eignty'], no matter who may desert it. I intend to stand by it for the purpose of preserving peace between the North and the South, the Free and the Slave States.

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"If each State will only agree to mind its own business, and let its neighbors alone, there will be peace forever between us. I hold that the people of Slaveholding States are civilized men as well as ourselves; that they bear consciences as well as we; and that they are accountable to God and their posterity, and not to us. It is for them to decide, therefore, the moral and religious right of the Slavery Question for themselves within their own limits. I assert that they had as much right under the Constitution to adopt the system of policy which they have, as we had to adopt ours. So it is with every State in this Union. Let each State stand firmly by that great Constitutional right; let each State mind its own business and let its neighbors alone; and there will be no trouble on this question. If we will stand by that principle, then Mr. Lincoln will find that this Republic can exist forever divided into Free and Slave States, as our Fathers made it and the people of each State have decided.

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MR. LINCOLN'S CLOSING.

In opening his half-hour rejoinder to Mr. Douglas's reply, Mr. Lincoln said: "I wish to return to Judge Douglas my profound thanks for his public annunciation here to-day, to be put on record, that his system of policy in regard to the institution of Slavery contemplates that it shall last forever. We are getting a little nearer the true issue of this controversy, and I am profoundly grateful for this one sentence. 'Judge Douglas asks you: Why cannot the institution; of Slavery, or rather, why cannot the Nation, part Slave and part Free, continue as our Fathers made it, forever ?

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"In the first place, I insist that our Fathers did not make this Nation half Slave and half Free, or part Slave and part Free. I insist that they found the institution of Slavery existing here. They did not make it so, but they left it so, because they knew of no way to get rid of it at that time. When Judge Douglas undertakes to say that, as a matter of choice, the Fathers of the Government made this Nation part Slave and part Free, he assumes what is historically a falsehood. More than that: when the Fathers of the Government cut off the source of Slavery by the abolition of the Slave-trade, and adopted a system of restricting it from the new Territories where it had not existed, I maintain that they placed it where they understood, and all sensible men understood, it was in the course of ultimate extinction; and when Judge Douglas asks me why it cannot continue as our Fathers made it, I ask him why he and his friends could not let it remain as our Fathers made it? * * Judge Douglas could not let it stand upon the basis whereon our Fathers placed it, but removed it, and put it upon the cotton-gin basis. It is a question, therefore, for him and his friends to answer-why they could not let it remain where the Fathers of our Government originally placed it.

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"I expressly declared in my opening speech, that I had neither the inclination to exercise, nor the belief in the existence of, the right to interfere with the States of Kentucky or Virginia in doing as they pleased with Slavery or any other existing institution. Then what becomes of all his eloquence in behalf of the rights of States—which are assailed by no living man? In respect to that large portion of Judge Douglas's speech, in which he tries to show that in the controversy between himself and the Administration Party, he is in the right, I do not feel at all competent or inclined to answer him. I say to him, 'Give it to them!-give it to them all you can !'-and, on the other hand, I say to Carlin and Jake Davis, and to this man Wogley up here in Hancock, 'Give it to Douglas-just pour it into him!'

"Now in regard to this matter of the Dred Scott decision, I wish to say a word or two. After all, the Judge will not say whether, if a decision is made, holding that the people of the State cannot exclude Slavery, he will support it or not. He obstinately refuses to say what he will do in that case. The Judges of the Supreme Court as obstinately refused to say what they would do on this subject. Before this, I reminded him that at Galesburg he said the Judges had expressly declared the contrary, and you remember that in my opening speech I told him I had the book containing that decision here, and I would thank him to lay his finger on the place where any such thing was said. He has occupied his hour and a half, and he has not ventured to try to sustain his assertion. He never will.

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"But he is desirous of knowing how we are going to reverse the Dred Scott decision. Judge Douglas ought to know. Did not he and his political friends find a way to reverse the decision of that same Court in favor of the Constitutionality of the National Bank ? * And let me ask you, didn't Judge Douglas find a way to reverse the decision of our Supreme Court, when it decided that Carlin's father-old Governor Carlin-had not the Constitutional power to remove a Secretary of State? Did he not appeal to the mobs,' as he calls them? Did he not make speeches in the lobby to show how villainous that decision was, and how it ought to be overthrown? Did he not succeed, too, in getting an Act passed by the Legislature to have it overthrown? And didn't he himself sit down on that Bench as one of the five added Judges, who were to overslaugh the four old ones-getting his name of 'Judge' in that way and no other?

"If there is a villainy in using disrespect or making opposition to Supreme Court decisions, I commend it to Judge Douglas's earnest consideration. I know of no man in the State of Illinois who cught to know so well about how much villainy it takes to oppose a decision of the Supreme Court as our honorable friend, Stephen A. Douglas.

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"Judge Douglas also makes the declaration that I say the Democrats are bound by the Dred Scott decision, while the Republicans are not. In the sense in which he argues, I never said it; but I will tell you what I have said and what I do not hesitate to repeat to-day. I have said that, as the Democrats believe that decision to be correct, and that the extension of Slavery is affirmed in the National Constitution, they are bound to support it as such; and I will tell you here that General Jackson once said each man was bound to support the Constitution ' as he understood it.' Now, Judge Douglas understands the Constitution according to the Dred Scott decision, and he is bound to support it as he understands it. I understand it another way, and therefore I am bound to support it in the way in which I understand it. * * "Judge Douglas says, that this (the extension of Slavery) is a Constitutional right. Does the Judge mean to say that the Territorial Legislature in legislating, may, by withholding necessary laws, or by passing unfriendly laws, nullify that Constitutional right? Does he mean to say that? Does he mean to ignore the proposition so long and well established in law, that what you cannot do directly, you cannot do indirectly? Does he mean that? The truth of the matter is this: Judge Douglas has sung paans to his 'Popular Sovereignty' doctrine until his Supreme Court, co-operating with him, has squatted his SquatterSovereignty out. But he will keep up this species of humbuggery about Squatter-Sovereignty. He has at last invented this sort of Donothing Sovereignty-that the people may exclude Slavery by a sort of Sovereignty' that is exercised by doing nothing at all!

"Is not that running Popular Sovereignty down awfully? Has it not got down as thin as the homeopathic soup that was made by boiling the shadow of a pigeon that had starved to death? But at last, when it is brought to the test of close reasoning, there is not even that thin decoction of it left. It is a presumption impossible in the domain of

thought. It is precisely no other than the putting of that most unphilosophical proposition, that two bodies can occupy the same space at the same time. The Dred Scott decision covers the whole ground, and while it occupies it, there is no room even for the shadow of the starved pigeon to occupy the same ground."

Mr. Lincoln then took up Judge Douglas's repeated charge that the former made different speeches to suit different parts of the State. Said he "Judge Douglas had said I had made a speech at Charleston that I would not make up North, and I turned around and answered him by showing I had made that same speech up North—had made it at Ottawa-made it in his hearing—made it in the Abolition districtin Lovejoy's district-in the personal presence of Lovejoy himself-in the same atmosphere in which I had made my Chicago speech, of which he complains so much. Now, in relation to my not having said anything about the quotation from the Chicago speech: He thinks that is a terrible subject for me to handle. Why, gentlemen, I can show you that the substance of the Chicago speech I delivered two years ago in Egypt,' as he calls it. It was down at Springfield. That speech is here in this book, and I could turn to it and read it to you, but for the lack of time.

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"The Judge has taken great exception to my adopting the heretical statement in the Declaration of Independence, that All men are created equal,' and he has a great deal to say about Negro equality. I want to say that, in sometimes alluding to the Declaration of Independence, I have only uttered the sentiments that Henry Clay used to hold. * Mr. Clay was at one time called upon in Indiana, and in a way that I suppose was very insulting, to liberate his Slaves, and he made a written reply to that application, and one portion of it is in these words:

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"What is the foundation of this appeal to me in Indiana, to liberate the Slaves under my care in Kentucky? It is a general declaration in the act announcing to the World the Independence of the thirteen American colonies, that Men are created equal.' Now, as an abstract principle, there is no doubt of the truth of that declaration, and it is desirable in the original construction of society, and in organizing societies, to keep it in view as a great fundamental principle.

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When I sometimes, in relation to the organization of new societies in new countries, where the soil is clean and clear, insisted that we should keep that principle in view. Judge Douglas will have it that I want a Negro wife. He never can be brought to understand that there is any middle ground on the subject. I maintain that you may take Judge Douglas's quotations from my Chicago speech and from my Charleston speech, and the Galesburg speech,-in his speech of to-day, and compare them over, and I am willing to trust them with you upon his proposition that they show rascality or double dealing. I deny that they do."

After again ventilating the Springfield resolutions forgery-charge, Mr. Lincoln continued: "I demand of him (Judge Douglas), to tell why he did not investigate it, if he did not ; and if he did, why he won't tell the result. I call upon him for that. This is the third time that Judge Douglas has assumed that he learned about these resolutions by Harris's attempting to use them against Norton on the floor of Congress, I tell Judge Douglas that the public records of the Country show that he himself attempted it upon Trumbull a month before Harris tried them on Norton-that Harris had the opportunity of learning it from him, rather than he from Harris.

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"Then he wants to know why I won't withdraw the charge in regard to a conspiracy to make Slavery National, as he has withdrawn the one he made. May it please His Worship, I will withdraw it, when it is proven false on me as that was proven false on him. I will add a lit

tle more to that. I will withdraw it whenever a reasonable man shal! be brought to believe that the charge is not true.

"I have asked Judge Douglas's attention to certain matters of fact tending to prove the charge of a conspiracy to Nationalize Slavery, and he says he convinces me that this is all untrue because Buchanan was not in the Country at that time, and because the Dred Scott case had not then got into the Supreme Court; and he says that I say the Democratic owners of Dred Scott got up the case. I never did say that. I defy Judge Douglas to show that I ever said so, for I never uttered it. [One of Mr. Douglas's reporters gesticulated affirmatively at Mr. Lincoln.]

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"I don't care if your hireling does say I did, I tell you myself that I never said the Democratic' owners of Dred Scott got up the case. I have never pretended to know whether Dred Scott's owners were Democrats or Abolitionists, or Free-Soilers, or Border-Ruffians. I have said that there is evidence about the case tending to show that it was a made-up case, for the purpose of getting that decision. I have said that that evidence was very strong in the fact that when Dred Scott was declared to be a Slave, the owner of him made him Free, showing that he had had the case tried and the question settled for such use as could be made of that decision; he cared nothing about the Property thus declared to be his by that decision."

SEVENTH JOINT DEBATE, AT ALTON, ILL., OCTOBER 15, 1858.

MR. DOUGLAS'S OPENING.

Senator Douglas opened the seventh and last Joint-debate, at Alton, October 15th, by reviewing and summarizing from his own standpoint the history of the canvass between himself and Mr. Lincoln-including that of the Joint-debate-which had now lasted near upon four months. He then took up the various major and minor issues between them, and re-stated his arguments and positions upon them, in much the same manner that, in the course of the Joint-debate, he had already done, but especially devoting his time to a defense of the consistency, the rightfulness, and the Democracy of his own political actions from the Compromises of 1850 down, through the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, antiLecompton, and English Bill, struggles, to that time.

He complained bitterly of the warfare waged against him by the Federal Administration, which, he claimed, was wielding against himself, and in favor of "Mr. Lincoln and his Abolition associates," all the power of its local patronage. Continuing, he said: "I have no personal difficulty with Mr. Buchanan or his Cabinet. He chose to make certain recommendations to Congress, as he had a right to do, on the Lecompton question. I could not vote in favor of them. I had as much right to judge for myself how I should vote as he had how he should recommend. He undertook to say to me, if you do not vote as I tell you, I will take off the heads of your friends. I replied to him, You did not elect me.' I represent Illinois, and I am accountable to Illinois, as my constituency, and to God; but not to the President or any other power on Earth. And now this warfare is made on me, because I would not surrender my convictions of duty, because I would not abandon my constituency, and receive the orders of the Executive authorities how I should vote in the Senate of the United States.

"I hold that an attempt to control the Senate on the part of the Executive is subversive of the principles of our Constitution. The Executive department is independent of the Senate, and the Senate is independent of the President. In matters of legislation, the President has a veto on the action of the Senate, and in appointments and treaties the Senate has a veto on the President. He has no more right to tell me how I shall vote on his appointments than I have to tell him whether

he shall veto or approve a bill that the Senate has passed. Whenever you recognize the right of the Executive to say to a Senator, Do this, or I will take off the heads of your friends,' you convert this Government from a Republic into a Despotism. Whenever you recognize the right of a President to say to a Member of Congress, vote as I tell you, or I will bring a power to bear against you at home which will crush you,' you destroy the independence of the Representative, and convert him into a tool of Executive power. I resisted this invasion of the Constitutional rights of a Senator, and I intend to resist it as long as I have a voice to speak, or a vote to give.

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"My friends," he continued, "there never was a time when it was as important for the Democratic Party, for all National men, to rally and stand together, as it is to-day. We find all Sectional men giving up past differences and combating the one question of Slavery, and when we find Sectional men thus uniting, we should unite to resist them and their treasonable designs.

"Such was the case in 1850, when Clay left the quiet and peace of his home, and again entered upon public life to quell agitation and restore peace to a distracted Union. Then, we Democrats, with Cass at our head, welcomed Henry Clay, whom the whole Nation regarded as having been preserved by God for the times. He became our leader in that great fight, and we rallied around him the same as the Whigs rallied around Old Hickory in 1832, to put down Nullification. Thus you see that whilst Whigs and Democrats fought fearlessly in old times about Banks, the Tariff, Distribution, the Specie-circular, and the Sub-treasury, all united as a band of brothers when the peace, harmony, or integrity of the Union was imperilled.

It was so in 1850, when Abolitionism had even so far divided this Country, North and South, as to endanger the peace of the Union; Whigs and Democrats united in establishing the Compromise measures of that year, and restoring tranquillity and good feeling. These measures passed on the joint action of the two Parties. They rested on the great principle that the people of each State and each territory, should be left perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions to suit themselves. You Whigs and we Democrats justified them in that principle.

"In 1854, when it became necessary to organize the Territories of Kansas and Nebraska, I brought forward the bill on the same principle. In the Kansas-Nebraska Bill you find it declared to be the true intent and meaning of the Act not to legislate Slavery into any State or Territory, nor to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people entirely free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way. I stand on that same platform in 1858, that I did in 1850, 1854, and 1856.

In answering a question put to him by one of the audience (Dr. Hope) Judge Douglas said that "while under the decision of the Supreme Court, as recorded in the opinion of Chief Justice Taney, Slaves are property like all other property, and can be carried into any Territory of the United States the same as any other description of property, when you get them there they are subject to the local law of the Territory just like all other property.

After quoting from Jefferson Davis, Speaker Orr, and Alex. H. Stephens, in support of this proposition, Judge Douglas continued: "The whole South are rallying to the support of the doctrine that if the people of a Territory want Slavery they have a right to have it, and if they do not want it that no power on Earth can force it upon them. I hold that there is no principle on Earth more sacred to all the friends of Freedom than that which says that no institution, no law, no constitution, should be forced on an unwilling people, and I assert that the Kansas and Nebraska Bill contains that principle. It is the great principle contained in that bill. It is the principle on which

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