Josiah Gilbert Holland

“ What were they but a clear indication that the framers of the Constitution intended and expected the ultimate extinction of that institution? And now, when I say, as I said in my speech that Judge Douglas has quoted from--when I say that I think the opponents of slavery will resist the farther spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest with the belief that it is in course of ultimate extinction, I only mean to say that they will place it where the founders of this Government originally placed it. ”

“ Plainly enough now: the speaking out then would have damaged the perfectly free argument upon which the election was to be carried. Why the out-going president's felicitation on the indorsement? Why the delay of a re-argument? Why the incoming president's advance exhortation in favor of the decision? These things look like the cautious patting and petting of a spirited horse preparatory to mounting him, when it is dreaded that he may give the rider a fall. And why the hasty after-indorsement of the decision by the president and others? ”

“ We hold that Congress possesses sovereign power over the territories, and has the right to govern and control them whilst they remain in a territorial condition, and that it is the duty of the general government to protect the territories from the curse of slavery, and to preserve the public domain for the occupation of free men and free labor; and we declare that no power on earth can carry and maintain slavery in the states against the will of their people and the provisions of their constitutions and laws ”

“ He has done all in his power to reduce the whole question of slavery to one of a mere right of property; and as such, how can he oppose the foreign slave trade--how can he refuse that trade in that 'property' shall be 'perfectly free'--unless he does it as a protection to the home production? And as the home producers will probably not ask the protection, he will be wholly without a ground of opposition.
"Senator Douglas holds, we know, that a man may rightfully be wiser to-day than he was yesterday--that he may rightfully change when he finds himself wrong. ”

“ I am free to say to you that, in my opinion, this government of ours is founded on the white basis. It was made for the white man, for the benefit of the white man, to be administered by white men, in such manner as they should determine. It is also true that a negro, an indian, or any other man of inferior race to a white man should be permitted to enjoy, and humanity requires that he should have, all the rights, privileges and immunities which he is capable of exercising, consistent with the safety of society. ”

“ I think that I have laid it in your hearing--that I believe each individual is naturally entitled to do as he pleases with himself and the fruit of his labor, so far as it in no wise interferes with any other man's rights--that each community, as a state, has a right to do exactly as it pleases with all the concerns within that state that interferes with the right of no other state, and that the general government, upon principle, has no right to interfere with anything other than that general class of things that does concern the whole. ”

“ Lincoln's criticism of the Dred Scott decision, and, by his treatment of it, fully vindicated the action of the Illinois republicans in their refusal to support him in accordance with the wishes of their eastern friends. No republican could consistently support a man who supported that iniquitous and barbarous decision. If it is said that his course on this question would have been changed by their support, the case is still worse, for no man whose course could be changed by such considerations would be worthy of the support of any party. ”

“ There are those who denounce us openly to their own friends, and yet whisper us softly that Senator Douglas is the aptest instrument there is with which to effect that object. They wish us to infer all, from the fact that he now has a little quarrel with the present head of the dynasty; and that he has regularly voted with us on a single point, upon which he and we have never differed. They remind us that he is a great man, and that the largest of us are very small ones. ”

“ There are white men enough to marry all the white women, and enough black men to marry all the black women, and in God's name let them be so married. The Judge regales us with the terrible enormities that take place by the mixture of races; that the inferior race bears the superior down. Why, Judge, if we do not let them get together in the territories they won't mix there."
And thus was opened the grand senatorial campaign of 1858. Mr. Douglas had not been present at Mr. Lincoln's speech, a fact which Mr. Lincoln regretted, and he soon took measures to secure his attendance. ”

“ Before he departed for Washington, to attend the session of 1857 and 1858, it was whispered that he was about to break with the administration on the Lecompton business. It is always pleasant to give men credit for the best motives; and those under which he acted may have been the best. To oppose that constitution was certainly not inconsistent with his pet doctrine "popular sovereignty" when taken by itself, for nothing was more easily demonstrable than the fact that that constitution was not the act and deed of the people of Kansas--that it was in no sense an expression of their will. ”

“ The democratic state convention of Illinois assembled on the 21st of April, 1858, and endorsed Mr. Douglas in his position as an anti-Lecompton man. They placed a state ticket in the field, and engineered the canvass with such skill and vigor that the administration, through its office-holders, could make no headway against them. The power of Mr. Douglas over the politicians and masses in his own state, was never better illustrated than during this campaign, when all the patronage of the federal government could do nothing to defeat him. ”

“ He looks upon it as being an exceedingly little thing--only equal to the question of the cranberry laws of Indiana--as something having no moral question in it--as something on a par with the question of whether a man shall pasture his land with cattle, or plant it with tobacco--so little and so small a thing, that he concludes, if I could desire that if anything should be done to bring about the ultimate extinction of that little thing, I must be in favor of bringing about an amalgamation of all the other little things in the Union. ”

“ And as they have been gazing upon this attractive picture so long, they cannot, in the little distraction that has taken place in the party, bring themselves to give up the charming hope; but with greedier anxiety they rush about him, sustain him, and give him marches, triumphal entries and receptions, beyond what, even in the days of his highest prosperity, they could have brought about in his favor. On the contrary, nobody has ever expected me to be president. ”

“ So much then as to my disposition--my wish--to have all the state legislatures blotted out, and to have one consolidated government, and a uniformity of domestic regulations in all the states by which I suppose it is meant, if we raise corn here, we must make sugar-cane grow here too, and we must make those which grow North grow in the South. All this I suppose he understands I am in favor of doing. Now, so much for all this nonsense--for I must call it so. The Judge can have no issue with me on a question of establishing uniformity in the domestic regulations of the states. ”

“ Douglas was a party to the conspiracy for deceiving the people with the idea that the settlers of a territory could exclude slavery from their limits if they should choose to do so, and, at the same time, rendering it impossible for them to do so through the standing veto of the Dred Scott decision. ”

“ This point is made, not to be pressed immediately; but, if acquiesced in for awhile, and apparently indorsed by the people at an election, then to sustain the logical conclusion that what Dred Scott's master might lawfully do with Dred Scott, in the free state of Illinois, every other master may lawfully do with any other one, or one thousand slaves, in Illinois, or in any other free state. ”

“ It is a new wonder of the world. It is based upon falsehood in the main as to the facts--allegations of facts upon which it stands are not facts at all in many instances--and no decision made on any question--the first instance of a decision made under so many unfavorable circumstances--thus placed, has ever been held by the profession as law, and it has always needed confirmation before the lawyers regarded it as settled law. ”

“ Our cause, then, must be intrusted to, and conducted by, its own undoubted friends--those whose hands are free, whose hearts are in the work--who do care for the result. Two years ago the Republicans of the nation mustered over thirteen hundred thousand strong. ”

“ Here, as elsewhere during the campaign which succeeded, he manifested his wonderful good nature under misrepresentation. There were incidents of this campaign which no man cast in the common mould could have passed through without yielding to the severest passions of indignation and anger. ”

“ That if any one man choose to enslave another, no third man shall be allowed to object. That argument was incorporated into the Nebraska bill itself, in the language which follows: 'It being the true intent and meaning of this act not to legislate slavery into any territory or state, nor to exclude it therefrom ”

“ Mr. Buchanan was elected, and the indorsement, such as it was, secured. That was the second point gained. The indorsement, however, fell short of a clear popular majority by nearly four hundred thousand votes, and so, perhaps. was not overwhelmingly reliable and satisfactory. The outgoing President, in his last annual message, as impressively as possible echoed back upon the people the weight and authority of the indorsement. ”

“ He had very decided opinions upon all the great questions passed upon by Congress, and, though not unfrequently at variance with the administrations he had himself assisted to place in power, his influence was great in whatever direction he might choose to exert it. He accomplished much in establishing and nourishing the prosperity of Illinois. No man did so much as Mr. ”