But I suppose you will celebrate, and will even
go so far as to read the Declaration. Suppose, after you read it once
in the old-fashioned way, you read it once more with Judge Douglas's
version. It will then run thus: "We hold these truths to be
self-evident, that all British subjects who were on this continent
eighty-one years ago, were created equal to all British subjects born
and then residing in Great Britain."
And now I appeal to all--to Democrats as well as others--are you really
willing that the Declaration shall thus be frittered away?--thus left
no more, at most, than an interesting memorial of the dead past?--thus
shorn of its vitality and practical value, and left without the germ or
even the suggestion of the individual rights of man in it?
ABRAHAM LINCOLN,
OF ILLINOIS. (BORN 1809, DIED 1865.)
ON HIS NOMINATION TO THE UNITED STATES SENATE,
AT THE REPUBLICAN STATE CONVENTION, SPRINGFIELD, ILLS., JUNE 16, 1858.
MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN OF THE CONVENTION:
If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we
could better judge what to do, and how to do it. We are now far into
the fifth year since a policy was initiated with the avowed object, and
confident promise, of putting an end to slavery agitation.
Pages:
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157