down or voted up. I do not understand his declaration that he cares not whether slavery be voted down or voted up to be intended by him other than as an apt definition of the policy he would impress upon the public mind the principle for which he declares he has suffered so much, and is ready to suffer to the end. And well may he cling to that principle. If he has any parental feeling, well may he cling to it. That principle is the only shred left of his original Nebraska doctrine. Under the Dred Scott decision "squatter sovereignty" squatted out of existence, tumbled down like temporary scaffolding, like the mold at the foundry, served through one blast and fell back into loose sand, helped to carry an election, and then was kicked to the winds. . . . We cannot absolutely know that all these exact adaptations are the result of preconcert. But when we see a lot of framed timbers, different portions of which we know have been gotten out at different times and places and by different workmen, Stephen, Franklin, Roger, and James, for instance, and we see these timbers joined together, and see they exactly make the frame of a house or a mill, all the tenons and mortises exactly fitting, and all the lengths and proportions of the different pieces exactly adapted to their respective places, and not a piece too many or too few, not omitting even scaffolding — or, if a single piece be lacking, we see the place in the frame exactly fitted and prepared yét to bring such piece in—in such a case we find it impossible not to believe that Stephen and Franklin and Roger and James all understood one another from the beginning, and all worked upon a common plan or draft drawn up before the first blow was struck. Abraham Lincoln, Complete Works (edited by John G. Nicolay and John Hay, New York, 1894), I, 240-243 passim. 45. "The Irrepressible Conflict" (1858) BY SENATOR WILLIAM HENRY SEWARD Seward's term, "irrepressible conflict," was another way of expressing Lincoln's idea of "a house divided against itself" (see No. 44 above); but Seward was a man of national prominence and a representative Republican, and his phrase exerted an immediate and a lasting influence. - For Seward, see No. 22 above. Bibliography as No. 44 above. UR country is a theatre, which exhibits, in full operation, two OU radically different political systems; the one resting on the basis of servile or slave labor, the other on the basis of voluntary labor of freemen.. The two systems are at once perceived to be incongruous. But they are more than incongruous—they are incompatible. They never have permanently existed together in one country, and they never can. It would be easy to demonstrate this impossibility, from the irreconcilable contrast between their great principles and characteristics. But the experience of mankind has conclusively established it. . . . Hitherto, the two systems have existed in different States, but side by side within the American Union. This has happened because the Union is a confederation of States. But in another aspect the United States constitute only one nation. Increase of population, which is filling the States out to their very borders, together with a new and extended network of railroads and other avenues, and an internal commerce which daily becomes more intimate, is rapidly bringing the States into a higher and more perfect social unity or consolidation. Thus, these antagonistic systems are continually coming into closer contact, and collision. results. Shall I tell you what this collision means? They who think that it is accidental, unnecessary, the work of interested or fanatical agitators, and therefore ephemeral, mistake the case altogether. It is an irrepressible conflict between opposing and enduring forces, and it means that the United States must and will, sooner or later, become either entirely a slave-holding nation, or entirely a free-labor nation. Either the cotton and rice fields of South Carolina and the sugar plantations of Louisiana will ultimately be tilled by free labor, and Charleston and New Orleans become marts for legitimate merchandise alone, or else the rye-fields and wheat-fields of Massachusetts and New York must again be surrendered by their farmers to slave culture and to the production of slaves, and Boston and New York become once more markets for trade in the bodies and souls of men. It is the failure to apprehend this great truth that induces so many unsuccessful attempts at final compromise between the slave and free States, and it is the existence of this great fact that renders all such pretended compromises, when made, vain and ephemeral. Startling as this saying may appear to you, fellow-citizens, it is by no means an original or even a modern one. Our forefathers knew it to be true, and unanimously acted upon it when they framed the Constitution of the United States. They regarded the existence of the servile system in so many of the States with sorrow and shame, which they openly confessed, and they looked upon the collision between them, which was then just revealing itself, and which we are now accustomed to deplore, with favor and hope. They knew that either the one or the other system must exclusively prevail. Unlike too many of those who in modern time invoke their authority, they had a choice between the two. They preferred the system of free labor, and they determined to organize the Government, and so to direct its activity, that that system should surely and certainly prevail. For this purpose, and no other, they based the whole structure of Government broadly on the principle that all men are created equal, and therefore free little dreaming that, within the short period of one hundred years, their descendants would bear to be told by any orator, however popular, that the utterance of that principle was merely a rhetorical rhapsody; or by any judge, however venerated, that it was attended by mental reservations, which rendered it hypocritical and false. By the Ordinance of 1787, they dedicated all of the national domain not yet polluted by Slavery to free labor immediately, thenceforth and forever; while by the new Constitution and laws they invited foreign free labor from all lands under the sun, and interdicted the importation of African slave labor, at all times, in all places, and under all circumstances whatsoever. It is true that they necessarily and wisely modified this policy of Freedom, by leaving it to the several States, affected as they were by differing circumstances, to abolish Slavery in their own way and at their own pleasure, instead of confiding that duty to Congress, and that they secured to the Slave States, while yet retaining the system of Slavery, a three-fifths representation of slaves in the Federal Government, until they should find themselves able to relinquish it with safety. But the very nature of these modifications fortifies my position that the fathers knew that the two systems could not endure within the Union, and expected that within a short period Slavery would disappear forMoreover, in order that these modifications might not altogether defeat their grand design of a Republic maintaining universal equality, they provided that two-thirds of the States might amend the Constitution. ever. It remains to say on this point only one word, to guard against misapprehension. If these States are to again become universally slaveholding, I do not pretend to say with what violations of the Constitution that end shall be accomplished. On the other hand, while I do confidently believe and hope that my country will yet become a land of universal Freedom, I do not expect that it will be made so otherwise than through the action of the several States coöperating with the Federal Government, and all acting in strict conformity with their respective Constitutions. The strife and contentions concerning Slavery, which gently-disposed persons so habitually deprecate, are nothing more than the ripening of the conflict which the fathers themselves not only thus regarded with favor, but which they may be said to have instituted. It is not to be denied, however, that thus far the course of that contest has not been according to their humane anticipations and wishes. . . . At last, the Republican party has appeared. It avows now, as the Republican party of 1800 did, in one word, its faith and its works, "Equal and exact justice to all men." Even when it first entered the field, only half organized, it struck a blow which only just failed to secure complete and triumphant victory. In this, its second campaign, it has already won advantages which render that triumph now both easy and certain. The secret of its assured success lies in that very characteristic which, in the mouth of scoffers, constitutes its great and lasting imbecility and reproach. It lies in the fact that it is a party of one idea; but that idea is a noble one an idea that fills and expands all generous souls; the idea of equality — the equality of all men before human tribunals and human laws, as they all are equal before the Divine tribunal and Divine laws. I know, and you know, that a revolution has begun. I know, and all the world knows, that revolutions never go backward. Twenty Senators and a hundred Representatives proclaim boldly in Congress to-day sentiments and opinions and principles of Freedom which hardly so many men, even in this free State, dared to utter in their own homes twenty years ago. While the Government of the United States, under the conduct of the Democratic party, has been all that time surrendering one plain and castle after another to Slavery, the people of the United States have been no less steadily and perseveringly gathering together the forces with which to recover back again all the fields and all the castles which have been lost, and to confound and overthrow, by one decisive blow, the betrayers of the Constitution and Freedom forever. William H. Seward, The Irrepressible Conflict: a Speech delivered at Rochester, October 25, 1858 (no title-page, New York, 1858), 1–7 passim. 46. "Niggers to the Niggerless" (1859) BY SENATOR BENJAMIN FRANKLIN WADE Wade was a typical self-made man, a true representative of the vigorous farmers of Connecticut stock in northern Ohio. His fearlessness in opposing slavery made him prominent in the Senate, where his rugged style of oratory and his disinclination to mince his words often led to an exchange of pertinent remarks with prominent defenders of slavery. This speech is in reply to an equally sharp harangue by Toombs, the question at issue being one of precedence between the homestead bill and a bill to appropriate money with which to purchase Cuba. The burden of Toombs's remarks had been a sneer at the "land to the landless" bill. — For Wade, see A. G. Riddle, Life of Benjamin F. Wade. - Bibliography as in No. 44 above. I AM AM very glad that this question has at length come up : I am glad, too, that it has antagonized with this nigger question. We are "shivering in the wind," are we, sir, over your Cuba question? You may have occasion to shiver on that question before you are through with it. Now, sir, I have been trying here for nearly a month to get a straight forward vote upon this great measure of land to the landless. I glory in that measure. It is the greatest that has ever come before the American Senate, and it has now come so that there is no dodging it. The question will be, shall we give niggers to the niggerless, or land to the landless? ... . . . I will meet that measure. I do not tremble before them or their owners, or anybody else; and it does not become gentlemen of the Senate to tremble over a measure. Sir, it is not very senatorial language. God knows, I never tremble before anybody. I do not expect to tremble before anybody. I do not expect to use language that ought to be offensive to anybody here, and I will not submit to it from anybody. I moved some days ago to take up this subject. It was said then that there was an appropriation bill that stood in the way of this great question being settled. The Senator from Virginia had his appropriation bills. It was important, then, that they should be settled at once; there was danger that they would be lost, and the Government would stop in consequence, and an appeal was made to gentlemen to give this bill the go-by for the time being, at all events, and the appeal was successful. Gentlemen said the appropriation bills must be passed; and, although they were anxious for the passage of this bill, nevertheless it must be postponed for the appropriation bills. The appropriation bills lie very easy now behind this nigger operation. When you come to niggers for the niggerless, all other questions sink into perfect insignificance. But, |