Such are the inconsistencies of slavery, where a horse is more sacred than a man; and the essence of squatter or popular sovereignty--I don't care how you call it--is that if one man chooses to make a slave of another, no third man shall be allowed to object.
Lincoln exposes the moral contradictions inherent in slavery and critiques the principle of popular sovereignty as a justification for one person to enslave another without intervention.
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More from Abraham Lincoln
Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish.
If the end brings me out wrong, ten angels swearing I was right would make no difference.
I believe that it is not only possible, but in fact easier, to do this without deciding or even considering whether these States have ever been out of the Union, than with it.
I do hereby notify them that all deserters who shall, within sixty days from the date of this proclamation, viz, on or before the 10th day of May, 1865, return to service or report themselves to a provost-marshal shall be pardoned, on…
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