The Life and Writings of Abraham Lincoln (62 page)

I press him a little further, and ask if it meant to include the Russians in Asia? or does he mean to exclude the vast population from the principles of our Declaration of Independence? I expect ere long he will introduce another amendment to his definition. He is not at all particular. He is satisfied with anything which does not endanger the nationalizing of Negro slavery. It may draw white men down, but it must not lift Negroes up. Who shall say, “I am the superior, and you are the inferior?”

My declarations upon this subject of Negro slavery may be misrepresented, but cannot be misunderstood. I have said that I do not understand the Declaration to mean that all men were created equal in all respects. They are not our equal in
color; but I suppose 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.” Certainly the Negro is not our equal in color—perhaps not in many other respects; still, in the right to put into his mouth the bread that his own hands have earned, he is the equal of every other man, white or black. In pointing out that more has been given you, you cannot be justified in taking away the little which has been given him. All I ask for the Negro is that if you do not like him, let him alone. If God gave him but little, that little let him enjoy.

When our government was established, we had the institution of slavery among us. We were in a certain sense compelled to tolerate its existence. It was a sort of necessity. We had gone through our struggle, and secured our own independence. The framers of the Constitution found the institution of slavery amongst their other institutions at the time. They found that by an effort to eradicate it, they might lose much of what they had already gained. They were obliged to bow to the necessity. They gave power to Congress to abolish the slave trade at the end of twenty years. They also prohibited slavery in the Territories where it did not exist. They did what they could and yielded to necessity for the rest. I also yield to all which follows from that necessity. What I would most desire would be the separation of the white and black races.

One more point on this Springfield speech which Judge Douglas says he has read so carefully. I expressed my belief in the existence of a conspiracy to perpetuate and nationalize slavery. I did not profess to know it, nor do I now. I showed the part Judge Douglas had played in the string of facts, constituting to my mind the proof of that conspiracy. I showed the parts played by others. I charged that the people had been deceived in carrying the last presidential election, by the impression that the people of the Territories might exclude slavery if they chose, when it was known in advance by the
conspirators, that the court was to decide that neither Congress nor the people could so exclude slavery. These charges are more distinctly made than anything else in the speech.

Judge Douglas has carefully read and re-read that speech. He has not, so far as I know, contradicted those charges. In the two speeches which I heard he certainly did not. On his own tacit admission I renew that charge. I charge him with having been a party to that conspiracy, and to that deception, for the sole purpose of nationalizing slavery.

CHALLENGE TO THE JOINT DEBATES

The Republicans were dissatisfied at seeing their candidate trail Douglas around the state, speaking only after he had spoken. Pressure was put on Lincoln to challenge Douglas to a series of debates at which both candidates would have an opportunity to address the same audiences. Lincoln thereupon sent this letter to Douglas. The Republican press immediately printed it so Douglas could not back out without making the fact known to the public. Douglas answered it promptly, saying that all his arrangements had been made; that there had been talk of a third candidate entering the field against him; and that Lincoln should have approached him sooner if he had wished to arrange for a series of debates. Nevertheless, he was willing to meet Lincoln on the platform, and he suggested Freeport, Ottawa, Galesburg, Quincy, Alton, Jonesboro, and Charleston as the places at which the debates should be held.

Chicago, Illinois, July 24, 1858

M
Y
D
EAR
S
IR
: Will it be agreeable to you to make an arrangement for you and myself to divide time, and address the same audiences the present canvass? Mr. Judd, who will hand you
this, is authorized to receive your answer; and, if agreeable to you, to enter into the terms of such arrangement.

Lincoln had not received Douglas’s letter mentioned in the previous note. He had dined with him on July 28, and curiously enough, neither man mentioned the one thought that must have been uppermost in both their minds. Lincoln came home to find Douglas’s letter, to which he now replies.

Springfield, July 29, 1858

D
EAR
S
IR
: Yours of the 24th in relation to an arrangement to divide time and address the same audiences is received; and in apology for not sooner replying, allow me to say that when I sat by you at dinner yesterday I was not aware that you had answered my note, nor certainly that my own had been presented to you. An hour after I saw a copy of your answer in the Chicago
Times
, and reaching home, I found the original awaiting me. Protesting that your insinuations of attempted unfairness on my part are unjust, and with the hope that you did not very considerately make them, I proceed to reply. To your statement that “It has been suggested recently that an arrangement had been made to bring out a third candidate for the United States Senate, who, with yourself, should canvass the State in opposition to me,” etc., I can only say that such suggestion must have been made by yourself, for certainly none such has been made by or to me, or otherwise, to my knowledge. Surely you did not deliberately conclude, as you insinuate, that I was expecting to draw you into an arrangement of terms, to be agreed on by yourself, by which a third candidate and myself “in concert might be able to take the opening and closing speech in every case.”

As to your surprise that I did not sooner make the proposal
to divide time with you, I can only say I made it as soon as I resolved to make it. I did not know but that such proposal would come from you; I waited respectfully to see. It may have been well known to you that you went to Springfield for the purpose of agreeing on the plan of campaign; but it was not so known to me. When your appointments were announced in the papers, extending only to the 21st of August, I for the first time considered it certain that you would make no proposal to me, and then resolved that, if my friends concurred, I would make one to you. As soon thereafter as I could see and consult with friends satisfactorily, I did make the proposal. It did not occur to me that the proposed arrangement could derange your plans after the latest of your appointments already made. After that, there was before the election largely over two months of clear time.

For you to say that we have already spoken at Chicago and Springfield, and that on both occasions I had the concluding speech, is hardly a fair statement. The truth rather is this: At Chicago, July 9, you made a carefully prepared conclusion on my speech of June 16. Twenty-four hours after, I made a hasty conclusion on yours of the 9th. You had six days to prepare, and concluded on me again at Bloomington on the 16th. Twenty-four hours after, I concluded again on you at Springfield. In the mean time, you had made another conclusion on me at Springfield which I did not hear, and of the contents of which I knew nothing when I spoke; so that your speech made in daylight, and mine at night, of the 17th, at Springfield, were both made in perfect independence of each other. The dates of making all these speeches will show, I think, that in the matter of time for preparation the advantage has all been on your side, and that none of the external circumstances have stood to my advantage.

I agreed to an arrangement for us to speak at the seven places you have named, and at your own times, provided you name the times at once, so that I, as well as you, can have to
myself the time not covered by the arrangement. As to the other details, I wish perfect reciprocity, and no more. I wish as much time as you, and that conclusions shall alternate. That is all. Your obedient servant,

A. Lincoln

P. S. As matters now stand, I shall be at no more of your exclusive meetings; and for about a week from today a letter from you will reach me at Springfield.

On July 30, Douglas wrote to Lincoln setting the time for each debate; he cleverly chose for himself the first opening in a series of seven which necessarily gave him four openings to Lincoln’s three. Lincoln writes to accept—and complain.

Springfield, July 31, 1858

D
EAR
S
IR
: Yours of yesterday, naming places, times, and terms for joint discussions between us, was received this morning. Although
by the terms, as you propose, you take four openings and closes to my three, I accede, and thus close the arrangement. I direct this to you at Hillsboro, and shall try to have both your letter and this appear in the
Journal
and
Register
of Monday morning.

Asbury was a Quincy lawyer and a good friend of Lincoln’s. While the debates were in the process of being arranged, he had written to Lincoln proposing that he ask Douglas publicly a question that would put him between the horns of a dilemma. Lincoln was to use this question during his debate with Douglas at Freeport on August 27, and Douglas’s answer to it ruined his own prospects in the South during the campaign for the Presidency in 1860. Lincoln here foresees the effect that such a question will have on Douglas.
Lincoln was correct in predicting that Douglas would let his chances with the South go in order to win the coming election, but he underestimated Douglas’s desires to hold his power in the South. Douglas did not believe that he was as dead there as Lincoln thought he was.

Springfield, July 31, 1858

M
Y
D
EAR
S
IR
: Yours of the 28th is received. The points you propose to press upon Douglas he will be very hard to get up to, but I think you labor under a mistake when you say no one cares how he answers. This implies that it is equal with him whether he is injured here or at the South. That is a mistake. He cares nothing for the South; he knows he is already dead there. He only leans Southward more to keep the Buchanan party from growing in Illinois. You shall have hard work to get him directly to the point whether a territorial legislature has or has not the power to exclude slavery. But if you succeed in bringing him to it—though he will be compelled to say it possesses no such power—he will instantly take ground that slavery cannot actually exist in the Territories unless the people desire it, and so give it protection by territorial legislation. If this offends the South, he will let it offend them, as at all events he means to hold on to his chances in Illinois.

During the first three weeks in August, both Douglas and Lincoln continued actively to speak in various towns throughout Illinois. Lincoln spoke at Beardstown, Havana, Bath, Lewistown and Peoria. People poured into the little town of Ottawa on the afternoon of Friday, August 20, and camped on the outskirts for the night. Early on Saturday morning, the crowd began to assemble
in the court-house square where a rough board platform had been erected. No provision was made to seat the audience. Douglas entered the town in a carriage shortly before noon, and was greeted by a salute from two brass cannon. Almost at the same time a seventeen-car train arrived from Chicago bearing Lincoln and the Republican contingent. Rival Democratic and Republican processions became entangled; they stood still while their respective brass bands tried to drown each other out. At two-thirty the speakers came to the platform and were greeted with wild cheering. Douglas was the first to speak. He began with an account of the way in which the old Whig party and the Democratic party had ruled the country peacefully, always managing to arrive at some kind of compromise on difficult issues. Until 1854, he said, when he had introduced the Kansas-Nebraska Act into the Senate, all had gone well. He then charged Lincoln and Trumbull with entering into an arrangement to try to dissolve the old Whig party and the Democratic party in order to make way for an abolition party which was to be disguised under the name Republican. This, of course, was utterly untrue, and Douglas was unfortunate enough to use incorrect evidence to support his stand. He then asked Lincoln a series of questions, hoping to compromise him in the southern part of the state where the people were strongly pro-slavery in their sympathies. He reviewed Lincoln’s public record briefly in order to embarrass him with certain of his past attitudes such as his stand during the Mexican War. He branded Lincoln as an abolitionist, and attacked his “House Divided” speech, bringing up his usual charge that it tended to create dissension. After an hour of speaking he gave way to Lincoln. Lincoln had one hour and a half in which to reply; Douglas then had half an hour for his rejoinder.

August 21, 1858

Now, gentlemen, I hate to waste my time on such things, but in regard to that general Abolition tilt that Judge Douglas
makes, when he says that I was engaged at that time in selling out and Abolitionizing the Old Whig party, I hope you will permit me to read a part of a printed speech that I made then at Peoria, which will show altogether a different view of the position I took in that contest of 1854. [Voice: “Put on your specs.”] Yes, sir, I am obliged to do so. I am no longer a young man.

[
Reads the long passage from his Peoria speech of October 16, 1854, regarding his stand on slavery.
]

I have reason to know that Judge Douglas knows that I said this. I think he has the answer here to one of the questions he put to me. I do not mean to allow him to catechize me unless he pays back for it in kind. I will not answer questions one after another, unless he reciprocates; but as he has made this inquiry, and I have answered it before, he has got it without my getting anything in return. He has got my answer on the fugitive-slave law.