This striking monument to Stephen A. Douglas (left) and Abraham Lincoln (right) is the centerpiece of Washington Square in downtown Ottawa, Illinois. It marks the site of the first of the famous Lincoln-Douglas debates which was held here on August 21, 1858.
Between late August and mid-October, 1858, Lincoln and Douglas traveled together around the state of Illinois to confront each other in seven historic debates. Douglas, a Democrat, was the incumbent United States Senator; Lincoln, a Republican, was his challenger. Here in Ottawa, before a crowd of 10,000 citizens, Douglas accused Lincoln of being a secret abolitionist, a charge which Lincoln soundly denied by declaring:
"I have no purpose directly or indirectly to interfere with the institution of slavery in the states where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so."
When pressed further Lincoln continued:
"I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and black races. There is physical difference between the two which, in my judgment, will probably forever forbid their living together upon the footing of perfect equality, and inasmuch as it becomes a necessity that there must be a difference, I, as well as Judge Douglas, am in favor of the race to which I belong having the superior position."
A few weeks later, before a crowd of 15,000 in Charleston, Illinois Lincoln re-emphasized his anti-negro stance:
"I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races; I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people."
He continued:
"I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I, as much as any other man, am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race."
Lincoln failed in his bid for the Senate seat, but just two years later he was nominated to run for President of the Untied States in the newly formed northern Republican party. In a pre-nomination speech, delivered at Cooper Union in New York City on February 27, 1860, Lincoln said that slavery was "an evil not be extended, but to be tolerated and protected." In his prepared text he emphasized, "This is all Republicans ask -- all Republicans desire -- in relation to slavery," He went on to state that any emancipation should be gradual and carried out in conjunction with a program of scheduled deportation, sending the negroes back to Africa.
During the campaign Lincoln vowed to increase already high tariffs that put an extremely unfair tax burden on the South for the benefit of the North. He did not carry a single southern state and garnered only 39% of the popular vote nationwide. However, in a four way race, Lincoln became the president through the electoral collage.
Upon Lincoln's election, the southern states began to exercise their Constitutional right to seceed from the Union - one which defended the institution of slavery but unfairly taxed the South, which held only about 30% of the votes in congress. The former Vice-President John C. Calhoun put it this way:
"The North had adopted a system of revenue and disbursements in which an undue proportion of the burden of taxation has been imposed upon the South, and an undue proportion of its proceeds appropriated to the North… the South, as the great exporting portion of the Union, has in reality paid vastly more than her due proportion of the revenue."
Upon taking office, while still promising to defend slavery, Lincoln called for an army to invade the peaceful South in order to collect his tariffs, under the guise of preserving the Union.
Observers in Europe saw through the rhetoric of "preserve the Union" and recognized what was really at stake. Charles Dickens observed:
"Union means so many millions a year lost to the South; secession means the loss of the same millions to the North. The love of money is the root of this, as of many other evils. The quarrel between the North and South is, as it stands, solely a fiscal quarrel."
Karl Marx quoted newspaper accounts from Great Britain which agreed:
"The war between the North and the South is a tariff war. The war is further, not for any principle, does not touch the question of slavery, and in fact turns on the Northern lust for sovereignty."
A friend recently said to me that in spite of Lincoln's many faults and even his atrocities against the South, he should be credited with saving the Union. Really? In truth, Abraham Lincoln did more to destroy the United States - and the Constitution that holds it together - than any other person in history.
Story and photo by J. Stephen Conn
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