William Eleroy Curtis

The fame of Abraham Lincoln as an orator was made secure by his debate with Douglas in 1858, his political speech at Cooper Institute in February, 1860, his oration at the dedication of the Soldiers' Cemetery at Gettysburg in 1863, and his second inaugural address in March, 1865. Neither of these four distinct examples of argument and eloquence has ever been surpassed in their separate fields. That was the judgment of his contemporaries, and it is confirmed by the succeeding generation, not only of his own countrymen, but of competent critics throughout the English-speaking world. His style commanded the highest praise from the French Academy. It was commended as a model for the imitation of princes.

His debate with Douglas was a gladiatorial combat between oratorical Titans. It had no precedent and has not been repeated. His speech at Cooper Institute, as an example of political reasoning, made him pre-eminent upon what the Americans call the "stump." His historical analysis, concise statement, faultless logic, and irresistible conclusions made it a model which has been studied and imitated by campaign speakers ever since its delivery. The brief oration at Gettysburg, covering only thirty lines of print, ranks with the noblest utterances of human lips. No orator of ancient or modern times produced purer rhetoric, more beautiful sentiment, or elegant diction.

Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "Many passages in his letters, messages, and speeches ... are destined to wide fame. What pregnant definitions, what unerring common sense, what foresight, and on great occasions what lofty and, more than national, what human tones. His brief speech at Gettysburg will not easily be surpassed by words on any recorded occasion."

The occasion was the dedication of the battle-field as a soldiers' cemetery, November 19, 1863. Edward Everett delivered a masterly oration, and President Lincoln, being present, was introduced for a few remarks. With profound earnestness and solemnity he spoke five minutes to a breathless audience. His remarks were so brief that it is possible and appropriate to include them here. They could not be considered out of place in any volume of literature on any subject. They cannot be printed or read too often:

"Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

"Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

"But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate—we cannot consecrate—we cannot hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

The next day Mr. Everett, who was considered one of the most accomplished of American orators, sent Lincoln a note in which he said,—

"Permit me to express my great admiration of the thoughts expressed by you with such eloquence, simplicity, and appropriateness at the consecration of the cemetery. I should be glad if I could flatter myself that I came as near to the central idea of the occasion in two hours as you did in two minutes."

It has always been a popular impression that Lincoln's speech was written upon the cars, en route to Gettysburg from Washington on the morning of the ceremonies, but General Fry, of the army, who was detailed from the War Department as his escort on that occasion and was with him every moment, says that he has no recollection of seeing him writing or even reading a manuscript, nor was there any opportunity during the journey for him to do so. Colonel Hay, his private secretary, says that he wrote out a brief speech at the White House before leaving Washington, and, as usual on such occasions, committed it to memory; but the inspiration of the scene led him to make material changes, and the version given here, copied from Nicolay and Hay's Biography, was written out by the President himself after his return. While it may not be exact, it is nearly accurate.

The London Times pronounced Lincoln's second inaugural address to be the most sublime state paper of the century. Equally competent critics have called it a masterpiece of political literature. The following extract will show its style and sentiment: "Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes his aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces; but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered—that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has his own purposes. 'Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh.' If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offences which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through his appointed time, he now wills to remove, and that he gives to both North and South this terrible war, as the woe due to those by whom the offence came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to him? Fondly do we hope—fervently do we pray—that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, 'The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.'

"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in: to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan—to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves, and with all nations."

General Sherman described it accurately when he said, "I have seen and heard many of the famous orators of the century, but Lincoln's speeches surpassed them all. They have never been equalled. It was not his scholarship; it was not rhetoric; it was not elocution; it was the unaffected and spontaneous eloquence of the heart. There was nothing of the mountain-torrent in his manner; it was rather the calm flow of the river."

Lincoln's own comments upon his inaugural address, like everything he ever said about himself, are unique. In reply to a complimentary letter from Thurlow Weed, he wrote, "I expect the latter to wear as well as, perhaps better than, anything I have produced; but I believe it is not immediately popular. Men are not flattered by being shown that there has been a difference of purpose between the Almighty and them. To deny it, however, in this case, is to deny that there is a God governing the world. It is a truth which I thought needed to be told, and, as whatever of humiliation there is in it falls most directly on myself, I thought others might afford for me to tell it."

Messrs. Hay and Nicolay, who were nearer to him and knew him better than any other men, say, "Nothing would more have amazed Mr. Lincoln than to hear himself called a man of letters; but this age had produced few greater writers. Emerson ranks him with Æsop; Montalembert commends his style as a model for princes. It is true that in his writing the range of subjects is not great. He was chiefly concerned with the political problems of the time and the moral considerations involved in them. But the range of treatment is remarkably wide, running from the wit, the gay humor, the florid eloquence of his stump speeches to the marvellous sententiousness and brevity of the address at Gettysburg and the sustained and lofty grandeur of his second inaugural; while many of his phrases have already passed into the daily use of mankind."

But he made other speeches, equally admirable, and some of them unsurpassed by the greatest political or platform orators. Wendell Phillips, Henry Ward Beecher, Robert G. Ingersoll, James G. Blaine, Benjamin Harrison, and others who have gained fame for oratory have each given testimony for the simple yet sublime eloquence of the great master. Many critics consider Lincoln's Peoria speech of 1854 the ablest political argument ever delivered, and assert that no master of logic in the world could have answered it. One of its epigrams has been quoted thousands of times. "When the white man governs himself," he said, "that, I acknowledge, is self-government; but when the white man governs himself and another man besides, that I call despotism."

If Lincoln had been born in old England or in New England, if he had been educated at a university, if he had spent his childhood and youth in luxury and under refining influences, he might have been a greater orator, statesman, and politician than he was, but a nature and a mind like his required the discipline and conditions which he passed through to attain their full development. It is an interesting subject of speculation, concerning other self-taught men as well as Lincoln; but, as a rule, the most powerful minds and the most influential characters have been without the training of the schools, and by contact with gentler and refining influences Lincoln might have acquired polish at the cost of his rugged greatness, his quaint habits of thought and odd but effective phrases, the homely illustrations, and the shrewd faculty of appealing to the simple every-day experience of the people to convince them of the force of his facts and the soundness of his reasoning. His logic was always as clear as his candor. He never failed to state the argument of his adversary as fairly and as forcefully as his own. His power of analysis was extraordinary. He used the simplest words in the language, but they strengthened every case he stated, and no fact, or anecdote, or argument ever lost force or effect from his style of presentation. It has frequently been asserted—and his speeches, state papers, and private correspondence are sufficient proof—that he could state a proposition more clearly and forcibly than any man of his time; yet his language was that of "the plain people," as he used to call them. This faculty was doubtless due to his early experience among the illiterate classes on the frontier, and certain errors of grammar and construction which are familiar to all who have lived among that portion of the population frequently occurred in his compositions. At one time during his early days as a speaker he adopted the flamboyant redundancy of style that is still popular in the South and certain parts of the West, and often used many of the familiar tricks of emotional orators; but his own common sense and the advice of Judge Logan, his law partner, soon corrected this fault, and he studied a simpler style which was much more effective. If he had been less gifted in language he would have been quite as clear in statement, quite as persuasive in his presentation of an argument, because he aimed not to excite admiration, but to be understood. His earnestness was not intended to excite the emotions, but to appeal to the reasoning powers of the persons addressed, and his knowledge of human nature taught him how the mind of the average man worked. At the same time he could reach the most accomplished scholar and the most thoughtful philosopher. For example, his letters in explanation of his delay in proclaiming freedom to the slaves, especially that addressed to Mr. Greeley in 1863, are masterpieces of clear and forcible writing.

One reason for Lincoln's power over his audiences was his intense sincerity. He carried his conscience into every discussion, he took no position that he did not believe was right, and he made no statements that he did not believe to be fair and true. Another was the sympathy he excited; when he related a story he laughed all over, and his own enjoyment was so contagious that the effect was greatly increased.

He once said to Mr. Depew, in reference to some criticisms which had been made upon his story-telling, "They say I tell a great many stories; I reckon I do, but I have found in the course of a long experience that common people"—repeating it—"common people, take them as they run, are more easily influenced and informed through the medium of a broad illustration than in any other way, and as to what the hypercritical few may think I don't care."

His pathos was quite as effective as his humor. His natural tenderness, his affectionate disposition, his poetic temperament, his sympathy for the weak and the sorrowful, and his comprehensive love of all that was good inspired him with a power to touch the hearts of the people as no other man in this country has ever been able to do. James H. McVicker, the famous actor, once told the author that the most marvellous exhibition of elocution he ever witnessed was Lincoln's recitation of the Lord's Prayer, and said that Lincoln told him at the time that it was the sublimest composition in the English language.

Lincoln had the advantage of a photographic memory which could retain almost any passage in literature, and he was able to repeat long passages from Shakespeare and other plays and poems which pleased him. It was only necessary for him to read them over once or twice and they remained in his memory forever. He developed this faculty early in life, and it was the greatest enjoyment allowed the humble people among whom he lived to hear him recite passages from the books he had read and declaim selections from "The Kentucky Preceptor," which was a standard text-book in those days. He could repeat with effect all the poems and speeches in other school-readers, and his talent at mimicry furnished amusement for the neighborhood. The traditions of Gentryville tell us that the neighbors seldom gathered for a "raising," or a "quilting," or a "paring," or a "husking-bee" without hearing Abe Lincoln "take off" the itinerant preachers and politicians whose peculiarities had attracted his attention and appealed to his sense of humor. He attended all the trials in the neighborhood, and frequently walked fifteen miles to the town of Boonevile when court was in session there. His faculty was so well known in that part of the State that the lawyers and others who gathered on such occasions would invariably induce him to make a stump speech or imitate some backwoods orator. His essays and rhymes were much admired, and an itinerant Baptist preacher was so impressed with one of his speeches on temperance that he sent it to friends in Ohio, where it was published in a newspaper; the first of his writings to appear in print. Another essay on "National Politics," written when he was nineteen, gave him great local reputation for literary talent. One of the lawyers who practised in that circuit and was considered a very high authority declared that "the world couldn't beat it."

It is also related that he frequently interrupted harvesting, threshing, and other business events which drew the neighbors together by delivering political speeches, burlesquing local orators and preachers, and repeating doggerels of his own composition that referred to local affairs. His humor often exceeded his discretion, and we are told of coarse satires and rhymes which excited the amusement and admiration of a community, but did him no credit. Sometimes these ebullitions of wit involved him in trouble, particularly on two occasions when he wrote some verses about the deformed nose of his employer, of which the owner was very sensitive.

Lincoln never attempted serious oratory until he went to New Salem, where he discovered Shakespeare and Burns, whose writings had a powerful influence upon his literary style and taste. These eminent authorities were introduced to him by a worthless loafer and fisherman named Jack Kelso, who was too lazy to work, but had a love of learning and literature and an unusually good education for his time and surroundings. Mutual tastes brought the two together, and Lincoln would sit evening after evening on the porch of Offutt's store or lie all day Sunday on the ground under the shade of a tree listening to Kelso discourse upon his favorite authors and repeat over and over the poems of Burns and fine passages from Shakespeare which he had committed to memory long before. There is no doubt that Burns, Shakespeare, and Kelso seriously interfered with the grocery business and contributed to the financial disaster which terminated Lincoln's first and only commercial enterprise. It was a long time before he obtained copies of his favorite poets, but no books were prized more highly by any man.

Lincoln's first experience in debate was gained while he was a clerk in Offutt's store and attended the meetings of a debating club, which were held at different places in the neighborhood and sometimes so far away that he was compelled to walk seven or eight miles for the privilege. He used to call it "practising polemics." Occasionally the club met in a vacant store at New Salem, and Lincoln's first serious speech was delivered on one of those occasions.

His first political speech was delivered at Pappsville, where a crowd had been attracted by an auction sale. He was then beginning his first campaign for the Legislature, and although his remarks are not remembered, an incident of the occasion remains one of the most precious heritages of that neighborhood. While he was speaking, one of his friends became involved in a fight on the edge of the audience, and when the orator saw that he was getting the worst of it, Lincoln suspended his remarks, jumped from the dry-goods box which served as his platform, seized the assailant of his friend by the collar and the seat of his trousers, threw him ten or twelve feet, resumed his place, and finished his argument.

In the reminiscences of Joshua Speed, who was perhaps the most intimate friend Lincoln ever knew, is an account of a great mass-meeting at Springfield at which Lincoln made a speech that produced a lasting impression and "used up" George Forquer, a prominent lawyer and politician, so completely that he was practically driven out of the campaign. Forquer had been a Whig, but changed his politics, and was rewarded by the Democrats with an appointment as Register of the United States Land Office. He owned and occupied one of the finest houses in Springfield and attached to its chimney the only lightning-rod in that part of the State. Forquer had made a long address at the meeting and Lincoln had been assigned to the duty of answering him. Forquer alluded to this arrangement in a contemptuous manner, and spoke slightingly of Lincoln's youth and inexperience. When Lincoln came to reply he admitted his youth and inexperience, which, he added, were faults that would be corrected by time, and then said,—

"I am not so young in years as I am in the tricks and trade of the politician; but whether I live long or die young, I would rather die now than change my politics for an office worth three thousand dollars a year, and have to erect a lightning-rod over my house to protect my conscience from an offended God."

The people of Springfield appreciated this hit so keenly and quoted it so freely that Forquer was compelled to retire from the canvass to escape ridicule.

From this time on Lincoln was always on the stump whenever there was a political contest in Central Illinois, and was recognized as one of the ablest, as he was one of the most popular and effective, campaigners. His speeches began to show maturer intellect, a more careful study and expanding power, and his hold upon his friends and his influence in his party and with the public at large were increasing with every political campaign. As early as 1837, when he was a candidate for Speaker of the Lower House of the Legislature, he had acquired considerable reputation. In the fall of that year, with a few other young men of Springfield, he organized a lyceum for mutual improvement, and his ability was recognized when he was the first of its members to be invited to make a public address, which was carefully prepared and delivered in January, 1838. The subject was "The Perpetuation of our Political Institutions," and it created such an impression that it was published in full in the Sangamon Journal, February 3, 1838. Few men of twenty-nine years, with the advantage of a university education and a complete library for reference, could produce so profound and statesmanlike a paper, and his philosophical analysis of the principles of the Declaration of Independence and his conception of the political duty of the citizen were remarkable for their truth and force.

Lincoln had acquired such great fame as a speaker that in 1840 he was named upon the Harrison electoral ticket, with the stipulation that he should canvass the State. He was then only thirty-one years old, but was regarded as the ablest of the Whig stumpers in Illinois. In the Clay campaign of 1844, in the Taylor campaign of 1848, and in the Scott campaign of 1852 he devoted almost his entire time to political work, for which he received no compensation. Ambitious politicians and loyal party men were expected to contribute their services free and pay their own expenses in those days, and while Lincoln's pocket suffered, his fame and popularity spread, and he had the satisfaction of knowing that in all the State no man possessed the confidence of the public so completely as he and none was listened to with more attention or greater respect. In 1856, during the FrÉmont campaign, he was recognized as the foremost leader on the Republican side, and had a narrow escape from being nominated for Vice-President.

While in Congress he made three set speeches in the Hall of Representatives, all carefully prepared and written out. The first was an elaborate defence of Whig doctrines and an historical discussion of the Mexican War, the next was on the general subject of internal improvement, and the third was a humorous and satirical criticism of General Cass, the Democratic candidate for President. All of these speeches were printed in pamphlet form for home circulation and were not intended to influence the action of the House. His first participation in debate was, however, a great success. Soon after the Presidential campaign of 1848 opened, Representative Iverson, of Georgia, accused the Whigs of "having taken shelter under the military coat-tails of General Taylor," their Presidential candidate. This seemed to touch Lincoln's sense of humor, and he made a brief reply, taking "Military Coat-Tails" as his text. Ben Perley Poore, the famous newspaper correspondent, who was then in his prime, describes the scene as follows:

"He had written the heads of what he intended to say on a few pages of foolscap paper, which he placed on a friend's desk, bordering on an alley-way, which he had obtained permission to speak from. At first he followed his notes; but, as he warmed up, he left his desk and his notes, to stride down the alley towards the Speaker's chair, holding his left hand behind him so that he could now and then shake the tails of his own rusty, black broadcloth dress-coat, while he earnestly gesticulated with his long right arm, shaking the bony index-finger at the Democrats on the other side of the chamber. Occasionally, as he would complete a sentence amid shouts of laughter, he would return up the alley to his desk, consult his notes, take a sip of water, and start off again." The Baltimore American called it "the crack speech of the day," and said of Lincoln: "He is a very able, acute, uncouth, honest, upright man and a tremendous wag withal.... Mr. Lincoln's manner was so good-natured, and his style so peculiar, that he kept the House in a continuous roar of merriment for the last half-hour of his speech. He would commence a point in his speech far up one of the aisles, and keep on talking, gesticulating, and walking until he would find himself, at the end of a paragraph, down in the centre of the area in front of the clerk's desk. He would then go back and take another head, and work down again. And so on, through his capital speech."

Referring to another brief speech made in defence of his Committee on Post Roads, Lincoln wrote a friend at home, "As to speech-making, by way of getting the hand of the House, I made a little speech two or three days ago on a post-office question of no general interest. I find speaking here and elsewhere about the same thing. I was about as badly scared, and no worse, as I am when I speak in court. I expect to make one within a week or two in which I hope to succeed well enough to wish you to see it."

The speech he was then preparing was delivered four days later. It was his first formal appearance in Congress, and, according to custom, he finished the occasion by a series of resolutions referring to President Polk's declaration that the war of 1848 had been begun by Mexico's "invading our territory and shedding the blood of our citizens on our own soil," and calling upon him to give the House specific information as to the invasion and bloodshed. These resolutions were frequently referred to afterwards in his political contests, and were relied upon to sustain a charge of lack of patriotism during the Mexican War made by Mr. Douglas against their author.

Like all young members of the House of Representatives, Lincoln was compelled to remain in the background most of the time; but he learned a great deal in his brief experience, and created such an impression by his speeches that upon the adjournment he was invited to enter the Presidential campaign of 1848 in New England, making his first speech at Worcester, where the meeting was presided over by ex-Governor Levi Lincoln, who was also a descendant of Samuel Lincoln, of Hingham. The New England newspapers and people gave him many compliments and in subsequent campaigns repeated their invitations.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN IN 1858

From a photograph owned by Hon. William J. Franklin, Macomb, Illinois, taken in 1866 from an ambrotype made in 1858 at Macomb. By special permission

The first collision between Lincoln and Douglas occurred during the Harrison Presidential campaign of 1840, and from that time they were regarded as active rivals. These two remarkable men became acquainted in 1834 during Lincoln's first session in the Legislature at Vandalia, then the capital of Illinois. Mr. Douglas was four years younger and equally poor. In his youth he had been apprenticed to a cabinet-maker in Vermont, had studied law under very much the same difficulties as Lincoln, was admitted to the bar as soon as he was twenty-one, and came to Springfield, with no acquaintances and only thirty-seven cents in his pocket, to contest for the office of State attorney with John J. Hardin, one of the most prominent and successful lawyers of the State. By the use of tactics peculiar to his life-long habits as a politician, he secured the appointment, made a successful prosecutor, and in 1836 was elected to the Legislature, and occupied a position on the Democratic side of that body similar to that occupied by Lincoln on the Whig side. In 1837 he secured from President Van Buren the appointment of Register of the Public Land Office, and made Springfield his home. In the fall of the same year he was nominated to Congress against John T. Stuart, Lincoln's law partner and friend, and the campaign which followed was one of the most remarkable in the history of the State, with Lincoln, as usual, the conspicuous figure upon the Whig stump. When the vote was counted, Stuart received a majority of only fourteen out of a total of thirty-six thousand.

Douglas charged fraud, and his reckless attack upon the integrity of Stuart aroused in Lincoln's breast a resentment which never died. From that time he regarded Douglas with strong dislike and disapproval, and, although his natural generosity as well as his sense of propriety silenced his tongue in public, he never concealed from his friends his conviction that Douglas was without political morals. At the same time he recognized the ability and power of "the Little Giant" as Douglas was already called, and no one estimated more highly his ability as an orator and his skill as a debater. Personally, Douglas was a very attractive man. He had all the graces that Lincoln lacked,—short and slight of stature, with a fine head, a winning manner, graceful carriage, a sunny disposition, and an enthusiastic spirit. His personal magnetism was almost irresistible to the old as well as the young, and his voice was remarkable for its compass and the richness of its tones. On the other hand, Lincoln was ungainly and awkward; his voice was not musical, although it was very expressive; and, as I have before said, he often acknowledged that there was no homelier man in all the States.

Douglas recognized an antagonist who was easier to avoid than to meet, and attempted to keep Lincoln out of his path by treating him as an inferior. On one occasion, when both happened to be in the same town, there was a strong desire among the people to hear them discuss public questions. The proposition irritated Judge Douglas, who, with his usual arrogance, inquired,—

"What does Lincoln represent in this campaign? Is he an abolitionist or a Whig?"

The committee replied that Lincoln was a Whig, whereupon Douglas dismissed the subject in his pompous way, saying,— "Oh, yes, I am now in the region of the Old Line Whig. When I am in Northern Illinois I am assailed by an abolitionist, when I get to the centre I am attacked by an Old Line Whig, when I go to Southern Illinois I am beset by an Anti-Nebraska Democrat. It looks to me like dodging a man all over the State. If Mr. Lincoln wants to make a speech he had better get a crowd of his own, for I most respectfully decline to hold a discussion with him."

Lincoln calmly ignored this assumption of superiority at the time, but never failed to punish Mr. Douglas for it when they met upon the stump, and, according to the testimony of their contemporaries, he was equal to his able and adroit opponent from the beginning of their rivalry either in the court-room, or in a rough-and-tumble debate, or in the serious political discussion of great political questions. Only one of Lincoln's speeches of this period of his life is preserved. That is an address delivered at a sort of oratorical tournament at Springfield. There was such a demand for it that a few days after its delivery he wrote out as much as he could remember and the Whig managers printed it in pamphlet form as a campaign document; but it was the last time he indulged in the old-fashioned flights of eloquence. From that hour the topics he discussed demanded his serious attention and his closest argument, and he spoke to convince, not to excite admiration or merely to stir the emotions of his audiences.

In 1854 the moral sense of the nation was shocked by the repeal of what is called "The Missouri Compromise." That was a law passed in 1820 for the admission of the Territory of Missouri to the Union as a slave State, upon a condition that slavery should not go north of its northern boundary, latitude 36° 30'. Lincoln shared the national indignation. Douglas, then in the United States Senate, was one of the advocates of the repeal, and his powerful influence in Congress made it possible. As soon as the action of Congress was announced, the entire country was plunged into a discussion of the question on the platform, in the pulpit, in the press, in the debating societies, by the firesides, at the corner groceries, at the post-office, and wherever people met together. Lincoln took no public part in the controversy for several months, but during the interval studied the question in its moral, historical, and constitutional bearings, and while the Democrats accused him of "mousing around" the libraries of the State-House, he was preparing himself for a controversy which he knew was sure to come.

That fall (1854) Richard Yates was up for Congress and Lincoln took the stump in his behalf. In the mean time Mr. Douglas was speaking in other sections of the State, but came to Springfield to attend the State Agricultural Fair, and, being a United States Senator and a political idol, was of course a great attraction. He made a speech justifying the action of Congress, and, by common impulse, the opponents of the repeal called upon Lincoln to answer him. There is no doubt of the zeal and ardor with which he accepted the invitation, and he spoke for four hours, as one of his friends testifies, "in a most happy and pleasant style, and was received with abundant applause." At times he made statements which brought Senator Douglas to his feet, and their passages at arms created much excitement and enthusiasm. It was evident that the force of Lincoln's argument surprised and disconcerted Mr. Douglas, for he insisted upon making a two-hours' rejoinder, which of itself was a confession of his defeat.

Lincoln's triumph on this occasion placed him at the head of the political debaters of the State, and, in order that Mr. Douglas might have another chance to retrieve himself, they met again twelve days later at Peoria. Lincoln yielded to Douglas the advantage of the opening and closing speeches, explaining that he did so from selfish motives, because he wanted to hold the Democratic portion of the audience through his own speech. At the request of the Whig leaders and politicians in other parts of the State who had not been able to hear the discussion, Mr. Lincoln wrote out his speech from memory and we have it in full. It was by far the ablest and most profound composition he had produced up to that time, and even now, after the lapse of half a century, it is recognized as a model of political argument. He here rose from the rank of the politician to that of the statesman, and never fell below it in his future addresses. Lincoln and Douglas were understood by themselves as well as by the public to be contesting for a seat in the United States Senate, and the latter was so alarmed by Lincoln's unexpected manifestation of power that he sought an interview on the pretence of friendship and persuaded him into an agreement that neither should make any more speeches before the actual campaign began,—an agreement violated by Douglas during the next week.

Horace White, now editor of the New York Evening Post, says of the speech just mentioned, "I was then in the employ of the Chicago Evening Journal. I had been sent to Springfield to report the political doings of State Fair week for that newspaper. Thus it came about that I occupied a front seat in the Representatives' Hall, in the old State-House, when Mr. Lincoln delivered the speech already described in this volume. The impression made upon me by the orator was quite overpowering. I had not heard much political speaking up to that time. I have heard a great deal since. I have never heard anything since, either by Mr. Lincoln, or by anybody, that I would put on a higher plane of oratory. All the strings that play upon the human heart and understanding were touched with masterly skill and force, while beyond and above all skill was the overwhelming conviction pressed upon the audience that the speaker himself was charged with an irresistible and inspiring duty to his fellow-men. Having, since then, heard all the great public speakers of this country subsequent to the period of Clay and Webster, I award the palm to Mr. Lincoln as the one who, although not first in all respects, would bring more men of doubtful or hostile leanings around to his way of thinking by talking to them on a platform than any other."

The next occasion upon which Lincoln displayed unusual power as an orator was the Bloomington Convention for the organization of the Republican party early in 1856. Never was an audience more completely electrified by human speech. The Convention, which was composed of former members of all political parties had adopted the name Republican, had taken extreme grounds against slavery, and had launched a new political organization; but it contained many discordant, envious, and hostile elements. Those who had watched the proceedings were anxious and apprehensive of dissension and jealousy, and Lincoln, with his acute political perceptions, realized the danger, perhaps, more keenly than any other man in the assembly. He saw before him a group of earnest, zealous, sincere men, willing to make tremendous sacrifices and undertake Titanic tasks, but at the same time most of them clung to their own theories and advocated their individual methods with a tenacity that promised to defeat their common purpose. Therefore, when he arose in response to the unanimous demand for a speech from the great orator of Springfield, his soul was flooded with a desire and a purpose to harmonize and amalgamate the patriotic emotions of his associates. He realized that it was a crisis in the history of his country, and rose to the full height of the occasion.

Those who were present say that at first he spoke slowly, cautiously, and in a monotone, but gradually his words grew in force and intensity until he swept the discordant souls of the assembly together and his hearers "arose from their chairs with pale faces and quivering lips and pressed unconsciously towards him." His influence was irresistible. Even the trained reporters, accustomed to witness the most touching and impressive scenes with the indifference of their profession, dropped their pencils, and what was perhaps the greatest speech of Lincoln's entire career was unreported. Joseph Medill, afterwards editor of the Chicago Tribune, who was then a reporter for that paper, says,—

"I did make a few paragraphs of what Lincoln said in the first eight or ten minutes, but I became so absorbed in his magnetic oratory that I forgot myself and ceased to take notes. I well remember that after Lincoln sat down, and calm had succeeded the tempest, I waked out of a sort of hypnotic trance, and then thought of my report to the Tribune. It was some sort of satisfaction to find that I had not been 'scooped,' as all the newspaper men present had been equally carried away by the excitement caused by the wonderful oration and had made no report or sketch of the speech."

But every reporter and editor went home bursting with enthusiasm, and while none of them could remember it entire, fragments of "Lincoln's Lost Speech," as it was called, floated through the entire press of the United States. No one was more deeply moved than Lincoln himself, and, although continually appealed to by his political associates and the newspapers, he admitted his inability to reproduce his words or even his thoughts after the inspiration under which he had spoken expired. But his purpose was accomplished. Those who assumed the name "Republicans" were thereafter animated by a single purpose and resolution.

As in former campaigns, Lincoln was placed upon the electoral ticket and made fifty or more speeches in Illinois and the adjoining States for FrÉmont in his contest against Buchanan for the Presidency in 1856. Soon after the inauguration of President Buchanan, the Supreme Court of the United States delivered an opinion in that famous trial known as the Dred Scott case which created intense excitement. A slave of that name sued for his freedom on the ground that his master had taken him from Missouri to reside in the State of Illinois and the Territory of Wisconsin, where slavery was prohibited by law. Judge Taney and a majority of the Supreme bench, after hearing the case argued twice by eminent counsel, decided that a negro was not entitled to bring suit in a court. In addition, it indirectly announced its opinion that under the Constitution of the United States neither Congress nor a territorial Legislature had any power to prohibit slavery within Federal territory. The people of the North cried out in protest, the people of the South defended the decision as just and righteous altogether, and then began a series of discussion which ended only with the emancipation of the bondsmen.

Senator Douglas was left in a curious situation, for he had justified the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, which prohibited the extension of slavery, on the ground of popular sovereignty, holding that under the Constitution each Territory was authorized to decide the question for itself, and in defence of that position he had made many speeches. It became necessary, therefore, for him to reconcile it with the decision of the Supreme Court, which he attempted to do by an able argument at Springfield shortly after. It was the first presentation of his ingenious and celebrated "Freeport Doctrine," which, briefly, was that while the Supreme Court was correct in its interpretation of the Constitution, a Territory cannot be divested of its right to adopt and enforce appropriate police regulations. As such regulations could only be made by Legislatures elected by a popular vote, he argued, the great principle of popular sovereignty and self-government was not only sustained, but was even more firmly established by the Dred Scott decision.

This argument naturally excited the interest of Lincoln, who answered it in an elaborate speech two weeks later, and thus forced the issue into the campaign for the election of a Legislature which was to choose the successor of Mr. Douglas in the United States Senate. Douglas was in an unpleasant predicament. He was compelled to choose between the favor and support of the Buchanan administration and that of the people of Illinois. As the latter alternative was necessary to his public career, he adopted it, and when Congress met he attacked the administration with his usual force and ability. His course was approved by a large majority of the Democratic party in Illinois, but stimulated the hope of the Republicans of that State that they might defeat him and elect Abraham Lincoln, who was entitled to the honor because he had yielded his priority of claim to Lyman Trumbull in 1854 and was now recognized as the foremost champion of the new Republican party in Illinois. Therefore, when the Republican State Convention met in June, 1858, it adopted by acclamation a resolution declaring that he was the first and only choice of the Republican party for the United States Senate.

Mr. Herndon, Lincoln's law partner, says,—

"He had been led all along to expect his nomination to the Senate, and with that in view had been earnestly and quietly at work preparing a speech in acknowledgment of the honor about to be conferred upon him. This speech he wrote on stray envelopes and scraps of paper, as ideas suggested themselves, putting them into that miscellaneous and convenient receptacle, his hat. As the Convention drew near he copied the whole on connected sheets, carefully revising every line and sentence, and fastened them together for reference during the delivery of the speech and for publication. A few weeks before the Convention, when he was at work on the speech, I remember that Jesse K. Dubois, who was Auditor of the State, came into the office and, seeing Lincoln busily writing, inquired what he was doing or what he was writing. Lincoln answered gruffly, 'It's something you may see or hear some time, but I'll not let you see it now.' After the Convention Lincoln met him on the street and said, 'Dubois, I can tell you what I was doing the other day when you came into my office. I was writing that speech, and I knew if I read the passage about 'the house divided against itself' to you, you would ask me to change or modify it, and that I was determined not to do. I had willed it so, and was willing, if necessary, to perish with it.'

"Before delivering his speech he invited a dozen or so of his friends to the library of the State-House, where he read and submitted it to them. After the reading he asked each man for his opinion. Some condemned and no one endorsed it. Having patiently listened to these various criticisms from his friends, all of which, with a single exception, were adverse, he rose from his chair, and after alluding to the careful study and intense thought he had given the question, he answered all their objections substantially as follows: 'Friends, this thing has been retarded long enough. The time has come when those sentiments should be uttered; and if it is decreed that I should go down because of this speech, then let me go down linked to the truth—let me die in the advocacy of what is just and right.'"

After completing its routine work, the Convention adjourned to meet in the Hall of Representatives at Springfield that evening to hear Lincoln's speech, and it was anticipated with intense interest and anxiety because the gentlemen whom Lincoln had taken into his confidence had let it be known that he was to take a very radical position. It was the most carefully prepared speech he ever made, although he delivered it from memory, and after a few opening sentences he uttered this bold and significant declaration which evoked an enthusiastic response from all of the free States of the Union:

"'A house divided against itself cannot stand.' I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved—I do not expect the house to fall—but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward until it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new, North as well as South."

Shortly after this event, Senator Douglas returned from Washington and took the stump, attracting immense crowds and exciting great enthusiasm. His speeches, however, were evasive and contained much special pleading as well as misstatement. Lincoln watched him closely, and, recognizing that Douglas was fighting unfairly, decided to bring him to terms. Hence he addressed him a challenge to joint debate. Judge Weldon, who was living in Illinois at the time, tells the story as follows:

"We wrote Mr. Lincoln he had better come and hear Douglas speak at Clinton, which he did. There was an immense crowd for a country town, and on the way to the grove where the speaking took place, Mr. Lincoln said to me,—

"'Weldon, I have challenged Judge Douglas for a discussion. What do you think of it?'

"I replied, 'I approve your judgment in whatever you do.'

"We went over a little to one side of the crowd and sat down on one of the boards laid on logs for seats. Douglas spoke over three hours to an immense audience, and made one of the most forcible speeches I ever heard. As he went on he referred to Lincoln's Springfield speech, and became very personal, and I said to Mr. Lincoln,—

"'Do you suppose Douglas knows you are here?'

"'Well,' he replied, 'I don't know whether he does or not; he has not looked in this direction. But I reckon some of the boys have told him I am here.'

"When Douglas finished there was a tremendous shout for 'Lincoln,' which kept on with no let up. Mr. Lincoln said,—

"'What shall I do? I can't speak here.'

"'You will have to say something,' I replied. 'Suppose you get up and say that you will speak this evening at the court-house yard.'

"Mr. Lincoln mounted the board seat, and as the crowd got sight of his tall form the shouts and cheers were wild. As soon as he could make himself heard he said,—

"'This is Judge Douglas's meeting. I have no right, therefore, no disposition to interfere. But if you ladies and gentlemen desire to hear what I have to say on these questions, and will meet me this evening at the court-house yard, east side, I will try to answer this gentleman.'

"Lincoln made a speech that evening which in volume did not equal the speech of Douglas, but for sound and cogent argument was the superior. Douglas had charged Mr. Lincoln with being in favor of negro equality, which was then the bugbear of politics. In his speech that evening Mr. Lincoln said,—

"'Judge Douglas charges me with being in favor of negro equality, and to the extent that he charges I am not guilty. I am guilty of hating servitude and loving freedom; and while I would not carry the equality of the races to the extent charged by my adversary, I am happy to confess before you that in some things the black man is the equal of the white man. In the right to eat the bread his own hands have earned he is the equal of Judge Douglas or any other living man.'

"When Lincoln spoke the last sentence he had lifted himself to his full height, and as he reached his hands towards the stars of that still night, then and there fell from his lips one of the most sublime expressions of American statesmanship. The effect was grand, the cheers tremendous."

Senator Douglas accepted the challenge, and the famous debate was arranged which for public interest and forensic ability has never been surpassed or equalled in any country. Seven dates and towns were selected, and the debaters were placed on an equal footing by an arrangement that alternately one should speak an hour in opening and the other an hour and a half in reply, the first to have half an hour in closing.

In addition to his seven meetings with Douglas, Lincoln made thirty-one other set speeches arranged by the State Central Committee during the campaign, besides many brief addresses not previously advertised. Sometimes he spoke several times a day, and was exposed to a great deal of discomfort and fatigue which none but a man of his physical strength could have endured. He paid his own expenses, travelled by ordinary cars and freight trains, and often was obliged to drive in wagons or to ride horseback to keep his engagements. Mr. Douglas enjoyed a great advantage. He had been in the Senate several years and had influential friends holding government offices all over the State, who had time and money to arrange receptions and entertainments and lost no opportunity to lionize him. Every Federal official, for weeks before the joint meetings, gave his attention to the arrangements and was held responsible by Mr. Douglas for securing a large and enthusiastic Democratic audience. He was accompanied by his wife, a beautiful and brilliant woman, and by a committee of the most distinguished Democratic politicians in the State. He travelled in a special train furnished by the Illinois Central Railroad, and in charge of Captain George B. McClellan, who was then its general manager. Every employee of that road was a partisan of Douglas, voluntary or involuntary, and several times Lincoln was compelled to suffer unnecessary delay and inconvenience because of their partisanship. Many a time when he was trying to get a little sleep in a wayside station, while waiting for a connection, or lay in a bunk in the caboose of a freight train, the special car of his opponent, decorated with flags and lithographs, would go sweeping by.

A gentleman who accompanied him during the canvass relates this: "Lincoln and I were at the Centralia Agricultural Fair the day after the debate at Jonesboro. Night came on and we were tired, having been on the fair grounds all day. We were to go north on the Illinois Central Railroad. The train was due at midnight, and the depot was full of people. I managed to get a chair for Lincoln in the office of the superintendent of the railroad, but small politicians would intrude so that he could scarcely get a moment's sleep. The train came and was filled instantly. I got a seat near the door for Lincoln and myself. He was worn out, and had to meet Douglas the next day at Charleston. An empty car, called a saloon car, was hitched on to the rear of the train and locked up. I asked the conductor, who knew Lincoln and myself well,—we were both attorneys of the road,—if Lincoln could not ride in that car; that he was exhausted and needed rest; but the conductor refused. I afterwards got him in by stratagem."

The meetings were attended by enormous crowds. People came twenty and thirty miles in carriages and wagons, devoting two or three days to the excursion, and the local excitement was intense. The two parties endeavored to excel each other in processions, music, fireworks, and novel features. At each town salutes would be fired and an address of welcome delivered by some prominent citizen. Sometimes committees of ladies would present the speakers bouquets of flowers, and on one occasion they wound garlands around the lank and awkward form of the future President, much to his embarrassment and dismay. After a debate at Ottawa, the enthusiasm was so great that a party of his admirers carried him on their shoulders from the meeting to the house where he was being entertained.

Lincoln did not underrate the ability or the advantages of his opponent. He realized fully the serious character and importance of the contest in which he was engaged. He was aware that the entire country was watching him with anxious eyes, and that he was addressing not only the multitudes that gathered around the platforms, but the entire population of the United States. He knew also that whatever he might say would have a permanent effect upon the fortunes of the Republican party, then only two years old, not to speak of his own personal destiny.

He knew Douglas as well and perhaps better than Douglas knew himself. They had been acquainted from boyhood, and their lives had run in parallels in a most remarkable manner. They had met at the threshold of their political careers. They had served together in the Legislature twenty-three years before. They were admitted to practice at the bar of the Supreme Court together. They had been rivals for the hand of the same lady, as related in a previous chapter. They served together in Congress. They had met repeatedly, and had measured strength in the Legislature, in the courts, and on the platform. They had always been upon outwardly friendly terms, but each knew that the other disliked him intensely. It is probable that his inquisitive nature and analytical habits gave Lincoln a better knowledge of the strong and weak points of his antagonist. He was very thorough in whatever he undertook, while Douglas was more confident and careless in his preparation. Lincoln knew that in the whole field of American politics there was no man so adroit or aggressive or gifted in the tricks and strategy of debate, and in this contest Douglas showed his fullest power. Lincoln's talents and habits were entirely different. He indulged in no tricks and made no effort to dazzle audiences. His fairness of statement and generosity were well known and understood by Mr. Douglas, who took advantage of them. His high standard of political morals and his devotion to constitutional principles were equally well understood, and Douglas took advantage of those also.

Douglas electrified the crowds with his eloquence and charmed them by his grace and dexterity. He was forcible in statement, aggressive in assertion, and treated Lincoln in a patronizing and contemptuous manner; but Lincoln's simplicity of statement, his homely illustrations, quaint originality, and convincing logic were often more forcible than the lofty flights of eloquence in which his opponent indulged. He was more careful and accurate in his statement of facts, and his knowledge of the details of history and the legislation of Congress was a great advantage, for he convicted Douglas of misrepresentation again and again, although it seemed to have had no effect whatever upon the confidence of the latter's supporters. As usual, Mr. Lincoln kept close to the subject and spoke to convince and not to amuse or entertain. When one of his friends suggested that his reputation for story-telling was being destroyed by the seriousness of his speeches, Lincoln replied that this was no time for jokes.

One of the gentlemen who accompanied Mr. Lincoln has given us the following description of his appearance and manner of speaking: "When standing erect he was six feet four inches high. He was lean in flesh and ungainly in figure: thin through the chest, and hence slightly stoop-shouldered. When he arose to address courts, juries, or crowds of people his body inclined forward to a slight degree. At first he was very awkward, and it seemed a real labor to adjust himself to the surroundings. He struggled for a time under a feeling of apparent diffidence and sensitiveness, and these only added to his awkwardness. When he began speaking, his voice was shrill, piping, and unpleasant. His manner, his attitude, his dark, yellow face wrinkled and dry, his oddity of pose, his diffident movements,—everything seemed to be against him, but only for a short time. After having arisen, he generally placed his hands behind him, the back of his left hand in the palm of his right, the thumb and fingers of his right hand clasped around the left arm at the wrist. For a few moments he played the combination of awkwardness, sensitiveness, and diffidence. As he proceeded he became somewhat animated, and to keep in harmony with his growing warmth his hands relaxed their grasp and fell to his side. Presently he clasped them in front of him, interlocking his fingers, one thumb meanwhile chasing the other. His speech now requiring more emphatic utterance, his fingers unlocked and his hands fell apart. His left arm was thrown behind, the back of his hand resting against his body, his right hand seeking his side. By this time he had gained sufficient composure, and his real speech began. He did not gesticulate as much with his hands as he did with his head. He used the latter frequently, throwing it with vim this way and that. This movement was a significant one when he sought to enforce his statement. It sometimes came with a quick jerk, as if throwing off electric sparks into combustible material. He never sawed the air nor rent space into tatters and rags, as some orators do. He never acted for stage effect. He was cool, considerate, reflective—in time self-possessed and self-reliant. His style was clear, terse, and compact. In argument he was logical, demonstrative, and fair. He was careless of his dress, and his clothes, instead of fitting, as did the garments of Douglas on the latter's well-rounded form, hung loosely on his giant frame.

"As he moved along in his speech he became freer and less uneasy in his movements; to that extent he was graceful. He had a perfect naturalness, a strong individuality; and to that extent he was dignified. There was a world of meaning and emphasis in the long, bony finger of his right hand as he dotted the ideas on the minds of his hearers. Sometimes, to express joy or pleasure, he would raise both hands at an angle of about fifty degrees, the palms upward. If the sentiment was one of detestation,—denunciation of slavery, for example,—both arms, thrown upward and the fists clinched, swept through the air, and he expressed an execration that was truly sublime. This was one of his most effective gestures, and signified most vividly a fixed determination to drag down the object of his hatred and trample it in the dust. He always stood squarely on his feet, toe even with toe; that is, he never put one foot before the other. He neither touched nor leaned on anything for support. He made but few changes in his positions and attitudes. He never ranted, never walked backward and forward on the platform. To ease his arms he frequently caught hold, with his left hand, of the lapel of his coat, keeping his thumb upright and leaving his right hand free to gesticulate. The designer of the monument erected in Chicago has happily caught him in just this attitude. As he proceeded with his speech the exercise of his vocal organs altered somewhat the tone of his voice. It lost in a measure its former acute and shrilling pitch, and mellowed into a more harmonious and pleasant sound. His form expanded, and, notwithstanding the sunken breast, he rose up a splendid and imposing figure. His little gray eyes flashed in a face aglow with the fire of his profound thoughts, and his uneasy movements and diffident manner sunk themselves beneath the wave of righteous indignation that came sweeping over him. Such was Lincoln the orator."

Mr. Lincoln's own impressions were expressed to a friend as follows: "Senator Douglas is of world-wide renown," he said. "All of the anxious politicians of his party, or who have been of his party for years past, have been looking upon him as certainly at no distant day to be President of the United States. They have seen in his round, jolly, fruitful face post-offices, land-offices, marshalships, and Cabinet appointments, chargÉ-ships and foreign missions, bursting and sprouting out in wonderful exuberance ready to be laid hold of by their greedy hands. And as they have been gazing upon this attractive picture so long, they cannot, in the little distraction that has taken place in the party, bring themselves to give up the charming hope; but with greedier anxiety they rush about him, sustain him, and give him marches, triumphal entries, and receptions beyond what even in the days of highest prosperity they could have brought about in his favor. On the contrary, nobody has ever expected me to be President. In my poor, lean, lank face nobody has ever seen that any cabbages were sprouting out. These are disadvantages, all taken together, that the Republicans labor under. We have to fight this battle upon principle, and principle alone."

As a rule, when both occupied the same platform their manners and language were very courteous; but occasionally, when speaking elsewhere, Mr. Douglas lost his temper and indulged in personal attacks upon his opponent. Mr. Horace White, who reported the debate for one of the Chicago papers, describes one of these occasions as follows;

"We arrived at Havana while Douglas was still speaking. I strolled up to the Douglas meeting just before its conclusion, and there met a friend who had heard the whole. He was in a state of high indignation. He said that Douglas must certainly have been drinking before he came on the platform, because he had called Lincoln 'a liar, a coward, a wretch, and a sneak.'" When Mr. Lincoln replied, on the following day, he took notice of Douglas's hard words in this way:

"I am informed that my distinguished friend yesterday became a little excited, nervous(?) perhaps, and that he said something about fighting, as though looking to a personal encounter between himself and me. Did anybody in this audience hear him use such language? ['Yes, yes.'] I am informed, further, that somebody in his audience, rather more excited or nervous than himself, took off his coat and offered to take the job off Judge Douglas's hands and fight Lincoln himself. Did anybody here witness that warlike proceeding? [Laughter and cries of 'Yes.'] Well, I merely desire to say that I shall fight neither Judge Douglas nor his second. I shall not do this for two reasons, which I will explain. In the first place, a fight would prove nothing which is in issue in this election. It might establish that Judge Douglas is a more muscular man than myself, or it might show that I am a more muscular man than Judge Douglas; but that subject is not referred to in the Cincinnati platform, nor in either of the Springfield platforms. Neither result would prove him right nor me wrong. And so of the gentleman who offered to do his fighting for him. If my fighting Judge Douglas would not prove anything, it would certainly prove nothing for me to fight his bottle-holder. My second reason for not having a personal encounter with Judge Douglas is that I don't believe he wants it himself. He and I are about the best friends in the world, and when we get together he would no more think of fighting me than of fighting his wife. Therefore when the Judge talked about fighting he was not giving vent to any ill-feeling of his own, but was merely trying to excite—well, let us say enthusiasm against me on the part of his audience. And, as I find he was tolerably successful in this, we will call it quits."

The crisis of the debate came at Freeport on August 27, 1858, when Lincoln proposed a series of questions for Douglas to answer. At the previous meeting at Ottawa, Douglas propounded a series of questions for Lincoln which were designed to commit him to strong abolition doctrines. He asked whether Lincoln was pledged to the repeal of the fugitive-slave law, to resist the admission of any more slave States, to the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, to the prohibition of the slave-trade between the States, to the prohibition of slavery in the Territories, and to oppose the acquisition of any new Territory unless slavery was prohibited therein. Lincoln replied with great candor that he was pledged to no proposition except the prohibition of slavery in all the Territories of the United States. It was then that he turned upon Douglas with four questions, the second of which was laden with the most tremendous consequences not only to the debaters personally, but to the entire nation and the cause of human freedom:

"Can the people of a United States Territory in any lawful way, against the wish of any citizen of the United States, exclude slavery from its limits prior to the formation of a State Constitution?"

In proposing this question Lincoln rejected the advice and disregarded the entreaties of his wisest friends and most devoted adherents, for they predicted that it would give Douglas an opportunity to square himself with the people of Illinois and to secure his re-election to the United States Senate. Lincoln replied,—

"I am killing larger game; if Douglas answers he can never be President, and the battle of 1860 is worth a hundred of this."

This prediction, which was afterwards fulfilled, shows Lincoln's remarkable political foresight perhaps better than any single incident in his career. A private letter, written more than a month before, shows that Lincoln had long and carefully studied the probable consequences of the answer that Douglas must make to such an interrogatory, and its fatal effect upon his political fortunes; for, even then, he foresaw that Douglas was to be the Democratic candidate for the Presidency of the United States, and that his reply would deprive him of the support of more than half of the members of that party. With extraordinary sagacity, he pointed out that Douglas would eagerly seize upon such an opportunity as this interrogatory afforded to place himself right before his constituents in Illinois, and thus would recover his popularity and insure his re-election to the Senate. And he was confident that Douglas was so shortsighted as to do this and then trust to his cunning to set himself right afterwards with the people of the slave States, which Lincoln believed would be impossible. But even he did not realize the tremendous and far-reaching results of his inquiry, for the answer which Douglas gave split the Democratic party into irreconcilable factions, and enabled the Republican minority to select the President of the United States at the most critical period of the nation's history, and thus to save the Union.

"You will have hard work to get him [Douglas] directly to the point whether a territorial Legislature has or has not the power to exclude slavery," said Lincoln to a friend; "but if you succeed in bringing him to it, though he will be compelled to say it possesses no such power, he will instantly take the ground that slavery cannot exist in the Territories unless the people desire it, and so give it protection by territorial legislation. If this offends the South, he will let it offend them, as, at all events, he means to hold on to his chances in Illinois." And that was exactly what Douglas did do. He repeated the sophism he had advanced in his speech at Springfield on the Dred Scott decision the previous year, and said,—

"It matters not what way the Supreme Court may hereafter decide as to the abstract question whether slavery may or may not go into a Territory under the Constitution; the people have the lawful means to introduce it or exclude it as they please, for the reason that slavery cannot exist a day or an hour anywhere unless it is supported by local police regulations. Those police regulations can only be established by the local Legislature, and if the people are opposed to slavery, they will elect representatives to that body who will, by unfriendly legislation, effectually prevent the introduction of it into their midst. If, on the contrary, they are for it, their legislation will favor its extension."

The supporters of Douglas shouted with satisfaction at the clever way in which he had escaped the trap Lincoln had set for him. His re-election to the Senate was practically secured, and Lincoln had been defeated at his own game. Lincoln's friends were correspondingly depressed, and in their despondency admitted that their favorite had no longer any prospect of election; that he had thrown his own chances away.

Mr. Douglas was re-elected; but when Congress met in December, and he was removed by the Democratic caucus from the chairmanship of the Senate Committee on Territories, which he had held for eleven years, because he had betrayed the slave-holders in his answer to Lincoln, at Freeport, the Republicans of Illinois began to realize the political sagacity of their leader. Then when, for the same reason, the Democratic National Convention at Charleston was broken up by the Southern delegates rather than accept Douglas as the Democratic candidate for the Presidency, Lincoln's reputation as a political prophet was established.

In 1861 Lincoln asked Joseph Medill, of the Chicago Tribune, if he recalled his opposition to putting that fatal question to Douglas.

"Yes," replied Medill, "I recollect it very well. It lost Douglas the Presidency, but it lost you the Senatorship."

"Yes," said Mr. Lincoln. "And I have won the place he was playing for."

Douglas was the regular Democratic candidate for President against Lincoln in 1860, but was opposed by the Southern faction. At Lincoln's inauguration he appeared with his usual dignity, and stood beside his rival upon the platform. As a member of the Senate he criticised Lincoln's policy until hostilities actually broke out, when his patriotism overcame his partisanship and he became an earnest supporter of the government. On the evening of April 14, the day of the fall of Sumter, he called at the White House by appointment and spent two hours alone with the President. Neither ever revealed what occurred at the interview, but it was not necessary. From that hour until his death on June 3 following he stood by Lincoln's side in defence of the Union. His last public utterance was a patriotic speech before the Legislature on April 25, urging the people of Illinois to stand by the flag. His last interview with Lincoln occurred a few days previous.

"Douglas came rushing in," said the President afterwards, "and said he had just got a telegraph message from some friends in Illinois urging him to come out and help set things right in Egypt, and that he would go or stay in Washington, just where I thought he could do the most good. I told him to do as he chose, but that he would probably do best in Illinois. Upon that he shook hands with me and hurried away to catch the next train. I never saw him again."

The country at large had watched the debate between Lincoln and Douglas with profound interest, and thinking men of both parties realized that a new leader as well as a great orator and statesman had appeared upon the horizon. Lincoln was overwhelmed with congratulations and invitations came from every direction to make speeches and deliver lectures, but most of them were declined. He spoke twice in Ohio, at Columbus and at Cincinnati, where he excited great enthusiasm and left so deep an impression that the State Committee published his speeches and the debate with Douglas as a campaign document. In December he went to Kansas and delivered five lectures, and in the spring of 1860 he received an invitation from a young men's association in Brooklyn to deliver a lecture in Plymouth Church, of which Henry Ward Beecher was then pastor. They offered a fee of two hundred dollars which was very acceptable because his practice had been sadly neglected and he was feeling very poor. At the same time his natural diffidence made him reluctant to appear before an Eastern audience, and when he arrived in New York and discovered that he was to speak in Cooper Institute instead of in Brooklyn, he was fearful that he had made a mistake. Henry C. Bowen invited him to be his guest in Brooklyn, but he declined, saying that he was afraid his lecture would not be a success and he must give his whole time to revising it. He was afraid his audience would be disappointed and the young men who had kindly invited him would suffer financially.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN IN 1861

Copied from the original in the possession of Frank A. Brown, Esq., Minneapolis, Minnesota