Part 9 (2/2)
In the year 1858--that of the great debates--Douglas was the better known of the opposing candidates in the country at large In a speech then recently delivered in Springfield, Mr Lincoln said:
”There is still another disadvantage under which we labor and to which I will ask your attention It arises out of the relative positions of the two persons who stand before the State as candidates for the Senate Senator Douglas is of world-wide renown All the anxious politicians of his party have been looking upon him as certainly at no distant day to be the President of the United States They have seen in his ruddy, jolly, fruitful face, postoffices, land-offices, nout in wonderful exuberance, ready to be laid hold of by their greedy hands On the contrary, nobody has ever seen inout”
Both, however, were personally well known in Illinois Each was by unanilas had known sixteen years of continuous service in one or the other House of Congress In the Senate, he had held high debate with Seward, Su the last session--since he had assuonism to the Buchanan administration--had repeatedly measured swords with Toreat debaters of the South
Mr Lincoln's services in Congress had been lireat faislator, but as Chief Executive during the most critical years of our history
Such, in brief, were the opposing candidates as they entered the lists of debate at Ottawa, on the twenty-first day of August, 1858
Both were in the prihly equipped for the conflict, and surrounded by throngs of devoted friends Both were gifted with remarkable forensic powers and alike hopeful as to the result Each recognizing fully the strength of his opponent, his oere constantly at their tension
”the blood more stirs To rouse a lion than to start a hare”
In opening, Senator Douglas made brief reference to the political condition of the country prior to the year 1854 He said:
”The Whig and the Dereat parties then in existence; both national and patriotic, advocating principles that were universal in their application; while these parties differed in regard to banks, tariff, and sub-treasury, they agreed on the slavery question which now agitates the Union They had adopted the compromise measures of 1850 as the basis of a full solution of the slavery question in all its forms; that these measures had received the endorsement of both parties in their National Conventions of 1852, thus affirht of the people of each State and Territory to decide as to their domestic institutions for themselves; that this principle was eanization of the Territories of Kansas and Nebraska; in order that there , these words were inserted in that bill: 'It is the true intent and islate slavery into any State or Territory, or to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to forulate their domestic institutions in their oay, subject only to the Federal Constitution'”
Turning to his opponent, he said:
”I desire to knohether Mr Lincoln to-day stands as he did in 1854 in favor of the unconditional repeal of the Fugitive Slave Lahether he stands pledged to-day as he did in 1854 against the admission of any more slave States into the Union, even if the people want theainst the admission of a new State into the Union with such a Constitution as the people of that State may see fit to ed to the abolition of slavery in the District of Colued to prohibit slavery in all the Territories of the United States north as well as south of the Missouri Compromise line I desire him to anshether he is opposed to acquisition of any more territory unless slavery is prohibited therein I want his answer to these questions”
Douglas then addressed hifield speech coainst itself cannot stand” He declared the Government had existed for seventy years divided into free and slave States as our fathers made it; that at the time the Constitution was framed there were thirteen States, twelve of which were slave-holding, and one a free State; that if the doctrine preached by Mr Lincoln that all should be free or all slave had prevailed, the twelve would have overruled the one, and slavery would have been established by the Constitution on every inch of the Republic, instead of being left, as our fathers wisely left it, for each State to decide for itself He then declared that:
”Uniformity in the local laws and institutions of the different States is neither possible nor desirable; that if uniformity had been adopted when the Government was established it must inevitably have been the uniforro citizenshi+p and negro equality everywhere I hold that huro shall have and enjoy every right and every privilege and every immunity consistent with the safety of the society in which he lives
The question then arises, What rights and privileges are consistent with the public good? This is a question which each State and each Territory must decide for itself Illinois has decided it for herself”
He then said:
”Now, reat principle of popular sovereignty, it guarantees to each State and Territory the right to do as it pleases on all things local and do, ill continue at peace one with another This doctrine of Mr Lincoln of unifor the institutions of the different States is a new doctrine never dreaton, Madison, or the framers of the Government Mr Lincoln and his party set themselves up as wiser than the founders of the Government, which has flourished for seventy years under the principle of popular sovereignty, recognizing the right of each State to do as it pleased Under that principle, we have grown from a nation of three or four millions to one of thirty millions of people We have crossed thethe prairies into a garden, and building up churches and schools, thus spreading civilization and Christianity where before there was nothing but barbarism
Under that principle we have become from a feeble nation the most powerful upon the face of the earth, and if we only adhere to that principle we can go forward increasing in territory, in power, in strength, and in glory, until the Republic of Auide the friends of freedohout the civilized world I believe that his new doctrine preached by Mr Lincoln will dissolve the Union if it succeeds; trying to array all the Northern States in one body against the Southern; to excite a sectional war between the free States and the slave States in order that one or the other may be driven to the wall”
Mr Lincoln said in reply:
”I think and will try to show, that the repeal of the Missouri Co slavery into Kansas and Nebraska; wrong in its prospective principle, allowing it to spread to every other part of the orld where men can be found inclined to take it This declared indifference, but as I must think covert zeal for the spread of slavery, I cannot but hate I hate it because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself I hate it because it deprives our Republic of an example of its just influence in the world--enables the enemies of free institutions with plausibility to taunt us as hypocrites I have no prejudices against the Southern people; they are just ould be in their situation If slavery did now exist aive it up This I believe of the masses North and South When the Southern people tell us they are no in of slavery than we, I acknowledge the fact When it is said that the institution exists, and that it is very difficult to get rid of in any satisfactory way, I can understand and appreciate the same I surely will not blame them for what I should not kno to do iveninstitution”
Declaring that he did not advocate freeing the negroes, andthat gradual systeht be adopted by the States, he added, ”But for their tardiness in this, I will not undertake to judge our brethren of the South But all this toslavery to go into our free territory than it would for reviving the African slave trade by law”
He then added:
”I have no purpose directly or indirectly to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so
I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and black races But I hold that notwithstanding all this there is no reason in the world why the negro is not entitled to all the natural rights enuht to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness I hold that he is as e Douglas he is not my equal in many respects--certainly not in color, perhaps not in ht to eat the bread, without the leave of anybody else, which his own hand earns, he is las, and the equal of every living field speech of the words, ”A house divided against itself cannot stand,” he said:
”Does the Judge say it can stand? If he does, then there is a question of veracity, not between hie and an authority of soher character I leave it to you to say whether, in the history of our Government, the institution of slavery has not only failed to be a bond of union, but on the contrary been an apple of discord and an eleht to say that in regard to this question the Union is a house divided against itself; and when the Judge reminds me that I have often said to hihty years in soree to that fact, and I account for it by looking at the position in which our fathers originally placed it--restricting it fro to cut off its source by abrogation of the slave trade, thus putting the seal of legislation against its spread, the public mind did rest in the belief that it was in the course of ultimate extinction Now, I believe if we could arrest its spread and place it where Washi+ngton and Jefferson and Madison placed it, it would be in the course of ultihty years past --believe that it was in the course of ultifield speech, he declared that he had no thought of doing anything to bring about a war between the free and slave States; that he had no thought in the world that he was doing anything to bring about social and political equality of the black and white races
Pursuing this line of argument, he insisted that the first step in the conspiracy, the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, followed soon by the Dred Scott Decision--the latter fitting perfectly into the niche left by the former--”in such a case, we feel it ier and Ja, and all worked upon a common plan or draft drawn before the first bloas struck”