Senator Douglas at Chicago, July 13, 1858

We publish in this morning’s TIMES the speech of Senator DOUGLAS in full, on reaching Chicago. His entry to the chief city of his own State was well calculated to gratify him. A very large concourse had assembled to do him honor, and listen to his words. It was altogether an occasion of marked interest, not only in the public life of the Senator, but in the political history of the day.

The Kansas bill, and his connection therewith, formed, of course, the topic of his remarks. There could be little for him to say which was new, but everything he uttered derived interest from his position relative to the approaching canvass. Mr. DOUGLAS enters the field for reelection to the Senate. Upon his success his political future is staked. He is bitterly opposed by that portion of his own party which sided with the Administration on the Lecompton issue, and no force of official influence will be spared to beat him. From the Republicans he has nothing to expect but the uncompromising hostility. They cannot forget the many fields in which the Little Giant fought them during the last fifteen years. In distant States it was at one time supposed they might overlook their ancient enmity. But such an idea never entered into the Republican mind of Illinois. He can expect from that party only the most determined opposition. They have presented as his competitor, the person of ABRAHAM LINCOLN, the man who, since the death of JOHN J. HARDIN, is their most beloved leader, and they will elect him if they can.

Under these circumstances the contest is one of extraordinary interest. Mr. DOUGLAS goes into it with a degree of spirit that deserves victory, and in Mr. LINCOLN he has a foeman worthy of his steel. The election which takes place in November is for State officers and members of the Legislature, which Legislature chooses a United States Senator. Illinois is from this time forward, until the Senatorial question shall be decided, the most interesting political battle-ground in the Union.

It were futile to predict the result. Mr. DOUGLAS has tremendous odds against him; but his resources are of no ordinary kind. On the stump he has no superior, and as a practical politician few equals. Besides, he will stand upon the theatre of a hundred victories, and speak to crowds who have never yet failed to respond to his persuasions. But, at the same time, it must not be forgotten that long possession of power cools friends and begets enemies, or that the Democratic Party of Illinois has been essentially weakened in the last six years. The battle must be close, severe, and doubtful. That it will be well fought is certain, and its results will be both important and memorable. If Mr. DOUGLAS shall succeed in detaching from the Administration Democrats enough to elect him, it will be the most brilliant triumph of his life.

SOURCE: The New York Times, New York, New York, Tuesday, July 13, 1858, p. 4

Charles L. Robinson to Amos A. Lawrence, January 1858

Thank God, the battle is over in Kansas and the victory is won. The Lecompton state government is secured, and now all is in the hands of the people. The border ruffians are now opposing their own constitution.

SOURCE: William Lawrence, Life of Amos A. Lawrence: With Extracts from His Diary and Correspondence, p. 112

Governor Salmon P. Chase to Thomas Spooner, Esq.,* New York City, New York, December 18, 1859

Columbus, Dec 18, [1859.]

Dear Spooner: From what you say in yours of the 14th, I infer you had not received mine previously written to you. It was directed to Cincinnati, and perhaps it has since reached you.

I do not desire to be quoted as expressing any opinions as to time or place of holding the Convention, or as to the mode of its organization either in respect to membership or number of delegates — or mode of electing them. The reasons for my not desiring even to seem to influence members of the Convention are obvious.

You, as our Ohio member, have a right to my views, and I will give them to you briefly:

1st. The Convention should be held between the Alleghenys and the Mississippi. It would be best, I think, to hold it at Pittsburg, Wheeling, Cincinnati or Covington, but next best, to hold it at Columbus, Indianapolis, Springfield or St Louis. Among these next best places, my judgment would incline to Indianapolis.

2d. The Convention should be held soon after the Democratic. This, I think, would be best. No considerable harm would probably result, however, if not held till the 17th June, as in 1856.

3. The Convention should be composed of all who are opposed to the extention of Slavery beyond the limits of Slave States, and in favor of reform in National Administration. The call should be addressed to Republicans and all others, without distinction of party, willing to unite for these objects. A resolution should be adopted expressing the opinion of the Committee that the members of the People's party of New Jersey and Penn'a, and all citizens of other States holding similar political principles, are regarded as described in the call and invited to participate in the Convention, but the Call should not be addressed to those parties as such.

4. The Committees should apportion the delegates among the States by recommending the election of, say, four Senatorial delegates from each State, and one Representative from each Congressional District, and additional representatives from each Congressional District for each six or seven thousand votes cast for Republican candidates, and another for a majority fraction of that number. Votes for opposition or people's Candidates in New Jersey or Pennsylvania, and for Anti-Lecompton Democrats supported by the Republicans, should be counted the same as Republican votes.

5. The Committee should recommend, and strongly recommend, the election of Senatorial delegates by State Conventions, and of Representative Delegates by District Conventions.

I have no time to argue these views. I am, however, strong in the faith that their adoption would secure fairness and equal representation in the nomination — harmony and vigor in the support of the nominees — In what is now a duty — success not merely for our organization but for our principles — success, therefore, lasting and honorable.

Ashley, I understand, will represent Kentucky under Clay's proxy. You can show this letter to him and if you think proper to Mr. Willey or Mr. Howard of Connecticut. Let me hope that you and Ashley will act together. It is desirable, many ways.

_______________

* From letter book 7, pp. 61-62

SOURCE: Diary and correspondence of Salmon P. Chase, Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1902, Vol. 2, p. 283-4

Franklin B. Sanborn to George L. Stearns, March 1858

dear Friend:

It will not be convenient for me to attend the meeting to-morrow, nor do I see what we can do as a committee in the present state of affairs. If 75,000 people who have sworn to resist the Lecompton fraud cannot do so successfully, we as a committee cannot help them. They will yield to the administration or there will be a fight — in either case our present committee could not assist them much. I think the administration will give in — because I believe they must. Still, any measures which the majority of the committee should adopt would have my entire cooperation, I have no doubt.

Yours ever,

F. B. Sanborn.

SOURCE: Frank Preston Stearns, The Life and Public Services of George Luther Stearns, p. 166-7

Lyman Trumbull to Abraham Lincoln, November 23, 1859

Washington, Nov. 23^d, 1859

Hon. A. Lincoln,

My Dear Sir,

Am obliged for the information in regard to the meeting of the National Committee. I confess myself disappointed at McClernand's majority – The truth is, that we have got about all we ever will from the old Whig element in central Ill. We must hereafter rely upon obtaining accessions from the young men & from the Democracy. About the hardest man on earth to get along with is an old Whig of pro-slavery proclivities. I reckon the Harpers Ferry affair damaged Palmer somewhat.

I met Cameron on the cars on my way here. He is in earnest about getting the Pa. delegation for himself, & I reckon will succeed. Nobody seems to say much about Read.

I passed a few days in New York City & there learned that the New York politicians were very much in favor of making Forney clk of the House, & that too without any assurance from him that he would act with the Republicans. The idea seemed to be that Forney could bring enough Anti Lecompton Democrats to act with the Republicans to give them the Speaker &c – When will the leading men of our party learn to pursue a straight forward course? Till they do, Republicanism can never have, & might never to have a permanent hold in the country. What consumate folly to bargain with half a dozen Douglasites & that the most active of them all to an important office, where he can wield a large influence in favor of his pet man, & to our prejudice. Douglas & his popular sovereignty humbug are the only things which now keep the great mass of Northern Repub Democrats from uniting with the Republicans at once. For my part, I believe it would be much better that the Democrats should organize the house by a bargain with Know Nothings, & anti-Lecomptonites, than that we should do it; but if the Republican members will go right along supporting no man for any of the offices who is not prepared to act with the Republican party, they being the strongest party in the house, will in the end succeed. If Forney or the South Americans will be of us & act with us, we ought to be liberal towards them; but it certainly cannot be our policy as a party to support any man, who will use the influence of his office to build up another party to our prejudice—

The Anti Lecomptonites & the South Americans will in my opinion in the end come to act with us, if we pursue a straight forward course without assailing them; but they will never do this, while the idea is held out that the Republican party will go to them.

Since commencing this letter, two Gentlemen residents of Washington have called upon me, stating, that one of them had been just been arrested for using language hostile to slavery – He had given bail for his appearance before a justice of the peace on Friday, & called to advise with me about the matter. What are we coming to? Excuse this long letter.

Truly Yours

Lyman Trumbull

SOURCE: Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

Lydia Maria Child to Governor Henry A. Wise

In your civil but very diplomatic reply to my letter, you inform me that I have a constitutional right to visit Virginia, for peaceful purposes, in common with every citizen of the United States. I was perfectly well aware that such was the theory of constitutional obligation in the Slave States; but I was also aware of what you omit to mention, viz.: that the Constitution has, in reality, been completely and systematically nullified whenever it suited the convenience or the policy of the Slave Power. Your constitutional obligation, for which you profess so much respect, has never proved any protection to citizens of the Free States, who happened to have a black, brown, or yellow complexion; nor to any white citizen whom you even suspected of entertaining opinions opposite to your own, on a question of vast importance to the temporal welfare and moral example of our common country. This total disregard of constitutional obligation has been manifested not merely by the Lynch Law of mobs in the Slave States, but by the deliberate action of magistrates and legislators. What regard was paid to constitutional obligation in South Carolina, when Massachusetts sent the Hon. Mr. Hoar there as an envoy, on a purely legal errand? Mr. Hedrick, Professor of Political Economy in the University of North Carolina, had a constitutional right to reside in that State. What regard was paid to that right, when he was driven from his home, merely for declaring that he considered Slavery an impolitic system, injurious to the prosperity of States? What respect for constitutional rights was manifested by Alabama, when a bookseller in Mobile was compelled to flee for his life, because he had, at the special request of some of the citizens, imported a few copies of a novel that everybody was curious to road? Your own citizen, Mr. Underwood, had a constitutional right to live in Virginia, and vote for whomsoever he pleased. What regard was paid to his rights, when he was driven from your State for declaring himself in favor of the election of Fremont? With these, and a multitude of other examples before your eyes, it would seem as if the less that was said about respect for constitutional obligations at the South, the better. Slavery is, in fact, an infringement of all law, and adheres to no law, save for its own purposes of oppression.

You accuse Captain John Brown of “whetting knives of butchery for the mothers, sisters, daughters and babes” of Virginia; and you inform me of the well-known fact that he is “arraigned for the crimes of murder, robbery and treason.” I will not here stop to explain why I believe that old hero to be no criminal, but a martyr to righteous principles which he sought to advance by methods sanctioned by his own religious views, though not by mine. Allowing that Capt. Brown did attempt a scheme in which murder robbery and treason were, to his own consciousness, involved, I do not see how Gov. Wise can consistently arraign him for crimes he has himself commended. You have threatened to trample on the Constitution, and break the Union, if a majority of the legal voters in these Confederated States dared to elect a President unfavorable to the extension of Slavery. Is not such a declaration proof of premeditated treason? In the Spring of 1842, you made a speech in Congress, from which I copy the following: —

“Once set before the people of the Great Valley the conquest of the rich Mexican Provinces, and you might as well attempt to stop the wind. This Government might end its troops, but they would run over them like a herd of buffalo. Let the work once begin, and I do not know that this House would hold me very long. Give me five millions of dollars, and I would undertake to do it myself. Although I do not know how to set a single squadron in the field, I could find men to do it. Slavery should pour itself abroad, without restraint, and find no limit but the Southern Ocean. The Camanches should no longer hold the richest mines of Mexico. Every golden image which had received the profanation of a false worship, should soon be melted down into good American eagles. I would cause as much gold to cross the Rio del Norte as the mules of Mexico could carry; aye, and I would make better use of it, too, than any lazy, bigoted priesthood under heaven.”

When you thus boasted that you and your “booted loafers” would overrun the troops of the United States “like a herd of buffalo,” if the Government sent them to arrest your invasion of a neighboring nation, at peace with the United States, did you not pledge yourself to commit treason? Was it not by robbery, even of churches, that you proposed to load the mules of Mexico with gold for the United States? Was it not by the murder of unoffending Mexicans that you expected to advance those schemes of avarice and ambition? What humanity had you for Mexican “mothers and babes,” whom you proposed to make childless and fatherless‘? And for what purpose was this wholesale massacre to take place? Not to right the wrongs of any oppressed class; not to sustain any great principles of justice, or of freedom; but merely to enable “Slavery to pour itself forth without restraint.” Even if Captain Brown were as bad as you paint him, I should suppose he must naturally remind you of the words of Macbeth:

“We but teach,

Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return

To plague the inventor: This even-handed justice

Commends the ingredients of our poisoned chalice

To our own lips.”

If Captain Brown intended, as you say, to commit treason, robbery and murder, I think I have shown that he could find ample authority for such proceedings in the public declarations of Gov. Wise. And if, as he himself declares, he merely intended to free the oppressed, where could he read a more forcible lesson than is furnished by the State Seal of Virginia? I looked at it thoughtfully before I opened your letter; and though it had always appeared to me very suggestive, it never seemed to me so much so as it now did in connection with Captain John Brown. A liberty-loving hero stands with his foot upon a prostrate despot; under his strong arm, manacles and chains lie broken; and the motto is, “Sic Semper Tyrannis;” “Thus be it ever done to Tyrants.” And this is the blazon of a State whose most profitable business is the Internal Slave-Trade! — in whose highways coffles of human chattles, chained and manacled, are frequently seen! And the Seal and the Coffles are both looked upon by other chattels, constantly exposed to the same fate! What if some Vezey, or Nat Turner, should be growing up among those apparently quiet spectators? It is in no spirit of taunt or of exultation that I ask this question. I never think of it but with anxiety, sadness, and sympathy. I know that a slaveholding community necessarily lives in the midst of gunpowder; and, in this age, sparks of free thought are flying in every direction. You cannot quench the fires of free thought and human sympathy by any process of cunning or force; but there is a method by which you can effectually wet the gunpowder. England has already tried it, with safety and success. Would that you could be persuaded to set aside the prejudices of education, and candidly examine the actual working of that experiment! Virginia is so richly endowed by nature that Free Institutions alone are wanting to render her the most prosperous and powerful of the States.

In your letter, you suggest that such a scheme as Captain Brown’s is the natural result of the opinions with which I sympathize. Even if I thought this to be a correct statement, though I should deeply regret it, I could not draw the conclusion that humanity ought to be stifled, and truth struck dumb, for fear that long-successful despotism might be endangered by their utterance. But the fact is, you mistake the source of that strange outbreak. No abolition arguments or denunciations, however earnestly, loudly, or harshly proclaimed, would have produced that result. It was the legitimate consequence of the continual and constantly-increasing aggressions of the Slave Power. The Slave States, in their desperate efforts to sustain a bad and dangerous institution, have encroached more and more upon the liberties of the Free States. Our inherent love of law and order, and our superstitious attachment to the Union, you have mistaken for cowardice; and rarely have you let slip any opportunity to add insult to aggression.

The manifested opposition to Slavery began with the lectures and pamphlets of a few disinterested men and women, who based their movements upon purely moral and religious grounds; but their expostulations were met with a storm of rage, with tar and feathers, brickbats, demolished houses, and other applications of Lynch Law. When the dust of the conflict began to subside a little, their numbers were found to be greatly increased by the efforts to exterminate them. They had become an influence in the State too important to be overlooked by shrewd calculators. Political economists began to look at the subject from a lower point of view. They used their abilities to demonstrate that slavery was a wasteful system, and that the Free States were taxed, to an enormous extent, to sustain an institution which, at heart, two-thirds of them abhorred. The forty millions, or more, of dollars, expended in hunting Fugitive Slaves in Florida, under the name of the Seminole War, were adduced, as one item in proof, to which many more were added. At last, politicians were compelled to take some action on the subject. It soon became known to all the people that the Slave States had always managed to hold in their hands the political power of the Union, and that while they constituted only one-third of the white population of these States, they hold more than two-thirds of all the lucrative, and once honorable offices; an indignity to which none but a subjugated people had ever before submitted. The knowledge also became generally diffused, that while the Southern States owned their Democracy at home, and voted for them, they also systematically bribed the nominally Democratic party, at the North, with the offices adroitly kept at their disposal.

Through these, and other instrumentalities, the sentiments of the original Garrisonian Abolitionists became very widely extended, in forms more or less diluted. But by far the most efficient co-laborers we have ever had have been the Slave States themselves. By denying us the sacred Right of Petition, they roused the free spirit of the North, as it never could have been roused by the loud trumpet of Garrison, or the soul-animating bugle of Phillips. They bought the great slave, Daniel, and, according to their established usage, paid him no wages for his labor. By his cooperation, they forced the Fugitive Slave Law upon us, in violation of all our humane instincts and all our principles of justice. And what did they procure for the Abolitionists by that despotic process? A deeper and wider detestation of Slavery throughout the Free States, and the publication of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, an eloquent outburst of moral indignation, whose echoes wakened the world to look upon their shame.

By fillibustering and fraud, they dismembered Mexico, and having thus obtained the soil of Texas, they tried to introduce it as a Slave State into the Union. Failing to effect their purpose by constitutional means, they accomplished it by a most open and palpable violation of the Constitution, and by obtaining the votes of Senators on false pretences.*

Soon afterward, a Southern Slave Administration ceded to the powerful monarchy of Great Britain several hundred thousands of square miles, that must have been made into Free States, to which that same Administration had declared that the United States had “an unquestionable right;” and then they turned upon the weak Republic of Mexico, and, in order to make more Slave States, .wrested from her twice as many hundred thousands of square miles, to which we had not a shadow of right.

Notwithstanding all these extra efforts, they saw symptoms that the political power so long held with a firm grasp was in danger of slipping from their hands, by reason of the extension of Abolition sentiments, and the greater prosperity of Free States. Emboldened by continual success in aggression, they made use of the pretence of “Squatter Sovereignty” to break the league into which they had formerly cajoled the servile representatives of our blinded people, by which all the territory of the United States south of 36° 30’ was guaranteed to Slavery, and all north of it to Freedom. Thus Kansas became the battle-ground of the antagonistic elements in our Government. Ruflians hired by the Slave Power were sent thither temporarily, to do the voting, and drive from the polls the legal voters, who were often murdered in the process. Names, copied from the directories of cities in other States, were returned by thousands as legal voters in Kansas, in order to establish a Constitution abhorred by the people. This was their exemplification of Squatter Sovereignty. A Massachusetts Senator, distinguished for candor, courtesy, and stainless integrity, was half murdered by slaveholders, merely for having the manliness to state these facts to the assembled Congress of the nation. Peaceful emigrants from the North, who went to Kansas for no other purpose than to till the soil, erect mills, and establish manufactories, schools, and churches, were robbed, outraged, and murdered. For many months, a war more ferocious than the warfare of wild Indians was carried on against a people almost unresisting, because they relied upon the Central Government for aid. And all this while, the power of the United States, wielded by the Slave Oligarchy, was on the side of the aggressors. They literally tied the stones, and let loose the mad dogs. This was the state of things when the hero of Osawatomie and his brave sons went to the rescue. It was he who first turned the tide of Border-Ruffian triumph, by showing them that blows were to be taken as well as given.

You may believe it or not, Gov. Wise, but it is certainly the truth that, because slaveholders so recklessly sowed the wind in Kansas, they reaped a whirlwind at Harper’s Ferry.

The people of the North had a very strong attachment to the Union; but, by your desperate measures, you have weakened it beyond all power of restoration. They are not your enemies, as you suppose, but they cannot consent to be your tools for any ignoble task you may choose to propose. You must not judge of us by the crawling sinuosities of an Everett; or by our magnificent hound, whom you trained to hunt your poor cripples, and then sent him sneaking into a corner to die — not with shame for the base purposes to which his strength had been applied, but with vexation because you withheld from him the promised bone. Not by such as these must you judge the free, enlightened yeomanry of New England. A majority of them would rejoice to have the Slave States fulfil their oft-repeated threat of withdrawal from the Union. It has ceased to be a bugbear, for we begin to despair of being able, by any other process, to give the world the example of a real republic. The moral sense of these States is outraged by being accomplices in sustaining an institution vicious in all its aspects; and it is now generally understood that we purchase our disgrace at great pecuniary expense. If you would only make the offer of a separation in serious earnest, you would hear the hearty response of millions, “Go, gentlemen, and

‘Stand not upon the order of your going,

But go at once!’”

Yours, with all due respect,

L. MARIA CHILD.

_______________

* The following Senators, Mr. Niles, of Connecticut, Mr. Dix, of New York, and Mr. Tappan, of Ohio, published statements that their votes had been obtained by false representations; and they declared that the case was the same with Mr. Heywood, of North Carolina.

SOURCE: The American Anti-Slavery Society, Correspondence between Lydia Maria Child and Gov. Wise and Mrs. Mason, of Virginia, p. 6-12

George William Curtis to John J. Pinkerton, February 11, 1861

North Shore, 11th February, 1861.

My Dear Pinkerton, — Your letter of the 18th of January reached me in Boston while I was upon the wing, where I have been ever since. I wanted to reply at once, but I was to come to Philadelphia this evening, and I hoped to see you and say what was too long to write. But it seems that I am so dangerous a fellow that no hall-owner in Philadelphia will risk the result of my explosive words, and not a place can be had for my fanatical and incendiary criticism of Thackeray; so I shall not see you. Four words in Seward’s speech explain it, and especially “justify” it, as you use the word, — “Concession short of principle.” Do you ask what and why we should concede? Mr. Adams answers; he has learned from history and common sense that no government does wisely which, however lawful, moderate, honest, and constitutional, treats any popular complaint, however foolish, unnecessary, and unjustifiable, with haughty disdain.

Those sentences of Seward and Adams furnish the key to our position, and the wise triumphant policy of the new administration. You have no fear of Lincoln, of course. Well, do you suppose that his secretary of state makes such a speech at such a time without the fullest understanding with his chief? Does any man think that the plan of the new government could wisely be exposed in advance while the traitors had yet nearly two months of legal power? Seward's speech indicates the spirit of the new government, a kindly spirit. Special measures he does not mention, saying only no measure will compromise the principle of the late victory. In his career of thirty-seven years you will find that under every party name he has had but one central principle, — that all our difficulties, including the greatest, are solvable under our Constitution and within the Union. And the Union is not what slavery chooses to decree. It is a word which has hitherto been the cry of a party which sought to rule or ruin the government, without the slightest regard to its fundamental idea. Now the people have pronounced for that idea, and now therefore, when a Republican says Union, he means just what the fathers meant, — not union for union, but union for the purpose of the union. But you say he subordinates his party to the union. Yes, again, but why? Because (as he said two years ago, when, thanks to Hickman and the rest, the Lecompton crime was prevented), because “the victory is won,” the peculiar purpose of the party has been achieved, the territories are free. Even South Carolina concedes that. The South allows that we have beaten them in the territories, and they secede because they think we must go on and emancipate in the District and navy yards, and then, from the same necessity of progress to retain power, emancipate in the States. Remember that by the bargain of 1850 New Mexico has a right to come in slave or free. Mr. Adams proposes that she shall come now, if she wants to; that is all. And he and Seward, and I suppose you and I, know perfectly well that she will come free. Yet even Seward says that, while he would have no objection to voting for such an enabling act, he is not quite sure that it could be constitutionally done.

I shall not tire your soul out by going on, but if we could sit for an evening in MacVeagh's office and smoke the calumet of explanation and consideration, I am perfectly sure that I could make you feel that Seward is greater at this moment than ever before. At least wait, wait until something is done, before you believe that a man who is a Democrat in the only decent sense, — who believes fully and faithfully in a popular government, who for nearly forty years, under the stinging stress of obloquy and slander and the doubt of timid friends, has stood cheerfully loyal to the great idea of liberty, and has seen his country gradually light up and break into the day of the same conviction, with the tragedies of Clay and Webster before him perfectly comprehended by him, with a calmness and clearness of insight and a radical political faith which they never had, — wait, I say, and do not think that such a man has forsworn himself, his career, and his eternal fame in history, until you have some other reason for believing it than that, when his country is threatened with civil war, he says he will do all that he can to avoid it except betray his principles.

All things are possible. Great men have often fallen in the very hour of triumph. But my faith in great men survives every wreck, and I will not believe that our great man is going until I see that he is gone. Indeed, as I feel now, I should as soon distrust my own loyalty as Seward's, and what can any individual say more?

Believe me, full of faith, your friend,

George William Curtis

SOURCE: Edward Cary, George William Curtis, p. 141-4

Lydia Maria Child to Governor Henry A. Wise, October 26, 1859

Wayland, Mass., Oct. 26, 1859

Governor WISE: I have heard that you were a man of chivalrous sentiments, and I know you were opposed to the iniquitous attempt to force upon Kansas a Constitution abhorrent to the moral sense of her people. Relying upon these indications of honor and justice in your character, I venture to ask a favor of you. Enclosed is a letter to Capt. John Brown. Will you have the kindness, after reading it yourself, to transmit it to the prisoner?

I and all my large circle of abolition acquaintances were taken by surprise when news came of Capt. Brown’s recent attempt; nor do I know of' a single person who would have approved of it, had they been apprised of his intention. But I and thousands of others feel a natural impulse of sympathy for the brave and suffering man. Perhaps God, who sees the inmost of our souls, perceives some such sentiment in your heart also. He needs a mother or sister to dress his wounds, and speak soothingly to him. Will you allow me to perform that mission of humanity? If you will, may God bless you for the generous deed!

I have been for years an uncompromising Abolitionist, and I should scorn to deny it or apologize for it as much as John Brown himself would do. Believing in peace principles, I deeply regret the step that the old veteran has taken, while I honor his humanity towards those who became his prisoners. But because it is my habit to be as open as the daylight, I will also say, that if I believed our religion justified men in fighting for freedom, I should consider the enslaved every where as best entitled to that right. Such an avowal is a simple, frank expression of my sense of natural justice.

But I should despise myself utterly if any circumstances could tempt me to seek to advance these opinions in any way, directly or indirectly, after your permission to visit Virginia has been obtained on the plea of sisterly sympathy with a brave and suffering man. I give you my word of honor, which was never broken, that I would use such permission solely and singly for the purpose of nursing your prisoner, and for no other purpose whatsoever.

Yours, respectfully,

L. MARIA CHILD.

SOURCE: The American Anti-Slavery Society, Correspondence between L. M. Child and Gov. Wise and Mrs. Mason, of Virginia, p. 3-4

Abraham Lincoln's "House Divided" Speech

SPEECH IN ACCEPTANCE OF NOMINATION AS UNITED STATES SENATOR, MADE AT THE CLOSE OF THE REPUBLICAN STATE CONVENTION, SPRINGFIELD, ILL., JUNE 16, 1858.

Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Convention: If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could better judge what to do, and how to do it. We are now far into the fifth year since a policy was initiated with the avowed object and confident promise of putting an end to slavery agitation. Under the operation of that policy, that agitation has not only not ceased, but has constantly augmented. In my opinion, it will not cease until a crisis shall have been reached and passed. "A house divided against itself cannot stand." I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward till it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new, North as well as South.

Have we no tendency to the latter condition?

Let any one who doubts carefully contemplate that now almost complete legal combination —  piece of machinery, so to speak — compounded of the Nebraska doctrine and the Dred Scott decision. Let him consider not only what work the machinery is adapted to do, and how well adapted; but also let him study the history of its construction, and trace, if he can, or rather fail, if he can, to trace the evidences of design and concert of action among its chief architects, from the beginning.

The new year of 1854 found slavery excluded from more than half the States by State constitutions, and from most of the national territory by congressional prohibition. Four days later commenced the struggle which ended in repealing that congressional prohibition. This opened all the national territory to slavery, and was the first point gained.

But, so far, Congress only had acted; and an indorsement [sic] by the people, real or apparent, was indispensable to save the point already gained and give chance for more.

This necessity had not been overlooked, but had been provided for, as well as might be, in the notable argument of "squatter sovereignty," otherwise called "sacred right of self-government," which latter phrase, though expressive of the only rightful basis of any government, was so perverted in this attempted use of it as to amount to just this: That if any one man choose to enslave another, no third man shall be allowed to object. That argument was incorporated into the Nebraska bill itself, in the language which follows: "It being the true intent and meaning of this act not to legislate slavery into any Territory or State, nor to exclude it therefrom; but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to the Constitution of the United States."  Then opened the roar of loose declamation in favor of "squatter sovereignty" and "sacred right of self-government." "But," said opposition members, "let us amend the bill so as to expressly declare that the people of the Territory may exclude slavery." "Not we," said the friends of the measure; and down they voted the amendment.

While the Nebraska bill was passing through Congress, a law case involving the question of a negro's freedom, by reason of his owner having voluntarily taken him first into a free State and then into a Territory covered by the congressional prohibition, and held him as a slave for a long time in each, was passing through the United States Circuit Court for the District of Missouri; and both Nebraska bill and lawsuit were brought to a decision in the same month of May, 1854. The negro's name was Dred Scott, which name now designates the decision finally made in the case. Before the then next presidential election, the law case came to and was argued in the Supreme Court of the United States; but the decision of it was deferred until after the election. Still, before the election, Senator Trumbull, on the floor of the Senate, requested the leading advocate of the Nebraska bill to state his opinion whether the people of a Territory can constitutionally exclude slavery from their limits; and the latter answered: "That is a question for the Supreme Court."

The election came. Mr. Buchanan was elected, and the indorsement, such as it was, secured. That was the second point gained. The indorsement, however, fell short of a clear popular majority by nearly four hundred thousand votes, and so, perhaps, was not overwhelmingly reliable and satisfactory. The outgoing President, in his last annual message, as impressively as possible echoed back upon the people the weight and authority of the indorsement. The Supreme Court met again; did not announce their decision, but ordered a reargument. The presidential inauguration came, and still no decision of the court; but the incoming President in his inaugural address fervently exhorted the people to abide by the forthcoming decision, whatever it might be. Then, in a few days, came the decision.

The reputed author of the Nebraska bill finds an early occasion to make a speech at this capital indorsing the Dred Scott decision, and vehemently denouncing all opposition to it. The new President, too, seizes the early occasion of the Silliman letter to indorse and strongly construe that decision, and to express his astonishment that any different view had ever been entertained!

At length a squabble springs up between the President and the author of the Nebraska bill, on the mere question of fact, whether the Lecompton constitution was or was not, in any just sense, made by the people of Kansas; and in that quarrel the latter declares that all he wants is a fair vote for the people, and that he cares not whether slavery be voted down or voted up. I do not understand his declaration that he cares not whether slavery be voted down or voted up to be intended by him other than as an apt definition of the policy he would impress upon the public mind — the principle for which he declares he has suffered so much, and is ready to suffer to the end. And well may he cling to that principle. If he has any parental feeling, well may he cling to it. That principle is the only shred left of his original Nebraska doctrine. Under the Dred Scott decision "squatter sovereignty" squatted out of existence, tumbled down like temporary scaffolding, — like the mold at the foundry, served through one blast and fell back into loose sand,—helped to carry an election, and then was kicked to the winds. His late joint struggle with the Republicans against the Lecompton constitution involves nothing of the original Nebraska doctrine. That struggle was made on a point — the right of a people to make their own constitution — upon which he and the Republicans have never differed.

The several points of the Dred Scott decision, in connection with Senator Douglas's "care not" policy, constitute the piece of machinery in its present state of advancement. This was the third point gained. The working points of that machinery are:

(1) That no negro slave, imported as such from Africa, and no descendant of such slave, can ever be a citizen of any State, in the sense of that term as used in the Constitution of the United States. This point is made in order to deprive the negro in every possible event of the benefit of that provision of the United States Constitution which declares that "the citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States."

(2) That, "subject to the Constitution of the United States," neither Congress nor a territorial legislature can exclude slavery from any United States Territory. This point is made in order that individual men may fill up the Territories with slaves, without danger of losing them as property, and thus enhance the chances of permanency to the institution through all the future.

(3) That whether the holding a negro in actual slavery in a free State makes him free as against the holder, the United States courts will not decide, but will leave to be decided by the courts of any slave State the negro may be forced into by the master. This point is made not to be pressed immediately, but, if acquiesced in for a while, and apparently indorsed by the people at an election, then to sustain the logical conclusion that what Dred Scott's master might lawfully do with Dred Scott in the free State of Illinois, every other master may lawfully do with any other one or one thousand slaves in Illinois or in any other free State.

Auxiliary to all this, and working hand in hand with it, the Nebraska doctrine, or what is left of it, is to educate and mold public opinion, at least Northern public opinion, not to care whether slavery is voted down or voted up. This shows exactly where we now are, and partially, also, whither we are tending.

It will throw additional light on the latter, to go back and run the mind over the string of historical facts already stated. Several things will now appear less dark and mysterious than they did when they were transpiring. The people were to be left "perfectly free," "subject only to the Constitution." What the Constitution had to do with it outsiders could not then see. Plainly enough now, it was an exactly fitted niche for the Dred Scott decision to afterward come in, and declare the perfect freedom of the people to be just no freedom at all. Why was the amendment expressly declaring the right of the people voted down? Plainly enough now, the adoption of it would have spoiled the niche for the Dred Scott decision.  Why was the court decision held up? Why even a senator's individual opinion withheld till after the presidential election? Plainly enough now, the speaking out then would have damaged the "perfectly free" argument upon which the election was to be carried. Why the outgoing President's felicitation on the indorsement? Why the delay of a reargument? Why the incoming President's advance exhortation in favor of the decision? These things look like the cautious patting and petting of a spirited horse preparatory to mounting him, when it is dreaded that he may give the rider a fall. And why the hasty after-indorsement of the decision by the President and others?

We cannot absolutely know that all these exact adaptations are the result of preconeert. But when we see a lot of framed timbers, different portions of which we know have been gotten out at different times and places and by different workmen, — Stephen, Franklin, Roger, and James, for instance, — and we see these timbers joined together, and see they exactly make the frame of a house or a mill, all the tenons and mortises exactly fitting, and all the lengths and proportions of the different pieces exactly adapted to their respective places, and not a piece too many or too few, not omitting even scaffolding — or, if a single piece be lacking, we see the place in the frame exactly fitted and prepared yet to bring such piece in—in such a case we find it impossible not to believe that Stephen and Franklin and Roger and James all understood one another from the beginning, and all worked upon a common plan or draft drawn up before the first blow was struck.

It should not be overlooked that, by the Nebraska bill, the people of a State as well as Territory were to be left "perfectly free," "subject only to the Constitution."  Why mention a State? They were legislating for Territories, and not for or about States. Certainly the people of a State are and ought to be subject to the Constitution of the United States; but why is mention of this lugged into this merely territorial law?  Why are the people of a Territory and the people of a State therein lumped together, and their relation to the Constitution therein treated as being precisely the same?  While the opinion of the court, by Chief Justice Taney, in the Dred Scott case, and the separate opinions of all the concurring judges, expressly declare that the Constitution of the United States neither permits Congress nor a territorial legislature to exclude slavery from any United States Territory, they all omit to declare whether or not the same Constitution permits a State, or the people of a State, to exclude it. Possibly, this is a mere omission; but who can be quite sure, if McLean or Curtis had sought to get into the opinion a declaration of unlimited power in the people of a State to exclude slavery from their limits, just as Chase and Mace sought to get such declaration, in behalf of the people of a Territory, into the Nebraska bill — I ask, who can be quite sure that it would not have been voted down in the one case as it had been in the other ? The nearest approach to the point of declaring the power of a State over slavery is made by Judge Nelson. He approaches it more than once, using the precise idea, and almost the language too, of the Nebraska act. On one occasion his exact language is: "Except in cases where the power is restrained by the Constitution of the United States, the law of the State is supreme over the subject of slavery within its jurisdiction." In what cases the power of the States is so restrained by the United States Constitution is left an open question, precisely as the same question as to the restraint on the power of the Territories was left open in the Nebraska act. Put this and that together, and we have another nice little niche, which we may, ere long, see filled with another Supreme Court decision declaring that the Constitution of the United States does not permit a State to exclude slavery from its limits. And this may especially be expected if the doctrine of "care not whether slavery be voted down or voted up" shall gain upon the public mind sufficiently to give promise that such a decision can be maintained when made.

Such a decision is all that slavery now lacks of being alike lawful in all the States. Welcome, or unwelcome, such decision is probably coming, and will soon be upon us, unless the power of the present political dynasty shall be met and overthrown. We shall lie down pleasantly dreaming that the people of Missouri are on the verge of making their State free, and we shall awake to the reality instead that the Supreme Court has made Illinois a slave State. To meet and overthrow the power of that dynasty is the work now before all those who would prevent that consummation. That is what we have to do.  How can we best do it?

There are those who denounce us openly to their own friends, and yet whisper us softly that Senator Douglas is the aptest instrument there is with which to effect that object. They wish us to infer all this from the fact that he now has a little quarrel with the present head of the dynasty; and that he has regularly voted with us on a single point upon which he and we have never differed. They remind us that he is a great man, and that the largest of us are very small ones. Let this be granted.  But "a living dog is better than a dead lion." Judge Douglas, if not a dead lion for this work, is at least a caged and toothless one. How can he oppose the advances of slavery? He don't care anything about it. His avowed mission is impressing the "public heart" to care nothing about it. A leading Douglas Democratic newspaper thinks Douglas's superior talent will be needed to resist the revival of the African slave-trade. Does Douglas believe an effort to revive that trade is approaching?  He has not said so. Does he really think so?  But if it is, how can he resist it?  For years he has labored to prove it a sacred right of white men to take negro slaves into the new Territories. Can he possibly show that it is less a sacred right to buy them where they can be bought cheapest?  And unquestionably they can be bought cheaper in Africa than in Virginia. He has done all in his power to reduce the whole question of slavery to one of a mere right of property; and as such, how can he oppose the foreign slave-trade ? How can he refuse that trade in that "property" shall be "perfectly free," unless he does it as a protection to the home production? And as the home producers will probably not ask the protection, he will be wholly without a ground of opposition.

Senator Douglas holds, we know, that a man may rightfully be wiser to-day than he was yesterday — that he may rightfully change when he finds himself wrong. But can we, for that reason, run ahead, and infer that he will make any particular change of which he, himself, has given no intimation? Can we safely base our action upon any such vague inference?  Now, as ever, I wish not to misrepresent Judge Douglas's position, question his motives, or do aught that can be personally offensive to him. Whenever, if ever, he and we can come together on principle so that our great cause may have assistance from his great ability, I hope to have interposed no adventitious obstacle. But clearly, he is not now with us — he does not pretend to be — he does not promise ever to be.

Our cause, then, must be intrusted [sic] to, and conducted by, its own undoubted friends — those whose hands are free, whose hearts are in the work, who do care for the result. Two years ago the Republicans of the nation mustered over thirteen hundred thousand strong. We did this under the single impulse of resistance to a common danger, with every external circumstance against us. Of strange, discordant, and even hostile elements, we gathered from the four winds, and formed and fought the battle through, under the constant hot fire of a disciplined, proud, and pampered enemy. Did we brave all then to falter now? — now, when that same enemy is wavering, dissevered, and belligerent? The result is not doubtful. We shall not fail — if we stand firm, we shall not fail. Wise counsels may accelerate or mistakes delay it, but sooner or later, the victory is sure to come.

SOURCE: Marion Mills Miller, Editor, Life and Works of Abraham Lincoln, Volume 3: Speeches and debates, 1856-1858, p. 35-46