GDG- Lincoln v Douglass October 7, 1858

[Dennis Lawrence]

Thursday, October 7, 1858.
Galesburg, IL

Fifth joint debate takes place. Lincoln arrives shortly before noon, 
escorted by large procession. He is conducted to home of Henry R. 
Sanderson, where reception speech is made by T. G. Frost and banner 
presented by Miss Anna Hurd. At 2 Lincoln and Douglas are escorted to 
grounds in four-horse carriages driven abreast. Debate is held on Knox 
College campus.



Excerpt:


Douglas:I tell you that this Chicago doctrine of Lincoln's---declaring that 
the negro and the white man are made equal by the Declaration of 
Independence and by Divine Providence---is a monstrous heresy. (That's so, 
and terrific applause.) The signers of the Declaration of Independence 
never dreamed of the negro when they were writing that document. They 
referred to white men, to men of European birth and European descent, when 
they declared the equality of all men. I see a gentleman there in the crowd 
shaking his head. Let me remind him that when Thomas Jefferson wrote that 
document he was the owner, and so continued until his death, of a large 
number of slaves. Did he intend to say in that Declaration that his negro 
slaves, which he held and treated as property, were created his equals b 
and y Divine law, and that he was violating the law of God every day of his 
life by holding them as slaves? (``No, no.'') It must be borne in mind that 
when that Declaration was put forth every one of the thirteen colonies were 
slaveholding colonies, and every man who signed that instrument represented 
a slaveholding constituency. Recollect, also, that no one of them 
emancipated his slaves, much less put them on an equality with himself, 
after he signed the Declaration. On the contrary, they all continued to 
hold their negroes as slaves during the revolutionary war. Now, do you 
believe---are you willing to have it said---that every man who signed the 
Declaration of Independence declared the negro his equal, and then was 
hypocrite enough to continue to hold him as a slave, in violation of what 
he believed to be the divine law? (``No, no.'') And yet when you say that 
the Declaration of Independence includes the negro, you charge the signers 
of it with hypocrisy.

Lincoln: The Judge has alluded to the Declaration of Independence, and 
insisted that negroes are not included in that Declaration; and that it is 
a slander upon the framers of that instrument, to suppose that negroes were 
meant therein; and he asks you: Is it possible to believe that Mr. 
Jefferson, who penned the immortal paper, could have supposed himself 
applying the language of that instrument to the negro race, and yet held a 
portion of that race in slavery? Would he not at once have freed them? I 
only have to remark upon this part of the Judge's speech, (and that, too, 
very briefly, for I shall not detain myself, or you, upon that point for 
any great length of time,) that I believe the entire records of the world, 
from the date of the Declaration of Independence up to within three years 
ago, may be searched in vain for one single affirmation, from one single 
man, that the negro was not included in the Declaration of Independence. I 
think I may defy Judge Douglas to show that he ever said so, that 
Washington ever said so, that any President ever said so, that any member 
of Congress ever said so, or that any living man upon the whole earth ever 
said so, until the necessities of the present policy of the Democratic 
party, in regard to slavery, had to invent that affirmation. [Tremendous 
applause.] And I will remind Judge Douglas and this audience, that while 
Mr. Jefferson was the owner of slaves, as undoubtedly he was, in speaking 
upon this very subject, he used the strong language that ``he trembled for 
his country when he remembered that God was just;'' and I will offer the 
highest premium in my power to Judge Douglas if he will show that he, in 
all his life, ever uttered a sentiment at all akin to that of Jefferson. 
[Great applause and cries of ``Hit him again,'' ``good,'' ``good.'']


http://www.hti.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=lincoln;rgn=div1;view=text;idno=lincoln3;node=lincoln3%3A30

Enjoy

Dennis