CHAPTER VII

THE JONESBORO DEBATE

[Chicago Press and Tribune, September 15, 1858]

THE DEBATE AT JONESBORO

The third debate between Lincoln and Douglas takes place today at Jonesboro. Douglas has boasted that when he got Lincoln down into Egypt he would "bring him to his milk." Jonesboro is in the heart of Egypt, and here, if ever, the little giant will exhibit himself in the character of milk maid. It is altogether probable that both himself and his milking arrangements will come out of the trial badly damaged. We hope to have full intelligence from the "milk pen" on Friday morning.

[Chicago Journal, September 16, 1858]

LETTERS FROM SOUTHERN ILLINOIS

(Special Correspondence of the Journal)

Just as we were going to press, we received a letter from Southern Illinois, a portion only of which we can publish today:

CAIRO, Sept. 14, 1858

Senator Douglas with his cannon arrived here yesterday and made a speech to the assembled Cairoites. Linder, Judge Marshall and John Logan also had their say. We did not get here in time to hear the speeches. In the morning, Douglas and his cannon proceed to Jonesboro, where he meets Mr. Lincoln in debate before the Egyptians, for the first time, tomorrow afternoon. Mr. Lincoln is already there, having come down on the same train which brought us to Cairo. He was received by a number of friends at the Depot, and is the guest of Mr. Dresser.

He feels well, looks strong, and is full of courage, as he has every reason to be. A warm time is expected tomorrow, and we hear some whispers of a proposed attempt on the part of Missourians and Kentuckians, who are coming over to shout for Douglas, to "put down" Lincoln. But we cannot believe that the attempt will be made. Mr. Lincoln will not be without friends at the meeting. We find that he is personally popular even here in Egypt.

THIRD JOINT DEBATE

Jonesboro, September 15, 1858

Mr. Douglas's Speech

Ladies and Gentlemen: I appear before you to-day in pursuance of a previous notice, and have made arrangements with Mr. Lincoln to divide time, and discuss with him the leading political topics that now agitate the country.

Prior to 1854 this country was divided into two great political parties known as Whig and Democratic. These parties differed from each other on certain questions which were then deemed to be important to the best interests of the Republic. Whigs and Democrats differed about a bank, the tariff, distribution, the specie circular, and the sub-treasury. On those issues we went before the country and discussed the principles, objects, and measures of the two great parties. Each of the parties could proclaim its principles in Louisiana as well as in Massachusetts, in Kentucky as well as in Illinois. Since that period, a great revolution has taken place in the formation of parties, by which they now seem to be divided by a geographical line, a large party in the North being arrayed under the Abolition or Republican banner, in hostility to the Southern States, Southern people, and Southern institutions. It becomes important for us to inquire how this transformation of parties has occurred, made from those of national principles to geographical factions.

You remember that in 1850-this country was agitated from its center to its circumference about this slavery question-it became necessary for the leaders of the great Whig party and the leaders of the great Democratic party to postpone, for the time being, their particular disputes, and unite first to save the Union before they should quarrel as to the mode in which it was to be governed. During the Congress of 1849-'50, Henry Clay was the leader of the Union men, supported by Cass and Webster, and the leaders of the Democracy and the leaders of the Whigs, in opposition to Northern Abolitionists or Southern Disunionists. That great contest of 1850 resulted in the establishment of the Compromise measures of that year, which measures rested on the great principle that the people of each State and each Territory of this Union ought to be permitted to regulate their own domestic institutions

in their own way, subject to no other limitation than that which the Federal Constitution imposes.

I now wish to ask you whether that principle was right or wrong which guaranteed to every State and every community the right to form and regulate their domestic institutions to suit themselves. These measures were adopted, as I have previously said, by the joint action of the Union Whigs, and Union Democrats in opposition to Northern Abolitionists and Southern Disunionists. In 1852, when the Whig party assembled, at Baltimore, in National Convention for the last time, they adopted the principle of the Compromise Measures of 1850 as their rule of party action in the future. One month thereafter the Democrats assembled at the same place to nominate a candidate for the Presidency, and declared the same great principle as the rule of action by which the Democracy would be governed. The Presidential election of 1852 was fought on that basis. It is true that the Whigs claimed special merit for the adoption of those measures, because they asserted that their great Clay originated them, their god-like Webster defended them, and their Fillmore signed the bill making them the law of the land; but, on the other hand, the Democrats claimed special credit for the Democracy, upon the ground that we gave twice as many votes in both houses of Congress for the passage of these measures as the Whig party.

Thus you see that in the Presidential election of 1852, the Whigs were pledged by their platform and their candidate to the principle of the Compromise Measures of 1850, and the Democracy were likewise pledged by our principles, our platform, and our candidate to the same line of policy, to preserve peace and quiet between the different sections of this Union. Since that period the Whig party has been transformed into a sectional party, under the name of the Republican party, whilst the Democratic party continues the same national party it was at that day. All sectional men, all men of Abolition sentiments and principles, no matter whether they were old Abolitionists or had been Whigs or Democrats, rally under the sectional Republican banner, and consequently all National men, all Union-loving men, whether Whigs, Democrats, or by whatever name they have been known, ought to rally under the Stars and Stripes in defense of the Constitution as our fathers made it, and of the Union as it has existed under the Constitution.

How has this departure from the faith of the Democracy and the faith of the Whig party been accomplished? In 1854, certain restless, am

bitious, and disappointed politicians throughout the land took advantage of the temporary excitement created by the Nebraska bill to try and dissolve the old Whig party, and the old Democratic party, to Abolitionize their members, and lead them, bound hand and foot, captives into the Abolition camp. In the State of New York a convention was held by some of these men, and a platform adopted, every plank of which was as black as night, each one relating to the negro, and not one referring to the interests of the white man. That example was followed throughout the Northern States, the effort being made to combine all the Free States in hostile array against the Slave States. The men who thus thought that they could build up a great sectional party, and through its organization control the political destinies of this country, based all their hopes on the single fact that the North was the stronger division of the nation, and hence, if the North could be combined against the South, a sure victory awaited their efforts.

I am doing no more than justice to the truth of history when I say that in this State, Abraham Lincoln, on behalf of the Whigs, and Lyman Trumbull, on behalf of the Democrats, were the leaders who undertook to perform this grand scheme of Abolitionizing the two parties to which they belonged. They had a private arrangement as to what should be the political destiny of each of the contracting parties before they went into the operation. The arrangement was that Mr. Lincoln was to take the Old Line Whigs with him, claiming that he was still as good a Whig as ever, over to the Abolitionists, and Mr. Trumbull was to run for Congress in the Belleville District, and claiming to be a good Democrat, coax the old Democrats into the Abolition camp, and when, by the joint efforts of the Abolitionized Whigs, the Abolitionized Democrats, and the Old Line Abolition and Free-soil party of this State, they should secure a majority in the Legislature. Lincoln was then to be made. United States Senator in Shields's place, Trumbull remaining in Congress until I should be accommodating enough to die or resign, and give him a chance to follow Lincoln. [Laughter, applause and cries of "Don't die."] That was a very nice little bargain so far as Lincoln and Trumbull were concerned, if it had been carried out in good faith, and friend Lincoln had attained to senatorial dignity according to the

contract.

They went into the contest in every part of the State, calling upon all disappointed politicians to join in the crusade against the Democracy,

and appealed to the prevailing sentiments and prejudices in all the northern counties of the State. In three Congressional Districts in the north end of the State they adopted, as the platform of this new party thus formed by Lincoln and Trumbull in' connection with the Abolitionists, all of those principles which aimed at a warfare on the part of the North against the South. They declared in that platform that the Wilmot Proviso was to be applied to all the Territories of the United States, north as well as south of 36 deg. 30 min., and not only to all the territory we then had, but all that we might hereafter acquire; that hereafter no more Slave States should be admitted into this Union, even if the people of such State desired slavery; that the Fugitive-Slave law should be absolutely and unconditionally repealed; that slavery should be abolished in the District of Columbia; that the slave trade should be abolished between the different states; and, in fact, every article in their creed related to this slavery question, and pointed to a Northern geographical party in hostility to the Southern States of this Union.

Such were their principles in Northern Illinois. A little farther2 south they became bleached, and grew paler just in proportion as public sentiment moderated and changed in this direction. They were Republicans or Abolitionists in the North, anti-Nebraska men down about Springfield, and in this neighborhood they contented themselves with talking about the inexpediency of the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. [Shouts of laughter.] In the extreme northern counties they brought out men to canvass the State whose complexion suited their political creed; and hence Fred Douglass, the negro, was to be found there, following General Cass, and attempting to speak on behalf of Lincoln, Trumbull, and Abolitionism, against that illustrious senator. [Renewed laughter.] Why, they brought Fred Douglass to Freeport, when I was addressing a meeting there, in a carriage driven by the white owner, the negro sitting inside with the white lady and her daughter. ["Shame."] When I got through canvassing the northern counties. that year, and progressed as far south as Springfield, I was met and opposed in discussion by Lincoln, Lovejoy, Trumbull and Sidney Breese, who were on one side. [Laughter.] Father Giddings, the high-priest of Abolitionism, had just been there, and Chase came about the time

Inserts "the" after "in."

Reads: "further" for "farther."