The first debate between Stephen A.
Douglas and Abraham Lincoln in 1858 during the Illinois Senate contest
is the quintessential debate of that era. It sheds important insight
into the key political issues in this critical period of our Nation's
history. Below, we present a transcript of Douglas's final
response to Abraham Lincoln in the debate.
Senator Douglas's Response to Abraham Lincoln
FELLOW-CITIZENS: I will now occupy the
half hour allotted to me in replying to Mr. Lincoln. The first point to
which I will call your attention is, as to what I said about the
organization of the Republican party in 1854, and the platform that was
formed on the 5th of October of that year, and I will then put the
question to Mr. Lincoln, whether or not he approves of each article in
that platform, and ask for a specific answer. I did not charge him with
being a member of the committee which reported that platform. I charged
that that platform was the platform of the Republican party adopted by
them. The fact that it was the platform of the Republican party is not
denied, but Mr. Lincoln now says that although his name was on the
committee which reported it, he does not think he was there, but thinks
he was in Taze-well, holding court. Now, I want to remind Mr. Lincoln
that he was at Springfield when that convention was held and those
resolutions adopted.
The point I am going to remind Mr. Lincoln of is this: that after I had
made my speech in 1854 during the fair, he gave me notice that he was
going to reply to me the next day. I was sick at the time, but I stayed
over in Springfield to hear his reply and to reply to him. On that day
this very convention, the resolutions adopted by which I have read, was
to meet in the Senate chamber. He spoke in the hall of the House; and
when he got through his speech -- my recollection is distinct, and I
shall never forget it -- Mr. Codding walked in as I took the stand to
reply, and gave notice that the Republican State convention would meet
instantly in the Senate chamber, and called upon the Republicans to
retire there and go into this very convention, instead of remaining and
listening to me.
In the first place, Mr. Lincoln was selected by the very men who made
the Republican organization on that day, to reply to me. He spoke for
them and for that party, and he was the leader of the party; and on the
very day he made his speech in reply to me, preaching up this same
doctrine of negro equality under the Declaration of Independence, this
Republican party met in convention. Another evidence that he was acting
in concert with them is to be found the fact that that convention waited
an hour after its time of meeting to hear Lincoln's speech, and Codding,
one of their leading men marched in the moment Lincoln got through and
gave notice that they did not want to hear me, and would proceed with
the business of the convention. Still another fact. I have here a
newspaper printed at Springfield -- Mr. Lincoln's own town -- in
October, 1854, a few days afterward, publishing these resolutions
charging Mr. Lincoln with entertaining these sentiments, and trying to
prove that they were also the sentiments of Mr. Yates, then candidate
for Congress. This has been published on Mr. Lincoln over and over
again, and never before has he denied it.
But, my friends, this denial of his that he did not act on the
committee, is a miserable quibble to avoid the main issue, which is,
that this Republican platform declares in favor of the unconditional
repeal of the fugitive-slave law. Has Lincoln answered whether he
indorsed that or not? I called his attention to it when I first
addressed you, and asked him for an answer, and I then predicted that he
would not answer. How does he answer? Why, that he was not on the
committee that wrote the resolutions. I then repeated the next
proposition contained in the resolutions, which was to restrict slavery
in those States in which it exists, and asked him whether he indorsed
it. Does he answer yes or no? He says in reply, "I was not on the
committee at the time; I was up in Tazewell." The next question I put to
him was, whether he was in favor of prohibiting the admission of any
more slave States into the Union. I put the question to him distinctly,
whether, if the people of the Territory, when they had sufficient
population to make a State, should form their constitution recognizing
slavery, he would vote for or against its admission. He is a candidate
for the United States Senate, and it is possible, if he should be
elected, that he would have to vote directly on that question. I asked
him to answer me and you, whether he would vote to admit a State into
the Union, with slavery or without it, as its own people might choose.
He did not answer that question. He dodges that question also, under
cover that he was not on the committee at the time, that he was not
present when the platform was made. I want to know, if he should happen
to be in the Senate when a State applied for admission with a
constitution acceptable to her own people, whether he would vote to
admit that State if slavery was one of its institutions. He avoids the
answer.
It is true he gives the Abolitionists to understand by a hint that he
would not vote to admit such a State. And why? He goes on to say that
the man who would talk about giving each State the right to have slavery
or not as it pleased, was akin to the man who would muzzle the guns
which thundered forth the annual joyous return of the day of our
independence. He says that that kind of talk is casting a blight on the
glory of this country. What is the meaning of that? That he is not in
favor of each State to have the right of doing as it pleases on the
slavery question? I will put the question to him again and again, and I
intend to force it out of him.
Then again, this platform which was made at Springfield by his own
party, when he was its acknowledged head, provides that Republicans will
insist on the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, and I
asked Lincoln specifically whether he agreed with them in that. ["Did
you get an answer?"] He is afraid to answer it. He knows I will trot him
down to Egypt. I intend to make him answer there, or I will show the
people of Illinois that he does not intend to answer these questions.
The convention to which I have been alluding goes a little further, and
pledges itself to exclude slavery from all the Territories over which
the General Government has exclusive jurisdiction north of 36' 30', as
well as south. Now I want to know whether he approves that provision. I
want him to answer, and when he does, I want to know his opinion on
another point, which is, whether he will redeem the pledge of this
platform and resist the acquirement of any more territory unless slavery
therein shall be forever prohibited. I want him to answer this last
question. All of the questions I have put to him are practical questions
-- questions based upon the fundamental principles of the Black
Republican party; and I want to know whether he is the first, last, and
only choice of a party with whom he does not agree in principle. He does
not deny that that principle was unanimously adopted by the Republican
party; he does not deny that the whole Republican party is pledged to
it; he does not deny that a man who is not faithful to it is faithless
to the Republican party; and now I want to know whether that party is
unanimously in favor of a man who does not adopt that creed and agree
with them in their principles: I want to know whether the man who does
not agree with them, and who is afraid to avow his differences, and who
dodges the issue, is the first, last, and only choice of the Republican
party.
[A voice: "How about the conspiracy?"]
Never mind, I will come to that soon enough. But the platform which I
have read to you not only lays down these principles, but it adds:
Resolved: That in furtherance of these principles we will use such
constitutional and lawful means as shall seem best adapted to their
accomplishment, and that we will support no man for office, under the
General or State Government, who is not positively and fully committed
to the support of these principles and whose personal character and
conduct are not a guaranty that he is reliable, and who shall not have
abjured old party allegiance and ties.
The Black Republican party stands pledged that they will never support
Lincoln until he has pledged himself to that platform, but he cannot
devise his answer; he has not made up his mind whether he will or not.
He talked about everything else he could think of to occupy his hour and
a half, and when he could not think of anything more to say, without an
excuse for refusing to answer these questions, he sat down long before
his time was out.
In relation to Mr. Lincoln's charge of conspiracy against me, I have a
word to say. In his speech to day he quotes a playful part of his speech
at Springfield, about Stephen, and James, and Franklin, and Roger, and
says that I did not take exception to it. I did not answer it, and he
repeats it again. I did not take exception to this figure of his. He has
a right to be as playful as he pleases in throwing his arguments
together, and I will not object; but I did take objection to his second
Springfield speech, which he stated that he intended his first Speech as
a charge of corruption or conspiracy against the Supreme Court of the
United States, president Pierce, President Buchanan, and myself That
gave the offensive character to the charge. He then said that when he
made it he did not know whether it was true or not, but inasmuch as
Judge Douglas had not denied it, although he had replied to the other
parts of his speech three times, he repeated it as a charge of
conspiracy against me, thus charging me with moral turpitude. When he
put it in that form, I did say, that inasmuch as he repeated the charge
simply because I had not denied it, I would deprive him of the
opportunity of ever repeating it again by declaring that it was in all
its bearings an infamous lie. He says he will repeat it until I answer
his folly and nonsense about Stephen, and Franklin, and Roger, and Bob,
and James.
He studied that out -- prepared that one sentence with the greatest
care, committed it to memory, and put it in his first Springfield
speech, and now he carries that speech around and reads that sentence to
show how pretty it is. His vanity is wounded because I will not go into
that beautiful figure of his about the building of a house. All I have
to say is that I am not green enough to let him make a charge which he
acknowledges he does not know to be true and then take up my time in
answering it, when I know it to be false and nobody else knows it to be
true.
I have not brought a charge of moral turpitude against him. When he, or
any other man brings one against me, instead of disproving it I will say
that it is a lie, and let him prove it if he can.
I have lived twenty-five years in Illinois. I have served you with all
the fidelity and ability which I possess, and Mr. Lincoln is at liberty
to attack my public action, my votes, and my conduct; but when he dares
to attack my moral integrity, by a charge of conspiracy between myself,
Chief Justice Taney and the Supreme Court, and two Presidents of the
United States, I will repel it.
Mr. Lincoln has not character enough for integrity and truth, merely on
his own ipse dixit, to arraign President Buchanan, President Pierce, and
nine judges of the Supreme Court, not one of whom would be complimented
by being put on an equality with him. There is an unpardonable
presumption in a man putting himself up before thousands of people, and
pretending that his ipse dixit, without proof, without fact, and without
truth, is enough to bring down and destroy the purest and best of living
men.
Fellow-citizens, my time is fast expiring; I must pass on. Mr. Lincoln
wants to know why I voted against Mr. Chase's amendment to the Nebraska
bill. I will tell him. In the first place the bill already conferred all
the power which Congress had, by giving the people the whole power over
the subject. Chase offered a proviso that they might abolish slavery,
which by implication would convey the idea that they could prohibit by
not introducing that institution. General Cass asked him to modify his
amendment, so as to provide that the people might either prohibit or
introduce slavery, and thus make it fair and equal. Chase refused to so
modify his proviso, and then General Cass and all the rest of us voted
it down. Those facts appear on the journals and debates of Congress,
where Mr. Lincoln found the charge, and if he had told the whole truth,
there would have been no necessity for me to occupy your time in
explaining the matter.
Mr. Lincoln wants to know why the word "State," as well as "Territory,"
was put into the Nebraska bill? I will tell him. It was put there to
meet just such false arguments as he has been adducing. That first, not
only the People of the Territories should do as they pleased, but that
when they come to be admitted as States, they should come into the Union
with or without slavery, as the people determined. I meant to knock in
the head this Abolition doctrine of Mr. Lincoln's, that there shall be
no more slave States, even if the people want them. And it does not do
for him to say or for any other Black Republican to say, that there is
nobody in favor of the doctrine of no more slave States, and that nobody
wants to interfere with the right of the people to do as they please.
What was the origin of the Missouri difficulty and the Missouri
Compromise? The people of Missouri formed a constitution as a slave
State, and asked admission into the Union, but the Free-soil party of
the North, being in a majority, refused to admit her because she had
slavery as one of her institutions. Hence this first slavery agitation
arose upon a State and not upon a Territory, and yet Mr. Lincoln does
not know why the word State was placed in the Kansas-Nebraska bill. The
whole Abolition agitation arose on that doctrine of prohibiting a State
from coming in with slavery or not, as it pleased, and that same
doctrine is here in this Republican platform of 1854; it has never been
repealed; and every Black Republican stands pledged by that platform
never to vote for any man who is not in of it. Yet Mr. Lincoln does not
know that there is a man in the world who is in favor of preventing a
State from coming in as it pleases, notwithstanding the Springfield
platform says that they, the Republican party, will not allow a State to
come in under such circumstances. He is an ignorant man.
Now you see that upon these very points I am as far from bringing Mr.
Lincoln up to the line as I ever was before. He does not want to avow
his principles. I do want to avow mine, as clear as sunlight in midday.
Democracy is founded upon the eternal principles of right. The plainer
these principles are avowed before the people, the stronger will be the
support which they will receive. I only wish I had the power to make
them so clear that they would shine in the heavens for every man, woman,
and child to read. The first of those principles that I would proclaim
would be in opposition to Mr. Lincoln's doctrine of uniformity between
the different States, and I would declare instead the sovereign right of
each State to decide the slavery question as well as all other domestic
questions for themselves, without interference from any other State or
power whatsoever.
When that principle is recognized you will have peace and harmony and
fraternal feeling between all the States of this Union; until you do
recognize that doctrine there will be sectional warfare agitating and
distracting the country What does Mr. Lincoln propose? He says that the
Union cannot exist divided into free and slave States. If it cannot
endure thus divided then he must strive to make them all free or all
slave, which will inevitably bring about a dissolution of the Union.
Gentlemen, I am told that my time is out
and I am obliged to stop.
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