Year: 1860

is to be waged until the cotton fields of the South


shall be cultivated by free labor, or the rye fields


OF New York and Massachusetts, shall be cultivat-


ed by slave labor. In furtherance Of this article


OF their creed you find their political organization


not only sectional in its location, but one W hose


vitality consists in appeals to northern passion,


northern prejudice, northern ambition against


southern States southern institutions and southern
people. have had some experience in fghting


this element within the last few years, and | find


that the source OF their power consists in exciting
the prejudices and the passions of the northern


section against those of the southern section


They not only attempt to excite the North against


the South, but they invite the South to assai and


abuse and traduce the North. Southern abuse,


by violent men, of northern statesmen and north


ern people, is essential to the triumph of the Re-


publican cause Hence the course of argument


which we have to meet is not only repelling the


appeals to northern passion and prejudice, but


have to encounter their appeals to southern men


to assail US, in order that they may justify their
assaults upon the Plea of self-defence.


Sir, when l returned home in 1858, for the
purpose of canvaslng Illinois. with a view to
reelection, had to meet this issue of the ''irre-
pressible conflict" 1t is true that the Senator
from New York had not then made his Rochester
speech, and did not for four months afterwards.
1t is true that he had not given the doctrine that


precise name and form but the principle in
existence, and had been proclaimed by the most
clear-headed men OF the party. l call your atten-
ton, sir, to single passage from Speech to show
the language in which this doctrine was stated in


Illinois before it received the name of the ''irre-
pressible conflict" The Republican party assem-
bled in State convention in June, 1858 in Illinois,
and unanimously adopted Abraham Lincoln as
their candidate for United States Senator. Mr.
Lincoln appeared before the convention, accepted
the nomination, and made a speech-which had
been previously written aud agreed to in caucus by
most OF the leaders of the party. | will read
single extract from that speech:


'In my opinion it 1.-THE slavery agitaton] will not
cease until crisis shall have been reached and passed
"A house divided against itself cannot stand. believe
this Government cannot endure permanently, half
slave and half free. do not expect the house fall
but do expect it will cease to be divided. 1t will
become all one thing all the other Either the
opponents of slavery will the further spread of


it, and place it where the public mind shall in the
belief that is in the of ultimate extnction or
its advocates will push forward till it shall become
alike lawful in all the States-od as well as new North
as well as South"


The moment | landed upon the soil of Illinois, at
vast gathering OF thousands Of my constituents
to welcome me home read that passage, and took
direct issue with the doctrine contained in "as being
revolutionary and reasonable and inconsistent with
the petpetuty of this Republic. That is not merely
the individual opinion of Mr. Lincoln; is it the
individual opinion merely Of the Senator from New
1OTk WHO louF mOnlnS afterwards asserted the same
doctrine in different language; but, far l know,
it is the general opinion the members of the Abolition
Republican party They tell the people of the North
that unless they rally one man. under a sectional
banner, and make war upon the South with view to


the ultimate extinction Of slavery slavery will


the whole North and fsten itself upon all the free States
They then tell the South, unless you rally
binding the whole southern people into sectional
party and establish slavery all the free States the


inevitable consequence will be that shall abolish


in the slaveholdng States. The doctrine is held
nv he from New in


He tells us that the States must all become free all
become slave that the South, in other words must
conquer and subdue the North, or the North must
triumph over the South and drive slavery from within
its limits.


Mr. President, in order to show that l have not
the position of the Senator from New
York, notifying the South that, if they wish to
maintain slavery within their limits, they also
fasten it upon the northern States, will read extract
from his Rochester speech


at is an irrepressble conflict between opposing and
enduring forces; and it that the United States
must and WILL sooner or later become either entirely
savehoding nation, entirely ree-labor nation.
Either the cotton and rice fields of South Carolina, and
the sugar plantations of louisiana will ultimately be
titled by free labor and Charleston and New Orleans
become mars for legitimate merchandise alone else
the rye fields and wheat fields of Massachusetts and
New York must again be surrendered by their farmers
to slave culture and to the production of slaves and
Boston and New York become markets for
trade in the bodies and souls of men,"


Thus, sir you perceive that the theory of the Repub
lican party is, that there is conflict between two
different systems of institutions in the respective classes
of Sates-not conflict in the States, but an |
irrepressibe conflict between the free States and the
slave States and they argue that these two systems of
States cannot permanently exist in the Union;
that the sectional warfare must continue to rage and
increase with increasing fury until the free States shall
surrender the slave States shall be subdued Herce
while they appeal to the passions of section.
their object alarmhe people of the other section
and drive them to Madness with the hope that they
will invade IL hts as excuse for some of our
people to carry aggression upon their rights. |
appeal to the candor of Senator's whether this is not
fair exposition of the tendency of the doctrines pro-
claimed by the Republican party. The creed of that
party founded upon the theory that because slavery
is not desirable in States it is not desirable any
where; because free labor is good thing with u.s. it |
must be the best thing everywhere In other words,
the creed of their party rests the theory that there
must be uniformity in the domestic institutions and
internal poy of the several States of this Union |
There in my opinion. is the fundamental upon
which their whole system rests. In the Illinois canvass
asserted, and repeat, that uniformity in the .
domestic institutions of the different States is neither
possible desirable. That is the very issue upon
which conducted the at home, and it is the
question which desire to present to the Senate. l
repeat that uniformity in domestic Institutions of the
different States is neither possible nor desirable.


Was such the doctrine of the trainers of the Consti'u
ion wish the country to bear in mind that when
he Constitution adopted the Union consisted of
thirteen States twelve of which slaveholding
States and one free State Suppose this doctrine of
Uniformity the slavery question had prevailed in the
Federal convention, do the gentlemen that side of
he House think that freedom would have triumphed
,ver slavery? Do they imagine that the free State
would have out voted the twelve saveholdng States,
md thus have abolished slavery throughout the land
W a constitutional provision? On the contrary if the
est had then been made if this doctrine of uniformity