eignty" stood forth in all its glory.

One more thing. Last night Judge Douglas tormented himself with horrors
about my disposition to make negroes perfectly equal with white men in
social and political relations. He did not stop to show that I have said
any such thing, or that it legitimately follows from anything I have
said, but he rushes on with his assertions. I adhere to the Declaration of
Independence. If Judge Douglas and his friends are not willing to stand by
it, let them come up and amend it. Let them make it read that all men
are created equal except negroes. Let us have it decided whether the
Declaration of Independence, in this blessed year of 1858, shall be thus
amended. In his construction of the Declaration last year, he said it only
meant that Americans in America were equal to Englishmen in England. Then,
when I pointed out to him that by that rule he excludes the Germans, the
Irish, the Portuguese, and all the other people who have come among us
since the revolution, he reconstructs his construction. In his last speech
he tells us it meant Europeans.

I press him a little further, and ask if it meant to include the Russians
in Asia; or does he mean to exclude that vast population from the
principles of our Declaration of Independence? I expect ere long he
will introduce another amendment to his definition. He is not at all
particular. He is satisfied with anything which does not endanger the
nationalizing of negro slavery. It may draw white men down, but it must
not lift negroes up.

Who shall say, "I am the superior, and you are the inferior"?

My declarations upon this subject of negro slavery may be misrepresented,
but cannot be misunderstood. I have said that I do not understand the
Declaration to mean that all men were created equal in all respects. They
are not our equal in color; but I suppose that it does mean to declare
that all men are equal in some respects; they are equal in their right to
"life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Certainly the negro is
not our equal in color, perhaps not in many other respects; still, in the
right to put into his mouth the bread that his own hands have earned, he
is the equal of every other man, white or black. In pointing out that
more has been given you, you cannot be justified in taking away the little
which has been given him. All I ask for the negro is that if you do not
like him, let him alone. If God gave him but little, that little let him