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probable, the judgment of the party shall assign me a different position. If the Republicans of the great State of Pennsylvania shall present Mr. Cameron as their candidate for the presidency, such an indorsement for his fitness for the place could scarcely be deemed insufficient. Still, as I would not like the public to know, so I would not like myself to know, I had entered a combination with any man to the prejudice of all others whose friends respectively may consider them preferable.

Yours truly,

*LETTER TO DR.

A. LINCOLN.

SPRINGFIELD, November 2, 1859.

Dear Doctor: Your business makes it convenient for you to do a good deal in the way of getting all our friends to the polls next Tuesday. Please do it. We begin to hope we can elect Palmer. He is a good man, and deserves to be elected, both for his own, and the Cause's sake. Yours truly,

A. LINCOLN.

LETTER TO JAMES A. BRIGGS

DANVILLE, ILLINOIS, November 13, 1859.

Dear Sir: Yours of the 1st, closing with my proposition for compromise, was duly received.

I will be on hand, and in due time notify you of the exact day. I believe, after all, I shall make a political speech of it. You have no objection? I would like to know in advance whether I am also to speak or lecture in New York. Very, very glad your election went right.

Yours truly,

A. LINCOLN.

SPEECHES IN KANSAS, December 1-5, 18591

P

Introduction.

URPOSE of the Republican organization. The Republican party believe there is danger that slavery will be further extended, and ultimately made national in the United States; and to prevent this incidental and final consummation, is the purpose of this organization.

Chief danger to that purpose.-A congressional slave code for the Territories, and the revival of the African trade, and a second Dred Scott decision, are not just now the chief danger to our purpose. These will press us in due time, but they are not quite ready yet-they know that, as yet, we are too strong for them. The insidious Douglas popular sovereignty,

1 In response to invitations from Republicans of the then Territory, Mr. Lincoln made a visit to Kansas in December, 1859, and made speeches at Elwood (opposite St. Joseph, Mo.), at Troy, Doniphan, Atchison, and Leavenworth, Kansas. Among his papers were a number of disconnected sheets of autograph manuscript, which contained internal evidence that they were portions of the addresses made by him on these occasions. Though the fragments seem to belong to different addresses, the topics treated in them justify their presentation in the order here arranged, as the general line of argument followed by him. - N. and H.

which prepares the way for this ultimate danger, it is which just now constitutes our chief danger.

Popular Sovereignty.-I say Douglas popular sovereignty; for there is a broad distinction between real popular sovereignty and Douglas popular sovereignty. That the nation shall control what concerns it; that a State, or any minor political community, shall control what exclusively concerns it; and that an individual shall control what exclusively concerns him,— is a real popular sovereignty, which no Republican opposes.

But this is not Douglas popular sovereignty. Douglas popular sovereignty, as a matter of principle, simply is: "If one man would enslave another, neither that other nor any third man has a right to object."

Douglas popular sovereignty, as he practically applies it, is: "If any organized political community, however new and small, would enslave men or forbid their being enslaved within its own territorial limits; however the doing the one or the other may affect the men sought to be enslaved, or the vastly superior number of men who are afterward to come within those limits, or the family of communities of which it is but a member, or the head of that family, as the present and common guardian of the

whole-however any or all these are to be affected, neither any nor all may interfere."

This is Douglas popular sovereignty. He has great difficulty with it. His speeches and letters and essays and explanations explanatory of explanations explained upon it, are legion. The most lengthy, and as I suppose the most maturely considered, is that recently published in "Harper's Magazine." It has two leading objects: the first, to appropriate the authority and reverence due the great and good men of the Revolution to his popular sovereignty; and, secondly, to show that the Dred Scott decision has not entirely squelched his popular sovereignty.

Before considering these mains objects, I wish to consider a few minor points of the copyright essay.

Last year Governor Seward and myself, at different times and occasions, expressed the opinion that slavery is a durable element of discord, and that we shall not have peace with it until it either masters or is mastered by the free principle. This gave great offense to Judge Douglas, and his denunciations of it, and absurd inferences from it, have never ceased. Almost at the very beginning of the copyright essay he quotes the language respectively of Seward and myself-not quite accurately, but

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