A Disclaiming Lincoln

Through all, I have never assailed nor wrestled with any part of the constitution. The legal right of the Southern people to reclaim their fugitives, I have constantly admitted. The legal right of Congress to interfere with their institution in the States I have constantly denied. In resisting the spread of slavery to new territory and what appears to be a tendency to subvert the first principle of free government itself, my whole effort has consisted. I have not felt nor expressed any harsh sentiment towards our Southern brethren.

I claim no insensibility to political honours, but today could the Missouri Restriction be restored, and the whole slavery question replaced on the old ground of toleration by necessity where it exists, with unqualified hostility to the spread of it in principle, I would gladly agree that Judge Douglas should never be out, and I never in office, so long as both or either live.