has been expended upon them has been misbestowed, and all the efforts made in defence of their rights of self-government were made in an unworthy cause, if they are to be influenced in the result by these considerations. * * * The Crittenden-Montgomery bill was as fair and as perfect an exposition of the doctrine of Popular Sovereignty as could be carried out by any bill that man ever devised. It proposed to refer the Lecompton Constitution back to the people of Kansas, with the right to accept it or reject it as they pleased, at a fair election to be held in pursuance of law: and in the event of their rejecting it and forming another in its stead, to permit them to come into the Union on an equal footing with the original States. The bill was just in all its provisions. I gave it my cordial support, and I was rejoiced when I found that it had passed the House of Representatives; and for a time I entertained the hope that it would pass the Senate. Illi I regard, therefore, the great principle of Popular Sovereignty as having been vindicated and made triumphant in this land as a permanent rule of public policy in the organization of Territories and the admission of new States. nois took her position upon this principle many years ago. You all recollect that, in 1850, after the passage of the compromise measures of that year, when I returned to my home, that there was great dissatisfaction expressed at my course in supporting those measures. I appeared before the people of Chicago, at a mass meeting, and vindicated each and every one of those measures; and by reference to my speech on that occasion, which was printed and circulated broadcast throughout the State at that time, you will find that I there said, that these measures are all founded upon the great principle that a free people ought to possess the right to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way; and while these things were conferred by the Constitution upon the people of the States, I saw no reason why the same principle should not be extended to all the Territories of the United States. A general election was held in this State a few months afterwards, at which all these questions were thoroughly can vassed, and members were instructed in regard to the wishes of their constituents upon the measures. When that election was over the members assembled, and proceeded to consider' the merits of these measures; and what was the result of their action? They passed resolutions, first repealing the Wilmot Proviso instruction, and in lieu of that, they adopted another in which they declared that the great principle which asserts the right of the people to make their own form of government and establish their own institutions, is the birthright of freedom, the gift of Heaven, and a legacy from our ancestors, established by the blood of the Revolution, and that no limitation on that right must hereafter be inserted in any government for the Territories, either as a Territory or in their constitutions when they became States. That resolution, thus declaring the great principle of selfgovernment, as applicable to the Territories and States, passed the House of Representatives in this State by a vote of 61 in the affirmative to only 4 in the negative. * * * Hence what was my duty in 1854, when it became necessary to bring forward a bill for the organization of Kansas and Nebraska? Was it not my duty in obedience to that Illinois platform-to that standing instruction adopted almost unanimously-was it not my duty to incorporate in that Nebraska bill the great principle of self-government, declaring that it was 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? I did incorporate that principle in the Kansas-Nebraska bill, and perhaps I did as much as any living man in the enactment of that bill, thus establishing the doctrine in the public policy of the country. I then vindicated that principle against assaults from one section of the Union. During this last session, it became my duty to vindicate it against assaults from the other section of the Union. I vindicated it against assaults from the other section of the Union. I vindicated it boldly and fearlessly, as the people of Chicago can bear witness, when it was assailed by Free Soilers; and during this Congress, I have vindicated it equally boldly and fearlessly when it was attempted to be violated by the almost united South. I pledged myself to you on every stump in Illinois in 1854; I pledged myself to the people of other States, North and South, wherever I spoke; I gave the pledge in speeches in the Senate and in Congressional reports, and in every form in which I could reach the public mind or the public ear. I gave the pledge that I, so far as the power should be in my hands, would vindicate that principle-the right of the people to form their own institutions, to establish Free States or Slave States, as they chose, and that that principle should never be violated either by fraud or by violence, or by circumvention, or by any other means, if it was in my power to prevent it. I now submit to you, my fellow-citizens, the question for your decision, whether I have not redeemed that pledge in good faith? Yes, my friends, I have redeemed it in good faith, and it is a matter of heartfelt gratification to me to find these assembled thousands-this multitude of persons assembled this night, bearing their testimony to the fidelity with which I have vindicated that principle, and redeemed my pledges in connexion with it. I will be entirely frank with you. My object was to secure the right of the people of each State and of each Territory, North and South, to decide the question for themselves—to have slavery or not, just as they should choose. I am equally frank to say to you, that my opposition to the Lecompton Constitution was not predicated upon the ground that it was a Pro-Slavery Constitution, nor would my action have been different had it been a Free Soil Constitution. * In connexion with this subject, perhaps it will not be improper for me, on this occasion, to allude to the position of those who have chosen to arraign my conduct on this same subject. * * * I have observed from the public prints, that but a few days ago the Republican party of the State of Illinois assembled in Convention at Springfield, and not only laid down a platform, but nominated a candidate for the U. S. Senate, as my sucI take great pleasure in saying, that I have known, cessor. personally and intimately, for about a quarter of a century the worthy gentleman nominated for my place; and I will say also that I regard him as a kind, amiable, intelligent gentleman, and an honorable opponent; and hence whatever issue I may have with him will be an issue of principle, and not one involving personality. upon That gentleman made a speech before that Republican Convention which had unanimously nominated him for the Senate, which speech was evidently carefully written and well prepared. It constitutes the basis upon which he proposes to carry on the campaign during this summer. That speech lays down two distinct propositions, which I shall now notice, and which I shall take a direct and bold issue with him. In the first place, he sets out in his speech to say, quoting from Scripture, that a house divided against itself cannot stand; that the American Government, divided into an equal number of free and slave States, cannot stand. That they should all be the one, or all be the other. In other words, he asserts as a fundamental principle of this government, that there must be uniformity in the laws-local laws and domes. tic institutions of each and all the States of this Union. He therefore invites all the non-slave-holding States to band together, organize as one body, and make war upon slavery in Kentucky, upon slavery in Virginia, upon slavery in the Carolinas, upon slavery in all the slave-holding States of the Union, and to persevere in that war until it shall be exterminated. He then notifies the slave-holding States to band together as a unit, and make aggressive war upon the free States of this Union, with a view of establishing slavery in Illinois, New York, and New England-in every free State of the Union-and keep up the warfare until it shall be firmly established in them all. He advocates, boldly and clearly, a war of sections-a war of the North against the South-of the free States against the slave States-a war of extermination to be continued relentlessly until the one or the other shall be subdued, and all the States shall either become free or become slave. Now, my friends, I must say to you frankly, that I take bold and unqualified issue with him upon that principle. I assert, that it is neither desirable nor possible that there should be uniformity in the local laws and domestic institutions of the different States of this Union. The framers of our government never contemplated uniformity in their internal concerns. The fathers of the Revolution, and sages who made the constitution, well understood that the laws and domestic institutions which would suit the granite hills of New Hampshire, would be utterly unfit for the rice plantations of South Carolina; they well understood, that the laws which would suit the agricultural districts of Pennsylvania and New York, would be utterly unfit for the large mining districts of the Pacific, or the lumber regions of Maine. They well understood, that a great diversity of climate, soil, and pursuits in a Republic as large as this, required different local and domestic regulations in each locality, adapted to the wants of each separate State; and for that reason it was provided in the Federal Constitution, that the thirteen original States should remain sovereign and supreme within their own limits in regard to all that was local, and internal, and domestic, while the Federal Government should have certain specified powers, which were general and national. The framers of the Constitution well understood, that each locality having separate and distinct interests, required separate and distinct laws, domestic institutions, and police regulations, adapted to its own wants and own condition; and they acted on the presumption, also, that these laws and institutions would be as diversified and as dissimilar as the States would be numerous, and that no two would be precisely alike because the interests of no two were precisely the same. Hence I assert, that the great fundamental principle which underlies our complex system of State and Federal Government contemplated diversity and dissimilarity in the local institutions and domestic affairs of each and every State then in the Union or thereafter to be admitted into the Confederacy. I therefore conceive that my friend, Mr. Lincoln, has totally misapprehended the great principles upon which our government rests. Uniformity in local and domestic affairs would. |