The Writings of Abraham Lincoln, vol 5 | Page 9

possible, restore the government to the policy of the fathers, the policy
of preserving the new Territories from the baneful influence of human
bondage, as the Northwestern Territories were sought to be preserved
by the Ordinance of 1787, and the Compromise Act of 1820. They will

oppose, in all its length and breadth, the modern Democratic idea, that
slavery is as good as freedom, and ought to have room for expansion all
over the continent, if people can be found to carry it. All, or nearly all,
of Judge Douglas's arguments are logical, if you admit that slavery is as
good and as right as freedom, and not one of them is worth a rush if
you deny it. This is the difference, as I understand it, between the
Republican and Democratic parties.
My friends, I have endeavored to show you the logical consequences of
the Dred Scott decision, which holds that the people of a Territory
cannot prevent the establishment of slavery in their midst. I have stated
what cannot be gainsaid, that the grounds upon which this decision is
made are equally applicable to the free States as to the free Territories,
and that the peculiar reasons put forth by Judge Douglas for indorsing
this decision commit him, in advance, to the next decision and to all
other decisions corning from the same source. And when, by all these
means, you have succeeded in dehumanizing the negro; when you have
put him down and made it impossible for him to be but as the beasts of
the field; when you have extinguished his soul in this world and placed
him where the ray of hope is blown out as in the darkness of the
damned, are you quite sure that the demon you have roused will not
turn and rend you? What constitutes the bulwark of our own liberty and
independence? It is not our frowning battlements, our bristling sea
coasts, our army and our navy. These are not our reliance against
tyranny All of those may be turned against us without making us
weaker for the struggle. Our reliance is in the love of liberty which God
has planted in us. Our defense is in the spirit which prizes liberty as the
heritage of all men, in all lands everywhere. Destroy this spirit and you
have planted the seeds of despotism at your own doors. Familiarize
yourselves with the chains of bondage and you prepare your own limbs
to wear them. Accustomed to trample on the rights of others, you have
lost the genius of your own independence and become the fit subjects
of the first cunning tyrant who rises among you. And let me tell you,
that all these things are prepared for you by the teachings of history, if
the elections shall promise that the next Dred Scott decision and all
future decisions will be quietly acquiesced in by the people.

VERSE TO "LINNIE "

September 30,? 1858.
TO "LINNIE":
A sweet plaintive song did I hear And I fancied that she was the singer.
May emotions as pure as that song set astir Be the wont that the future
shall bring her.

NEGROES ARE MEN
TO J. U. BROWN.
SPRINGFIELD, OCT 18, 1858
HON. J. U. BROWN.
MY DEAR SIR:--I do not perceive how I can express myself more
plainly than I have in the fore-going extracts. In four of them I have
expressly disclaimed all intention to bring about social and political
equality between the white and black races and in all the rest I have
done the same thing by clear implication.
I have made it equally plain that I think the negro is included in the
word "men" used in the Declaration of Independence.
I believe the declaration that "all men are created equal "is the great
fundamental principle upon which our free institutions rest; that negro
slavery is violative of that principle; but that, by our frame of
government, that principle has not been made one of legal obligation;
that by our frame of government, States which have slavery are to
retain it, or surrender it at their own pleasure; and that all
others--individuals, free States and national Government-- are
constitutionally bound to leave them alone about it.
I believe our Government was thus framed because of the necessity
springing from the actual presence of slavery, when it was framed.
That such necessity does not exist in the Territories when slavery is not
present.
In his Mendenhall speech Mr. Clay says: "Now as an abstract principle
there is no doubt of the truth of that declaration (all men created equal),
and it is desirable, in the original construction of society, to keep it in
view as a great fundamental principle."
Again, in the same speech Mr. Clay says: "If a