Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865). Political Debates Between Lincoln and Douglas. 1897.
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| and arrives at a result directly contrary to what he had been laboring to do. He at last leaves the whole matter to the control of Congress. | 30 |
| There are two main objects, as I understand it, of this Harper’s Magazine essay. One was to show, if possible, that the men of our Revolutionary times were in favor of his Popular Sovereignty, and the other was to show that the Dred Scott decision had not entirely squelched out this Popular Sovereignty. I do not propose, in regard to this argument drawn from the history of former times, to enter into a detailed examination of the historical statements he has made. I have the impression that they are inaccurate in a great many instances,—sometimes in positive statement, but very much more inaccurate by the suppression of statements that really belong to the history. But I do not propose to affirm that this is so to any very great extent, or to enter into a very minute examination of his historical statements. I avoid doing so upon this principle,—that if it were important for me to pass out of this lot in the least period of time possible, and I came to that fence, and saw by a calculation of my own strength and agility that I could clear it at a bound, it would be folly for me to stop and consider whether I could or not crawl through a crack. So I say of the whole history contained in his essay where he endeavored to link the men of the Revolution to Popular Sovereignty. It only requires an effort to leap out of it, a single bound to be entirely successful. If you read it over you will find that he quotes here and there from documents of the Revolutionary times, tending to show that the people of the colonies were desirous of regulating their own concerns in their own way, that the British Government should not interfere; that at one time they struggled with the British Government to be permitted to exclude the African slave-trade,—if not directly, to be permitted to exclude it indirectly by taxation sufficient to discourage and destroy it. From these and many things of this sort, Judge Douglas argues that they were in favor of the people of our own Territories excluding slavery if they wanted to, or planting it there if they wanted to, doing just as they pleased from the time they settled upon the Territory. Now, however, his history may apply, and whatever of his argument there may be that is sound and accurate or unsound | |