one man was allowed to take the position that it did not include the negro, others might take the position that it did not include other men. He said that all these distinctions between this man and 5 that man, this race and the other race, must be discarded, and we must all stand by the Declaration of Independence, declaring that all men were created equal.

The issue thus being made up between Mr. Lin10 coln and myself on three points, we went before the people of the State. During the following seven weeks, between the Chicago speeches and our first meeting at Ottawa, he and I addressed large assemblages of the people in many of the central 15 counties. In my speeches I confined myself closely to those three positions which he had taken, controverting his proposition that this Union could not exist as our fathers made it, divided into Free and a Slave States, controverting his proposition of a 20 crusade against the Supreme Court because of the

Dred Scott decision, and controverting his proposition that the Declaration of Independence included 3 and meant the negroes as well as the white men, when it declared all men to be created equal. I 25 supposed at that time that these propositions constituted a distinct issue between us, and that the opposite positions we had taken upon them we would be willing to be held to in every part of the State. I never intended to waver one hair's breadth 30 from that issue either in the north or the south or

wherever I should address the people of Illinois.

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I hold that when the time arrives that I cannot proclaim my political creed in the same terms, not only in the northern, but in the southern part of Illinois, not only in the Northern, but the Southern States, and wherever the American flag waves over American soil, that then there must be something wrong in that creed; so long as we live under a common Constitution, so long as we live in a confederacy of sovereign and equal States, joined together as one for certain purposes, that any political 10 creed is radically wrong which cannot be proclaimed in every State and every section of that Union, alike. I took up Mr. Lincoln's three propositions in my several speeches, analyzed them, and pointed out what I believed to be the radical errors 15 contained in them. First, in regard to his doctrine that this government was in violation of the law of God, which says that a house divided against itself cannot stand, I repudiated it as a slander upon the immortal framers of our Constitution. I then said, 20 I have often repeated, and now again assert, that in my opinion our government can endure forever, divided into Free and Slave States as our fathers made it, each State having the right to prohibit, abolish, or sustain slavery, just as it pleases. This 25 government was made upon the great basis of the sovereignty of the States, the right of each State to regulate its own domestic institutions to suit itself; and that right was conferred with the understanding and expectation that inasmuch as each locality 30 had separate interests, each locality must have dif

ferent and distinct local and domestic institutions, corresponding to its wants and interests. Our fathers knew when they made the government that the laws and institutions which were well adapted 5 to the Green Mountains of Vermont were unsuited to the rice plantations of South Carolina. They knew then, as well as we know now, that the laws and institutions which would be well adapted to the beautiful prairies of Illinois would not be suited to Io the mining regions of California. They knew that in a Republic as broad as this, having such a variety of soil, climate, and interest, there must necessarily be a corresponding variety of local laws, the policy and institutions of each State adapted to its 15 condition and wants. For this reason this Union was established on the right of each State to do as it pleased on the question of slavery, and every other question; and the various States were not allowed to complain of, much less interfere with, 20 the policy of their neighbors.

Suppose the doctrine advocated by Mr. Lincoln and the Abolitionists of this day had prevailed when the Constitution was made, what would have been the result? Imagine for a moment that Mr. 25 Lincoln had been a member of the Convention that framed the Constitution of the United States, and that when its members were about to sign that wonderful document, he had arisen in that Convention as he did at Springfield this summer, and, address30 ing himself to the President, had said, "A house

divided against itself cannot stand; this govern

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ment, divided into Free and Slave States cannot endure, they must all be free or all be slave; they must all be one thing, or all the other, otherwise, it is a violation of the law of God, and cannot continue to exist; "-suppose Mr. Lincoln had convinced that body of sages that that doctrine was sound, what would have been the result? Remember that the Union was then composed of thirteen States, twelve of which were slaveholding, and one free. Do you think that the one Free State would 10 have outvoted the twelve slaveholding States, and thus have secured the abolition of slavery? On the other hand, would not the twelve slaveholding States have outvoted the one free State, and thus have fastened slavery, by a constitutional provision, 15 on every foot of the American Republic forever? You see that if this Abolition doctrine of Mr. Lincoln had prevailed when the government was made, it would have established slavery as a permanent institution in all the States, whether they wanted it 20 or not; and the question for us to determine in Illinois now, as one of the Free States, is whether or not we are willing, having become the majority section, to enforce a doctrine on the minority which we would have resisted with our heart's blood had 25 it been attempted on us when we were in a minority. How has the South lost her power as the majority section in this Union, and how have the Free States gained it, except under the operation of that principle which declares the right of the people of 30 each State and each Territory to form and regulate

their domestic institutions in their own way? It was under that principle that slavery was abolished in New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania; it was 5 under that principle that one-half of the slaveholding States became free: it was under that principle that the number of Free States increased until, from being one out of twelve States, we have grown to be the majority of States of the whole IO Union, with the power to control the House of

Representatives and Senate, and the power, consequently, to elect a President by Northern votes, without the aid of a Southern State. Having obtained this power under the operation of that great 15 principle, are you now prepared to abandon the principle and declare that merely because we have the power you will wage a war against the Southern States and their institutions until you force them to abolish slavery everywhere?

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After having pressed these arguments home on Mr. Lincoln for seven weeks, publishing a number of my speeches, we met at Ottawa in joint discussion, and he then began to crawfish a little, and let himself down. I there propounded certain ques25 tions to him. Amongst others, I asked him whether he would vote for the admission of any more Slave States, in the event the people wanted them. He would not answer. I then told him that if he did not answer the question there, I would renew it at 30 Freeport, and would then trot him down into Egypt,

and again put it to him. Well, at Freeport, know