tly 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.
I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between
the white and black races. But I hold that notwithstanding all
this there is no reason in the world why the negro is not entitled
to all the natural rights enumerated in the Declaration of
Independence, the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness. I hold that he is as much entitled to these as the
white man. I agree with Judge Douglas he is not my equal in
many respects--certainly not in color, perhaps not in moral and
intellectual endowment. But in the right to eat the bread, without
the leave of anybody else, which his own hand earns, he is my equal,
and the equal of Judge Douglas, and the equal of every living man."

Referring to the quotation from his Springfield speech of the words,
"A house divided against itself cannot stand," he said:

"Does the Judge say it can stand? If he does, then there is a
question of veracity, not between him and me, but between the Judge
and an authority of somewhat higher character. I leave it to you to
say whether, in the history of our Government, the institution
of slavery has not only failed to be a bond of union, but on the
contrary been an apple of discord and an element of division in
the house. If so, then I have a right to say that in regard to
this question the Union is a house divided against itself; and when
the Judge reminds me that I have often said to him that the
institution of slavery has existed for eighty years in some States
and yet it does not exist in some others, I agree to that fact,
and I account for it by looking at the position in which our fathers
originally placed it--restricting it from the new Territories where
it had not gone, and legislating to cut off its source by abrogation
of the slave trade, thus putting the seal of legislation against
its spread, the public mind did rest in the belief that it was
in the course of ultimate extinction. Now, I believe if we
could arrest its spread and place it where Washington and Jefferson
and Madison placed it, it would be in the course of ultimate
extinction, and the public mind would--as for eighty years past
--believe that it was in the course of ultimate extinction."

Referring further to his Springfield speech, he declared that he
had no thought of doing anythi