Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 9.djvu/271

 STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS he was then as good a Whig as ever ; and Trum- bull went to work in his part of the State preaching abolitionism in its milder and light- er form, and trying to abolitionize the Demo- cratic party, and bring old Democrats hand- cuffed and bound hand and foot into the Aboli- tion camp. In pursuance of the arrangement, the parties met at Springfield in October, 1854, and proclaimed their new platform. Lincoln was to bring into the Abolition camp the old- time Whigs, and transfer them over to Giddings, Chase, Fred Douglass, and Parson Lovejoy, who were ready to receive them and christen them in their new faith. I desire to know whether Mr. Lincoln to-day stands as he did in 1854, in favor of the un- conditional repeal of the Fugitive Slave Law. I desire him to answer whether he stands pledged to-day, as he did in 1854, against the admission of any more slave States into the Union, even if the people want them. I want to know whether he stands pledged against the admission of a new State into the Union with such a Constitution as the people of that State may see fit to make. I want to know whether he stands to-day pledged to the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. I desire him to answer whether he stands pledged to the prohibition of the slave-trade between the different States. I desire to know whether he stands pledged to prohibit slavery in all the Territories of the United States, North as well 261