Writings of Abraham Lincoln, the — Volume 4: the Lincoln-Douglas debates eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 134 pages of information about Writings of Abraham Lincoln, the — Volume 4.

Writings of Abraham Lincoln, the — Volume 4: the Lincoln-Douglas debates eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 134 pages of information about Writings of Abraham Lincoln, the — Volume 4.
the Nebraska Bill in that Compromise?  If anywhere, in the two pieces of the Compromise organizing the Territories of New Mexico and Utah.  It was expressly provided in these two acts that when they came to be admitted into the Union they should be admitted with or without slavery, as they should choose, by their own constitutions.  Nothing was said in either of those acts as to what was to be done in relation to slavery during the Territorial existence of those Territories, while Henry Clay constantly made the declaration (Judge Douglas recognizing him as a leader) that, in his opinion, the old Mexican laws would control that question during the Territorial existence, and that these old Mexican laws excluded slavery.  How can that be used as a principle for declaring that during the Territorial existence as well as at the time of framing the constitution the people, if you please, might have slaves if they wanted them?  I am not discussing the question whether it is right or wrong; but how are the New Mexican and Utah laws patterns for the Nebraska Bill?  I maintain that the organization of Utah and New Mexico did not establish a general principle at all.  It had no feature of establishing a general principle.  The acts to which I have referred were a part of a general system of Compromises.  They did not lay down what was proposed as a regular policy for the Territories, only an agreement in this particular case to do in that way, because other things were done that were to be a compensation for it.  They were allowed to come in in that shape, because in another way it was paid for, considering that as a part of that system of measures called the Compromise of 1850, which finally included half-a-dozen acts.  It included the admission of California as a free State, which was kept out of the Union for half a year because it had formed a free constitution.  It included the settlement of the boundary of Texas, which had been undefined before, which was in itself a slavery question; for if you pushed the line farther west, you made Texas larger, and made more slave territory; while, if you drew the line toward the east, you narrowed the boundary and diminished the domain of slavery, and by so much increased free territory.  It included the abolition of the slave trade in the District of Columbia.  It included the passage of a new Fugitive Slave law.  All these things were put together, and, though passed in separate acts, were nevertheless, in legislation (as the speeches at the time will show), made to depend upon each other.  Each got votes with the understanding that the other measures were to pass, and by this system of compromise, in that series of measures, those two bills—­the New Mexico and Utah bills—­were passed:  and I say for that reason they could not be taken as models, framed upon their own intrinsic principle, for all future Territories.  And I have the evidence of this in the fact that Judge Douglas, a year afterward, or more than a year afterward, perhaps, when he first
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Writings of Abraham Lincoln, the — Volume 4: the Lincoln-Douglas debates from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.