Speeches and Letters of Abraham Lincoln, 1832-1865 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 305 pages of information about Speeches and Letters of Abraham Lincoln, 1832-1865.

Speeches and Letters of Abraham Lincoln, 1832-1865 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 305 pages of information about Speeches and Letters of Abraham Lincoln, 1832-1865.

On the other hand, I have said there is a sentiment which treats it as not being wrong.  That is the Democratic sentiment of this day.  I do not mean to say that every man who stands within that range positively asserts that it is right.  That class will include all who positively assert that it is right, and all who, like Judge Douglas, treat it as indifferent, and do not say it is either right or wrong.  These two classes of men fall within the general class of those who do not look upon it as a wrong.  And if there be among you anybody who supposes that he, as a Democrat, can consider himself “as much opposed to slavery as anybody,” I would like to reason with him.  You never treat it as a wrong.  What other thing that you consider a wrong do you deal with as you deal with that?  Perhaps you say it is wrong, but your leader never does, and you quarrel with anybody who says it is wrong.  Although you pretend to say so yourself, you can find no fit place to deal with it as a wrong.  You must not say anything about it in the free States, because it is not here.  You must not say anything about it in the slave States, because it is there.  You must not say anything about it in the pulpit, because that is religion, and has nothing to do with it.  You must not say anything about it in politics, because that will disturb the security of “my place.”  There is no place to talk about it as being a wrong, although you say yourself it is a wrong.  But, finally, you will screw yourself up to the belief that if the people of the slave States should adopt a system of gradual emancipation on the slavery question, you would be in favour of it.  You would be in favour of it!  You say that is getting it in the right place, and you would be glad to see it succeed.  But you are deceiving yourself.  You all know that Frank Blair and Gratz Brown, down there in St. Louis, undertook to introduce that system in Missouri.  They fought as valiantly as they could for the system of gradual emancipation, which you pretend you would be glad to see succeed.  Now I will bring you to the test.  After a hard fight they were beaten; and when the news came over here, you threw up your hats and hurrahed for Democracy!  More than that; take all the argument made in favour of the system you have proposed, and it carefully excludes the idea that there is anything wrong in the institution of slavery.  The arguments to sustain that policy carefully exclude it.  Even here to-day, you heard Judge Douglas quarrel with me, because I uttered a wish that it might sometime come to an end.  Although Henry Clay could say he wished every slave in the United States was in the country of his ancestors, I am denounced by those who pretend to respect Henry Clay, for uttering a wish that it might sometime, in some peaceful way, come to an end.

The Democratic policy in regard to that institution will not tolerate the merest breath, the slightest hint, of the least degree of wrong about it.  Try it by some of Judge Douglas’s arguments.  He says he “don’t care whether it is voted up or voted down in the Territories.”  I do not care myself in dealing with that expression whether it is intended to be expressive of his individual sentiments on the subject or only of the national policy he desires to have established.

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Speeches and Letters of Abraham Lincoln, 1832-1865 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.