I cite certain of the incisive statements that came into Lincoln's seven
debates. "A slave, says Judge Douglas (on the authority of Judge Taney),
is a human being who is legally not a person but a thing." "I contend
[says Lincoln] that slavery is founded on the selfishness of man's
nature. Slavery is a violation of the eternal right, and as long as God
reigns and as school-children read, that black evil can never be
consecrated into God's truth." "A man does not lose his right to a piece
of property which has been stolen. Can a man lose a right to himself if
he himself has been stolen?" The following words present a summary of
Lincoln's statements:
Judge Douglas contends that if any one man chooses to enslave another,
no third man has a right to object. Our Fathers, in accepting slavery
under the Constitution as a legal institution, were of opinion, as is
clearly indicated by the recorded utterances, that slavery would in the
course of a few years die out. They were quite clear in their minds that
the slave-trade must be abolished and for ever forbidden and this
decision was arrived at under the leadership of men like Jefferson and
without a protest from the South. Jefferson was himself the author of
the Ordinance of 1787, which in prohibiting the introduction of slavery,
consecrated to freedom the great territory of the North-west, and this
measure was fully approved by Washington and by the other great leaders
from the South.
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