In 1854, Abraham Lincoln stood before an audience in Peoria, Illinois, and articulated a profound and provocative perspective on the American founding. He argued that the Founding Fathers, though they tolerated slavery, were fundamentally opposed to its principle. This interpretation distinguished Lincoln’s political ideology and framed his approach to the nation's most divisive issue—slavery. During a period marked by intense political conflict from 1854 to 1860, Lincoln consistently applied this founding perspective to address and shape the sectional debates. Abraham Lincoln argued that the founding principles of the United States were against slavery, a perspective he invariably applied to address the political challenges of the sectional crisis between 1854 and 1860.
To come to terms with Abraham Lincoln, it is best to know and understand the nation’s Founding. When reflecting on the American founding, it becomes clear that it was rooted in the principles of self-government and equality, concepts that were, according to John Adams, destined to “confound and destroy all Distinctions, and prostrate all Ranks, to one common Level” (John Adams on the American Founding, 1776). These foundational ideals—life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as articulated in the Declaration of Independence—were not gifts from the government but inherent rights endowed by God. Lincoln recognized that the government’s role was not to create these rights but to preserve and protect them, ensuring they were not unjustly taken away. The history of the American founding, with its emphasis on natural rights and self-governance, provided Lincoln with a guiding light during the tumultuous crisis of sectionalism.
The Founders viewed slavery with profound disapproval. Lincoln wrote, “It is sufficient for our purpose that all of them (referring to the founders) greatly deplored the evil and that they placed a provision in the Constitution which they supposed would gradually remove the disease by cutting off its source.” (Speech at Lewiston, Ill., 547). The disease was the deplorable African slave trade. The fifty-five men at the Constitutional Convention wrote into the Constitution that the slave trade would not be prohibited before 1808, which implied that the cure would begin in that year. The provision was a compromise to appease Southern interests while also appeasing Northern states that were increasingly opposed to the practice.
In his speech at Lewiston, Illinois, on August 17, 1858, Abraham Lincoln spoke of the foresight and wisdom of the Founding Fathers. He highlighted how they did not only consider the immediate needs of their generation but also looked far into the future, aiming to safeguard the rights of all humanity for generations to come. By declaring the self-evident truths of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, they set a guiding light—a beacon—for their descendants and all future inhabitants of the earth. Lincoln noted that these wise statesmen knew the potential for those in prosperous times to become tyrants. Hence, they laid down principles to defend against future attempts to restrict these rights to only the wealthy or the white. He believed these foundational truths would enable future generations to draw strength and inspiration from the Declaration of Independence whenever their liberties were threatened. According to Lincoln, this was meant to ensure that truth, justice, and mercy “and all humane and Christian virtues might not be extinguished from the land” and the ideals of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness would be unassailable, guiding the nation in perpetuating these principles.
Lincoln frequently pondered the question posed by Socrates to Thrasymachus about whether a moral order makes a people or the people make the moral order. Like Thomas Jefferson, Lincoln believed that the moral order was inherent and self-evident. Rights such as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness could not be created by the government. Happiness did not mean one could do whatever one wanted; it meant improvement and moving beyond one's station. These rights could only be restricted or curtailed but not created. They existed long before humans came into the world. For the Founders and Lincoln, the purpose of government was to ensure that natural rights were preserved, protected, and sheltered and that someone would not take them away. The moral order, in this sense, made the people. On the other hand, the people had the duty to uphold and maintain the moral order. Lincoln frequently spoke, advocating for people to continually strive to align their hearts, laws, and practices with these universal natural rights. Thus, the people, in turn, kept the moral order.
The American Founding created a standard that would forever change the nation and world. Tyranny would easily be recognized against the backdrop of the principles of liberty in the Declaration of Independence. Without the Declaration, there could not have been the American Civil War. It gave the moral reasons for the Civil War, showing it as a necessary fight not just to maintain the Union but to ensure everyone could enjoy the freedoms it promised. This important document allowed Abraham Lincoln to say that fighting against slavery was part of the founders' original plan. They wanted to ensure that freedom and equality were natural rights for everyone, not just nice ideas.
The year 1854 was a big turning point for Lincoln. He had left politics for a few years to focus on his law practice. However, he returned to the political scene because of his strong feelings against Stephen A. Douglas’s Kansas-Nebraska Act, which allowed the new territories to decide for themselves whether to allow slavery. This act went against his deep belief in freedom and equality for all. It nullified the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which had greatly eased the tension between the slave and the free states. Congress had passed the Compromise allowing Missouri to join the Union as a slave state while Maine joined as a free state. The Compromise allowed an equal number of free and slave states and prohibited slavery in the Louisiana Territory north of the 36°30’ latitude line, except for Missouri. It was an early attempt to address the growing contention over the slave trade and curtail the extension of it.
Stephen Douglas’s Kansas-Nebraska Act gave the people of the Kansas and Nebraska territories the freedom to choose whether they would allow slavery. He called this the principle of “popular sovereignty.” Douglas famously said he “don’t care if [slavery] is voted up or voted down,” showing his focus was on local decision-making rather than the moral question of slavery. Lincoln accused “Judge Douglas [of being] the most prominent instrument in changing the position of the institution of slavery which the fathers of the Government expected to come to an end” (Lincoln, Debate at Alton, Ill. October 15, 1858). Douglas defied the expectation that slavery would cease, actively working to prolong its existence.
Lincoln argued, “I wish to MAKE and to KEEP the distinction between the EXISTING institution, and the EXTENSION of it,” so clear that there would be no confusion or misunderstanding. Lincoln explained that slavery had existed when the founders declared independence and created the government. Great Britain had pushed it on the colonies. Upon the creation of the Constitution and later legislation, the Founders did everything they could to curtail it until it would gradually end. Besides the clause in the Constitution to end slave importation, Jefferson took the occasion to prevent slavery from entering the Northwestern territory through the Ordinance of 1787. Later, the Missouri Compromise delineated that slavery could never exist in the upper states. But now, Douglas was leading the movement for the extension of slavery, exciting the slave owners.
Slavery, a necessity at first, was now believed to be a “sacred right” and should be extended under the guise of the democratic principle of the “right of self-government.” Douglas’s push for its extension under the guise of self-government represented a stark departure from the founders' original intentions. Lincoln, speaking to the complacent Northerners in Peoria, Illinois, taught the principle of self-government when he said, “My faith in the proposition that each man should do precisely as he pleases with all which is exclusively his own, lies at the foundation of the sense of justice there is in me” (Basler, 303). Lincoln argued that the principle of self-government was correct but misapplied when justifying slavery. If an African American was seen as a man, then denying him self-governance was despotism, not self-government. Lincoln strongly argued that enslaving others contradicted the founding belief that “all men are created equal.”
In the eighty years of celebrating national independence, the doctrine of liberty had been the “wonder and admonition of the whole world,” declared Lincoln. It had provided “so much prosperity to the nation.” In his speech delivered at Kalamazoo, MI, Lincoln emphasized that this doctrine was the very “cause…that every man can make himself,” an old Whig doctrine rooted in the pursuit of happiness, inherently given to all men, regardless of race (Basler, 342).
Lincoln sketched his political golden rule in a notebook: “As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is not democracy.” Lincoln’s principle of moral reciprocity—that one should treat others as one would like to be treated—was grounded in the essential democratic ideals of freedom and equality. This principle implied mutual consent; just as one would not consent to be enslaved, one should not consent to enslave another. In stark contrast, slaveholders upheld the outdated and unjust principle of the divine right of kings, which asserted that authority was granted by divine decree, not by the consent of the governed. This belief, rooted in the concept of inherent superiority and preordained authority, directly opposed the democratic values established by the Founders and championed by Lincoln.
In his “Fragment: The Constitution and the Union," Lincoln reasoned out the interconnected roles of the Union, the Constitution, and the principle of Liberty from the Declaration of Independence. He used a powerful metaphor to show that the principle of liberty was the “apple of gold” and the Constitution was its “picture of silver.” This imagery implied that while the Constitution was a protective framework (like a picture frame), Liberty was the cherished core (like a precious apple). The Fragment also implied that the Union was a body, the Constitution a skeleton, and Liberty the spirit or the soul. The "Liberty to all” principle was deeply embedded in the human heart, as essential as life itself (Basler, 513).
For Lincoln, there was no rational basis for slavery at all. Lincoln clearly reasoned, in his “Fragments: On Slavery,” that the justifications used in that day were relative and could be turned against the enslavers. It was a vicious circle — the reason used to justify slavery for one class could be used to justify it in any setting if one with fairer skin, greater intellect, or interest were to come along.
Abraham Lincoln's understanding of democracy was deeply shaped by the Founding Fathers' principles. He believed that true democracy was based on the consent of the governed and that all people, regardless of race, had inherent natural rights such as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Lincoln's dedication to these principles remained steadfast throughout his early political career, but his methods and emphasis on applying them developed and became more clear over time. He held the Declaration of Independence in high esteem, particularly its assertion that "all men [were] created equal." He saw this statement as a moral foundation upon which the United States was built—a promise of equality that the Constitution was designed to protect and uphold. Throughout his early political life, particularly up to the year 1860, Lincoln argued that the Constitution was not just a legal document but a manifestation of the principles of liberty that the Declaration proclaimed. He believed these documents together formed a profound commitment to freedom and equality that the nation was obligated to fulfill. By emphasizing this connection, Lincoln argued that the extension of slavery contradicted the very core of American democratic ideals. His interpretation of these foundational texts guided his politics and reinforced his stance against slavery, framing it as antithetical to the true meaning and promise of America.
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