On June 16, 1858, Abraham Lincoln accepted the Republican nomination for Senate from Illinois. Having failed to get reelected to Congress in 1848, the nomination for the United
States Senate in 1854 or the nomination for vice president in 1856, it might well have appeared that Lincoln's political career was over. In fact, it was just beginning, although he lost this race as well. In his acceptance speech for the nomination he said:
'A house divided against itself cannot stand.' I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved; but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other.
Lincoln was in effect reflecting at least one idea of the Dred Scott decision, that if slavery existed anywhere, in effect it existed everywhere. The debates between the two men were lengthy-each lasting a matter of hours. Both men opposed the expansion of slavery, and neither was an abolitionist. Both believed slavery was a wasteful labor system, and both believed blacks were inferior to whites. But they differed sharply on the details.
Douglas began the debates with a sharp attack on Lincoln on the issue of slavery. Indeed, although other issues were mentioned during the seven debates, the issue of slavery occupied the vast majority of the time in which they spoke. Asserting that slaves could never be the equal of whites even if freed, Douglas said,
I believe this Government was made on the white basis. I believe it was made by white men for the benefit of white men and their posterity forever, and I am in favor of confining citizenship to white men, men of European birth and descent, instead of conferring it upon negroes, Indians, and other inferior races.
He claimed that Lincoln's desire was to remove slavery and eventually allow equality among the races.
Lincoln responded quickly and directly:
I will say here, while upon this subject, that I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so. I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and the black races. There is a physical difference between the two, which, in my judgment, will probably forever forbid their living together upon the footing of perfect equality, and inasmuch as it becomes a necessity that there must be a difference, I, as well as Judge Douglas, am in favor of the race to which I belong having the superior position. I have never said anything to the contrary, but I hold that, notwithstanding all this, there is no reason in the world why the negro is not entitled to all the natural rights enumerated in the Declaration of Independence, the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. [Loud cheers.] I hold that he is as much entitled to these as the white man. I agree with Judge Douglas he is not my equal in many respects-certainly not in color, perhaps not in moral or intellectual endowment. But in the right to eat the bread, without the leave of anybody else, which his own hand earns, he is my equal and the equal of Judge Douglas, and the equal of every living man. [Great applause.]
Thus Lincoln is thus revealed as a racist, and his position would be absolutely unacceptable to us in the 21st century. But Lincoln did not live in the 21st century, and at the time in which he was living, it is safe to say, the vast majority of Americans, at least those residing in Illinois, would have agreed with him. But he made his position on slavery clear, and would reiterate that position on a number of occasions in the coming months and years, including his inaugural address as president in 1861.
During the second debate in Freeport, Illinois, Douglas announced what became known as his "Freeport Doctrine." He said:
_ that slavery cannot exist a day or an hour anywhere, unless it is supported by local police regulations. Those police regulations can only be established by the local legislature, and if the people are opposed to slavery they will elect representatives to that body who will by unfriendly legislation effectually prevent the introduction of it into their midst.
In other words, Douglas suggested that the territories could discourage slaveholders from moving in by failing to provide the legislation necessary for slavery to exist. Coupled with his stand against the Lecompton constitution, Douglas's Freeport Doctrine guaranteed loss of Southern support for his presidential bid.
The two men went at each other five more times before the October elections to the state legislature, in which the most important issue was whom the legislature would elect as Senator from Illinois. Douglas made points against Lincoln's "house divided" by asserting that the nation had survived quite well since the Revolution although divided, and in the end he won the Senatorial contest. But the wide dissemination of the debates, which were published practically verbatim in newspapers across the country, made Lincoln a national instead of a local figure, which set up his nomination for president in 1860.
FSee further excerpts from the debates in Appendix. Links to sites with aii seven debates may be found on the web site.)
The Court speaks again. In 1859 the issue of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 came before the Supreme Court in the case of Abeiman v. Booth. The Wisconsin Supreme Court had freed an abolitionist convicted of violating the federal law and the case was appealed. The essence of the issue was states' rights, and the court unanimously decided that federal law overrode state law, a principle first established by John Marshall. A number of northern states had passed, on moral grounds, personal liberty laws whose purpose was to nullify the Fugitive Slave Act. The court ruled such laws unconstitutional.
John Brown's Raid. John Brown was an American abolitionist who was in Kansas during the tumultuous first years following passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, along with several of his sons and other relatives. As the violence escalated between pro - and anti-slavery people, Brown and his men killed five pro-slavery settlers in a brutal nighttime attack that became known as the Pottawatomie Massacre. Although Brown's actual actions have been debated, he was present and approved of the killings.
Several years later, in 1859, Brown organized a raid on the federal arsenal in Harpers Ferry, Virginia, apparently intending to foment a slave rebellion. Although Brown got little if any support from abolitionist groups, he nevertheless proceeded with his plan. Although the arsenal was located in Virginia, state authorities preferred to have the federal government deal with the matter.75 At Army headquarters Colonel Robert E. Lee, home on leave from his post in Texas, was directed to proceed to Harpers Ferry, along with Marines from the Washington barracks. Hearing of the operation, Lt. Jeb Stuart volunteered to accompany Lee and the Marines. Stuart was directed to deliver an ultimatum to Brown to surrender. When he saw Brown's face, Stuart recognized him, as he had been in Kansas at the time of the Pottawatomie Massacre. When Brown refused to accept terms, Marines stormed the arsenal and Brown was captured.
Tried for treason, Brown was quickly found guilty. When asked if he had any final comments, Brown made a very moving speech in which he defended his actions even while acknowledging that justice had been served. Claiming that the Bible urged him to align himself with "God's despised poor," he declared his actions right, not wrong. As to his imminent execution he said, "I submit; so let it be done!"
In the South, Brown's actions, like the 1851 events in Christiana, Pennsylvania, were held up as an example of the lengths to which abolitionists would go to interfere with their right to own slaves. In the North, John Brown was portrayed as a martyr for freedom and justice, a response which further infuriated the South.76 Coming when it did on the eve of the election of 1860, the John Brown Harpers Ferry episode pushed the division between North and South to the breaking point. (John Brown's final speech to the court is contained in the Appendix.)
World History
