Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865). Political Debates Between Lincoln and Douglas. 1897.
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| beast or reptile, so the white man may rightfully treat the negro as a beast or a reptile.” That is really the “knip” of all that argument of his. | 29 |
| Now, my brother Kentuckians, who believe in this, you ought to thank Judge Douglas for having put that in a much more taking way than any of yourselves have done. | 30 |
| Again, Douglas’s great principle, “Popular Sovereignty,” as he calls it, gives you, by natural consequence, the revival of the slave-trade whenever you want it. If you question this, listen awhile, consider awhile what I shall advance in support of that proposition. | 31 |
| He says that it is the sacred right of the man who goes into the Territories to have slavery if he wants it. Grant that for argument’s sake. Is it not the sacred right of the man who don’t go there equally to buy slaves in Africa, if he wants them? Can you point out the difference? The man who goes into the Territories of Kansas and Nebraska, or any other new Territory, with the sacred right of taking a slave there which belongs to him, would certainly have no more right to take one there than I would, who own no slave, but who would desire to buy one and take him there. You will not say—you, the friends of Judge Douglas—but that the man who does not own a slave has an equal right to buy one and take him to the Territory as the other does? | 32 |
| A VOICE: I want to ask a question. Don’t foreign nations interfere with the slave-trade? | 33 |
| Mr. LINCOLN: Well! I understand it to be a principle of Democracy to whip foreign nations whenever they interfere with us. | 34 |
| VOICE: I only asked for information. I am a Republican myself. | 35 |
| Mr. LINCOLN: You and I will be on the best terms in the world, but I do not wish to be diverted from the point I was trying to press. | 36 |
| I say that Douglas’s Popular Sovereignty, establishing his sacred right in the people, if you please, if carried to its logical conclusion gives equally the sacred right to the people of the States or the Territories themselves to buy slaves wherever they can buy them cheapest; and if any man can show a distinction, | |