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September 12—18, 1859

Lincoln Tells the Anti-Slavery Forces How To Win the Fight

During the summer and fall of 1859, Sen. Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois was criss-crossing the states of the Midwest, trying to win people over to his doctrine of "popular sovereignty," and thus to weaken the resolve of those who opposed the spread of slavery. It was increasingly apparent that Douglas would be a Presidential candidate in 1860. Abraham Lincoln was also speaking to Midwestern voters, making crystal clear to them the basic policy questions the anti-slavery forces must resolve in their own minds before they would be capable of winning the upcoming Presidential election.

At this juncture, it was still not clear whether the new Republican Party would be joined by all the diverse anti-slavery factions, or whether there would be several anti-slavery tickets. Many people were talking of cobbling together some sort of compromise, while the "anti-Nebraska" Democrats, who did not want slavery extended, still rejoiced in the difficulties faced by the new Republican Party. In this fluid situation, Lincoln spoke at Columbus on Sept. 16 and then at Cincinnati on the following day.

Because Cincinnati was directly across the Ohio River from Kentucky, Lincoln adopted the device of first addressing his remarks to those who perhaps had crossed the river from Kentucky to hear him. He recommended that the Kentuckians, who were slightly suspicious of Douglas, vote for Douglas without reservation, for he was more in favor of establishing slavery on a permanent nationwide basis than they were. The purpose of this hilarious ironic discourse was to demonstrate to his audience exactly what ideological assumptions underlay the arguments used by Douglas to obscure his real purposes.

Among the many ways in which Douglas was softening up the Midwesterners was his Bible theory. "In Kentucky, perhaps, in many of the Slave States certainly," said Lincoln, "you are trying to establish the rightfulness of Slavery by reference to the Bible. You are trying to show that slavery existed in the Bible times by Divine ordinance. Now Douglas is wiser than you, for your own benefit, upon that subject. Douglas knows that whenever you establish that Slavery was right by the Bible, it will occur that that Slavery was the Slavery of the white man—of men without reference to color—and he knows very well that you may entertain that idea in Kentucky as much as you please, but you will never win any Northern support upon it. He makes a wiser argument for you: he makes the argument that the slavery of the black man, the slavery of the man who has a skin of a different color from your own, is right. He thereby brings to your support Northern voters who could not for a moment be brought by your own argument of the Bible-right of slavery. Will you not give him credit for that? Will you not say that in this matter he is more wisely for you than you are for yourselves."

Lincoln then quoted from a Douglas speech at Memphis, "where he declared that while in all contests between the Negro and the white man, he was for the white man, but that in all questions between the Negro and the crocodile he was for the Negro." Lincoln said that he supposed "that if a crocodile (or as we old Ohio River boatmen used to call them, alligators) should come across a white man, he would kill him if he could, and so he would a Negro. But what, at last, is this proposition? I believe it is a sort of proposition in proportion, which may be stated thus: As the Negro is to the white man, so is the crocodile to the Negro, and as the Negro may rightfully treat the crocodile as a beast or reptile, so the white man may rightfully treat the Negro as a beast or a reptile. [Applause.] That is really the 'knip' of all that argument of his."

"Now, my brother Kentuckians, who believe in this," said Lincoln, "you ought to thank Judge Douglas for having put that in a much more taking way than any of yourselves have done." [Applause.]

After cataloguing the sophisms used by Douglas, Lincoln turned to the necessity of organizing a principled stand against the policies which were destroying the nation. "I have taken upon myself in the name of some of you to say, that we expect upon these principles to ultimately beat them [those who favored spreading slavery to every part of the nation]. In order to do so, I think we want and must have a national policy in regard to the institution of slavery, that acknowledges and deals with that institution as being wrong. [Loud cheering.] Whoever desires the prevention of the spread of slavery and the nationalization of that institution, yields all, when he yields to any policy that either recognizes slavery as being right, or as being an indifferent thing. Nothing will make you successful but setting up a policy which shall treat the thing as being wrong.

"When I say this, I do not mean to say that this general government is charged with the duty of redressing all wrongs which are wrongs to itself. This government is expressly charged with the duty of providing for the general welfare. We believe that the spreading out and perpetuity of the institution of slavery impairs the general welfare. We believe—nay, we know, that that is the only thing that has ever threatened the perpetuity of the Union itself. The only thing which has ever menaced the destruction of the government under which we live, is this very thing. To repress this thing, we think is providing for the general welfare. Our friends in Kentucky differ from us. We need not make our argument for them, but we who think it is wrong in all its relations, or in some of them at least, must decide as to our own actions, and our own course, upon our own judgment (emphasis added).

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