AUGUST 21, 1858:
The Lincoln-Douglas Debates:
The first of seven debates is held between
Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas in the contest for U.S. Senator for
Illinois.
Stephen A. Douglas, also known as the Little Giant, spoke for Popular
Sovereignty (the idea espoused in the Kansas-Nebraska Act that Territories
could each determine the status of slavery within their borders) and in favor
of the Dred Scott decision.
Lincoln spoke against the extension of slavery and
for respecting the fundamental rights of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of
Happiness. Although Lincoln was not chosen for the Senate (in those years
Senators were elected by State legislators not popular votes), the Debates made
Lincoln a nationally-known figure and put his feet on the pathway to the
Presidency in 1860.
TWO
QUOTES FROM THE DEBATES:
LINCOLN
ON HIS RACIAL VIEWS:
"I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been, in
favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the
white and black races--that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making
voters or jurors of Negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to
intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is
a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will
forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political
equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together
there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other
man in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race."
DOUGLAS’
RESPONSE:
". . . that is good doctrine, but Mr. Lincoln is afraid
to advocate it in the latitude of Chicago, where he hopes to get his votes. It
is good doctrine in the anti-abolition counties for him . . . Let me ask him
why he cannot the same in the North as in the South--the same in every county,
if he has a conviction that they are just? He would not be a Republican, if his
principles would apply alike to every part of the country. The party to which
he belongs is bounded and limited by geographical lines. With their principles
they cannot even cross the Mississippi river on your ferry boats. They cannot
cross over the Ohio into Kentucky. Lincoln himself cannot visit the land of his
fathers, the scenes of his childhood, the graves of his ancestors, and carry
his Abolition principles, as he declared them at Chicago, with him."
LINCOLN ON SLAVERY:
"We have in this nation this element of domestic
slavery. It is a matter of absolute certainty that it is a disturbing element.
It is the opinion of all the great men who have expressed an opinion upon it,
that it is a dangerous element. We keep up a controversy in regards to it. That
controversy necessarily springs from difference of opinion, and if we can learn
exactly--can reduce to the lowest elements--what that difference of opinion is,
we perhaps shall be better prepared for discussing the different systems of
policy that we would propose in regard to that disturbing element. I suggest
that the difference of opinion, reduced to its lowest terms, is no other than
the difference between the men who think slavery a wrong and those who do not
think it wrong. The Republican party think it wrong--we think it is a moral, a
social and a political wrong. We think it a wrong not confining itself merely
to the persons or the States where it exists, but that it is a wrong in its
tendency, to say the least, that extends itself to the existence of the whole
nation. Because we think it wrong, we propose a course of policy that shall
deal with it as a wrong. We deal with it as with any other wrong, in so far as
we can prevent its growing any larger, and so deal with it that in the run of
time there may be some promise of an end to it.”
DOUGLAS’ RESPONSE:
"This Republican organization appeals to the North
against the South; it appeals to northern passion, northern prejudice, and
northern ambition, against southern people, southern States, and southern
institutions, and its only hope of success is by that appeal. . . . . Mr.
Lincoln thinks that it is his duty is to preach a crusade in the free States
against slavery, because it is a crime, as he believes, and ought to be
extinguished; and because the people of the slave States will never abolish it.
How is he going to abolish it? Down in the southern part of the State he takes
the ground openly that he will not interfere with slavery where it exists, and
says that he is not now and never was in favor of interfering with slavery
where it exists in the States. Well, if he is not in favor of that, how does he
expect to bring slavery in a course of ultimate extinction? How can he
extinguish it in Kentucky, in Virginia, in all the slave States by his policy,
if he will not pursue a policy which will interfere with it in the States where
it exists? . . . Mr. Lincoln there told his Abolition friends that this
Government could not endure permanently, divided into free and slave States as
our fathers made it, and that it must become all free or all slave, otherwise,
that the Government could not exist. How then does Lincoln propose to save the
Union, unless by compelling all the States to become free, so that the house
shall not be divided against itself? He intends making them all free; he will
preserve the Union in that way, and yet, he is not going to interfere with
slavery any where it now exists. How is he going to bring it about? Why, he
will agitate, he will induce the North to agitate until the South shall be worried
out, and forced to abolish slavery.”
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