![]() We deny it and what is your proof? Harper’s Ferry! John Brown!! John Brown was no Republican and you have failed to implicate a single Republican in his Harper’s Ferry enterprise. You charge that we stir up insurrections among your slaves. Now, can you, or not, be prevailed upon to pause and to consider whether this is quite just to us, or even to yourselves. Indeed, such condemnation of us seems to be an indispensable prerequisite-license, so to speak-among you to be admitted or permitted to speak at all. You will grant a hearing to pirates or murderers, but nothing like it to “Black Republicans.” In all your contentions with one another, each of you deems an unconditional condemnation of “Black Republicanism” as the first thing to be attended to. ![]() Still, when you speak of us Republicans, you do so only to denounce us as reptiles, or, at the best, as no better than outlaws. I would say to them: You consider yourselves a reasonable and a just people and I consider that in the general qualities of reason and justice you are not inferior to any other people. I would address a few words to the Southern people. The excerpt, in which Lincoln denounces attempts to pin the raid on Republicans, and refers back to the stance of Thomas Jefferson ( whose own position on slavery has been the subject of recent debate), is posted below. The volume contains an excerpt of Lincoln’s famous address at the Cooper Institute in February of 1860, a speech which many believe helped secure Lincoln’s nomination for the presidency. As discussion of Spielberg’s Lincoln continues, we turned to The Tribunal for insight into the evolution of Lincoln’s position on slavery. A couple of months back we published The Tribunal, an invaluable collection of responses to John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry, edited by John Stauffer and Zoe Trodd. ![]()
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