How did Abraham Lincoln root his anti-slavery politics in America’s founding?

0:04Lincoln's great opponent from his own state, Stephen Douglas said, "I don't care whether slavery is voted up or down It's the will of the people will determine it". Popular sovereignty. Lincoln says, No, this is wrong, and this is also not the vision that the founders had. He said they wanted to contain slavery, and his argument was, they forbade the slave trade. They allowed it to be ended after 20 years, and it was. They forbade it going into the old Northwest, which was everything west Pennsylvania to the Mississippi and north of the Ohio River, that those territories, there should be no slavery in them. That included Illinois where he ends up living. He is saying they believe that slavery was wrong.

1:03They said in the Declaration of Independence that all men are created equal, and every state had signed off on that, and yes, of course, they were slave owners. A lot of them were slave owners. But he argued, they hoped that in time, the institution would wither away. This is an argument he makes in 1860 when he comes to New York City. He gives a big speech at Cooper Union.

1:31This is his kickoff to his first presidential campaign. This is his East Coast debut. New York is the largest city in the country. It's also the power base of the man he's got to beat for the nomination of the Republican Party, William Seward. He gives a 90 minute oration. His text, as he calls it, is a sentence from his rival, Stephen Douglas, who said, look, the men who wrote the Constitution understood better than we do. We should do what they did. Now, Douglas' argument, as well, a lot of them were slave owners, and they continued the existence of slavery. They didn't forbid slavery. Why can't we just keep doing that forever?

2:16Lincoln says, all right, well, let's see what the signers of the Constitution actually said about whether the federal government could control slavery in the territories. The most striking one was the Northwest ordinance which said no slavery at all in the old Northwest territory. How did the signers of the Constitution vote? Well, he said 23 of them became lawmakers, either they were in Congress or George Washington as president.

2:45He goes through all the times they had to pass laws, and he says, 21 of these 23 voted to regulate slavery in the territories. That shows they believe that the federal government had the power to do this, and they wanted it to do that. Then he says, oh, and by the way, there's some other noted anti-slavery men who were never lawmakers of this sort. He mentions Hamilton and Gouverneur Morris and Benjamin Franklin. He says, look, the signers of the Constitution agreed with me.

3:23They agreed that the federal government had the power to restrict and control slavery and territories, and they had done it. We should do this now. That's Cooper Union address.