Chapter XXXII: Appendix (3)

“‘I have made up my mind to appeal to the people against the
combination that has been made against me! the Republican leaders
having formed an alliance, an unholy and unnatural alliance,
with a portion of unscrupulous federal office-holders. I intend
to fight that allied army wherever I meet them. I know they
deny the alliance, but yet these men who are trying to divide
the Democratic party for the purpose of electing a Republican
Senator in my place, are just as much the agents and tools of the
supporters of Mr. Lincoln. Hence I shall deal with this allied army
just as the Russians dealt with the allies at Sebastopol--that is,
the Russians did not stop to inquire, when they fired a broadside,
whether it hit an Englishman, a Frenchman, or a Turk. Nor will
I stop to inquire, nor shall I hesitate, whether my blows shall
hit these Republican leaders or their allies, who are holding the
federal offices and yet acting in concert with them.’

“Well, now, gentlemen, is not that very alarming? Just to think of
it! right at the outset of his canvass, I, a poor, kind, amiable,
intelligent gentleman, I am to be slain in this way. Why, my
friends, the Judge, is not only, as it turns out, not a dead lion,
nor even a living one--he is the rugged Russian Bear!

“But if they will have it--for he says that we deny it--that there
is any such alliance as he says there is--and I don’t propose
hanging very much upon this question of veracity--but if he will
have it that there is such an alliance--that the Administration men
and we are allied, and we stand in the attitude of English, French
and Turk, he occupying the position of the Russian, in that case,
I beg that he will indulge us while we barely suggest to him that
these allies took Sebastopol.

“Gentlemen, only a few more words as to this alliance. For my part,
I have to say, that whether there be such an alliance, depends,
so far as I know, upon what may be a right definition of the term
_alliance_. If for the Republican party to see the other great
party to which they are opposed divided among themselves, and not
try to stop the division and rather be glad of it--if that is an
alliance, I confess I am in; but if it is meant to be said that
the Republicans had formed an alliance going beyond that, by which
there is contribution of money or sacrifice of principle on the one
side or the other so far as the Republican party is concerned, if
there be any such thing, I protest that I neither know any thing
of it, nor do I believe it. I will, however, say--as I think this
branch of the argument is lugged in--I would, before I leave it,
state, for the benefit of those concerned, that one of those same
Buchanan men did once tell me of an argument that he made for his
opposition to Judge Douglas. He said that a friend of our Senator
Douglas had been talking to him, and had among other things said to
him: ‘Why, you don’t want to beat Douglas?’ ‘Yes,’ said he, ‘I do
want to beat him, and I will tell you why. I believe his original
Nebraska Bill was right in the abstract, but it was wrong in the
time that it was brought forward. It was wrong in the application
to a Territory in regard to which the question had been settled;
it was brought forward in a time when nobody asked him; it was
tendered to the South when the South had not asked for it, but when
they could not well refuse it; and for this same reason he forced
that question upon our party; it has sunk the best men all over the
nation, everywhere; and now when our President, struggling with the
difficulties of this man’s getting up, has reached the very hardest
point to turn in the case, his deserts him, and I _am_ for putting
him where he will trouble us no more.’

“Now, gentlemen, that is not my argument--that is not my argument
at all. I have only been stating to you the argument of a Buchanan
man. You will judge if there is any force in it.

“Popular sovereignty! everlasting popular sovereignty! Let us for
a moment inquire into this vast matter of popular sovereignty.
What is popular sovereignty? We recollect that in 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 any body 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
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, as 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 of 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 approved, and one in the approval of which
he says he means to keep me down--_put_ me down I should not say,
for I have never been up. He says he is in favor of it, and sticks
to it, and expects to win his battle on that decision, which says
that there is no such thing as Squatter Sovereignty; but that any
one 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 can not prohibit it. When that is so, how much is
left of this vast matter of Squatter Sovereignty I should like to
know? [A voice--‘It is all gone.’]

“When we get back, we get to the point of the right of the people
to make a Constitution. Kansas was settled, for example, in 1854.
It was a Territory yet, without having formed a Constitution, in
a very regular way, for three years. All this time negro slavery
could be taken in by any few individuals, and by that decision
of the Supreme Court, which the Judge approves, all the rest of
the people can not keep it out; but when they come to make a
Constitution they may say they will not have slavery. But it is
there; they are obliged to tolerate it some way, and all experience
shows it will be so--for they will not take negro slaves and
absolutely deprive the owners of them. All experience shows this to
be so. All that space of time that runs from the beginning of the
settlement of the Territory until there is sufficiency of people
to make a State Constitution--all that portion of time popular
sovereignty is given up. The seal is absolutely put down upon it by
the Court decision, and Judge Douglas puts his on the top of that,
yet he is appealing to the people to give him vast credit for his
devotion to popular sovereignty.

“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 any thing new, I confess
I don’t know it. Has there ever been a time when any body said
that any other than the people of a Territory itself should form
a Constitution? What is now in it that Judge Douglas should have
fought several years of his life, and pledge himself to fight
all the remaining years of his life for? Can Judge Douglas find
any body on earth that said that any body else should form a
Constitution for a people? [A voice, ‘Yes.’] Well, I should like
you to name him; I should like to know who he was. [Same voice,
‘John Calhoun.’]

“No, Sir, I never heard of even John Calhoun saying such a
thing. He insisted on the same principle as Judge Douglas; but
his mode of applying it in fact, was wrong. It is enough for my
purpose to ask this crowd, when ever a Republican said any thing
against it? They never said any thing against it, but they have
constantly spoken for it; and whosoever will undertake to examine
the platform, and the speeches of responsible men of the party,
and of irresponsible men, too, if you please, will be unable to
find one word from anybody in the Republican ranks, opposed to
that Popular Sovereignty which Judge Douglas thinks that he has
invented. I suppose that Judge Douglas will claim in a little
while, that he is the inventor of the idea that the people should
govern themselves; that nobody ever thought of such a thing until
he brought it forward. We do 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 the Popular Sovereignty. Who, then, shall come in at this day
and claim that he invented it”?

After referring, in appropriate terms, to the credit claimed by Douglas for defeating the Lecompton policy, Mr. Lincoln proceeds:

“I defy you to show a printed resolution passed in a Democratic
meeting--I take it upon myself to defy any man to show a printed
resolution of a Democratic meeting, large or small, in favor of
Judge Trumbull, or any of the five to one Republican who beat the
bill. Every thing must be for the Democrats! They did every thing,
and the five to the one that really did the thing, they snub over,
and they do not seem to remember that they have an existence upon
the face of the earth.

“Gentlemen, I fear that I shall become tedious. I leave this branch
of the subject to take hold of another. I take up that part of
Judge Douglas’s speech in which he respectfully attended to me.

“Judge Douglas made two points upon my recent speech at
Springfield. He says they are to be the issues of this campaign.
The first one of these points he bases upon the language in a
speech which I delivered at Springfield, which I believe I can
quote correctly from memory. I said there that ‘we are now far on
in the fifth year since a policy was instituted for the avowed
object, and with the confident promise of putting an end to slavery
agitation; under the operation of that policy, that agitation had
not only not ceased, but had constantly augmented. I believe it
will not cease until a crisis shall have been reached and passed.
A house divided against itself can not stand. I believe this
Government can not endure permanently half slave and half free.
I do not expect the Union to be dissolved’--I am quoting from my
speech--‘I do not expect the house to fall, but I do expect it
will cease to be divided. It will come all one thing or the other.
Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the 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 until it shall have become alike lawful in all the States,
North as well as South.’

“In this paragraph which I have quoted in your hearing, and to
which I ask the attention of all, Judge Douglas thinks he discovers
great political heresy. I want your attention particularly to what
he has inferred from it. He says I am in favor of making all the
States of this Union uniform in all their internal regulations;
that in all their domestic concerns I am in favor of making them
entirely uniform. He draws this inference from the language I have
quoted to you. He says that I am in favor of making war by the
North upon the South for the extinction of slavery; that I am also
in favor of inviting, as he expresses it, the South to a war upon
the North, for the purpose of nationalizing slavery. Now, it is
singular enough, if you will carefully read that passage over, that
I did not say that I was in favor of any thing in it. I only said
what I expected would take place. I made a prediction only--it may
have been a foolish one perhaps. 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. It may be written down in the next speech.

“Gentlemen, Judge Douglas informed you that this speech of mine
was probably carefully prepared. I admit that it was. I am not
master of language; I have not a fine education; I am not capable
of entering into a disquisition upon dialects, as I believe you
call it; but I do not believe the language I employed bears any
such construction as Judge Douglas puts upon it. But I don’t care
about a quibble in regard to words. I know what I meant, and I will
not leave this crowd in doubt, if I can explain it to them, what I
really meant in the use of that paragraph.

“I am not, in the first place, unaware that this Government has
endured eighty-two years, half slave and half free. I know 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. [Pointing to
Mr. Browning, who stood near by:] Browning thought so; the great
mass of the Nation have rested in the belief that slavery was in
the 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 such 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 this 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 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 to 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 any thing I have
ever intended, and, as I believe, by any thing I have ever said.
If, by any means, I have ever used language which could fairly be
so construed (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. I know
that I never meant any such thing, and I believe that no fair mind
can infer any such thing from any thing I have ever said.

“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 will attend to that for a little while, and try to inquire, if
I can, how on earth it could be that any man could draw such an
inference from any thing I said. I have said, very many times, in
Judge Douglas’s hearing, that no man believed more than I in the
principle of self-government; that it lies at the bottom of all my
ideas of just 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 with 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 right of no
other State, and that the General Government, upon principle, has
no right to interfere with any thing 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....

“So much then as to my disposition--my wish--to have all the State
Legislatures blotted out, and to have one consolidated government,
and a uniformity of domestic regulations in all the States; by
which I suppose it is meant, if we raise corn here, we must make
sugar-cane grow here too, and we must make those which grow North
grow in the South. All this I suppose he understands I am in
favor of doing. Now, so much for all this nonsense--for I must
call it so. The Judge can have no issue with me on a question of
established uniformity in the domestic regulations of the States.

“A little now on the other point--the Dred Scott decision. 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, and I ask your indulgence while I do so. 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. [Loud applause.] We will try to put it where Judge
Douglas will not object, for he says he will obey it until it is
reversed. Some body has to reverse that decision, since it was
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,
is 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 been before 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 the kind; it is an
_astonisher_ in legal history. It is a new wonder of the world. It
is based upon falsehoods in the main as to the facts--allegation
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 here remember the case of that same
Supreme Court, twenty-five or thirty years ago, deciding that a
National Bank was Constitutional? I ask, if somebody does not
remember that a National Bank was declared to be Constitutional?
Such is the truth, whether it be remembered or not. The Bank
charter ran out, and a re-charter 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 that 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?’ * * *

“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 into 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 did 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 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 is the inferior race bears the superior down. Why, Judge, if
you do not let them get together in the Territories they won’t mix
there.

“Now, it happens that we meet together once every year, some time
about the Fourth of July, for some reason or other. These Fourth of
July gatherings I suppose have their uses. If you will indulge me,
I will state what I suppose to be some of them.

“We are now a mighty nation; we are thirty, or about thirty millions
of people, and we own and inhabit about one-fifteenth part of the
dry land of the whole earth. We run our memory back over the pages
of history for about eighty-two years, and we discover that we were
then a very small people in point of numbers, vastly inferior to
what we are now, with a vastly less extent of country, with vastly
less of every thing we deem desirable among men--we look upon the
change as exceedingly advantageous to us and to our posterity,
and we fix upon something that happened away back, as in some way
or other being connected with this rise of posterity. We find a
race of men living in that day whom we claim as our fathers and
grandfathers; they were iron men; they fought for the principle
that they were contending for; and we understood that by what
they then did it has followed that the degree of prosperity which
we now enjoy has come to us. We hold this annual celebration to
remind ourselves of all the good done in this process of time,
of how it was done and who did it, and how we are historically
connected with it; and we go from these meetings in better humor
with ourselves--we feel more attached the one to the other, and
more firmly bound to the country we inhabit. In every way we are
better men in the age, and race, and country in which we live,
for these celebrations. But after we have done all this, we have
not yet reached the whole. There is something else connected
with it. We have, besides these--men descended by blood from our
ancestors--those among us perhaps, half our people, who are not
descendants at all of these men; they are men who have come from
Europe--German, Irish, French, and Scandinavian--men that have
come from Europe themselves, or whose ancestors have come hither
and settled here, finding themselves our equals in all things.
If they look back through this history to trace their connection
with those days by blood, they find they have none; they cannot
carry themselves back into that glorious epoch and make themselves
feel that they are part of us; but when they look through that old
Declaration of Independence, they find that those old men say that
‘we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created
equal,’ and then they feel that that moral sentiment, taught on
that day, evidences their relation to those men, that it is the
father of all moral principle in them, and that they have a right
to claim it as though they were blood of the blood and flesh of the
flesh of the men who wrote that Declaration, and so they are. That
is the electric cord in that Declaration that links the hearts of
patriotic and liberty-loving men together, that will link those
patriotic hearts as long as the love of freedom exists in the minds
of men throughout the world.

“Now, sirs, for the purpose of squaring things with this idea of
‘don’t care if slavery is voted up or voted down,’ for sustaining
the Dred Scott decision, for holding that the Declaration of
Independence did not mean any thing at all, we have Judge Douglas
giving his exposition of what the Declaration of Independence
means, and we have him saying that the people of America are
equal to the people of England. According to his construction,
you Germans are not connected with it. Now I ask you in all
soberness, if all these things, if indulged in, if ratified, if
confirmed and indorsed, if taught to our children and repeated
to them, do not tend to rub out the sentiment of liberty in the
country, and to transform this Government into a government of some
other form. These 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 if, taking this old
Declaration of Independence, which declares that all men are equal
upon principle, you begin making exceptions to it, where you will
stop? If one man says it does not mean a negro, why not another 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.

“It may be argued that there are certain conditions that make
necessities and impose them upon us, and to the extent that a
necessity is imposed upon a man, he must submit to it. I think that
was the condition in which we found ourselves when we established
this Government. We had slaves among us; we could not get our
Constitution unless we permitted them to remain in slavery; we
could not secure the good we did secure if we grasped for more; and
having, by necessity, submitted to that much, it does not destroy
the principle that is the charter of our liberties. Let that
charter stand as our standard.

“My friend has said to me that I am a poor hand to quote Scripture.
I will try it again, however. It is said in one of the admonitions
of our Lord: ‘As your Father in heaven is perfect, be ye also
perfect.’ 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. If we do not do so we are turning in
the contrary direction, that our friend Judge Douglas proposes--not
intentionally--as working in the traces tends to make this one
universal slave nation. He is one that runs in that direction, and
as such I resist him.

“My friends, I have detained you about as long as I desired to
do, and I have only to say, let us discard all this quibbling
about this man and the other man--this race and that race and the
other race being inferior, and therefore they must be placed in an
inferior position--discarding our standard that we have left us.
Let us discard all these things, and unite as one people throughout
this land, until we shall once more stand up declaring that all men
are created equal.

“My friends, I could not, without launching off upon some new
topic, which would detain you too long, continue to-night. I thank
you for this most extensive audience that you have furnished me
to-night. I leave you, hoping that the lamp of liberty will burn in
your bosoms until there shall no longer be a doubt that all men are
created free and equal.”

* * * * *

OPENING PASSAGES OF HIS SPEECH AT FREEPORT.

“LADIES AND GENTLEMEN:--On Saturday last, Judge Douglas and myself
first met in public discussion. He spoke one hour, I an hour and a
half, and he replied for half an hour. The order is now reversed. I
am to speak an hour, he an hour and a half, and then I am to reply
for half an hour. I propose to devote myself during the first hour
to the scope of what was brought within the range of his half-hour
speech at Ottawa. Of course there was brought within the scope of
that half-hour’s speech something of his own opening speech. In
the course of that opening argument Judge Douglas proposed to me
seven distinct interrogatories. In my speech of an hour and a half,
I attended to some other parts of his speech, and incidentally,
as I thought, answered one of the interrogatories then. I then
distinctly intimated to him that I would answer the rest of his
interrogatories on condition only that he should agree to answer as
many for me. He made no intimation at the time of the proposition,
nor did he in his reply allude at all to that suggestion of mine.
I do him no injustice in saying that he occupied at least half of
his reply in dealing with me as though I had _refused_ to answer
his interrogatories. I now propose that I will answer any of the
interrogatories, upon condition that he will answer questions from
me not exceeding the same number. I give him an opportunity to
respond. The judge remains silent. I now say that I will answer his
interrogatories, whether he answers mine or not; and that after I
have done so, I shall propound mine to him.

“I have supposed myself, since the organization of the Republican
party at Bloomington, in May, 1856, bound as a party man by the
platforms of the party, then and since. If in any interrogatories
which I shall answer, I go beyond the scope of what is within these
platforms, it will be perceived that no one is responsible but
myself.

“Having said thus much, I will take up the judge’s interrogatories
as I find them printed in the Chicago _Times_, and answer them
_seriatim_. In order that there may be no mistake about it, I have
copied the interrogatories in writing, and also my answers to them.
The first one of these interrogatories is in these words:

Question 1. “‘I desire to know whether Lincoln to-day stands, as he
did in 1854, in favor of the unconditional repeal of the Fugitive
Slave law?’

Answer. “I do not now, nor ever did, stand in favor of the
unconditional repeal of the Fugitive Slave law.

Q. 2. “‘I desire him to answer whether 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 them?’

A. “I do not now, nor ever did, stand pledged against the admission
of any more slave States into the Union.

Q. 3. “‘I want to know whether he stands pledged against the
admission of a new State into the Union with such a Constitution as
the people of that State may see fit to make?’

A. “I do not stand pledged against the admission of a new State
into the Union, with such a Constitution as the people of that
State may see fit to make.

Q. 4. “‘I want to know whether he stands to-day pledged to the
abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia?’

A. “I do not stand to-day pledged to the abolition of slavery in
the District of Columbia.

Q. 5. “‘I desire him to answer whether he stands pledged to the
prohibition of the slave-trade between the different States?’

A. “I do not stand pledged to the prohibition of the slave-trade
between the different States.

Q. 6. “‘I desire to know whether he stands pledged to prohibit
slavery in all the Territories of the United States, North as well
as South of the Missouri Compromise line?’

A. “I am impliedly, if not expressly, pledged to a belief in the
_right_ and _duty_ of Congress to prohibit slavery in all the
United States Territories.

Q. 7. “‘I desire him to answer whether he is opposed to the
acquisition of any new territory unless slavery is first prohibited
therein?’

A. “I am not generally opposed to honest acquisition of territory;
and, in any given case, I would or would not oppose such
acquisition, accordingly as I might think such acquisition would or
would not agitate the slavery question among ourselves.

“Now, my friends, it will be perceived upon an examination of these
questions and answers, that so far I have only answered that I
was not _pledged_ to this, that or the other. The judge has not
framed his interrogatories to ask me any thing more than this, and
I have answered in strict accordance with the interrogatories, and
have answered truly that I am not _pledged_ at all upon any of the
points to which I have answered. But I am not disposed to hang upon
the exact form of his interrogatory. I am rather disposed to take
up at least some of these questions, and state what I really think
upon them.

“As to the first one, in regard to the Fugitive Slave law, I have
never hesitated to say, and I do not now hesitate to say, that I
think, under the Constitution of the United States, the people of
the Southern States are entitled to a Congressional Slave law.
Having said that, I have had nothing to say in regard to the
existing Fugitive Slave law, further than that I think it should
have been framed so as to be free from some of the objections that
pertain to it, without lessening its efficiency. And inasmuch
as we are not now in an agitation in regard to an alteration or
modification of that law, I would not be the man to introduce it as
a new subject of agitation upon the general question of slavery.

“In regard to the other question, of whether I am pledged to the
admission of any more Slave States into the Union, I state to
you very frankly that I would be exceedingly sorry ever to be put
in a position of having to pass upon that question. I should be
exceedingly glad to know that there would never be another slave
State admitted into the Union; but I must add, that if slavery
shall be kept out of the Territories during the Territorial
existence of any one given Territory, and then the people shall,
having a fair chance and a clear field, when they come to adopt
the Constitution, do such an extraordinary thing as to adopt a
slave Constitution, uninfluenced by the actual presence of the
institution among them, I see no alternative if we own the country,
but to admit them into the Union.

“The third interrogatory is answered by the answer to the second,
it being, as I conceive, the same as the second.

“The fourth one is in regard to the abolition of slavery in the
District of Columbia. In relation to that, I have my mind very
distinctly made up. I should be exceedingly glad to see slavery
abolished in the District of Columbia. I believe that Congress
possesses the constitutional power to abolish it. Yet as a member
of Congress, I should not with my present views, be in favor of
_endeavoring_ to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia,
unless it would be upon these conditions: _First_, that the
abolition should be gradual; _second_, that it should be on a vote
of the majority of qualified voters in the District; and _third_,
that compensation should be made to unwilling owners. With these
three conditions, I confess I would be exceedingly glad to see
Congress abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, and, in the
language of Henry Clay, ‘sweep from our Capital that foul blot upon
our nation.’

“In regard to the fifth interrogatory, I must say here, that
as to the question of the abolition of the slave-trade between
the different States, I can truly answer, as I have, that I am
_pledged_ to nothing about it. It is a subject to which I have not
given that mature consideration that would make me feel authorized
to state a position so as to hold myself entirely bound by it.
In other words, that question has never been prominently enough
before me to induce me to investigate whether we really have the
Constitutional power to do it. I could investigate it if I had
sufficient time to bring myself to a conclusion upon that subject;
but I have not done so, and I say so frankly to you here, and to
Judge Douglas. I must say, however, that if I should be of opinion
that Congress does possess the Constitutional power to abolish
slave-trading among the different States, I should still not be in
favor of the exercise of that power unless upon some conservative
principle as I conceive it, akin to what I have said in relation to
the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia.

“My answer as to whether I desire that slavery should be prohibited
in all Territories of the United States, is full and explicit
within itself, and can not be made clearer by any comments of
mine. So I suppose in regard to the question whether I am opposed
to the acquisition of any more territory unless slavery is first
prohibited therein, my answer is such that I could add nothing by
way of illustration, or making myself better understood, than the
answer which I have placed in writing.

“Now in all this, the judge has me, and he has me on the record.
I suppose he had flattered himself that I was really entertaining
one set of opinions for one place and another set for another
place--that I was afraid to say at one place what I uttered at
another. What I am saying here I suppose I say to a vast audience
as strongly tending to Abolitionism as any audience in the State
of Illinois, and I believe I am saying that which, if it would be
offensive to any persons and render them enemies to myself, would
be offensive to persons in this audience.”

* * * * *

LETTER TO GENERAL McCLELLAN.

“WASHINGTON, April 9, 1862.

“MY DEAR SIR: Your dispatches, complaining that you are not
properly sustained, while they do not offend me, do pain me very
much.

“Blenker’s division was withdrawn from you before you left here,
and you know the pressure under which I did it, and, as I thought,
acquiesced in it--certainly not without reluctance.

“After you left, I ascertained that less than twenty thousand
unorganized men, without a single field battery, were all you
designed to be left for the defence of Washington and Manassas
Junction, and part of this even was to go to Gen. Hooker’s old
position. General Banks’ corps, once designated for Manassas
Junction, was diverted and tied up on the line of Winchester and
Strasburgh, and could not leave it without again exposing the Upper
Potomac and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. This presented, or
would present, when McDowell and Sumner should be gone, a great
temptation to the enemy to turn back from the Rappahannock and
sack Washington. My explicit order that Washington should, by the
judgment of all the commanders of army corps, be left entirely
secure, had been neglected. It was precisely this that drove me to
detain McDowell.

“I do not forget that I was satisfied with your arrangement to
leave Banks at Manassas Junction: but when that arrangement was
broken up, and nothing was substituted for it, of course I was
constrained to substitute something for it myself. And allow me to
ask, do you really think I should permit the line from Richmond,
_via_ Manassas Junction, to this city, to be entirely open, except
what resistance could be presented by less than twenty thousand
unorganized troops? This is a question which the country will not
allow me to evade.

“There is a curious mystery about the number of troops now with
you. When I telegraphed you on the 6th, saying you had over a
hundred thousand with you, I had just obtained from the Secretary
of War a statement taken, as he said, from your own returns, making
one hundred and eight thousand then with you and _en route_ to
you. You say you will have but eighty-five thousand when all _en
route_ to you shall have reached you. How can the discrepancy of
twenty-three thousand be accounted for?

“As to General Wool’s command, I understand it is doing for you
precisely what a like number of your own would have to do if that
command was away.

“I suppose the whole force which has gone forward for you is with
you by this time. And if so, I think it is the precise time for
you to strike a blow. By delay, the enemy will relatively gain
upon you--that is, he will gain faster by fortifications and
reinforcement than you can by reinforcements alone. And once more
let me tell you, it is indispensable to you that you strike a blow.
I am powerless to help this. You will do me the justice to remember
I always insisted that going down the bay in search of a field,
instead of fighting at or near Manassas, was only shifting, and not
surmounting a difficulty; that we would find the same enemy, and
the same or equal intrenchments, at either place. The country will
not fail to note, is now noting, that the present hesitation to
move upon an intrenched enemy is but the story of Manassas repeated.

“I beg to assure you that I have never written you or spoken to
you in greater kindness of feeling than now, nor with a fuller
purpose to sustain you, so far as, in my most anxious judgment, I
consistently can. But you must act.

“Yours, very truly,
A. LINCOLN.

“Maj.-Gen. MCCLELLAN.”

* * * * *

LETTER TO GEN. SCHOFIELD RELATIVE TO THE REMOVAL OF GEN. CURTIS.

“_Executive Mansion_, Washington, May 27, 1863.

“Gen. J. M. SCHOFIELD--_Dear Sir_: Having removed Gen. Curtis and
assigned you to the command of the Department of the Missouri, I
think it may be of some advantage to me to state to you why I did
it. I did not remove Gen. Curtis because of my full conviction that
he had done wrong by commission or omission. I did it because of a
conviction in my mind that the Union men of Missouri, constituting,
when united, a vast majority of the people, have entered into a
pestilent, factious quarrel among themselves, Gen. Curtis, perhaps
not of choice, being the head of one faction, and Gov. Gamble that
of the other. After months of labor to reconcile the difficulty, it
seemed to grow worse and worse, until I felt it my duty to break it
up somehow, and as I could not remove Gov. Gamble, I had to remove
Gen. Curtis. Now that you are in the position, I wish you to undo
nothing merely because Gen. Curtis or Gov. Gamble did it, but to
exercise your own judgment, and do right for the public interest.
Let your military measures be strong enough to repel the invaders
and keep the peace, and not so strong as to unnecessarily harass
and persecute the people. It is a difficult _role_, and so much
more will be the honor if you perform it well. If both factions, or
neither, shall abuse you, you will probably be about right. Beware
of being assailed by one and praised by the other.

“Yours, truly, A. LINCOLN.”

* * * * *

THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND MEN CALLED FOR.

“WHEREAS, The term of service of part of the volunteer forces
of the United States will expire during the coming year; and
_whereas_, in addition to the men raised by the present draft, it
is deemed expedient to call out three hundred thousand volunteers,
to serve for three years or the war--not, however, exceeding three
years.

“Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States
and Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy thereof, and of the
militia of the several States when called into actual service,
do issue this my proclamation, calling upon the Governors of the
different States to raise and have enlisted into the United States
service, for the various companies and regiments in the field from
their respective States, their quotas of three hundred thousand men.

“I further proclaim that all the volunteers thus called out and
duly enlisted shall receive advance pay, premium and bounty, as
heretofore communicated to the Governors of States by the War
Department, through the Provost-Marshal General’s office, by
special letters.

“I further proclaim that all volunteers received under this call,
as well as all others not heretofore credited, shall be duly
credited and deducted from the quotas established for the next
draft.

“I further proclaim that, if any State shall fail to raise the
quota assigned to it by the War Department under this call; then a
draft for the deficiency in said quota shall be made in said State,
or on the districts of said State, for their due proportion of
said quota, and the said draft shall commence on the fifth day of
January, 1864.