Lincoln, the unknown

LINCOLN THE UNKNOWN•105"Ambition has been ascribed to me," he said. "God knowshow sincerely I prayed from the first that this field of ambitionmight not be opened. I claim no insensibility to political honors;but to-day, could the Missouri Compromise be restored, andthe whole slavery question replaced on the old ground of 'toleration'by necessity where it exists, with unyielding hostility tothe spread of it, on principle, I would, in consideration, gladlyagree that Judge Douglas should never be out, and Ian office,so long as we both or either, live.never in,"It makes little difference, very little difference, whetherJudge Douglas or myself is elected to the United States Senate;but the great issue which we have submitted to you to-day is farabove and beyond any personal interests or the political fortunesof any man. And that issue will live, and breathe, and burn,when the poor, feeble, stammering tongues of Judge Douglasand myself are silent in the grave."During these debates Douglas maintained that any State,anywhere, at any time, had a right to have slavery if the majorityof its citizens voted for it. And he didn't care whether theyvoted it up or down. His celebrated slogan was this: "Let eachState mind its own business and let its neighbors alone."Lincoln took directly the opposite stand."Judge Douglas's thinking slavery is right," he explained, "andmy thinking it wrong, is the precise fact upon which dependsthe whole controversy."He contends that whatever community wants slaves has aright to have them. So they have, if it is not a wrong. But if itisa wrong, he cannot say people have a right to do wrong."He cares as little whether a State shall be slave or free aswhether his neighbor shall plant his farm with tobacco or stockit with horned cattle. But the great mass of mankind differ withJudge Douglas: they consider slavery a great moral wrong."Douglas went up and down the State, crying out time aftertime that Lincoln favored giving Negroes social equality."No," retorted Lincoln, "all I ask for the Negro is that, ifyou do not like him, you let him alone. If God gave him butlittle, let him enjoy that little. He is not my equal in many respects,but in his right to enjoy 'life, liberty, and the pursuitof happiness,' in his right to put into his mouth the bread thathis hands have earned, he is my equal and the equal of JudgeDouglas and the equal of every living man."In debate after debate Douglas accused Lincoln of wantingthe whites to "hug and marry the blacks."