Reply #75: beyond that [View All]

[Two Americas]

Beyond that, Lincoln connected opposition to slavery to support for Labor and to the fight for freedom itself.

Talking about slavery in the Lincoln-Douglas debates, Lincoln said that slavery is either right or it is wrong, and there is no middle ground as Douglas was proposing, nor was it something that did not involve and threaten all of us.

"That is the real issue. That is the issue that will continue in this country when these poor tongues of Judge Douglas and myself shall be silent. It is the eternal struggle between these two principles - right and wrong - throughout the world. They are the two principles that have stood face to face from the beginning of time; and will ever continue to struggle. The one is the common right of humanity and the other the divine right of kings. It is the same principle in whatever shape it develops itself. It is the same spirit that says, 'You work and toil and earn bread, and I'll eat it.' No matter in what shape it comes, whether from the mouth of a king who seeks to bestride the people of his own nation and live by the fruit of their labor, or from one race of men as an apology for enslaving another race, it is the same tyrannical principle."