Was Abraham Lincoln a Master of Logic?

     Abraham Lincoln was an extraordinarily talented man. Much has been written about him and his era. He was praised by members of the new Republican Party, and detested and vilified by opposing factions before and during the Civil War.
     Lincoln was a self-made lawyer, a congressman, a statesman, and 16th President of the United States. He was an excellent writer and an effective communicator; his Gettysburg Address was a stunning example. Lincoln had the ability to comprehend the most difficult and complex details and reduce them to understandable and manageable elements.
     When Lincoln decided in 1854 to run as a Whig for the senate seat held by Stephen A. Douglas, conditions for the first series of debates between the two men were agreed upon and the debates began in the fall of that year. 
     Was this "self-made" lawyer and former one-term congressman prepared to debate a seasoned senator? What did Lincoln know about the history and formation of the United States, the Constitution, statutes and resolutions passed by Congress?
     His young law partner, William H. Herndon, watched with admiration as Lincoln prepared for the scheduled debates against Senator Douglas. Lincoln frequently visited the State Library in Springfield  in the summer of 1854. He took notes and recorded historical, legal and political information for his arguments.
     The passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Acts of 1854 allowed settlers in these territories to determine by popular vote whether or not slavery should be established. John Brown was one of those settlers but he and others opted for violence. Passage of these Acts meant the end of the Missouri compromise of 1850, and the end of inadmissibility of slave states north of the Missouri Compromise line. Senator Douglas of Illinois designed, promoted and voted for these acts.
     Lincoln opposed the Kansas-Nebraska Acts. Preparing for the debates, he carefully developed his arguments as an attorney would develop arguments intended for a court and jury.
     Here are selected excerpts from his speech delivered at Peoria, October 16, 1854, including a controversial--by today's standards--passage about slavery:
    
    The repeal of the Missouri Compromise, and the propriety of its restoration, constitute the subject of what I am about to say....
     And, as the subject is no other, than part and parcel of the larger general question of domestic slavery, I wish to MAKE and KEEP the distinction between the EXISTING institution, and the EXTENSION of it, so broad, and so clear, that no honest man can misunderstand me, and no dishonest one, successfully misrepresent me...
     In order to [get] a clear understanding of what the Missouri Compromise is, a short history of the preceding kindred subjects will perhaps be proper...


     Here Lincoln laid out the history of slavery in the United States. He mentioned Jefferson's influence on the Northwest Ordinance, and he talked about the Louisiana Purchase, the trading of territory between France and Spain, Texas and the war with Mexico. He spoke about the Wilmot Proviso, the Missouri Compromise and the Kansas-Nebraska Acts.


     Before proceeding, let me say I think I have no prejudice against the Southern people. They are just what we would be in their situation. If slavery did not now exist amongst them, they would not introduce it...
     When Southern people tell us they are no more responsible for the origin of slavery, than we; I acknowledge the fact. When it is said that the institution exists; and that it is very difficult to get rid of it, in any satisfactory way, I can understand and appreciate the saying. If all earthly power were given me, I should not know what to do, as to the existing institution. My first impulse would be to free all the slaves, and send them to Liberia--to their own native land. But a moment's reflection would convince me, that whatever of high hope, as I think there is, there may be in this, in the long run, its sudden execution is impossible. If they were all landed there in a day, they would all perish in the next ten days. What then? Free them all, and keep them amongst us as underlings? Is it quite certain that this betters their condition? I think I would not hold one in slavery at any rate; yet the point is not clear enough for me to denounce people upon. What next? Free them, and make them politically and socially our equals? My own feelings will not admit of this; and if mine would, we well know that those of the great mass of white people will not. Whether this feeling accords with justice and sound judgment, is not the sole question, if indeed, it is any part of it. A universal feeling, whether well or ill-founded, can not be safely disregarded. We cannot, then, make them equals. It does seem to me that systems of gradual emancipation might be adopted; but for their tardiness in this, I will not undertake to judge our brethren of the south...
     Another fact showing the SPECIFIC character of the Missouri law--showing that it intended no more than it expressed--showing that the line was not intended as a universal dividing line between free and slave territory, present and prospective--north of which slavery could never go--is the fact that by that very law, Missouri came in as a slave state, north of the line. If that law contained any prospective principle, the whole law must be looked to in order to ascertain what the principle was. And by this rule, the south could fairly contend that inasmuch as they got one slave state north of the line at the inception of the law, they have the right to have another given them north of it occasionally--now and then in the indefinite westward extension of the line. This demonstrates the absurdity of attempting to deduce a prospective principle from the Missouri Compromise line.
     When we voted for the Wilmot Proviso, we were voting to keep slavery OUT of the whole Mexican acquisition; and little did we think that we were thereby voting, to let it into Nebraska, laying several hundred miles distant. When we voted against extending the Missouri line, little did we think we were destroying the old line, then of nearly thirty years standing. To argue that we repudiated the Missouri Compromise is no less absurd than it would be to argue that because we have, so far, forborne to acquire Cuba, we have thereby, IN PRINCIPLE, repudiated our former acquisitions, and determined to throw them out of the Union! No less absurd than it would be to say that because I may have refused to build an addition to my house, I thereby have decided to destroy the existing house! And if I catch you setting fire to my house, you will turn upon me and say I INSTRUCTED you to do it! The most conclusive argument, however, that, while voting for the Wilmot proviso and while voting against the EXTENSION of the Missouri line,we never thought of disturbing the original Missouri Compromise, is found in the facts, that there was then, and still is, an unorganized tract of fine country, nearly as large as the state of Missouri, lying immediately west of Arkansas, and south of the Missouri Compromise line; and that we never attempted to prohibit slavery as to it. I wish particular attention to this. It adjoins the original Missouri Compromise line, by its northern boundary; and consequently it is part of the country, into which, by implication, slavery was permitted to go, by that compromise. There it has lain open ever since, and there it still lies. And yet no effort has been made at any time to wrest it from the south. In all our struggles to prohibit slavery within our Mexican acquisitions, we never so much lifted a finger to prohibit it, as to this tract. Is not this entirely conclusive that at all times, we have held the Missouri Compromise as a sacred thing; even when against ourselves, as well as when for us?
     Senator Douglas sometimes says the Missouri line itself was, IN PRINCIPLE, only an extension of the line of the ordinance of 1787--that is to say, an extension of the Ohio river. I think this is weak enough on its face. I will remark, however, that, as a glance of the map will show, the Missouri line is a long way farther south than the Ohio; and that if our senator, in proposing his extension, had stuck to the PRINCIPLE of jogging southward, perhaps it might not have been voted down so easily...
     A word now about the Judge's [Douglas's] desperate assumption that the compromises of 1850 had no connection with one another; that Illinois came into the Union as a slave state, and some other similar ones. This is no other than a bold denial of the history of our country...To deny these things is to deny our national axioms, or dogmas, at least; and it puts an end to all argument. If a man will stand up and assert, and repeat, and reassert, that two and two do not make four, I know nothing in the power of argument that can stop him.... 

     Lincoln lost the senate election after the two senate candidates debated in 1854. At that time, senate elections were conducted by a state's legislature. They debated again in 1858 with the same result.
    Was Abraham Lincoln a master of logic? Clearly the evidence presented in a small segment of a major speech is inconclusive to support the proposition. The gems of his genius are evident in the segment, but one needs to read the whole speech to arrive at a judgment that the proposition has merit and should be affirmed.
     To read the entire Peoria speech and a preface,  go to speech at the Lehrman Institute and Lincoln Institute website.