UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY




LIBRARY

OF THK

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA.



Class



"(Rational Mtion



The Writings of

Abraham Lincoln



Edited by

Arthur Brooks Lapsley



With an Introduction by

Theodore Roosevelt



Together with

The Essay on Lincoln, by Carl Schurz

The Address on Lincoln, by Joseph H. Choate

and The Life of Lincoln, by Noah Brooks



Volume Three
The Lincoln-Douglas Debates I

o



The Lamb Publishing Company

New York



Political Debates

between

Abraham Lincoln

and

Stephen A. Douglas

In the Senatorial Campaign of 1858 in Illinois;

including the preceding speeches of each

at Chicago, Springfield, etc.



Part I



226467



CONTENTS



PAGB



SPEECH OF LINCOLN, AT SPRINGFIELD, JUNE 17, 1858 . i

AT CHICAGO, JULY 10, 1858 . . 38

" AT SPRINGFIELD, JULY 17, 1858 . 150

SPEECH OP DOUGLAS, AT CHICAGO, JULY 9, 1858 . . 14

AT BLOOMINGTON, JULY 16, 1858 . 67

AT SPRINGFIELD, JULY 17, 1858 . in

CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS,

PRELIMINARY TO THE DEBATES .... 178

FIRST JOINT DEBATE, AT OTTAWA, AUGUST 21, 1858 . 185

DOUGLAS S OPENING SPEECH .... 185

LINCOLN S REPLY 203

DOUGLAS S REJOINDER 232

SECOND JOINT DEBATE, AT FREEPORT, AUGUST 27, 1858 . 243

LINCOLN S OPENING SPEECH .... 243

DOUGLAS S REPLY 260

LINCOLN S REJOINDER 294

THIRD JOINT DEBATE, AT JONESBORO, SEPTEMBER 15,

1858 306

DOUGLAS S SPEECH 306

LINCOLN S REPLY 330

DOUGLAS S REJOINDER 363



POLITICAL DEBATES



BETWEEN



LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS



SPEECH OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN,

AT SPRINGFIELD, JUNE 17, 1858.

[The following speech was delivered at Springfield,
111., at the close of the Republican State Convention
held at that time and place, and by which Conven
tion Mr. LINCOLN had been named as their candidate
for United States Senator. Mr. DOUGLAS was not
present.]

MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN OF THE CON
VENTION: If we could first know where we are, and
whither we are tending, we could better judge what
to do, and how to do it. 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 raided against itself cannot



2 Lincohl ar^d Douglas Debates

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.

Have we no tendency to the latter condition?

Let any one who doubts, carefully contemplate
that now almost complete legal combination piece
of machinery, so to speak compounded of the
Nebraska doctrine and the Dred Scott decision.
Let him consider, not only what work the machinery
is adapted to do, and how well adapted, but also let
him study the history of its construction, and trace,
if he can, or rather fail, if he can, to trace the evi
dences of design, and concert of action, among its
chief architects, from the beginning.

The new year of 1854 found slavery excluded
from more than half the States by State Constitu
tions, and from most of the National territory by
Congressional prohibition. Four days later, com
menced the struggle which ended in repealing that
Congressional prohibition. This opened all the
National territory to slavery, and was the first point
gained.

But, so far, Congress only had acted, and an in
dorsement by the people, real or apparent, was in-



Abraham Lincoln 3

dispensable to save the point already gained, and
give chance for more.

This necessity had not been overlooked, but had
been provided for, as well as might be, in the notable
argument of "squatter sovereignty," otherwise called
"sacred right of self-government," which latter
phrase, though expressive of the only rightful basis
of any government, was so perverted in this at
tempted use of it as to amount to just this : That if
any one man choose to enslave another, no third man
shall be allowed to object. That argument was
incorporated into the Nebraska Bill itself, in the
language which follows: "It being the true intent
and meaning of this Act not to legislate slavery into
any Territory or State, nor to exclude it therefrom,
but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form
and regulate their domestic institutions in their own
way, subject only to the Constitution of the United
States." Then opened the roar of loose declama
tion in favor of "squatter sovereignty," and "sacred
right of self-government." "But," said opposition
members, "let us amend the bill so as to expressly
declare that the people of the Territory may exclude
slavery. " " Not we, " said the friends of the measure,
and down they voted the amendment.

While the Nebraska Bill was passing through
Congress, a law case, involving the question of a
negro s freedom, by reason of his owner having
voluntarily taken him first into a free State, and
then into a territory covered by the Congressional
prohibition, and held him as a slave for a long time
in each, was passing through the United States



4 Lincoln and Douglas Debates

Circuit Court for the District of Missouri ; and both
Nebraska Bill and lawsuit were brought to a decision
in the same month of May, 1854. The negro s
name was "Dred Scott," which name now designates
the decision finally made in the case. Before the
then next Presidential election, the law case came
to, and was argued in, the Supreme Court of the
United States; but the decision of it was deferred
until after the election. Still, before the election,
Senator Trumbull, on the floor of the Senate, re
quested the leading advocate of the Nebraska Bill
to state his opinion whether the people of a Territory
can constitutionally exclude slavery from their
limits ; and the latter answers : That is a question
for the Supreme Court."

The election came. Mr. Buchanan was elected,
and the indorsement, such as it was, secured. That
was the second point gained. The indorsement,
however, fell short of a clear popular majority by
nearly four hundred thousand votes, and so, per
haps, was not overwhelmingly reliable and satis
factory. The outgoing President, in his last annual
message, as impressively as possible echoed back
upon the people the weight and authority of the
indorsement. The Supreme Court met again, did
not announce their decision, but ordered a reargu-
ment. The Presidential inauguration came, and
still no decision of the court; but the incoming
President, in his inaugural address, fervently ex
horted the people to abide by the forthcoming
decision, whatever it might be. Then, in a few
days, came the decision.



Abraham Lincoln 5

The reputed author of the Nebraska Bill finds an
early occasion to make a speech at this capital in
dorsing the Dred Scott decision, and vehemently
denouncing all opposition to it. The new President,
too, seizes the early occasion of the Silliman letter
to indorse and strongly construe that decision, and
to express his astonishment that any different view
had ever been entertained!

At length a squabble springs up between the
President and the author of the Nebraska Bill, on the
mere question of fact, whether the Lecompton Con
stitution was or was not in any just sense made by
the people of Kansas ; and in that quarrel the latter
declares that all he wants is a fair vote for the people,
and that he cares not whether slavery be voted down
or voted up. I do not understand his declaration,
that he cares not whether slavery be voted down or
voted up, to be intended by him other than as an
apt definition of the policy he would impress upon
the public mind, the principle for which he declares
he has suffered so much, and is ready to suffer to the
end. And well may he cling to that principle! If
he has any parental feeling, well may he cling to it.
That principle is the only shred left of his original
Nebraska doctrine. Under the Dred Scott decision
" squatter sovereignty" squatted out of existence,
tumbled down like temporary scaffolding; like the
mould at the foundry, served through one blast,
and fell back into loose sand ; helped to carry an elec
tion, and then was kicked to the winds. His late
joint struggle with the Republicans, against the
Lecompton Constitution, involves nothing of the



6 Lincoln and Douglas Debates

original Nebraska doctrine. That struggle was
made on a point the right of a people to make
their own constitution upon w^hich he and the
Republicans have never differed.

The several points of the Dred Scott decision, in
connection with Senator Douglas s * care not policy,
constitute the piece of machinery, in its present state
of advancement. This was the third point gained.
The working points of that machinery are :

Firstly, That no negro slave, imported as such
from Africa, and no descendant of such slave, can
ever be a citizen of any State, in the sense of that
term as used in the Constitution of the United States.
This point is made in order to deprive the negro, in
every possible event, of the benefit of that pro
vision of the United States Constitution which
declares that "The citizens of each State shall be
entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens
in the several States."

Secondly, That, "subject to the Constitution of
the United States," neither Congress nor a Terri
torial Legislature can exclude slavery from any
United States Territory. This point is made in
order that individual men may fill up the Terri
tories with slaves, without danger of losing them as
property, and thus to enhance the chances of per
manency to the institution through all the future.

Thirdly, That whether the holding a negro in
actual slavery in a free State makes him free, as
against the holder, the United States courts will not
decide, but will leave to be decided by the courts of
any slave State the negro may be forced into by the



Abraham Lincoln 7

master. This point is made, not to be pressed
immediately; but, if acquiesced in for a while, and
apparently indorsed by the people at an election,
then to sustain the logical conclusion that what
Dred Scott s master might lawfully do with Dred
Scott, in the free State of Illinois, every other master
may lawfully do with any other one, or one thousand
slaves, in Illinois, or in any other free State.

Auxiliary to all this, and working hand in hand
with it, the Nebraska doctrine, or what is left of it,
is to educate and mould public opinion, at least
Northern public opinion, not to care whether
slavery is voted down or voted up. This shows
exactly where we now are; and partially, also,
whither we are tending.

It will throw additional light on the latter, to go
back and run the mind over the string of historical
facts already stated. Several things will now ap
pear less dark and mysterious than they did when
they were transpiring. The people were to be left
"perfectly free," "subject only to the Constitution."
What the Constitution had to do with it, outsiders
could not then see. Plainly enough now, it was an
exactly fitted niche, for the Dred Scott decision to
afterward come in, and declare the perfect freedom
of the people to be just no freedom at all. Why
was the amendment, expressly declaring the right of
the people, voted down? Plainly enough now, the
adoption of it would have spoiled the niche for the
Dred Scott decision. Why was the court decision
held up? Why even a Senator s individual opinion
withheld, till after the Presidential election? Plainly



8 Lincoln and Douglas Debates

enough now, the speaking out then would have
damaged the " perfectly free " argument upon which
the election was to be carried. Why the outgoing
President s felicitation on the indorsement? Why
the delay of a reargument? Why the incoming
President s advance exhortation in favor of the de
cision? These things look like the cautious patting
and petting of a spirited horse preparatory to
mounting him, when it is dreaded that he may give
the rider a fall. And why the hasty after -indorse
ment of the decision by the President and others?

We cannot absolutely know that all these exact
adaptations are the result of preconcert. But when
we see a lot of framed timbers, different portions of
which we know have been gotten out at different
times and places and by different workmen,
Stephen, Franklin, Roger, and James, for instance,
and when we see these timbers joined together, and
see they exactly make the frame of a house or a mill,
all the tenons and mortises exactly fitting, and all
the lengths and proportions of the different pieces
exactly adapted to their respective places, and not a
piece too many or too few, not omitting even
scaffolding, or, if a single piece be lacking, we see
the place in the frame exactly fitted and prepared
yet to bring such piece in, in such a case, we find
it impossible not to believe that Stephen and Frank
lin and Roger and James all understood one another
from the beginning, and all worked upon a common
plan or draft drawn up before the first blow was
struck.

It should not be overlooked that by the Nebraska



Abraham Lincoln 9

Bill the people of a State as well as Territory were to
be left " perfectly free," "subject only to the Con
stitution." Why mention a State? They were
legislating for Territories, and not for or about
States. Certainly the people of a State are and
ought to be subject to the Constitution of the United
States; but why is mention of this lugged into this
merely Territorial law? Why are the people of a
Territory and the people of a State therein lumped
together, and their relation to the Constitution
therein treated as being precisely the same? While
the opinion of the court, by Chief Justice Taney, in
the Dred Scott case, and the separate opinions of
all the concurring Judges, expressly declare that the
Constitution of the United States neither permits
Congress nor a Territorial Legislature to exclude
slavery from any United States Territory, they
all omit to declare whether or not the same Con
stitution permits a State, or the people of a State, to
exclude it. Possibly, this is a mere omission; but
who can be quite sure, if McLean or Curtis had
sought to get into the opinion a declaration of un
limited power in the people of a State to exclude
slavery from their limits, just as Chase and Mace
sought to get such declaration, in behalf of the
people of a Territory, into the Nebraska Bill, I ask,
who can be quite sure that it would not have been
voted down in the one case as it had been in the
other? The nearest approach to the point of declar
ing the power of a State over slavery is made by
Judge Nelson. He approaches it more than once,
using the precise idea, and almost the language, too,



io Lincoln and Douglas Debates

of the Nebraska Act. On one occasion, his exact
language is, Except in cases where the power is
restrained by the Constitution of the United States,
the law of the State is supreme over the subject of
slavery within its jurisdiction." In what cases the
power of the States is so restrained by the United
States Constitution, is left an open question, pre
cisely as the same question, as to the restraint on the
power of the Territories, was left open in the Ne
braska Act. Put this and that together, and we
have another nice little niche, which we may, ere
long, see filled with another Supreme Court decision,
declaring that the Constitution of the United States
does not permit a State to exclude slavery from its
limits. And this may especially be expected if the
doctrine of "care not whether slavery be voted
down or voted up" shall gain upon the public mind
sufficiently to give promise that such a decision can
be maintained when made.

Such a decision is all that slavery now lacks of
being alike lawful in all the States. Welcome or
unwelcome, such decision is probably coming, and
will soon be upon us, unless the power of the present
political dynasty shall be met and overthrown.
We shall lie down pleasantly dreaming that the
people of Missouri are on the verge of making their
State free, and we shall awake to the reality instead
that the Supreme Court has made Illinois a slave
State. To meet and overthrow the power of that
dynasty is the work now before all those who would
prevent that consummation. That is what we have
to do. How can we best do it?



Abraham Lincoln 11

There are those who denounce us openly to their
own friends, and yet whisper us softly that Senator
Douglas is the aptest instrument there is with which
to effect that object. They wish us to infer all, from
the fact that he now has a little quarrel with the
present head of the dynasty, and that he has regularly
voted with us on a single point, upon which he and
we have never differed. They remind us that he is
a great man, and that the largest of us are very
small ones. Let this be granted. But "a living
dog is better than a dead lion." Judge Douglas, if
not a dead lion, for this work is at least a caged and
toothless one. How can he oppose the advances of
slavery? He don t care anything about it. His
avowed mission is impressing the "public heart"
to care nothing about it. A leading Douglas Demo
cratic newspaper thinks Douglas s superior talent
will be needed to resist the revival of the African
slave trade. Does Douglas believe an effort to
revive that trade is approaching? He has not said
so. Does he really think so ? But if it is, how can he
resist it? For years he has labored to prove it a
sacred right of white men to take negro slaves into
the new Territories. Can he possibly show that it
is less a sacred right to buy them where they can be
bought cheapest? And unquestionably they can be
bought cheaper in Africa than in Virginia. He has
done all in his power to reduce the whole question of
slavery to one of a mere right of property ; and, as
such, how can he oppose the foreign slave trade,
how can he refuse that trade in that "property"
shall be "perfectly free,"- unless he does it as a



12 Lincoln and Douglas Debates

protection to the home production? And as the
home producers will probably not ask the pro
tection, he will be wholly without a ground of
opposition.

Senator Douglas holds, we know, that a man may
rightfully be wiser to-day than he was yesterday;
that he may rightfully change when he finds himself
wrong. But can we, for that reason, run ahead, and
infer that he will make any particular change, of
which he himself has given no intimation? Can we
safely base our action upon any such vague infer
ence? Now, as ever, I wish not to misrepresent
Judge Douglas s position, question his motives, or
do aught that can be personally offensive to him.
Whenever, if ever, he and we can come together on
principle so that our cause may have assistance from
his great ability, I hope to have interposed no ad
ventitious obstacles. But clearly he is not now with
us; he does not pretend to be, he does not promise
ever to be.

Our cause, then, must be intrusted to, and con
ducted by, its own undoubted friends, those whose
hands are free, whose hearts are in the work, who do
care for the result. Two years ago the Republicans
of the nation mustered over thirteen hundred thou
sand strong. We did this under the single impulse
of resistance to a common danger, with every ex
ternal circumstance against us. Of strange, dis
cordant, and even hostile elements we gathered from
the four winds, and formed and fought the battle
through, under the constant hot fire of a disciplined,
proud, and pampered enemy. Did we brave all



Abraham Lincoln 13

then to falter now, now, when that same enemy
is wavering, dissevered, and belligerent ? The result
is not doubtful. We shall not fail ; if we stand firm,
we shall not fail. Wise counsels may accelerate, or
mistakes delay it, but, sooner or later, the victory is
sure to come.



SPEECH OF SENATOR DOUGLAS,

ON THE OCCASION OF HIS PUBLIC RECEPTION AT CHICAGO, FRIDAY
EVENING, JULY 9, 1858. (MR. LINCOLN WAS PRESENT.)

Mr. DOUGLAS said,

MR. CHAIRMAN AND FELLOW-CITIZENS: I can find
no language which can adequately express my pro
found gratitude for the magnificent welcome which
you have extended to me on this occasion. This
vast sea of human faces indicates how deep an
interest is felt by our people in the great questions
which agitate the public mind, and w r hich underlie
the foundations of our free institutions. A reception
like this, so great in numbers that no human voice
can be heard to its countless thousands, so enthu
siastic that no one individual can be the object of
such enthusiasm, clearly shows that there is some
great principle which sinks deep in the heart of the
masses, and involves the rights and the liberties of a
whole people, that has brought you together with
a unanimity and a cordiality never before excelled,
if, indeed, equalled, on any occasion. I have not the
vanity to believe that it is any personal compliment
to me.

It is an expression of your devotion to that great
principle of self-government, to which my life for
many years past has been, and in the future will be,
devoted. If there is any one principle dearer and
more sacred than all others in free governments, it is

14



Stephen A. Douglas 15

that which asserts the exclusive right of a free people
to form and adopt their own fundamental law, and
to manage and regulate their own internal affairs
and domestic institutions.

When I found an effort being made during the
recent session of Congress to force a constitution upon
the people of Kansas against their will, and to force
that State into the Union with a constitution which
her people had rejected by more than ten thousand,
I felt bound as a man of honor and a representative
of Illinois, bound by every consideration of duty, of
fidelity, and of patriotism, to resist to the utmost of
my power the consummation of that fraud. With
others, I did resist it, and resisted it successfully
until the attempt was abandoned. We forced them
to refer that constitution back to the people of
Kansas, to be accepted or rejected as they shall
decide at an election which is fixed for the first
Monday in August next. It is true that the mode
of reference, and the form of the submission, was not
such as I could sanction with my vote, for the reason
that it discriminated between free States and slave
States ; providing that if Kansas consented to come
in under the Lecompton Constitution it should be
received with a population of thirty-five thousand;
but that if she demanded another constitution,
more consistent with the sentiments of her people
and their feelings, that it should not be received into
the Union until she had 93,420 inhabitants. I did
not consider that mode of submission fair, for the
reason that any election is a mockery which is not
free, that any election is a fraud upon the rights of



16 Lincoln and Douglas Debates

the people which holds out inducements for affirma
tive votes, and threatens penalties for negative votes.
But whilst I was not satisfied with the mode of sub
mission, whilst I resisted it to the last, demanding
a fair, a just, a free mode of submission, still, when
the law passed placing it within the power of the
people of Kansas at that election to reject the
Lecompton Constitution, and then make another in
harmony with their principles and their opinions, I
did not believe that either the penalties on the one
hand, or the inducements on the other, would force
that people to accept a constitution to w r hich they
are irreconcilably opposed. All I can say is, that
if their votes can be controlled by such considerations
all the sympathy which has been expended upon
them has been misplaced, and all the efforts that have
been made in defence of their right to self-govern
ment have been made in an unworthy cause.

Hence, my friends, I regard the Lecompton battle
as having been fought, and the victory won, because
the arrogant demand for the admission of Kansas
under the Lecompton Constitution unconditionally,
whether her people wanted it or not, has been