Abraham Lincoln: a History Volume Ii Part 12

_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 const.i.tution 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 const.i.tution 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 aggravate the slavery question among ourselves."--Lincoln-Douglas Debates, p. 88.

[3] LINCOLN'S QUESTIONS.

"_Question_ 1. If the people of Kansas shall, by means entirely un.o.bjectionable in all other respects, adopt a State const.i.tution, and ask admission into the Union under it, before they have the requisite number of inhabitants according to the English bill,--some 93,000,--will you vote to admit them?

_Q_. 2. Can the people of a United States Territory, in any lawful way, against the wish of any citizen of the United States, exclude slavery from its limits, prior to the formation of a State const.i.tution?

_Q_. 3. If the Supreme Court of the United States shall decide that States cannot exclude slavery from their limits, are you in favor of acquiescing in, adopting, and following such decision as a rule of political action?

_Q_. 4. Are you in favor of acquiring additional territory, in disregard of how such acquisition may affect the nation on the slavery question?"--Lincoln-Douglas Debates, p. 90.

CHAPTER X

LINCOLN'S OHIO SPEECHES

When Lincoln, in opening the Senatorial campaign of Illinois, declared that the Republican cause must be intrusted to its own undoubted friends "who do care for the result," he displayed a much better understanding of the character and aims of his opponent than those who, not so well informed, desired the adoption of a different course.

Had the wishes of Greeley and others prevailed, had Douglas been adopted by the Illinois Republicans, the party would have found itself in a fatal dilemma, No sooner was the campaign closed than Douglas, having entered on his tour through the South, began making speeches, apparently designed to pave his way to a nomination for President by the next Democratic National Convention. Realizing that he had lost ground by his anti-Lecomptonism, and especially by his Freeport doctrine, and having felt in the late campaign the hostility of the Buchanan Administration, he now sought to recover prestige by publishing more advanced opinions indirectly sustaining and defending slavery.

Hitherto he had declared he did not care whether slavery was voted down or voted up. He had said he would not argue the question whether slavery was right or wrong. He had adopted Taney's a.s.sertion that the negro had no share in the Declaration of Independence. He had a.s.serted that uniformity was impossible, but that freedom and slavery might abide together forever. But now that the election was over and a new term in the Senate secure, he was ready to conciliate pro-slavery opinion with stronger expressions. Hence, in a speech at Memphis, he cunningly linked together in argument unfriendly legislation, slavery, and annexation. He said: "Whenever a Territory has a climate, soil, and production making it the interest of the inhabitants to encourage slave property, they will pa.s.s a slave code."

Wherever these preclude the possibility of slavery being profitable, they will not permit it. On the sugar plantations of Louisiana it was not a question between the white man and the negro, but between the negro and the crocodile. He would say that between the negro and the crocodile, he took the side of the negro; but between the negro and the white man, he would go for the white man. The Almighty has drawn the line on this continent, on the one side of which the soil must be cultivated by slave labor; on the other by white labor. That line did not run on 36 and 30' [the Missouri Compromise line], for 36 and 30'

runs over mountains and through valleys. But this slave line, he said, meanders in the sugar-fields and plantations of the South, and the people living in their different localities and in the Territories must determine for themselves whether their "middle bed" is best adapted to slavery or free labor.

[Sidenote] Douglas, Memphis Speech, Nov. 29, 1858. Memphis "Eagle and Enquirer."

Referring to annexation, he said our destiny had forced us to acquire Florida, Louisiana, Texas, New Mexico, and California. "We have now territory enough, but how long will it be enough? One hive is enough for one swarm of bees, but a new swarm comes next year and a new hive is wanted." Men may say we shall never want anything more of Mexico, but the time would come when we would be compelled to take more.

Central America was half-way to California and on the direct road. The time will come when our destiny, our inst.i.tutions, our safety will compel us to have it. "So it is," concluded he, "with the island of Cuba.... It is a matter of no consequence whether we want it or not; we are compelled to take it, and we can't help it".

[Sidenote] Douglas, New Orleans Speech, Dec. 6, 1858. Pamphlet.

When Douglas reached New Orleans he substantially repeated these declarations in another long speech, and, as if he had not yet placed himself in entire harmony with Southern opinion, he added a sentiment almost as remarkable as the "mudsill" theory of Hammond, or the later "cornerstone" doctrine of Stephens: "It is a law of humanity," said he, "a law of civilization, that whenever a man or a race of men show themselves incapable of managing their own affairs, they must consent to be governed by those who are capable of performing the duty. It is on this principle that you establish those inst.i.tutions of charity for the support of the blind, or the deaf and dumb, or the insane. In accordance with this principle, I a.s.sert that the negro race, under all circ.u.mstances, at all times, and in all countries, has shown itself incapable of self-government."

[Sidenote] Douglas, Baltimore Speech, Jan. 5, 1859. Pamphlet.

Once more, in a speech at Baltimore, Douglas repeated in substance what he had said at Memphis and New Orleans, and then in the beginning of January, 1859, he reached Washington and took his seat in the Senate. Here he began to comprehend the action of the Democratic caucus in deposing him from the chairmanship of the Committee on Territories. His personal influence and prestige among the Southern leaders were gone. Neither his revived zeal for annexation, nor his advanced views on the necessity for slave labor, restored his good-fellowship with the extremists. Although, pursuant to a recommendation in the annual message, a measure was then pending in the Senate to place thirty millions in the hands of President Buchanan with which to negotiate for Cuba, the att.i.tude of the pro-slavery faction was not one of conciliation, but of unrelenting opposition to him.

[Sidenote] Brown, Senate Speech, Feb. 28, 1859. "Globe," pp. 1241 _et seq_.

Towards the close of the short session this feeling broke out in an open demonstration. On February 23, while an item of the appropriation bill was under debate, Senator Brown, of Mississippi, said he wanted the success of the Democratic party in 1860 to be a success of principles and not of men. He neither wanted to cheat nor be cheated.

Under the decision of the Supreme Court the South would demand protection for slavery in the Territories. If he understood the Senator from Illinois, Mr. Douglas, he thought a Territorial Legislature might by non-action or by unfriendly action rightfully exclude slavery. He dissented from him, and now he would like to know from other Senators from the North what they would do: "If the Territorial Legislature refuses to act, will you act? If it pa.s.s unfriendly acts, will you pa.s.s friendly? If it pa.s.s laws hostile to slavery, will you annul them and subst.i.tute laws favoring slavery in their stead?... I would rather," concluded he "see the Democratic party sunk, never to be resurrected, than to see it successful only that one portion of it might practice a fraud on another."

[Sidenote] Brown, Senate Speech, Feb. 28, 1859. "Globe," pp. 1246-7.

Douglas met the issue, and defended his Freeport doctrine without flinching. The Democracy of the North hold, said he, that "if you repudiate the doctrine of non-intervention, and form a slave code by act of Congress, where the people of a Territory refuse it, you must step off the Democratic platform. I tell you, gentlemen of the South, in all candor, I do not believe a Democratic candidate can ever carry any one Democratic State of the North on the platform that it is the duty of the Federal Government to force the people of a Territory to have slavery when they do not want it."

The discussion extended itself to other Senators; Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi, Clay, of Alabama, Mason, of Virginia, and Gwin, of California, seconded the demands and arguments of Brown; while Pugh, of Ohio, Broderick, of California, and Stuart, of Michigan, came to the help and defense of Douglas and non-intervention. Several Republicans drifted into the debate on behalf of the position and principles of their party, which of course differed from those of both Brown and Douglas. The discussion was continued to a late hour, and finally came to an end through mere lapse of time, but not until an irreparable schism in the Democratic party had been opened.

[Sidenote] Douglas to Dorr, June 22, 1859. Baltimore "Sun," June 24, 1859.

Silence upon so vital an issue could not long be maintained. In the following June, an Iowa friend wrote to Douglas to inquire whether he would be a candidate for the Presidential nomination at the coming Charleston Convention. Douglas replied that party issues must first be defined. If the Democracy adhered to their former principles, his friends would be at liberty to present his name. "If, on the contrary," continued he, "it shall become the policy of the Democratic party, which I cannot antic.i.p.ate, to repudiate these their time-honored principles, on which we have achieved so many patriotic triumphs, and in lieu of them the convention shall interpolate into the creed of the party such new issues as the revival of the African slave-trade, or a Congressional slave-code for the Territories, or the doctrine that the Const.i.tution of the United States either establishes or prohibits slavery in the Territories beyond the power of the people legally to control it, as other property--it is due to candor to say that, in such an event, I could not accept the nomination if tendered to me."

[Sidenote] Ray to Lincoln, July 27, 1858. MS.

We must leave the career of Douglas for a while, to follow up the personal history of Lincoln. The peculiar att.i.tude of national politics had in the previous year drawn the attention of the whole country to Illinois in a remarkable degree. The Senatorial campaign was hardly opened when a Chicago editor, whose daily examination of a large list of newspaper exchanges brought the fact vividly under his observation, wrote to Lincoln: "You are like Byron, who woke up one morning and found himself famous. People wish to know about you. You have sprung at once from the position of a capital fellow, and a leading lawyer in Illinois, to a national reputation."

[Ill.u.s.tration: DAVID COLBRETH BRODERICK.]

[Sidenote] David Davis to Lincoln, Nov. 7, 1858. MS.

The compliment was fully warranted; the personal interest in Lincoln increased daily from the beginning to the end of the great debates.

The Freeport doctrine and its effect upon the Democratic party gave these discussions both present significance and a growing interest for the future. Another friend wrote him, a few days after election: "You have made a n.o.ble canva.s.s, which, if unavailing in this State, has earned you a national reputation, and made you friends everywhere."

[Sidenote] Delahay to Lincoln, March 15, 1859. MS.

[Sidenote] Dorsheimer to Chase, Sept. 12, 1859. MS.

[Sidenote] Ka.s.son to Lincoln, Sept. 13, 1859. MS.

[Sidenote] Kirkpatrick to Lincoln, Sept. 15, 1859. MS.

[Sidenote] Weed to Judd, Oct. 21, 1859. MS.