ae A he i i ae He) ye Ay ie oe A fA wt ; 7 IY Gy C5} qin a be a ~~ =z"
LINCOLN
IN
1861
From an Etching by T. Johnson after a Photograph
bv Hesler
The photograph was used by the sculptor Leonard W. Volk
in his studies for a bust of Lincoln
THE WORKS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN Speeches and Presidential Addresses 1859—1865 Anecdotes and Conversations of Lincoln By F. B. Carpenter Introductions and Special Articles by THeopore RoosEvELT Wiuttiam H. Tarr CuHarctes E. Hucues JosepH H. Cuoate Henry Wartrerson Roserr G. INGERSOLL And Others Managing Editors JOHN H. CLIFFORD MARION M. MILLER VoLumMeE V THE UNIVERSITY SOCIETY INC. NEW YORK
LIBRARY of CONGRESS
Two CoDies
Recerved
f£B
1909
-.Copyrlgnt Entry
CLASS
cu
XXC
No.
COPY
a,
tmuufirfimt
Copyright,
1907
By Current Literature
Publishing Company
Copyright,
1908
Bv The Universitv' Society Inc.
CONTENTS
PAGE
Preface
xiii
Introduction
Lincoln
as
Lawyer
and
Orator.
By
Joseph
Hodges Choate
.
.
.
.
.
.
xv
Speeches (December
i, 1859, to February 28,
1861.)
Fragment
of
Speech
at
Leavenworth,
Kansas.
December
5,
1859 ......
i
•
Lecture Delivered
before
the Library Associa-
tion of Sprmgfield,
Illinois.
February
22,
i860
—Address
at
Cooper
Union, New
York.
Feb-
ruary
27,
i860 .......
Abstract
of
Speech
at
Kartford.
Connecticut.
INIarch
5, i860
-43
Speech
at New Haven,
Connecticut.
]\Iarch
5,
i860
Abstract
of
Speech
at
Norwich,
Connecticut.
March
9, i860 ....
.
.
.76
Reply to the Committee Informing Him of His
Nomination for President by the Chicago Ccn-
vention.
]\Iay
19, i860
.
.
.
.
.80
Acceptance
of Nomination
as
President.
]May
2Z, i860
[Platform of the Republican National Conven-
tion held in Chicago,
]\Iay
16-18.
i860]
.
.
Remarks
at
Springfield,
Illinois.
August
14,
i860
Remarks at Springfield, Illinois, at a Celebration
of His
Election.
November
20.
i860
.
.
Anonymous
Editorial
in
the
IlUnoxs
Journal.
December
12,
i860
.
.
.
.
.
.86
Remarks
to
Springfield Neighbors on Leaving
for Washington.
February
11, 1861
.
.
.86
vi
CONTENTS
PAGE
Remarks at Indianapolis, Indiana.
February
ii,
i86i
Remarks
to the Indiana
Les^islature,
at Indian-
apolis.
February
12, 1861
.
.
.
.
.88
Remarks
at
Reception by Mayor and
Citizens
of Cincinnati, Ohio.
February
12,
1861
.
.
Remarks to Germans at Cincinnati, Ohio.
Feb-
ruary
12,
1861 .......
Remarks to the Ohio Legislature, at Columbus.
February
13,
1861 ......
Remarks
at
Steubenville,
Ohio.
February
14,
1861
Remarks at Pittsburg, Pennsylvania.
February
15, 1861
Remarks
at
Cleveland,
Ohio.
February
15,
1861 .........' 102
Remarks
at
Buffalo, New York,
February
16,
1861
105
Two-Minute Speeches.
At Rochester, Syracuse,
and
Utica, New
York.
February
18,
1861
;
at
Troy,
Hudson,
and
Peekskill.
February
19,
1861 .........
107
Reply
to Governor Morgan
of New
York,
at
Albany.
February
18,
1861 ....
108
Remarks
to
the
New
York
Legislature
at
Albany.
February
18,
1861 ....
109
Remarks
at Poughkeepsie, New York.
Febru-
ary
19,
1861
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
iir
Remarks at New York City. Februarv 19, 1861
.
112
Reply to the Mayor of New York City.
Febru-
ary 20, 1861
,
.
.
.
.
.
.114
Address to the Senate of New Jersey, at Tren-
ton.
February 21,
1861
.
.
.
.
.116
Address
to
the
Assembly
of New
Jersey,
at
Trenton.
February 21, 1861
.
.
.
•
ii7
Reply to the Mayor of Philadelphia.
February
21,
i'86i
119
CONTENTS
vii
PAGE
.
121
> Address
on
the
Declaration
of
Independence
^ In Independence Hall.
February 22, 1861
.
Address on Raising
a Flag over Independence
Hall,
Philadelphia.
February
22,
1861
.
•
i^^
Reply
to Governor Curtin
of
Pennsylvania,
at
Harrisburg.
February
22,
i8bi
.
.
•
•+
Address
to the Legislature of Pennsylvania,
at
Harrisburg.
February 22,
i»bi
.
.
•
o
Reply
to
the
Mayor
of
Washington,
D.
C.
^^^
February 27, 1861 .•••••
Reply to a Serenade at Washington, D. C.
Feb-
^^^
ruary 28, 1861 .•••••
Presidential Addresses
(Mar.
4,
1861, to April
11,
KfL Inaugural Address.
March
4, 1861
•
•
I33
Remarks
upon
Sectionalism
to
Pennsylvania
fnd Massachusetts Delegations.
^larch
5, 1861
•
I47
Remarks on Executive
Policy
to
^ Committee
from the Virginia Convention.
April
13, 1861
.
148
.
Conference on Compensated Emancipation with
Border State Delegations.
March
10, 1862
Response
to
Evangelical Lutherans on Depen-
•dence upon Divine Guidance.
May
6, 1862
.
150
Remarks to the Twelfth ^idiana Regiment^ On
the Nation's Dependence on the Army.
May 15,
1862..••••••
^
Appeal to Border-State Representatives to Favor
Compensated Emancipation.
July
12, 18&2
.
150
Remarks on the McClellan-Stanton Controversy.
MaT
at
a
Union
Meeting m
Washington.
^^^
August 6, 1862 ..•••••
Address
to
a
Deputation
of
Colored Men
on
Colonization.
August 14, 1802
.
.
•
•
o
Remarks on Premature Emancipation to Repre-
sentatives of the Churches of Chicago.
Septem-
ber
13, 1862
viii
CONTENTS
PAGE
Remarks
on
Making
the
Emancipation
Proc-
lamation
Effective,
in Response
to
a
Serenade.
September 24, 1862
.
.
.
.
.
-174
Remarks
on
the
Divine
Will,
in
Reply
to
an
Address by Mrs. Gurney.
September 28, 1862
.
175
Meditation on the Divine Will.
September
30,
1862
176
Remarks
on
Benefits
of
the
Union, Made
at
Frederick, Maryland.
October
4,
1862
.
.
.
176
Remarks on the Subordination of the Adminis-
tration
to
the Government, Made
to Members
of the Presbyterian General Assembly.
May 30,
1863
177
Remarks on
Notable
Fourths
of
July,
in
Re-
sponse to a Serenade. July
7, 1863
.
.
.
179
Remarks on Temperance in the Army to a Dele-
gation of the Sons of Temperance.
September
29, 1863
180
>t Address at the Dedication of the National Ceme-
tery at Gettysburg.
November
19, 1863
.
.
182
Address
to
General
Grant
on
Commissioning
Him
Lieutenant-General,
with General
Grant's
Response.
March 9, 1864
183
Remarks
on
the Women
of
America,
IMade
at a Sanitary
Fair
in Washington.
March
18,
1864
.
.
.184
Remarks on
the
Interest
of Labor
in Respect-
ing Rights of Property, to a Committee of New
York Workingmen.
March
24,
1864
.
.
185
\^ Address
on
the
Definition
of
Liberty and
the
j
Reported
Massacre
of
Negro
Troops
at
Fort
^
Pillow, Made
at a Sanitary Fair
in
Baltimore,
April
18, 1864
187
Remarks on
General
Grant,
in Response
to
a
Serenade.
May
9,
1864
190
Replies
to Methodist and
Baptist
Delegations.
May
14, 1864
191
Reply
to
the
Committee
Notifying
President
Lincoln
of His
Renomination,
with
the
Plat-
CONTENTS
ix
PAGE
form of the Convention Nominating Him.
June
9, 1864
192
Remarks on Support of the Army,
to an Ohio
Delegation.
June 9, 1864 .....
196
Remarks on Swapping Horses in Midstream, to
a Delegation from the National Union League.
June 9, 1864
196
Remarks to an Ohio Regiment.
June
11, 1864
.
197
Remarks on the Progress of the War, at a Sani-
tary Fair in Philadelphia.
June
16, 1864
.
.
19S
Remarks on Amity with Italy, IMade in Receiv-
ing
Commander
Bertinatti
as
Italian
Envoy
Extraordinar^^
July
22,,
1864 ....
201
Remarks on Democratic
Strategy
to Governor
Randall and Others.
August
15,
1864
.
.
202
Remarks
on
Inequalities
of
Taxation,
to
the
164th Ohio Regiment.
August
18,
1864
.
.
204
Remarks on the Value of Amicrican Citizenship,
]\Iade
to the i66th Ohio Regiment.
August
22,
1864
205
An Appeal to the Soldiers to Resist Disaffection,
Made
to the
148th Ohio Regiment.
August
31,
1864
2o5
Remarks
on
Venezuela,
Made
in
Receiving
Minister Bruzual.
September
5, 1864
.
.
208
Remarks upon the Holy Scriptures in Receiving
the Present of a Bible from a Negro Delegation.
September
7,
1864 ......
209
Remarks on the Abolition of Slavery
in Alary-
land,
in Response
to a
Serenade.
October
19,
1864
210
Remarks on Voting as You Fight,
]\Iade to the
189th New York Regiment.
October 24, 1864
.
212
Remarks
on
Election
Day,
in
Response
to
a
Serenade.
November
9,
1864 ....
213
Remarks on the Benefits of the Elective System,
in Response to a Serenade. November 10, 1864
.
214
CONTENTS
PAGE
Remarks on
Maryland's
Free
Constitution,
to
the Maryland Union Committee.
November
17,
1864
216
Remarks
on
Sherman's March
to
the
Sea,
in
Response to a Serenade.
December
6,
1864
.
217
Remarks
on Edward
Everett
to
a
Committee
Presenting a Souvenir of Gettysburg.
January
24, 1865
218
Remarks
on
the
Constitutional
Amendment
Abolishing Slavery,
;n Response to a Serenade.
January 31,
1865 ......
219
The Hampton Roads
Conference.
February
3,
1865 .........
220
Acceptance of the
Office of President,
]\Iade to
.
a
Notification Committee
of Congress.
Febru-
•sary
9.
1865 .......
222
v/ Second Inaugural Address.
IMarch
4,
1S65
.
223
Remarks on the Employment of Negroes
in the
Confederate Army, Made
to an
Indiana Regi-
ment.
Alarch
17,
1865 .....
225
Speech on
the Reconstruction
of the Southern
States.
April
11,
1865
227
Conversations and Anecdotes
The History of the Emancipation Proclamation 237
Signing the Emancipation Proclamation
Interview with George Thompson
On Threats of Assassination
.
On
Critics of the Administration
Lincoln at the Soldiers' Home
On
Shakespeare
Lincoln's Purity of Heart
Lincoln's Tenderness of Heart
Lincoln the Pardoner
The Amnestv Proclamation
241
243
245
247
250
252
254
255
256
259
CONTENTS
"The Scoundrel Will Get Off"
.
"Public Opinion Baths"
.
Lincoln's Magnanimity
A Short Statute ....
Lincoln's Treatment of Insolence
"The Delegation from the Almighty"
On a Time-servmg Clergyman
.
Lincoln's Paternal Love
.
The Death of Willie Lincoln
.
Lincoln the Christian
On the Lord's
Side ....
The President and the "Powder Monkey
Lincoln and the Negroes
.
The Two Ruling Ideas of Lincoln's Life
Lincoln's Temperance
Principles
No Vices, Few Virtues
Lincoln's Democratic Habits
Presidential
Perquisites
.
Lincoln's Personal Appearance
Lincoln's
First Dollar
Lincoln's
First Big Fee
Hannibal's Treasury
On Wall
Street
Lincoln's Love of Humor
.
"A Yard Full of Bulls"
.
Instructions to Counsel
Close
Construction
.
Diplomatic Advice
.
Setting Him
at Ease
Democratic Abutments
Xll
CONTENTS
PAGE
Lincoln's Influence with the Administration
.
294
Another Ward Heard From ....
295
Weeping Water ......
296
"Apple Overboard!"
296
"Sitting on
the
Blister"
297
Sorry to Lose the Horses .....
297
The Strength of the Confederate Forces
.
. 298
Chase's "Chin-fly"
298
Appointment of Chase as Chief Justice
.
.
299
Fremont's Cave of Adullam ....
300
Grant's Brand
of Whiskey ....
301
On McCIellan's Engineering Propensities
.
.
301
Borrowing McCIellan's Army ....
301
A Convenient Escape .....
302
The Last Cabinet Meeting ....
303
Tad's Grief at His Father's Death
.
.
.304
PREFACE
The opening
speeches
of the present volume
were made by Lincoln when he had come
to be
recognized as a national leader of the Republican
party.
He delivered them
in
a tour of Kansas,
late
in
1859,
and in
a
tour
of New
York
City and neighboring Xew England
cities
early
in
i860.
At the Cooper
Institute
in New York
he delivered the most carefully prepared address
of his career.
It also proved to be the most m.o-
mentous,
for
it removed the impression, general
in the East,
that Lincoln was a typical Western
"rough-and-tumble"
orator, and gave him equal
standing as a serious exponent of his party's prin-
ciples with Seward, then the leading Republican
candidate
for
the
coming
nomination
for
the
Presidency.
Lincoln, while
Presidential nominee, delivered
only a single speech, a few modest remarks in his
own
city.
At
this
time
Senator
Douglas,
his
chief competitor
for the
office, was touring the
country, endeavoring by personal appeal to stem
the
current
of
popular
approval
of
Lincoln's
policies.
Lincoln's
speeches
as
President
elect
were
disappointing
to many
; but he considered
it the
part of wisdom to temporize on issues that were
tearing
the country asunder,
till
he was
firmly
established
in
his
office.
In
such
speeches
as
"Nothing
is Going Wrong," and 'The
Crisis
is
xiii
XIV
PREFACE
Artificial," he exposed himself to the ridicule of
his enemies, and
to the censure of many of
his
earnest supporters.
On the other hand,
the
Presidential speeches
are admirable
in
every
respect.
From
the
im-
promptu
replies
to
serenades,
to
the
immortal
address at Gettysburg and the sublime second in-
augural,
the
President's
utterances
possess
that
supreme
quality
of
oratory,
the
perfect
adapta-
tion of word and sentiment to the spirit and needs
of the occasion.
The
Conversations
and
Anecdotes
that
close
the
volume
form
a
logical
appendix
to
the
speeches
in
their
revelation
of
Lincoln's genius
and character.
And since they relate particularly
to the crucial period of
his statesmanship, v^hen
he was planning and executing the Emancipation
Proclamation, they serve even more fittingly as an
introduction to the State Papers presented in the
succeeding volume of the
series.
INTRODUCTION
Lincoln as Lawyer and Orator.
By Joseph Hodges Choate.
At
the
asre
of
twentv-five
Lincoln became
a
member of the Legislature of
Illinois, and he so
continued
for eight years, and
in the meantime
qualified himself by reading such law books as he
could borrow at random—for he was too poor to
buy any—to be called to the bar.
For his secona
quarter of a century—during which a single term
in Congress introduced him into the arena of na-
tional
questions—he
gave
himself
up
to
law
and
politics.
In
spite
of
his
soaring
ambition^
his two years in Congress gave him no premoni-
tion of the
great
destiny that awaited him, and
at
its close, in 1849, ^^e find him an unsuccessful
applicant
to
the
President
for
appointment
as
Commissioner
of
the
General
Land
Office,
a
purely administrative bureau—a fortunate escape
for himself and
his country.
Year by year his
knowledge and power, his experience and reputa-
tion extended, and his mental faculties seemed to
grow by what they
fed
on.
His power of per-
suasion, which had always been marked, was de-
veloped to an extraordinary degree, now that he
became engaged in congenial questions and sub-
jects.
Little by little he rose to prominence at the
bar, and became the most effective public speaker
in the West.
Not that he possessed any of the
XV
xvi
INTRODUCTION
graces of the orator, but his logic was invincible,
and
his
clearness
and
force
of
statement
im-
pressed upon
his hearers the
convictions
of his
honest
mind,
while
his
broad
sympathies
and
sparkling and genial humor made him a universal
favorite as far and as fast as his acquaintance ex-
tended.
GROv^TH
OF Lincoln's influence
These twenty years that elapsed from the time
of his establishment as a lawyer and legislator in
Springfield, the new capital of
Illinois, furnished
a fitting theatre for the development and display
of his great
faculties, and with his new and en-
larged opportunities he obviously grew in mental
stature
in
this second period of his career, as
if
to compensate for the absolute lack of advantages
under which he had suffered
in youth.
As
his
powers enlarged, his reputation extended, for he
was always before the people,
felt a warm sym-
pathy with all that concerned them, took a zealous
part
in the
discussion
of every
public
question,
and made his personal influence ever more widely
and deeply felt.
CONDITIONS IN ILLINOIS
When Lincoln began practising law in Spring-
field, in 1837,
life in Illinois was very crude and
simple, and so were the courts and the administra-
tion of
justice. Books and libraries were
scarce.
But the people loved justice, upheld the law, and
followed the courts, and soon found their favorites
among
the
advocates.
The
fundamental
prin-
ciples of the common law, as
set forth by Black-
stone and Chitty, were not so difficult to acquire.
INTRODUCTION
xvli
and
brains, common
sense,
force
of
character,
tenacity
of
purpose,
ready
wit,
and
power
of
speech did the
rest, and supphed
all the deficien-
cies of learning.
The lawsuits of those days were extremely sim-
ple,
and
the
principles
of
natural
justice
were
mainly
relied on
to
dispose of them
at
the bar
and
on
the
bench,
without
resort
to
technical
learning.
Railroads,
corporations absorbing the
chief business
of
the community, combined and
inherited wealth, with
all the subtle and intricate
questions they breed, had not yet come
in—and
so
the
professional
agents
and
the
equipment
which they require were not needed.
But there
were many highly educated and powerful men at
the bar of Illinois, even in those early days, whom
the spirit of enterprise had carried there in search
of fame and fortune.
It was by constant contact
and conflict with these that Lincoln acquired pro-
fessional
strength and
skill.
Every community
and every age creates
its own bar,
entirely ade-
quate for
its present uses and necessities.
So in
Illinois, as the population and wealth of the State
kept on doubling and quadrupling,
its bar repre-
sented
a
growing
abundance
of
learning
and
science
and
technical
skill.
The
early
prac-
titioners grew with
its growth and mastered the
requisite knowledge.
LAW AND POLITICS
In those early days in the West, every lawyer,
especially every court lawyer, was
necessarily a
politician,
constantly engaged
in the
public
dis-
cussion of the many questions evolved from the
rapid development
of
town,
county.
State, and
xviii
INTRODUCTION
Federal
affairs.
Then and there,
in this
regard,,
pubHc
discussion
supphed
the
place
which
the
universal activity of the press has since monopo-
lized, and the public speaker who, by
clearness^
force,
earnestness, and
wit, could make himself
felt on
the
questions
of
the day would
readily
come
to the
front.
In
the absence
of
that im-
mense
variety
of
popular
entertainments which
now feed the public taste and appetite, the people
found
their
chief amusement
in frequenting the
courts and
public
and
political
assemblies.
In
either place he who impressed,
entertained, and
amused
them most
w^as
the
hero
of
the
hour.
They did not discriminate very carefully between
the eloquence of the forum and the eloquence of
the hustings.
Human nature ruled in both alike,
and he who was the most effective speaker
in a
political
harangue
was
often
retained
as
most
likely to win in a cause to be tried or argued.
HIGHER AMBITION
I have no doubt
in
this way many
retainers
came to Lincoln.
Fees, money in any form, had
no charms for him
; in his eager pursuit of fame
he could not afford to make money.
He was am-
bitious to distinguish himself by some great ser-
vice to mankind, and this ambition for fame and
real public service left no room for avarice in his
composition.
However
much
he
earned,
he
seemed
to have ended every year hardly
richer
than he began
it, and yet as the years passed fees
came to him
freely.
One of $5,000
is recorded
—a very large professional fee at that time, even
in any part of America, the paradise of lawyers.
I lay great stress on Lincoln's career as a lawyer
INTRODUCTION
xix
—much more than
his biographers do—because
in America the profession of the law always has
been, and
is to this day, the principal avenue to
public life, and I am sure that his training and ex-
perience
in the courts had much to do with the
development of those forces of intellect and char-
acter which he soon displayed on a broader arena.
LINCOLN ON THE PLATFORM
After his great successes
in the West Lincoln
came
to New York
to make a
political
address.
He appeared in every sense of the word like one
of the plain people among whom he loved
to be
counted.
At
first
sight
there was nothing im-
pressive or imposing about him—except that his
great
stature
singled him
out from
the crowd
;
his clothes hung awkwardly on his
giant frame,
his face was of a dark pallor, without the slight-
est tinge of
color
;
his seamed and rugged
fea-
tures bore the furrows of hardship and struggle
;
his
deep-set
eyes
looked
sad and
anxious
;
his
countenance in repose gave little evidence of that
brain power which had raised him from the low-
est to the highest station among his countrymen.
As he talked to me before the meeting he seemed
ill at ease, wath that sort of apprehension which a
young man might
feel before presenting himself
to a new and strange audience whose critical dis-
position he dreaded.
THE COOPER INSTITUTE ADDRESS
It
was
a
great
audience,
including
all
the
noted men—all the learned and
cultured—of his
party
in New York
;
editors, clergymen,
states-
XX
INTRODUCTION
men, lawyers, merchants,
critics.
They were
all
very curious to hear him.
His fame as a power-
ful speaker had preceded him, and exaggerated
rumor of his wit had reached
the
East.
When
Mr. Bryant presented him on the high platform
of the Cooper
Institute a vast
sea of eager, up-
turned faces greeted him, full of intense curiosity
to see what this rude child of the people was like.
He was equal
to the occasion.
When he spoke
h^ was
transformed
;
his eye
kindled,
his
voice
rang, his face shone and seemed to
light up the
whole assembly.
For an hour and a half he held
his
audience
in
the
hollow
of
his
hand.
His
style of speech and manner of delivery were
se-
verely
simple.
What Lowell
called
"the grand
simplicities of the
Bible," with which he was so
familiar, were
reflected
in
his
discourse.
With
no attempt
at ornament or rhetoric, without pa-
rade or pretence, he spoke straight to the point.
If any came expecting
the
turgid
eloquence
or
the ribaldry of the
frontier they must have been
startled
at the earnest and
sincere purity of
his
utterances.
It was
marvelous
to
see how
this
untutored
man, by mere
self-discipline and
the
chastening of
his own
spirit, had outgrown
all
meretricious
arts,
and
found
his
way
to
the
grandeur and strength of absolute
simplicity.
He spoke upon the theme which he had mas-
tered
so
thoroughly.
He
demonstrated
by
co-
pious
historical
proofs and
masterly
logic
that
the fathers who created the Constitution in order
to form a more perfect union, to establish justice,
and
to
secure
the
blessings
of
liberty
to them-
selves and
their
posterity,
intended
to empower
the Federal Government to exclude slaverv from
the
Territories.
In
the
kindliest
spirit, he
pro-
INTRODUCTION
xxi
tested against the avowed threat of the Southern
States to destroy the Union
if, in order to secure
freedom
in
those
vast
regions,
out
of
which
future
States were
to
be
carved,
a Repubhcan
President were
elected.
THE ORATOR CROWNED
He
closed
with
an
appeal
to
his
audience,
spoken with
all the
fire of his aroused and kin-
dling conscience, with a full outpouring of his love
of justice and
liberty,
to maintain
their political
purpose on
that
lofty and
unassailable
issue
of
right and wrong which alone could justify
it, and
not to be intimidated from their high resolve and
sacred duty by any threats of destruction to the
Government or of
ruin
to themselves.
He con-
cluded with this telling sentence, which drove the
whole argument home to
all hearts
:
"Let us have faith that right makes might, and
in that faith let us to the end dare to do our duty
as w^e understand
it."
That night the great hall, and the next day the
whole city, rang with delighted applause and con-
gratulations, and he who had come as a stranger
departed with the laurels of a great triumph.
SPEECHES AND PRESIDEN-
TIAL ADDRESSES
(1859-1865)
The Treason of Secession.
Fragment of Speech at Leavenworth, Kan.
December
5,
1859.
In
response
to
invitations
from
Republicans
of
Kansas Mr. Lincoln made a tour of that Territory from
December
i
to
5,
1859,
speaking
at
Elwood,
Troy,
Doniphan,
Atchison,
and
Leavenworth.
As
indicated
by
notes
left
by
Mr.
Lincoln,
the
substance
of
these
addresses
is
largely that
of those delivered
in Ohio
in
the autumn.
The speaker took the popular sovereignty
theory of Senator Douglas for his target, and riddled
it
with shafts of piercing argument and irony, showing that
its
essential principle was
:
"If one man would enslave
another,
neither
that
other
nor any
third man
has
a
right to object."
The following
is a fragment delivered
at Leavenworth
:
But you Democrats
are
for
the Union
; and
you
greatly
fear the success of the Republicans
would destroy the Union. Why ?
Do the Repub-
licans declare against the Union?
Nothing
like
it.
Your own statement of
it is that
if the Black
Republicans
elect a President, you "won't stand
it."
You
will break up the Union.
If we shall
constitutionally
elect
a
President,
it
will be our
duty to
see that you submit.
Old John Brown
SPEECHES
£Feb. 22
has been
executed
for treason
against
a
State.
We cannot object, even though he agreed with us
in thinking slavery wrong.
That cannot excuse
violence, bloodshed, and treason.
It could
avail
him nothing that he might think himself
right.
So,
if we constitutionally
elect a President, and
therefore you undertake to destroy the Union,
it
will be our duty
to deal with you
as
old John
Brown has been dealt with.
We
shall try to do
our duty.
We hope and believe that
in no
sec-
tion
will
a
majority
so
act
as
to
render
such
extreme measures necessary.
Lecture
on
"Discoveries,
Inventions,
and
Improvements."
Delivered
before the
Springfield
Library
Association,
Springfield,
III.
February
22, i860.*
We have
all heard of Young America.
He
is
the most current youth of the age.
Some think
him
conceited
and
arrogant
;
but
has
he
not
reason to entertain a rather extensive opinion of
himself?
Is he not the inventor and owner
of
the present, and
sole hope of the future?
Men
and
things,
everywhere,
are
ministering
unto
him,.
Look
at
his
apparel,
and you
shall
see
cotton
fabrics
from
Manchester
and
Lowell
;
flax linen from Ireland
; wool cloth from Spain
;
silk from France
;
furs from the Arctic region
;
with
a buffalo-robe from the Rocky Mountains,
as a general outsider.
At his table, besides plain
bread and meat made
at home, are sugar from
* This
speech
had
been
delivered
in whole
or
in
part
in
neighboring
towns
during
the
previous
year.
i860]
LECTURE ON INVENTIONS
Louisiana,
coffee
and
fruits
from
the
tropics,
salt from
Turk's
Island,
fish from Newfound-
land, tea from China, and spices from the Indies.
The whale
of
the
Pacific
furnishes
his
candle-
light, he has a diamond ring from Brazil, a gold
watch from California, and a Spanish cigar from
Havana.
He
not only has
a present supply
of
all
these,
and much
more;
but
thousands
of
hands are engaged
in producing fresh
supplies,
and
other thousands
in bringing them
to
him.
The iron horse
is panting and impatient to carry
him everywhere
in no time
; and
the
lightning
stands ready harnessed to take and bring his tid-
ings
in a
trifle
less than no
time.
He owns a
large part of the world, by right of possessing
it,
and
all the
rest by right of wanting
it, and
in-
tending
to have
it.
As
Plato had
for
the
im-
mortality of the soul, so Young America has "a
pleasing hope,
a
fond
desire—a
longing
after"
territory.
He
has
a
great
passion—a
perfect
rage—for the "new"
; particularly new men
for
office, and the new earth mentioned
in the Rev-
elations,
in
which,
being
no
more
sea,
there
must be about three times as much land as in the
present.
He
is a great friend of humanity
; and
his
desire
for land
is not
selfish, but merely an
impulse
to extend the area
of freedom.
He
is
very anxious
to
fight
for
the
liberation
of
en-
slaved
nations
and
colonies,
provided,
always,
they have land, and have not any liking for his
interference.
As
to
those who
have
no
land,
and would be glad of help from any quarter, he
considers they can afford to wait a few hundred
years
longer.
In knowledge
he
is
particularly
rich.
He knows
all that can possibly be known
;
inclines
to believe
in
spiritual
rappings, and
is
SPEECHES
[Feb. 22
the
unquestioned
inventor
of
"Manifest
Des-
tiny."
His horror
is for
all that
is old, particu-
larly "Old Fogy"
; and
if there be anything old
which he can endure,
it
is only old whisky and
old tobacco.
If
the
said Young America
really
is,
as
he
claims to be, the owner of all present,
it must be
admitted that he has considerable advantage
of
Old
Fogy.
Take,
for
instance,
the
first
of
all
fogies,
Father Adam.
There he
stood,
a very
perfect physical man,
as poets and
painters
in-
form us
; but he must have been very ignorant,
and simple
in
his
habits.
He had had no
suf-
ficient time to learn much by observation, and he
had no
near
neighbors
to
teach him
anything.
No part of his breakfast had been brought from
the other side of the world
; and
it is quite proba-
ble he had no
conception
of
the world having
any
other
side.
In
all
these
things,
it
is very
plain, he was no equal of Young America
; the
most
that can be
said
is,
that according
to
his
chance
he may have been
quite
as
maich
of
a
man
as
his
very
self-complacent
descendant.
Little
as was what he knew,
let the youngster
discard
all he has learned from others, and then
show,
if he can, any advantage on his
side.
In
the way of land and live-stock, Adam was quite
in the ascendant.
He had dominion over
all the
earth, and
all the living things upon and round
about
it.
The land has been
sadly divided out
since
;
but never
fret, Young America
will
re-
annex
it.
The great difference between Young America
and Old Fogy
is the result of discoveries, inven-
tions,
and
improvements.
These,
in
turn,
are
the
result of observation,
reflection, and experi-
i860]
lecture on INVENTIONS
ment.
For instance,
it
is quite certain that ever
since water has been boiled
in covered
vessels,
men have seen the lids of the vessels rise and fall
a
little, with a sort of fluttering motion, by force
of
the
steam
;
but
so
long
as
this
was
not
specially
observed,
and
reflected,
and
experi-
mented
upon,
it came
to
nothing.
At
length,
however, after many thousand years, some man
observes this long-known effect of hot water lift-
ing
a
pot-lid, and
begins
a
train
of
reflection
upon
it.
He
says, "Why,
to be
sure, the force
that
lifts the pot-lid will
lift anything else which
is no heavier than the pot-lid.
And as man has
much hard fighting to do, cannot this hot-water
power be made to help him ?"
He has become a
little
excited on
the
subject, and he
fancies he
hears
a
voice
answering,
''Try me."
He
does
try
it; and the
observation,
reflection, and
trial
give to the world the control of that tremendous
and now well-known agent
called steam-power.
This
is not the
actual history
in
detail, but the
general principle.
But was
this
first inventor of the application
of
steam
wiser
or more
ingenious
than
those
who had gone before him ?
Not at
all.
Had he
not learned much of those, he never would have
succeeded,
probably
never would have thought
of making
the
attempt.
To
be
fruitful
in
in-
vention,
it
is indispensable to have a habit of ob-
servation
and
reflection;
and
this
habit
our
steam
friend
acquired,
no
doubt,
from
those
who, to him, were old
fogies.
But
for the
dif-
ference in habit of observation, why did Yankees
almost
instantly
discover
gold
in
California,
which had been trodden upon and overlooked by
Indians
and
Mexican
greasers
for
centuries?
SPEECHES
[Feb. 22
Gold-mines are not the only mines overlooked in
the same way.
There are more mines above the
earth's
surface than below
it.
All
nature—the
whole world,
material, moral, and
intellectual—
is a mine
; and in Adam's day it was a wholly un-
explored mine.
Now,
it was the destined work
of Adam's race to develop, by discoveries, inven-
tions, and improvements, the hidden treasures of
this mine.
But Adam had nothing to turn
his
attention to the work.
If he should do anything
in the way of inventions, he had
first to invent
the art of invention, the instance,
at least,
if not
the
habit,
of
observation
and
reflection.
As
might be expected, he seem.s not to have been a
very observing man
at
first;
for
it
appears he
went about naked a considerable length of time
before
he
ever
noticed
that
obvious
fact.
But
when he did observe
it, the observation was not
lost upon him
; for
it immediately led to the first
of
all inventions of which we have any direct ac-
count—the fig-leaf apron.
The inclination to exchange thoughts with one
another
is probably an
original impulse
of our
nature.
If I be in pain,
I wish to
let you know
it, and to ask your sympathy and assistance
; and
my
pleasurable
emotions
also
I
wish
to
com-
municate
to and share with you.
But to carry
on such communications, some instrumentality
is
indispensable.
Accordingly,
speech—articulate
sounds
rattled
oflf from
the tongue—was
used
by our
first
parents, and even by Adam before
the
creation
of
Eve.
He
gave
names
to
the
animals while
she was
still
a bone
in
his
side;
and he broke
out
quite
volubly when
she
first
stood before him, the best present of his Maker.
From
this
it would appear that speech was not
i860]
lecture on inventions
an invention of man, but rather the direct gift of
his Creator.
But whether divine
gift or inven-
tion,
it
is
still plain that if a mode of communica-
tion had been left to invention, speech must have
been
the
first, from the
superior
adaptation
to
the end of the organs of speech over every othe»*
means
within
the
whole
range
of
nature.
Of
the organs of speech the tongue
is the principal
;
and if we shall test
it, we shall find the capacities
of
the
tongue,
in
the
utterance
of
articulate
sounds,
absolutely
wonderful.
You
can
count
from one to one hundred quite distinctly in about
forty
seconds.
In doing
this two hundred and
eighty-three
distinct
sounds
or
syllables
are
uttered, being seven to each second, and yet there
should be enough
difference between every two
to be easily recognized by the ear of the hearer.
What other signs to represent things could pos-
sibly be produced so rapidly?
or, even
if ready
made, could be arranged so rapidly to express the
sense?
Motions with the hands are no adequate
substitute.
Marks for the recognition of the eye,
—writing,—although
a
wonderful
auxiliary
of
speech,
is no worthy substitute for
it.
In addi-
tion to the more slow and laborious process of
getting up a communication in writing, the mate-
rials—pen,
ink,
and
paper—are
not
always
at
hand.
But one always has his tongue with him,
and the breath of his life
is the ever-ready mate-
rial
with
which
it
works.
Speech,
then,
by
enabling
different
individuals
to
interchange
thoughts, and thereby to combine their powers of
observation and reflection, greatly facilitates use-
ful
discoveries
and
inventions.
What
one
ob-
serves, and would himself infer nothing from, he
tells
to
another, and
that
other
at once
sees
a
SPEECHES
[Feb. 22
valuable
hint
in
it.
A
result
is
thus
reached
which neither alone would have arrived at.
And
this reminds me of what
I passed unnoticed be-
fore,
that
the
very
first
invention was
a
joint
operation, Eve having shared with Adam the get-
ting up of th^ apron.
And, indeed, judging from
the fact that sewing has come down to our times
as "woman's work,"
it
is very probable she took
the
leading
part,—he,
perhaps,
doing no more
than
to
stand by and thread
the
needle.
That
proceeding may be reckoned as the mother of all
''sewing-societies," and the first and most perfect
"World's Fair,"
all inventions and
all inventors
then in the world being on the spot.
But speech alone, valuable as
it ever has been
and
is,
has
not advanced
the
condition
of
the
world much.
This
is abundantly evident when
we
look
at
the degraded condition of
all those
tribes of human creatures who have no consider-
able additional means of communicating thoughts.
Writing,
the
art
of communicating thoughts
to
the mind through the eye,
is the great invention
of the world.
Great
is the astonishing range of
analysis and combination which
necessarily un-
derlies the most crude and general conception of
it—great, very great, in enabling us to converse
with the dead, the absent, and the unborn, at
all
distances of time and space
; and great, not only
in its direct benefits, but greatest help to all other
inventions.
Suppose
the
art,
with
all
concep-
tions of
it, were this day
lost to the world, how
long,
think
you,
would
it
be
before
Young
America could get up the letter A with any ade-
quate notion of using
it to advantage ?
The pre-
cise period at which writing was invented
is not
known, but
it certainly was as early as the time
i860]
lecture on INVENTIONS
of Moses
; from which we may safely infer that
its inventors were very old fogies.
Webster, at the time of writing his dictionary,
speaks of the English language as then consisting
of seventy or eighty thousand words.
If
so, the
language in which the five books of Moses were
written
must
at
that
time,
now
thirty-three
or -four hundred years ago, have consisted of at
least one quarter
as many, or twenty thousand.
When
we
remember
that
words
are
sounds
merely, we
shall conclude that the idea of rep-
resenting those sounds by marks,
so
that who-
ever should at any time after see the marks would
understand what sounds they meant, was a bold
and ingenious conception, not
likely to occur to
one man
in
a
million
in the run of a thousand
years.
And when it did occur, a distinct mark for
each word, giving twenty thousand different marks
first to be learned, and afterward to be remem-
bered, would follow as the second thought, and
would present such a
difficulty as would lead to
the conclusion that the whole thing was imprac-
ticable.
But the necessity
still would exist; and
we may
readily suppose that the idea was con-
ceived, and
lost, and
reproduced, and dropped,
and taken up again and again,
until
at
last the
thought of dividing sounds into parts, and mak-
ing a mark, not to represent a whole sound, but
only a part of one, and then of combining those
marks, not very many in number, upon principles
of permutation, so as to represent any and
all of
the whole twenty thousand words, and even any
additional number, was somehow conceived and
pushed into practice.
This was the invention of
phonetic
writing,
as
distinguished
from
the
clumsy
picture-writing
of some
of
the
nations.
lO
SPEECHES
EFeb. 22
That
it was
difficult of conception and execution
is apparent,
as well by the foregoing
reflection,
as the fact that so many tribes of men have come
down from Adam's time to our own without ever
having possessed
it.
Its utility may be conceived
by the
reflection
that
to
it we owe
everything
which
distinguishes
us from
savages.
Take
it
from us, and the Bible, all history, all science,
all
government,
all commerce, and nearly
all
social
intercourse go with
it.
The great activity of the tongue in articulating
sounds has already been mentioned, and
it may be
of some passing interest to notice the v/onderful
power of the eye in conveying ideas to the mind
from
writing.
Take
the same example
of
the
numbers from one to one hundred written down,
and you can run your eye over the
list, and be
assured that every number
is in
it, in about one
half the time
it would require to pronounce the
words with the voice
; and not only
so, but you
can
in
the same
short time determine whether
every word
is
spelled
correctly, by which
it
is
evident that every separate
letter, amounting to
eight hundred and
sixt^^-four,
has
been
recog-
nized and reported to the mind within the incredi-
bly short space of twenty seconds, or one third of
a minute.
I have already intimated my opinion that in the
world's history certain inventions and discoveries
occurred
of peculiar
value, on account
of
their
great efficiency in facilitating all other inventions
and discoveries.
Of these were the art of writ-
ing and of printing, the discovery of America, and
the introduction of patent laws.
The date of the
first, as already
stated,
is unknown
; but
it cer-
tainly was as much as fifteen hundred years be-
i860]
lecture on inventions
II
fore
the
Christian
era;
the
second—printing
came
in
1436,
or
nearly
three
thousand
years
after the first.
The others followed more rapidly
—the discovery of America in 1492, and the first
patent laws in 1624.
Though not apposite to my
present purpose,
it
is but justice to the
fruitful-
ness of that period to mention two other import-
ant
events—the Lutheran Reformation
in
15 17,
and,
still earlier, the invention of negroes, or of
the present mode of using them, in 1434.
But to
return to the consideration of printing,
it
is plain
that it is but the other half, and in reality the bet-
ter
half, of writing
; and that both together are
but the assistants of speech in the communication
of thoughts between man and man.
When man
was possessed of speech alone, the chances of in-
vention,
discovery, and improvem.ent were very
limited
; but by the introduction of each of these
they were greatly multiplied. When writing was
invented, any important observation likely to lead
to
a
discovery had
at
least
a chance
of being
written down, and consequently a little chance of
never being forgotten, and of being seen and re-
flected upon by a much greater numiber of per-
sons
; and thereby the chances of a valuable hint
being
caught
proportionately
augmented.
By
this means the observation of a single individual
might lead to an important invention years, and
even centuries, after he was dead.
In one word,
by means of writing, the seeds of invention were
more
perm.anently
preserved
and more
widely
sown.
And yet for three thousand years during
which
printing
remained
undiscovered
after
writing was in use,
it was only a small portion of
the people who could write, or read writing
; and
consequently the
field of invention, though much
SPEECHES
[Feb. 22
extended,
still continued very limited.
At length
printing came.
It gave ten thousand copies
of
any written matter quite as cheaply as ten were
given before
; and consequently a thousand minds
were brought into the
field where there was but
one before.
This was a great gain—and history
shows
a
great
change
corresponding
to
it—in
point of time.
I will venture to consider
it the true termina-
tion of that period called "the dark ages."
Dis-
coveries, inventions, and improvements followed
rapidly, and have been increasing their
rapidity
ever
since.
The
effects
could
not come
all
at
once.
It required time to bring them out
; and
they are still coming.
The capacity to read could
not be multiplied as fast as the means of reading.
Spelling-books just began to go into the hands of
the
children,
but
the
teachers
were
not
very
numerous or very competent, so that
it is safe to
infer they did not advance so speedily as they do
nowadays.
It
is very probable—almost certain
that
the great mass
of men
at
that time were
utterly unconscious that their condition or their
minds were capable of improvement.
They not
only looked upon the educated few
as superior
beings, but they supposed themselves to be natu-
rally incapable of rising to equality.
To emanci-
pate the mind from
this
false underestimate
of
itself
is the great task which printing came into
the world to perform.
It
is
difficult for us now
and here to conceive how strong this slavery of
the mind was, and how long
it did of necessity
take to break
its shackles, and to get a habit of
freedom
of thought
established.
It
is,
in
this
connection, a curious
fact that a new country
is
most favorable—almost necessary—to the eman-
i860]
lecture on inventions
cipatlon of thought, and the consequent advance-
ment
of
civiHzation and
the
arts.
The human
family
originated,
as
is
thought, somewhere
in
Asia,
and
have
worked
their
way
principally
westward.
Just now in civilization and the arts
the people of Asia are
entirely behind those of
Europe
; those of the east of Europe behind those
of the west
of
it;
while we,
here,
in America,
think we discover, and invent, and improve faster
than any of them.
They may think
this
is ar-
rogance
; but they cannot deny that Russia has
called on us to show her how to build steamboats
and
railroads, while
in the older
parts of Asia
they
scarcely know
that
such
things
as steam-
boats and railroads exist.
In anciently inhabited
countries,
the
dust
of
ages—a
real,
downright
old-fogyism—seems to
settle upon and smother
the
intellect and energies
of man.
It
is
in
this
view
that
I
have
mentioned
the
discovery
of
America as an event greatly favoring and
facili-
tating useful
discoveries and
inventions.
Next
came the patent laws.
These began in England
in
1624, and
in
this country with
the adoption
of
our
Constitution.
Before
then
any
man
[might]
instantly use what another man had in-
vented,
so that the inventor had no
special ad-
vantage from his invention.
The patent system
changed this, secured to the inventor for a limited
time exclusive use of his inventions, and thereby
added the fuel of interest to the fire of genius in
the discovery and production of new and useful
things.
SPEECHES
IFeb.
Slavery as the Fathers Viewed
It.
Address at Cooper Union, New York.
Feb-
ruary 2y, i860.
Mr.
President
and
Fellow-citizens
of New
York: The
facts
with
which
I
shall
deal
this
evening are mainly old and familiar
; nor
is there
anything new in the general use
I shall make of
them.
If there shall be any novelty,
it will be in
the mode
of
presenting
the
facts, and
the
in-
ferences and
observations
following
that
pres-
entation.
In
his speech
last autumn
at Colum-
bus, Ohio, as reported in the New York Times,
Senator Douglas
said
:
Our fathers, when they framed the government under
which we
hve, understood
this question
just as
well,
and even better, than we do now.
I
fully indorse
this, and
I adopt
it as a text
for this discourse.
I so adopt
it because
it fur-
nishes a precise and an agreed starting-point for
a discussion between Republicans and that wing
of the Democracy headed by
Senator Douglas.
It
simply
leaves
the
inquiry:
What
was
the
understanding those fathers had of the question
mentioned ?
What is the frame of government under which
we
live?
The answer must
be, "The Constitu-
tion
of
the United
States."
That
Constitution
consists
of
the
original,
framed
in
1787,
and
under which the present government
first went
into operation, and twelve subsequently framed
amendments, the
first ten of which were framedj
in 1789.
Who were our
fathers that framed the Con-
stitution?
I
suppose
the
"thirty-nine"
who
i860]
at cooper union
signed
the
original
instrument may
be
fairly
called our
fathers who framed that part of the
present
government.
It
is
almost
exactly
true
to say they framed
it, and
it
is altogether true to
say they fairly represented the opinion and senti-
ment
of
the whole
nation
at
that
time.
Their
names, being familiar to nearly all, and accessible
to quite
all, need not now be repeated.
I take these
*'thirty-nine,"
for the present, as
being "our
fathers who framed the government
under which we
live."
What
is
the
question
which, according to the text, those fathers under-
stood "just as well, and even better, than we do
now" ?
It
is
this
: Does
the proper
division
of
local
from Federal authority, or anything in the Con-
stitution, forbid our Federal Government to con-
trol
as to slavery
in our Federal Territories?
Upon this. Senator Douglas holds the affirma-
tive, and Republicans the negative.
This affirma-
tion and denial form an issue
; and
this issue
this question—is precisely what the text declares
our fathers understood "better than we."
Let us
now
inquire whether
the
"thirty-nine,"
or any
of them, ever acted upon
this question
; and
if
they did, how they acted upon
it—how they ex-
pressed
that
better
understanding.
In
1784,
three years before the
Constitution,
the United
States then owning the Northwestern Territory,
and no other, the Congress of the Confederation
had
before
them
the
question
of
prohibiting
slavery
in
that
Territory;*
and
four
of
the
"thirty-nine" who
afterward
framed
the
Con-
stitution
were
in
that
Congress,
and
voted
* The
bill was
reported by Thomas
Jefferson.
It
pro-
hibited slavery
after
1800 above the parallel
of
31°
north
latitude.
It
failed
to
pass
by
one
vote.
i6
SPEECHES
[Feb. 27
on
that
question.
Of
these,
Roger
Sherman,
Thomas Mifflin, and Hugh Wilhamson voted for
the prohibition, thus showing that, in their under-
standing,
no
Hne
dividing
local
from
Federal
authority,
nor
anything
else,
properly
forbade
the Federal Government to control as to slavery
in
Federal
territory
The
other
of
the
four,
James McHenry, voted
against the prohibition,
showing that
for some cause he thought
it im-
proper
to
vote
for
it.
In
1787,
still
before
the
Constitution,
but
while the convention was
in session framing
it,
and while the Northwestern Territory
still was
the only Territory owned by the United
States,
the same question of prohibiting slavery
in the
Territory
again
came
before
the
Congress
of
the Confederation
; and two more of the "thirty-
nine"
who
afterward
signed
the
Constitution
were
in that Congress, and voted on the
ques-
tion.
They were William
Blount and William
Few
; and they both voted for the prohibition
thus showing that in their understanding no line
dividing
local from Federal
authority, nor any-
thing else, properly forbade the Federal Govern-
ment to control as to slavery in Federal territory.
This time
the
prohibition became a
law, being
part of what is now well known as the ordinance
of
'87.
The
question
of
Federal
control
of
slavery
in the Territories seems not to have been directly
before the convention which framed the original
Constitution: and hence
it
is not recorded that
the "thirty-nine," or any of them, while engaged
on that instrument, expressed any opinion on that
precise
question.
In 1789, by the
first Congress which sat under
i860]
at cooper union
the
Constitution, an
act was passed
to
enforce
the
ordinance
of
'87,
inchiding
the
prohibition
of slavery
in the Northwestern Territory.
The
bill
for
this
act was
reported
by
one
of
the
"thirty-nine"—Thomas
Fitzsimmons,
then
a
member
of
the House
of Representatives from
Pennsylvania. It went through all its stages with-
out a word of opposition, and finally passed both
branches without ayes and nays, which
is equiv-
alent to a unanimous passage.
In this Congress
there were sixteen of the thirty-nine fathers who
framed
the
original
Constitution.
They
were
John Langdon, Nicholas Oilman, Wm.
S. John-
son,
Roger
Sherman,
Robert
Morris,
Thos.
Fitzsimmons, William Few, Abraham
Baldwin,
Rufus King, William Paterson, George Clymer,
Richard
Bassett,
George
Read,
Pierce
Butler,
Daniel Carroll, and James Madison.
This shows that, in their understanding, no line
dividing local from Federal authority, nor any-
thing in the Constitution, properly forbade Con-
gress to prohibit slavery in the Federal territory
:
else both
their
fidelity to correct
principle, and
their
oath
to
support
the
Constitution,
would
have constrained them to oppose the prohibition.
Again,
George
Washington,
another
of
the
*'thirty-nine," was then President of the United
States, and as such approved and signed the
bill,
thus completing
its
validity
as
a
law, and thus
showing that, in his understanding, no line divid-
ing local from Federal authority, nor anything in
the
Constitution,
forbade
the
Federal
Govern-
ment to control as to slavery in Federal territory.
No
great
while
after
the
adoption
of
the
original
Constitution,
North
Carolina
ceded
to
the Federal Government
the country now
con-
I8
SPEECHES
[Feb. 27
stituting the State of Tennessee
; and a few years
later Georgia ceded that which now
constitutes
the States of Mississippi and Alabama.*
In both
deeds
of
cession
it was made
a
condition by
the ceding
States
that the Federal Government
should not prohibit slavery in the ceded country.
Besides
this,
slavery was
then
actually
in
the
ceded
country.
Under
these
circumstances,
Congress, on taking charge
of
these
countries,
did not absolutely prohibit slavery within them.
But they did
interfere with
it—take control of
it—even
there,
to
a
certain
extent.
In
1798
Congress organized the Territory of Mississippi.
In
the
act
of
organization they
prohibited
the
bringing of
slaves
into the
Territory from any
place without the United States, by fine, and giv-
ing
freedom
to
slaves
so
brought.
This
act
passed both branches of Congress without yeas
and nays.
In that Congress were three of the
''thirty-nine" who
framed
the
original
Consti-
tution.
They were John Langdon, George Read,
and Abraham Baldwin.
They all probably voted
for
it.
Certainly they would have placed
their
opposition
to
it upon record
if,
in their under-
standing,
any
line
dividing
local
from Federal
authority, or anything in the Constitution, prop-
erly forbade the Federal Government to control
as to slavery in Federal territory.
In
1803
the
Federal
Government
purchased
the
Louisiana
country.
Our
former
territorial
acquisitions
came
from
certain
of
our
own
States
; but this Louisiana country was acquired
from a foreign nation.
In 1804 Congress gave a
territorial
organization
to that part
of
it which
* The cesbion by North Carolina was accepted by Congress
in 1790;
that by Georgia in 1798.
i860]
at cooper union
»9
now
constitutes
the
State
of
Louisiana.
New
Orleans, lying within that part, was an old and
comparatively large city.
There were other con-
siderable towns and settlements, and slavery w^as
extensively and thoroughly intermingled with the
people.
Congress did not, in the Territorial Act,
prohibit slavery
; but they did interfere with
it
take
control of
it—in
a more marked and
ex-
tensive way than they did in the case of Mississ-
ippi.
The
substance
of
the
provision
therein
made
in
relation to
slaves was
:
1st. That no slave should be imported into the
Territory from
foreign
parts.
2d. That no slave should be carried into it who
had been imported
into the United
States
since
the first day of May, 1798.
3d. That no
slave
should be
carried
into
it,
except by the owner, and
for
his own use as a
settler; the penalty
in
all the cases being a
fine
upon the violator of the law, and freedom to the
slave.
This act also was passed without ayes or nays.
In the Congress which passed
it there were two
of the "thirty-nine."
They were Abraham Bald-
win and Jonathan Dayton.
As stated in the case
of Mississippi,
it
is probable they both voted for
it.
They
would
not
have
allowed
it
to
pass
without
recording
their
opposition
to
it
if,
in
their
understanding,
it
violated
either
the
line
properly
dividing
local from Federal
authority,
or any provision of the Constitution.
In
1819-20
came
and
passed
the
Missouri
question.
Many votes were taken, by yeas and
nays,
in
both
branches
of
Congress, upon
the
various
phases
of
the
general
question.
Two
of
the
"thirty-nine"—Rufus King and
Charles
SPEECHES
IFeb. 2y
Pinckney—were members of that Congress.
Mr.
King
steadily voted
for slavery prohibition and
against
all compromises, while Mr. Pinckney as
steadily
voted
against
slavery
prohibition
and
against
all
compromises.
By
this,
Mr.
King
showed that, in his understanding, no line divid-
ing
local from Federal
authority, nor anything
in
the
Constitution, was
violated
by
Congress
prohibiting
slavery
in
Federal
territory
;
while
Mr. Pinckney, by
his votes, showed
that,
in
his
understanding, there was some
sufficient reason
for opposing such prohibition
in that case.
The cases
I have mentioned are the only
acts
of
the
**thirty-nine,"
or
of any
of them, upon
the direct
issue, which
I have been able to
dis-
cover.
To enumerate the persons who thus acted as
being
four
in
1784, two
in
1787,
seventeen
in
1789,
three
in
1798, two
in
1804, and two
in
1819-20,
there would
be
thirty
of
them.
But
this
would
be
counting John
Langdon,
Roger
Sherman, William Few, Rufus King, and George
Read
each
twice, and Abraham Baldwin
three
times.
The true number of those of the "thirty-
nine" whom
I have shown
to have acted upon
the question which, by the text, they understood
better than we,
is twenty-three,
leaving sixteen
not shown to have acted upon
it in any way.
Here, then, we have twenty-three out of our
thirty-nine fathers "who framed the government
under
which we
live," who
have,
upon
their
official
responsibility
and
their
corporal
oaths,
acted
upon
the
very
question
which
the
text
affirms they "understood
just as well, and even
better,
than we
do now";
and
twenty-one
of
them—a
clear
majority
of
the
whole
"thirty-
i860]
at cooper union
nine"—so acting upon
it as to make them guilty
of gross political impropriety and wilful perjury
if,
in
their
understanding,
any proper
division
between local and Federal authority, or anything
in
the
Constitution
they had made
themselves,
and sworn to support, forbade the Federal Gov-
ernment to control
as to slavery
in the Federal
Territories.
Thus the twenty-one acted
; and, as
actions speak louder than words, so actions under
such
responsibility
speak
still
louder.
Two
of
the
twenty-three
voted
against
con-
gressional prohibition of
slavery
in the Federal
Territories,
in the instances
in which they acted
upon the question.
But
for what reasons they
so voted
is not known.
They may have done so
because they thought a proper
division of
local
from
Federal
authority,
or some
provision
or
principle of the
Constitution, stood
in the way
;
or
they may,
without any
such
question, have
voted against the prohibition on what appeared
to them to be
sufficient grounds of expediency.
No one who has sworn to support the Constitu-
tion can conscientiously vote for what he under-
stands
to be an unconstitutional measure, how-
ever expedient he may think
it
; but one may and
ought to vote against a measure which he deems
constitutional
if,
at the same time, he deems
it
inexpedient.
It,
therefore, would be unsafe to
set down even the two who voted
against the
prohibition
as having done
so because,
in
their
understanding, any proper division of local from
Federal
authority,
or anything
in the
Constitu-
tion, forbade the Federal Government to control
as to slavery in Federal territory.
The remaining sixteen of the "thirty-nine," so
far as
I have discovered, have
left no record of
SPEECHES
[Feb. 27
their understanding upon the direct question of
Federal
control
of
slavery
in the Federal Ter-
ritories.
But
there
is much
reason
to
believe
that
their
understanding
upon
that
question
would not have appeared different from that of
their twenty-three compeers, had
it been mani-
fested
at
all.
For the purpose of adhering rigidly to the text,
I have purposdy omitted whatever understand-
ing may have been manifested by any
person,
however distinguished, other than the thirty-nine
fathers who
framed
the
original
Constitution;
and,
for
the same
reason,
I have
also omitted
whatever
understanding may
have
been
mani-
fested by any of the "thirty-nine" even on any
other phase of the general question of
slavery.
If we
should
look
into
their
acts and
declara-
tions on those other phases, as the foreign slave-
trade,
and
the
morality and
policy
of
slavery
generally, it would appear to us that on the direct
question of Federal control of slavery in Federal
Territories, the sixteen,
if they had acted at
all,
would probably have acted
just as the twenty-
three
did.
Among that sixteen were several of
the most noted antislavery men of those times,
as Dr. Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, and Gou-
verneur Morris,—while there was not one now
known to have been otherwise, unless
it may be
John Rutledge, of South Carolina.
The sum of the whole is that of our thirty-nine
fathers who
framed
the
original
Constitution,
twenty-one—a clear majority of the whole—cer-
tainly understood that no proper division of local
from Federal authority, nor any part of the Con-
stitution,
forbade
the
Federal
Government
to
control slavery
in the Federal Territories; while
i860]
AT COOPER UNION
all the rest had probably the same understanding.
Such,
unquestionably,
was
the
understanding
of our fathers who framed the original Constitu-
tion; and the text
affirms that they understood
the question "better than we."
But, so far,
I have been considering the under-
standing
of
the
question
manifested
by
the
framers of the original Constitution.
In and by
the original instrument, a mode was provided for
amending
it; and,
as
I have already
stated, the
present frame of "the government under which
we
live"
consists
of
that
original,
and
twelve
amendatory
articles
framed and
adopted
since.
Those who now
insist
that
Federal
control
of
slavery
in Federal
Territories
violates the Con-
stitution, point us
to the provisions which they
suppose
it thus
violates;
and,
as
I
understand,,
they
all
fix upon provisions in these amendatory
articles, and not in the original instrument.
The
Supreme
Court,
in
the Dred
Scott
case,
plant
themselves upon the fifth amendment, which pro-
vides that no person
shall be deprived of
"life,
liberty, or property without due process of law"
;
while Senator Douglas and his peculiar adherents
plant themselves upon the tenth amendment, pro-
viding
that
"the
powers
not
delegated
to
the
United States by the Constitution" "are reserved
to the States respectively, or to the people."
Now, it so happens that these amendments were
framed by
the
first
Congress which
sat under
the
Constitution—the
identical
Congress
Vvdiich
passed the
act, already mentioned, enforcing the
prohibition of slavery in the Northwestern Ter-
ritory.
Not only was
it the same Congress, but
they were the identical, same individual men who,
at the same session, and at the same time within
SPEECHES
[Feb. 27
the session, had under consideration, and in prog-
ress toward maturity, these constitutional amend-
ments, and this act prohibiting slavery in
all the
territory the nation then owned.
The constitu-
tional amendments were introduced before, and
passed
after, the act enforcing the ordinance of
'87;
so
that, during the whole pendency of the
act
to enforce
the ordinance,
the
constitutional
amendments were also pending.
The seventy-six members of that Congress, in-
cluding
sixteen
of
the
framers
of
the
original
Constitution, as before stated, were preeminently
our
fathers who framed that part of
''the gov-
ernment
under
vv^hich we
live"
which
is now
claimed
as
forbidding the
Federal Government
to control slavery in the Federal Territories.
Is
it not a
little presumptuous
in any one
at
this day to affirm that the two things which that
Congress deliberately framed, and carried to ma-
turity
at
the
same
timie,
are
absolutely
incon-
sistent
with
each
other?
And
does
not
such
affirmation
become
impudently
absurd
when
coupled with the other affirmation, from the same
mouth, that those who did the two things alleged
to be inconsistent, understood whether they really
were inconsistent better than we—better than he
who affirms that they are inconsistent?
It
is surely safe to assume that the thirty-nine
framers
of
the
original
Constitution,
and
the
seventy-six
members
of
the
Congress
which
framed the amendments thereto, taken together,
do
certainly
include
those who may
be
fairly
called
''our fathers who framed the government
under which we live."
And so assuming,
I defy
any man to show that any one of them, ever,
in
his whole
life, declared that,
in his understand-
i860]
AT COOPER UNION
ing, any proper
division of
local from Federal
authority, or any part of the
Constitution,
for-
bade
the
Federal Government
to
control
as
to
slavery
in the Federal
Territories.
I go a
step
further.
I defy any one to show that any living
man in the whole world ever did, prior to the be-
ginning of the present century (and
I might
al-
most say prior to the beginning of the
last half
of the present century), declare that, in his under-
standing, any proper division of local from Fed-
eral
authority, or any part of the
Constitution,
forbade the Federal Government to control as to
slavery
in
the
Federal
Territories.
To
those
who
now
so
declare
I
give
not
only
"our
fathers who framed the government under which
we
live,"
but
with them
all
other
living men
within the century in which it was framed, among
whom to
search, and they
shall not be
able
to
find the evidence of a single man agreeing with
them.
Now, and
here,
let me guard a
little
against
being misunderstood.
I do not mean to say we
are bound to
follow
implicitly
in whatever our
fathers
did.
To do
so would be
to discard
all
the
lights
of
current
experience—to
reject
all
progress,
all
improvement.
What
I
do
say
is
that if we would supplant the opinions and policy
of our fathers in any case, we should do so upon
evidence
so conclusive, and argument
so
clear,
that even their great authority,
fairly considered
and weigh,
cannot
stand; and most
surely
not
in
a
case
whereof we
ourselves
declare
they
understood the question better than we.
If any man at this day sincerely believes that a
proper division of
local from Federal authority,
or any part of the Constitution, forbids the Fed-
SPEECHES
[Feb. 27
eral Government to control as to slavery in the
Federal Territories, he
is right to say
so, and to
enforce his position by
all truthful evidence and
fair
argument which
he
can.
But
he
has
no
right to mislead others who have
less access to
history, and less leisure to study
it, into the false
belief that "our fathers who framed the^ govern-
ment under which we
live" were
of
the same
opinion—thus
substituting
falsehood and decep-
tion for truthful evidence and fair argument.
If
any man
at
this
day
sincerely
believes
"our
fathers who framed the government under which
we
live"
used and
applied
principles,
in
other
cases, which ought
to have
led them to under-
stand that a proper division of local from Federal
authority, or some part of the Constitution, for-
bids
the
Federal Government
to
control
as
to
slavery
in the Federal Territories, he
is right to
say
so.
But he should, at the same time, brave
the responsibility of declaring that, in his opinion,
he understands their
principles better than they
did themselves
; and especially should he not shirk
that responsibility by asserting that they "under-
stood the question just as well, and even better,
than we do now."
But enough
!
Let
all who
believe
that "our
fathers who framed the government under which
we live understood this question just as well, and
even
better,
than we
do now,"
speak
as
they
spoke, and act as they acted upon
it.
This
is all
Republicans ask—all Republicans desire—in rela-
tion to
slavery.
As those
fathers marked
it,
so
let
it be again marked, as an
evil not to be ex-
tended, but
to
be
tolerated and
protected
only
because of and so far as its actual presence among
us makes that toleration and protection a neces-
i860]
AT COOPER UNION
sity.
Let
all
the guaranties those
fathers gave
it be not grudgingly, but
fully and
fairly, main-
tained.
For this Republicans contend, and with
this,
so
far as
I know
or
believe, they
will be
content.
And now,
if they would
listen,—as
I suppose
they will not,—I would address a few words to
the Southern people.
I would say to them
: You consider yourselves
a
reasonable and a
just people; and
I consider
that in the general qualities of reason and justice
you are not inferior to any other people.
Still,
when you speak of us
Republicans, you do
so
only to denounce us as
reptiles,
or,
at the
best,
as
no
better
than
outlaws.
You
will
grant
a
hearing
to
pirates and
murderers,
but
nothing
like
it to "Black Republicans."
In
all your con-
tentions
with one
another,
each
of you deems
an
unconditional
condemnation
of
"Black
Re-
publicanism" as the
first thing to be attended to.
Indeed, such condemnation of us seems to be an
indispensable prerequisite—license, so to speak
among you to be admitted or permitted to speak
at
all.
Now can you or not be prevailed upon to
pause and to consider whether this
is quite just
to
us,
or
even
to
yourselves?
Bring
forward
your charges and specifications, and then be pa-
tient long enough to hear us deny or justify.
You say we are sectional.
We deny
it.
That
makes an issue
; and the burden of proof
is upon
you.
You produce your proof; and what
is
it?
Why,
that our
party has no
existence
in your
section—gets no votes in your section.
The fact
is substantially true
; but does
it prove the issue ?
If
it does, then in case we should, without change
of principle, begin to get votes in your section, we
SPEECHES
IFeb. 27
should thereby cease to be sectional.
You cannot
escape this conclusion
; and yet, are you willing to
abide by it?
If you are, you will probably soon
find that we have ceased to be
sectional, for we
shall
get
votes
in your
section
this very
year.
You
will
then
begin
to
discover,
as
the
truth
plainly
is,
that your proof
does
not touch
the
issue.
The
fact
that we
get no
votes
in your
section
is a fact of your making, and not of ours.
And
if there be
fault
in that
fact, that
fault
is
primarily yours, and remains so until you show
that we
repel you by some wrong principle
or
practice.
If we do repel you by any wrong prin-
ciple or practice, the fault
is ours
; but this brings
you
to where you ought
to have
started—to a
discussion of the right or wrong of our principle.
If our
principle, put
in
practice, would wrong
your section for the benefit of ours, or
for any
other object, then our principle, and we with
it,
are
sectional,
and
are
justly
opposed
and
de-
nounced
as
such.
Meet
us,
then, on the ques-
tion
of whether
our
principle,
put
in
practice,
would wrong your section; and so meet us as' if
it were possible that something may be said on
our
side.
Do you
accept
the
challenge?
No!
Then you really believe that the principle which
*'our
fathers who framed the government under
which we
live"
thought
so
clearly
right
as
to
adopt
it, and
indorse
it
again and
again, upon
their
official oaths,
is in fact so clearly wrong as
to demand
your
condemnation
without
a mo-
ment's consideration.
Some of you delight to flaunt in our faces the
warning against sectional parties given by Wash-
ington in his Farewell Address.
Less than eight
years before Washington gave that warning, he
i860]
at cooper union
had, as President of the United States, approved
and signed an act of Congress enforcing the pro-
hibition
of
slavery
in
the
Northwestern
Terri-
tory, which act embodied the pohcy of the gov-
ernment upon that subject up to and at the very
moment he penned that warning; and about one
year after he penned
it, he wrote Lafayette that
he considered
that
prohibition a wise measure,
expressing in the same connection his hope that
we should
at some time have a confederacy of
free
States.
Bearing this in mind, and seeing that sectional-
ism has
since arisen upon
this same
subject,
is
that warning a weapon in your hands against us,
or
in our hands against you?
Could Washing-
ton
himiself
speak, would he
cast the blame of
that sectionalism upon us, who sustain his policy,
or upon you, who repudiate
it ? We respect that
warning of Washington, and we commend
it to
you, together with
his example pointing to the
right application of
it.*
But you say you are conservative—eminently
conservative—while
we
are
revolutionary,
de-
structive, or something of the sort.
What is con-
servatism?
Is
it not adherence
to the
old and
tried,
against
the new and untried?
We
stick
* The passage
in Washington's Farewell Address which
most explicitly warns against sectionalism
is as follows
:
"It
is of
infinite moment
that you should properly
esti-
mate the immense value
of your
National Union
to your
collective and individual happiness, that you should cherish
a
cordial,
habitual,
and
immovable
attachment
to
it;
accustoming
yourselves
to
think
and
speak
of
it
as
of
the
palladium
of
your
political
safety
and
prosperity
;
watching
for
its
preservation
with
jealous
anxiety
;
and
indignantly
frowning
upon
the
first dawning
of
any
at-
tempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest,
or to enfeeble the sacred
ties which now link together the
various parts."
SPEECHES
[Feb. 27
to, contend
for,
the
identical
old
policy on the
point in controversy which was adopted by ''our
fathers who framed the government under v/hich
we live"; while you with one accord reject, and
scout, and
spit upon that
old
policy, and
insist
upon substituting something new.
True, you dis-
agree among yourselves as to what that substitute
shall
be.
You are divided on new propositions
and
plans, but you
are unanimous
in
rejecting
and
denouncing
the
old
policy
of
the
fathers.
Some of you are for reviving the foreign slave-
trade
; some
for
a congressional
slave code
for
the
Territories
;
some
for
Congress
forbidding
the
Territories
to
prohibit
slavery
within
their
limits
; some for maintaining slavery in the Ter-
ritories through the judiciary; some for the ''gur-
reat pur-rinciple" that "if one man would enslave
another, no third man should object,"
fantastic-
ally
called
"popular
sovereignty"
;- but
never
a
man among you is in favor of Federal prohibition
of slavery in Federal Territories, according to the
practice of "our fathers who framed the govern-
ment under which we live."
Not one of all your
various plans can show a precedent or an advo-
cate in the century within wdiich our government
originated.
Consider, then, whether your claim
of conservatism for yourselves, and your charge
of
destructiveness
against
us,
are based on the
most clear and stable foundations.
Again, you say Vv^e have made the slavery ques-
tion more prominent than
it formerly was.
We
deny
it.
We admit
that
it
is more prominent,
but we deny that we made
it so.
It was not we,
but
you, who
discarded
the
old
policy
of
the
fathers.
We resisted, and
still resist, your inno-
vation ; and thence comes the greater prominence
i35o]
AT COOPER UNION
of the question.
Would you have that question
reduced to
its former proportions?
Go back to
that
old
policy.
What has been
will be
again,
under the same conditions.
If you would have
the peace of the old times, readopt the precepts
and policy of the old times.
You
charge
that
we
stir
up
insurrections
among your
slaves
We deny
it; and what
is
your proof ?
Harper's
Ferry
!
John Brown
!
!
John Brown was no Republican; and you have
failed
to
implicate
a
single
Republican
in
his
Harper's
Ferry
enterprise.
H any member of
our party
is guilty
in that matter, you know
it,
or you do not know
it. H you do know
it, you
are inexcusable for not designating the man and
proving the fact.
H you do not know
it, you are
inexcusable
for
asserting
it, and
especially
for
persisting
in the
assertion
after you have
tried
and
failed to make the proof.
You need not be
told that persisting
in a charge which one does
not know to be true,
is simply m.alicious slander.
Some
of you
admit
that
no
Republican
de-
signedly aided or encouraged the Harper's Ferry
affair, but
still
insist that our doctrines and dec-
larations
necessarily
lead
to such
results.
We
do not believe
it. We know we hold no doctrine,
and make no declaration, which were not held to
and made by
''our
fathers who framed the gov-
ernment under which we live."
You never dealt
fairly by us
in relation to
this
affair.
When
it
occurred,
some
important
State
elections were
near at hand, and you were in evident glee with
the
belief
that, by charging the blame upon us,
<
you could get an advantage of us
in those elec-
tions.
The elections came, and your expectations
were not quite
fulfilled.
Every Republican man
SPEECHES
[Feb. 27
knew that, as to himself at least, your charge was
a slander, and he was not much inclined by
it to
cast his vote in your favor.
Republican doctrines
and
declarations
are accompanied
with
a
con-
tinual protest against any interference whatever
with your slaves, or with you about your slaves.
Surely, this does not encourage them to
revolt.
True, we do, in common with ''our fathers who
framed
the government under which we
live,"
declare our belief that slavery
is wrong; but the
•slaves do
not
hear
us
declare
even
this.
For
anything we say or do, the slaves would scarcely
know there
is a Republican party.
I believe they
would
not,
in
fact,
generally know
it
but
for
your misrepresentations
of
us
in
their hearing.
In your political contests among yourselves, each
faction
charges
the
other
with sympathy
with
Black Republicanism
; and then, to give point to
the charge, defines Black Republicanism to sim-
ply
be
insurrection,
blood, and thunder among
the slaves.
Slave insurrections are no more common now
than they were before the Republican party was
organized.
What induced the Southampton
in-
surrection, twenty-eight
years
ago,
in which
at
least three times
as many
lives were
lost
as
at
Harper's Ferry ?*
You can scarcely stretch your
Tery
elastic fancy to the conclusion that South-
ampton was
'got up by Black Republicanism."
In
the
present
state
of
things
in
the
United
* In
August,
183 1,
at
Southampton,
Va.,
Nat
Turner,
a
negro,
led
an
insurrection
of
his
fellow
slaves
in
the
course
of
which
more
than
sixty
white
people,
most of them women and children, were massacred.
The
Abolitionists
were
charged
with
instigating
the
rising,
but their
historians deny the
allegation, and no proof has
come to
light of their connection with the crime.
i860]
at cooper union
States,
I do not think a general, or even a very
extensive, slave insurrection
is possible.
The in-
dispensable concert of action cannot be attained.
The slaves have no means of rapid communica-
tion
; nor can incendiary freemen, black or white,
supply
it.
The
explosive
materials
are
every-
where in parcels
; but there neither are, nor can
be
supplied, the indispensable connecting trains.
Much
is
said by
Southern
people
about
the
affection
of
slaves
for
their masters and mis-
tresses; and
a
part
of
it,
at
least,
is
true.
A
plot for an uprising could scarcely be devised and
communicated to twenty individuals before some
one of them, to save the life of a favorite master
or mistress, would divulge
it.
This
is the rule;
and the slave revolution in Hayti was not an ex-
ception to
it, but a
case occurring under pecu-
liar
circumstances.
The
gunpowder
plot
of
British history, though not connected with slaves,
was more
in
point.
In
that
case,
only
about
twenty were admitted to the secret
; and yet one
of
them,
in
his
anxiety
to
save
a
friend,
be-
trayed
the
plot
to
that
friend,
and,
by
conse-
quence,
averted
the
calamity.
Occasional
poi-
sonings from the
kitchen, and open or
stealtl^
assassinations
in the
field, and
local
revolts ex-
.tending to a score or
so, will continue
to occur
as the natural results of slavery
; but no ^general
insurrection of
slaves, as
I think, can happen in
this
country
for
a
long
time.
Whoever much
fears, or much hopes,
for such an event, will be
alike disappointed.
In the language of Mr. Jefferson, uttered many
years ago,
"It
is
still in our power to direct the
process of emancipation and deportation peace-
ably, and
in such slow degrees, as that the
evil
SPEECHES
[Feb. 27
will wear
off
insensibly;
and
their
places
be,
pari passu,
filled up by
free white laborers.
If,
on
the
contrary,
it
is
left
to
force
itself
on,
human nature must shudder at the prospect held
up."
Mr. Jefferson did not mean to say, nor do
I,
that the power of emancipation
is in the Federal
Government.
He spoke of Virginia
; and, as to
the power of emancipation, I speak of the slave-
holding States
only.
The Federal Government,
however, as we insist, has the power of restrain-
ing the
extension of the
institution—the power
to
insure
that
a
slave
insurrection
shall
never
occur on any American
soil which
is now
free
from slavery.
John Brown's effort was peculiar.
It was not
a slave insurrection.
It was an attempt by white
men to get up a revolt among slaves, in which the
slaves refused to participate.
In
fact,
it was so
absurd that the slaves, with
all
their ignorance,
saw plainly enough
it could not succeed.
That
affair,
in
its
philosophy,
corresponds
with
the
many attempts, related in history, at the assassi-
nation
of
kings and
emperors.
An
enthusiast
broods over
the oppression
of
a people
till he
fancies
himself
commissioned
by
Heaven
to
liberate them.
He ventures the attempt, which
ends
in
little
else than
his own execution.
Or-
sini's
attempt
on
Louis
Napoleon,*
and
John
Brown's
attempt
at
Harper's
Ferry,
were,
in
their philosophy, precisely the same.
The eager-
ness
to
cast blame on
old England
in
the one
* Felice Orsini was chief of a band of desperadoes that
attempted
the
life
of Napoleon
III. on January
14,
1858.
The plot had been hatched
in London, and many French-
men
bitterly
charged
the
British
with
complicity
in
the
crime.
i860]
AT COOPER UNION
case, ana on New England in the other, does not
disprove the sameness of the two things.
And how much would
it avail you, if you could,
by the use of John Brown, Helper's book,* and
the
like, break up the Republican organization?
Human action can be modified
to some
extent,
but human nature cannot be changed.
There
is
a judgment and a feeling against slavery
in this
nation, which cast
at
least a million and a half
of votes.
You cannot destroy that judgment and
feeling—that sentiment—by breaking up the po-
litical organization which rallies around
it.
You
can scarcely scatter and disperse an army which
has been formed
into order in the
face of your
heaviest
fire
; but
if you could, how much would
you gain by forcing the sentiment which created
it out of the peaceful channel of the ballot-box
into
some
other
channel?
What
would
that
other channel probably be?
Would the number
of John Browns be lessened or enlarged by the
operation ?
* Hinton
R.
Helper, a North Carolinian, wrote,
in
1857,
"The Impending
Crisis
of
the
South
: How
to Meet
It,"
a book intended
to show that slavery was inimical
to
the
interests
of
the
non-slaveholding
Southern
whites.
Of
this
work,
J.
F.
Rhodes
says,
in
his
"History
of
the
United
States
from
1850":
"Although
the
writer's
manner
was
highly
emotional,
sincerity
flowed
from
his
unpracticed
pen.
The
facts
were
in
the main
correct
;
the arguments based on them,
in
spite
of being disfigured by abuse
of the slave-holders,
and weakened
by
threats,
of
violent
action
in
a
certain
contingency,
were
unanswerable.
.
.
.
The
burden
of
Helper's argument was that the abolition of slavery would
improve
the
material
interests
of
the
South
by
fostering
manufactures
and commerce,
thus
greatly
increasing
the
value
of
land,
the
only property
of the poor
whites, and
giving
them
a
larger
market
for
their
products.
The
country and the cities would grow
; there would be schools,
as
at
the
North,
for
the
education
of
their
children,
and
their
rise
in
the
social
scale would
be marked.
.
.
.
Had
the poor
whites
been
able
to
read and comprehend
SPEECHES
[Feb. 27
But you will break up the Union rather than
submit to a denial of your constitutional
rights.
That has
a somewhat
reckless sound
;
but
it
would be
palliated,
if
not
fully
justified, were
we proposing, by the mere force of numbers, to
deprive you of some right plainly written down
in
the
Constitution.
But we are proposing no
such
thing.
When you make these declarations you have
a specific and well-understood allusion to an as-
sumed constitutional right of yours to take slaves
into
the
Federal
Territories, and
to hold them
there as property.
But no such right
is specific-
ally written in the Constitution.
That instrument
is
literally
silent about any such
right.
We, on
the
contrary,
deny
that
such
a
right
has
any
existence in the Constitution, even by implication.
Your purpose, then, plainly stated,
is that you
will
destroy
the government, unless you be
al-
lowed to construe and force the Constitution as
you please, on
all points in dispute between you
and us.
You will rule or ruin in
all events.
svich
an
argument,
slavery would
have
been
doorned
to
destruction,
for
certainly
seven
voters
out
of
ten
in
the
slave
States were
non-slaveholding
whites.
It was
this
consideration that made Southern congressmen so
furious,
for
to
retain
their
power
they must
continue
to
hood-
wink
their
poorer
neighbors'."
The book grew
in
favor
in the North, and
in
1859,
it
was published
for propagandist purposes
in
a cheap
edi-
tion, which rceived the written approval
of
a number of
Republican Congressmen, including John Sherman, the can-
didate
of
his
party
for
Speaker.
Although Sherman
ex-
plained
that he had
signed
the indorsement by proxy
in
a moment
of
thoughtlessness,
he
could
not
dissipate
the
distrust of moderate Republicans whose votes were neces-
sary
for his election.
A long contest ensued, which
Sher-
man ended by retiring in favor of William Pennington of
New
Jersey, who
was
thought
to
be more
conservative.
Mr. Pennington was promptly
elected.
In
1 86 1
Lincoln
appointed
Helper
consul
to
Buenos
Ayres.
i860]
at cooper union
This,
plainly
stated,
is your
language.
Per-
haps you
will
say
the Supreme Court has
de-
cided the disputed constitutional question in your
favor.
Not quite so.
But waiving the lawyer's
distinction
between
dictum
and
decision,
the
court has decided the question for you in a sort
of way.
The court has
substantially
said,
it
is
your constitutional right to take
slaves
into the
Federal
Territories, and
to hold them there
as
property.
When I say the decision was made in
a sort of way,
I mean
it was made in a divided
court, by a bare majority of the judges, and they
not quite agreeing with one another
in the rea-
sons for making
it
; that
it
is so made as that
its
avowed
supporters
disagree
with
one
another
about
its meaning, and that
it was mainly based
upon
a mistaken
statement
of
fact—the
state-
ment
in the opinion that "the right of property
in a slave
is distinctly and expressly affirmed in
the Constitution."
An
inspection
of
the
Constitution
will show
that the right of property in a slave
is not "dis-
tinctly and
expressly
affirmed"
in
it.
Bear
in
mind,
the
judges
do
not
pledge
their
judicial
opinion that such right
is
impliedly
affirmed
in
the
Constitution
; but they pledge their veracity
that
it
is
"distinctly
and
expressly"
affirmed
there—"distinctly," that is, not mingled with any-
thing else—"expressly," that
is,
in words mean-
ing just
that, without the aid of any
inference,
and susceptible of no other meaning.
If they had only pledged their judicial opinion
that such
right
is affirmed
in the instrument by
implication,
it would be open to others to show
that
neither
the word
"slave"
nor
"slavery"
is
to be found
in the
Constitution, nor
the word
SPEECHES
£Feb. 27
"property" even, in any connection with language
alluding to the things slave
or slavery
; and that
wherever in that instrument the slave
is alluded
to,
he
is
called
a
"person"
; and wherever
his
master's legal right in relation to him
is alluded
to,
it is spoken of as "service or labor which may
be due"—as a debt payable
in service or
labor.
Also
it would
be open
to
show, by contempo-
raneous
history,
that
this mode
of
alluding
to
slaves and slavery, instead of speaking of them,
was employed on purpose to exclude from
the
Constitution the
idea that there could be prop-
erty in man.
To show
all this
is easy and certain.
When this obvious mistake of the judges shall
be brought to their notice,
is
it not reasonable to
expect
that
they
will
withdraw
the
mistaken
statement, and
reconsider
the
conclusion based
upon it?
And
then
it
is
to be remembered
that
"our
fathers who framed the government under which
we live"—the men who made the Constitution
decided
this same constitutional question
in our
favor
long
ago
:
decided
it
without
division
among
themselves when making
the
decision
;
without
division
among
themseves
about
the
meaning of
it after
it was made, and, so far as
any evidence
is
left, without basing
it upon any
mistaken statement of
facts.
Under
all
these circumstances, do you
really
feel yourselves justified to break up this govern-
ment
unless
such
a
court
decision
as yours
is
shall be at once submitted to as a conclusive and
final
rule of
political action?
But you
will not
abide the election of a Republican president
!
In
that supposed event, you say, you will destroy the
i860]
AT COOPER UNION
Union
; and then, you say, the great crime of hav-
ing destroyed
it will be upon us
!
That
is
cool.
A highwayman
holds
a
pistol
to my
ear,
and
mutters through
his
teeth,
"Stanfl and
deliver,
or
I
shall
kill you, and then you
will be a mur-
derer !"
To be sure, what the robber demanded of me
—my money—was my own; and
I had a clear
right to keep
it
; but it was no more my own than
my vote
is my own; and the threat of death to
me,
to extort my money, and the threat of de-
struction to
the Union,
to extort my
vote, can
scarcely be
distinguished
in
principle.
A few words now to Republicans.
It
is ex-
ceedingly
desirable
that
all
parts
of
this
great
Confederacy
shall be
at peace, and
in harmony
one with
another.
Let
us
Republicans do our
part to have
it so.
Even though much provoked,
let us do nothing through passion and
ill temper.
Even
though
the
Southern
people
will
not
so
much as listen to us,
let us calmly consider their
demands, and yield to them
if,
in our deliberate
view of our duty, we possibly can.
Judging by
all they say and do, and by the subject and nature
of their controversy with us,
let us determine, if
we can, what will satisfy them.
Will they be satisfied
if the Territories be un-
conditionally
surrendered
to them?
We know
they
will
not.
In
all
their
present
complaints
against
us,
the
Territories
are
scarcely
men-
tioned.
Invasions and insurrections are the rage
now.
Will
it satisfy them
if,
in the
future, we
have nothing to do with invasions and insurrec-
tions?
We know
it will
not.
We so know, be-
cause we know we never had anything to do with
invasions
and
insurrections; and
yet
this
total
SPEECHES
IFeb. 27
abstaining does not exempt us from the charge
f^.nd the denunciation.
The question recurs, What will
satisfy them?
Simply this
: tve must not only let them alone, but
we must somehow convince them that we do
let
them
alone.
This, we know
by
experience,
is
no easy task.
We have been so trying to con-
vince
them
from
the
very
beginning
of
our
organization,
but
with
no
success.
In
all
our
platforms and speeches we have constantly pro-
tested our purpose
to
let them
alone
;
but
this
has had no tendency
to convince them.
Alike
unavailing to convince them
is the fact that they
have never detected a man of us in any attempt
to disturb them.
These natural and apparently adequate means
all
failing, what will convince them?
This, and
this only: cease to
call slavery wrong, and join
them in calling
it right.
And this must be done
thoroughly—done
in
acts
as
well
as
in words.
Silence will not be tolerated—we must place our-
selves avowedly with them.
Senator Douglas's
new sedition law must be enacted and enforced,
suppressing all declarations that slavery is wrong,
whether made
in
politics,
in presses,
in pulpits,
or in private.
We must arrest and return their
fugitive slaves with greedy pleasure.
We must
pull
down
our
free-State
constitutions.
The
whole atmosphere must be
disinfected from
all
taint
of
opposition
to
slavery,
before they
will
cease
to
believe
that
all
their
troubles proceed
from us.
I am quite aware they do not state their case
precisely
in
this
way.
Most
of
them
would
probably say to us, "Let us alone; do nothing to
us, and say what you please about slavery."
But
i860]
AT COOPER UNION
we
do
let
them
alone,—have
never
disturbed
them,—so that, after
all,
it
is what we say which
dissatisfies them.
They will continue to accuse
us of doing, until we cease saying.
I am also aware that they have not as yet in
terms
demanded
the
overthrow
of
our
free-
State
constitutions.
Yet those constitutions de-
clare
the wrong
of
slavery
with more
solemn
emphasis than do all other sayings against
it
; and
when
all
these
other
sayings
shall
have
been
silenced, the overthrow of these constitutions will
be demanded, and nothing be
left
to
resist the
demand.
It
is nothing to the contrary that they
do not demand the whole of this just now.
De-
manding what they do, and
for the reason they
do, they can voluntarily
stop nowhere
short of
this
consummation.
Holding
as
they
do
that
slavery
is
morally
right and
socially
elevating,
they
cannot
cease
to
demand
a
full
national
recognition
of
it,
as
a
legal
right and a
social
blessing.
Nor can we
justifiably withhold
this on any
ground save our conviction that slavery is wrong.
If slavery is right, all words, acts, laws, and con-
stitutions
against
it
are themselves wrong, and
should be silenced and swept away.
If it is right,
w^e
cannot
justly
object
to
its
nationality—its
tmiversality
;
if
it
is wrong, they cannot
justly
insist upon
its extension—its enlargement.
All
they ask we could
readily grant,
if we thought
slavery
right;
all we ask they could
as
readily
grant,
if they thought
it wrong.
Their thinking
it right, and our thinking
it wrong,
is the precise
fact upon which depends the whole controversy.
Thinking
it
right,
as
they
do,
they
are
not
to
blame
for
desiring
its
full recognition
as being
SPEECHES
[Mar.
right; but thinking
it wrong, as we do, can we
yield to them ?
Can we cast our votes with their
view, and
against
our own?
In
view
of
our
moral,
social, and
political
responsibilities,
can
we do this?
Wrong as we think slavery
is, we can yet af-
ford to let
it alone where
it
is, because that much
is
due
to
the
necessity
arising from
its
actual
presence
in
the
nation
;
but can we, while our
votes will prevent
it, allow
it to spread into the
national
Territories and
to overrun us here
in
these
free States?
If our
sense of duty forbids
this, then
let us
stand by our duty fearlessly and effectively.
Let
us be diverted by none of those sophistical con-
trivances wherewith we are so industriously plied
and belabored—contrivances such as groping for
some middle ground betv/een the
right and the
wrong ; vain as the search for a man who should
be neither a living man nor a dead man
; such as
a policy of "don't care" on a question about which
all true men do care
; such as Union appeals be-
seeching true Union men to yield to Disunionists,
reversing the divine rule, and calling, not the sin-
ners,
but
the
righteous
to
repentance;
such
as
invocations to Washington, imploring men to un-
say what Washington said and undo what Wash-
ington did.
Neither
let us be slandered from our duty by
false accusations against us, nor frightened from
it by menaces of destruction to the government,
nor of dungeons to ourselves.
Let us have faith
that right makes might; and in that
faith
let us
to the end dare to do our duty as we understand
it.
i860]
at HARTFORD
Slavery the Enemy of the Free Workingmen.
Abstract
of
Speech
at
Hartford,
Conn.
March
5, i860.
Slavery
is
the
great
political
question
of
the
nation.
Though
all desire
its settlement,
it
still
remains
the
all-pervading
question
of
the
day.
It has been so especially
for the past
six years.
It
is
indeed
older
than
the Revolution—rising,
subsiding, then rising again,
till
'54,
since which
time
it has been constantly augmenting.
Those
who
occasioned
the Lecompton
imbroglio now
admit that they
see no end
to
it.
It had been
their cry that the vexed question was just about
to be
settled—"the
tail of
this hideous creature
is
just going out of
sight."
That cry
is played
out, and has ceased.
Why, when
all desire to have this controversy
settled, can we
not
settle
it
satisfactorily? One
reason
is, we want
it
settled
in
different ways.
Each faction has a different plan—they pull dif-
ferent ways, and neither has a decided majority.
In my humble opinion, the importance and mag-
nitude of the question
is underrated, even by our
wisest men.
If I be right, the first thing is to get
a just estimate of the evil
; then we can provide a
cure.
One-sixth, and
a
little
more,
of
the popula-
tion of the United States are slaves, looked upon
as property, as nothing but property.
The cash
value of these slaves,
at a moderate estimate,
is
$2,000,000,000.
This amount of property value
has a vast influence on the minds of
its owners,
very
naturally.
The same amount
of property
would have an equal influence upon us if owned
in the North.
Human nature is the same—people
SPEECHES
[Mar.
at the South are the same as those at the North,
barring the difference
in circumstances.
PubHc
opinion
is founded, to a great extent, on a prop-
erty
basis.
What lessens the value of property
is opposed; what enhances
its value
is
favored.
Public
opinion
at
the
South
regards
slaves
as
property,
and
insists
upon
treating them
like
other property.
On the other hand, the
free
States carry on
their government on the principle of the equality
of men.
We
think
slavery
is
morally wrong,
and
a
direct
violation
of
that
principle.
We
all think
it wrong.
It
is clearly proved,
I think,
by
natural
theology,
apart
from
revelation.
Every man, black, white, or yellow, has a mouth
to be fed, and two hands with which to feed
it
and bread should be allowed to go to that mouth
without
controversy.
Slavery
is wrong in
its effect upon white peo-
ple and
free
labor.
It
is
the
only
thing
that
threatens
the
Union.
It makes what
Senator
Seward has been much abused for calling an
''ir-
repressible
conflict."
When they
get
ready
to
settle
it, we hope they will
let us know.
Public
opinion settles every question here
;, any policy to N
be permanent must have
public opinion
at
the
bottom—something
in
accordance
with
thg/
philosophy
of
the human mind
as
it
is.
The
property basis will have
its weight.
The love of
property and a consciousness of right or wrong
have conflicting places in our organization, which
often make
a man's
course seem
crooked,
his
conduct a riddle.
Some men would make
it
a
question
of
in-
difference,
neither
right
nor
wrong,
merely
a
question
of
dollars
and
cents;—the
Almighty
i860]
at HARTFORD
has drawn a line across the land, below which
it
must be cultivated by
slave
labor, above which
by free labor.
They would say: *'If the question
is between the white man and the negro,
I am
for
the
white man;
if between
the negro and
the crocodile,
I am for the negro."
There
is a
strong effort to make this policy of indifference
prevail, but
it cannot be a durable one.
A "don't
care"
policy won't
prevail,
for everybody
does
care.
Is
there
a
Democrat,
especially
one
of
the
Douglas wing, but will declare that the Declara-
tion of Independence has no
application to the
negro?
It would be
safe
to
offer
a moderate
premium
for
such
a
man.
I
have
asked
this
question
in large audiences where they were
in.
the
habit
of
answering
right
out,
but
no one
would say otherwise.
Not one of them said
it
five years ago.
I never heard
it
till
I heard
it
from
the
lips
of Judge
Douglas.
True, some
men boldly took the bull by the horns and said
the Declaration of Independence was not true!
They didn't sneak around the question.
I say I
heard
first
from
Douglas
that
the
Declaration
did not apply to the black man.
Not a man of
them said
it
till then—they all say
it now.
This
is a long stride toward establishing the policy of
indifference—one
more
such
stride,
I
think,,
would do
it.
The
proposition
that
there
is
a
struggle
be-
tween the white man and the negro contains a
falsehood.
There
is no struggle.
If there was,.
I should be for the white man.
If two men are
adrift at sea on a plank which will bear up but
one, the law
justifies either in pushing the other
off.
I
never had
to
struggle
to keep
a negro
SPEECHES
[Mar.
s
from enslaving me, nor did a negro ever have to
fight to keep me from enslaving him.
They say,
between the crocodile and the negro, they go for
the negro.
The logical proportion
is, therefore,
as a white m.an
is to a negro, so
is a negro to a
crocodile, or as a negro may treat the crocodile,
so
the
white man may
treat
the
negro.
The
"don't care"
policy
leads
just
as
surely
to na-
tionalizing slavery as Jeff Davis himself, but the
doctrine
is
more
dangerous
because
more
in-
sidious.
If
the
Republicans,
who
think
slavery
is
wrong,
get
possession
of
the
General
Govern-
ment, we may not root out the
evil at once, but
may
at
least prevent
its extension.
If
I
find a
venomous
snake
lying
on
the
open
prairie,
I
seize the
first
stick and
kill him
at once; but
if
that snake
is in bed with my children, I must be
more
cautious
;—I
shall,
in
striking the
snake,
also
strike the children, or arouse the
reptile to
bite
the
children.
Slavery
is
the
venomous
snake in bed with the children.
But
if the ques-
tion
is whether to
kill
it on the prairie or put
it
in bed with the other children,
I am inclined to
think we'd kill
it.
Another illustration.
When for the
first time
I met Mr. Clay, the other day in the cars, in front
of us
sat an
old gentleman with an enormous
wen upon
his
neck.
Everybody would say the
wen was a great evil, and would cause the man's
death after a while; but you couldn't cut
it out,
for he'd bleed to death in a minute.
But would
you ingraft the seeds of that wen on the necks of
sound and healthy men?
He must endure and
be patient, hoping for possible
relief.
The wen
represents
slavery on the neck of
this country.
i860]
at HARTFORD
This only applies to those who think slavery
is
wrong.
Those who
think
it
right would
con-
sider the snake a jewel and the wen an ornament.
We want those Democrats who think slavery
wrong,
to
quit voting with
those who think
it
right.
They
don't
treat
it
as
they
do
other
wrongs—they won't oppose
it in the free States,
for
it
isn't there; nor
in the slave
States,
for
it
is there
;—don't want
it
in
politics, for
it makes
agitation
; not in the pulpit, for
it
isn't religion
;
not in a tract society, for
it makes a fuss—there
is no
place
for
its
discussion.
Are
they
quite
consistent in this?
If those Democrats really think slavery wrong,
they will be much pleased when earnest men in
the slave States take up a plan of gradual eman-
cipation, and go to work energetically and very
kindly to get
rid of the
evil.
Now
let us
test
them.
Frank
Blair
tried
it;
and
he
ran
for
Congress
in
'58,
and
got
beaten.
Did
the
Democracy
feel bad about
it?
I reckon not.
I
guess you
all
flung up your
hats and
shouted,
^'Hurrah for the Democracy
!"
He went on to speak of the manner in which
slavery was
treated by
the
Constitution.
The
word
''slave"
is nowhere
used;
the
supply
of
slaves
was
to
be
prohibited
after
1808;
they
stopped the spread of
it in the Territories
; seven
of the States abolished
it.
He argued very con-
clusively
that
it was
then
regarded
as
an
evil
which would eventually be got
rid
of, and that
they desired, once rid of
it, to have nothing in the
Constitution to remind them of
it.
The Repub-
licans go back to first principles, and deal with
it
as a wrong.
Mason, of Virginia, said openly that
SPEECHES
[Mar.
the framers of our government were anti-slavery.
Hammond, of South CaroHna, said, "Washington
set
this
evil example."
Bully Brooks
said, "At
the time
the
Constitution was
formed, no one
supposed slavery would last till now."
We stick
to the policy of our fathers.
The Democracy
are
given
to bushwhacking.
After having their errors and misstatements con-
tinually thrust in their
faces, they pay no heed,
but
go
on
howling
about
Seward
and
the
"irrepressible
conflict."
That
is bushwhacking.
So
with
John
Brown
and
Harper's
Ferry.
They charge
it upon the Republican
party, and
ignominously
fail
in
all attempts to substantiate
the
charge.
Yet
they go on with
their bush-
whacking, the pack in full cry after John Brown.
The Democrats had just been whipped
in Ohio
and Pennsylvania, and seized upon the imfortu-
nate
Harper's
Ferry
affair
to
influence
other
elections then pending.
They said to each other,
"Jump in
; now's your chance"
; and were sorry
there were no more killed.
But they didn't suc-
ceed well.
Let them go on with their howling.
They
will
succeed when by
slandering women
you get them to love you, and by slandering men
you get them to vote for you.
Mr. Lincoln then took up the Massachusetts
shoemakers' strike, treating
it in a humorous and
philosophical manner, and
exposing
to
ridicule
the
foolish
pretense
of
Senator
Douglas—that
the
strike
arose
from
"this
unfortunate
sec-
tional warfare."
Mr. Lincoln thanked God that
we have a system of labor where there can be a
strike.
Whatever the pressure, there
is a point
where the workman may
stop.
He
didn't pre-
tend to be familiar with the subject of the shoe
i860]
at HARTFORD
strike—probably knew as
little about
it as Sena-
tor Douglas himself.
Shall we stop making war
upon the South ? We never have made war upon
them.
If any one has, he had better go and hang
himself and
save
Virginia
the
trouble.
If you
give up your convictions and
call slavery
right,
as they do, you
let slavery in upon you—instead
of
white
laborers who
can
strike,
you'll
soon
have black laborers who can't
strike.
I have heard that in consequence of this "sec-
tional
warfare,"
as
Douglas
calls
it,
Senator
IMason, of
Virginia, had appeared
in
a
suit of
homespun.
Now,
up
in New
Hampshire,
the
woolen and cotton mills are all busy, and there is
no strike—they are busy making the very goods
Senator
]\Iason has quit buying
!
To carry out
his
idea, he ought to go barefoot!
If that's the
plan,
they
should begin
at the
foundation, and
adopt the well-known
"Georgia costume,"
of a
shirt-collar and pair of spurs.
It reminded him of the man who had a poor,
old,
lean,
bony,
spavined
horse,
with
swelled
legs.
He was asked what he was going to do
Avith such a miserable
beast—the poor creature
would
die.
"Do?"
said
he.
"I'm going to
fat
him up
; don't you see that
I have got him seal-
fat as high as the knees?"
Well they have got
the Union
dissolved
up
to
the
ankle,
but
no
further
!
All portions of this Confederacy should act in
harmony
and
with
careful
deliberation.
The
Democrats cry "John Brown invasion."
We are
guiltless
of
it,
but
our
denial
does
not
satisfy
them.
Nothing will
satisfy them but
disinfect-
ing the atmosphere
entirely of
all opposition to
slavery.
They have not demanded of us to yield
go
SPEECHES
[Mar.
the guards of liberty in our State constitutions,
but
it will naturally come to that after a while.
If we give up to them, we cannot refuse even
their
utmost
request.
If
slavery
is
right,
it
ought to be extended;
if not,
it ought to be
re-
stricted—there
is no middle ground.
Wrong as
we think
it, we can affgrd to
let
it alone where
it of necessity now exists
; but we cannot afford
to extend
it
into
free territory and around our
own homes.
Let us stand against
it!
The "Union" arrangements are
all a humbug
—they
reverse
the
scriptural
order,
calling the
righteous, and
not
sinners,
to
repentance.
Let
us not be slandered or intimidated to turn from
our
duty.
Eternal
right makes
might;
as we
understand our duty,
let us do
it!
Slavery the Snake in the Union Bed.
Speech
at New
Haven,
Conn.
March
6,
i860.
Mr.
President
and
Fellow-citizens
of New
Haven:
If the Republican
party
of
this
nation
shall ever have the national house intrusted to its
keeping, it will be the duty of that party to attend
to
all
the
affairs
of
national
housekeeping.
Whatever matters of importance may come up,
whatever difficulties may arise, in the way of
its
administration of the government, that party will
then have to attend to
:
it will then be compelled
to attend to other questions besides this question
which now assumes an overwhelming importance
—the question of slavery.
It
is true that in the
organization of the Republican party this ques-
tion
of
slavery was more
important
than any
i860]
AT NEW HAVEN
other
;
indeed,
so much more
important has
it
become that no other national question can even
get a hearing just at present.
The old question
of
tariff—a matter
that
will remain one
of the
chief affairs of national housekeeping to all time
;
the question of management of financial affairs
;
the
question
of
the
disposition
of
the
public
domain
; how
shall
it be managed
for the pur-
pose
of
getting
it
well
settled, and of making
there the homes of a
free and happy people
these will remain open and require attention for
a great while yet, and these questions will have
to be attended to by whatever party has the con-
trol of the government.
Yet just now they can-
not even obtain a hearing, and
I do not purpose
to detain you upon these topics, or what sort of
hearing they should have when opportunity shall
come.
For whether we will or not, the question
of slavery is the question, the all-absorbing topic,
of the day.
It is true that all of us—and by that
I mean not the Republican party alone, but the
whole American people here and elsewhere—all
of us wish
this question
settled; wish
it out of
the way.
It stands in the way and prevents the
adjustment and the giving of necessary attention
to
other
questions
of
national
housekeeping.
The people of the whole nation agree that
this
question ought to be
settled, and
yet
it
is not
settled
; and the reason
is that they are not yet
agreed how
it shall be settled.
All wish
it done,
but some wish one way and some another, and
some a third, or fourth, or fifth
; different bodies
are pulling
in
different
directions, and none of
them having a decided majority are able to ac-
complish the common
object.
In the beginning of the year 1854, a new policy
SPEECHES
[Mar. 6
was
inaugurated
with
the
avowed
object
and
confident promise that
it would entirely and for-
ever put an end to the slavery agitation.
It was
again and again declared that under this policy,
when once
successfully
established, the country
would be forever rid of this whole question.
Yet
under the operation of that policy this agitation
has not only not ceased, but
it has been constantly
augmented.
And
this,
too,
although
from
the
day
of
its
introduction
its
friends, who prom-
ised that
it would wholly end
all agitation, con-
stantly
insisted,
down
to
the
time
that
the
Lecompton bill was introduced, that
it was work-
ing admirably, and
that
its
inevitable tendency
was
to remove
the
question
forever
from
the
politics of
the
country.
Can you
call
to mind
any Democratic
speech, made
after
the
repeal
of the Missouri Compromise down to the time
of the Lecompton
bill,
in which
it v/as not pre-
dicted that the slavery agitation was
just
at an
end
; that
''the Abolition excitement was played
out,"
"the
Kansas
question was
dead,"
"they
have made the most they can out of this ques-
tion and it is now forever settled" ?
But since the
Lecompton
bill, no Democrat within my experi-
ence has ever pretended that he could see the end.
That
cry
has
been
dropped.
They themselves
do not pretend now that the agitation of this sub-
ject has come to an end yet.
The truth
is that
this question
is one of national importance, and
we cannot help dealing with it
; we must do some-
thing
about
it,
whether we
will
or
not.
We
cannot
avoid
it;
the
subject
is
one we cannot
avoid considering; we can no more avoid
it than
a man can live without eating.
It
is upon us
;
it
attaches
to
the
body
politic
as much
and
as
i860]
at new haven
closely as the natural wants attach to our natural
bodies.
Now
I think
it important that this mat-
ter
should
be
taken up
in
earnest and
really
settled.
And
one way
to
bring
about
a
true
settlement
of
the
question
is
to understand
its
true magnitude.
There
have
been many
efforts
to
settle
it.
Again and again
it has been fondly hoped that it
was
settled, but every time
it breaks out afresh,
and more violently than ever.
It was settled, our
fathers hoped, by the IMissouri Compromise, but
it
did
not
stay
settled.
Then the compromises
of 1850 were declared to be a full and final settle-
ment
of
the
question.
The two
great
parties,
each
in national convention, adopted resolutions
declaring that the settlement made by the com-
promise
of
1850 was
a
finality—that
it would
last
forever.
Yet how
long before
it was un-
settled again?
It broke out again
in
1854, and
blazed higher and raged more furiously than ever
before, and the agitation has not rested
since.
These
repeated
settlements
must
have
some
fault
about
them.
There
must
be
some
in-
adequacy in their very nature to the purpose for
which they were designed.
We can only specu-
late as to where that
fault—that inadequacy
is,
but we may perhaps profit by past experience.
I think that one of the causes of these repeated
failures
is that our
best and greatest men have
greatly underestimated the size of this question.
They
have
constantly
brought
forward
small
cures for great sores—plasters too small to cover
the wound.
That
is one reason that
all
settle-
ments have proved so temporary, so evanescent.
Look
at the magnitude of
this
subject.
One
sixth of our population,
in round numbers—not
SPEECHES
[Mar. 6
quite one
sixth, and yet more than a seventh
about one sixth of the whole population of the
United States are
slaves.
The owners of these
slaves consider them property.
The effect upon
the minds of the owners
is that of property, and
nothing
else
;
it induces them to
insist upon
all
that
will favorably
affect
its value
as property,
to demand
laws
and
institutions
and
a
public
policy
that
shall
increase and
secure
its
value,
and make
it durable, lasting, and universal.
The
effect on the minds of the owners
is to persuade
them that there
is no wrong
in
it.
The
slave-
holder
does
not
like
to
be
considered
a mean
fellow
for holding that species of property, and
hence he has to struggle within himself, and sets
about arguing himself into the belief that slavery
is right.
The property influences his mind.
The
dissenting minister who argued some theological
point with one
of
the
Established Church was
always met by the reply, *T can't see
it so."
He
opened the Bible and pointed him to a passage,
but the orthodox minister replied, 'T can't see
it
so."
Then he showed him a single word—"Can
you
see that?"
"Yes,
I
see
it," was the
reply.
The dissenter
laid a guinea over the word, and
asked, ''Do you see
it now ?"
So here.
Whether
the owners of this species of property do really
see
it as
it
is,
it
is not for me to say
; but if they
do, they
see
it as
it
is through two
billions of
dollars, and that
is a pretty thick coating.
Cer-
tain
it
is
that they do not
see
it
as we
see
it.
Certain it is that this two thousand million of dol-
lars invested in this species of property
is
all so
concentrated that the mind can grasp
it at once.
This immense pecuniary interest has its influence
upon their minds.
i860]
at new haven
But
here
in
Connecticut
and
at
the
North
slavery does not exist, and we see
it through no
such medium.
To us
it appears natural to think
that slaves are human beings
; men, not property
;
that some of the things, at least, stated about men
in the Declaration of Independence apply to them
as well
as
to
us.
I say we think, most of
us,
that this charter of freedom applies to the slave
as
well as to ourselves
; that the class
of argu-
ments put forward to batter down that idea are
also calculated to break down the very
idea of
free
government,
even
for
white men,
and
to
undermine the very foundations of
free society.
We think slavery a great moral wrong, and while
we do not claim the right to touch
it where
it
exists, we wish to treat
it as a wrong in the Ter-
ritories, where our votes will reach
it. We think
that a respect for ourselves, a regard for future
generations and
for the God
that made
us,
re-
quire that we put down
this wrong where our
votes
will
properly
reach
it.
We
think
that
species of labor an injury to free white men
in short, we think slavery a great moral,
social,
and political
evil, tolerable only because, and so
far
as,
its actual existence makes
it necessary to
tolerate
it, and that beyond that
it ought to be
treated as a wrong.
Now
these two ideas—the property idea that
slavery
is right and the idea that
it
is wrong
come into collision, and do actually produce that
irrepressible conflict which Mr. Seward has been
so
roundly
abused
for
mentioning.
The two
ideas
conflict, and must
forever
conflict.
Again,
in
its
political aspect does anything in
any way endanger the perpetuity of this Union
but
that
single
thing—slavery?
Many
of
our
SPEECHES
[Mar. 6
adversaries
are
anxious
to claim
that they
are
specially devoted
to the Union, and take pains
to charge upon us hostility to the Union.
Now
v^e claim that we are the only true Union men,
and we put to them this one proposition: What
€ver
endangered
this
Union
save
and
except
slavery?
Did any other thing ever cause a mo-
ment's fear?
All men must agree that this thing
alone has ever endangered the perpetuity of the
Union.
But
if
it was threatened by any other
influence, would
not
all men
say that the
best
thing that could be done, if we could not or ought
not
to destroy
it, would be
at
least
to keep
it
from growing any larger?
Can any man believe
that the way to save the Union
is to extend and
increase the only thing that threatens the Union,
and to suffer
it to grow bigger and bigger?
Whenever this question shall be settled,
it must
be settled on some philosophical basis.
No policy
that
does
not
rest
upon
philosophical
public
opinion
can
be
permanently
maintained.
And
hence
there
are
but two
policies
in
regard
to
slavery that can be at
all maintained.
The
first,
based on the property view that slavery
is right,
conforms to that idea throughout, and demands
that we shall do everything for
it that we ought
to do if
it were right. We must sweep away all
opposition, for opposition to the right
is wrong;
we must agree that slavery is right, and we must
adopt the
idea that property has persuaded the
owner
to
believe,
that
slavery
is
morally
right
and socially elevating.
This gives a philosophical
basis
for a permanent policy of encouragement.
The other policy
is one that squares with the
idea
that
slavery
is
wrong, and
it
consists
in
doing everything
that we ought
to do
if
it
is
i860]
at new haven
wrong.
Now
I don't wish to be misunderstood,
nor to
leave a gap down to be misrepresented,
even.
I
don't mean that we ought to attack
it
where
it exists.
To me
it seems that if we w^ere
to
form
a
government
anew,
in
view
of
the
actual
presence
of
slavery we
should
find
it
necessary to frame just such a government as our
fathers did
: giving to the slaveholder the entire
control where the system was established, while
we possess the power
to
restrain
it from going
outside those limits.
From the necessities of the
case we should be compelled to form just such a
government as our blessed fathers gave us
; and
surely
if they have so made
it, that adds another
reason why we should let slavery alone where
it
exists.
If
I saw
a venomous
snake crawling
in
the
road, any man would say I might seize the near-
est stick and kill
it
; but
if I found that snake in
bed
with my
children,
that
would
be
another
question.
I might hurt the children more than the
snake, and
it might bite them.
Much more,
if I
found
it in bed with my neighbor's children, and
I had bound myself by a solemn compact not to
meddle
with
his
children
under
any
circum-
stances,
it would become me to let that particular
mode of getting rid of the gentleman alone.
But
if there was a bed newly made up, to which the
children were to be taken, and
it was proposed to
take a batch of young snakes and put them there
with them,
I take
it no man would say there was
any question how I ought to decide
!
That is just the case.
The new Territories are
the newly made bed to which our children are to
go, and
it
lies with the
nation
to
say whether
they
shall have snakes mixed up with them or
SPEECHES
[Mar. 6
not.
It does not seem as if there could be much
hesitation what our poHcy should be.
Now
I have spoken of a policy based on the
idea
that
slavery
is wrong, and
a
policy based
upon the idea that
it
is right.
But an effort has
been made
for
a
policy
that
shall
treat
it
as
neither right nor wrong.
It
is based upon utter
indifference.
Its
leading advocate has
said
:
''I
don't care whether
it be voted up or down."
*'It
is merely a matter of dollars and cents."
''The
Almighty has drawn a line across this continent,
on one
side
of which
all
soil must
forever be
cultivated by
slave
labor, and on
the
other by
free."
"When the struggle
is between the white
man and
the
negro,
I am
for the white man;
when
it
is between the negro and the crocodile, I
am
for the negro."
Its central idea
is
indiffer-
ence.
It holds that
it makes no more difference
to
us
whether
the
Territories become
free
or
slave
States, than whether my neighbor
stocks
his farm with horned
cattle or puts
it
into
to-
bacco.
All
recognize
this
policy,
the
plausible
sugar-coated name of which
is "popular
sover-
eignty."
This
policy
chiefly
stands
in
the way
of
a
permanent settlement of the question.
I believe
there is no danger of its becoming the permanent
policy of the country, for
it
is based on a public
indifference.
There
is nobody that "don't care."
All
the
people do
care, one way or
the
other.
I do not charge that
its author, when he says he
"don't
care,"
states
his
individual
opinion;
he
only
expresses
his
policy
for
the
government.
I understand
that he has never
said,
as an
in-
dividual,
whether
he
thought
slavery
right
or
wrong—and he
is
the
only man
in the
nation
:S6o]
AT NEW HAVEN
that has
not.
Now such a
policy may have a
temporary run;
it may
spring up
as
necessary
to the
poHtical
prospects
of some gentleman
but
it
is utterly baseless
; the people are not
in-
different, and
it can therefore have no durability
or permanence.
But suppose
it could
!
Then
it can be main-
tained
only by
a
public
opinion
that
shall
say,
*'We
don't
care."
There must be a change
in
public opinion
; the public m.ind must be so
far
debauched as to square with this policy of caring
not
at
all.
The people must come
to consider
this as ''merely a question of dollars and cents,"
and to believe that in some places the Almighty
has
made
slavery
necessarily
eternal.
This
policy can
be brought
to
prevail
if
the
people
can be brought round to say honestly, "We don't
care"
;
if
not,
it can never be maintained.
It
is
for you to say whether that can be done.
You are ready to say
it cannot
; but be not too
fast.
Remember what
a
long
stride
has been
taken
since
the
repeal
of
the
Missouri Com-
promise
!
Do you know
of any Democrat,
of
either branch of the party—do you know one who
declares that he believes that the Declaration of
Independence has any application to the negro?
Judge Taney declares that
it has not, and Judge
Douglas even vilifies me personally and scolds me
roundly
for
saying that the Declaration
applies
to
all men, and that negroes are men.
Is there
a Democrat here who
does
not deny
that
the
Declaration applies to a negro?
Do any of you
know of one?
Well, I have tried before perhaps
fifty
audiences, some
larger and some
smaller
than this, to find one such Democrat, and never
yet have
I found one who said
I did not place
6o
SPEECHES
[Mar. 6
him right in that.
I must assume that Democrats
hold that; and now not one of these Democrats
can show
that he
said
that
five
years ago
!
I
venture to defy the whole party to produce one
man that ever uttered the belief that the Declara-
tion did not apply to negroes before the repeal of
the Missouri Compromise
!
Four
or
five years
ago we
all thought negroes were men, and that
when
''all men" were named, negroes were
in-
cluded.
But
the whole
Democratic
party
has
deliberately taken negroes from the class of men
and put them in the class of brutes.
Turn
it as
you
will,
it
is simply the truth!
Don't be too
hasty then
in
saying that the people cannot be
brought to this new doctrine, but note that long
stride.
One more as long completes the journey
from where
negroes
are
estimated
as men
to
where
they
are
estimated
as
mere
brutes—as
rightful property!
That
saying,
"In
the
struggle
between
the
white man and the negro,"
etc., which,
I know,
came from the same source as this policy—that
saying marks
another
step.
There
is
a
false-
hood wrapped up
in
that
statement.
"In
the
struggle between the white man and the negro,"
assumes that there
is a struggle, in which either
the
white man must
enslave
the negro or the
negro must enslave the white.
There
is no such
struggle.
It
is
merely
an
ingenious
falsehood
to
degrade and
brutalize
the
negro.
Let
each
let the other alone, and there is no struggle about
it.
If
it was like two wrecked seamen on a nar-
row plank, where each must push the other off or
drown himself,
I would push the negro off—or a
white man either
; but
it is not
: the plank is large
enough
for
both.
This
good
earth
is
plenty
286o]
AT NEW HAVEN
6r.
broad enough for white man and negro both, and
there
is no need of either pushing the other
off.
So that
saying, "In the
struggle between the
negro and the crocodile,"
etc.,
is made up from
the idea that down where the crocodile inhabits,
a white man can't labor
;
it must be nothing else
but crocodile or negro; if the negro does not, the
crocodile must possess the earth
; in that case he
declares
for
the
negro.
The
meaning
of
the
whole
is just this
: As a white man
is to a negro,
so
is a negro to a crocodile; and
as the negro
may
rightfully
treat
the
crocodile,
so may
the
white man rightfully treat the negro.
This very
dear phrase coined by its author, and so dear that
he deliberately repeats
it in many speeches, has a
tendency to
still further brutalize the negro, and
to bring public opinion to the point of utter
in-
difference whether men so brutalized are enslaved
or
not.
When that time
shall come,
if ever,
I
think that policy to which
I refer may prevail.
But
I hope the good
free men of this country
will never allow
it to come, and
until then the
policy can never be maintained.
Now, consider the effect of this policy. We in
the
States
are not to care whether freedom or
slavery gets the better, but the people in the Ter-
ritories may care.
They are to decide, and they
may think what they please
;
it is a matter of dol-
lars and
cents
!
But are not the people of the
Territories
detailed
from
the
States?
If
this
feeling
of
indifference—this
absence
of
moral
sense about the question—prevails in the States,
will
it not be carried into the Territories?
Will
not every man say, *T don't care ; it is nothing to
me"?
If
any
one
comes
that
wants
slavery,
must they not
say, *T don't care whether
free-
SPEECHES
[Mar. 6
dom or slavery be voted up or voted down" ?
It
results
at
last in nationalizing the institution of
slavery.
Even
if
fairly carried out, that policy
is
just
as
certain
to
nationalize
slavery
as
the
doctrine of Jeff Davis himself.
These are only
two
roads
to
the
same
goal,
and
"popular
sovereignty"
is just as sure, and almost as short,
as the other.
What we want, and
all we want,
is
to have
with us the men who think slavery wrong.
But
those who say they hate slavery, and are opposed
to
it,
but
yet
act with
the Democratic
party
where are they?
Let us apply a few tests.
You
say
that you
think
slavery
a wrong,
but you
renounce
all
attempts
to
restrain
it.
Is
there
anything else that you think wrong, that you are
not willing to deal with as a wrong?
Why are
you so careful, so tender of this one wrong and
no other?
You will not let us do a single thing
as
if
it was wrong; there
is no place where you
will allow
it to be even called wrong.
We must
not call
it wrong in the free States, because
it
is
not there, and we must not call
it wrong in the
slave States, because
it
is there
; we must not call
it wrong
in
politics,
because
that
is
bringing
morality
into
politics, and we must
not
call
it
wrong
in
the
pulpit,
because
that
is
bringing
politics
into religion; we must not bring
it into
the tract society, or other societies, because those
are such unsuitable places, and there
is no single
place, according
to
you, where
this wrong can
properly be called wrong.
Perhaps you will plead that if the people of the
slave States should of themselves set on foot an
effort
for
emancipation, you would wish them
success and
bid
them
God-speed.
Let
us
test
i860]
at new haven
'
that!
In
1858 the emancipation party of Mis-
souri, with Frank
Blair
at
their
head,
tried
to
get up a movement for that purpose
; and, having
started a party, contested the
State.
Blair was
beaten,
apparently
if
not
truly,
and when
the
news came to Connecticut, you, who knew that
Frank Blair was taking hold of this thing by the
right end, and doing the only thing that you say
can properly be done to remove this wrong—did
you bow your heads
in sorrow because of that
defeat?
Do you, any of you, know one
single
Democrat that showed sorrow over that result?
Not one
!
On
the
contrary,
every man threw
up his hat, and hallooed at the top of his lungs,
''Hooray for Democracy
!"
Now,
gentlemen,
the
Republicans
desire
to
place
this great question of slavery on the very
basis
on
which
our
fathers
placed
it,
and
no
other.
It
is
easy
to
demonstrate
that
''our
fathers who framed this government under which
we
live"
looked
on
slavery
as -wrong, and
so
framed
it and everything about
it as
to square
with the
idea that
it was wrong,
so
far
as the
necessities
arising from
its
existence permitted.
In forming the Constitution they found the slave-
trade
existing,
capital
invested
in
it,
fields
de-
pending upon
it for labor, and the whole system
resting
upon
the
' importation
of
slave
labor.
They therefore
did not prohibit the
slave-trade
at once, but they gave the power to prohibit
it
after twenty years.
Why was this ?
What other
foreign trade did they treat in that way ?
Would
they
have
done
this
if
they
had
not
thought
slavery wrong?
Another thing was done by some of the same
men who
framed
the
Constitution,
and
after-
'
SPEECHES
[Mar. 6
ward adopted as their own act by the
first Con-
gress
held
under
that
Constitution,
of
which
many of the framers were members—they pro-
hibited the spread of slavery
in the Territories.
Thus the same men, the framers of the Consti-
tution,
cut
off
the
supply
and
prohibited
the
spread of
slavery; and both
acts show
conclu-
sively
that
they
considered
that
the
thing was
wrong.
If additional proof
is wanting,
it can be found
in the phraseology
of the
Constitution.
When
men
are
framing
a supreme law and
chart
of
government
to
secure
blessings
and
prosperity
to untold generations yet to come, they use lan-
guage
as
short and
direct and
plain
as can be
found to express their meaning.
In
all matters
but
this of slavery the framers of the Constitu-
tion used
the
very
clearest,
shortest, and most
direct language.
But the Constitution alludes
tc?
slavery three times without mentioning
it once!
The language used becomes ambiguous, round-
about,
and
mystical.
They
speak
of
the
"im^
migration of persons," and mean the importation
of
slaves, but do not say
so.
In establishing a
basis of representation they say
''all other per-
sons," when they mean to say slaves.
Why did
they not use the shortest phrase?
In providing
for
the
return
of
fugitives
they
say
"persons
held
to
service
or
labor."
If
they
had
said
*'slaves,"
it
would
have
been
plainer and
less
liable to misconstruction. Why didn't they do it ?
We cannot doubt that
it was done on purpose.
Only one reason
is possible, and that
is supplied
us by one of the framers of the Constitution
and
it
is not possible for man to conceive of any.
other.
They expected and desired that the sys-
i860]
at new haven
tern would come to an end, and meant that when
it did the Constitution should not show that there
ever had been a slave in this good free country of
ours.
I will dwell on that no longer.
I see the signs
of the approaching triumph of the Republicans
in the bearing of their
political
adversaries.
A
great deal of this war with us nowadays
is mere
bushwhacking.
At the battle of Waterloo, when
Napoleon's cavalry had charged again and again
upon the unbroken squares of
British
infantry,
at
last
they were
giving up
the
attempt,
and
going off in disorder, when some of the
officers,
in mere vexation and complete despair, fired their
pistols
at those
solid
squares.
The Democrats
are
in
that
sort
of
extreme
desperation
;
it
is
nothing else.
I will take up a few of these argu-
ments.
There
is
"the
irrepressible
conflict."
How
they
rail
at Seward
for that saying!
They re-
peat
it
constantly; and although the proof has
been
thrust under
their noses
again and
agaiji
that almost every good man since the formation
of our government has uttered that same senti-
ment, from
General Washington, who
"trusted
that we should
yet have
a confederacy of
free
states," with Jefferson, Jay, Monroe, down to the
latest days, yet they refuse to notice that at
all,
and
persist
in
railing
at Seward
for
saying
it.
Even Roger A.
Pryor,
editor of the Richmond
Enquirer,
uttered
the same
sentiment
in almost
the same language, and yet so little offense did it
give the Democrats that he was sent for to Wash-
ington
to
edit
the
States—the
Douglas
organ
there, while Douglas goes
into hydrophobia and
spasms of rage because Seward dared to repeat
SPEECHES
[Mar.
it.
That
is what I call bushwhacking—a sort of
argument that they must know any child can see
through.
Another
is John Brown
!
You
stir up insur-
rections
; you invade the South
!
John Brown
!
Harper's Ferry
!
Why, John Brown was not a
Republican
!
You have never implicated a single
Republican
in
that
Harper's
Ferry
enterprise.
We
tell you
if any member of the Republican
party
is guilty in that matter, you know
it or you
do not know
it.
H you do know
it, you are in-
excusable not to designate the man and prove the
fact.
H you do not know
it, you are inexcusable
to assert
it, and
especially
to
persist
in the
as-
sertion after you have tried and
failed to make
the proof.
You need not be told that persisting
in a charge which one does not know to be true
is simply malicious slander.
Some of you admit
that no Republican designedly aided or encour-
aged
the
Harper's Ferry
affair; but
still
insist
that
our
doctrines and
declarations
necessarily
lead to such results.
We do not believe
it.
We
know we
hold
to
no
doctrines
and make
no
declarations which were not held to and made by
our
fathers who framed the government under
which we
live, and we cannot see how declara-
tions that were
patriotic when they made them
are villainous when we make them.
You never
dealt
fairly by us in relation to that affair—and
I will say frankly that I know of nothing in your
character that should lead us to suppose that you
would.
You had just been soundly thrashed in
€lections in several States, and others were soon
to come.
You rejoiced at the occasion, and only
were troubled that there were not three times as
many killed
in the
affair.
You were
in evident
i860]
AT NEW HAVEN
glee
; there was no sorrow for the killed nor for
the peace of
V'irginia
disturbed; you were
re-
joicing
that by charging Republicans with
this
thing you might get an advantage of us
in New
York
and
the
other
States.
You
pulled
that
string
as
tightly
as you
could,
but
your
very
generous and worthy expectations were not quite
fulfilled.
Each Republican knew that the charge
was a slander as to himself at least, and was not
inclined by
it to cast his vote
in your favor.
It
was mere bushwhacking, because you had noth-
ing else to do.
You are
still on that track, and I
say.
Go,
on
!
If you
think you
can
slander
a
woman into loving you, or a man into voting for
you, try
it
till you are satisfied.
Another specimen of this bushwhacking—that
"shoe
strike."
Now be
it understood that
I do
not pretend to know
all about the matter.
I am
merely going to speculate a
little about some of
its phases, and at the outset I am glad to see that
a system of labor prevails in New England under
which
laborers can
strike when
they want
to,
where they are not obliged to work under all cir-
cumstances, and are not tied down and obliged
to labor whether you pay them or not
!
I like the
system which lets a man quit when he wants to,
and wish
it might prevail everywhere.
One of
the reasons why
I am opposed to slavery
is just
here.
What is the true condition of the laborer?
I take
it that
it
is best for all to leave each man
free to acquire property as fast as he can.
Some
will get wealthy.
I don't believe in a law to pre-
vent a man from getting rich
;
it would do more
harm than good.
So while we do not propose
any war upon
capital, we do wish to allow the
humblest man an equal chance to get rich with
SPEECHES
[Mar. 6
everybody
else.
When one starts poor, as most
do in the race of Hfe, free society
is such that he
knows
he
can
better
his
condition
;
he knows
that there
is no fixed condition of labor
for his
whole
life.
I am not ashamed
to confess
that
twenty-five years ago I was a hired laborer, maul-
ing rails, at work on a flatboat—just what might
happen
to any poor man's
son.
I want
every
man to have the chance—and
I believe a black
man
is entitled to
it—in which he can better his
condition—when he may look forward and hope
to be a hired laborer this year and the next, work
for
himself afterward, and
finally
to
hire men
to work for him.
That
is the true system.
Up
here
in New
England
you
have
a
soil
that
scarcely sprouts black-eyed beans, and yet where
will you find wealthy men so wealthy, and poverty
so
rarely
in
extremity?
There
is
n^t
another
such place on earth
!
I desire that if you get too
thick here, and find
it hard to better your condi-
tion on this soil, you may have a chance to strike
out and go somewhere
else, where you may not
be
degraded,
nor
have
your
family
corrupted
by forced rivalry with negro slaves.
I want you
to have a clean bed and no snakes in
it
!
Then
you can better your condition, and so
it may go
on and on in one ceaseless round so long as man
exists on the face of the earth.
Now to come back to this shoe strike.
If, as
the
senator from
Illinois
asserts,
this
is caused
by withdrawal of Southern votes, consider briefly
how you will meet the difficulty.
You have done
nothing, and have protested that you have done
nothing to injure the South; and yet to get back
the shoe trade, you must leave off doing some-
thing that you are now doing.
What is
it ? You
i860]
at new haven
must stop thinking slavery wrong.
Let your in-
stitutions
be
wholly
changed
;
let
your
State
constitutions be subverted
;
glorify
slavery
; and
so you
will get back the shoe trade—for what?
You have brought owned labor with
it to compete
with your own labor, to underwork you, and de-
grade you.
Are you ready to get back the trade
on these terms ?
But the
statement
is
not
correct.
You have
not lost that trade
; orders w^ere never better than
now.
Senator
]\Iason,
a Democrat, comes
into
the Senate in homespun, a proof that the dissolu-
tion of the Union has actually begun.
But orders
are the
same.
Your
factories have
not
struck
work,
neither those where they make anything
for coats, nor
for pants, nor
for
shirts, nor
for
ladies' dresses.
Mr. Mason has not reached the
manufacturers who ought
to have made him
a
coat and
pants.
To make
his
proof good
for
anything, he should have come
into the
Senate
barefoot.
Another
bushwhacking
contrivance—simply
that, nothing
else
!
I
find a good many people
who are very much concerned about the loss of
Southern
trade.
Now,
either
these
people
are
sincere, or they are not.
I will speculate a
little
about that.
If they are sincere, and are moved
by any real danger of the
loss of the Southern
trade,
they
will simply
get
their names on
the
white list, and then instead of persuading Repub-
licans to do likewise, they
will be glad to keep
you
away.
Don't you
see
they
thus
shut
off
competition?
They
would
not
be
w^hispering
around to Republicans to come in and share the
profits with them.
But
if they are not
sincere,
and
are merely trying
to
fool
Republicans out
SPEECHES
[Mar. 6
of their votes, they will grow very anxious about
your pecuniary prospects
; they are afraid you are
going to get broken up and ruined
; they did not
care
about
Democratic
votes—oh,
no,
no,
no!
You
must
judge
which
class
those
belong
to
whom you meet.
I leave
it to you to determine
from the
facts.
Let us notice some more of the
stale charges
against Republicans.
You say we are sectional.
We
deny
it.
That
makes
an
issue
;
and
the
burden of proof
is upon you.
You produce your
proof
; and what
is it?
Why, that our party has
no
existence
in your
section—gets no
votes
in
your section.
The fact
is substantially true
; but
does
it prove the issue?
If
it does, then in case
we should, without change of principle, begin to
get votes in your section, we should thereby cease
to
be
sectional.
You
cannot
escape
this
con-
clusion; and yet, are you willing to abide by it?
If you
are, you will probably soon find that we
have ceased to be sectional, for we shall get votes
in your section this very year.
The fact that we
get no votes
in your
section
is a
fact of your
making, and not of ours.
And
if there be fault
in
that
fact,
that
fault
is primarily yours, and
remains so until you show that we repel you by
some
wrong
principle
or
practice.
If we
do
repel you by any wrong principle or practice, the
fault
is ours
; but
this brings you to where, you
ought to have started—to a discussion of the right
or wrong of our principle.
If our principle, put
in
practice, would wrong your
section
for
the
benefit of ours, or for any other object, then our
principle and we with
it, are
sectional, and are
justly opposed and denounced as such.
Meet us,
then, on the question of whether our
principle,
i860]
'AT new haven
put
in practice, would wrong your section
; and
so meet
it as
if
it were possible that something
may be said on our side.
Do you accept the chal-
lenge?
No?
Then you
really
believe that the
principle which our fathers who framed the gov-
ernment under which we live thought so clearly
right
as
to adopt
it, and
indorse
it again and
again, upon
their
official
oaths,
is,
in
fact,
so
clearly wrong as to demand your condemnation
without a moment's consideration.
Some of you delight to flaunt in our faces the
warning against sectional parties given by Wash-
ington in his Farewell Address.
Less than eight
years before Washington gave that warning, he
had, as President of the United States, approved
and signed an act of Congress enforcing the pro-
hibition
of
slavery
in
the Northwestern
Terri-
tory, which
act embodied the policy of govern-
ment upon that
subject up
to and
at the very
moment he penned that warning; and about one
year after he penned
it, he wrote Lafayette that
he
considered
that
prohibition a wise measure,
expressing in the same connection his hope that
v/e should some time have a confederacy of free
States.
Bearing this in mind, and seeing that sectional-
ism has
since arisen upon
this same
subject,
is
that warning a weapon in your hands against us,
or in our hands against you ?
Could Washington
himself speak, would he cast the blame of that
sectionalism upon us who sustain
his
policy, or
upon you who
repudiate
it?
We
respect
that
warning of Washington, and we commend
it to
you,
together with
his example pointing to the
right application of
it.
But you say you are conservative—eminently
SPEECHES
[Mar. 6
conservative—while
we
are
revolutionary,
de-
structive,
or something of
that
sort.
What
is
conservatism?
Is
it
not
adherence
to
the
old
and tried against the new and untried ? We stick
to, contend
for,
the
identical
old
policy on
the
point
in controversy which was adopted by our
fathers who framed the government under which
we
live; while you with one accord
reject, and
scout, and
spit upon that old
policy, and
insist
upon
substituting
something
new.
True,
you
disagree among yourselves as to what that sub-
stitute
shall
be
; you have
considerable
variety
of new propositions and plans, but you are unani-
mous in rejecting and denouncing the old policy
of the
fathers.
Some of you
are
for
reviving
the foreign slave-trade
; some for a congressional
slave code for the Territories
; some for Congress
forbidding
the
Territories
to
prohibit
slavery
within their limits
; some for maintaining slavery
in
the
Territories through
the
judiciary; some
for the ''great principle" that
if one man would
enslave another, no third man should object, fan-
tastically called "popular sovereignty"
; but never
a man among you in favor of Federal prohibition
of
slavery
in
Federal
Territories
according
to
the practice of our fathers who framed the gov-
ernment under which we
live.
Not one of
all
your various plans can show a precedent or an
advocate in the century within which our govern-
ment originated.
And yet you draw yourselves
up and say, "We are eminently conservative."
It
is exceedingly desirable that all parts of this
great Confederacy
shall be at peace and in har-
mony one with another.
Let us Republicans do
our part to have
it
so.
Even though much pro-
voked,
let us do nothing through passion and
ill
i860]
at new haven
temper.
Even though the Southern people will
not so much as
listen to
us,
let us calmly con-
sider their demands, and yield to them
if, in our
deliberate
view
of
our
duty, we
possibly
can.
Judging by
all they say and do, and by the sub-
ject and nature of their controversy with us,
let
us determine,
if we can, what will satisfy them.
Will they be satisfied
if the Territories be un-
conditionally
surrendered
to them?
We know
they
will
not.
In
all
their
present
complaints
against us the Territories are scarcely mentioned.
Invasions and
insurrections
are
the
rage
now.
Will
it
satisfy them
if
in
the
future we have
nothing to do with invasions and insurrections?
We know
it will
not.
We so know because we
know we never have had anything
to do with
invasions and
insurrections
; and
yet
this
total
abstaining does not exempt us from the charge
and the denunciation.
The question recurs. What will
satisfy them?
Simply
this
: we must not only
let them
alone,
but we must somehow
convince them
that we
do
let them
alone.
This we know by
experi-
ence is no easy task.
We have been so trying to
convince them from the very beginning of our
organization,
but
with no
success.
In
all
our
platforms and speeches we have constantly pro-
tested our purpose to let them alone
; but this has
had no tendency
to
convince them.
Alike
un-
availing
to convince them
is
the
fact
that they
have never detected a man of us in any attempt
to disturb them.
These natural and apparently adequate means
all
failing, what will convince them?
This, and
this only:
cease to
call slavery wrong, and join
them in calling
it right.
And this must be done
SPEECHES
[Mar. 6
thoroughly—done
in
acts
as
well
as
in words.
Silence will not be tolerated—we must place our-
selves avowedly with them.
Douglas's new sedi-
tion law must be enacted and enforced, suppress-
ing
all
declarations
that
slavery
is
wrong,
whether made in politics, in presses, in pulpits, or
in
private.
We
must
arrest
and
return
their
fugitive
slaves with greedy pleasure.
We must
pull
down
our
free-State
constitutions.
The
whole atmosphere must be disinfected of all taint
of
opposition
to
slavery before they
will
cease
to believe that all their troubles proceed from us.
So long
as we
call
slavery wrong, whenever a
slave runs away they will overlook the obvious
fact that he ran because he was oppressed, and
declare
that
he
was
stolen
off.
Whenever
a
master cuts his slaves with the lash, and they cry
out under
it, he
will overlook the obvious
fact
that the negroes cry out because they are hurt,
and
insist that they were put up to
it by some
rascally
Abolitionist.
I am quite aware that they do not
state their
case precisely in this way.
Most of them would
probably say to us
: ''Let us alone
; do nothing to
us,
and
say
what
you
please
about
slavery."
But we do let them alone,—have never disturbed
them,—so that, after all,
it
is what we say which
dissatisfies them.
They
will continue to accuse
us of doing, until we cease saying.
I am also aware they have not as yet in terms
demanded the overthrow of our
free-State con-
stitutions.
Yet
those
constitutions
declare
the
wrong
of
slavery
with more
solemn
emphasis
than do all other sayings against
it
; and when all
these other sayings shall have been silenced, the
overthrow
of
these
constitutions
will
be
de-
i860]
at new haven
manded, and nothing be left to resist the demand.
It
is nothing
to
the contrary
that they do
not
demand the whole of this just now.
Demanding
what they do, and
for the reason they
do, they
can voluntarily stop nowhere short of
this con-
summation.
Holding, as they do, that slavery is
morally right and socially elevating, they cannot
cease
to demand
full
national
recognition of
it
as a
legal
right and a
social
blessing.
Nor can we
justifiably withhold
this on any
ground save our conviction that slavery is wrong.
If slavery
is right, all words, acts, laws, and con-
stitutions
against
it are themselves wrong, and
should
be
silenced
and
swept
away.
If
it
is
right, we cannot justly object to its nationality
its universality; if
it
is wrong, they cannot justly
insist upon
its extension—its
enlargement.
All
they ask we could
readily grant,
if we thought
slavery
right;
all we ask they could
as
readily
grant,
if they thought
it w^ong.
Their thinking
it right and our thinking
it wrong
is the precise
fact upon which depends the whole controversy.
Thinking
it
right,
as they
do,
they
are
not
to
blame
for
desiring
its
full
recognition
as being
right; but thinking
it wrong,
as we
do, can we
yield to them ?
Can we cast our votes with their
view,
and
against
our own?
In
view
of
our
moral,
social, and
political
responsibilities,
can
we do this?
Wrong
as we
think
slavery
is, we
can
yet
afford
to
let
it alone where
it
is, because that
much
is
due
to
the
necessity
arising
from
its
actual presence in the nation; but can we, while
our votes will prevent
it, allow
it to spread into
the national Territories, and
to overrun us here
in these
free States?
If our sense of duty for-
SPEECHES
[Mar. 9
bids this, then let us stand by our duty fearlessly
and
effectively.
Let us be diverted by none of
those
sophistical contrivances wherewith we are
so
industriously
plied
and
belabored—contriv-
ances such
as groping
for some middle ground
between
the
right and
the wrong:
vain
as
the
search for a man who should be neither a living
man nor a dead man; such as a policy of "don't
care" on a question about which
all true men do
care;
such
as
Union
appeals
beseeching
true
Union men to yield to Disunionists, reversing the
divine
rule, and calling, not the sinners, but the
righteous
to repentance; such
as
invocations
to
•Washington,
imploring
men
to
unsay
what
Washington
said
and
undo
what
Washineton
did.
Neither
let us be slandered from our duty by
false accusations against us, nor frightened from
it by menaces of destruction to the government,
nor of dungeons to ourselves.
Let us have faith
that right makes might, and
in that
faith
let us
to the end dare to do our duty as we understand
it.
"Popular Sovereignty" the Sugar-Coated
Slavery
Pill.
Abstract
of
Speech
at
Norwich,
Conn.
March 9, i860.
Whether we will or not, the question of slavery
is
the
question,
the
all-absorbing
topic,
of
the
day.
It
is
true
that
all
of us—and by
that
I
mean,
not
the Republican party
alone,
but
the
whole American people, here and elsewhere—all
of us wish the question
settled—^wish
it out of.
the way.
i860]
at NORWICH
It stands
in the way and prevents the adjust-
ment and
the
giving
of
necessary
attention
to
other questions
of
national
housekeeping.
The
people of the whole nation agree that this ques-
tion ought to be settled, and yet
it
is not settled.
And the reason
is that they are not yet agreed
how
it shall be settled.
Again and again
it has been fondly hoped that
it was settled, but every time
it breaks out afresh
and more
violently
than
ever.
It was
settled,
our fathers hoped, by the Missouri Compromise,
but
it did not stay settled.
Then the compromise
of 1850 was declared to be a full and final settle-
ment
of
the
question.
The two
great
parties,
each
in national convention, adopted resolutions
declaring that the settlement made by the com-
promises of 1850 was
a
finality—that
it would
last
forever.
Yet how
long before
it was un-
settled again?
It broke out again
in
1854, and
blazed
higher
and
raged
more
furiously
than
ever
before,
and
the
agitation
has
not
rested
since.
These
repeated
settlements must
have
some
fault
about them.
There must be some
inade-
quacy
in
their very
nature
to
the purpose
for
which they were designed.
We can only specu-
late
as
to where that
fault—that inadequacy
is,
but we may perhaps profit by past experience.
I
think
that one
of
the
causes
of
these
re-
peated
failures
is that our best and greatest men
have
greatly
underestimated
the
size
of
this
question.
They
have
constantly
brought
for-
ward
small
cures
for
great
sores—plasters
too
small
to cover
the wound.
This
is one reason
that all settlements have proved so temporary, so
evanescent.
SPEECHES
[Mar. 9
Look at the magnitude of this subject.
About
one sixth of the whole population of the United
States
are
slaves.
The
owners
of
the
slaves
consider
them
property.
The
effect upon
the
minds
of
the
owners
is
that
of
property,
and
nothing
else—it induces them to
insist upon
all
that will favorably affect its value as property, to
demand laws and institutions and a public policy
that shall increase and secure its value, and make
it durable,
lasting, and universal.
The effect on
the minds of the owners
is to persuade them that
there
is no wrong
in
it.
But
here
in
Connecticut
and
at
the
North
slavery does not exist, and we see
it through no
such medium.
To us
it appears natural to think
that slaves are human beings
; men, not property
;
that some
of
the
things,
at
least,
stated about
men in the Declaration of Independence apply to
them as well as to us.
We think slavery a great
moral wrong; and while we do
not
claim
the
right to touch
it where
it exists, we wish to treat
it as a wrong in the Territories where our votes
will reach
it.
Now these two ideas, the property
idea that slavery
is
right, and the idea that
it
is
wrong, come
into collision, and do actually pro-
duce that irrepressible conflict which Mr. Seward
has been so roundly abused for mentioning.
The
two ideas conflict, and must conflict.
There are but two policies in regard to slavery
that can be
at
all maintained.
The
first, based
upon the property view that slavery is right, con-
forms to the idea throughout, and demands that
we shall do everything for
it that we ought to do
if
it were
right.
The other
policy
is one that
squares with the idea that slavery
is wrong, and
it consists in doing everything that we ought to
i860]
at NORWICH
do if
it
is wrong.
I don't mean that we ought to
attack
it where
it
exists.
To me
it seems that
if we were to form a government anew,
in view
of the actual presence of slavery we should find
it necessary to frame just such a government as
our
fathers
did—giving
to
the
slaveholder
the
entire control where the system was established,
while we possessed the power to restrain
it from
going outside those
limits.
Now
I have spoken of a policy based upon the
idea
that
slavery
is wrong, and
a
policy based
upon the idea that
it
is right.
But an effort has
been
m^ade
for
a
policy
that
shall
treat
it
as
neither right nor wrong.
Its central idea
is
in-
difference.
It holds that
it makes no more dif-
ference
to me whether
the
Territories become
free or
slave
States than whether my neighbor
stocks
his
farm
with
horned
cattle
or
puts
it
into
tobacco.
All
recognize
this
policy,
the
plausible sugar-coated name of which is ''popular
sovereignty."
Mr.
Lincoln
showed up
the
fallacy
of
this
policy at length, and then made a manly vindica-
tion of the
principles of the Republican
party,
urging the necessity of the union of
all elements
to
free our country from
its present
rule, and
closed with an eloquent exhortation for each and
every one to do
his duty without regard to the
sneers and slanders of our political opponents.
I
8o
SPEECHES
[May
Reply
to
the Committee Informing Him
of
His
Nomination
for
President
by
the
Chicago Convention.
May
19,
i860.
Mr.
Chairman
and
Gentlemen
of
the Com-
mittee:
I tender to you, and through you to the
Republican
National
Convention,
and
all
the
people represented
in
it, my profoundest thanks
for
the
high
honor
done
me,
which you now
formally announce.
Deeply and even
painfully
sensible of the great
responsibility which
is
in-
separable from this high honor—a responsibility
which
I could almost wish had fallen upon some
one
of
the
far more eminent men and
experi-
enced
statesmen
whose
distinguished
names
were
before
the
convention—I
shall,
by
your
leave, consider more
fully the resolutions of the
convention,
denominated
the
platform,*
and
without any unnecessary or unreasonable
delay
respond
to you, Mr. Chairman,
in
writing, not
doubting that the platform
will be found
satis-
factory, and the nomination gratefully accepted.
And now
I will not longer defer the pleasure
of taking you, and each of you, by the hand.
Acceptance
of Nomination as
President.
Letter
to
George
Ashmun
and
Others.
Springfield,
III.
May 23,
i860.
Hon. George Ashmun,
President
of
the
Republican
National
Con-
vention.
Sir:
I accept the nomination tendered me by
* See
succeeding
pages.
i860]
REPUBLICAN PLATFORM
8l
the convention over which you presided, and of
which
I am
formally
apprised
in
the
letter
of
yourself and others, acting as a committee of the
convention for that purpose.
The
declaration
of
principles and
sentiments
which
accompanies
your
letter
meets my
ap-
proval; and
it
shall
be my
care
not
to
violate
or disregard
it in any part.
Imploring the assistance of Divine Providence,
and with due regard to the views and feelings of
all who were represented
in the convention—to
the
rights of
all the
States and
Territories and
people of the nation
; to the
inviolability
of the
Constitution
; and the perpetual union, harmony,
and prosperity
of
all—I am most happy to
co-
operate for the practical success of the principles
declared by the convention.
Your obliged friend and fellow-citizen,
A. Lincoln.
PLATFORM
Resolved, That
we,
the
delegated
representatives
of
the Republican
electors
of the United
States,
in con-
vention assembled, in the discharge of the duty we owe
to our constituents and our country,
unite
in the
fol-
lowing declarations:
1. That the history of the nation during the last four
years has
fully established the propriety and necessity
of the organization and perpetuation of the Republican
party; and that the causes which called
it into existence
are permanent
in
their
nature,
and now, more
than
, ever
before,
demand
its
peaceful
and
constitutional
triumph.
2. That
the
maintenance
of
the
principles promul-
gated
in
the
Declaration
of
Independence
and
em-
bodied in
the
Federal
Constitution
is
essential
to
the
preservation
of our
Republican
institutions, and
that
SPEECHES
[May
the Federal
Constitution, the
rights of the States, and
the union of the States, must and shall be preserved.
3. That to the union of the States this nation owes its
unprecedented
increase
in
population,
its
surprising
development of material resources,
its rapid augmenta-
tion
of
wealth,
its happiness
at home, and
its honor
abroad; and we hold in abhorrence
all schemes for dis-
union, come from whatever source they may.
And we
congratulate the country that no Republican member of
Congress
has
uttered
or countenanced
the
threats
of
disunion so often made by Democratic members wath-
out rebuke and with applause from
their
political
as-
sociates; and we denounce those threats of disunion, in
case
of
a
popular overthrow
of
their
ascendancy,
as
denying the vital principles of a free government, and
as an avowal
of contemplated treason, which
it
is the
imperative
duty
of an
indignant people
sternly
to
re-
buke and forever silence.
4. That
the maintenance
inviolate
of
the
rights
of
the
States, and
especially
the
right
of
each
State to
order and control
its own domestic institutions accord-
ing
to
its own judgment
exclusively,
is
essential
to
that
balance
of power
on
which
the
perfection and
endurance
of
our
political
fabric
depend
and
we
denounce
the
lawless
invasion by armed
force
of the
soil
of any
State
or Territory, no matter under what
pretext,
^s among the gravest of crimes.
5. That
the
present Democratic
administration
has
far exceeded our worst apprehensions
in
its measure-
less
subserviency
to
the
exactions
of
a
sectional
in-
terest, as especially evinced in its desperate exertions to
force
the infamous Lecompton
constitution upon
the
protesting people of Kansas, in construing the personal
relation
between
master
and
servant
to
involve
an
unqualified
property
in
persons;
in
its attempted
en-
forcement everywhere, on
land and
sea, through
the
intervention
of
Congress and
of
the
Federal
courts,
of the extreme pretensions
of
a purely
local
interest;
and
in
its general and unvarying abuse
of the power
intrusted to
it by a confiding people.
6. That the people justly view with alarm the reckless
extravagance which pervades every department
of the
Federal Government;
that a return
to
rigid economy
and
accountability
is
indispensable
to
arrest
the
sys-
tematic
plunder
of
the
public
treasury
by
favored
i860]
REPUBLICAN PLATFORM
partisans;
while
the
recent
startling developments
of
frauds and corruptions at the Federal metropolis show
that an entire change of administration
is imperatively
demanded.
7. That the new dogma that the
Constitution, of
its
own
force,
carries slavery into any or
all of the Ter-
ritories
of the United
States,
is
a dangerous
political
heresy, at variance with the explicit provisions of that
instrument
itself,
with
contemporaneous
exposition,
and with
legislative and
judicial precedent;
is
revolu-
tionary in
its tendency, and subversive of the peace and
harmony of the country.
8. That the normal condition
of
all the
territory of
the
United
States
is
that
of
freedom;
that
as
our
Republican fathers, when they had abolished slavery
in'
all
our
national
territory,
ordained
that
"no
person
should be
deprived
of
life,
liberty,
or property
with-
out
due
process
of
law,"
it
becomes
our
duty,
by
legislation, whenever such
legislation
is necessary
to maintain
this provision
of the Constitution against
all
attempts
to
violate
it;
and
we
deny
the
au-
thority
of
Congress,
of
a
territorial
legislature,
or
of
any
individuals,
to
give
legal
existence
to
slavery
in
any Territory
of the United
States
9. That we brand the recent reopening of the African
slave-trade, under the cover of our national
flag, aided
by
perversion
of
judicial
power,
as a
crime
against
humanity and a burning shame to our country and age;
and we call upon Congress to take prompt and efficient
measures
for
the
total and
final
suppression
of
that
execrable traffic.
10. That
in the recent vetoes, by their Federal gov-
ernors,
of
the
acts
of the
legislatures
of Kansas and
Nebraska prohibiting slavery
in those
Territories, we
find a practical illustration of the boasted Democratic
principle
of non-intervention and popular
sovereignty
embodied
in
the Kansas-Nebraska
bill, and a demon-
stration of the deception and fraud involved therein.
11. That Kansas should, of right, be immediately ad-
mitted
as
a
State
under
the
constitution
recently
formed and adopted by her people, and accepted by the
House of Representatives.
12. That while providing revenue for the support of
the General Government by duties upon imports, sound
policy requires such an adjustment of these imposts as
SPEECHES
[Aug.
to encourage the development of the industrial interests
of the whole country; and we commend that policy of
national exchanges which
secures to the working-men
liberal
wages,
to
agriculture
remunerating
prices,
to
mechanics and manufacturers an adequate reward
for
their skill, labor, and enterprise, and to the nation com-
mercial prosperity and independence.
13. That we protest against any sale or alienation to
others
of the public lands held by actual
settlers, and
against any view
of the free-homestead policy which
regards the settlers as paupers or suppliants for public
bounty; and we demand the passage by Congress of the
complete
and
satisfactory
homestead
measure
which
has already passed the House
14. That the national Republican party is opposed to
any change
in
our
naturalization
laws,
or any
State
legislation by which the
rights
of
citizenship hitherto
accorded
to
immigrants
from
foreign
lands
shall
be
abridged or impaired; and in favor of giving a
full and
efficient
protection
to
the
rights
of
all
classes
of
citizens,
whether
native
or
naturalized,
both
at home
and abroad.
15. That
appropriations by
Congress
for
river and
harbor improvements of a national character, required
for the accommodation and security of an existing com-
merce, are authorized by the Constitution and justified
by
the
obligation
of government
to
protect
the
lives
and property of
its citizens.
16. That
a
railroad
to
the
Pacific
Ocean
is
im-
peratively
demanded
by
the
interests
of
the
whole
country; that the Federal Government ought to render
immediate and efficient aid in its construction; and that,
as
preliminary
thereto,
a
daily overland
mail
should
be promptly established.
17.
Finally,
having
thus
set
forth
our
distinctive
principles and views, we
invite
the cooperation
of
all
citizens,
however
differing
on
other
questions,
who
substantially
agree
with
us
in
their
affirmance and
support.
i860]
AT SPRINGFIELD
The Cause, Not the Man.
Remarks
at
Springfield^
III.
August
14,
i860.
My Fellow-citisens:
I appear among you upon
this
occasion
with
no
intention
of
making
a
speech.
It
has
been my
purpose
since
I
have
been
placed
in
my
present
position
to
make
no
speeches.
This assemblage having been drawn
together at the place of my residence,
it appeared
to
be
the
wish
of
those
constituting
this
vast
assembly to see me
; and
it is certainly my wish to
see all of you.
I appear upon the ground here at
this time only for the purpose of affording my-
self the best opportunity of seeing you, and en-
abling you to see me.
I confess with gratitude, be
it understood, that
I
did
not
suppose my
appearance among you
would create the tumult which
I now witness.
I
am profoundly grateful for this manifestation of
your
feelings.
I am
grateful,
because
it
is
a
tribute such as can be paid to no man as a man
;
it
is the evidence that four years from this time
you will give a like manifestation to the next man
who
is
the
representative
of
the
truth on
the
questions that now
agitate the public
; and
it
is
because you will then fight for this cause as you
do now,
or with even
greater ardor than now,
though
I
be dead and
gone,
that
I most
pro-
foundly and sincerely thank you.
Having said
this much, allow me now to say
that
it
is my wish that you will hear this public
discussion
by
others
of
our
friends
who
are
present for the purpose of addressing you, and
that you will kindly let me be silent.
SPEECHES
[Feb.
ii
Charity Towards
Political Opponents.
Remarks at Springfield,
III., at a Celebra-
tion OF His Election.
November 20, i860.
Friends and Fellow-citizens: Please excuse me
on this occasion from making a speech.
I thank
you in common with
all those who have thought
fit by their votes to indorse the Republican cause.
I rejoice with you in the success which has thus
far attended that cause.
Yet
in
all our
rejoic-
ings,
let us neither express nor cherish any hard
feelings toward any citizen who by his vote has
differed with us. /Let us at
all times remember
that all Americar^.-citizens are brothers of a com-
mon country, and should dwell together
in
the
bonds
of
fraternal
feeling.
Let me
again beg
you to accept my thanks, and to excuse me from
further speaking at this time.
Political Opponents in the
Cabinet.
Editorial in the
Illinois Journal.
December
12, i860.
We hear such frequent allusions to a supposed
purpose on the part of Mr. Lincoln to
call into
his
cabinet two
or
three
Southern
gentlemen
from the parties opposed to him
politically, that
we are prompted to ask a few questions.
First.
Is
it known that any such gentleman of
character would accept a place in the cabinet?
Second.
If
yea, on what terms
does he
sur-
render to Mr. Lincoln, or Mr. Lincoln to him, on
the political differences between them
; or do they
enter upon the administration in open opposition
to each other?
i86i]
AT INDIANAPOLIS
Farewell to Home Folks.
Remarks to Springfield Neighbors on Leav-
ing FOR Washington.
February ii, 1861.
My Friends: No one, not in my situation, can
appreciate my feeling of sadness
at this parting.
To this place, and the kindness of these people, I
owe everything.
Here
I have lived a quarter of
a century, and have passed from a young to an
old man.
Here my children have been born, and
one
is buried.
I now
leave, not knowing when
or whether ever I may return, with a task before
me greater than that which rested upon Wash-
ington.
Without
the
assistance
of
that
Divine
Being who ever attended him,
I cannot succeed.
With that assistance,
I cannot
fail.
Trusting in
Him who can go with me, and remain with you,
and be everywhere
for good,
let us
confidently
hope that all will yet be well.
To His care com-
mending you, as
I hope in your prayers you will
commend me,
I bid you an affectionate farewell.
The Preservation of the Union: It Rests with
the People.
Remarks at Indianapolis, Ind.
February ii,
1861.
Governor Morton and
Fellozv-citizens
of
the
State of Indiana: Most heartily do
I thank you
for this magnificent reception
; and while I cannot
take to myself any share of the compliment thus
paid, more than
that which
pertains
to
a mere
instrument—an
accidental instrument perhaps
I
should
say—of
a
great
cause,
I
yet must
look
upon
it as a magnificent reception, and as such
SPEECHES
[Feb.
most heartily do
I thank you for
it.
You have
been pleased to address yourself to me chiefly in
behalf of this glorious Union in which we live, in
all of which you have my hearty sympathy, and,
as far as may be within my power, will have, one
and inseparably, my hearty cooperation.
While
I do not expect, upon this occasion, or until
I get
to Washington, to attempt any lengthy speech,
I
will only say that to the salvation of the Union
there needs but one single thing, the hearts of a
people like yours.
When the people rise in mass
in behalf of the Union and the
liberties of
this
country, truly may
it be said, "The gates of hell
cannot prevail against them."
In all trying posi-
tions in which
I
shall be placed, and doubtless
I
shall be placed in many such
, my reliance will be
upon you and the people of the United
States
;
and
I wish you to remember, now and
forever,
that
it
is your business, and not mine
; that if the
union of these States and the liberties of this peo-
ple shall be lost,
it is but little to any one man of
fifty-two years
of age, but a
great
deal
to
the
thirty millions of people who inhabit these United
States, and to their posterity in
all coming time.
It
is your business to
rise up and preserve the
Union and liberty for yourselves, and not for me.
I appeal to you again to constantly bear in mind
that not with politicians, not with Presidents, not
with office-seekers, but with you, is the question
:
Shall
the Union and
shall
the
liberties
of
this
country be preserved to the latest generations ?
i86i]
BEFORE INDIANA LEGISLATURE
The Union: Is It a Marriage Bond or a Free
Love Arrangement?
Remarks
to the
Indiana
Legislature,
at
Indianapolis.
February
12, 1861.
Fellozv-citizens of the State of Indiana:
I am
here to thank you much for this magnificent wel-
come, and
still more
for
the generous
support
given by your State to that political cause which
I think
is the true and just cause of the whole
country
and
the
whole
world.
Solomon
says
there
is "a time to keep silence," and when men
wrangle
by
the month
wath
no
certainty
that
they
mean
the
same
thing,
while
using
the
same
word,
it
perhaps
were
as
well
if
they
would
keep
silence.
The
words
''coercion"
and ''invasion" are much used in these days, and
often with some temper and hot blood.
Let us
make
sure,
if we can, that we do not misunder-
stand the meaning of those who use them.
Let
us get exact definitions of these words, not from
dictionaries, but from the men themselves, who
certainly
deprecate
the
things
they
would
represent by the use of words.
What,
then,
is.
"coercion"?
What
is
"invasion"?
Would
the
marching of an army into South Carolina with-
out the consent of her people, and with hostile in-
tent toward
them,
be
"invasion"?
I
certainly
think
it would
; and
it would be "coercion" also
if
the
South
Carolinians
were
forced
to
submit.
But if the United States should merely hold and
retake
its own forts and other property, and col-
lect the duties on foreign importations, or even
withhold the mails from places where they were
habitually
violated, would
any
or
all
of
these
things
be
"invasion"
or
"coercion"?
Do
our
SPEECHES
[Feb.
professed lovers of the Union, but who spitefully
resolve that they will resist coercion and invasion,
understand that such things as these on the part
of
the United
States would be
coercion
or
in-
vasion of a State ?
If so, their idea of means to
preserve the object of their great affection would
seem
to be exceedingly thin and
airy.
If
sick,
the little pills of the homeopathist would be much
too large for them to swallow.
In their view, the
Union as a family relation would seem to be no
regular marriage, but rather a sort of "free-love"
arrangement, to be maintained only on ''passional
attraction."
By
the way,
in what
consists
the
special
sacredness
of
a
State?
I
speak not
of
the position assigned to a State in the Union by
the
Constitution
;
for
that, by the bond, we
all
recognize.
That position, however, a State can-
not carry out of the Union with
it.
I speak of
that assumed primary
right
of
a
State
to
rule
all which
is less than itself, and ruin
all which
is
larger than
itself.
If a State and a county,
in
a given case, should be equal in extent of terri-
tory, and equal in number of inhabitants, in what,
as a matter of principle,
is the State better than
the county?
Would an exchange
of names be
an exchange of rights upon principle? On what
rightful
principle may
a
State, being not more
than one
fiftieth part
of
the nation
in
soil and
population, break up the nation and then coerce
a
proportionally
larger
subdivision
of
itself
in
the
most
arbitrary
way?
What
mysterious
right to play tyrant
is conferred on a district of
country
with
its
people, by merely
calling
it
a
State?
Fellow-citizens,
I am not asserting any-
thing;
I am merely asking questions
for you to
consider.
And now allow me to bid you farewell.
i85i]
AT CINCINNATI
Good Will to the South.
Remarks
at
Reception
by the Mayor and
Citizens
of
Cincinnati,
Ohio.
February
12, 1861.
Mr. Mayor, Ladies, and Gentlemen: Twenty-
four hours ago, at the capital of Indiana,
I
said
to myself
I have never seen so many people as-
sembled
together
in
winter
weather.
I am no
longer
able
to
say
that.
But
it
is what might
reasonably have been expected—that
this
great
city
of
Cincinnati would thus
acquit
herself on
such
an
occasion.
My
friends,
I am
entirely
overwhelmed by the magnificence of the
recep-
tion which has been given,
I
will not say to me,
but to the President-elect of the United States of
America.
Most
heartily
do
I
thank
you,
one
and
all, for
it.
I am reminded by the address of your worthy
mayor
that
this
reception
is
given
not by any
one
political
party, and even
if
I had not been
so
reminded
by
his
Honor
I
could
not
have
failed
to know
the
fact by
the
extent
of
the
multitude
I
see
before me
now,
I
could
not
look upon
this
vast
assemblage
without
being
made aware that
all parties were united
in
this
reception.
This
is
as
it should
be.
It
is
as
it
should have been
if Senator Douglas had been
elected.
It
is as
it should have been
if Mr. Bell
had been elected; as
it should have been
if Mr.
Breckinridge had been elected
; as
it should ever
be when any citizen of the United States
is con-
stitutionally
elected
President
of
the
United
States.
Allow me to say that
I think what has
occurred here to-day could not have occurred in
any other country on the face of the globe, with-
SPEECHES
[Feb.
out the
influence
of
the
free
institutions which
we have unceasingly enjoyed for three quarters
of a century.
There is no country where the people can turn
out and enjoy
this day precisely as they please,
save under the benign influence of the
free
in-
stitutions of our land.
I hope that, although we have some threaten-
ing national
difficulties now—I hope that while
these free institutions shall continue to be in the
enjoyment
of
millions
of
free
people
of
the
United
States, we
will
see repeated every four
years what we now witness.
In a few short years
I, and every other indi-
vidual man who
is now living, will pass away; I
hope that our national
difficulties
will
also pass
away; and
I hope we shall see in the streets of
Cincinnati—good
old
Cincinnati—for
centuries
to come, once every four years, her people give
such
a
reception
as
this
to
the
constitutionally
elected President of the whole United States.
I
hope you shall all join in that reception, and that
you
shall
also
welcome
your
brethren
from
across
the
river
to
participate
in
it.
We
will
welcome them
in every
State of the Union, no
matter where they are from.
From away South
we
shall extend them a cordial good
will, when
our present
difficulties shall have been forgotten
and blown to the winds forever.
I
have
spoken
but once
before
this
in
Cin-
cinnati.
That was
a year previous
to
the
late
presidential
election.
On
that
occasion,
in
a
playful manner, but with
sincere
words,
I
ad-
dressed much of what
I said to the Kentuckians.
I gave my opinion that we as Republicans would'
ultimately beat them as Democrats, but that they
i86i]
AT CINCINNATI
could postpone that result longer by nominating
Senator Douglas
for
the
presidency than
they
could
in any other way.
They did
not,
in any
true sense of the word, nominate Mr. Douglas,
and the result has come certainly as soon as ever
I
expected.
I
also
told them how
I
expected
they would
be
treated
after
they
should
have
been beaten
; and now
I wish to
recall their
at-
tention to what
I then said upon that subject.
I
then said, "When we do as we say,—beat you,
you perhaps want to know what we will do with
you.
I
will
tell you, so far as
I am authorized
to speak for the opposition, what we mean to do
with you.
We mean to treat you, as near as we
possibly
can,
as
Washington,
Jefferson,
and
l^ladison
treated
you.
We mean
to
leave you
alone, and in no way to interfere with your in-
stitutions
; to abide by
all and every compromise
of the Constitution
; and, in a word, coming back
to the
original proposition, to treat you,
so
far
as
degenerate men—if we
have
degenerated
may, according to the examples
of those noble
fathers,
Washington,
Jefferson,
and
Aladison.
We mean to remember that you are as good as
we
; that there
is no difference between us other
than the difference of circumstances.
We mean
to recognize and bear in mind always that you
have
as good
hearts
in
your bosoms
as
other
people, or as we claim to have, and treat you ac-
cordingly."
Fellow-citizens
of
Kentucky
! — friends
! —
brethren
! may
I
call you in my new position ?
I
see no occasion, and feel no inclination, to retract
a word of this.
If
it shall not be made good, be
assured the fault shall not be mine.
And now,
fellow-citizens
of
Ohio, have
you,
SPEECHES
[Feb. 12
who agree with him who now addresses you
in
poHtical
sentiment—have
you
ever
entertained
other
sentiments toward our
brethren
of Ken-
tucky than those
I have expressed to you?
If
not,
then why
shall we
not,
as
heretofore,
be
recognized and acknowledged as brethren again,
living in peace and harmony again one with an-
other ?
I take your response as the most reliable
evidence that
it may be so, trusting, through the
good sense of the American people, on
all sides
of all rivers in America, under the providence of
God, who has never deserted
us,
that we
shall
again be brethren,
forgetting
all
parties, ignor-
ing all parties.
My friends, I now bid you fare-
well.
Against
Restriction
of Immigration.
Remarks to Germans at Cincinnati, Ohio.
February
12,
1861.
Mr. Chairman:
I thank you and those whom
you represent for the compliment you have paid
me by tendering me this address.
In so
far as
there
is an allusion to our present national
dif-
ficulties, which expresses, as you have
said, the
views
of the gentlemen
present,
I
shall have to
beg pardon for not entering fully upon the ques-
tions
which
the
address
you
have now
read
suggests.
I deem
it my duty—a duty which
I owe to my
constituents—to
you,
gentlemen,
that
I
should
wait until the
last moment for a development of
the present national
difficulties before
I express
myself decidedly as to what course
I
shall pur-
sue.
I hope, then, not
to be
false
to anything
that you have to expect of me.
i860]
at CINCINNATI
I
agree
with
you,
Mr.
Chairman,
that
the
working-men
are
the
basis
of
all governments,
for
the
plain
reason
that
they
are
the
more
numerous, and as you added that those were the
sentiments
of the gentlemen
present,
represent-
ing not
only
the
working-class, but
citizens
of
other callings than those of the mechanic,
I am
happy
to concur with you
in
these
sentiments,
not only of the native-born
citizens, but also of
the Germans and
foreigners
from
other
coun-
tries.
Mr. Chairman,
I
hold
that while man
exists
it
is his duty to improve not only his own condi-
tion, but to assist in ameliorating mankind
; and
therefore,
without
entering upon
the
details
of
the
question,
I
will
simply
say
that
I am
for
those means which
will give the
greatest good
to the greatest number.
In regard to the homestead law, I have to say
that
in
so
far
as the government lands can be
disposed of, I am in favor of cutting up the wild
lands
into parcels,
so that every poor man may
have a home.
In regard
to the Germans and
foreigners,
I
esteem them no better than other people, nor any
worse.
It
is not my nature, when I see a people
borne down by the weight of their shackles—the
oppression of tyranny—to make their
life more
bitter by
heaping upon them
greater burdens
;
but rather would
I do
all in my power to
raise
the yoke than to add anything that would tend
to crush them.
Inasmuch as our country is extensive and new,
and the countries
of Europe are densely popu-
lated, if there are any abroad who desire to make
this the land of
their adoption,
it
is not
in my
SPEECHES
[Feb. 14
heart
to throw
aught
in
their way
to
prevent
them from coming to the United
States.
Mr. Chairman and gentlemen,
I
will bid you
an affectionate farewell.
"Nothing is Going Wrong."
Remarks
to the
Legislature
of
Ohio
at
Columbus.
February
13,
1861.
Mr. President and Mr. Speaker, and Gentle-
men of the General Assembly of Ohio: It is true,
as has been said by the president of the Senate,
that very great
responsibility
rests upon me
in
the position to which the votes of the American
people have called me.
I am deeply sensible of
that weighty
responsibility.
I cannot but know
what you all know, that without a name, perhaps
without
a
reason why
I
should have
a name,
there has
fallen upon me a task such as did not
rest even upon the Father of his Country
; and
so
feeling,
I can turn and look for that support
without which
it
will be
impossible
for me
to
perform that great task.
I turn, then, and look
to the American people, and to that God who has
never
forsaken them.
Allusion has been made
to the interest
felt in relation to the policy of the
new
administration.
In
this
I
have
received
from some
a
degree
of
credit
for having kept
silence,
and
from
others
some
deprecation.
I
still think that I was right.
.
.
.
In the varying and repeatedly shifting scenes
of the
present, and without
a precedent which
could
enable me
to
judge by
the
past,
it
has
seemed fitting that before speaking upon the dif-
ficulties of the country
I should have gained a
i86i]
AT STEUBENVILLE
view of the whole field, being at liberty to modify
and change the course of pohcy as future events
may make a change
necessary.
I have not maintained
silence from any want
of real anxiety.
It
is a good thing that there
is
no more than anxiety, for there is nothing going
wrong.
It
is
a
consoling
circumstance
that
when we
look
out
there
is nothing that
really
hurts
anybody.
We
entertain
different
views
upon political questions, but nobody
is suffering
anything.
This
is
a
most
consoling
circum-
stance, and from
it we may conclude that
all we
want
is
time,
patience, and
a
reliance
on
that
God who has never forsaken this people.
Fellow-citizens, what
I have
said
I have said
altogether
extemporaneously,
and
I
will now
come to a close.
The Majority Should Rule.
Remarks at Steubenville, Ohio.
February
14, 1861.
I fear that the great confidence placed
in my
ability
is unfounded.
Indeed,
I am
sure
it
is.
Encompassed by vast difficulties as
I am, nothing
shall be wanting on my part, if sustained by God
and the American people.
I believe the devotion
to the Constitution
is equally great on both sides
of the river.
It
is only the different understand-
ing of that instrument that causes difficulty.
The
only
dispute on both
sides
is, "What
are
their
rights?"
If the majority should not
rule, who
would be the judge?
Where
is such a judge to
be found?
We should
all be bound by the ma-
jority of the American people;
if
not, then the
SPEECHES
[Feb. 15
minority must
control.
Would
that
be
right?
Would
it be
just or generous?
Assuredly
not.
I
reiterate that the majority should
rule.
If
I
adopt a wrong policy, the opportunity
for con-
demnation will occur in four years' time.
Then
I can be turned out, and a better man with better
views put in my place.
For
Equalization
of Foreign and
Domestic
Prices by a Protective Tariff.
Remarks
at
Pittsburg,
Pa.
February
15,
1861.
I most cordially thank his Honor Mayor Wil-
son, and the citizens of Pittsburg generally,
for
their flattering reception.
I am the more grateful
because
I know that
it
is not given to me alone,
but to the cause I represent, which clearly proves
to me their good-will, and that sincere feeling
is
at
the bottom of
it.
And
here
I may remark
that
in every short address
I have made to the
people,
in
every crowd through which
I
have
passed of
late, some
allusion has been made to
the present
distracted condition of the country.
It
is natural to expect that
I should say some-
thing on this subject; but to touch upon
it at all
would involve an elaborate discussion of a great
many
questions
and
circumstances,
requiring
more time than
I can at present command, and
would,
perhaps,
unnecessarily commit me upon
matters which have not yet fully developed them-
selves.
The condition of the country
is an ex-
traordinary one, and
fills the mind of every pa-
triot with anxiety.
It is my intention to give this
i86i]
AT PITTSBURG
subject all the consideration I possibly can before
specially deciding in regard to
it, so that when
I
do speak
it may be
as nearly
right
as
possible.
When
I do speak
I hope
I may say nothing in
opposition to the
spirit of the Constitution, con-
trary
to
the
integrity
of
the
Union,
or which
will prove inimical to the liberties of the people,
or
to
the
peace
of
the whole
country.
And,
furthermore, when the
tim.e
arrives
for me
to
speak on
this
great
subject,
I hope
I may say
nothing
to
disappoint
the
people
generally
throughout the country, especially if the expecta-
tion has been based upon anything which
I may
have
heretofore
said.
Notwithstanding
the
troubles
across the
river
[the speaker pointing
soiithzi'ardly across the Monongahela, and smil-
ing^
, there
is
no
crisis
but
an
artificial
one.
What
is there now to warrant the condition of
afifairs presented by our friends over the river?
Take even
their own view of the questions
in-
volved, and there is nothing to justify the course
they
are
pursuing.
I
repeat,
then,
there
is no
crisis, excepting such a one as may be gotten up
at any time by turbulent men aided by designing
politicians.
My advice to them, under such cir-
cumstances,
is to keep cool.
If the great Ameri-
can people only keep their temper on both sides
of the line, the troubles will come to an end, and
the question which now distracts the country will
be
settled,
just as surely as
all other
difficulties
of a like character which have originated in this
government have been adjusted.
Let the people
on both sides keep their self-possession, and just
as other clouds have cleared away
in due time,
so
will
this great nation continue to prosper as
heretofore.
But,
fellow-citizens,
I have spoken
lOO
SPEECHES
[Feb.
longer on this subject than I intended at the out-
set.
It
is often said that the
tariff
is the specialty
of Pennsylvania.
Assuming that direct taxation
is not to be adopted, the tariff question must be
as durable as the government itself.
It is a ques-
tion of national housekeeping.
It
is to the gov-
ernment what replenishing the meal-tub
is to the
family.
Ever-varying circumstances will require
frequent modifications as
to the amount needed
and the sources of supply.
So far there
is
little
difference of opinion among the people.
It
is as
to whether, and how
far, duties on imports shall
be adjusted to favor home production in the home
market, that controversy begins.
One party
in-
sists that such adjustment oppresses one class for
the advantage of another; while the other party
argues that, with
all
its incidents, in the long run
all
classes
are
benefited.
In
the
Chicago
plat-
form
there
is a plank upon
this
subject which
should be a general law to the incoming admin-
istration.
We should do neither more nor
less
than we gave
the
people
reason
to
believe we
would when they gave us
their
votes.
Permit
me,
fellow-citizens,
to read
the
tariff plank
of
the Chicago platform, or rather have
it read
in
your hearing by one who has younger eyes.
Mr. Lincoln's private secretary then read Sec-
tion 12 of the Chicago platform, as follows
That while providing revenue for the support of the
General Government by
duties upon
imports,
sound
policy requires such an adjustment of these imposts as
[
will
encourage
the development
of
the
industrial
in-
terest
of
the
whole
country;
and we commend
that
policy of national exchanges which secures to working-
men
liberal wages, to agriculture remunerating prices,
to mechanics and manufacturers adequate reward
for
i86i]
AT PITTSBURG
loi
their
skill,
labor,
and
enterprise,
and
to
the
nation
commercial prosperty and independence.
Mr. Lincoln resumed
: As with all general prop-
ositions, doubtless there will be shades of differ-
ence
ill construing
this.
I have by no means a
thoroughly matured judgment upon this subject,
especially
as
to
details
; some general
ideas
are
about all.
I have long thought
it would be to our
advantage
to
produce
any
necessary
article
at
home which can be made of as good quality and
with as
little labor at home as abroad, at least by
the difference of the carrying from abroad.
In
such case the carrying is demonstrably a dead loss
of
labor.
For
instance,
labor
being
the
true
standard of
value,
is
it not plain
that
if
equal
labor get a bar of railroad iron out of a mine in
England, and another out of a mine in Pennsyl-
vania, each can be laid down in a track at home
cheaper than they could exchange
countries,
at
least by
the
carriage?
If
there
be
a
present
cause why one
can be
both made and
carried
cheaper
in money
price than
the
other can be
made
without
carrying,
that
cause
is
an
un-
natural and injurious one, and ought gradually,
if not rapidly, to be removed.
The condition of
the treasury
at
this time would seem to render
an early revision of the tariff indispensable.
The
Alorrill
[fariif]
bill, now
pending before Con-
gress, may or may not become a law.
I am not
posted as to
its particular provisions, but
if they
are generally satisfactory, and the
bill shall now
pass, there
will be an end
for the present.
If,
however,
it
shall not pass,
I suppose the whole
subject will be one of the most pressing and im-
portant for the next Congress.
By the Constitu-
lo«
SPEECHES
[Feb. 15
tion,
the
executive may
recommend
measures
which he may think
proper, and
he may
veto
those he thinks improper, and
it
is supposed that
he may add to these certain indirect influences to
affect the action of Congress.
My poHtical edu-
cation
strongly incHnes me
against a very
free
use of any of these means by the executive to
control the legislation of the country.
As a rule,
I think
it better that Congress should
originate
as well as perfect
its measures without external
bias.
I
therefore would
rather recommend
to
every gentleman who knows he is to be a member
of the next Congress
to take an enlarged view,
and post himself thoroughly, so as to contribute
his
part to such an adjustment of the
tariff
as
shall produce a sufficient revenue, and in its other
bearings, so far as possible, be just and equal to
all
sections
of
the
country and
classes
of
the
people.
The Crisis is Artificial.
Remarks at Cleveland, Ohio.
February
15,
1861.
Fellow-citizens
of
Cleveland
and
Ohio: We
have come here upon a very inclement afternoon.
We have marched for two miles through the rain
and the mud.
The large numbers that have turned out under
these circumstances
testify that you are
in ear-
nest about something, and what is that something?
I would not have you suppose that
I think this
extreme
earnestness
is about me.
I
should be
exceedingly
sorry
to
see
such
devotion
if
that
were the
case.
But
I know
it
is paid to some-
i86i]
AT CLEVELAND
103
thing worth more than any one man, or any thou-
sand or ten thousand men.
You have assembled
to
testify your devotion
to the
Constitution,
to
the Union, and the laws, to the perpetual liberty
of the people of this country.
It
is,
fellow-citi-
zens, for the whole American people, and not for
one single man alone, to advance the great cause
of
the Union and the
Constitution.
And
in
?.
country
like
this, where every man bears on his
face the marks of intelligence, where every man's
clothing,
if
I may so speak, shows signs of com-
fort, and every dwelling signs of happiness and
contentment, where schools and churches abound
on every side, the Union can never be in danger.
I would, if I could, instill some degree of patriot-
ism and confidence into the political mind in rela-
tion to this matter.
Frequent allusion
is made to the excitement at
present existing in our national politics, and
it
is
as
well
that
I
should
also
allude
to
it
here.
I
think
tliat
there
is no occasion
for any
excite-
ment.
I think the
crisis,
as
it
is
called,
is
alto-
gether an artificial one.
In all parts of the nation
there are differences of opinion on politics
; there
are
differences of opinion even
here.
You did
not
all vote
for the person who now
addresses
you,
although
quite enough
of you
did
for
all
practical purposes, to be sure.
What they do v/ho seek to destroy the Union
is
altogether
artificial.
What
is
happening
to
hurt them ?
Have they not all their rights now as
they ever have had ?
Do not they have their fugi-
tive slaves returned now as ever ?
Have they not
the same Constitution that they have lived under
for seventy-odd years ?
Have they not a position
as citizens of this common country, and have we
I04
SPEECHES
[Feb. i6
any power
to change
that position?
[Cries of
*'Nor]
What
then
is
the
matter
with them?
Why
all
this excitement?
Why
all these com-
plaints ?
As
I
said
before,
this
crisis
is
alto-
gether
artificial.
It has no
foundation
in
fact.
It
can't be argued
up, and
it
can't
be argued
down.
Let
it alone, and
it will go down of itself.
I
have
not
strength,
fellow-citizens,
to
ad-
dress you at great length, and
pray that you will
excuse me; but
rest assured that my thanks are
as cordial and sincere for the
efficient aid which
you will give to the good cause
in working for
the good of the nation, as for the votes you gave
me
last
fall.
There
is
one
feature
that
causes me
great
pleasure, and that
is to learn that this reception
is given, not alone by those with whom
I chance
to agree politically, but by
all parties.
I think
I
am not selfish when
I say this
is as
it should be.
If Judge Douglas had been chosen President of
the
United
States,
and
had
this
evening been
passing
through
your
city,
the
Republicans
should have joined
his supporters
in welcoming
him.
just
as
his
friends have
joined with mine
to-night.
If we do not make common cause to
save the good old ship of the Union on this voy-
age, nobody
will have a chance
to
pilot her on
another voyage.
To
all
of you,
then, who have done me the
honor
to
participate
in
this
cordial welcome,
I
return most sincerely my thanks, not for myself,
but for Liberty, the Constitution, and Union.
I bid you an affectionate farewell.
i86i]
AT BUFFALO
105
The Stability of the Union.
Remarks
at
Buffalo,
N.
Y.
February
16,
1861.
Mr. Mayor and Fellow-citizens of Buffalo and
the State of New York:
I am here to thank you
briefly for this grand reception given to me, not
personally, but as the representative of our great
and beloved country.
Your worthy mayor has
been pleased to mention, in his address to me, the
fortunate and
agreeable
journey which
I have
had from home, on my rather circuitous route to
the Federal capital.
I am very happy that he was
enabled in truth to congratulate myself and com-
pany on that fact.
It is true we have had nothing
thus
far
to mar
the pleasure of the
trip.
We
have not been met alone by those who
assisted
in giving the election to me—I say not alone by
them, but by the whole population of the country
through which we have
passed.
This
is
as
it
should be.
Had the election fallen to any other
of
the
distinguished
candidates
instead of my-
self, under the peculiar circumstances, to say the
least,
it would have been proper
for
all citizens
to have greeted him as you now greet me.
It
is
an evidence of the devotion of the whole people
to the Constitution, the Union, and the perpetu-
ity of the liberties of this country.
I am unwill-
I ing on any occasion that
I should be so meanly
! thought of as to have
it supposed for a moment
I that these demonstrations are tendered to me per-
sonally.
They are tendered to the country, to the
institutions of the country, and to the perpetuity
of the
liberties of the country,
for which these
institutions were made and created.
Your worthy mayor has thought
fit to express
Io6
SPEECHES
[Feb.
the hope that I may be able to reUeve the country
from the present, or, I should say, the threatened
difficulties.
I am sure I bring a heart true to the
work.
For the ability to perform
it,
I must trust
in that Supreme Being who has never forsaken
this favored land, through the instrumentality of
this
great and
intelligent
people.
Without that
assistance
I
shall
surely
fail
; with
it,
I cannot
fail.
When we speak
of threatened
difficulties
to the country,
it
is natural that
it should be ex-
pected that something should be
said by myself
with regard to particular measures.
Upon more
mature
reflection,
however,
others
will
agree
with me
that, when
it
is considered
that
these
difficulties are without precedent, and have never
been acted upon by any individual situated as
I
am,
it
is most proper
I should wait and see the
developments, and
get
all
the
light
possible,
so
that when
I do speak authoritatively,
I may be
as near
right
as
possible.
When
I
shall speak
authoritatively, I hope to say nothing inconsistent
with the Constitution, the Union, the rights of all
the States, of
each State, and of each section of
the country, and not to
disappoint the reasonable
expectations of those who have confided to me
their votes.
In this connection allow me to say
that
you,
as
a
portion
of
the
great American
people, need only
to maintain your composure,
stand up to your sober convictions of
right, to
your obligations
to the
Constitution, and
act
in
accordance with those sober convictions, and the
clouds now on the horizon will be dispelled, and
we
shall have a bright and glorious future; and
when
this generation has passed away,
tens of
thousands
will
inhabit
this country where
only
thousands inhabit
it now.
I do not propose to