y so entirely different from their
former belief; to ask whether they are not being borne along by an
irresistible current, whither they know not?

In the joint debates, however, argument and oratory were both hampered
by the inexorable limit of time. For the full development of his
thought, the speeches Lincoln made separately at other places afforded
him a freer opportunity. A quotation from his language on one of these
occasions is therefore here added, as a better illustration of his
style and logic, where his sublime theme carried him into one of his
more impassioned moods:

The Declaration of Independence was formed by the representatives
of American liberty from thirteen States of the Confederacy,
twelve of which were slave-holding communities. We need not
discuss the way or the reason of their becoming slave-holding
communities. It is sufficient for our purpose that all of them
greatly deplored the evil and that they placed a provision in the
Constitution which they supposed would gradually remove the
disease by cutting off its source. This was the abolition of the
slave trade. So general was the conviction, the public
determination, to abolish the African slave trade, that the
provision which I have referred to as being placed in the
Constitution declared that it should not be abolished prior to the
year 1808. A constitutional provision was necessary to prevent the
people, through Congress, from putting a stop to the traffic
immediately at the close of the war. Now if slavery had been a
good thing, would the fathers of the republic have taken a step
calculated to diminish its beneficent influences among themselves,
and snatch the boon wholly from their posterity? These
communities, by their representatives in old Independence Hall,
said to the whole world of men: "We hold these truths to be
self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are
endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that
among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." This
was their majestic interpretation of the economy of the Universe.
This was their lofty, and wise, and noble understanding of the
justice of the Creator to his creatures. Yes, gentlemen, to all
his creatures, to the whole great family of man. In their
enlightened belief, nothing stamped with the Divine image and
li