Speech at Peoria, Illinois
October 16, 1854
I can not but hate [the declared indifference for slavery's
spread]. I hate it because of the monstrous injustice of slavery
itself. I hate it because it deprives our republican example of
its just influence in the world -- enables the enemies of free
institutions, with plausibility, to taunt us as hypocrites --
causes the real friends of freedom to doubt our sincerity, and
especially because it forces so many really good men amongst
ourselves into an open war with the very fundamental principles
of civil liberty -- criticising [sic] the Declaration of
Independence, and insisting that there is no right principle of
action but self-interest.
Before proceeding, let me say I think I have no prejudice
against the Southern people. They are just what we would be in
their situation. If slavery did not now exist amongst them, they
would not introduce it. If it did now exist amongst us, we should
not instantly give it up. This I believe of the masses north and
south. Doubtless there are individuals, on both sides, who would
not hold slaves under any circumstances; and others who would
gladly introduce slavery anew, if it were out of existence. We
know that some southern men do free their slaves, go north, and
become tip-top abolitionists; while some northern ones go south,
and become most cruel slave-masters.
When southern people tell us they are no more responsible for
the origin of slavery, than we; I acknowledge the fact. When it
is said that the institution exists; and that it is very
difficult to get rid of it, in any satisfactory way, I can
understand and appreciate the saying. I surely will not blame
them for not doing what I should not know how to do myself. If
all earthly power were given me, I should not know what to do, as
to the existing institution. My first impulse would be to free
all the slaves, and send them to Liberia, -- to their own native
land. But a moment's reflection would convince me, that whatever
of high hope, (as I think there is) there may be in this, in the
long run, its sudden execution is impossible. If they were all
landed there in a day, they would all perish in the next ten
days; and there are not surplus shipping and surplus money enough
in the world to carry them there in many times ten days. What
then? Free them all, and keep them among us as underlings? Is it
quite certain that this betters their condition? I think I would
not hold one in slavery, at any rate; yet the point is not clear
enough for me to denounce people upon. What next? Free them, and
make them politically and socially, our equals? My own feelings
will not admit of this; and if mine would, we well know that
those of the great mass of white people will not.
Speech at Chicago, Illinois
July 10, 1858
I have always hated slavery, I think as much as any
Abolitionist. I have been an Old Line Whig. I have always hated
it, but I have always been quiet about it until this new era of
the introduction of the Nebraska Bill began. I always believed
that everybody was against it, and that it was in course of
ultimate extinction.
I have said a hundred times, and I have now no inclination to
take it back, that I believe there is no right, and ought to be
no inclination in the people of the free States to enter into the
slave States, and interfere with the question of slavery at
all.
Fifth Debate with Stephen A. Douglas
Galesburg, Illinois
October 7, 1858
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.
Seventh and Last Debate with Stephen A.
Douglas
Alton, Illinois
October 15, 1858
And when this new principle -- this new proposition that no
human being ever thought of three years ago, -- is brought
forward, I combat it as having an evil tendency, if not an evil
design; I combat it as having a tendency to dehumanize the negro
-- to take away from him the right of ever striving to be a man.
Icombat it as being one of the thousand things constantly done in
these days to prepare the public mind to make property, and
nothing but property of the negro in all the States of the
Union.
.....I have never sought to apply these principles to the old
States for the purpose of abolishing slavery in those States. It
is nothing but a miserable perversion of what I have said, to
assume that I have declared Missouri, or any other slave State
shall emancipate her slaves. I have proposed no such thing.
To James N. Brown
October 18, 1858
I do not perceive how I can express myself, more plainly, than
I have done in the foregoing extracts. In four of them I have
expressly disclaimed all intention to bring about social and
political equality between the white and black races, and, in all
the rest, I have done the same thing by clear implication.
I have made it equally plain that I think the negro is
included in the word "men" used in the Declaration of
Independence.
I believe the declara[tion] that "all men are created
equal" is the great fundamental principle upon which our
free institutions rest; that negro slavery is violative of that
principle; but that, by our frame of government, that principle
has not been made one of legal obligation; that by our frame of
government, the States which have slavery are to retain it, or
surrender it at their own pleasure; and that all others --
individuals, free-states and national government -- are
constitutionally bound to leave them alone about it.
I believe our government was thus framed because of the
necessity springing from the actual presence of slavery, when it
was framed.
That such necessity does not exist in the teritories[sic],
where slavery is not present.
...It does not follow that social and political equality
between whites and blacks, must be
incorporated, because slavery must not.
Speech at Cincinnati, Ohio
September 17, 1859
I think Slavery is wrong, morally, and politically. I desire
that it should be no further spread in these United States, and I
should not object if it should gradually terminate in the whole
Union.
I say that we must not interfere with the institution of
slavery in the states where it exists, because the constitution
forbids it, and the general welfare does not require us to do
so.
We must prevent the revival of the African slave trade and the
enacting by Congress of a territorial slave code.
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