Stephen Douglas Quotes
The Founding Fathers made no reference either to the Negro, the savage Indians, the Feejee, the Malay or any other degraded race, when they spoke of the equality of men.
Stephen Douglas, 1813-1861, Illinois Senator, Lincoln-Douglas Debates, 1858
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The President often referred to this statement as an example of his wife’s acumen. She had been born to a Southern plantation and inherited the land and the slaves. Her view, and his, were typical of the Southern point of view in early America.
The first sentence is inscribed on the Jefferson Memorial in Washington DC. The last two sentences are rarely quoted.
Contrast this view with that of Union General Ulysses S. Grant.
The issue of slavery which had been suppressed in Congress for the first decades of the nation broke out when Missouri statehood was considered. By previous agreement, slavery was not even discussed in Congress but the time period elapsed. Tallmadge not only proposed that no more slaves could come into Missouri {613176} but most shocking to the Southerners was that every person born in the new state would be free at the age of 25. In a generation, there would be no more slavery in Missouri and there would be no economic compensation for slave owners at all. The House of Representatives accepted the amendment, but it failed in the Senate. At that time, Senators were not elected by voters but were appointed by the state legislators and the Southern slave states had a disproportionate share of the senate from a population point of view. But what this quotation shows clearly that a majority of the country in 1819 were opposed to slavery and were willing to end it without compensation.
This was the first of the famous Lincoln-Douglas Debates. The men were contesting for the U. S. Senate. Douglas won the election.
What is interesting is that when he cites the dreadful facts about American slavery, he never points out that the American slave traders rarely raided the villages and captured the slaves themselves. Most often this was done my Khamenei’s Muslim brethren slave traders who dominated the slave trade in Africa. Nor does he point out what after realizing the evil that Americans perpetrated with slavery, we ended it in the 1860s. Saudi Arabia, the central nation of Islam, did not make slavery illegal until 100 years later, and even today, there are many Saudi’s who get caught practicing slavery with household servants and forms of indentured servitude. And while Christians and the Bible tolerated slavery, the Koran and the Prophet never once condemn the practice of slavery. Democracy at any point in time is not always morally right, but it is a process by which under pressure from the people it improves over time because the people can change it and do.
He would not allow himself to be buried in a cemetery that would not allow Blacks. He was laid to rest in Shreiner's Cemetery, one of the very few racially integrated cemeteries at the time.
It was indeed the first government that was ever founded on that fallacious principle. In retrospect, it was amazing that more Southerners did not question why no other government in the history of the world based a society on that principle. The Southern hubris was a great failing for them.
Eight years and a Civil War later, he had changed his mind and was the sponsor of the Civil Rights Act of 1866—the first Federal civil rights law in America. See {587711}.
Stephen Arnold Douglas was an American politician and lawyer from Illinois. He was one of two Democratic Party nominees for president in the 1860 presidential election, which was won by Republican Abraham Lincoln. Douglas had previously defeated Lincoln in the 1858 United States Senate election in Illinois, known for the Lincoln–Douglas debates. During the 1850s, Douglas was one of the foremost advocates of popular sovereignty, which held that each territory should be allowed to determine whether to permit slavery within its borders. Douglas was nicknamed the "Little Giant" and "Stevie D" because he was short in physical stature but a forceful and dominant figure in politics.
