Lincoln (143 page)

217
“am yet alive”:
Richard Yates to AL, Aug. 26, 1858, Lincoln MSS, LC;
CW,
3:37.

217
“on the defensive”:
Jay Monaghan,
The Man Who Elected Lincoln
(Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1956), p. 115.

217
“proslavery bamboozelling demogogue”:
Joseph Medill to AL, [Aug. 27, 1858], Lincoln MSS, LC.

218
day, at Freeport:
Fehrenbacher,
Prelude to Greatness,
pp. 124–126.

218
“State of Illinois”:
Johannsen,
Lincoln-Douglas Debates,
p. 79.

218
“question among ourselves”:
Ibid., pp. 76–79.

218
“the slavery question?”:
Ibid., p. 79.

218
Douglas would answer: CW,
2:530.

218
“a State Constitution”:
Johannsen,
Lincoln-Douglas Debates,
p. 88.

219
“to the point”: CW,
2:530.

219
include the question:
Explaining the true intent of the Freeport question, Fehrenbacher
(Prelude to Greatness,
pp. 122–128) demolishes the legend that Lincoln, against the warnings of his advisers, asked the question in order to deprive Douglas of Southern support in the 1860 presidential election. But the impact of the Freeport Doctrine on Douglas’s support in the South was heavy, for it appeared to rob Southerners of their victory in Dred Scott. For this reason in the next session of Congress the Democratic senatorial caucus, dominated by Southerners, virtually read Douglas out of the party and stripped him of his chairmanship of the Committee on Territories.

219
“be wholly false”:
Johannsen,
Lincoln-Douglas Debates,
p. 81.

219
“defy your wrath”:
Ibid., pp. 97, 100.

219
“the decided advantage”:
WHH to Theodore Parker, Aug. 31, 1858, Herndon-Parker MSS, University of Iowa Library.

219
“more elevated position”: Lowell
(Mass.)
Journal and Courier,
Aug. 30, 1858.

219
would be reelected:
Zarefsky,
Lincoln, Douglas, and Slavery,
p. 58.

220
the Republican cause:
On Trumbull’s role, see Mark M. Krug, “Lyman Trumbull and the Real Issues in the Lincoln-Douglas Debates,”
JISHS
57 (Winter 1964): 380–396.

220
debate, at Jonesboro:
For an excellent account of this debate, which gives much insight into the social, economic, and political life of “Egypt,” see John Y. Simon, “Union County in 1858 and the Lincoln-Douglas Debate,”
JISHS
62 (Autumn 1969): 267–292.

220
Senate that year:
Johannsen,
Lincoln-Douglas Debates,
pp. 122–123.

220
“be created equal”:
Ibid., p. 128.

220
“my political friends”:
Ibid., p. 136.

220
“against unfriendly legislation”:
Ibid., pp. 146–147. The
Chicago Times
gave what is probably a better version: “vigor enough in the tendency to force slavery into a territory without positive police regulations.” Holzer,
Lincoln-Douglas Debates,
p. 170.

220
debate to begin:
Sparks,
Lincoln-Douglas Debates,
pp. 314, 324. The best account is Charles H. Coleman,
The Lincoln-Douglas Debate at Charleston, Illinois (Eastern Illinois University Bulletin,
no. 220 [Oct. 1, 1957]).

221
“and political equality”:
Johannsen,
Lincoln-Douglas Debates,
p. 162.

221
American race problem:
Two excellent analyses of Lincoln’s racial views are George M. Fredrickson, “A Man but Not a Brother: Abraham Lincoln and Racial Equality,”
Journal of Southern History
41 (Feb. 1975): 39–58, and Don E. Fehrenbacher, “Only His Stepchildren,” in
Lincoln in Text and Context,
pp. 95–112. The chapter on Lincoln in George Sinkler’s
The Racial Attitudes of American Presidents: From Abraham Lincoln to Theodore Roosevelt
(Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Co., 1971) is also important. It would, I think, be a mistake to attempt to palliate Lincoln’s racial views by saying that he grew up in a racist society or that his ideas were shared by many of his contemporaries. After all, there were numerous Americans of his generation—notably, many of the abolitionists—who were committed to racial equality. At the same time, it ought to be noted that Lincoln fortunately escaped the more virulent strains of racism. Unlike many of his fellow Republicans, he never spoke of African-Americans as hideous or physically inferior; he never declared that they were innately inferior mentally or incapable of intellectual development; he never described them as indolent or incapable of sustained work; he never discussed their supposed licentious nature or immorality. For an extensive sampling of statements by Republicans who did crudely express these views, see James D. Bilotta,
Race and the Rise of the Republican Party, 1848–1865
(New York: Peter Lang, 1992), esp. chap. 6. Lincoln’s own views on race, on the other hand, were nearly always expressed tentatively. As Fehrenbacher points out (p. 106), “He conceded that the Negro
might not
be his equal, or he said that the Negro
was not
his equal
in certain respects.
” Even when he agreed that blacks did not have the same civil rights as whites, he nearly always added in the next
breath that they were the equal of whites in the enjoyment of the natural rights pledged in the Declaration of Independence.

221
“beginning to end”:
Johannsen,
Lincoln-Douglas Debates,
p. 174.

221
“petty personal matters”:
Ibid., pp. 177, 181, 184.

222
the Republican candidate:
See the spirited account in Tufve Nilsson Hasselquist, “The Big Day: A Galesburg Swede Views the Lincoln-Douglas Debate,” ed. and trans, by John E. Norton,
Knox Alumnus
(Winter 1990), pp. 16–18. (Courtesy Prof. J. Harvey Young)

222
“their posterity forever”:
Johannsen,
Lincoln-Douglas Debates,
pp. 210, 212, 216.

222
“Declaration of Independence”:
Ibid., p. 219.

222
“‘set him again’”: Ibid., p. 228.

223
“the adjoining islands”:
Ibid., pp. 233–234.

223
“a political wrong”:
Ibid., p. 254.

223
“right or wrong”:
Ibid., p. 256.

223
“the other counties”:
Ibid, p. 264.

223
“side of Heaven”:
Ibid., p. 267.

223
“to the law”:
Ibid, p. 268.

223
“crime of slavery”:
Ibid, p. 266.

223
“the whole earth”:
Ibid, p. 276.

223
“shall last forever”: Ibid, p. 277.

223
course on Lecompton:
Ibid, pp. 292–299.

224
“Go it bear!”:
Ibid, p. 301. For the origins of this jest, see P. M. Zall, ed,
Abe Lincoln Laughing: Humorous Anecdotes from Original Sources by and About Abraham Lincoln
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982), p. 20.

224
“and so on”:
Johannsen,
Lincoln-Douglas Debates,
p. 303.

224
“conditions in life”:
Ibid, pp. 315–316.

224
“as a wrong”: Ibid, p. 316.

224
“right of kings”:
Ibid, p. 319.

225
“the town together”:
Ibid, p. 42.

225
“starved to death”:
Ibid, p. 281.

225
“less of it”: Ibid.,
p. 57.

225
“and the same”: CW,
2:507.

225
on and on:
Randall,
Lincoln the President,
1:121–122.

225
the English bill:
Potter,
The Impending Crisis,
p. 325.

226
“controversy with him
”: Johannsen,
Lincoln-Douglas Debates,
p. 131.

226
“the most infamous treachery”:
Ibid, p. 100.

226
“discussed before you?”:
Ibid, p. 176.

226
“of ultimate extinction”:
Ibid, p. 265.

226
“negroes in Christendom”:
Ibid, p. 326. The
Chicago Press and Tribune
reported that Douglas said “niggers in Christendom.” Holzer,
Lincoln-Douglas Debates,
p. 367.

227
were closely divided:
Bruce Collins, “The Lincoln-Douglas Contest of 1858 and Illinois’ Electorate,”
Journal of American Studies
20 (Dec. 1986): 391–420, offers an informed analysis of the returns. The map in Arthur C. Cole,
The Era of the Civil War, 1848–1870
(Springfield: Illinois Centennial Commission, 1919), facing p. 178, graphically shows the distribution of votes.

227
both men appeared:
Forest L. Whan, “Stephen A. Douglas,” in William Norwood Brigance, ed,
A History and Criticism of American Public Address
(New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1943), 2:823.

227
as a whole:
Holzer,
Lincoln-Douglas Debates,
pp. 371–373.

228
United States Senate:
Fehrenbacher,
Prelude to Greatness,
pp. 118–120, offers a clear explanation of this complicated subject.

228
“to their numbers”: Rockford Register,
Nov. 13, 1858. Claiming that Republican districts had, on an average, 19,655 inhabitants and Democratic districts only 15,675, the
Illinois State Journal
argued that, under a fair apportionment, Republicans would have had a majority of seven in the House of Representatives and three in the Senate. Douglas, it concluded, “was elected for the reason that 750 voters in ‘Egypt’ are an offset to 1000 in Canaan [i.e., northern Illinois].”
Journal,
Nov. 10, 1858.