“I will not quarrel with Mr. Lincoln for his views on that subject. I have no doubt he is conscientious in them. I have not the slightest idea but that he conscientiously believes that a negro ought to enjoy and exercise all the rights and privileges given to white men; but I do not agree with him.… I believe that this government of ours was founded on the white basis. I believe that it was established by white men.… I do not believe that it was the design or intention of the signers of the Declaration of Independence or the framers of the Constitution to include negroes, Indians, or other inferior races, with white men, as citizens.… He wants them to vote. I am opposed to it. If they had a vote, I reckon they would all vote for him in preference to me, entertaining the views I do.”[194]
Then again at Springfield, the next day, Mr. Douglas repeated his denial that the colored man was embraced by the Declaration, and thus argued for the exclusion:—
“Remember that at the time the Declaration was put forth, every one of the Thirteen Colonies were slaveholding colonies,—every man who signed that Declaration represented slaveholding constituents. Did those signers mean by that act to charge themselves and all their constituents with having violated the law of God in holding the negro in an inferior condition to the white man? And yet, if they included negroes in that term, they were bound, as conscientious men, that day and that hour, not only to have abolished Slavery throughout the land, but to have conferred political rights and privileges on the negro, and elevated him to an equality with the white man.… The Declaration of Independence only included the white people of the United States.”[195]
On the same evening, at Springfield, the Republican candidate, while admitting that negroes are not “our equal in color,” thus again spoke for the comprehensive humanity of the Declaration:—
“I adhere to the Declaration of Independence. If Judge Douglas and his friends are not willing to stand by it, let them come up and amend it. Let them make it read, that all men are created equal except negroes. Let us have it decided, whether the Declaration of Independence, in this blessed year of 1858, shall be thus amended. In his construction of the Declaration last year, he said it only meant that Americans in America were equal to Englishmen in England. Then, when I pointed out to him that by that rule he excludes the Germans, the Irish, the Portuguese, and all the other people who have come amongst us since the Revolution, he reconstructs his construction. In his last speech he tells us it meant Europeans. I press him a little further, and ask if it meant to include the Russians in Asia. Or does he mean to exclude that vast population from the principles of our Declaration of Independence? I expect erelong he will introduce another amendment to his definition. He is not at all particular.… It may draw white men down, but it must not lift negroes up.”[196]
Words like these are gratefully remembered. They make the Declaration, what the Fathers intended, no mean proclamation of oligarchic egotism, but a charter and freehold for all mankind.
At Ottawa, August 21st, Mr. Douglas, still excluding the colored men from the Declaration, exclaimed:—
“I believe this Government was made on the white basis. I believe it was made by white men, for the benefit of white men and their posterity forever.”[197]