Contents
-SUBJECT INDEX -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD
Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865). Political Debates Between Lincoln and Douglas. 1897.
Page 201
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| | second, that the Constitution of the United States declares that the citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States; and that, therefore, thirdly, all State laws, whether organic or otherwise, which prohibit the citizens of one State from settling in another with their slave property, and especially declaring it forfeited, are direct violations of the original intention of the Government and Constitution of the United States; and, fourth, that the emancipation of the slaves of the Northern States was a gross outrage on the rights of property, inasmuch as it was involuntarily done on the part of the owner. | | Remember that this article was published in the Union on the 17th of November, and on the 18th appeared the first article, giving the adhesion of the Union to the Lecompton Constitution. It was in these words:— | | ‘KANSAS AND HER CONSTITUTION.—The vexed question is settled. The problem is solved. The deal point of danger is passed. All serious trouble to Kansas affairs is over and gone—’ | | And a column, nearly, of the same sort. Then, when you come to look into the Lecompton Constitution, you find the same doctrine incorporated in it which was put forth editorically in the Union. What is it? | | ‘ARTICLE 7, Section 1. The right of property is before and higher than any constitutional sanction; and the right of the owner of a slave to such slave and its increase is the same and as invariable as the right of the owner of any property whatever.’ | | Then in the schedule is a provision that the Constitution may be amended after 1864 by a two-thirds vote. | | ‘But no alteration shall be made to affect the right of property in the ownership of slaves.’ | | It will be seen by these clauses in the Lecompton Constitution that they are identical in spirit with this authoritative article in the Washington Union of the day previous to its indorsement of the Constitution. | | When I saw that article in the Union of the 17th of November, followed by the glorification of the Lecompton Constitution on the 18th of November, and this clause in the Constitution asserting the doctrine that a State has no right to prohibit slavery within its limits, I saw that there was a fatal blow being struck at the sovereignty of the States of this Union. |
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| Here he says, “Mr. President, you here find several distinct propositions advanced boldly, and apparently authoritatively.” By whose authority, Judge Douglas? Again, he says in another place, “It will be seen by these clauses in the Lecompton Constitution, that they are identical in spirit with this authoritative article.” By whose authority? Who do you mean to say |
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