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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.
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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.
It seems to me that to the contrary, Lincoln got caught, knew he got caught, and like any skilled politician he tried to maneuver his way out of it. His strategy appears to have been first to muddy the water of a clear case with a complex and evasive explanation, and then turn around and use it to accuse Douglas of intentionally misrepresenting him. His argument in this quote, which also happens to be an argument put forth in some of the other debates in order to escape his contradiction, is the assertion that, since the speeches were all in print, it would have been difficult for him to decieve. Such an argument is misleading, as it assumes that his audiences took the time to read all of what is in print, an assumption that was in itself as flawed in his own day as it is today. Even the invention of television and video has not stopped politicians from contradicting themselves from audience to audience - and this even though such contradictions are more easily documented today than they were a century ago. Lincoln's argument rests upon a false assumption.
Regardless of what he says, lost in it all is a true comparison of the actual statements themselves. In one, he specifically calls for an end to what he terms all the dispute over superiority and inferiority. In the other, he specifically asserts a belief that such positions are inescapable and calls for the white man to occupy that of superior. Though Lincoln himself refused to acknowledge a contradiction, it is unavoidably there when viewed directly. Richard Hofstadter addressed this issue by arguing that perhaps in Lincoln's own mind a degree of relativity even existed permitting him to rationalize the two together - he saw no inconsistency. But externally, there was an inconsistency and Douglas rightly called him upon it.