V. THE SLAVERY ISSUE

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

An extract from a speech delivered at Alton, Ill., October 15, 1858. It is taken from one of a series of seven speeches delivered in joint debate with Douglas in the Senatorial campaign in Illinois. Lincoln lost the Senatorship but won the Presidency by this series of speeches.

Fellow-citizens, I have not only made the declaration that I do not mean to produce a conflict between the states, but I have tried to show by fair reasoning that I propose nothing but what has a most peaceful tendency. The quotation that "a house divided against itself cannot stand," and which has proved so offensive to Judge Douglas, was part of the same thing. He 'tries to show that variety in the domestic institutions of the different states is necessary and indispensable. I do not dispute it. I very readily agree with him that it would be foolish for us to insist upon having a cranberry law here in Illinois. where we have no cranberries, because they have a cranberry law in Indiana where they have cranberries. 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. If we here raise a barrel of flour more than we want and the Louisianians raise a barrel of sugar more than they want, it is of mutual advantage to exchange. That produces commerce, brings us together and makes us better friends. These mutual accommodations bind together the different parts of this Union. Instead of being a thing to "divide the house" they tend to sustain it, they are the props of the house tending always to hold it up.

But is it true that all the difficulty and agitation we have in regard to this institution of slavery springs from office seeking, from the mere ambition of politicians? Is that the truth? How many times have we had danger from this question? Go back to the days of the Missouri Compromise. Go back to the Nullification question, at the bottom of which lay this same

slavery question. Go back to the time of the annexation of Texas. Go back to the troubles that led to the Compromise of 1850. You will find that every time, with the single exception of the Nullification question, they sprung from an endeavor to spread this institution. There never was a party in the history of this country, and there probably never will be, of sufficient strength to disturb the general peace of the country. Parties themselves may be divided and quarrel on minor questions. Yet it extends not beyond the parties themselves.

The Judge alludes very often in the course of his remarks to the exclusive right which the states have to decide for themselves. I agree with him very readily that the different states have the right. Our controversy with him is in regard to the new territories. We agree that when the states come in as states they have the right and the power to do as they please. We have no power as citizens of the free states or in our federal capacity as members of the federal Union through the general government to disturb slavery in the states where it exists. What I insist upon is that the new territories shall be kept free from it while in the territorial condition. Judge Douglas assumes that we have no interest in them, that we have no right whatever to interfere. I think we have some interest. I think that as white men we have. Do we not wish for an outlet for our surplus population, if I may so express myself? Do we not feel an interest in getting to that outlet with such institutions as we would like to have prevail there? If you go to the territory opposed to slavery and another man comes to the same ground with his slave, upon the assumption that the things are equal, it turns out that he has the equal right all his way and you have no part of it your way.

The real issue in this controversy is the sentiment on the part of one class that looks upon the institution of slavery as a wrong, and of another class that does not look upon it as wrong. It is the sentiment around which all their actions, all

their arguments circle, from which all their propositions radiate. They look upon it as being a moral, social, and political wrong. Has anything ever threatened the existence of this Union save this very institution of slavery? What is it that we hold most dear amongst us? Our own liberty and prosperity. What has ever threatened our liberty and prosperity except this institution of slavery? If this be true, how do you propose to improve the condition of things by enlarging it? You may have a cancer upon your person and not be able to cut it out lest you bleed to death, but surely it is no way to cure it to graft it and spread it over your body. That is no proper way of treating what you regard as wrong.

That is the real issue. That is the issue that will continue in this country when these poor tongues of Judge Douglas and myself are silent. It is the eternal struggle between these two principles, right and wrong, throughout the world. They are the two principles that have stood face to face from the beginning of time, and will ever continue to struggle. The one is the common right of humanity and the other is the divine right of kings. It is the same principle in whatever shape it develops itself. It is the same spirit that says, "You work and toil and earn bread and I'll eat it." No matter in what shape it comes, whether from the mouth of a king who seeks to bestride the people of his own nation and live by the fruit of their labor, or from one race of men as an apology for enslaving another race, it is the same tyrannical principle.

VI. MORAL ASPECT OF THE AMERICAN WAR

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Taken from a speech delivered in London, October 20, 1863. In a series of five speeches in order at Manchester, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Liverpool, and London, Henry Ward Beecher changed the attitude of the English nation from one of open hostility to the Union to neutrality and even to favor. It is doubtful if there ever was a greater triumph in the history of eloquence.

This war began by the act of the South, firing at the old flag that had covered both sections with glory and protection. The attack made upon us was under circumstances which inflicted immediate humiliation and threatened us with final subjugation. The Southerners held all the keys of the country. They had robbed our arsenals. They had made our treasury bankrupt. They had possession of the most important offices in the army and navy. They had the advantage of having long anticipated and prepared for the conflict. We knew not whom to trust. One man failed and another man failed.. Men, pensioned by the Government, lived on the salary of the Government only to have better opportunity to stab and betray it. And for the North to have lain down like a spaniel, to have given up the land that every child in America is taught, as every child in Britain is taught, to regard as his sacred right and his trust, to have given up the mouths of our own rivers and our mountain citadels without a blow, would have marked the North in all future history as craven and mean.

Second, the honor and safety of that grand experiment, self-government by free institutions, demanded that so flagitious a violation of the first principles of legality should not carry off impunity and reward, thereafter enabling the minority in every party conflict to turn and say to the majority, "If you don't give us our way we will make war." Oh, Englishmen, would you let a minority dictate in such a way to you? The principle thus introduced would literally have no end, would carry the nation back to its original elements of isolated states. Nor is there any reason why it should stop with states. If every treaty may be overthrown by which states have been settled into a nation, what form of political union may not on like grounds be severed? There is the same force in the doctrine of secession in the application of counties as in the application to states, and if it be right for a state or a county to secede, it is equally right for a town or a city. This doc

trine of secession is a huge revolving millstone that grinds the national life to powder. It is anarchy in velvet, and national destruction clothed in soft phrases. No people with patriotism and honor will give up territory without a struggle for it. Would you give it up? It is said that the states are owners of their territory! It is theirs to use not theirs to run away with. We have equal right with them to enter it. I would like to ask those English gentlemen who hold that it is right for a state to secede when it pleases, how they would like it if the county of Kent would try the experiment. The men who cry out for secession of the Southern States in America would say, "Kent seceding? Ah, circumstances alter cases.'

One more reason why we will not let this people go is because we do not want to become a military people. A great many say America is becoming too strong, she is dangerous to the peace of the world. But if you permit or favor this division, the South becomes a military nation and the North is compelled to become a military nation. Along a line of 1500 miles she must have forts and men to garrison them. Now any nation that has a large standing army is in great danger of losing its liberties. Before this war the legal size of the national army was 25,000. If the country were divided then we should have two great military nations taking its place. And if America by this ill-advised disruption is forced to have a standing army, like a boy with a knife she will always want to whittle with it. It is the interest then of the world, that the nation should be united, and that it should be under the control of that part of America that has always been for peace.

The religious minded among our people feel that in the territory committed to us there is a high and solemn trust, a national trust. We are taught that in some sense the world itself is a field, and every Christian nation acknowledges a certain responsibility for the moral condition of the globe. But