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"OUR REPUBLICAN ROBE Is SOILED"
- Fordham University Press
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Lincoln and Slavery, 1854-1857 65 maintaining roads, bridges, and the like; providing for the helpless young and afflicted; common schools; and disposing of deceased men's property, are instances. But a far larger class of objects springs from the injustice of men. If one people will make war upon another, it is a necessity with that other to unite and cooperate for defense. Hence the military department. If some men will kill, or beat, or constrain others, or despoil them of property, by force, fraud, or noncompliance with contracts, it is a common object with peaceful and just men to prevent it. Hence the criminal and civil departments. "OUR REPUBLICAN ROBE Is SOILED" From a Speech on the Kansas-Nebraska Act, Peoria, Illinois [OCTOBER 16, 1854] Four years before thefamous Lincoln-Douglas campaign debates, Lincoln and Senator Stephen A. Douglas debated the Kansas-Nebraska Act, although not face-to-face. In Peoria, Douglas offered a three-hour-long defense of the new law from 2 to 5 P.M. Lincoln's equally long response, which is excerpted here, began at 7P.M. aftera two-hour recess. It presented Lincoln's most powerful moral case to date against "one man's making a slave of another." Lincoln continued his anti-Nebraska speechmaking across the state, one newspaper commenting, "his eloquence greatly impressed all his hearers." ... I wish to MAKE and to KEEP the distinction between the EXISTING institution [slavery-eds.], and the EXTENSION of it, so broad, and so clear, that no honest man can misunderstand me, and no dishonest one, successfully misrepresent me. In order to [get] a clear understanding ofwhat the Missouri Compromise is, a short history of the preceding kindred subjects will perhaps 66 LINCOLN ON DEMOCRACY be proper. When we established our independence, we did not own, or claim, the country to which this compromise applies. Indeed, strictly speaking, the confederacy then owned no country at all; the States respectively owned the country within their limits; and some of them owned territory beyond their strict State limits.... These territories, together with the States themselves, constituted all the country over which the confederacy then claimed any sort of jurisdiction. We were then living under the Articles ofConfederation, which were superceded by the Constitution several years afterwards. The question of ceding these territories to the general government was set on foot. Mr. Jefferson , the author of the Declaration of Independence, and otherwise a chief actor in the revolution; then a delegate in Congress; afterwards twice President; who was, is, and perhaps will continue to be, the most distinguished politician of our history; a Virginian by birth and continued residence, and withal, a slave-holder; conceived the idea of taking that occasion, to prevent slavery ever going into the north-western territory. He prevailed on the Virginia Legislature to adopt his views, and to cede the territory, making the prohibition of slavery therein, a condition of the deed [Lincoln erred on this point, and later corrected it-eds.]. Congress accepted the cession, with the condition; and in the first Ordinance (which the acts of Congress were then called) for the government of the territory, provided that slavery should never be permitted therein. This is the famed ordinance of '87 so often spoken of. Thenceforward, for sixty-one years, and until in 1848, the last scrap of this territory came into the Union as the State of Wisconsin, all parties acted in quiet obedience to this ordinance. It is now what Jefferson foresaw and intended-the happy home of teeming millions of free, white, prosperous people, and no slave amongst them. Thus, with the author of the declaration of Independence, the policy of prohibiting slavery in new territory originated. Thus, away back of the constitution, in the pure fresh, free breath of the revolution, the State of Virginia, and the National congress put that policy in practice. Thus through sixty odd of the best years of the republic did that policy steadily work to its great and beneficent end. And thus, in those five states, and five millions of free, enterprising people, we have before us the rich fruits of this policy. But now new light breaks upon us. Now congress declares this ought never to have been; and the like of it, must never be again. The sacred right of self government is grossly violated [54.226.226.30] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 00:27 GMT) Lincoln and Slavery, 1854-1857 67 by it! We even find some...