So I say again, that in regard to the arguments that are made, when Judge Douglas says he “don’t care whether slavery is voted up or voted down,” whether he means that as an individual expression of sentiment, or only as a sort of statement of his views on national policy, it is alike true to say that he can thus argue logically if he don’t see anything wrong in it; but he cannot say so logically if he admits that slavery is wrong.  He cannot say that he would as soon see a wrong voted up as voted down.  When Judge Douglas says that whoever or whatever community wants slaves, they have a right to have them, he is perfectly logical if there is nothing wrong in the institution; but if you admit that it is wrong, he cannot logically say that anybody has a right to do wrong.  When he says that slave property and horse and hog property are alike to be allowed to go into the Territories, upon the principles of equality, he is reasoning truly if there is no difference between them as property; but if the one is property, held rightfully, and the other is wrong, then there is no equality between the right and wrong; so that, turn it in any way you can, in all the arguments sustaining the Democratic policy, and in that policy itself, there is a careful, studied exclusion of the idea that there is anything wrong in slavery.

Let us understand this.  I am not, just here, trying to prove that we are right and they are wrong.  I have been stating where we and they stand, and trying to show what is the real difference between us; and I now say that whenever we can get the question distinctly stated,—­can get all these men who believe that slavery is in some of these respects wrong, to stand and act with us in treating it as a wrong,—­then, and not till then, I think, will we in some way come to an end of this slavery agitation.

Mr. Lincoln’s Reply to Judge Douglas in the Seventh and Last Debate.  Alton, Illinois.  October 15, 1858

...  But is it true that all the difficulty and agitation we have in regard to this institution of slavery springs from office-seeking,—­from the mere ambition of politicians?  Is that the truth?  How many times have we had danger from this question?  Go back to the day of the Missouri Compromise.  Go back to the nullification question, at the bottom of which lay this same slavery question.  Go back to the time of the annexation of Texas.  Go back to the troubles that led to the Compromise of 1850.  You will find that every time, with the single exception of the nullification question, they sprung from an endeavour to spread this institution.  There never was a party in the history of this country, and there probably never will be, of sufficient strength to disturb the general peace of the country.  Parties themselves may be divided and quarrel on minor questions, yet it extends not beyond the parties themselves.  But does not this question make a disturbance outside of political circles?  Does it not enter into