Excerpt from Abraham Lincoln at the Climax of the Great Lincoln-Douglas Joint Debate in Galesburg, Illinois: Delivered at Galesburg, Illinois, on the 6th Day of October, 1928, on the 70th Anniversary of the Lincoln-Douglas Debate, From a Platform Erected on the Spot Where the Original Debate Was Held, Upon the Campus of Knox College

Are you relying upon that great Commoner, Henry Clay - are you actually affirming that Henry Clay has inspired you - and that you are but carrying out Henry Clay's beliefs and policies as to Slavery? Hear what Mr. Clay had to say when he was once answering an Objec tion to the Colonization Society, that it had a tendency to the ultimate emancipation Of the slaves - Clay said that 'those who would repress all tendencies to liberty and ultimate emancipation must do more than put down the benevolent efforts Of the Colonization Society, - they must go back to the era of our liberty and independence, and muzzle the cannon that thunders its annual joyous return; they must blot out the moral lights around us; they must penetrate the human soul, and eradicate the light of reason and the love Of liberty.' And I do think, says Lincoln, I repeat - that Judge Douglas, and whoever, like him, teaches that the negro has no share, humble though it may be, in the Declaration of Independence, is going back to the era Of our liberty and independence, and, so far as in him lies, is muzzling the cannon that thunders its annual joyous return; that he is blowing out the moral lights around us, when he contends that whoever wants slaves has a right to hold them; that he is penetrating, so far as lies in his power, the human soul, and eradicating the light Of reason and the love of liberty, when he is in every possible way preparing the public mind, by his vast influence, for making the institution of slavery perpetual.

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