e
with the institution of slavery in the States where it now 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. There is a physical difference between the
two which, in my judgment, will probably forever forbid their living
together upon a footing of perfect equality, and inasmuch as it becomes
a matter of necessity that there must be a difference I, as well as
Judge Douglas, am in favor of the race to which I belong, having the
superior position. I have never said anything to the contrary, 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
pursuits 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 any
one else, which his own hand earns, he is my equal, and the equal of
Judge Douglas, and the equal of every living man."

Touching the question of respect or weight of opinion due to deliverance
of the United States Supreme Court--an element which entered largely
into this national contest, Mr. Lincoln said: "This man--Douglas--sticks
to a decision which forbids the people of a territory from excluding
slavery, and he does so, not because he says it is right in itself--he
does not give any opinion on that, but because it has been decided by
the Court, and being decided by the Court, he is, and you are bound to
take it in your political action as law; not that he judges at all of
its merits, but because a decision of the Court is to him a 'Thus saith
the Lord.' He places it on that ground alone, and you will bear in mind
that thus committing himself unreservedly to this decision, commits him
to the next one just as firmly as to this. He did not commit himself on
account of the merit or demerit of the decision, but is a 'Thus saith
the Lord.' The next decision, as much as this, will be a 'Thus saith the
Lord.' There is nothing that can divert or turn him away from this
decision. It is nothing that I point out to him that his great
prototype, General Jackson, did not believe in the binding force of
decisions--it is nothing