Lincoln constantly endeavored to bring the moral and philosophical side of the subject to the foreground.  “Slavery is wrong” was the keynote of all his speeches.  To Douglas’s glittering sophism that the right of the people of a Territory to have slavery or not, as they might desire, was in accordance with the principle of true popular sovereignty, he made the pointed answer:  “Then true popular sovereignty, according to Senator Douglas, means that, when one man makes another man his slave, no third man shall be allowed to object.”  To Douglas’s argument that the principle which demanded that the people of a Territory should be permitted to choose whether they would have slavery or not “originated when God made man, and placed good and evil before him, allowing him to choose upon his own responsibility,” Lincoln solemnly replied:  “No; God—­did not place good and evil before man, telling him to make his choice.  On the contrary, God did tell him there was one tree of the fruit of which he should not eat, upon pain of death.”  He did not, however, place himself on the most advanced ground taken by the radical anti-slavery men.  He admitted that, under the Constitution, “the Southern people were entitled to a Congressional fugitive slave law,” although he did not approve the fugitive slave law then existing.  He declared also that, if slavery were kept out of the Territories during their territorial existence, as it should be, and if then the people of any Territory, having a fair chance and a clear field, should do such an extraordinary thing as to adopt a slave constitution, uninfluenced by the actual presence of the institution among them, he saw no alternative but to admit such a Territory into the Union.  He declared further that, while he should be exceedingly glad to see slavery abolished in the District of Columbia, he would, as a member of Congress, with his present views, not endeavor to bring on that abolition except on condition that emancipation be gradual, that it be approved by the decision of a majority of voters in the District, and that compensation be made to unwilling owners.  On every available occasion, he pronounced himself in favor of the deportation and colonization of the blacks, of course with their consent.  He repeatedly disavowed any wish on his part to have social and political equality established between whites and blacks.  On this point he summed up his views in a reply to Douglas’s assertion that the Declaration of Independence, in speaking of all men as being created equal, did not include the negroes, saying:  “I do not understand the Declaration of Independence to mean that all men were created equal in all respects.  They are not equal in color.  But I believe that it does mean to declare that all men are equal in some respects; they are equal in their right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”