Raynors HCA 2014-11
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 11/6/2014
Imprint “Speeches of Senator S.A. Douglas, on the Occasion of his Public Receptions by the Citizens of New Orleans, Philadelphia, and Baltimore.” Washington, 1859, 16pp. quarto, printed by Lemuel Towers. These speeches in December 1858 and January 1859, just after Douglas’ senatorial victory over Lincoln, vigorously defend Popular Sovereignty and his view of the Constitution as a compact for whites only. They convey the power and force of his intellect: ‘When the framers of the Declaration declared that all men were equal, they had no reference whatever to the negro. They were speaking of white men - men of European birth and European descent...And now for the proof. When the Declaration was made, the colonies were all slave-holding. Every man that signed the Declaration represented a slave-holding constituency. Bearing these facts in mind, tell me if you believe that those men were such hypocrites as to admit the negroes belonging to them to be their equals by devine right, and yet hold those negroes in slavery the balance of their lives. Any man who asserts that the signers of the Declaration had reference to negroes in that document, declares every signer to have been a hypocrite, and worse than a hypocrite...” VG. Sabine 2069n. LCP 3222.
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