enough to hear. Yours as ever,

A. Lincoln.

August 27, 1858. — Second Joint Debate at Freeport, Illinois.

Mr. Lincoln's Opening Speech.

Ladies and Gentlemen : On Saturday last, Judge Douglas and my-
self first met in public discussion. He spoke one hour, I an hour
and a half, and he replied for half an hour. The order is now re-
versed. I am to speak an hour, he an hour and a half, and then I
am to reply for half an hour. I propose to devote myself during
the first hour to the scope of what was brought within the range of
his half-hour speech at Ottawa. Of course there was brought within
the scope of that half -hour's speech something of his own opening
speech. In the course of that opening argument Judge Douglas
proposed to me seven distinct interrogatories. In my speech of an
hour and a half, I attended to some other parts of his speech, and
incidentally, as I thought, answered one of the interrogatories then.
I then distinctly intimated to him that I would answer the rest of
his interrogatories on condition only that he should agree to answer
as many for me. He made no intimation at the time of the proposi-
tion, nor did he in his reply allude at all to that suggestion of mine.
I do him no injustice in saying that he occupied at least half of his
reply in dealing with me as though I had refused to answer his in-
Vol. L— 20.



306 ADDRESS BS AND LETTERS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN

terrogatories. I now propose that I will answer any of the inter-
rogatories, upon condition that he will answer questions from inenot
exceeding the same number. I give him an opportunity to respond.
The judge remains silent. I now say that I will answer his inter-
rogatories, whether he answers mine or not ; and that after I have
done so, I shall propound mine to him.

I have supposed myself, since the organization of the Republican
party at Bloomington, in May, 1856, bound as a party man by the
platforms of the party then and since. If in any interrogatories
which I shall answer I go beyond the scope of what is within these
platforms, it will be perceived that no one is responsible but myself.
Having said this much, I will take up the judge's interrogatories as
I find them printed in the Chicago " Times," and answer them seria-
tim. In order that there may be no mistake about it, I have copied
the interrogatories in writing, and also my answers to them. The
first one of these interrogatories is in these words :

Question 1. " I desire to know whether Lincoln to-day stands as
he did in 1854, in favor of the unconditional repeal of the fugitive-
slave law?"

Answer. I do not now, nor ever did, stand in favor of the uncon-
ditional repeal of the fugitive-slave law.

Q. 2. " I desire him to answer whether he stands pledged to-day
as he did in 1854, against the admission of any more slave States
into the Union, even if the people want them?"

A. I do not now, nor ever did, stand pledged against the admission
of any more slave States into the Union.

Q. 3. " I want to know whether he stands pledged against the ad-
mission of a new State into the Union with such a constitution as
the people of that State may see fit to make ? "

A. I do not stand pledged against the admission of a new State
into the Union with such a constitution as the people of that State
may see fit to make.

Q. 4. " I want to know whether he stands to-day pledged to the
abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia ? "

A. I do not stand to-day pledged to the abolition of slavery in the
District of Columbia.

Q. 5. " I desire him to answer whether he stands pledged to the
prohibition of the slave-trade between the different States?"

A. I do not stand pledged to the prohibition of the slave-trade
between the different States.

Q. 6. " I desire to know whether he stands pledged to prohibit
slavery in all the Territories of the United States, North as well
as South of the Missouri Compromise line?"

A. I am impliedly, if not expressly, pledged to a belief in the
right and duty of Congress to prohibit slavery in all the United
States Territories.

Q. 7. " I desire him to answer whether he is opposed to the
acquisition of any new territory unless slavery is first prohibited
therein ? "

A. I am not generally opposed to honest acquisition of territory ;
and, in any given case, I would or would not oppose such acquisition,



ADDRESSES AND LETTEES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 307

accordingly as I might think such acquisition would or would not
aggravate the slavery question among ourselves.

Now, my friends, it will be perceived upon an examination of these
questions and answers, that so far I have only answered that I
was not pledged to this, that, or the other. The judge has not
framed his interrogatories to ask me anything more than this, and
I have answered in strict accordance with the interrogatories, and
have answered truly that I am not pledged at all upon any of the
points to which I have answered. But I am not disposed to hang
upon the exact form of his interrogatory. I am really disposed to
take up at least some of these questions, and state what I really
think upon them.

As to the first one, in regard to the fugitive-slave law, I have
never hesitated to say, and I do not now hesitate to say, that I think,
under the Constitution of the United States, the people of the
Southern States are entitled to a congressional fugitive-slave law.
Having said that, I have had nothing to say in regard to the existing
fugitive-slave law, further than that I think it should have been
framed so as to be free from some of the objections that pertain to
it, without lessening its efficiency. And inasmuch as we are not
now in an agitation in regard to an alteration or modification of that
law, I would not be the man to introduce it as a new subject of
agitation upon the general question of slavery.

In regard to the other question, of whether I am pledged to the
admission of any more slave States into the Union, I state to you
very frankly that I would be exceedingly sorry ever to be put in a
position of having to pass upon that question. I should be exceed-
ingly glad to know that there would never be another slave State
admitted into the Union ; but I must add, that if slavery shall be
kept out of the Territories during the territorial existence of any
one given Territory, and then the people shall, having a fair chance
and a clear field, when they come to adopt the Constitution, do such
an extraordinary thing as to adopt a slave constitution, uninfluenced
by the actual presence of the institution among them, I see no alter-
native, if we own the country, but to admit them into the Union.

The third interrogatory is answered by the answer to the second,
it being, as I conceive, the same as the second.

The fourth one is in regard to the abolition of slavery in the Dis-
trict of Columbia. In relation to that, I have my mind very dis-
tinctly made up. I should be exceedingly glad to see slavery abol-
ished in the District of Columbia. I believe that Congress possesses
the constitutional power to abolish it. Yet as a member of Con-
gress, I should not with my present views be in favor of endeavor-
ing to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia unless it would
be upon these conditions : First, that the abolition should be grad-
ual ; second, that it should be on a vote of the majority of qualified
voters in the District ; and third, that compensation should be made
to unwilling owners. With these three conditions, I confess I would
be exceedingly glad to see Congress abolish slavery in the District
of Columbia, and, in the language of Henry Clay, " sweep from our
capital that foul blot upon our nation."



308 ADDRESSES AND LETTERS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN

In regard to the fifth interrogatory, I must say here that as to the
question of the abolition of the slave-trade between the different
States, I can truly answer, as I have, that I am pledged to nothing
al >< >ut it. It is a subject to which I have not given that mature consid-
eration that would make me feel authorized to state a position so as
to hold myself entirely bound by it. In other words, that question has
never been prominently enough before me to induce me to investigate
whether we reallv have the constitutional power to do it. I could
investigate it if f had sufficient time to bring myself to a conclusion
upon that subject, but I have not done so, and I say so frankly to
you here and to Judge Douglas. I must sa v, however, that if I should
be of opinion that Congress does possess the constitutional power to
abolish the slave-trade among the different States, I should still not
be in favor of the exercise of that power unless upon some conser-
vative principle as I conceive it, akin to what I have said in relation
to the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia.

My answer as to whether I desire that slavery should be prohibited
in all the Territories of the United States is full and explicit within
itself, and cannot be made clearer by any comments of mine. So I
suppose in regard to the question whether I am opposed to the ac-
quisition of any more territory unless slavery is first prohibited
therein, my answer is such that I could add nothing by way of illus-
tration, or making myself better understood, than the answer which
I have placed in writing.

Now in all this the judge has me, and he has me on the record. I
suppose he had flattered himself that I was really entertaining out-
set of opinions for one place and another set for another place — that
I was afraid to say at one place what I uttered at another. What I
am saying here I suppose I say to a vast audience as strongly tending
to Abolitionism as any audience in the State of Illinois, and I believe
I am saying that which, if it would be offensive to any persons and
render them enemies to myself, would be offensive to persons in this
audience.

I now proceed to propound to the judge the interrogatories so far
as I have framed them. I will bring forward a new instalment when
I get them ready. I will bring them forward now, only reaching to
number four.

The first one is :

Question 1. If the people of Kansas shall, by means entirely un-
objectionable in all other respects, adopt a State constitution, and
ask admission into the Union under it, before they have the requisite
number of inhabitants according to the English bill, — some ninety-
three thousand, — will you vote to admit them?

Q. 2. Can the people of a United States Territory, in any lawful
way, against the wish of any citizen of the United' States, exclude
slavery from its limits prior to the formation of a State constitu-
tion?

Q. 3. If the Supreme Court of the United States shall decide that
States cannot exclude slavery from their limits, are you in favor of
acquiescing in, adopting, and following such decision as a rule of
political action ?



ADDRESSES AND LETTERS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 309

Q. 4. Are you in favor of acquiring additional territory, in disre-
gard of how such acquisition may affect the nation on the slavery
question ?

As introductory to these interrogatories which Judge Douglas
propounded to me at Ottawa, he read a set of resolutions which he
said Judge Trumbull and myself had participated in adopting, in
the first Republican State convention, held at Springfield, in Octo-
ber, 1854. He insisted that I and Judge Trumbull, and perhaps the
entire Republican party, were responsible for the doctrines contained
in the set of resolutions which he read, and I understand that it was
from that set of resolutions that he deduced the interrogatories
which he propounded to me, using these resolutions as a sort of au-
thority for propounding those questions to me. Now I say here to-day
that I do not answer his interrogatories because of their springing
at all from that set of resolutions which he read. I answered them
because Judge Douglas thought fit to ask them. I do not now, nor
ever did, recognize any responsibility upon myself in that set of
resolutions. When I replied to him on that occasion, I assured him
that I never had anything to do with them. I repeat here to-day,
that I never in any possible form had anything to do with that set
of resolutions. It turns out, I believe, that those resolutions were
never passed at any convention held in Springfield. It turns out that
they were never passed at any convention or any public meeting
that I had any part in. I believe it turns out, in addition to all this,
that there was not, in the fall of 1854, any convention holding a
session in Springfield calling itself a Republican State convention;
yet it is true there was a convention, or assemblage of men calling
themselves a convention, at Springfield, that did pass some resolu-
tions. But so little did I really know of the proceedings of that
convention, or what set of resolutions they had passed, though hav-
ing a general knowledge that there had been such an assemblage
of men there, that when Judge Douglas read the resolutions, I really
did not know but that they had been the resolutions passed then and
there. I did not question that they were the resolutions adopted.
For I could not bring myself to suppose that Judge Douglas could
say what he did upon this subject without knowing that it was true.
I contented myself, on that occasion, with denying, as I truly could,
all connection with them, not denying or affirming whether they
were passed at Springfield. Now it turns out that he had got hold
of some resolutions passed at some convention or public meeting in
Kane County. I wish to say here, that I don't conceive that in any
fair and just mind this discovery relieves me at all. I had just as
much to do with the convention in Kane County as that at Spring-
field. I am just as much responsible for the resolutions at Kane
County as those at Springfield, the amount of the responsibility
being exactly nothing in either case ; no more than there would be
in regard to a set of resolutions passed in the moon.

I allude to this extraordinary matter in this canvass for some
further purpose than anything yet advanced. Judge Douglas did
not make his statement upon that occasion as matters that he believed
to be true, but he stated them roundly as being true, in such form



310 ADDRESSES AND LETTERS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN

as to pledge his veracity for their truth. When the whole matter
turns out as it does, and when we consider who Judge Douglas is, —
that he is a distinguished senator of tin- United States ; that he has
served nearly twelve years as such; that his character is not at all
limited as an ordinary senator of the United States, but that his name
has become of world-wide renown, — it is most extraordinary that he
should so far forget all the suggestions of justice to an adversary,
or of prudence to himself, as to venture upon the assertion of that
which the slightest investigation would have shown him to be wholly
false. I can only account for his having done so upon the supposi-
tion that that evil genius which has attended him through his life,
giving to him an apparent astonishing prosperity, such as to lead very
many good men to doubt there being any advantage in virtue over
vice — I say I can only account for it on the supposition that that
evil genius has at last made up its mind to forsake him.

And I may add that another extraordinary feature of the judge's
conduct in this canvass — made more extraordinary by this incident
— is, that he is in the habit, in almost all the speeches he makes, of
charging falsehood upon his adversaries, myself and others. I now
ask whether he is able to find in anything that Judge Trumbull,
for instance, has said, or in anything that I nave said, a justification
at all compared with what we have, in this instance, for that sort of
vulgarity.

I have been in the habit of charging as a matter of belief on my
part, that, in the introduction of the Nebraska bill into Congress,
there was a conspiracy to make slavery perpetual and national. I
have arranged from time to time the evidence which establishes and
proves the truth of this charge. I recurred to this charge at Ottawa,
I shall not now have time to dwell upon it at very great length ; but
inasmuch as Judge Douglas in his reply of half an hour made some
points upon me in relation to it, I propose noticing a few of them.

The judge insists that, in the first speech I made, in which I very
distinctly made that charge, he thought for a good while I was in
fun — that I was playful — that I was not sincere about it — and
that he only grew angry and somewhat excited when he found that
I insisted upon it as a matter of earnestness. He says he character-
ized it as a falsehood as far as I implicated his moral character in
that transaction. Well, I did not know, till he presented that view,
that I had implicated his moral character. He is very much in the
habit, when he argues me up into a position I never thought of
occupying, of very cozily saying he has no doubt Lincoln is " con-
scientious" in saying so. He should remember that I did not know
but what he was altogether "conscientious" in that matter. I can
conceive it possible for men to conspire to do a good thing, and 1
really find nothing in Judge Douglas's course of arguments thai is
contrary to or inconsistent with his belief of a conspiracy to nation-
alize and spread slavery as being a good and blessed thing, and BO
I hope he will understand that I do not at all question but that in
all this matter he is entirely " conscientious."

But to draw your attention to one of the points I made in this
case, beginning'at the beginning. When the Nebraska bill was in-



ADDRESSES AND LETTERS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 311

troduced, or a short time afterward, by an amendment, I believe, it
was provided that it must be considered " the true intent and mean-
ing of this act not to legislate slavery into any State or Territory,
or to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people thereof perfectly
free to form and regulate their own domestic institutions in their
own way, subject only to the Constitution of the United States."
I have called his attention to the fact that when he and some others
began arguing that they were giving an increased degree of liberty
to the people in the Territories over and above what they formerly
had on the question of slavery, a question was raised whether the
law was enacted to give such unconditional liberty to the people ;
and to test the sincerity of this mode of argument, Mr. Chase,
of Ohio, introduced an amendment, in which he made the law — if
the amendment were adopted — expressly declare that the people of
the Territory should have the power to exclude slavery if they saw
fit. I have asked attention also to the fact that Judge Douglas, and
those who acted with him, voted that amendment down, notwith-
standing it expressed exactly the thing they said was the true intent
and meaning of the law. I have called attention to the fact that in
subsequent times a decision of the Supreme Court has been made
in which it has been declared that a Territorial Legislature has no
constitutional right to exclude slavery. And I have argued and
said that for men who did intend that the people of the Territory
should have the right to exclude slavery absolutely and uncondi-
tionally, the voting down of Chase's amendment is wholly inexplic-
able. It is a puzzle — a riddle. But I have said that with men who
did look forward to such a decision, or who had it in contemplation
that such a decision of the Supreme Court would or might be made,
the voting down of that amendment would be perfectly rational and
intelligible. It would keep Congress from coming in collision with
the decision when it was made. Anybody can conceive that if there
was an intention or expectation that such a decision was to follow,
it would not be a very desirable party attitude to get into for the
Supreme Court — all or nearly all its members belonging to the same
party — to decide one way, when the party in Congress had decided
the other way. Hence it would be very rational for men expecting
such a decision to keep the niche in that law clear for it. After
pointing this out, I tell Judge Douglas that it looks to me as though
here was the reason why Chase's amendment was voted down. I
tell him that as he did it, and knows why he did it, if it was done
for a reason different from this, he knows what that reason was,
and can tell us what it was. I tell him, also, it will be vastly more
satisfactory to the country for him to give some other plausible, in-
telligible reason why it was voted down than to stand upon his dig-
nity and call people liars. Well, on Saturday he did make his
answer, and what do you think it was ? He says if I had only taken
upon myself to tell the whole truth about that amendment of
Chase's, no explanation would have been necessary on his part — or
words to that effect. Now I say here that I am quite unconscious
of having suppressed anything material to the case, and I am very
frank to admit if there is any sound reason other than that which



312 ADDRESSES AND LETTERS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN

appeared t<> me material, it is quite fair for him t<> present it. What
reason dues he propose 1 That when Chase came forward with his
amendment expressly authorizing the people to exclude slavery from
the limits of every Territory, General Cass proposed to Chase, if lie
(Chase) would add to his amendment that the people should have
the power to introduce or exclude, they would let it go.

This is substantially all of his reply. And because Chase would
not do that they voted his amendment down. Well, it turns out. I
believe, upon examination, that General Cass took some part in the
little running debate upon that amendment, and then ran away and
did not vote on it at all. Is not that the fact? So confident, as I
think, was General Cass that there was a snake somewhere about, he
chose to run away from the whole thing. This is an inference 1
draw from the fact that though he took part in the debate his name
does not appear in the ayes and noes. But does Judjre Douglas's
reply amount to a satisfactory answer ? [Cries of " Yes, " Yes," and
" No," " No."] There is some little difference of opinion here. But
I ask attention to a few more views bearing on the question of
whether it amounts to a satisfactory answer. The men who were de-
termined that that amendment should not get into the bill, and spoil
the place where the Dred Scott decision was to come in, sought an
excuse to get rid of it somewhere. One of these ways — one of these
excuses — was to ask Chase to add to his proposed amendment a
provision that the people might introduce slavery if they wanted to.
They very well knew Chase would do no such thing — that Mr.
Chase was one of the men differing from them on the broad prin-
ciple of his insisting that freedom was better than slavery — a man
who would not consent to enact a law penned with his own hand, by
which he was made to recognize slavery on the one hand and liberty
on the other as precisely equal ; and when they insisted on his doing
this, they veiy well knew they iusisted on that which he would not
for a moment think of doing, aud that they were only bluffing him.
I believe — I have not, since he made his answer, had a chance to ex-
amine the journals or " Congressional Globe," and therefore speak
from memory — I believe the state of the bill at that time, according
to parliamentary rules, was such that no member could propose an
additional amendment to Chase's amendment. I rather think this is
the truth — the judge shakes his head. Very well. I would like t<>
know then, if they wanted Chase's amendment fixed over, why some-
body else could not have offered to do it ? If they wanted it amended,
why did they not offer the amendment? Why did they stand there
taunting and quibbling at Chase? Why did they not put it in
themselves? But to put it on the other ground : suppose that there
was such an amendment offered, and Chase's was an amendment to
an amendment; until one is disposed of by parliamentary law, you
cannot pile another on. Then all these gentlemen had to do was to
vote Chase's on. and then, in the amended form in which the whole
stood, add their own amendment to it if they wanted to put it in
that shape. This was all they were obliged to do, and the ayes and
noes show that there were thirty-six who voted it down, against ten
who voted in favor of it. The thirty-six held entire sway and con-



ADDRESSES AND LETTERS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 313