Complete Project Gutenberg Abraham Lincoln Writings eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 1,923 pages of information about Complete Project Gutenberg Abraham Lincoln Writings.

Complete Project Gutenberg Abraham Lincoln Writings eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 1,923 pages of information about Complete Project Gutenberg Abraham Lincoln Writings.

I have said once before, and I will repeat it now, that Mr. Clay, when he was once answering an objection to the Colonization Society, that it had a tendency to the ultimate emancipation of the slaves, said that: 

“Those who would repress all tendencies to liberty and ultimate emancipation must do more than put down the benevolent efforts of the Colonization Society:  they must go back to the era of our liberty and independence, and muzzle the cannon that thunders its annual joyous return; they must blow out the moral lights around us; they must penetrate the human soul, and eradicate the light of reason and the love of liberty!”

And I do think—­I repeat, though I said it on a former occasion—­that Judge Douglas and whoever, like him, teaches that the negro has no share, humble though it may be, in the Declaration of Independence, is going back to the era of our liberty and independence, and, so far as in him lies, muzzling the cannon that thunders its annual joyous return; that he is blowing out the moral lights around us, when he contends that whoever wants slaves has a right to hold them; that he is penetrating, so far as lies in his power, the human soul, and eradicating the light of reason and the love of liberty, when he is in every possible way preparing the public mind, by his vast influence, for making the institution of slavery perpetual and national.

There is, my friends, only one other point to which I will call your attention for the remaining time that I have left me, and perhaps I shall not occupy the entire time that I have, as that one point may not take me clear through it.

Among the interrogatories that Judge Douglas propounded to me at Freeport, there was one in about this language: 

“Are you opposed to the acquisition of any further territory to the United States, unless slavery shall first be prohibited therein?”

I answered, as I thought, in this way:  that I am not generally opposed to the acquisition of additional territory, and that I would support a proposition for the acquisition of additional territory according as my supporting it was or was not calculated to aggravate this slavery question amongst us.  I then proposed to Judge Douglas another interrogatory, which was correlative to that:  “Are you in favor of acquiring additional territory, in disregard of how it may affect us upon the slavery question?” Judge Douglas answered,—­that is, in his own way he answered it.  I believe that, although he took a good many words to answer it, it was a little more fully answered than any other.  The substance of his answer was that this country would continue to expand; that it would need additional territory; that it was as absurd to suppose that we could continue upon our present territory, enlarging in population as we are, as it would be to hoop a boy twelve years of age, and expect him to grow to man’s size without bursting the hoops.  I believe it was

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