Word Cloud
“Laughter”
Full Debate Text
Mr. Douglas' Speech
***
to connect the members of both into an Abolition party under the name and disguise of a Republican party. (Laughter and cheers, hurrah for Douglas.) The terms of that arrangement between Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Trumbull have been
***
was then about to become vacant, and that Trumbull should have my seat when my term expired. (Great Laughter.) Lincoln went to work to abolitionize the Old Whig party all over the State, pretending that he was then as good a Whig as ever; (laughter) and Trumbull went to work in his part of the State preaching Abolitionism in its milder and lighter form, and trying to abolitionize the
***
Parson Lovejoy, who were ready to receive them and christen them in their new faith. (Laughter and cheers.) They laid down on that occasion a platform for their new Republican party, which was to be thus constructed. I have the resolutions of
***
Mr. Lincoln to come out and say that he is now in favor of each one of them. (Laughter and applause. "Hit him again.) That these propositions, one and all, constitute the platform of the Black Republican party of this day, I have no doubt;
***
Winchester, and he a flourishing grocery-keeper in the town of Salem. (Applause and laughter.) He was more successful in his occupation than I was in mine, and hence more fortunate in this world's goods. Lincoln is one of those peculiar men
***
running a foot-race, in pitching quoits or tossing a copper; could ruin more liquor than all the boys of the town together, (uproarious laughter,) and the dignity and impartiality with which he presided at a horse-race or fist-fight, excited the admiration and won the praise of everybody that was present and participated. (Renewed laughter.) I symphathised with him, because he was struggling with difficulties, and so was I. Mr. Lincoln served with me in the Legislature in 1836,
***
platform, in company with Giddings, Lovejoy, Chase and Fred Douglass, for the Republican party to sand upon. (Laughter, "Hit him again," &c.)Trumbull, too, was one of our own contemporaries. He was born and raised in old Connecticut, was
***
was popular, and as soon as he disposed of his clocks and wound up his business, migrated to Illinois, (laughter,) turned politician and lawyer here, and made his appearance in 1841, as a member of the Legislature. He became noted as the
***
should be the Senator in Shields's place, and Trumbull was to wait for mine; (laughter and cheers,) and the story goes, that Trumbull cheated Lincoln, having control of four or five abolitionized Democrats who were holding over in the Senate; he would not let them vote for Lincoln, and which obliged the rest of the Abolitionists to support him in order to secure an Abolition Senator. There are a number of authorities for the truth of this besides Matheny, and I suppose that even Mr. Lincoln will not deny it. (Applause and laughter.)
Mr. Lincoln demands that he shall have the place intended for Trumbull, as
***
("Good," "good," and cheers.)
I am delighted to hear you Black Republicans say "good." (Laughter and cheers.) I have no doubt that doctrine expresses your sentiments ("hit them again," "that's
***
We are told by Lincoln that he is utterly opposed to the Dred Scott decision, and will not submit to it, for the reason that he says it deprives the negro of the rights and privileges of citizenship. (Laughter and applause.) That is the first and main reason which he assigns for his warfare on the Supreme Court of the United Sates
***
do not question Mr. Lincoln's conscientious belief that the negro was made his equal, and hence is his brother, (laughter,) but for my own part, I do not regard the negro as my equal, and positively deny that he is my brother or any kin to me whatever. ("Never." "Hit him again," and cheers.) Lincoln has evidently learned by heart Parson Lovejoy's catechism. (Laughter and applause.) He can repeat it as well as Farnsworth, and he is worthy of a medal from Father Giddings and Fred Douglass for his Abolitionism. (Laughter.) He holds that the negro was born his equal and yours, and that he was endowed with equality by the Almighty, and
***
Mr. Lincoln's Speech
***
even Judge Douglas-can prove it, because it is not true . [Cheers.] I have no doubt he is " conscientious " in saying it. [Laughter.] As to those resolutions that he took such a length of time to read, as being the platform of the Republican party in 1854, I say I never had anything to do with them, and I think Trumbull never had. [Renewed laughter.] Judge Douglas cannot show that either of us ever did have anything to do with them. I believe this is true about those resolutions: There was
***
true, and I think if he will remember accurately, he will be able to recollect that he tried to get me into it, and I would not go in. [Cheers and laughter.] I believe it is also true that I went away from Springfield when the Convention was in session,
***
it is not satisfactory to me that he may be "conscientious" on the subject. [Cheers and Laughter.]
Now, gentlemen, I hate to waste my time on such things, but in regard to that
***
MR. LINCOLN-Yes, sir, I am obliged to do so. I am no longer a young man. [Laughter.]
"This is the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. The foregoing history may not be
***
arrangement of words, by which a man can prove a horse-chestnut to be a chestnut horse. [Laughter.] I will say here, while upon this subject, that I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the
***
equal and the equal of Judge Douglas, and the equal of every living man. [Great applause.]
Now I pass on to consider one or two more of these little follies. The Judge is wofully at fault about his early friend Lincoln being a "grocery keeper." [Laughter.] I don't know as it would be a great sin, if I had been; but he is mistaken. Lincoln never kept a grocery anywhere in the world. [Laughter.] It is true that Lincoln did work the latter part of one winter in a little still house, up at the head of a hollow. [Roars of laughter.] And so I think my friend, the Judge, is equally at fault when he charges me at the time when I was in Congress of having opposed our soldiers
***
He has read from my speech in Springfield, in which I say that "a house divided against itself cannot stand." Does the Judge say it can stand? [Laughter.] I don't know whether he does or not. The Judge does not seem to be attending to me
***
and me, but between the Judge and an authority of a somewhat higher character. [Laughter and applause.]
Now, my friends, I ask your attention to this matter for the purpose of saying
***
A VOICE- "Then do you repudiate Popular Sovereignty?"
MR. LINCOLN-Well, then, let us talk about Popular Sovereignty! [Laughter.] What is Popular Sovereignty? [Cries of "A humbug," "a humbug."] Is it the right of the
***
Territory to have slavery if they want to, but does not allow them not to have it if they do not want it. [Applause and laughter.] I do not mean that if this vast concourse of people were in a Territory of the United States, any one of them
***
will not grow, because they cut pine logs in Maine, where they do grow? [Laughter.] The Judge says this is a new principle started in regard to this question. Does the Judge claim that he is working on the plan of the founders of
***
Nebraska bill! I am fighting it upon these " original principles''-fighting it in the Jeffersonian, Washingtonian, and Madisonian fashion. [Laughter and applause.]
Now, my friends, I wish you to attend for a little while to one or two other things
***
set the States at war with one another, to make all the institutions uniform, and set the niggers and white people to marrying together. [Laughter.] Then, as the Judge had complimented me with these pleasant titles (I must confess to my weakness), I was a little "taken," [laughter] for it came from a great man. I was not very much accustomed to flattery, and it came the sweeter to me. I was rather like the Hoosier, with the gingerbread, when he said he reckoned he loved it better than any other man, and got less of it. [Roars of laughter.] As the Judge had so flattered me, I could not make up my mind that he meant to deal unfairly
***
slavery. He says upon that: Lincoln will not enter into the Slave States, but will go to the banks of the Ohio, on this side, and shoot over! [Laughter.] He runs on, step by step, in the horse-chestnut style of argument, until in the Springfield speech he says, "Unless he shall be successful in firing his batteries, until he shall have extinguished slavery in all the States, the Union shall be dissolved." Now I don't think that was exactly the way to treat "a kind, amiable, intelligent gentleman." I know if I had asked the Judge to show when or where it was I had said that, if I didn't succeed in firing into the slave States until slavery should be extinguished, the Union should be dissolved, he could not have shown it. I understand what he would do. He would say, "I don't mean to quote from you, but this was the result of what you say." But I have the right to ask, and I do ask now, Did you not put it in such a form that an ordinary reader or listener would take it as an expression from me? [Laughter.]
In a speech at Springfield, on the night of the 17th, I thought I might as well
***
charge of falsehood, not because of any regard for the "kind, amiable, intelligent gentleman," but because of his own personal self-respect! [Roars of Laughter.] I have understood since then (but [turning to Judge Douglas] will not hold the Judge to it if he is not willing) that he has broken through the "self-respect," and has got to saying the thing out . The Judge nods to me that it is so. [Laughter.] It is fortunate for me that I can keep as good-humored as I do, when the Judge
***
reasoned falsely, than to call the "kind, amiable, intelligent gentleman" a liar? [Cheers and laughter.] If I have reasoned to a false conclusion, it is the vocation of an able debater to show by argument that I have wandered to an erroneous
***
gentlemen," as though the niche was left as a place to put that Dred Scott decision in - [laughter and cheers] - a niche which would have been spoiled by adopting the amendment. And now, I say again, if this was not the reason, it will
***
I confess this is rather a curious view, that out of respect for me he should consider I was making what I deemed rather a grave charge in fun. [Laughter.] I confess it strikes me rather strangely. But I let it pass. As the Judge did not for a
***
hope he will reconsider this question of the deep corruption of heart he has thought fit to ascribe to me. [Great applause and laughter.] In Judge Douglas's speech of March 22d, 1858, which I hold in my hand, he says:
***
make some allusion to it. It has read me out of the Democratic party every other day, at least for two or three months, and keeps reading me out, (laughter;) and, as if it had not succeeded, still continues to read me out, using such terms as
***
better than I, but I will make no question about this thing, though it still seems to me that I heard him say it twenty times. [Applause and laughter.] I will tell him though, that he now claims to stand on the Cincinnati platform, which affirms that
***
ones. Not only so, but it ended in the Judge's sitting down on that very bench as one of the five new Judges to break down the four old ones . [Cheers and laughter.] It was in this way precisely that he got his title of Judge. Now, when the Judge
***
to be catechised beforehand upon some subject, I say, "You know, Judge; you have tried it." [Laughter.] When he says a court of this kind will lose the confidence of all men, will be prostituted and disgraced by such a proceeding, I
***
MR. LINCOLN-Yes; no doubt you want to hear something that don't hurt. [Laughter and applause.] Now, having spoken of the Dred Scott decision, one more word and I am done. Henry Clay, my beau ideal of a statesman, the man for
***
Mr. Douglas' Reply
***
cheers.) How does he answer. Why, that he was not on the committee that wrote the resolutions. (Laughter.) I then repeated the next proposition contained in the resolutions, which was to restrict slavery in those States in which it exists, and
***
pleased, was akin to the man who would muzzle the guns which thundered forth the annual joyous return of the day of our independence. (Great laughter.) He says that that kind of talk is casting a blight on the glory of this country. What is
***
afraid to answer it. ("We will not vote for him.") He knows I will trot him down to Egypt. (Laughter and cheers.) I intend to make him answer there, ("that's right,") or I will show the people of Illinois that he does not intend to answer these
***
throwing up their hats, and shouting, "you've got him,") but he cannot devise his answer; he has not made up his mind whether he will or not. (Great laughter.) He talked about everything else he could think of to occupy his hour and a half, and
***
character to the charge. He then said that when he made it he did not know whether it was true or not (laughter), but inasmuch as Judge Douglas had not denied it, although he had replied to the other parts of his speech three times, he
***
carries that speech around and reads that sentence to show how pretty it is. (Laughter.) His vanity is wounded because I will not go into that beautiful figure of his about the building of a house. (Renewed laughter.) All I have to say is, that I am not green enough to let him make a charge which he acknowledges he does
***
into the Nebraska Bill! I will tell him. It was put there to meet just such false arguments as he has been adducing. (Laughter.) That first, not only the people of the Territories should do as they pleased, but that when they come to be
***
yet Mr. Lincoln does not know why the word State was placed in the Kansas-Nebraska bill. (Great laughter and applause.) The whole Abolition agitation arose on that doctrine of prohibiting a State from coming in with Slavery or not, as it
***
Full Debate Text
Mr. Lincoln's Speech
***
framed them. I will bring forward a new installment when I get them ready. [Laughter.] I will bring them forward now, only reaching to number four.
The first one is:
***
to do with that set of resolutions. It turns out, I believe, that those resolutions were never passed in any Convention held in Springfield. [Cheers and Laughter.] It turns out that they were never passed at any Convention or any public meeting
***
could say what he did upon this subject without knowing that it was true. [Cheers and laughter.] I contented myself, on that occasion, with denying, as I truly could, all connection with them, not denying or affirming whether they were passed at Springfield. Now it turns out that he had got hold of some resolutions passed at some Convention or public meeting in Kane county. [Renewed laughter.] I wish to say here, that I don't conceive that in any fair and just mind this discovery relieves me at all. I had just as much to do with the Convention in Kane county as that at Springfield. I am just as much responsible for the resolutions at Kane county as those at Springfield, the amount of the responsibility being exactly nothing in either case; no more than there would be in regard to a set of resolutions passed in the moon. [Laughter and loud cheers.]
I allude to this extraordinary matter in this canvass for some further purpose than
***
astonishing prosperity, such as to lead very many good men to doubt there being any advantage in virtue over vice - [Cheers and laughter] I say I can only account for it on the supposition that that evil genius has at last made up its mind to forsake him. [Continued cheers and laughter.]
And I may add that another extraordinary feature of the Judge's conduct in this
***
"conscientious" in saying so. He should remember that I did not know but what he was ALTOGETHER "CONSCIENTIOUS" in that matter. [Great Laughter.] I can conceive it possible for men to conspire to do a good thing, and I really find nothing in Judge Douglas's course or arguments that is contrary to or inconsistent with his belief of a conspiracy to nationalize and spread slavery as being a good and blessed thing, [Continued Laughter,] and so I hope he will understand that I do not at all question but that in all this matter he is entirely "conscientious." [More laughter and cheers.]
***
examination, that General Cass took some part in the little running debate upon that amendment, and then ran away and did not vote on it at all . [Laughter.] Is not that the fact? So confident, as I think, was General Cass that there was a
***
satisfactory answer? [Cries of "yes," "yes," and "no, " "no."] There is some little difference of opinion here. [Laughter.] But I ask attention to a few more views bearing on the question of whether it amounts to a satisfactory answer. The men
***
Mr. Douglas' Speech
***
like Mr. Lincoln to answer this question. I would like him to take his own medicine. (Laughter.) If he differs with Mr. Trumbull, let him answer his argument against the admission of Oregon, instead of poking questions at me. ("Right, good, good," laughter and cheers.)
The next question propounded to me by Mr. Lincoln is, can the people of a
***
Mr. Chase's amendment. I thought that I had chased that amendment out of Mr. Lincoln's brain at Ottawa; (laughter) but it seems that still haunts his imagination, and he is not yet satisfied. I had supposed that he would be ashamed to press that
***
the same principles. I have not been afraid to avow my sentiments up here for fear I would be trotted down into Egypt. (Cheers and laughter.)
The third question which Mr. Lincoln presented is, if the Supreme Court of the
***
reply was made on the spot, and yet now he asks this question. He might as well ask me, suppose Mr. Lincoln should steal a horse, would I sanction it; (laughter) and it would be as genteel in me to ask him, in the event he stole a horse, what
***
racked his brain so much in devising these four questions that he exhausted himself, and had not strength enough to invent the others. (Laughter.) As soon as he is able to hold a council with his advisers, Lovejoy, Farnsworth, and Fred Douglass, he will frame and propound others. [Good, good, &c. Renewed laughter, in which Mr. Lincoln feebly joined, saying that he hoped with their aid to get seven questions, the number asked him by Judge Douglas, and so make
***
was sitting on the box-seat, whilst Fred Douglass and her mother reclined inside, and the owner of the carriage acted as driver. (Laughter, cheers, cries of right, what have you to say against it, &c.) I saw this in your own town. ("What of it.")
***
his followers say, in excuse, that the resolutions upon which I based my interrogatories were not adopted at the " right spot. " (Laughter and applause.) Lincoln and his political friends are great on " spots ." (Renewed laughter.) In Congress, as a representative of this State, he declared the Mexican war to be
***
with those men who say that I libel you by calling these your principles, will you? ("Good, good, hit him again," and great laughter and cheers.) Now, Mr. Lincoln complains; Mr. Lincoln charges that I did you and him injustice by saying that this was the platform of your party. (Renewed laughter.) I am told that Washburne made a speech in Galena last night, in which he abused me awfully for bringing to light this platform, on which he was elected to Congress. He thought that you had forgotten it, as he and Mr. Lincoln desire to. (Laughter.) He did not deny but that you had adopted it, and that he had subscribed to and was pledged by it, but he did not think it was fair to call it up and remind the people that it was their platform.
[Here Deacon Bross spoke.]
But I am glad to find you are more honest in your abolitionism than your leaders, by avowing that it is your platform, and right in your opinion. (Laughter, "you have them, good, good.")
***
Black Republican party throughout the State. ("White, white," three cheers for Douglas.)
A voice- "Couldn't you modify and call it brown?" (laughter)
Mr. Douglas-Not a bit. I thought that you were becoming a little brown when your members in Congress voted for the Crittenden-Montgomery bill, but since you have backed out from that position and gone back to Abolitionism, you are black and not brown. (Shouts of laughter, and a voice, "Can't you ask him another question.")
***
***
against the admission of any more slave States, but says he would not like to be put to the test. (Laughter.) I do not think he will be put to the test. (Renewed laughter.) I do not think that the people of Illinois desire a man to represent them who would not like to be put to the test on the performance of a high
***
knew that the God of Heaven would smile upon me if I was faithful in the performance of my duty. (Cries of good, cheers, and laughter.)
Mr. Lincoln makes a charge of corruption against the Supreme Court of the United
***
high character as a man of integrity and honor is enough to vindicate him from such a charge, (laughter and applause,) and as to myself, I pronounce the charge an infamous lie, whenever and wherever made, and by whomsoever made. I am
***
so bound to it, that he must jump to the rescue and defend it from every attack that I may make against it? (Great laughter and cheers.) I understand the whole thing. The Washington Union , under that most corrupt of all men, Cornelius
***
Senate. Mr. Lincoln therefore considers an attack upon Wendell and his corrupt gang as a personal attack upon him. (Immense cheering and laughter.) This only proves what I have charged, that there is an alliance between Lincoln and his
***
Mr. Lincoln's Reply
***
wish, by way of reply on this subject, to say that while I was speaking, I used no "vulgarity or blackguardism" toward any Democrat. [Great laughter and applause.]
***
that I dare not speak out. Cannot the Judge be satisfied? If he fears, in the unfortunate case of my election, [Laughter.] that my going to Washington will enable me to advocate sentiments contrary to those which I expressed when you
voted for and elected me, I assure him that his fears are wholly needless and groundless. Is the Judge really afraid of any such thing? [Laughter.] I'll tell you what he is afraid of. He is afraid we'll all pull together . [Applause, and cries of "we will, we will."] This is what alarms him more than anything else. [Laughter.] For my part, I do hope that all of us, entertaining a common sentiment in opposition to what appears to us a design to nationalize and perpetuate slavery, will waive
***
no stain of falsehood upon my reputation-notwithstanding the hard opinions Judge Douglas chooses to entertain of me. [Laughter.]
The Judge has again addressed himself to the abolition tendencies of a speech of
***
may venture to leave it to you to inspect it closely, and see whether it contains any of those "bugaboos" which frighten Judge Douglas. [Laughter.]
The Judge complains that I did not fully answer his questions. If I have the sense
to comprehend and answer those questions, I have done so fairly. If it can be
***
establish this as a universal slave nation. The Judge is very happy indeed at working up these quibbles. [Laughter and cheers.] Before leaving the subject of answering questions I aver as my confident belief, when you come to see our
***
Buchanan against the charge? Not at all. Am I not making the same charge myself? [Laughter and applause.] I am trying to show that you, Judge Douglas, are a witness on my side. [Renewed Laughter.] I am not defending Buchanan, and I will tell Judge Douglas that in my opinion, when he made that charge, he had an
***
speech, and it is tolerably manifest that his eye was a great deal farther north than it is to-day. [Cheers and laughter.] The Judge says that though he made this charge, Toombs got up and declared there was not a man in the United States,
***
slavery, it all went to pot as soon as Toombs got up and told him it was not true. [Laughter.] It reminds me of the story that John Phoenix, the California railroad surveyor, tells. He says they started out from the Plaza to the Mission of Dolores.
***
surveyor put it down in his book-just as Judge Douglas says, after he had made his calculations and computations, he took Toombs' statement. [Great laughter.] I have no doubt that after Judge Douglas had made his charge, he was as easily satisfied about its truth as the surveyor was of the drayman's statement of the distance to the plaza. [Renewed laughter.] Yet it is a fact that the man who put forth all that matter which Douglas deemed a "fatal blow" at State sovereignty,
***
boldly, and apparently authoritatively ." By whose authority, Judge Douglas? [Great cheers and laughter.] Again, he says in another place, "It will be seen by these clauses in the Lecompton Constitution, that they are identical in spirit with
***
I saw that there was a fatal blow being struck at the sovereignty of the States of this Union."
I ask him if all this fuss was made over the editor of this newspaper. [Laughter.] It would be a terribly " fatal blow" indeed which a single man could strike, when no
***
such a miserable scapegrace as he represents that editor to be. But the Judge's eye is farther south now. [Laughter and cheers.] Then, it was very peculiarly and decidedly north. His hope rested on the idea of visiting the great "Black Republican" party, and making it the tail of his new kite. [Great laughter.] He knows he was then expecting from day to day to turn Republican and place
***
Full Debate Text
Mr. Douglas' Speech
***
accommodating enough to die or resign, and give him a chance to follow Lincoln. (Laughter, applause, and cries of "don't die.") That was a very nice little bargain so far as Lincoln and Trumbull were concerned, if it had been carried out in good
***
neighborhood they contented themselves with talking about the inexpediency of the repeal of the Missouri compromise. (Shouts of laughter.) In the extreme northern counties they brought out men to canvass the State whose complexion
***
there, following Gen. Cass, and attempting to speak on behalf of Lincoln, Trumbull and Abolitionism, against that illustrious Senator. (Renewed laughter.) Why, they brought Fred Douglass to Freeport, when I was addressing a meeting there, in a
***
discussion by Lincoln, Lovejoy, Trumbull, and Sidney Breese, who were on one side. (Laughter.) Father Giddings, the high-priest of Abolitionism, had just been there, and Chase came about the time I left. ("Why didn't you shoot him?") I did
***
and mixed drove, I had to use a short gun and fire into the crowd instead of taking them off singly with a rifle. (Great laughter and cheers.) Trumbull had for his lieutenants, in aiding him to abolitionize the Democracy, such men as John
***
elected, but not quite, until he forced them to drop Lincoln and elect him (Trumbull), in order to unite the party. (Immense laughter.) Thus you find, that although the Legislature was carried that year by the bargain between Trumbull, Lincoln, and the Abolitionists, and the union of these discordant elements in one harmonious party; yet Trumbull violated his pledge, and played a Yankee trick on Lincoln when they came to divide the spoils. (Laughter and cheers. Mr. Lincoln greatly agitated, his face buried in his hands.) Perhaps you would like a little
***
Matheny thought that his friend Lincoln made a bad bargain when he conspired
and contracted with such rogues as Trumbull and his Abolition associates in that campaign. (Great cheers and laughter; Lincoln looking very miserable.) Lincoln was shoved off the track, and he and his friends all at once began to mope; became sour and mad, (laughter,) and disposed to tell, but dare not; (shouts of laughter;) and thus they stood for a long time, until the Abolitionists coaxed and flattered him back by their assurances that he should certainly be a Senator in Douglas's place. (Roars of laughter, Lincoln looking as if he had not a friend on earth, although Herr Kriesman whispered "never mind" into his ear.) In that way
***
again to be cheated by them. Lincoln this time, though, required more of them than a promise, and holds their bond, if not security, that Lovejoy shall not cheat him as Trumbull did. (Renewed shouts of laughter.)
***
spectacle of having but one-the first, the last, and only choice for the Senate. (Laughter.) Suppose that Lincoln should die, what a horrible condition the Republican party would be in! (A groan from Lincoln, and great laughter.) They would have nobody left. They have no other choice, and it was necessary for
***
citizen whether we like it or not. Hence I do not choose to go into an argument to prove, before this audience, whether or not Chief Justice Taney understood the law better than Abraham Lincoln. (Laughter.)
Mr. Lincoln objects to that decision, first and mainly because it deprives the negro
***
Mr. Lincoln's Speech
***
making an argument up into the consistency of a corn-cob and stopping his mouth with it. [Laughter and applause.] All I can do is, good-humoredly to say that, from the beginning to the end of all that story about a bargain between
***
the genuineness of this document, since his production of those Springfield resolutions at Ottawa. [Laughter and cheers.] I do not wish to dwell at any great length upon this matter. I can say nothing when a long story like this is told,
***
Abolitionism, but it has got an extremely good name since it has passed away. [Laughter.]
When that Compromise was made it did not repeal the old Missouri Compromise.
***
the resolutions that he has hunted up against me, what I, as a lawyer, would call a good plea to a bad declaration. [Laughter.] I understand that it is a maxim of law, that a poor plea may be a good plea to a bad declaration. I think that the opinions
***
California, to help the Judge beat me; and there was poor Martin P. Sweet standing on the platform, trying to help poor me to be elected. [Laughter.] That is true of one of Judge Douglas's friends.
***
"Cook County-E. B. Williams, Charles McDonell, Arno Voss, Thomas Hoyne, Isaac Cook."
I reckon we ought to except Cook. [Laughter.]
"F. C. Sherman."
***
with him at Ottawa, at the time the Judge says my knees trembled so that I had to be carried away. [Laughter.] The names are all here:
"DuPage-Nathan Allen."
***
come square up to him I don't know what else to call him, if I must tell the truth out. [Cheers and laughter.] I want to be at peace, and reserve all my fighting powers for necessary occasions. My time, now, is very nearly out, and I give up
***
Mr. Douglas' Reply
***
he trembled and had to be carried off the stand, and required seven days to get up his reply. (Laughter.) That he did not walk off from that stand he will not deny. That when the crowd went away from the stand with me, a few persons carried him home on their shoulders and laid him down, he will admit. (Shouts of laughter.) I wish to say to you that whenever I degrade my friends and myself by allowing them to carry me on their backs along through the public streets, when I am able to walk, I am willing to be deemed crazy. ("All right, Douglas," laughter and applause. Lincoln chewing his nails in a rage in a back corner.) I did not say
***
frankly that I would be exceedingly sorry ever to be put in the position of having to pass on that question. ("No doubt," and laughter. Mr. Lincoln looks savagely into the crowd for the man who said "no doubt.") I should be exceedingly glad to
***
not let him vote "No," and he would be sorry to do that which his conscience would compel him to do as an honest man. (Laughter and cheers.)
In regard to the contract or bargain between Trumbull, the Abolitionists and him,
***
Mr. Lincoln attempts to cover up and get over his Abolitionism by telling you that he was raised a little east of you, (laughter,) beyond the Wabash in Indiana, and he thinks that makes a mighty sound and good man of him on all these questions.
***
here and turned Abolitionists whilst spending the money got for the negroes they sold, (that's so, and laughter,) and I do not know that an Abolitionist from Indiana or Kentucky ought to have any more credit because he was born and raised
***
give you my word and honor I understood just as much of the Latin as he did. (Laughter.) When they got through conferring the honorary degree, they called upon me for a speech, and I got up with my heart full and swelling with gratitude for their kindness, and I said to them, "My friends, Vermont is the most glorious spot on the face of this globe for a man to be born in, provided he emigrates when he is very young." (Uproarious shouts of laughter.)
I emigrated when I was very young. I came out here when I was a boy, and I found
***
Now I desire to call your attention to the fact that Lincoln did not define his own position in his own question. ("He can't, it's too far South," and laughter.) How does he stand on that question? He put the question to me at Freeport whether
***
opinion, my answer on that question was not quite plain enough, and yet he has not answered it himself. (Great Laughter.) He now puts a question in relation [to] Congressional interference in the Territories to me. I answer him direct, and yet
***
Full Debate Text
Mr. Lincoln's Speech
***
whether I was really in favor of producing a perfect equality between the negroes and white people. [Great Laughter.] While I had not proposed to myself on this occasion to say much on that subject, yet as the question was asked me I thought
***
not understand that because I do not want a negro woman for a slave I must necessarily want her for a wife. [Cheers and laughter.] My understanding is that I can just let her alone. I am now in my fiftieth year, and I certainly never have had
***
frequently as to be entirely satisfied of its correctness-and that is the case of Judge Douglas's old friend Col. Richard M. Johnson. [Laughter.] I will also add to the remarks I have made (for I am not going to enter at large upon this subject,) that I have never had the least apprehension that I or my friends would marry negroes if there was no law to keep them from it, [laughter] but as Judge Douglas and his friends seem to be in great apprehension that they might, if there were no law to keep them from it, [roars of laughter] I give him the most solemn pledge that I will to the very last stand by the law of this State, which forbids the marrying of white people with negroes. [Continued laughter and applause.] I will add one further word, which is this: that I do not understand that there is any
***
Judge be kept at home and placed in the State Legislature to fight the measure. [Uproarious laughter and applause.] I do not propose dwelling longer at this time on this subject.
***
ratify the land propositions at the election for the adoption of the Constitution, unless such an election was to be held?" [Applause and laughter.] That is Trumbull's argument. Now Judge Douglas does not meet the charge at all, but he
***
Trumbull had been in the plot with these other men, would that let Douglas out of it? [Applause and laughter.] Would it exonerate Douglas that Trumbull didn't then perceive he was in the plot? He also asks the question: Why didn't Trumbull
***
Mr. Lincoln's Reply
***
"forever," as both the great political parties declared in their National Conventions. That "forever" turned out to be just four years, [laughter] when Judge Douglas himself reopened it . [Immense applause, cries of "hit him again," &c.] When is it likely to come to an end? He introduced the Nebraska bill in 1854
***
think last winter, he did say that he didn't quite see when the end of the slavery agitation would come. [Laughter and cheers.] Now he tells us again that it is all over, and the people of Kansas have voted down the Lecompton Constitution. How is it over? That was only one of the attempts at putting an end to the slavery agitation-one of these "final settlements." [Renewed laughter.] Is Kansas in the Union? Has she formed a Constitution that she is likely to come in under? Is not
***
which we were just talking, by producing the record. He didn't bring the record, because there was no record for him to bring. [Cheers and laughter.] When he asks if I am ready to indorse Trumbull's veracity after he has broken a bargain with me, I reply that if Trumbull had broken a bargain with me, I would not be likely to indorse his veracity; [laughter and applause]; but I am ready to indorse his veracity because neither in that thing, nor in any other, in all the years that I
***
several portions of his book, and that he talks a great deal worse of Judge Douglas . [Roars of laughter and applause.] I refer you, sir, to the history for examination. [Cheers.]
***
Lincoln, having indorsed the character of Trumbull for veracity, he should hold him (Lincoln) responsible for the slanders." What was Lincoln to do? [Laughter.] Did he not do right, when he had the fit opportunity of meeting Judge Douglas
***
when each piece of a story is true, the whole story turns out false? [Great cheers and laughter.] I take it these people have some sense; they see plainly that Judge Douglas is playing cuttlefish, [Laughter] a small species of fish that has no mode of defending itself when pursued except by throwing out a black fluid, which makes the water so dark the enemy cannot see it, and thus it escapes. [Roars of laughter.] Ain't the Judge playing the cuttlefish? ["yes, yes," and cheers.]
Now I would ask very special attention to the consideration of Judge Douglas's
***
the charge to say he afterward took it out. Both are perhaps true. It was in regard to that thing precisely that I told him he had dropped the cub. [Roars of laughter.] Trumbull shows you that by his introducing the bill it was his cub. [Laughter] It is no answer to that assertion to call Trumbull a liar merely because he did not specially say that Douglas struck it out. Suppose that were the case, does it answer Trumbull? [No, no] I assert that you (pointing to an individual,) are here to-day, and you undertake to prove me a liar by showing that you were in Mattoon yesterday. [Laughter.] I say that you took your hat off your head, and you prove me a liar by putting it on your head. [Roars of laughter.] That is the whole force of Douglas's argument.
***
in the case- I suggest to him it will not avail him at all that he swells himself up, takes on dignity, and calls people liars . [Great applause and laughter.] Why, sir, there is not a word in Trumbull's speech that depends on Trumbull's veracity at
***
disprove that proposition, and to show that it is erroneous, would you prove it to be false by calling Euclid a liar? [Roars of laughter and enthusiastic cheers.] They tell me that my time is out, and therefore I close.
Full Debate Text
Mr. Douglas' Speech
***
as ever Giddings, Lovejoy, or Garrison enunciated, but when he gets down a little further South he claims that he is an old line Whig, (great laughter,) a disciple of Henry Clay, ("Singleton says he defeated Clay's nomination for the Presidency,"
***
can then say whether you would be apt to believe that the same man ever uttered both. (Laughter and cheers.) In a speech in reply to me at Chicago in July last, Mr. Lincoln, in speaking of the equality of the negro with the white man,
***
put him on an equality with the white man, that we should take the statute book and tear it out. (Laughter and cheers.) He there took the ground that the negro race is included in the Declaration of Independence as the equal of the white
***
Mr. Lincoln's Speech
***
MY FELLOW-CITIZENS:-A very large portion of the speech which Judge Douglas has addressed to you has previously been delivered and put in print. [Laughter.] I do not mean that for a hit upon the Judge at all. [Renewed laughter.] If I had not been interrupted, I was going to say that such an answer as I was able to make to
***
twelve years of age, and expect him to grow to man's size without bursting the hoops. [Laughter.] I believe it was something like that. Consequently he was in favor of the acquisition of further territory, as fast as we might need it, in
***
Mr. Douglas Reply
***
here?" I would remind him that Russia is not under the American Constitution. ("Good," and laughter.) If Russia was a part of the American Republic, under our Federal Constitution, and I was sworn to support the Constitution, I would
***
the 4th or 5th of October, 1854, which happened not to have been adopted there. He has used hard names; has dared to talk about fraud, (laughter), about forgery, and has insinuated that there was a conspiracy between Mr. Lanphier, Mr. Harris, and myself to perpetrate a forgery. (Renewed laughter.) Now, bear in mind that he does not deny that these resolutions were adopted in a majority of
***
that the Mexican war was not begun in the right spot , and was therefore unjust. (Renewed laughter.) He tries very hard to make out that there is something very extraordinary in the place where the thing was done, and not in the thing itself. I
***
I have a few words to say upon the Dred Scott decision, which has troubled the brain of Mr. Lincoln so much. (Laughter.) He insists that that decision would carry slavery into the free States, notwithstanding that the decision says directly the
***
United States, when he could not get there on his own principles, or his own merits. (Laughter and cheers; "hit him again.") Suppose he should succeed in getting into the Senate of the United States, what then will he have to do with the
***
not. He says that their decisions are binding on Democrats, but not on Republicans. (Laughter and applause.) Are not Republicans bound by the laws of the land as well as Democrats? And when the court has fixed the construction of
***
Full Debate Text
Mr. Lincoln's Speech
***
made. I give him this third chance to say yes or no. He is not obliged to do either-probably he will not do either- [laughter] but I give him the third chance. I tried to show then that this result-this conclusion inevitably followed from the point already decided by the court. The Judge, in his reply, again sneers at the thought
of the court making any such decision, and in the course of his remarks upon this subject, uses the language which I will now read. Speaking of me the Judge says:
***
Trumbull any more, but thereafter he should hold Lincoln responsible for the slanders upon him. [Laughter.] When I met him at Charleston after that, although I think that I should not have noticed the subject if he had not said he would hold
***
I went through with each and every piece, Judge Douglas did not dare then to say that any piece of it was a forgery. [Laughter, and cries of "good,good."] So it seems that there are some things that Judge Douglas dares to do, and some that he dares not to do. [Great applause and laughter.]
A VOICE-" It's the same thing with you."
***
made he had been with those friends, and had not kept his promise in regard to the investigation and the report upon it. [Loud laughter. Cries of "Good, good," "Hit him hard."] I am not a very daring man, [laughter] but I dared that much, Judge, and I am not much scared about it yet. [Uproarious laughter and applause.] When the Judge says he wouldn't have believed of Abraham Lincoln that he
***
entered upon this canvass with the purpose to treat me courteously; that touched me somewhat. [Great laughter.] It sets me to thinking. I was aware, when it was first agreed that Judge Douglas and I were to have these seven joint discussions,
***
has the high distinction, so far as I know, of never having said slavery is either right or wrong. [Laughter.] Almost everybody else says one or the other, but the Judge never does. If there be a man in the Democratic party who thinks it is
***
Mr. Douglas' Speech
***
slavery as one of their institutions, that he supposes he would have to let it come in. (Laughter.) I submit to you whether that answer of his to my question does not justify me in saying that he has a fertile genius in devising language to conceal his
***
other decisions. What court or judge ever held that a negro was a citizen? (Laughter.) The State courts had decided that question over and over again, and the Dred Scott decision on that point only affirmed what every court in the land
***
because he is a Republican that he is not bound by the decisions of the court, but that I being a Democrat am so bound. (Laughter and cheers.) It may be that Republicans do not hold themselves bound by the laws of the land and the
***
Mr. Lincoln's Reply
***
course that I will not be able to answer in half an hour all that he said in an hour and a half. [Cheers and laughter.]
I wish to return to Judge Douglas my profound thanks for his public annunciation
***
while it occupies it, there is no room even for the shadow of a starved pigeon to occupy the same ground. [Great cheering and laughter.]
A VOICE, on the platform---"Your time is almost out." [Loud cries of "Go on, go
***
or a wife, and I think I can live fifty centuries, for that matter, without having had one for either. [Cheers and laughter.] I maintain that you may take Judge Douglas's quotations from my Chicago speech, and from my Charleston speech,
***
against the bare word of Charles H. Lanphier or Thomas L. Harris. Well, that is altogether a matter of opinion. [Laughter.] It is certainly not for me to vaunt my word against oaths of these gentlemen, but I will tell Judge Douglas again the
***
that promise? That fraud has been traced up so that it lies between him, Harris and Lanphier. There is little room for escape for Lanphier. [Laughter.] Lanphier is doing the Judge good service, and Douglas desires his word to be taken for the
***
responsible for an act that he has done. You will judge whether there is any difference in the " spots. " [Laughter and cheers.] And he has taken credit for great magnanimity in coming forward and acknowledging what is proved on him beyond even the capacity of Judge Douglas to deny, and he has more capacity in that way than any other living man. [Laughter and cheers.]
Then he wants to know why I won't withdraw the charge in regard to a conspiracy
***
worship, I will withdraw it when it is proven false on me as that was proven false on him . [Shouts of applause and laughter.] I will add a little more than that. I will withdraw it whenever a reasonable man shall be brought to believe that the
***
Full Debate Text
Mr. Douglas' Speech
***
Convention as he did at Springfield this summer, and addressing himself to the President, had said, "A house divided against itself cannot stand; (laughter) this government, divided into free and slave States, cannot endure, they must all be
***
would vote for the admission of any more slave States in the event the people wanted them. He would not answer. (Applause and laughter.) I then told him that if he did not answer the question there I would renew it at Freeport, and would
***
Here permit me to remark, that I do not think the people will ever force him into a position against his will. (Great laughter and applause.) He went on to say:
But I must add in regard to this, that if slavery shall be kept out of the Territory
***
would not answer, and I have not yet been able to get an answer from him. (Laughter, "he'll answer this time," "he's afraid to answer," etc.) I have asked him whether he would vote to admit Nebraska if her people asked to come in as a
***
times in our joint discussions whether he would vote to redeem that pledge, and he has never yet answered. He is as silent as the grave on the subject. (Laughter, "Lincoln must answer," "he will," &c.) He would rather answer as to a state of the case which will never arise than commit himself by telling what he would do in a case which would come up for his action soon after his election to Congress. ("He'll never have to act on any question," and laughter.) Why can he not say whether he is willing to allow the people of each State to have slavery or not as
***
But I am told that I would have been all right if I had only voted for the English bill after Lecompton was killed. (Laughter and cheers.) You know a general pardon was granted to all political offenders on the Lecompton question, provided they
***
Mr. Lincoln's Speech
***
and he has been gradually improving in regard to his war with the Administration. [Laughter, "That's so."] At Quincy, day before yesterday, he was a little more severe upon the Administration than I had heard him upon any occasion, and I
***
very much obliged if they would give it to him in about the same way. [Uproarious laughter and cheers.] I take it he has now vastly improved upon the attack he made then upon the Administration. I flatter myself he has really taken my advice
***
then commended-to prosecute the war against one another in the most vigorous manner. I say to them again-"Go it, husband!-Go it, bear!" [Great laughter.]
There is one other thing I will mention before I leave this branch of the discussion-
***
[Cheers.] I want to know if Buchanan has not as much right to be inconsistent as Douglas has? [Loud applause and laughter; "Good, good!" "Hurrah for Lincoln!"] Has Douglas the exclusive right , in this country, of being on all sides of all questions ? Is nobody allowed that high privilege but himself? Is he to have an entire monopoly on that subject? [Great laughter.]
So far as Judge Douglas addressed his speech to me, or so far as it was about me,
***
with them, and I know they always had some sense, whatever else you could ascribe to them. [Great Laughter.] I know there never was one who had not more sense than to try to show by the evidence he produces that some man had, prior
***
speech of Henry Clay which I used to bring forward to prove precisely the contrary. [Laughter.] I guess we are surrounded to some extent to-day by the old friends of Mr. Clay, and they will be glad to hear anything from that authority.
***
Judge Douglas. He has warred upon them as Satan wars upon the Bible. [Laughter.] His perversions upon it are endless. Here now are my views upon it in brief.
***
thing, and that very allaying plaster of Judge Douglas's stirred it up again. [Applause and laughter.] But was it not understood or intimated with the "confident promise" of putting an end to the slavery agitation? Surely it was. In
***
cranberries, because they have a cranberry law in Indiana, where they have cranberries. [Laughter, "good,good."] I should insist that it would be exceedingly wrong in us to deny to Virginia the right to enact oyster laws where they have oysters, because we want no such laws here. [Renewed laughter.] I understand, I hope, quite as well as Judge Douglas or anybody else, that the variety in the soil
***
Northern politicians. He thinks we want to get "his place," I suppose. [Cheers and laughter.] I agree that there are office seekers amongst us. The Bible says somewhere that we are desperately selfish. I think we would have discovered that
***
men, but I do claim that I am not more selfish than Judge Douglas. [Roars of laughter and applause.]
But is it true that all the difficulty and agitation we have in regard to this
***
it is an exceedingly simple thing, and we ought not to talk about it? [Great cheers and laughter.] If you will get every body else to stop talking about it, I assure you I will quit before they have half done so. [Renewed laughter.] But where is the philosophy or statesmanship which assumes that you can quiet that disturbing
***
care the most about ? ["Yes, yes," and applause]-a thing which all experience has shown we care a very great deal about? [Laughter and applause.]
The Judge alludes very often in the course of his remarks to the exclusive right
***
institution of slavery? [Another voice-"a thousand and one."] I reckon there are a thousand and one. [Laughter.] I will ask you, if the policy you are now advocating had prevailed when this country was in a Territorial condition, where would you
***
Mr. Douglas' Reply
Mr. Lincoln has concluded his remarks by saying that there is not such an Abolitionist as I am in all America. (Laughter.) If he could make the Abolitionists of Illinois believe that, he would not have much show for the Senate. (Great laughter and applause.) Let him make the Abolitionists believe the truth of that statement and his political back is broken. (Renewed laughter.)
His first criticism upon me is the expression of his hope that the war of the
***
Abolition ticket, and only leave the greenhorns to vote this separate ticket who refuse to go into the Abolition camp. (Laughter and cheers.) There is something really refreshing in the thought that Mr. Lincoln is in favor of prosecuting one war vigorously. (Roars of laughter.) It is the first war I ever knew him to be in favor of prosecuting. (Renewed laughter.) It is the first war that I ever knew him to believe to be just or constitutional. (Laughter and cheers.) When the Mexican war [was] being waged, and the American army was surrounded by the enemy in Mexico, he
***
"you've got him," "he voted against it," &c.) He thought it was not commenced on the right spot . (Laughter.)
When I made an incidental allusion of that kind in the joint discussion over at
***
and caught hold of Ficklin, who sat on the stand, and said, "Here, Ficklin, tell the people that it is a lie." (Laughter and cheers.) Well, Ficklin, who had served in Congress with him, stood up and told them all that he recollected about it. It was
***
supplies in my life, because I knew that he was not in Congress when they were voted. (Tremendous shouts of laughter.) The war was commenced on the 13th day of May, 1846, and on that day we appropriated in Congress ten millions of
***
men and enough money to carry on the war, and had no occasion to vote any more. (Laughter and cheers.) When he got into the House, being opposed to the war, and not being able to stop the supplies, because they had all gone forward,
***
his place, giving, as his reason, that if the Whigs did not take up Gen. Taylor the Democrats would. (Cheers and laughter.) Singleton testifies that Lincoln, in that speech, urged, as another reason for throwing Henry Clay overboard, that the
***
Convention because he insisted on voting for Clay, and Lincoln was determined to have Taylor. (Laughter and applause.) Singleton says that Lincoln rejoiced with very great joy when he found the mangled remains of the murdered Whig statesman lying cold before him. Now, Mr. Lincoln tells you that he is an old line Clay Whig! (Laughter and cheers.) Gen. Singleton testifies to the facts I have narrated, in a public speech which has been printed and circulated broadcast over
***
boast that he voted forty-two times for the Wilmot proviso, and that he would have voted as many times more if he could. (Laughter.) Lincoln is the man, in connection with Seward, Chase, Giddings, and other Abolitionists, who got up
***
slavery in the States where it exists, nor does his party. I expected him to say that down here. (Laughter.) Let me ask him then how he expects to put slavery in the course of ultimate extinction every where, if he does not intend to interfere with
***
name of humanity and Christianity, in order that we may get rid of the terrible crime and sin entailed upon our fathers of holding slaves. (Laughter and cheers.) Mr. Lincoln makes out that line of policy, and appeals to the moral sense of justice
***