" To take advantage of this prejudice, Douglas, in his
opening speech in the first debate at Ottawa in northern Illinois,
propounded to Lincoln a series of questions designed to commit him to
strong antislavery doctrines. He wanted to know whether Mr. Lincoln
stood pledged to the repeal of the fugitive-slave law; against the
admission of any more slave States; to the abolition of slavery in the
District of Columbia; to the prohibition of the slave trade between
different States; to prohibit slavery in all the Territories; to oppose
the acquisition of any new territory unless slavery were first
prohibited therein.
In their second joint debate at Freeport, Lincoln answered that he was
pledged to none of these propositions, except the prohibition of slavery
in all Territories of the United States. In turn he propounded four
questions to Douglas, the second of which was:
"Can the people of a United States Territory in any lawful way, against
the wish of any citizen of the United States, exclude slavery from its
limits prior to the formation of a State constitution?"
Mr. Lincoln had long and carefully studied the import and effect of this
interrogatory, and nearly a month before, in a private letter,
accurately foreshadowed Douglas's course upon it:
"You shall have hard work," he wrote, "to get him directly to the point
whether a territorial legislature has or has not the power to exclude
slavery.
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