about this declaration, he said, "Not in the least. It was clearly true, and time has justified me." With like plainness he exposed the Douglas pretence of Popular Sovereignty as meaning simply, "that, if any one man choose to enslave another, no third man shall be allowed to object,"1 and he announced his belief in the existence of a conspiracy to perpetuate and nationalize Slavery, of which the Kansas and Nebraska Bill and the Dred Scott decision were essential parts. Such was the character of this debate at the beginning, and so it continued on the lips of our champion to the end.

The inevitable topic to which he returned with most frequency, and to which he clung with all the grasp of his soul, was the practical character of the Declaration of Independence in announcing the Liberty and Equality of all Men. No idle words were there, but substantial truth, binding on the conscience of mankind. I know not if this grand pertinacity has been noticed before; but I deem it a duty to declare that to my mind it is by far the most important incident of that controversy, and perhaps the most interesting in the biography of the speaker. Nothing previous to his nomination for the Presidency is comparable to it. Plainly his whole subsequent career took impulse and complexion from that championship. And here, too, is our first debt of gratitude. The words he then uttered live after him, and nobody now hears how he then battled without feeling a new motive to fidelity in support of Human Rights.

As early as 1854, in a speech at Peoria against the Kansas and Nebraska Bill, after denouncing Slavery as a "monstrous injustice," which "enables the enemies of free institutions to taunt us as hypocrites," and "causes

1 Speech at Springfield, June 17, 1858: Political Debates, p. 2.

the real friends of Freedom to doubt our sincerity, he complains especially that "it forces so many really good men amongst ourselves into open war with the very fundamental principles of civil liberty, criticizing the Declaration of Independence."1 Thus, according to him, criticism of the Declaration was the climax of infidelity as citizen.

Mr. Douglas opened the debate, on his side, at Chicago, July 9, 1858, by a speech, where he said, among other things, "I am opposed to negro equality. I repeat, that this nation is a white people. . . . I am opposed to taking any step that recognizes the negro man or the Indian as the equal of the white man. I am opposed to giving him a voice in the administration of the Government." " 2 Thus was the case stated for Slavery.

To this speech the Republican candidate replied promptly, and did not forget his championship. Quoting the great words, "We hold these truths to be selfevident, that all men are created equal," he proceeds :

....

"That is the electric cord in that Declaration that links the hearts of patriotic and liberty-loving men together, that will link those patriotic hearts as long as the love of freedom exists in the minds of men throughout the world. . . . . I should like to know, if, taking this old Declaration of Independence, which declares that all men are equal, upon principle, and making exceptions to it, where will it stop? If one man says it does not mean a negro, why not another say it does not mean some other man? If that Declaration is not the truth, let us get the statute-book in which we find it and tear it out. Who is so bold as to do it? If it is not true, let us tear it out. [Cries of "No, no!"] Let us stick to it, then; let us stand firmly by it, then."

1 Political Debates, p. 75.

2 Ibid., p. 12.

Noble utterance, worthy of perpetual memory! And he finished his speech with a farewell truly apostolic:

"I leave you, hoping that the lamp of Liberty will burn in your bosoms until there shall no longer be a doubt that all men are created free and equal."1

He has left us now, and for the last time. I catch the closing benediction of that speech, already sounding through the ages like a choral harmony.

The debate continued from place to place. At Bloomington, July 16th, Mr. Douglas denied again that colored persons could be citizens, and then broke forth upon the champion:

"I will not quarrel with Mr. Lincoln for his views on that subject. I have no doubt he is conscientious in them. I have not the slightest idea but that he conscientiously believes that a negro ought to enjoy and exercise all the rights and privileges given to white men ; but I do not agree with him. . . . I believe that this government of ours was founded on the white basis. I believe that it was established by white men. . . . . I do not believe that it was the design or intention of the signers of the Declaration of Independence or the framers of the Constitution to include negroes, Indians, or other inferior races, with white men, as citizens. . . . He wants them to vote. I am opposed to it. If they had a vote, I reckon they would all vote for him in reference to me, entertaining the views I do." 2

Then again at Springfield, the next day, Mr. Douglas repeated his denial that the colored man was embraced by the Declaration, and thus argued for the exclusion:

1 Speech at Chicago, July 10, 1858: Political Debates, pp. 23, 24. 2 Ibid, pp. 35, 36.

"Remember that at the time the Declaration was put forth, every one of the Thirteen Colonies were slaveholding colonies, every man who signed that Declaration represented slaveholding constituents. Did those signers mean by that act to charge themselves and all their constituents with having violated the law of God in holding the negro in an inferior condition to the white man? And yet, if they included negroes in that term, they were bound, as conscientious men, that day and that hour, not only to have abolished Slavery throughout the land, but to have conferred political rights and privileges on the negro, and elevated him to an equality with the white man. The Declaration of Independence only included the white people of the United States." 1

On the same evening, at Springfield, the Republican candidate, while admitting that negroes are not "our equal in color," thus again spoke for the comprehensive humanity of the Declaration :

"I adhere to the Declaration of Independence. If Judge Douglas and his friends are not willing to stand by it, let them come up and amend it. Let them make it read, that all men are created equal except negroes. Let us have it decided, whether the Declaration of Independence, in this blessed year of 1858, shall be thus amended. In his construction of the Declaration last year, he said it only meant that Americans in America were equal to Englishmen in England. Then, when I pointed out to him that by that rule he excludes the Germans, the Irish, the Portuguese, and all the other people who have come amongst us since the Revolution, he reconstructs his construction. In his last speech he tells us it meant Europeans. I press him a little further, and ask if it meant to include the Russians in Asia. Or does he mean to exclude that vast population from the prin

1 Political Debates, pp. 51, 52.

ciples of our Declaration of Independence? I expect erelong. he will introduce another amendment to his definition. He is not at all particular. . . . . It may draw white men down, but it must not lift negroes up."

Words like these are gratefully remembered. They make the Declaration, what the Fathers intended, no mean proclamation of oligarchic egotism, but a charter and freehold for all mankind.

At Ottawa, August 21st, Mr. Douglas, still excluding the colored men from the Declaration, exclaimed : —

"I believe this Government was made on the white basis. I believe it was made by white men, for the benefit of white men and their posterity forever." 2

Again the Republican champion took up the strain.

"Henry Clay once said of a class of men who would repress all tendencies to Liberty and ultimate Emancipation, that they must, if they would do this, go back to the era of our Independence, and muzzle the cannon which thunders its annual joyous return, they must blow out the moral lights around us, they must penetrate the human soul, and eradicate there the love of Liberty; and then, and not till then, could they perpetuate Slavery in this country. To my thinking, Judge Douglas is, by his example and vast influence, doing that very thing in this community, when he says that the negro has nothing in the Declaration of Independence." 8

At Jonesboro', September 15th, Mr. Douglas once more assailed the rights of the colored race.

"I am aware that all the Abolition lecturers that you find travelling about through the country are in the habit 1 Political Debates, p. 63. 3 Ibid., p. 83.

2 Ibid., p. 71.