I believe the most prominent case of Lincoln's self contradiction pointed out by Senator Douglas was the following:
"My friends, I have detained you about as long as I desired to do, and I have only to say, let us discard all this quibbling about this man and the other man - this race and that race and the other race being inferior, and therefore they must be placed in an inferior position - discarding our standard that we have left us. Let us discard all these things, and unite as one people throughout this land, until we shall once more stand up declaring that all men are created equal. My friends, I could not, without launching off upon some new topic, which would detain you too long, continue to-night. I thank you for this most extensive audience that you have furnished me to-night. I leave you, hoping that the lamp of liberty will burn in your bosoms until there shall no longer be a doubt that all men are created free and equal." - Lincoln, Debate at Chicago
"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 for ever 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. I say upon this occasion I do not perceive that because the white man is to have the superior position the negro should be denied everything. I do not understand that because I do not want a negro woman for a slave I must necessarily want her for a wife." - Lincoln, Debate at Charleston
Douglas openly called him on this contradiction during one of the debates, to which Lincoln followed by going into a lengthy process of excusing himself by asserting that he never consciously sought to target the speeches and that the existence of the two speeches in print threw a wrench into attempts to do so anyway.
Here are Lincoln's last words on the subject from the 6th debate. I find them, and his other responses, entirely satisfactory.
*********
Judge Douglas, in reply to what I have said about having upon a previous occasion made the speech at Ottawa as the one he took an extract from, at Charleston, says it only shows that I practiced the deception twice. Now, my friends, are any of you obtuse enough to swallow that? [``No, no, we're not such fools.''] Judge Douglas had said I had made a speech at Charleston that I would not make up north, and I turned around and answered him by showing I had made that same speech up north---had made it at Ottawa---made it in his hearing---made it in the Abolition District---in Lovejoy's District---in the personal presence of Lovejoy himself---in the same atmosphere exactly in which I had made my Chicago speech of which he complains so much.
Now, in relation to my not having said anything about the quotation from the Chicago speech: He thinks that is a terrible subject for me to handle. Why, gentlemen, I can show you that the substance of the Chicago speech I delivered two years ago in ``Egypt,'' as he calls it. It was down at Springfield. That speech is here in this book, and I could turn to it and read it to you but for the lack of time. I have not now the time to read it.
*******
Douglas is quibbling, and Lincoln was utterly consistent on this matter from Peoria to Chicago, from 1854 to 1858.
There are illuminating discussions of the whole question of equality in Jaffa's "Crisis of the House Divided," [Ch. 17] and Miller's "Lincoln's Virtues" [Ch. 14]. Miller concedes more than does Jaffa, but both agree that Lincoln maintained Declaration Principles in the face of gross race-baiting by Douglas and the Democrats.
**********
Now a few words in regard to these extracts from speeches of mine, which Judge Douglas has read to you, and which he supposes are in very great contrast to each other.
Those speeches have been before the public for a considerable time, and if they have any inconsistency in them, if there is any conflict in them the public have been able to detect it.
When the Judge says, in speaking on this subject, that I make speeches of one sort for the people of the Northern end of the State, and of a different sort for the Southern people, he assumes that I do not understand that my speeches will be put in print and read North and South. I knew all the while that the speech that I made at Chicago and the one I made at Jonesboro and the one at Charleston, would all be put in print and all the reading and intelligent men in the community would see them and know all about my opinions. And I have not supposed, and do not now suppose, that there is any conflict whatever between them. [``They are all good speeches!'' ``Hurrah for Lincoln!'']
But the Judge will have it that if we do not confess that there is a sort of inequality between the white and black races, which justifies us in making them slaves, we must, then, insist that there is a degree of equality that requires us to make them our wives. [Loud applause, and cries, ``Give it to him;'' ``Hit him again.''] Now, I have all the while taken a broad distinction in regard to that matter; and that is all there is in these different speeches which he arrays here, and the entire reading of either of the speeches will show that that distinction was made.
Perhaps by taking two parts of the same speech, he could have got up as much of a conflict as the one he has found. I have all the while maintained, that in so far as it should be insisted that there was an equality between the white and black races that should produce a perfect social and political equality, it was an impossibility. This you have seen in my printed speeches, and with it I have said, that in their right to ``life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,'' as proclaimed in that old Declaration, the inferior races are our equals. [Long-continued cheering.]
And these declarations I have constantly made in reference to the abstract moral question, to contemplate and consider when we are legislating about any new country which is not already cursed with the actual presence of the evil---slavery.
I have never manifested any impatience with the necessities that spring from the actual presence of black people amongst us, and the actual existence of slavery amongst us where it does already exist; but I have insisted that, in legislating for new countries, where it does not exist, there is no just rule other than that of moral and abstract right! With reference to those new countries, those maxims as to the right of a people to ``life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,'' were the just rules to be constantly referred to. There is no misunderstanding this, except by men interested to misunderstand it. [Applause.] I take it that I have to address an intelligent and reading community, who will peruse what I say, weigh it, and then judge whether I advance improper or unsound views, or whether I advance hypocritical, and deceptive, and contrary views in different portions of the country. I believe myself to be guilty of no such thing as the latter, though, of course, I cannot claim that I am entirely free from all error in the opinions I advance.
**********
It can not be stressed too much that the heart of the position Lincoln took comes from the Peoria Speech ... nor that, when blacks had proved their virtue on the field of battle, that Lincoln had no need to change a word in that position when he advocated, first emancipation, and then limited civic rights, including voting. After all, "feeling" had changed.
Cheers,
Richard F.