times-about forty,' he once said for the Wilmot Proviso; thus as early as 1847 showing himself the same friend of freedom in the Territories which he was after wards when bleeding Kansas' received his sympathy. 'On other great questions which came before Congress, Mr. Lincoln, being a Whig, took the ground which was held by the great body of his party. He believed in the right of Congress to make appropriations for the im provement of rivers and harbors. He was in favor of giving the public lands, not to speculators, but to actual occupants and cultivators, at as low rates as possible; and he was in favor of a protective tariff, and of abolish ing the franking privilege.'"* In 1858, Mr. Lincoln was nominated by the Republicans as candidate for the United-States Senate. Mr. Douglas was his rival on the Democratic ticket. Both stumped the State, and finally held personal debates with each other without personal animosity on the dif ferent political views they held. Judge Douglas had the grace, at Springfield, to say, "I take great pleasure in bearing testimony to the fact that Mr. Lincoln is a kindhearted, amiable, good-natured gentleman, with whom no man has a right to pick a quarrel, even if he wanted one. He is a worthy gentleman. I have known him for twenty-five years; and there is no better citizen, and no kinder-hearted man. He is a fine lawyer, pos sesses high ability; and there is no objection to him, except the monstrous revolutionary doctrines with which he is identified." In July, 1858, Lincoln threw down the gauntlet, which Douglas lifted, and seven debates followed, at Ottawa, Freeport, Jonesborough, Charleston, Galesburg, Quincy, and Alton. They are said to be unsurpassed in campaign • Raymond's "Life of Lincoln." annals for eloquence, ability, adroitness, or comprehensiveness. Often these rival candidates travelled in the same car or carriage, manifesting personal good feeling, yet each contending fearlessly for the mastery when they entered the gladiatorial area for debate. During this campaign, Mr. Lincoln paid a tribute to` the Declaration of Independence, which should be read by all who revere his memory: "These communities, (the thirteen colonies) by their representatives in old Indendence Hall, said to the world of men, 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are born equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.' This was their majestic interpretation of the economy of the universe. This was their lofty and wise and noble understanding of the justice of the Creator to his creatures. Yes, gentlemen, to all his creatures, to the whole great family of man. In their enlightened belief, nothing stamped with the divine image and likeness was sent into the world to be trodden on and degraded and imbruted by its fellows. They grasped not only the race of men then living, but they reached forward and seized upon the farthest posterity. They created a beacon to guide their children and their children's children, and the countless myriads who should inhabit the earth in other ages. Wise statesmen as they were, they knew the tendency of prosperity to breed tyrants; and so they established these self-evident truths, that when, in the distant future, some man, some faction, some interest, should set up the doctrine, that none but rich men, or none but white men, or none but AngloSaxon white men, were entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, their posterity might look up again to the Declaration of Independence, and take cour age to renew the battle which their fathers began; so that truth and justice and mercy, and all the humane and Christian virtues, might not be extinguished from the land; so that no man would hereafter dare to limit and circumscribe the great principles on which the temple of Liberty was being built. "Now, my countrymen, if you have been taught doctrines conflicting with the great land-marks of the Declaration of Independence; if you have listened to sugges tions which would take away from its grandeur and mutilate the fair symmetry of its proportions; if you have been inclined to believe that all men are not created equal in those inalienable rights enumerated by our charter of liberty, let me entreat you to come back; return to the fountain whose waters spring close by the blood of the Revolution. Think nothing of me, take no thought for the political fate of any man whomsoever, but come back to the truths that are in the Declaration of Independence. "You may do any thing with me that you choose, if you will but heed these sacred principles; you may not only defeat me for the Senate, but you may take me and put me to death. While pretending no indifference to earthly honors, I do claim to be actuated in this contest by something higher than an anxiety for office. I charge you to drop every paltry and insignificant thought for any man's success. It is nothing; I am nothing; Judge Douglas is nothing. But do not destroy that immortal emblem of humanity, the Declaration of American Independence." Though it is not designed to enlarge this volume by the publication of many of our late President's speeches or letters, the following eloquent outburst of patriotism and devotion to principle must not be omitted. It is the closing part of a speech made in December, 1839. |