l, let
it be as nearly reached as we can. If we cannot give freedom to every
creature, let us do nothing that will impose slavery upon any other
creature. Let us then turn this government back into the channel in which
the framers of the Constitution originally placed it. Let us stand
firmly by each other. If we do not do so, we are turning in the contrary
direction, that our friend Judge Douglas proposes--not intentionally--as
working in the traces tends to make this one universal slave nation. He is
one that runs in that direction, and as such I resist him.

My friends, I have detained you about as long as I desired to do, and I
have only to say: Let us discard all this quibbling about this man and the
other man, this race and that race and the other race being inferior,
and therefore they must be placed in an inferior position; discarding our
standard that we have left us. Let us discard all these things, and unite
as one people throughout this land, until we shall once more stand up
declaring that all men are created equal.

My friends, I could not, without launching off upon some new topic, which
would detain you too long, continue to-night. I thank you for this most
extensive audience that you have furnished me to-night. I leave you,
hoping that the lamp of liberty will burn in your bosoms until there shall
no longer be a doubt that all men are created free and equal.

SPEECH AT SPRINGFIELD, JULY 17, 1858.

DELIVERED SATURDAY EVENING

(Mr. Douglas was not present.)

FELLOW-CITIZENS:--Another election, which is deemed an important one, is
approaching, and, as I suppose, the Republican party will, without much
difficulty, elect their State ticket. But in regard to the Legislature,
we, the Republicans, labor under some disadvantages. In the first place,
we have a Legislature to elect upon an apportionment of the representation
made several years ago, when the proportion of the population was far
greater in the South (as compared with the North) than it now is; and
inasmuch as our opponents hold almost entire sway in the South, and we a
correspondingly large majority in the North, the fact that we are now to
be represented as we were years ago, when the population was different,
is to us a very great disadvantage. We had in the year 1855, according to
law, a census, or enumeration of the inhabitants, taken for the purpose of
a new apportionment of representation. We know what a fair apportionment
of repres