would die. But when you come to legislative control, there is some-
thing more to be attended to. I have no doubt, myself, that if the
Territories should undertake to control slave property as other prop-
erty — 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 Su-
preme 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 be-
ADDRESSES AND LETTERS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 553
cause 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 that a negro cannot be made free by territorial
legislation.
What is that 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 fore-
gone conclusion by that court.
Now, as to this indirect mode by " unfriendly legislation," all law-
yers 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 that 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 Con-
stitution 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 slaveholder 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
554 ADDRESSES AND LETTERS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN
cannot therefore be that way — " that would spoil my popular sov-
ereignty, 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 dec-
larations of negatives; that the Constitution does not affirm any-
thing as expounded by the Dred Scott decision, but it only declares
a want of power, a total absence of power, in reference to the Ter-
ritories. It seems to be his purpose to make the whole of that deci-
sion 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 de-
clared 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 into that instrument that it cannot be de-
tached without breaking the Constitution itself, — in a word, it is a
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 not-
withstanding. Then I say that to destroy a thing which is distinctly
affirmed and supported by the supreme law of the land, even bj r 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 State constitu-
tions 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 affir-
mance 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 Doug-
las'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.
ADDEESSES AND LETTERS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 555
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 pop-
ular 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, with-
out 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 as-
sert, 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 posi-
tive 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 that 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 pro-
556 ADDRESSES AND LETTERS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN
position 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 channels. They made no provision that it
should be abolished in twenty years ; I do not doubt that they ex-
pected 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 ; that 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 it is a mere matter of policy ; that 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 gibes and sneers that are so readily thrown out in place
of argument where no argument 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 did 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 sovereignty " man in Illinois who did not
ADDRESSES AND LETTERS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 557
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 chang-
ing 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 na-
tion 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 everywhere as with the brute. If public senti-
ment 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 con-
stantly being done by the teachers of this insidious popular sover-
eignty. 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 re-
vived 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 preeminent degree these popu-
lar 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 Republi-
cans, 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.
558 ADDRESSES AND LETTERS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN
September 17, 1859. — Speech at Cincinnati, Ohio.
My FeUow-citieens 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 ha\ •<â–
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 understaud that you have had recently with you my very dis-
tinguished friend, Judge Douglas, of Illinois, and I understand,
without having had an opportunity (not greatly sought, to be sun-)
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 Doug-
las 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 it would cease to
be divided ; that it would become all one thing or all the other; that
either the opposition of slavery will 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 opiuion 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 de-
nounced them ; that he tried to point out that there was something
couched in this opinion which led to the making of an entire uni-
formity of the local institutions of the various States of the Union, in
utter disregard of the different States, which iu their nature would
seem to require a variety of institutions, and a variety of laws con-
forming 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 be-
lieve, 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
ADDRESSES AND LETTERS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 559
ascribe these inferences to me, as my purpose, he was entirely mis-
taken ; 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 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, nor 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 de-
clared 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 acciden-
tally 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, and 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 propose 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
560 ADDRESSES AND LETTERS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN
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