The Lincoln and Douglas Debates

Candidates for the United States Senate—Seven Joint Debates—The Paramount Issue—The "Divided House"—"Acts of a Drama"—Douglas Charged Lincoln with Selling Whisky—Lincoln's Denial—A Discovery—Site of the Old Still House in Indiana—Douglas Elected—Lincoln, the Champion of Human Liberty.

In 1858, Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas were candidates for the United States Senate from Illinois. Mr. Douglas, who was a Democrat, had already served as Senator, and was a candidate for reËlection. Mr. Lincoln was the Republican nominee. Both had had considerable experience in politics. Arrangements were made between them to jointly discuss the political issues at seven different places, namely, Ottawa, August 21; Freeport, August 27; Jonesboro, September 15; Charlestown, September 18; Galesburg, October 7; Quincy, October 13, and Alton, October 15.

These were the most noted public debates in American history. The slavery question, with its various side issues, was the chief topic of discussion. These debates were listened to by immense concourses of people, and excited the interest of the whole country. Mr. Lincoln assumed that slavery was wrong, and opposed the extension of it, while Mr. Douglas, without considering the moral phase of the question, was in favor of leaving to the vote of the inhabitants of a territory whether it should become a State with or without slavery.

Mr. Lincoln's "divided house" argument, first used at Springfield, in June, when he was nominated for Senator, was one of the strongest applications of scripture ever given. He said:

In the course of the debates, Mr. Lincoln said of slavery:

Because of the great principles involved, and the wide notoriety of these debates, Mr. Lincoln said, at Quincy:

In the first debate, at Ottawa, Mr. Douglas said, in reference to the early career of himself and Mr. Lincoln in Illinois:

It has been stated, in Chapter VII., that in those days to be a "grocery-keeper" implied the selling of whisky. In his reply, Mr. Lincoln, using the third person, said:

Here Lincoln plainly denies ever keeping a grocery, but the query arises, Where did he "work the latter part of one winter in a little still-house, up at the head of a hollow"? In all the numerous Lincoln biographies I have ever examined I have never seen any reference to its location. But I have located the place.

Reference has been made to Henry Brooner, one of Lincoln's early associates in Indiana. At the time of giving the other items, more than twenty years ago, already mentioned, "Uncle Henry" made this statement, written at the time, the original still preserved:

"Oh, Uncle Henry," said I, "find that paper, and I will give you ten dollars for it." He said his house burned afterward, and all his papers were destroyed. He afterward built a brick house near the same foundation.

When "Uncle Henry" gave me this item, I had not read the celebrated Lincoln and Douglas debates, and, therefore, knew nothing of Lincoln's statement that he had worked at a still-house. When I read the debates, fifteen years later, and saw Lincoln's reference to his having "worked the latter part of one winter at a little still-house, up at the head of a hollow," I was at once struck with what "Uncle Henry" had told me. This certainly decides the fact that Lincoln had reference to the time when he worked at the Dutton distillery, when his step-brother, John Johnston, run it the winter before the Lincolns left for Illinois, in 1830.

John Kemp, my old friend and a highly-respected citizen, now sixty-three years old, who was born and reared on a farm adjoining Henry Brooner, told me in July, 1903, in Washington, Indiana, that north of the old Brooner farm there is an old farm still known as the "Dutton farm," and that he remembered seeing, often, when a small boy, near a spring, an old, dilapidated building called the "old still-house." He had never heard of John Johnston or of Abraham Lincoln working there, for that was before he was born. "Uncle Henry" had been dead thirteen years, but I had the record of the statement he made to me.

On a bright afternoon, September 7, 1903, Mr. Kemp took me in his buggy to see the place. The farm was then owned by John and Harmon Steineker, and is on the old Fredonia and Princeton highway, four miles southwest of Huntingburg, Dubois County, Indiana. Here is the "Dutton farm," and here is a spring in the barn lot. Just across the road, to the right, is where the old "still-house" stood, and there is the "hollow" running down through the forest. As I viewed the scene, I felt something within me akin to what old Archimedes felt when he discovered the solution to an important mathematical problem, and exclaimed, "Eureka! Eureka!" ("I have found it! I have found it!").

In the joint debates between Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Douglas, the latter carried the most popular applause, but the former made the deeper and more lasting impressions. Douglas was greeted with the loudest cheers, but when Lincoln closed, the people seemed sober and serious. As a result of the canvass, Mr. Lincoln had a majority of four thousand of the popular vote of the State, but it is stated that the legislative districts were so construed that Douglas received a majority of the ballots in the legislature, and was, therefore, returned to the United States Senate. The debates brought Mr. Lincoln to the front as an able and eloquent champion of human liberty and prepared the way for his nomination and election to the presidency of the United States.