by DL Fowler
On September 16, I stop in Columbus on my way to Cincinnati and speak to a small audience on the east terrace of the State House. I loop my thumbs under my suspenders.
The Giant himself has been here recently.
Laughter erupts from the crowd. I let them settle, and once all is quiet I take a long, deep breath, gazing out into the horizon. I pull my shoulders back and erect myself.
Judge Douglas ought to remember when he is endeavoring to force this new policy of Popular Sovereignty on the American people that there was once in this country a man by the name of Thomas Jefferson, supposedly a Democrat. He’s one whose ideas and principles are not prevalent among Democrats today.
I pause, giving my words time to sink in, before stretching out my arms as if summoning my listeners to gather close.
Thomas Jefferson did not share Judge Douglas’ view of the insignificance of slavery. In contemplation of this evil thing among us Jefferson exclaimed, “I tremble for my country when I remember that God is just!”
There was then a danger to this country, and there is a danger now—a danger of the avenging justice of God on that little question which is unimportant to Judge Douglas.
I step forward to the edge of the platform.
Thomas Jefferson supposed there was a question of God’s eternal justice wrapped up in the enslaving of any man or race of men. Those who enslave their fellow man brave the arm of Jehovah. When a nation dares the Almighty, every friend of that nation has cause to dread His wrath.
Choose ye between Jefferson and Douglas as to what is the true view of this evil among us.
The next evening, a host of well-wishers gathers at the depot as my train enters Cincinnati. After being feted by a brass band and a cadre of local dignitaries, I’m spirited off to my hotel. Later, a torchlight parade carries me to the Fifth Street Market where pyrotechnic displays and bonfires illuminate the night. The crowd is larger than any that witnessed my debates with Senator Douglas a year ago. Cannons announce my arrival.
As I ascend the platform I look south across the Ohio River only a few hundred yards away. Reflections from the fires dance in its currents. Beyond the river is my boyhood Kentucky home, little brother Tommy’s grave, and the hills, creeks, and woods I roamed with Austin Gollaher. My heart skips, and a flood of memories pinches my throat. There’s the farm Father couldn’t make a go of. There’s slave country. A mist covers my eyes.
I begin my speech by repeating the controversial lines I gave at the Senatorial nominating convention of ‘58 for which I’ve taken much abuse from my supporters and much condemnation from rivals. Those words didn’t get me elected when I used them before; nonetheless, they remain true, and I defend their truth tonight. I stand tall and declare,
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.
I gaze over the crowd and reach out as if embracing them.
I have not said that I do not expect any peace upon this question until slavery is exterminated. I had only said I expected peace when that institution was put where the public mind should rest in the belief that it was on a course of ultimate extinction.
I said I believed, from the organization of our government until a very recent period of time, the institution had been placed and continued upon a path toward extinction. I said that we had comparative peace upon that question through a portion of that period of time, only because the public mind rested in the belief of its ultimate extinction, and that when we return to that belief, I suppose we shall again have peace as we previously had.
I drop my hands to my side and walk forward toward my listeners as an unarmed man would do.
I have assured Judge Douglas directly, as I now assure you, that I neither then had, nor have, or ever had, any purpose in any way of interfering with the institution of slavery where it exists.
I believe we have no power, under the Constitution of the United States, or rather under the form of government under which we live, to interfere with the institution of slavery, or any other of the institutions of our sister States, be they free or slave States.
I bow my head and my shoulders slump. My heart pinches at the injustices suffered by the Negroes, and I’m weighed down by the estrangement slavery has wrought in our land.
I say to my Kentucky friends—understand this—the issue between you and me is that I think slavery is wrong, and ought not to be outspread. You think it is right and ought to be extended and perpetuated.
Someone from the crowd shouts, "Oh, Lord!"
I’m not speaking of the good people of Ohio. That is my Kentuckian I am talking to now.
I reach out my hands, as if beckoning my Kentucky kin to draw near. I say they should be whole-heartedly for Douglas because he molds public opinion to their ends better than any of them could.
There are a few things which he says that appear to be against you, and a few that he forbears to say which you would like him to say. But you ought to remember that the saying of the one, or the forbearing to say the other, would loosen his hold upon the North, and by consequence, he would lose his capacity to serve you.
I call your attention to the fact—for a well established fact it is—that the Judge never says your institution of slavery is wrong. There is not a public man in the United States, I believe with the exception of Senator Douglas, who has not at some time in his life declared his opinion whether the thing is right or wrong, but Senator Douglas never declares it is wrong.
I take a few steps backward and drop my hands to my side.
He leaves himself in your favor by not declaring the thing to be wrong. And, he keeps open the chances for luring the sentiment of the North into your support by never saying it is right. This you ought to set down to his credit, little though it be in comparison to the whole of which he does for you.
I remind them of Douglas’ notion that there is a line drawn by the Almighty across this continent where He has signed the soil; on one side of which the soil must always be cultivated by slaves. Below that line slavery is right and has the sympathy and direct authority of the Almighty. I nearly choke on these words, unwilling to accept a God who would be such a cruel master, one who authored the abuse by one human against another.
I tamp down my emotions and try to employ logic to expose the trap Douglas’ principle would catch us in.
Whenever you can get these Northern audiences to adopt the opinion that slavery is right south of the Ohio, they will readily take the perfectly logical extension of that argument, that whatever is right on that side of the Ohio cannot be wrong on this. If you have property on that side of the Ohio, under the seal and stamp of the Almighty, when it escapes over here, it is wrong to have constitutions and laws “to devil” you about getting it back.
So Douglas is molding the public opinion of the North to acknowledge that all laws and constitutions over here which recognize slavery as being wrong are themselves wrong, and ought to be repealed and abrogated.
I believe it is safe to assert that five years ago no living man had expressed the opinion that the Negro had no share in the Declaration of Independence. If that be true I wish you then to note the next fact: that within the space of five years Senator Douglas, in arguing for his principle of Popular Sovereignty, has got his entire party, so far as I know, to say that the Negro has no share in the Declaration of Independence. That is a vast change in the Northern public sentiment upon that question.
A voice rings out from the crowd. “Speak to Ohio men, and not to Kentuckians!”
I reply. “I beg permission to speak as I please.”
If only he could see I am speaking to Ohio men. The Southern mind is already set on slavery, but the Northern view is yet suscep
tible to Douglas’ cleverness. Judge Douglas is like the old snake oil vendor, who having gotten folks to drink his elixir, he is not satisfied until they’ve bought the whole snake, as well.
In Kentucky and in many of the slave States, you are trying to establish that slavery is right by reference to the Bible. Now again, Douglas is wiser than you. He knows that whenever you establish that slavery is right by the Bible, it will occur to some Northerners that slavery in the Bible was without reference to color; and he knows very well that you may entertain the idea of enslaving white people in Kentucky as much as you please, but you will never win any Northern support for it.
Douglas makes a wiser argument for you: he argues the rightness of slavery of the black man; the slavery of the man who has a skin of a different color from your own. He thereby brings to your support Northern voters who could not for a moment be brought by your own argument of the Bible.
I pause to survey the crowd. Faces of young and old, men and women stare back at me, reflecting the glow of torches and bonfires that illuminate the stage. A handful of glistening black foreheads speckle the sea of white. My throat tightens as I walk forward to the edge of the stage.
Judge Douglas makes a wiser argument for you: he makes the argument that the slavery of the black man—the slavery of the man who has a skin of a different color from your own—is right. He thereby brings to your support Northern voters who could not for a moment be brought by your own argument of the Bible. Will you give him credit for that? Will you not say that in this matter he is more wisely for you than you are for yourselves?
I inhale a deep breath as I make a sweeping gesture with my right hand,
Judge Douglas has also declared that in every contest between the Negro and the white man he is for the white man, but that in all questions between the Negro and the crocodile he is for the Negro. He did not make that declaration accidentally at Memphis. He made it a great many times in the canvass in Illinois last year.
The first inference seems to be that if you do not enslave the Negro, you are wronging the white man in some way. I say that there is room enough for us all to be free, and that it not only does not wrong the white man that the Negro should be free, but it positively wrongs the mass of the white men that the Negro should be enslaved. The mass of white men are really injured by the effects of slave labor in the vicinity of the fields of their own labor.
In the struggle between the Negro and the crocodile, he is for the Negro. Well, I don't know that there is any struggle between the Negro and the crocodile. I believe Judge Douglas’ idea is a sort of proposition in proportion, which may be stated thus: “As the Negro is to the white man, so is the crocodile to the Negro; and as the Negro may rightfully treat the crocodile as a beast or reptile, so the white man may rightfully treat the Negro as a beast or a reptile.”
Now, my brother Kentuckians who believe in this, you ought to thank Judge Douglas for having put that in a much more acceptable way than any of yourselves have done.
I pause to wipe my spectacles.
Again, Douglas’ great principle, “Popular Sovereignty,” as he calls it, gives you by natural consequence the revival of the slave trade whenever you want it.
If carried to its logical conclusion, Judge Douglas’ principle gives the sacred right to the people to buy slaves wherever they can buy them cheapest, even in Africa.
THIS IN SPITE OF THE UNANIMOUS DECLARATION OF CONGRESS THAT BUYING SLAVES IN AFRICA IS A CRIME EQUAL TO PIRACY, PUNISHABLE BY HANGING.
Another voice from the crowd rings out. “Don't foreign nations interfere with the slave trade?”
I reply, “I understand it to be the idea of Democrats to whip foreign nations whenever they interfere with us.”
The man responds, “I only asked for information. I am a Republican myself.”
I chuckle. “You and I will be on the best terms in the world, but I do not wish to be diverted from the point I was trying to press.”
So now that I have shown you that Douglas is more wisely for you than you are for yourselves, you must take him or be defeated. But if you do take him you may be beaten anyway.
I rise to my full height and look about at their faces.
We, the Republicans and others forming the opposition of the country, intend to “stand by our guns,” to be patient and firm, and to beat you whether you take him or not. We know that before we beat you fairly we have to beat you and him together. We know that you are “all of a feather,” and that we have to beat you all together, and we expect to do it. We don't intend to be very impatient about it. We mean to be as deliberate and calm about it as it is possible to be, but as firm and resolved as it is possible for men to be. When we do as we say “beat you,” you perhaps want to know what we will do with you.
I hold out my hands.
I will tell you, so far as I am authorized to speak for the opposition. We mean to treat you, as near as we possibly can, as Washington, Jefferson, and Madison treated you. We mean to leave you alone, and in no way interfere with your institution.
We mean to abide by all and every compromise of the Constitution. We mean to remember that you are as good as we—that there is no difference between us other than the difference of circumstances. We mean to recognize that you have as good hearts as we claim to have, and to treat you accordingly.
I rub the back of my neck.
I have told you what we mean to do. I want to know, now, when that thing takes place, what do you mean to do? I often hear that you mean to divide the Union whenever a Republican or anything like it is elected President of the United States.
Someone calls out, “That is so.”
I answer back, “‘That is so,’ one of them says. I wonder if he is a Kentuckian.”
Another shouts, “He is a Douglas man.”
I step forward and lean toward the audience.
Well, then, I want to know what you are going to do with your half of the country? Are you going to split the Ohio down through, and push your half off a piece? Or are you going to build up a wall some way between your country and ours, by which that movable property of yours can't come over here anymore and be lost for good?
So you divide the Union because we would not do what you think is right on the subject of your runaway property. When we cease to be under obligations to do anything for you at all, how much better off do you think you will be?
I plant my hands on my hips.
Will you make war on us and kill us all? Why, I think you are as gallant and as brave as any men alive; that you can fight as bravely in a good cause, man for man, as any other people living; that you have shown yourselves capable of this upon various occasions. But, man for man, you are not better than we are, and there are not as many of you as there are of us. You will never whip us. If we were fewer in numbers than you, I think that you could whip us; if we were equal, it would likely be a drawn battle; but being inferior in numbers, you will make nothing by attempting to master us.
I grip the lip of the platform with the toes of my shoes and lean as far forward as my balance will permit.
We do not seek to master you. We must not interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists, because the Constitution forbids it, and the general welfare does not require us to do so.
We must not withhold an efficient Fugitive Slave law, because the Constitution requires us, as I understand it, not to withhold such a law. But we must prevent the outspreading of the institution, because neither the Constitution nor general welfare requires us to extend it.
We must prevent the revival of the African slave trade, and the enacting by Congress of a Territorial slave code. We must prevent each of these things being done by either Congresses or courts.
The people of these United States are the rightful masters of both Congresses and courts, not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.
After closing my speech to thundero
us applause, I’m whisked off to my hotel where Congressman Tom Corwin greets me. His family is the cornerstone of Ohio politics, and he’s a backer of Ohio Governor Salmon Chase’s presidential aspirations. The Congressman grabs my hand and says, “That was a great speech. You’re just the man to head the Republican ticket, and I’m certain I can swing Congressman Schenck to your corner, as well.”
My heart stops. The only words I can find are, “Thank you.”
He clasps my arm. “Let’s go someplace to talk.”
After he and I discuss my nomination strategy for several hours, I can hardly wait to get home and share the details with Mother.
Two mornings later at half-past ten, I’m handed a copy of the Cincinnati Gazette as I board a train to Indianapolis where I’m to deliver an evening speech. The Gazette has reprinted my entire speech. While I’m in Indiana, I learn the Illinois State Journal has printed excerpts, and the Chicago Press & Tribune has published the entire Cincinnati Gazette version of the speech. The Chicago Journal runs a favorable review by a reporter who attended the event in Cincinnati.
I return home a few days later and walk home from the train depot; my feet glide as if they barely touch the ground. The moment I step through the door and give Mother the news, she chides me for being exuberant over the success of my Cincinnati speech. She purses her lips and warns me not to disappoint her as I did when I gave the Senate seat to Lyman Trumbull.
Within the week I travel to Wisconsin to address crowds in Beloit and Janesville. On my way to the train depot, Billy Herndon chases after me, waving a copy of National Intelligencer—Washington’s leading newspaper. They’ve reproduced my entire Cincinnati speech. On the train, I sit back in my seat, grinning. I don’t recall ever before having so much energy as now courses through my veins.
Chapter Thirty One
After returning from Wisconsin, I join the Circuit in Clinton, Illinois for a session that lasts several days. During my time in Clinton, reports spill in of Republican election victories in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Minnesota. The townspeople toast me a raucous celebration as “Long Abraham the Giant Killer.” I worry that the accolades are premature, but I smile, nonetheless.