PART I. Chapter X.

MR. LINCOLN took an active part In the formation of the Republican party as such. The State convention of that organization which met at Bioomington, on the 29th of May, 1856, sent delegates to the Philadelphia Convention of that year, held for the nomination of Presidential candidates, The resolutions of the Bioomington Convention, in place of which Mr. Douglas produced an entirely different series on the stump, in 1858, are subjoined in full:

WHEREAS, The present Administration has prostituted its powers, and devoted all its energies to the propagation of slavery, and to its extension into Territories heretofore dedicated to freedom, against the known wishes of the people of such Territories, to the suppression of the freedom of speech, and of the press; and to the revival of the odious doctrine of. constructive treason, which has always been the resort of tyrants, and their most powerful engine of injustice and oppression; and whereas, we are convinced that an effort is making to subvert the principles, and ultimately to change the form of our Government, and which it becomes all patriots, all who love their country, and the cause of human freedom, to resist; therefore Resolved, That foregoing all former differences of opinion upon other questions, we pledge ourselves to unite in opposition to the present Administration, and to the party which upholds and supports it, and to use all honorable and Constitutional

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means to wrest the government from the unworthy hands which now control it, and to bring it back in its administration to the principles and practices of Washington, Jefferson and their great and good compatriots of the Revolution.

Resolved, That we hold, in accordance with the opinions and practices of all the great statesmen of all parties, for the first sixty years of the administration of the Government, that, under the Constitution, Congress possesses full power to prohibit slavery in the Territories; and that while we will maintain all Constitutional rights of the South, we also hold that justice, humanity, the principles of freedom as expressed in our Declaration of Independence, and our National Constitution, and the purity and perpetuity of our Government require that that power should be exerted, to prevent the extension of slavery into Territories heretofore free.

Resolved, That the repeal of the Missouri Compromise was unwise, unjust and injurious; in open and aggravated violation of the plighted faith of the States, and that the attempt of the present Administration to force slavery into Kansas against the known wishes of the legal voters of that Territory, is an arbitrary and tyrannous violation of the rights of the people to govern themselves, and that we will strive by all Constitutional means, to secure to Kansas and Nebraska the legal guaranty against slavery, of which they were deprived, at the cost of the violation of the plighted faith of the nation.

Resolved, That we are devoted to the Union, and will, to the last extremity, defend it against the efforts now being made by the Disunionists of this Administration to compass its dis¬solution ; and that we will support the Constitution of the United States in all its provisions, regarding it as the sacred bond of our Union, and the only safeguard for the preservation of the rights of ourselves and our posterity.

Resolved, That we are in favor of the immediate admission of Kansas as a member of this Confederacy, under the Constitution adopted by the people of said Territory.

Resolved, That the spirit of our institutions, as well as the Constitution of our country, guarantees the liberty of conscience as well as political freedom, and that we will proscribe no one by legislation or otherwise, on account of religious opinions, or in consequence of place of birth.

Resolved, That in Lyman Trumbull, our distinguished Senator, the people of Illinois have an able and consistent exponent of their principles, and that his course in the Senate meets with our unqualified approbation.

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With this creed, and the Philadelphia platform, subsequently adopted, the Republicans of Illinois went into the canvass of 1856. Mr. Lincoln labored earnestly during the campaign, sustaining the nominations of FREMONT and DAYTON. In the State canvass, Col, Wm. H. Bissel received the united support of the Opposition for Governor, and was elected by a decisive majority. On the Presidential candidates, there being, unfortunately, two tickets in the field, the divided Opposition were unsuccessful, although Fremont, in spite of the heavy Fillmore vote ran so closely upon Buchanan that the result was for a time in doubt, and only the nearly solid vote of "Egypt" decided the result in favor of the latter. The untiring exertions of Mr. Lincoln on the stump, in enlighten¬ing the people as to the real issues involved, did much toward securing this remarkable vote.

Mr. Buchanan came into power in March, 1857, and the hopes which had been entertained of a material change, under his administration, of the unjust and execrable policy hitherto pursued toward Kansas, were speedily dissipated. After some little show of resistance at first, he was soon found acting in accordance with the dictates of the extreme pro-slavery interest. A deep scheme was concocted, into the secrets of which even the Governor and Secretary of that Territory were not admitted, for forcing Kansas into the Union as a slave State. This plot began to be suspected, and its existence more and more confirmed by the course of events, not long after Mr. Buchanan's inauguration. The thin vail of "bogus Popular Sovereignty," with which Douglas had tried to hide the naked deformity of the act under which Kansas and Nebraska were organized, was to be rent asunder. People were beginning to look with curiosity for the next evasion or artful afterthought by which he would attempt to escape the force of a public sentiment which was already rapidly bearing him down, before this more complete exposure became inevitable. This interest in his course was the more lively, for the reason that his Senatorial term had nearly expired, and that, without some remarkable change of affairs, or some ingenious device, the curse he

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had himself pronounced in evidence upon the disturber of the Missouri compact, was to be most signally realized.

Meantime, the machinery had been put in motion for a Convention at Lecompton, which was to ratify a Constitution prepared at Washington, under Administration auspices, and to secure the great purpose intended by the Southern supporters of the Kansas-Nebraska scheme. How grossly unjust and unequal were the provisions of the act calling this Convention, and how deliberate was its design of excluding the free State men from any effectual voice in determining "the domestic institutions" of a State in which the party of free labor comprised about four-fifths of the people, as had already been distinctly indicated, need not be here rehearsed. To Douglas, at least, the real facts were not unknown. That these iniquities must all ultimately come out, and receive the condemnation of the people, he can not have seriously questioned. Yet, in spite of these facts, it is undeniably true, and is clearly of record, that he committed himself in advance— not at all uncertain, most assuredly, as to what it was substantially to be —in favor of the Lecompton Constitution. John Calhoun, the chosen instrument of the Administration for carrying out its plot to defeat " Popular Sovereignty " in Kansas, was one of the special friends of Douglas, and understood to share his intimate confidence. And when, in his speech at Springfield, in June, 1857, Mr. Douglas substantially indorsed the Lecompton Convention and its doings, beforehand, no one had any reason to doubt that he intended fully to sustain the Administration in attempting to force a slave Constitution on the people of Kansas —a process for which his "organic act" had prepared the way. In the course of his remarks on that occasion, he said:

Kansas is about to speak for herself through her delegates assembled in convention to form a Constitution, preparatory to her admission into the Union on an equal footing with the original States. Peace and prosperity now prevail throughout her borders. The law under which her delegates are about to be elected is believed to be just and fair in all its objects and provisions. There is every reason to hope and believe that

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the law will be fairly interpreted and impartially executed, so as to insure to every bona fide inhabitant the free and quiet exercise of the elective franchise. If any portion of the inhabitants, acting under the advice of political leaders in distant States, shall choose to absent themselves from the polls, and withhold their votes, with a view of leaving the free State Democrats in a minority, and thus securing a pro-slavery Constitution in opposition to the wishes of a majority of the people living under it, let the responsibility rest on those who, for partizan purposes, will sacrifice the principles they profess to cherish and promote. Upon them and upon the political party for whose benefit and under the direction of whose leaders they act, let the blame be visited of fastening upon the people of a new State institutions repugnant to their feelings and in violation of their wishes.

Words could not have more positively indicated his purpose of sustaining all the acts of the Lecompton Convention, or that he anticipated the formation of a pro-slavery Constitution, for which he meant to charge the blame upon the free State men and upon the Republican party in general, anticipating then that the non-voting policy would be adopted. In a subsequent part of this same speech, he still more fully and unreservedly indorsed the act providing for the Lecompton Constitutional Convention, committing himself to all its legitimate consequences. He said:

The present election law in Kansas is acknowledged to be fair and just —the rights of the voters are clearly defined— and the exercise of those rights will be efficiently and scru¬pulously protected. Hence, if the majority of the people of Kansas desire to have it a free State (and we are told by the Republican party that nine-tenths of the people of that Territory are free State men), there is no obstacle in the way of bringing Kansas into the Union as a free State, by the votes and voice of her own people, and in conformity with the great principles of the Kansas-Nebraska act; provided all the free State men will go to the polls, and vote their principles in accordance with their professions. If such is not the result, let the consequences be visited upon the heads of those whose policy it is to produce strife, anarchy, and bloodshed in Kansas, that their party may profit by slavery agitation in the northern States of this Union. That the Democrats in Kansas will perform their duty fearlessly and nobly, according to

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the principles they cherish, I have no doubt, and that the result of the struggle will be such as will gladden the heart and strengthen the hopes of every friend of the Union, I have entire confidence.

The Lecompton Convention was to settle the whole Kansas controversy, " peacefully and satisfactorily," according to the professed faith of Mr. Douglas. He fully indorsed it in its origin, and committed himself to abide by its results, which were accomplished through the instrumentality of one of his warmest personal friends. And what these results would be, in his opinion, he clearly foreshadowed in the extracts above given from his speech. He expected a pro-slavery Constitution, and he repeatedly approved, without any reservation, the convention-act which, by its regular carrying-out, accomplished that expectation. He declared, substantially, that the will of the people could be fully and fairly expressed in forming a Constitution at Lecompton, under that act; and that if they did not obtain such a Constitution as they desired, it would be their own fault-plainly implying that they must submit to such action as should be taken. He left himself scarcely a loophole of retreat, whatever might come of the Lecompton Convention.

In the same speech Mr. Douglas spoke at length in indorsement of the dogmas embraced in what is popularly called the Dred Scott decision, and particularly of the one which denies the power of Congress to exclude slavery from the Territories, He tried, also, to convey the impression that the Republican party was in favor of negro equality, because dissenting in general to a judicial opinion, of which one of the details is a denial to the negro race of any legal redress for wrongs in the higher courts.

A third subject of this speech was the Utah rebellion, which Mr. Douglas proposed to end by annulling the act establishing the Territory of Utah.

To this speech Mr. Lincoln replied at Springfield, two weeks later. It is noticeable that the first two of the topics of Mr. Douglas's speech formed leading subjects of the great canvass of the next year. It is not impossible that this prompt joining

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of issues may have had its influence in inducing Mr. Douglas so completely to change front, before another twelve-month had passed. In any event, these two speeches have a rare interest, from their immediate relations to the coming contest, of which they are properly the prelude. We give Mr. Lincoln's remarks at length:

SPEECH OF MR. LINCOLN, IN REPLY TO MR. DOUGLAS, ON KANSAS,

THE DEED SCOTT DECISION, AND THE UTAH QUESTION.

(Delivered at Springfield, Ill., June 26, 1857.)

FELLOW-CITIZENS :—I am here, to-night, partly by the invitation of some of you, and partly by my own inclination. Two weeks ago Judge Douglas spoke here, on the several subjects of Kansas, the Dred Scott decision, and Utah. I listened to the speech at the time, and have read the report of it since. It was intended to controvert opinions which I think just, and to assail (politically, not personally) those men who, in com¬mon with me, entertain those opinions. For this reason I wished then, and still wish to make some answer to it, which I now take the opportunity of doing.

I begin with Utah. If it prove to be true, as is probable, that the people of Utah are in open rebellion against the United States, then Judge Douglas is in favor of repealing their territorial organization, and attaching them to the adjoining States for judicial purposes. I say, too, if they are in rebellion, they ought to be somehow coerced to obedience; and I am not now prepared to admit or deny, that the Judge's mode of coercing them is not as good as any. The Republicans can fall in with it, without taking back anything they have ever said. To be sure, it would be a considerable backing down by Judge Douglas, from his much vaunted doctrine of self-government for the territories; but this is only additional proof of what was very plain from the beginning, that that doctrine was a mere deceitful pretense for the benefit of slavery. Those who could not see that much in the Nebraska act itself, which forced Governors, and Secretaries, and Judges on the people of the territories, without their choice or consent, could not be made to see, though one should rise from the dead.

But in all this, it is very plain the Judge evades the only question the Republicans have ever pressed upon the Democracy in regard to Utah. That question the Judge well knew to be this: " If the people of Utah shall peacefully form a State Constitution tolerating polygamy, will the Democracy admit them into the Union? "There is nothing in the United States Constitution or law against polygamy; and why is it

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not a part of the Judge's "sacred right of self-government" for the people to have it, or rather to keep it, if they choose? These questions, so far as I know, the Judge never answers. It might involve the Democracy to answer them either way, and they go unanswered.

As to Kansas. The substance of the Judge's speech on Kansas is an effort to put the Free State men in the wrong for not voting at the election of delegates to the Constitutional Convention. He says: " There is every reason to hope and believe that the law will be fairly interpreted and impartially executed, so as to insure to every bona fide inhabitant the free and quiet exercise of the elective franchise."

It appears extraordinary that Judge Douglas should make such a statement. He knows that, by the law, no one can vote who has not been registered; and he knows that the Free State men place their refusal to vote on the ground that but few of them have been registered. It is possible this is not true, but Judge Douglas knows it is asserted to be true in letters, newspapers and public speeches, and borne by every mail, and blown by every breeze to the eyes and ears of the world. He knows it is boldly declared, that the people of many whole counties, and many whole neighborhoods in others, are left unregistered; yet, he does not venture to contradict the decla¬ration, or to point out how they can vote without being registered ; but he just slips along, not seeming to know there is any such question of fact, and complacently declares, " There is every reason to hope and believe that the law will be fairly and impartially executed, so as to insure to every bona fide inhabitant the free and quiet exercise of the elective franchise."

I readily agree that if all had a chance to vote, they ought to have voted. If, on the contrary, as they allege, and Judge Douglas ventures not particularly to contradict, few only of the free State men had a chance to vote, they were perfectly right in staying from the polls in a body.

By the way, since the Judge spoke, the Kansas election has come off. The Judge expressed his confidence that all the Democrats in Kansas would do their duty —including "free State Democrats" of course. The returns received here, as yet, are very incomplete; but, so far as they go, they indicate that only about one-sixth of the registered voters, have really voted; and this too, when not more, perhaps, than one-half of the rightful voters have been registered, thus showing the thing to have been altogether the most exquisite farce ever enacted. I am watching with considerable interest, to ascer¬tain what figure "the free State Democrats" cut in the con¬cern. Of course they voted —all Democrats do their duty—

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and of course they did not vote for slave State candidates. We soon shall know how many delegates they elected, how many candidates they had pledged to a free State, and how many votes were cast for them.

Allow me to "barely whisper my suspicion, that there were no such, things in Kansas as " free State Democrats" — that they were altogether mythical, good only to figure in newspapers and speeches in the free States. If there should prove to be one real living free State Democrat in Kansas, I suggest that it might be well to catch him, and stuff and preserve his skin as an interesting specimen of that soon to he extinct variety of the genus Democrat.

And now as to the Dred Scott decision. That decision declares two propositions — first, that a negro can not sue in the United States Courts; and secondly, that Congress can not prohibit slavery in the Territories. It was made by a divided court -dividing differently on the different points. Judge Douglas does not discuss the merits of the decision, and in that respect, I shall follow his example, believing I could no more improve upon McLean and Curtis, than he could on Taney.

He denounces all who question the correctness of that decision, as offering violent resistance to it. But who resists it? Who has, in spite of the decision, declared Dred Scott free, and resisted the authority of his master over him?

Judicial decisions have two uses — first, to absolutely determine the case decided; and secondly, to indicate to the public how other similar, cases will be decided when they arise. For the latter use, they are called " precedents" and " authorities.”

We believe as much as Judge Douglas (perhaps more) in obedience to, an d respect for the judicial department of Government. We think its decisions on Constitutional questions, when fully settled, should control, not only the particular cases decided, but the general policy of the country, subject to be disturbed only by amendments of the Constitution, as provided in that instrument itself. More than this would be revolution. But we think the Dred Scott decision is erroneous. We know the court that made it, has often overruled its own decisions, and we shall do what we can to have it overrule this. We offer no resistance to it.

Judicial decisions are of greater or less authority as precedents, according to circumstances. That this should be so, accords both with, common sense, and the customary understanding of the legal profession.

If this important decision had been made by the unanimous concurrence of the judges, and without any apparent partisan bias, and in accordance with legal public expectation, and with

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the steady practice of the departments, throughout our history, and had been in no part based on assumed historical facts which are not really true; or, if wanting in some of these, it had been before the court more than once, and had there been affirmed and re-affirmed through a course of years, it then might be, perhaps would be, factious, nay, even, revolu¬tionary, not to acquiesce in it as a precedent.

But when, as is true, we find it wanting in all these claims to the public confidence, it is not resistance, it is not factious, it is not even disrespectful, to treat it as not having yet quite established a settled doctrine for the country. But Judge Douglas considers this view awful. Hear him:

"The courts are the tribunals prescribed by the Constitution and created by the authority of the people to determine, expound and enforce the law. Hence, whoever resists the final decision of the highest judicial tribunal, aims a deadly blow to our whole Republican system of government —a blow which, if successful, would place all our rights and liberties at the mercy of passion, anarchy and violence. I repeat, there¬fore, that if resistance to the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States, in a matter like the points decided in the Dred Scott case, clearly within their jurisdiction as defined by the Constitution, shall be forced upon the country as a political issue, it will become a distinct and naked issue between the friends and enemies of the Constitution — the friends and the enemies of the supremacy of the laws."

Why, this same Supreme Court once decided a national bank to be Constitutional; but General Jackson, as President of the United States, disregarded the decision, and vetoed a bill for a re-charter, partly on Constitutional ground, declar¬ing that each public functionary must support the Constitution, "as he understands it." But hear the General's own words. Here they are, taken from his veto message :

"It is maintained by the advocates of the bank, that its Constitutionality, in all its features, ought to be considered as settled by precedent, and by the decision of the Supreme Court. To this conclusion I can not asssnt. Mere precedent is a dangerous source of authority, and should not be regarded as deciding questions of Constitutional power, except where the acquiescence of the people and the States can be considered as well settled. So far from this being the case on this subject, an argument against the bank might be based on precedent. One Congress, in 1791, decided in favor of a bank; another, in 1811, decided against it. One Congress, in 1815, decided against a bank; another, in 1816, decided in its favor. Prior to the present Congress, therefore, the prece-

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dents drawn from that source were equal. If we resort to the States, the expressions of legislative, judicial and executive opinions against the bank have been probably to those in its favor as four to one. There is nothing in precedent, therefore, which, if its authority were admitted, ought to weigh in favor of the act before me."

I drop the quotations merely to remark, that all there ever was, in the way of precedent up to the Dred Scott decision, on the points therein decided, had been against that decision. But hear General Jackson further:

"If the opinion of the Supreme Court covered the whole ground of this act, it ought not to control the coordinate authorities of this Government. The Congress, the Executive and the Court, must each for itself be guided by its own opinion of the Constitution. Each public officer, who takes an oath to support the Constitution, swears that he will support it as he understands it, and not as it is understood by others."

Again and again have I heard Judge Douglas denounce that bank decision, and applaud General Jackson for disregarding it. It would be interesting for him to look over his recent speech, and see how exactly his fierce philippics against us for resisting Supreme Court decisions, fall upon his own head. It will call to mind a long and fierce political war in this country, upon an issue which, in his own language, and, of course, in his own changeless estimation, was "a distinct issue between the friends and the enemies of the Constitution," and in which war he fought in the ranks of the enemies of the Constitution.

I have said, in substance, that the Dred Scott decision was, in part, based on assumed historical facts which were not really true, and I ought not to leave the subject without giv¬ing some reasons for saying this; I, therefore, give an instance or two, which I think fully sustain me. Chief Justice Taney, in delivering the opinion of the majority of the Court, insists at great length, that negroes were no part of the people who made, or for whom was made, the Declaration of Independence, or the Constitution of the United States.

On the contrary, Judge Curtis, in his dissenting opinion, shows that in five of the then thirteen States, to wit: New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey and North Carolina, free negoes were voters, and, in proportion to their numbers, had the same part in making the Constitution that the white people had. He shows this with so much particu¬larity as to leave no doubt of its truth ; and as a sort of con¬clusion on that point, holds the following language:

"The Constitution was ordained and established by the

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people of the United States, through the action, in each State, of those persons who were qualified by its laws to act thereon in behalf of themselves and all other citizens of the State. In some of the States, as we have seen, colored persons were among those qualified by law to act on the subject. These colored persons were not only included in the body of 'the people of the United States,' by whom the Constitution was ordained and established; but in at least five of the States they had the power to act, and, doubtless, did act, by their suffrages, upon the question of its adoption."

Again, Chief Justice Taney says: "It is difficult, at this day to realize the state of public opinion in relation to that unfortunate race, which prevailed in the civilized and enlight¬ened portions of the world at the time of the Declaration of Independence, and when the Constitution of the United States was framed and adopted." And again, after quoting from the Declaration, he says : " The general words above quoted would seem to include the whole human family, and if they were used in & similar instrument at this day, would be so understood."

In these the Chief Justice does not directly assert, but plainly assumes, as a fact, that the public estimate of the black man is more favorable now than it was in the days of the Revolution. This assumption is a mistake. In some trifling particulars, the condition of that race has been ameliorated; but, as a whole, in this country, the change between then and now is decidedly the other way; and their ultimate destiny has never appeared so hopeless as in the last three or four years. In two of the five States—New Jersey and North Carolina —that then gave the free negro the right of voting, the right has since been taken away; and in the third— New York—rit has been greatly abridged; while it has not been extended, so far as I know, to a single additional State, though the number of the States has more than doubled. In those days, as I understand, masters could, at their own pleasure, emancipate their slaves ; but since then such legal restraints have been made upon emancipation as to amount almost to prohibition. In those days "Legislatures held the unquestioned power to abolish slavery in their respective States; but now it is becoming quite fashionable for State Constitutions to withhold that power from the Legislatures. In those days, by common consent, the spread of the black man's bondage to the new countries was prohibited ; but now, Congress decides that it will not continue the prohibition_ and the Supreme Court decides that it could not if it would. In those days our Declaration of Independence was held

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sacred by all, and thought to include all; but now, to aid in making the bondage of the negro universal and eternal, it is assailed, sneered at, construed, hawked at, and torn, till, if its framers could rise from their graves, they could not at all recognize it. All the powers of earth seem rapidly combining against him. Mammon is after him ; ambition follows, phi¬losophy follows, and the theology of the day is fast joining the cry. They have him in his prison-house; they have searched his person, arid left no prying instrument with him One after another they have closed the heavy iron doors upon him ; and now they have him, as it were, bolted in with a lock of a hundred keys, which can never be unlocked without the concurrence of every key; the keys in the hands of a hundred different men, and they scattered to a hundred different and distant places; and they stand musing as to what invention, in all the dominions of mind and matter, can be produced to make the impossibility of his escape more complete than it is.

It is grossly incorrect to say or assume, that the public estimate of the negro is more favorable now than it was at the origin of the Government.

Three years and a half ago Judge Douglas brought forward his famous Nebraska bill, The country was at once in a blaze. He scorned all opposition, and carried it through Con¬gress. Since then he has seen himself superseded in a Presidential nomination, by one indorsing the general doctrine of his measure, but at the same time standing clear of the odium of its untimely agitation, and its gross breach of national faith ; and he has seen that successful rival Constitutionally elected, not by the strength of friends, but by the division of his adver¬saries, being in a popular minority of nearly four hundred thousand votes. He has seen his chief aids in his own State, Shields and Richardson, politically speaking, successively tried, convicted, and executed, for an offense not their own, but his. And now he sees his own case, standing next on the docket for trial.

There is a natural disgust, in the minds of nearly all white people, to the idea of an indiscriminate amalgamation of the white and black races; and Judge Douglas evidently is basing his chief hope upon the chances of his being able to appropriate the benefit of this disgust to himself. If he can, by much drumming and repeating, fasten the odium of that idea upon his adversaries, he thinks he can struggle through the storm. He, therefore, clings to this hope, as a drowning man to the last plank. He makes an occasion for lugging it in from the opposition to the Dred Scott decision. He finds the

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Republicans insisting that the Declaration of Independence includes ALL men, black as well as white, and forthwith he boldly denies that it includes negroes at all, and proceeds to argue gravely that all who contend it does, do so only because they want to vote, eat and sleep, and marry with negroes! He will have it that they can not be consistent else. Now, I pro¬test against the counterfeit logic which concludes that, because I do not want a black woman for a slave I must necessarily want her for a wife. I need not have her for either. I can just leave her alone. In some respects she certainly is not my equal; but in her natural right to eat the bread she earns with her own hands, without asking leave of any one else, she is my equal, and the equal of all others.

Chief Justice Taney, in his opinion in the Bred Scott case, admits that the language of the Declaration is broad enough to include the whole human family; but he and Judge Doug¬las argue that the authors of that instrument did not intend to include negroes, by the fact that they did not at once actually place them on an equality with the whites. Now, this grave argument comes to just nothing at all, by the other fact, that they did not at once, or ever afterward, actually place all white people on an equality with one another. And this is the staple argument of both the Chief Justice and the Senator for doing this obvious violence to the plain, unmistakable language of the Declaration.

I think the authors of that notable instrument intended to include all men, but they did not intend to declare all men equal in all respects. They did not mean to say all were equal in color, size, intellect, moral developments, or social capacity. They defined with tolerable distinctness in what respects they did consider all men created equal—equal with " certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pur¬suit of happiness." This they said, and this meant. They did not mean to assert the obvious untruth, that all were then actually enjoying that equality, nor yet, that they were about to confer it immediately upon them. In fact, they had no power to confer such a boon. They meant simply to declare the right, so that the enforcement of it might follow as fast as circumstances should permit.

Mr. Lincoln, in conclusion, pointed out in a clear and forcible mariner the real distinction between his own views and those of Mr. Douglas, on this question, as he has done in other speeches