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003 - Cooper Institute Speech Part 2 · Noted Speeches of Abraham Lincoln

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  Speaker 1: Section three of Noted Speeches of Abraham Lincoln, edited by
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  Speaker 1: Lillian Marie Briggs. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox
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  Speaker 1: recordings are in the public domain. For more information or
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  Speaker 1: to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording by Dave Dufek.
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  Speaker 1: Noted Speeches of Abraham Lincoln, edited by Lillian Marie Briggs.
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  Speaker 1: Cooper Institute's Speech, Part two, Some of you delight to
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  Speaker 1: flaunt in our faces the warning against sectional parties given
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  Speaker 1: by Washington in his Farewell Address. Less than eight years
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  Speaker 1: before Washington gave that warning, he had, as President of
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  Speaker 1: the United States, approved and signed an Act of Congress
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  Speaker 1: enforcing the prohibition of slavery in the Northwestern Territory, which
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  Speaker 1: act embodied the policy of the government upon that subject
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  Speaker 1: up to and at the very moment he penned that warning,
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  Speaker 1: And about one year after he penned it, he wrote
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  Speaker 1: Lafayette that he considered that prohibition a wise measure, expressing
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  Speaker 1: in the same connection his hope that we should at
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  Speaker 1: some time have a confederacy of free states. Bearing this
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  Speaker 1: in mind, and seeing that sectionalism has since arisen upon
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  Speaker 1: this same subject, is that warning a weapon in your
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  Speaker 1: hands against us, or in our hands against you. Could
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  Speaker 1: Washington himself speak, would he cast the blame of that
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  Speaker 1: sectionalism upon us, who sustain his policy, or upon you,
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  Speaker 1: who repudiate it. We respect that warning of Washington, and
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  Speaker 1: we commend it to you, together with his example, pointing
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  Speaker 1: to the right application of it. But you say you
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  Speaker 1: are conservative, eminently conservative, while we are revolutionary, destructive, or
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  Speaker 1: something of the sort. What is conservatism? Is it not
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  Speaker 1: adherents to the old and tried against the new and untried.
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  Speaker 1: We stick to contend for the identical old policy on
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  Speaker 1: the point in contra, which was adopted by our fathers,
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  Speaker 1: who framed the government under which we live. While you,
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  Speaker 1: with one accord, reject and scout and spit upon that
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  Speaker 1: old policy and insist upon substituting something new. True, you
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  Speaker 1: disagree among yourselves as to what that substitute shall be.
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  Speaker 1: You are divided on new propositions and plans, but you
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  Speaker 1: are unanimous in rejecting and denouncing the old policy of
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  Speaker 1: the fathers. Some of you are for reviving the foreign
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  Speaker 1: slave trade, some for a congressional slave code for the territories,
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  Speaker 1: some for congress forbidding the territories to prohibit slavery within
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  Speaker 1: their limits. Some for maintaining slavery in the territories through
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  Speaker 1: the judiciary, some for the great principle that if one
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  Speaker 1: man would enslave another, no third man should object, fantastically
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  Speaker 1: called popular sovereignty. But never a man among you is
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  Speaker 1: in favor of federal prohibition of slavery in federal territories.
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  Speaker 1: According to the practice of our fathers, who framed the
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  Speaker 1: government under which we live. Not one of all your
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  Speaker 1: various plans can show a precedent or an advocate in
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  Speaker 1: the century within which our government originated. Consider then, whether
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  Speaker 1: your claim of conservatism for yourselves and your charge of
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  Speaker 1: destructiveness against us are based on the most clear and
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  Speaker 1: stable foundation. Again, you say we have made the slavery
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  Speaker 1: question more prominent than it formerly was. We deny it.
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  Speaker 1: We admit that it is more prominent, but we deny
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  Speaker 1: that we made it so. It was not we, but
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  Speaker 1: you who discarded the old policy of the fathers. We
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  Speaker 1: resisted and still resist your innovation. And thence comes the
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  Speaker 1: greater prominence of the question. Would you have that question
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  Speaker 1: reduced to its former proportions? Go back to that old policy.
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  Speaker 1: What has been will be again under the same conditions,
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  Speaker 1: if you would have the peace of the old times
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  Speaker 1: readopt the precepts and policy of the old times. You
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  Speaker 1: charge that we stir up insurrections among your slaves. We
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  Speaker 1: deny it, and what is your proof? Harper's Ferry John Brown?
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  Speaker 1: John Brown was no Republican, and you have failed to
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  Speaker 1: implicate a single Republican in his Harper's Ferry enterprise. If
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  Speaker 1: any member of our party is guilty in that matter,
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  Speaker 1: you know it or you do not know it. If
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  Speaker 1: you do know it, you are inexcusable for not designating
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  Speaker 1: the man and proving the fact. If you do not
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  Speaker 1: know it, you are inexcusable for asserting it, and especially
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  Speaker 1: for persisting in the assertion after you have tried and
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  Speaker 1: failed to make the proof. You need not be told
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  Speaker 1: that persisting in a charge which one does not know
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  Speaker 1: to be true is simply malicious slander. Some of you
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  Speaker 1: admit that no Republican designedly aided or encouraged the Harper's
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  Speaker 1: Ferry affair, but still in sane that our doctrines and
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  Speaker 1: declarations necessarily lead to such results. We do not believe it.
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  Speaker 1: We know we hold no doctrine and make no declaration
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  Speaker 1: which were not held to and made by our fathers
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  Speaker 1: who framed the government under which we live. You never
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  Speaker 1: dealt fairly by us in relation to this affair. When
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  Speaker 1: it occurred, some important state elections were near at hand,
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  Speaker 1: and you were in evident glee with the belief that
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  Speaker 1: by charging the blame upon us, you could get an
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  Speaker 1: advantage of us in those elections. The elections came, and
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  Speaker 1: your expectations were not quite fulfilled. Every Republican man knew that,
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  Speaker 1: as to himself, at least, your charge was a slander,
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  Speaker 1: and he was not much inclined by it to cast
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  Speaker 1: his vote in your favor. Republican doctrines and declarations are
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  Speaker 1: accompanied with a continual protest against any interference whatever with
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  Speaker 1: your slaves, or with you about your slaves. Surely this
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  Speaker 1: does not encourage them to revolt. We do, in common
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  Speaker 1: with our fathers, who framed the government under which we live,
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  Speaker 1: declare our belief that slavery is wrong. But the slaves
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  Speaker 1: do not hear us declare even this. For anything we
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  Speaker 1: say or do. The slaves would scarcely know there is
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  Speaker 1: a Republican party. I believe they would not. In fact,
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  Speaker 1: generally know it, but for your misrepresentations of us in
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  Speaker 1: their hearing. In your political contests among yourselves, each faction
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  Speaker 1: charges the other with sympathy with Black Republicanism, and then,
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  Speaker 1: to give point to the charge, defines Black Republicanism to
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  Speaker 1: simply be insurrection, blood and thunder among the slaves. Slave
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  Speaker 1: insurrections are no more common now than they were before
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  Speaker 1: the Republican Party was organized. What induced the Southampton Insurrection
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  Speaker 1: twenty eight years ago, in which at least three times
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  Speaker 1: as many lives were lost as at Harper's Ferry. You
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  Speaker 1: can scarcely stretch your very elastic fancy to the conclusion
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  Speaker 1: that Southampton was got up by Black Republicanism. In the
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  Speaker 1: present state of things in the United States, I do
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  Speaker 1: not think a general, or even a very extensive slave
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  Speaker 1: insurrection is possible. The indispensable concert of action cannot be attained.
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  Speaker 1: The slaves have no means of rapid communication, nor can
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  Speaker 1: incendiary freemen black or white, supply it. The explosive materials
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  Speaker 1: are everywhere in parcels, but there neither are nor can
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  Speaker 1: be supplied the indispensable connecting trains. Much is said by
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  Speaker 1: Southern people about the affection of slaves for their masters
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  Speaker 1: and mistresses, and a part of it, at least is true.
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  Speaker 1: A plot for an uprising could scarcely be devised and
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  Speaker 1: communicated to twenty individuals before some one of them, to
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  Speaker 1: save the life of a favorite master or mistress, would
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  Speaker 1: divulge it. This is the rule, and the slave revolution
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  Speaker 1: in Haiti was not an exception to it, but a
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  Speaker 1: case occurring under peculiar circumstances. The Gunpowder plot of British history,
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  Speaker 1: though not connected with slaves, was more in point. In
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  Speaker 1: that case, only about twenty were admitted to the secret,
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  Speaker 1: and yet one of them, in his anxiety to save
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  Speaker 1: a friend, betrayed the plot to that friend, and by
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  Speaker 1: consequence averted the calamity. Occasional poisonings from the kitchen, and
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  Speaker 1: open or stealthy assassinations in the field, and local revolts
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  Speaker 1: extending to a score or so will continue to occur
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  Speaker 1: as the natural results of slavery, but no general insurrections
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  Speaker 1: of slaves, as I think, can happen in this country
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  Speaker 1: for a long time. Whoever much fears or much hopes
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  Speaker 1: for such an event, will be alike disappointed. In the
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  Speaker 1: language of mister Jefferson uttered many years ago. It is
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  Speaker 1: still in our power to direct the process of emancipation
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  Speaker 1: and deportation peaceably and in such slow degrees as that
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  Speaker 1: the evil will wear off insensibly, and their places be
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  Speaker 1: pari passu filled up by free white laborers. If, on
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  Speaker 1: the contrary, it is left to force itself on human nature,
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  Speaker 1: must shudder at the prospect held up. Mister Jefferson did
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  Speaker 1: not mean to say, nor do I, that the power
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  Speaker 1: of emancipation is in the federal government. He spoke of Virginia,
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  Speaker 1: and as to the power of emancipation, I speak of
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  Speaker 1: the slave holding states. Only the federal government, however, as
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  Speaker 1: we insist, has the power of restraining the extension of
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  Speaker 1: the institution, the power to ensure that a slave insurrection
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  Speaker 1: shall never occur on any American soil which is now
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  Speaker 1: free from slavery. John Brown's effort was peculiar. It was
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  Speaker 1: not a slave insurrection. It was an attempt by white
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  Speaker 1: men to get up a revolt among slaves in which
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  Speaker 1: the slaves refused to participate. In fact, it was so
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  Speaker 1: absurd that the slaves, with all their ignorance, saw plainly
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  Speaker 1: enough it could not succeed. That affair in its philosophy,
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  Speaker 1: corresponds with the many attempts related in history at the
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  Speaker 1: assassination of kings and emperors. An enthusiast broods over the
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  Speaker 1: oppression of a people till he fancies himself commissioned by
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  Speaker 1: Heaven to liberate them. He ventures the attempt, which ends
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  Speaker 1: in little else than his own execution. Orsini's attempt on
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  Speaker 1: Louis Napoleon and John Brown's attempt at Harper's Ferry were,
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  Speaker 1: in their philosophy precisely the same. The eagerness to cast
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  Speaker 1: blame on Old England in the one case and on
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  Speaker 1: New England in the other does not disprove the sameness
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  Speaker 1: of the two things. And how much would it devail
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  Speaker 1: you if you could, by the use of John Brown,
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  Speaker 1: Helper's Book, and the like, break up the republican organization.
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  Speaker 1: Human action can be modified to some extent, but human
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  Speaker 1: nature cannot be changed. There is a judgment and a
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  Speaker 1: feeling against slavery in this nation, which cast at least
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  Speaker 1: a million and a half of votes. You cannot destroy
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  Speaker 1: that judgment and feeling, that sentiment by breaking up the
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  Speaker 1: political organization which rallies around it. You can scarcely scatter
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  Speaker 1: and disperse an army which has been formed into order
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  Speaker 1: in the face of your heaviest fire. But if you could,
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  Speaker 1: how much would you gain by forcing the sentiment which
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  Speaker 1: created it out of the peaceful channel of the ballot
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  Speaker 1: box into some other channel. What would that other channel
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  Speaker 1: probably be? Would the number of John Brown's be lessened
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  Speaker 1: or enlarged by the operation? But you will break up
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  Speaker 1: the union rather than submit to a denial of your
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  Speaker 1: constitutional rights. That has a somewhat reckless sound, but it
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  Speaker 1: would be palliated, if not fully justified. Were we proposing,
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  Speaker 1: by the mere force of numbers to deprive you of
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  Speaker 1: some right plainly written down in the Constitution. But we
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  Speaker 1: are proposing no such thing. When you make these declarations,
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  Speaker 1: you have a specific and well understood allusion to an
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  Speaker 1: assumed constitutional right of yours to take slaves into the
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  Speaker 1: federal territories and to hold them there as property. But
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  Speaker 1: no such right is specifically written in the Constitution. That
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  Speaker 1: instrument is literally silent about any such right. We, on
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  Speaker 1: the contrary, deny that such a right has any existence
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  Speaker 1: in the Constitution, even by implication. Your purpose, then, plainly stated,
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  Speaker 1: is that you will destroy the government unless you be
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  Speaker 1: allowed to construe and force the Constitution as you please
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  Speaker 1: on all points in dispute between you and us. You
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  Speaker 1: will rule or ruin in all events. This plainly stated
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  Speaker 1: is your language. Perhaps you will say the Supreme Court
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  Speaker 1: has decided the disputed constitutional question in your favor. Not
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  Speaker 1: quite so, but waiving the lawyer's distinction between dictum and decision,
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  Speaker 1: the the Court has decided the question for you in
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  Speaker 1: a sort of way. The Court has substantially said it
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  Speaker 1: is your constitutional right to take slaves into the federal
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  Speaker 1: territories and to hold them there as property. When I
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  Speaker 1: say the decision was made in a sort of way,
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  Speaker 1: I mean it was made in a divided court by
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  Speaker 1: a bare majority of the judges, and they not quite
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  Speaker 1: agreeing with one another in the reasons for making it.
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  Speaker 1: That it is so made that its avowed supporters disagree
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  Speaker 1: with one another about its meaning, and that it was
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  Speaker 1: mainly based upon a mistaken statement of fact, the statement
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  Speaker 1: in the opinion that the right of property in a
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  Speaker 1: slave is distinctly and expressly affirmed in the Constitution. An
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  Speaker 1: inspection of the Constitution will show that the right of
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  Speaker 1: property in a slave is not distinctly and expressly affirmed
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  Speaker 1: in it. Bear in mind the judges do not pledge
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  Speaker 1: their judicial opinion that such right is impliedly affirmed in
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  Speaker 1: the Constitution, but they pledge their veracity that it is
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  Speaker 1: disres distinctly and expressly affirmed there distinctly that is not
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  Speaker 1: mingled with anything else, expressly, that is, in words, meaning
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  Speaker 1: just that, without the aid of any inference, and susceptible
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  Speaker 1: of no other meaning. If they had only pledged their
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  Speaker 1: judicial opinion that such right is affirmed in the instrument
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  Speaker 1: by implication, it would be open to others to show
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  Speaker 1: that neither the word slave nor slavery is to be
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  Speaker 1: found in the Constitution, nor the word property, even in
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  Speaker 1: any connection with language alluding to the things slave or slavery,
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  Speaker 1: And that wherever in that instrument the slave is alluded to,
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  Speaker 1: he is called a person, and wherever his master's legal
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  Speaker 1: right in relation to him is alluded to, it is
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  Speaker 1: spoken of as service or labor, which may be due
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  Speaker 1: as a debt payable in service or labor. Also, it
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  Speaker 1: would be open to show, by contemporaneous history that this
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  Speaker 1: mode of alluding to slaves and slavery instead of speaking
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  Speaker 1: of them, was employed on purpose to exclude from the
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  Speaker 1: Constitution the idea that there could be property in man.
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  Speaker 1: To show all this is easy and certain. When this
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  Speaker 1: obvious mistake of the judges shall be brought to their notice,
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  Speaker 1: is it not reasonable to expect that they will withdraw
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  Speaker 1: the mistaken statement and reconsider the conclusion based upon it.
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  Speaker 1: And then it is to be remembered that our fathers
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  Speaker 1: who framed the government under which we live, the men
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  Speaker 1: who made the Constitution, decided this same constitutional question in
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  Speaker 1: our favor, long ago, decided it without division among themselves
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  Speaker 1: when making the decision, without division among themselves about the
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  Speaker 1: meaning of it after it was made, and so far
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  Speaker 1: as any evidence is left, without basing it upon any
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  Speaker 1: mistaken statement of facts. Under all these circumstances, do you
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  Speaker 1: really feel yourselves justified to break up this government unless
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  Speaker 1: such a court decision, as yours is, shall be at
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  Speaker 1: once submitted to as a conclusive and final rule of
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  Speaker 1: political action. But you will not abide the election of
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  Speaker 1: a Republican president in that supposed event, you say you
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  Speaker 1: will destroy the Union, and then you say, the great
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  Speaker 1: crime of having destroyed it will be upon us. That
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  Speaker 1: is cool. A highwayman holds a pistol to my ear
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  Speaker 1: and mutters through his teeth, stand and deliver, or I
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  Speaker 1: shall kill you, and then you will be a murderer.
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  Speaker 1: To be sure what the robber demanded of me. My
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  Speaker 1: money was my own, and I had a clear right
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  Speaker 1: to keep it. But it was no more my own
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  Speaker 1: than my vote is my own. And the threat of
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  Speaker 1: death to me to extort my money, and the threat
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  Speaker 1: of destruction to the Union to extort my vote can
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  Speaker 1: scarcely be distinguished in principle. A few words now to Republicans,
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  Speaker 1: it is exceedingly desirable that all parts of this great
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  Speaker 1: Confederacy abe at peace and in harmony one with another.
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  Speaker 1: Let Us, Republicans, do our part to have it so,
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  Speaker 1: even though much provoked, let us do nothing through passion
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  Speaker 1: and ill temper, even though the Southern people will not
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  Speaker 1: so much as listen to us. Let us calmly consider
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  Speaker 1: their demands and yield to them, if in our deliberate
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  Speaker 1: view of our duty we possibly can, judging by all
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  Speaker 1: they say and do, and by the subject and nature
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  Speaker 1: of their controversy with us, let us determine, if we can,
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  Speaker 1: what will satisfy them. Will they be satisfied if the
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  Speaker 1: territories be unconditionally surrendered to them. We know they will not.
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  Speaker 1: In all their present complaints against us, the territories are
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  Speaker 1: scarcely mentioned. Invasions and insurrections are the rage. Now will
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  Speaker 1: let satisfy them if in the future we have nothing
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  Speaker 1: to do with invasions and insurrections. We know it will not.
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  Speaker 1: We so know because we know we never had anything
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  Speaker 1: to do with invasions and insurrections. And yet this total
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  Speaker 1: abstaining does not exempt us from the charge and the denunciation.
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  Speaker 1: The question recurs, what will satisfy them? Simply this, we
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  Speaker 1: must not only let them alone, but we must somehow
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  Speaker 1: convince them that we do let them alone. This we
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  Speaker 1: know from experience is no easy task. We have been
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  Speaker 1: so trying to convince them from the very beginning of
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  Speaker 1: our organization, but with no success. In all our platforms
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  Speaker 1: and speeches, we have constantly protested our purpose to let
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  Speaker 1: them alone, but this has had no tendency to convince them. Alike,
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  Speaker 1: unavailing to convince them is the fact that they have
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  Speaker 1: never detected a man of us in any attempt to
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  Speaker 1: disturb them. These natural and apparently adequate means, all failing
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  Speaker 1: what will convince them this and this only, cease to
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  Speaker 1: call slavery wrong and join them in calling it right.
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  Speaker 1: And this must be done thoroughly, done in acts as
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  Speaker 1: well as in words. Silence will not be tolerated. We
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  Speaker 1: must place ourselves avowedly with them. Senator Douglas's new sedition
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  Speaker 1: Law must be enacted and enforced. Suppressing all declarations that
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  Speaker 1: slavery is wrong, whether made in politics, in presses, in pulpits,
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  Speaker 1: or in private, We must arrest and return their fugitive
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  Speaker 1: slaves with greedy pleasure. We must pull down our free
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  Speaker 1: state constitutions. The whole atmosphere must be disinfected from all
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  Speaker 1: taint of opposition to slavery before they will cease to
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  Speaker 1: believe that all their troubles proceed from us. I am
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  Speaker 1: quite aware they do not state their case precisely in
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  Speaker 1: this way. Most of them would probably say to us,
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  Speaker 1: let us alone, do nothing to us, and say what
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  Speaker 1: you please about slavery. But we do let them alone.
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  Speaker 1: Have never disturbed them, so that after all it is
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  Speaker 1: what we say which dissatisfies them. They will continue to
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  Speaker 1: accuse us of doing until we cease saying. I am
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  Speaker 1: also aware they have not as yet in terms demanded
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  Speaker 1: the overthrow of our free state constitutions. Yet those constitutions
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  Speaker 1: declare the wrong of slavery with more solemn emphasis than
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  Speaker 1: do all other sayings against it. And when all these
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  Speaker 1: other sayings shall have been silenced, the overthrow of these
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  Speaker 1: constitutions will be demanded, and nothing be left to resist
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  Speaker 1: the demand. It is nothing to the contrary that they
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: do not demand the whole of this just now demanding
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  Speaker 1: what they do, and for the reason they do, they
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  Speaker 1: can voluntarily stop nowhere short of this consummation. Holding as
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  Speaker 1: they do that slavery is morally right and socially elevating,
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  Speaker 1: they cannot cease to demand a full national recognition of
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  Speaker 1: it as a leadal right and a social blessing. Nor
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  Speaker 1: can we justifiably withhold this on any ground save our
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  Speaker 1: conviction that slavery is wrong. If slavery is right, all words, acts, laws,
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: and constitutions against it are themselves wrong and should be
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: silenced and swept away. If it is right, we cannot
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: justly object to its nationality, its universality. If it is wrong,
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: they cannot justly insist upon its extension, its enlargement. All
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: they ask we could readily grant if we thought slavery right,
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: all we ask, they could as readily grant if they
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: thought it wrong. Their thinking it right and our thinking
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: it wrong is the precise fact upon which depends the
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: whole controversy. Thinking it right as they do, they are
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: not to blame for desiring its full recognition as being right,
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: but thinking it wrong as we do. Can we yield
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: to them? Can we cast our votes with their view
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: and against our own? In view of our moral, social,
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: and political responsibilities? Can we do this wrong? As we
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: think slavery is. We can yet afford to let it
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: alone where it is, because that much is due to
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: the necessity arising from its actual presence in the nation.
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: But can we, while our votes will prevent it, allow
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: it to spread into the national territories and to overrun
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: us here in these free states. If our sense of
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: duty forbids this, then let us stand by our duty
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: fearlessly and effectively. Let us be diverted by none of
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: these sophistical contrivances wherewith we are so industriously plied and belabored,
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: contrivances such as groping for some middle ground between the
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: right and the wrong. Vain is the search for a
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: man who should be neither a living man nor a
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: dead man, such as a policy of don't care on
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: a question about which all true men do care, such
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: as union appeals beseeching true union men to yield to disunionists,
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: reversing the divine rule, and calling not the sinners but
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: the righteous to repentance, such as invocations to Washington imploring
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: men to unsay what Washington said and undo what Washington did.
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: accusations against us, nor frightened from it by menaces of
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: destruction to the government, nor of dungeons to ourselves. Let
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith,
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: let us, to the end dare to do our duty
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: as we understand it. End of Cooper Institute's Speech, Part two,
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: recording by Dave Dufek