But now occurred the great Presidential struggle of 1860 ­which involved not alone the principles of Protection, but those of human Freedom, and the preservation of the Union itself ­between Abraham Lincoln of Illinois, the candidate of the Republican party, as against Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois, the National or Douglas-Democratic candidate, John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky, the Administration or Breckinridge-Democratic candidate, and John Bell of Tennessee, the candidate of the Bell-Union party.  The great preliminary struggle which largely influenced the determination of the Presidential political conflict of 1860, had, however, taken place in the State of Illinois, two years previously.  To that preliminary political contest of 1858, therefore, we will now turn our eyes ­and, in order to fully understand it, it may be well to glance back over a few years.  In 1851 the Legislature of Illinois had adopted ­[The vote in the House being 65 yeas to 4 nays.] ­the following resolution:  “Resolved, That our Liberty and Independence are based upon the right of the people to form for themselves such a government as they may choose; that this great principle, the birthright of freemen, the gift of Heaven, secured to us by the blood of our ancestors, ought to be secured to future generations, and no limitation ought to be applied to this power in the organization of any Territory of the United States, of either Territorial Government or State Constitution, provided the government so established shall be Republican and in conformity with the Constitution of the United States.”  This resolution was a practical endorsement of the course of Stephen A. Douglas in supporting the Compromise measures of 1850, which he had defended as being “all founded upon the great principle that every people ought to possess the right to form and regulate their own domestic institutions in their own way,” and that “the same principle” should be “extended to all of the Territories of the United States.”

In accordance with his views and the resolution aforesaid, Mr. Douglas in 1854, as we have already seen, incorporated in the Kansas-Nebraska Bill a clause declaring it to be “the true intent and meaning of the Act not to legislate Slavery into any State or Territory, or to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to the Constitution of the United States.”

His position, as stated by himself, was, substantially that the Lecompton Pro-Slavery Constitution was a fraud upon the people of Kansas, in that it did not embody the will of that people; and he denied the right of Congress to force a Constitution upon an unwilling people ­without regard, on his part, to whether that Constitution allowed or prohibited Slavery or any other thing, whether good or bad.  He held that the people themselves were the sole judges of whether it is good or bad, and whether desirable or not.

The Supreme Court of the United States had in the meantime made a decision in a case afterward known as the “Dred Scott case,” which was held back until after the Presidential election of 1856 had taken place, and added fuel to the political fire already raging.  Dred Scott was a Negro Slave.  His owner voluntarily took him first into a Free State, and afterward into a Territory which came within the Congressional prohibitive legislation aforesaid.  That decision in brief was substantially that no Negro Slave imported from Africa, nor his descendant, can be a citizen of any State within the meaning of the Constitution; that neither the Congress nor any Territorial Legislature has under the Constitution of the United States, the power to exclude Slavery from any Territory of the United States; and that it is for the State Courts of the Slave State, into which the negro has been conveyed by his master, and not for the United States Courts, to decide whether that Negro, having been held to actual Slavery in a Free State, has, by virtue of residence in such State, himself become Free.

Now it was, that the meaning of the words, “subject only to the Constitution,” as used in the Kansas-Nebraska Act, began to be discerned.  For if the people of a Territory were to be “perfectly free,” to deal with Slavery as they chose, “subject only to the Constitution” they were by this Judicial interpretation of that instrument “perfectly free” to deal with Slavery in any way so long as they did not attempt “to exclude” it!  The thing was all one-sided.  Mr. Douglas’s attitude in inventing the peculiar phraseology in the Kansas-Nebraska Act ­which to some seemed as if expressly “made to order” for the Dred Scott decision ­was criticized with asperity; the popularity, however, of his courageous stand against President Buchanan on the Lecompton fraud, seemed to make it certain that, his term in the United States Senate being about to expire, he would be overwhelmingly re-elected to that body.

But at this juncture occurred something, which for a long time held the result in doubt, and drew the excited attention of the whole Nation to Illinois as the great battle-ground.  In 1858 a Republican State Convention was held at Springfield, Ill., which nominated Abraham Lincoln as the Republican candidate for United States Senator to succeed Senator Douglas in the National Legislature.  On June 16th ­after such nomination ­Mr. Lincoln made to the Convention a speech ­in which, with great and incisive power, he assailed Mr. Douglas’s position as well as that of the whole Democratic Pro-Slavery Party, and announced in compact and cogent phrase, from his own point of view, the attitude, upon the Slavery question, of the Republican Party.

In that remarkable speech ­which at once attracted the attention of the Country ­Mr. Lincoln said:  “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 divided against itself cannot 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.”

He then proceeded to lay bare and closely analyze the history of all that had been done, during the four years preceding, to produce the prevailing condition of things touching human Slavery; describing it as resulting from that, “now almost complete legal combination-piece of machinery, so to speak ­compounded of the Nebraska doctrine and the Dred Scott decision.”  After stating the several points of that decision, and that the doctrine of the “Sacred right of self-government” had been perverted by the Nebraska “Squatter Sovereignty,” argument to mean that, “if any one man chose to enslave another, no third man shall be allowed to object,” he proceeded to show the grounds upon which he charged “pre-concert” among the builders of that machinery.  Said he:  “The people were to be left perfectly free, ‘subject only to the Constitution.’  What the Constitution had to do with it, outsiders could not 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 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 re-argument?  Why the incoming President’s advance exhortation in favor of the decision?  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-indorsement of the decision, by the President and others?  We cannot absolutely know that all these exact adaptations are the result of pre-concert.  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 ­[Douglas, Pierce, Taney and Buchanan.] ­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 mortices 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 the 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 Franklin 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.”

He drew attention also to the fact that by the Nebraska Bill the people of a State, as well as a Territory, were to be left “perfectly free,” “subject only to the Constitution,” and that the object of lugging a “State” into this merely Territorial law was to enable the United States Supreme Court in some subsequent decision to declare, when the public mind had been sufficiently imbued with Judge Douglas’s notion of not caring “whether Slavery be voted up or voted down,” that “the Constitution of the United States does not permit a State to exclude Slavery from its limits” ­which would make Slavery “alike lawful in all the States.”  That, he declared to be Judge Douglas’s present mission:  ­“His avowed mission is impressing the ‘public heart’ to care nothing about it.”  Hence Mr. Lincoln urged Republicans to stand by their cause, which must be placed in the hands of its friends, “Whose hands are free, whose hearts are in the work ­who do care for the result;” for he held that “a living dog is better than a dead lion.”

On the evening of July 9, 1858, at Chicago, Mr. Douglas (Mr. Lincoln being present) spoke to an enthusiastic assemblage, which he fitly described as a “vast sea of human faces,” and, after stating that he regarded “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 abandoned, and the principle which recognizes the right of the people to decide for themselves has been submitted in its place,” he proceeded to vindicate his position throughout; declared that he opposed “the Lecompton monstrosity solely on the ground than it was a violation of the fundamental principles of free government; on the ground that it was not the act and deed of the people of Kansas; that it did not embody their will; that they were averse to it;” and hence he “denied the right of Congress to force it upon them, either as a Free State or a Slave State.”

Said he:  “I deny the right of Congress to force a Slaveholding State upon an unwilling people.  I deny their right to force a Free State upon an unwilling people.  I deny their right to force a good thing upon a people who are unwilling to receive it.  The great principle is the right of every community to judge and decide for itself, whether a thing is right or wrong, whether it would be good or evil for them to adopt it; and the right of free action, the right of free thought, the right of free judgment upon the question is dearer to every true American than any other under a free Government. It is no answer to this argument to say that Slavery is an evil, and hence should not be tolerated.  You must allow the people to decide for themselves whether it is good or evil.”  He then adverted to the arraignment of himself by Mr. Lincoln, and took direct issue with that gentleman on his proposition that, as to Freedom and Slavery, “the Union will become all one thing or all the other;” and maintained on the contrary, that “it is neither desirable nor possible that there should be uniformity in the local institutions and domestic regulations of the different States of this Union.”

Upon the further proposition of Mr. Lincoln, which Mr. Douglas described as “a crusade against the Supreme Court of the United States on account of the Dred Scott decision,” and as “an appeal from the decision” of that Court “upon this high Constitutional question to a Republican caucus sitting in the country,” he also took “direct and distinct issue with him.”  To “the reason assigned by Mr. Lincoln for resisting the decision of the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott case because it deprives the Negro of the privileges, immunities and rights of citizenship which pertain, according to that decision, only to the White man,” Mr. Douglas also took exception thus:  “I am free to say to you that in my opinion this Government of ours is founded on the White basis.  It was made by the White man for the benefit of the White man, to be administered by White men, in such manner as they should determine.  It is also true that a Negro, an Indian, or any other man of inferior race to a White man, should be permitted to enjoy, and humanity requires that he should have, all the rights, privileges, and immunities which he is capable of exercising consistent with the safety of society. But you may ask me what are these rights and these privileges?  My answer is, that each State must decide for itself the nature and extent of these rights. Without indorsing the wisdom of that decision, I assert that Virginia has the same power by virtue of her sovereignty to protect Slavery within her limits, as Illinois has to banish it forever from our own borders.  I assert the right of each State to decide for itself on all these questions, and I do not subscribe to the doctrine of my friend, Mr. Lincoln, that uniformity is either desirable or possible.  I do not acknowledge that the States must all be Free or must all be Slave.  I do not acknowledge that the Negro must have civil and political rights everywhere or nowhere. I do not acknowledge any of these doctrines of uniformity in the local and domestic regulations in the different States. Mr. Lincoln goes for a warfare upon the Supreme Court of the United States because of their judicial decision in the Dred Scott case.  I yield obedience to the decisions in that Court ­to the final determination of the highest judicial tribunal known to our Constitution.  He objects to the Dred Scott decision because it does not put the Negro in the possession of the rights of citizenship on an equality with the White man.  I am opposed to Negro equality. I would extend to the Negro, and the Indian, and to all dependent races every right, every privilege, and every immunity consistent with the safety and welfare of the White races; but equality they never should have, either political or social, or in any other respect whatever. My friends, you see that the issues are distinctly drawn.”

On the following evening (July 10th) at Chicago, Mr. Lincoln addressed another enthusiastic assemblage, in reply to Mr. Douglas; and, after protesting against a charge that had been made the previous night by the latter, of an “unnatural and unholy” alliance between Administration Democrats and Republicans to defeat him, as being beyond his own knowledge and belief, proceeded:  “Popular Sovereignty!  Everlasting Popular Sovereignty!  Let us for a moment inquire into this vast matter of Popular Sovereignty.  What is Popular Sovereignty?  We recollect at an early period in the history of this struggle there was another name for the same thing ­Squatter Sovereignty.  It was not exactly Popular Sovereignty, but Squatter Sovereignty.  What do those terms mean?  What do those terms mean when used now?  And vast credit is taken by our friend, the Judge, in regard to his support of it, when he declares the last years of his life have been, and all the future years of his life shall be, devoted to this matter of Popular Sovereignty.  What is it?  Why it is the Sovereignty of the People!  What was Squatter Sovereignty?  I suppose if it had any significance at all, it was the right of the people to govern themselves, to be sovereign in their own affairs while they were squatted down in a country not their own ­while they had squatted on a territory that did not belong to them in the sense that a State belongs to the people who inhabit it ­when it belonged to the Nation ­such right to govern themselves was called ’Squatter Sovereignty.’

“Now I wish you to mark.  What has become of that Squatter Sovereignty?  What has become of it?  Can you get anybody to tell you now that the people of a Territory have any authority to govern themselves, in regard to this mooted question of Slavery, before they form a State Constitution?  No such thing at all, although there is a general running fire and although there has been a hurrah made in every speech on that side, assuming that that policy had given the people of a Territory the right to govern themselves upon this question; yet the point is dodged.  To-day it has been decided ­no more than a year ago it was decided by the Supreme Court of the United States, and is insisted upon to-day, that the people of a Territory have no right to exclude Slavery from a Territory, that if any one man chooses to take Slaves into a Territory, all the rest of the people have no right to keep them out.  This being so, and this decision being made one of the points that the Judge (Douglas) approved, he says he is in favor of it, and sticks to it, and expects to win his battle on that decision, which says there is no such thing as Squatter Sovereignty; but that any man may take Slaves into a Territory and all the other men in the Territory may be opposed to it, and yet by reason of the Constitution they cannot prohibit it; when that is so, how much is left of this vast matter of Squatter Sovereignty, I should like to know?  Again, when we get to the question of the right of the people to form a State Constitution as they please, to form it with Slavery or without Slavery ­if that is anything new, I confess I don’t know it .

“We do not remember that, in that old Declaration of Independence, it is said that ’We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.’  There, is the origin of Popular Sovereignty.  Who, then, shall come in at this day and claim that he invented it?  The Lecompton Constitution connects itself with this question, for it is in this matter of the Lecompton Constitution that our friend, Judge Douglas, claims such vast credit.  I agree that in opposing the Lecompton Constitution, so far as I can perceive, he was right. All the Republicans in the Nation opposed it, and they would have opposed it just as much without Judge Douglas’s aid as with it.  They had all taken ground against it long before he did.  Why, the reason that he urges against that Constitution, I urged against him a year before.  I have the printed speech in my hand now.  The argument that he makes, why that Constitution should not be adopted, that the people were not fairly represented nor allowed to vote, I pointed out in a speech a year ago which I hold in my hand now, that no fair chance was to be given to the people. The Lecompton Constitution, as the Judge tells us, was defeated.  The defeat of it was a good thing or it was not.  He thinks the defeat of it was a good thing, and so do I, and we agree in that.  Who defeated it? [A voice ­’Judge Douglas.’] Yes, he furnished himself, and if you suppose he controlled the other Democrats that went with him, he furnished three votes, while the Republicans furnished twenty.  That is what he did to defeat it.  In the House of Representatives he and his friends furnished some twenty votes, and the Republicans furnished ninety odd.  Now, who was it that did the work? Ground was taken against it by the Republicans long before Douglas did it.  The proportion of opposition to that measure is about five to one.”

Mr. Lincoln then proceeded to take up the issues which Mr. Douglas had joined with him the previous evening.  He denied that he had said, or that it could be fairly inferred from what he had said, in his Springfield speech, that he was in favor of making War by the North upon the South for the extinction of Slavery, “or, in favor of inviting the South to a War upon the North, for the purpose of nationalizing Slavery.”  Said he:  “I did not even say that I desired that Slavery should be put in course of ultimate extinction.  I do say so now, however; so there need be no longer any difficulty about that. I am tolerably well acquainted with the history of the Country and I know that it has endured eighty-two years half Slave and half Free.  I believe ­and that is what I meant to allude to there ­I believe it has endured, because during all that time, until the introduction of the Nebraska Bill, the public mind did rest all the time in the belief that Slavery was in course of ultimate extinction.  That was what gave us the rest that we had through that period of eighty-two years; at least, so I believe.

“I have always hated Slavery, I think, as much as any Abolitionist ­I have been an Old Line Whig ­I have always hated it, but I have always been quiet about it until this new era of the introduction of the Nebraska Bill began.  I always believed that everybody was against it, and that it was in course of ultimate extinction. The great mass of the Nation have rested in the belief that Slavery was in course of ultimate extinction.  They had reason so to believe.  The adoption of the Constitution and its attendant history led the People to believe so, and that such was the belief of the framers of the Constitution itself.  Why did those old men about the time of the adoption of the Constitution decree that Slavery should not go into the new territory, where it had not already gone?  Why declare that within twenty years the African Slave Trade, by which Slaves are supplied, might be cut off by Congress?  Why were all these acts?  I might enumerate more of these acts ­but enough.  What were they but a clear indication that the framers of the Constitution intended and expected the ultimate extinction of that institution?

“And now, when I say, as I said in my speech that Judge Douglas has quoted from, when I say that I think the opponents of Slavery will resist the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest with the belief that it is in course of ultimate extinction, I only mean to say, that they will place it where the founders of this Government originally placed it.  I have said a hundred times, and I have now no inclination to take it back, that I believe there is no right, and ought to be no inclination in the people of the Free States, to enter into the Slave States, and interfere with the question of Slavery at all.  I have said that always; Judge Douglas has heard me say it ­if not quite a hundred times, at least as good as a hundred times; and when it is said that I am in favor of interfering with Slavery where it exists, I know that it is unwarranted by anything I have ever intended, and as I believe, by anything I have ever said.  If, by any means, I have ever used language which could fairly be so construe (as, however, I believe I never have) I now correct it.  So much, then, for the inference that Judge Douglas draws, that I am in favor of setting the Sections at War with one another.

“Now in relation to his inference that I am in favor of a general consolidation of all the local institutions of the various States I have said, very many times in Judge Douglas’s hearing, that no man believed more than I in the principle of self-government from beginning to end.  I have denied that his use of that term applies properly.  But for the thing itself, I deny that any man has ever gone ahead of me in his devotion to the principle, whatever he may have done in efficiency in advocating it.  I think that I have said it in your hearing ­that I believe each individual is naturally entitled to do as he pleases with himself and the fruit of his labor, so far as it in no wise interferes with any other man’s rights ­that each community, as a State, has a right to do exactly as it pleases with all the concerns within that State that interfere with the rights of no other State, and that the General Government, upon principle, has no right to interfere with anything other than that general class of things that does concern the whole.  I have said that at all times.

“I have said, as illustrations, that I do not believe in the right of Illinois to interfere with the cranberry laws of Indiana, the oyster laws of Virginia, or the liquor laws of Maine.  I have said these things over and over again, and I repeat them here as my sentiments. What can authorize him to draw any such inference?  I suppose there might be one thing that at least enabled him to draw such an inference that would not be true with me or many others, that is, because he looks upon all this matter of Slavery as an exceedingly little thing ­this matter of keeping one-sixth of the population of the whole Nation in a state of oppression and tyranny unequaled in the World.

“He looks upon it as being an exceedingly little thing only equal to the cranberry laws of Indiana ­as something having no moral question in it ­as something on a par with the question of whether a man shall pasture his land with cattle, or plant it with tobacco ­so little and so small a thing, that he concludes, if I could desire that anything should be done to bring about the ultimate extinction of that little thing, I must be in favor of bringing about an amalgamation of all the other little things in the Union.

“Now it so happens ­and there, I presume, is the foundation of this mistake ­that the Judge thinks thus; and it so happens that there is a vast portion of the American People that do not look upon that matter as being this very little thing.  They look upon it as a vast moral evil; they can prove it as such by the writings of those who gave us the blessings of Liberty which we enjoy, and that they so looked upon it, and not as an evil merely confining itself to the States where it is situated; while we agree that, by the Constitution we assented to, in the States where it exists we have no right to interfere with it, because it is in the Constitution; and we are by both duty and inclination to stick by that Constitution in all its letter and spirit, from beginning to end. The Judge can have no issue with me on a question of establishing uniformity in the domestic regulations of the States.

“Another of the issues he says that is to be made with me, is upon his devotion to the Dred Scott decision, and my opposition to it.  I have expressed heretofore, and I now repeat, my opposition to the Dred Scott decision; but I should be allowed to state the nature of that opposition. What is fairly implied by the term Judge Douglas has used, ‘resistance to the decision?’ I do not resist it.  If I wanted to take Dred Scott from his master, I would be interfering with property and that terrible difficulty that Judge Douglas speaks of, of interfering with property, would arise.  But I am doing no such thing as that, but all that I am doing is refusing to obey it, as a political rule.  If I were in Congress, and a vote should come up on a question whether Slavery should be prohibited in a new Territory, in spite of the Dred Scott decision, I would vote that it should.  That is what I would do.

“Judge Douglas said last night, that before the decision he might advance his opinion, and it might be contrary to the decision when it was made; but after it was made, he would abide by it until it was reversed.  Just so!  We let this property abide by the decision, but we will try to reverse that decision.  We will try to put it where Judge Douglas would not object, for he says he will obey it until it is reversed.  Somebody has to reverse that decision, since it is made, and we mean to reverse it, and we mean to do it peaceably.

“What are the uses of decisions of Courts?  They have two uses.  As rules of property they have two uses.  First, they decide upon the question before the Court.  They decide in this case that Dred Scott is a Slave.  Nobody resists that.  Not only that, but they say to everybody else, that persons standing just as Dred Scott stands, are as he is.  That is, they say that when a question comes up upon another person, it will be so decided again, unless the Court decides in another way ­unless the Court overrules its decision. ­Well, we mean to do what we can to have the Court decide the other way.  That is one thing we mean to try to do.

“The sacredness that Judge Douglas throws around this decision is a degree of sacredness that has never before been thrown around any other decision.  I have never heard of such a thing.  Why, decisions apparently contrary to that decision, or that good lawyers thought were contrary to that decision, have been made by that very Court before.  It is the first of its kind; it is an astonisher in legal history.  It is a new wonder of the world.  It is based upon falsehood in the main as to the facts ­allegations of facts upon which it stands are not facts at all in many instances; and no decision made on any question ­the first instance of a decision made under so many unfavorable circumstances ­thus placed, has ever been held by the profession as law, and it has always needed confirmation before the lawyers regarded it as settled law.  But Judge Douglas will have it that all hands must take this extraordinary decision, made under these extraordinary circumstances, and give their vote in Congress in accordance with it, yield to it and obey it in every possible sense.

“Circumstances alter cases.  Do not gentlemen remember the case of that same Supreme Court, some twenty-five or thirty years ago, deciding that a National Bank was Constitutional? The Bank charter ran out, and a recharter was granted by Congress.  That re-charter was laid before General Jackson.  It was urged upon him, when he denied the Constitutionality of the Bank, that the Supreme Court had decided that it was Constitutional; and General Jackson then said that the Supreme Court had no right to lay down a rule to govern a co-ordinate branch of the Government, the members of which had sworn to support the Constitution ­that each member had sworn to support that Constitution as he understood it.  I will venture here to say, that I have heard Judge Douglas say that he approved of General Jackson for that act.  What has now become of all his tirade about ‘resistance to the Supreme Court?’”

After adverting to Judge Douglas’s warfare on “the leaders” of the Republican party, and his desire to have “it understood that the mass of the Republican party are really his friends,” Mr. Lincoln said:  “If you indorse him, you tell him you do not care whether Slavery be voted up or down, and he will close, or try to close, your mouths with his declaration repeated by the day, the week, the month, and the year.  Is that what you mean? Now I could ask the Republican party, after all the hard names that Judge Douglas has called them by, all his repeated charges of their inclination to marry with and hug negroes ­all his declarations of Black Republicanism ­by the way, we are improving, the black has got rubbed off ­but with all that, if he be indorsed by Republican votes, where do you stand?  Plainly, you stand ready saddled, bridled, and harnessed, and waiting to be driven over to the Slavery-extension camp of the Nation ­just ready to be driven over, tied together in a lot ­to be driven over, every man with a rope around his neck, that halter being held by Judge Douglas.  That is the question.  If Republican men have been in earnest in what they have done, I think that they has better not do it.

“We were often ­more than once at least ­in the course of Judge Douglas’s speech last night, reminded that this Government was made for White men ­that he believed it was made for White men.  Well, that is putting it in a shape in which no one wants to deny it; but the Judge then goes into his passion for drawing inferences that are not warranted.  I protest, now and forever, against that counterfeit logic which presumes that because I do not want a Negro woman for a Slave I do necessarily want her for a wife.  My understanding is that I need not have her for either; but, as God has made us separate, we can leave one another alone, and do one another much good thereby.  There are White men enough to marry all the White women, and enough Black men to marry all the Black women, and in God’s name let them be so married.  The Judge regales us with the terrible enormities that take place by the mixture of races; that the inferior race bears the superior down.  Why, Judge, if we do not let them get together in the Territories, they won’t mix there.

" Those arguments that are made, that the inferior race are to be treated with as much allowance as they are capable of enjoying; that as much is to be done for them as their condition will allow ­what are these arguments?  They are the arguments that Kings have made for enslaving the People in all ages of the World.  You will find that all the arguments in favor of king-craft were of this class; they always bestrode the necks of the People, not that they wanted to do it, but because the People were better off for being ridden!  That is their argument, and this argument of the Judge is the same old Serpent that says:  you work, and I eat; you toil, and I will enjoy the fruits of it.

“Turn it whatever way you will ­whether it come from the mouth of a King, an excuse for enslaving the People of his Country, or from the mouth of men of one race as a reason for enslaving the men of another race, it is all the same old Serpent; and I hold, if that course of argumentation that is made for the purpose of convincing the public mind that we should not care about this, should be granted, it does not stop with the Negro.

“I should like to know, taking this old Declaration of Independence, which declares that all men are equal upon principle, and making exceptions to it, where will it stop?  If one man says it does not mean a Negro, why not say it does not mean some other man?  If that Declaration is not the truth, let us get the Statute Book, in which we find it, and tear it out!  Who is so bold as to do it?  If it is not true, let us tear it out!” [Cries of “No, no.”] “Let us stick to it then; let us stand firmly by it, then.

" The Saviour, I suppose, did not expect that any human creature could be perfect as the Father in Heaven; but He said, ’As your Father in Heaven is perfect, be ye also perfect.’  He set that up as a standard, and he who did most toward reaching that standard, attained the highest degree of moral perfection.  So I say, in relation to the principle that all men are created equal ­let it be as nearly reached as we can.  If we cannot give Freedom to every creature, let us do nothing that will impose Slavery upon any other creature.  Let us then turn this Government back into the channel in which the framers of the Constitution originally placed it.  Let us stand firmly by each other. Let us discard all this quibbling and unite as one People throughout this Land, until we shall once more stand up declaring that all men are created equal.”

At Bloomington, July 16th (Mr. Lincoln being present), Judge Douglas made another great speech of vindication and attack.  After sketching the history of the Kansas-Nebraska struggle, from the introduction by himself of the Nebraska Bill in the United States Senate, in 1854, down to the passage of the “English” Bill ­which prescribed substantially that if the people of Kansas would come in as a Slave-holding State, they should be admitted with but 35,000 inhabitants; but if they would come in as a Free State, they must have 93,420 inhabitants; which unfair restriction was opposed by Judge Douglas, but to which after it became law he “bowed in deference,” because whatever decision the people of Kansas might make on the coming third of August would be “final and conclusive of the whole question” ­he proceeded to compliment the Republicans in Congress, for supporting the Crittenden-Montgomery Bill ­for coming “to the Douglas platform, abandoning their own, believing (in the language of the New York Tribune), that under the peculiar circumstances they would in that mode best subserve the interests of the Country;” and then again attacked Mr. Lincoln for his “unholy and unnatural alliance” with the Lecompton-Democrats to defeat him, because of which, said he:  “You will find he does not say a word against the Lecompton Constitution or its supporters.  He is as silent as the grave upon that subject.  Behold Mr. Lincoln courting Lecompton votes, in order that he may go to the Senate as the representative of Republican principles!  You know that the alliance exists.  I think you will find that it will ooze out before the contest is over.”  Then with many handsome compliments to the personal character of Mr. Lincoln, and declaring that the question for decision was “whether his principles are more in accordance with the genius of our free institutions, the peace and harmony of the Republic” than those advocated by himself, Judge Douglas proceeded to discuss what he described as “the two points at issue between Mr. Lincoln and myself.”

Said he:  “Although the Republic has existed from 1789 to this day, divided into Free States and Slave States, yet we are told that in the future it cannot endure unless they shall become all Free or all Slave. He wishes to go to the Senate of the United States in order to carry out that line of public policy which will compel all the States in the South to become Free.  How is he going to do it?  Has Congress any power over the subject of Slavery in Kentucky or Virginia or any other State of this Union?  How, then, is Mr. Lincoln going to carry out that principle which he says is essential to the existence of this Union, to wit:  That Slavery must be abolished in all the States of the Union or must be established in them all?  You convince the South that they must either establish Slavery in Illinois and in every other Free State, or submit to its abolition in every Southern State and you invite them to make a warfare upon the Northern States in order to establish Slavery for the sake of perpetuating it at home.  Thus, Mr. Lincoln invites, by his proposition, a War of Sections, a War between Illinois and Kentucky, a War between the Free States and the Slave States, a War between the North and South, for the purpose of either exterminating Slavery in every Southern State or planting it in every Northern State.  He tells you that the safety of the Republic, that the existence of this Union, depends upon that warfare being carried on until one Section or the other shall be entirely subdued.  The States must all be Free or Slave, for a house divided against itself cannot stand.  That is Mr. Lincoln’s argument upon that question.  My friends, is it possible to preserve Peace between the North and the South if such a doctrine shall prevail in either Section of the Union?

“Will you ever submit to a warfare waged by the Southern States to establish Slavery in Illinois?  What man in Illinois would not lose the last drop of his heart’s blood before lie would submit to the institution of Slavery being forced upon us by the other States against our will?  And if that be true of us, what Southern man would not shed the last drop of his heart’s blood to prevent Illinois, or any other Northern State, from interfering to abolish Slavery in his State?  Each of these States is sovereign under the Constitution; and if we wish to preserve our liberties, the reserved rights and sovereignty of each and every State must be maintained. The difference between Mr. Lincoln and myself upon this point is, that he goes for a combination of the Northern States, or the organization of a sectional political party in the Free States, to make War on the domestic institutions of the Southern States, and to prosecute that War until they all shall be subdued, and made to conform to such rules as the North shall dictate to them.

“I am aware that Mr. Lincoln, on Saturday night last, made a speech at Chicago for the purpose, as he said, of explaining his position on this question. His answer to this point which I have been arguing, is, that he never did mean, and that I ought to know that he never intended to convey the idea, that he wished the people of the Free States to enter into the Southern States and interfere with Slavery.  Well, I never did suppose that he ever dreamed of entering into Kentucky, to make War upon her institutions, nor will any Abolitionist ever enter into Kentucky to wage such War.  Their mode of making War is not to enter into those States where Slavery exists, and there interfere, and render themselves responsible for the consequences.  Oh, no!  They stand on this side of the Ohio River and shoot across.  They stand in Bloomington and shake their fists at the people of Lexington; they threaten South Carolina from Chicago.  And they call that bravery!  But they are very particular, as Mr. Lincoln says, not to enter into those States for the purpose of interfering with the institution of Slavery there.  I am not only opposed to entering into the Slave States, for the purpose of interfering with their institutions, but I am opposed to a sectional agitation to control the institutions of other States.  I am opposed to organizing a sectional party, which appeals to Northern pride, and Northern passion and prejudice, against Southern institutions, thus stirring up ill feeling and hot blood between brethren of the same Republic.  I am opposed to that whole system of sectional agitation, which can produce nothing but strife, but discord, but hostility, and finally disunion.

“I ask Mr. Lincoln how it is that he purposes ultimately to bring about this uniformity in each and all the States of the Union?  There is but one possible mode which I can see, and perhaps Mr. Lincoln intends to pursue it; that is, to introduce a proposition into the Senate to change the Constitution of the United States in order that all the State Legislatures may be abolished, State Sovereignty blotted out, and the power conferred upon Congress to make local laws and establish the domestic institutions and police regulations uniformly throughout the United States.

“Are you prepared for such a change in the institutions of your country?  Whenever you shall have blotted out the State Sovereignties, abolished the State Legislatures, and consolidated all the power in the Federal Government, you will have established a Consolidated Empire as destructive to the Liberties of the People and the Rights of the Citizen as that of Austria, or Russia, or any other despotism that rests upon the neck of the People. There is but one possible way in which Slavery can be abolished, and that is by leaving a State, according to the principle of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, perfectly free to form and regulate its institutions in its own way.  That was the principle upon which this Republic was founded, and it is under the operation of that principle that we have been able to preserve the Union thus far under its operation.  Slavery disappeared from New Hampshire, from Rhode Island, from Connecticut, from New York, from New Jersey, from Pennsylvania, from six of the twelve original Slave-holding States; and this gradual system of emancipation went on quietly, peacefully, and steadily, so long as we in the Free States minded our own business, and left our neighbors alone.

“But the moment the Abolition Societies were organized throughout the North, preaching a violent crusade against Slavery in the Southern States, this combination necessarily caused a counter-combination in the South, and a sectional line was drawn which was a barrier to any further emancipation.  Bear in mind that emancipation has not taken place in any one State since the Free Soil Party was organized as a political party in this country.  Emancipation went on gradually, in State after State, so long as the Free States were content with managing their own affairs and leaving the South perfectly free to do as they pleased; but the moment the North said we are powerful enough to control you of the South, the moment the North proclaimed itself the determined master of the South, that moment the South combined to resist the attack, and thus sectional parties were formed and gradual emancipation ceased in all the Slave-holding States.

“And yet Mr. Lincoln, in view of these historical facts, proposes to keep up this sectional agitation, band all the Northern States together in one political Party, elect a President by Northern votes alone, and then, of course, make a Cabinet composed of Northern men, and administer the Government by Northern men only, denying all the Southern States of this Union any participation in the administration of affairs whatsoever.  I submit to you, my fellow-citizens, whether such a line of policy is consistent with the peace and harmony of the Country?  Can the Union endure under such a system of policy?  He has taken his position in favor of sectional agitation and sectional warfare.  I have taken mine in favor of securing peace, harmony, and good-will among all the States, by permitting each to mind its own business, and discountenancing any attempt at interference on the part of one State with the domestic concerns of the others.

“Mr. Lincoln tells you that he is opposed to the decision of the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott case.  Well, suppose he is; what is he going to do about it? Why, he says he is going to appeal to Congress.  Let us see how he will appeal to Congress.  He tells us that on the 8th of March, 1820, Congress passed a law called the Missouri Compromise, prohibiting Slavery forever in all the territory west of the Mississippi and north of the Missouri line of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes; that Dred Scott, a slave in Missouri, was taken by his master to Fort Snelling, in the present State of Minnesota, situated on the west branch of the Mississippi River, and consequently in the Territory where Slavery was prohibited by the Act of 1820; and that when Dred Scott appealed for his Freedom in consequence of having been taken into that Territory, the Supreme Court of the United States decided that Dred Scott did not become Free by being taken into that Territory, but that having been carried back to Missouri, was yet a Slave.

“Mr. Lincoln is going to appeal from that decision and reverse it.  He does not intend to reverse it as to Dred Scott.  Oh, no!  But he will reverse it so that it shall not stand as a rule in the future.  How will he do it?  He says that if he is elected to the Senate he will introduce and pass a law just like the Missouri Compromise, prohibiting Slavery again in all the Territories.  Suppose he does re-enact the same law which the Court has pronounced unconstitutional, will that make it Constitutional? Will it be any more valid?  Will he be able to convince the Court that the second Act is valid, when the first is invalid and void?  What good does it do to pass a second Act?  Why, it will have the effect to arraign the Supreme Court before the People, and to bring them into all the political discussions of the Country.  Will that do any good?

“The functions of Congress are to enact the Statutes, the province of the Court is to pronounce upon their validity, and the duty of the Executive is to carry the decision into effect when rendered by the Court.  And yet, notwithstanding the Constitution makes the decision of the Court final in regard to the validity of an Act of Congress, Mr. Lincoln is going to reverse that decision by passing another Act of Congress.  When he has become convinced of the Folly of the proposition, perhaps he will resort to the same subterfuge that I have found others of his Party resort to, which is to agitate and agitate until he can change the Supreme Court and put other men in the places of the present incumbents.”

After ridiculing this proposition at some length, he proceeded: 

“Mr. Lincoln is alarmed for fear that, under the Dred Scott decision, Slavery will go into all the Territories of the United States.  All I have to say is that, with or without this decision, Slavery will go just where the People want it, and not an inch further. Hence, if the People of a Territory want Slavery, they will encourage it by passing affirmatory laws, and the necessary police regulations, patrol laws and Slave Code; if they do not want it, they will withhold that legislation, and, by withholding it, Slavery is as dead as if it was prohibited by a Constitutional prohibition, especially if, in addition, their legislation is unfriendly, as it would be if they were opposed to it.”

Then, taking up what he said was “Mr. Lincoln’s main objection to the Dred Scott decision,” to wit:  “that that decision deprives the Negro of the benefits of that clause of the Constitution of the United States which entitles the citizens of each State to all the privileges and immunities of citizens of the several States,” and admitting that such would be its effect, Mr. Douglas contended at some length that this Government was “founded on the White basis” for the benefit of the Whites and their posterity.  He did “not believe that it was the design or intention of the signers of the Declaration of Independence or the frames of the Constitution to include Negroes, Indians, or other inferior races, with White men as citizens;” nor that the former “had any reference to Negroes, when they used the expression that all men were created equal,” nor to “any other inferior race.”  He held that, “They were speaking only of the White race, and never dreamed that their language would be construed to apply to the Negro;” and after ridiculing the contrary view, insisted that, “The history of the Country shows that neither the signers of the Declaration, nor the Framers of the Constitution, ever supposed it possible that their language would be used in an attempt to make this Nation a mixed Nation of Indians, Negroes, Whites, and Mongrels.”

The “Fathers proceeded on the White basis, making the White people the governing race, but conceding to the Indian and Negro, and all inferior races, all the rights and all the privileges they could enjoy consistent with the safety of the society in which they lived.  That,” said he, “is my opinion now.  I told you that humanity, philanthropy, justice, and sound policy required that we should give the Negro every right, every privilege, every immunity consistent with the safety and welfare of the State.  The question, then, naturally arises, what are those rights and privileges, and what is the nature and extent of them?  My answer is, that that is a question which each State and each Territory must decide for itself. I am content with that position.  My friend Lincoln is not. He thinks that the Almighty made the Negro his equal and his brother.  For my part I do not consider the Negro any kin to me, nor to any other White man; but I would still carry my humanity and my philanthropy to the extent of giving him every privilege and every immunity that he could enjoy, consistent with our own good.”

After again referring to the principles connected with non-interference in the domestic institutions of the States and Territories, and to the devotion of all his energies to them “since 1850, when,” said he, “I acted side by side with the immortal Clay and the god-like Webster, in that memorable struggle in which Whigs and Democrats united upon a common platform of patriotism and the Constitution, throwing aside partisan feelings in order to restore peace and harmony to a distracted Country” ­he alluded to the death-bed of Clay, and the pledges made by himself to both Clay and Webster to devote his own life to the vindication of the principles of that Compromise of 1850 as a means of preserving the Union; and concluded with this appeal:  “This Union can only be preserved by maintaining the fraternal feeling between the North and the South, the East and the West.  If that good feeling can be preserved, the Union will be as perpetual as the fame of its great founders.  It can be maintained by preserving the sovereignty of the States, the right of each State and each Territory to settle its domestic concerns for itself, and the duty of each to refrain from interfering with the other in any of its local or domestic institutions.  Let that be done, and the Union will be perpetual; let that be done, and this Republic, which began with thirteen States and which now numbers thirty-two, which when it began, only extended from the Atlantic to the Mississippi, but now reaches to the Pacific, may yet expand, North and South, until it covers the whole Continent, and becomes one vast ocean-bound Confederacy.  Then, my friends, the path of duty, of honor, of patriotism, is plain.  There are a few simple principles to be preserved.  Bear in mind the dividing line between State rights and Federal authority; let us maintain the great principles of Popular Sovereignty, of State rights and of the Federal Union as the Constitution has made it, and this Republic will endure forever.”

On the next evening, July 17th, at Springfield, both Douglas and Lincoln addressed separate meetings.

After covering much the same ground with regard to the history of the Kansas-Nebraska struggle and his own attitude upon it, as he did in his previous speech, Mr. Douglas declined to comment upon Mr. Lincoln’s intimation of a Conspiracy between Douglas, Pierce, Buchanan, and Taney for the passage of the Nebraska Bill, the rendition of the Dred Scott decision, and the extension of Slavery, but proceeded to dilate on the “uniformity” issue between himself and Mr. Lincoln, in much the same strain as before, tersely summing up with the statement that “there is a distinct issue of principles ­principles irreconcilable ­between Mr. Lincoln and myself.  He goes for consolidation and uniformity in our Government.  I go for maintaining the Confederation of the Sovereign States under the Constitution, as our fathers made it, leaving each State at liberty to manage its own affairs and own internal institutions.”

He then ridiculed, at considerable length, Mr. Lincoln’s proposed methods of securing a reversal by the United States Supreme Court of the Dred Scott decision ­especially that of an “appeal to the People to elect a President who will appoint judges who will reverse the Dred Scott decision,” which he characterized as “a proposition to make that Court the corrupt, unscrupulous tool of a political party,” and asked, “when we refuse to abide by Judicial decisions, what protection is there left for life and property?  To whom shall you appeal?  To mob law, to partisan caucuses, to town meetings, to revolution?  Where is the remedy when you refuse obedience to the constituted authorities?” In other respects the speech was largely a repetition of his Bloomington speech.

Mr. Lincoln in his speech, the same night, at Springfield, opened by contrasting the disadvantages under which, by reason of an unfair apportionment of State Legislative representation and otherwise, the Republicans of Illinois labored in this fight.  Among other disadvantages ­whereby he said the Republicans were forced “to fight this battle upon principle and upon principle alone” ­were those which he said arose “out of the relative positions of the two persons who stand before the State as candidates for the Senate.”

Said he:  “Senator Douglas is of world-wide renown.  All the anxious politicians of his Party, or who have been of his Party for years past, have been looking upon him as certainly, at no distant day, to be the President of the United States.  They have seen in his round, jolly, fruitful face, Post-offices, Land-offices, Marshalships, and Cabinet appointments, Chargeships and Foreign Missions, bursting and sprouting out in wonderful exuberance, ready to be laid hold of by their greedy hands.  And as they have been gazing upon this attractive picture so long, they cannot, in the little distraction that has taken place in the party, bring themselves to give up the charming hope; but with greedier anxiety they rush about him, sustain him, and give him marches, triumphal entries, and receptions, beyond what even in the days of his highest prosperity they could have brought about in his favor.  On the contrary, nobody has ever expected me to be President.  In my poor, lean, lank face, nobody has ever seen that any cabbages were sprouting out.”

Then he described the main points of Senator Douglas’s plan of campaign as being not very numerous.  “The first,” he said, “is Popular Sovereignty.  The second and third are attacks upon my speech made on the 16th of June.  Out of these three points-drawing within the range of Popular Sovereignty the question of the Lecompton Constitution ­he makes his principal assault.  Upon these his successive speeches are substantially one and the same.”  Touching the first point, “Popular Sovereignty” ­“the great staple” of Mr. Douglas’s campaign ­Mr. Lincoln affirmed that it was “the most arrant Quixotism that was ever enacted before a community.”

He said that everybody understood that “we have not been in a controversy about the right of a People to govern themselves in the ordinary matters of domestic concern in the States and Territories;” that, “in this controversy, whatever has been said has had reference to the question of Negro Slavery;” and “hence,” said he, “when hereafter I speak of Popular Sovereignty, I wish to be understood as applying what I say to the question of Slavery only; not to other minor domestic matters of a Territory or a State.”

Having cleared away the cobwebs, Mr. Lincoln proceeded: 

“Does Judge Douglas, when he says that several of the past years of his life have been devoted to the question of ‘Popular Sovereignty’ mean to say that he has been devoting his life to securing the People of the Territories the right to exclude Slavery from the Territories?  If he means so to say, he means to deceive; because he and every one knows that the decision of the Supreme Court, which he approves, and makes special ground of attack upon me for disapproving, forbids the People of a Territory to exclude Slavery.

“This covers the whole ground from the settlement of a Territory till it reaches the degree of maturity entitling it to form a State Constitution. This being so, the period of time from the first settlement of a Territory till it reaches the point of forming a State Constitution, is not the thing that the Judge has fought for, or is fighting for; but, on the contrary, he has fought for, and is fighting for, the thing that annihilates and crushes out that same Popular Sovereignty.  Well, so much being disposed of, what is left?  Why, he is contending for the right of the People, when they come to make a State Constitution, to make it for themselves, and precisely as best suits themselves.  I say again, that is Quixotic.  I defy contradiction when I declare that the Judge can find no one to oppose him on that proposition.  I repeat, there is nobody opposing that proposition on principle. Nobody is opposing, or has opposed, the right of the People when they form a State Constitution, to form it for themselves.  Mr. Buchanan and his friends have not done it; they, too, as well as the Republicans and the Anti-Lecompton Democrats, have not done it; but on the contrary, they together have insisted on the right of the People to form a Constitution for themselves.  The difference between the Buchanan men, on the one hand, and the Douglas men and the Republicans, on the other, has not been on a question of principle, but on a question of fact whether the Lecompton Constitution had been fairly formed by the People or not. As to the principle, all were agreed.

“Judge Douglas voted with the Republicans upon that matter of fact.  He and they, by their voices and votes, denied that it was a fair emanation of the People.  The Administration affirmed that it was. This being so, what is Judge Douglas going to spend his life for?  Is he going to spend his life in maintaining a principle that no body on earth opposes?  Does he expect to stand up in majestic dignity and go through his apotheosis and become a god, in the maintaining of a principle which neither man nor mouse in all God’s creation is opposing?”

After ridiculing the assumption that Judge Douglas was entitled to all the credit for the defeat of the Lecompton Constitution in the House of Representatives ­when the defeating vote numbered 120, of which 6 were Americans, 20 Douglas (or Anti-Lecompton) Democrats, and 94 Republicans ­and hinting that perhaps he placed “his superior claim to credit, on the ground that he performed a good act which was never expected of him,” or “upon the ground of the parable of the lost sheep,” of which it had been said, “that there was more rejoicing over the one sheep that was lost and had been found, than over the ninety and nine in the fold ­” he added:  “The application is made by the Saviour in this parable, thus:  ’Verily, I say unto you, there is more rejoicing in Heaven over one sinner that repenteth, than over ninety and nine just persons that need no repentance.’  And now if the Judge claims the benefit of this parable, let him repent.  Let him not come up here and say:  ’I am the only just person; and you are the ninety-nine sinners!’ Repentance before forgiveness is a provision of the Christian system, and on that condition alone will the Republicans grant his forgiveness.”

After complaining that Judge Douglas misrepresented his attitude as indicated in his 16th of June speech at Springfield, in charging that he invited “a War of Sections;” ­that he proposed that “all the local institutions of the different States shall become consolidated and uniform,” Mr. Lincoln denied that that speech could fairly bear such construction.

In that speech he (Mr. L.) had simply expressed an expectation that “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.”  Since then, at Chicago, he had also expressed a “wish to see the spread of Slavery arrested, and to see it placed where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction” ­and, said he:  “I said that, because I supposed, when the public mind shall rest in that belief, we shall have Peace on the Slavery question.  I have believed ­and now believe ­the public mind did rest on that belief up to the introduction of the Nebraska Bill.  Although I have ever been opposed to Slavery, so far I rested in the hope and belief that it was in the course of ultimate extinction.  For that reason, it had been a minor question with me.  I might have been mistaken; but I had believed, and now believe, that the whole public mind, that is, the mind of the great majority, had rested in that belief up to the Repeal of the Missouri Compromise.  But upon that event, I became convinced that either I had been resting in a delusion, or the institution was being placed on a new basis ­a basis for making it Perpetual, National, and Universal.  Subsequent events have greatly confirmed me in that belief.

“I believe that Bill to be the beginning of a Conspiracy for that purpose.  So believing, I have since then considered that question a paramount one.  So believing, I thought the public mind would never rest till the power of Congress to restrict the spread of it shall again be acknowledged and exercised on the one hand, or, on the other, all resistance be entirely crushed out.  I have expressed that opinion and I entertain it to-night.”

Having given some pieces of evidence in proof of the “tendency,” he had discovered, to the Nationalization of Slavery in these States, Mr. Lincoln continued:  “And now, as to the Judge’s inference, that because I wish to see Slavery placed in the course of ultimate extinction ­placed where our fathers originally placed it ­I wish to annihilate the State Legislatures ­to force cotton to grow upon the tops of the Green Mountains ­to freeze ice in Florida ­to cut lumber on the broad Illinois prairies ­that I am in favor of all these ridiculous and impossible things!  It seems to me it is a complete answer to all this, to ask if, when Congress did have the fashion of restricting Slavery from Free Territory; when Courts did have the fashion of deciding that taking a Slave into a Free, Country made him Free ­I say it is a sufficient answer to ask, if any of this ridiculous nonsense, about consolidation and uniformity, did actually follow?  Who heard of any such thing, because of the Ordinance of ’87? because of the Missouri Restriction because of the numerous Court decisions of that character?

“Now, as to the Dred Scott decision; for upon that he makes his last point at me.  He boldly takes ground in favor of that decision.  This is one-half the onslaught and one-third of the entire plan of the campaign.  I am opposed to that decision in a certain sense, but not in the sense which he puts on it.  I say that in so far as it decided in favor of Dred Scott’s master, and against Dred Scott and his family, I do not propose to disturb or resist the decision.  I never have proposed to do any such thing.  I think, that in respect for judicial authority, my humble history would not suffer in comparison with that of Judge Douglas.  He would have the citizen conform his vote to that decision; the member of Congress, his; the President, his use of the veto power.  He would make it a rule of political action for the People and all the departments of the Government.  I would not.  By resisting it as a political rule, I disturb no right of property, create no disorder, excite no mobs.”

After quoting from a letter of Mr. Jefferson (vol. vii., , of his Correspondence,) in which he held that “to consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all Constitutional questions,” is “a very dangerous doctrine indeed; and one which would place us under the despotism of an Oligarchy,” Mr. Lincoln continued:  “Let us go a little further.  You remember we once had a National Bank.  Some one owed the Bank a debt; he was sued, and sought to avoid payment on the ground that the Bank was unconstitutional.  The case went to the Supreme Court, and therein it was decided that the Bank was Constitutional.  The whole Democratic party revolted against that decision.  General Jackson himself asserted that he, as President, would not be bound to hold a National Bank to be Constitutional, even though the Court had decided it to be so.  He fell in, precisely, with the view of Mr. Jefferson, and acted upon it under his official oath, in vetoing a charter for a National Bank.

“The declaration that Congress does not possess this Constitutional power to charter a Bank, has gone into the Democratic platform, at their National Conventions, and was brought forward and reaffirmed in their last Convention at Cincinnati.  They have contended for that declaration, in the very teeth of the Supreme Court, for more than a quarter of a century.  In fact, they have reduced the decision to an absolute nullity.  That decision, I repeat, is repudiated in the Cincinnati platform; and still, as if to show that effrontery can go no further, Judge Douglas vaunts in the very speeches in which he denounces me for opposing the Dred Scott decision, that he stands on the Cincinnati platform.

“Now, I wish to know what the Judge can charge upon me, with respect to decisions of the Supreme Court, which does not lie in all its length, breadth, and proportions, at his own door?  The plain truth is simply this:  Judge Douglas is for Supreme Court decisions when he likes, and against them when he does not like them.  He is for the Dred Scott decision because it tends to Nationalize Slavery ­because it is a part of the original combination for that object.  It so happens, singularly enough, that I never stood opposed to a decision of the Supreme Court till this.  On the contrary, I have no recollection that he was ever particularly in favor of one till this.  He never was in favor of any, nor (I) opposed to any, till the present one, which helps to Nationalize Slavery.  Free men of Sangamon ­Free men of Illinois, Free men everywhere ­judge ye between him and me, upon this issue!

“He says this Dred Scott case is a very small matter at most ­that it has no practical effect; that at best, or rather I suppose at worst, it is but an abstraction. How has the planting of Slavery in new countries always been effected?  It has now been decided that Slavery cannot be kept out of our new Territories by any legal means.  In what do our new Territories now differ in this respect from the old Colonies when Slavery was first planted within them?

“It was planted, as Mr. Clay once declared, and as history proves true, by individual men in spite of the wishes of the people; the Mother-Government refusing to prohibit it, and withholding from the People of the Colonies the authority to prohibit it for themselves.  Mr. Clay says this was one of the great and just causes of complaint against Great Britain by the Colonies, and the best apology we can now make for having the institution amongst us.  In that precise condition our Nebraska politicians have at last succeeded in placing our own new Territories; the Government will not prohibit Slavery within them, nor allow the People to prohibit it.”

Alluding to that part of Mr. Douglas’s speech the previous night touching the death-bed scene of Mr. Clay, with Mr. Douglas’s promise to devote the remainder of his life to “Popular Sovereignty” ­and to his relations with Mr. Webster ­Mr. Lincoln said:  “It would be amusing, if it were not disgusting, to see how quick these Compromise breakers administer on the political effects of their dead adversaries.  If I should be found dead to-morrow morning, nothing but my insignificance could prevent a speech being made on my authority, before the end of next week.  It so happens that in that ‘Popular Sovereignty’ with which Mr. Clay was identified, the Missouri Compromise was expressly reserved; and it was a little singular if Mr. Clay cast his mantle upon Judge Douglas on purpose to have that Compromise repealed.  Again, the Judge did not keep faith with Mr. Clay when he first brought in the Nebraska Bill.  He left the Missouri Compromise unrepealed, and in his report accompanying the Bill, he told the World he did it on purpose.  The manes of Mr. Clay must have been in great agony, till thirty days later, when ‘Popular Sovereignty’ stood forth in all its glory.”

Touching Mr. Douglas’s allegations of Mr. Lincoln’s disposition to make Negroes equal with the Whites, socially and politically, the latter said:  “My declarations upon this subject of Negro Slavery may be misrepresented, but cannot be misunderstood.  I have said that I do not understand the Declaration (of Independence) to mean that all men were created equal in all respects.  They are not equal in color; but I suppose that it does mean to declare that all men are equal in some respects; they are equal in their right to ’Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.’  Certainly the Negro is not our equal in color ­perhaps not in many other respects; still, in the right to put into his mouth the bread that his own hands have earned, he is the equal of every other man, White or Black.  In pointing out that more has been given you, you cannot be justified in taking away the little which has been given him.  All I ask for the Negro is that if you do not like him, let him alone.  If God gave him but little, that little let him enjoy.

“The framers of the Constitution,” continued Mr. Lincoln, “found the institution of Slavery amongst their other institutions at the time.  They found that by an effort to eradicate it, they might lose much of what they had already gained.  They were obliged to bow to the necessity.  They gave Congress power to abolish the Slave Trade at the end of twenty years.  They also prohibited it in the Territories where it did not exist.  They did what they could, and yielded to the necessity for the rest.  I also yield to all which follows from that necessity.  What I would most desire would be the separation of the White and Black races.”

Mr. Lincoln closed his speech by referring to the “New Departure” of the Democracy ­to the charge he had made, in his 16th of June speech, touching “the existence of a Conspiracy to Perpetuate and Nationalize Slavery” ­which Mr. Douglas had not contradicted ­and, said he, “on his own tacit admission I renew that charge.  I charge him with having been a party to that Conspiracy, and to that deception, for the sole purpose of Nationalizing Slavery.”

This closed the series of preliminary speeches in the canvass.  But they only served to whet the moral and intellectual and political appetite of the public for more.  It was generally conceded that, at last, in the person of Mr. Lincoln, the “Little Giant” had met his match.

On July 24, Mr. Lincoln opened a correspondence with Mr. Douglas, which eventuated in an agreement between them, July 31st, for joint-discussions, to take place at Ottawa, Freeport, Jonesboro, Charleston, Galesburgh, Quincy, and Alton, on fixed dates in August, September and October ­at Ottawa, Mr. Douglas to open and speak one hour, Mr. Lincoln to have an hour and a half in reply, and Mr. Douglas to close in a half hour’s speech; at Freeport, Mr. Lincoln to open and speak for one hour, Mr. Douglas to take the next hour and a half in reply, and Mr. Lincoln to have the next half hour to close; and so on, alternating at each successive place, making twenty-one hours of joint political debate.

To these absorbingly interesting discussions, vast assemblages listened with breathless attention; and to the credit of all parties be it said, with unparalleled decorum.  The People evidently felt that the greatest of all political principles ­that of Human Liberty ­was hanging on the issue of this great political contest between intellectual giants, thus openly waged before the World ­and they accordingly rose to the dignity and solemnity of the occasion, vindicating by their very example the sacredness with which the Right of Free Speech should be regarded at all times and everywhere.