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This whole matter of a so-called "contradiction" goes back to the 1854 Peoria speech, which is why I posted earlier my analysis of it. Lincoln always either paraphrased that speech, or read from it verbatim when discussing "perfect" social and political equality.

Here are Lincoln's last words on the subject from the 6th debate. I find them, and his other responses, entirely satisfactory.

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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.

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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.

[GOPcapitalist]

For Lincoln to call upon the Peoria speech is indeed in his own mind a partial explanation of the contradiction. But when viewed in the light of the debate situation in which the comments were made, it becomes inescapable that the contradiction existed externally in Lincoln's own words. Calling upon the Peoria speech was itself an effort by Lincoln to control the blow stricken by Douglas when the latter outed Lincoln on the contradiction. It was damage control on the issue made by Lincoln in a lengthy attempt to soften the blow by running a simple straight forward contradiction in itself through a complex and potentially confusing rhetorical argument. Perhaps in his own mind, Lincoln even rationalized the contradiction as not having been inconsistent at all. But that is Lincoln's own mind. Externally, the contradiction remains.