Noted Speeches of Abraham Lincoln, Including the Lincoln-Douglas DebateLincoln, Abraham
History
Noted Speeches of Abraham Lincoln, Including the Lincoln-Douglas Debate
Lincoln, Abraham
Lincoln, Abraham, 1809-1865 -- Oratory
My object in reading these resolutions was to put the question to
Abraham Lincoln this day, whether he now stands and will stand by
each article in that creed, and carry it out. [1] I desire to know
whether Mr. Lincoln to-day stands as he did in 1854, in favor of the
unconditional repeal of the fugitive-slave law. [2] I desire him to
answer whether he stands pledged to-day, as he did in 1854, against
the admission of any more slave States into the Union, even if the
people want them. [3] I want to know whether he stands pledged against
the admission of a new State into the Union with such a constitution
as the people of that State may see fit to make. [4] I want to know
whether he stands to-day pledged to the abolition of slavery in the
District of Columbia. [5] I desire him to answer whether he stands
pledged to the prohibition of the slave-trade between the different
States. [6] I desire to know whether he stands pledged to prohibit
slavery in all the Territories of the United States, north as well
as south of the Missouri Compromise line. [7] I desire him to answer
whether he is opposed to the acquisition of any more territory unless
slavery is prohibited therein. I want his answer to these questions.
Your affirmative cheers in favor of this Abolition platform are not
satisfactory. I ask Abraham Lincoln to answer these questions, in order
that, when I trot him down to lower Egypt [Southernmost Illinois] I may
put the same questions to him. My principles are the same everywhere.
I can proclaim them alike in the North, the South, the East, and the
West. My principles will apply wherever the Constitution prevails
and the American flag waves. I desire to know whether Mr. Lincoln’s
principles will bear transplanting from Ottawa to Jonesboro? I put
these questions to him to-day distinctly, and ask an answer. I have a
right to an answer; for I quote from the platform of the Republican
party, made by himself and others at the time that party was formed,
and the bargain made by Lincoln to dissolve and kill the old Whig party
and transfer its members, bound hand and foot, to the Abolition party
under the direction of Giddings and Fred Douglass.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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