"I tell you, my friends, it is impossible under our institutions to
force slavery on an unwilling people. If this principle of popular
sovereignty * * * be fairly carried out by letting the people decide
the question for themselves by a fair vote at a fair election and
with honest returns, slavery will never exist one day or one hour
in any Territory against the unfriendly legislation of an unfriendly
people. I care not how the Dred Scott decision may have settled the
abstract question so far as the practical results are concerned. *
* * If the people of the Territory want slavery they will encourage
it by passing affirmatory laws and the necessary police regulations,
patrol laws and slave code; if they do not want it they will
withhold that legislation and by withholding it slavery is a dead
as if prohibited by a constitutional provision. * * * * * They
could pass such local laws as would drive slavery out in one day
or one hour, if they were opposed to it; and therefore, so far as
the question of slavery in the Territory is concerned, so far as
the principle of popular sovereignty is concerned in its practical
operation, it matters not how the Dred Scott case may be decided.
* * * * * Whether slavery shall exist or shall not exist in any
State or Territory will depend on whether the people are for or
against it; and which ever way they shall decide it will be entirely
satisfactory to me."
The Dred Scott case, he continued, decides that negroes are
not citizens. But Lincoln insists on conferring on them all the
privileges, rights and immunities of citizens. "I believe this
Government of ours was founded on the white basis. I believe
it was established for white men, of the benefit of white men and
their posterity in all time to come. I do not believe that it
was the design or intention of the signers of the Declaration of
Independence or the framers of the Constitution to include negroes
as citizens. * * * The position Lincoln has taken on this question
not only presents him as claiming for them the right to vote, but
their right under the divine law and the Declaration of Independence
to be elected to office, to become members of the legislature, to
go to Congress, to become Governors or United States Senators, or
Judges of the Supreme Court. * * * He would permit them to marry,
would he not? And if he gives them that right I suppose he will
let them marry whom they please, provided they marry their equals.
If the divine law declares that the white man is the equal of the
negro woman, that they are on a perfect equality, I suppose he admits
the right of the negro woman to marry the white man. * * * I do
not believe that the signers of the Declaration had any reference
to negroes when they used the expression that all men were created
equal. * * * They were speaking only of the white race. * * *
Every one of the thirteen colonies was a slave-holding constituency.
Did they intend * * * to declare that their own slaves were on an
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