The Lincoln and Douglas Debates Author:Abraham Lincoln Subtitle: In the Senatorial Campaign of 1858 in Illinois, Between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Arnold Douglas; Containing Also Lincoln's Address at Cooper Institute General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1905 Original Publisher: Holt Subjects: Lincoln-Douglas debates, 1858 United States Lincoln-Douglas Debates, ... more »Ill., 1858 History / United States / Civil War Period (1850-1877) Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: Iincoln'0 Haoresa at Coopet f nstitute [february 27, 1860] Mr. President And Fellow-citizens Of New York : The facts with which I shall deal this evening are mainly old and familiar; nor is there any- 5 thing new in the general use I shall make of them. If there shall be any novelty, it will be in the mode of presenting the facts, and the inferences and observations following that presentation. In his speech last Autumn at Columbus, Ohio, as reported in the 10 New York " Times," Senator Douglas said: " Our fathers, when they framed the government under which we live, understood this question just as well, and even better, than we do now." I fully indorse this, and I adopt it as a text for 15 this discourse. I so adopt it because it furnishes a precise and an agreed starting-point for a discussion between Republicans and that wing of the Democracy headed by Senator Douglas. It simply leaves the inquiry: What was the understanding 20 those fathers had of the question mentioned? What is the frame of government under which we live ? The answer must be, " The Constitution of the United States." That Constitution consists of the original, framed in 1787, and under which the 25 215 present government first went into operation, and twelve subsequently framed amendments, th...« less