themselves, and be accountable to their God for their action. It is not for me to arraign them for what they do. I will not judge them, lest I shall be judged. Let Kentucky mind her own business and take care of her negroes and we attend to our own affairs and take care of our negroes, and we will be the best of friends; but if Kentucky attempts to interfere with us, or we with her, there will be strife, there will be discord, there will be relentless hatred there will be everything but fraternal feeling and brotherly love. It is no necessary that you should enter Kentucky and interfere in that State, to use the language of Mr. Lincoln. It is just as offensive to interfere from this State, or send your missiles over there. I care not whether an enemy, if he i going to assault us, shall actually come into our State, or come along the line and throw his bombshells over to explode in our midst. Suppose England should plant a battery on the Canadian side of the Niagara River, opposite Buffalo, and throw bombshells over, which would explode in Main Street, ir that city, and destroy the buildings, and that, when we protested, she would say, in the language of Mr. Lincoln, that she never dreamed of coming into the United States to interfere with us, and that she was just throwing he bombs over the line from her own side, which she had a right to do. Would that explanation satisfy us? So it is with Mr. Lincoln. So it is with Mr. Lincoln. He is not going into Kentucky, but he will plant his batteries on this side of the Ohio, where he is safe and secure for a retreat, and will throw his bombshells his Abolition documents over the river, and will carry on a political warfare, and get up strife between the North and the South, until he elects a sectional President reduces the South to the condition of dependent colonies, raises the negro tc an equality, and forces the South to submit to the doctrine that a house divided against itself cannot stand; that the Union divided into half slave States and half free cannot endure; that they must all be slave or they must all be free; and that as we in the North are in the majority, we will not permit them to be all slave, and therefore they in the South must consent to the States all being free. Now, fellow-citizens, I submit to you whether these doctrines are consistent with the peace and harmony of this Union? I submit to you whether they are consistent with our duties as citizens of a common confederacy; whether they are consistent with the principles which ought to govern brethren of the same family? I recognize all the people of these States, North and South, East and West, old or new, Atlantic or Pacific, as our brethren, flesh of our flesh, and I will do no act unto them that I would not be willing they should do unto us. I would apply the same Christian rule to the States of this Union that we are taught to apply to individuals, "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you;" and this would secure peace. Why should this slavery agitation be kept up? Does it benefit the white man, or the slave? Who does it benefit, except the Republican politicians, who use it as their hobby to ride into office? Why, I repeat, should it be continued? Why cannot we be content to administer this government as it was made, a confederacy of sovereign and independent States? Let us recognize the sovereignty and independence of each State, refrain from interfering with the domestic institutions and regulations of other States, permit the Territories and new States to decide their institutions for themselves, as we did when we were in their condition; blot out these lines of North and South, and resort back to these lines of State boundaries which the Constitution has marked out and engraved upon the face of the country; have no other dividing lines but these, and we will be one united, harmonious people, with fraternal feelings, and no discord or dissension.

These are my views, and these are the principles to which I have devoted all my energies since 1850, when I acted side by side with the immortal Clay and the god-like Webster in that memorable struggle, in which Whigs and Democrats united upon a common platform of patriotism and the Constitution, throwing aside partisan feelings in order to restore peace and harmony to a distracted country. And when I stood beside the death-bed of Mr. Clay, and heard him refer, with feelings and emotions of the deepest solicitude, to the welfare of the country, and saw that he looked upon the principle embodied in the great Compromise measures of 1850, the principle of the Nebraska bill, the doctrine of leaving each State and Territory free to decide its institutions for itself, as the only means by which the peace of the country could be preserved and the Union perpetuated, I pledged him, on that death-bed of his, that so long as I lived, my energies should be devoted to the vindication of that principle, and of his fame as connected with it. I gave the same pledge to the great expounder of the Constitution, he who has been called the "god-like Webster." I looked up to Clay and him as a son would to a father, and I call upon the people of Illinois, and the people of the whole Union, to bear testimony that never since the sod has been laid upon the graves of these eminent statesmen have I failed, on any occasion, to vindicate the principle with which the last great crowning acts of their lives were identified, or to vindicate their names whenever they have been assailed; and now my life and energy are devoted to this great work as the means of preserving this Union. This Union can only be preserved by maintaining the fraternal feeling between the North and the South, the East and the West. If that good feeling can be preserved, the Union will be as perpetual as the fame of its great founders. It can be maintained by preserving the sovereignty of the States, the right of each State and each Territory to settle its domestic concerns for itself, and the duty of each to refrain from interfering with the other in any of its local or domestic institutions. Let that be done, and the Union will be perpetual; let that be done, and this Republic, which began with thirteen States, and which now numbers thirty-two, which, when it began, only extended from the Atlantic to the Mississippi, but now reaches to the Pacific, may yet expand, North and South, until it covers the whole Continent, and becomes one vast ocean-bound confederacy. Then, my friends, the path of duty, of honor, of patriotism, is plain. There are a few simple principles to be preserved. Bear in mind the dividing line between State rights and Federal authority; let us maintain the great principles of popular sovereignty, of State rights, and of the Federal Union as the Constitution has made it, and this Republic will endure forever.

I thank you kindly for the patience with which you have listened to me. I fear I have wearied you. I have a heavy day's work before me to-morrow, I have several speeches to make. My friends, in whose hands I am, are taxing me beyond human endurance; but I shall take the helm and control them hereafter. I am profoundly grateful to the people of McLean for the reception they have given me, and the kindness with which they have listened to me. I remember when I first came among you here, twenty-five years ago, that I was prosecuting attorney in this district, and that my earliest efforts were made here, when my deficiencies were too apparent, I am afraid, to be concealed from any one. I remember the courtesy and kindness with which I was uniformly treated by you all; and whenever I can recognize the face of one of your old citizens, it is like meeting an old and cherished friend. I come among you with a heart filled with gratitude for past favors. I have

been with you but little for the past few years, on account of my official duties. I intend to visit you again before the campaign is over. I wish to speak to your whole people. I wish them to pass judgment upon the correctness of my course, and the soundness of the principles which I have proclaimed. If you do not approve my principles, I cannot ask your support. If you believe that the election of Mr. Lincoln would contribute more to preserve the harmony of the country, to perpetuate the Union, and more to the prosperity and the honor and glory of the State, then it is your duty to give him the preference. If, on the contrary, you believe that I have been faithful to my trust, and that by sustaining me you will give greater strength and efficiency to the principles which I have expounded, I shall then be grateful for your support. I renew my profound thanks for your attention.

SPEECH OF SENATOR DOUGLAS,

DELIVERED JULY 17, 1858, AT SPRINGFIELD, ILL. (Mr. LINCOLN was not present.)

MR. CHAIRMAN AND FELLOW-CITIZENS OF SPRINGFIELD AND OLD Sangamon : My heart is filled with emotions at the allusions which have been so happily and so kindly made in the welcome just extended to me, a welcome so numerous and so enthusiastic, bringing me to my home among my old friends, that language cannot express my gratitude. I do feel at home whenever I return to old Sangamon and receive those kind and friendly greetings which have never failed to meet me when I have come among you; but never before have I had such occasion to be grateful and to be proud of the manner of the reception as on the present. While I am willing, sir, to attribute a part of this demonstration to those kind and friendly personal relations to which you have referred, I cannot conceal from myself that the controlling and pervading element in this great mass of human beings is devotion to that principle of self-government to which so many years of my life have been devoted; and rejoice more in considering it an approval of my support of a cardinal principle than I would if I could appropriate it to myself as a personal compliment.

You but speak rightly when you assert that during the last session of Congress there was an attempt to violate one of the fundamental principles upon which our free institutions rest. The attempt to force the Lecompton Constitution upon the people of Kansas against their will, would have been, if successful, subversive of the great fundamental principles upon which all our institutions rest. If there is any one principle more sacred and more vital to the existence of a free government than all others, it is the right of the people to form and ratify the Constitution under which they are to live. It is the corner-stone of the temple of liberty; it is the foundation upon which the whole structure rests; and whenever it can be successfully evaded, self-government has received a vital stab. I deemed it my duty, as a citizen and as a representative of the State of Illinois, to resist, with all my energies and with whatever of ability I could command, the consummation of that effort tc force a constitution upon an unwilling people.

I am aware that other questions have been connected, or attempted to be connected, with that great struggle; but they were mere collateral questions not affecting the main point. My opposition to the Lecompton Constitution

rested solely upon the fact that it was not the act and deed of that people, and that it did not embody their will. I did not object to it upon the ground of the slavery clause contained in it. I should have resisted it with the same energy and determination even if it had been a free State instead of a slaveholding State; and as an evidence of this fact I wish you to bear in mind that my speech against that Lecompton Act was made on the 9th day of December, nearly two weeks before the vote was taken on the acceptance or rejection of the slavery clause. I did not then know, I could not have known, whether the slavery clause would be accepted or rejected; the general impression was that it would be rejected; and in my speech I assumed that impression to be true; that probably it would be voted down; and then I said to the United States Senate, as I now proclaim to you, my constituents, that you have no more right to force a free State upon an unwilling people than you have to force a slave State upon them against their will. You have no right to force either a good or a bad thing upon a people who do not choose to receive it. And then, again, the highest privilege of our people is to determine for themselves what kind of institutions are good and what kind of institutions are bad; and it may be true that the same people, situated in a different latitude and different climate, and with different productions and different interests, might decide the same question one way in the North and another way in the South, in order to adapt their institutions to the wants and wishes of the people to be affected by them.

You all are familiar with the Lecompton struggle, and I will occupy no more time upon the subject, except to remark that when we drove the enemies of the principle of popular sovereignty from the effort to force the Lecompton Constitution upon the people of Kansas, and when we compelled them to abandon the attempt and to refer that Constitution to that people for acceptance or rejection, we obtained a concession of the principle for which I had contended throughout the struggle. When I saw that the principle was conceded, and that the Constitution was not to be forced on Kansas against the wishes of the people, I felt anxious to give the proposition my support; but when I examined it, I found that the mode of reference to the people and the form of submission, upon which the vote was taken, was so objectionable as to make it unfair and unjust.

Sir, it is an axiom with me that in every free government an unfair election is no election at all. Every election should be free, should be fair, with the same privileges and the same inducements for a negative as for an affirmative vote. The objection to what is called the "English" proposition, by which the Lecompton Constitution was referred back to the people of Kansas, was this: that if the people chose to accept the Lecompton Constitution they could come in with only 35,000 inhabitants; while if they determined to reject it in order to form another more in accordance with their wishes and sentiments, they were compelled to stay out until they should have 93,420 inhabitants. In other words, it was making a distinction and discrimination between Free States and Slave States under the Federal Constitution. I deny the justice, I deny the right, of any distinction or discrimination between the States North and South, free or slave. Equality among the States is a fundamental principle of this goverument. Hence, while I will never consent to the passage of a law that a Slave State may come in with 35,000, while a Free State shall not come in unless it have 93,000, on the other hand, I shall not consent to admit a Free State with a population of 35,000, and require 93,000, in a slaveholding State.

My principle is to recognize each State of the Union as independent, sovereign, and equal in its sovereignty. I will apply that principle, not only to the original thirteen States, but to the States which have since been brought into the Union, and also to every State that shall hereafter be received, "as long as water shall run, and grass grow. For these reasons I felt compelled, by a sense of duty, by a conviction of principle, to record my vote against what is called the English bill; but yet the bill became a law, and under that law an election has been ordered to be held on the first Monday in August, for the purpose of determining the question of the acceptance or rejection of the proposition submitted by Congress. I have no hesitation in saying to you, as the chairman of your committee has justly said in his address, that whatever the decision of the people of Kansas may be at that election, it must be final and conclusive of the whole subject; for if at that election a majority of the people of Kansas shall vote for the acceptance of the Congressional proposition, Kansas from that moment becomes a State of the Union, the law admitting her becomes irrepealable, and thus the controversy terminates forever; if, on the other hand, the people of Kansas shall vote down that proposition, as it is now generally admitted they will, by a large majority, then from that instant the Lecompton Constitution is dead, dead beyond the power of resurrection; and thus the controversy terminates. And when the monster shall die, I shall be willing, and trust that all of you will be willing, to acquiesce in the death of the Lecompton Constitution. The controversy may now be considered as terminated, for in three weeks from now it will be finally settled, and all the ill-feeling, all the embittered feeling which grew out of it shall cease, unless an attempt should be made in the future to repeat the same outrage upon popular rights. I need not tell you that my past course is a sufficient guarantee that if the occasion shall ever arise again while I occupy a seat in the United States Senate, you will find me carrying out the same principle that I have this winter, with all the energy and all the power I may be able to command. I have the gratification of saying to you that I do not believe that that controversy will ever arise again first, because the fate of Lecompton is a warning to the people of every Territory and of every State to be cautious how the example is repeated; and, secondly, because the President of the United States, in his annual message, has said that he trusts the example in the Minnesota case, wherein Congress passed a law, called an Enabling Act, requiring the Constitution to be submitted to the people for acceptance or rejection, will be followed in all future cases. ["That was right."] I agree with you that it was right. I said so on the day after the message was delivered, in my speech in the Senate on the Lecompton Constitution, and I have frequently in the debate tendered to the President and his friends, tendered to the Lecomptonites, my voluntary pledge, that if he will stand by that recommendation, and they will stand by it, that they will find me working hand in hand with them in the effort to carry it out. All we have to do, therefore, is to adhere firmly in the future, as we have done in the past, to the principle contained in the recommendation of the President in his annual message, that the example in the Minnesota case shall be carried out in all future cases of the admission of Territories into the Union as States. Let that be done, and the principle of popular sovereignty will be maintained in all of its vigor and all of its integrity. I rejoice to know that Illinois stands prominently and proudly forward among the States which first took their position firmly and immovably upon this principle of popular sovereignty, applied to the Territories as well as to the States. You