Year: 1860




Extract from Speech of Mr. Lincoln
1858 .e. n.... f.


"The Declaration of Independence was
made by the representatives of American
liberty from thirteen States of the Confed
eracy-twelve of which were slaveholding
communities. We need not discuss the
way or the reason of their becoming slave.
holding communities 1t is sufficient for
our purpose that all Of them greatly de.
plored the evil and that they placed pro
vision in the Constitution which they sup.
posed would gradually remove the disease
by cutting off its source This was the
abolition of the slave trade. So general
was the conviction--the public determine.
tion--to abolish the African slave trade,
that the provision which ] have referred
to as being placed in the Constitution, de-
clOred that it should not be abolished prior
to the year 1903. A constitutional pro
vision was necessary to prevent the people,
through Congress- from putting a stop TO
the traffic Immediately at the close Of the
war. Now, if slavery had been a good
thing, would tie Fathers Of the Republic
have taken step calculated to diminish its
beneicient influences among themselves,
and snath the boon wholly from their pos
terity Z These communities by their rep
resentatives in old Independence Hall, said
to the whole world Of men, 1--WE hold these
truths to be sef.evident that all men are
created equal ; that they are endowed by
their Creator with certain inalienable rights;
that among these are life, liberty, aud the
pursuit of happiness" This was their ma
jestic Interpretation of the economy of the
Universe. This was their lofty, and wise,
and noble understanding of the justice OF
the Creator to His creatures.


Yes, gentlemen, to all His creatures, to
the whole great family of mau. In their
enlightened belief, nothing stamped with
the Divine image and likeness was sent into
the world to be trodden on, and degraded,
and imbruted by its fellows. They grasp
ed not only the whole race of man then
living, but they reached forward and seized
upon the farthest pOsterity. They erected
beacon to guide their children and their
childrens children, and the countless myri-
ads who should inhabit the earth in other
ages. Wise statesman as they were, they
knew the tendency Of prosperity to breed
tyrants, and so they established these great
seIf-evideut truths, that when in the distant
future some man, some faction, some inter-
est, shonld set up the doctrine that none
but rich men, or none but white men. or
none but Anglo Saxons, were entitled to
life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,
their posterity might look up again to the
Declaration of Independence, and take
courage to renew the battle which their
fathers began-so that truth, and justice,
and mercy and all the humane and Chris
tian virtues might not be eXtinguished from
the land so that no man hereafter would
dare to limit and circumscribe the great
principles on which the temple of liberty
was being built.


Now, my countrymeu, if you have been
taught doctrines conflicting with the great
landmarks of the Declaration of Indepen.
dence if you have listened to suggestions
which would take away from its grandeur,
and mutilate the symmetry of its proper
tions if you have been inclined to believe
that all men are not created equal in those
inalieDable rights enumerated by our chart
of liberty, let me entreat you to come back
Return to the fountain whose waters spring
close by the blood of the Revolution
Think nothing of me-take no thought fol
the political fate of any man whomsoeveI
come back to the truths that are in the
Declaration of Independence.