EXTRACT FROM MR. LINCOLN'S SPEECH

DELIVERED AT SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS, JULY 17, 1858.

Senator Douglas is of world-wide renown. All the anxious politicians of his party, or who have been of his party for years past, have been looking upon him as certainly, at no distant day, to be the President of the United States. They have seen in his round, jolly, fruitful face, post-offices, land offices, marshalships, and cabinet appointments, chargeships, foreign missions, and sprouting out in wonderful exuberance, ready to be laid hold of by their greedy hands. And as they have been gazing upon this attractive picture so long, they cannot, in the little distraction that has taken place in the party, bring themselves to give up the charming hope, but with greedier anxiety they rush about him, sustain him, and give him marches, triumphal entries, and receptions beyond what, even in the days of his highest prosperity, they could have brought about in his favor.

On the contrary, nobody has ever expected me to be President. In my poor, lean, lank face, nobody has ever seen that any cabbages were sprouting out. These are disadvantages, all taken together, that the republicans labor under: We have to fight this battle upon principle alone. I am, in a certain sense, made the standard-bearer in behalf of the republicans. So I hope those with whom I am surrounded have principle enough to nerve them

EXTRACT FROM MR. LINCOLN'S SPEECH. 113

selves for the task, and leave nothing undone that can be fairly done, to bring about the right result.

I

My declarations upon this subject of negro slavery may be misrepresented, but cannot be misunderstood. have said that I do not understand the Declaration to mean that all men were created equal in all respects. They are not our equal in color; but I suppose that it does mean to declare that all men are created equal in some respects; they are equal in their right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Certainly the negro is not our equal in color, perhaps not in many other respects; still, in the right to put into his mouth the bread that his own hands have earned, he is the equal of every other man, white or black. In pointing out that more has been given. you, you cannot be justified in taking away the little which has been given him. All I ask for the negro is that if you do not like him, let him alone. If God gave him but little that little let him enjoy.

8

EXTRACT FROM MR. LINCOLN'S SPEECH

AT OTTAWA, ILLINOIS, AUGUST 21, 1858.

I hold that there is no reason in the world why the negro is not entitled to all the natural rights enumerated in the Declaration of Independence, the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I hold, that he is as much entitled to these, as the white man. I agree with Judge Douglas, that he is not my equal in many respects, -certainly not in color-perhaps not in moral or intellectual endowment. But in the right to eat the bread, without the leave of any body else, which his own hand earns, he is my equal, and the equal of Judge Douglas, and the equal of every living man.

THOMAS A. EDISON.

115

THE

HE life and character of Abraham Lincoln, and his great services to this country during the war of the rebellion, will stand as a monument long after the granite monuments erected to his memory have crumbled in the dust.

Thone A Edison

MENLO PARK, 1880.

as

EXTRACT FROM MR. LINCOLN'S SPEECH

AT FREEPORT, ILLINOIS, AUGUST 27, 1858.

I have supposed myself, since the organization of the Republican party at Bloomington, in May, 1856, bound. as a party man, by the platforms of the party, then, and since. If, in any interrogatories which I shall answer, I go beyond the scope of what is within these platforms, it will be perceived that no one is responsible but myself.

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

2d. I do not now, or ever did, stand pledged against the admission of any more slave States into the Union.

3d. 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.

4th. I do not stand to-day, pledged to the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia.

5th. I do not stand pledged to the prohibition of the slave-trade between the different States.

6th. I am implied, if not expressly, pledged to a belief in the right and duty of Congress to prohibit slavery in all the United States Territories.,

7th. I am not generally opposed to honest acquisition of territory; and, in any given case, I would or would not oppose such acquisition, accordingly as I might think such acquisition would, or would not, aggravate the slavery question among ourselves