Question

Read this excerpt from the Lincoln-Douglas debates. Lincoln: Douglas says, "Why can’t this Union endure permanently, half slave and half free? Why can’t we let it stand as our fathers placed it?" . . . . Judge Douglas assumes that we have no interest in them—that we have no right to interfere. . . . Do we not wish for an outlet for our surplus population, if I may so express myself clear? Do we not feel an interest in getting to that outlet with such institutions as we would like to have prevail there? Now irrespective of the moral aspect of this question as to whether there is a right or wrong in enslaving a negro, I am still in favor of our new territories being in such a condition that white men may find a home. I am in favor of this not merely for our own people, but as an outlet for free white people everywhere, the world over—in which Hans and Baptiste and Patrick, and all other men from all the world, may find new homes and better their conditions in life. Why does Lincoln believe the nation cannot exist forever half slave and half free?

Answer 1

According to the text, Lincoln seems to believe that if new territories were to become slave states, there would not be enough spare room for the surplus white population living in the Eastern states.

According to historians, Lincoln was not particularly interested in the morality of slavery, but he saw slavery as inconvenient. This is why he did not directly oppose slavery in the South, (only in the new western territories) until the emancipation proclamation, which he saw first as a military strategy.