Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. Volume 4 [Mar. 5, 1860-Oct. 24, 1861].

About this Item

Title: Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. Volume 4 [Mar. 5, 1860-Oct. 24, 1861].
Author: Lincoln, Abraham, 1809-1865.
Publication: New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press; 1953.
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Link to this Item: http://name.umdl.umich.edu/lincoln4
Cite this Item: "Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. Volume 4 [Mar. 5, 1860-Oct. 24, 1861]." In the digital collection Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. https://name.umdl.umich.edu/lincoln4. University of Michigan Library Digital Collections. Accessed May 12, 2025.

Pages

Dialogue between Stephen A. Douglas and John C. Breckinridge1Jump to section

Louisville, Ky--- Sep. 29. 1860

Meeting & Dialogue of Douglas & Breckenridge---

DOUG--- Well, you have succeeded in breaking up the Democratic party.

BRECK--- Certainly, for the time being, the party is under a cloud, to say the least; but why you should say I did it, I do not comprehend.

DOUG--- Perhaps I should charge it to your supporters, rather than to you.

BRECK--- The blame, as I conceive, is neither upon my friends or me.

DOUG--- They insisted on having a plat-form, upon which I could not stand.

BRECK--- Aye, and you insisted on having a platform upon which they could not stand.

DOUG--- But mine was the true Democratic platform.

BRECK--- That presents the exact point in dispute; my friends insist that theirs is the true Democratic platform.

DOUG--- Let us argue it, then.

BRECK--- I conceive that argument is exhausted; you certainly could advance nothing new, and I know not that I could. There is, however, a colatteral point, upon which I would like the exchange of a few words.

DOUG--- What is it?

Page 124

BRECK--- It is this: We insisted on Congressional protection of Slave property in the national teritories; and you broke with us professedly because of this.

DOUG--- Exactly so; I insisted upon non-intervention.

BRECK--- And yet you are forming coalitions, wherever you can, with Bell, who is for this very congressional protection of slavery---for the very thing which you pretend, drove you from us--- for Bell, with all his Know-Nothingism, and anti-democracy of every sort.

DOUG--- Bell is a good Union-man; and you, and your friends, are a set of disunionists.

BRECK--- Bah! You have known us long, and intimately; why did you never denounce us as disunionists, till since our refusal to support you for the Presidency? Why have you never warned the North against our disunion schemes, till since the Charleston and Baltimore sessions of the National convention? Will you answer, Senator Douglas?

DOUG--- The condition of my throat will not permit me to carry this conversation any further.

Annotation

[1] AD, DLC-RTL. Lincoln's jeu d'esprit, written in pencil, was probably suggested by Douglas' speech at Louisville, September 29, in which Douglas made the points included in Lincoln's imaginary dialogue.

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