Slavery, continued Mr. Lincoln, is not a matter of little importance, it
overshadows every other question in which we are interested. It has
divided the Methodist and Presbyterian churches, and has sown discord in
the American Tract Society. The churches have split and the society will
follow their example before long. So it will be seen that slavery is
agitated in the religious as well as in the political world. Judge
Douglas is very much afraid in the triumph that the Republican party will
lead to a general mixture of the white and black races. Perhaps I am
wrong in saying that he is afraid, so I will correct myself by saying
that he pretends to fear that the success of our party will result in the
amalgamation of the blacks and whites. I think I can show plainly, from
documents now before me, that Judge Douglas's fears are groundless. The
census of 1800 tells us that in that year there were over four hundred
thousand mulattoes in the United States. Now let us take what is called
an Abolition State--the Republican, slavery-hating State of New
Hampshire--and see how many mulattoes we can find within her borders. The
number amounts to just one hundred and eighty-four. In the Old
Dominion--in the Democratic and aristocratic State of Virginia--there
were a few more mulattoes than the Census-takers found in New Hampshire.
How many do you suppose there were? Seventy-nine thousand, seven hundred
and seventy-five--twenty-three thousand more than there were in all the
free States! In the slave States there were in 1800, three hundred and
forty-eight thousand mulattoes all of home production; and in the free
States there were less than sixty thousand mulattoes--and a large number
of them were imported from the South.




FRAGMENT OF SPEECH AT EDWARDSVILLE, ILL.,