Lincoln’s Response

Document B: Lincoln’s Reply (Modified)
I have no purpose directly or indirectly to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and black races. There is a physical difference between the two, which in my judgment will probably forever forbid their living together in perfect equality, and. . . I, as well as Judge Douglas, am in favor of the race to which I belong, having the superior position. I have never said anything to the contrary, but there is no reason in the world why the Negro is not entitled to all the natural rights in the Declaration of Independence, the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I hold that he is as much entitled to these as the White man. I agree that the Negro is not my equal in many respects—certainly not in color, perhaps not in moral or intellectual endowment. But in the right to eat the bread . . . which his own hand earns, he is my equal and the equal of every living man. Source: Abraham Lincoln’s reply to Stephen A. Douglas at Ottawa, Illinois, August 21, 1858.