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Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865). Political Debates Between Lincoln and Douglas. 1897.

Page 350

 
upon the simple circumstance of an editor of a newspaper having made a mistake as to the place where a thing was done, but not as to the thing itself. These resolutions were the platform of this Republican party of Mr. Lincoln’s of that year. They were adopted in a majority of the Republican counties in the State; and when I asked him at Ottawa whether they formed the platform upon which he stood, he did not answer, and I could not get an answer out of him. He then thought, as I thought, that those resolutions were adopted at the Springfield Convention, but excused himself by saying that he was not there when they were adopted, but had gone to Tazewell court in order to avoid being present at the Convention. He saw them published as having been adopted at Springfield, and so did I, and he knew that if there was a mistake in regard to them, that I had nothing under heaven to do with it. Besides, you find that in all these northern counties where the Republican candidates are running pledged to him, that the Conventions which nominated them adopted that identical platform. One cardinal point in that platform which he shrinks from is this: that there shall be no more Slave States admitted into the Union, even if the people want them. Lovejoy stands pledged against the admission of any more Slave States. [“Right, so do we.”] So do you, you say. Farnsworth stands pledged against the admission of any more Slave States. Washburne stands pledged the same way. The candidate for the Legislature who is running on Lincoln’s ticket in Henderson and Warren, stands committed by his vote in the Legislature to the same thing; and I am informed, but do not know of the fact, that your candidate here is also so pledged. [“Hurrah for him! Good!”] Now, you Republicans all hurrah for him, and for the doctrine of “no more Slave States,” and yet Lincoln tells you that his conscience will not permit him to sanction that doctrine, and complains because the resolutions I read at Ottawa made him, as a member of the party, responsible for sanctioning the doctrine of no more Slave States. You are one way, you confess, and he is, or pretends to be, the other; and yet you are both governed by principle in supporting one another. If it be true, as I have shown it is, that the whole Republican party in the northern part of the State stands committed to the doctrine of no more Slave States, and that this same doctrine is repudiated by the Republicans