Then he took up the charge he had previously made, of the existence of a conspiracy to extend slavery over the Northern states, and pressed it home, citing as proof a speech which Douglas had made on the Lecompton Bill, in which he had substantially made the same charge against Buchanan and others.

He then showed again that all that was necessary for the accomplishment of the scheme was a decision of the Supreme Court to the effect that no state could exclude slavery, as the court had already decided that no territory could exclude it, and the acquiescence of the people in such a decision; and he told his hearers that Douglas was doing all in his power to bring about such acquiescence in advance by declaring that the true position was not to care whether slavery "was voted down or up," and by announcing himself in favor of the Dred Scott decision, not because it was right, but because a decision of the court is to him a "Thus saith the Lord," and thus committing himself to the next decision just as firmly as to this.

Lincoln said:

"I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the state where it exists.

"I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.

"I agree with Judge Douglas: he (the negro) is not my equal in many respects certainly not in color; perhaps not in moral or intellectual endow

ment.

"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.

"I think, and shall try to show, that it is wrong, wrong in its direct effect, letting slavery into Kansas and Nebraska-and wrong in its prospective principle, allowing it to spread to every other part of the wide world, where men can be found inclined to take it.

"I have no prejudice against the Southern people. They are just what we would be in their situation.

"If slavery did not now exist among them they would not introduce it. If it did now exist among us we should not instantly give it up. "This I believe of the masses North and South.

"Doubtless there are individuals on both sides who would not hold slaves under any circumstances, and others who would gladly introduce slavery anew, if it were out of existence.

"When Southern people tell us they are no more responsible for the origin of slavery than we, I acknowledge the fact.

"When it is said that the institution exists, and that it is very difficult to get rid of it in any satisfactory way, I can understand and appreciate the saying.

"I surely will not blame them for not doing what I should not know how to do myself.

"If all earthly power were given me I should not know what to do as to the existing institution.

"With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it, nothing can suc-. ceed. Consequently, he who molds public sentiment goes deeper than he who enacts statutes or pronounces decisions.

"He makes statutes and decisions possible or impossible to be executed."

LINCOLN AT THE SECOND JOINT DEBATE.

In his answers to the seven questions propounded by Douglas during the second joint debate, held at Freeport, Illinois, August 27th, 1858, Lincoln said:

"I do not now, nor ever did, stand in favor of the unconditional repeal of the Fugitive Slave Law.

"I do not now, nor ever did, stand pledged against the admission or any more slave states into the Union.

"I do not stand pledged against the admission of a new state into the Union, with such a constitution as the people of that state may see fit to make.

"I do not stand today pledged to the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia.

"I do not stand pledged to the prohibition of the slave trade between the different states.

"I am impliedly, if not expressly, pledged to a belief in the right and duty of Congress to prohibit slavery in all the United States territories."

Lincoln had prepared four questions for Douglas to answer at Freeport, the third one being:

"If the Supreme Court of the United States shall decide that states cannot exclude slavery from their limits, are you in favor of acquiescing in, adopting and following such decision as a code of political action?"

Lincoln said if Douglas denied the political application of the decision he

could never be President. When accused of being after the United States Senatorship only Lincoln replied:

"I am after bigger game. The election of 1860 is worth a hundred of this."

Replying to Douglas' assertion that the Declaration of Independence did not apply to the negro, Lincoln said:

"The men who wrote the Declaration of Independence had an understanding of the justice of the Creator to his creatures—yes, gentlemen, to all his creatures, to the whole great family of men.

"In their enlightened belief, nothing stamped with the divine image and likeness was sent into the world to be trodden on and degraded and imbruted by its fellows.

"They grasped not only the whole race of man then living, but they reached forward and seized upon the farthest posterity.

"They erected a beacon to guide their children, and their children's children, and the countless myriads who should inhabit the earth in other ages. "Wise statesmen as they were, they knew the tendency of posterity to breed tyrants, and so they established these great self-evident truths, that when in the distant future some man, some faction, some interest, should set up the doctrine that none but rich men, none but white men, or none but Anglo-Saxon white men, were entltled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, their posterity might look up again to the Declaration of Independence, and take courage to renew the battle which their fathers began; so that truth and justice and mercy and all the humane and Christian virtues might not be extinguished from the land; so that no man would hereafter dare to limit and circumscribe the great principles on which the temple of liberty was being built.

"Now, my countrymen, if you have been taught doctrines conflicting with the great landmarks of the Declaration of Independence; if you have listened to suggestions which would take away from its grandeur and mutilate the fair symmetry of its proportions; if you have been inclined to believe that all men are not created equal in those inalienable rights enumerated by our chart of liberty, let me entreat you to come back.

"Return to the fountain whose waters spring close by the blood of the Revolution. Think nothing of me; take no thought for the political fate of any man whomsoever, but come back to the truths that are in the Declaration of Independence.

"You may do anything with me you choose if you will but heed these

sacred principles. You may not only defeat me for the Senate, but you may take me and put me to death.

"While pretending no indifference to earthly honors, I do claim to be actuated in this contest by something higher than an anxiety for office.

"I charge you to drop every paltry and insignificant thought for any man's success. It is nothing; I am nothing; Judge Douglas is nothing. "But do not destroy that immortal emblem of humanity—the Declaration of American Independence."

RESTRICT THE SPREAD OF SLAVERY.

At the third joint debate, Jonesboro, Illinois, on September 15th, 1858, Lincoln said:

"I say, in the way our fathers originally left the slavery question, the institution was in the course of ultimate extinction, and the public mind rested in the belief that it was in the course of ultimate extinction.

"I say, when this government was first established, it was the policy of its founders to prohibit the spread of slavery into the new territories of the United States, where it had not existed.

"All I have asked or desired anywhere is that it should be placed back again upon the basis that the fathers of our government originally placed it.

"I have no doubt that it would become extinct for all time to come if we but readopt the policy of the fathers by restricting it to the limits it has already covered-restricting it from the new territories."

DEALT HONESTLY WITH EVERYONE.

During the fourth joint debate, Charleston, Illinois, September 18th 1858, Lincoln said:

"I have always wanted to deal with everyone I meet candidly and honestly. If I have made any assertion not warranted by facts, and it is pointed out to me, I will withdraw it cheerfully.

"The Kansas-Nebraska Bill was introduced four years and a half ago, and if the agitation is ever to come to an end we may say we are four years and a half nearer the end.

"So, too, we can say we are four years and a half nearer the end of the world; and we can just as clearly see the end of the world as we can see the end of this agitation.

"If Kansas should sink today and leave a great vacant space in the earth's surface this vexed question would still be among us.

"I say, then, there is no way of putting an end to the slavery agitation amongst us but to put it back upon the basis where our fathers placed it; no way but to keep it out of our new territories-to restrict it forever to the old states, where it now exists.

"Then the public mind will rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction."

SLAVERY A MENACE TO OUR LIBERTY.

In the fifth joint debate, Galesburg, Illinois, October 7th, 1858, Lincoln put many solid truths into the following paragraph:

"And now it only remains for me to say that I think it is a very grave question for the people of this Union to consider whether, in view of the fact that this slavery question has been the only one that has ever endangered our republican institutions-the only one that has ever threatened or menaced a dissolution of the Union, that has ever disturbed us in such a way as to make us fear for the perpetuity of our liberty. In view of these facts, I think it is an exceedingly interesting and important question for this people to consider, whether we shall engage in the policy of acquiring additional territory, discarding altogether from our consideration, while obtaining new territory, the question how it may affect us in regard to this, the only endangering element to our liberties and national greatness."

DOMESTIC SLAVERY A DANGEROUS ELEMENT.

Lincoln was at his best in the sixth debate with Douglas, held at Quincy, Illinois, October 13th, 1858.

Among other things, he said:

"We have in this nation this element of domestic slavery.

"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 regard to it.

"That controversy necessarily springs from differences 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.