Why then do I yield support to a Fugitive Slave law? Because I do not understand that the Constitution, which guarantees that right, can be supported without it. And if I believed that the right to hold a slave in a Territory was equally fixed in the Constitution with the right to reclaim fugitives, I should be bound to give it the legislation necessary to support it. I say that no man can deny his obligation to give the necessary legislation to support slavery in a Territory, who believes it is a constitutional right to have it there. No man can, who does not give the Abolitionists an argument to deny the obligation enjoined by the Constitution to enact a Fugitive State law. Try it now. It is the strongest Abolition argument ever made. I say if that Dred Scott decision is correct, then the right to hold slaves in a Territory is equally a constitutional right with the right of a slaveholder to have his runaway returned. No one can show the distinction between them. The one is express, so that we cannot deny it. The other is construed to be in the Constitution, so that he who believes the decision to be correct believes in the right. And the man who argues that by unfriendly legislation, in spite of that constitutional right, slavery may be driven from the Territories, cannot avoid furnishing an argument by which Abolitionists may deny the obligation to return fugitives, and claim the power to pass laws unfriendly to the right of the slaveholder to reclaim his fugitive. I do not know how such an arguement may strike a popular assembly like this, but I defy anybody to go before a body of men whose minds are educated to estimating evidence and reasoning, and show that there is an iota of difference between the constitutional right to reclaim a fugitive and the constitutional right to hold a slave, in a Territory, provided this Dred Scott decision is correct, I defy any man to make an argument that will justify unfriendly legislation to deprive a slaveholder of his right to hold his slave in a Territory, that will not equally, in all its length, breadth, and thickness, furnish an argument for nullifying the Fugitive Slave law. Why, there is not such an Abolitionist in the nation as Douglas, after all!
End of Volume 4
The Writings of Abraham Lincoln by Abraham Lincoln
VOLUME V
TO SYDNEY SPRING, GRAYVILLE, ILL.
SPRINGFIELD, June 19, 1858.
SYDNEY SPRING, Esq.
MY DEAR SIR:--Your letter introducing Mr. Faree was duly received.
There was no opening to nominate him for Superintendent of Public Instruction, but through him Egypt made a most valuable contribution to the convention. I think it may be fairly said that he came off the lion of the day--or rather of the night. Can you not elect him to the Legislature? It seems to me he would be hard to beat. What objection could be made to him? What is your Senator Martin saying and doing? What is Webb about?
Please write me.
Yours truly, A. LINCOLN.
TO H. C. WHITNEY.
SPRINGFIELD, June 24, 1858
H. C. WHITNEY, ESQ.
DEAR SIR:--Your letter enclosing the attack of the Times upon me was received this morning. Give yourself no concern about my voting against the supplies. Unless you are without faith that a lie can be successfully contradicted, there is not a word of truth in the charge, and I am just considering a little as to the best shape to put a contradiction in. Show this to whomever you please, but do not publish it in the paper.
Your friend as ever, A. LINCOLN.
TO J. W. SOMERS.
SPRINGFIELD, June 25, 1858.
JAMES W. SOMERS, Esq.
MY DEAR SIR:--Yours of the 22nd, inclosing a draft of two hundred dollars, was duly received. I have paid it on the judgment, and herewith you have the receipt. I do not wish to say anything as to who shall be the Republican candidate for the Legislature in your district, further than that I have full confidence in Dr. Hull. Have you ever got in the way of consulting with McKinley in political matters? He is true as steel, and his judgment is very good. The last I heard from him, he rather thought Weldon, of De Witt, was our best timber for representative, all things considered. But you there must settle it among yourselves. It may well puzzle older heads than yours to understand how, as the Dred Scott decision holds, Congress can authorize a Territorial Legislature to do everything else, and cannot authorize them to prohibit slavery. That is one of the things the court can decide, but can never give an intelligible reason for.
Yours very truly, A. LINCOLN.
TO A. CAMPBELL.
SPRINGFIELD, June 28, 1858.
A. CAMPBELL, Esq.
MY DEAR SIR:--In 1856 you gave me authority to draw on you for any sum not exceeding five hundred dollars. I see clearly that such a privilege would be more available now than it was then. I am aware that times are tighter now than they were then. Please write me at all events, and whether you can now do anything or not I shall continue grateful for the past.
Yours very truly, A. LINCOLN.
TO J. GILLESPIE.
SPRINGFIELD, July 16, 1858.
HON. JOSEPH GILLESPIE.
MY DEAR SIR:--I write this to say that from the specimens of Douglas Democracy we occasionally see here from Madison, we learn that they are ****** very confident calculation of beating you and your friends for the lower house, in that county. They offer to bet upon it.
Billings and Job, respectively, have been up here, and were each as I learn, talking largely about it. If they do so, it can only be done by carrying the Fillmore men of 1856 very differently from what they seem to [be] going in the other party. Below is the vote of 1856, in your district:
Counties.
Counties. Buchanan. Fremont. Fillmore.
Bond ............ 607 153 659
Madison ......... 1451 1111 1658
Montgomery ...... 992 162 686
---- ---- ----3050 1426 3003