Robert E. Sherwood - Abe Lincoln In Illinois - Douglas' Speech lyrics

[Stephen Douglas] ...Like Brutus in Shakespeare's immortal tragedy, Mr. Lincoln is an honorable man. But also like Brutus, he is an adept at the art of inserting daggers between an opponent's ribs just when said opponent least expects it. Behold me, ladies and gentleman, I am covered with scars. Mr. Lincoln makes you laugh with his pungent anecdotes. He draws tears from your eyes with his dramatic pictures of the plight of the black slave laborer in the South. Always he guides you sk**fully to the threshold of truth. But then, as you are about to cross it, he diverts your attention elsewhere. He never, by any mischance, makes reference to the condition of labor here in the North. Perhaps he's ignorant of the fact that tens of thousands of workers are now on strike: hungry men marching through the streets in ragged order promoting riots, because they're not paid enough to keep the flesh upon the bones of their babies. What kind of liberty is this? And what kind of equality? (Applause) Mr. Lincoln harps constantly on this subject of equality. He repeats over and over the argument used by Lovejoy and other abolitionists to it -- that the Declaration of Independence having declared all men free and equal by divine law, thus, Negro equality is an inalienable right. Contrary to this stands the verdict of the Supreme Court in the case of Dred Scott. Mr. Lincoln is a lawyer and I presume therefore that he knows that when he seeks to destroy public confidence in the integrity, the inviolability of the Supreme Court, he is preaching revolution. He asks me to state my opinion of the Dred Scott decision, and I answer him unequivocally by saying I take the decisions of the Supreme Court to be the law of the land, and I intend to obey them as such; nor will I be swayed from that position by all the ranting of all the fanatics who preach racial equality -- who would ask us to vote, eat, sleep, and marry with Negroes. And I say further, let each State mind its own business and leave its neighbors alone. If we'll stand on that principle, then Mr. Lincoln will find that this great Republic can exist forever divided into free and slave States and we can go on, as we have done, increasing in wealth, in population, in power, until we shall become the admiration and the terror of the world.