The Peoria Speech

Yesterday was the 210th anniversary of the birth of our 16th president.  

After serving one term in Congress as a member of the Whig party, Abraham Lincoln returned to Springfield, Illinois in early 1849 to resume the practice of law, returning to active politics five years later amidst the controversy over the Nebraska-Kansas Act, which ended the Missouri Compromise of 1820 and opened up new territories for the potential expansion of slavery.  Opposing any expansion of the peculiar institution, on October 16, 1854 Lincoln spoke at Peoria, Illinois, an event which began his elevation into the national spotlight.

At Peoria, Lincoln made a moral case against slavery, and a pragmatic and legal case against its expansion while accepting its continuation in the states where it currently existed.  The entire speech can be read here.

He was unequivocal in his condemnation:

This declared indifference, but as I must think, covert real zeal for the spread of slavery, I can not but hate. I hate it because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself. I hate it because it deprives our republican example of its just influence in the world---enables the enemies of free institutions, with plausibility, to taunt us as hypocrites---causes the real friends of freedom to doubt our sincerity, and especially because it forces so many really good men amongst ourselves into an open war with the very fundamental principles of civil liberty---criticising the Declaration of Independence, and insisting that there is no right principle of action but self-interest.

Yet he was also at pains to discuss the practical problems attached to slavery's elimination, a problem he saw no easy answer to.  His words resonated at the time, and the tragic inability to find a solution short of war, and then to postpone for so long attempting to integrate the former slaves into American society, continue to do so today.

Before proceeding, let me say I think I have no prejudice against the Southern people. They are just what we would be in their situation. If slavery did not now exist amongst them, they would not introduce it. If it did now exist amongst us, we should not instantly give it up. This I believe of the masses north and south. Doubtless there are individuals, on both sides, who would not hold slaves under any circumstances; and others who would gladly introduce slavery anew, if it were out of existence. We know that some southern men do free their slaves, go north, and become tip-top abolitionists; while some northern ones go south, and become most cruel slave-masters.

When southern people tell us they are no more responsible for the origin of slavery, than we; I acknowledge the fact. When it is said that the institution exists; and that it is very difficult to get rid of it, in any satisfactory way, I can understand and appreciate the saying. I surely will not blame them for not doing what I should not know how to do myself. If all earthly power were given me, I should not know what to do, as to the existing institution.