Evidence 1: “Twenty-five years ago I was a hired laborer. The hired laborer of yesterday labors on his own account to-day, and will hire others to labor for him to-morrow. Advancement—improvement in condition—is the order of things in a society ofequals.”—Document 12.1: Abraham Lincoln, On Slavery

Evidence 2: “. . .[O]ur republican fathers, when they had abolished slavery in all our national territory, ordained that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, it becomes our duty to maintain this provision of the constitution, against all attempts to violate it for the purpose of establishing slavery in the United States, by positive legislation prohibiting its existence or extension therein; that we deny the authority of congress, of a territorial legislature, of any individual or association of individuals to give legal existence to slavery in any territory of the United States while the present Constitution shall be maintained.”—Document 12.2: Republican Party Platform

Evidence 3: “The men who strive to bring back the government to its original policy, when Freedom and not Slavery was national, while Slavery and not Freedom was sectional, he arraigns as sectional. This will not do. It involves too great a perversion of terms. I tell that senator that it is to himself, and to the “organization” of which he is the “committed advocate,” that this epithet belongs. I now fasten it upon them. For myself, I care little for names; but, since the question has been raised here, I affirm that the Republican party of the Union is in no just sense sectional, but, more than any other party, national.”—Document 12.3: Charles Sumner, The Crime against Kansas

Evidence 4: “What a shame the women can’t vote! We’d carry our “Jessie” into the White House on our shoulders; wouldn’t we? Never mind! Wait a while! Woman stock is rising in the market. I shall not live to see women vote; but I’ll come and rap at the ballot-box. Won’t you? I never was bitten by politics before; but such mighty issues are depending on this election that I cannot be indifferent.”—Document 12.4: Lydia Maria Child, Letters to Mrs. S. B. Shaw and Miss Lucy Osgood

Evidence 1: “Advancement—improvement in condition—is the order of things in a society of equals. As labor is the common burden of our race, so the effort of some to shift their share of the burden onto the shoulders of others is the great durable curse of the race. Originally a curse for transgression upon the whole race, when, as by slavery, it is concentrated on a part only, it becomes the double-refined curse of God upon his creatures.”—Document 12.1: Abraham Lincoln, On Slavery

Evidence 2: “4. That Kansas should be immediately admitted as a state of this Union, with her present free constitution, as at once the most effectual way of securing to her citizens the enjoyment of the rights and privileges to which they are entitled, and of ending the civil strife now raging in her territory. 5. That the highwayman’s plea, that “might makes right,” embodied in the Ostend circular, was in every respect unworthy of American diplomacy, and would bring shame and dishonor upon any government or people that gave it their sanction.”—Document 12.2: Republican Party Platform

Evidence 3: “ The frenzy of Don Quixote in behalf of his wench Dulcinea del Toboso is all surpassed. The asserted rights of Slavery, which shock equality of all kinds, are cloaked by a fantastic claim of equality. If the slave States cannot enjoy what, in mockery of the great fathers of the Republic, he misnames equality under the Constitution,—in other words, the full power in the National Territories to compel fellow-men to unpaid toil, to separate husband and wife, and to sell little children at the auction-block,—then, sir, the chivalric senator will conduct the State of South Carolina out of the Union!”—Document 12.3: Charles Sumner, The Crime against Kansas

Evidence 4: “I have reason to recollect that some people in this country think that Fred Douglass is a very good man. The last time I came here to make a speech, while talking from the stand to you, people of Freeport, as I am doing to-day, I saw a carriage—and a magnificent one it was,—drive up and take a position on the outside of the crowd; a beautiful young lady was sitting on the box-seat, whilst Fred Douglass and her mother reclined inside, and the owner of the carriage acted as driver. I saw this in your own town.”—Stephen Douglas’s remarks in document 12.5: The Lincoln-Douglas Debates

Evidence 1: “ Equality in society alike beats inequality, whether the latter be of the British aristocratic sort or of the domestic slavery sort. We know Southern men declare that their slaves are better off than hired laborers amongst us. How little they know whereof they speak! There is no permanent class of hired laborers amongst us. Twenty-five years ago I was a hired laborer. The hired laborer of yesterday labors on his own account to-day, and will hire others to labor for him to-morrow.”—Document 12.1: Abraham Lincoln, On Slavery

Evidence 2: “That we invite the affiliation and co-operation of freemen of all parties, however differing from us in other respects, in support of the principles herein declared; and, believing that the spirit of our institutions, as well as the constitution of our country, guarantees liberty of conscience and equality of rights among citizens, we oppose all legislation impairing their security.”—Document 12.2: Republican Party Platform

Evidence 3: “The outrage upon Charles Sumner made me literally ill for several days. It brought on nervous headache and painful suffocations about the heart. If I could only have done something, it would have loosened that tight ligature that seemed to stop the flowing of my blood. But I never was one who knew how to serve the Lord by standing and waiting; and to stand and wait then! It almost drove me mad.”—Document 12.3: Lydia Maria Child, Letters to Mrs. S. B. Shaw

Evidence 4: “I am told that one of Fred Douglass’s kinsmen, another rich black negro, is now traveling in this part of the State, making speeches for his friend Lincoln as the champion of black men. [Voices: “What have you to say against it?”] All I have to say on that subject is, that those of you who believe that the negro is your equal and ought to be on an equality with you socially, politically, and legally, have a right to entertain those opinions, and of course will vote for Mr. Lincoln.”— Stephen Douglas’s remarks in document 12.5: The Lincoln-Douglas Debates