"
Lincoln and Douglas were therefore at one on this. But how about
slavery? Lincoln looked forward to a time when slavery would be
abolished. How could that be? By not admitting any more slave states?
No! For Lincoln confessed that he would as a Senator vote to admit a
slave state, if it as a territory had had a free chance to have slavery
or freedom as it chose, and if in becoming a state it freely adopted a
slave constitution. As to these opinions Lincoln and Douglas were
agreed; for Douglas had fought the Kansas constitution because it forced
slavery on Kansas; and now the whole Buchanan administration in Illinois
was arrayed against Douglas for his attitude on Kansas, and Lincoln was
profiting by that.
How would Lincoln abolish slavery? By starving it, girding it about
gradually with freedom, keeping it where it was. That was all. What
would Douglas do? Referring to Lincoln's looking forward to a time when
slavery would be abolished everywhere Douglas said: "I look forward to a
time when each state shall be allowed to do as it pleases. If it chooses
to keep slavery forever, it is not my business but its own; if it
chooses to abolish slavery, it is its own business not mine. I care
more for the great principles of self-government, the right of the
people to rule, than I do for all the negroes in Christendom.
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