Douglas in his reply took up Lincoln's rather evasive answer to
his second interrogatory submitted at Ottawa. "Lincoln," he said,
"would be exceedingly sorry to be put in a position where he would
have to vote on the question of the admission of slave States. Why
is he a candidate for the Senate if he would be sorry to be put in
that position? * * * * If Congress keeps out slavery by law while
it is a Territory and then the people should have a fair chance
and should adopt slavery, he supposes he would have to admit the
State. Suppose Congress should not keep slavery out during their
territorial existence, then how would he vote when the people
applied for admission with a slave Constitution? That he does not
answer; and that is the condition of every Territory we have now
got. His answer only applies to a given case which he knows does
not exist in any Territory. But Mr. Lincoln does not want to be
held responsible for the black Republican doctrine of no more slave
States. Why are men running for Congress in the northern Distracts
and taking that Abolition platform for their guide when Mr. Lincoln
does not want to be held to it down here in Egypt? His party in
the northern part of the State hold to that Abolition platform,
and if they do not in the south, they present the extra-ordinary
spectacle of 'a house divided against itself' and hence 'cannot
stand.'"
In answer to Lincoln's last question, he said: "It is a fundamental
article of the Democratic creed that there should be non-interference
or non-intervention of Congress with slavery in the States or
Territories. The Democratic party have always stood by that great
principle and I stand on that platform now. * * * * Lincoln himself
will not answer this question. * * * It is true * * * (he admits)
that under the decision of the Supreme Court, it is the duty of a
man to vote for a slave code in the Territories. If he believed
in that decision he would be a perjured man if he did not give the
vote. I want to know whether he is not bound to a decision which
is contrary to his opinions just as much as to one in accordance
with his opinions? * * * Is every man in this land allowed to resist
decisions he does not like and only support those which meet his
approval? * * * * It is the fundamental principle of the judiciary
that its decisions are final. * * * * My doctrine is that, even
taking Mr. Lincoln's view that the decision recognizes the right of
a man to carry his slaves into the Territories, yet after he gets
them there he needs affirmative law to make that right of any value.
The same doctrine applies to all other kinds of property.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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