Did the Judge talk of trotting me down to Egypt to scare me to death?  Why, I know this people better than he does.  I was raised just a little east of here.  I am a part of this people.  But the Judge was raised farther north, and perhaps he has some horrid idea of what this people might be induced to do.  But really I have talked about this matter perhaps longer than I ought, for it is no great thing; and yet the smallest are often the most difficult things to deal with.  The Judge has set about seriously trying to make the impression that when we meet at different places I am literally in his clutches—­that I am a poor, helpless, decrepit mouse, and that I can do nothing at all.  This is one of the ways he has taken to create that impression.  I don’t know any other way to meet it except this.  I don’t want to quarrel with him—­to call him a liar; but when I come square up to him I don’t know what else to call him if I must tell the truth out.  I want to be at peace, and reserve all my fighting powers for necessary occasions.  My time now is very nearly out, and I give up the trifle that is left to the Judge, to let him set my knees trembling again, if he can. set my knees trembling again, if he can.

THE WRITINGS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN, Volume Four

CONSTITUTIONAL EDITION

THE LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES II

LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS FOURTH DEBATE, AT CHARLESTON, SEPTEMBER 18, 1858.

Ladies and gentlemen:—­It will be very difficult for an audience so large as this to hear distinctly what a speaker says, and consequently it is important that as profound silence be preserved as possible.

While I was at the hotel to-day, an elderly gentleman called upon me to know whether I was really in favor of producing a perfect equality between the negroes and white people.  While I had not proposed to myself on this occasion to say much on that subject, yet as the question was asked me I thought I would occupy perhaps five minutes in saying something in regard to it.  I will say, then, that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races; that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say, in addition to this, that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality.  And in as much as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.  I say upon this occasion I do not perceive that because the white man is to have the superior position the