[HandyDandy]

Thank you, GOPJ, for giving the supporting text to the cherry-picked extract from our own cheap-shot artist, jeffersondem. I would like to also add that Lincoln ad-libbed all of it in an unplanned preamble to his planned speech (which then followed). He was reacting to a campaign poster that had been tacked on the door to the hall where the debate was held. The poster was a crude depiction of a white man and a black woman with a child between them (as if, according to Lincoln’s opponents, that would become the model American family if Abe was elected to the Senate.) The entirety of what you posted, together with the cheap-shot artists cherry-picked smear, was Lincoln’s off the cuff responding to that campaign poster. The meat of his rebuttal to Douglas was to follow.

[GOPJ]

I would like to also add that Lincoln ad-libbed all of it in an unplanned preamble to his planned speech (which then followed). He was reacting to a campaign poster that had been tacked on the door to the hall where the debate was held. The poster was a crude depiction of a white man and a black woman with a child between them (as if, according to Lincoln’s opponents, that would become the model American family if Abe was elected to the Senate.) The entirety of what you posted, together with the cheap-shot artists cherry-picked smear, was Lincoln’s off the cuff responding to that campaign poster. The meat of his rebuttal to Douglas was to follow.

You've just added nice texture to the story... thanks Handy...

[jeffersondem]

“I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races, that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.”

For out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.