Writings of Abraham Lincoln, the — Volume 3: the Lincoln-Douglas debates eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 162 pages of information about Writings of Abraham Lincoln, the — Volume 3.

Writings of Abraham Lincoln, the — Volume 3: the Lincoln-Douglas debates eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 162 pages of information about Writings of Abraham Lincoln, the — Volume 3.

[A voice:  We have.]

I defy you to show a printed resolution passed in a Democratic meeting—­I take it upon myself to defy any man to show a printed resolution of a Democratic meeting, large or small—­in favor of Judge Trumbull, or any of the five to one Republicans who beat that bill.  Everything must be for the Democrats!  They did everything, and the five to the one that really did the thing they snub over, and they do not seem to remember that they have an existence upon the face of the earth.

Gentlemen, I fear that I shall become tedious.  I leave this branch of the subject to take hold of another.  I take up that part of Judge Douglas’s speech in which he respectfully attended to me.

Judge Douglas made two points upon my recent speech at Springfield.  He says they are to be the issues of this campaign.  The first one of these points he bases upon the language in a speech which I delivered at Springfield, which I believe I can quote correctly from memory.  I said there that “we are now far into the fifth year since a policy was instituted for the avowed object, and with the confident promise, of putting an end to slavery agitation; under the operation of that policy, that agitation has not only not ceased, but has constantly augmented.”  “I believe it will not cease until a crisis shall have been reached and passed.  ‘A house divided against itself cannot stand.’  I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free.”  “I do not expect the Union to be dissolved,”—­I am quoting from my speech, “—­I do not expect the house to fall, but I do expect it will cease to be divided.  It will become all one thing or all the other.  Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the spread of it and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction, or its advocates will push it forward until it shall become alike lawful in all the States, north as well as south.”

What is the paragraph?  In this paragraph, which I have quoted in your hearing, and to which I ask the attention of all, Judge Douglas thinks he discovers great political heresy.  I want your attention particularly to what he has inferred from it.  He says I am in favor of making all the States of this Union uniform in all their internal regulations; that in all their domestic concerns I am in favor of making them entirely uniform.  He draws this inference from the language I have quoted to you.  He says that I am in favor of making war by the North upon the South for the extinction of slavery; that I am also in favor of inviting (as he expresses it) the South to a war upon the North for the purpose of nationalizing slavery.  Now, it is singular enough, if you will carefully read that passage over, that I did not say that I was in favor of anything in it.  I only said what I expected would take place.  I made a prediction only,—­it may have been a foolish one, perhaps.  I did not even say that I desired that slavery should be put in course of ultimate extinction.  I do say so now, however, so there need be no longer any difficulty about that.  It may be written down in the great speech.

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Writings of Abraham Lincoln, the — Volume 3: the Lincoln-Douglas debates from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.