Independence was reported to Congress by the committee, and
in it the slave trade was characterized as " an execrable commerce,"
as "a piratical warfare," as the "opprobrium of infidel powers,"
and as " a cruel war against human nature." [Applause. | All
agreed on this except South Carolina and Georgia, and in order to
serve harmony, and from the necessity of the case, these ex-
pressions wore omitted. Indeed, abolition societies existed as far
south as Virginia; and it is a well-known fact that Washington,
Jefferson, Madison, Lee, Henry, Mason, and Pendleton were quali-
fied abolitionists, and much more radical on that subject than we
of the Whig and Democratic parties claim to be to-day. On
March 1, 178-1, Virginia ceded to the confederation all its lands
lying northwest of the Ohio River. Jefferson, Chase of Mary-
land, and Howell of Rhode Island, as a committee on that and
territory thereafter to he ceded, reported that no slavery should
exist after the year 1800. Had this report been adopted, not only
the Northwest, but Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, and Missis-
sippi also would have been free: but it required the assent of
nine States to ratify it. North Carolina was divided, and thus



108 LIFE OF LINCOLN

its vote was lost; and Delaware, Georgia, and New Jersey refused
to vote. In point of fact, as it was, it was assented to by six
States. Three years later, on a square vote to exclude
slavery from the Northwest, only one vote, and that from
New York, was against it. And yet, thirty-seven years
later, five thousand citizens of Illinois out of a voting mass of less
than twelve thousand, deliberately, after a long and heated con-
tent, voted to introduce slavery in Illinois; and, to-day, a large
party in the free State of Illinois are willing to vote to fasten the
shackles of slavery on the fair domain of Kansas, notwithstanding
it received the dowry of freedom long before its birth as a political
community. I repeat, therefore, the question: Is it not plain in
what direction we are tending? [Sensation.] In the colonial
time, .Mason, Pendleton, and Jefferson were as hostile to slavery
in Virginia as Otis, Ames, and the Adamses were in Massachusetts;
and Virginia made as earnest an effort to get rid of it as old Massa-
chusetts did. But circumstances were against them and they failed;
but not that the good will of its leading men was lacking. Yet within
less than fifty years Virginia changed its tune, and made negro-
breeding for the cotton and sugar States one of its leading indus-
tries. [Laughter and applause.]

In the Constitutional Convention, George Mason of Virginia
made a more violent abolition speech than my friends Lovejoy or
Codding would desire to make here to-day ā€” a speech which could
not be safely repeated anywhere on Southern soil in this enlight-
ened year. But while there were some differences of opinion on
this subject even then, discussion was allowed; but as you see by
the Kansas slave code, which, as you know, is the Missouri slave
code, merely ferried across the river, it is a felony to even express
an opinion hostile to that foul blot in the land of Washington and
the Declaration of Independence. [Sensation.]

In Kentucky ā€” my State ā€” in 1849, on a test vote, the mighty
influence of Henry Clay and many other good men there could not
get a symptom of expression in favor of gradual emancipation
on a plain issue of marching toward the light of civilization with
Ohio and Illinois; but the State of Boone and Hardin and Henry
Clay, with a nigger under each arm, took the black trail toward
the deadly swamps of barbarism. Is there ā€” can there be ā€” any
doubt about this thing? And is there any doubt that we must
all lay aside our prejudices and march, shoulder to shoulder, in
the great army of Freedom? [Applause.]

Every Fourth of July our young orators all proclaim this to be
" the land of the free and the home of the brave ! " Well, now,
when you orators get that off next year, and, may be, this very
year, how would you like some old grizzled farmer to get up in
the grove and deny it? [Laughter.] How would you like that?
But suppose Kansas comes in as a slave State, and all the " border
ruffians " have barbecues about it. and free-State men come trail-
ing back to the dishonored North, like whipped dogs with their



APPENDIX 109

tails between their legs, it is ā€” ain't it? ā€” evident that this is no
more the " land of the free ; " and if we let it go so, we won't dare
to say "home of the brave" out loud. [Sensation and confusion.]

Can any man doubt that, even in spite of the people's will, slav-
ery will triumph through violence, unless that will hi- made mani-
fest and enforced' Even Governor Reeder claimed at the outset
that the contest in Kansas was to be fair, but he got his eyes open
at last; and I believe that, as a result of this moral and physieal
violence, Kansas will soon apply for admission as a slave State.
And yet we can't mistake that the people don't want it so, and
that it is a land which is free both by natural and political law.
No law, is free law! Such is the understanding of all Christendom.
In the Somerset case, decided nearly a century ago, the great Lord
Mansfield held that slavery was of such a nature that it must take
its rise in positive (as distinguished from natural) law; and that
in no country or age could it be traced back to any other source.
Will some one please tell me where is the positive law that estab-
lishes slavery in Kansas? [A voice: "The bogus laws." Aye,
the bogus laws! And, on the same principle, a gang of Missouri
horse-thieves could come into Illinois and declare horse-stealing
to be legal [Laughter], and it would be just as legal as slavery
is in Kansas. But by express statute, in the land of Washington
and Jefferson, we may soon be brought face to face with the dis-
creditable fact of showing to the world by our acts that we prefer
slavery to freedom ā€” darkness to light! | Sensation.]

It is, I believe, a principle in law that when one party to a
contract violates it so grossly as to chiefly destroy the object for
which it is made, the other party may rescind it. I will ask
Browning if that ain't good law. [Voices: "Yes!"] Well, now
if that be right, I go for rescinding the whole, entire Missouri
Compromise and thus turning Missouri into a free State; and I
should like to know the difference ā€” should like for any one to
point out the difference ā€” between o%ir making a free State of
Missouri and their making a slave State of Kansas. [Great ap-
plause.] There ain't one bit of difference, except that our way
would be a great mercy to humanity. But I have never said ā€”
and the Whig party has never said ā€” and those who oppose the
Nebraska bill do not as a body say, that they have any intention
of interfering with slavery in the slave States. Our platform says
just the contrary. We allow slavery to exist in the slave States, ā€”
not because slavery is right or good, but from the necessities of
our Union. We grant a fugitive slave law because it is so " nom-
inated in the bond ; " because our fathers so stipulated ā€” had to ā€”
and we are bound to carry out this agreement. But they did not
agree to introduce slavery in regions where it did not previously
exist. On the contrary, they said by their example and teachings
that they did not deem it expedient ā€” did not consider it right ā€”
to do so; and it is wise and right to do just as they did about it
[Voices: " Good! "], and that is what we propose ā€” not to interfere



no LIFE OF LINCOLN

with slavery where 't exists (we have never tried to do it), and
to give them a reasonable and efficient fugitive slave law. [A
voice: "Nol"] I say YES! [Applause.] It was part of the
bargain, and I'm for living up to it ; but I go no further ; I'm not
bound to do more, and I won't agree any further. [Great ap-
plause.]

We, here in Illinois, should feel especially proud of the pro-
on of the iri Compromise excluding slavery from what

is now Kansas; for an Illinois man, Jesse B. Thomas, was its
icr. Henry Clay, who is credited with the authorship of the
Compromise in general terrns, did not even vote for that pro-
vision, but only advocated the ultimate admission by a second
compromise; and Thomas was, beyond all controversy, the real
author of the " slavery restriction " branch of the Compromise.
To show the generosity of the Northern members toward the South-
ern side: on a test vote to exclude slavery from Missouri, ninety
voted not to exclude, and eighty-seven to exclude, every vote from
the slave States being ranged with the former and fourteen votes
from the free States, of whom seven were from New England
alone; while on a vote to exclude slavery from what is now Kan-
sas, the vote was one hundred and thirty-four for, to forty-two
against. The scheme, as a whole, was, of course, a Southern
triumph. It is idle to contend otherwise, as is now being done
by the Nebraskites; it was so shown by the votes and quite as em-
phatically by the expressions of representative men. Mr. Lowndes
of South Carolina was never known to commit a political mistake;
his was the great judgment of that section; and he declared that
this measure " would restore tranquillity to the country ā€” a result
demanded by every consideration of discretion, of moderation, of
wisdom, and. of virtue." When the measure came before Presi-
dent Monroe for his approval, he put to each member of his cabi-
net this question: "Has Congress the constitutional power to
prohibit slavery in a territory ? " And John C. Calhoun and Wil-
liam H. Crawford from the South, equally with John Quincy
Adams, Benjamin Bush, and Smith Thompson from the North,
alike answered, 'Yes!" without qualification or equivocation;
and this measure, of so great consequence to the South, was passed;
and Missouri was, by means of it, finally enabled to knock at the
door of the Bepublic for an open passage to its brood of slaves.
And, in spite of this, Freedom's share is about to be taken bv vio-
lence ā€” by the force of misrepresentative votes, not called for by
the popular will. What name can I, in common decency, give to
this wicked transaction? [Sensation.]

But even then the contest was not over; for when the Missouri
constitution came before Congress for its approval, it forbade any
free negro or mulatto from entering the State. In short, our Illi-
nois " black laws " were hidden away in their constitution Tlaugh-
ter], and the controversy was thus revived. Then it was that Mr.
Clay's talents shone out conspicuously, and the controversy that



APPENDIX in

shook the Union to its foundation was finally settled to the satis-
faction of the conservative parties on both sides of the line, tho

not to the extremists on either, and Missouri was admitti
small majority of six in the lower House. How great a majority,
do you think, would have been given had Kansas also been secu
for slavery? [A voice: "A majority the other way.") "A ma-
jority the other way," is answered. Do you think it would have
been safe for a Northern man to have confronted his constituents
after having voted to consign both Missouri and Kansas to hope-
less slavery \ And yet this man Douglas, who misrepresents his
constituents and who has exerted his highest talent-, in that di-
rection, will bo carried in triumph through the State and hailed
with honor while applauding that act. [Three groans for " Dug! "]
And this shows whither we are tending. This thing of slavery is
more powerful than its supporters ā€” even than the high priests that
minister at its altar. It debauches even our greatest men. It
gathers strength, like a rolling snow-ball, by its own infamy. Mon-
strous crimes are committed in its name by persons collectively
which they would not dare to commit as individuals. Its aggres-'
eions and encroachments almost surpass belief. In a despotism,
one might not wonder to see slavery advance steadily and remorse-
lessly into new dominions; but is it not wonderful, is it not even
alarming, to see its steady advance in a land dedicated to the
proposition that "all men are created equal ? " [Sensation.]

It yields nothing itself; it keeps all it has, and gets all it can
besides. It really came dangerously near securing Illinois in
1824; it did get Missouri in 1821. The first proposition was to
admit what is now Arkansas and Missouri as one slave State.
But the territory was divided and Arkansas came in, without se-
rious question, as a slave State: and atterwards Missouri, not as
a sort of equality, free, but also as a slave State. Then we had
Florida and Texas; and now Kansas is about to be forced into the
dismal procession. [Sensation.] And so it is wherever you look.
We have not forgotten ā€” it is but six years since ā€” how dangerously
near California came to being a slave State. Texas is a slave
State, and four other slave States may be carved from its vast
domain. And yet, in the year 1829, slavery was abolished through-
out that vast region by a royal decree of the then sovereign of
Mexico. Will you please tell me by what right slavery exists in
Texas to-day? By the same right as, and no higher or greater
than, slavery is seeking dominion in Kansas: by political force ā€”
peaceful, if that will suffice; by the torch (as in Kansas) and the
bludgeon (as in the Senate chamber), if required. And so his-
tory repeats itself; and even as slavery has kept its course by
craft, intimidation, and violence in the past, so it will persist,
in my judgment, until met and dominated by the will of a people
bent on its restriction.

We have, this very afternoon, heard bitter denunciations of
Brooks in Washington, and Titus, Stringfellow, Atchison, Jones,



U2 LIFE OF LINCOLN

and Shannon in Kansas ā€” the battle-ground of slavery. I cer-
tainly am not going to advocate or shield them; but they and
their acts are but the necessary outcome of the Nebraska law.
We should reserve our highest censure for the authors of the
mischief, and not for the catspaws which they use. I believe it
was Shakespeare who said, " Where the offence lies, there let the
axe fall ; " and, in my opinion, this man Douglas and the Northern
men in Congress who advocate " Nebraska " are more guilty
than a thousand Joneses and Stringfellows, with all their mur-
derous practices, can be. [Applause.]

We have made a good beginning here to-day. As our Methodist
friends would say, " I feel it is good to be here." While extrem-
ists may find some fault with the moderation of our platform,
they should recollect that " the battle is not always to the strong,
nor the race to the swift." In grave emergencies, moderation is
generally safer than radicalism ; and as this struggle is likely to be
long and earnest, we must not, by our action, repel any who are
in sympathy with us in the main, but rather win all that we can
to our standard. We must not belittle nor overlook the facts of
our condition ā€” that we are new and comparatively weak, while
our enemies are entrenched and relatively strong. They have
the administration and the political power; and, right or wrong,
at present they have the numbers. Our friends who urge an ap-
peal to arms with so much force and eloquence, should recollect
that the government is arrayed against us, and that the num-
bers are now arrayed against us as well; or, to state it
nearer to the truth, they are not yet expressly and affirmatively
for us; and we should repel friends rather than gain them by
anything savoring of revolutionary methods. As it now stands,
we must appeal to the sober sense and patriotism of the people.
We will make converts day by day; we will grow strong by calm-
ness and moderation ; we will grow strong by the violence and
injustice of our adversaries. And, unless truth be a mockery and
justice a hollow lie, we will be in the majority after a while, and
then the revolution which we will accomplish will be none the
less radical from being the result of pacific measures. The
battle of freedom is to be fought out on principle. Slavery is
a violation of the eternal right. We have temporized with it from
the necessities of our condition; but as sure as God reigns and
school children read, that black foul lie can never be conse-
crated into God's hallowed truth ! [Immense applause lasting
some time.] One of our greatest difficulties is, that men who
know that slavery is a detestable crime and ruinous to the nation,
are compelled, by our peculiar condition and other circumstances,
to advocate it concretely, though damning it in the raw. Henry
Clay was a brilliant example of this tendency; others of our purest
statesmen are compelled to do so; and thus slavery secures actual
support from those who detest it at heart. Yet Henry Clay per-
fected and forced through the Compromise which secured to



APPENDIX i'3

slavery a great State as well as a political advantage. Not that
he hated slavery less, but that he loved the wh<>l<- I'nion more.
As long as slavery profited by his great Compromise, the hosts of
pro-slavery could not sufficiently cover him with praise; but now
that this Compromise stands in their way ā€”

" . . . they never mention him.
His name is never heunl :
Their lips are now forbid to speak
That once familiar word."

They have slaughtered one of his most cherished measures, and
his ghost would arise to rebuke them. [Great applause.]

Now, let us harmonize, my friends, and appeal to the moderation
and patriotism of the people : to the sober second thought ; to the
awakened public conscience. The repeal of the sacred Missouri
Compromise has installed the weapons of violence : the bludgeon,
the incendiary torch, the death-dealing rifle, the bristling cannon ā€”
the weapons of kingcraft, of the inquisition, of ignorance, of bar-
barism, of oppression. We see its fruits in the dying bed of the
heroic Sumner; in the ruins of the "Free State" hotel; in the
smoking embers of the "Herald of Freedom;" in the free-State
Governor of Kansas chained to a stake on freedom's soil like a
horse-thief, for the crime of freedom. [Applause.] We see it in
Christian statesmen, and Christian newspapers, and Christian
pulpits applauding the cowardly act of a low bully, who crawled

UPON HIS VICTIM BEHIND HIS BACK AND DEALT THE DEADLY BLOW.

[Sensation and applause.] We note our political demoralization
in the catch-words that are coming into such common use; on the
one hand, " freedom-shriekers," and sometimes " f reedom-screech-
ers " [Laughter] ; and, on the other hand, " border ruffians," and
that fully deserved. And the significance of catch-words cannot
pass unheeded, for they constitute a sign of the times. Every-
thing in this world " jibes " in with everything else, and all the
fruits of this Nebraska bill are like the poisoned source from
which they come. I will not say that we may not sooner or later
be compelled to meet force by force; but the time has not yet
come, and if we are true to ourselves, may never come. Do not
mistake that the ballot is stronger than the bullet. Therefore let
the legions of slavery use bullets ; but let us wait patiently till
November and fire ballots at them in return; and by that peaceful
policy, I believe we shall ultimately win. [Applause.]

It was by that policy that here in Illinois the early fathers
fought the good fight and gained the victory. In 1824 the free
men of our State, led by Governor Coles (who was a native of
Maryland and President Madison's private secretary), deter-
mined that those beautiful groves should never reecho the dirge
of one who has no title to himself. By their resolute determina-
tion, the winds that sweep across our broad prairies shall never cool
the parched brow, nor shall the unfettered streams that bring joy

(8)



ii4 LIFE OF LINCOLN

and gladness to our free soil water the tired feet, of a slave; but
so long as those heavenly breezes and sparkling streams bless the
land, or the groves and their fragrance or memory remain, the
humanity to which they minister shall be forever free! [Great
applause.] Palmer, Yates, Williams, Browning, and some more
in this convention came from Kentucky to Illinois (instead of
going to Missouri), not only to better their conditions, but also
to get away from slavery. They have said so to me, and it is under-
stood among us Kentuckians that we don't like it one bit. Now s
can we, mindful of the blessings of liberty which the early men
of Illinois left to us, refuse a like privilege to the free men who
seek to plant Freedom's banner on our Western outposts ? [" No !
No ! "] Should we not stand by our neighbors who seek to better
their conditions in Kansas and Nebraska ? [" Yes ! " " Yes ! "]
Can we as Christian men, and strong and free ourselves, wield the
sledge or hold the iron which is to manacle anew an already op-
pressed race ? [" No ! No ! "] " Woe unto them," it is written,
" that decree unrighteous decrees and that write grievousness
which they have prescribed." Can we afford to sin any more deeply
against human liberty ? [" No ! No ! "]

One great trouble in the matter is, that slavery is an insidious
and crafty power, and gains equally by open violence of the
brutal as well as by sly management of the peaceful. Even after
the ordinance of 1787, the settlers in Indiana and Illinois (it was
all one government then) tried to get Congress to allow slavery
temporarily, and petitions to that end were sent from Kaskaskia,
and General Harrison, the Governor, urged it from Vincennes,
the capital. If that had succeeded, good-by to liberty here. But
John Randolph of Virginia made a vigorous report against it;
and although they persevered so well as to get three favorable
reports for it, yet the United States Senate, with the aid of some
slave States, finally squelched it for good. [Applause.] And
that is why this hall is to-day a temple for free men instead of a
negro livery stable. [Great applause and laughter.] Once let
slavery get planted in a locality, by ever so weak or doubtful a
title, and in ever so small numbers, and it is like the Canada thistle
or Bermuda grass ā€” you can't root it out. You yourself may
detest slavery; but your neighbor has five or six slaves, and
he is an excellent neighbor, or your son has married his daughter,
and they beg you to help save their property, and you vote against
your interest and principles to accommodate a neighbor, hoping
that your vote will be on the losing side. And others do the
same; and in those ways slavery gets a sure foothold. And when
that is done the whole mighty Union ā€” the force of the nation ā€”
is committed to its support. And that very process is working
in Kansas to-day. And you must recollect that the slave property
is worth a billion of dollars ($1,000,000,000) ; while free-State men
must work for sentiment alone. Then there are " blue lodges " ā€”
as they call them ā€” everywhere doing their secret and deadly work.



APPENDIX 115

It is a very strange tiling, and not solvable by any moral law
that I know of, that if a man loses his horse, the whole country will
turn out to help hang the thief; bul it" a man but a shade or two
darker than I am is himself stolen, the same crowd will hang one
who aids in restoring him to liberty. Such are the inconsisten-
cies of slavery, where a horse is more sacred than a man ; and the
essence of squatter or popular sovereignty ā€” I don't care how you
call it ā€” is that if one man chooses to make a slave of another,
no third man shall be allowed to object. And if you can do this
in free Kansas, and it is allowed to stand, the next thing you
will see is ship loads of negroes from Africa at the wharf at
Charleston; for one thing is as truly lawful as the other; and
these are the bastard notions we have got to stamp out, else they
will stamp us out. [Sensation and applause.]

Two years ago, at Springfield, Judge Douglas avowed that Illi-
nois came into the Union as a slave State, and that slavery was
weeded out by the operation of his great, patent, everlasting prin-
ciple of " popular sovereignty." [Laughter.] Well, now, that
argument must be answered, for it has a little grain of truth at
the bottom. I do not mean that it is true in essence, as he would
have us believe. It could not be essentially true if the ordinance
of '87 was valid. But, in point of fact, there were some degraded
beings called slaves in Kaskaskia and the other French settlements
when our first State constitution was adopted; that is a fact, and
I don't deny it. Slaves were brought here as early as 1720, and
were kept here in spite of the ordinance of 1787 against it. But