the Gen­er­al Gov­ern­ment. Judge Dou­glas ig­nores al­to­geth­er the very well known fact that we have nev­er had a se­ri­ous men­ace to our po­lit­ical ex­is­tence, ex­cept it sprang from this thing, which he choos­es to re­gard as on­ly up­on a par with onions and pota­toes.

Turn it, and con­tem­plate it in an­oth­er view. He says that, ac­cord­ing to his pop­ular sovereign­ty, the Gen­er­al Gov­ern­ment may give to the Ter­ri­to­ries gov­er­nors, judges, mar­shals, sec­re­taries, and all the oth­er chief men to gov­ern them, but they, must not touch up­on this oth­er ques­tion. Why? The ques­tion of who shall be gov­er­nor of a Ter­ri­to­ry for a year or two, and pass away, with­out his track be­ing left up­on the soil, or an act which he did for good or for evil be­ing left be­hind, is a ques­tion of vast na­tion­al mag­ni­tude; it is so much op­posed in its na­ture to lo­cal­ity that the na­tion it­self must de­cide it: while this oth­er mat­ter of plant­ing slav­ery up­on a soil,–a thing which, once plant­ed, can­not be erad­icat­ed by the suc­ceed­ing mil­lions who have as much right there as the first com­ers, or, if erad­icat­ed, not with­out in­fi­nite dif­fi­cul­ty and a long strug­gle, he con­sid­ers the pow­er to pro­hib­it it as one of these lit­tle lo­cal, triv­ial things that the na­tion ought not to say a word about; that it af­fects no­body save the few men who are there.

Take these two things and con­sid­er them to­geth­er, present the ques­tion of plant­ing a State with the in­sti­tu­tion of slav­ery by the side of a ques­tion who shall be Gov­er­nor of Kansas for a year or two, and is there a man here, is there a man on earth, who would not say the gov­er­nor ques­tion is the lit­tle one, and the slav­ery ques­tion is the great one? I ask any hon­est Demo­crat if the small, the lo­cal, and the triv­ial and tem­po­rary ques­tion is not, Who shall be gov­er­nor? while the durable, the im­por­tant, and the mis­chievous one is, Shall this soil be plant­ed with slav­ery?

This is an idea, I sup­pose, which has arisen in Judge Dou­glas’s mind from his pe­cu­liar struc­ture. I sup­pose the in­sti­tu­tion of slav­ery re­al­ly looks small to him. He is so put up by na­ture that a lash up­on his back would hurt him, but a lash up­on any­body else’s back does not hurt him. That is the build of the man, and con­se­quent­ly he looks up­on the mat­ter of slav­ery in this unim­por­tant light.

Judge Dou­glas ought to re­mem­ber, when he is en­deav­or­ing to force this pol­icy up­on the Amer­ican peo­ple, that while he is put up in that way, a good many are not. He ought to re­mem­ber that there was once in this coun­try a man by the name of Thomas Jef­fer­son, sup­posed to be a Demo­crat,–a man whose prin­ci­ples and pol­icy are not very preva­lent amongst Democrats to-​day, it is true; but that man did not take ex­act­ly this view of the in­signif­icance of the el­ement of slav­ery which our friend judge Dou­glas does. In con­tem­pla­tion of this thing, we all know he was led to ex­claim, “I trem­ble for my coun­try when I re­mem­ber that God is just!” We know how he looked up­on it when he thus ex­pressed him­self. There was dan­ger to this coun­try,–dan­ger of the aveng­ing jus­tice of God, in that lit­tle unim­por­tant pop­ular sovereign­ty ques­tion of judge Dou­glas. He sup­posed there was a ques­tion of God’s eter­nal jus­tice wrapped up in the en­slav­ing of any race of men, or any man, and that those who did so braved the arm of Je­ho­vah; that when a na­tion thus dared the Almighty, ev­ery friend of that na­tion had cause to dread his wrath. Choose ye be­tween Jef­fer­son and Dou­glas as to what is the true view of this el­ement among us.

There is an­oth­er lit­tle dif­fi­cul­ty about this mat­ter of treat­ing the Ter­ri­to­ries and States alike in all things, to which I ask your at­ten­tion, and I shall leave this branch of the case. If there is no dif­fer­ence be­tween them, why not make the Ter­ri­to­ries States at once? What is the rea­son that Kansas was not fit to come in­to the Union when it was or­ga­nized in­to a Ter­ri­to­ry, in Judge Dou­glas’s view? Can any of you tell any rea­son why it should not have come in­to the Union at once? They are fit, as he thinks, to de­cide up­on the slav­ery ques­tion,–the largest and most im­por­tant with which they could pos­si­bly deal: what could they do by com­ing in­to the Union that they are not fit to do, ac­cord­ing to his view, by stay­ing out of it? Oh, they are not fit to sit in Congress and de­cide up­on the rates of postage, or ques­tions of ad val­orem or spe­cif­ic du­ties on for­eign goods, or live-​oak tim­ber con­tracts, they are not fit to de­cide these vast­ly im­por­tant mat­ters, which are na­tion­al in their im­port, but they are fit, “from the jump,” to de­cide this lit­tle ne­gro ques­tion. But, gen­tle­men, the case is too plain; I oc­cu­py too much time on this head, and I pass on.

Near the close of the copy­right es­say, the judge, I think, comes very near kick­ing his own fat in­to the fire. I did not think, when I com­menced these re­marks, that I would read that ar­ti­cle, but I now be­lieve I will:

“This ex­po­si­tion of the his­to­ry of these mea­sures shows con­clu­sive­ly that the au­thors of the Com­pro­mise mea­sures of 1850 and of the Kansas-​Ne­bras­ka Act of 1854, as well as the mem­bers of the Con­ti­nen­tal Congress of 1774., and the founders of our sys­tem of gov­ern­ment sub­se­quent to the Rev­olu­tion, re­gard­ed the peo­ple of the Ter­ri­to­ries and Colonies as po­lit­ical com­mu­ni­ties which were en­ti­tled to a free and ex­clu­sive pow­er of leg­is­la­tion in their pro­vi­sion­al leg­is­la­tures, where their rep­re­sen­ta­tion could alone be pre­served, in all cas­es of tax­ation and in­ter­nal poli­ty.”

When the judge saw that putting in the word “slav­ery” would con­tra­dict his own his­to­ry, he put in what he knew would pass syn­ony­mous with it, “in­ter­nal poli­ty.” When­ev­er we find that in one of his speech­es, the sub­sti­tute is used in this man­ner; and I can tell you the rea­son. It would be too bald a con­tra­dic­tion to say slav­ery; but “in­ter­nal poli­ty” is a gen­er­al phrase, which would pass in some quar­ters, and which he hopes will pass with the read­ing com­mu­ni­ty for the same thing.

“This right per­tains to the peo­ple col­lec­tive­ly, as a law-​abid­ing and peace­ful com­mu­ni­ty, and not in the iso­lat­ed in­di­vid­uals who may wan­der up­on the pub­lic do­main in vi­ola­tion of the law. It can on­ly be ex­er­cised where there are in­hab­itants suf­fi­cient to con­sti­tute a gov­ern­ment, and ca­pa­ble of per­form­ing its var­ious func­tions and du­ties,–a fact to be as­cer­tained and de­ter­mined by “who do you think? Judge Dou­glas says “by Congress!” “Whether the num­ber shall be fixed at ten, fif­teen or twen­ty thou­sand in­hab­itants, does not af­fect the prin­ci­ple.”

Now, I have on­ly a few com­ments to make. Pop­ular sovereign­ty, by his own words, does not per­tain to the few per­sons who wan­der up­on the pub­lic do­main in vi­ola­tion of law. We have his words for that. When it does per­tain to them, is when they are suf­fi­cient to be formed in­to an or­ga­nized po­lit­ical com­mu­ni­ty, and he fix­es the min­imum for that at ten thou­sand, and the max­imum at twen­ty thou­sand. Now, I would like to know what is to be done with the nine thou­sand? Are they all to be treat­ed, un­til they are large enough to be or­ga­nized in­to a po­lit­ical com­mu­ni­ty, as wan­der­ers up­on the pub­lic land, in vi­ola­tion of law? And if so treat­ed and driv­en out, at what point of time would there ev­er be ten thou­sand? If they were not driv­en out, but re­mained there as tres­passers up­on the pub­lic land in vi­ola­tion of the law, can they es­tab­lish slav­ery there? No; the judge says pop­ular sovereign­ty don’t per­tain to them then. Can they ex­clude it then? No; pop­ular sovereign­ty don’t per­tain to them then. I would like to know, in the case cov­ered by the es­say, what con­di­tion the peo­ple of the Ter­ri­to­ry are in be­fore they reach the num­ber of ten thou­sand?

But the main point I wish to ask at­ten­tion to is, that the ques­tion as to when they shall have reached a suf­fi­cient num­ber to be formed in­to a reg­ular or­ga­nized com­mu­ni­ty is to be de­cid­ed “by Congress.” Judge Dou­glas says so. Well, gen­tle­men, that is about all we want. No, that is all the South­ern­ers want. That is what all those who are for slav­ery want. They do not want Congress to pro­hib­it slav­ery from com­ing in­to the new Ter­ri­to­ries, and they do not want pop­ular sovereign­ty to hin­der it; and as Congress is to say when they are ready to be or­ga­nized, all that the South has to do is to get Congress to hold off. Let Congress hold off un­til they are ready to be ad­mit­ted as a State, and the South has all it wants in tak­ing slav­ery in­to and plant­ing it in all the Ter­ri­to­ries that we now have or here­after may have. In a word, the whole thing, at a dash of the pen, is at last put in the pow­er of Congress; for if they do not have this pop­ular sovereign­ty un­til Congress or­ga­nizes them, I ask if it at last does not come from Congress? If, at last, it amounts to any­thing at all, Congress gives it to them. I sub­mit this rather for your re­flec­tion than for com­ment. Af­ter all that is said, at last, by a dash of the pen, ev­ery­thing that has gone be­fore is un­done, and he puts the whole ques­tion un­der the con­trol of Congress. Af­ter fight­ing through more than three hours, if you un­der­take to read it, he at last places the whole mat­ter un­der the con­trol of that pow­er which he has been con­tend­ing against, and ar­rives at a re­sult di­rect­ly con­trary to what he had been la­bor­ing to do. He at last leaves the whole mat­ter to the con­trol of Congress.

There are two main ob­jects, as I un­der­stand it, of this Harp­er’s Mag­azine es­say. One was to show, if pos­si­ble, that the men of our Rev­olu­tion­ary times were in fa­vor of his pop­ular sovereign­ty, and the oth­er was to show that the Dred Scott de­ci­sion had not en­tire­ly squelched out this pop­ular sovereign­ty. I do not pro­pose, in re­gard to this ar­gu­ment drawn from the his­to­ry of for­mer times, to en­ter in­to a de­tailed ex­am­ina­tion of the his­tor­ical state­ments he has made. I have the im­pres­sion that they are in­ac­cu­rate in a great many in­stances,–some­times in pos­itive state­ment, but very much more in­ac­cu­rate by the sup­pres­sion of state­ments that re­al­ly be­long to the his­to­ry. But I do not pro­pose to af­firm that this is so to any very great ex­tent, or to en­ter in­to a very minute ex­am­ina­tion of his his­tor­ical state­ments. I avoid do­ing so up­on this prin­ci­ple,–that if it were im­por­tant for me to pass out of this lot in the least pe­ri­od of time pos­si­ble, and I came to that fence, and saw by a cal­cu­la­tion of my known strength and agili­ty that I could clear it at a bound, it would be fol­ly for me to stop and con­sid­er whether I could or not crawl through a crack. So I say of the whole his­to­ry con­tained in his es­say where he en­deav­ored to link the men of the Rev­olu­tion to pop­ular sovereign­ty. It on­ly re­quires an ef­fort to leap out of it, a sin­gle bound to be en­tire­ly suc­cess­ful. If you read it over, you will find that he quotes here and there from doc­uments of the Rev­olu­tion­ary times, tend­ing to show that the peo­ple of the colonies were de­sirous of reg­ulat­ing their own con­cerns in their own way, that the British Gov­ern­ment should not in­ter­fere; that at one time they strug­gled with the British Gov­ern­ment to be per­mit­ted to ex­clude the African slave trade,–if not di­rect­ly, to be per­mit­ted to ex­clude it in­di­rect­ly, by tax­ation suf­fi­cient to dis­cour­age and de­stroy it. From these and many things of this sort, judge Dou­glas ar­gues that they were in fa­vor of the peo­ple of our own Ter­ri­to­ries ex­clud­ing slav­ery if they want­ed to, or plant­ing it there if they want­ed to, do­ing just as they pleased from the time they set­tled up­on the Ter­ri­to­ry. Now, how­ev­er his his­to­ry may ap­ply and what­ev­er of his ar­gu­ment there may be that is sound and ac­cu­rate or un­sound and in­ac­cu­rate, if we can find out what these men did them­selves do up­on this very ques­tion of slav­ery in the Ter­ri­to­ries, does it not end the whole thing? If, af­ter all this la­bor and ef­fort to show that the men of the Rev­olu­tion were in fa­vor of his pop­ular sovereign­ty and his mode of deal­ing with slav­ery in the Ter­ri­to­ries, we can show that these very men took hold of that sub­ject, and dealt with it, we can see for our­selves how they dealt with it. It is not a mat­ter of ar­gu­ment or in­fer­ence, but we know what they thought about it.

It is pre­cise­ly up­on that part of the his­to­ry of the coun­try that one im­por­tant omis­sion is made by Judge Dou­glas. He se­lects parts of the his­to­ry of the Unit­ed States up­on the sub­ject of slav­ery, and treats it as the whole, omit­ting from his his­tor­ical sketch the leg­is­la­tion of Congress in re­gard to the ad­mis­sion of Mis­souri, by which the Mis­souri Com­pro­mise was es­tab­lished and slav­ery ex­clud­ed from a coun­try half as large as the present Unit­ed States. All this is left out of his his­to­ry, and in no­wise al­lud­ed to by him, so far as I can re­mem­ber, save once, when he makes a re­mark, that up­on his prin­ci­ple the Supreme Court were au­tho­rized to pro­nounce a de­ci­sion that the act called the Mis­souri Com­pro­mise was un­con­sti­tu­tion­al. All that his­to­ry has been left out. But this part of the his­to­ry of the coun­try was not made by the men of the Rev­olu­tion.

There was an­oth­er part of our po­lit­ical his­to­ry, made by the very men who were the ac­tors in the Rev­olu­tion, which has tak­en the name of the Or­di­nance of ‘87. Let me bring that his­to­ry to your at­ten­tion. In 1784, I be­lieve, this same Mr. Jef­fer­son drew up an or­di­nance for the gov­ern­ment of the coun­try up­on which we now stand, or, rather, a frame or draft of an or­di­nance for the gov­ern­ment of this coun­try, here in Ohio, our neigh­bors in In­di­ana, us who live in Illi­nois, our neigh­bors in Wis­con­sin and Michi­gan. In that or­di­nance, drawn up not on­ly for the gov­ern­ment of that Ter­ri­to­ry, but for the Ter­ri­to­ries south of the Ohio Riv­er, Mr. Jef­fer­son ex­press­ly pro­vid­ed for the pro­hi­bi­tion of slav­ery. Judge Dou­glas says, and per­haps is right, that that pro­vi­sion was lost from that or­di­nance. I be­lieve that is true. When the vote was tak­en up­on it, a ma­jor­ity of all present in the Congress of the Con­fed­er­ation vot­ed for it; but there were so many ab­sen­tees that those vot­ing for it did not make the clear ma­jor­ity nec­es­sary, and it was lost. But three years af­ter that, the Congress of the Con­fed­er­ation were to­geth­er again, and they adopt­ed a new or­di­nance for the gov­ern­ment of this North­west Ter­ri­to­ry, not con­tem­plat­ing ter­ri­to­ry south of the riv­er, for the States own­ing that ter­ri­to­ry had hith­er­to re­frained from giv­ing it to the Gen­er­al Gov­ern­ment; hence they made the or­di­nance to ap­ply on­ly to what the Gov­ern­ment owned. In fact, the pro­vi­sion ex­clud­ing slav­ery was in­sert­ed aside, passed unan­imous­ly, or at any rate it passed and be­came a part of the law of the land. Un­der that or­di­nance we live. First here in Ohio you were a Ter­ri­to­ry; then an en­abling act was passed, au­tho­riz­ing you to form a con­sti­tu­tion and State Gov­ern­ment, pro­vid­ed it was re­pub­li­can and not in con­flict with the Or­di­nance of ‘87. When you framed your con­sti­tu­tion and pre­sent­ed it for ad­mis­sion, I think you will find the leg­is­la­tion up­on the sub­ject will show that, where­as you had formed a con­sti­tu­tion that was re­pub­li­can, and not in con­flict with the Or­di­nance of ‘87, there­fore you were ad­mit­ted up­on equal foot­ing with the orig­inal States. The same pro­cess in a few years was gone through with in In­di­ana, and so with Illi­nois, and the same sub­stan­tial­ly with Michi­gan and Wis­con­sin.

Not on­ly did that Or­di­nance pre­vail, but it was con­stant­ly looked to when­ev­er a step was tak­en by a new Ter­ri­to­ry to be­come a State. Congress al­ways turned their at­ten­tion to it, and in all their move­ments up­on this sub­ject they traced their course by that Or­di­nance of ‘87. When they ad­mit­ted new States, they ad­ver­tised them of this Or­di­nance, as a part of the leg­is­la­tion of the coun­try. They did so be­cause they had traced the Or­di­nance of ‘87 through­out the his­to­ry of this coun­try. Be­gin with the men of the Rev­olu­tion, and go down for six­ty en­tire years, and un­til the last scrap of that Ter­ri­to­ry comes in­to the Union in the form of the State of Wis­con­sin, ev­ery­thing was made to con­form with the Or­di­nance of ‘87, ex­clud­ing slav­ery from that vast ex­tent of coun­try.

I omit­ted to men­tion in the right place that the Con­sti­tu­tion of the Unit­ed States was in pro­cess of be­ing framed when that Or­di­nance was made by the Congress of the Con­fed­er­ation; and one of the first Acts of Congress it­self, un­der the new Con­sti­tu­tion it­self, was to give force to that Or­di­nance by putting pow­er to car­ry it out in the hands of the new of­fi­cers un­der the Con­sti­tu­tion, in the place of the old ones, who had been leg­is­lat­ed out of ex­is­tence by the change in the Gov­ern­ment from the Con­fed­er­ation to the Con­sti­tu­tion. Not on­ly so, but I be­lieve In­di­ana once or twice, if not Ohio, pe­ti­tioned the Gen­er­al Gov­ern­ment for the priv­ilege of sus­pend­ing that pro­vi­sion and al­low­ing them to have slaves. A re­port made by Mr. Ran­dolph, of Vir­ginia, him­self a slave­hold­er, was di­rect­ly against it, and the ac­tion was to refuse them the priv­ilege of vi­olat­ing the Or­di­nance of ‘87.

This pe­ri­od of his­to­ry, which I have run over briefly, is, I pre­sume, as fa­mil­iar to most of this as­sem­bly as any oth­er part of the his­to­ry of our coun­try. I sup­pose that few of my hear­ers are not as fa­mil­iar with that part of his­to­ry as I am, and I on­ly men­tion it to re­call your at­ten­tion to it at this time. And hence I ask how ex­traor­di­nary a thing it is that a man who has oc­cu­pied a po­si­tion up­on the floor of the Sen­ate of the Unit­ed States, who is now in his third term, and who looks to see the gov­ern­ment of this whole coun­try fall in­to his own hands, pre­tend­ing to give a truth­ful and ac­cu­rate his­to­ry o the slav­ery ques­tion in this coun­try, should so en­tire­ly ig­nore the whole of that por­tion of our his­to­ry–the most im­por­tant of all. Is it not a most ex­traor­di­nary spec­ta­cle that a man should stand up and ask for any con­fi­dence in his state­ments who sets out as he does with por­tions of his­to­ry, call­ing up­on the peo­ple to be­lieve that it is a true and fair rep­re­sen­ta­tion, when the lead­ing part and con­trol­ling fea­ture of the whole his­to­ry is care­ful­ly sup­pressed?

But the mere leav­ing out is not the most re­mark­able fea­ture of this most re­mark­able es­say. His propo­si­tion is to es­tab­lish that the lead­ing men of the Rev­olu­tion were for his great prin­ci­ple of non­in­ter­ven­tion by the gov­ern­ment in the ques­tion of slav­ery in the Ter­ri­to­ries, while his­to­ry shows that they de­cid­ed, in the cas­es ac­tu­al­ly brought be­fore them, in ex­act­ly the con­trary way, and he knows it. Not on­ly did they so de­cide at that time, but they stuck to it dur­ing six­ty years, through thick and thin, as long as there was one of the Rev­olu­tion­ary heroes up­on the stage of po­lit­ical ac­tion. Through their whole course, from first to last, they clung to free­dom. And now he asks the com­mu­ni­ty to be­lieve that the men of the Rev­olu­tion were in fa­vor of his great prin­ci­ple, when we have the naked his­to­ry that they them­selves dealt with this very sub­ject mat­ter of his prin­ci­ple, and ut­ter­ly re­pu­di­at­ed his prin­ci­ple, act­ing up­on a pre­cise­ly con­trary ground. It is as im­pu­dent and ab­surd as if a pros­ecut­ing at­tor­ney should stand up be­fore a ju­ry and ask them to con­vict A as the mur­der­er of B, while B was walk­ing alive be­fore them.

I say, again, if judge Dou­glas as­serts that the men of the Rev­olu­tion act­ed up­on prin­ci­ples by which, to be con­sis­tent with them­selves, they ought to have adopt­ed his pop­ular sovereign­ty, then, up­on a con­sid­er­ation of his own ar­gu­ment, he had a right to make you be­lieve that they un­der­stood the prin­ci­ples of gov­ern­ment, but mis­ap­plied them, that he has arisen to en­light­en the world as to the just ap­pli­ca­tion of this prin­ci­ple. He has a right to try to per­suade you that he un­der­stands their prin­ci­ples bet­ter than they did, and, there­fore, he will ap­ply them now, not as they did, but as they ought to have done. He has a right to go be­fore the com­mu­ni­ty and try to con­vince them of this, but he has no right to at­tempt to im­pose up­on any one the be­lief that these men them­selves ap­proved of his great prin­ci­ple. There are two ways of es­tab­lish­ing a propo­si­tion. One is by try­ing to demon­strate it up­on rea­son, and the oth­er is, to show that great men in for­mer times have thought so and so, and thus to pass it by the weight of pure au­thor­ity. Now, if Judge Dou­glas will demon­strate some­how that this is pop­ular sovereign­ty,–the right of one man to make a slave of an­oth­er, with­out any right in that oth­er or any one else to ob­ject,- -demon­strate it as Eu­clid demon­strat­ed propo­si­tions,–there is no ob­jec­tion. But when he comes for­ward, seek­ing to car­ry a prin­ci­ple by bring­ing to it the au­thor­ity of men who them­selves ut­ter­ly re­pu­di­ate that prin­ci­ple, I ask that he shall not be per­mit­ted to do it.

I see, in the judge’s speech here, a short sen­tence in these words: “Our fa­thers, when they formed this gov­ern­ment un­der which we live, un­der­stood this ques­tion just as well, and even bet­ter than, we do now.” That is true; I stick to that. I will stand by Judge Dou­glas in that to the bit­ter end. And now, Judge Dou­glas, come and stand by me, and truth­ful­ly show how they act­ed, un­der­stand­ing it bet­ter than we do. All I ask of you, Judge Dou­glas, is to stick to the propo­si­tion that the men of the Rev­olu­tion un­der­stood this sub­ject bet­ter than we do now, and with that bet­ter un­der­stand­ing they act­ed bet­ter than you are try­ing to act now.

I wish to say some­thing now in re­gard to the Dred Scott de­ci­sion, as dealt with by Judge Dou­glas. In that “mem­orable de­bate” be­tween Judge Dou­glas and my­self, last year, the judge thought fit to com­mence a pro­cess of cat­echis­ing me, and at Freeport I an­swered his ques­tions, and pro­pound­ed some to him. Among oth­ers pro­pound­ed to him was one that I have here now. The sub­stance, as I re­mem­ber it, is, “Can the peo­ple of a Unit­ed States Ter­ri­to­ry, un­der the Dred Scott de­ci­sion, 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?” He an­swered that they could law­ful­ly ex­clude slav­ery from the Unit­ed States Ter­ri­to­ries, notwith­stand­ing the Dred Scot de­ci­sion. There was some­thing about that an­swer that has prob­ably been a trou­ble to the judge ev­er since.

The Dred Scott de­ci­sion ex­press­ly gives ev­ery cit­izen of the Unit­ed States a right to car­ry his slaves in­to the Unit­ed States Ter­ri­to­ries. And now there was some in­con­sis­ten­cy in say­ing that the de­ci­sion was right, and say­ing, too, that the peo­ple of the Ter­ri­to­ry could law­ful­ly drive slav­ery out again. When all the trash, the words, the col­lat­er­al mat­ter, was cleared away from it, all the chaff was fanned out of it, it was a bare ab­sur­di­ty,–no less than that a thing may be law­ful­ly driv­en away from where it has a law­ful right to be. Clear it of all the ver­biage, and that is the naked truth of his propo­si­tion,–that a thing may be law­ful­ly driv­en from the place where it has a law­ful right to stay. Well, it was be­cause the judge could n’t help see­ing this that he has had so much trou­ble with it; and what I want to ask your es­pe­cial at­ten­tion to, just now, is to re­mind you, if you have not no­ticed the fact, that the judge does not any longer say that the peo­ple can ex­clude slav­ery. He does not say so in the copy­right es­say; he did not say so in the speech that he made here; and, so far as I know, since his re-​elec­tion to the Sen­ate he has nev­er said, as he did at Freeport, that the peo­ple of the Ter­ri­to­ries can ex­clude slav­ery. He de­sires that you, who wish the Ter­ri­to­ries to re­main free, should be­lieve that he stands by that po­si­tion; but he does not say it him­self. He es­capes to some ex­tent the ab­surd po­si­tion I have stat­ed, by chang­ing his lan­guage en­tire­ly. What he says now is some­thing dif­fer­ent in lan­guage, and we will con­sid­er whether it is not dif­fer­ent in sense too. It is now that the Dred Scott de­ci­sion, or rather the Con­sti­tu­tion un­der that de­ci­sion, does not car­ry slav­ery in­to the Ter­ri­to­ries be­yond the pow­er of the peo­ple of the Ter­ri­to­ries to con­trol it as oth­er prop­er­ty. He does not say the peo­ple can drive it out, but they can con­trol it as oth­er prop­er­ty. The lan­guage is dif­fer­ent; we should con­sid­er whether the sense is dif­fer­ent. Driv­ing a horse out of this lot is too plain a propo­si­tion to be mis­tak­en about; it is putting him on the oth­er side of the fence. Or it might be a sort of ex­clu­sion of him from the lot if you were to kill him and let the worms de­vour him; but nei­ther of these things is the same as “con­trol­ling him as oth­er prop­er­ty.” That would be to feed him, to pam­per him, to ride him, to use and abuse him, to make the most mon­ey out of him, “as oth­er prop­er­ty”; but, please you, what do the men who are in fa­vor of slav­ery want more than this? What do they re­al­ly want, oth­er than that slav­ery, be­ing in the Ter­ri­to­ries, shall be con­trolled as oth­er prop­er­ty? If they want any­thing else, I do not com­pre­hend it. I ask your at­ten­tion to this, first, for the pur­pose of point­ing out the change of ground the judge has made; and, in the sec­ond place, the im­por­tance of the change,–that that change is not such as to give you gen­tle­men who want his pop­ular sovereign­ty the pow­er to ex­clude the in­sti­tu­tion or drive it out at all. I know the judge some­times squints at the ar­gu­ment that in con­trol­ling it as oth­er prop­er­ty by un­friend­ly leg­is­la­tion they may con­trol it to death; as you might, in the case of a horse, per­haps, feed him so light­ly and ride him so much that he would die. But when you come to leg­isla­tive con­trol, there is some­thing more to be at­tend­ed to. I have no doubt, my­self, that if the Ter­ri­to­ries should un­der­take to con­trol slave prop­er­ty as oth­er prop­er­ty that is, con­trol it in such a way that it would be the most valu­able as prop­er­ty, and make it bear its just pro­por­tion in the way of bur­dens as prop­er­ty, re­al­ly deal with it as prop­er­ty,–the Supreme Court of the Unit­ed States will say, “God speed you, and amen.” But I un­der­take to give the opin­ion, at least, that if the Ter­ri­to­ries at­tempt by any di­rect leg­is­la­tion to drive the man with his slave out of the Ter­ri­to­ry, or to de­cide that his slave is free be­cause of his be­ing tak­en in there, or to tax him to such an ex­tent that he can­not keep him there, the Supreme Court will un­hesi­tat­ing­ly de­cide all such leg­is­la­tion un­con­sti­tu­tion­al, as long as that Supreme Court is con­struct­ed as the Dred Scott Supreme Court is. The first two things they have al­ready de­cid­ed, ex­cept that there is a lit­tle quib­ble among lawyers be­tween the words “dic­ta” and “de­ci­sion.” They have al­ready de­cid­ed a ne­gro can­not be made free by Ter­ri­to­ri­al leg­is­la­tion.

What is the Dred Scott de­ci­sion? Judge Dou­glas labors to show that it is one thing, while I think it is al­to­geth­er dif­fer­ent. It is a long opin­ion, but it is all em­bod­ied in this short state­ment: “The Con­sti­tu­tion of the Unit­ed States for­bids Congress to de­prive a man of his prop­er­ty, with­out due pro­cess of law; the right of prop­er­ty in slaves is dis­tinct­ly and ex­press­ly af­firmed in that Con­sti­tu­tion: there­fore, if Congress shall un­der­take to say that a man’s slave is no longer his slave when he cross­es a cer­tain line in­to a Ter­ri­to­ry, that is de­priv­ing him of his prop­er­ty with­out due pro­cess of law, and is un­con­sti­tu­tion­al.” There is the whole Dred Scott de­ci­sion. They add that if Congress can­not do so it­self, Congress can­not con­fer any pow­er to do so; and hence any ef­fort by the Ter­ri­to­ri­al Leg­is­la­ture to do ei­ther of these things is ab­so­lute­ly de­cid­ed against. It is a fore­gone con­clu­sion by that court.

Now, as to this in­di­rect mode by “un­friend­ly leg­is­la­tion,” all lawyers here will read­ily un­der­stand that such a propo­si­tion can­not be tol­er­at­ed for a mo­ment, be­cause a leg­is­la­ture can­not in­di­rect­ly do that which it can­not ac­com­plish di­rect­ly. Then I say any leg­is­la­tion to con­trol this prop­er­ty, as prop­er­ty, for its ben­efit as prop­er­ty, would be hailed by this Dred Scott Supreme Court, and ful­ly sus­tained; but any leg­is­la­tion driv­ing slave prop­er­ty out, or de­stroy­ing it as prop­er­ty, di­rect­ly or in­di­rect­ly, will most as­sured­ly, by that court, be held un­con­sti­tu­tion­al.

Judge Dou­glas says if the Con­sti­tu­tion car­ries slav­ery in­to the Ter­ri­to­ries, be­yond the pow­er of the peo­ple of the Ter­ri­to­ries to con­trol it as oth­er prop­er­ty; then it fol­lows log­ical­ly that ev­ery one who swears to sup­port the Con­sti­tu­tion of the Unit­ed States must give that sup­port to that prop­er­ty which it needs. And, if the Con­sti­tu­tion car­ries slav­ery in­to the Ter­ri­to­ries, be­yond the pow­er of the peo­ple, to con­trol it as oth­er prop­er­ty, then it al­so car­ries it in­to the States, be­cause the Con­sti­tu­tion is the supreme law of the land. Now, gen­tle­men, if it were not for my ex­ces­sive mod­esty, I would say that I told that very thing to Judge Dou­glas quite a year ago. This ar­gu­ment is here in print, and if it were not for my mod­esty, as I said, I might call your at­ten­tion to it. If you read it, you will find that I not on­ly made that ar­gu­ment, but made it bet­ter than he has made it since.

There is, how­ev­er, this dif­fer­ence: I say now, and said then, there is no sort of ques­tion that the Supreme Court has de­cid­ed that it is the right of the slave hold­er to take his slave and hold him in the Ter­ri­to­ry; and say­ing this, judge Dou­glas him­self ad­mits the con­clu­sion. He says if that is so, this con­se­quence will fol­low; and be­cause this con­se­quence would fol­low, his ar­gu­ment is, the de­ci­sion can­not, there­fore, be that way,–” that would spoil my pop­ular sovereign­ty; and it can­not be pos­si­ble that this great prin­ci­ple has been squelched out in this ex­traor­di­nary way. It might be, if it were not for the ex­traor­di­nary con­se­quences of spoil­ing my hum­bug.”

An­oth­er fea­ture of the judge’s ar­gu­ment about the Dred Scott case is, an ef­fort to show that that de­ci­sion deals al­to­geth­er in dec­la­ra­tions of neg­atives; that the Con­sti­tu­tion does not af­firm any­thing as ex­pound­ed by the Dred Scott de­ci­sion, but it on­ly de­clares a want of pow­er a to­tal ab­sence of pow­er, in ref­er­ence to the Ter­ri­to­ries. It seems to be his pur­pose to make the whole of that de­ci­sion to re­sult in a mere neg­ative dec­la­ra­tion of a want of pow­er in Congress to do any­thing in re­la­tion to this mat­ter in the Ter­ri­to­ries. I know the opin­ion of the Judges states that there is a to­tal ab­sence of pow­er; but that is, un­for­tu­nate­ly; not all it states: for the judges add that the right of prop­er­ty in a slave is dis­tinct­ly and ex­press­ly af­firmed in the Con­sti­tu­tion. It does not stop at say­ing that the right of prop­er­ty in a slave is rec­og­nized in the Con­sti­tu­tion, is de­clared to ex­ist some­where in the Con­sti­tu­tion, but says it is af­firmed in the Con­sti­tu­tion. Its lan­guage is equiv­alent to say­ing that it is em­bod­ied and so wo­ven in that in­stru­ment that it can­not be de­tached with­out break­ing the Con­sti­tu­tion it­self. In a word, it is part of the Con­sti­tu­tion.

Dou­glas is sin­gu­lar­ly un­for­tu­nate in his ef­fort to make out that de­ci­sion to be al­to­geth­er neg­ative, when the ex­press lan­guage at the vi­tal part is that this is dis­tinct­ly af­firmed in the Con­sti­tu­tion. I think my­self, and I re­peat it here, that this de­ci­sion does not mere­ly car­ry slav­ery in­to the Ter­ri­to­ries, but by its log­ical con­clu­sion it car­ries it in­to the States in which we live. One pro­vi­sion of that Con­sti­tu­tion is, that it shall be the supreme law of the land,–I do not quote the lan­guage,–any con­sti­tu­tion or law of any State to the con­trary notwith­stand­ing. This Dred Scott de­ci­sion says that the right of prop­er­ty in a slave is af­firmed in that Con­sti­tu­tion which is the supreme law of the land, any State con­sti­tu­tion or law notwith­stand­ing. Then I say that to de­stroy a thing which is dis­tinct­ly af­firmed and sup­port­ed by the supreme law of the land, even by a State con­sti­tu­tion or law, is a vi­ola­tion of that supreme law, and there is no es­cape from it. In my judg­ment there is no avoid­ing that re­sult, save that the Amer­ican peo­ple shall see that con­sti­tu­tions are bet­ter con­strued than our Con­sti­tu­tion is con­strued in that de­ci­sion. They must take care that it is more faith­ful­ly and tru­ly car­ried out than it is there ex­pound­ed.

I must has­ten to a con­clu­sion. Near the be­gin­ning of my re­marks I said that this in­sid­ious Dou­glas pop­ular sovereign­ty is the mea­sure that now threat­ens the pur­pose of the Re­pub­li­can par­ty to pre­vent slav­ery from be­ing na­tion­al­ized in the Unit­ed States. I pro­pose to ask your at­ten­tion for a lit­tle while to some propo­si­tions in af­fir­mance of that state­ment. Take it just as it stands, and ap­ply it as a prin­ci­ple; ex­tend and ap­ply that prin­ci­ple else­where; and con­sid­er where it will lead you. I now put this propo­si­tion, that Judge Dou­glas’s pop­ular sovereign­ty ap­plied will re­open the African slave trade; and I will demon­strate it by any va­ri­ety of ways in which you can turn the sub­ject or look at it.

The Judge says that the peo­ple of the Ter­ri­to­ries have the right, by his prin­ci­ple, to have slaves, if they want them. Then I say that the peo­ple in Geor­gia have the right to buy slaves in Africa, if they want them; and I de­fy any man on earth to show any dis­tinc­tion be­tween the two things,–to show that the one is ei­ther more wicked or more un­law­ful; to show, on orig­inal prin­ci­ples, that one is bet­ter or worse than the oth­er; or to show, by the Con­sti­tu­tion, that one dif­fers a whit from the oth­er. He will tell me, doubt­less, that there is no con­sti­tu­tion­al pro­vi­sion against peo­ple tak­ing slaves in­to the new Ter­ri­to­ries, and I tell him that there is equal­ly no con­sti­tu­tion­al pro­vi­sion against buy­ing slaves in Africa. He will tell you that a peo­ple, in the ex­er­cise of pop­ular sovereign­ty, ought to do as they please about that thing, and have slaves if they want them; and I tell you that the peo­ple of Geor­gia are as much en­ti­tled to pop­ular sovereign­ty and to buy slaves in Africa, if they want them, as the peo­ple of the Ter­ri­to­ry are to have slaves if they want them. I ask any man, deal­ing hon­est­ly with him­self, to point out a dis­tinc­tion.

I have re­cent­ly seen a let­ter of Judge Dou­glas’s in which, with­out stat­ing that to be the ob­ject, he doubt­less en­deav­ors to make a dis­tinc­tion be­tween the two. He says he is un­al­ter­ably op­posed to the re­peal of the laws against the African slave trade. And why? He then seeks to give a rea­son that would not ap­ply to his pop­ular sovereign­ty in the Ter­ri­to­ries. What is that rea­son? “The abo­li­tion of the African slave trade is a com­pro­mise of the Con­sti­tu­tion!” I de­ny it. There is no truth in the propo­si­tion that the abo­li­tion of the African slave trade is a com­pro­mise of the Con­sti­tu­tion. No man can put his fin­ger on any­thing in the Con­sti­tu­tion, or on the line of his­to­ry, which shows it. It is a mere bar­ren as­ser­tion, made sim­ply for the pur­pose of get­ting up a dis­tinc­tion be­tween the re­vival of the African slave trade and his “great prin­ci­ple.”

At the time the Con­sti­tu­tion of the Unit­ed States was adopt­ed, it was ex­pect­ed that the slave trade would be abol­ished. I should as­sert and in­sist up­on that, if judge Dou­glas de­nied it. But I know that it was equal­ly ex­pect­ed that slav­ery would be ex­clud­ed from the Ter­ri­to­ries, and I can show by his­to­ry that in re­gard to these two things pub­lic opin­ion was ex­act­ly alike, while in re­gard to pos­itive ac­tion, there was more done in the Or­di­nance of ‘87 to re­sist the spread of slav­ery than was ev­er done to abol­ish the for­eign slave trade. Lest I be mis­un­der­stood, I say again that at the time of the for­ma­tion of the Con­sti­tu­tion, pub­lic ex­pec­ta­tion was that the slave trade would be abol­ished, but no more so than the spread of slav­ery in the Ter­ri­to­ries should be re­strained. They stand alike, ex­cept that in the Or­di­nance of ‘87 there was a mark left by pub­lic opin­ion, show­ing that it was more com­mit­ted against the spread of slav­ery in the Ter­ri­to­ries than against the for­eign slave trade.

Com­pro­mise! What word of com­pro­mise was there about it? Why, the pub­lic sense was then in fa­vor of the abo­li­tion of the slave trade; but there was at the time a very great com­mer­cial in­ter­est in­volved in it, and ex­ten­sive cap­ital in that branch of trade. There were doubt­less the in­cip­ient stages of im­prove­ment in the South in the way of farm­ing, de­pen­dent on the slave trade, and they made a propo­si­tion to Congress to abol­ish the trade af­ter al­low­ing it twen­ty years,–a suf­fi­cient time for the cap­ital and com­merce en­gaged in it to be trans­ferred to oth­er chan­nel. They made no pro­vi­sion that it should be abol­ished in twen­ty years; I do not doubt that they ex­pect­ed it would be, but they made no bar­gain about it. The pub­lic sen­ti­ment left no doubt in the minds of any that it would be done away. I re­peat, there is noth­ing in the his­to­ry of those times in fa­vor of that mat­ter be­ing a com­pro­mise of the con­sti­tu­tion. It was the pub­lic ex­pec­ta­tion at the time, man­ifest­ed in a thou­sand ways, that the spread of slav­ery should al­so be re­strict­ed.

Then I say, if this prin­ci­ple is es­tab­lished, that there is no wrong in slav­ery, and who­ev­er wants it has a right to have it, is a mat­ter of dol­lars and cents, a sort of ques­tion as to how they shall deal with brutes, that be­tween us and the ne­gro here there is no sort of ques­tion, but that at the South the ques­tion is be­tween the ne­gro and the crocodile, that is all, it is a mere mat­ter of pol­icy, there is a per­fect right, ac­cord­ing to in­ter­est, to do just as you please,–when this is done, where this doc­trine pre­vails, the min­ers and sap­pers will have formed pub­lic opin­ion for the slave trade. They will be ready for Jeff. Davis and Stephens and oth­er lead­ers of that com­pa­ny to sound the bu­gle for the re­vival of the slave trade, for the sec­ond Dred Scott de­ci­sion, for the flood of slav­ery to be poured over the free States, while we shall be here tied down and help­less and run over like sheep.

It is to be a part and par­cel of this same idea to say to men who want to ad­here to the Demo­crat­ic par­ty, who have al­ways be­longed to that par­ty, and are on­ly look­ing about for some ex­cuse to stick to it, but nev­er­the­less hate slav­ery, that Dou­glas’s pop­ular sovereign­ty is as good a way as any to op­pose slav­ery. They al­low them­selves to be per­suad­ed eas­ily, in ac­cor­dance with their pre­vi­ous dis­po­si­tions, in­to this be­lief, that it is about as good a way of op­pos­ing slav­ery as any, and we can do that with­out strain­ing our old par­ty ties or break­ing up old po­lit­ical as­so­ci­ations. We can do so with­out be­ing called ne­gro-​wor­shipers. We can do that with­out be­ing sub­ject­ed to the jibes and sneers that are so read­ily thrown out in place of ar­gu­ment where no ar­gue­ment can be found. So let us stick to this pop­ular sovereign­ty,–this in­sid­ious pop­ular sovereign­ty.

Now let me call your at­ten­tion to one thing that has re­al­ly hap­pened, which shows this grad­ual and steady de­bauch­ing of pub­lic opin­ion, this course of prepa­ra­tion for the re­vival of the slave trade, for the Ter­ri­to­ri­al slave code, and the new Dred Scott de­ci­sion that is to car­ry slav­ery in­to the Free States. Did you ev­er, five years ago, hear of any­body in the world say­ing that the ne­gro had no share in the Dec­la­ra­tion of Na­tion­al In­de­pen­dence; that it does not mean ne­groes at all; and when “all men” were spo­ken of, ne­groes were not in­clud­ed?

I am sat­is­fied that five years ago that propo­si­tion was not put up­on pa­per by any liv­ing be­ing any­where. I have been un­able at any time to find a man in an au­di­ence who would de­clare that he had ev­er known of any­body say­ing so five years ago. But last year there was not a Dou­glas pop­ular sovereign in Illi­nois who did not say it. Is there one in Ohio but de­clares his firm be­lief that the Dec­la­ra­tion of In­de­pen­dence did not mean ne­groes at all? I do not know how this is; I have not been here much; but I pre­sume you are very much alike ev­ery­where. Then I sup­pose that all now ex­press the be­lief that the Dec­la­ra­tion of In­de­pen­dence nev­er did mean ne­groes. I call up­on one of them to say that he said it five years ago.

If you think that now, and did not think it then, the next thing that strikes me is to re­mark that there has been a change wrought in you,- -and a very sig­nif­icant change it is, be­ing no less than chang­ing the ne­gro, in your es­ti­ma­tion, from the rank of a man to that of a brute. They are tak­ing him down and plac­ing him, when spo­ken of, among rep­tiles and crocodiles, as Judge Dou­glas him­self ex­press­es it.

Is not this change wrought in your minds a very im­por­tant change? Pub­lic opin­ion in this coun­try is ev­ery­thing. In a na­tion like ours, this pop­ular sovereign­ty and squat­ter sovereign­ty have al­ready wrought a change in the pub­lic mind to the ex­tent I have stat­ed. There is no man in this crowd who can con­tra­dict it.

Now, if you are op­posed to slav­ery hon­est­ly, as much as any­body, I ask you to note that fact, and the like of which is to fol­low, to be plas­tered on, lay­er af­ter lay­er, un­til very soon you are pre­pared to deal with the ne­gro ev­ery where as with the brute. If pub­lic sen­ti­ment has not been de­bauched al­ready to this point, a new turn of the screw in that di­rec­tion is all that is want­ing; and this is con­stant­ly be­ing done by the teach­ers of this in­sid­ious pop­ular sovereign­ty. You need but one or two turns fur­ther, un­til your minds, now ripen­ing un­der these teach­ings, will be ready for all these things, and you will re­ceive and sup­port, or sub­mit to, the slave trade, re­vived with all its hor­rors, a slave code en­forced in our Ter­ri­to­ries, and a new Dred Scott de­ci­sion to bring slav­ery up in­to the very heart of the free North. This, I must say, is but car­ry­ing out those words prophet­ical­ly spo­ken by Mr. Clay,–many, many years ago,–I be­lieve more than thir­ty years, when he told an au­di­ence that if they would re­press all ten­den­cies to lib­er­ty and ul­ti­mate eman­ci­pa­tion they must go back to the era of our in­de­pen­dence, and muz­zle the can­non which thun­dered its an­nu­al joy­ous re­turn on the Fourth of Ju­ly; they must blow out the moral lights around us; they must pen­etrate the hu­man soul, and erad­icate the love of lib­er­ty: but un­til they did these things, and oth­ers elo­quent­ly enu­mer­at­ed by him, they could not re­press all ten­den­cies to ul­ti­mate eman­ci­pa­tion.

I ask at­ten­tion to the fact that in a pre-​em­inent de­gree these pop­ular sovereigns are at this work: blow­ing out the moral lights around us; teach­ing that the ne­gro is no longer a man, but a brute; that the Dec­la­ra­tion has noth­ing to do with him; that he ranks with the crocodile and the rep­tile; that man, with body and soul, is a mat­ter of dol­lars and cents. I sug­gest to this por­tion of the Ohio Re­pub­li­cans, or Democrats, if there be any present, the se­ri­ous con­sid­er­ation of this fact that there is now go­ing on among you a steady pro­cess of de­bauch­ing pub­lic opin­ion on this sub­ject. With this, my friends, I bid you adieu.

SPEECH AT CINCIN­NATI OHIO, SEPTEM­BER 17, 1859

My Fel­low-​Cit­izens of the State of Ohio: This is the first time in my life that I have ap­peared be­fore an au­di­ence in so great a city as this: I there­fore–though I am no longer a young man–make this ap­pear­ance un­der some de­gree of em­bar­rass­ment. But I have found that when one is em­bar­rassed, usu­al­ly the short­est way to get through with it is to quit talk­ing or think­ing about it, and go at some­thing else.

I un­der­stand that you have had re­cent­ly with you my very dis­tin­guished friend Judge Dou­glas, of Illi­nois; and I un­der­stand, with­out hav­ing had an op­por­tu­ni­ty (not great­ly sought, to be sure) of see­ing a re­port of the speech that he made here, that he did me the hon­or to men­tion my hum­ble name. I sup­pose that he did so for the pur­pose of mak­ing some ob­jec­tion to some sen­ti­ment at some time ex­pressed by me. I should ex­pect, it is true, that judge Dou­glas had re­mind­ed you, or in­formed you, if you had nev­er be­fore heard it, that I had once in my life de­clared it as my opin­ion that this gov­ern­ment can­not en­dure per­ma­nent­ly, half slave and half free; that a house di­vid­ed against it­self can­not stand, and, as I had ex­pressed it, I did not ex­pect the house to fall, that I did not ex­pect the Union to be dis­solved, but that I did ex­pect that it would cease to be di­vid­ed, that it would be­come all one thing, or all the oth­er; that ei­ther the op­po­nents of slav­ery would ar­rest the fur­ther spread of it, and place it where the pub­lic mind would rest in the be­lief that it was in the course of ul­ti­mate ex­tinc­tion, or the friends of slav­ery will push it for­ward un­til it be­comes alike law­ful in all the States, old or new, free as well as slave. I did, fif­teen months ago, ex­press that opin­ion, and up­on many oc­ca­sions Judge Dou­glas has de­nounced it, and has great­ly, in­ten­tion­al­ly or un­in­ten­tion­al­ly, mis­rep­re­sent­ed my pur­pose in the ex­pres­sion of that opin­ion.

I pre­sume, with­out hav­ing seen a re­port of his speech, that he did so here. I pre­sume that he al­lud­ed al­so to that opin­ion, in dif­fer­ent lan­guage, hav­ing been ex­pressed at a sub­se­quent time by Gov­er­nor Se­ward of New York, and that he took the two in a lump and de­nounced them; that he tried to point out that there was some­thing couched in this opin­ion which led to the mak­ing of an en­tire uni­for­mi­ty of the lo­cal in­sti­tu­tions of the var­ious States of the Union, in ut­ter dis­re­gard of the dif­fer­ent States, which in their na­ture would seem to re­quire a va­ri­ety of in­sti­tu­tions and a va­ri­ety of laws, con­form­ing to the dif­fer­ences in the na­ture of the dif­fer­ent States.

Not on­ly so: I pre­sume he in­sist­ed that this was a dec­la­ra­tion of war be­tween the free and slave States, that it was the sound­ing to the on­set of con­tin­ual war be­tween the dif­fer­ent States, the slave and free States.

This charge, in this form, was made by Judge Dou­glas on, I be­lieve, the 9th of Ju­ly, 1858, in Chica­go, in my hear­ing. On the next evening, I made some re­ply to it. I in­formed him that many of the in­fer­ences he drew from that ex­pres­sion of mine were al­to­geth­er for­eign to any pur­pose en­ter­tained by me, and in so far as he should as­cribe these in­fer­ences to me, as my pur­pose, he was en­tire­ly mis­tak­en; and in so far as he might ar­gue that, what­ev­er might be my pur­pose, ac­tions con­form­ing to my views would lead to these re­sults, he might ar­gue and es­tab­lish if he could; but, so far as pur­pos­es were con­cerned, he was to­tal­ly mis­tak­en as to me.

When I made that re­ply to him, I told him, on the ques­tion of declar­ing war be­tween the dif­fer­ent States of the Union, that I had not said that I did not ex­pect any peace up­on this ques­tion un­til slav­ery was ex­ter­mi­nat­ed; that I had on­ly said I ex­pect­ed peace when that in­sti­tu­tion was put where the pub­lic mind should rest in the be­lief that it was in course of ul­ti­mate ex­tinc­tion; that I be­lieved, from the or­ga­ni­za­tion of our gov­ern­ment un­til a very re­cent pe­ri­od of time, the in­sti­tu­tion had been placed and con­tin­ued up­on such a ba­sis; that we had had com­par­ative peace up­on that ques­tion through a por­tion of that pe­ri­od of time, on­ly be­cause the pub­lic mind rest­ed in that be­lief in re­gard to it, and that when we re­turned to that po­si­tion in re­la­tion to that mat­ter, I sup­posed we should again have peace as we pre­vi­ous­ly had. I as­sured him, as I now, as­sure you, that I nei­ther then had, nor have, or ev­er had, any pur­pose in any way of in­ter­fer­ing with the in­sti­tu­tion of slav­ery, where it ex­ists. I be­lieve we have no pow­er, un­der the Con­sti­tu­tion of the Unit­ed States, or rather un­der the form of gov­ern­ment un­der which we live, to in­ter­fere with the in­sti­tu­tion of slav­ery, or any oth­er of the in­sti­tu­tions of our sis­ter States, be they free or slave States. I de­clared then, and I now re-​de­clare, that I have as lit­tle in­cli­na­tion to in­ter­fere with the in­sti­tu­tion of slav­ery where it now ex­ists, through the in­stru­men­tal­ity of the Gen­er­al Gov­ern­ment, or any oth­er in­stru­men­tal­ity, as I be­lieve we have no pow­er to do so. I ac­ci­den­tal­ly used this ex­pres­sion: I had no pur­pose of en­ter­ing in­to the slave States to dis­turb the in­sti­tu­tion of slav­ery. So, up­on the first oc­ca­sion that Judge Dou­glas got an op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­ply to me, he passed by the whole body of what I had said up­on that sub­ject, and seized up­on the par­tic­ular ex­pres­sion of mine that I had no pur­pose of en­ter­ing in­to the slave States to dis­turb the in­sti­tu­tion of slav­ery. “Oh, no,” said he, “he [Lin­coln] won’t en­ter in­to the slave States to dis­turb the in­sti­tu­tion of slav­ery, he is too pru­dent a man to do such a thing as that; he on­ly means that he will go on to the line be­tween the free and slave States, and shoot over at them. This is all he means to do. He means to do them all the harm he can, to dis­turb them all he can, in such a way as to keep his own hide in per­fect safe­ty.”

Well, now, I did not think, at that time, that that was ei­ther a very dig­ni­fied or very log­ical ar­gu­ment but so it was, I had to get along with it as well as I could.

It has oc­curred to-​me here to-​night that if I ev­er do shoot over the line at the peo­ple on the oth­er side of the line in­to a slave State, and pur­pose to do so, keep­ing my skin safe, that I have now about the best chance I shall ev­er have. I should not won­der if there are some Ken­tuck­ians about this au­di­ence–we are close to Ken­tucky; and whether that be so or not, we are on el­evat­ed ground, and, by speak­ing dis­tinct­ly, I should not won­der if some of the Ken­tuck­ians would hear me on the oth­er side of the riv­er. For that rea­son I pro­pose to ad­dress a por­tion of what I have to say to the Ken­tuck­ians.

I say, then, in the first place, to the Ken­tuck­ians, that I am what they call, as I un­der­stand it, a “Black Re­pub­li­can.” I think slav­ery is wrong, moral­ly and po­lit­ical­ly. I de­sire that it should be no fur­ther spread in–these Unit­ed States, and I should not ob­ject if it should grad­ual­ly ter­mi­nate in the whole Union. While I say this for my­self, I say to you Ken­tuck­ians that I un­der­stand you dif­fer rad­ical­ly with me up­on this propo­si­tion; that you be­lieve slav­ery is a good thing; that slav­ery is right; that it ought to be ex­tend­ed and per­pet­uat­ed in this Union. Now, there be­ing this broad dif­fer­ence be­tween us, I do not pre­tend, in ad­dress­ing my­self to you Ken­tuck­ians, to at­tempt pros­elyt­ing you; that would be a vain ef­fort. I do not en­ter up­on it. I on­ly pro­pose to try to show you that you ought to nom­inate for the next Pres­iden­cy, at Charleston, my dis­tin­guished friend Judge Dou­glas. In all that there is a dif­fer­ence be­tween you and him, I un­der­stand he is sin­cere­ly for you, and more wise­ly for you than you are for your­selves. I will try to demon­strate that propo­si­tion. Un­der­stand, now, I say that I be­lieve he is as sin­cere­ly for you, and more wise­ly for you, than you are for your­selves.

What do you want more than any­thing else to make suc­cess­ful your views of slav­ery,–to ad­vance the out­spread of it, and to se­cure and per­pet­uate the na­tion­al­ity of it? What do you want more than any­thing else? What–is need­ed ab­so­lute­ly? What is in­dis­pens­able to you? Why, if I may, be al­lowed to an­swer the ques­tion, it is to re­tain a hold up­on the North, it is to re­tain sup­port and strength from the free States. If you can get this sup­port and strength from the free States, you can suc­ceed. If you do not get this sup­port and this strength from the free States, you are in the mi­nor­ity, and you are beat­en at once.

If that propo­si­tion be ad­mit­ted,–and it is un­de­ni­able,–then the next thing I say to you is, that Dou­glas, of all the men in this na­tion, is the on­ly man that af­fords you any hold up­on the free States; that no oth­er man can give you any strength in the free States. This be­ing so, if you doubt the oth­er branch of the propo­si­tion, whether he is for you–whether he is re­al­ly for you, as I have ex­pressed it,–I pro­pose ask­ing your at­ten­tion for a while to a few facts.

The is­sue be­tween you and me, un­der­stand, is, that I think slav­ery is wrong, and ought not to be out­spread; and you think it is right, and ought to be ex­tend­ed and per­pet­uat­ed. [A voice, “Oh, Lord!”] That is my Ken­tuck­ian I am talk­ing to now.

I now pro­ceed to try to show you that Dou­glas is as sin­cere­ly for you and more wise­ly for you than you are for your­selves.

In the first place, we know that in a gov­ern­ment like this, in a gov­ern­ment of the peo­ple, where the voice of all the men of the coun­try, sub­stan­tial­ly, en­ters in­to the ex­ecu­tion–or ad­min­is­tra­tion, rather–of the gov­ern­ment, in such a gov­ern­ment, what lies at the bot­tom of all of it is pub­lic opin­ion. I lay down the propo­si­tion, that Judge Dou­glas is not on­ly the man that promis­es you in ad­vance a hold up­on the North, and sup­port in the North, but he con­stant­ly moulds pub­lic opin­ion to your ends; that in ev­ery pos­si­ble way he can he con­stant­ly moulds the pub­lic opin­ion of the North to your ends; and if there are a few things in which he seems to be against you,- -a, few things which he says that ap­pear to be against you, and a few that he for­bears to say which you would like to have him say you ought to re­mem­ber that the say­ing of the one, or the for­bear­ing to say the oth­er, would lose his hold up­on the North, and, by con­se­quence, would lose his ca­pac­ity to serve you.

Up­on this sub­ject of mould­ing pub­lic opin­ion I call your at­ten­tion to the fact–for a well es­tab­lished fact it is–that the Judge nev­er says your in­sti­tu­tion of slav­ery is wrong. There is not a pub­lic man in the Unit­ed States, I be­lieve, with the ex­cep­tion of Sen­ator Dou­glas, who has not, at some time in his life, de­clared his opin­ion whether the thing is right or wrong; but Sen­ator Dou­glas nev­er de­clares it is wrong. He leaves him­self at per­fect lib­er­ty to do all in your fa­vor which he would be hin­dered from do­ing if he were to de­clare the thing to be wrong. On the con­trary, he takes all the chances that he has for in­vei­gling the sen­ti­ment of the North, op­posed to slav­ery, in­to your sup­port, by nev­er say­ing it is right. This you ought to set down to his cred­it: You ought to give him full cred­it for this much; lit­tle though it be, in com­par­ison to the whole which he does for you.

Some oth­er, things I will ask your at­ten­tion to. He said up­on the floor of the Unit­ed States Sen­ate, and he has re­peat­ed it, as I un­der­stand, a great many times, that he does not care whether slav­ery is “vot­ed up or vot­ed down.” This again shows you, or ought to show you, if you would rea­son up­on it, that he does not be­lieve it to be wrong; for a man may say when he sees noth­ing wrong in a thing; that he, dues not care whether it be vot­ed up or vot­ed down but no man can log­ical­ly say that he cares not whether a thing goes up or goes down which to him ap­pears to be wrong. You there­fore have a demon­stra­tion in this that to Judge Dou­glas’s mind your fa­vorite in­sti­tu­tion, which you would have spread out and made per­pet­ual, is no wrong.

An­oth­er thing he tells you, in a speech made at Mem­phis in Ten­nessee, short­ly af­ter the can­vass in Illi­nois, last year. He there dis­tinct­ly told the peo­ple that there was a “line drawn by the Almighty across this con­ti­nent, on the one side of which the soil must al­ways be cul­ti­vat­ed by slaves”; that he did not pre­tend to know ex­act­ly where that line was, but that there was such a line. I want to ask your at­ten­tion to that propo­si­tion again; that there is one por­tion of this con­ti­nent where the Almighty has signed the soil shall al­ways be cul­ti­vat­ed by slaves; that its be­ing cul­ti­vat­ed by slaves at that place is right; that it has the di­rect sym­pa­thy and au­thor­ity of the Almighty. When­ev­er you can get these North­ern au­di­ences to adopt the opin­ion that slav­ery is right on the oth­er side of the Ohio, when­ev­er you can get them, in pur­suance of Dou­glas’s views, to adopt that sen­ti­ment, they will very read­ily make the oth­er ar­gu­ment, which is per­fect­ly log­ical, that that which is right on that side of the Ohio can­not be wrong on this, and that if you have that prop­er­ty on that side of the Ohio, un­der the seal and stamp of the Almighty, when by any means it es­capes over here it is wrong to have con­sti­tu­tions and laws “to dev­il” you about it. So Dou­glas is mould­ing the pub­lic opin­ion of the North, first to say that the thing is right in your State over the Ohio Riv­er, and hence to say that that which is right there is not wrong here, and that all laws and con­sti­tu­tions here rec­og­niz­ing it as be­ing wrong are them­selves wrong, and ought to be re­pealed and ab­ro­gat­ed. He will tell you, men of Ohio, that if you choose here to have laws against slav­ery, it is in con­for­mi­ty to the idea that your cli­mate is not suit­ed to it, that your cli­mate is not suit­ed to slave la­bor, and there­fore you have con­sti­tu­tions and laws against it.

Let us at­tend to that ar­gu­ment for a lit­tle while and see if it be sound. You do not raise sug­ar-​cane (ex­cept the new-​fash­ioned sug­ar-​cane, and you won’t raise that long), but they do raise it in Louisiana. You don’t raise it in Ohio, be­cause you can’t raise it prof­itably, be­cause the cli­mate don’t suit it. They do raise it in Louisiana, be­cause there it is prof­itable. Now, Dou­glas will tell you that is pre­cise­ly the slav­ery ques­tion: that they do have slaves there be­cause they are prof­itable, and you don’t have them here be­cause they are not prof­itable. If that is so, then it leads to deal­ing with the one pre­cise­ly as with the oth­er. Is there, then, any­thing in the con­sti­tu­tion or laws of Ohio against rais­ing sug­ar-​cane? Have you found it nec­es­sary to put any such pro­vi­sion in your law? Sure­ly not! No man de­sires to raise sug­ar-​cane in Ohio, but if any man did de­sire to do so, you would say it was a tyran­ni­cal law that for­bids his do­ing so; and when­ev­er you shall agree with Dou­glas, when­ev­er your minds are brought to adopt his ar­gu­ment, as sure­ly you will have reached the con­clu­sion that al­though it is not prof­itable in Ohio, if any man wants it, is wrong to him not to let him have it.

In this mat­ter Judge Dou­glas is prepar­ing the pub­lic mind for you of Ken­tucky to make per­pet­ual that good thing in your es­ti­ma­tion, about which you and I dif­fer.

In this con­nec­tion, let me ask your at­ten­tion to an­oth­er thing. I be­lieve it is safe to as­sert that five years ago no liv­ing man had ex­pressed the opin­ion that the ne­gro had no share in the Dec­la­ra­tion of In­de­pen­dence. Let me state that again: five years ago no liv­ing man had ex­pressed the opin­ion that the ne­gro had no share in the Dec­la­ra­tion of In­de­pen­dence. If there is in this large au­di­ence any man who ev­er knew of that opin­ion be­ing put up­on pa­per as much as five years ago, I will be obliged to him now or at a sub­se­quent time to show it.

If that be true I wish you then to note the next fact: that with­in the space of five years Sen­ator Dou­glas, in the ar­gu­ment of this ques­tion, has got his en­tire par­ty, so far as I know, with­out ex­cep­tion, in say­ing that the ne­gro has no share in the Dec­la­ra­tion of In­de­pen­dence. If there be now in all these Unit­ed States one Dou­glas man that does not say this, I have been un­able up­on any oc­ca­sion to scare him up. Now, if none of you said this five years ago, and all of you say it now, that is a mat­ter that you Ken­tuck­ians ought to note. That is a vast change in the North­ern pub­lic sen­ti­ment up­on that ques­tion.

Of what ten­den­cy is that change? The ten­den­cy of that change is to bring the pub­lic mind to the con­clu­sion that when men are spo­ken of, the ne­gro is not meant; that when ne­groes are spo­ken of, brutes alone are con­tem­plat­ed. That change in pub­lic sen­ti­ment has al­ready de­grad­ed the black man in the es­ti­ma­tion of Dou­glas and his fol­low­ers from the con­di­tion of a man of some sort, and as­signed him to the con­di­tion of a brute. Now, you Ken­tuck­ians ought to give Dou­glas cred­it for this. That is the largest pos­si­ble stride that can be made in re­gard to the per­pet­ua­tion of your thing of slav­ery.

A voice: Speak to Ohio men, and not to Ken­tuck­ians!

Mr. LIN­COLN: I beg per­mis­sion to speak as I please.

In Ken­tucky per­haps, in many of the slave States cer­tain­ly, you are try­ing to es­tab­lish the right­ful­ness of slav­ery by ref­er­ence to the Bible. You are try­ing to show that slav­ery ex­ist­ed in the Bible times by di­vine or­di­nance. Now, Dou­glas is wis­er than you, for your own ben­efit, up­on that sub­ject. Dou­glas knows that when­ev­er you es­tab­lish that slav­ery was–right by the Bible, it will oc­cur that that slav­ery was the slav­ery of the white man, of men with­out ref­er­ence to col­or; and he knows very well that you may en­ter­tain that idea in Ken­tucky as much as you please, but you will nev­er win any North­ern sup­port up­on it. He makes a wis­er ar­gu­ment for you: he makes the ar­gu­ment that the slav­ery of the black man; the slav­ery of the man who has a skin of a dif­fer­ent col­or from your own, is right. He there­by brings to your sup­port North­ern vot­ers who could not for a mo­ment be brought by your own ar­gu­ment of the Bible right of slav­ery. Will you give him cred­it for that? Will you not say that in this mat­ter he is more wise­ly for you than you are for your­selves?

Now, hav­ing es­tab­lished with his en­tire par­ty this doc­trine, hav­ing been en­tire­ly suc­cess­ful in that branch of his ef­forts in your be­half, he is ready for an­oth­er.

At this same meet­ing at Mem­phis he de­clared that in all con­tests be­tween the ne­gro and the white man he was for the white man, but that in all ques­tions be­tween the ne­gro and the crocodile he was for the ne­gro. He did not make that dec­la­ra­tion ac­ci­den­tal­ly at Mem­phis. He made it a great many times in the can­vass in Illi­nois last year (though I don’t know that it was re­port­ed in any of his speech­es there, but he fre­quent­ly made it). I be­lieve he re­peat­ed it at Colum­bus, and I should not won­der if be re­peat­ed it here. It is, then, a de­lib­er­ate way of ex­press­ing him­self up­on that sub­ject. It is a mat­ter of ma­ture de­lib­er­ation with him thus to ex­press him­self up­on that point of his case. It there­fore re­quires de­lib­er­ate at­ten­tion.

The first in­fer­ence seems to be that if you do not en­slave the ne­gro, you are wrong­ing the white man in some way or oth­er, and that who­ev­er is op­posed to the ne­gro be­ing en­slaved, is, in some way or oth­er, against the white man. Is not that a false­hood? If there was a nec­es­sary con­flict be­tween the white man and the ne­gro, I should be for the white man as much as Judge Dou­glas; but I say there is no such nec­es­sary con­flict. I say that there is room enough for us all to be free, and that it not on­ly does not wrong the white man that the ne­gro should be free, but it pos­itive­ly wrongs the mass of the white men that the ne­gro should be en­slaved; that the mass of white men are re­al­ly in­jured by the ef­fects of slave la­bor in the vicin­ity of the fields of their own la­bor.

But I do not de­sire to dwell up­on this branch of the ques­tion more than to say that this as­sump­tion of his is false, and I do hope that that fal­la­cy will not long pre­vail in the minds of in­tel­li­gent white men. At all events, you ought to thank Judge Dou­glas for it; it is for your ben­efit it is made.

The oth­er branch of it is, that in the strug­gle be­tween the ne­gro and the crocodile; he is for the ne­gro. Well, I don’t know that there is any strug­gle be­tween the ne­gro and the crocodile, ei­ther. I sup­pose that if a crocodile (or, as we old Ohio Riv­er boat­men used to call them, al­li­ga­tors) should come across a white man, he would kill him if he could; and so he would a ne­gro. But what, at last, is this propo­si­tion? I be­lieve it is a sort of propo­si­tion in pro­por­tion, which may be stat­ed thus: “As the ne­gro is to the white man, so is the crocodile to the ne­gro; and as the ne­gro may right­ful­ly treat the crocodile as a beast or rep­tile, so the white man may right­ful­ly treat the ne­gro as a beast or a rep­tile.” That is re­al­ly the “knip” of all that ar­gu­ment of his.

Now, my broth­er Ken­tuck­ians, who be­lieve in this, you ought to thank Judge Dou­glas for hav­ing put that in a much more tak­ing way than any of your­selves have done.

Again, Dou­glas’s great prin­ci­ple, “pop­ular sovereign­ty,” as he calls it, gives you, by nat­ural con­se­quence, the re­vival of the slave trade when­ev­er you want it. If you ques­tion this, lis­ten awhile, con­sid­er awhile what I shall ad­vance in sup­port of that propo­si­tion.

He says that it is the sa­cred right of the man who goes in­to the Ter­ri­to­ries to have slav­ery if he wants it. Grant that for ar­gu­ment’s sake. Is it not the sa­cred right of the man who don’t go there equal­ly to buy slaves in Africa, if he wants them? Can you point out the dif­fer­ence? The man who goes in­to the Ter­ri­to­ries of Kansas and Ne­bras­ka, or any oth­er new Ter­ri­to­ry, with the sa­cred right of tak­ing a slave there which be­longs to him, would cer­tain­ly have no more right to take one there than I would, who own no slave, but who would de­sire to buy one and take him there. You will not say you, the friends of Judge Dou­glas but that the man who does not own a slave has an equal right to buy one and take him to the Ter­ri­to­ry as the oth­er does.

A voice: I want to ask a ques­tion. Don’t for­eign na­tions in­ter­fere with the slave trade?

Mr. LIN­COLN: Well! I un­der­stand it to be a prin­ci­ple of Democ­ra­cy to whip for­eign na­tions when­ev­er, they in­ter­fere with us.

Voice: I on­ly asked for in­for­ma­tion. I am a Re­pub­li­can my­self.

Mr. LIN­COLN: You and I will be on the best terms in the world, but I do not wish to be di­vert­ed from the point I was try­ing to press.

I say that Dou­glas’s pop­ular sovereign­ty, es­tab­lish­ing his sa­cred right in the peo­ple, if you please, if car­ried to its log­ical con­clu­sion gives equal­ly the sa­cred right to the peo­ple of the States or the Ter­ri­to­ries them­selves to buy slaves wher­ev­er they can buy them cheap­est; and if any man can show a dis­tinc­tion, I should like to hear him try it. If any man can show how the peo­ple of Kansas have a bet­ter right to slaves, be­cause they want them, than the peo­ple of Geor­gia have to buy them in Africa, I want him to do it. I think it can­not be done. If it is “pop­ular sovereign­ty” for the peo­ple to have slaves be­cause they want them, it is pop­ular sovereign­ty for them to buy them in Africa be­cause they de­sire to do so.

I know that Dou­glas has re­cent­ly made a lit­tle ef­fort, not seem­ing to no­tice that he had a dif­fer­ent the­ory, has made an ef­fort to get rid of that. He has writ­ten a let­ter, ad­dressed to some­body, I be­lieve, who re­sides in Iowa, declar­ing his op­po­si­tion to the re­peal of the laws that pro­hib­it the Africa slave trade. He bases his op­po­si­tion to such re­peal up­on the ground that these laws are them­selves one of the com­pro­mis­es of the Con­sti­tu­tion of the Unit­ed States. Now, it would be very in­ter­est­ing to see Judge Dou­glas or any of his friends turn, to the Con­sti­tu­tion of the Unit­ed States and point out that com­pro­mise, to show where there is any com­pro­mise in the Con­sti­tu­tion, or pro­vi­sion in the Con­sti­tu­tion; ex­press or im­plied, by which the ad­min­is­tra­tors of that Con­sti­tu­tion are un­der any obli­ga­tion to re­peal the African slave trade. I know, or at least I think I know, that the framers of that Con­sti­tu­tion did ex­pect the African slave trade would be abol­ished at the end of twen­ty years, to which time their pro­hi­bi­tion against its be­ing abol­ished ex­tend­ed. there is abun­dant con­tem­po­ra­ne­ous his­to­ry to show that the framers of the Con­sti­tu­tion ex­pect­ed it to be abol­ished. But while they so ex­pect­ed, they gave noth­ing for that ex­pec­ta­tion, and they put no pro­vi­sion in the Con­sti­tu­tion re­quir­ing it should be so abol­ished. The mi­gra­tion or im­por­ta­tion of such per­sons as the States shall see fit to ad­mit shall not be pro­hib­it­ed, but a cer­tain tax might be levied up­on such im­por­ta­tion. But what was to be done af­ter that time? The Con­sti­tu­tion is as silent about that as it is silent, per­son­al­ly, about my­self. There is ab­so­lute­ly noth­ing in it about that sub­ject; there is on­ly the ex­pec­ta­tion of the framers of the Con­sti­tu­tion that the slave trade would be abol­ished at the end of that time; and they ex­pect­ed it would be abol­ished, ow­ing to pub­lic sen­ti­ment, be­fore that time; and the put that pro­vi­sion in, in or­der that it should not be abol­ished be­fore that time, for rea­sons which I sup­pose they thought to be sound ones, but which I will not now try to enu­mer­ate be­fore you.

But while, they ex­pect­ed the slave trade would be abol­ished at that time, they ex­pect­ed that the spread of slav­ery in­to the new Ter­ri­to­ries should al­so be re­strict­ed. It is as easy to prove that the framers of the Con­sti­tu­tion of the Unit­ed States ex­pect­ed that slav­ery should be pro­hib­it­ed from ex­tend­ing in­to the new Ter­ri­to­ries, as it is to prove that it was ex­pect­ed that the slave trade should be abol­ished. Both these things were ex­pect­ed. One was no more ex­pect­ed than the oth­er, and one was no more a com­pro­mise of the Con­sti­tu­tion than the oth­er. There was noth­ing said in the Con­sti­tu­tion in re­gard to the spread of slav­ery in­to the Ter­ri­to­ry. I grant that; but there was some­thing very im­por­tant said about it by the same gen­er­ation of men in the adop­tion of the old Or­di­nance of ‘87, through the in­flu­ence of which you here in Ohio, our neigh­bors in In­di­ana, we in Illi­nois, our neigh­bors in Michi­gan and Wis­con­sin, are hap­py, pros­per­ous, teem­ing mil­lions of free men. That gen­er­ation of men, though not to the full ex­tent mem­bers of the con­ven­tion that framed the Con­sti­tu­tion, were to some ex­tent mem­bers of that con­ven­tion, hold­ing seats at the same time in one body and the oth­er, so that if there was any com­pro­mise on ei­ther of these sub­jects, the strong ev­idence is that that com­pro­mise was in fa­vor of the re­stric­tion of slav­ery from the new Ter­ri­to­ries.

But Dou­glas says that he is un­al­ter­ably op­posed to the re­peal of those laws be­cause, in his view, it is a com­pro­mise of the Con­sti­tu­tion. You Ken­tuck­ians, no doubt, are some­what of­fend­ed with that. You ought not to be! You ought to be pa­tient! You ought to know that if he said less than that, he would lose the pow­er of “lug­ging” the North­ern States to your sup­port. Re­al­ly, what you would push him to do would take from him his en­tire pow­er to serve you. And you ought to re­mem­ber how long, by prece­dent, Judge Dou­glas holds him­self obliged to stick by com­pro­mis­es. You ought to re­mem­ber that by the time you your­selves think you are ready to in­au­gu­rate mea­sures for the re­vival of the African slave trade, that suf­fi­cient time will have ar­rived, by prece­dent, for Judge Dou­glas to break through, that com­pro­mise. He says now noth­ing more strong than he said in 1849 when he de­clared in fa­vor of Mis­souri Com­pro­mise,–and pre­cise­ly four years and a quar­ter af­ter he de­clared that Com­pro­mise to be a sa­cred thing, which “no ruth­less hand would ev­er daze to touch,” he him­self brought for­ward the mea­sure ruth­less­ly to de­stroy it. By a mere cal­cu­la­tion of time it will on­ly be four years more un­til he is ready to take back his pro­fes­sion about the sa­cred­ness of the Com­pro­mise abol­ish­ing the slave trade. Pre­cise­ly as soon as you are ready to have his ser­vices in that di­rec­tion, by fair cal­cu­la­tion, you may be sure of hav­ing them.

But you re­mem­ber and set down to Judge Dou­glas’s debt, or dis­cred­it, that he, last year, said the peo­ple of Ter­ri­to­ries can, in spite of the Dred Scott de­ci­sion, ex­clude your slaves from those Ter­ri­to­ries; that he de­clared, by “un­friend­ly leg­is­la­tion” the ex­ten­sion of your prop­er­ty in­to the new Ter­ri­to­ries may be cut off, in the teeth of the de­ci­sion of the Supreme Court of the Unit­ed States.

He as­sumed that po­si­tion at Freeport on the 27th of Au­gust, 1858. He said that the peo­ple of the Ter­ri­to­ries can ex­clude slav­ery, in so many words: You ought, how­ev­er, to bear in mind that he has nev­er said it since. You may hunt in ev­ery speech that he has since made, and he has nev­er used that ex­pres­sion once. He has nev­er seemed to no­tice that he is stat­ing his views dif­fer­ent­ly from what he did then; but by some sort of ac­ci­dent, he has al­ways re­al­ly stat­ed it dif­fer­ent­ly. He has al­ways since then de­clared that “the Con­sti­tu­tion does not car­ry slav­ery in­to the Ter­ri­to­ries of the Unit­ed States be­yond the pow­er of the peo­ple legal­ly to con­trol it, as oth­er prop­er­ty.” Now, there is a dif­fer­ence in the lan­guage used up­on that for­mer oc­ca­sion and in this lat­ter day. There may or may not be a dif­fer­ence in the mean­ing, but it is worth while con­sid­er­ing whether there is not al­so a dif­fer­ence in mean­ing.

What is it to ex­clude? Why, it is to drive it out. It is in some way to put it out of the Ter­ri­to­ry. It is to force it across the line, or change its char­ac­ter so that, as prop­er­ty, it is out of ex­is­tence. But what is the con­trol­ling of it “as oth­er prop­er­ty”? Is con­trol­ling it as oth­er prop­er­ty the same thing as de­stroy­ing it, or driv­ing it away? I should think not. I should think the con­trol­ling of it as oth­er prop­er­ty would be just about what you in Ken­tucky should want. I un­der­stand the con­trol­ling of prop­er­ty means the con­trol­ling of it for the ben­efit of the own­er of it. While I have no doubt the Supreme Court of the Unit­ed States would say “God speed” to any of the Ter­ri­to­ri­al Leg­is­la­tures that should thus con­trol slave prop­er­ty, they would sing quite a dif­fer­ent tune if, by the pre­tence of con­trol­ling it, they were to un­der­take to pass laws which vir­tu­al­ly ex­clud­ed it,–and that up­on a very well known prin­ci­ple to all lawyers, that what a Leg­is­la­ture can­not di­rect­ly do, it can­not do by in­di­rec­tion; that as the Leg­is­la­ture has not the pow­er to drive slaves out, they have no pow­er, by in­di­rec­tion, by tax, or by im­pos­ing bur­dens in any way on that prop­er­ty, to ef­fect the same end, and that any at­tempt to do so would be held by the Dred Scott court un­con­sti­tu­tion­al.

Dou­glas is not will­ing to stand by his first propo­si­tion that they can ex­clude it, be­cause we have seen that that propo­si­tion amounts to noth­ing more nor less than the naked ab­sur­di­ty that you may law­ful­ly drive out that which has a law­ful right to re­main. He ad­mit­ted at first that the slave might be law­ful­ly tak­en in­to the Ter­ri­to­ries un­der the Con­sti­tu­tion of the Unit­ed States, and yet as­sert­ed that he might be law­ful­ly driv­en out. That be­ing the propo­si­tion, it is the ab­sur­di­ty I have stat­ed. He is not will­ing to stand in the face of that di­rect, naked, and im­pu­dent ab­sur­di­ty; he has, there­fore, mod­ified his lan­guage in­to that of be­ing “con­trolled as oth­er prop­er­ty.”

The Ken­tuck­ians don’t like this in Dou­glas! I will tell you where it will go. He now swears by the court. He was once a lead­ing man in Illi­nois to break down a court, be­cause it had made a de­ci­sion he did not like. But he now not on­ly swears by the court, the courts hav­ing got to work­ing for you, but he de­nounces all men that do not swear by the courts, as un­pa­tri­ot­ic, as bad cit­izens. When one of these acts of un­friend­ly leg­is­la­tion shall im­pose such heavy bur­dens as to, in ef­fect, de­stroy prop­er­ty in slaves in a Ter­ri­to­ry, and show plain­ly enough that there can be no mis­take in the pur­pose of the Leg­is­la­ture to make them so bur­den­some, this same Supreme Court will de­cide that law to be un­con­sti­tu­tion­al, and he will be ready to say for your ben­efit “I swear by the court; I give it up”; and while that is go­ing on he has been get­ting all his men to swear by the courts, and to give it up with him. In this again he serves you faith­ful­ly, and, as I say, more wise­ly than you serve your­selves.

Again: I have al­lud­ed in the be­gin­ning of these re­marks to the fact that Judge Dou­glas has made great com­plaint of my hav­ing ex­pressed the opin­ion that this gov­ern­ment “can­not en­dure per­ma­nent­ly, half slave and half free.” He has com­plained of Se­ward for us­ing dif­fer­ent lan­guage, and declar­ing that there is an “ir­re­press­ible con­flict” be­tween the prin­ci­ples of free and slave la­bor. [A voice: ” He says it is not orig­inal with Se­ward. That it is orig­inal with Lin­coln.”] I will at­tend to that im­me­di­ate­ly, sir. Since that time, Hick­man of Penn­syl­va­nia ex­pressed the same sen­ti­ment. He has nev­er de­nounced Mr. Hick­man: why? There is a lit­tle chance, notwith­stand­ing that opin­ion in the mouth of Hick­man, that he may yet be a Dou­glas man. That is the dif­fer­ence! It is not un­pa­tri­ot­ic to hold that opin­ion if a man is a Dou­glas man.

But nei­ther I, nor Se­ward, nor Hick­man is en­ti­tled to the en­vi­able or un­en­vi­able dis­tinc­tion of hav­ing first ex­pressed that idea. That same idea was ex­pressed by the Rich­mond En­quir­er, in Vir­ginia, in 1856,–quite two years be­fore it was ex­pressed by the first of us. And while Dou­glas was plum­ing him­self that in his con­flict with my hum­ble self, last year, he had “squelched out” that fa­tal heresy, as he de­light­ed to call it, and had sug­gest­ed that if he on­ly had had a chance to be in New York and meet Se­ward he would have “squelched” it there al­so, it nev­er oc­curred to him to breathe a word against Pry­or. I don’t think that you can dis­cov­er that Dou­glas ev­er talked of go­ing to Vir­ginia to “squelch” out that idea there. No. More than that. That same Roger A. Pry­or was brought to Wash­ing­ton City and made the ed­itor of the par ex­cel­lence Dou­glas pa­per, af­ter mak­ing use of that ex­pres­sion, which, in us, is so un­pa­tri­ot­ic and hereti­cal. From all this, my Ken­tucky friends may see that this opin­ion is hereti­cal in his view on­ly when it is ex­pressed by men sus­pect­ed of a de­sire that the coun­try shall all be­come free, and not when ex­pressed by those fair­ly known to en­ter­tain the de­sire that the whole coun­try shall be­come slave. When ex­pressed by that class of men, it is in no­wise of­fen­sive to him. In this again, my friends of Ken­tucky, you have Judge Dou­glas with you.

There is an­oth­er rea­son why you South­ern peo­ple ought to nom­inate Dou­glas at your con­ven­tion at Charleston. That rea­son is the won­der­ful ca­pac­ity of the man,–the pow­er he has of do­ing what would seem to be im­pos­si­ble. Let me call your at­ten­tion to one of these ap­par­ent­ly im­pos­si­ble things:

Dou­glas had three or four very dis­tin­guished men of the most ex­treme an­ti-​slav­ery views of any men in the Re­pub­li­can par­ty ex­press­ing their de­sire for his re-​elec­tion to the Sen­ate last year. That would, of it­self, have seemed to be a lit­tle won­der­ful; but that won­der is height­ened when we see that Wise of Vir­ginia, a man ex­act­ly op­posed to them, a man who be­lieves in the di­vine right of slav­ery, was al­so ex­press­ing his de­sire that Dou­glas should be re­elect­ed; that an­oth­er man that may be said to be kin­dred to Wise, Mr. Breck­in­ridge, the Vice-​Pres­ident, and of your own State, was al­so agree­ing with the an­ti-​slav­ery men in the North that Dou­glas ought to be re-​elect­ed. Still to height­en the won­der, a sen­ator from Ken­tucky, whom I have al­ways loved with an af­fec­tion as ten­der and en­dear­ing as I have ev­er loved any man, who was op­posed to the an­ti-​slav­ery men for rea­sons which seemed suf­fi­cient to him, and equal­ly op­posed to Wise and Breck­in­ridge, was writ­ing let­ters in­to Illi­nois to se­cure the re­elec­tion of Dou­glas. Now, that all these con­flict­ing el­ements should be brought, while at dag­gers’ points with one an­oth­er, to sup­port him, is a feat that is wor­thy for you to note and con­sid­er. It is quite prob­able that each of these class­es of men thought, by the re-​elec­tion of Dou­glas, their pe­cu­liar views would gain some­thing: it is prob­able that the an­ti-​slav­ery men thought their views would gain some­thing; that Wise and Breck­in­ridge thought so too, as re­gards their opin­ions; that Mr. Crit­ten­den thought that his views would gain some­thing, al­though he was op­posed to both these oth­er men. It is prob­able that each and all of them thought that they were us­ing Dou­glas; and it is yet an un­solved prob­lem whether he was not us­ing them all. If he was, then it is for you to con­sid­er whether that pow­er to per­form won­ders is one for you light­ly to throw away.

There is one oth­er thing that I will say to you, in this re­la­tion. It is but my opin­ion, I give it to you with­out a fee. It is my opin­ion that it is for you to take him or be de­feat­ed; and that if you do take him you may be beat­en. You will sure­ly be beat­en if you do not take him. We, the Re­pub­li­cans and oth­ers form­ing the op­po­si­tion of the coun­try, in­tend to “stand by our guns,” to be pa­tient and firm, and in the long run to beat you, whether you take him or not. We know that be­fore we fair­ly beat you we have to beat you both to­geth­er. We know that you are “all of a feath­er,” and that we have to beat you all to­geth­er, and we ex­pect to do it. We don’t in­tend to be very im­pa­tient about it. We mean to be as de­lib­er­ate and calm about it as it is pos­si­ble to be, but as firm and re­solved as it is pos­si­ble for men to be. When we do as we say,–beat you,–you per­haps want to know what we will do with you.

I will tell you, so far as I am au­tho­rized to speak for the op­po­si­tion, what we mean to do with you. We mean to treat you, as near as we pos­si­bly can, as Wash­ing­ton, Jef­fer­son, and Madi­son treat­ed you. We mean to leave you alone, and in no way in­ter­fere with your in­sti­tu­tion; to abide by all and ev­ery com­pro­mise of the Con­sti­tu­tion, and, in a word, com­ing back to the orig­inal propo­si­tion, to treat you, so far as de­gen­er­at­ed men (if we have de­gen­er­at­ed) may, ac­cord­ing to the ex­am­ples of those no­ble fa­thers, Wash­ing­ton, Jef­fer­son, and Madi­son. We mean to re­mem­ber that you are as good as we; that there is no dif­fer­ence be­tween us oth­er than the dif­fer­ence of cir­cum­stances. We mean to rec­og­nize and bear in mind al­ways that you have as good hearts in your bo­soms as oth­er peo­ple, or as we claim to have, and treat you ac­cord­ing­ly. We mean to mar­ry your girls when we have a chance, the white ones I mean; and I have the hon­or to in­form you that I once did have a chance in that way.

I have told you what we mean to do. I want to know, now, when that thing takes place, what do you mean to do? I of­ten hear it in­ti­mat­ed that you mean to di­vide the Union when­ev­er a Re­pub­li­can, or any­thing like it, is elect­ed Pres­ident of the Unit­ed States. [A voice: “That is so.”] “That is so,” one of them says; I won­der if he is a Ken­tuck­ian? [A voice: “He is a Dou­glas man.”] Well, then, I want to know what you are go­ing to do with your half of it? Are you go­ing to split the Ohio down through, and push your half off a piece? Or are you go­ing to keep it right along­side of us out­ra­geous fel­lows? Or are you go­ing to build up a wall some way be­tween your coun­try and ours, by which that mov­able prop­er­ty of yours can’t come over here any more, to the dan­ger of your los­ing it? Do you think you can bet­ter your­selves, on that sub­ject, by leav­ing us here un­der no obli­ga­tion what­ev­er to re­turn those spec­imens of your mov­able prop­er­ty that come hith­er? You have di­vid­ed the Union be­cause we would not do right with you, as you think, up­on that sub­ject; when we cease to be un­der obli­ga­tions to do any­thing for you, how much bet­ter off do you think you will be? Will you make war up­on us and kill us all? Why, gen­tle­men, I think you are as gal­lant and as brave men as live; that you can fight as brave­ly in a good cause, man for man, as any oth­er peo­ple liv­ing; that you have shown your­selves ca­pa­ble of this up­on var­ious oc­ca­sions: but, man for man, you are not bet­ter than we are, and there are not so many of you as there are of us. You will nev­er make much of a hand at whip­ping us. If we were few­er in num­bers than you, I think that you could whip us; if we were equal, it would like­ly be a drawn bat­tle; but be­ing in­fe­ri­or in num­bers, you will make noth­ing by at­tempt­ing to mas­ter us.

But per­haps I have ad­dressed my­self as long, or longer, to the Ken­tuck­ians than I ought to have done, inas­much as I have said that what­ev­er course you take we in­tend in the end to beat you. I pro­pose to ad­dress a few re­marks to our friends, by way of dis­cussing with them the best means of keep­ing that promise that I have in good faith made.

It may ap­pear a lit­tle episod­ical for me to men­tion the top­ic of which I will speak now. It is a fa­vorite po­si­tion of Dou­glas’s that the in­ter­fer­ence of the Gen­er­al Gov­ern­ment, through the Or­di­nance of ‘87, or through any oth­er act of the Gen­er­al Gov­ern­ment nev­er has made or ev­er can make a free State; the Or­di­nance of ‘87 did not make free States of Ohio, In­di­ana, or Illi­nois; that these States are free up­on his “great prin­ci­ple” of pop­ular sovereign­ty, be­cause the peo­ple of those sev­er­al States have cho­sen to make them so. At Colum­bus, and prob­ably here, he un­der­took to com­pli­ment the peo­ple that they them­selves have made the State of Ohio free, and that the Or­di­nance of ‘87 was not en­ti­tled in any de­gree to di­vide the hon­or with them. I have no doubt that the peo­ple of the State of Ohio did make her free ac­cord­ing to their own will and judg­ment, but let the facts be re­mem­bered.

In 1802, I be­lieve, it was you who made your first con­sti­tu­tion, with the clause pro­hibit­ing slav­ery, and you did it, I sup­pose, very near­ly unan­imous­ly; but you should bear in mind that you–speak­ing of you as one peo­ple–that you did so un­em­bar­rassed by the ac­tu­al pres­ence of the, in­sti­tu­tion amongst you; that you made it a free State not with the em­bar­rass­ment up­on you of al­ready hav­ing among you many slaves, which if they had been here, and you had sought to make a free State, you would not know what to do with. If they had been among you, em­bar­rass­ing dif­fi­cul­ties, most prob­ably, would have in­duced you to tol­er­ate a slave con­sti­tu­tion in­stead of a free one, as in­deed these very dif­fi­cul­ties have con­strained ev­ery peo­ple on this con­ti­nent who have adopt­ed slav­ery.

Pray what was it that made you free? What kept you free? Did you not find your coun­try free when you came to de­cide that Ohio should be a free State? It is im­por­tant to in­quire by what rea­son you found it so. Let us take an il­lus­tra­tion be­tween the States of Ohio and Ken­tucky. Ken­tucky is sep­arat­ed by this Riv­er Ohio, not a mile wide. A por­tion of Ken­tucky, by rea­son of the course of the Ohio, is far­ther north than this por­tion of Ohio, in which we now stand. Ken­tucky is en­tire­ly cov­ered with slav­ery; Ohio is en­tire­ly free from it: What made that dif­fer­ence? Was it cli­mate? No. A por­tion of Ken­tucky was far­ther north than this por­tion of Ohio. Was it soil? No. There is noth­ing in the soil of the one more fa­vor­able to slave than the oth­er. It was not cli­mate or soil that mused one side of the line to be en­tire­ly cov­ered with slav­ery, and the oth­er side free of it. What was it? Study over it. Tell us, if you can, in all the range of con­jec­ture, if there be any­thing you can con­ceive of that made that dif­fer­ence, oth­er than that there was no law of any sort keep­ing it out of Ken­tucky, while the Or­di­nance of ‘87 kept it out of Ohio. If there is any oth­er rea­son than this, I con­fess that it is whol­ly be­yond my pow­er to con­ceive of it. This, then, I of­fer to com­bat the idea that that Or­di­nance has nev­er made any State free.

I don’t stop at this il­lus­tra­tion. I come to the State of In­di­ana; and what I have said as be­tween Ken­tucky and Ohio, I re­peat as be­tween In­di­ana and Ken­tucky: it is equal­ly ap­pli­ca­ble. One ad­di­tion­al ar­gu­ment is ap­pli­ca­ble al­so to In­di­ana. In her Ter­ri­to­ri­al con­di­tion she more than once pe­ti­tioned Congress to ab­ro­gate the Or­di­nance en­tire­ly, or at least so far as to sus­pend its op­er­ation for a, time, in or­der that they should ex­er­cise the “pop­ular sovereign­ty” of hav­ing slaves if they want­ed them. The men then con­trol­ling the Gen­er­al Gov­ern­ment, im­itat­ing the men of the Rev­olu­tion, re­fused In­di­ana that priv­ilege. And so we have the ev­idence that In­di­ana sup­posed she could have slaves, if it were not for that Or­di­nance; that she be­sought Congress to put that bar­ri­er out of the way; that Congress re­fused to do so; and it all end­ed at last in In­di­ana be­ing a free State. Tell me not then that the Or­di­nance of ‘87 had noth­ing to do with mak­ing In­di­ana a free State, when we find some men chaf­ing against, and on­ly re­strained by, that bar­ri­er.

Come down again to our State of Illi­nois. The great North­west Ter­ri­to­ry, in­clud­ing Ohio, In­di­ana, Illi­nois, Michi­gan, and Wis­con­sin, was ac­quired first, I be­lieve, by the British Gov­ern­ment, in part at least, from the French. Be­fore the es­tab­lish­ment of our in­de­pen­dence it be­came a part of Vir­ginia, en­abling Vir­ginia af­ter­ward to trans­fer it to the Gen­er­al Gov­ern­ment. There were French set­tle­ments in what is now Illi­nois, and at the same time there were French set­tle­ments in what is now Mis­souri, in the tract of coun­try that was not pur­chased till about 1803. In these French set­tle­ments ne­gro slav­ery had ex­ist­ed for many years, per­haps more than a hun­dred; if not as much as two hun­dred years,–at Kaskask­ia, in Illi­nois, and at St. Genevieve, or Cape Gi­rardeau, per­haps, in Mis­souri. The num­ber of slaves was not very great, but there was about the same num­ber in each place. They were there when we ac­quired the Ter­ri­to­ry. There was no ef­fort made to break up the re­la­tion of mas­ter and slave, and even the Or­di­nance of 1787 was not so en­forced as to de­stroy that slav­ery in Illi­nois; nor did the Or­di­nance ap­ply to Mis­souri at all.

What I want to ask your at­ten­tion to; at this point, is that Illi­nois and Mis­souri came in­to the Union about the same time, Illi­nois in the lat­ter part of 1818, and Mis­souri, af­ter a strug­gle, I be­lieve some­time in 1820. They had been fill­ing up with Amer­ican peo­ple about the same pe­ri­od of time; their progress en­abling them to come in­to the Union about the same time. At the end of that ten years, in which they had been so prepar­ing (for it was about that pe­ri­od of time), the num­ber of slaves in Illi­nois had ac­tu­al­ly de­creased; while in Mis­souri, be­gin­ning with very few, at the end of that ten years there were about ten thou­sand. This be­ing so, and it be­ing re­mem­bered that Mis­souri and Illi­nois are, to a cer­tain ex­tent, in the same par­al­lel of lat­itude, that the north­ern half of Mis­souri and the south­ern half of Illi­nois are in the same par­al­lel of lat­itude, so that cli­mate would have the same ef­fect up­on one as up­on the oth­er, and that in the soil there is no ma­te­ri­al dif­fer­ence so far as bears up­on the ques­tion of slav­ery be­ing set­tled up­on one or the oth­er,–there be­ing none of those nat­ural caus­es to pro­duce a dif­fer­ence in fill­ing them, and yet there be­ing a broad dif­fer­ence to their fill­ing up, we are led again to in­quire what was the cause of that dif­fer­ence.

It is most nat­ural to say that in Mis­souri there was no law to keep that coun­try from fill­ing up with slaves, while in Illi­nois there was the Or­di­nance of The Or­di­nance be­ing there, slav­ery de­creased dur­ing that ten years; the Or­di­nance not be­ing in the oth­er, it in­creased from a few to ten thou­sand. Can any­body doubt the rea­son of the dif­fer­ence?

I think all these facts most abun­dant­ly prove that my friend Judge Dou­glas’s propo­si­tion, that the Or­di­nance of ‘87, or the na­tion­al re­stric­tion of slav­ery, nev­er had a ten­den­cy to make a free State, is a fal­la­cy,–a propo­si­tion with­out the shad­ow or sub­stance of truth about it.

Dou­glas some­times says that all the States (and it is part of this same propo­si­tion I have been dis­cussing) that have be­come free have be­come so up­on his “great prin­ci­ple”; that the State of Illi­nois it­self came in­to the Union as a slave State, and that the peo­ple, up­on the “great prin­ci­ple” of pop­ular sovereign­ty, have since made it a free State. Al­low me but a lit­tle while to state to you what facts there are to jus­ti­fy him in say­ing that Illi­nois came in­to the Union as a slave State.

I have men­tioned to you that there were a few old French slaves there. They num­bered, I think, one or two hun­dred. Be­sides that, there had been a Ter­ri­to­ri­al law for in­den­tur­ing black per­sons. Un­der that law, in vi­ola­tion of the Or­di­nance of ‘87, but with­out any en­force­ment of the Or­di­nance to over­throw the sys­tem, there had been a small num­ber of slaves in­tro­duced as in­den­tured per­sons. Ow­ing to this, the clause for the pro­hi­bi­tion of slav­ery was slight­ly mod­ified. In­stead of run­ning like yours, that nei­ther slav­ery nor in­vol­un­tary servi­tude, ex­cept for crime, of which the par­ty shall have been du­ly con­vict­ed, should ex­ist in the State, they said that nei­ther slav­ery nor in­vol­un­tary servi­tude should there­after be in­tro­duced; and that the chil­dren of in­den­tured ser­vants should be born free; and noth­ing was said about the few old French slaves. Out of this fact, that the clause for pro­hibit­ing slav­ery was mod­ified be­cause of the ac­tu­al pres­ence of it, Dou­glas as­serts again and again that Illi­nois came in­to the Union as a slave State. How far the facts sus­tain the con­clu­sion that he draws, it is for in­tel­li­gent and im­par­tial men to de­cide. I leave it with you, with these re­marks, wor­thy of be­ing re­mem­bered, that that lit­tle thing, those few in­den­tured ser­vants be­ing there, was of it­self suf­fi­cient to mod­ify a con­sti­tu­tion made by a peo­ple ar­dent­ly de­sir­ing to have a free con­sti­tu­tion; show­ing the pow­er of the ac­tu­al pres­ence of the in­sti­tu­tion of slav­ery to pre­vent any peo­ple, how­ev­er anx­ious to make a free State, from mak­ing it per­fect­ly so.

I have been de­tain­ing you longer, per­haps, than I ought to do.

I am in some doubt whether to in­tro­duce an­oth­er top­ic up­on which I could talk a while. [Cries of “Go on,” and “Give us it.”] It is this, then: Dou­glas’s Pop­ular sovereign­ty, as a prin­ci­ple, is sim­ply this: If one man choos­es to make a slave of an­oth­er man, nei­ther that man nor any­body else has a right to ob­ject. Ap­ply it to gov­ern­ment, as he seeks to ap­ply it, and it is this: If, in a new Ter­ri­to­ry in­to which a few peo­ple are be­gin­ning to en­ter for the pur­pose of mak­ing their homes, they choose to ei­ther ex­clude slav­ery from their lim­its, or to es­tab­lish it there, how­ev­er one or the oth­er may af­fect the per­sons to be en­slaved, or the in­finite­ly greater num­ber of per­sons who are af­ter­ward to in­hab­it that Ter­ri­to­ry, or the oth­er mem­bers of the fam­ily of com­mu­ni­ties of which they are but an in­cip­ient mem­ber, or the gen­er­al head of the fam­ily of States as par­ent of all, how­ev­er their ac­tion may af­fect one or the oth­er of these, there is no pow­er or right to in­ter­fere. That is Dou­glas’s pop­ular sovereign­ty ap­plied. Now, I think that there is a re­al pop­ular sovereign­ty in the world. I think the def­ini­tion of pop­ular sovereign­ty, in the ab­stract, would be about this: that each man shall do pre­cise­ly as he pleas­es with him­self, and with all those things which ex­clu­sive­ly con­cern him. Ap­plied in gov­ern­ment, this prin­ci­ple would be that a gen­er­al gov­ern­ment shall do all those things which per­tain to it, and all the lo­cal gov­ern­ments shall do pre­cise­ly as they please in re­spect to those mat­ters which ex­clu­sive­ly con­cern them.

Dou­glas looks up­on slav­ery as so in­signif­icant that the peo­ple must de­cide that ques­tion for them­selves; and yet they are not fit to de­cide who shall be their gov­er­nor, judge, or sec­re­tary, or who shall be any of their of­fi­cers. These are vast na­tion­al mat­ters in his es­ti­ma­tion; but the lit­tle mat­ter in his es­ti­ma­tion is that of plant­ing slav­ery there. That is pure­ly of lo­cal in­ter­est, which no­body should be al­lowed to say a word about.

La­bor is the great source from which near­ly all, if not all, hu­man com­forts and ne­ces­si­ties are drawn. There is a dif­fer­ence in opin­ion about the el­ements of la­bor in so­ci­ety. Some men as­sume that there is nec­es­sary con­nec­tion be­tween cap­ital and la­bor, and that con­nec­tion draws with­in it the whole of the la­bor of the com­mu­ni­ty. They as­sume that no­body works un­less cap­ital ex­cites them to work. They be­gin next to con­sid­er what is the best way. They say there are but two ways: one is to hire men, and to al­lure them to la­bor by their con­sent; the oth­er is to buy the men, and drive them, to it, and that is slav­ery. Hav­ing as­sumed that, they pro­ceed to dis­cuss the ques­tion of whether the la­bor­ers them­selves are bet­ter off in the con­di­tion of slaves or of hired la­bor­ers, and they usu­al­ly de­cide that they are bet­ter off in the con­di­tion of slaves.

In the first place, I say that the whole thing is a mis­take. That there is a cer­tain re­la­tion be­tween cap­ital and la­bor, I ad­mit. That it does ex­ist, and right­ful­ly ex­ists, I think is true. That men who are in­dus­tri­ous, and sober, and hon­est in the pur­suit of their own in­ter­ests should af­ter a while ac­cu­mu­late cap­ital, and af­ter that should be al­lowed to en­joy it in peace, and al­so, if they should choose, when they have ac­cu­mu­lat­ed it, to use it to save them­selves from ac­tu­al la­bor, and hire oth­er peo­ple to la­bor for them, is right. In do­ing so they do not wrong the man they em­ploy, for they find men who have not of their own land to work up­on, or shops to work in, and who are ben­efit­ed by work­ing for oth­ers, hired la­bor­ers, re­ceiv­ing their cap­ital for it. Thus a few men, that own cap­ital, hire a few oth­ers, and these es­tab­lish the re­la­tion of cap­ital and la­bor right­ful­ly, a re­la­tion of which I make no com­plaint. But I in­sist that that re­la­tion, af­ter all, does not em­brace more than one eighth of the la­bor of the coun­try.

[The speak­er pro­ceed­ed to ar­gue that the hired la­bor­er, with his abil­ity to be­come an em­ploy­er, must have ev­ery prece­dence over him who labors un­der the in­duce­ment of force. He con­tin­ued:]

I have tak­en up­on my­self in the name of some of you to say that we ex­pect up­on these prin­ci­ples to ul­ti­mate­ly beat them. In or­der to do so, I think we want and must have a na­tion­al pol­icy in re­gard to the in­sti­tu­tion of slav­ery that ac­knowl­edges and deals with that in­sti­tu­tion as be­ing wrong. Who­ev­er de­sires the pre­ven­tion of the spread of slav­ery and the na­tion­al­iza­tion of that in­sti­tu­tion yields all when he yields to any pol­icy that ei­ther rec­og­nizes slav­ery as be­ing right or as be­ing an in­dif­fer­ent thing. Noth­ing will make you suc­cess­ful but set­ting up a pol­icy which shall treat the thing as be­ing wrong: When I say this, I do not mean to say that this Gen­er­al Gov­ern­ment is charged with the du­ty of re­dress­ing or pre­vent­ing all the wrongs in the world, but I do think that it is charged with pre­vent­ing and re­dress­ing all wrongs which are wrongs to it­self. This Gov­ern­ment is ex­press­ly charged with the du­ty of pro­vid­ing for the gen­er­al wel­fare. We be­lieve that the spread­ing out and per­pe­tu­ity of the in­sti­tu­tion of slav­ery im­pairs the gen­er­al wel­fare. We be­lieve–nay, we know–that that is the on­ly thing that has ev­er threat­ened the per­pe­tu­ity of the Union it­self. The on­ly thing which has ev­er men­aced the de­struc­tion of the gov­ern­ment un­der which we live is this very thing. To re­press this thing, we think, is, Pro­vid­ing for the gen­er­al wel­fare. Our friends in Ken­tucky dif­fer from us. We need not make our ar­gu­ment for them, but we who think it is wrong in all its re­la­tions, or in some of them at least, must de­cide as to our own ac­tions and our own course, up­on our own judg­ment.

I say that we must not in­ter­fere with the in­sti­tu­tion of slav­ery in the States where it ex­ists, be­cause the Con­sti­tu­tion for­bids it, and the gen­er­al wel­fare does not re­quire us to do so. We must not with­hold an ef­fi­cient Fugi­tive Slave law, be­cause the Con­sti­tu­tion re­quires us, as I un­der­stand it, not to with­hold such a law. But we must pre­vent the out­spread­ing of the in­sti­tu­tion, be­cause nei­ther the Con­sti­tu­tion nor gen­er­al wel­fare re­quires us to ex­tend it. We must pre­vent the re­vival of the African slave trade, and the en­act­ing by Congress of a Ter­ri­to­ri­al slave code. We must pre­vent each of these things be­ing done by ei­ther Con­gress­es or courts. The peo­ple of these Unit­ed States are the right­ful mas­ters of both Con­gress­es and courts, not to over­throw the Con­sti­tu­tion, but to over­throw the men who per­vert the Con­sti­tu­tion.

To do these things we must em­ploy in­stru­men­tal­ities. We must hold con­ven­tions; we must adopt plat­forms, if we con­form to or­di­nary cus­tom; we must nom­inate can­di­dates; and we must car­ry elec­tions. In all these things, I think that we ought to keep in view our re­al pur­pose, and in none do any­thing that stands ad­verse to our pur­pose. If we shall adopt a plat­form that fails to rec­og­nize or ex­press our pur­pose, or elect a man that de­clares him­self in­im­ical to our pur­pose, we not on­ly take noth­ing by our suc­cess, but we tac­it­ly ad­mit that we act up­on no oth­er prin­ci­ple than a de­sire to have “the loaves and fish­es,” by which, in the end, our ap­par­ent suc­cess is re­al­ly an in­jury to us.

I know that this is very de­sir­able with me, as with ev­ery­body else, that all the el­ements of the op­po­si­tion shall unite in the next Pres­iden­tial elec­tion and in all fu­ture time. I am anx­ious that that should be; but there are things se­ri­ous­ly to be con­sid­ered in re­la­tion to that mat­ter. If the terms can be ar­ranged, I am in fa­vor of the union. But sup­pose we shall take up some man, and put him up­on one end or the oth­er of the tick­et, who de­clares him­self against us in re­gard to the pre­ven­tion of the spread of slav­ery, who turns up his nose and says he is tired of hear­ing any­thing more about it, who is more against us than against the en­emy, what will be the is­sue? Why, he will get no slave States, af­ter all,–he has tried that al­ready un­til be­ing beat is the rule for him. If we nom­inate him up­on that ground, he will not car­ry a slave State; and not on­ly so, but that por­tion of our men who are high-​strung up­on the prin­ci­ple we re­al­ly fight for will not go for him, and he won’t get a sin­gle elec­toral vote any­where, ex­cept, per­haps, in the State of Mary­land. There is no use in say­ing to us that we are stub­born and ob­sti­nate be­cause we won’t do some such thing as this. We can­not do it. We can­not get our men to vote it. I speak by the card, that we can­not give the State of Illi­nois in such case by fifty thou­sand. We would be flat­ter down than the “Ne­gro Democ­ra­cy” them­selves have the heart to wish to see us.

Af­ter say­ing this much let me say a lit­tle on the oth­er side. There are plen­ty of men in the slave States that are al­to­geth­er good enough for me to be ei­ther Pres­ident or Vice-​Pres­ident, pro­vid­ed they will pro­fess their sym­pa­thy with our pur­pose, and will place them­selves on the ground that our men, up­on prin­ci­ple, can vote for them. There are scores of them, good men in their char­ac­ter for in­tel­li­gence and tal­ent and in­tegri­ty. If such a one will place him­self up­on the right ground, I am for his oc­cu­py­ing one place up­on the next Re­pub­li­can or op­po­si­tion tick­et. I will hearti­ly go for him. But un­less he does so place him­self, I think it a mat­ter of per­fect non­sense to at­tempt to bring about a union up­on any oth­er ba­sis; that if a union be made, the el­ements will scat­ter so that there can be no suc­cess for such a tick­et, nor any­thing like suc­cess. The good old max­ims of the Bible axe ap­pli­ca­ble, and tru­ly ap­pli­ca­ble, to hu­man af­fairs, and in this, as in oth­er things, we may say here that he who is not for us is against us; he who gath­ereth not with us, scat­tereth. I should be glad to have some of the many good and able and no­ble men of the South to place them­selves where we can con­fer up­on them the high hon­or of an elec­tion up­on one or the oth­er end of our tick­et. It would do my soul good to do that thing. It would en­able us to teach them that, inas­much as we se­lect one of their own num­ber to car­ry out our prin­ci­ples, we are free from the charge that we mean more than we say.

But, my friends, I have de­tained you much longer than I ex­pect­ed to do. I be­lieve I may do my­self the com­pli­ment to say that you have stayed and heard me with great pa­tience, for which I re­turn you my most sin­cere thanks.

ON PRO­TEC­TIVE TAR­IFFS

TO ED­WARD WAL­LACE.

CLIN­TON, Oc­to­ber 11, 1859

Dr. ED­WARD WAL­LACE.

MY DEAR SIR:–I am here just now at­tend­ing court. Yes­ter­day, be­fore I left Spring­field, your broth­er, Dr. William S. Wal­lace, showed me a let­ter of yours, in which you kind­ly men­tion my name, in­quir­ing for my tar­iff views, and sug­gest the pro­pri­ety of my writ­ing a let­ter up­on the sub­ject. I was an old Hen­ry-​Clay-​Tar­iff Whig. In old times I made more speech­es on that sub­ject than any oth­er.

I have not since changed my views. I be­lieve yet, if we could have a mod­er­ate, care­ful­ly ad­just­ed pro­tec­tive tar­iff, so far ac­qui­esced in as not to be a per­pet­ual sub­ject of po­lit­ical strife, squab­bles changes, and un­cer­tain­ties, it would be bet­ter for us. Still it is my opin­ion that just now the re­vival of that ques­tion will not ad­vance the cause it­self, or the man who re­vives it.

I have not thought much on the sub­ject re­cent­ly, but my gen­er­al im­pres­sion is that the ne­ces­si­ty for a pro­tec­tive tar­iff will ere long force its old op­po­nents to take it up; and then its old friends can join in and es­tab­lish it on a more firm and durable ba­sis. We, the Old Whigs, have been en­tire­ly beat­en out on the tar­iff ques­tion, and we shall not be able to re-​es­tab­lish the pol­icy un­til the ab­sence of it shall have demon­strat­ed the ne­ces­si­ty for it in the minds of men hereto­fore op­posed to it. With this view, I should pre­fer to not now write a pub­lic let­ter on the sub­ject. I there­fore wish this to be con­sid­ered con­fi­den­tial. I shall be very glad to re­ceive a let­ter from you.

Yours tru­ly, A. LIN­COLN.

ON MORT­GAGES

TO W. DUNGY.

SPRING­FIELD, Novem­ber, 2, 1859.

WM. DUNGY, Esq.

DEAR SIR:–Yours of Oc­to­ber 27 is re­ceived. When a mort­gage is giv­en to se­cure two notes, and one of the notes is sold and as­signed, if the mort­gaged premis­es are on­ly suf­fi­cient to pay one note, the one as­signed will take it all. Al­so, an ex­ecu­tion from a judg­ment on the as­signed note may take it all; it be­ing the same thing in sub­stance. There is re­demp­tion on ex­ecu­tion sales from the Unit­ed States Court just as from any oth­er court.

You did not men­tion the name of the plain­tiff or de­fen­dant in the suit, and so I can tell noth­ing about it as to sales, bids, etc. Write again.

Yours tru­ly,

A. LIN­COLN.

FRAG­MENT OF SPEECH AT LEAV­EN­WORTH, KANSAS, DE­CEM­BER, 1859.

…………. But you Democrats are for the Union; and you great­ly fear the suc­cess of the Re­pub­li­cans would de­stroy the Union. Why? Do the Re­pub­li­cans de­clare against the Union? Noth­ing like it. Your own state­ment of it is that if the Black Re­pub­li­cans elect a Pres­ident, you “won’t stand it.” You will break up the Union. If we shall con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly elect a Pres­ident, it will be our du­ty to see that you sub­mit. Old John Brown has been ex­ecut­ed for trea­son against a State. We can­not ob­ject, even though he agreed with us in think­ing slav­ery wrong. That can­not ex­cuse vi­olence, blood­shed and trea­son. It could avail him noth­ing that he might think him­self right. So, if we con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly elect a Pres­ident, and there­fore you un­der­take to de­stroy the Union, it will be our du­ty to deal with you as old John Brown has been dealt with. We shall try to do our du­ty. We hope and be­lieve that in no sec­tion will a ma­jor­ity so act as to ren­der such ex­treme mea­sures nec­es­sary.

TO G. W. DOLE, G. S. HUB­BARD, AND W. H. BROWN.

SPRING­FIELD, Dec. 14, 1859

MESSRS. DOLE, HUB­BARD & BROWN.

GENT.:–Your fa­vor of the 12th is at hand, and it gives me plea­sure to be able to an­swer it. It is not my in­ten­tion to take part in any of the ri­val­ries for the gu­ber­na­to­ri­al nom­ina­tion; but the fear of be­ing mis­un­der­stood up­on that sub­ject ought not to de­ter me from do­ing jus­tice to Mr. Judd, and pre­vent­ing a wrong be­ing done to him by the use of nay name in con­nec­tion with al­leged wrongs to me.

In an­swer to your first ques­tion, as to whether Mr. Judd was guilty of any un­fair­ness to me at the time of Sen­ator Trum­bull’s elec­tion, I an­swer un­hesi­tat­ing­ly in the neg­ative; Mr. Judd owed no po­lit­ical al­le­giance to any par­ty whose can­di­date I was. He was in the Sen­ate, hold­ing over, hav­ing been elect­ed by a Demo­crat­ic Con­stituen­cy. He nev­er was in any cau­cus of the friends who sought to make me U. S. Sen­ator, nev­er gave me any promis­es or pledges to sup­port me, and sub­se­quent events have great­ly tend­ed to prove the wis­dom, po­lit­ical­ly, of Mr. Judd’s course. The elec­tion of Judge Trum­bull strong­ly tend­ed to sus­tain and pre­serve the po­si­tion of that li­on of the Democrats who con­demned the re­peal of the Mis­souri Com­pro­mise, and left them in a po­si­tion of join­ing with us in form­ing the Re­pub­li­can par­ty, as was done at the Bloom­ing­ton con­ven­tion in 1856.

Dur­ing the can­vass of 1858 for the sen­ator­ship my be­lief was, and still is, that I had no more sin­cere and faith­ful friend than Mr. Judd–cer­tain­ly none whom I trust­ed more. His po­si­tion as chair­man of the State Cen­tral Com­mit­tee led to my greater in­ter­course with him, and to my giv­ing him a larg­er share of my con­fi­dence, than with or to al­most any oth­er friend; and I have nev­er sus­pect­ed that that con­fi­dence was, to any de­gree, mis­placed.

My re­la­tions with Mr. Ju­do since the or­ga­ni­za­tion of the Re­pub­li­can par­ty, in, our State, in 1856, and es­pe­cial­ly since the ad­journ­ment of the Leg­is­la­ture in Feb., 1857, have been so very in­ti­mate that I deem it an im­pos­si­bil­ity that he could have been deal­ing treach­er­ous­ly with me. He has al­so, at all times, ap­peared equal­ly true and faith­ful to the par­ty. In his po­si­tion as chair­man of the com­mit­tee, I be­lieve he did all that any man could have done. The best of us are li­able to com­mit er­rors, which be­come ap­par­ent by sub­se­quent de­vel­op­ments; but I do not know of a sin­gle er­ror, even, com­mit­ted by Mr. Judd, since he and I have act­ed to­geth­er po­lit­ical­ly.

I, had oc­ca­sion­al­ly heard these in­sin­ua­tions against Mr. Judd, be­fore the re­ceipt of your let­ter; and in no in­stance have I hes­itat­ed to pro­nounce them whol­ly un­just, to the full ex­tent of my knowl­edge and be­lief. I have been, and still am, very anx­ious to take no part be­tween the many friends, all good and true, who are men­tioned as can­di­dates for a Re­pub­li­can gu­ber­na­to­ri­al nom­ina­tion; but I can not feel that my own hon­or is quite clear if I re­main silent when I hear any one of them as­sailed about mat­ters of which I be­lieve I know more than his as­sailants.

I take plea­sure in adding that, of all the avowed friends I had in the can­vass of last year, I do not sus­pect any of hav­ing act­ed treach­er­ous­ly to me, or to our cause; and that there is not one of them in whose hon­esty, hon­or, and in­tegri­ty I, to­day, have greater con­fi­dence than I have in those of Mr. Judd.

I dis­like to ap­pear be­fore the pub­lic in this mat­ter; but you are at lib­er­ty to make such use of this let­ter as you may think jus­tice re­quires.

Yours very tru­ly,

A. LIN­COLN.

TO G. M. PAR­SONS AND OTH­ERS.

SPRING­FIELD, ILLI­NOIS, De­cem­ber 19, 1859.

MESSRS. G. M. PAR­SONS AND OTH­ERS, CEN­TRAL EX­EC­UTIVE COM­MIT­TEE, ETC.

GEN­TLE­MEN:–Your let­ter of the 7th in­stant, ac­com­pa­nied by a sim­ilar one from the gov­er­nor-​elect, the Re­pub­li­can State of­fi­cers, and the Re­pub­li­can mem­bers of the State Board of Equal­iza­tion of Ohio, both re­quest­ing of me, for pub­li­ca­tion in per­ma­nent form, copies of the po­lit­ical de­bates be­tween Sen­ator Dou­glas and my­self last year, has been re­ceived. With my grate­ful ac­knowl­edg­ments to both you and them for the very flat­ter­ing terms in which the re­quest is com­mu­ni­cat­ed, I trans­mit you the copies. The copies I send you are as re­port­ed and print­ed by the re­spec­tive friends of Sen­ator Dou­glas and my­self, at the time–that is, his by his friends, and mine by mine. It would be an un­war­rantable lib­er­ty for us to change a word or a let­ter in his, and the changes I have made in mine, you per­ceive, are ver­bal on­ly, and very few in num­ber. I wish the reprint to be pre­cise­ly as the copies I send, with­out any com­ment what­ev­er.

Yours very tru­ly,

A. LIN­COLN.

AU­TO­BI­OGRAPH­ICAL SKETCH

TO J. W. FELL,

SPRING­FIELD, De­cem­ber 20, 1859.

J. W. FELL, Esq.

MY DEAR SIR:–Here­with is a lit­tle sketch, as you re­quest­ed. There is not much of it, for the rea­son, I sup­pose, that there is not much of me. If any­thing be made out of it, I wish it to be mod­est, and not to go be­yond the ma­te­ri­al. If it were thought nec­es­sary to in­cor­po­rate any­thing from any of my speech­es I sup­pose there would be no ob­jec­tion. Of course it must not ap­pear to have been writ­ten by my­self.

Yours very tru­ly, A. LIN­COLN

———————–

I was born Febru­ary 12, 1809, in Hardin Coun­ty, Ken­tucky. My par­ents were both born in Vir­ginia, of undis­tin­guished fam­ilies–sec­ond fam­ilies, per­haps I should say. My moth­er, who died in my tenth year, was of a fam­ily of the name of Han­ks, some of whom now re­side in Adams, and oth­ers in Ma­con Coun­ty, Illi­nois. My pa­ter­nal grand­fa­ther, Abra­ham Lin­coln, em­igrat­ed from Rock­ing­ham Coun­ty, Vir­ginia, to Ken­tucky about 1781 or 1782, where a year or two lat­er he was killed by the In­di­ans, not in bat­tle, but by stealth, when he was la­bor­ing to open a farm in the for­est. His an­ces­tors, who were Quak­ers, went to Vir­ginia from Berks Coun­ty, Penn­syl­va­nia. An ef­fort to iden­ti­fy them with the New Eng­land fam­ily of the same name end­ed in noth­ing more def­inite than a sim­ilar­ity of Chris­tian names in both fam­ilies, such as Enoch, Levi, Morde­cai, Solomon, Abra­ham, and the like.

My fa­ther, at the death of his fa­ther, was but six years of age, and he grew up lit­er­al­ly with­out ed­uca­tion. He re­moved from Ken­tucky to what is now Spencer Coun­ty, In­di­ana, in my eighth year. We reached our new home about the time that State came in­to the Union. It was a wild re­gion, with many bears and oth­er wild an­imals still in the woods. There I grew up. There were some schools, so called, but no qual­ifi­ca­tion was ev­er re­quired of a teach­er be­yond “readin’, writin’, and ci­pherin”‘ to the Rule of Three. If a strag­gler sup­posed to un­der­stand Latin hap­pened to so­journ in the neigh­bor­hood he was looked up­on as a wiz­ard. There was ab­so­lute­ly noth­ing to ex­cite am­bi­tion for ed­uca­tion. Of course, when I came of age I did not know much. Still, some­how, I could read, write, and ci­pher to the Rule of Three, but that was all. I have not been to school since. The lit­tle ad­vance I now have up­on this store of ed­uca­tion I have picked up from time to time un­der the pres­sure of ne­ces­si­ty.

I was raised to farm work, which I con­tin­ued till I was twen­ty-​two. At twen­ty-​one I came to Illi­nois, Ma­con Coun­ty. Then I got to New Salem, at that time in Sang­amon, now in Menard Coun­ty, where I re­mained a year as a sort of clerk in a store. Then came the Black Hawk war; and I was elect­ed a cap­tain of vol­un­teers, a suc­cess which gave me more plea­sure than any I have had since. I went the cam­paign, was elect­ed, ran for the Leg­is­la­ture the same year (1832), and was beat­en–the on­ly time I ev­er have been beat­en by the peo­ple. The next and three suc­ceed­ing bi­en­ni­al elec­tions I was elect­ed to the Leg­is­la­ture. I was not a can­di­date af­ter­ward. Dur­ing this leg­isla­tive pe­ri­od I had stud­ied law, and re­moved to Spring­field to prac­tice it. In 1846 I was once elect­ed to the low­er House of Congress. Was not a can­di­date for re-​elec­tion. From 1849 to 1854, both in­clu­sive, prac­ticed law more as­sid­uous­ly than ev­er be­fore. Al­ways a Whig in pol­itics; and gen­er­al­ly on the Whig elec­toral tick­ets, mak­ing ac­tive can­vass­es. I was los­ing in­ter­est in pol­itics when the re­peal of the Mis­souri Com­pro­mise aroused me again. What I have done since then is pret­ty well known.

If any per­son­al de­scrip­tion of me is thought de­sir­able, it may be said I am, in height, six feet four inch­es, near­ly; lean in flesh, weigh­ing on an av­er­age one hun­dred and eighty pounds; dark com­plex­ion, with coarse black hair and gray eyes. No oth­er marks or brands rec­ol­lect­ed.

Yours tru­ly,

A. LIN­COLN.

ON NOM­INA­TION TO THE NA­TION­AL TICK­ET

To N. B. JUDD.

SPRING­FIELD, FEBRU­ARY 9, 1859

HON. N. B. JUDD.

DEAR Sir:–I am not in a po­si­tion where it would hurt much for me to not be nom­inat­ed on the na­tion­al tick­et; but I am where it would hurt some for me to not get the Illi­nois del­egates. What I ex­pect­ed when I wrote the let­ter to Messrs. Dole and oth­ers is now hap­pen­ing. Your dis­com­fit­ed as­sailants are most bit­ter against me; and they will, for re­venge up­on me, lay to the Bates egg in the South, and to the Se­ward egg in the North, and go far to­ward squeez­ing me out in the mid­dle with noth­ing. Can you help me a lit­tle in this mat­ter in your end of the vine­yard. I mean this to be pri­vate.

Yours as ev­er,

A. LIN­COLN

1860

SPEECH AT THE COOP­ER IN­STI­TUTE, NEW YORK FEBRU­ARY 27, 1860

MR. PRES­IDENT AND FEL­LOW-​CIT­IZENS OF NEW YORK:–The facts with which I shall deal this evening are main­ly old and fa­mil­iar; nor is there any­thing new in the gen­er­al use I shall make of them. If there shall be any nov­el­ty, it will be in the mode of pre­sent­ing the facts, and the in­fer­ences and ob­ser­va­tions fol­low­ing that pre­sen­ta­tion.

In his speech last au­tumn at Colum­bus, Ohio, as re­port­ed in the New York Times, Sen­ator Dou­glas said:

“Our fa­thers, when they framed the Gov­ern­ment un­der which we live, un­der­stood this ques­tion just as well, and even bet­ter than we do now.”

I ful­ly in­dorse this, and I adopt it as a text for this dis­course. I so adopt it be­cause it fur­nish­es a pre­cise and an agreed start­ing- point for a dis­cus­sion be­tween Re­pub­li­cans and that wing of the Democ­ra­cy head­ed by Sen­ator Dou­glas. It sim­ply leaves the in­quiry: What was the un­der­stand­ing those fa­thers had of the ques­tion men­tioned?

What is the frame of Gov­ern­ment un­der which we live?

The an­swer must be–the Con­sti­tu­tion of the Unit­ed States. That Con­sti­tu­tion con­sists of the orig­inal, framed in 1787 (and un­der which the present Gov­ern­ment first went in­to op­er­ation), and twelve sub­se­quent­ly framed amend­ments, the first ten of which were framed in 1789.

Who were our fa­thers that framed the Con­sti­tu­tion? I sup­pose the “thir­ty-​nine” who signed the orig­inal in­stru­ment may be fair­ly called our fa­thers who framed that part of the present Gov­ern­ment. It is al­most ex­act­ly true to say they framed it, and it is al­to­geth­er true to say they fair­ly rep­re­sent­ed the opin­ion and sen­ti­ment of the whole na­tion at that time.

Their names, be­ing fa­mil­iar to near­ly all, and ac­ces­si­ble to quite all, need not now be re­peat­ed.

I take these “thir­ty-​nine,” for the present, as be­ing our “fa­thers who framed the Gov­ern­ment un­der which we live.”

What is the ques­tion which, ac­cord­ing to the text, those fa­thers un­der­stood “just as well, and even bet­ter than we do now”?

It is this: Does the prop­er di­vi­sion of lo­cal from Fed­er­al au­thor­ity, or any­thing in the Con­sti­tu­tion, for­bid our Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment to con­trol as to slav­ery in our Fed­er­al Ter­ri­to­ries?

Up­on this Sen­ator Dou­glas holds the af­fir­ma­tive, and Re­pub­li­cans the neg­ative. This af­fir­ma­tion and de­nial form an is­sue, and this is­sue- -this ques­tion is pre­cise­ly what the text de­clares our fa­thers un­der­stood “bet­ter than we.”

Let us now in­quire whether the “thir­ty-​nine,” or any of them, act­ed up­on this ques­tion; and if they did, how they act­ed up­on it–how they ex­pressed that bet­ter un­der­stand­ing.

In 1784, three years be­fore the Con­sti­tu­tion–the Unit­ed States then own­ing the North­west­ern Ter­ri­to­ry, and no oth­er–the Congress of the Con­fed­er­ation had be­fore them the ques­tion of pro­hibit­ing slav­ery in that Ter­ri­to­ry; and four of the “thir­ty nine” who af­ter­ward framed the Con­sti­tu­tion were in that Congress and vot­ed on that ques­tion. Of these, Roger Sher­man, Thomas Mif­flin, and Hugh Williamson vot­ed for the pro­hi­bi­tion, thus show­ing that, in their un­der­stand­ing, no line di­vid­ing lo­cal from Fed­er­al au­thor­ity, nor any­thing else, prop­er­ly for­bade the Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment to con­trol as to slav­ery in Fed­er­al ter­ri­to­ry. The oth­er of the four–James McHen­ry vot­ed against the pro­hi­bi­tion, show­ing that, for some cause, he thought it im­prop­er to vote for it.

In 1787, still be­fore the Con­sti­tu­tion, but while the con­ven­tion was in ses­sion fram­ing it, and while the North­west­ern Ter­ri­to­ry still was the on­ly Ter­ri­to­ry owned by the Unit­ed States, the same ques­tion of pro­hibit­ing slav­ery in the Ter­ri­to­ry again came be­fore the Congress of the Con­fed­er­ation; and two more of the “thir­ty-​nine” who af­ter­ward signed the Con­sti­tu­tion were in that Congress, and vot­ed on the ques­tion. They were William Blount and William Few; and they both vot­ed for the pro­hi­bi­tion thus show­ing that, in their un­der­stand­ing, no line di­vid­ing lo­cal from Fed­er­al au­thor­ity, nor any­thing else, prop­er­ly for­bade the Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment to con­trol as to slav­ery in Fed­er­al ter­ri­to­ry. This time the pro­hi­bi­tion be­came a law, be­ing part of what is now well known as the Or­di­nance of ‘87.

The ques­tion of Fed­er­al con­trol of slav­ery in the Ter­ri­to­ries seems not to have been di­rect­ly be­fore the con­ven­tion which framed the orig­inal Con­sti­tu­tion; and hence it is not record­ed that the “thir­ty-​nine,” or any of them, while en­gaged on that in­stru­ment, ex­pressed any opin­ion on that pre­cise ques­tion.

In 1789, by the first Congress which sat un­der the Con­sti­tu­tion, an act was passed to en­force the Or­di­nance of ‘87, in­clud­ing the pro­hi­bi­tion of slav­ery in the North­west­ern Ter­ri­to­ry. The bill for this act was re­port­ed by one of the “thir­ty-​nine,” Thomas Fitzsim­mons, then a mem­ber of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives from Penn­syl­va­nia. It went through all its stages with­out a word of op­po­si­tion, and fi­nal­ly passed both branch­es with­out yeas and nays, which is equiv­alent to a unan­imous pas­sage. In this Congress there were six­teen of the thir­ty-​nine fa­thers who framed the orig­inal Con­sti­tu­tion. They were John Lang­don, Nicholas Gilman, Wm. S. Johnn­son, Roger Sher­man, Robert Mor­ris, Thos. Fitzsim­mons, William Few, Abra­ham Bald­win, Ru­fus King, William Pa­ter­son, George Claimer, Richard Bas­sett, George Read, Pierce But­ler, Daniel Car­roll, James Madi­son.

This shows that, in their un­der­stand­ing, no line di­vid­ing lo­cal from Fed­er­al au­thor­ity, nor any­thing in the Con­sti­tu­tion, prop­er­ly for­bade Congress to pro­hib­it slav­ery in the Fed­er­al ter­ri­to­ry; else both their fi­deli­ty to cor­rect prin­ci­ples and their oath to sup­port the Con­sti­tu­tion would have con­strained them to op­pose the pro­hi­bi­tion.

Again: George Wash­ing­ton, an­oth­er of the “thir­ty nine,” was then Pres­ident of the Unit­ed States, and, as such, ap­proved and signed the bill; thus com­plet­ing its va­lid­ity as a law, and thus show­ing that, in his un­der­stand­ing, no line di­vid­ing lo­cal from Fed­er­al au­thor­ity, nor any­thing in the Con­sti­tu­tion, for­bade the Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment to con­trol as to slav­ery in Fed­er­al ter­ri­to­ry.

No great while af­ter the adop­tion of the orig­inal Con­sti­tu­tion, North Car­oli­na ced­ed to the Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment the coun­try now con­sti­tut­ing the State of Ten­nessee; and, a few years lat­er, Geor­gia ced­ed that which now con­sti­tutes the States of Mis­sis­sip­pi and Al­aba­ma. In both deeds of ces­sion it was made a con­di­tion by the ced­ing States that the Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment should not pro­hib­it slav­ery in the ced­ed coun­try. Be­sides this, slav­ery was then ac­tu­al­ly in the ced­ed coun­try. Un­der these cir­cum­stances, Congress, on tak­ing charge of these coun­tries, did not ab­so­lute­ly pro­hib­it slav­ery with­in them. But they did in­ter­fere with it–take con­trol of it–even there, to a cer­tain ex­tent. In 1798, Congress or­ga­nized the Ter­ri­to­ry of Mis­sis­sip­pi: In the act of or­ga­ni­za­tion they pro­hib­it­ed the bring­ing of slaves in­to the Ter­ri­to­ry from any place with­out the Unit­ed States, by fine and giv­ing free­dom to slaves so brought. This act passed both branch­es of Congress with­out yeas and nays. In that Congress were three of the “thir­ty-​nine” who framed the orig­inal Con­sti­tu­tion. They were John Lang­don, George Read, and Abra­ham Bald­win. They all, prob­ably, vot­ed for it. Cer­tain­ly they would have placed their op­po­si­tion to it up­on record, if, in their un­der­stand­ing, any line di­vid­ing lo­cal from Fed­er­al au­thor­ity, or any­thing in the Con­sti­tu­tion, prop­er­ly for­bade the Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment to con­trol as to slav­ery in Fed­er­al ter­ri­to­ry.

In 1803, the Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment pur­chased the Louisiana coun­try. Our for­mer ter­ri­to­ri­al ac­qui­si­tions came from cer­tain of our own States; but this Louisiana coun­try was ac­quired from a for­eign na­tion. In 1804, Congress gave a ter­ri­to­ri­al or­ga­ni­za­tion to that part of it which now con­sti­tutes the State of Lou­siana. New Or­leans, ly­ing with­in that part, was an old and com­par­ative­ly large city. There were oth­er con­sid­er­able towns and set­tle­ments, and slav­ery was ex­ten­sive­ly and thor­ough­ly in­ter­min­gled with the peo­ple. Congress did not, in the Ter­ri­to­ri­al Act, pro­hib­it slav­ery; but they did in­ter­fere with it take con­trol of it–in a more marked and ex­ten­sive way than they did in the case of Mis­sis­sip­pi. The sub­stance of the pro­vi­sion there­in made in re­la­tion to slaves was:

First. That no slave should be im­port­ed in­to the Ter­ri­to­ry from for­eign parts.

Sec­ond. That no slave should be car­ried in­to it who had been im­port­ed in­to the Unit­ed States since the first day of May, 1798.

Third. That no slave should be car­ried in­to it ex­cept by the own­er, and for his own use as a set­tler; the penal­ty in all the cas­es be­ing a fine up­on the vi­ola­tor of the law, and free­dom to the slave.

This act al­so was passed with­out yeas and nays. In the Congress which passed it there were two of the “thir­ty-​nine.” They were Abra­ham Bald­win and Jonathan Day­ton. As stat­ed in the case of Mis­sis­sip­pi, it is prob­able they both vot­ed for it. They would not have al­lowed it to pass with­out record­ing their op­po­si­tion to it, if, in their un­der­stand­ing, it vi­olat­ed ei­ther the line prop­er­ly di­vid­ing lo­cal from Fed­er­al au­thor­ity, or any pro­vi­sion of the Con­sti­tu­tion.

In 1819-20 came and passed the Mis­souri ques­tion. Many votes were tak­en, by yeas and nays, in both branch­es of Congress, up­on the var­ious phas­es of the gen­er­al ques­tion. Two of the “thir­ty-​nine”- -Ru­fus King and Charles Pinck­ney were mem­bers of that Congress. Mr. King steadi­ly vot­ed for slav­ery pro­hi­bi­tion and against all com­pro­mis­es, while Mr. Pinck­ney as steadi­ly vot­ed against slav­ery pro­hi­bi­tion, and against all com­pro­mis­es. By this, Mr. King showed that, in his un­der­stand­ing, no line di­vid­ing lo­cal from Fed­er­al au­thor­ity, nor any­thing in the Con­sti­tu­tion, was vi­olat­ed by Congress pro­hibit­ing slav­ery in Fed­er­al ter­ri­to­ry; while Mr. Pinck­ney, by his vote, showed that in his un­der­stand­ing there was some suf­fi­cient rea­son for op­pos­ing such pro­hi­bi­tion in that case.

The cas­es I have men­tioned are the on­ly acts of the “thir­ty-​nine,” or of any of them, up­on the di­rect is­sue, which I have been able to dis­cov­er.

To enu­mer­ate the per­sons who thus act­ed, as be­ing four in 1784, two in 1787, sev­en­teen in 1789, three in 1798, two in 1804, and two in 1819-20–there would be thir­ty of them. But this would be count­ing, John Lang­don, Roger Sher­man, William Few, Ru­fus King, and George Read, each twice, and Abra­ham Bald­win three times. The true num­ber of those of the “thir­ty-​nine” whom I have shown to have act­ed up­on the ques­tion which, by the text, they un­der­stood bet­ter than we, is twen­ty-​three, leav­ing six­teen not shown to have act­ed up­on it in any way.

Here, then, we have twen­ty-​three out of our thir­ty-​nine fa­thers “who framed the Gov­ern­ment un­der which we live,” who have, up­on their of­fi­cial re­spon­si­bil­ity and their cor­po­ral oaths, act­ed up­on the very ques­tion which the text af­firms they “un­der­stood just as well, and even bet­ter than we do now”; and twen­ty-​one of them–a clear ma­jor­ity of the whole “thir­ty-​nine”–so act­ing up­on it as to make them guilty of gross po­lit­ical im­pro­pri­ety and wil­ful per­jury, if, in their un­der­stand­ing, any prop­er di­vi­sion be­tween lo­cal and Fed­er­al. au­thor­ity, or any­thing in the Con­sti­tu­tion they had made them­selves, and sworn to sup­port, for­bade the Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment to con­trol as to slav­ery in the Fed­er­al Ter­ri­to­ries. Thus the twen­ty-​one act­ed; and, as ac­tions speak loud­er than words, so ac­tions un­der such re­spon­si­bil­ities speak still loud­er.

Two of the twen­ty-​three vot­ed against Con­gres­sion­al pro­hi­bi­tion of slav­ery in the Fed­er­al Ter­ri­to­ries, in the in­stances in which they act­ed up­on the ques­tion. But for what rea­sons they so vot­ed is not known. They may have done so be­cause they thought a prop­er di­vi­sion of lo­cal from Fed­er­al au­thor­ity, or some pro­vi­sion or prin­ci­ple of the Con­sti­tu­tion, stood in the way; or they may, with­out any such ques­tion, have vot­ed against the pro­hi­bi­tion on what ap­peared to them to be suf­fi­cient grounds of ex­pe­di­en­cy. No one who has sworn to sup­port the Con­sti­tu­tion can con­sci­en­tious­ly vote for what he un­der­stands to be an un­con­sti­tu­tion­al mea­sure, how­ev­er ex­pe­di­ent he may think it; but one may and ought to vote against a mea­sure which he deems con­sti­tu­tion­al, if, at the same time, he deems it in­ex­pe­di­ent. It there­fore would be un­safe to set down even the two who vot­ed against the pro­hi­bi­tion as hav­ing done so be­cause, in their un­der­stand­ing, any prop­er di­vi­sion of lo­cal from Fed­er­al au­thor­ity, or any­thing in the Con­sti­tu­tion, for­bade the Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment to con­trol as to slav­ery in Fed­er­al ter­ri­to­ry.

The re­main­ing six­teen of the “thir­ty-​nine,” so far as I have dis­cov­ered, have left no record of their un­der­stand­ing up­on the di­rect ques­tion of Fed­er­al con­trol on slav­ery in the Fed­er­al Ter­ri­to­ries. But there is much rea­son to be­lieve that their un­der­stand­ing up­on that ques­tion would not have ap­peared dif­fer­ent from that of their twen­ty-​three com­peers, had it been man­ifest­ed at all.

For the pur­pose of ad­her­ing rigid­ly to the text, I have pur­pose­ly omit­ted what­ev­er un­der­stand­ing may have been man­ifest­ed by any per­son, how­ev­er dis­tin­guished, oth­er than the thir­ty-​nine fa­thers who framed the orig­inal Con­sti­tu­tion; and, for the same rea­son, I have al­so omit­ted what­ev­er un­der­stand­ing may have been man­ifest­ed by any of the “thir­ty tine” even on any oth­er phase of the gen­er­al ques­tion of slav­ery. If we should look in­to their acts and dec­la­ra­tions on those oth­er phas­es, as the for­eign slave trade, and the moral­ity and pol­icy of slav­ery gen­er­al­ly, it would ap­pear to us that on the di­rect ques­tion of Fed­er­al con­trol of slav­ery in Fed­er­al Ter­ri­to­ries, the six­teen, if they had act­ed at all, would prob­ably have act­ed just as the twen­ty-​three did. Among that six­teen were sev­er­al of the most not­ed an­ti-​slav­ery men of those times–as Dr. Franklin, Alexan­der Hamil­ton, and Gou­verneur Mor­ris while there was not one now known to have been oth­er­wise, un­less it may be John Rut­ledge, of South Car­oli­na.

The sum of the whole is, that of our thir­ty-​nine fa­thers who framed the orig­inal Con­sti­tu­tion, twen­ty-​one–a clear ma­jor­ity of the whole–cer­tain­ly un­der­stood that no prop­er di­vi­sion of lo­cal from Fed­er­al au­thor­ity, nor any part of the Con­sti­tu­tion, for­bade the Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment to con­trol slav­ery in the Fed­er­al Ter­ri­to­ries; whilst all the rest prob­ably had the same un­der­stand­ing. Such, un­ques­tion­ably, was the un­der­stand­ing of our fa­thers who framed the orig­inal Con­sti­tu­tion; and the text af­firms that they un­der­stood the ques­tion “bet­ter than we.”

But, so far, I have been con­sid­er­ing the un­der­stand­ing of the ques­tion man­ifest­ed by the framers of the orig­inal Con­sti­tu­tion. In and by the orig­inal in­stru­ment, a mode was pro­vid­ed for amend­ing it; and, as I have al­ready stat­ed, the present frame of “the Gov­ern­ment un­der which we live” con­sists of that orig­inal, and twelve amenda­to­ry ar­ti­cles framed and adopt­ed since. Those who now in­sist that Fed­er­al con­trol of slav­ery in Fed­er­al Ter­ri­to­ries vi­olates the Con­sti­tu­tion, point us to the pro­vi­sions which they sup­pose it thus vi­olates; and, as I un­der­stand, they all fix up­on pro­vi­sions in these amenda­to­ry ar­ti­cles, and not in the orig­inal in­stru­ment. The Supreme Court, in the Dred Scott case, plant them­selves up­on the fifth amend­ment, which pro­vides that no per­son shall be de­prived of “life, lib­er­ty, or prop­er­ty with­out due pro­cess of law”; while Sen­ator Dou­glas and his pe­cu­liar ad­her­ents plant them­selves up­on the tenth amend­ment, pro­vid­ing that “the pow­ers not del­egat­ed to the Unit­ed States by the Con­sti­tu­tion” “are re­served to the States re­spec­tive­ly, or to the peo­ple.”

Now, it so hap­pens that these amend­ments were framed by the first Congress which sat un­der the Con­sti­tu­tion–the iden­ti­cal Congress which passed the act al­ready men­tioned, en­forc­ing the pro­hi­bi­tion of slav­ery in the North­west­ern Ter­ri­to­ry. Not on­ly was it the same Congress, but they were the iden­ti­cal same in­di­vid­ual men who, at the same ses­sion, and at the same time with­in the ses­sion, had un­der con­sid­er­ation, and in progress to­ward ma­tu­ri­ty, these Con­sti­tu­tion­al amend­ments, and this act pro­hibit­ing slav­ery in all the ter­ri­to­ry the na­tion then owned. The Con­sti­tu­tion­al amend­ments were in­tro­duced be­fore and passed af­ter the act en­forc­ing the Or­di­nance of ‘87; so that, dur­ing the whole pen­den­cy of the act to en­force the Or­di­nance, the Con­sti­tu­tion­al amend­ments were al­so pend­ing.

The sev­en­ty-​six mem­bers of that Congress, in­clud­ing six­teen of the framers of the orig­inal Con­sti­tu­tion, as be­fore stat­ed, were pre-​em­inent­ly our fa­thers who framed that part of “the Gov­ern­ment un­der which we live,” which is now claimed as for­bid­ding the Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment to con­trol slav­ery in the Fed­er­al Ter­ri­to­ries.

Is it not a lit­tle pre­sump­tu­ous in any one at this day to af­firm that the two things which that Congress de­lib­er­ate­ly framed, and car­ried to ma­tu­ri­ty at the same time, are ab­so­lute­ly in­con­sis­tent with each oth­er? And does not such af­fir­ma­tion be­come im­pu­dent­ly ab­surd when cou­pled with the oth­er af­fir­ma­tion from the same mouth, that those who did the two things al­leged to be in­con­sis­tent un­der­stood whether they re­al­ly were in­con­sis­tent bet­ter than we–bet­ter than he who af­firms that they are in­con­sis­tent?

It is sure­ly safe to as­sume that the thir­ty-​nine framers of the orig­inal Con­sti­tu­tion, and the sev­en­ty-​six mem­bers of the Congress which framed the amend­ments there­to, tak­en to­geth­er, do cer­tain­ly in­clude those who may be fair­ly called “our fa­thers who framed the Gov­ern­ment un­der which we live.” And, so as­sum­ing, I de­fy any man to show that any one of them ev­er, in his whole life, de­clared that, in his un­der­stand­ing, any prop­er di­vi­sion of lo­cal from Fed­er­al au­thor­ity, or any part of the Con­sti­tu­tion, for­bade the Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment to con­trol as to slav­ery in the Fed­er­al Ter­ri­to­ries. I go a step fur­ther. I de­fy any one to show that any liv­ing man in the world ev­er did, pri­or to the be­gin­ning of the present cen­tu­ry (and I might al­most say pri­or to the be­gin­ning of the last half of the present cen­tu­ry), de­clare that, in his un­der­stand­ing, any prop­er di­vi­sion of lo­cal from Fed­er­al au­thor­ity, or any part of the Con­sti­tu­tion, for­bade the Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment to con­trol as to slav­ery in the Fed­er­al Ter­ri­to­ries. To those who now so de­clare, I give not on­ly “our fa­thers who framed the Gov­ern­ment un­der which we live,” but with them all oth­er liv­ing men with­in the cen­tu­ry in which it was framed, among whom to search, and they shall not be able to find the ev­idence of a sin­gle man agree­ing with them.

Now and here let me guard a lit­tle against be­ing mis­un­der­stood. I do not mean to say we are bound to fol­low im­plic­it­ly in what­ev­er our fa­thers did. To do so would be to dis­card all the lights of cur­rent ex­pe­ri­ence to re­ject all progress, all im­prove­ment. What I do say is that, if we would sup­plant the opin­ions and pol­icy of our fa­thers in any case, we should do so up­on ev­idence so con­clu­sive, and ar­gu­ment so clear, that even their great au­thor­ity, fair­ly con­sid­ered and weighed, can­not stand; and most sure­ly not in a case where­of we our­selves de­clare they un­der­stood the ques­tion bet­ter than we.

If any man at this day sin­cere­ly be­lieves that prop­er di­vi­sion of lo­cal from Fed­er­al au­thor­ity, or any part of the Con­sti­tu­tion, for­bids the Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment to con­trol as to slav­ery in the Fed­er­al Ter­ri­to­ries, he is right to say so, and to en­force his po­si­tion by all truth­ful ev­idence and fair ar­gu­ment which he can. But he has no right to mis­lead oth­ers who have less ac­cess to his­to­ry, and less leisure to study it, in­to the false be­lief that “our fa­thers who framed the Gov­ern­ment un­der which we live” were of the same opin­ion thus sub­sti­tut­ing false­hood and de­cep­tion for truth­ful ev­idence and fair ar­gu­ment. If any man at this day sin­cere­ly be­lieves “our fa­thers, who framed the Gov­ern­ment un­der which we live,” used and ap­plied prin­ci­ples, in oth­er cas­es, which ought to have led them to un­der­stand that a prop­er di­vi­sion of lo­cal from Fed­er­al au­thor­ity, or some part of the Con­sti­tu­tion, for­bids the Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment to con­trol as to slav­ery in the Fed­er­al Ter­ri­to­ries, he is right to say so. But he should, at the same time, brave the re­spon­si­bil­ity of declar­ing that, in his opin­ion, he un­der­stands their prin­ci­ples bet­ter than they did them­selves; and es­pe­cial­ly should he not shirk that re­spon­si­bil­ity by as­sert­ing that they “un­der­stood the ques­tion just as well, and even bet­ter than we do now.”

But enough! Let all who be­lieve that “our fa­thers, who framed the Gov­ern­ment un­der which we live, un­der­stood this ques­tion just as well, and even bet­ter than we do now,” speak as they spoke, and act as they act­ed up­on it. This is all Re­pub­li­cans ask–all Re­pub­li­cans de­sire–in re­la­tion to slav­ery. As those fa­thers marked it, so let it be again marked, as an evil not to be ex­tend­ed, but to be tol­er­at­ed and pro­tect­ed on­ly be­cause of, and so far as, its ac­tu­al pres­ence among us makes that tol­er­ation and pro­tec­tion a ne­ces­si­ty. Let all the guar­anties those fa­thers gave it be not grudg­ing­ly, but ful­ly and fair­ly main­tained. For this Re­pub­li­cans con­tend, and with this, so far as I know or be­lieve, they will be con­tent.

And now, if they would lis­ten–as I sup­pose they will not–I would ad­dress a few words to the South­ern peo­ple.

I would say to them: You con­sid­er your­selves a rea­son­able and a just peo­ple; and I con­sid­er that in the gen­er­al qual­ities of rea­son and jus­tice you are not in­fe­ri­or to any oth­er peo­ple. Still, when you speak of us Re­pub­li­cans, you do so on­ly to de­nounce us as rep­tiles, or, at the best, as no bet­ter than out­laws. You will grant a hear­ing to pi­rates or mur­der­ers, but noth­ing like it to “Black Re­pub­li­cans.” In all your con­tentions with one an­oth­er, each of you deems an un­con­di­tion­al con­dem­na­tion of “Black Re­pub­li­can­ism” as the first thing to be at­tend­ed to. In­deed, such con­dem­na­tion of us seems to be an in­dis­pens­able pre­req­ui­site li­cense, so to speak among you, to be ad­mit­ted or per­mit­ted to speak at all: Now; can you, or not, be pre­vailed up­on to pause, and to con­sid­er whether this is quite just to us, or even to your­selves? Bring for­ward your charges and spec­ifi­ca­tions, and then be pa­tient long enough to hear us de­ny or jus­ti­fy.

You say we are sec­tion­al. We de­ny it. That makes an is­sue; and the bur­den of proof is up­on you. You pro­duce your proof; and what is it? Why, that our par­ty has no ex­is­tence in your sec­tion–gets no votes in your sec­tion. The fact is sub­stan­tial­ly true; but does it prove the is­sue? If it does, then in case we should, with­out change of prin­ci­ple, be­gin to get votes in your sec­tion, we should there­by cease to be sec­tion­al. You can­not es­cape this con­clu­sion; and yet, are you will­ing to abide by it? If you are, you will prob­ably soon find that we have ceased to be sec­tion­al, for we shall get votes in your sec­tion this very year. You will then be­gin to dis­cov­er, as the truth plain­ly is, that your proof, does not touch the is­sue. The fact that we get no votes in your sec­tion is a fact of your mak­ing, and not of ours. And if there be fault in that fact, that fault is pri­mar­ily yours, and re­mains so un­til you show that we re­pel you by, some wrong prin­ci­ple or prac­tice. If we do re­pel you by any wrong prin­ci­ple or prac­tice, the fault is ours; but this brings you to where you ought to have start­ed to a dis­cus­sion of the right or wrong of our prin­ci­ple. If our prin­ci­ple, put in prac­tice, would wrong your sec­tion for the ben­efit of ours, or for any oth­er ob­ject, then our prin­ci­ple, and we with it, are sec­tion­al, and are just­ly op­posed and de­nounced as such. Meet us, then, on the ques­tion of whether our prin­ci­ple, put in prac­tice, would wrong your sec­tion; and so meet us as if it were pos­si­ble that some­thing may be said on our side. Do you ac­cept the chal­lenge? No! Then you re­al­ly be­lieve that the prin­ci­ple which “our fa­thers who framed the Gov­ern­ment un­der which we live” thought so clear­ly right as to adopt it, and in­dorse it again and again, up­on their of­fi­cial oaths, is in fact so clear­ly wrong as to de­mand your con­dem­na­tion with­out a mo­ment’s con­sid­er­ation.

Some of you de­light to flaunt in our faces the warn­ing against sec­tion­al par­ties giv­en by Wash­ing­ton in his Farewell Ad­dress. Less than eight years be­fore Wash­ing­ton gave that warn­ing, he had, as Pres­ident of the Unit­ed States, ap­proved and signed an act of Congress en­forc­ing the pro­hi­bi­tion of slav­ery in the North­west­ern Ter­ri­to­ry, which act em­bod­ied the pol­icy of the Gov­ern­ment up­on that sub­ject up to, and at, the very mo­ment he penned that warn­ing; and about one year af­ter he penned it, he wrote La Fayette that he con­sid­ered that pro­hi­bi­tion a wise mea­sure, ex­press­ing in the same con­nec­tion his hope that we should at some time have a con­fed­er­acy of free States.

Bear­ing this in mind, and see­ing that sec­tion­al­ism has since arisen up­on this same sub­ject, is that warn­ing a weapon in your hands against us, or in our hands against you? Could Wash­ing­ton him­self speak, would he cast the blame of that sec­tion­al­ism up­on us, who sus­tain his pol­icy, or up­on you, who re­pu­di­ate it? We re­spect that warn­ing of Wash­ing­ton, and we com­mend it to you, to­geth­er with his ex­am­ple point­ing to the right ap­pli­ca­tion of it.

But you say you are con­ser­va­tive–em­inent­ly con­ser­va­tive–while we are rev­olu­tion­ary, de­struc­tive, or some­thing, of the sort. What is con­ser­vatism? Is it not ad­her­ence to the old and tried, against a new and un­tried? We stick to, con­tend for, the iden­ti­cal old pol­icy on the point in con­tro­ver­sy which was adopt­ed by “our fa­thers who framed the Gov­ern­ment un­der which we live”; while you with one ac­cord re­ject, and scout, and spit up­on that old pol­icy and in­sist up­on sub­sti­tut­ing some­thing new. True, you dis­agree among your­selves as to what that sub­sti­tute shall be. You are di­vid­ed on new propo­si­tions and plans, but you are unan­imous in re­ject­ing and de­nounc­ing the old pol­icy of the fa­thers. Some of you are for re­viv­ing the for­eign slave trade; some for a Con­gres­sion­al slave code for the Ter­ri­to­ries; some for Congress for­bid­ding the Ter­ri­to­ries to pro­hib­it slav­ery with­in their lim­its; some for main­tain­ing slav­ery in the Ter­ri­to­ries through the ju­di­cia­ry; some for the “gur-​reat pur-​rin­ci­ple” that “if one man would en­slave an­oth­er, no third man should ob­ject,” fan­tas­ti­cal­ly called “pop­ular sovereign­ty”; but nev­er a man among you in fa­vor of Fed­er­al pro­hi­bi­tion of slav­ery in Fed­er­al Ter­ri­to­ries, ac­cord­ing to the prac­tice of “our fa­thers who framed the Gov­ern­ment un­der which we live.” Not one of all your var­ious plans can show a prece­dent or an ad­vo­cate in the cen­tu­ry with­in which our Gov­ern­ment orig­inat­ed. Con­sid­er, then, whether your claim of con­ser­vatism for your­selves, and your charge of de­struc­tive­ness against us, are based on the most clear and sta­ble foun­da­tions.

Again: You say we have made the slav­ery ques­tion more promi­nent than it for­mer­ly was. We de­ny it. We ad­mit that it is more promi­nent, but we de­ny that we made it so. It was not we, but you, who dis­card­ed the old pol­icy of the fa­thers. We re­sist­ed and still re­sist your in­no­va­tion; and thence comes the greater promi­nence of the ques­tion. Would you have that ques­tion re­duced to its for­mer pro­por­tions? Go back to that old pol­icy. What has been will be again, un­der the same con­di­tions. If you would have the peace of the old times, read­opt the pre­cepts and pol­icy of the old times.

You charge that we stir up in­sur­rec­tions among your slaves. We de­ny it; and what is your proof’? Harp­er’s Fer­ry! John Brown!! John Brown was no Re­pub­li­can; and you have failed to im­pli­cate a sin­gle Re­pub­li­can in his Harp­er’s Fer­ry en­ter­prise. If any mem­ber of our par­ty is guilty in that mat­ter you know it or you do not know it. If you do know it, you are in­ex­cus­able for not des­ig­nat­ing the man and prov­ing the fact. If you do not know it, you are in­ex­cus­able for as­sert­ing it, and es­pe­cial­ly for per­sist­ing in the as­ser­tion af­ter you have tried and failed to make the proof. You need not be told that per­sist­ing in a charge which one does not know to be true is sim­ply ma­li­cious slan­der.

Some of you ad­mit that no Re­pub­li­can de­signed­ly aid­ed or en­cour­aged the Harp­er’s Fer­ry af­fair, but still in­sist that our doc­trines and dec­la­ra­tions nec­es­sar­ily lead to such re­sults. We do not be­lieve it. We know we hold to no doc­trine, and make no dec­la­ra­tion, which were not held to and made by our fa­thers who framed the Gov­ern­ment un­der which we live. You nev­er dealt fair­ly by us in re­la­tion to this af­fair. When it oc­curred, some im­por­tant State elec­tions were near at hand, and you were in ev­ident glee with the be­lief that, by charg­ing the blame up­on us, you could get an ad­van­tage of us in those elec­tions. The elec­tions came, and your ex­pec­ta­tions were not quite ful­filled. Ev­ery Re­pub­li­can man knew that, as to him­self at least, your charge was a slan­der, and he was not much in­clined by it to cast his vote in your fa­vor. Re­pub­li­can doc­trines and dec­la­ra­tions are ac­com­pa­nied with a con­tin­ued protest against any in­ter­fer­ence what­ev­er with your slaves, or with you about your slaves. Sure­ly, this does not en­cour­age them to re­volt. True, we do, in com­mon with “our fa­thers, who framed the Gov­ern­ment un­der which we live,” de­clare our be­lief that slav­ery is wrong; but the slaves do not hear us de­clare even this. For any thing we say or do, the slaves would scarce­ly know there is a Re­pub­li­can par­ty. I be­lieve they would not, in fact, gen­er­al­ly know it but for your mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tions of us in their hear­ing. In your po­lit­ical con­tests among your­selves, each fac­tion charges the oth­er with sym­pa­thy with Black Re­pub­li­can­ism; and then, to give point to the charge, de­fines Black Re­pub­li­can­ism to sim­ply be in­sur­rec­tion, blood, and thun­der among the slaves.

Slave in­sur­rec­tions are no more com­mon now than they were be­fore the Re­pub­li­can par­ty was or­ga­nized. What in­duced the Southamp­ton in­sur­rec­tion, twen­ty-​eight years ago, in which, at least, three times as many lives were lost as at Harp­er’s Fer­ry? You can scarce­ly stretch your very elas­tic fan­cy to the con­clu­sion that Southamp­ton was “got up by Black Re­pub­li­can­ism.” In the present state of things in the Unit­ed States, I do not think a gen­er­al or even a very ex­ten­sive slave in­sur­rec­tion is pos­si­ble. The in­dis­pens­able con­cert of ac­tion can­not be at­tained. The slaves have no means of rapid com­mu­ni­ca­tion; nor can in­cen­di­ary freemen, black or white, sup­ply it. The ex­plo­sive ma­te­ri­als are ev­ery­where in parcels; but there nei­ther are, nor can be sup­plied the in­dis­pens­able con­nect­ing trains.

Much is said by South­ern peo­ple about the af­fec­tion of slaves for their mas­ters and mis­tress­es; and a part of it, at least, is true. A plot for an up­ris­ing could scarce­ly be de­vised and com­mu­ni­cat­ed to twen­ty in­di­vid­uals be­fore some one of them, to save the life of a fa­vorite mas­ter or mis­tress, would di­vulge it. This is the rule; and the slave rev­olu­tion in Hayti was not an ex­cep­tion to it, but a case oc­cur­ring un­der pe­cu­liar cir­cum­stances. The gun­pow­der plot of British his­to­ry, though not con­nect­ed with slaves, was more in point. In that case, on­ly about twen­ty were ad­mit­ted to the se­cret; and yet one of them, in his anx­iety to save a friend, be­trayed the plot to that friend, and, by con­se­quence, avert­ed the calami­ty. Oc­ca­sion­al poi­son­ings from the kitchen, and open or stealthy as­sas­si­na­tions in the field, and lo­cal re­volts, ex­tend­ing to a score or so, will con­tin­ue to oc­cur as the nat­ural re­sults of slav­ery; but no gen­er­al in­sur­rec­tion of slaves, as I think, can hap­pen in this coun­try for a long time. Who­ev­er much fears or much hopes for such an event will be alike dis­ap­point­ed.

In the lan­guage of Mr. Jef­fer­son, ut­tered many years ago, “It is still in our pow­er to di­rect the pro­cess of eman­ci­pa­tion and de­por­ta­tion peace­ably, and in such slow de­grees as that the evil will wear off in­sen­si­bly, and their places be, pari pas­su, filled up by free white la­bor­ers. If, on the con­trary, it is left to force it­self on, hu­man na­ture must shud­der at the prospect held up.”

Mr. Jef­fer­son did not mean to say, nor do I, that the pow­er of eman­ci­pa­tion is in the Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment. He spoke of Vir­ginia; and, as to the pow­er of eman­ci­pa­tion, I speak of the slave hold­ing States on­ly. The Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment, how­ev­er, as we in­sist, has the pow­er of re­strain­ing the ex­ten­sion of the in­sti­tu­tion–the pow­er to in­sure that a slave in­sur­rec­tion shall nev­er oc­cur on any Amer­ican soil which is now free from slav­ery.

John Brown’s ef­fort was pe­cu­liar. It was not a slave in­sur­rec­tion. It was an at­tempt by white men to get up a re­volt among slaves, in which the slaves re­fused to par­tic­ipate. In fact, it was so ab­surd that the slaves, with all their ig­no­rance, saw plain­ly enough it could not suc­ceed. That af­fair, in its phi­los­ophy, cor­re­sponds with the many at­tempts re­lat­ed in his­to­ry at the as­sas­si­na­tion of kings and em­per­ors. An en­thu­si­ast broods over the op­pres­sion of a peo­ple till he fan­cies him­self com­mis­sioned by Heav­en to lib­er­ate them. He ven­tures the at­tempt, which ends in lit­tle else than his own ex­ecu­tion. Orsi­ni’s at­tempt on Louis Napoleon and John Brown’s at­tempt at Harp­er’s Fer­ry were, in their phi­los­ophy, pre­cise­ly the same. The ea­ger­ness to cast blame on old Eng­land in the one case, and on New Eng­land in the oth­er, does not dis­prove the same­ness of the two things.

And how much would it avail you, if you could, by the use of John Brown, Helper’s Book, and the like, break up the Re­pub­li­can or­ga­ni­za­tion? Hu­man ac­tion can be mod­ified to some ex­tent, but hu­man na­ture can­not be changed. There is a judg­ment and a feel­ing against slav­ery in this na­tion, which cast at least a mil­lion and a half of votes. You can­not de­stroy that judg­ment and feel­ing–that sen­ti­ment- -by break­ing up the po­lit­ical or­ga­ni­za­tion which ral­lies around it. You can scarce­ly scat­ter and dis­perse an army which has been formed in­to or­der in the face of your heav­iest fire; but if you could, how much would you gain by forc­ing the sen­ti­ment which cre­at­ed it out of the peace­ful chan­nel of the bal­lot-​box, in­to some oth­er chan­nel? What would that oth­er chan­nel prob­ably be? Would the num­ber of John Browns be less­ened or en­larged by the op­er­ation?

But you will break up the Union rather than sub­mit to a de­nial of your con­sti­tu­tion­al rights.

That has a some­what reck­less sound; but it would be pal­li­at­ed, if not ful­ly jus­ti­fied, were we propos­ing, by the mere force of num­bers, to de­prive you of some right plain­ly writ­ten down in the Con­sti­tu­tion. But we are propos­ing no such thing.

When you make these dec­la­ra­tions, you have a spe­cif­ic and well- un­der­stood al­lu­sion to an as­sumed con­sti­tu­tion­al right of yours to take slaves in­to the Fed­er­al Ter­ri­to­ries, and to hold them there as prop­er­ty. But no such right is specif­ical­ly writ­ten in the Con­sti­tu­tion. That in­stru­ment is lit­er­al­ly silent about any such right. We, on the con­trary, de­ny that such a right has any ex­is­tence in the Con­sti­tu­tion, even by im­pli­ca­tion.

Your pur­pose, then, plain­ly stat­ed, is that you will de­stroy the Gov­ern­ment un­less you be al­lowed to con­strue and en­force the Con­sti­tu­tion as you please on all points in dis­pute be­tween you and us. You will rule or ru­in, in all events.

This, plain­ly stat­ed, is your lan­guage. Per­haps you will say the Supreme Court has de­cid­ed the dis­put­ed con­sti­tu­tion­al ques­tion in your fa­vor. Not quite so. But, waiv­ing the lawyer’s dis­tinc­tion be­tween dic­tum and de­ci­sion, the court have de­cid­ed the ques­tion for you in a sort of way. The court have sub­stan­tial­ly said it is your con­sti­tu­tion­al right to take slaves in­to the Fed­er­al Ter­ri­to­ries, and to hold them there as prop­er­ty. When I say, the de­ci­sion was made in a sort of way, I mean it was made in a di­vid­ed court, by a bare ma­jor­ity of the judges, and they not quite agree­ing with one an­oth­er in the rea­sons for mak­ing it; that it is so made as that its avowed sup­port­ers dis­agree with one an­oth­er about its mean­ing, and that it was main­ly based up­on a mis­tak­en state­ment of fact–the state­ment in the opin­ion that “the right of prop­er­ty in a slave is dis­tinct­ly and ex­press­ly af­firmed in the Con­sti­tu­tion.”

An in­spec­tion of the Con­sti­tu­tion will show that the right of prop­er­ty in a slave is not “dis­tinct­ly and ex­press­ly af­firmed” in it. Bear in mind, the judges do not pledge their ju­di­cial opin­ion that such right is im­plied­ly af­firmed in the Con­sti­tu­tion; but they pledge their ve­rac­ity that it is “dis­tinct­ly and ex­press­ly” af­firmed there- -“dis­tinct­ly,” that is, not min­gled with any­thing else; “ex­press­ly,” that is, in words mean­ing just that, with­out the aid of any in­fer­ence, and sus­cep­ti­ble of no oth­er mean­ing.

If they had on­ly pledged their ju­di­cial opin­ion that such right is af­firmed in the in­stru­ment by im­pli­ca­tion, it would be open to oth­ers to show that nei­ther the word “slave” nor “slav­ery” is to be found in the Con­sti­tu­tion, nor the word “prop­er­ty” even, in any con­nec­tion with lan­guage al­lud­ing to the things slave or slav­ery; and that wher­ev­er in that in­stru­ment the slave is al­lud­ed to, he is called a “per­son”; and wher­ev­er his mas­ter’s le­gal right in re­la­tion to him is al­lud­ed to, it is spo­ken of as “ser­vice or la­bor which may be due,” as a debt payable in ser­vice or la­bor. Al­so, it would be open to show, by con­tem­po­ra­ne­ous his­to­ry, that this mode of al­lud­ing to slaves and slav­ery, in­stead of speak­ing of them, was em­ployed on pur­pose to ex­clude from the Con­sti­tu­tion the idea that there could be prop­er­ty in man.

To show all this, is easy and cer­tain.

When this ob­vi­ous mis­take of the judges shall be brought to their no­tice, is it not rea­son­able to ex­pect that they will with­draw the mis­tak­en state­ment, and re­con­sid­er the con­clu­sion based up­on it?

And then it is to be re­mem­bered that “our fa­thers; who framed the Gov­ern­ment un­der which we live”,–the men who made the Con­sti­tu­tion– de­cid­ed this same con­sti­tu­tion­al ques­tion in our fa­vor, long ago; de­cid­ed it with­out di­vi­sion among them­selves, when mak­ing the de­ci­sion, with­out di­vi­sion among them­selves about the mean­ing of it af­ter it was made, and, so far as any ev­idence is left, with­out bas­ing it up­on any mis­tak­en state­ment of facts.

Un­der all these cir­cum­stances, do you re­al­ly feel your­selves jus­ti­fied to break up this Gov­ern­ment un­less such a court de­ci­sion as yours is shall be at once sub­mit­ted to as a con­clu­sive and fi­nal rule of po­lit­ical ac­tion? But you will not abide the elec­tion of a Re­pub­li­can Pres­ident! In that sup­posed event, you say, you will de­stroy the Union; and then, you say, the great crime of hav­ing de­stroyed it will be up­on us! That is cool. A high­way­man holds a pis­tol to my ear, and mut­ters through his teeth, “stand and de­liv­er, or I shall kill you, and then you’ll be a mur­der­er!”

To be sure, what the rob­ber de­mand­ed of me-​my mon­ey was my own, and I had a clear right to keep it; but it was no more my own than my vote is my own; and the threat of death to me, to ex­tort my mon­ey, and the threat of de­struc­tion to the Union, to ex­tort my vote, can scarce­ly be dis­tin­guished in prin­ci­ple.

A few words now to Re­pub­li­cans: It is ex­ceed­ing­ly de­sir­able that all parts of this great con­fed­er­acy shall be at peace and in har­mo­ny one with an­oth­er. Let us Re­pub­li­cans do our part to have it so. Even though much pro­voked, let us do noth­ing through pas­sion and ill tem­per. Even though the South­ern peo­ple will not so much as lis­ten to us, let us calm­ly con­sid­er their de­mands, and yield to them if, in our de­lib­er­ate view of our du­ty, we pos­si­bly can. Judg­ing by all they say and do, and by the sub­ject and na­ture of their con­tro­ver­sy with us, let us de­ter­mine, if we can, what will sat­is­fy them.

Will they be sat­is­fied if the Ter­ri­to­ries be un­con­di­tion­al­ly sur­ren­dered to them? We know they will not. In all their present com­plaints against us, the Ter­ri­to­ries are scarce­ly men­tioned. In­va­sions and in­sur­rec­tions are the rage now. Will it sat­is­fy them if, in the fu­ture, we have noth­ing to do with in­va­sions and, in­sur­rec­tions? We know it will not. We so know be­cause we know we nev­er had any­thing to do with in­va­sions and in­sur­rec­tions; and yet this to­tal ab­stain­ing does not ex­empt us from the charge and the de­nun­ci­ation.

The ques­tion re­curs, what will sat­is­fy them? Sim­ply this: We must not on­ly let them alone, but we must, some­how, con­vince them that we do let them alone. This, we know by ex­pe­ri­ence, is no easy task. We have been so try­ing to con­vince them from the very be­gin­ning of our or­ga­ni­za­tion, but with no suc­cess. In all our plat­forms and speech­es we have con­stant­ly protest­ed our pur­pose to let them alone; but this has had no ten­den­cy to con­vince them. Alike un­avail­ing to con­vince them is the fact that they have nev­er de­tect­ed a man of us in any at­tempt to dis­turb them.

These nat­ural and ap­par­ent­ly ad­equate means all fail­ing, what will con­vince them? This, and this on­ly: cease to call slav­ery wrong, and join them in call­ing it right. And this must be done thor­ough­ly– done in acts as well as in words. Si­lence will not be tol­er­at­ed–we must place our­selves avowed­ly with them. Sen­ator Dou­glas’s new sedi­tion law must be en­act­ed and en­forced, sup­press­ing all dec­la­ra­tions that slav­ery is wrong, whether made in pol­itics, in press­es, in pul­pits; or in pri­vate. We must ar­rest and re­turn their fugi­tive slaves with greedy plea­sure. We must pull down our free State con­sti­tu­tions. The whole at­mo­sphere must be dis­in­fect­ed from all taint of op­po­si­tion to slav­ery, be­fore they will cease to be­lieve that all their trou­bles pro­ceed from us.

I am quite aware they do not state their case pre­cise­ly in this way. Most of them would prob­ably say to us, “Let us alone, do noth­ing to us, and say what you please about slav­ery.” But we do let them alone have nev­er dis­turbed them–so that af­ter all it is what we say which dis­sat­is­fies them. They will con­tin­ue to ac­cuse us of do­ing, un­til we cease say­ing.

I am al­so aware they have not as yet, in terms, de­mand­ed the over­throw of our free State con­sti­tu­tions. Yet those con­sti­tu­tions de­clare the wrong of slav­ery, with more solemn em­pha­sis than do all oth­er say­ings against it; and when all these oth­er say­ings shall have been si­lenced, the over­throw of these con­sti­tu­tions will be de­mand­ed, and noth­ing be left to re­sist the de­mand. It is noth­ing to the con­trary, that they do not de­mand the whole of this just now. De­mand­ing what they do, and for the rea­son they do, they can vol­un­tar­ily stop nowhere short of this con­sum­ma­tion. Hold­ing, as they do, that slav­ery is moral­ly right, and so­cial­ly el­evat­ing, they can­not cease to de­mand a full na­tion­al recog­ni­tion of it, as a le­gal right and a so­cial bless­ing.

Nor can we jus­ti­fi­ably with­hold this on any ground save our con­vic­tion that slav­ery is wrong. If slav­ery is right, all words, acts, laws, and con­sti­tu­tions against it are them­selves wrong, and should be si­lenced and swept away. If it is right, we can­not just­ly ob­ject to its na­tion­al­ity its uni­ver­sal­ity; if it is wrong, they can­not just­ly in­sist up­on its ex­ten­sion–its en­large­ment. All they ask we could read­ily grant if we thought slav­ery right; all we ask they could as read­ily grant, if they thought it wrong. Their think­ing it right and our think­ing it wrong is the pre­cise fact up­on which de­pends the whole con­tro­ver­sy. Think­ing it right, as they do, they are not to blame for de­sir­ing its full recog­ni­tion, as be­ing right; but think­ing it wrong, as we do, can we yield to them? Can we cast our votes with their view, and against our own? In view of our moral, so­cial, and po­lit­ical re­spon­si­bil­ities, can we do this? Wrong as we think slav­ery is, we can yet af­ford to let it alone where it is, be­cause that much is due to the ne­ces­si­ty aris­ing from its ac­tu­al pres­ence in the na­tion; but can we, while our votes will pre­vent it, al­low it to spread in­to the na­tion­al Ter­ri­to­ries, and to over­run us here in these free States? If our sense of du­ty for­bids this, then let us stand by our du­ty, fear­less­ly and ef­fec­tive­ly. Let us be di­vert­ed by none of those so­phis­ti­cal con­trivances where­with we are so in­dus­tri­ous­ly plied and be­la­bored-​con­trivances such as grop­ing for some mid­dle ground be­tween the right and the wrong, vain as the search for a man who should be nei­ther a liv­ing man nor a dead man-​such as a pol­icy of “don’t care” on a ques­tion about which all true men do care–such as Union ap­peals be­seech­ing true Union men to yield to Dis­union­ists, re­vers­ing the di­vine rule, and call­ing, not the sin­ners, but the righ­teous to re­pen­tance–such as in­vo­ca­tions to Wash­ing­ton, im­plor­ing men to un­say what Wash­ing­ton said, and un­do what Wash­ing­ton did.

Nei­ther let us be slan­dered from our du­ty by false ac­cu­sa­tions against us, nor fright­ened from it by men­aces of de­struc­tion to the Gov­ern­ment nor of dun­geons to our­selves. LET US HAVE FAITH THAT RIGHT MAKES MIGHT, AND IN THAT FAITH LET US, TO THE END, DARE TO DO OUR DU­TY AS WE UN­DER­STAND IT.

SPEECH AT NEW HAVEN, CON­NECTI­CUT, MARCH 6, 1860

MR. PRES­IDENT, AND FEL­LOW-​CIT­IZENS OF NEW HAVEN:–If the Re­pub­li­can par­ty of this na­tion shall ev­er have the na­tion­al House en­trust­ed to its keep­ing, it will be the du­ty of that par­ty to at­tend to all the af­fairs of na­tion­al house­keep­ing. What­ev­er mat­ters of im­por­tance may come up, what­ev­er dif­fi­cul­ties may arise in its way of ad­min­is­tra­tion of the Gov­ern­ment, that par­ty will then have to at­tend to. It will then be com­pelled to at­tend to oth­er ques­tions, be­sides this ques­tion which now as­sumes an over­whelm­ing im­por­tance–the ques­tion of slav­ery. It is true that in the or­ga­ni­za­tion of the Re­pub­li­can par­ty this ques­tion of slav­ery was more im­por­tant than any oth­er: in­deed, so much more im­por­tant has it be­come that no more na­tion­al ques­tion can even get a hear­ing just at present. The old ques­tion of tar­iff- -a mat­ter that will re­main one of the chief af­fairs of na­tion­al house-​keep­ing to all time; the ques­tion of the man­age­ment of fi­nan­cial af­fairs; the ques­tion of the dis­po­si­tion of the pub­lic do­main how shall it be man­aged for the pur­pose of get­ting it well set­tled, and of mak­ing there the homes of a free and hap­py peo­ple? these will re­main open and re­quire at­ten­tion for a great while yet, and these ques­tions will have to be at­tend­ed to by what­ev­er par­ty has the con­trol of the Gov­ern­ment. Yet, just now, they can­not even ob­tain a hear­ing, and I do not pro­pose to de­tain you up­on these top­ics or what sort of hear­ing they should have when op­por­tu­ni­ty shall come.

For, whether we will or not, the ques­tion of slav­ery is the ques­tion, the all-​ab­sorb­ing top­ic of the day. It is true that all of us–and by that I mean, not the Re­pub­li­can par­ty alone, but the whole Amer­ican peo­ple, here and else­where–all of us wish this ques­tion set­tled, wish it out of the way. It stands in the way, and pre­vents the ad­just­ment, and the giv­ing of nec­es­sary at­ten­tion to oth­er ques­tions of na­tion­al house-​keep­ing. The peo­ple of the whole na­tion agree that this ques­tion ought to be set­tled, and yet it is not set­tled. And the rea­son is that they are not yet agreed how it shall be set­tled. All wish it done, but some wish one way and some an­oth­er, and some a third, or fourth, or fifth; dif­fer­ent bod­ies are pulling in dif­fer­ent di­rec­tions, and none of them, hav­ing a de­cid­ed ma­jor­ity, are able to ac­com­plish the com­mon ob­ject.

In the be­gin­ning of the year 1854, a new pol­icy was in­au­gu­rat­ed with the avowed ob­ject and con­fi­dent promise that it would en­tire­ly and for­ev­er put an end to the slav­ery ag­ita­tion. It was again and again de­clared that un­der this pol­icy, when once suc­cess­ful­ly es­tab­lished, the coun­try would be for­ev­er rid of this whole ques­tion. Yet un­der the op­er­ation of that pol­icy this ag­ita­tion has not on­ly not ceased, but it has been con­stant­ly aug­ment­ed. And this too, al­though, from the day of its in­tro­duc­tion, its friends, who promised that it would whol­ly end all ag­ita­tion, con­stant­ly in­sist­ed, down to the time that the Lecomp­ton Bill was in­tro­duced, that it was work­ing ad­mirably, and that its in­evitable ten­den­cy was to re­move the ques­tion for­ev­er from the pol­itics of the coun­try. Can you call to mind any Demo­crat­ic speech, made af­ter the re­peal of the Mis­souri Com­pro­mise, down to the time of the Lecomp­ton Bill, in which it was not pre­dict­ed that the slav­ery ag­ita­tion was just at an end, that “the abo­li­tion ex­cite­ment was played out,” “the Kansas ques­tion was dead,” “they have made the most they can out of this ques­tion and it is now for­ev­er set­tled”? But since the Lecomp­ton Bill no Demo­crat, with­in my ex­pe­ri­ence, has ev­er pre­tend­ed that he could see the end. That cry has been dropped. They them­selves do not pre­tend, now, that the ag­ita­tion of this sub­ject has come to an end yet.

The truth is that this ques­tion is one of na­tion­al im­por­tance, and we can­not help deal­ing with it; we must do some­thing about it, whether we will or not. We can­not avoid it; the sub­ject is one we can­not avoid con­sid­er­ing; we can no more avoid it than a man can live with­out eat­ing. It is up­on us; it at­tach­es to the body politic as much and close­ly as the nat­ural wants at­tach to our nat­ural bod­ies. Now I think it im­por­tant that this mat­ter should be tak­en up in earnest, and re­al­ly set­tled: And one way to bring about a true set­tle­ment of the ques­tion is to un­der­stand its true mag­ni­tude.

There have been many ef­forts made to set­tle it. Again and again it has been fond­ly hoped that it was set­tled; but ev­ery time it breaks out afresh, and more vi­olent­ly than ev­er. It was set­tled, our fa­thers hoped, by the Mis­souri Com­pro­mise, but it did not stay set­tled. Then the com­pro­mis­es of 1850 were de­clared to be a full and fi­nal set­tle­ment of the ques­tion. The two great par­ties, each in na­tion­al con­ven­tion, adopt­ed res­olu­tions declar­ing that the set­tle­ment made by the Com­pro­mise of 1850 was a fi­nal­ity that it would last for­ev­er. Yet how long be­fore it was un­set­tled again? It broke out again in 1854, and blazed high­er and raged more fu­ri­ous­ly than ev­er be­fore, and the ag­ita­tion has not rest­ed since.

These re­peat­ed set­tle­ments must have some faults about them. There must be some in­ad­equa­cy in their very na­ture to the pur­pose to which they were de­signed. We can on­ly spec­ulate as to where that fault, that in­ad­equa­cy, is, but we may per­haps prof­it by past ex­pe­ri­ences.

I think that one of the caus­es of these re­peat­ed fail­ures is that our best and great­est men have great­ly un­der­es­ti­mat­ed the size of this ques­tion. They have con­stant­ly brought for­ward small cures for great sores–plas­ters too small to cov­er the wound. That is one rea­son that all set­tle­ments have proved tem­po­rary–so evanes­cent.

Look at the mag­ni­tude of this sub­ject: One sixth of our pop­ula­tion, in round num­bers–not quite one sixth, and yet more than a sev­enth,– about one sixth of the whole pop­ula­tion of the Unit­ed States are slaves. The own­ers of these slaves con­sid­er them prop­er­ty. The ef­fect up­on the minds of the own­ers is that of prop­er­ty, and noth­ing else it in­duces them to in­sist up­on all that will fa­vor­ably af­fect its val­ue as prop­er­ty, to de­mand laws and in­sti­tu­tions and a pub­lic pol­icy that shall in­crease and se­cure its val­ue, and make it durable, last­ing, and uni­ver­sal. The ef­fect on the minds of the own­ers is to per­suade them that there is no wrong in it. The slave­hold­er does not like to be con­sid­ered a mean fel­low for hold­ing that species of prop­er­ty, and hence, he has to strug­gle with­in him­self and sets about ar­gu­ing him­self in­to the be­lief that slav­ery is right. The prop­er­ty in­flu­ences his mind. The dis­sent­ing min­is­ter who ar­gued some the­olog­ical point with one of the es­tab­lished church was al­ways met with the re­ply, “I can’t see it so.” He opened a Bible and point­ed him a pas­sage, but the or­tho­dox min­is­ter replied, “I can’t see it so.” Then he showed him a sin­gle word–“Can you see that?” “Yes, I see it,” was the re­ply. The dis­senter laid a guinea over the word and asked, “Do you see it now?” So here. Whether the own­ers of this species of prop­er­ty do re­al­ly see it as it is, it is not for me to say, but if they do, they see it as it is through two thou­sand mil­lions of dol­lars, and that is a pret­ty thick coat­ing. Cer­tain it is that they do not see it as we see it. Cer­tain it is that this two thou­sand mil­lions of dol­lars, in­vest­ed in this species of prop­er­ty, all so con­cen­trat­ed that the mind can grasp it at once–this im­mense pe­cu­niary in­ter­est–has its in­flu­ence up­on their minds.

But here in Con­necti­cut and at the North slav­ery does not ex­ist, and we see it through no such medi­um.

To us it ap­pears nat­ural to think that slaves are hu­man be­ings; men, not prop­er­ty; that some of the things, at least, stat­ed about men in the Dec­la­ra­tion of In­de­pen­dence ap­ply to them as well as to us. I say we think, most of us, that this char­ter of free­dom ap­plies to the slaves as well as to our­selves; that the class of ar­gu­ments put for­ward to bat­ter down that idea are al­so cal­cu­lat­ed to break down the very idea of a free gov­ern­ment, even for white men, and to un­der­mine the very foun­da­tions of free so­ci­ety. We think slav­ery a great moral wrong, and, while we do not claim the right to touch it where it ex­ists, we wish to treat it as a wrong in the Ter­ri­to­ries, where our votes will reach it. We think that a re­spect for our­selves, a re­gard for fu­ture gen­er­ations and for the God that made us, re­quire that we put down this wrong where our votes will prop­er­ly reach it. We think that species of la­bor an in­jury to free white men –in short, we think slav­ery a great moral, so­cial, and po­lit­ical evil, tol­er­able on­ly be­cause, and so far as, its ac­tu­al ex­is­tence makes it nec­es­sary to tol­er­ate it, and that be­yond that it ought to be treat­ed as a wrong.

Now these two ideas, the prop­er­ty idea that slav­ery is right, and the idea that it is wrong, come in­to col­li­sion, and do ac­tu­al­ly pro­duce that ir­re­press­ible con­flict which Mr. Se­ward has been so round­ly abused for men­tion­ing. The two ideas con­flict, and must con­flict.

Again, in its po­lit­ical as­pect, does any­thing in any way en­dan­ger the per­pe­tu­ity of this Union but that sin­gle thing, slav­ery? Many of our ad­ver­saries are anx­ious to claim that they are spe­cial­ly de­vot­ed to the Union, and take pains to charge up­on us hos­til­ity to the Union. Now we claim that we are the on­ly true Union men, and we put to them this one propo­si­tion: What­ev­er en­dan­gers this Union, save and ex­cept slav­ery? Did any oth­er thing ev­er cause a mo­ment’s fear? All men must agree that this thing alone has ev­er en­dan­gered the per­pe­tu­ity of the Union. But if it was threat­ened by any oth­er in­flu­ence, would not all men say that the best thing that could be done, if we could not or ought not to de­stroy it, would be at least to keep it from grow­ing any larg­er? Can any man be­lieve, that the way to save the Union is to ex­tend and in­crease the on­ly thing that threat­ens the Union, and to suf­fer it to grow big­ger and big­ger?

When­ev­er this ques­tion shall be set­tled, it must be set­tled on some philo­soph­ical ba­sis. No pol­icy that does not rest up­on some philo­soph­ical opin­ion can be per­ma­nent­ly main­tained. And hence there are but two poli­cies in re­gard to slav­ery that can be at all main­tained. The first, based on the prop­er­ty view that slav­ery is right, con­forms to that idea through­out, and de­mands that we shall do ev­ery­thing for it that we ought to do if it were right. We must sweep away all op­po­si­tion, for op­po­si­tion to the right is wrong; we must agree that slav­ery is right, and we must adopt the idea that prop­er­ty has per­suad­ed the own­er to be­lieve that slav­ery is moral­ly right and so­cial­ly el­evat­ing. This gives a philo­soph­ical ba­sis for a per­ma­nent pol­icy of en­cour­age­ment.

The oth­er pol­icy is one that squares with the idea that slav­ery is wrong, and it con­sists in do­ing ev­ery­thing that we ought to do if it is wrong. Now, I don’t wish to be mis­un­der­stood, nor to leave a gap down to be mis­rep­re­sent­ed, even. I don’t mean that we ought to at­tack it where it ex­ists. To me it seems that if we were to form a gov­ern­ment anew, in view of the ac­tu­al pres­ence of slav­ery we should find it nec­es­sary to frame just such a gov­ern­ment as our fa­thers did- -giv­ing to the slave­hold­er the en­tire con­trol where the sys­tem was es­tab­lished, while we pos­sessed the pow­er to re­strain it from go­ing out­side those lim­its. From the ne­ces­si­ties of the case we should be com­pelled to form just such a gov­ern­ment as our blessed fa­thers gave us; and, sure­ly, if they have so made it, that adds an­oth­er rea­son why we should let slav­ery alone where it ex­ists.

If I saw a ven­omous snake crawl­ing in the road, any man would say I might seize the near­est stick and kill it; but if I found that snake in bed with my chil­dren, that would be an­oth­er ques­tion. I might hurt the chil­dren more than the snake, and it might bite them. Much more if I found it in bed with my neigh­bor’s chil­dren, and I had bound my­self by a solemn com­pact not to med­dle with his chil­dren un­der any cir­cum­stances, it would be­come me to let that par­tic­ular mode of get­ting rid of the gen­tle­man alone. But if there was a bed new­ly made up, to which the chil­dren were to be tak­en, and it was pro­posed to take a batch of young snakes and put them there with them, I take it no man would say there was any ques­tion how I ought to de­cide!

That is just the case. The new Ter­ri­to­ries are the new­ly made bed to which our chil­dren are to go, and it lies with the na­tion to say whether they shall have snakes mixed up with them or not. It does not seem as if there could be much hes­ita­tion what our pol­icy should be!

Now I have spo­ken of a pol­icy based on the idea that slav­ery is wrong, and a pol­icy based on the idea that it is right. But an ef­fort has been made for a pol­icy that shall treat it as nei­ther right nor wrong. It is based up­on ut­ter in­dif­fer­ence. Its lead­ing ad­vo­cate [Dou­glas] has said, “I don’t care whether it be vot­ed up or down.” “It is mere­ly a mat­ter of dol­lars and cents.” “The Almighty has drawn a line across this con­ti­nent, on one side of which all soil must for­ev­er be cul­ti­vat­ed by slave la­bor, and on the oth­er by free.” “When the strug­gle is be­tween the white man and the ne­gro, I am for the white man; when it is be­tween the ne­gro and the crocodile, I am for the ne­gro.” Its cen­tral idea is in­dif­fer­ence. It holds that it makes no more dif­fer­ence to us whether the Ter­ri­to­ries be­come free or slave States than whether my neigh­bor stocks his farm with horned cat­tle or puts in to­bac­co. All rec­og­nize this pol­icy, the plau­si­ble sug­ar-​coat­ed name of which is “pop­ular sovereign­ty.”

This pol­icy chiefly stands in the way of a per­ma­nent set­tle­ment of the ques­tion. I be­lieve there is no dan­ger of its be­com­ing the per­ma­nent pol­icy of the coun­try, for it is based on a pub­lic in­dif­fer­ence. There is no­body that “don’t care.” All the peo­ple do care one way or the oth­er! I do not charge that its au­thor, when he says he “don’t care,” states his in­di­vid­ual opin­ion; he on­ly ex­press­es his pol­icy for the gov­ern­ment. I un­der­stand that he has nev­er said as an in­di­vid­ual whether he thought slav­ery right or wrong–and he is the on­ly man in the na­tion that has not! Now such a pol­icy may have a tem­po­rary run; it may spring up as nec­es­sary to the po­lit­ical prospects of some gen­tle­man; but it is ut­ter­ly base­less: the peo­ple are not in­dif­fer­ent, and it can there­fore have no dura­bil­ity or per­ma­nence.

But sup­pose it could: Then it could be main­tained on­ly by a pub­lic opin­ion that shall say, “We don’t care.” There must be a change in pub­lic opin­ion; the pub­lic mind must be so far de­bauched as to square with this pol­icy of car­ing not at all. The peo­ple must come to con­sid­er this as “mere­ly a ques­tion of dol­lars and cents,” and to be­lieve that in some places the Almighty has made slav­ery nec­es­sar­ily eter­nal. This pol­icy can be brought to pre­vail if the peo­ple can be brought round to say hon­est­ly, “We don’t care”; if not, it can nev­er be main­tained. It is for you to say whether that can be done.

You are ready to say it can­not, but be not too fast! Re­mem­ber what a long stride has been tak­en since the re­peal of the Mis­souri Com­pro­mise! Do you know of any Demo­crat, of ei­ther branch of the par­ty–do you know one who de­clares that he be­lieves that the Dec­la­ra­tion of In­de­pen­dence has any ap­pli­ca­tion to the ne­gro? Judge Taney de­clares that it has not, and Judge Dou­glas even vil­ifies me per­son­al­ly and scolds me round­ly for say­ing that the Dec­la­ra­tion ap­plies to all men, and that ne­groes are men. Is there a Demo­crat here who does not de­ny that the Dec­la­ra­tion ap­plies to the ne­gro? Do any of you know of one? Well, I have tried be­fore per­haps fifty au­di­ences, some larg­er and some small­er than this, to find one such Demo­crat, and nev­er yet have I found one who said I did not place him right in that. I must as­sume that Democrats hold that, and now, not one of these Democrats can show that he said that five years ago! I ven­ture to de­fy the whole par­ty to pro­duce one man that ev­er ut­tered the be­lief that the Dec­la­ra­tion did not ap­ply to ne­groes, be­fore the re­peal of the Mis­souri Com­pro­mise! Four or five years ago we all thought ne­groes were men, and that when “all men” were named, ne­groes were in­clud­ed. But the whole Demo­crat­ic par­ty has de­lib­er­ate­ly tak­en ne­groes from the class of men and put them in the class of brutes. Turn it as you will it is sim­ply the truth! Don’t be too hasty, then, in say­ing that the peo­ple can­not be brought to this new doc­trine, but note that long stride. One more as long com­pletes the jour­ney from where ne­groes are es­ti­mat­ed as men to where they are es­ti­mat­ed as mere brutes–as right­ful prop­er­ty!

That say­ing “In the strug­gle be­tween white men and the ne­gro,” etc., which I know came from the same source as this pol­icy–that say­ing marks an­oth­er step. There is a false­hood wrapped up in that state­ment. “In the strug­gle be­tween the white man and the ne­gro” as­sumes that there is a strug­gle, in which ei­ther the white man must en­slave the ne­gro or the ne­gro must en­slave the white. There is no such strug­gle! It is mere­ly the in­ge­nious false­hood to de­grade and bru­tal­ize the ne­gro. Let each let the oth­er alone, and there is no strug­gle about it. If it was like two wrecked sea­men on a nar­row plank, when each must push the oth­er off or drown him­self, I would push the ne­gro off or a white man ei­ther, but it is not; the plank is large enough for both. This good earth is plen­ty broad enough for white man and ne­gro both, and there is no need of ei­ther push­ing the oth­er off.

So that say­ing, “In the strug­gle be­tween the ne­gro and the crocodile,” etc., is made up from the idea that down where the crocodile in­hab­its, a white man can’t la­bor; it must be noth­ing else but crocodile or ne­gro; if the ne­gro does not the crocodile must pos­sess the earth; in that case he de­clares for the ne­gro. The mean­ing of the whole is just this: As a white man is to a ne­gro, so is a ne­gro to a crocodile; and as the ne­gro may right­ful­ly treat the crocodile, so may the white man right­ful­ly treat the ne­gro. This very dear phrase coined by its au­thor, and so dear that he de­lib­er­ate­ly re­peats it in many speech­es, has a ten­den­cy to still fur­ther bru­tal­ize the ne­gro, and to bring pub­lic opin­ion to the point of ut­ter in­dif­fer­ence whether men so bru­tal­ized are en­slaved or not. When that time shall come, if ev­er, I think that pol­icy to which I re­fer may pre­vail. But I hope the good freemen of this coun­try will nev­er al­low it to come, and un­til then the pol­icy can nev­er be main­tained.

Now con­sid­er the ef­fect of this pol­icy. We in the States are not to care whether free­dom or slav­ery gets the bet­ter, but the peo­ple in the Ter­ri­to­ries may care. They are to de­cide, and they may think what they please; it is a mat­ter of dol­lars and cents! But are not the peo­ple of the Ter­ri­to­ries de­tailed from the States? If this feel­ing of in­dif­fer­ence this ab­sence of moral sense about the ques­tion pre­vails in the States, will it not be car­ried in­to the Ter­ri­to­ries? Will not ev­ery man say, “I don’t care, it is noth­ing to me”? If any one comes that wants slav­ery, must they not say, “I don’t care whether free­dom or slav­ery be vot­ed up or vot­ed down”? It re­sults at last in na­tion­al­iz­ing the in­sti­tu­tion of slav­ery. Even if fair­ly car­ried out, that pol­icy is just as cer­tain to na­tion­al­ize slav­ery as the doc­trine of Jeff Davis him­self. These are on­ly two roads to the same goal, and “pop­ular sovereign­ty” is just as sure and al­most as short as the oth­er.

What we want, and all we want, is to have with us the men who think slav­ery wrong. But those who say they hate slav­ery, and are op­posed to it, but yet act with the Demo­crat­ic par­ty–where are they? Let us ap­ply a few tests. You say that you think slav­ery is wrong, but you de­nounce all at­tempts to re­strain it. Is there any­thing else that you think wrong that you are not will­ing to deal with as wrong? Why are you so care­ful, so ten­der, of this one wrong and no oth­er? You will not let us do a sin­gle thing as if it was wrong; there is no place where you will even al­low it to be called wrong! We must not call it wrong in the free States, be­cause it is not there, and we must not call it wrong in the slave States, be­cause it is there; we must not call it wrong in pol­itics be­cause that is bring­ing moral­ity in­to pol­itics, and we must not call it wrong in the pul­pit be­cause that is bring­ing pol­itics in­to re­li­gion; we must not bring it in­to the Tract So­ci­ety or the oth­er so­ci­eties, be­cause those are such un­suit­able places–and there is no sin­gle place, ac­cord­ing to you, where this wrong thing can prop­er­ly be called wrong!

Per­haps you will plead that if the peo­ple of the slave States should them­selves set on foot an ef­fort for eman­ci­pa­tion, you would wish them suc­cess, and bid them God-​speed. Let us test that: In 1858 the eman­ci­pa­tion par­ty of Mis­souri, with Frank Blair at their head, tried to get up a move­ment for that pur­pose, and hav­ing start­ed a par­ty con­test­ed the State. Blair was beat­en, ap­par­ent­ly if not tru­ly, and when the news came to Con­necti­cut, you, who knew that Frank Blair was tak­ing hold of this thing by the right end, and do­ing the on­ly thing that you say can prop­er­ly be done to re­move this wrong–did you bow your heads in sor­row be­cause of that de­feat? Do you, any of you, know one sin­gle Demo­crat that showed sor­row over that re­sult? Not one! On the con­trary ev­ery man threw up his hat, and hal­looed at the top of his lungs, “Hooray for Democ­ra­cy!”

Now, gen­tle­men, the Re­pub­li­cans de­sire to place this great ques­tion of slav­ery on the very ba­sis on which our fa­thers placed it, and no oth­er. It is easy to demon­strate that “our fa­thers, who framed this Gov­ern­ment un­der which we live,” looked on slav­ery as wrong, and so framed it and ev­ery­thing about it as to square with the idea that it was wrong, so far as the ne­ces­si­ties aris­ing from its ex­is­tence per­mit­ted. In form­ing the Con­sti­tu­tion they found the slave trade ex­ist­ing, cap­ital in­vest­ed in it, fields de­pend­ing up­on it for la­bor, and the whole sys­tem rest­ing up­on the im­por­ta­tion of slave la­bor. They there­fore did not pro­hib­it the slave trade at once, but they gave the pow­er to pro­hib­it it af­ter twen­ty years. Why was this? What oth­er for­eign trade did they treat in that way? Would they have done this if they had not thought slav­ery wrong?

An­oth­er thing was done by some of the same men who framed the Con­sti­tu­tion, and af­ter­wards adopt­ed as their own the act by the first Congress held un­der that Con­sti­tu­tion, of which many of the framers were mem­bers, that pro­hib­it­ed the spread of slav­ery in­to Ter­ri­to­ries. Thus the same men, the framers of the Con­sti­tu­tion, cut off the sup­ply and pro­hib­it­ed the spread of slav­ery, and both acts show con­clu­sive­ly that they con­sid­ered that the thing was wrong.

If ad­di­tion­al proof is want­ed it can be found in the phrase­ol­ogy of the Con­sti­tu­tion. When men are fram­ing a supreme law and chart of gov­ern­ment, to se­cure bless­ings and pros­per­ity to un­told gen­er­ations yet to come, they use lan­guage as short and di­rect and plain as can be found, to ex­press their mean­ing In all mat­ters but this of slav­ery the framers of the Con­sti­tu­tion used the very clear­est, short­est, and most di­rect lan­guage. But the Con­sti­tu­tion al­ludes to slav­ery three times with­out men­tion­ing it once The lan­guage used be­comes am­bigu­ous, round­about, and mys­ti­cal. They speak of the “im­mi­gra­tion of per­sons,” and mean the im­por­ta­tion of slaves, but do not say so. In es­tab­lish­ing a ba­sis of rep­re­sen­ta­tion they say “all oth­er per­sons,” when they mean to say slaves–why did they not use the short­est phrase? In pro­vid­ing for the re­turn of fugi­tives they say “per­sons held to ser­vice or la­bor.” If they had said slaves it would have been plain­er, and less li­able to mis­con­struc­tion. Why did n’t they do it? We can­not doubt that it was done on pur­pose. On­ly one rea­son is pos­si­ble, and that is sup­plied us by one of the framers of the Con­sti­tu­tion–and it is not pos­si­ble for man to con­ceive of any oth­er–they ex­pect­ed and de­sired that the sys­tem would come to an end, and meant that when it did, the Con­sti­tu­tion should not show that there ev­er had been a slave in this good free coun­try of ours.

I will dwell on that no longer. I see the signs of ap­proach­ing tri­umph of the Re­pub­li­cans in the bear­ing of their po­lit­ical ad­ver­saries. A great deal of their war with us nowa­days is mere bush­whack­ing. At the bat­tle of Wa­ter­loo, when Napoleon’s cav­al­ry had charged again and again up­on the un­bro­ken squares of British in­fantry, at last they were giv­ing up the at­tempt, and go­ing off in dis­or­der, when some of the of­fi­cers in mere vex­ation and com­plete de­spair fired their pis­tols at those sol­id squares. The Democrats are in that sort of ex­treme des­per­ation; it is noth­ing else. I will take up a few of these ar­gu­ments.

There is “the ir­re­press­ible con­flict.” How they rail at Se­ward for that say­ing! They re­peat it con­stant­ly; and, al­though the proof has been thrust un­der their noses again and again that al­most ev­ery good man since the for­ma­tion of our Gov­ern­ment has ut­tered that same sen­ti­ment, from Gen­er­al Wash­ing­ton, who “trust­ed that we should yet have a con­fed­er­acy of free States,” with Jef­fer­son, Jay, Mon­roe, down to the lat­est days, yet they refuse to no­tice that at all, and per­sist in rail­ing at Se­ward for say­ing it. Even Roger A. Pry­or, ed­itor of the Rich­mond En­quir­er, ut­tered the same sen­ti­ment in al­most the same lan­guage, and yet so lit­tle of­fence did it give the Democrats that he was sent for to Wash­ing­ton to ed­it the States–the Dou­glas or­gan there–while Dou­glas goes in­to hy­dropho­bia and spasms of rage be­cause Se­ward dared to re­peat it. This is what I call bush­whack­ing, a sort of ar­gu­ment that they must know any child can see through.

An­oth­er is John Brown: “You stir up in­sur­rec­tions, you in­vade the South; John Brown! Harp­er’s Fer­ry!” Why, John Brown was not a Re­pub­li­can! You have nev­er im­pli­cat­ed a sin­gle Re­pub­li­can in that Harp­er’s Fer­ry en­ter­prise. We tell you that if any mem­ber of the Re­pub­li­can par­ty is guilty in that mat­ter, you know it or you do not know it. If you do know it, you are in­ex­cus­able not to des­ig­nate the man and prove the fact. If you do not know it, you are in­ex­cus­able to as­sert it, and es­pe­cial­ly to per­sist in the as­ser­tion af­ter you have tried and failed to make the proof. You need not be told that per­sist­ing in a charge which one does not know to be true is sim­ply ma­li­cious slan­der. Some of you ad­mit that no Re­pub­li­can de­signed­ly aid­ed or en­cour­aged the Harp­er’s Fer­ry af­fair, but still in­sist that our doc­trines and dec­la­ra­tions nec­es­sar­ily lead to such re­sults. We do not be­lieve it. We know we hold to no doc­trines, and make no dec­la­ra­tions, which were not held to and made by our fa­thers who framed the Gov­ern­ment ‘un­der which we live, and we can­not see how dec­la­ra­tions that were pa­tri­ot­ic when they made them are vil­lain­ous when we make them. You nev­er dealt fair­ly by us in re­la­tion to that af­fair–and I will say frankly that I know of noth­ing in your char­ac­ter that should lead us to sup­pose that you would. You had just been sound­ly thrashed in elec­tions in sev­er­al States, and oth­ers were soon to come. You re­joiced at the oc­ca­sion, and on­ly were trou­bled that there were not three times as many killed in the af­fair. You were in ev­ident glee; there was no sor­row for the killed nor for the peace of Vir­ginia dis­turbed; you were re­joic­ing that by charg­ing Re­pub­li­cans with this thing you might get an ad­van­tage of us in New York, and the oth­er States. You pulled that string as tight­ly as you could, but your very gen­er­ous and wor­thy ex­pec­ta­tions were not quite ful­filled. Each Re­pub­li­can knew that the charge was a slan­der as to him­self at least, and was not in­clined by it to cast his vote in your fa­vor. It was mere bush­whack­ing, be­cause you had noth­ing else to do. You are still on that track, and I say, go on! If you think you can slan­der a wom­an in­to lov­ing you or a man in­to vot­ing for you, try it till you are sat­is­fied!

An­oth­er spec­imen of this bush­whack­ing, that “shoe strike.” Now be it un­der­stood that I do not pre­tend to know all about the mat­ter. I am mere­ly go­ing to spec­ulate a lit­tle about some of its phas­es. And at the out­set, I am glad to see that a sys­tem of la­bor pre­vails in New Eng­land un­der which la­bor­ers can strike when they want to, where they are not obliged to work un­der all cir­cum­stances, and are not tied down and obliged to la­bor whether you pay them or not! I like the sys­tem which lets a man quit when he wants to, and wish it might pre­vail ev­ery­where. One of the rea­sons why I am op­posed to slav­ery is just here. What is the true con­di­tion of the la­bor­er? I take it that it is best for all to leave each man free to ac­quire prop­er­ty as fast as he can. Some will get wealthy. I don’t be­lieve in a law to pre­vent a man from get­ting rich; it would do more harm than good. So, while we do not pro­pose any war up­on cap­ital, we do wish to al­low the hum­blest man an equal chance to get rich with ev­ery­body else. When one starts poor, as most do in the race of life, free so­ci­ety is such that he knows he can bet­ter his con­di­tion; he knows that there is no fixed con­di­tion of la­bor for his whole life. I am not ashamed to con­fess that twen­ty-​five years ago I was a hired la­bor­er, maul­ing rails, at work on a flat­boat–just what might hap­pen to any poor man’s son! I want ev­ery man to have a chance–and I be­lieve a Black man is en­ti­tled to it–in which he can bet­ter his con­di­tion; when he may look for­ward and hope to be a hired la­bor­er this year and the next, work for him­self af­ter­ward, and fi­nal­ly to hire men to work for him! That is the sys­tem. Up here in New Eng­land, you have a soil that scarce­ly sprouts black-​eyed beans, and yet where will you find wealthy men so wealthy, and pover­ty so rarely in ex­trem­ity? There is not an­oth­er such place on earth! I de­sire that if you get too thick here, and find it hard to bet­ter your con­di­tion on this soil, you may have a chance to strike and go some­where else, where you may not be de­grad­ed, nor have your fam­ilies cor­rupt­ed, by forced ri­val­ry with ne­gro slaves. I want you to have a clean bed and no snakes in it! Then you can bet­ter your con­di­tion, and so it may go on and on in one end­less round so long as man ex­ists on the face of the earth!

Now, to come back to this shoe strike,–if, as the sen­ator from Illi­nois as­serts, this is caused by with­draw­al of South­ern votes, con­sid­er briefly how you will meet the dif­fi­cul­ty. You have done noth­ing, and have protest­ed that you have done noth­ing, to in­jure the South. And yet, to get back the shoe trade, you must leave off do­ing some­thing which you are now do­ing. What is it? You must stop think­ing slav­ery wrong! Let your in­sti­tu­tions be whol­ly changed; let your State con­sti­tu­tions be sub­vert­ed; glo­ri­fy slav­ery, and so you will get back the shoe trade–for what? You have brought owned la­bor with it, to com­pete with your own la­bor, to un­der­work you, and to de­grade you! Are you ready to get back the trade on those terms?

But the state­ment is not cor­rect. You have not lost that trade; or­ders were nev­er bet­ter than now! Sen­ator Ma­son, a Demo­crat, comes in­to the Sen­ate in home­spun, a proof that the dis­so­lu­tion of the Union has ac­tu­al­ly be­gun! but or­ders are the same. Your fac­to­ries have not struck work, nei­ther those where they make any­thing for coats, nor for pants nor for shirts, nor for ladies’ dress­es. Mr. Ma­son has not reached the man­ufac­tur­ers who ought to have made him a coat and pants! To make his proof good for any­thing he should have come in­to the Sen­ate bare­foot!

An­oth­er bush­whack­ing con­trivance; sim­ply that, noth­ing else! I find a good many peo­ple who are very much con­cerned about the loss of South­ern trade. Now ei­ther these peo­ple are sin­cere or they are not. I will spec­ulate a lit­tle about that. If they are sin­cere, and are moved by any re­al dan­ger of the loss of South­ern trade, they will sim­ply get their names on the white list, and then, in­stead of per­suad­ing Re­pub­li­cans to do like­wise, they will be glad to keep you away! Don’t you see that they cut off com­pe­ti­tion? They would not be whis­per­ing around to Re­pub­li­cans to come in and share the prof­its with them. But if they are not sin­cere, and are mere­ly try­ing to fool Re­pub­li­cans out of their votes, they will grow very anx­ious about your pe­cu­niary prospects; they are afraid you are go­ing to get bro­ken up and ru­ined; they do not care about Demo­crat­ic votes, oh, no, no, no! You must judge which class those be­long to whom you meet: I leave it to you to de­ter­mine from the facts.

Let us no­tice some more of the stale charges against Re­pub­li­cans. You say we are sec­tion­al. We de­ny it. That makes an is­sue; and the bur­den of proof is up­on you. You pro­duce your proof; and what is it? Why, that our par­ty has no ex­is­tence in your sec­tion–gets no votes in your sec­tion. The fact is sub­stan­tial­ly true; but does it prove the is­sue? If it does, then in case we should, with­out change of prin­ci­ple, be­gin to get votes in your sec­tion, we should there­by cease to be sec­tion­al. You can­not es­cape this con­clu­sion; and yet, are you will­ing to abide by it? If you are, you will prob­ably soon find that we have ceased to be sec­tion­al, for we shall get votes in your sec­tion this very year. The fact that we get no votes in your sec­tion is a fact of your mak­ing and not of ours. And if there be fault in that fact, that fault is pri­mar­ily yours, and re­mains so un­til you show that we re­pel you by some wrong prin­ci­ple or prac­tice. If we do re­pel you by any wrong prin­ci­ple or prac­tice, the fault is ours; but this brings you to where you ought to have start­ed–to a dis­cus­sion of the right or wrong of our prin­ci­ple. If our prin­ci­ple, put in prac­tice, would wrong your sec­tion for the ben­efit of ours, or for any oth­er ob­ject, then our prin­ci­ple, and we with it, are sec­tion­al, and are just­ly op­posed and de­nounced as such. Meet us, then, on the ques­tion of whether our prin­ci­ple put in prac­tice would wrong your sec­tion; and so meet it as if it were pos­si­ble that some­thing may be said on our side. Do you ac­cept the chal­lenge? No? Then you re­al­ly be­lieve that the prin­ci­ple which our fa­thers who framed the Gov­ern­ment un­der which we live thought so clear­ly right as to adopt it, and in­dorse it again and again, up­on their of­fi­cial oaths, is in fact so clear­ly wrong as to de­mand our con­dem­na­tion with­out a mo­ment’s con­sid­er­ation. Some of you de­light to flaunt in our faces the warn­ing against sec­tion­al par­ties giv­en by Wash­ing­ton in his Farewell Ad­dress. Less than eight years be­fore Wash­ing­ton gave that warn­ing, he had, as Pres­ident of the Unit­ed States, ap­proved and signed an act of Congress en­forc­ing the pro­hi­bi­tion of slav­ery in the North­west­ern Ter­ri­to­ry, which act em­bod­ied the pol­icy of gov­ern­ment up­on that sub­ject, up to and at the very mo­ment he penned that warn­ing; and about one year af­ter he penned it he wrote La Fayette that he con­sid­ered that pro­hi­bi­tion a wise mea­sure, ex­press­ing in the same con­nec­tion his hope that we should some­time have a con­fed­er­acy of free States.

Bear­ing this in mind, and see­ing that sec­tion­al­ism has since arisen up­on this same sub­ject, is that warn­ing a weapon in your hands against us, or in our hands against you? Could Wash­ing­ton him­self speak, would he cast the blame of that sec­tion­al­ism up­on us, who sus­tain his pol­icy, or up­on you, who re­pu­di­ate it? We re­spect that warn­ing of Wash­ing­ton, and we com­mend it to you, to­geth­er with his ex­am­ple point­ing to the right ap­pli­ca­tion of it.

But you say you are con­ser­va­tive–em­inent­ly con­ser­va­tive–while we are rev­olu­tion­ary, de­struc­tive, or some­thing of the sort. What is con­ser­vatism? Is it not ad­her­ence to the old and tried, against the new and un­tried? We stick to, con­tend for, the iden­ti­cal old pol­icy on the point in con­tro­ver­sy which was adopt­ed by our fa­thers who framed the Gov­ern­ment un­der which we live; while you with one ac­cord re­ject and scout and spit up­on that old pol­icy, and in­sist up­on sub­sti­tut­ing some­thing new.

True, you dis­agree among your­selves as to what that sub­sti­tute shall be. You have con­sid­er­able va­ri­ety of new propo­si­tions and plans, but you are unan­imous in re­ject­ing and de­nounc­ing the old pol­icy of the fa­thers. Some of you are for re­viv­ing the for­eign slave-​trade; some for a con­gres­sion­al slave code for the Ter­ri­to­ries; some for Congress for­bid­ding the Ter­ri­to­ries to pro­hib­it slav­ery with­in their lim­its; some for main­tain­ing slav­ery in the Ter­ri­to­ries through the ju­di­cia­ry; some for the “gur-​reat pur-​rin­ci­ple” that if one man would en­slave an­oth­er, no third man should ob­ject–fan­tas­ti­cal­ly called “pop­ular sovereign­ty.” But nev­er a man among you in fa­vor of pro­hi­bi­tion of slav­ery in Fed­er­al Ter­ri­to­ries, ac­cord­ing to the prac­tice of our fa­thers who framed the Gov­ern­ment un­der which we live. Not one of all your var­ious plans can show a prece­dent or an ad­vo­cate in the cen­tu­ry with­in which our Gov­ern­ment orig­inat­ed. And yet you draw your­selves up and say, “We are em­inent­ly con­ser­va­tive.”

It is ex­ceed­ing­ly de­sir­able that all parts of this great con­fed­er­acy shall be at peace, and in har­mo­ny one with an­oth­er. Let us Re­pub­li­cans do our part to have it so. Even though much pro­voked, let us do noth­ing through pas­sion and ill-​tem­per. Even though the South­ern peo­ple will not so much as lis­ten to us, let us calm­ly con­sid­er their de­mands, and yield to them if, in our de­lib­er­ate view of our du­ty, we pos­si­bly can. Judg­ing by all they say and do, and by the sub­ject and na­ture of their con­tro­ver­sy with us, let us de­ter­mine, if we can, what will sat­is­fy them.

Will they be sat­is­fied if the Ter­ri­to­ries be un­con­di­tion­al­ly sur­ren­dered to them? We know they will not. In all their present com­plaints against us, the Ter­ri­to­ries are scarce­ly men­tioned. In­va­sions and in­sur­rec­tions are the rage now. Will it sat­is­fy them, in the fu­ture, if we have noth­ing to do with in­va­sions and in­sur­rec­tions? We know it will not. We so know be­cause we know we nev­er had any­thing to do with in­va­sions and in­sur­rec­tions; and yet this to­tal ab­stain­ing does not ex­empt us from the charge and the de­nun­ci­ation.

The ques­tion re­curs, what will sat­is­fy them? Sim­ply this: we must not on­ly let them alone, but we must, some­how, con­vince them that we do let them alone. This, we know by ex­pe­ri­ence, is no easy task. We have been so try­ing to con­vince them, from the very be­gin­ning of our or­ga­ni­za­tion, but with no suc­cess. In all our plat­forms and speech­es, we have con­stant­ly protest­ed our pur­pose to let them alone; but this had no ten­den­cy to con­vince them. Alike un­avail­ing to con­vince them is the fact that they have nev­er de­tect­ed a man of us in any at­tempt to dis­turb them.

These nat­ural and ap­par­ent­ly ad­equate means all fail­ing, what will con­vince them? This, and this on­ly: cease to call slav­ery wrong, and join them in call­ing it right. And this must be done thor­ough­ly– done in acts as well as in words. Si­lence will not be tol­er­at­ed–we must place our­selves avowed­ly with them. Dou­glas’s new sedi­tion law must be en­act­ed and en­forced, sup­press­ing all dec­la­ra­tions that slav­ery is wrong, whether made in pol­itics, in press­es, in pul­pits, or in pri­vate. We must ar­rest and re­turn their fugi­tive slaves with greedy plea­sure. We must pull down our free State con­sti­tu­tions. The whole at­mo­sphere must be dis­in­fect­ed of all taint of op­po­si­tion to slav­ery, be­fore they will cease to be­lieve that all their trou­bles pro­ceed from us. So long as we call slav­ery wrong, when­ev­er a slave runs away they will over­look the ob­vi­ous fact that be ran away be­cause he was op­pressed, and de­clare he was stolen off. When­ev­er a mas­ter cuts his slaves with a lash, and they cry out un­der it, he will over­look the ob­vi­ous fact that the ne­groes cry out be­cause they are hurt, and in­sist that they were put up to it by some ras­cal­ly abo­li­tion­ist.

I am quite aware that they do not state their case pre­cise­ly in this way. Most of them would prob­ably say to us, “Let us alone, do noth­ing to us, and say what you please about slav­ery.” But we do let them alone–have nev­er dis­turbed them–so that, af­ter all, it is what we say which dis­sat­is­fies them. They will con­tin­ue to ac­cuse us of do­ing, un­til we cease say­ing.

I am al­so aware that they have not as yet in terms de­mand­ed the over­throw of our free-​State con­sti­tu­tions. Yet those con­sti­tu­tions de­clare the wrong of slav­ery with more solemn em­pha­sis than do all oth­er say­ings against it; and when all these oth­er say­ings shall have been si­lenced, the over­throw of these con­sti­tu­tions will be de­mand­ed. It is noth­ing to the con­trary that they do not de­mand the whole of this just now. De­mand­ing what they do, and for the rea­son they do, they can vol­un­tar­ily stop nowhere short of this con­sum­ma­tion. Hold­ing as they do that slav­ery is moral­ly right, and so­cial­ly el­evat­ing, they can­not cease to de­mand a full na­tion­al recog­ni­tion of it, as a le­gal right, and a so­cial bless­ing.

Nor can we jus­ti­fi­ably with­hold this on any ground save our con­vic­tion that slav­ery is wrong. If slav­ery is right, all words, acts, laws, and con­sti­tu­tions against it are them­selves wrong and should be si­lenced and swept away. If it is right, we can­not just­ly ob­ject to its na­tion­al­ity–its uni­ver­sal­ity: if it is wrong, they can­not just­ly in­sist up­on its ex­ten­sion–its en­large­ment. All they ask, we could read­ily grant, if we thought slav­ery right; all we ask, they could as read­ily grant, if they thought it wrong. Their think­ing it right and our think­ing it wrong is the pre­cise fact on which de­pends the whole con­tro­ver­sy. Think­ing it right as they do, they are not to blame for de­sir­ing its full recog­ni­tion, as be­ing right; but, think­ing it wrong, as we do, can we yield to them? Can we cast our votes with their view, and against our own? In view of our moral, so­cial, and po­lit­ical re­spon­si­bil­ities, can we do this?

Wrong as we think slav­ery is, we can yet af­ford to let it alone where it is be­cause that much is due to the ne­ces­si­ty aris­ing from its ac­tu­al pres­ence m the na­tion; but can we, while our votes will pre­vent it, al­low it to spread in­to the na­tion­al Ter­ri­to­ries, and to over­run us here in these free States?

If our sense of du­ty for­bids this, then let us stand by our du­ty, fear­less­ly and ef­fec­tive­ly. Let us be di­vert­ed by none of those so­phis­ti­cal con­trivances where­with we are so in­dus­tri­ous­ly plied and be­la­bored–con­trivances such as grop­ing for some mid­dle ground be­tween the right and the wrong, vain as the search for a man who would be nei­ther a liv­ing man nor a dead man–such as a pol­icy of “don’t care” on a ques­tion about which all free men do care–such as Union ap­peals be­seech­ing true Union men to yield to Dis­union­ists, re­vers­ing the di­vine rule, and can­ing, not the sin­ners, but the righ­teous to re­pen­tance–such as in­vo­ca­tions of Wash­ing­ton, im­plor­ing men to un­say what Wash­ing­ton did.

Nei­ther let us be slan­dered from our du­ty by false ac­cu­sa­tions against us, nor fright­ened from it by men­aces of de­struc­tion to the Gov­ern­ment, nor of dun­geons to our­selves. Let us have faith that right makes might; and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our du­ty as we un­der­stand it.

[As Mr. Lin­coln con­clud­ed his ad­dress, there was wit­nessed the wildest scene of en­thu­si­asm and ex­cite­ment that has been in New Haven for years. The Pal­la­di­um ed­ito­ri­al­ly says: “We give up most of our space to-​day to a very full re­port of the elo­quent speech of the HON. Abra­ham Lin­coln, of Illi­nois, de­liv­ered last night at Union Hall.”]

RE­SPONSE TO AN ELEC­TOR’S RE­QUEST FOR MON­EY

TO ________________ March 16, 1860

As to your kind wish­es for my­self, al­low me to say I can­not en­ter the ring on the mon­ey ba­sis–first, be­cause in the main it is wrong; and sec­ond­ly, I have not and can­not get the mon­ey.

I say, in the main, the use of mon­ey is wrong; but for cer­tain ob­jects in a po­lit­ical con­test, the use of some is both right and in­dis­pens­able. With me, as with your­self, the long strug­gle has been one of great pe­cu­niary loss.

I now dis­tinct­ly say this–if you shall be ap­point­ed a del­egate to Chica­go, I will fur­nish one hun­dred dol­lars to bear the ex­pens­es of the trip.

Your friend as ev­er,

A. LIN­COLN.

[Ex­tract from a let­ter to a Kansas del­egate.]

TO J. W. SOMERS.

SPRING­FIELD, March 17, 1860

JAMES W. SOMERS, Esq.

DEAR SIR:–Reach­ing home three days ago, I found your let­ter of Febru­ary 26th. Con­sid­er­ing your dif­fi­cul­ty of hear­ing, I think you had bet­ter set­tle in Chica­go, if, as you say, a good man al­ready in fair prac­tice there will take you in­to part­ner­ship. If you had not that dif­fi­cul­ty, I still should think it an even bal­ance whether you would not bet­ter re­main in Chica­go, with such a chance for co­part­ner­ship.

If I went west, I think I would go to Kansas, to Leav­en­worth or Atchi­son. Both of them are and will con­tin­ue to be fine grow­ing places.

I be­lieve I have said all I can, and I have said it with the deep­est in­ter­est for your wel­fare.

Yours tru­ly,

A. LIN­COLN.

AC­CU­SA­TION OF HAV­ING BEEN PAID FOR A PO­LIT­ICAL SPEECH

TO C. F. Mc­NEIL.

SPRING­FIELD, April 6, 1860

C. F. MC­NEIL, Esq.

DEAR SIR:–Reach­ing home yes­ter­day, I found yours of the 23d March, in­clos­ing a slip from The Mid­dle­port Press. It is not true that I ev­er charged any­thing for a po­lit­ical speech in my life; but this much is true: Last Oc­to­ber I was re­quest­ed by let­ter to de­liv­er some sort of speech in Mr. Beech­er’s church, in Brook­lyn–two hun­dred dol­lars be­ing of­fered in the first let­ter. I wrote that I could do it in Febru­ary, pro­vid­ed they would take a po­lit­ical speech if I could find time to get up no oth­er. They agreed; and sub­se­quent­ly I in­formed them the speech would have to be a po­lit­ical one. When I reached New York, I for the first time learned that the place was changed to “Coop­er In­sti­tute.” I made the speech, and left for New Hamp­shire, where I have a son at school, nei­ther ask­ing for pay nor hav­ing any of­fered me. Three days af­ter a check for two hun­dred dol­lars was sent to me at New Hamp­shire; and I took it, and did not know it was wrong. My un­der­stand­ing now is–though I knew noth­ing of it at the time–that they did charge for ad­mit­tance to the Coop­er In­sti­tute, and that they took in more than twice two hun­dred dol­lars.

I have made this ex­pla­na­tion to you as a friend; but I wish no ex­pla­na­tion made to our en­emies. What they want is a squab­ble and a fuss, and that they can have if we ex­plain; and they can­not have it if we don’t.

When I re­turned through New York from New Eng­land, I was told by the gen­tle­men who sent me the Check that a drunk­en vagabond in the club, hav­ing learned some­thing about the two hun­dred dol­lars, made the ex­hi­bi­tion out of which The Her­ald man­ufac­tured the ar­ti­cle quot­ed by The Press of your town.

My judg­ment is, and there­fore my re­quest is, that you give no de­nial and no ex­pla­na­tion.

Thank­ing you for your kind in­ter­est in the mat­ter, I re­main, Yours tru­ly,

A. LIN­COLN.

TO H. TAY­LOR.

SPRING­FIELD, ILL., April 21, 1860.

HAWKINS TAY­LOR, Esq.

DEAR SIR:–Yours of the 15th is just re­ceived. It sur­pris­es me that you have writ­ten twice, with­out re­ceiv­ing an an­swer. I have an­swered all I ev­er re­ceived from you; and cer­tain­ly one since my re­turn from the East.

Opin­ions here, as to the prospect of Dou­glas be­ing nom­inat­ed, are quite con­flict­ing–some very con­fi­dent he will, and oth­ers that he will not be. I think his nom­ina­tion pos­si­ble, but that the chances are against him.

I am glad there is a prospect of your par­ty pass­ing this way to Chica­go. Wish­ing to make your vis­it here as pleas­ant as we can, we wish you to no­ti­fy us as soon as pos­si­ble whether you come this way, how many, and when you will ar­rive.

Yours very tru­ly,

A. LIN­COLN

TELE­GRAM TO A MEM­BER OF THE ILLI­NOIS DEL­EGA­TION AT THE CHICA­GO CON­VEN­TION. SPRING­FIELD, May 17? 1860.

I au­tho­rize no bar­gains and will be bound by none.

A. LIN­COLN.

RE­PLY TO THE COM­MIT­TEE SENT BY THE CHICA­GO CON­VEN­TION TO IN­FORM LIN­COLN OF HIS NOM­INA­TION,

MAY 19, 1860.

Mr. CHAIR­MAN AND GEN­TLE­MEN OF THE COM­MIT­TEE:–I ten­der to you, and through you to the Re­pub­li­can Na­tion­al Con­ven­tion, and all the peo­ple rep­re­sent­ed in it, my pro­found­est thanks for the high hon­or done me, which you now for­mal­ly an­nounce. Deeply and even painful­ly sen­si­ble of the great re­spon­si­bil­ity which is in­sep­ara­ble from this high hon­or–a re­spon­si­bil­ity which I could al­most wish had fall­en up­on some one of the far more em­inent men and ex­pe­ri­enced states­men whose dis­tin­guished names were be­fore the con­ven­tion–I shall, by your leave, con­sid­er more ful­ly the res­olu­tions of the con­ven­tion, de­nom­inat­ed their plat­form, and with­out any un­nec­es­sary or un­rea­son­able de­lay re­spond to you, Mr. Chair­man, in writ­ing–not doubt­ing that the plat­form will be found sat­is­fac­to­ry, and the nom­ina­tion grate­ful­ly ac­cept­ed.

And now I will not longer de­fer the plea­sure of tak­ing you, and each of you, by the hand.

AC­CEP­TANCE OF NOM­INA­TION AS RE­PUB­LI­CAN CAN­DI­DATE FOR PRES­IDENT OF THE UNIT­ED STATES

TO GEORGE ASH­MUN AND OTH­ERS.

SPRING­FIELD ILLI­NOIS, May 23, 1860

HON. GEORGE ASH­MUN, Pres­ident of Re­pub­li­can Na­tion­al Con­ven­tion.

SIR:–I ac­cept the nom­ina­tion ten­dered me by the con­ven­tion over which you presid­ed, and of which I am for­mal­ly ap­prised in the let­ter of your­self and oth­ers, act­ing as a com­mit­tee of the con­ven­tion for that pur­pose.

The dec­la­ra­tion of prin­ci­ples and sen­ti­ments which ac­com­pa­nies your let­ter meets my ap­proval; and it shall be my care not to vi­olate or dis­re­gard it in any part.

Im­plor­ing the as­sis­tance of Di­vine Prov­idence, and with due re­gard to the views and feel­ings of all who were rep­re­sent­ed in the con­ven­tion, to the rights of all the States and Ter­ri­to­ries and peo­ple of the na­tion, to the in­vi­ola­bil­ity of the Con­sti­tu­tion, and the per­pet­ual union, har­mo­ny, and pros­per­ity of all–I am most hap­py to co-​op­er­ate for the prac­ti­cal suc­cess of the prin­ci­ples de­clared by the con­ven­tion.

Your obliged friend and fel­low-​cit­izen,

A. LIN­COLN.

To C. B. SMITH.

SPRING­FIELD, ILL., May 26, 1860.

HON. C. B. SMITH.

MY DEAR SIR:-Yours of the 21st was du­ly re­ceived, but have found no time un­til now to say a word in the way of an­swer. I am in­deed much in­debt­ed to In­di­ana; and, as my home friends tell me, much to you per­son­al­ly. Your say­ing, you no longer con­sid­er Ia. a doubt­ful State is very grat­ify­ing. The thing starts well ev­ery­where–too well, I al­most fear, to last. But we are in, and stick or go through must be the word.

Let me hear from In­di­ana oc­ca­sion­al­ly.

Your friend, as ev­er,

A. LIN­COLN.

FORM OF RE­PLY PRE­PARED BY MR. LIN­COLN, WITH WHICH HIS PRI­VATE SEC­RE­TARY WAS IN­STRUCT­ED TO AN­SWER A NU­MER­OUS CLASS OF LET­TERS IN THE CAM­PAIGN OF 1860.

(Doc­trine.)

SPRING­FIELD, ILLI­NOIS, _______, 1860

DEAR SIR:–Your let­ter to Mr. Lin­coln of and by which you seek to ob­tain his opin­ions on cer­tain po­lit­ical points, has been re­ceived by him. He has re­ceived oth­ers of a sim­ilar char­ac­ter, but he al­so has a greater num­ber of the ex­act­ly op­po­site char­ac­ter. The lat­ter class be­seech him to write noth­ing what­ev­er up­on any point of po­lit­ical doc­trine. They say his po­si­tions were well known when he was nom­inat­ed, and that he must not now em­bar­rass the can­vass by un­der­tak­ing to shift or mod­ify them. He re­grets that he can­not oblige all, but you per­ceive it is im­pos­si­ble for him to do so.

Yours, etc.,

JNO. J. NICO­LAY.

TO E. B. WASH­BURNE.

SPRING­FIELD, ILLI­NOIS, MAY 26, 1860

HON. E. B. WASH­BURNE.

MY DEAR SIR:–I have sev­er­al let­ters from you writ­ten since the nom­ina­tion, but till now have found no mo­ment to say a word by way of an­swer. Of course I am glad that the nom­ina­tion is well re­ceived by our friends, and I sin­cere­ly thank you for so in­form­ing me. So far as I can learn, the nom­ina­tions start well ev­ery­where; and, if they get no back-​set, it would seem as if they are go­ing through. I hope you will write of­ten; and as you write more rapid­ly than I do, don’t make your let­ters so short as mine.

Yours very tru­ly,

A. LIN­COLN.

TO S. HAY­CRAFT.

SPRING­FIELD, ILL., June 4, 1860.

HON. SAMUEL HAY­CRAFT.

MY DEAR SIR:–Like your­self I be­longed to the old Whig par­ty from its ori­gin to its close. I nev­er be­longed to the Amer­ican par­ty or­ga­ni­za­tion, nor ev­er to a par­ty called a Union par­ty; though I hope I nei­ther am or ev­er have been less de­vot­ed to the Union than your­self or any oth­er pa­tri­ot­ic man.

Yours very tru­ly,

A. LIN­COLN.

ABRA­HAM OR “ABRAM”

TO G. ASH­MUN.

SPRING­FIELD, ILL. June 4, 1860

HON. GEORGE ASH­MUN.

MY DEAR SIR:–It seems as if the ques­tion whether my first name is “Abra­ham” or “Abram” will nev­er be set­tled. It is “Abra­ham,” and if the let­ter of ac­cep­tance is not yet in print, you may, if you think fit, have my sig­na­ture there­to print­ed “Abra­ham Lin­coln.” Ex­er­cise your judg­ment about this.

Yours as ev­er,

A. LIN­COLN.

UNAU­THO­RIZED BI­OG­RA­PHY

TO S. GAL­LOWAY.

SPRING­FIELD, ILL., June 19, 1860

HON. SAM’L GAL­LOWAY.

MY DEAR SIR:–Your very kind let­ter of the 15th is re­ceived. Messrs. Fol­lett, Fos­ter, & Co.’s Life of me is not by my au­thor­ity; and I have scarce­ly been so much as­tound­ed by any­thing, as by their pub­lic an­nounce­ment that it is au­tho­rized by me. They have fall­en in­to some strange mis­un­der­stand­ing. I cer­tain­ly knew they con­tem­plat­ed pub­lish­ing a bi­og­ra­phy, and I cer­tain­ly did not ob­ject to their do­ing so, up­on their own re­spon­si­bil­ity. I even took pains to fa­cil­itate them. But, at the same time, I made my­self tire­some, if not hoarse, with re­peat­ing to Mr. Howard, their on­ly agent seen by me, my protest that I au­tho­rized noth­ing–would be re­spon­si­ble for noth­ing. How they could so mis­un­der­stand me, pass­es com­pre­hen­sion. As a mat­ter whol­ly my own, I would au­tho­rize no bi­og­ra­phy, with­out time and op­por­tu­ni­ty [sic] to care­ful­ly ex­am­ine and con­sid­er ev­ery word of it and, in this case, in the na­ture of things, I can have no such time and Op­por­tu­ni­ty [sic]. But, in my present po­si­tion, when, by the lessons of the past, and the unit­ed voice of all dis­creet friends, I can nei­ther write nor speak a word for the pub­lic, how dare I to send forth, by my au­thor­ity, a vol­ume of hun­dreds of pages, for ad­ver­saries to make points up­on with­out end? Were I to do so, the con­ven­tion would have a right to re-​as­sem­ble and sub­sti­tute an­oth­er name for mine.

For these rea­sons, I would not look at the proof sheets–I am de­ter­mined to main­tain the po­si­tion of [sic] tru­ly say­ing I nev­er saw the proof sheets, or any part of their work, be­fore its pub­li­ca­tion.

Now, do not mis­take me–I feel great kind­ness for Messrs. F., F., & Co.–do not think they have in­ten­tion­al­ly done wrong. There may be noth­ing wrong in their pro­posed book–I sin­cere­ly hope there will not. I bare­ly sug­gest that you, or any of the friends there, on the par­ty ac­count, look it over, and ex­clude what you may think would em­bar­rass the par­ty bear­ing in mind, at all times, that I au­tho­rize noth­ing–will be re­spon­si­ble for noth­ing.

Your friend, as ev­er,

A. LIN­COLN.

[The cus­tom then, and it may be a good one, was for the Pres­iden­tial can­di­date to do no per­son­al can­vass­ing or speak­ing–or as we have it now “run­ning for elec­tion.” He stayed at home and kept his mouth shut. D.W.]

TO HAN­NI­BAL HAM­LIN.

SPRING­FIELD, ILLI­NOIS, Ju­ly 18, 1860.

HON. HAN­NI­BAL HAM­LIN. MY DEAR SIR:–It ap­pears to me that you and I ought to be ac­quaint­ed, and ac­cord­ing­ly I write this as a sort of in­tro­duc­tion of my­self to you. You first en­tered the Sen­ate dur­ing the sin­gle term I was a mem­ber of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, but I have no rec­ol­lec­tion that we were in­tro­duced. I shall be pleased to re­ceive a line from you.

The prospect of Re­pub­li­can suc­cess now ap­pears very flat­ter­ing, so far as I can per­ceive. Do you see any­thing to the con­trary?

Yours tru­ly, A. LIN­COLN.

TO A. JONAS.

(Con­fi­den­tial.)

SPRING­FIELD, ILLI­NOIS, JU­LY 21, 1860.

HON. A. JONAS.

MY DEAR SIR:–Yours of the 20th is re­ceived. I sup­pose as good or even bet­ter men than I may have been in Amer­ican or Know-​Noth­ing lodges; but in point of fact, I nev­er was in one at Quin­cy or else­where. I was nev­er in Quin­cy but one day and two nights while Know-​Noth­ing lodges were in ex­is­tence, and you were with me that day and both those nights. I had nev­er been there be­fore in my life, and nev­er af­ter­ward, till the joint de­bate with Dou­glas in 1858. It was in 1854 when I spoke in some hall there, and af­ter the speak­ing, you, with oth­ers, took me to an oys­ter-​sa­loon, passed an hour there, and you walked with me to, and part­ed with me at, the Quin­cy House, quite late at night. I left by stage for Naples be­fore day­light in the morn­ing, hav­ing come in by the same route af­ter dark the evening, pre­vi­ous to the speak­ing, when I found you wait­ing at the Quin­cy House to meet me. A few days af­ter I was there, Richard­son, as I un­der­stood, start­ed this same sto­ry about my hav­ing been in a Know-​Noth­ing lodge. When I heard of the charge, as I did soon af­ter; I taxed my rec­ol­lec­tion for some in­ci­dent which could have sug­gest­ed it; and I re­mem­bered that on part­ing with you the last night I went to the of­fice of the ho­tel to take my stage-​pas­sage for the morn­ing, was told that no stage-​of­fice for that line was kept there, and that I must see the driv­er be­fore re­tir­ing, to in­sure his call­ing for me in the morn­ing; and a ser­vant was sent with me to find the driv­er, who, af­ter tak­ing me a square or two, stopped me, and stepped per­haps a dozen steps far­ther, and in my hear­ing called to some one, who an­swered him, ap­par­ent­ly from the up­per part of a build­ing, and promised to call with the stage for me at the Quin­cy House. I re­turned, and went to bed, and be­fore day the stage called and took me. This is all.

That I nev­er was in a Know-​Noth­ing lodge in Quin­cy, I should ex­pect could be eas­ily proved by re­spectable men who were al­ways in the lodges and nev­er saw me there. An af­fi­davit of one or two such would put the mat­ter at rest.

And now a word of cau­tion. Our ad­ver­saries think they can gain a point if they could force me to open­ly de­ny the charge, by which some de­gree of of­fence would be giv­en to the Amer­icans. For this rea­son it must not pub­licly ap­pear that I am pay­ing any at­ten­tion to the charge.

Yours tru­ly,

A. LIN­COLN.

TO JOHN B. FRY.

SPRING­FIELD, ILLI­NOIS, Au­gust 15, 1860.

MY DEAR SIR:–Yours of the 9th, in­clos­ing the let­ter of HON. John Mi­nor Botts, was du­ly re­ceived. The lat­ter is here­with re­turned ac­cord­ing to your re­quest. It con­tains one of the many as­sur­ances I re­ceive from the South, that in no prob­able event will there be any very formidable ef­fort to break up the Union. The peo­ple of the South have too much of good sense and good tem­per to at­tempt the ru­in of the gov­ern­ment rather than see it ad­min­is­tered as it was ad­min­is­tered by the men who made it. At least so I hope and be­lieve. I thank you both for your own let­ter and a sight of that of Mr. Botts.

Yours very tru­ly,

A. LIN­COLN.

TO THUR­LOW WEED

SPRING­FIELD, ILL. Au­gust 17 1860.

MY DEAR SIR:–Yours of the 13th was re­ceived this morn­ing. Dou­glas is man­ag­ing the Bell el­ement with great adroit­ness. He had his men in Ken­tucky to vote for the Bell can­di­date, pro­duc­ing a re­sult which has bad­ly alarmed and dam­aged Breck­en­ridge, and at the same time has in­duced the Bell men to sup­pose that Bell will cer­tain­ly be Pres­ident, if they can keep a few of the North­ern States away from us by throw­ing them to Dou­glas. But you, bet­ter than I, un­der­stand all this.

I think there will be the most ex­traor­di­nary ef­fort ev­er made to car­ry New York for Dou­glas. You and all oth­ers who write me from your State think the ef­fort can­not suc­ceed, and I hope you are right. Still, it will re­quire close watch­ing and great ef­forts on the oth­er side.

Here­with I send you a copy of a let­ter writ­ten at New York, which suf­fi­cient­ly ex­plains it­self, and which may or may not give you a valu­able hint. You have seen that Bell tick­ets have been put on the track both here and in In­di­ana. In both cas­es the ob­ject has been, I think, the same as the Hunt move­ment in New York–to throw States to Dou­glas. In our State, we know the thing is en­gi­neered by Dou­glas men, and we do not be­lieve they can make a great deal out of it.

Yours very tru­ly,

A. LIN­COLN.

SLOW TO LIS­TEN TO CRIM­INA­TIONS

TO HON. JOHN ______________

(Pri­vate.)

SPRING­FIELD, ILL., Aug. 31, 1860

MY DEAR SIR:–Yours of the 27th is du­ly re­ceived. It con­sists al­most ex­clu­sive­ly of a his­tor­ical de­tail of some lo­cal trou­bles, among some of our friends in Penn­syl­va­nia; and I sup­pose its ob­ject is to guard me against form­ing a prej­udice against Mr. McC___________, I have not heard near so much up­on that sub­ject as you prob­ably sup­pose; and I am slow to lis­ten to crim­ina­tions among friends, and nev­er ex­pose their quar­rels on ei­ther side. My sin­cere wish is that both sides will al­low by­gones to be by­gones, and look to the present and fu­ture on­ly.

Yours very tru­ly,

A. LIN­COLN.

TO HAN­NI­BAL HAM­LIN

SPRING­FIELD, ILLI­NOIS, Septem­ber 4, 1860

HON. HAN­NI­BAL HAM­LIN.

MY DEAR SIR:–I am an­noyed some by a let­ter from a friend in Chica­go, in which the fol­low­ing pas­sage oc­curs: “Ham­lin has writ­ten Col­fax that two mem­bers of Congress will, he fears, be lost in Maine, the first and sixth dis­tricts; and that Wash­burne’s ma­jor­ity for gov­er­nor will not ex­ceed six thou­sand.”

I had heard some­thing like this six weeks ago, but had been as­sured since that it was not so. Your sec­re­tary of state,–Mr. Smith, I think,–whom you in­tro­duced to me by let­ter, gave this as­sur­ance; more re­cent­ly, Mr. Fes­senden, our can­di­date for Congress in one of those dis­tricts, wrote a rel­ative here that his elec­tion was sure by at least five thou­sand, and that Wash­burne’s ma­jor­ity would be from 14,000 to 17,000; and still lat­er, Mr. Fogg, of New Hamp­shire, now at New York serv­ing on a na­tion­al com­mit­tee, wrote me that we were hav­ing a des­per­ate fight in Maine, which would end in a splen­did vic­to­ry for us.

Such a re­sult as you seem to have pre­dict­ed in Maine, in your let­ter to Col­fax, would, I fear, put us on the down-​hill track, lose us the State elec­tions in Penn­syl­va­nia and In­di­ana, and prob­ably ru­in us on the main turn in Novem­ber.

You must not al­low it.

Yours very tru­ly,

A. LIN­COLN.

TO E. B. WASH­BURNE.

SPRING­FIELD, ILLI­NOIS, Septem­ber 9, 1860

HON. E. B. WASH­BURNE.

MY DEAR SIR: Yours of the 5th was re­ceived last evening. I was right glad to see it. It con­tains the fresh­est “post­ing” which I now have. It re­lieved me some from a lit­tle anx­iety I had about Maine. Jo Medill, on Au­gust 3oth, wrote me that Col­fax had a let­ter from Mr. Ham­lin say­ing we were in great dan­ger of los­ing two mem­bers of Congress in Maine, and that your broth­er would not have ex­ceed­ing six thou­sand ma­jor­ity for Gov­er­nor. I ad­dressed you at once, at Gale­na, ask­ing for your lat­est in­for­ma­tion. As you are at Wash­ing­ton, that let­ter you will re­ceive some time af­ter the Maine elec­tion.

Yours very tru­ly,

A. LIN­COLN.

TO W. H. HERN­DON.

SPRING­FIELD, ILL., OC­TO­BER 10, 1860

DEAR WILLIAM:–I can­not give you de­tails, but it is en­tire­ly cer­tain that Penn­syl­va­nia and In­di­ana have gone Re­pub­li­can very large­ly. Penn­syl­va­nia 25,000, and In­di­ana 5000 to 10,000. Ohio of course is safe.

Yours as ev­er,

A. LIN­COLN.

TO L. M. BOND.

SPRING­FIELD, ILL., Oc­to­ber 15, 1860

L. MONT­GOMERY BOND, Esq.

MY DEAR SIR: I cer­tain­ly am in no tem­per and have no pur­pose to em­bit­ter the feel­ings of the South, but whether I am in­clined to such a course as would in fact em­bit­ter their feel­ings you can bet­ter judge by my pub­lished speech­es than by any­thing I would say in a short let­ter if I were in­clined now, as I am not, to de­fine my po­si­tion anew.

Yours tru­ly,

A. LIN­COLN.

LET­TER SUG­GEST­ING A BEARD

TO MISS GRACE BE­DELL, RIP­LEY N.Y.

SPRING­FIELD, ILL., Oc­to­ber 19, 1860

MISS GRACE BE­DELL.

MY DEAR LIT­TLE MISS:–Your very agree­able let­ter of the 15th is re­ceived. I re­gret the ne­ces­si­ty of say­ing I have no daugh­ter. I have three sons–one sev­en­teen, one nine, and one sev­en. They with their moth­er con­sti­tute my whole fam­ily. As to the whiskers, as I have nev­er worn any, do you not think that peo­ple would call it a piece of sil­ly af­fec­ta­tion were I to be­gin wear­ing them now?

I am your true friend and sin­cere well-​wish­er,

A. LIN­COLN.

EAR­LY IN­FOR­MA­TION ON ARMY DE­FEC­TION IN SOUTH

TO D. HUNTER.

(Pri­vate and Con­fi­den­tial.) SPRING­FIELD, ILLI­NOIS, Oc­to­ber 26, 1860

MA­JOR DAVID HUNTER

MY DEAR SIR:–Your very kind let­ter of the 20th was du­ly re­ceived, for which please ac­cept my thanks. I have an­oth­er let­ter, from a writ­er un­known to me, say­ing the of­fi­cers of the army at Fort Kearny have de­ter­mined in case of Re­pub­li­can suc­cess at the ap­proach­ing Pres­iden­tial elec­tion, to take them­selves, and the arms at that point, south, for the pur­pose of re­sis­tance to the gov­ern­ment. While I think there are many chances to one that this is a hum­bug, it oc­curs to me that any re­al move­ment of this sort in the Army would leak out and be­come known to you. In such case, if it would not be un­pro­fes­sion­al or dis­hon­or­able (of which you are to be judge), I shall be much obliged if you will ap­prise me of it.

Yours very tru­ly,

A. LIN­COLN.

TO HAN­NI­BAL HAM­LIN

(Con­fi­den­tial.) SPRING­FIELD. ILLI­NOIS, Novem­ber 8, 1860

HON. HAN­NI­BAL HAM­LIN.

MY DEAR SIR:–I am anx­ious for a per­son­al in­ter­view with you at as ear­ly a day as pos­si­ble. Can you, with­out much in­con­ve­nience, meet me at Chica­go? If you can, please name as ear­ly a day as you con­ve­nient­ly can, and tele­graph me, un­less there be suf­fi­cient time be­fore the day named to com­mu­ni­cate by mail.

Yours very tru­ly,

A. LIN­COLN.

TO SAMUEL HAY­CRAFT.

(Pri­vate and Con­fi­den­tial.) SPRING­FIELD, ILL., Nov.13, 1860

HON. SAMUEL HAY­CRAFT.

MY DEAR SIR:–Yours of the 9th is just re­ceived. I can on­ly an­swer briefly. Rest ful­ly as­sured that the good peo­ple of the South who will put them­selves in the same tem­per and mood to­wards me which you do will find no cause to com­plain of me.

Yours very tru­ly,

A. LIN­COLN.

RE­MARKS AT THE MEET­ING AT SPRING­FIELD, ILLI­NOIS TO CEL­EBRATE LIN­COLN’S ELEC­TION,

NOVEM­BER 20, 1860

FRIENDS AND FEL­LOW-​CIT­IZENS:–Please ex­cuse me on this oc­ca­sion from mak­ing a speech. I thank you in com­mon with all those who have thought fit by their votes to in­dorse the Re­pub­li­can cause. I re­joice with you in the suc­cess which has thus far at­tend­ed that cause. Yet in all our re­joic­ings let us nei­ther ex­press nor cher­ish any hard feel­ings to­ward any cit­izen who by his vote has dif­fered with us. Let us at all times re­mem­ber that all Amer­ican cit­izens are broth­ers of a com­mon coun­try, and should dwell to­geth­er in the bonds of fra­ter­nal feel­ing. Let me again beg you to ac­cept my thanks, and to ex­cuse me from fur­ther speak­ing at this time.

TO ALEXAN­DER H. STEPHENS

SPRING­FIELD, ILL. NOV. 30, 1860

HON. A. H. STEPHENS.

MY DEAR SIR:–I have read in the news­pa­pers your speech re­cent­ly de­liv­ered (I think) be­fore the Geor­gia Leg­is­la­ture, or its as­sem­bled mem­bers. If you have re­vised it, as is prob­able, I shall be much obliged if you will send me a copy.

Yours very tru­ly,

A. LIN­COLN.

TO HAN­NI­BAL HAM­LIN

(Pri­vate) SPRING­FIELD, ILLI­NOIS, De­cem­ber 8, 1860

HON. HAN­NI­BAL HAM­LIN.

DEAR SIR:–Yours of the 4th was du­ly re­ceived. The in­closed to Gov­er­nor Se­ward cov­ers two notes to him, copies of which you find open for your in­spec­tion. Con­sult with Judge Trum­bull; and if you and he see no rea­son to the con­trary, de­liv­er the let­ter to Gov­er­nor Se­ward at once. If you see rea­son to the con­trary write me at once.

I have an in­ti­ma­tion that Gov­er­nor Banks would yet ac­cept a place in the Cab­inet. Please as­cer­tain and write me how this is,

Yours very tru­ly,

A. LIN­COLN.

BLOCK­ING “COM­PRO­MISE” ON SLAV­ERY IS­SUE

TO E. B. WASH­BURNE

(Pri­vate and Con­fi­den­tial.) SPRING­FIELD, ILL., De­cem­ber 13, 1860

HON. E. B. WASH­BURNE.

MY DEAR SIR:–Your long let­ter re­ceived. Pre­vent, as far as pos­si­ble, any of our friends from de­mor­al­iz­ing them­selves and our cause by en­ter­tain­ing propo­si­tions for com­pro­mise of any sort on “slav­ery ex­ten­sion.” There is no pos­si­ble com­pro­mise up­on it but which puts us un­der again, and leaves all our work to do over again. Whether it be a Mis­souri line or Eli Thay­er’s pop­ular sovereign­ty, it is all the same. Let ei­ther be done, and im­me­di­ate­ly fil­ibus­ter­ing and ex­tend­ing slav­ery recom­mences. On that point hold firm, as with a chain of steel.

Yours as ev­er,

A. LIN­COLN.

OPIN­ION ON SE­CES­SION

TO THUR­LOW WEED

SPRING­FIELD, ILLI­NOIS, DE­CEM­BER 17, 1860

MY DEAR SIR:–Yours of the 11th was re­ceived two days ago. Should the con­vo­ca­tion of gov­er­nors of which you speak seem de­sirous to know my views on the present as­pect of things, tell them you judge from my speech­es that I will be in­flex­ible on the ter­ri­to­ri­al ques­tion; but I prob­ably think ei­ther the Mis­souri line ex­tend­ed, or Dou­glas’s and Eli Thay­er’s pop­ular sovereign­ty would lose us ev­ery­thing we gain by the elec­tion; that fil­ibus­ter­ing for all south of us and mak­ing slave States of it would fol­low in spite of us, in ei­ther case; al­so that I prob­ably think all op­po­si­tion, re­al and ap­par­ent, to the fugi­tive slave clause of the Con­sti­tu­tion ought to be with­drawn.

I be­lieve you can pre­tend to find but lit­tle, if any­thing, in my speech­es, about se­ces­sion. But my opin­ion is that no State can in any way law­ful­ly get out of the Union with­out the con­sent of the oth­ers; and that it is the du­ty of the Pres­ident and oth­er gov­ern­ment func­tionar­ies to run the ma­chine as it is.

Tru­ly yours,

A. LIN­COLN.

SOME FORTS SUR­REN­DERED TO THE SOUTH

TO E. B. WASH­BURNE

(Con­fi­den­tial) SPRING­FIELD, ILLI­NOIS, De­cem­ber 21, 1860

HON. E. B. WASH­BURNE.

MY DEAR SIR:–Last night I re­ceived your let­ter giv­ing an ac­count of your in­ter­view with Gen­er­al Scott, and for which I thank you. Please present my re­spects to the Gen­er­al, and tell him, con­fi­den­tial­ly, I shall be obliged to him to be as well pre­pared as he can to ei­ther hold or re­take the forts, as the case may re­quire, at and af­ter the in­au­gu­ra­tion.

Yours as ev­er,

A. LIN­COLN.

TO A. H. STEPHENS.

(For your own eye on­ly)

SPRING­FIELD, ILLI­NOIS, DE­CEM­BER 22, 1860

HON. ALEXAN­DER STEVENS

MY DEAR SIR:–Your oblig­ing an­swer to my short note is just re­ceived, and for which please ac­cept my thanks. I ful­ly ap­pre­ci­ate the present per­il the coun­try is in, and the weight of re­spon­si­bil­ity on me. Do the peo­ple of the South re­al­ly en­ter­tain fear that a Re­pub­li­can ad­min­is­tra­tion would, di­rect­ly or in­di­rect­ly, in­ter­fere with the slaves, or with them about the slaves? If they do, I wish to as­sure you, as once a friend, and still, I hope, not an en­emy, that there is no cause for such fears. The South would be in no more dan­ger in this re­spect than it was in the days of Wash­ing­ton. I sup­pose, how­ev­er, this does not meet the case. You think slav­ery is right and ought to be ex­tend­ed, while we think it is wrong and ought to be re­strict­ed. That, I sup­pose, is the rub. It cer­tain­ly is the on­ly sub­stan­tial dif­fer­ence be­tween us.

Yours very tru­ly,

A. LIN­COLN.

SUP­PORT OF THE FUGI­TIVE SLAVE CLAUSE

MEM­ORAN­DUM

De­cem­ber [22?], 1860

Re­solved: That the fugi­tive slave clause of the Con­sti­tu­tion ought to be en­forced by a law of Congress, with ef­fi­cient pro­vi­sions for that ob­ject, not oblig­ing pri­vate per­sons to as­sist in its ex­ecu­tion, but pun­ish­ing all who re­sist it, and with the usu­al safe­guards to lib­er­ty, se­cur­ing free men against be­ing sur­ren­dered as slaves.

That all State laws, if there be such, re­al­ly or ap­par­ent­ly in con­flict with such law of Congress, ought to be re­pealed; and no op­po­si­tion to the ex­ecu­tion of such law of Congress ought to be made.

That the Fed­er­al Union must be pre­served.

Pre­pared for the con­sid­er­ation of the Re­pub­li­can mem­bers of the Sen­ate Com­mit­tee of Thir­teen.

TO D. HUNTER.

(Con­fi­den­tial.) SPRING­FIELD, ILLI­NOIS De­cem­ber 22, 1860

MA­JOR DAVID HUNTER.

MY DEAR SIR:–I am much obliged by the re­ceipt of yours of the 18th. The most we can do now is to watch events, and be as well pre­pared as pos­si­ble for any turn things may take. If the forts fall, my judg­ment is that they are to be re­tak­en. When I shall de­ter­mine def­inite­ly my time of start­ing to Wash­ing­ton, I will no­ti­fy you.

Yours tru­ly,

A. LIN­COLN.

TO I. N. MOR­RIS

(Con­fi­den­tial.) SPRING­FIELD, ILL., Dec 24, 1860

HON. I. N. MOR­RIS.

MY DEAR SIR:–With­out sup­pos­ing that you and I are any near­er to­geth­er, po­lit­ical­ly, than hereto­fore, al­low me to ten­der you my sin­cere thanks for your Union res­olu­tion, ex­pres­sive of views up­on which we nev­er were, and, I trust, nev­er will be at vari­ance.

Yours very tru­ly, A. LIN­COLN.

AT­TEMPT TO FORM A COALI­TION CAB­INET

TO HAN­NI­BAL HAM­LIN

SPRING­FIELD, ILLI­NOIS, De­cem­ber 14, 1860.

HON. HAN­NI­BAL HAM­LIN.

MY DEAR SIR:–I need a man of Demo­crat­ic an­tecedents from New Eng­land. I can­not get a fair share of that el­ement in with­out. This stands in the way of Mr. Adams. I think of Gov­er­nor Banks, Mr. Welles, and Mr. Tuck. Which of them do the New Eng­land del­ega­tion pre­fer? Or shall I de­cide for my­self?

Yours as ev­er,

A. LIN­COLN.

1861

TO WILLIAM H. SE­WARD.

(Pri­vate.) SPRING­FIELD. ILL., Jan­uary 3, 1861.

HON. W. H. SE­WARD.

DEAR SIR:–Yours with­out sig­na­ture was re­ceived last night. I have been con­sid­er­ing your sug­ges­tions as to my reach­ing Wash­ing­ton some­what ear­li­er than is usu­al. It seems to me the in­au­gu­ra­tion is not the most dan­ger­ous point for us. Our ad­ver­saries have us now clear­ly at dis­ad­van­tage on the sec­ond Wednes­day of Febru­ary, when the votes should be of­fi­cial­ly count­ed. If the two hous­es refuse to meet at all, or meet with­out a quo­rum of each, where shall we be? I do not think that this count­ing is con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly es­sen­tial to the elec­tion, but how are we to pro­ceed in the ab­sence of it? In view of this, I think it is best for me not to at­tempt ap­pear­ing in Wash­ing­ton till the re­sult of that cer­emo­ny is known.

It cer­tain­ly would be of some ad­van­tage if you could know who are to be at the heads of the War and Navy de­part­ments, but un­til I can as­cer­tain def­inite­ly whether I can get any suit­able men from the South, and who, and how many, I can not well de­cide. As yet, I have no word from Mr. Gilmer in an­swer to my re­quest for an in­ter­view with him. I look for some­thing on the sub­ject, through you, be­fore long. Yours very tru­ly, A. LIN­COLN.

TO W. H. SE­WARD. (Pri­vate.) SPRING­FIELD, ILL., Jan­uary 12, 1861

HON. W. H. SE­WARD.

MY DEAR SIR:–Yours of the 8th re­ceived. I still hope Mr. Gilmer will, on a fair un­der­stand­ing with us, con­sent to take a place in the Cab­inet. The pref­er­ence for him over Mr. Hunt or Mr. Gen­try is that, up to date–he has a liv­ing po­si­tion in the South, while they have not. He is on­ly bet­ter than Win­ter Davis in that he is far­ther south. I fear, if we could get, we could not safe­ly take more than one such man–that is, not more than one who op­posed us in the elec­tion–the dan­ger be­ing to lose the con­fi­dence of our own friends. Your se­lec­tion for the State De­part­ment hav­ing be­come pub­lic, I am hap­py to find scarce­ly any ob­jec­tion to it. I shall have trou­ble with ev­ery oth­er North­ern Cab­inet ap­point­ment–so much so that I shall have to de­fer them as long as pos­si­ble to avoid be­ing teased in­to in­san­ity, to make changes.

Your obe­di­ent ser­vant,

A. LIN­COLN

TO E. D. MOR­GAN

SPRING­FIELD, ILL. FEB. 4, 1861

SIR:–Your let­ter of the 30th ult. invit­ing me, on be­half of the Leg­is­la­ture of New York, to pass through that State on my way to Wash­ing­ton, and ten­der­ing me the hos­pi­tal­ities of her au­thor­ities and peo­ple, has been du­ly re­ceived. With the feel­ings of deep grat­itude to you and them for this tes­ti­mo­ni­al of re­gard and es­teem I beg you to no­ti­fy them that I ac­cept the in­vi­ta­tion so kind­ly ten­dered.

Your obe­di­ent ser­vant,

A. LIN­COLN

P.S.–Please let the cer­emonies be on­ly such as to take the least time pos­si­ble. A. L.

PA­TRON­AGE CLAIMS

TO THUR­LOW WEED

SPRING­FIELD, ILL., Febru­ary 4, 1861

DEAR SIR:–I have both your let­ter to my­self and that to Judge Davis, in re­la­tion to a cer­tain gen­tle­man in your State claim­ing to dis­pense pa­tron­age in my name, and al­so to be au­tho­rized to use my name to ad­vance the chances of Mr. Gree­ley for an elec­tion to the Unit­ed States Sen­ate.

It is very strange that such things should be said by any one. The gen­tle­man you men­tion did speak to me of Mr. Gree­ley in con­nec­tion with the sen­ato­ri­al elec­tion, and I replied in terms of kind­ness to­ward Mr. Gree­ley, which I re­al­ly feel, but al­ways with an ex­pressed protest that my name must not be used in the sen­ato­ri­al elec­tion in fa­vor of or against any one. Any oth­er rep­re­sen­ta­tion of me is a mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tion.

As to the mat­ter of dis­pens­ing pa­tron­age, it per­haps will sur­prise you to learn that I have in­for­ma­tion that you claim to have my au­thor­ity to ar­range that mat­ter in New York. I do not be­lieve you have so claimed; but still so some men say. On that sub­ject you know all I have said to you is “jus­tice to all,” and I have said noth­ing more par­tic­ular to any one. I say this to re­as­sure you that I have not changed my po­si­tion.

In the hope, how­ev­er, that you will not use my name in the mat­ter, I am,

Yours tru­ly,

A. LIN­COLN.

FAREWELL AD­DRESS AT SPRING­FIELD, ILLI­NOIS, FEBRU­ARY 11, 1861

MY FRIENDS:–One who has nev­er been placed in a like po­si­tion can­not un­der­stand my feel­ings at this hour, nor the op­pres­sive sad­ness I feel at this part­ing. For more than twen­ty-​five years I have lived among you, and dur­ing all that time I have re­ceived noth­ing but kind­ness at your hands. Here the most cher­ished ties of earth were as­sumed. Here my chil­dren were born, and here one of them lies buried. To you, my friends, I owe all that I have, all that I am. All the strange check­ered past seems to crowd up­on my mind. To-​day I leave you. I go to as­sume a task more dif­fi­cult than that which de­volved up­on Gen­er­al Wash­ing­ton. Un­less the great God who as­sist­ed him shall be with and aid me I can­not pre­vail; but if the same almighty arm that di­rect­ed and pro­tect­ed him shall guide and sup­port me I shall not fail; I shall suc­ceed. Let us pray that the God of our fa­thers may not for­sake us now. To Him I com­mend you all. Per­mit me to ask that with equal sin­cer­ity and faith you will all in­voke His wis­dom and good­ness for me.

With these words I must leave you; for how long I know not. Friends, one and all, I must now wish you an af­fec­tion­ate farewell.

RE­MARKS AT TOLONO, ILLI­NOIS, FEBRU­ARY 11, 1861

I am leav­ing you on an er­rand of na­tion­al im­por­tance, at­tend­ed, as you are aware, with con­sid­er­able dif­fi­cul­ties. Let us be­lieve, as some po­et has ex­pressed it, “Be­hind the cloud the sun is still shin­ing.” I bid you an af­fec­tion­ate farewell.

RE­PLY TO AD­DRESS OF WEL­COME, IN­DI­ANAPO­LIS,

IN­DI­ANA, FEBRU­ARY 11, 1861

GOV­ER­NOR MOR­TON AND FEL­LOW CIT­IZENS OF THE STATE OF IN­DI­ANA:

Most hearti­ly do I thank you for this mag­nif­icent re­cep­tion, and while I can­not take to my­self any share of the com­pli­ment thus paid, more than that which per­tains to a mere in­stru­ment, an ac­ci­den­tal in­stru­ment, per­haps I should say, of a great cause, I yet must look up­on it as a most mag­nif­icent re­cep­tion, and as such most hearti­ly do thank you for it. You have been pleased to ad­dress your­self to me chiefly in be­half of this glo­ri­ous Union in which we live, in all of which you have my hearty sym­pa­thy, and, as far as may be with­in my pow­er, will have, one and in­sep­ara­ble, my hearty con­sid­er­ation. While I do not ex­pect, up­on this oc­ca­sion, or un­til I get to Wash­ing­ton, to at­tempt any lengthy speech, I will on­ly say to the sal­va­tion of the Union there needs but one sin­gle thing–the hearts of a peo­ple like yours.

The peo­ple–when they rise in mass in be­half of the Union and the lib­er­ties of their coun­try, tru­ly may it be said, “The gates of hell can­not pre­vail against them.” In all try­ing po­si­tions in which I shall be placed–and, doubt­less, I shall be placed in many such–my re­liance will be placed up­on you and the peo­ple of the Unit­ed States; and I wish you to re­mem­ber, now and for­ev­er, that it is your busi­ness, and not mine; that if the union of these States and the lib­er­ties of this peo­ple shall be lost, it is but lit­tle to any one man of fifty-​two years of age, but a great deal to the thir­ty mil­lions of peo­ple who in­hab­it these Unit­ed States, and to their pos­ter­ity in all com­ing time. It is your busi­ness to rise up and pre­serve the Union and lib­er­ty for your­selves, and not for me.

I de­sire they should be con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly per­formed. I, as al­ready in­ti­mat­ed, am but an ac­ci­den­tal in­stru­ment, tem­po­rary, and to serve but for a lim­it­ed time; and I ap­peal to you again to con­stant­ly bear in mind that with you, and not with politi­cians, not with Pres­idents, not with of­fice-​seek­ers, but with you is the ques­tion, Shall the Union and shall the lib­er­ties of this coun­try be pre­served to the lat­est gen­er­ations?

AD­DRESS TO THE LEG­IS­LA­TURE OF IN­DI­ANA, AT IN­DI­ANAPO­LIS,

FEBRU­ARY 12, 1861

FEL­LOW-​CIT­IZENS OF THE STATE OF IN­DI­ANA:–I am here to thank you much for this mag­nif­icent wel­come, and still more for the gen­er­ous sup­port giv­en by your State to that po­lit­ical cause which I think is the true and just cause of the whole coun­try and the whole world.

Solomon says there is “a time to keep si­lence,” and when men wran­gle by the mouth with no cer­tain­ty that they mean the same thing while us­ing the same word, it per­haps were as well if they would keep si­lence.

The words “co­er­cion” and “in­va­sion” are much used in these days, and of­ten with some tem­per and hot blood. Let us make sure, if we can, the mean­ing of those who use them. Let us get the ex­act def­ini­tions of these words, not from dic­tio­nar­ies, but from the men them­selves, who cer­tain­ly dep­re­cate the things they would rep­re­sent by the use of the words.

What, then, is co­er­cion? What is in­va­sion? Would the march­ing of an army in­to South Car­oli­na, with­out the con­sent of her peo­ple, and with hos­tile in­tent to­ward them, be in­va­sion? I cer­tain­ly think it would, and it would be co­er­cion al­so, if the South Car­olini­ans were forced to sub­mit. But if the Unit­ed States should mere­ly hold and re­take its own forts and oth­er prop­er­ty, and col­lect the du­ties on for­eign im­por­ta­tions, or even with­hold the mails from places where they were ha­bit­ual­ly vi­olat­ed, would any or all of these things be in­va­sion or co­er­cion? Do our pro­fessed lovers of the Union, who spite­ful­ly re­solve that they will re­sist co­er­cion and in­va­sion, un­der­stand that such things as these, on the part of the Unit­ed States, would be co­er­cion or in­va­sion of a State? If so, their idea of means to pre­serve the ob­ject of their great af­fec­tion would seem to be ex­ceed­ing­ly thin and airy. If sick, the lit­tle pills of the ho­moeopathist would be much too large for it to swal­low. In their view, the Union, as a fam­ily re­la­tion, would seem to be no reg­ular mar­riage, but rather a sort of “free-​love” ar­range­ment, to be main­tained on pas­sion­al at­trac­tion.

By the way, in what con­sists the spe­cial sa­cred­ness of a State? I speak not of the po­si­tion as­signed to a State in the Union by the Con­sti­tu­tion, for that is a bond we all rec­og­nize. That po­si­tion, how­ev­er, a State can­not car­ry out of the Union with it. I speak of that as­sumed pri­ma­ry right of a State to rule all which is less than it­self, and to ru­in all which is larg­er than it­self. If a State and a coun­ty, in a giv­en case, should be equal in num­ber of in­hab­itants, in what, as a mat­ter of prin­ci­ple, is the State bet­ter than the coun­ty? Would an ex­change of name be an ex­change of rights? Up­on what prin­ci­ple, up­on what right­ful prin­ci­ple, may a State, be­ing no more than one fifti­eth part of the na­tion in soil and pop­ula­tion, break up the na­tion, and then co­erce a pro­por­tion­ably large sub­di­vi­sion of it­self in the most ar­bi­trary way? What mys­te­ri­ous right to play tyrant is con­ferred on a dis­trict of coun­try, with its peo­ple, by mere­ly call­ing it a State? Fel­low-​cit­izens, I am not as­sert­ing any­thing. I am mere­ly ask­ing ques­tions for you to con­sid­er. And now al­low me to bid you farewell.

IN­TEN­TIONS TO­WARD THE SOUTH

AD­DRESS TO THE MAY­OR AND CIT­IZENS OF

CINCIN­NATI, OHIO, FEBRU­ARY 12, 1861

Mr. MAY­OR, AND GEN­TLE­MEN:–Twen­ty-​four hours ago, at the cap­ital of In­di­ana, I said to my­self, “I have nev­er seen so many peo­ple as­sem­bled to­geth­er in win­ter weath­er.” I am no longer able to say that. But it is what might rea­son­ably have been ex­pect­ed–that this great city of Cincin­nati would thus ac­quit her­self on such an oc­ca­sion. My friends, I am en­tire­ly over­whelmed by the mag­nif­icence of the re­cep­tion which has been giv­en, I will not say to me, but to the Pres­ident-​elect of the Unit­ed States of Amer­ica. Most hearti­ly do I thank you, one and all, for it.

I have spo­ken but once be­fore this in Cincin­nati. That was a year pre­vi­ous to the late Pres­iden­tial elec­tion. On that oc­ca­sion, in a play­ful man­ner, but with sin­cere words, I ad­dressed much of what I said to the Ken­tuck­ians. I gave my opin­ion that we, as Re­pub­li­cans, would ul­ti­mate­ly beat them as Democrats, but that they could post­pone that re­sult longer by nom­inat­ing Sen­ator Dou­glas for the Pres­iden­cy than they could by any oth­er way. They did not, in any true sense of the word, nom­inate Mr. Dou­glas, and the re­sult has come cer­tain­ly as soon as ev­er I ex­pect­ed. I al­so told them how I ex­pect­ed they would be treat­ed af­ter they should have been beat­en, and I now wish to call their at­ten­tion to what I then said up­on that sub­ject. I then said:

“When we do as we say, beat you, you per­haps want to know what we will do with you. I will tell you, as far as I am au­tho­rized to speak for the Op­po­si­tion, what we mean to do with you. We mean to treat you, as near as we pos­si­bly can, as Wash­ing­ton, Jef­fer­son, and Madi­son treat­ed you. We mean to leave you alone, and in no way to in­ter­fere with your in­sti­tu­tions; to abide by all and ev­ery com­pro­mise of the Con­sti­tu­tion, and, in a word, com­ing back to the orig­inal propo­si­tion, to treat you so far as de­gen­er­ate men, if we have de­gen­er­at­ed, may, ac­cord­ing to the ex­am­ple of those no­ble fa­thers, Wash­ing­ton, Jef­fer­son, and Madi­son.

“We mean to re­mem­ber that you are as good as we; that there is no dif­fer­ence be­tween us oth­er than the dif­fer­ence of cir­cum­stances. We mean to rec­og­nize and bear in mind al­ways that you have as good hearts in your bo­soms as oth­er peo­ple, or as we claim to have, and treat you ac­cord­ing­ly.”

Fel­low-​cit­izens of Ken­tucky–friends and brethren, may I call you in my new po­si­tion?–I see no oc­ca­sion and feel no in­cli­na­tion to re­tract a word of this. If it shall not be made good, be as­sured the fault shall not be mine.

AD­DRESS TO THE GER­MAN CLUB OF CINCIN­NATI, OHIO,

FEBRU­ARY 12, 1861

Mr. CHAIR­MAN:–I thank you and those whom you rep­re­sent for the com­pli­ment you have paid me by ten­der­ing me this ad­dress. In so far as there is an al­lu­sion to our present na­tion­al dif­fi­cul­ties, which ex­press­es, as you have said, the views of the gen­tle­men present, I shall have to beg par­don for not en­ter­ing ful­ly up­on the ques­tions which the ad­dress you have now read sug­gests.

I deem it my du­ty–a du­ty which I owe to my con­stituents–to you, gen­tle­men, that I should wait un­til the last mo­ment for a de­vel­op­ment of the present na­tion­al dif­fi­cul­ties be­fore I ex­press my­self de­cid­ed­ly as to what course I shall pur­sue. I hope, then, not to be false to any­thing that you have ex­pect­ed of me.

I agree with you, Mr. Chair­man, that the work­ing men are the ba­sis of all gov­ern­ments, for the plain rea­son that they are all the more nu­mer­ous, and as you added that those were the sen­ti­ments of the gen­tle­men present, rep­re­sent­ing not on­ly the work­ing class, but cit­izens of oth­er call­ings than those of the me­chan­ic, I am hap­py to con­cur with you in these sen­ti­ments, not on­ly of the na­tive-​born cit­izens, but al­so of the Ger­mans and for­eign­ers from oth­er coun­tries.

Mr. Chair­man, I hold that while man ex­ists it is his du­ty to im­prove not on­ly his own con­di­tion, but to as­sist in ame­lio­rat­ing the con­di­tion of mankind; and there­fore, with­out en­ter­ing up­on the de­tails of the ques­tion, I will sim­ply say that I am for those means which will give the great­est good to the great­est num­ber.

In re­gard to the Home­stead law, I have to say that, in so far as the gov­ern­ment lands can be dis­posed of, I am in fa­vor of cut­ting up the wild lands in­to parcels, so that ev­ery poor man may have a home.

In re­gard to the Ger­mans and for­eign­ers, I es­teem them no bet­ter than oth­er peo­ple, nor any worse. It is not my na­ture, when I see a peo­ple borne down by the weight of their shack­les–the op­pres­sion of tyran­ny–to make their life more bit­ter by heap­ing up­on them greater bur­dens; but rather would I do all in my pow­er to raise the yoke than to add any­thing that would tend to crush them.

Inas­much as our own coun­try is ex­ten­sive and new, and the coun­tries of Eu­rope are dense­ly pop­ulat­ed, if there are any abroad who de­sire to make this the land of their adop­tion, it is not in my heart to throw aught in their way to pre­vent them from com­ing to the Unit­ed States.

Mr. Chair­man and gen­tle­men, I will bid you an af­fec­tion­ate farewell.

AD­DRESS TO THE LEG­IS­LA­TURE OF OHIO AT COLUM­BUS FEBRU­ARY 13, 1861

Mr. PRES­IDENT AND Mr. SPEAK­ER, AND GEN­TLE­MEN OF THE GEN­ER­AL AS­SEM­BLY OF OHIO:–It is true, as has been said by the pres­ident of the Sen­ate, that very great re­spon­si­bil­ity rests up­on me in the po­si­tion to which the votes of the Amer­ican peo­ple have called me. I am deeply sen­si­ble of that weighty re­spon­si­bil­ity. I can­not but know what you all know, that with­out a name, per­haps with­out a rea­son why I should have a name, there has fall­en up­on me a task such as did not rest even up­on the Fa­ther of his Coun­try; and so feel­ing, I can turn and look for that sup­port with­out which it will be im­pos­si­ble for me to per­form that great task. I turn, then, and look to the Amer­ican peo­ple and to that God who has nev­er for­sak­en them. Al­lu­sion has been made to the in­ter­est felt in re­la­tion to the pol­icy of the new ad­min­is­tra­tion. In this I have re­ceived from some a de­gree of cred­it for hav­ing kept si­lence, and from oth­ers some dep­re­ca­tion. I still think that I was right.

In the vary­ing and re­peat­ed­ly shift­ing scenes of the present, and with­out a prece­dent which could en­able me to judge by the past, it has seemed fit­ting that be­fore speak­ing up­on the dif­fi­cul­ties of the coun­try I should have gained a view of the whole field, be­ing at lib­er­ty to mod­ify and change the course of pol­icy as fu­ture events may make a change nec­es­sary.

I have not main­tained si­lence from any want of re­al anx­iety. It is a good thing that there is no more than anx­iety, for there is noth­ing go­ing wrong. It is a con­sol­ing cir­cum­stance that when we look out there is noth­ing that re­al­ly hurts any­body. We en­ter­tain dif­fer­ent views up­on po­lit­ical ques­tions, but no­body is suf­fer­ing any­thing. This is a most con­sol­ing cir­cum­stance, and from it we may con­clude that all we want is time, pa­tience, and a re­liance on that God who has nev­er for­sak­en this peo­ple.

Fel­low-​cit­izens, what I have said I have said al­to­geth­er ex­tem­po­ra­ne­ous­ly, and I will now come to a close.

AD­DRESS AT STEUBENVILLE, OHIO,

FEBRU­ARY 14, 1861

I fear that the great con­fi­dence placed in my abil­ity is un­found­ed. In­deed, I am sure it is. En­com­passed by vast dif­fi­cul­ties as I am, noth­ing shall be want­ing on my part, if sus­tained by God and the Amer­ican peo­ple. I be­lieve the de­vo­tion to the Con­sti­tu­tion is equal­ly great on both sides of the riv­er. It is on­ly the dif­fer­ent un­der­stand­ing of that in­stru­ment that caus­es dif­fi­cul­ty. The on­ly dis­pute on both sides is, “What are their rights?” If the ma­jor­ity should not rule, who would be the judge? Where is such a judge to be found? We should all be bound by the ma­jor­ity of the Amer­ican peo­ple; if not, then the mi­nor­ity must con­trol. Would that be right? Would it be just or gen­er­ous? As­sured­ly not. I re­it­er­ate that the ma­jor­ity should rule. If I adopt a wrong pol­icy, the op­por­tu­ni­ty for con­dem­na­tion will oc­cur in four years’ time. Then I can be turned out, and a bet­ter man with bet­ter views put in my place.

AD­DRESS AT PITTS­BURGH, PENN­SYL­VA­NIA FEBRU­ARY 15, 1861

I most cor­dial­ly thank his Hon­or May­or Wil­son, and the cit­izens of Pitts­burg gen­er­al­ly, for their flat­ter­ing re­cep­tion. I am the more grate­ful be­cause I know that it is not giv­en to me alone, but to the cause I rep­re­sent, which clear­ly proves to me their good-​will, and that sin­cere feel­ing is at the bot­tom of it. And here I may re­mark that in ev­ery short ad­dress I have made to the peo­ple, in ev­ery crowd through which I have passed of late, some al­lu­sion has been made to the present dis­tract­ed con­di­tion of the coun­try. It is nat­ural to ex­pect that I should say some­thing on this sub­ject; but to touch up­on it at all would in­volve an elab­orate dis­cus­sion of a great many ques­tions and cir­cum­stances, re­quir­ing more time than I can at present com­mand, and would, per­haps, un­nec­es­sar­ily com­mit me up­on mat­ters which have not yet ful­ly de­vel­oped them­selves. The con­di­tion of the coun­try is an ex­traor­di­nary one, and fills the mind of ev­ery pa­tri­ot with anx­iety. It is my in­ten­tion to give this sub­ject all the con­sid­er­ation I pos­si­bly can be­fore spe­cial­ly de­cid­ing in re­gard to it, so that when I do speak it may be as near­ly right as pos­si­ble. When I do speak I hope I may say noth­ing in op­po­si­tion to the spir­it of the Con­sti­tu­tion, con­trary to the in­tegri­ty of the Union, or which will prove in­im­ical to the lib­er­ties of the peo­ple, or to the peace of the whole coun­try. And fur­ther­more, when the time ar­rives for me to speak on this great sub­ject, I hope I may say noth­ing to dis­ap­point the peo­ple gen­er­al­ly through­out the coun­try, es­pe­cial­ly if the ex­pec­ta­tion has been based up­on any­thing which I may have hereto­fore said. Notwith­stand­ing the trou­bles across the riv­er [the speak­er point­ing south­ward­ly across the Monon­ga­hela, and smil­ing], there is no cri­sis but an ar­ti­fi­cial one. What is there now to war­rant the con­di­tion of af­fairs pre­sent­ed by our friends over the riv­er? Take even their own view of the ques­tions in­volved, and there is noth­ing to jus­ti­fy the course they are pur­su­ing. I re­peat, then, there is no cri­sis, ex­cept­ing such a one as may be got­ten up at any time by tur­bu­lent men aid­ed by de­sign­ing politi­cians, My ad­vice to them, un­der such cir­cum­stances, is to keep cool. If the great Amer­ican peo­ple on­ly keep their tem­per on both sides of the line, the trou­bles will come to an end, and the ques­tion which now dis­tracts the coun­try will be set­tled, just as sure­ly as all oth­er dif­fi­cul­ties of a like char­ac­ter which have orig­inat­ed in this gov­ern­ment have been ad­just­ed. Let the peo­ple on both sides keep their self-​pos­ses­sion, and just as oth­er clouds have cleared away in due time, so will this great na­tion con­tin­ue to pros­per as hereto­fore. But, fel­low-​cit­izens, I have spo­ken longer on this sub­ject than I in­tend­ed at the out­set.

It is of­ten said that the tar­iff is the spe­cial­ty of Penn­syl­va­nia. As­sum­ing that di­rect tax­ation is not to be adopt­ed, the tar­iff ques­tion must be as durable as the gov­ern­ment it­self. It is a ques­tion of na­tion­al house­keep­ing. It is to the gov­ern­ment what re­plen­ish­ing the meal-​tub is to the fam­ily. Ev­ery vary­ing cir­cum­stances will re­quire fre­quent mod­ifi­ca­tions as to the amount need­ed and the sources of sup­ply. So far there is lit­tle dif­fer­ence of opin­ion among the peo­ple. It is as to whether, and how far, du­ties on im­ports shall be ad­just­ed to fa­vor home pro­duc­tion in the home mar­ket, that con­tro­ver­sy be­gins. One par­ty in­sists that such ad­just­ment op­press­es one class for the ad­van­tage of an­oth­er; while the oth­er par­ty ar­gues that, with all its in­ci­dents, in the long run all class­es are ben­efit­ed. In the Chica­go plat­form there is a plank up­on this sub­ject which should be a gen­er­al law to the in­com­ing ad­min­is­tra­tion. We should do nei­ther more nor less than we gave the peo­ple rea­son to be­lieve we would when they gave us their votes. Per­mit me, fel­low-​cit­izens, to read the tar­iff plank of the Chica­go plat­form, or rather have it read in your hear­ing by one who has younger eyes.

[Mr. Lin­coln’s pri­vate sec­re­tary then read Sec­tion 12 of the Chica­go plat­form, as fol­lows:]

“That, while pro­vid­ing rev­enue for the sup­port of the Gen­er­al Gov­ern­ment by du­ties up­on im­ports, sound pol­icy re­quires such an ad­just­ment of these im­posts as will en­cour­age the de­vel­op­ment of the in­dus­tri­al in­ter­est of the whole coun­try; and we com­mend that pol­icy of na­tion­al ex­changes which se­cures to work­ing-​men lib­er­al wages, to agri­cul­ture re­mu­ner­at­ing prices, to me­chan­ics and man­ufac­tur­ers ad­equate re­turn for their skill, la­bor, and en­ter­prise, and to the na­tion com­mer­cial pros­per­ity and in­de­pen­dence.”

As with all gen­er­al propo­si­tions, doubt­less, there will be shades of dif­fer­ence in con­stru­ing this. I have by no means a thor­ough­ly ma­tured judg­ment up­on this sub­ject, es­pe­cial­ly as to de­tails; some gen­er­al ideas are about all. I have long thought it would be to our ad­van­tage to pro­duce any nec­es­sary ar­ti­cle at home which can be made of as good qual­ity and with as lit­tle la­bor at home as abroad, at least by the dif­fer­ence of the car­ry­ing from abroad. In such case the car­ry­ing is demon­stra­bly a dead loss of la­bor. For in­stance, la­bor be­ing the true stan­dard of val­ue, is it not plain that if equal la­bor get a bar of rail­road iron out of a mine in Eng­land and an­oth­er out of a mine in Penn­syl­va­nia, each can be laid down in a track at home cheap­er than they could ex­change coun­tries, at least by the car­riage? If there be a present cause why one can be both made and car­ried cheap­er in mon­ey price than the oth­er can be made with­out car­ry­ing, that cause is an un­nat­ural and in­ju­ri­ous one, and ought grad­ual­ly, if not rapid­ly, to be re­moved. The con­di­tion of the trea­sury at this time would seem to ren­der an ear­ly re­vi­sion of the tar­iff in­dis­pens­able. The Mor­rill [tar­iff] bill, now pend­ing be­fore Congress, may or may not be­come a law. I am not post­ed as to its par­tic­ular pro­vi­sions, but if they are gen­er­al­ly sat­is­fac­to­ry, and the bill shall now pass, there will be an end for the present. If, how­ev­er, it shall not pass, I sup­pose the whole sub­ject will be one of the most press­ing and im­por­tant for the next Congress. By the Con­sti­tu­tion, the ex­ec­utive may rec­om­mend mea­sures which he may think prop­er, and he may ve­to those he thinks im­prop­er, and it is sup­posed that he may add to these cer­tain in­di­rect in­flu­ences to af­fect the ac­tion of Congress. My po­lit­ical ed­uca­tion strong­ly in­clines me against a very free use of any of these means by the ex­ec­utive to con­trol the leg­is­la­tion of the coun­try. As a rule, I think it bet­ter that Congress should orig­inate as well as per­fect its mea­sures with­out ex­ter­nal bias. I there­fore would rather rec­om­mend to ev­ery gen­tle­man who knows he is to be a mem­ber of the next Congress to take an en­larged view, and post him­self thor­ough­ly, so as to con­tribute his part to such an ad­just­ment of the tar­iff as shall pro­duce a suf­fi­cient rev­enue, and in its oth­er bear­ings, so far as pos­si­ble, be just and equal to all sec­tions of the coun­try and class­es of the peo­ple.

AD­DRESS AT CLEVE­LAND, OHIO,

FEBRU­ARY 15, 1861

Mr. CHAIR­MAN AND FEL­LOW-​CIT­IZENS OF CLEVE­LAND:–We have been march­ing about two miles through snow, rain, and deep mud. The large num­bers that have turned out un­der these cir­cum­stances tes­ti­fy that you are in earnest about some­thing or oth­er. But do I think so mean­ly of you as to sup­pose that that earnest­ness is about me per­son­al­ly? I would be do­ing you an in­jus­tice to sup­pose you did. You have as­sem­bled to tes­ti­fy your re­spect for the Union, the Con­sti­tu­tion, and the laws; and here let me say that it is with you, the peo­ple, to ad­vance the great cause of the Union and the Con­sti­tu­tion, and not with any one man. It rests with you alone. This fact is strong­ly im­pressed up­on my mind at present. In a com­mu­ni­ty like this, whose ap­pear­ance tes­ti­fies to their in­tel­li­gence, I am con­vinced that the cause of lib­er­ty and the Union can nev­er be in dan­ger. Fre­quent al­lu­sion is made to the ex­cite­ment at present ex­ist­ing in our na­tion­al pol­itics, and it is as well that I should al­so al­lude to it here. I think that there is no oc­ca­sion for any ex­cite­ment. ‘The cri­sis, as it is called, is al­to­geth­er an ar­ti­fi­cial cri­sis. In all parts of the na­tion there are dif­fer­ences of opin­ion on pol­itics. There are dif­fer­ences of opin­ion even here. You did not all vote for the per­son who now ad­dress­es you. What is hap­pen­ing now will not hurt those who are far­ther away from here. Have they not all their rights now as they ev­er have had? Do they not have their fugi­tive slaves re­turned now as ev­er? Have they not the same Con­sti­tu­tion that they have lived un­der for sev­en­ty-​odd years? Have they not a po­si­tion as cit­izens of this com­mon coun­try, and have we any pow­er to change that po­si­tion? What, then, is the mat­ter with them? Why all this ex­cite­ment? Why all these com­plaints?

As I said be­fore, this cri­sis is all ar­ti­fi­cial! It has no foun­da­tion in facts. It is not ar­gued up, as the say­ing is, and can­not, there­fore, be ar­gued down. Let it alone and it will go down of it­self.

[Mr. Lin­coln then said that they must be con­tent with a few words from him, as he was tired, etc. Hav­ing been giv­en to un­der­stand that the crowd was not all Re­pub­li­can, but con­sist­ed of men of all par­ties, he con­tin­ued:]

This is as it should be. If Judge Dou­glas had been elect­ed and had been here on his way to Wash­ing­ton, as I am to-​night, the Re­pub­li­cans should have joined his sup­port­ers in wel­com­ing him, just as his friends have joined with mine tonight. If all do not join now to save the good old ship of the Union this voy­age, no­body will have a chance to pi­lot her on an­oth­er voy­age.

AD­DRESS AT BUF­FA­LO, NEW YORK, FEBRU­ARY 16, 1861

Mr. MAY­OR AND FEL­LOW-​CIT­IZENS OF BUF­FA­LO AND THE STATE OF NEW YORK:– I am here to thank you briefly for this grand re­cep­tion giv­en to me, not per­son­al­ly, but as the rep­re­sen­ta­tive of our great and beloved coun­try. Your wor­thy may­or has been pleased to men­tion, in his ad­dress to me, the for­tu­nate and agree­able jour­ney which I have had from home, on my rather cir­cuitous route to the Fed­er­al cap­ital. I am very hap­py that he was en­abled in truth to con­grat­ulate my­self and com­pa­ny on that fact. It is true we have had noth­ing thus far. to mar the plea­sure of the trip. We have not been met alone by those who as­sist­ed in giv­ing the elec­tion to me–I say not alone by them, but by the whole pop­ula­tion of the coun­try through which we have passed. This is as it should be. Had the elec­tion fall­en to any oth­er of the dis­tin­guished can­di­dates in­stead of my­self, un­der the pe­cu­liar cir­cum­stances, to say the least, it would have been prop­er for all cit­izens to have greet­ed him as you now greet me. It is an ev­idence of the de­vo­tion of the whole peo­ple to the Con­sti­tu­tion, the Union, and the per­pe­tu­ity of the lib­er­ties of this coun­try. I am un­will­ing on any oc­ca­sion that I should be so mean­ly thought of as to have it sup­posed for a mo­ment that these demon­stra­tions are ten­dered to me per­son­al­ly. They are ten­dered to the coun­try, to the in­sti­tu­tions of the coun­try, and to the per­pe­tu­ity of the lib­er­ties of the coun­try, for which these in­sti­tu­tions were made and cre­at­ed.

Your wor­thy may­or has thought fit to ex­press the hope that I may be able to re­lieve the coun­try from the present, or, I should say, the threat­ened dif­fi­cul­ties. I am sure I bring a heart true to the work. For the abil­ity to per­form it, I must trust in that Supreme Be­ing who has nev­er for­sak­en this fa­vored land, through the in­stru­men­tal­ity of this great and in­tel­li­gent peo­ple. With­out that as­sis­tance I shall sure­ly fail; with it, I can­not fail. When we speak of threat­ened dif­fi­cul­ties to the Coun­try, it is nat­ural that it should be ex­pect­ed that some­thing should be said by my­self with re­gard to par­tic­ular mea­sures. Up­on more ma­ture re­flec­tion, how­ev­er, oth­ers will agree with me that, when it is con­sid­ered that these dif­fi­cul­ties are with­out prece­dent, and have nev­er been act­ed up­on by any in­di­vid­ual sit­uat­ed as I am, it is most prop­er I should wait and see the de­vel­op­ments, and get all the light pos­si­ble, so that when I do speak au­thor­ita­tive­ly, I may be as near right as pos­si­ble. When I shall speak au­thor­ita­tive­ly, I hope to say noth­ing in­con­sis­tent with the Con­sti­tu­tion, the Union, the rights of all the States, of each State, and of each sec­tion of the coun­try, and not to dis­ap­point the rea­son­able ex­pec­ta­tions of those who have con­fid­ed to me their votes. In this con­nec­tion al­low me to say that you, as a por­tion of the great Amer­ican peo­ple, need on­ly to main­tain your com­po­sure, stand up to your sober con­vic­tions of right, to your obli­ga­tions to the Con­sti­tu­tion, and act in ac­cor­dance with those sober con­vic­tions, and the clouds now on the hori­zon will be dis­pelled, and we shall have a bright and glo­ri­ous fu­ture; and when this gen­er­ation has passed away, tens of thou­sands will in­hab­it this coun­try where on­ly thou­sands in­hab­it it now. I do not pro­pose to ad­dress you at length; I have no voice for it. Al­low me again to thank you for this mag­nif­icent re­cep­tion, and bid you farewell.

AD­DRESS AT ROCHESTER, NEW YORK,

FEBRU­ARY 18, 1861

I con­fess my­self, af­ter hav­ing seen many large au­di­ences since leav­ing home, over­whelmed with this vast num­ber of faces at this hour of the morn­ing. I am not vain enough to be­lieve that you are here from any wish to see me as an in­di­vid­ual, but be­cause I am for the time be­ing the rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Amer­ican peo­ple. I could not, if I would, ad­dress you at any length. I have not the strength, even if I had the time, for a speech at each of these many in­ter­views that are af­ford­ed me on my way to Wash­ing­ton. I ap­pear mere­ly to see you, and to let you see me, and to bid you. farewell. I hope it will be un­der­stood that it is from no dis­in­cli­na­tion to oblige any­body that I do not ad­dress you at greater length.

AD­DRESS AT SYRA­CUSE, NEW YORK,

FEBRU­ARY 18, 1861.

LADIES AND GEN­TLE­MEN:–I See you have erect­ed a very fine and hand­some plat­form here for me, and I pre­sume you ex­pect­ed me to speak from it. If I should go up­on it, you would imag­ine that I was about to de­liv­er you a much longer speech than I am. I wish you to un­der­stand that I mean no dis­cour­tesy to you by thus de­clin­ing. I in­tend dis­cour­tesy to no one. But I wish you to un­der­stand that, though I am un­will­ing to go up­on this plat­form, you are not at lib­er­ty to draw in­fer­ences con­cern­ing any oth­er plat­form with which my name has been or is con­nect­ed. I wish you long life and pros­per­ity in­di­vid­ual­ly, and pray that with the per­pe­tu­ity of those in­sti­tu­tions un­der which we have all so long lived and pros­pered, our hap­pi­ness may be se­cured, our fu­ture made bril­liant, and the glo­ri­ous des­tiny of our coun­try es­tab­lished for­ev­er. I bid you a kind farewell.

AD­DRESS AT UTI­CA, NEW YORK,

FEBRU­ARY 18, 1860

LADIES AND GEN­TLE­MEN:–I have no speech to make to you; and no time to speak in. I ap­pear be­fore you that I may see you, and that you may see me; and I am will­ing to ad­mit that so far as the ladies are con­cerned I have the best of the bar­gain, though I wish it to be un­der­stood that I do not make the same ac­knowl­edg­ment con­cern­ing the men.

RE­PLY TO THE MAY­OR OF AL­BANY, NEW YORK

FEBRU­ARY 18, 1861.

MR. MAY­OR:–I can hard­ly ap­pro­pri­ate to my­self the flat­ter­ing terms in which you com­mu­ni­cate the ten­der of this re­cep­tion, as per­son­al to my­self. I most grate­ful­ly ac­cept the hos­pi­tal­ities ten­dered to me, and will not de­tain you or the au­di­ence with any ex­tend­ed re­marks at this time. I pre­sume that in the two or three cours­es through which I shall have to go, I shall have to re­peat some­what, and I will there­fore on­ly ex­press to you my thanks for this kind re­cep­tion.

RE­PLY TO GOV­ER­NOR MOR­GAN OF NEW YORK, AT AL­BANY,

FEBRU­ARY 18, 1861.

GOV­ER­NOR MOR­GAN:–I was pleased to re­ceive an in­vi­ta­tion to vis­it the cap­ital of the great Em­pire State of this na­tion while on my way to the Fed­er­al cap­ital. I now thank you, Mr. Gov­er­nor, and you, the peo­ple of the cap­ital of the State of New York, for this most hearty and mag­nif­icent wel­come. If I am not at fault, the great Em­pire State at this time con­tains a larg­er pop­ula­tion than did the whole of the Unit­ed States of Amer­ica at the time they achieved their na­tion­al in­de­pen­dence, and I was proud–to be in­vit­ed to vis­it its cap­ital, to meet its cit­izens, as I now have the hon­or to do. I am no­ti­fied by your gov­er­nor that this re­cep­tion is ten­dered by cit­izens with­out dis­tinc­tion of par­ty. Be­cause of this I ac­cept it the more glad­ly. In this coun­try, and in any coun­try where free­dom of thought is tol­er­at­ed, cit­izens at­tach them­selves to po­lit­ical par­ties. It is but an or­di­nary de­gree of char­ity to at­tribute this act to the sup­po­si­tion that, in thus at­tach­ing them­selves to the var­ious par­ties, each man in his own judg­ment sup­pos­es he there­by best ad­vances the in­ter­ests of the whole coun­try. And when an elec­tion is past it is al­to­geth­er be­fit­ting a free peo­ple, as I sup­pose, that, un­til the next elec­tion, they should be one peo­ple. The re­cep­tion you have ex­tend­ed me to-​day is not giv­en to me per­son­al­ly,–it should not be so,–but as the rep­re­sen­ta­tive, for the time be­ing, of the ma­jor­ity of the na­tion. If the elec­tion had fall­en to any of the more dis­tin­guished cit­izens who re­ceived the sup­port of the peo­ple, this same hon­or should have greet­ed him that greets me this day, in tes­ti­mo­ny of the uni­ver­sal, unan­imous de­vo­tion of the whole peo­ple to the Con­sti­tu­tion, the Union, and to the per­pet­ual lib­er­ties of suc­ceed­ing gen­er­ations in this coun­try.

I have nei­ther the voice nor the strength to ad­dress you at any greater length. I beg you will there­fore ac­cept my most grate­ful thanks for this man­ifest de­vo­tion–not to me, but the in­sti­tu­tions of this great and glo­ri­ous coun­try.

AD­DRESS TO THE LEG­IS­LA­TURE OF NEW YORK, AT AL­BANY,

FEBRU­ARY 18, 1861.

MR. PRES­IDENT AND GEN­TLE­MEN OF THE GEN­ER­AL AS­SEM­BLY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK:–It is with feel­ings of great dif­fi­dence, and, I may say, with feel­ings of awe, per­haps greater than I have re­cent­ly ex­pe­ri­enced, that I meet you here in this place. The his­to­ry of this great State, the renown of those great men who have stood here, and have spo­ken here, and have been heard here, all crowd around my fan­cy, and in­cline me to shrink from any at­tempt to ad­dress you. Yet I have some con­fi­dence giv­en me by the gen­er­ous man­ner in which you have in­vit­ed me, and by the still more gen­er­ous man­ner in which you have re­ceived me, to speak fur­ther. You have in­vit­ed and re­ceived me with­out dis­tinc­tion of par­ty. I can­not for a mo­ment sup­pose that this has been done in any con­sid­er­able de­gree with ref­er­ence to my per­son­al ser­vices, but that it is done in so far as I am re­gard­ed, at this time, as the rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the majesty of this great na­tion. I doubt not this is the truth, and the whole truth of the case, and this is as it should be. It is much more grat­ify­ing to me that this re­cep­tion has been giv­en to me as the elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tive of a free peo­ple, than it could pos­si­bly be if ten­dered mere­ly as an ev­idence of de­vo­tion to me, or to any one man per­son­al­ly.

And now I think it were more fit­ting that I should close these hasty re­marks. It is true that, while I hold my­self, with­out mock mod­esty, the hum­blest of all in­di­vid­uals that have ev­er been el­evat­ed to the Pres­iden­cy, I have a more dif­fi­cult task to per­form than any one of them.

You have gen­er­ous­ly ten­dered me the sup­port–the unit­ed sup­port–of the great Em­pire State. For this, in be­half of the na­tion–in be­half of the present and fu­ture of the na­tion–in be­half of civ­il and re­li­gious lib­er­ty for all time to come, most grate­ful­ly do I thank you. I do not pro­pose to en­ter in­to an ex­pla­na­tion of any par­tic­ular line of pol­icy, as to our present dif­fi­cul­ties, to be adopt­ed by the in­com­ing ad­min­is­tra­tion. I deem it just to you, to my­self, to all, that I should see ev­ery­thing, that I should hear ev­ery­thing, that I should have ev­ery light that can be brought with­in my reach, in or­der that, when I do so speak, I shall have en­joyed ev­ery op­por­tu­ni­ty to take cor­rect and true ground; and for this rea­son I do not pro­pose to speak at this time of the pol­icy of the Gov­ern­ment. But when the time comes, I shall speak, as well as I am able, for the good of the present and fu­ture of this coun­try for the good both of the North and of the South–for the good of the one and the oth­er, and of all sec­tions of the coun­try. In the mean­time, if we have pa­tience, if we re­strain our­selves, if we al­low our­selves not to run off in a pas­sion, I still have con­fi­dence that the Almighty, the Mak­er of the uni­verse, will, through the in­stru­men­tal­ity of this great and in­tel­li­gent peo­ple, bring us through this as He has through all the oth­er dif­fi­cul­ties of our coun­try. Re­ly­ing on this, I again thank you for this gen­er­ous re­cep­tion.

AD­DRESS AT TROY, NEW YORK,

FEBRU­ARY 19, 1861

MR. MAY­OR AND CIT­IZENS OF TROY:–I thank you very kind­ly for this great re­cep­tion. Since I left my home it has not been my for­tune to meet an as­sem­blage more nu­mer­ous and more or­der­ly than this. I am the more grat­ified at this mark of your re­gard since you as­sure me it is ten­dered, not to the in­di­vid­ual but to the high of­fice you have called me to fill. I have nei­ther strength nor time to make any ex­tend­ed re­marks on this oc­ca­sion, and I can on­ly re­peat to you my sin­cere thanks for the kind re­cep­tion you have thought prop­er to ex­tend to me.

AD­DRESS AT POUGH­KEEP­SIE, NEW YORK,

FEBRU­ARY 19, 1861

FEL­LOW-​CIT­IZENS:–It is al­to­geth­er im­pos­si­ble I should make my­self heard by any con­sid­er­able por­tion of this vast as­sem­blage; but, al­though I ap­pear be­fore you main­ly for the pur­pose of see­ing you, and to let you see rather than hear me, I can­not re­frain from say­ing that I am high­ly grat­ified–as much here, in­deed, un­der the cir­cum­stances, as I have been any­where on my route–to wit­ness this no­ble demon­stra­tion–made, not in hon­or of an in­di­vid­ual, but of the man who at this time humbly, but earnest­ly, rep­re­sents the majesty of the na­tion.

This re­cep­tion, like all the oth­ers that have been ten­dered to me, doubt­less em­anates from all the po­lit­ical par­ties, and not from one alone. As such I ac­cept it the more grate­ful­ly, since it in­di­cates an earnest de­sire on the part of the whole peo­ple, with out re­gard to po­lit­ical dif­fer­ences, to save–not the coun­try, be­cause the coun­try will save it­self but to save the in­sti­tu­tions of the coun­try, those in­sti­tu­tions un­der which, in the last three quar­ters of a cen­tu­ry, we have grown to a great, and in­tel­li­gent, and a hap­py peo­ple–the great­est, the most in­tel­li­gent, and the hap­pi­est peo­ple in the world. These no­ble man­ifes­ta­tions in­di­cate, with unerring cer­tain­ty, that the whole peo­ple are will­ing to make com­mon cause for this ob­ject; that if, as it ev­er must be, some have been suc­cess­ful in the re­cent elec­tion and some have been beat­en, if some are sat­is­fied and some are dis­sat­is­fied, the de­feat­ed par­ty are not in fa­vor of sink­ing the ship, but are de­sirous of run­ning it through the tem­pest in safe­ty, and will­ing, if they think the peo­ple have com­mit­ted an er­ror in their ver­dict now, to wait in the hope of re­vers­ing it and set­ting it right next time. I do not say that in the re­cent elec­tion the peo­ple did the wis­est thing, that could have been done–in­deed, I do not think they did; but I do say that in ac­cept­ing the great trust com­mit­ted to me, which I do with a de­ter­mi­na­tion to en­deav­or to prove wor­thy of it, I must re­ly up­on you, up­on the peo­ple of the whole coun­try, for sup­port; and with their sus­tain­ing aid, even I, hum­ble as I am, can­not fail to car­ry the ship of state safe­ly through the storm.

I have now on­ly to thank you warm­ly for your kind at­ten­dance, and bid you all an af­fec­tion­ate farewell.

AD­DRESS AT HUD­SON, NEW YORK,.

FEBRU­ARY 19, 1860

FEL­LOW-​CIT­IZENS:–I see that you are pro­vid­ing a plat­form for me. I shall have to de­cline stand­ing up­on it, be­cause the pres­ident of the com­pa­ny tells me that I shall not have time to wait un­til it is brought to me. As I said yes­ter­day, un­der sim­ilar cir­cum­stances at an­oth­er gath­er­ing, you must not draw the in­fer­ence that I have any in­ten­tion of de­sert­ing any plat­form with which I have a le­git­imate con­nec­tion be­cause I do not stand on yours. Al­low me to thank you for this splen­did re­cep­tion, and I now bid you farewell.

AD­DRESS AT PEEK­SKILL, NEW YORK, FEBRU­ARY 19, 1861

LADIES AND GEN­TLE­MEN:–I have but a mo­ment to stand be­fore you to lis­ten to and re­turn your kind greet­ing. I thank you for this re­cep­tion, and for the pleas­ant man­ner in which it is ten­dered to me by our mu­tu­al friends. I will say in a sin­gle sen­tence, in re­gard to the dif­fi­cul­ties that lie be­fore me and our beloved coun­try, that if I can on­ly be as gen­er­ous­ly and unan­imous­ly sus­tained as the demon­stra­tions I have wit­nessed in­di­cate I shall be, I shall not fail; but with­out your sus­tain­ing hands I am sure that nei­ther I nor any oth­er man can hope to sur­mount these dif­fi­cul­ties. I trust that in the course I shall pur­sue I shall be sus­tained not on­ly by the par­ty that elect­ed me, but by the pa­tri­ot­ic peo­ple of the whole coun­try.

AD­DRESS AT FISHKILL LAND­ING

FEBRU­ARY 19, 1861

LADIES AND GEN­TLE­MEN:–I ap­pear be­fore you not to make a speech. I have not suf­fi­cient time, if I had the strength, to re­peat speech­es at ev­ery sta­tion where the peo­ple kind­ly gath­er to wel­come me as we go along. If I had the strength, and should take the time, I should not get to Wash­ing­ton un­til af­ter the in­au­gu­ra­tion, which you must be aware would not fit ex­act­ly. That such an un­to­ward event might not tran­spire, I know you will read­ily forego any fur­ther re­marks; and I close by bid­ding you farewell.

RE­MARKS AT THE AS­TOR HOUSE, NEW YORK CITY, FEBRU­ARY 19, 1861

FEL­LOW-​CIT­IZENS:–I have stepped be­fore you mere­ly in com­pli­ance with what ap­pears to be your wish, and not with the pur­pose of mak­ing a speech. I do not pro­pose mak­ing a speech this af­ter­noon. I could not be heard by any but a small frac­tion of you, at best; but, what is still worse than that, I have noth­ing just now to say that is wor­thy of your hear­ing. I beg you to be­lieve that I do not now refuse to ad­dress you from any dis­po­si­tion to dis­oblige you, but to the con­trary. But, at the same time, I beg of you to ex­cuse me for the present.

AD­DRESS AT NEW YORK CITY,

FEBRU­ARY 19, 1861

Mr. CHAIR­MAN AND GEN­TLE­MEN:–I am rather an old man to avail my­self of such an ex­cuse as I am now about to do. Yet the truth is so dis­tinct, and press­es it­self so dis­tinct­ly up­on me, that I can­not well avoid it–and that is, that I did not un­der­stand when I was brought in­to this room that I was to be brought here to make a speech. It was not in­ti­mat­ed to me that I was brought in­to the room where Daniel Web­ster and Hen­ry Clay had made speech­es, and where one in my po­si­tion might be ex­pect­ed to do some­thing like those men or say some­thing wor­thy of my­self or my au­di­ence. I there­fore beg you to make al­lowance for the cir­cum­stances in which I have been by sur­prise brought be­fore you. Now I have been in the habit of think­ing and some­times speak­ing up­on po­lit­ical ques­tions that have for some years past ag­itat­ed the coun­try; and, if I were dis­posed to do so, and we could take up some one of the is­sues, as the lawyers call them, and I were called up­on to make an ar­gu­ment about it to the best of my abil­ity, I could do so with­out much prepa­ra­tion. But that is not what you de­sire to have done here to-​night.

I have been oc­cu­py­ing a po­si­tion, since the Pres­iden­tial elec­tion, of si­lence–of avoid­ing pub­lic speak­ing, of avoid­ing pub­lic writ­ing. I have been do­ing so be­cause I thought, up­on full con­sid­er­ation, that was the prop­er course for me to take. I am brought be­fore you now, and re­quired to make a speech, when you all ap­prove more than any­thing else of the fact that I have been keep­ing si­lence. And now it seems to me that the re­sponse you give to that re­mark ought to jus­ti­fy me in clos­ing just here. I have not kept si­lence since the Pres­iden­tial elec­tion from any par­ty wan­ton­ness, or from any in­dif­fer­ence to the anx­iety that per­vades the minds of men about the as­pect of the po­lit­ical af­fairs of this coun­try. I have kept si­lence for the rea­son that I sup­posed it was pe­cu­liar­ly prop­er that I should do so un­til the time came when, ac­cord­ing to the cus­tom of the coun­try, I could speak of­fi­cial­ly.

I still sup­pose that, while the po­lit­ical dra­ma be­ing en­act­ed in this coun­try at this time is rapid­ly shift­ing its scenes–for­bid­ding an an­tic­ipa­tion with any de­gree of cer­tain­ty to-​day of what we shall see to-​mor­row–it is pe­cu­liar­ly fit­ting that I should see it all, up to the last minute, be­fore I should take ground that I might be dis­posed, by the shift­ing of the scenes af­ter­ward, al­so to shift. I have said sev­er­al times up­on this jour­ney, and I now re­peat it to you, that when the time does come, I shall then take the ground that I think is right–right for the North, for the South, for the East, for the West, for the whole coun­try. And in do­ing so I hope to feel no ne­ces­si­ty press­ing up­on me to say any­thing in con­flict with the Con­sti­tu­tion, in con­flict with the con­tin­ued union of these States, in con­flict with the per­pet­ua­tion of the lib­er­ties of this peo­ple, or any­thing in con­flict with any­thing what­ev­er that I have ev­er giv­en you rea­son to ex­pect from me. And now, my friends, have I said enough? [Loud cries of “No, no!” and, “Three cheers for LIN­COLN!”] Now, my friends, there ap­pears to be a dif­fer­ence of opin­ion be­tween you and me, and I re­al­ly feel called up­on to de­cide the ques­tion my­self.

RE­PLY TO THE MAY­OR OF NEW YORK CITY, FEBRU­ARY 20, 1861

Mr. MAY­OR:–It is with feel­ings of deep grat­itude that I make my ac­knowl­edg­ments for the re­cep­tion that has been giv­en me in the great com­mer­cial city of New York. I can­not but re­mem­ber that it is done by the peo­ple who do not, by a large ma­jor­ity, agree with me in po­lit­ical sen­ti­ment. It is the more grate­ful to me be­cause in this I see that for the great prin­ci­ples of our Gov­ern­ment the peo­ple are pret­ty near­ly or quite unan­imous. In re­gard to the dif­fi­cul­ties that con­front us at this time, and of which you have seen fit to speak so be­com­ing­ly and so just­ly, I can on­ly say I agree with the sen­ti­ments ex­pressed. In my de­vo­tion to the Union I hope I am be­hind no man in the na­tion. As to my wis­dom in con­duct­ing af­fairs so as to tend to the preser­va­tion of the Union, I fear too great con­fi­dence may have been placed in me. I am sure I bring a heart de­vot­ed to the work. There is noth­ing that could ev­er bring me to con­sent–will­ing­ly to con­sent–to the de­struc­tion of this Union (in which not on­ly the great city of New York, but the whole coun­try, has ac­quired its great­ness), un­less it would be that thing for which the Union it­self was made. I un­der­stand that the ship is made for the car­ry­ing and preser­va­tion of the car­go; and so long as the ship is safe with the car­go, it shall not be aban­doned. This Union shall nev­er be aban­doned, un­less the pos­si­bil­ity of its ex­is­tence shall cease to ex­ist with­out the ne­ces­si­ty of throw­ing pas­sen­gers and car­go over­board. So long, then, as it is pos­si­ble that the pros­per­ity and lib­er­ties of this peo­ple can be pre­served with­in this Union, it shall be my pur­pose at all tunes to pre­serve it. And now, Mr. May­or, re­new­ing my thanks for this cor­dial re­cep­tion, al­low me to come to a close.

AD­DRESS AT JER­SEY CITY, NEW JER­SEY

FEBRU­ARY 21, 1860

MR. DAY­TON AND GEN­TLE­MEN OF THE STATE OF NEW JER­SEY:–I shall on­ly thank you briefly for this very kind re­cep­tion giv­en me, not per­son­al­ly, but as the tem­po­rary rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the majesty of the na­tion. To the kind­ness of your hearts, and of the hearts of your brethren in your State, I should be very proud to re­spond, but I shall not have strength to ad­dress you or oth­er as­sem­blages at length, even if I had the time to do so. I ap­pear be­fore you, there­fore, for lit­tle else than to greet you, and to briefly say farewell. You have done me the very high hon­or to present your re­cep­tion cour­te­sies to me through your great man a man with whom it is an hon­or to be as­so­ci­at­ed any­where, and in own­ing whom no State can be poor. He has said enough, and by the say­ing of it sug­gest­ed enough, to re­quire a re­sponse of an hour, well con­sid­ered. I could not in an hour make a wor­thy re­sponse to it. I there­fore, ladies and gen­tle­men of New Jer­sey, con­tent my­self with say­ing, most hearti­ly do I in­dorse all the sen­ti­ments he has ex­pressed. Al­low me, most grate­ful­ly, to bid you farewell.

RE­PLY TO THE MAY­OR OF NEWARK, NEW JER­SEY,

FEBRU­ARY 21, 1861.

MR. MAY­OR:–I thank you for this re­cep­tion at the city of Newark. With re­gard to the great work of which you speak, I will say that I bring to it a heart filled with love for my coun­try, and an hon­est de­sire to do what is right. I am sure, how­ev­er, that I have not the abil­ity to do any­thing un­aid­ed of God, and that with­out His sup­port and that of this free, hap­py, pros­per­ous, and in­tel­li­gent peo­ple, no man can suc­ceed in do­ing that the im­por­tance of which we all com­pre­hend. Again thank­ing you for the re­cep­tion you have giv­en me, I will now bid you farewell, and pro­ceed up­on my jour­ney.

AD­DRESS IN TREN­TON AT THE TREN­TON HOUSE,

FEBRU­ARY 21, 1861

I have been in­vit­ed by your rep­re­sen­ta­tives to the Leg­is­la­ture to vis­it this the cap­ital of your hon­ored State, and in ac­knowl­edg­ing their kind in­vi­ta­tion, com­pelled to re­spond to the wel­come of the pre­sid­ing of­fi­cers of each body, and I sup­pose they in­tend­ed I should speak to you through them, as they are the rep­re­sen­ta­tives of all of you; and if I were to speak again here, I should on­ly have to re­peat in a great mea­sure much that I have said, which would be dis­gust­ing to my friends around me who have met here. I have no speech to make, but mere­ly ap­pear to see you and let you look at me; and as to the lat­ter I think I have great­ly the best of the bar­gain. My friends, al­low me to bid you farewell.

AD­DRESS TO THE SEN­ATE OF NEW JER­SEY

FEBRU­ARY 21, 1861

MR. PRES­IDENT AND GEN­TLE­MEN OF THE SEN­ATE OF THE STATE OF NEW JER­SEY:–I am very grate­ful to you for the hon­or­able re­cep­tion of which I have been the ob­ject. I can­not but re­mem­ber the place that New Jer­sey holds in our ear­ly his­to­ry. In the Rev­olu­tion­ary strug­gle few of the States among the Old Thir­teen had more of the bat­tle- fields of the coun­try with­in their lim­its than New Jer­sey. May I be par­doned if, up­on this oc­ca­sion, I men­tion that away back in my child­hood, the ear­li­est days of my be­ing able to read, I got hold of a small book, such a one as few of the younger mem­bers have ev­er seen Weems’s Life of Wash­ing­ton. I re­mem­ber all the ac­counts there giv­en of the bat­tle-​fields and strug­gles for the lib­er­ties of the coun­try; and none fixed them­selves up­on my imag­ina­tion so deeply as the strug­gle here at Tren­ton, New Jer­sey. The cross­ing of the riv­er, the con­test with the Hes­sians, the great hard­ships en­dured at that time, all fixed them­selves on my mem­ory more than any sin­gle Rev­olu­tion­ary event; and you all know, for you have all been boys, how these ear­ly im­pres­sions last longer than any oth­ers. I rec­ol­lect think­ing then, boy even though I was, that there must have been some­thing more than com­mon that these men strug­gled for. I am ex­ceed­ing­ly anx­ious that that thing that some­thing even more than na­tion­al in­de­pen­dence, that some­thing that held out a great promise to all the peo­ple of the world to all time to come–I am ex­ceed­ing­ly anx­ious that this Union, the Con­sti­tu­tion, and the lib­er­ties of the peo­ple shall be per­pet­uat­ed in ac­cor­dance with the orig­inal idea for which that strug­gle was made; and I shall be most hap­py in­deed if I shall be a hum­ble in­stru­ment in the hands of the Almighty, and of this his al­most cho­sen peo­ple, for per­pet­uat­ing the ob­ject of that great strug­gle. You give me this re­cep­tion, as I un­der­stand, with­out dis­tinc­tion of par­ty. I learn that this body is com­posed of a ma­jor­ity of gen­tle­men who, in the ex­er­cise of their best judg­ment in the choice of a chief mag­is­trate, did not think I was the man. I un­der­stand, nev­er­the­less, that they come for­ward here to greet me as the con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly elect­ed Pres­ident of the Unit­ed States–as cit­izens of the Unit­ed States to meet the man who, for the time be­ing, is the rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the majesty of the na­tion–unit­ed by the sin­gle pur­pose to per­pet­uate the Con­sti­tu­tion, the union, and the lib­er­ties of the peo­ple. As such, I ac­cept this re­cep­tion more grate­ful­ly than I could do did I be­lieve it were ten­dered to me as an in­di­vid­ual.

AD­DRESS TO THE AS­SEM­BLY OF NEW JER­SEY,

FEBRU­ARY 21, 1861

MR. SPEAK­ER AND GEN­TLE­MEN: I have just en­joyed the hon­or of a re­cep­tion by the oth­er branch of this Leg­is­la­ture, and I re­turn to you and them my thanks for the re­cep­tion which the peo­ple of New Jer­sey have giv­en through their cho­sen rep­re­sen­ta­tives to me as the rep­re­sen­ta­tive, for the time be­ing, of the majesty of the peo­ple of the Unit­ed States. I ap­pro­pri­ate to my­self very lit­tle of the demon­stra­tions of re­spect with which I have been greet­ed. I think lit­tle should be giv­en to any man, but that it should be a man­ifes­ta­tion of ad­her­ence to the Union and the Con­sti­tu­tion. I un­der­stand my­self to be re­ceived here by the rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the peo­ple of New Jer­sey, a ma­jor­ity of whom dif­fer in opin­ion from those with whom I have act­ed. This man­ifes­ta­tion is there­fore to be re­gard­ed by me as ex­press­ing their de­vo­tion to the Union, the Con­sti­tu­tion, and the lib­er­ties of the peo­ple.

You, Mr. Speak­er, have well said that this is a time when the bravest and wis­est look with doubt and awe up­on the as­pect pre­sent­ed by our na­tion­al af­fairs. Un­der these cir­cum­stances you will read­ily see why I should not speak in de­tail of the course I shall deem it best to pur­sue. It is prop­er that I should avail my­self of all the in­for­ma­tion and all the time at my com­mand, in or­der that when the time ar­rives in which I must speak of­fi­cial­ly, I shall be able to take the ground which I deem best and safest, and from which I may have no oc­ca­sion to swerve. I shall en­deav­or to take the ground I deem most just to the North, the East, the West, the South, and the whole coun­try. I shall take it, I hope, in good tem­per, cer­tain­ly with no mal­ice to­ward, any sec­tion. I shall do all that may be in my pow­er to pro­mote a peace­ful set­tle­ment of all our dif­fi­cul­ties. The man does not live who is more de­vot­ed to peace than I am, none who would do more to pre­serve it, but it may be nec­es­sary to put the foot down firm­ly. And if I do my du­ty and do right, you will sus­tain me, will you not? [Loud cheers, and cries of “Yes, yes; we will.”] Re­ceived as I am by the mem­bers of a Leg­is­la­ture the ma­jor­ity of whom do not agree with me in po­lit­ical sen­ti­ments, I trust that I may have their as­sis­tance in pi­lot­ing the ship of state through this voy­age, sur­round­ed by per­ils as it is; for if it should suf­fer wreck now, there will be no pi­lot ev­er need­ed for an­oth­er voy­age.

Gen­tle­men, I have al­ready spo­ken longer than I in­tend­ed, and must beg leave to stop here.

RE­PLY TO THE MAY­OR OF PHILADEL­PHIA, PENN­SYL­VA­NIA, FEBRU­ARY 21, 1861

MR. MAY­OR AND FEL­LOW-​CIT­IZENS OF PHILADEL­PHIA:–I ap­pear be­fore you to make no lengthy speech, but to thank you for this re­cep­tion. The re­cep­tion you have giv­en me to-​night is not to me, the man, the in­di­vid­ual, but to the man who tem­porar­ily rep­re­sents, or should rep­re­sent, the majesty of the na­tion. It is true, as your wor­thy may­or has said, that there is great anx­iety amongst the cit­izens of the Unit­ed States at this time. I deem it a hap­py cir­cum­stance that this dis­sat­is­fied por­tion of our fel­low-​cit­izens does not point us to any­thing in which they are be­ing in­jured or about to be in­jured; for which rea­son I have felt all the while jus­ti­fied in con­clud­ing that the cri­sis, the pan­ic, the anx­iety of the coun­try at this time is ar­ti­fi­cial. If there be those who dif­fer with me up­on this sub­ject, they have not point­ed out the sub­stan­tial dif­fi­cul­ty that ex­ists. I do not mean to say that an ar­ti­fi­cial pan­ic may not do con­sid­er­able harm; that it has done such I do not de­ny. The hope that has been ex­pressed by your may­or, that I may be able to re­store peace, har­mo­ny, and pros­per­ity to the coun­try, is most wor­thy of him; and most hap­py, in­deed, will I be if I shall be able to ver­ify and ful­fil that hope. I promise you that I bring to the work a sin­cere heart. Whether I will bring a head equal to that heart will be for fu­ture times to de­ter­mine. It were use­less for me to speak of de­tails of plans now; I shall speak of­fi­cial­ly next Mon­day week, if ev­er. If I should not speak then, it were use­less for me to do so now. If I do speak then, it is use­less for me to do so now. When I do speak, I shall take such ground as I deem best cal­cu­lat­ed to re­store peace, har­mo­ny, and pros­per­ity to the coun­try, and tend to the per­pe­tu­ity of the na­tion and the lib­er­ty of these States and these peo­ple. Your wor­thy may­or has ex­pressed the wish, in which I join with him, that it were con­ve­nient for me to re­main in your city long enough to con­sult your mer­chants and man­ufac­tur­ers; or, as it were, to lis­ten to those breath­ings ris­ing with­in the con­se­crat­ed walls where­in the Con­sti­tu­tion of the Unit­ed States and, I will add, the Dec­la­ra­tion of In­de­pen­dence, were orig­inal­ly framed and adopt­ed. I as­sure you and your may­or that I had hoped on this oc­ca­sion, and up­on all oc­ca­sions dur­ing my life, that I shall do noth­ing in­con­sis­tent with the teach­ings of these holy and most sa­cred walls. I have nev­er asked any­thing that does not breathe from those walls. All my po­lit­ical war­fare has been in fa­vor of the teach­ings that come forth from these sa­cred walls. May my right hand for­get its cun­ning and my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth if ev­er I prove false to those teach­ings. Fel­low-​cit­izens, I have ad­dressed you longer than I ex­pect­ed to do, and now al­low me to bid you good­night.

AD­DRESS IN THE HALL OF IN­DE­PEN­DENCE, PHILADEL­PHIA,

FEBRU­ARY 22, 1861

MR. CUYLER:–I am filled with deep emo­tion at find­ing my­self stand­ing here, in this place, where were col­lect­ed to­geth­er the wis­dom, the de­vo­tion to prin­ci­ple, from which sprang the in­sti­tu­tions un­der which we live. You have kind­ly sug­gest­ed to me that in my hands is the task of restor­ing peace to the present dis­tract­ed con­di­tion of the coun­try. I can say in re­turn, sir, that all the po­lit­ical sen­ti­ments I en­ter­tain have been drawn, so far as I have been able to draw them, from the sen­ti­ments which orig­inat­ed and were giv­en to the world from this hall. I have nev­er had a feel­ing po­lit­ical­ly that did not spring from the sen­ti­ments em­bod­ied in the Dec­la­ra­tion of In­de­pen­dence. I have of­ten pon­dered over the dan­gers which were in­curred by the men who as­sem­bled here and framed and adopt­ed that Dec­la­ra­tion of In­de­pen­dence. I have pon­dered over the toils that were en­dured by the of­fi­cers and sol­diers of the army who achieved that in­de­pen­dence. I have of­ten in­quired of my­self what great prin­ci­ple or idea it was that kept the con­fed­er­acy so long to­geth­er. It was not the mere mat­ter of sep­ara­tion of the colonies from the moth­er­land, but that sen­ti­ment in the Dec­la­ra­tion of In­de­pen­dence which gave lib­er­ty, not alone to the peo­ple of this coun­try, but, I hope, to the world for all fu­ture time. It was that which gave promise that in due time the weight would be lift­ed from the shoul­ders of all men. This is the sen­ti­ment em­bod­ied in the Dec­la­ra­tion of In­de­pen­dence. Now, my friends, can the coun­try be saved up­on that ba­sis? If it can, I will con­sid­er my­self one of the hap­pi­est men in the world if I can help to save it. If it can­not be saved up­on that prin­ci­ple, it will be tru­ly aw­ful. But if this coun­try can­not be saved with­out giv­ing up that prin­ci­ple, I was about to say I would rather be as­sas­si­nat­ed on this spot than sur­ren­der it. Now, in my view of the present as­pect of af­fairs, there need be no blood­shed or war. There is no ne­ces­si­ty for it. I am not in fa­vor of such a course, and I may say, in ad­vance, that there will be no blood­shed un­less it is forced up­on the Gov­ern­ment, and then it will be com­pelled to act in self-​de­fence.

My friends; this is whol­ly an un­ex­pect­ed speech, and I did not ex­pect to be called up­on to say a word when I came here. I sup­posed it was mere­ly to do some­thing to­ward rais­ing the flag. I may, there­fore, have said some­thing in­dis­creet. I have said noth­ing but what I am will­ing to live by and, if it be the plea­sure of Almighty God, die by.

RE­PLY TO THE WILM­ING­TON DEL­EGA­TION,

FEBRU­ARY 22, 1861

MR. CHAIR­MAN:–I feel high­ly flat­tered by the en­comi­ums you have seen fit to be­stow up­on me. Soon af­ter the nom­ina­tion of Gen­er­al Tay­lor, I at­tend­ed a po­lit­ical meet­ing in the city of Wilm­ing­ton, and have since car­ried with me a fond re­mem­brance of the hos­pi­tal­ities of the city on that oc­ca­sion. The pro­gramme es­tab­lished pro­vides for my pres­ence in Har­ris­burg in twen­ty-​four hours from this time. I ex­pect to be in Wash­ing­ton on Sat­ur­day. It is, there­fore, an im­pos­si­bil­ity that I should ac­cept your kind in­vi­ta­tion. There are no peo­ple whom I would more glad­ly ac­com­mo­date than those of Delaware; but cir­cum­stances for­bid, gen­tle­men. With many re­grets for the char­ac­ter of the re­ply I am com­pelled to give you, I bid you adieu.

AD­DRESS AT LAN­CAST­ER, PENN­SYL­VA­NIA,

FEBRU­ARY 22, 1860

LADIES AND GEN­TLE­MEN OF OLD LAN­CAST­ER:–I ap­pear not to make a speech. I have not time to make a speech at length, and not strength to make them on ev­ery oc­ca­sion; and, worse than all, I have none to make. There is plen­ty of mat­ter to speak about in these times, but it is well known that the more a man speaks the less he is un­der­stood–the more he says one thing, the more his ad­ver­saries con­tend he meant some­thing else. I shall soon have oc­ca­sion to speak of­fi­cial­ly, and then I will en­deav­or to put my thoughts just as plain as I can ex­press my­self–true to the Con­sti­tu­tion and Union of all the States, and to the per­pet­ual lib­er­ty of all the peo­ple. Un­til I so speak, there is no need to en­ter up­on de­tails. In con­clu­sion, I greet you most hearti­ly, and bid you an af­fec­tion­ate farewell.

AD­DRESS TO THE LEG­IS­LA­TURE OF PENN­SYL­VA­NIA, AT HAR­RIS­BURG,

FEBRU­ARY 22, 1861

MR. SPEAK­ER OF THE SEN­ATE, AND AL­SO MR. SPEAK­ER OF THE HOUSE OF REP­RE­SEN­TA­TIVES, AND GEN­TLE­MEN OF THE GEN­ER­AL AS­SEM­BLY OF THE STATE OF PENN­SYL­VA­NIA:–I ap­pear be­fore you on­ly for a very few brief re­marks in re­sponse to what has been said to me. I thank you most sin­cere­ly for this re­cep­tion, and the gen­er­ous words in which sup­port has been promised me up­on this oc­ca­sion. I thank your great com­mon­wealth for the over­whelm­ing sup­port it re­cent­ly gave, not me per­son­al­ly, but the cause which I think a just one, in the late elec­tion.

Al­lu­sion has been made to the fact–the in­ter­est­ing fact per­haps we should say–that I for the first time ap­pear at the cap­ital of the great com­mon­wealth of Penn­syl­va­nia up­on the birth­day of the Fa­ther of his Coun­try. In con­nec­tion with that beloved an­niver­sary con­nect­ed with the his­to­ry of this coun­try, I have al­ready gone through one ex­ceed­ing­ly in­ter­est­ing scene this morn­ing in the cer­emonies at Philadel­phia. Un­der the kind con­duct of gen­tle­men there, I was for the first time al­lowed the priv­ilege of stand­ing in old In­de­pen­dence Hall to have a few words ad­dressed to me there, and open­ing up to me an op­por­tu­ni­ty of man­ifest­ing my deep re­gret that I had not more time to ex­press some­thing of my own feel­ings ex­cit­ed by the oc­ca­sion, that had been re­al­ly the feel­ings of my whole life.

Be­sides this, our friends there had pro­vid­ed a mag­nif­icent flag of the coun­try. They had ar­ranged it so that I was giv­en the hon­or of rais­ing it to the head of its staff, and when it went up I was pleased that it went to its place by the strength of my own fee­ble arm. When, ac­cord­ing to the ar­range­ment, the cord was pulled, and it float­ed glo­ri­ous­ly to the wind, with­out an ac­ci­dent, in the bright, glow­ing sun­shine of the morn­ing, I could not help hop­ing that there was in the en­tire suc­cess of that beau­ti­ful cer­emo­ny at least some­thing of an omen of what is to come. Nor could I help feel­ing then, as I have of­ten felt, that in the whole of that pro­ceed­ing I was a very hum­bled in­stru­ment. I had not pro­vid­ed the flag; I had not made the ar­range­ments for el­evat­ing it to its place; I had ap­plied but a very small por­tion of even my fee­ble strength in rais­ing it. In the whole trans­ac­tion I was in the hands of the peo­ple who had ar­ranged it, and if I can have the same gen­er­ous co-​op­er­ation of the peo­ple of this na­tion, I think the flag of our coun­try may yet be kept flaunt­ing glo­ri­ous­ly.

I re­cur for a mo­ment but to re­peat some words ut­tered at the ho­tel in re­gard to what has been said about the mil­itary sup­port which the Gen­er­al Gov­ern­ment may ex­pect from the com­mon­wealth of Penn­syl­va­nia in a prop­er emer­gen­cy. To guard against any pos­si­ble mis­take do I re­cur to this. It is not with any plea­sure that I con­tem­plate the pos­si­bil­ity that a ne­ces­si­ty may arise in this coun­try for the use of the mil­itary arm. While I am ex­ceed­ing­ly grat­ified to see the man­ifes­ta­tion up­on your streets of your mil­itary force here, and ex­ceed­ing­ly grat­ified at your promise to use that force up­on a prop­er emer­gen­cy–while I make these ac­knowl­edg­ments I de­sire to re­peat, in or­der to pre­clude any pos­si­ble mis­con­struc­tion, that I do most sin­cere­ly hope that we shall have no use for them; that it will nev­er be­come their du­ty to shed blood, and most es­pe­cial­ly nev­er to shed fra­ter­nal blood. I promise that so far as I may have wis­dom to di­rect, if so painful a re­sult shall in any wise be brought about, it shall he through no fault of mine.

Al­lu­sion has al­so been made by one of your hon­ored speak­ers to some re­marks re­cent­ly made by my­self at Pitts­burg in re­gard to what is sup­posed to be the es­pe­cial in­ter­est of this great com­mon­wealth of Penn­syl­va­nia. I now wish on­ly to say in re­gard to that mat­ter, that the few re­marks which I ut­tered on that oc­ca­sion were rather care­ful­ly word­ed. I took pains that they should be so. I have seen no oc­ca­sion since to add to them or sub­tract from them. I leave them pre­cise­ly as they stand, adding on­ly now that I am pleased to have an ex­pres­sion from you, gen­tle­men of Penn­syl­va­nia, sig­ni­fy­ing that they are sat­is­fac­to­ry to you.

And now, gen­tle­men of the Gen­er­al As­sem­bly of the Com­mon­wealth of Penn­syl­va­nia, al­low me again to re­turn to you my most sin­cere thanks.

RE­PLY TO THE MAY­OR OF WASH­ING­TON, D.C.,

FEBRU­ARY 27, 1861

Mr. MAY­OR:–I thank you, and through you the mu­nic­ipal au­thor­ities of this city who ac­com­pa­ny you, for this wel­come. And as it is the first time in my life, since the present phase of pol­itics has pre­sent­ed it­self in this coun­try, that I have said any­thing pub­licly with­in a re­gion of coun­try where the in­sti­tu­tion of slav­ery ex­ists, I will take this oc­ca­sion to say that I think very much of the ill feel­ing that has ex­ist­ed and still ex­ists be­tween the peo­ple in the sec­tion from which I came and the peo­ple here, is de­pen­dent up­on a mis­un­der­stand­ing of one an­oth­er. I there­fore avail my­self of this op­por­tu­ni­ty to as­sure you, Mr. May­or, and all the gen­tle­men present, that I have not now, and nev­er have had, any oth­er than as kind­ly feel­ings to­ward you as to the peo­ple of my own sec­tion. I have not now, and nev­er have had, any dis­po­si­tion to treat you in any re­spect oth­er­wise than as my own neigh­bors. I have not now any pur­pose to with­hold from you any of the ben­efits of the Con­sti­tu­tion, un­der any cir­cum­stances, that I would not feel my­self con­strained to with­hold from my own neigh­bors; and I hope, in a word, that when we shall be­come bet­ter ac­quaint­ed–and I say it with great con­fi­dence–we shall like each oth­er bet­ter. I thank you for the kind­ness of this re­cep­tion.

RE­PLY TO A SER­ENADE AT WASH­ING­TON, D.C., FEBRU­ARY 28, 1861

MY FRIENDS:–I sup­pose that I may take this as a com­pli­ment paid to me, and as such please ac­cept my thanks for it. I have reached this city of Wash­ing­ton un­der cir­cum­stances con­sid­er­ably dif­fer­ing from those un­der which any oth­er man has ev­er reached it. I am here for the pur­pose of tak­ing an of­fi­cial po­si­tion amongst the peo­ple, al­most all of whom were po­lit­ical­ly op­posed to me, and are yet op­posed to me, as I sup­pose.

I pro­pose no lengthy ad­dress to you. I on­ly pro­pose to say, as I did on yes­ter­day, when your wor­thy may­or and board of al­der­men called up­on me, that I thought much of the ill feel­ing that has ex­ist­ed be­tween you and the peo­ple of your sur­round­ings and that peo­ple from among whom I came, has de­pend­ed, and now de­pends, up­on a mis­un­der­stand­ing.

I hope that, if things shall go along as pros­per­ous­ly as I be­lieve we all de­sire they may, I may have it in my pow­er to re­move some­thing of this mis­un­der­stand­ing; that I may be en­abled to con­vince you, and the peo­ple of your sec­tion of the coun­try, that we re­gard you as in all things our equals, and in all things en­ti­tled to the same re­spect and the same treat­ment that we claim for our­selves; that we are in no wise dis­posed, if it were in our pow­er, to op­press you, to de­prive you of any of your rights un­der the Con­sti­tu­tion of the Unit­ed States, or even nar­row­ly to split hairs with you in re­gard to these rights, but are de­ter­mined to give you, as far as lies in our hands, all your rights un­der the Con­sti­tu­tion–not grudg­ing­ly, but ful­ly and fair­ly. I hope that, by thus deal­ing with you, we will be­come bet­ter ac­quaint­ed, and be bet­ter friends.

And now, my friends, with these few re­marks, and again re­turn­ing my thanks for this com­pli­ment, and ex­press­ing my de­sire to hear a lit­tle more of your good mu­sic, I bid you good-​night.

WASH­ING­TON, SUN­DAY, MARCH 3, 1861

[Dur­ing the strug­gle over the ap­point­ments of LIN­COLN’s Cab­inet, the Pres­ident-​elect spoke as fol­lows:]

Gen­tle­men, it is ev­ident that some one must take the re­spon­si­bil­ity of these ap­point­ments, and I will do it. My Cab­inet is com­plet­ed. The po­si­tions are not def­inite­ly as­signed, and will not be un­til I an­nounce them pri­vate­ly to the gen­tle­men whom I have se­lect­ed as my Con­sti­tu­tion­al ad­vis­ers.

FIRST IN­AU­GU­RAL AD­DRESS, MARCH 4, 1861

FEL­LOW-​CIT­IZENS OF THE UNIT­ED STATES:–In com­pli­ance with a cus­tom as old as the Gov­ern­ment it­self, I ap­pear be­fore you to ad­dress you briefly, and to take in your pres­ence the oath pre­scribed by the Con­sti­tu­tion of the Unit­ed States to be tak­en by the Pres­ident “be­fore he en­ters on the ex­ecu­tion of his of­fice.”

I do not con­sid­er it nec­es­sary at present for me to dis­cuss those mat­ters of ad­min­is­tra­tion about which there is no spe­cial anx­iety or ex­cite­ment.

Ap­pre­hen­sion seems to ex­ist among the peo­ple of the South­ern States that by the ac­ces­sion of a Re­pub­li­can ad­min­is­tra­tion their prop­er­ty and their peace and per­son­al se­cu­ri­ty are to be en­dan­gered. There has nev­er been any rea­son­able cause for such ap­pre­hen­sion. In­deed, the most am­ple ev­idence to the con­trary has all the while ex­ist­ed and been open to their in­spec­tion. It is found in near­ly all the pub­lished speech­es of him who now ad­dress­es you. I do but quote from one of those speech­es when I de­clare that

“I have no pur­pose, di­rect­ly or in­di­rect­ly, to in­ter­fere with the in­sti­tu­tion of slav­ery in the States where it ex­ists. I be­lieve I have no law­ful right to do so, and I have no in­cli­na­tion to do so.”

Those who nom­inat­ed and elect­ed me did so with full knowl­edge that I had made this and many sim­ilar dec­la­ra­tions, and had nev­er re­cant­ed them. And, more than this, they placed in the plat­form for my ac­cep­tance, and as a law to them­selves and to me, the clear and em­phat­ic res­olu­tion which I now read:

“Re­solved, That the main­te­nance in­vi­olate of the rights of the States, and es­pe­cial­ly the right of each State to or­der and con­trol its own do­mes­tic in­sti­tu­tions ac­cord­ing to its own judg­ment ex­clu­sive­ly, is es­sen­tial to that bal­ance of pow­er on which the per­fec­tion and en­durance of our po­lit­ical fab­ric de­pend, and we de­nounce the law­less in­va­sion by armed force of the soil of any State or Ter­ri­to­ry, no mat­ter un­der what pre­text, as amongst the gravest of crimes.”

I now re­it­er­ate these sen­ti­ments; and, in do­ing so, I on­ly press up­on the pub­lic at­ten­tion the most con­clu­sive ev­idence of which the case is sus­cep­ti­ble, that the prop­er­ty, peace, and se­cu­ri­ty of no sec­tion are to be in any wise en­dan­gered by the now in­com­ing ad­min­is­tra­tion. I add, too, that all the pro­tec­tion which, con­sis­tent­ly with the Con­sti­tu­tion and the laws, can be giv­en, will be cheer­ful­ly giv­en to all the States when law­ful­ly de­mand­ed, for what­ev­er cause–as cheer­ful­ly to one sec­tion as to an­oth­er.

There is much con­tro­ver­sy about the de­liv­er­ing up of fugi­tives from ser­vice or la­bor. The clause I now read is as plain­ly writ­ten in the Con­sti­tu­tion as any oth­er of its pro­vi­sions:

“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.”

It is scarce­ly ques­tioned that this pro­vi­sion was in­tend­ed by those who made it for the re­claim­ing of what we call fugi­tive slaves; and the in­ten­tion of the law­giv­er is the law. All mem­bers of Congress swear their sup­port to the whole Con­sti­tu­tion–to this pro­vi­sion as much as to any oth­er. To the propo­si­tion, then, that slaves whose cas­es come with­in the terms of this clause “shall be de­liv­ered up,” their oaths are unan­imous. Now, if they would make the ef­fort in good tem­per, could they not with near­ly equal una­nim­ity frame and pass a law by means of which to keep good that unan­imous oath?

There is some dif­fer­ence of opin­ion whether this clause should be en­forced by na­tion­al or by State au­thor­ity; but sure­ly that dif­fer­ence is not a very ma­te­ri­al one. If the slave is to be sur­ren­dered, it can be of but lit­tle con­se­quence to him or to oth­ers by which au­thor­ity it is done. And should any one in any case be con­tent that his oath shall go un­kept on a mere­ly un­sub­stan­tial con­tro­ver­sy as to how it shall be kept?

Again, in any law up­on this sub­ject, ought not all the safe­guards of lib­er­ty known in civ­ilized and hu­mane ju­rispru­dence to be in­tro­duced, so that a free man be not, in any case, sur­ren­dered as a slave? And might it not be well at the same time to pro­vide by law for the en­force­ment of that clause in the Con­sti­tu­tion which guar­an­tees that “the cit­izens of each State shall be en­ti­tled to all priv­ileges and im­mu­ni­ties of cit­izens in the sev­er­al States”?

I take the of­fi­cial oath to-​day with no men­tal reser­va­tions, and with no pur­pose to con­strue the Con­sti­tu­tion or laws by any hy­per­crit­ical rules. And, while I do not choose now to spec­ify par­tic­ular acts of Congress as prop­er to be en­forced, I do sug­gest that it will be much safer for all, both in of­fi­cial and pri­vate sta­tions, to con­form to and abide by all those acts which stand un­re­pealed, than to vi­olate any of them, trust­ing to find im­puni­ty in hav­ing them held to be un­con­sti­tu­tion­al.

It is sev­en­ty-​two years since the first in­au­gu­ra­tion of a Pres­ident un­der our na­tion­al Con­sti­tu­tion. Dur­ing that pe­ri­od fif­teen dif­fer­ent and great­ly dis­tin­guished cit­izens have, in suc­ces­sion, ad­min­is­tered the ex­ec­utive branch of the Gov­ern­ment. They have con­duct­ed it through many per­ils, and gen­er­al­ly with great suc­cess. Yet, with all this scope of prece­dent, I now en­ter up­on the same task for the brief con­sti­tu­tion­al term of four years un­der great and pe­cu­liar dif­fi­cul­ty. A dis­rup­tion of the Fed­er­al Union, hereto­fore on­ly men­aced, is now formidably at­tempt­ed.

I hold that, in con­tem­pla­tion of uni­ver­sal law and of the Con­sti­tu­tion, the Union of these States is per­pet­ual. Per­pe­tu­ity is im­plied, if not ex­pressed, in the fun­da­men­tal law of all na­tion­al gov­ern­ments. It is safe to as­sert that no gov­ern­ment prop­er ev­er had a pro­vi­sion in its or­gan­ic law for its own ter­mi­na­tion. Con­tin­ue to ex­ecute all the ex­press pro­vi­sions of our na­tion­al Con­sti­tu­tion, and the Union will en­dure for­ev­er–it be­ing im­pos­si­ble to de­stroy it ex­cept by some ac­tion not pro­vid­ed for in the in­stru­ment it­self.

Again, if the Unit­ed States be not a gov­ern­ment prop­er, but an as­so­ci­ation of States in the na­ture of con­tract mere­ly, can it as a con­tract be peace­ably un­made by less than all the par­ties who made it? One par­ty to a con­tract may vi­olate it–break it, so to speak; but does it not re­quire all to law­ful­ly re­scind it?

De­scend­ing from these gen­er­al prin­ci­ples, we find the propo­si­tion that in le­gal con­tem­pla­tion the Union is per­pet­ual con­firmed by the his­to­ry of the Union it­self. The Union is much old­er than the Con­sti­tu­tion. It was formed, in fact, by the Ar­ti­cles of As­so­ci­ation in 1774. It was ma­tured and con­tin­ued by the Dec­la­ra­tion of In­de­pen­dence in 1776. It was fur­ther ma­tured, and the faith of all the then thir­teen States ex­press­ly plight­ed and en­gaged that it should be per­pet­ual, by the Ar­ti­cles of Con­fed­er­ation in 1778. And, fi­nal­ly, in 1787 one of the de­clared ob­jects for or­dain­ing and es­tab­lish­ing the Con­sti­tu­tion was “to form a more per­fect Union.”

But if the de­struc­tion of the Union by one or by a part on­ly of the States be law­ful­ly pos­si­ble, the Union is less per­fect than be­fore the Con­sti­tu­tion, hav­ing lost the vi­tal el­ement of per­pe­tu­ity.

It fol­lows from these views that no State up­on its own mere mo­tion can law­ful­ly get out of the Union; that re­solves and or­di­nances to that ef­fect are legal­ly void; and that acts of vi­olence, with­in any State or States, against the au­thor­ity of the Unit­ed States, are in­sur­rec­tionary or rev­olu­tion­ary, ac­cord­ing to cir­cum­stances.

I there­fore con­sid­er that, in view of the Con­sti­tu­tion and the laws, the Union is un­bro­ken; and to the ex­tent of my abil­ity I shall take care, as the Con­sti­tu­tion it­self ex­press­ly en­joins up­on me, that the laws of the Union be faith­ful­ly ex­ecut­ed in all the States. Do­ing this I deem to be on­ly a sim­ple du­ty on my part; and I shall per­form it so far as prac­ti­ca­ble, un­less my right­ful mas­ters, the Amer­ican peo­ple, shall with­hold the req­ui­site means, or in some au­thor­ita­tive man­ner di­rect the con­trary. I trust this will not be re­gard­ed as a men­ace, but on­ly as the de­clared pur­pose of the Union that it will con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly de­fend and main­tain it­self.

In do­ing this there needs to be no blood­shed or vi­olence; and there shall be none, un­less it be forced up­on the na­tion­al au­thor­ity. The pow­er con­fid­ed to me will be used to hold, oc­cu­py, and pos­sess the prop­er­ty and places be­long­ing to the Gov­ern­ment, and to col­lect the du­ties and im­posts; but be­yond what may be nec­es­sary for these ob­jects, there will be no in­va­sion, no us­ing of force against or among the peo­ple any­where. Where hos­til­ity to the Unit­ed States, in any in­te­ri­or lo­cal­ity, shall be so great and uni­ver­sal as to pre­vent com­pe­tent res­ident cit­izens from hold­ing the Fed­er­al of­fices, there will be no at­tempt to force ob­nox­ious strangers among the peo­ple for that ob­ject. While the strict le­gal right may ex­ist in the gov­ern­ment to en­force the ex­er­cise of these of­fices, the at­tempt to do so would be so ir­ri­tat­ing, and so near­ly im­prac­ti­ca­ble with­al, that I deem it bet­ter to forego for the time the us­es of such of­fices.

The mails, un­less re­pelled, will con­tin­ue to be fur­nished in all parts of the Union. So far as pos­si­ble, the peo­ple ev­ery­where shall have that sense of per­fect se­cu­ri­ty which is most fa­vor­able to calm thought and re­flec­tion. The course here in­di­cat­ed will be fol­lowed un­less cur­rent events and ex­pe­ri­ence shall show a mod­ifi­ca­tion or change to be prop­er, and in ev­ery case and ex­igen­cy my best dis­cre­tion will be ex­er­cised ac­cord­ing to cir­cum­stances ac­tu­al­ly ex­ist­ing, and with a view and a hope of a peace­ful so­lu­tion of the na­tion­al trou­bles and the restora­tion of fra­ter­nal sym­pa­thies and af­fec­tions.

That there are per­sons in one sec­tion or an­oth­er who seek to de­stroy the Union at all events, and are glad of any pre­text to do it, I will nei­ther af­firm nor de­ny; but if there be such, I need ad­dress no word to them. To those, how­ev­er, who re­al­ly love the Union may I not speak?

Be­fore en­ter­ing up­on so grave a mat­ter as the de­struc­tion of our na­tion­al fab­ric, with all its ben­efits, its mem­ories, and its hopes, would it not be wise to as­cer­tain pre­cise­ly why we do it? Will you haz­ard so des­per­ate a step while there is any pos­si­bil­ity that any por­tion of the ills you fly from have no re­al ex­is­tence? Will you, while the cer­tain ills you fly to are greater than all the re­al ones you fly from–will you risk the com­mis­sion of so fear­ful a mis­take?

All pro­fess to be con­tent in the Union if all con­sti­tu­tion­al rights can be main­tained. Is it true, then, that any right, plain­ly writ­ten in the Con­sti­tu­tion, has been de­nied? I think not. Hap­pi­ly the hu­man mind is so con­sti­tut­ed that no par­ty can reach to the au­dac­ity of do­ing this. Think, if you can, of a sin­gle in­stance in which a plain­ly writ­ten pro­vi­sion of the Con­sti­tu­tion has ev­er been de­nied. If by the mere force of num­bers a ma­jor­ity should de­prive a mi­nor­ity of any clear­ly writ­ten con­sti­tu­tion­al right, it might, in a moral point of view, jus­ti­fy rev­olu­tion–cer­tain­ly would if such a right were a vi­tal one. But such is not our case. All the vi­tal rights of mi­nori­ties and of in­di­vid­uals are so plain­ly as­sured to them by af­fir­ma­tions and nega­tions, guar­anties and pro­hi­bi­tions, in the Con­sti­tu­tion, that con­tro­ver­sies nev­er arise con­cern­ing them. But no or­gan­ic law can ev­er be framed with a pro­vi­sion specif­ical­ly ap­pli­ca­ble to ev­ery ques­tion which may oc­cur in prac­ti­cal ad­min­is­tra­tion. No fore­sight can an­tic­ipate, nor any doc­ument of rea­son­able length con­tain, ex­press pro­vi­sions for all pos­si­ble ques­tions. Shall fugi­tives from la­bor be sur­ren­dered by na­tion­al or by State au­thor­ity? The Con­sti­tu­tion does not ex­press­ly say. May Congress pro­hib­it slav­ery in the Ter­ri­to­ries? The Con­sti­tu­tion does not ex­press­ly say. Must Congress pro­tect slav­ery in the Ter­ri­to­ries? The Con­sti­tu­tion does not ex­press­ly say.

From ques­tions of this class spring all our con­sti­tu­tion­al con­tro­ver­sies, and we di­vide up­on them in­to ma­jori­ties and mi­nori­ties. If the mi­nor­ity will not ac­qui­esce, the ma­jor­ity must, or the Gov­ern­ment must cease. There is no oth­er al­ter­na­tive; for con­tin­uing the Gov­ern­ment is ac­qui­es­cence on one side or the oth­er.

If a mi­nor­ity in such case will se­cede rather than ac­qui­esce, they make a prece­dent which in turn will di­vide and ru­in them; for a mi­nor­ity of their own will se­cede from them when­ev­er a ma­jor­ity re­fus­es to be con­trolled by such mi­nor­ity. For in­stance, why may not any por­tion of a new con­fed­er­acy a year or two hence ar­bi­trar­ily se­cede again, pre­cise­ly as por­tions of the present Union now claim to se­cede from it? All who cher­ish dis­union sen­ti­ments are now be­ing ed­ucat­ed to the ex­act tem­per of do­ing this.

Is there such per­fect iden­ti­ty of in­ter­ests among the States to com­pose a new Union as to pro­duce har­mo­ny on­ly, and pre­vent re­newed se­ces­sion?

Plain­ly, the cen­tral idea of se­ces­sion is the essence of an­ar­chy. A ma­jor­ity held in re­straint by con­sti­tu­tion­al checks and lim­ita­tions, and al­ways chang­ing eas­ily with de­lib­er­ate changes of pop­ular opin­ions and sen­ti­ments, is the on­ly true sovereign of a free peo­ple. Who­ev­er re­jects it does, of ne­ces­si­ty, fly to an­ar­chy or to despo­tism. Una­nim­ity is im­pos­si­ble; the rule of a mi­nor­ity, as a per­ma­nent ar­range­ment, is whol­ly in­ad­mis­si­ble; so that, re­ject­ing the ma­jor­ity prin­ci­ple, an­ar­chy or despo­tism in some form is all that is left.

I do not for­get the po­si­tion as­sumed by some, that con­sti­tu­tion­al ques­tions are to be de­cid­ed by the Supreme Court; nor do I de­ny that such de­ci­sions must be bind­ing, in any case, up­on the par­ties to a suit, as to the ob­ject of that suit, while they are al­so en­ti­tled to very high re­spect and con­sid­er­ation in all par­al­lel cas­es by all oth­er de­part­ments of the gov­ern­ment. And, while it is ob­vi­ous­ly pos­si­ble that such de­ci­sion may be er­ro­neous in any giv­en case, still the evil ef­fect fol­low­ing it, be­ing lim­it­ed to that par­tic­ular case, with the chance that it may be over­ruled and nev­er be­come a prece­dent for oth­er cas­es, can bet­ter be borne than could the evils of a dif­fer­ent prac­tice. At the same time, the can­did cit­izen must con­fess that if the pol­icy of the gov­ern­ment, up­on vi­tal ques­tions af­fect­ing the whole peo­ple, is to be ir­re­vo­ca­bly fixed by de­ci­sions of the Supreme Court, the in­stant they are made, in or­di­nary lit­iga­tion be­tween par­ties in per­son­al ac­tions, the peo­ple will have ceased to be their own rulers, hav­ing to that ex­tent prac­ti­cal­ly re­signed the gov­ern­ment in­to the hands of that em­inent tri­bunal. Nor is there in this view any as­sault up­on the court or the judges. It is a du­ty from which they may not shrink to de­cide cas­es prop­er­ly brought be­fore them, and it is no fault of theirs if oth­ers seek to turn their de­ci­sions to po­lit­ical pur­pos­es.

One sec­tion of our coun­try be­lieves slav­ery is right, and ought to be ex­tend­ed, while the oth­er be­lieves it is wrong, and ought not to be ex­tend­ed. This is the on­ly sub­stan­tial dis­pute. The fugi­tive slave clause of the Con­sti­tu­tion and the law for the sup­pres­sion of the for­eign slave trade are each as well en­forced, per­haps, as any law can ev­er be in a com­mu­ni­ty where the moral sense of the peo­ple im­per­fect­ly sup­ports the law it­self. The great body of the peo­ple abide by the dry le­gal obli­ga­tion in both cas­es, and a few break over in each. This, I think, can­not be per­fect­ly cured; and it would be worse in both cas­es af­ter the sep­ara­tion of the sec­tions than be­fore. The for­eign slave trade, now im­per­fect­ly sup­pressed, would be ul­ti­mate­ly re­vived, with­out re­stric­tion, in one sec­tion, while fugi­tive slaves, now on­ly par­tial­ly sur­ren­dered, would not be sur­ren­dered at all by the oth­er.

Phys­ical­ly speak­ing, we can­not sep­arate. We can­not re­move our re­spec­tive sec­tions from each oth­er, nor build an im­pass­able wall be­tween them. A hus­band and wife may be di­vorced and go out of the pres­ence and be­yond the reach of each oth­er; but the dif­fer­ent parts of our coun­try can­not do this. They can­not but re­main face to face, and in­ter­course, ei­ther am­ica­ble or hos­tile, must con­tin­ue be­tween them. Is it pos­si­ble, then, to make that in­ter­course more ad­van­ta­geous or more sat­is­fac­to­ry af­ter sep­ara­tion than be­fore? Can aliens make treaties eas­ier than friends can make laws? Can treaties be more faith­ful­ly en­forced be­tween aliens than laws can among friends? Sup­pose you go to war, you can­not fight al­ways; and when, af­ter much loss on both sides, and no gain on ei­ther, you cease fight­ing, the iden­ti­cal old ques­tions as to terms of in­ter­course are again up­on you.

This coun­try, with its in­sti­tu­tions, be­longs to the peo­ple who in­hab­it it. When­ev­er they shall grow weary of the ex­ist­ing gov­ern­ment, they can ex­er­cise their con­sti­tu­tion­al right of amend­ing it, or their rev­olu­tion­ary right to dis­mem­ber or over­throw it. I can­not be ig­no­rant of the fact that many wor­thy and pa­tri­ot­ic cit­izens are de­sirous of hav­ing the na­tion­al Con­sti­tu­tion amend­ed. While I make no rec­om­men­da­tion of amend­ments, I ful­ly rec­og­nize the right­ful au­thor­ity of the peo­ple over the whole sub­ject, to be ex­er­cised in ei­ther of the modes pre­scribed in the in­stru­ment it­self, and I should, un­der ex­ist­ing cir­cum­stances, fa­vor rather than op­pose a fair op­por­tu­ni­ty be­ing af­ford­ed the peo­ple to act up­on it. I will ven­ture to add that to me the con­ven­tion mode seems prefer­able, in that it al­lows amend­ments to orig­inate with the peo­ple them­selves, in­stead of on­ly per­mit­ting them to take or re­ject propo­si­tions orig­inat­ed by oth­ers not es­pe­cial­ly cho­sen for the pur­pose, and which might not be pre­cise­ly such as they would wish to ei­ther ac­cept or refuse. I un­der­stand a pro­posed amend­ment to the Con­sti­tu­tion which amend­ment, how­ev­er, I have not seen–has passed Congress, to the ef­fect that the Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment shall nev­er in­ter­fere with the do­mes­tic in­sti­tu­tions of the States, in­clud­ing that of per­sons held to ser­vice. To avoid mis­con­struc­tion of what I have said, I de­part from my pur­pose not to speak of par­tic­ular amend­ments so far as to say that, hold­ing such a pro­vi­sion to now be im­plied con­sti­tu­tion­al law, I have no ob­jec­tion to its be­ing made ex­press and ir­re­vo­ca­ble.

The chief mag­is­trate de­rives all his au­thor­ity from the peo­ple, and they have con­ferred none up­on him to fix terms for the sep­ara­tion of the States. The peo­ple them­selves can do this al­so if they choose; but the ex­ec­utive, as such, has noth­ing to do with it. His du­ty is to ad­min­is­ter the present gov­ern­ment, as it came to his hands, and to trans­mit it, unim­paired by him, to his suc­ces­sors.

Why should there not be a pa­tient con­fi­dence in the ul­ti­mate jus­tice of the peo­ple? Is there any bet­ter or equal hope in the world? In our present dif­fer­ences is ei­ther par­ty with­out faith of be­ing in the right? If the Almighty Ruler of na­tions, with his eter­nal truth and jus­tice, be on your side of the North, or on yours of the South, that truth and that jus­tice will sure­ly pre­vail by the judg­ment of this great tri­bunal of the Amer­ican peo­ple.

By the frame of the gov­ern­ment un­der which we live, this same peo­ple have wise­ly giv­en their pub­lic ser­vants but lit­tle pow­er for mis­chief; and have, with equal wis­dom, pro­vid­ed for the re­turn of that lit­tle to their own hands at very short in­ter­vals. While the peo­ple re­tain their virtue and vig­ilance, no ad­min­is­tra­tion, by any ex­treme of wicked­ness or fol­ly, can very se­ri­ous­ly in­jure the gov­ern­ment in the short space of four years.

My coun­try­men, one and all, think calm­ly and well up­on this whole sub­ject. Noth­ing valu­able can be lost by tak­ing time. If there be an ob­ject to hur­ry any of you in hot haste to a step which you would nev­er take de­lib­er­ate­ly, that ob­ject will be frus­trat­ed by tak­ing time; but no good ob­ject can be frus­trat­ed by it. Such of you as are now dis­sat­is­fied still have the old Con­sti­tu­tion unim­paired, and, on the sen­si­tive point, the laws of your own fram­ing un­der it; while the new ad­min­is­tra­tion will have no im­me­di­ate pow­er, if it would, to change ei­ther. If it were ad­mit­ted that you who are dis­sat­is­fied hold the right side in the dis­pute, there still is no sin­gle good rea­son for pre­cip­itate ac­tion. In­tel­li­gence, pa­tri­otism, Chris­tian­ity, and a firm re­liance on Him who has nev­er yet for­sak­en this fa­vored land, are still com­pe­tent to ad­just in the best way all our present dif­fi­cul­ty.

In your hands, my dis­sat­is­fied fel­low-​coun­try­men, and not in mine, is the mo­men­tous is­sue of civ­il war. The gov­ern­ment will not as­sail you. You can have no con­flict with­out be­ing your­selves the ag­gres­sors. You have no oath reg­is­tered in heav­en to de­stroy the gov­ern­ment, while I shall have the most solemn one to “pre­serve, pro­tect, and de­fend” it.

I am loath to close. We are not en­emies, but friends. We must not be en­emies. Though pas­sion may have strained, it must not break, our bonds of af­fec­tion. The mys­tic chords of mem­ory, stretch­ing from ev­ery bat­tle-​field and pa­tri­ot grave to ev­ery liv­ing heart and hearth­stone all over this broad land, will yet swell the cho­rus of the Union when again touched, as sure­ly they will be, by the bet­ter an­gels of our na­ture.

RE­FUSAL OF SE­WARD RES­IG­NA­TION

TO WM. H. SE­WARD.

EX­EC­UTIVE MAN­SION, March 4, 1861.

MY DEAR SIR:–Your note of the 2d in­stant, ask­ing to with­draw your ac­cep­tance of my in­vi­ta­tion to take charge of the State De­part­ment, was du­ly re­ceived. It is the sub­ject of the most painful so­lic­itude with me, and I feel con­strained to beg that you will coun­ter­mand the with­draw­al. The pub­lic in­ter­est, I think, de­mands that you should; and my per­son­al feel­ings are deeply en­list­ed in the same di­rec­tion. Please con­sid­er and an­swer by 9 A.M. to-​mor­row.

Your obe­di­ent ser­vant,

A. LIN­COLN.

RE­PLY TO THE PENN­SYL­VA­NIA DEL­EGA­TION,

WASH­ING­TON, MARCH 5, 1861

Mr. CHAIR­MAN AND GEN­TLE­MEN OF THE PENN­SYL­VA­NI­AN DEL­EGA­TION:–As I have so fre­quent­ly said hereto­fore, when I have had oc­ca­sion to ad­dress the peo­ple of the Key­stone, in my vis­its to that State, I can now but re­peat the as­sur­ance of my grat­ifi­ca­tion at the sup­port you gave me at the elec­tion, and at the promise of a con­tin­ua­tion of that sup­port which is now ten­dered to me.

Al­lu­sion has been made to the hope that you en­ter­tain that you have a Pres­ident and a gov­ern­ment. In re­spect to that I wish to say to you that in the po­si­tion I have as­sumed I wish to do more than I have ev­er giv­en rea­son to be­lieve I would do. I do not wish you to be­lieve that I as­sume to be any bet­ter than oth­ers who have gone be­fore me. I pre­fer rather to have it un­der­stood that if we ev­er have a gov­ern­ment on the prin­ci­ples we pro­fess, we should re­mem­ber, while we ex­er­cise our opin­ion, that oth­ers have al­so rights to the ex­er­cise of their opin­ions, and that we should en­deav­or to al­low these rights, and act in such a man­ner as to cre­ate no bad feel­ing. I hope we have a gov­ern­ment and a Pres­ident. I hope, and wish it to be un­der­stood, that there may he no al­lu­sion to un­pleas­ant dif­fer­ences.

We must re­mem­ber that the peo­ple of all the States are en­ti­tled to all the priv­ileges and im­mu­ni­ties of the cit­izens of the sev­er­al States. We should bear this in mind, and act in such a way as to say noth­ing in­sult­ing or ir­ri­tat­ing. I would in­cul­cate this idea, so that we may not, like Phar­isees, set our­selves up to be bet­ter than oth­er peo­ple.

Now, my friends, my pub­lic du­ties are press­ing to-​day, and will pre­vent my giv­ing more time to you. In­deed, I should not have left them now, but I could not well de­ny my­self to so large and re­spectable a body.

RE­PLY TO THE MAS­SACHUSETTS DEL­EGA­TION,

WASH­ING­TON, MARCH 5, 1861

I am thank­ful for this re­newed as­sur­ance of kind feel­ing and con­fi­dence, and the sup­port of the old Bay State, in so far as you, Mr. Chair­man, have ex­pressed, in be­half of those whom you rep­re­sent, your sanc­tion of what I have enun­ci­at­ed in my in­au­gu­ral ad­dress. This is very grate­ful to my feel­ings. The ob­ject was one of great del­ica­cy, in pre­sent­ing views at the open­ing of an ad­min­is­tra­tion un­der the pe­cu­liar cir­cum­stances at­tend­ing my en­trance up­on the of­fi­cial du­ties con­nect­ed with the Gov­ern­ment. I stud­ied all the points with great anx­iety, and pre­sent­ed them with what­ev­er of abil­ity and sense of jus­tice I could bring to bear. If it met the ap­pro­ba­tion of our good friends in Mas­sachusetts, I shall be ex­ceed­ing­ly grat­ified, while I hope it will meet the ap­pro­ba­tion of friends ev­ery­where. I am thank­ful for the ex­pres­sions of those who have vot­ed with us; and like ev­ery oth­er man of you, I like them as cer­tain­ly as I do oth­ers. As the Pres­ident in the ad­min­is­tra­tion of the Gov­ern­ment, I hope to be man enough not to know one cit­izen of the Unit­ed States from an­oth­er, nor one sec­tion from an­oth­er. I shall be grat­ified to have good friends of Mas­sachusetts and oth­ers who have thus far sup­port­ed me in these na­tion­al views still to sup­port me in car­ry­ing them out.

TO SEC­RE­TARY SE­WARD

EX­EC­UTIVE CHAM­BER, MARCH 7, 1861

MY DEAR SIR:–Here­with is the diplo­mat­ic ad­dress and my re­ply. To whom the re­ply should be ad­dressed–that is, by what ti­tle or style– I do not quite un­der­stand, and there­fore I have left it blank.

Will you please bring with you to-​day the mes­sage from the War De­part­ment, with Gen­er­al Scott’s note up­on it, which we had here yes­ter­day? I wish to ex­am­ine the Gen­er­al’s opin­ion, which I have not yet done.

Yours very tru­ly A. LIN­COLN.

RE­PLY TO THE DIPLO­MAT­IC CORPS

WASH­ING­TON, THURS­DAY, MARCH 7, 1861

Mr. FI­GANIERE AND GEN­TLE­MEN OF THE DIPLO­MAT­IC BODY:–Please ac­cept my sin­cere thanks for your kind con­grat­ula­tions. It af­fords me plea­sure to con­firm the con­fi­dence you so gen­er­ous­ly ex­press in the friend­ly dis­po­si­tion of the Unit­ed States, through me, to­wards the sovereigns and gov­ern­ments you re­spec­tive­ly rep­re­sent. With equal sat­is­fac­tion I ac­cept the as­sur­ance you are pleased to give, that the same dis­po­si­tion is re­cip­ro­cat­ed by your sovereigns, your gov­ern­ments, and your­selves.

Al­low me to ex­press the hope that these friend­ly re­la­tions may re­main undis­turbed, arid al­so my fer­vent wish­es for the health and hap­pi­ness of your­selves per­son­al­ly.

TO SEC­RE­TARY SE­WARD

EX­EC­UTIVE MAN­SION, MARCH 11,1861

HON. SEC­RE­TARY OF STATE. DEAR SIR:–What think you of send­ing min­is­ters at once as fol­lows: Day­ton to Eng­land; Fre­mont to France; Clay to Spain; Cor­win to Mex­ico?

We need to have these points guard­ed as strong­ly and quick­ly as pos­si­ble. This is sug­ges­tion mere­ly, and not dic­ta­tion.

Your obe­di­ent ser­vant, A. LIN­COLN.

TO J. COL­LAMER

EX­EC­UTIVE MAN­SION, MARCH 12, 1861

HON. JA­COB COL­LAMER. MY DEAR SIR:–God help me. It is said I have of­fend­ed you. I hope you will tell me how.

Yours very tru­ly, A. LIN­COLN.

March 14, 1861. DEAR SIR:–I am en­tire­ly un­con­scious that you have any way of­fend­ed me. I cher­ish no sen­ti­ment to­wards you but that of kind­ness and con­fi­dence. Your hum­ble ser­vant, J. COL­LAMER

[Re­turned with in­dorse­ment:]

Very glad to know that I have n’t. A. LIN­COLN.

TO THE POST­MAS­TER-​GEN­ER­AL.

EX­EC­UTIVE MAN­SION, MARCH 13, 1861

HON. P. M. G.

DEAR SIR:–The bear­er of this, Mr. C. T. Hemp­stow, is a Vir­gini­an who wish­es to get, for his son, a small place in your Dept. I think Vir­ginia should be heard, in such cas­es.

LIN­COLN.

NOTE ASK­ING CAB­INET OPIN­IONS ON FORT SUMTER.

EX­EC­UTIVE MAN­SION, MARCH 15, 1861

THE HON­OR­ABLE SEC­RE­TARY OF WAR.

MY DEAR SIR:–As­sum­ing it to be pos­si­ble to now pro­vi­sion Fort Sumter, un­der all the cir­cum­stances is it wise to at­tempt it? Please give me your opin­ion in writ­ing on this ques­tion.

Your obe­di­ent ser­vant,

A. LIN­COLN.

[Same to oth­er mem­bers of the Cab­inet.]

ON ROY­AL AR­BI­TRA­TION OF AMER­ICAN BOUND­ARY LINE

TO THE SEN­ATE OF THE UNIT­ED STATES

The Sen­ate has trans­mit­ted to me a copy of the mes­sage sent by my pre­de­ces­sor to that body on the 21st of Febru­ary last, propos­ing to take its ad­vice on the sub­ject of a propo­si­tion made by the British Gov­ern­ment through its min­is­ter here to re­fer the mat­ter in con­tro­ver­sy be­tween that gov­ern­ment and the Gov­ern­ment of the Unit­ed States to the ar­bitra­ment of the King of Swe­den and Nor­way, the King of the Nether­lands, or the Re­pub­lic of the Swiss Con­fed­er­ation.

In that mes­sage my pre­de­ces­sor stat­ed that he wished to present to the Sen­ate the pre­cise ques­tions fol­low­ing, name­ly:

“Will the Sen­ate ap­prove a treaty re­fer­ring to ei­ther of the sovereign pow­ers above named the dis­pute now ex­ist­ing be­tween the gov­ern­ments of the Unit­ed States and Great Britain con­cern­ing the bound­ary line be­tween Van­cou­ver’s Is­land and the Amer­ican con­ti­nent? In case the ref­er­ee shall find him­self un­able to de­cide where the line is by the de­scrip­tion of it in the treaty of June 15, 1846, shall he be au­tho­rized to es­tab­lish a line ac­cord­ing to the treaty as near­ly as pos­si­ble? Which of the three pow­ers named by Great Britain as an ar­biter shall be cho­sen by the Unit­ed States?”

I find no rea­son to dis­ap­prove of the course of my pre­de­ces­sor in this im­por­tant mat­ter; but, on the con­trary, I not on­ly shall re­ceive the ad­vice of the Sen­ate there­on cheer­ful­ly, but I re­spect­ful­ly ask the Sen­ate for their ad­vice on the three ques­tions be­fore re­cit­ed

ABRA­HAM LIN­COLN. WASH­ING­TON, March 16, 1861

AM­BAS­SADO­RI­AL AP­POINT­MENTS

TO SEC­RE­TARY SE­WARD.

EX­EC­UTIVE MAN­SION, MARCH 18, 1861

HON. SEC­RE­TARY OF STATE.

MY DEAR SIR:–I be­lieve it is a ne­ces­si­ty with us to make the ap­point­ments I men­tioned last night–that is, Charles F. Adams to Eng­land, William L. Day­ton to France, George P. Marsh to Sar­dinia, and An­son Burlingame to Aus­tria. These gen­tle­men all have my high­est es­teem, but no one of them is orig­inal­ly sug­gest­ed by me ex­cept Mr. Day­ton. Mr. Adams I take be­cause you sug­gest­ed him, cou­pled with his em­inent fit­ness for the place. Mr. Marsh and Mr. Burlingame I take be­cause of the in­tense pres­sure of their re­spec­tive States, and their fit­ness al­so.

The ob­jec­tion to this card is that lo­cal­ly they are so hud­dled up– three be­ing in New Eng­land and two from a sin­gle State. I have con­sid­ered this, and will not shrink from the re­spon­si­bil­ity. This, be­ing done, leaves but five full mis­sions undis­posed of–Rome, Chi­na, Brazil, Pe­ru, and Chili. And then what about Carl Schurz; or, in oth­er words, what about our Ger­man friends?

Shall we put the card through, and ar­range the rest af­ter­ward? What say you?

Your obe­di­ent ser­vant,

A. LIN­COLN.

TO G. E. PAT­TEN.

EX­EC­UTIVE MAN­SION, March 19, 1861.

TO MAS­TER GEO. EVANS PAT­TEN.

WHOM IT MAY CON­CERN:–I did see and talk with Mas­ter Geo. Evans Pat­ten last May at Spring­field, Ill.

Re­spect­ful­ly, A. LIN­COLN.

[Writ­ten be­cause of a de­nial that any in­ter­view with young Pat­ten, then a school­boy, had ev­er tak­en place.]

RE­SPONSE TO SEN­ATE IN­QUIRY RE. FORT SUMTER

MES­SAGE TO THE SEN­ATE.

TO THE SEN­ATE OF THE UNIT­ED STATES:–I have re­ceived a copy of the res­olu­tion of the Sen­ate, passed on the 25th in­stant, re­quest­ing me, if in my opin­ion not in­com­pat­ible with the pub­lic in­ter­est, to com­mu­ni­cate to the Sen­ate the despatch­es of Ma­jor Robert An­der­son to the War De­part­ment dur­ing the time he has been in com­mand of Fort Sumter. On ex­am­ina­tion of the cor­re­spon­dence thus called for, I have, with the high­est re­spect for the Sen­ate, come to the con­clu­sion that at the present mo­ment the pub­li­ca­tion of it would be in­ex­pe­di­ent.

ABRA­HAM LIN­COLN WASH­ING­TON, MARCH 16, 1861

PREPA­RA­TION OF FIRST NAVAL AC­TION

TO THE SEC­RE­TARY OF WAR

EX­EC­UTIVE MAN­SION, MARCH 29, 1861

HON­OR­ABLE SEC­RE­TARY OF WAR.

SIR:–I de­sire that an ex­pe­di­tion to move by sea be got ready to sail as ear­ly as the 6th of April next, the whole ac­cord­ing to mem­oran­dum at­tached, and that you co­op­er­ate with the Sec­re­tary of the Navy for that ob­ject.

Your obe­di­ent ser­vant,

A. LIN­COLN.

[In­clo­sure.]

Steam­ers Poc­ahon­tas at Nor­folk, Paunee at Wash­ing­ton, Har­ri­et Lane at New York, to be un­der sail­ing or­ders for sea, with stores, etc., for one month. Three hun­dred men to be kept ready for de­par­ture from on board the re­ceiv­ing-​ships at New York. Two hun­dred men to be ready to leave Gov­er­nor’s Is­land in New York. Sup­plies for twelve months for one hun­dred men to be put in portable shape, ready for in­stant ship­ping. A large steam­er and three tugs con­di­tion­al­ly en­gaged.

TO ______ STU­ART.

WASH­ING­TON, March 30, 1861

DEAR STU­ART:

Cousin Lizzie shows me your let­ter of the 27th. The ques­tion of giv­ing her the Spring­field post-​of­fice trou­bles me. You see I have al­ready ap­point­ed William Jayne a Ter­ri­to­ri­al gov­er­nor and Judge Trum­bull’s broth­er to a land-​of­fice. Will it do for me to go on and jus­ti­fy the dec­la­ra­tion that Trum­bull and I have di­vid­ed out all the of­fices among our rel­atives? Dr. Wal­lace, you know, is needy, and looks to me; and I per­son­al­ly owe him much.

I see by the pa­pers, a vote is to be tak­en as to the post-​of­fice. Could you not set up Lizzie and beat them all? She, be­ing here, need know noth­ing of it, so there­fore there would be no in­del­ica­cy on her part. Yours as ev­er,

TO THE COM­MAN­DANT OF THE NEW YORK NAVY-​YARD.

NAVY DEPT., WASH­ING­TON, April 1, 1861

TO THE COM­MAN­DANT OF THE NAVY-​YARD, Brook­lyn, N. Y.

Fit out the Powhatan to go to sea at the earnest pos­si­ble mo­ment un­der sealed or­ders. Or­ders by a con­fi­den­tial mes­sen­ger go for­ward to-​mor­row.

ABRA­HAM LIN­COLN.

TO LIEU­TENANT D. D. PORTER

EX­EC­UTIVE MAN­SION, April 1, 1861

LIEU­TENANT D. D. PORTER, Unit­ed States Navy.

SIR:–You will pro­ceed to New York, and with the least pos­si­ble de­lay, as­sum­ing com­mand of any naval steam­er avail­able, pro­ceed to Pen­saco­la Har­bor, and at any cost or risk pre­vent any ex­pe­di­tion from the main­land reach­ing Fort Pick­ens or San­ta Rosa Is­land.

You will ex­hib­it this or­der to any naval of­fi­cer at Pen­saco­la, if you deem it nec­es­sary, af­ter you have es­tab­lished your­self with­in the har­bor, and will re­quest co-​op­er­ation by the en­trance of at least one oth­er steam­er.

This or­der, its ob­ject, and your des­ti­na­tion will be com­mu­ni­cat­ed to no per­son what­ev­er un­til you reach the har­bor of Pen­saco­la.

ABRA­HAM LIN­COLN.

Rec­om­mend­ed, WILLIAM H. SE­WARD.

RE­LIEF EX­PE­DI­TION FOR FORT SUMTER

OR­DER TO OF­FI­CERS OF THE ARMY AND NAVY.

WASH­ING­TON, EX­EC­UTIVE MAN­SION, April 1, 1861.

All of­fi­cers of the army and navy to whom this or­der may be ex­hib­it­ed will aid by ev­ery means in their pow­er the ex­pe­di­tion un­der the com­mand of Colonel Har­vey Brown, sup­ply­ing him with men and ma­te­ri­al, and co-​op­er­at­ing with him as he may de­sire.

ABRA­HAM LIN­COLN.

OR­DER TO CAP­TAIN SAMUEL MER­CER. (Con­fi­den­tial.)

WASH­ING­TON CITY, April 1, 1861

SIR:–Cir­cum­stances ren­der it nec­es­sary to place in com­mand of your ship (and for a spe­cial pur­pose) an of­fi­cer who is ful­ly in­formed and in­struct­ed in re­la­tion to the wish­es of the Gov­ern­ment, and you will there­fore con­sid­er your­self de­tached. But in tak­ing this step the Gov­ern­ment does not in the least re­flect up­on your ef­fi­cien­cy or pa­tri­otism; on the con­trary, have the fullest con­fi­dence in your abil­ity to per­form any du­ty re­quired of you. Hop­ing soon to be able to give you a bet­ter com­mand than the one you now en­joy, and trust­ing that you will have full con­fi­dence in the dis­po­si­tion of the Gov­ern­ment to­ward you, I re­main, etc.,

ABRA­HAM LIN­COLN.

SEC­RE­TARY SE­WARD’S BID FOR POW­ER

MEM­ORAN­DUM FROM SEC­RE­TARY SE­WARD, APRIL 1, 1861

Some thoughts for the Pres­ident’s Con­sid­er­ation,

First. We are at the end of a month’s ad­min­is­tra­tion, and yet with­out a pol­icy ei­ther do­mes­tic or for­eign.

Sec­ond. This, how­ev­er, is not cul­pa­ble, and it has even been un­avoid­able. The pres­ence of the Sen­ate, with the need to meet ap­pli­ca­tions for pa­tron­age, have pre­vent­ed at­ten­tion to oth­er and more grave mat­ters.

Third. But fur­ther de­lay to adopt and pros­ecute our poli­cies for both do­mes­tic and for­eign af­fairs would not on­ly bring scan­dal on the ad­min­is­tra­tion, but dan­ger up­on the coun­try.

Fourth. To do this we must dis­miss the ap­pli­cants for of­fice. But how? I sug­gest that we make the lo­cal ap­point­ments forth­with, leav­ing for­eign or gen­er­al ones for ul­te­ri­or and oc­ca­sion­al ac­tion.

Fifth. The pol­icy at home. I am aware that my views are sin­gu­lar, and per­haps not suf­fi­cient­ly ex­plained. My sys­tem is built up­on this idea as a rul­ing one, name­ly, that we must CHANGE THE QUES­TION BE­FORE THE PUB­LIC FROM ONE UP­ON SLAV­ERY, OR ABOUT SLAV­ERY, for a ques­tion up­on UNION OR DIS­UNION: In oth­er words, from what would be re­gard­ed as a par­ty ques­tion, to one of pa­tri­otism or union.

The oc­cu­pa­tion or evac­ua­tion of Fort Sumter, al­though not in fact a slav­ery or a par­ty ques­tion, is so re­gard­ed. Wit­ness the tem­per man­ifest­ed by the Re­pub­li­cans in the free States, and even by the Union men in the South.

I would there­fore ter­mi­nate it as a safe means for chang­ing the is­sue. I deem it for­tu­nate that the last ad­min­is­tra­tion cre­at­ed the ne­ces­si­ty.

For the rest, I would si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly de­fend and re­in­force all the ports in the gulf, and have the navy re­called from for­eign sta­tions to be pre­pared for a block­ade. Put the is­land of Key West un­der mar­tial law.

This will raise dis­tinct­ly the ques­tion of union or dis­union. I would main­tain ev­ery fort and pos­ses­sion in the South.

FOR FOR­EIGN NA­TIONS,

I would de­mand ex­pla­na­tions from Spain and France, cat­egor­ical­ly, at once.

I would seek ex­pla­na­tions from Great Britain and Rus­sia, and send agents in­to Cana­da, Mex­ico, and Cen­tral Amer­ica to rouse a vig­or­ous con­ti­nen­tal spir­it of in­de­pen­dence on this con­ti­nent against Eu­ro­pean in­ter­ven­tion.

And, if sat­is­fac­to­ry ex­pla­na­tions are not re­ceived from Spain and France,

Would con­vene Congress and de­clare war against them.

But what­ev­er pol­icy we adopt, there must be an en­er­get­ic pros­ecu­tion of it.

For this pur­pose it must be some­body’s busi­ness to pur­sue and di­rect it in­ces­sant­ly.

Ei­ther the Pres­ident must do it him­self, and be all the while ac­tive in it, or De­volve it on some mem­ber of his Cab­inet. Once adopt­ed, de­bates on it must end, and all agree and abide.

It is not in my es­pe­cial province; But I nei­ther seek to evade nor as­sume re­spon­si­bil­ity.

RE­PLY TO SEC­RE­TARY SE­WARD’S MEM­ORAN­DUM

EX­EC­UTIVE MAN­SION, APRIL 1, 1861

HON. W. H. SE­WARD.

MY DEAR SIR:–Since part­ing with you I have been con­sid­er­ing your pa­per dat­ed this day, and en­ti­tled “Some Thoughts for the Pres­ident’s Con­sid­er­ation.” The first propo­si­tion in it is, “First, We are at the end of a month’s ad­min­is­tra­tion, and yet with­out a pol­icy ei­ther do­mes­tic or for­eign.”

At the be­gin­ning of that month, in the in­au­gu­ral, I said: “The pow­er con­fid­ed to me will be used to hold, oc­cu­py, and pos­sess the prop­er­ty and places be­long­ing to the Gov­ern­ment, and to Col­lect the du­ties and im­posts.” This had your dis­tinct ap­proval at the time; and, tak­en in con­nec­tion with the or­der I im­me­di­ate­ly gave Gen­er­al Scott, di­rect­ing him to em­ploy ev­ery means in his pow­er to strength­en and hold the forts, com­pris­es the ex­act do­mes­tic pol­icy you now urge, with the sin­gle ex­cep­tion that it does not pro­pose to aban­don Fort Sumter.

Again, I do not per­ceive how the re­in­force­ment of Fort Sumter would be done on a slav­ery or a par­ty is­sue, while that of Fort Pick­ens would be on a more na­tion­al and pa­tri­ot­ic one.

The news re­ceived yes­ter­day in re­gard to St. Domin­go cer­tain­ly brings a new item with­in the range of our for­eign pol­icy; but up to that time we have been prepar­ing cir­cu­lars and in­struc­tions to min­is­ters and the like, all in per­fect har­mo­ny, with­out even a sug­ges­tion that we had no for­eign pol­icy.

Up­on your Clos­ing propo­si­tions–that,

“What­ev­er pol­icy we adopt, there must be an en­er­get­ic pros­ecu­tion of it.

“For this pur­pose it must be some­body’s busi­ness to pur­sue and di­rect it in­ces­sant­ly.

“Ei­ther the Pres­ident must do it him­self, and be all the while ac­tive in it, or,

“De­volve it on some mem­ber of his Cab­inet. Once adopt­ed, de­bates on it must end, and all agree and abide”–

I re­mark that if this must be done, I must do it. When a gen­er­al line of pol­icy is adopt­ed, I ap­pre­hend there is no dan­ger of its be­ing changed with­out good rea­son, or con­tin­uing to be a sub­ject of un­nec­es­sary de­bate; still, up­on points aris­ing in its progress I wish, and sup­pose I am en­ti­tled to have, the ad­vice of all the Cab­inet.

Your obe­di­ent ser­vant,

A. LIN­COLN.

RE­PLY TO A COM­MIT­TEE FROM THE VIR­GINIA CON­VEN­TION, APRIL 13, 1861

HON. WILLIAM BAL­LARD PRE­STON, ALEXAN­DER H. H. STU­ART, GEORGE W. RAN­DOLPH, Esq.

GEN­TLE­MEN:–As a com­mit­tee of the Vir­ginia Con­ven­tion now in Ses­sion, you present me a pream­ble and res­olu­tion in these words:

“Where­as, in the opin­ion of this Con­ven­tion, the un­cer­tain­ty which pre­vails in the pub­lic mind as to the pol­icy which the Fed­er­al Ex­ec­utive in­tends to pur­sue to­ward the se­ced­ed States is ex­treme­ly in­ju­ri­ous to the in­dus­tri­al and com­mer­cial in­ter­ests of the coun­try, tends to keep up an ex­cite­ment which is un­fa­vor­able to the ad­just­ment of pend­ing dif­fi­cul­ties, and threat­ens a dis­tur­bance of the pub­lic peace: there­fore

“Re­solved, that a com­mit­tee of three del­egates be ap­point­ed by this Con­ven­tion to wait up­on the Pres­ident of the Unit­ed States, present to him this pream­ble and res­olu­tion,