he question more than to
say that this assumption of his is false, and I do hope that that fallacy
will not long prevail in the minds of intelligent white men. At all
events, you ought to thank Judge Douglas for it; it is for your benefit it
is made.

The other branch of it is, that in the struggle between the negro and
the crocodile; he is for the negro. Well, I don't know that there is any
struggle between the negro and the crocodile, either. I suppose that if a
crocodile (or, as we old Ohio River boatmen used to call them, alligators)
should come across a white man, he would kill him if he could; and so he
would a negro. But what, at last, is this proposition? I believe it is a
sort of proposition in proportion, which may be stated thus: "As the negro
is to the white man, so is the crocodile to the negro; and as the negro
may rightfully treat the crocodile as a beast or reptile, so the white man
may rightfully treat the negro as a beast or a reptile." That is really
the "knip" of all that argument of his.

Now, my brother Kentuckians, who believe in this, you ought to thank
Judge Douglas for having put that in a much more taking way than any of
yourselves have done.

Again, Douglas's great principle, "popular sovereignty," as he calls it,
gives you, by natural consequence, the revival of the slave trade whenever
you want it. If you question this, listen awhile, consider awhile what I
shall advance in support of that proposition.

He says that it is the sacred right of the man who goes into the
Territories to have slavery if he wants it. Grant that for argument's
sake. Is it not the sacred right of the man who don't go there equally to
buy slaves in Africa, if he wants them? Can you point out the difference?
The man who goes into the Territories of Kansas and Nebraska, or any other
new Territory, with the sacred right of taking a slave there which belongs
to him, would certainly have no more right to take one there than I would,
who own no slave, but who would desire to buy one and take him there. You
will not say you, the friends of Judge Douglas but that the man who
does not own a slave has an equal right to buy one and take him to the
Territory as the other does.

A voice: I want to ask a question. Don't foreign nations interfere with
the slave trade?

Mr. LINCOLN: Well! I understand it to be a principle of Democracy to whip
foreign nations whenever, they interfere with us.

Voice: I only asked for informat