My friend has said to me that I am a poor hand to quote Scripture.  I will try it again, however.  It is said in one of the admonitions of our Lord, “As your Father in heaven is perfect, be ye also perfect.”  The Savior, I suppose, did not expect that any human creature could be perfect as the Father in heaven; but he said, “As your Father in heaven is perfect, be ye also perfect.”  He set that up as a standard; and he who did most towards reaching that standard attained the highest degree of moral perfection.  So I say in relation to the principle that all men are created equal, let it be as nearly reached as we can.  If we cannot give freedom to every creature, let us do nothing that will impose slavery upon any other creature.  Let us then turn this government back into the channel in which the framers of the Constitution originally placed it.  Let us stand firmly by each other.  If we do not do so, we are turning in the contrary direction, that our friend Judge Douglas proposes—­not intentionally—­as working in the traces tends to make this one universal slave nation.  He is one that runs in that direction, and as such I resist him.

My friends, I have detained you about as long as I desired to do, and I have only to say:  Let us discard all this quibbling about this man and the other man, this race and that race and the other race being inferior, and therefore they must be placed in an inferior position; discarding our standard that we have left us.  Let us discard all these things, and unite as one people throughout this land, until we shall once more stand up declaring that all men are created equal.

My friends, I could not, without launching off upon some new topic, which would detain you too long, continue to-night.  I thank you for this most extensive audience that you have furnished me to-night.  I leave you, hoping that the lamp of liberty will burn in your bosoms until there shall no longer be a doubt that all men are created free and equal.

SPEECH AT SPRINGFIELD, JULY 17, 1858.

DELIVERED SATURDAY EVENING

(Mr. Douglas was not present.)

Fellow-citizens:—­Another election, which is deemed an important one, is approaching, and, as I suppose, the Republican party will, without much difficulty, elect their State ticket.  But in regard to the Legislature, we, the Republicans, labor under some disadvantages.  In the first place, we have a Legislature to elect upon an apportionment of the representation made several years ago, when the proportion of the population was far greater in the South (as compared with the North) than it now is; and inasmuch as our opponents hold almost entire sway in the South, and we a correspondingly large majority in the North, the fact that we are now to be represented as we were years ago, when the population was different, is to us a very great disadvantage.  We had in the year 1855, according to law, a census,