The Fiery Trial_ Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery - Eric Foner [44]
Earlier in his career, Lincoln had described slavery as unjust, but never before had he referred to it as a “monstrous injustice.” This was the language of abolitionism, not party politics. Yet just as, in his Washingtonian speech, he had advocated temperance without denigrating drinkers, Lincoln differentiated himself from those whose condemnation of slavery extended to slaveholders: “I have no prejudice against the Southern people. They are just what we would be in their situation…. If [slavery] did now exist amongst us, we should not instantly give it up.”
And what of the future of slavery? Here, Lincoln candidly admitted his own uncertainty:
If all earthly power were given me, I should not know what to do, as to the existing institution. My first impulse would be to free all the slaves, and send them to Liberia,—to their own native land. But a moment’s reflection would convince me, that whatever of high hope, (as I think there is) there may be in this, in the long run, its sudden execution is impossible…. What then? Free them all, and keep them among us as underlings? Is it quite certain that this betters their condition?…Free them, and make them politically and socially, our equals? My own feelings will not admit of this; and if mine would, we well know that those of the great mass of white people will not. Whether this feeling accords with justice and sound judgment, is not the sole question, if indeed, it is any part of it. A universal feeling, whether well or ill-founded, can not be safely disregarded. We can not, then, make them equals. It does seem to me that systems of gradual emancipation might be adopted; but for their tardiness in this, I will not undertake to judge our brethren of the south.
Lincoln then turned to a dissection of popular sovereignty. He condemned the idea of leaving the issue of slavery to the voters of a territory as specious and unworkable. History demonstrated that to keep it out, slavery must be prohibited from the first days of settlement, as the Northwest Ordinance had done for Illinois (and even then, slavery had lingered for many years). The Kansas-Nebraska Act, moreover, failed to explain when and by whom the decision on slavery would be made—by a few dozen initial settlers, a few hundred, the territorial legislature? But beyond practicality lay the question of morality. Douglas had repeatedly insisted that by allowing residents of the territories to decide on their own local institutions, popular sovereignty exemplified “the great fundamental principle of self-government.” Clearly, Lincoln responded, most issues of concern to communities should be decided locally—this was the essence of democracy. But because of its moral gravity, slavery was different:
The doctrine of self government is right—absolutely and eternally right—but it has no just application…. Or perhaps I should rather say that whether it has such just application depends upon whether a negro is not or is a man…. If the negro is a man, is it not to that extent, a total destruction of self-government, to say that he too shall not govern himself? When the white man governs himself that is self-government; but when he governs himself, and also governs another man…that is despotism. If the negro is a man, why then my ancient faith teaches me that “all men are created equal” and that there can be no moral right in one man’s making a slave of another.
Yet, after what could only be taken as a critique of slavery wherever it existed and, indeed, of racial inequality, Lincoln immediately drew back: “Let it not be said I