AP Success - AP English Language: The Lincoln vs. Douglas Debates

Now, I hold that Illinois had a right to abolish and

prohibit slavery as she did, and I hold that Kentucky has

the same right to continue and protect slavery that Illinois

had to abolish it. I hold that New York had as much right to

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abolish slavery as Virginia has to continue it, and that each

and every State of this Union is a sovereign power, with the

right to do as it pleases upon this question of slavery, and

upon all its domestic institutions. Slavery is not the only

question which comes up in this controversy. There is a far

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more important one to you, and that is, what shall be done

with the free negro? We have settled the slavery question

as far as we are concerned; we have prohibited it in Illinois

forever, and in doing so, I think we have done wisely, and

there is no man in the State who would be more strenuous in

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his opposition to the introduction of slavery than I would; but

when we settled it for ourselves, we exhausted all our power

over that subject. We have done our whole duty, and can do

no more. We must leave each and every other State to decide

for itself the same question. In relation to the policy to be

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pursued toward the free negroes, we have said that they shall

not vote; whilst Maine, on the other hand, has said that they

shall vote. Maine is a sovereign State, and has the power to

regulate the qualifications of voters within her limits. I would

never consent to confer the right of voting and of citizenship

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upon a negro, but still I am not going to quarrel with Maine

for differing from me in opinion. Let Maine take care of her

own negroes, and fix the qualifications of her own voters to

suit herself, without interfering with Illinois, and Illinois will

not interfere with Maine. So with the State of New York. She

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allows the negro to vote provided he owns two hundred and

fifty dollars’ worth of property, but not otherwise. While I

would not make any distinction whatever between a negro

who held property and one who did not, yet if the sovereign

State of New York chooses to make that distinction it is her

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business and not mine, and I will not quarrel with her for

it. She can do as she pleases on this question if she minds

her own business, and we will do the same thing. Now, my

friends, if we will only act conscientiously and rigidly upon

this great principle of popular sovereignty, which guarantees

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to each State and Territory the right to do as it pleases on all

things, local and domestic, instead of Congress interfering,

we will continue at peace one with another. Why should

Illinois be at war with Missouri, or Kentucky with Ohio, or

Virginia, with New York, merely because their institutions

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differ? Our fathers intended that our institutions should differ.

They knew that the North and the South, having different

climates, productions, and interests, required different

institutions. This doctrine of Mr. Lincoln, of uniformity

among the institutions of the different States, is a new

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doctrine, never dreamed of by Washington, Madison, or the

framers of this government. Mr. Lincoln and the Republican

party set themselves up as wiser than these men who made

this government, which has flourished for seventy years

under the principle of popular sovereignty, recognizing the

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right of each State to do as it pleased. Under that principle,

we have grown from a nation of three or four millions to a

nation of about thirty millions of people; we have crossed

the Allegheny mountains and filled up the whole Northwest,

turning the prairie into a garden, and building up churches

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and schools, thus spreading civilization and Christianity

where before there was nothing but savage barbarism. Under

that principle we have become, from a feeble nation, the

most powerful on the face of the earth, and if we only adhere

to that principle, we can go forward increasing in territory,

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in power, in strength, and in glory until the Republic of

America shall be the north star that shall guide the friend of

freedom throughout the civilized world. And why can we

not adhere to the great principle of self-government upon

which our institutions were originally based? I believe that

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this new doctrine preached by Mr. Lincoln and his party will

dissolve the Union if it succeeds. They are trying to array all

the Northern States in one body against the South, to excite a

sectional war between the free States and the slave States, in

order that the one or the other may be driven to the wall.