Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865). Political Debates Between Lincoln and Douglas. 1897.
Page 487
| going to build up a wall some way between your country and ours, by which that movable property of yours can’t come over here any more, to the danger of your losing it? Do you think you can better yourselves, on that subject, by leaving us here under no obligation whatever to return those specimens of your movable property that come hither? You have divided the Union because we would not do right with you, as you think, upon that subject; when we cease to be under obligations to do anything for you, how much better off do you think you will be? Will you make war upon us and kill us all? Why, gentlemen, I think you are as gallant and as brave men as live; that you can fight as bravely in a good cause, man for man, as any other people living; that you have shown yourselves capable of this upon various occasions; but, man for man, you are not better than we are, and there are not so many of you as there are of us. You will never make much of a hand at whipping us. If we were fewer in numbers than you, I think that you could whip us; if we were equal, it would likely be a drawn battle; but being inferior in numbers, you will make nothing by attempting to master us. | 52 |
| But perhaps I have addressed myself as long, or longer, to the Kentuckians than I ought to have done; inasmuch as I have said that whatever course you take we intend in the end to beat you. I propose to address a few remarks to our friends, by way of discussing with them the best means of keeping that promise, that I have in good faith made. | 53 |
| It may appear a little episodical for me to mention the topic of which I shall speak now. It is a favorable proposition of Douglas’s that the interference of the General Government, through the Ordinance of ’87, or through any other act of the General Government, never has made or ever can make a Free State; that the Ordinance of ’87 did not make Free States of Ohio, Indiana, or Illinois. That these States are free upon his “great principle” of Popular Sovereignty, because the people of those several States have chosen to make them so. At Columbus, and probably here, he undertook to compliment the people that they themselves have made the State of Ohio free, and that the Ordinance of ’87 was not entitled in any degree to divide the honor with them. I have no doubt that the people of the State | |