tion, the specie circular, and the subtreasury, all united as a band of
brothers when the peace, harmony, or integrity of the Union was im-
periled. It was so in 1850, when Abolitionism had even so far di-
vided this country, North and South, as to endanger the peace of the
Union. Whigs and Democrats united in establishing the compromise
measures of that year, and restoring tranquillity and good feeling.
These measures passed on the joint action of the two parties. They
rested on the great principle that the people of each State and each
Territory should be left perfectly free to form and regulate their do-
mestic institutions to suit themselves. You Whigs and we Democrats
justified them in that principle. In 1854, when it became necessary
to organize the Territories of Kansas and Nebraska, I brought for-
ward the bill on the same principle. In the Kansas-Nebraska bill
you find it declared to be the true intent and meaning of the act
not to legislate slavery into any State or Territory, nor to exclude
it therefrom, but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form
and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way.
I stand on that same platform in 1858 that I did in 1850, 1854,
and 1856. The Washington " Union," pretending to be the organ
of the administration, in the number of the 5th of this month,
devotes three columns and a half to establish these propositions :
first, that Douglas in his Freeport speech held the same doctrine
that he did in his Nebraska bill in 1854 ; second, that in 1854 Doug-
las justified the Nebraska bill upon the ground that it was based
upon the same principle as Clay's compromise measures of 1850.
The "Union" thus proved that Douglas was the same in 1858 that
he was in 1856, 1854, and 1850, and consequently argued that he was
never a Democrat. Is it not funny that I was never a Democrat!
There is no pretense that I have changed a hair's-breadth. The
" Union " proves by my speeches that I explained the compromise
measures of 1850 just as I do now, and that I explained the Kansas
and Nebraska bill in 1854 just as I did in my Freeport speech, and
494 ADDRESSES AND LETTEKS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN
yet says that I am not a Democrat, and cannot be trusted, because
I have not changed during the whole of that time. It has occurred
to me that in 1854 the author of the Kansas and Nebraska bill was
considered a pretty good Democrat. It has occurred to me that in
1856, when I was exerting every nerve and every energy for James
Buchanan, standing on the same platform then that I do now, that I
was a pretty good Democrat. They now tell me that I am not a
Democrat, because I assert that the people of a Territory, as well as
those of a State, have the right to decide for themselves whether sla-
very can or cannot exist in such Territory. Let me read what James
Buchanan said on that point when he accepted the Democratic nom-
ination for the presidency in 1856. In his letter of acceptance, he
used the foDowing language :
The recent legislation of Congress respecting domestic slavery, derived
as it has been from the original and pure fountain of legitimate political
power, the will of the majority, promises ere long to allay the dangerous
excitement. This legislation is founded upon principles as ancient as
free government itself, and in accordance with them has simply declared
that the people of a Territory, like those of a State, shall decide for them-
selves whether slavery shall or shall not exist within their limits.
Dr. Hope will there find my auswer to the question he propounded
to me before I commenced speaking. Of course no man will consider
it an answer, who is outside of the Democratic organization, bolts
Democratic nominations, and indirectly aids to put Abolitionists into
power over Democrats. But whether Dr. Hope considers it an answer
or not, every fair-minded man will see that James Buchanan has an-
swered the question, and has asserted that the people of a Territory,
Like those of a State, shall decide for themselves whether slavery shall
or shall not exist within their limits. I auswer specifically, if you want
a further answer, and say that while under the decision of the Supreme
Court, as recorded in the opinion of Chief Justice Taney, slaves are
property like all other property, and can be carried into any Terri-
tory of the United States the same as any other description of prop-
erty, yet when you get them there they are subject to the local law
of the Territory just like all other property. You will find in a re-
cent speech delivered by that able and eloquent statesman, Hon.
Jefferson Davis, at Bangor, Maine, that he took the same view of
this subject that I did in my Freeport speech. He there said:
If the inhabitants of any Territory should refuse to enact such laws and
police regulations as would give secmity to their property or to his, it would
be rendered more or less valueless in proportion to the difficulties of holding
it without such protection. In the case of property in the labor of man, or
what is usually called slave property, the insecurity would be so great lliat
the owner could not ordinarily retain it. Therefore, though the right would
remain, the remedy being withheld, it would follow that the owner would
be practically debarred, by the ch'curastances of the case, from taking slave
property into a Territory where the sense of the inhabitants was opposed to
its introduction. So much for the oft-repeated fallacy of forcing slavery
upon any community.
You will also find that the distinguished Speaker of the present
House of Representatives, Hon. James L. Orr, construed the Kansas
ADDRESSES AND LETTERS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 495
and Nebraska bill in this same way in 1856, and also that great intel-
lect of the South, Alexander H. Stephens, put the same construction
upon it in Congress that I did in my Freeport speech. The whole
South is rallying to the support of the doctrine that if the people
of a Territory want slavery they have a right to have it, and if they
do not want it that no power on earth can force it upon them. I
hold that there is no principle on earth more sacred to all the friends
of freedom than that which says that no institution, no law, no con-
stitution, should be forced on an unwilling people contrary to their
wishes; and I assert that the Kansas and Nebraska bill contains that
principle. It is the great principle contained in that bill. It is the
principle on which James Buchanan was made President. Without
that principle he never would have been made President of the
United States. I will never violate or abandon that doctrine, if I
have to stand alone. I have resisted the blandishments and threats
of power on the one side, and seduction on the other, and have stood
immovably for that principle, fighting for it when assailed by Nor-
thern mobs, or threatened by Southern hostility. I have defended it
against the North and the South, and I will defend it against who-
ever assails it, and I will follow it wherever its logical conclusions
lead me. I say to you that there is but one hope, one safety for this
country, and that is to stand immovably by that principle which de-
clares the right of each State and each Territory to decide these ques-
tions for themselves. This government was founded on that principle,
and must be administered in the same sense in which it was founded.
But the Abolition party really think that under the Declaration
of Independence the negro is equal to the white man, and that negro
equality is an iualienable right conferred by the Almighty, and hence
that all human laws in violation of it are null and void. With such
men it is no use for me to argue. I hold that the signers of the
Declaration of Independence had no reference to negroes at all when
they declared all men to be created equal. They did not mean negroes,
nor the savage Indians, nor the Feejee Islanders, nor any other barbar-
ous race. They were speaking of white men. They alluded to men of
European birth and European descent — to white men, and to none
others, when they declared that doctrine. I hold that this govern-
ment was established on the white basis. It was established by white
men, for the benefit of white men and their posterity forever, and
should be administered by white men, and none others. But it does
not follow, by any means, that merely because the negro is not a
citizen, and merely because he is not our equal, that therefore he
should be a slave. On the contrary, it does follow that we ought
to extend to the negro race, and to all other dependent races, all the
rights, all the privileges, and all the immunities which they can ex-
ercise consistently with the safety of society. Humanity requires
that we should give them all those privileges; Christianity com-
mands that we should extend those privileges to them. The ques-
tion then arises, What are those privileges, and what is the nature
and extent of them? My answer is that that is a question which
each State must answer for itself. We in Illinois have decided it for
ourselves. We tried slavery, kept it up for twelve years, and find-
496 ADDRESSES AND LETTERS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN
ing that it was not profitable, we abolished it for that reason, and
became a free State. We adopted in its stead the policy that a negro
in this State shall not be a slave and shall not be a citizen. We have
a right to adopt that policy. For my part, I think it is a wise aud
sound policy for ns. You in Missouri must judge for yourselves
whether it is a wise policy for you. If you choose to follow our
example, very good; if you reject it, still well; it is your business,
not ours. So with Kentucky. Let Kentucky adopt a policy to suit
herself. If we do not like it, we will keep away from it; and if she
does not like ours, let her stay at home, mind her own business, and
let us alone. If the people of all the States will act on that great
principle, and each State mind its own business, attend to its own
affairs, take care of its own negroes, and not meddle with its neigh-
bors, then there will be peace between the North and the South, the
East and the West, throughout the whole Union. Why can we not
thus have peace ? Why should we thus allow a sectional party to
agitate this country, to array the North against the South, and con-
vert us into enemies instead of friends, merely that a few ambitious
men may i*ide into power on a sectional hobby? How long is it
since these ambitious Northern men wished for a sectional organ-
ization? Did any one of them dream of a sectional party as long
as the North was the weaker section and the South the stronger?
Then all were opposed to sectional parties. But the moment the
North obtained the majority in the House and Senate by the admis-
sion of California, and could elect a President without the aid of
Southern votes, that moment ambitious Northern men formed a
scheme to excite the North against the South, and make the people
be governed in their votes by geographical lines, thinking that the
North, being the stronger section, would outvote the South, and con-
sequently they, the leaders, would ride into office on a sectional
hobby. I am told that my hour is out. It was very short.
Mr. Lincoln's Reply in the Alton Joint Debate.
Ladies and Gentlemen : I have been somewhat, in my own mind,
complimented by a large portion of Judge Douglas's speech — I
mean that portion which he devotes to the controversy between him-
self and the present administration. This is the seventh time Judge
Douglas and myself have met in these joint discussions, and he has
been gradually improving in regard to his war with the administra-
tion. At Quincy, day before yesterday, he was a little more severe
upon the administration than I had heard him upon any occasion,
and I took pains to compliment him for it. I then told him to
"give it to them with all the power he had"; and as some of them
were present, I told them I would be very much obliged if they
would give it to him in about the same way. I take it that he has
now vastly improved upon the attack he made then upon the adminis-
tration. 1 flatter myself he has really taken my advice on this subject.
All I can say now is to re-commend' to him and to them what I then
commended — to prosecute the war against one another in the most
vigorous manner. I say to them again, " Go it, husband ; go it, bear ! "
ADDRESSES AND LETTERS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 497
There is one other thing I will mention before I leave this branch
of the discussion — although I do not consider it much of my busi-
ness, anyway. I refer to that part of the judge's remarks where he
undertakes to involve Mr. Buchanan in an inconsistency. He reads
something from Mr. Buchanan, from which he undertakes to involve
him in an inconsistency; and he gets something of a cheer for
having done so. I would only remind the judge that while he is
very valiantly fighting for the Nebraska bill and the repeal of the
Missouri Compromise, it has been but a little while since he was the
valiant advocate of the Missouri Compromise. I want to know if
Buchanan has not as much right to be inconsistent as Douglas has?
Has Douglas the exclusive right in this country of being on all
sides of all questions? Is nobody allowed that high privilege but
himself? Is he to have an entire monopoly on that subject?
So far as Judge Douglas addressed his speech to me, or so far as
it was about me, it is my business to pay some attention to it. I
have heard the judge state two or three times what he has stated
to-day — that in a speech which I made at Springfield, Illinois, I
had in a very especial manner complained that the Supreme Court
in the Dred Scott case had decided that a negro could never be
a citizen of the United States. I have omitted, by some accident,
heretofore to analyze this statement, and it is required of me to
notice it now. In point of fact it is untrue. I never have com-
plained especially of the Dred Scott decision because it held that a
negro could not be a citizen, and the judge is always wrong when
he says I ever did so complain of it. I have the speech here, and
I will thank him or any of his friends to show where I said that a
negro should be a citizen, and complained especially of the Dred
Scott decision because it declared he could not be one. I have done
no such thing, and Judge Douglas so persistently insisting that I
have done so has strongly impressed me with the belief of a prede-
termination on his part to misrepresent me. He could not get his
foundation for insisting that I was in favor of this negro equality
anywhere else as well as he could by assuming that untrue proposi-
tion. Let me tell this audience what is true in regard to that matter;
and the means by which they may correct me if I do not tell them
truly is by a recurrence to the speech itself. I spoke of the Dred
Scott decision in my Springfield speech, and I was then endeavoring
to prove that the Dred Scott decision was a portion of a system or
scheme to make slavery national in this country. I pointed out
what things had been decided by the court. I mentioned as a fact
that they had decided that a negro could not be a citizen — that
they had done so, as I supposed, to deprive the negro, under all cir-
cumstances, of the remotest possibility of ever becoming a citizen
and claiming the rights of a citizen of the United States under a
certain clause of the Constitution. I stated that, without making
any complaint of it at all. I then went on and stated the other
points decided in the case, — namely, that the bringing of a negro
into the State of Illinois, and holding him in slavery for two years
here, was a matter in regard to which they woidd not decide whether
it would make him free or not ; that they decided the further point
Vol. I.— 32.
498 ADDRESSES AND LETTERS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN
that taking him into a United States Territory where slavery was
prohibited by act of Congress, did not make him free, beeause that
act of Congress, as they held, was unconstitutional. I mentioned
these three things as making up the points deeided in that ease. I
mentioned them in a lump taken in connection with the introduction
of the Nebraska bill, and the amendment of Chase, offered at the
time, declaratory of the right of the people of the Territories to
exclude shivery, which was voted down by the friends of the bill. I
mentioned all these things together, as evidence tending to prove a
combination and conspiracy to make the institution of slavery na-
tional. In that connection and in that way I mentioned the decision
on the point that a negro could not be a citizen, and in no other
connection.
Out of this, Judge Douglas builds up his beautiful fabrication —
of my purpose to introduce a perfect social and political equality
between the white and the black races. His assertion that I made
an " especial objection " (that is his exact language) to the decision
on this account, is untrue in point of fact.
Now, while I am upon this subject, and as Henry Clay has been
alluded to, I desire to place myself, in connection with Mr. Clay, as
nearly right before this people as may be. I am quite aware what
the judge's object is here by all these allusions. He knows that we
are before an audience having strong sympathies southward by re-
lationship, place of birth, and so on. He desires to place me in an
extremely Abolition attitude. He read upon a former occasion, and
alludes without reading to-day, to a portion of a speech which I de-
livered in Chicago. In his quotations from that speech, as he has
made them upon former occasions, the extracts were taken in such
a way as, I suppose, brings them within the definition of what is
called garbling — taking portions of a speech which, when taken by
themselves, do not present the entire sense of the speaker as ex-
pressed at the time. I propose, therefore, out of that same speech, to
show how one portion of it which he skipped over (taking an extract
before and an extract after) will give a different idea, and the true
idea I intended to convey. It will take me some little time to read
it, but I believe I will occupy the time that way.
You have heard him frequently allude to my controversy with
him in regard to the Declaration of Independence. I confess that I
have had a struggle with Judge Douglas on that matter, and I will
try briefly to place myself right in regard to it on this occasion. I
said — aud it is between the extracts Judge Douglas has taken from
this speech, and put in his published speeches :
It may be argued that there are certain conditions that make necessities
and impose them upon us, and to the extent that a necessity is imposed
upon a man he must submit to it. I think that was the condition in which
we found ourselves when we established this government. We had slaves
among us ; we could not get our Constitution unless we permitted them to
remain in slavery ; we could not secure the good we did secure if we grasped
for more : and having by necessity submitted to that much, it does not de-
stroy the principle that is the charter of our liberties. Let that charter
remain as our standard.
ADDKESSES AND LETTEKS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN* 499
Now I have upon all occasions declared as strongly as Judge
Douglas against the disposition to interfere with the existing insti-
tution of slavery. You hear me read it from the same speech from
which he takes garbled extracts for the purpose of proving upon me
a disposition to interfere with the institution of slavery, and estab-
lish a perfect social and political equality between negroes and white
people.
Allow me, while upon this subject, briefly to present one other ex-
tract from a speech of mine, made more than a year ago, at Spring-
field, in discussing this very same question, soon after Judge Douglas
took his ground that negroes were not included in the Declaration
of Independence :
I think the authors of that notable instrument intended to include all
men, but they did not intend to declare all men equal in all respects. They
did not mean to say that all men were equal in color, size, intellect, moral
development, or social capacity. They defined with tolerable distinctness
in what respects they did consider all men created equal — equal in certain in-
alienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
This they said, and this they meant. They did not mean to assert the
obvious untruth, that all were then actually enjoying that equality, nor yet
that they were about to confer it immediately upon them. In fact, they had
no power to confer such a boon. They meant simply to declare the right,
so that the enforcement of it might follow as fast as circumstances should
permit.
They meant to set up a standard maxim for free society which should be
familiar to all and revered by all — constantly looked to, constantly labored
for, and even, though never perfectly attained, constantly approximated ;
and thereby constantly spreading and deepening its influence and augment-
ing the happiness and value of life to all people, of all colors, everywhere.
There, again, are the sentiments I have expressed in regard to the
Declaration of Independence upon a former occasion — sentiments
which have been put in print and read wherever anybody cared to
know what so humble an individual as myself chose to say in regard
to it.
At Galesburg the other day, I said, in answer to Judge Douglas,
that three years ago there never had been a man, so far as I knew
or believed, in the whole world, who had said that the Declaration of
Independence did not include negroes in the term "all men." I re-
assert it to-day. I assert that Judge Douglas and all his friends
may search the whole records of the country, and it will be a matter
of great astonishment to me if they shall be able to find that one
human being three years ago had ever uttered the astounding sen-
timent that the term "all men" in the Declaration did not include
the negro. Do not let me be misunderstood. I know that more than
three years ago there were men who, finding this assertion constantly
in the way of their schemes to bring about the ascendancy and per-
petuation of slavery, denied the truth of it. I know that Mr. Cal-
houn and all the politicians of his school denied the truth of the
Declaration. I know that it ran along in the mouth of some South-
ern men for a period of years, ending at last in that shameful though
rather forcible declaration of Pettit of Indiana, upon the floor of the
500 ADDRESSES AND LETTERS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN
United States Senate, that the Declaration of Independence was in
that respect "a self-evident lie," rather than a self-evident truth.
But I say, with a perfect knowledge of all this hawking at the Dec-
laration without directly attacking it, that three years ago there
never had lived a man who had ventured to assail it in the sneaking
way of pretending to believe it and then asserting it did not include
the negro. I believe the first man who ever said it was Chief Jus-
tice Taney in the Dred Scott ease, and the next to him was our friend,
Stephen A. Douglas. And now it has become the catchword of
the entire party. I would like to call upon his friends everywhere
to consider how they have come in so short a time to view this mat-
ter in a way so entirely different from their former belief; to ask
whether they are not being borne along by an irresistible current —
whither, they know not.
In answer to my proposition at Galesburg last week, I see that
some man in Chicago has got up a letter addressed to the Chicago
"Times," to show, as he professes, that somebody had said so before;
and he signs himself "An Old-Line Whig," if I remember correctly.
In the first place I would say he was not an old-line Whig. I am some-
what acquainted with old-line Whigs. I was with the old-line Whigs
from the origin to the end of that party; I became pretty well ac-
quainted with them, and I know they always had some sense, what-
ever else you could ascribe to them. I know there never was one who
had not more sense than to try to show by the evidence he produces
that some man had, prior to the time I named, said that negroes were
not included in the term " all men" in the Declaration of Indepen-
dence. What is the evidence he produces'? I will bring forward his
evidence, and let you see what he offers by way of showing that some-
body more thau three years ago had said negroes were not included
in the Declaration. He brings forward part of a speech from