other resolution upon the journal, with which you must all be familiar- -a resolution brought forward by Mr. Ninian Edwards, and adopted by the House of Representatives by a vote of 61 in the affirmative to 4 in the negative. That resolution I can quote to you in almost its precise language. It declared that the great principle of self-government was the birthright of freemen; was the gift of heaven; was achieved by the blood of our revolutionary fathers, and must be continued and carried out in the organization of all the Territories and the admission of all new States. That became the Illinois platform by the united voices of the Democratic party and of the Whig party in 1851; all the Whigs and all the Democrats in the Legislature uniting in an affirmative vote upon it, and there being only 4 votes in the negative, of Abolitionists, of course, that resolution stands upon the journal of your Legislature to this day and hour unrepealed, as a standing, living, perpetual instruction to the Senators from Illinois in all time to come to carry out that principle of self-government and allow no limitation upon it in the organization of any Territories or the admission of any new States. In 1854, when it became my duty as the chairman of the committee on Territories to bring forward a bill for the organization of Kansas and Nebraska, I incorporated that principle in it and Congress passed it, thus carrying the principle into practical effect. I will not recur to the scenes which took place all over the country in 1854 when that Nebraska bill passed. I could then travel from Boston to Chicago by the light of my own effigies, in consequence of having stood up for it. I leave it to you to say how I met that storm, and whether I quailed under it; whether I did not "face the music," justify the principle, and pledge my life to carry it out.

A friend here reminds me, too, that when making speeches then, justifying the Nebraska bill and the great principle of self-government, that I predicted that in less than five years you would have to get out a search warrant to find an anti-Nebraska man. Well, I believe I did make that prediction. I did not claim the power of a prophet, but it occurred to me that among a free people, and an honest people, and an intelligent people, that five years was long enough for them to come to an understanding that the great principle of self-government was right, not only in the States, but in the Territories. I rejoiced this year to see my prediction, in that respect, carried out and fulfilled by the unanimous vote, in one form or another, of both Houses of Congress. If you will remember that pending this Lecompton controversy that gallant old Roman, Kentucky's favorite son, the worthy successor of the immortal Clay I allude, as you know, to the gallant John J. Crittenden brought forward a bill, now known as the Crittenden-Montgomery bill, in which it was proposed that the Lecompton Constitution should be referred back to the people of Kansas, to be decided for or against it, at a fair election, and if a majority of the people were in favor of it, that Kansas should come into the Union as a slaveholding State, but that if a majority were against it, that they should make a new Constitution, and come in with slavery or without it, as they thought proper. ["That was right."] Yes, my dear sir, it was not only right, but it was carrying out the principle of the Nebraska bill in its letter and in its spirit. Of course I voted for it, and so did every Republican Senator and Representative in Congress. I have found some Democrats so perfectly straight that they blame me for voting for the principle of the Nebraska bill because the Republicans voted the same way. [Great laughter. "What did they say?"]

What did they say? Why, many of them said that Douglas voted with the Republicans. Yes! not only that, but with the black Republicans. Well, there are different modes of stating that proposition. The New York Tribune says that Douglas did not vote with the Republicans, but that on that question the Republicans went over to Douglas and voted with him.

My friends, I have never yet abandoned a principle because of the support I found men yielding to it, and I shall never abandon my Democratic principles merely because Republicans come to them. For what do we travel over the country and make speeches in every political canvass, if it is not to enlighten the minds

of these Republicans; to remove the scales from their eyes, and to impart to them the light of democratic vision, so that they may be able to carry out the Constitution of our country as our fathers made it. And if by preaching our principles to the people we succeed in convincing the Republicans of the errors of their ways, and bring them over to us, are we bound to turn traitors to our principles, merely because they give them their support? All I have to say is that I hope the Republican party will stand firm, in the future, by the vote they gave on the Crittenden-Montgomery bill. I hope we will find, in the resolutions of their County and Congressional Conventions, no declarations of "no more slave States to be admitted into this Union," but in lieu of that declaration that we will find the principle that the people of every State and every Territory shall come into the Union with slavery or without it, just as they please, without any interference on the part of Congress.

My friends, whilst I was at Washington, engaged in this great battle for sound constitutional principles, I find from the newspapers that the Republican party of this State assembled in this Capital, in State Convention, and not only nominated, as it was wise and proper for them to do, a man for my successor in the Senate, but laid down a platform, and their nominee made a speech, carefully written and prepared, and well delivered, which that Convention accepted as containing the Republican creed. I have no comment to make on that part of Mr. Lincoln's speech, in which he represents me as forming a conspiracy with the Supreme Court, and with the late President of the United States and the present chief magistrate, having for my object the passage of the Nebraska bill, the Dred Scott decision and the extension of slavery-a scheme of political tricksters, composed of Chief Justice Taney and his eight associates, two Presidents of the United States, and one Senator of Illinois. If Mr. Lincoln deems me a conspirator of that kind, all I have to say is that I do not think so badly of the President of the United States, and the Supreme Court of the United States, the highest judicial tribunal on earth, as to believe that they were capable in their action and decision of entering into political intrigues for partisan purposes. I therefore shall only notice those parts of Mr. Lincoln's speech, in which he lays down his platform of principles, and tells you what he intends to do if he is elected to the Senate of the United States.

[An old gentleman here rose on the platform and said: Judge, be particular."]

"Be particular now,

Mr. Douglas - My venerable friend here says that he will be gratified if I will be particular, and in order that I may be so, I will read the language of Mr. Lincoln as reported by himself and published to the country. Mr. Lincoln lays down his main proposition in these words:

"A house divided against itself cannot stand.' I believe this Union cannot endure permanently half free and half slave. I do not expect the Union will be dissolved, I do not expect the house to fall, but I do expect it to cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other."

Mr. Lincoln does not think this Union can continue to exist composed of half slave and half free States; they must all be free or all slave. I do not doubt that this is Mr. Lincoln's conscientious conviction. I do not doubt that he thinks it is the highest duty of every patriotic citizen to preserve this glorious Union, and to adopt these measures as necessary to its preservation. He tells you that the only mode to preserve the Union is to make all the States free or all slave. It must be the one or it must be the other. Now that being essential, in his estimation, to the preservation of this glorious Union, how is he going to accomplish it? He says that he wants to go to the Senate in order to carry out this favorite patriotic policy of his, of making all the States free, so that the house shall no longer be divided against itself. When he gets to the Senate, by what means is he going to accomplish it? By an act of Congress? Will he contend that Congress has any power under the Constitution to abolish slavery

in any State of this Union, or to interfere with it directly or indirectly? Of course he will not contend that. Then what is to be his mode of carrying out his principle, by which slavery shall be abolished in all of the States? Mr. Lincoln certainly does not speak at random. He is a lawyer, an eminent lawyer, and his profession is to know the remedy for every wrong. What is his remedy for this imaginary wrong which he supposes to exist? The Constitution of the United States provides that it may be amended by Congress passing an amendment by a two-thirds majority of each house, which shall be ratified by three-fourths of the States, and the inference is that Mr. Lincoln intends to carry this slavery agitation into Congress with the view of amending the Constitution so that slavery can be abolished in all the States of the Union. In other words, he is not going to allow one portion of the Union to be slave and another portion to be free; he is not going to permit the house to be divided against itself. He is going to remedy it by lawful and constitutional means. What are to be these means? How can he abolish slavery in those States where it exists? There is but one mode by which a political organization, composed of men in the free States, can abolish slavery in the slaveholding States, and that would be to abolish the State Legislatures, blot out of existence the State sovereignties, invest Congress with full and plenary power over all the local and domestic and police regulations of the different States of this Union. Then there would be uniformity in the local concerns and domestic institutions of the different States; then the house would be no longer divided against itself; then the States would all be free, or they would all be slave; then you would have uniformity prevailing throughout this whole land in the local and domestic institutions, but it would be a uniformity not of liberty, but a uniformity of despotism that would triumph. I submit to you, my fellow-citizens, whether this is not the logical consequence of Mr. Lincoln's proposition? I have called on Mr. Lincoln to explain what he did mean, if he did not mean this, and he has made a speech at Chicago, in which he attempts to explain. And how does he explain? I will give him the benefit of his own language, precisely as it was reported in the Republican papers of that city, after undergoing his revision.

"I have said a hundred times, and have now no inclination to take it back, that I believe there is no right and ought to be no inclination in the people of the free States to enter into the slave States and interfere with the question of slavery at all."

He believes there is no right on the part of the free people of the free States to enter the slave States aud interfere with the question of slavery, hence he does not propose to go into Kentucky and stir up a civil war and a servile war between the blacks and the whites. All he proposes is to invite the people of Illinois and every other free State to band together as one sectional party, governed and divided by a geographical line, to make war upon the institution of slavery in the slaveholding States. He is going to carry it out by means of a political party, that has its adherents only in the free States; a political party, that does not pretend that it can give a solitary vote in the slave States of the Union; and by this sectional vote he is going to elect a President of the United States; form a Cabinet and administer the Government on sectional grounds, being the power of the North over that of the South. In other words, he invites a war of the North against the South, a warfare of the free States against the slaveholding States. He asks all men in the free States to conspire to exterminate slavery in the Southern States, so as to make them all free, and then he notifies the South that unless they are going to submit to our efforts to exterminate their institutions, they must band together and plant slavery in Illinois and every Northern State. He says that the States must all be free or must all be slave. On this point I take issue with him directly. I assert that Illinois has a right to decide the slavery question for herself. We have decided it, and I think we have done it wisely; but whether wisely or unwisely, it is our business, and the people of no other State have any right to interfere with us, directly or indirectly. Claiming as we do this right for ourselves, we must concede it to every other State, to be exercised by them respectively.

Now, Mr. Lincoln says that he will not enter into Kentucky to abolish slavery there, but that all he will do is to fight slavery in Kentucky from Illinois. He will not go over there to set fire to the match. I do not think he would. Mr. Lincoln is a very prudent man. He would not deem it wise to go over into Kentucky to stir up this strife, but he would do it from this side of the river. Permit me to inquire whether the wrong, the outrage of interference by one State with the local concerns of another, is worse when you actually invade them than it would be if you carried on the warfare from another State? For the purpose of illustration, suppose the British Government should plant a battery on the Niagara river opposite Buffalo and throw their shells over into Buffalo, where they should explode and blow up the houses and destroy the town. We call the British Government to an account, and they say, in the language of Mr. Lincoln, we did not enter into the limits of the United States to interfere with you; we planted the battery on our own soil, and had a right to shoot from our own soil, and if our shells and balls fell in Buffalo and killed your inhabitants, why, it is your look-out, not ours. Thus, Mr. Lincoln is going to plant his Abolition batteries all along the banks of the Ohio river, and throw his shells into Virginia and Kentucky and into Missouri, and blow up the institution of slavery, and when we arraign him for his unjust interference with the iustitutions of the other States, he says, "Why, I never did enter into Kentucky to interfere with her; I do not propose to do it; I only propose to take care of my own head by keeping on this side of the river, out of harm's way." But yet, he says he is going to persevere in this system of sectional warfare, and I have no doubt he is sincere in what he says. He says that the existence of the Union depends upon his success in firing into these slave States until he exterminates them. He says that unless he shall play his batteries successfully, so as to abolish slavery in every one of the States, that the Union shall be dissolved; and he says that a dissolution of the Union would be a terrible calamity. Of course it would. We are all friends of the Union. We all believeI do that our lives, our liberties, our hopes in the future depend upon the preservation and perpetuity of this glorious Union. I believe that the hopes of the friends of liberty throughout the world depend upon the perpetuity of the American Union. But while I believe that my mode of preserving the Union is a very different one from that of Mr. Lincoln, I believe that the Union can only be preserved by maintaining inviolate the Constitution of the United States as our fathers have made it. That Constitution guarantees to the people of every State the right to have slavery or not have it; to have negroes or not have them; to have Maine liquor laws or not have them; to have just such institutions as they choose, each State being left free to decide for itself. The framers of that Constitution never conceived the idea that uniformity in the domestic institutions of the different States was either desirable or possible. They well understood that the laws and institutions which would be well adapted to the granite hills of New Hampshire, would be unfit for the rice plantations of South Carolina; they well understood that each one of the thirteen States had distinct and separate interests, and required distinct and separate local laws and local institutions. And in view of that fact they provided that each State should retain its sovereign power within its own limits, with the right to make just such laws and just such institutions as it saw proper, under the belief that no two of them would be alike. If they had supposed that uniformity was desirable and possible, why did they provide for a separate Legislature for each State? Why did they not blot out State sovereignty and State Legislatures, and give all the power to Congress, in order that the laws might be uniform? For the very reason that uniformity, in their opinion, was neither desirable or possible. We have increased from thirteen States to thirty-two States, and just in proportion as the number of States increases and our territory expands, there will be a still greater variety and dissimilarity of climate, of production and of interest, requiring a corresponding dissimilarity and variety in the local laws and institutions adapted thereto. The laws that are necessary in the mining regions of California, would be totally useless and vicious on the prairies of Illinois; the laws that would suit the lumber regions of Maine or of Minnesota, would be totally useless

and valueless in the tobacco regions of Virginia and Kentucky; the laws which would suit the manufacturing districts of New England, would be totally unsuited to the planting regions of the Carolinas, of Georgia, and of Louisiana. Each State is supposed to have interests separate and distinct from each and every other, and hence must have laws different from each and every other State, in order that its laws shall be adapted to the condition and necessities of the people. Hence I insist that our institutions rest on the theory that there shall be dissimilarity and variety in the local laws and institutions of the different States instead of all being uniform; and you find, my friends, that Mr. Lincoln and myself differ radically and totally on the fundamental principles of this Government. He goes for consolidation, for uniformity in our local institutions, for blotting out State rights and State sovereignty, and consolidating all the power in the Federal Government, for converting these thirty-two sovereign States into one Empire, and making uniformity throughout the length and breadth of the land. On the other hand, I go for maintaining the authority of the Federal Government within the limits marked out by the Constitution, and then for maintaining and preserving the sovereignty of each and all of the States of the Union, in order that each State may regulate and adopt its own local institutions in its own way, without interference from any power whatsoever. Thus you find there is a distinct issue of principles-principles irreconcilable-between Mr. Lincoln and myself. He goes for consolidation and uniformity in our Government. I go for maintaining the confederation of the sovereign States under the Constitution, as our fathers made it, leaving each State at liberty to manage its own affairs and own internal institutions.

Mr. Lincoln makes another point upon me, and rests his whole case upon these two points. His last point is, that he will wage a warfare upon the Supreme Court of the United States because of the Dred Scott decision. He takes occasion, in his speech made before the Republican Convention, in my absence, to arraign me, not only for having expressed my acquiesence in that decision, but to charge me with being a conspirator with that court in devising that decision three years before Dred Scott ever thought of commencing a suit for his freedom. The object of his speech was to convey the idea to the people that the court could not be trusted, that the late President could not be trusted, that the present one could not be trusted, and that Mr. Douglas could not be trusted; that they were all conspirators in bringing about that corrupt decision, to which Mr. Lincoln is determined he will never yield a willing obedience.

He makes two points upon the Dred Scott decision. The first is that he objects to it because the court decided that negroes descended of slave parents are not citizens of the United States; and secondly, because they have decided that the act of Congress, passed 8th of March, 1820, prohibiting slavery in all of the Territories north of 36° 30', was unconstitutional and void, and hence did not have effect in emancipating a slave brought into that Territory. And he will not submit to that decision. He says that he will not fight the Judges or the United States Marshals in order to liberate Dred Scott, but that he will not respect that decision, as a rule of law binding on this country, in the future. Why not? Because, he says, it is unjust. How is he going to remedy it? Why, he says he is going to reverse it. How? He is going to take an appeal. To whom is he going to appeal? The Constitution of the United States provides that the Supreme Court is the ultimate tribunal, the highest judicial tribunal on earth, and Mr. Lincoln is going to appeal from that. To whom? I know he appealed to the Republican State Convention of Illinois, and I believe that Convention reversed the decision, but I am not aware that they have yet carried it into effect. How are they going to make that reversal effectual? Why, Mr. Lincoln tells us in his late Chicago speech. He explains it as clear as light. He says to the people of Illinois that if you elect him to the Senate he will introduce a bill to re-enact the law which the Court pronounced unconstitutional. [Shouts of laughter, and voices, "Spot the law."] Yes, he is going to spot the law. The court pronounces that law, prohibit