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6. Quantitative Applications in the Social Sciences
A S AG E P U B L I C AT I O N S S E R I E S
1. Analysis of Variance, 2nd Edition Iversen/
Norpoth
2. Operations Research Methods Nagel/Neef
3. Causal Modeling, 2nd Edition Asher
4. Tests of Significance Henkel
5. Cohort Analysis, 2nd Edition Glenn
6. Canonical Analysis and Factor
Comparison Levine
7. Analysis of Nominal Data, 2nd Edition
Reynolds
8. Analysis of Ordinal Data
Hildebrand/Laing/Rosenthal
9. Time Series Analysis, 2nd Edition Ostrom
10. Ecological Inference Langbein/Lichtman
11. Multidimensional Scaling Kruskal/Wish
12. Analysis of Covariance Wildt/Ahtola
13. Introduction to Factor Analysis
Kim/Mueller
14. Factor Analysis Kim/Mueller
15. Multiple Indicators Sullivan/Feldman
16. Exploratory Data Analysis Hartwig/Dearing
17. Reliability and Validity Assessment
Carmines/Zeller
18. Analyzing Panel Data Markus
19. Discriminant Analysis Klecka
20. Log-Linear Models Knoke/Burke
21. Interrupted Time Series Analysis
McDowall/McCleary/Meidinger/Hay
22. Applied Regression Lewis-Beck
23. Research Designs Spector
24. Unidimensional Scaling McIver/Carmines
25. Magnitude Scaling Lodge
26. Multiattribute Evaluation
Edwards/Newman
27. Dynamic Modeling
Huckfeldt/Kohfeld/Likens
28. Network Analysis Knoke/Kuklinski
29. Interpreting and Using Regression Achen
30. Test Item Bias Osterlind
31. Mobility Tables Hout
32. Measures of Association Liebetrau
33. Confirmatory Factor Analysis Long
34. Covariance Structure Models Long
35. Introduction to Survey Sampling Kalton
36. Achievement Testing Bejar
37. Nonrecursive Causal Models Berry
38. Matrix Algebra Namboodiri
39. Introduction to Applied Demography
Rives/Serow
40. Microcomputer Methods for Social
Scientists, 2nd Edition Schrodt
41. Game Theory Zagare
42. Using Published Data Jacob
43. Bayesian Statistical Inference Iversen
44. Cluster Analysis Aldenderfer/Blashfield
45. Linear Probability, Logit, and Probit Models
Aldrich/Nelson
46. Event History Analysis Allison
47. Canonical Correlation Analysis Thompson
48. Models for Innovation Diffusion Mahajan/
Peterson
49. Basic Content Analysis, 2nd Edition
Weber
50. Multiple Regression in Practice Berry/
Feldman
51. Stochastic Parameter Regression Models
Newbold/Bos
52. Using Microcomputers in Research
Madron/Tate/Brookshire
53. Secondary Analysis of Survey Data
Kiecolt/Nathan
54. Multivariate Analysis of Variance
Bray/Maxwell
55. The Logic of Causal Order Davis
56. Introduction to Linear Goal Programming
Ignizio
57. Understanding Regression Analysis
Schroeder/Sjoquist/Stephan
58. Randomized Response Fox/Tracy
59. Meta-Analysis Wolf
60. Linear Programming Feiring
61. Multiple Comparisons Klockars/Sax
62. Information Theory Krippendorff
63. Survey Questions Converse/Presser
64. Latent Class Analysis McCutcheon
65. Three-Way Scaling and Clustering
Arabie/Carroll/DeSarbo
66. Q Methodology McKeown/Thomas
67. Analyzing Decision Making Louviere
68. Rasch Models for Measurement Andrich
69. Principal Components Analysis Dunteman
70. Pooled Time Series Analysis Sayrs
71. Analyzing Complex Survey Data,
2nd Edition Lee/Forthofer
72. Interaction Effects in Multiple Regression,
2nd Edition Jaccard/Turrisi
73. Understanding Significance Testing Mohr
74. Experimental Design and Analysis Brown/
Melamed
75. Metric Scaling Weller/Romney
76. Longitudinal Research, 2nd Edition
Menard
77. Expert Systems Benfer/Brent/Furbee
78. Data Theory and Dimensional Analysis
Jacoby
79. Regression Diagnostics Fox
80. Computer-Assisted Interviewing Saris
81. Contextual Analysis Iversen
82. Summated Rating Scale Construction
Spector
83. Central Tendency and Variability Weisberg
84. ANOVA: Repeated Measures Girden
85. Processing Data Bourque/Clark
86. Logit Modeling DeMaris
7. 87. Analytic Mapping and Geographic
Databases Garson/Biggs
88. Working With Archival Data
Elder/Pavalko/Clipp
89. Multiple Comparison Procedures
Toothaker
90. Nonparametric Statistics Gibbons
91. Nonparametric Measures of Association
Gibbons
92. Understanding Regression Assumptions
Berry
93. Regression With Dummy Variables Hardy
94. Loglinear Models With Latent Variables
Hagenaars
95. Bootstrapping Mooney/Duval
96. Maximum Likelihood Estimation Eliason
97. Ordinal Log-Linear Models Ishii-Kuntz
98. Random Factors in ANOVA Jackson/
Brashers
99. Univariate Tests for Time Series Models
Cromwell/Labys/Terraza
100. Multivariate Tests for Time Series Models
Cromwell/Hannan/Labys/Terraza
101. Interpreting Probability Models: Logit,
Probit, and Other Generalized Linear
Models Liao
102. Typologies and Taxonomies Bailey
103. Data Analysis: An Introduction
Lewis-Beck
104. Multiple Attribute Decision Making
Yoon/Hwang
105. Causal Analysis With Panel Data Finkel
106. Applied Logistic Regression Analysis,
2nd Edition Menard
107. Chaos and Catastrophe Theories Brown
108. Basic Math for Social Scientists:
Concepts Hagle
109. Basic Math for Social Scientists:
Problems and Solutions Hagle
110. Calculus Iversen
111. Regression Models: Censored, Sample
Selected, or Truncated Data Breen
112. Tree Models of Similarity and Association
James E. Corter
113. Computational Modeling Taber/Timpone
114. LISREL Approaches to Interaction Effects
in Multiple Regression Jaccard/Wan
115. Analyzing Repeated Surveys Firebaugh
116. Monte Carlo Simulation Mooney
117. Statistical Graphics for Univariate and
Bivariate Data Jacoby
118. Interaction Effects in Factorial Analysis
of Variance Jaccard
119. Odds Ratios in the Analysis of
Contingency Tables Rudas
120. Statistical Graphics for Visualizing
Multivariate Data Jacoby
121. Applied Correspondence Analysis
Clausen
122. Game Theory Topics Fink/Gates/Humes
123. Social Choice: Theory and Research
Johnson
124. Neural Networks Abdi/Valentin/Edelman
125. Relating Statistics and Experimental
Design: An Introduction Levin
126. Latent Class Scaling Analysis Dayton
127. Sorting Data: Collection and Analysis
Coxon
128. Analyzing Documentary Accounts
Hodson
129. Effect Size for ANOVA Designs
Cortina/Nouri
130. Nonparametric Simple Regression:
Smoothing Scatterplots Fox
131. Multiple and Generalized Nonparametric
Regression Fox
132. Logistic Regression: A Primer Pampel
133. Translating Questionnaires and Other
Research Instruments: Problems and
Solutions Behling/Law
134. Generalized Linear Models: A United
Approach Gill
135. Interaction Effects in Logistic Regression
Jaccard
136. Missing Data Allison
137. Spline Regression Models Marsh/Cormier
138. Logit and Probit: Ordered and
Multinomial Models Borooah
139. Correlation: Parametric and
Nonparametric Measures Chen/Popovich
140. Confidence Intervals Smithson
141. Internet Data Collection Best/Krueger
142. Probability Theory Rudas
143. Multilevel Modeling Luke
144. Polytomous Item Response Theory
Models Ostini/Nering
145. An Introduction to Generalized Linear
Models Dunteman/Ho
146. Logistic Regression Models for Ordinal
Response Variables O’Connell
147. Fuzzy Set Theory: Applications in the
Social Sciences Smithson/Verkuilen
148. Multiple Time Series Models
Brandt/Williams
Quantitative Applications in the Social Sciences
A S AG E P U B L I C AT I O N S S E R I E S
9. Copyright Ó 2007 by Sage Publications, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any
means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information
storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
For information:
Sage Publications, Inc.
2455 Teller Road
Thousand Oaks, California 91320
E-mail: order@sagepub.com
Sage Publications Ltd.
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United Kingdom
Sage Publications India Pvt. Ltd.
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Post Box 4109
New Delhi 110 017 India
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Brandt, Patrick T.
Multiple time series models / Patrick T. Brandt, John T. Williams.
p. cm. — (Quantitative applications in the social sciences, vol. 148)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 1-4129-0656-3; 978-1-4129-0656-2 (pbk.)
1. Times series analysis—Mathematical models. I. Williams, John T. II. Title. III. Series:
Sage university papers series. Quantitative applications in the social sciences.
HA30.3.B73 2007
519.55—dc22 2006010016
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
05 06 07 08 09 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Acquisitions Editor: Lisa Cuevas Shaw
Associate Editor: Margo Beth Crouppen
Editorial Assistant: Karen Greene
Production Editor: Melanie Birdsall
Copy Editor: QuADS Prepress (P) Ltd.
Typesetter: CM Digitals (P) Ltd
Indexer: Ellen Slavitz
Cover Designer: Janet Foulger
10. CONTENTS
List of Figures vii
List of Tables viii
Series Editor’s Introduction ix
Preface xi
1. Introduction to Multiple Time Series Models 1
1.1 Simultaneous Equation Approach 4
1.2 ARIMA Approach 6
1.3 Error Correction or LSE Approach 7
1.4 Vector Autoregression Approach 9
1.5 Comparison and Summary 12
2. Basic Vector Autoregression Models 14
2.1 Dynamic Structural Equation Models 15
2.2 Reduced Form Vector Autoregressions 18
2.3 Relationship of a Dynamic Structural Equation
Model to a Vector Autoregression Model 20
2.4 Working With This Model 22
2.5 Specification and Analysis of VAR Models 23
2.5.1 Estimation of VAR 24
2.5.2 Lag Length Specification 24
2.5.3 Testing Serial Correlation in the Residuals 28
2.5.4 Granger Causality 32
2.5.5 Interpreting Granger Causality 34
2.5.6 Testing Other Restrictions in a VAR Model 36
2.5.7 Impulse Response and Moving
Average Response Analysis 36
2.5.8 Error Bands for Impulse Responses 41
2.5.9 Innovation Accounting or Decomposition
of Forecast Error Variance 45
2.6 Other Specification Issues 48
2.6.1 Should Differencing Be Used for Trending Data? 49
2.6.2 Data Transformations and Whitening 49
11. 2.7 Unit Roots and Error Correction in VARs 50
2.7.1 Error Correction Representation of Unit Root Data 50
2.7.2 Error Correction as a VAR Model 52
2.7.3 VAR Versus VECM (ECM) 54
2.8 Criticisms of VAR 56
3. Examples of VAR Analyses 59
3.1 Public Mood and Macropartisanship 59
3.1.1 Testing for Unit Roots 61
3.1.2 Specifying the Lag Length 62
3.1.3 Estimation of the VAR 63
3.1.4 Granger Causality Testing 65
3.1.5 Decomposition of the Forecast Error Variance 66
3.1.6 Impulse Response Analysis 68
3.2 Effective Corporate Tax Rates 71
3.2.1 Data 72
3.2.2 Testing for Unit Roots 73
3.2.3 Specifying the Lag Length 73
3.2.4 Granger Causality Testing 74
3.2.5 Impulse Response Analysis 77
3.2.6 Decomposition of the Forecast Error Variance 79
3.2.7 A Further Robustness Check 81
3.3 Conclusion 82
Appendix: Software for Multiple Time Series Models 85
Notes 89
References 92
Index 96
About the Authors 99
12. LIST OF FIGURES
3.1 Quarterly Macropartisanship and
Public Mood, 1958:4–1996:4 60
3.2 Impulse Response Analysis for Macropartisanship
and Public Mood 68
3.3 Impulse Response Analysis for Macropartisanship and
Public Mood 70
3.4 ECTR Data 72
3.5 Moving Average Responses for Four-Variable VAR
With 90% Error Bands, 1977–1994 79
3.6 Moving Average Responses for Four-Variable VAR
With 90% Error Bands, 1953–1994 83
vii
13. LIST OF TABLES
1.1 Comparison of Time Series Modeling Approaches 13
3.1 Augmented Dickey-Fuller Test Results 62
3.2 AIC and BIC Values for Macropartisanship
and Public Mood VAR 63
3.3 Likelihood Ratio Tests for Lag Length 64
3.4 VAR Estimates for the 1-Lag Model of Public Mood
and Macropartisanship 64
3.5 Granger Causality Tests for Public Mood and
Macropartisanship Based on the VAR(1) Model 65
3.6 Decomposition of the Forecast Error Variance for
the VAR(2) Model of Public Mood and Macropartisanship 67
3.7 Unit Root Tests for ECTR Example Variables 73
3.8 AIC and BIC Lag Length Diagnostics for
the ECTR VAR Model 74
3.9 Likelihood Ratio Tests for Lag Length 75
3.10 Exogeneity Tests for ECTR and Corporate Political
Action Committees, 1977–1994 76
3.11 Exogeneity Tests for ECTR, Real Investment, and
Real Income: 1953–1994, 1960–1994, 1977–1994 77
3.12 Decomposition of Error Variance for VAR 80
viii
14. SERIES EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION
Social and economic scientists have long been fascinated by and taken
advantage of time series data. A first systematic exploitation of the richness
of such data is William Playfair’s The Commercial and Political Atlas, pub-
lished 220 years ago and containing 43 time series graphs. By plotting the
national debt of England against time, for example, Playfair could easily
identify the impact of major historical events such as the accession of
Queen Anne in 1701, the Spanish War of the 1730s, and the American
(Revolutionary) War that began in 1775.
Playfair also used graphs with more than one time series. The graph
below charts the curve of imports and that of the exports against time,
clearly demonstrating that there is a relationship between the two as well as
between them and time, not to mention the main purpose of Playfair’s
defining import-export balance against and in favor of England. Charts like
this show that the two time series may not be independent processes.
The usefulness of time series graphs notwithstanding, Playfair’s presen-
tation leaves many questions unanswered. What caused imports or exports
to rise and fall? Did the amount of imports have an impact on the amount of
s
t
r
o
p
m
I
f
o
e
n
i
L
s
t
r
o
p
x
E
f
o
e
n
i
L
s
t
r
o
p
m
I
s
t
r
o
p
x
E
1700 1710 1720 1730 1740 1750 1760 1770 1780
BALANCE in
FAVOR of
ENGLAND
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100,000
110
120
130
140
150
160
170
180
190
Exports and Imports To and From Denmark and Norway From 1700 to 1780
The bottom line is divided into years, the right-hand line into £10,000 each.
BALANCE AGAINST
SOURCE: www.unc.edu/~nielsen/soci208/m2/m2033.jpg
ix
15. exports and vice versa? Perhaps most important and interesting, what
changed the regime of import-export balance from against to in favor of
England? Answering these questions requires a proper analysis of the
dynamic simultaneous processes, and Brandt and Williams’s Multiple Time
Series Models, seen by my predecessor Michael Lewis-Beck as a worth-
while project, presents methods for such analyses.
The authors discuss the assumptions and specificities of four main
approaches for time series data: autoregressive integrated moving average
models, simultaneous equation systems, error correction models, and vec-
tor autoregression (VAR) models. They then focus on the details such as
the specification and estimation of inference in VAR as well as tests for
Granger causality and assessment of dynamic causal relationships via
impulse response functions and measures of uncertainty before offering
two complete examples of the VAR model of multiple time series data.
A welcome addition to the series, this book complements the existing
volumes of Time Series Analysis (No. 9), Univariate Tests for Time Series
Models (No. 99), and Multivariate Tests for Time Series Models (No. 100).
—Tim Futing Liao
Series Editor
x
16. PREFACE
About This Book
This project is several years in the making. John first proposed writing
this book to me in 1999 when he was teaching time series analysis and I
was his teaching assistant at the Inter-University Consortium for Political
and Social Research (ICPSR) Summer Program at the University of Michi-
gan. The project sat idle until John revived the idea in 2002—although we
had discussed it in the interim.
Regrettably, John passed away in September 2004 while we were work-
ing on this book. Prior to this tragic event, we had actually completed a fair
amount of the outline and plan for the book. John’s influence pervades this
book—from the way the ideas are presented to the general outlook of how
to ‘‘do’’ multiple time series analysis. I have tried to stay as close as possi-
ble to the original conception of the project that John and I devised.
I have been aided by a series of notes that were found in John’s files. In
1994 and 1995, John did a series of lectures on vector autoregression and
multiple time series models, at, among other places, the ICPSR Summer
Program. Ken Bickers, Shaun Bowler, Mike McGinnis, and Matthew
Potoski thankfully were able to recover these notes from his files. Regretta-
bly, though, they had never been updated, so they only reflected the ‘‘state
of the art’’ circa 1994. In addition, several important topics were missing
from these notes, including a discussion of error correction models (Sec-
tions 1.3 and 2.7), new results on Granger causality testing (Section 2.5.4),
and probability assessment methods for impulse responses (Section 2.5.8).
In addition, the notes included only bullet points for the discussion in Chap-
ter 1, not the full discussion included herein.
John and I have incurred a number of debts in the course of writing this
book. We would first like to thank our friend, coauthor, and collaborator
John Freeman for his steadfast role as a supporter and commentator for both
of us over the years. We owe a debt of gratitude to our original Sage series
editor, Michael Lewis-Beck, who worked with us to define the project and
get it accepted by Sage. The current series editor, Tim Liao, has been espe-
cially helpful as I have worked to complete the book. I would like to thank
the University of North Texas and its Political Science Department, which
were my home when I started this project. Ken Bickers, Mike McGinnis,
and Matthew Potoski also deserve special thanks for sorting out John’s files
and finding his notes on these topics. Without these files, completing the
manuscript would have taken much longer. I am also indebted to the many
xi
17. students to whom John taught this material over the years at Indiana and the
ICPSR Summer Program at the University of Michigan. I wish I could list
all of you here, because I know how much John meant to you and you to
him. Thanks are also due to Hank Heitoweit for inviting John to teach some
of this material at the ICPSR Summer Program over the years and inviting
me to be a teaching assistant for John’s time series course in 1999. I also
thank Harold Clarke, who provided a wonderful two-day forum where I
could try out this material in front of a great audience of his (and my now
current) colleagues and students in the fall of 2004. Mike Colaresi (one of
John’s former students and a friend) discussed some of John’s general
approach to time series with me, reminded me of some key ideas, and pro-
vided a critical reading of the manuscript. Finally, Justin Appleby, Mehmet
Gurses, Thomas Sattler, Patrick Sellers, and Chu-Ping Vijverberg provided
helpful feedback on the nearly completed manuscript.
Background Material and Plan of the Book
This book covers advanced topics in the analysis of multiple time series.
By multiple time series, we mean time-ordered data where there is more
than one (endogenous) variable of interest. For example, if one were to
model the determinants of the percentage of Americans who claim to be
Democrats (known as aggregate partisanship), an important explanatory
factor might be the general public support for the policies of the U.S. gov-
ernment. But support for these policies will be colored by the same aggre-
gate partisanship of the general public. Some of the relationships among
these variables can be described by recent history (past values), whereas
other aspects depend on contemporaneously related factors. Thus, one
needs to consider models that allow for endogenous, dynamic relationships
between these two variables. This book is about describing and making
informed inferences about such endogenous, dynamic relationships.
This book assumes a certain basic facility with several topics. First, we
assume a basic knowledge of matrix algebra and the representation of sys-
tems of equations using matrices. Second, we assume a working (and likely
good) understanding of general linear regression models. Finally, we
assume the reader is familiar with or can consult a basic text on univariate
time series analysis such as Harvey (1990), Mills (1991), or Ostrom (1990).
The basic plan of this book is as follows. We first address the philosophi-
cal and methodological choices in the specification of multiple time series
models. This begins with a treatment of (dynamic) simultaneous equations
and univariate time series models. Our goal in this discussion is to illumi-
nate the trade-offs implicit in different specification and identification
assumptions. We then discuss how different time series models and
xii
19. “To this Gen. Cass is reported to have replied as follows, to
wit:
“Mr. Cass said, that the course of the Senator from New
Jersey was most extraordinary. Last year he (Mr. Cass) should
have voted for the proposition had it come up. But
circumstances had altogether changed. The honorable Senator
then read several passages from the remarks as given above,
which he had committed to writing, in order to refute such a
charge as that of the Senator from New Jersey.’
“In the ‘remarks above committed to writing,’ is one
numbered 4, as follows, to wit:
“‘4th. Legislation would now be wholly imperative, because
no territory hereafter to be acquired can be governed without
an act of Congress providing for its government. And such an
act, on its passage, would open the whole subject, and leave
the Congress, called on to pass it, free to exercise its own
discretion, entirely uncontrolled by any declaration found in the
statute book.’
“In Niles’ Register, vol. 73, page 293, there is a letter of
General Cass to A. O. P. Nicholson, of Nashville, Tennessee
dated December 24, 1847, from which the following are correct
extracts:
“‘The Wilmot Proviso has been before the country some
time. It has been repeatedly discussed in Congress, and by the
public press. I am strongly impressed with the opinion that a
great change has been going on in the public mind upon this
subject
—
in my own as well as others; and that doubts are
resolving themselves into convictions, that the principle it
involves should be kept out of the National Legislature, and left
to the people of the Confederacy in their respective local
Governments.
“‘Briefly, then, I am opposed to the exercise of any
jurisdiction by Congress over this matter; and I am in favor of
20. leaving the people of any territory which may be hereafter
acquired, the right to regulate it themselves, under the general
principles of the Constitution. Because,
“‘1. I do not see in the Constitution any grant of the
requisite power to Congress; and I am not disposed to extend a
doubtful precedent beyond its necessity
—
the establishment of
territorial governments when needed
—
leaving to the inhabitants
all the rights compatible with the relations they bear to the
Confederation.’
“These extracts show that, in 1846, General Cass was for
the Proviso at once; that, in March, 1847, he was still for it, but
not just then; and that in December, 1847, he was against it
altogether. This is a true index to the whole man. When the
question was raised in 1846, he was in a blustering hurry to
take ground for it. He sought to be in advance, and to avoid the
uninteresting position of a mere follower, but soon he began to
see glimpses of the great Democratic ox-gad waving in his face,
and to hear indistinctly, a voice saying, ‘back,’ ‘back, sir,’ ‘back a
little.’ He shakes his head and bats his eyes, and blunders back
to his position of March, 1847; but still the gad waves, and the
voice grows more distinct, and sharper still
—
‘back, sir!’ ‘back, I
say!’ ‘further back!’ and back he goes to the position of
December, 1847; at which the gad is still, and the voice
soothingly says
—
‘So!’ ‘Stand still at that.’
“Have no fears, gentlemen, of your candidate; he exactly
suits you, and we congratulate you upon it. However much you
may be distressed about our candidate, you have all cause to be
contented and happy with your own. If elected, he may not
maintain all, or even any of his positions previously taken; but
he will be sure to do whatever the party exigency, for the time
being, may require; and that is precisely what you want. He and
Van Buren are the same ‘manner of men;’ and like Van Buren,
he will never desert you till you first desert him.”
21. After referring at some length to extra “charges” of General Cass
upon the Treasury, Mr. Lincoln continued:
—
“But I have introduced General Cass’s accounts here, chiefly
to show the wonderful physical capacities of the man. They
show that he not only did the labor of several men at the same
time, but that he often did it, at several places many hundred
miles apart, at the same time. And at eating, too, his capacities
are shown to be quite as wonderful. From October, 1821, to
May, 1822, he ate ten rations a day in Michigan, ten rations a
day here, in Washington, and nearly five dollar’s worth a day
besides, partly on the road between the two places. And then
there is an important discovery in his example
—
the art of being
paid for what one eats, instead of having to pay for it. Hereafter,
if any nice young man shall owe a bill which he can not pay in
any other way, he can just board it out. Mr. Speaker, we have all
heard of the animal standing in doubt between two stacks of
hay, and starving to death; the like of that would never happen
to General Cass. Place the stacks a thousand miles apart, he
would stand stock-still, midway between them, and eat them
both at once; and the green grass along the line would be apt
to suffer some too, at the same time. By all means make him
President, gentlemen. He will feed you bounteously
—
if if
—
there
is any left after he shall have helped himself.
“But as General Taylor, is, par excellence, the hero of the
Mexican war; and, as you Democrats say we Whigs have always
opposed the war, you think it must be very awkward and
embarrassing for us to go for General Taylor. The declaration
that we have always opposed the war, is true or false
accordingly as one may understand the term ‘opposing the war.’
If to say ‘the war was unnecessarily and unconstitutionally
commenced by the President,’ be opposing the war, then the
Whigs have very generally opposed it. Whenever they have
spoken at all, they have said this; and they have said it on what
22. has appeared good reason to them: The marching an army into
the midst of a peaceful Mexican settlement, frightening the
inhabitants away, leaving their growing crops and other property
to destruction, to you may appear a perfectly amiable, peaceful,
unprovoking procedure; but it does not appear so to us. So to
call such an act, to us appears no other than a naked, impudent
absurdity, and we speak of it accordingly. But if, when the war
had begun, and had become the cause of the country, the
giving of our money and our blood, in common with yours, was
support of the war, then it is not true that we have always
opposed the war. With few individual exceptions, you have
constantly had our votes here for all the necessary supplies.
And, more than this, you have had the services, the blood, and
the lives of our political brethren in every trial, and on every
field. The beardless boy and the mature man
—
the humble and
the distinguished, you have had them. Through suffering and
death, by disease and in battle, they have endured, and fought,
and fallen with you. Clay and Webster each gave a son, never to
be returned. From the State of my own residence, besides other
worthy but less known Whig names, we sent Marshall, Morrison,
Baker, and Hardin; they all fought, and one fell, and in the fall of
that one, we lost our best Whig man. Nor were the Whigs few
in number, or laggard in the day of danger. In that fearful,
bloody, breathless struggle at Buena Vista, where each man’s
hard task was to beat back five foes, or die himself, of the five
high officers who perished, four were Whigs.
“In speaking of this, I mean no odious comparison between
the lion-hearted Whigs and Democrats who fought there. On
other occasions, and among the lower officers and privates on
that occasion, I doubt not the proportion was different. I wish to
do justice to all. I think of all those brave men as Americans, in
whose proud fame, as an American, I too have a share. Many of
them, Whigs and Democrats, are my constituents and personal
friends; and I thank them
—
more than thank them
—
one and all,
23. for the high, imperishable honor they have conferred on our
common State.
“But the distinction between the cause of the President in
beginning the war, and the cause of the country after it was
begun, is a distinction which you can not perceive. To you, the
President and the country seem to be all one. You are interested
to see no distinction between them; and I venture to suggest
that possibly your interest blinds you a little. We see the
distinction, as we think, clearly enough; and our friends, who
have fought in the war, have no difficulty in seeing it also. What
those who have fallen would say, were they alive and here, of
course we can never know; but with those who have returned
there is no difficulty. Colonel Haskell and Major Gaines,
members here, both fought in the war; and one of them
underwent extraordinary perils and hardships; still they, like all
other Whigs here, vote on the record that the war was
unnecessarily and unconstitutionally commenced by the
President. And even General Taylor himself, the noblest Roman
of them all, has declared that, as a citizen, and particularly as a
soldier, it is sufficient for him to know that his country is at war
with a foreign nation, to do all in his power to bring it to a
speedy and honorable termination, by the most vigorous and
energetic operations, without inquiring about its justice, or any
thing else connected with it.
“Mr. Speaker, let our Democratic friends be comforted with
the assurance that we are content with our position, content
with our company, and content with our candidate; and that
although they, in their generous sympathy, think we ought to be
miserable, we really are not, and that they may dismiss the
great anxiety they have on our account.”
* * * * *
24. SPEECH IN REPLY TO MR. DOUGLAS, ON
KANSAS, THE DRED SCOTT DECISION, AND
THE UTAH QUESTION.
(Delivered at Springfield, Ill., June 26, 1857.)
“Fellow-Citizens:
—
I am here, to-night, partly by the
invitation of some of you, and partly by my own inclination. Two
weeks ago Judge Douglas spoke here, on the several subjects of
Kansas, the Dred Scott decision, and Utah. I listened to the
speech at the time, and have read the report of it since. It was
intended to controvert opinions which I think just, and to assail
(politically, not personally) those men who, in common with me,
entertain those opinions. For this reason I wished then, and still
wish to make some answer to it which I now take the
opportunity of doing.
“I begin with Utah. If it prove to be true, as is probable,
that the people of Utah are in open rebellion against the United
States, then Judge Douglas is in favor of repealing their
territorial organization, and attaching them to the adjoining
States for judicial purposes. I say, too, if they are in rebellion,
they ought to be somehow coerced to obedience; and I am not
now prepared to admit or deny, that the Judge’s mode of
coercing them is not as good as any. The Republicans can fall in
with it, without taking back any thing they have ever said. To be
sure, it would be a considerable backing down by Judge
Douglas, from his much vaunted doctrine of self-government for
the territories; but this is only additional proof of what was very
plain from the beginning, that that doctrine was a mere
deceitful pretence for the benefit of slavery. Those who could
not see that much in the Nebraska act itself, which forced
Governors, and Secretaries, and Judges on the people of the
25. territories, without their choice or consent, could not be made
to see, though one should rise from the dead.
“But in all this, it is very plain the Judge evades the only
question the Republicans have ever pressed upon the
Democracy in regard to Utah. That question the Judge well
knew to be this: ‘If the people of Utah shall peacefully form a
State Constitution tolerating polygamy, will the Democracy
admit them into the Union?’ There is nothing in the United
States Constitution or law against polygamy; and why is it not a
part of the Judge’s ‘sacred right of self-government’ for the
people to have it, or rather to keep it, if they choose? These
questions, so far as I know, the Judge never answers. It might
involve the Democracy to answer them either way and they go
unanswered.
“As to Kansas. The substance of the Judge’s speech on
Kansas, is an effort to put the Free State men in the wrong for
not voting at the election of delegates to the Constitutional
Convention. He says: ‘There is every reason to hope and believe
that the law will be fairly interpreted and impartially executed,
so as to insure to every bona fide inhabitant the free and quiet
exercise of the elective franchise.’
“It appears extraordinary that Judge Douglas should make
such a statement. He knows that, by the law, no one can vote
who has not been registered; and he knows that the Free State
men place their refusal to vote on the ground that but few of
them have been registered. It is possible this is not true, but
Judge Douglas knows it is asserted to be true in letters,
newspapers, and public speeches, and borne by every mail, and
blown by every breeze to the eyes and ears of the world. He
knows it is boldly declared, that the people of many whole
counties, and many whole neighborhoods in others, are left
unregistered; yet he does not venture to contradict the
declaration, or to point out how they can vote without being
registered; but he just slips along, not seeming to know there is
26. any such question of fact, and complacently declares, ‘There is
every reason to hope and believe that the law will be fairly and
impartially executed, so as to insure to every bona fide
inhabitant the free and quiet exercise of the elective franchise.’
“I readily agree that if all had a chance to vote, they ought
to have voted. If, on the contrary, as they allege, and Judge
Douglas ventures not particularly to contradict, few only of the
Free State men had a chance to vote, they were perfectly right
in staying from the polls in a body.
“By the way, since the Judge spoke, the Kansas election has
come off. The Judge expressed his confidence that all the
Democrats in Kansas would do their duty
—
including ‘Free State
Democrats’ of course. The returns received here, as yet, are
very incomplete; but, so far as they go, they indicate that only
about one-sixth of the registered voters, have really voted; and
this, too, when not more, perhaps, than one-half of the rightful
voters have been registered, thus showing the thing to have
been altogether the most exquisite farce ever enacted. I am
watching with considerable interest, to ascertain what figure
‘the Free State Democrats’ cut in the concern. Of course they
voted
—
all Democrats do their duty
—
and of course they did not
vote for Slave State candidates. We soon shall know how many
delegates they elected, how many candidates they have
pledged to a free State, and how many votes were cast for
them.
“Allow me to barely whisper my suspicion, that there were
no such things in Kansas as ‘Free State Democrats’
—
that they
were altogether mythical, good only to figure in newspapers and
speeches in the free States. If there should prove to be one
real, living free State Democrat in Kansas, I suggest that it
might be well to catch him, and stuff and preserve his skin, as
an interesting specimen of that soon to be extinct variety of the
genus Democrat.
27. “And now, as to the Dred Scott decision. That decision
declares two propositions
—
first, that a negro cannot sue in the
United States Courts; and secondly, that Congress can not
prohibit slavery in the Territories. It was made by a divided
court
—
dividing differently on the different points. Judge Douglas
does not discuss the merits of the decision, and in that respect,
I shall follow his example, believing I could no more improve
upon McLean and Curtis, than he could on Taney.
“He denounces all who question the correctness of that
decision, as offering violent resistance to it. But who resists it?
Who has, in spite of the decision, declared Dred Scott free, and
resisted the authority of his master over him?
“Judicial decisions have two uses
—
first, to absolutely
determine the case decided; and secondly to indicate to the
public how other similar cases will be decided when they arise.
For the latter use, they are called ‘precedents’ and ‘authorities.’
“We believe as much as Judge Douglas (perhaps more) in
obedience to, and respect for the judicial department of
Government. We think its decisions on Constitutional questions,
when fully settled, should control, not only the particular cases
decided, but the general policy of the country subject to be
disturbed only by amendments of the Constitution, as provided
in that instrument itself. More than this would be revolution. But
we think the Dred Scott decision is erroneous. We know the
court that made it has often overruled its own decisions, and we
shall do what we can to have it overrule this. We offer no
resistance to it.
“Judicial decisions are of greater or less authority as
precedents, according to circumstances. That this should be so,
accords both with common sense, and the customary
understanding of the legal profession.
“If this important decision had been made by the
unanimous concurrence of the judges, and without any
28. apparent partisan bias, and in accordance with legal public
expectation, and with the steady practice of the departments,
throughout our history, and had been in no part based on
assumed historical facts which are not really true; or, if wanting
in some of these, it had been before the court more than once,
and had there been affirmed and re-affirmed through a course
of years, it then might be, perhaps would be, factious, nay, even
revolutionary, not to acquiesce in it as a precedent.
“But when, as is true, we find it wanting in all these claims
to the public confidence, it is not resistance, it is not factious, it
is not even disrespectful, to treat it as not having yet quite
established a settled doctrine for the country. But Judge
Douglas considers this view awful. Hear him:
“‘The courts are the tribunals prescribed by the Constitution
and created by the authority of the people to determine,
expound, and enforce the law. Hence, whoever resists the final
decision of the highest judicial tribunal, aims a deadly blow to
our whole Republican system of government
—
a blow which, if
successful, would place all our rights and liberties at the mercy
of passion, anarchy and violence. I repeat, therefore, that if
resistance to the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United
States, in a matter like the points decided in the Dred Scott
case, clearly within their jurisdiction as defined by the
Constitution, shall be forced upon the country as a political
issue, it will become a distinct and naked issue between the
friends and enemies of the Constitution
—
the friends and
enemies of the supremacy of the laws.’
“Why, this same Supreme Court once decided a national
bank to be Constitutional; but General Jackson, as President of
the United States, disregarded the decision, and vetoed a bill for
a re-charter, partly on Constitutional ground, declaring that each
public functionary must support the Constitution, ‘as he
understands it.’ But hear the General’s own words. Here they
are, taken from his veto message:
29. “‘It is maintained by the advocates of the bank, that its
Constitutionality, in all its features, ought to be considered as
settled by precedent, and by the decision of the Supreme Court.
To this conclusion I can not assent. Mere precedent is a
dangerous source of authority, and should not be regarded as
deciding questions of Constitutional power, except where the
acquiescence of the people and the States can be considered as
well settled. So far from this being the case on this subject, an
argument against the bank might be based on precedent. One
Congress, in 1791, decided in favor of a bank; another, in 1811,
decided against it. One Congress, in 1815, decided against a
bank; another, in 1816, decided in its favor. Prior to the present
Congress, therefore, the precedents drawn from that source
were equal. If we resort to the States, the expression of
legislative, judicial, and executive opinions against the bank
have been probably to those in its favor as four to one. There is
nothing in precedent, therefore, which, if its authority were
admitted, ought to weigh in favor of the act before me.’
“I drop the quotations merely to remark, that all there ever
was, in the way of precedent up to the Dred Scott decision, on
the points therein decided, had been against that decision. But
hear General Jackson further:
“‘If the opinion of the Supreme Court covered the whole
ground of this act, it ought not to control the co-ordinate
authorities of this Government. The Congress, the Executive and
the Court, must each for itself be guided by its own opinion of
the Constitution. Each public officer, who takes an oath to
support the Constitution, swears that he will support it as he
understands it, and not as it is understood by others.’
“Again and again have I heard Judge Douglas denounce
that bank decision, and applaud General Jackson for
disregarding it. It would be interesting for him to look over his
recent speech, and see how exactly his fierce philippics against
us for resisting Supreme Court decisions, fall upon his own
30. head. It will call to mind a long and fierce political war in this
country, upon an issue which, in his own language, and, of
course, in his own changeless estimation, was ‘a distinct issue
between the friends and the enemies of the Constitution,’ and in
which war he fought in the ranks of the enemies of the
Constitution.
“I have said, in substance, that the Dred Scott decision was,
in part, based on assumed historical facts which were not really
true, and I ought not to leave the subject without giving some
reasons for saying this; I, therefore, give an instance or two,
which I think fully sustain me. Chief Justice Taney, in delivering
the opinion of the majority of the Court, insists at great length,
that negroes were no part of the people who made, or for
whom was made, the Declaration of Independence, or the
Constitution of the United States.
“On the contrary, Judge Curtis, in his dissenting opinion,
shows that in five of the then thirteen States, to wit: New
Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, and North
Carolina, free negroes were voters, and, in proportion to their
numbers, had the same part in making the Constitution that the
white people had. He shows this with so much particularity as to
leave no doubt of its truth; and as a sort of conclusion on that
point, holds the following language:
“‘The constitution was ordained and established by the
people of the United States, through the action, in each State,
of those persons who were qualified by its laws to act thereon
in behalf of themselves and all other citizens of the State. In
some of the States, as we have seen, colored persons were
among those qualified by law to act on the subject. These
colored persons were not only included in the body of ‘the
people of the United States,’ by whom the Constitution was
ordained and established; but in at least five of the States they
had the power to act, and, doubtless, did act, by their suffrages,
upon the question of its adoption.’
31. “Again, Chief Justice Taney says: ‘It is difficult, at this day to
realize the state of public opinion in relation to that unfortunate
race, which prevailed in the civilized and enlightened portions of
the world at the time of the Declaration of Independence, and
when the Constitution of the United States was framed and
adopted.’ And again, after quoting from the Declaration, he
says: ‘The general words above quoted would seem to include
the whole human family, and if they were used in a similar
instrument at this day, would be so understood.’
“In these the Chief Justice does not directly assert, but
plainly assumes, as a fact, that the public estimate of the black
man is more favorable now than it was in the days of the
Revolution. This assumption is a mistake. In some trifling
particulars, the condition of that race has been ameliorated; but
as a whole, in this country, the change between then and now is
decidedly the other way; and their ultimate destiny has never
appeared so hopeless as in the last three or four years. In two
of the five States
—
New Jersey and North Carolina
—
that then
gave the free negro the right of voting, the right has since been
taken away; and in the third
—
New York
—
it has been greatly
abridged; while it has not been extended, so far as I know, to a
single additional State, though the number of the States has
more than doubled. In those days, as I understand, masters
could, at their own pleasure, emancipate their slaves; but since
then such legal restraints have been made upon emancipation
as to amount almost to prohibition. In those days ‘Legislatures
held the unquestioned power to abolish slavery in their
respective States; but now it is becoming quite fashionable for
State Constitutions to withhold that power from the
Legislatures. In those days by common consent, the spread of
the black man’s bondage to the new countries was prohibited;
but now, Congress decides that it will not continue the
prohibition
—
and the Supreme Court decides that it could not if
it would. In those days our Declaration of Independence was
held sacred by all, and thought to include all; but now, to aid in
32. making the bondage of the negro universal and eternal, it is
assailed, sneered at, construed, hawked at, and torn, till, if its
framers could rise from their graves, they could not at all
recognize it. All the powers of earth seem rapidly combining
against him. Mammon is after him; ambition follows, philosophy
follows, and the theology of the day is fast joining the cry. They
have him in his prison-house; they have searched his person,
and left no prying instrument with him. One after another they
have closed the heavy iron doors upon him; and now they have
him, as it were, bolted in with a lock of a hundred keys, which
can never be unlocked without the concurrence of every key;
the keys in the hands of a hundred different men, and they
scattered to a hundred different and distant places; and they
stand musing as to what invention, in all the dominions of mind
and matter, can be produced to make the impossibility of his
escape more complete than it is.
“It is grossly incorrect to say or assume, that the public
estimate of the negro is more favorable now than it was at the
origin of the Government.
“Three years and a half ago, Judge Douglas brought forward
his famous Nebraska bill. The country was at once in a blaze.
He scorned all opposition, and carried it through Congress.
Since then he has seen himself superseded in a Presidential
nomination, by one indorsing the general doctrine of his
measure, but at the same time standing clear of the odium of
its untimely agitation, and its gross breach of national faith; and
he has seen that successful rival Constitutionally elected, not by
the strength of friends, but by the division of his adversaries,
being in a popular minority of nearly four hundred thousand
votes. He has seen his chief aids in his own State, Shields and
Richardson, politely speaking, successively tried, convicted, and
executed, for an offence not their own, but his. And now he
sees his own case, standing next on the docket for trial.
33. “There is a natural disgust, in the minds of nearly all white
people, to the idea of an indiscriminate amalgamation of the
white and black races; and Judge Douglas evidently is basing
his chief hope upon the chances of his being able to appropriate
the benefit of this disgust to himself. If he can, by much
drumming and repeating, fasten the odium of that idea upon his
adversaries, he thinks he can struggle through the storm. He,
therefore, clings to this hope, as a drowning man to the last
plank. He makes an occasion for lugging it in from the
opposition to the Dred Scott decision. He finds the Republicans
insisting that the Declaration of Independence includes ALL men,
black as well as white, and forthwith he boldly denies that it
includes negroes at all, and proceeds to argue gravely that all
who contend it does do so only because they want to vote, eat
and sleep, and marry with negroes. He will have it that they can
not be consistent else. Now, I protest against the counterfeit
logic which concludes that because I do not want a black
woman for a slave I must necessarily want her for a wife. I
need not have her for either. I can just leave her alone. In some
respects she certainly is not my equal; but in her natural right to
eat the bread she earns with her own hands, without asking
leave of any one else, she is my equal, and the equal of all
others.
“Chief Justice Taney, in his opinion in the Dred Scott case,
admits that the language of the Declaration is broad enough to
include the whole human family; but he and Judge Douglas
argue that the authors of that instrument did not intend to
include negroes, by the fact that they did not at once actually
place them on an equality with the whites. Now, this grave
argument comes to just nothing at all, by the other fact, that
they did not at once, or ever afterward, actually place all white
people on an equality with one another. And this is the staple
argument of both the Chief Justice and the Senator for doing
this obvious violence to the plain, unmistakable language of the
Declaration.
34. “I think the authors of that notable instrument intended to
include all men, but they did not intend to declare all men equal
in all respects. They did not mean to say all were equal in color,
size, intellect, moral developments, or social capacity. They
defined with tolerable distinctness in what respects they did
consider all men created equal
—
equal with ‘certain inalienable
rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness.’ This they said, and this meant. They did not mean
to assert the obvious untruth, that all were then actually
enjoying that equality, nor yet that they were about to confer it
immediately upon them. In fact, they had no power to confer
such a boon. They meant simply to declare the right, so that the
enforcement of it might follow as fast as circumstances should
permit.”
* * * * *
SPEECH IN REPLY TO SENATOR DOUGLAS.
(At Chicago, on the evening of July 10, 1858.)
“My Fellow-Citizens: On yesterday evening, upon the
occasion of the reception given to Senator Douglas, I was
furnished with a seat very convenient for hearing him, and was
otherwise very courteously treated by him and his friends, for
which I thank him and them. During the course of his remarks
my name was mentioned in such a way as, I suppose, renders it
at least not improper that I should make some sort of reply to
him. I shall not attempt to follow him in the precise order in
which he addressed the assembled multitude upon that
occasion, though I shall perhaps do so in the main.
35. “There was one question to which he asked the attention of
the crowd, which I deem of somewhat less importance
—
at least
of propriety for me to dwell upon
—
than the others, which he
brought in near the close of his speech, and which I think it
would not be entirely proper for me to omit attending to, and
yet if I were not to give some attention to it now, I should
probably forget it altogether. While I am upon this subject, allow
me to say that I do not intend to indulge in that inconvenient
mode sometimes adopted in public speaking, of reading from
documents; but I shall depart from that rule so far as to read a
little scrap from his speech, which notices this first topic of
which I shall speak
—
that is, provided I can find it in the paper.
[Examines the morning’s paper.]
“‘I have made up my mind to appeal to the people against
the combination that has been made against me! the
Republican leaders having formed an alliance, an unholy and
unnatural alliance, with a portion of unscrupulous federal office-
holders. I intend to fight that allied army wherever I meet them.
I know they deny the alliance, but yet these men who are trying
to divide the Democratic party for the purpose of electing a
Republican Senator in my place, are just as much the agents
and tools of the supporters of Mr. Lincoln. Hence I shall deal
with this allied army just as the Russians dealt with the allies at
Sebastopol
—
that is, the Russians did not stop to inquire, when
they fired a broadside, whether it hit an Englishman, a
Frenchman, or a Turk. Nor will I stop to inquire, nor shall I
hesitate, whether my blows shall hit these Republican leaders or
their allies, who are holding the federal offices and yet acting in
concert with them.’
“Well, now, gentlemen, is not that very alarming? Just to
think of it! right at the outset of his canvass, I, a poor, kind,
amiable, intelligent gentleman, I am to be slain in this way.
Why, my friends, the Judge, is not only, as it turns out, not a
dead lion, nor even a living one
—
he is the rugged Russian Bear!
36. “But if they will have it
—
for he says that we deny it
—
that
there is any such alliance as he says there is
—
and I don’t
propose hanging very much upon this question of veracity
—
but
if he will have it that there is such an alliance
—
that the
Administration men and we are allied, and we stand in the
attitude of English, French and Turk, he occupying the position
of the Russian, in that case, I beg that he will indulge us while
we barely suggest to him that these allies took Sebastopol.
“Gentlemen, only a few more words as to this alliance. For
my part, I have to say, that whether there be such an alliance,
depends, so far as I know, upon what may be a right definition
of the term alliance. If for the Republican party to see the other
great party to which they are opposed divided among
themselves, and not try to stop the division and rather be glad
of it
—
if that is an alliance, I confess I am in; but if it is meant to
be said that the Republicans had formed an alliance going
beyond that, by which there is contribution of money or sacrifice
of principle on the one side or the other so far as the Republican
party is concerned, if there be any such thing, I protest that I
neither know any thing of it, nor do I believe it. I will, however,
say
—
as I think this branch of the argument is lugged in
—
I
would, before I leave it, state, for the benefit of those
concerned, that one of those same Buchanan men did once tell
me of an argument that he made for his opposition to Judge
Douglas. He said that a friend of our Senator Douglas had been
talking to him, and had among other things said to him: ‘Why,
you don’t want to beat Douglas?’ ‘Yes,’ said he, ‘I do want to
beat him, and I will tell you why. I believe his original Nebraska
Bill was right in the abstract, but it was wrong in the time that it
was brought forward. It was wrong in the application to a
Territory in regard to which the question had been settled; it
was brought forward in a time when nobody asked him; it was
tendered to the South when the South had not asked for it, but
when they could not well refuse it; and for this same reason he
forced that question upon our party; it has sunk the best men
37. all over the nation, everywhere; and now when our President,
struggling with the difficulties of this man’s getting up, has
reached the very hardest point to turn in the case, his deserts
him, and I am for putting him where he will trouble us no more.’
“Now, gentlemen, that is not my argument
—
that is not my
argument at all. I have only been stating to you the argument
of a Buchanan man. You will judge if there is any force in it.
“Popular sovereignty! everlasting popular sovereignty! Let us
for a moment inquire into this vast matter of popular
sovereignty. What is popular sovereignty? We recollect that in
an early period in the history of this struggle, there was another
name for the same thing
—
Squatter Sovereignty. It was not
exactly Popular Sovereignty, but Squatter Sovereignty. What do
those terms mean? What do those terms mean when used now?
And vast credit is taken by our friend, the Judge, in regard to
his support of it, when he declares the last years of his life have
been, and all the future years of his life shall be, devoted to this
matter of popular sovereignty. What is it? Why it is the
sovereignty of the people! What was Squatter Sovereignty? I
suppose if it had any significance at all it was the right of the
people to govern themselves, to be sovereign in their own
affairs while they were squatted down in a country not their
own, while they had squatted on a Territory that did not belong
to them, in the sense that a State belongs to the people who
inhabit it
—
when it belonged to the nation
—
such right to govern
themselves was called ‘Squatter Sovereignty.’
“Now I wish you to mark. What has become of that
Squatter Sovereignty? What has become of it? Can you get any
body to tell you now that the people of a Territory have any
authority to govern themselves, in regard to this mooted
question of slavery, before they form a State Constitution? No
such thing at all, although there is a general running fire, and
although there has been a hurrah made in every speech on that
side, assuming that policy had given the people of a Territory
38. the right to govern themselves upon this question; yet the point
is dodged. To-day it has been decided
—
no more than a year
ago it was decided by the Supreme Court of the United States,
as is insisted upon to-day, that the people of a Territory have no
right to exclude slavery from a Territory, that if any one man
chooses to take slaves into a Territory, all of the rest of the
people have no right to keep them out. This being so, and this
decision being made one of the points that the Judge approved,
and one in the approval of which he says he means to keep me
down
—
put me down I should not say, for I have never been up.
He says he is in favor of it, and sticks to it, and expects to win
his battle on that decision, which says that there is no such
thing as Squatter Sovereignty; but that any one man may take
slaves into a Territory, and all the other men in the Territory
may be opposed to it, and yet by reason of the Constitution
they can not prohibit it. When that is so, how much is left of this
vast matter of Squatter Sovereignty I should like to know? [A
voice
—
‘It is all gone.’]
“When we get back, we get to the point of the right of the
people to make a Constitution. Kansas was settled, for example,
in 1854. It was a Territory yet, without having formed a
Constitution, in a very regular way, for three years. All this time
negro slavery could be taken in by any few individuals, and by
that decision of the Supreme Court, which the Judge approves,
all the rest of the people can not keep it out; but when they
come to make a Constitution they may say they will not have
slavery. But it is there; they are obliged to tolerate it some way,
and all experience shows it will be so
—
for they will not take
negro slaves and absolutely deprive the owners of them. All
experience shows this to be so. All that space of time that runs
from the beginning of the settlement of the Territory until there
is sufficiency of people to make a State Constitution
—
all that
portion of time popular sovereignty is given up. The seal is
absolutely put down upon it by the Court decision, and Judge
Douglas puts his on the top of that, yet he is appealing to the
39. people to give him vast credit for his devotion to popular
sovereignty.
“Again, when we get to the question of the right of the
people to form a State Constitution as they please, to form it
with slavery or without slavery
—
if that is any thing new, I
confess I don’t know it. Has there ever been a time when any
body said that any other than the people of a Territory itself
should form a Constitution? What is now in it that Judge
Douglas should have fought several years of his life, and pledge
himself to fight all the remaining years of his life for? Can Judge
Douglas find any body on earth that said that any body else
should form a Constitution for a people? [A voice, ‘Yes.’] Well, I
should like you to name him; I should like to know who he was.
[Same voice, ‘John Calhoun.’]
“No, Sir, I never heard of even John Calhoun saying such a
thing. He insisted on the same principle as Judge Douglas; but
his mode of applying it in fact, was wrong. It is enough for my
purpose to ask this crowd, when ever a Republican said any
thing against it? They never said any thing against it, but they
have constantly spoken for it; and whosoever will undertake to
examine the platform, and the speeches of responsible men of
the party, and of irresponsible men, too, if you please, will be
unable to find one word from anybody in the Republican ranks,
opposed to that Popular Sovereignty which Judge Douglas
thinks that he has invented. I suppose that Judge Douglas will
claim in a little while, that he is the inventor of the idea that the
people should govern themselves; that nobody ever thought of
such a thing until he brought it forward. We do remember, that
in that old Declaration of Independence, it is said that ‘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; that to secure these rights, governments are
instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the
consent of the governed.’ There is the origin of the Popular
40. Sovereignty. Who, then, shall come in at this day and claim that
he invented it”?
After referring, in appropriate terms, to the credit claimed by
Douglas for defeating the Lecompton policy, Mr. Lincoln proceeds:
“I defy you to show a printed resolution passed in a
Democratic meeting
—
I take it upon myself to defy any man to
show a printed resolution of a Democratic meeting, large or
small, in favor of Judge Trumbull, or any of the five to one
Republican who beat the bill. Every thing must be for the
Democrats! They did every thing, and the five to the one that
really did the thing, they snub over, and they do not seem to
remember that they have an existence upon the face of the
earth.
“Gentlemen, I fear that I shall become tedious. I leave this
branch of the subject to take hold of another. I take up that part
of Judge Douglas’s speech in which he respectfully attended to
me.
“Judge Douglas made two points upon my recent speech at
Springfield. He says they are to be the issues of this campaign.
The first one of these points he bases upon the language in a
speech which I delivered at Springfield, which I believe I can
quote correctly from memory. I said there that ‘we are now far
on in the fifth year since a policy was instituted for the avowed
object, and with the confident promise of putting an end to
slavery agitation; under the operation of that policy, that
agitation had not only not ceased, but had constantly
augmented. I believe it will not cease until a crisis shall have
been reached and passed. A house divided against itself can not
stand. I believe this Government can not endure permanently
half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be
dissolved’
—
I am quoting from my speech
—
‘I do not expect the
41. house to fall, but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will
come all one thing or the other. Either the opponents of slavery
will arrest the spread of it, and place it where the public mind
shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate
extinction, or its advocates will push it forward until it shall have
become alike lawful in all the States, North as well as South.’
“In this paragraph which I have quoted in your hearing, and
to which I ask the attention of all, Judge Douglas thinks he
discovers great political heresy. I want your attention
particularly to what he has inferred from it. He says I am in
favor of making all the States of this Union uniform in all their
internal regulations; that in all their domestic concerns I am in
favor of making them entirely uniform. He draws this inference
from the language I have quoted to you. He says that I am in
favor of making war by the North upon the South for the
extinction of slavery; that I am also in favor of inviting, as he
expresses it, the South to a war upon the North, for the purpose
of nationalizing slavery. Now, it is singular enough, if you will
carefully read that passage over, that I did not say that I was in
favor of any thing in it. I only said what I expected would take
place. I made a prediction only
—
it may have been a foolish one
perhaps. I did not even say that I desired that slavery should be
put in course of ultimate extinction. I do say so now, however,
so there need be no longer any difficulty about that. It may be
written down in the next speech.
“Gentlemen, Judge Douglas informed you that this speech
of mine was probably carefully prepared. I admit that it was. I
am not master of language; I have not a fine education; I am
not capable of entering into a disquisition upon dialects, as I
believe you call it; but I do not believe the language I employed
bears any such construction as Judge Douglas puts upon it. But
I don’t care about a quibble in regard to words. I know what I
meant, and I will not leave this crowd in doubt, if I can explain
it to them, what I really meant in the use of that paragraph.
42. “I am not, in the first place, unaware that this Government
has endured eighty-two years, half slave and half free. I know
that. I am tolerably well acquainted with the history of the
country, and I know that it has endured eighty-two years, half
slave and half free. I believe
—
and that is what I meant to allude
to there
—
I believe it has endured, because during all that time,
until the introduction of the Nebraska bill, the public mind did
rest all the time in the belief that slavery was in course of
ultimate extinction. That was what gave us the rest that we had
through that period of eighty-two years; at least, so I believe. I
have always hated slavery, I think, as much as any Abolitionist.
I have been an Old Line Whig. I have always hated it, but I
have always been quiet about it until this new era of the
introduction of the Nebraska Bill began. I always believed that
everybody was against it, and that it was in course of ultimate
extinction. [Pointing to Mr. Browning, who stood near by:]
Browning thought so; the great mass of the Nation have rested
in the belief that slavery was in the course of ultimate
extinction. They had reason so to believe.
“The adoption of the Constitution and its attendant history
led the people to believe so; and that such was the belief of the
framers of the Constitution itself. Why did those old men, about
the time of the adoption of the Constitution, decree that slavery
should not go into the new territory, where it had not already
gone? Why declare that within twenty years the African slave-
trade, by which slaves are supplied, might be cut off by
Congress? Why were all these acts? I might enumerate more of
such acts
—
but enough. What were they but a clear indication
that the framers of the Constitution intended and expected the
ultimate extinction of that institution? And now, when I say, as I
said in this speech that Judge Douglas has quoted from, when I
say that I think the opponents of slavery will resist the further
spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest with
the belief that it is in course of ultimate extinction, I only mean
43. to say, that they will place it where the founders of this
Government originally placed it.
“I have said a hundred times, and I have no inclination to
take it back, that I believe there is no right, and ought to be no
inclination in the people of the free States to enter into the slave
States, and to interfere with the question of slavery at all. I
have said that always. Judge Douglas has heard me say it
—
if
not quite a hundred times, at least as good as a hundred times;
and when it is said that I am in favor of interfering with slavery
where it exists, I know that it is unwarranted by any thing I
have ever intended, and, as I believe, by any thing I have ever
said. If, by any means, I have ever used language which could
fairly be so construed (as, however, I believe I never have), I
now correct it.
“So much, then, for the inference that Judge Douglas
draws, that I am in favor of setting the sections at war with one
another. I know that I never meant any such thing, and I
believe that no fair mind can infer any such thing from any thing
I have ever said.
“Now in relation to his inference that I am in favor of a
general consolidation of all the local institutions of the various
States. I will attend to that for a little while, and try to inquire, if
I can, how on earth it could be that any man could draw such
an inference from any thing I said. I have said, very many
times, in Judge Douglas’s hearing, that no man believed more
than I in the principle of self-government; that it lies at the
bottom of all my ideas of just government, from beginning to
end. I have denied that his use of that term applies properly.
But for the thing itself, I deny that any man has ever gone
ahead of me in his devotion to the principle, whatever he may
have done in efficiency in advocating it. I think that I have said
it in your hearing
—
that I believe each individual is naturally
entitled to do as he pleases with himself and with the fruit of his
labor, so far as it in no wise interferes with any other man’s
44. rights
—
that each community, as a State, has a right to do
exactly as it pleases with all the concerns within that State that
interfere with the right of no other State, and that the General
Government, upon principle, has no right to interfere with any
thing other than that general class of things that does concern
the whole. I have said that at all times. I have said as
illustrations, that I do not believe in the right of Illinois to
interfere with the cranberry laws of Indiana, the oyster laws of
Virginia, or the liquor laws of Maine. I have said these things
over and over again, and I repeat them here as my
sentiments....
“So much then as to my disposition
—
my wish
—
to have all
the State Legislatures blotted out, and to have one consolidated
government, and a uniformity of domestic regulations in all the
States; by which I suppose it is meant, if we raise corn here, we
must make sugar-cane grow here too, and we must make those
which grow North grow in the South. All this I suppose he
understands I am in favor of doing. Now, so much for all this
nonsense
—
for I must call it so. The Judge can have no issue
with me on a question of established uniformity in the domestic
regulations of the States.
“A little now on the other point
—
the Dred Scott decision.
Another of the issues he says that is to be made with me, is
upon his devotion to the Dred Scott decision, and my opposition
to it.
“I have expressed heretofore, and I now repeat my
opposition to the Dred Scott decision, but I should be allowed to
state the nature of that opposition, and I ask your indulgence
while I do so. What is fairly implied by the term Judge Douglas
has used, ‘resistance to the decision?’ I do not resist it. If I
wanted to take Dred Scott from his master, I would be
interfering with property, and that terrible difficulty that Judge
Douglas speaks of, of interfering with property would arise. But
I am doing no such thing as that, but all that I am doing is
45. refusing to obey it as a political rule. If I were in Congress, and
a vote should come up on a question whether slavery should be
prohibited in a new Territory, in spite of the Dred Scott decision,
I would vote that it should.
“That is what I would do. Judge Douglas said last night, that
before the decision he might advance his opinion, and it might
be contrary to the decision when it was made; but after it was
made he would abide by it until it was reversed. Just so! We let
this property abide by the decision, but we will try to reverse
that decision. [Loud applause.] We will try to put it where Judge
Douglas will not object, for he says he will obey it until it is
reversed. Some body has to reverse that decision, since it was
made, and we mean to reverse it, and we mean to do it
peaceably.
“What are the uses of decisions of courts? They have two
uses. As rules of property they have two uses. First
—
they
decide upon the question before the court. They decide in this
case that Dred Scott is a slave. Nobody resists that. Not only
that, but they say to everybody else, that persons standing just
as Dred Scott stands, is as he is. That is, they say that when a
question comes up upon another person, it will be so decided
again unless the court decides in another way, unless the court
overrules its decision. Well, we mean to do what we can to have
the court decide the other way. That is one thing we mean to
try to do.
“The sacredness that Judge Douglas throws around this
decision, is a degree of sacredness that has never been before
thrown around any other decision. I have never heard of such a
thing. Why, decisions apparently contrary to that decision, or
that good lawyers thought were contrary to that decision, have
been made by that very court before. It is the first of the kind;
it is an astonisher in legal history. It is a new wonder of the
world. It is based upon falsehoods in the main as to the facts
—
allegation of facts upon which it stands are not facts at all in
46. many instances, and no decision made on any question
—
the
first instance of a decision made under so many unfavorable
circumstances
—
thus placed, has ever been held by the
profession as law, and it has always needed confirmation before
the lawyers regarded it as settled law. But Judge Douglas will
have it that all hands must take this extraordinary decision,
made under these extraordinary circumstances, and give their
vote in Congress in accordance with it, yield to it and obey it in
every possible sense. Circumstances alter cases. Do not
gentlemen here remember the case of that same Supreme
Court, twenty-five or thirty years ago, deciding that a National
Bank was Constitutional? I ask, if somebody does not remember
that a National Bank was declared to be Constitutional? Such is
the truth, whether it be remembered or not. The Bank charter
ran out, and a re-charter was granted by Congress. That re-
charter was laid before General Jackson. It was urged upon him,
when he denied the Constitutionality of the Bank, that the
Supreme Court had decided that it was Constitutional; and that
General Jackson then said that the Supreme Court had no right
to lay down a rule to govern a co-ordinate branch of the
Government, the members of which had sworn to support the
Constitution
—
that each member had sworn to support that
Constitution as he understood it. I will venture here to say, that
I have heard Judge Douglas say that he approved of General
Jackson for that act. What has now become of all his tirade
about ‘resistance to the Supreme Court?’ * * *
“We were often
—
more than once, at least
—
in the course of
Judge Douglas’s speech last night, reminded that this
Government was made for white men
—
that he believed it was
made for white men. Well, that is putting it into a shape in
which no one wants to deny it; but the Judge then goes into his
passion for drawing inferences that are not warranted. I protest,
now, and forever, against that counterfeit logic which presumes
that because I did not want a negro woman for a slave, I do
necessarily want her for a wife. My understanding is that I need
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