MUNINN

Lincoln v. Douglas MUNINN Volume 2 (2013)Douglas mimicked the majority decision: “I hold that a Negro is notand never ought to be a citizen of the United States.” He once againreiterated his belief that the government was made for the benefit of thewhite people. 45 Douglas went further than white supremacy to outrightimperial vision in his final point. He noted that if the Union adhered tothe principles established in the Compromise of 1850, the Union wouldexpand and extend until it covered the whole continent. Making Cubaa point of interest, and later Mexico and Canada, Douglas statedarrogantly: “When we get Cuba we must take it as we find it, leavingthe people to decide the question of slavery for themselves.” 46When Lincoln took the stand for his hour and a half responseto Douglas’s opening statements, he once again gave his reasons whyhe does not believe the Union could survive if it were to be split in two:I say when this government was first established it was thepolicy of its founders to prohibit the spread of slavery into thenew Territories of the United States, where it had not existed.But Judge Douglas and his friends have broken up that policyand placed it upon a new basis by which it is to becomenational and perpetual. 47Then turning to address the issue of the compromise negotiated byHenry Clay (1777-1850) in 1850, Lincoln pointed out how Douglasthought it was his duty to organize the territory above the lineestablished as the border between slave and free. Lincoln argued thatthe Compromise of 1850 did not break the Missouri Compromise(1820), but when Douglas decided to step over that boundary andorganize the Kansas-Nebraska territory, he broke the MissouriCompromise. 48 In Jonesboro, Lincoln accused Douglas of notanswering the questions that were directed towards him in Freeport.With regard to backing a Free Soil Kansas, Lincoln told the audiencethat Douglas never gave a “yes or no – I will or I won’t.” WhenDouglas responded to Lincoln’s second question at Freeport on whethera territory could exclude slavery before it was a state, Douglassuggested that there were ways that Congress could influence thisbefore a state constitution was written by “withholding…indispensableassistance to it in the way of legislation” or “by unfriendly legislation.”Lincoln was quick to point out that the Supreme Court, in the DredScott decision (1857), had just made unconstitutional such federal45Lincoln, 598.46Lincoln, 600-601. Editor’s note: While Spain abolished slavery in most of its coloniesin 1811, slavery existed in Cuba until 1886.47Lincoln, 603.48Lincoln, 606. Editor’s note: There was general debate over whether the MissouriCompromise line (Missouri’s southern border) extended across the new territories to theWest, dividing slave and free.19