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"I have observed," he said with condescending assurance, "I have observed from the public prints, that but a few days ago the Republican party of the State of Illinois assembled in convention at Springfield, and not only laid down their platform, but nominated a candidate for the United States Senate as my successor. I take great pleasure in saying that I have known, personally and intimately, for about a quarter of a century, the worthy gentleman who has been nominated for my place; and I will say that I regard him as a kind, amiable and intelligent gentleman, a good citizen, and an honorable opponent; and whatever issue I may have with him will be of principle, and not involving personalities." He then proceeded to specify his two chief points of attack on Mr. Lincoln, after citing a portion of the first paragraph of his Springfield speech. Mr. Douglas endeavored thus to put his opponent on the defensive, by selecting sentences out of their connection, and imputing to them a meaning not intended. His first point he thus states:

In other words, Mr. Lincoln asserts as a fundamental principle of this Government, that there must be uniformity in the local laws and domestic institutions of each and all the States of the Union, and he therefore invites all the nonslaveholding States to band together, organize as one body, and make war upon slavery in Kentucky, upon slavery in Virginia, upon slavery in the Carolinas, upon slavery in all of the slaveholding States in this Union, and to persevere in that war until it shall be exterminated. He then notifies the slaveholding States to stand together as a unit and make an aggressive war upon the free States of this Union, with a view of establishing slavery in them all; of forcing it upon Illinois, of forcing it upon New York, upon New England, and upon every other free State, and that they shall keep up the warfare until it has been formally established in them all. In other words, Mr. Lincoln advocates boldly and clearly a war of sections, a war of the North against the South, of the free States against the slave States-a war of extermination-to be continued relentlessly until the one or the other should be subdued, and all the States shall either become free or become slave.

His other point was made in these words:

The other proposition discussed by Mr. Lincoln in his

speech consists in a crusade against the Supreme Court of the United States on account of the Dred Scott decision. On this question, also, I desire to say to you, unequivocally, that I take direct and distinct issue with him. I have no warfare to make on the Supreme Court of the United States, either on account of that or any other decision which they have pronounced from that bench. The Constitution of the United States has provided that the powers of Government (and the Constitution of each State has the same provision) shall be divided into three departments-executive, legislative and judicial. The right and the province of expounding the Constitution, and constructing the law, is vested in the judiciary established by the Constitution. As a lawyer, I feel at liberty to appear before the court and controvert any principle of law while the question is pending before the tribunal; but when the decision is made, my private opinion, your opinion, all other opinions must yield to the majesty of that authoritative adjudication.

Later in the same speech, Mr. Douglas said on this head :

He

On the other point, Mr. Lincoln goes for a warfare upon the Supreme Court of the United States, because of their decision in the Dred Scott case. I yield obedience to the decisions of that Court-to the final determination of the highest judicial tribunal known to our Constitution. objects to the Dred Scott decision because it does not put the negro in the possession of the rights of citizenship on an equality with the white man. I am opposed to negro equality. I repeat that this nation is a white people-a people composed of European descendants-a people that have established this Government for themselves and their posterity, and I am in favor of preserving, not only the purity of the blood, but the purity of the Government, from any mixture or amalgamation with inferior races. I have seen the effects of this mixture of superior and inferior races - this amalgamation of white men and Indians and negroes; we have seen it in Mexico, in Central America, in South America, and in all the Spanish-American States, and its result has been degeneration, demoralization, and degradation below the capacity for self-government.

How completely the positions of Mr. Lincoln were misconstrued in these extracts, will partly appear from reading his speech, made at Springfield on the 26th of June, 1857. These misconceptions were completely disposed of in Mr. Lincoln's reply, at Chicago, on the following evening, July

10th. An instense eagerness to hear his answer drew together a great crowd, and the reception of Mr. Lincoln, on his appearance, was most enthusiastic, the applause continuing for several minutes

MR. LINCOLN'S REPLY TO MR. DOUGLAS.

(At Chicago, on the evening of July 10th, 1858.)

Mr. Lincoln said:

MY FELLOW-CITIZENS: On yesterday evening, upon the occasion of the reception given to Senator Douglas, I was furnished with a seat very convenient for hearing him, and was otherwise very courteously treated by him and his friends, for which I thank him and them. During the course of his remarks my name was mentioned in such a way as, I suppose, renders it at least not improper that I should make some sort of reply to him. I shall not attempt to follow him in the precise order in which he addressed the assembled multitude upon that occasion, though I shall perhaps do so in the main.

THE ALLEGED ALLIANCE.

There was one question to which he asked the attention of the crowd, which I deem of somewhat less importance-at least of propriety for me to dwell upon-than the others, which he brought in near the close of his speech, and which I think it would not be entirely proper for me to omit attending to, and yet if I were not to give some attention to it now, I should probably forget it altogether. While I am upon this subject, allow me to say that I do not intend to indulge in that inconvenient mode sometimes adopted in public speaking, of reading from documents; but I shall depart from that rule so far as to read a little scrap from his speech, which notices this first topic of which I shall speak-that is, provided I can find it in the paper. [Examines the morning's paper.]

"I have made up my mind to appeal to the people against the combination that has been made against me! the Republican leaders having formed an alliance, an unholy and unnatural alliance, with a portion of unscrupulous federal office-holders. I intend to fight that allied army wherever I meet them. I know they deny the alliance, but yet these men, who are trying to divide the Democratic party for the purpose of electing a Republican Senator in my place, are just as much the agents and tools of the supporters of Mr. Lincoln. Hence I shall deal with this allied army just as the Russians dealt with the allies at Sebastopol-that is, the Russians did

not stop to inquire, when they fired a broadside, whether it hit an Englishman, a Frenchman, or a Turk. Nor will I stop to inquire, nor shall I hesitate whether my blows shall hit these Republican leaders or their allies, who are holding the federal offices, and yet acting in concert with them."

Well, now, gentlemen, is not that very alarming? Just to think of it! right at the outset of his canvass, I, a poor, kind. amiable, intelligent gentleman, I am to be slain in this way. Why, my friends, the Judge is not only, as it turns out, not a dead lion, nor even a living one-he is the rugged Russiar Bear! [Laughter and applause.]

But if they will have it-for he says that we deny it-that there is any such alliance, as he says there is-and I don't propose hanging very much upon this question of veracity— but if he will have it that there is such an alliance-that the Administration men and we are allied, and we stand in the attitude of English, French and Turk, he occupying the position of the Russian, in that case, I beg that he will indulge us while we barely suggest to him that these allies took Sebastopol. [Great applause.]

Gentlemen, only a few more words as to this alliance. For my part, I have to say, that whether there be such an alliance, depends so far as I know, upon what may be a right defininition of the term alliance. If for the Republican party to see the other great party to which they are opposed divided among themselves, and not try to stop the division and rather be glad of it-if that is an alliance, I confess I am in; but if it is meant to be said that the Republicans had formed an alliance going beyond that, by which there is contribution of money or sacrifice of principle on the one side or the other, so far as the Republican party is concerned, if there be any such thing, I protest that I neither know any thing of it, nor do I believe it. I will, however, say as I think this branch of the argument is lugged in-I would before I leave it, state, for the benefit of those concerned, that one of those same Buchanan men did once tell me of an argument that be made for his opposition to Judge Douglas. He said that a friend of our Senator Douglas had been talking to him, and had among other things said to him: "Why, you don't want to beat Douglas ?" "Yes," said he, "I do want to beat him, and I will tell you why. I believe his original Nebraska Bill was right in the abstract, but it was wrong in the time that it was brought forward. It was wrong in the application to a Territory in regard to which the question had been settled; it was brought forward at a time when nobody asked him; it was tendered to the South when the South had not asked for it,

but when they could not well refuse it; and for this same reason he forced that question upon our party; it has sunk the best men all over the nation, everywhere; and now when our President, struggling with the difficulties of this man's getting up, has reached the very hardest point to turn in the case, he deserts him, and I am for putting him where he will trouble us no more.'

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Now, gentlemen, that is not my argument-that is not my argument at all. I have only been stating to you the argument of a Buchanan man. You will judge if there is any

force in it.

WHAT IS POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY?

Popular Sovereignty! everlasting Popular Sovereignty! Let us for a moment inquire into this vast matter of Popular Sovereignty. What is Popular Sovereignty? We recollect that in an early period in the history of this struggle, there was another name for the same thing-Squatter Sovereignty. It was not exactly Popular Sovereignty, but Squatter Sovereignty. What do those terms mean? What do those terms mean when used now? And vast credit is taken by our friend, the Judge, in regard to his support of it, when he declares the last years of his life have been, and all the future years of his life shall be, devoted to this matter of Popular Sovereignty. What is it? Why, it is the sovereignty of the people! What was Squatter Sovereignty? I suppose if it had any significance at all, it was the right of the people to govern themselves, to be sovereign in their own affairs while they were squatted down in a country not their own, while they had squatted on a Territory that did not belong to them, in the sense that a State belongs to the people who inhabit it—when it belonged to the ration-such right to govern themselves was called “ Squatter Sovereignty."

Now I wish you to mark. What has become of that Squatter Sovereignty? What has become of it? Can you get any body to tell you now that the people of a territory have any authority to govern themselves, in regard to this mooted question of slavery, before they form a State Constitution? No such thing at all, although there is a general running fire, and although there has been a hurrah made in every speech on that side, assuming that policy had given the people of a Territory the right to govern themselves upon this question; yet the point is dodged. To-day it has been decided-no more than a year ago it was decided by the Supreme Court of the United States, and is insisted upon to-day, that the people

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