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
a constitutional provision on every inch of the American republic,
instead of being left, as our fathers wisely left it, to each State to
decide for itself. Here I assert that uniformity in the local laws and
institutions of the different States is neither possible nor desirable.
If uniformity had been adopted when the government was established, it
must inevitably have been the uniformity of slavery everywhere, or else
the uniformity of negro citizenship and negro equality everywhere.
We are told by Lincoln that he is utterly opposed to the Dred Scott
decision, and will not submit to it, for the reason that he says it
deprives the negro of the rights and privileges of citizenship. That
is the first and main reason which he assigns for his warfare on the
Supreme Court of the United States and its decision. I ask you, Are
you in favor of conferring upon the negro the rights and privileges
of citizenship? Do you desire to strike out of our State constitution
that clause which keeps slaves and free negroes out of the State,
and allow the free negroes to flow in, and cover your prairies with
black settlements? Do you desire to turn this beautiful State into a
free negro colony, in order that when Missouri abolishes slavery she
can send one hundred thousand emancipated slaves into Illinois, to
become citizens and voters, on an equality with yourselves? If you
desire negro citizenship, if you desire to allow them to come into the
State and settle with the white man, if you desire them to vote on an
equality with yourselves, and to make them eligible to office, to
serve on juries, and to adjudge your rights, then support Mr. Lincoln
and the Black Republican party, who are in favor of the citizenship of
the negro. For one, I am opposed to negro citizenship in any and every
form. I believe this government was made on the white basis. I believe
it was made by white men, for the benefit of white men and their
posterity forever; and I am in favor of confining citizenship to white
men, men of European birth and descent, instead of conferring it upon
negroes, Indians, and other inferior races.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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