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 Mace, Wi I 1 iam H, 
 Lincoln andDoua'Jas 
 
LINCOLN ROOM 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
 LIBRARY 
 
 MEMORIAL 
 
 the Class of 1901 
 
 founded by 
 
 HARLAN HOYT HORNER 
 
 and 
 
 HENRIETTA CALHOUN HORNER 
 
Lincoln and Douglas 
 
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LINCOLN ROOM 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
 LIBRARY 
 
 MEMORIAL 
 
 the Class of 1901 
 
 founded by 
 
 HARLAN HOYT HORNER 
 
 and 
 
 HENRIETTA CALHOUN HORNER 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2012 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 
 
 http://archive.org/details/lincolndouglasOOmace 
 
Bachrach 
 
 WILLIAM H. MACE 
 
C4M IS I 
 
 From the Editor s Preface to Lord Charnzvood's 
 Abraham Lincoln 
 
 "Lincoln . . . was misunderstood and underated in 
 his life time, and even yet has hardly come to his own. 
 For his place is among the great men of the earth. To 
 them he belongs by right of his immense power of 
 hard work and his unfaltering pursuit of what seemed 
 to him to be right, and above all by that childlike 
 directness and simplicity of vision which none but the 
 greatest carry beyond their earliest years. It is fit 
 that the first considered attempt by an Englishman to 
 give a picture of Lincoln, the greatest hero of Amer- 
 ica's struggle for the noblest cause, should come at a 
 time when we of England are passing through a fiery 
 trial for a cause we feel to be as noble. It is a time 
 when one may learn much from Lincoln's failures and 
 successes, from his patience, his modesty, his serene 
 optimism and his eloquence so simple and magnificent." 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 THE POLITICAL SITUATION 
 
 The Development of a Crisis (1840-1854) 1 
 
 The Crisis Postponed 2 
 
 THE CRISIS BEGINS TO APPROACH AGAIN 
 
 Douglas and the Kansas-Nebraska Bill 4 
 
 Opposition in Congress and the North 5 
 
 The Struggle for Kansas 6 
 
 Douglas Breaks With the Southern Wing of His Party .... 8 
 
 DEVELOPMENT AND CHARACTER OF THE RIVALS 
 
 Stephen Arnold Douglas 10 
 
 Abraham Lincoln in Kentucky and Indiana 12 
 
 Lincoln Moves to Illinois 15 
 
 Lincoln Enters Politics 17 
 
 Lincoln and Douglas Begin Their Rivalry 19 
 
 Anecdotes Illustrating Lincoln's Character 21 
 
 Lincoln Goes to Congress 23 
 
 Lincoln Turns to Law Again 24 
 
 THE CONFLICT BEGINS 
 
 Preliminary Skirmishes 26 
 
 The House Divided Against Itself Speech 27 
 
 THE REAL BATTLE 
 
 Social Surroundings 28 
 
 The First Debate at Ottawa 29 
 
 THE DECISIVE BATTLE AT FREEPORT 
 
 Lincoln Answers Douglas' Questions 31 
 
 Lincoln Destroys Douglas Politically 32 
 
 Effects of the Debates 34 
 
 LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS RIVALS FOR THE PRESIDENCY 
 
 Douglas Nominated 35 
 
 Lincoln Nominated 35 
 
 Douglas the Great Figure in the Campaign 36 
 
 Immediate Effects of Secession 37 
 
 DOUGLAS STANDS BY LINCOLN 
 
 Lincoln on the Way and in Washington 38 
 
 Douglas Supports Lincoln Socially and Politically 40 
 
 Douglas' Last Journey 41 
 
 LINCOLN ASSASSINATED 
 
 What Some Great Men Thought 43 
 
 America Mourns 44 
 
 Memorials to Lincoln 45 
 
A Word to My Students 
 
 When Attorney Richard H. Templeton "99 Major, asked me 
 for a copy of the Lincoln-Douglas lecture, I had to confess that 
 it had never been written out. This request, taken with the gift 
 of the Rev. Dr. and Mrs. Mix '93 Major, of one hundred Lincoln 
 books to the Mace Library, suggested that I write out that lecture 
 and present it in booklet form to each of our Majors with the 
 hope that it would help keep alive the happy memories of the days 
 of work and play in old Syracuse. 
 
 To make this express more than a pleasant relation between 
 students and teachers, I proposed to them to unite with me in 
 a joint effort to endow a Lincoln Collection as a part of the Mace 
 Library, so auspiciously begun by the Mix gift. I hope that this 
 effort will result in giving Syracuse University a collection of 
 Lincoln sources to meet the demand of its undergraduate and 
 graduate students. 
 
 I have the greatest confidence that our Majors and all the 
 men and women who sat under our tuition will hail this as an 
 opportunity to show their love and loyalty for the old Depart- 
 ment and the University. 
 
 That this confidence is not misplaced is proven by the fact 
 that I have received scores of letters, before I have written to 
 half our Majors, enclosing liberal checks, and all this in spite of 
 the devastating depression which has struck University people so 
 hard. I do not know how to express my gratitude for such de- 
 votion. 
 
 It is proper that I should announce to Majors and other 
 subscribers that the Mace Fund began in 1911, by professors and 
 students in the department, led by Dr. A. C. Flick, while Mrs. 
 Mace and I were in Europe, has reached its goal of $10,000. 
 I wish to express my deepest appreciation to our Majors and other 
 friends for their devotion in maintaining this fund. The Depart- 
 ment of History will be paid, in interest, $500 each year by the 
 University for the purchases of historical works. 
 
 I am glad to announce that Chancellor Flint approves of 
 our efforts to endow a Lincoln Collection and has suggested that 
 we print 1,200 booklets for our Majors and those loyal non- 
 Majors who were in our classes. 
 
The Mace Library, with the Mix Lincoln Collection, is now 
 housed in the General Library, in the spacious room once occupied 
 by the Von Ranke Collection. 
 
 To that fine body of men and women who gave unstinted 
 service in managing our great Reunion and are cooperating in 
 endowing a Lincoln Collection, I wish to express my deepest 
 appreciation. 
 
 I am under great obligations to my former colleagues, Pro- 
 fessors Earl E. Sperry and Edwin P. Tanner, for their scholarly 
 criticism of the Lincoln-Douglas manuscript. 
 
 Faithfully and affectionately, 
 
 WILLIAM H. MACE 
 Syracuse, 1933 
 
Lincoln and Douglas 
 
 The Political Situation 
 
 The Development of a Crisis 
 Several years before the opening of the conflict between Lin- 
 coln and Douglas political conditions had been moving toward a 
 crisis. The Whig victory of 1840 had failed to bring permanent 
 success to the party. The Whigs were divided by the early death 
 of President Harrison and the succession of Vice-President 
 Tyler. Polk, the Democrat, defeated Clay, the W T hig, in 1844, 
 largely because of Clay's attempt to carry water on both shoulders. 
 He wrote two letters : One for those who favored the annexa- 
 tion of Texas and the other for those opposed — so the anti- 
 slavery men charged. 
 
 Texas was annexed and the Mexican War followed. The 
 Democrats seemed to be riding the wave of popularity, but the 
 Whigs stole their thunder and nominated General Taylor, a hero 
 of the Mexican War. The Democratic Party looked to the South 
 for its majority, the Whigs to the North. The debates over the 
 causes of the Mexican War and over the Wilmot Proviso, fath- 
 ered by a Northern Democrat, tended to shatter both parties. 
 Hence to save themselves both parties followed the same strategy : 
 The Whigs nominated the hero of Buena Vista, Zachary Taylor, 
 a Southern slaveholder, and the Democrats nominated Senator 
 Cass, a Northern man, from the Whig state of Michigan. Each 
 party was making a desperate effort to hold its voters. But this 
 kind of politics was too much for the independent spirits in the 
 two parties. Many Southern Democrats preferred the Whig 
 slaveholder while some Northern Whigs voted for Cass. But 
 Northern anti-slavery men nominated Martin Van Buren who 
 had been a favorite of General Jackson and a Democratic Presi- 
 dent, on a Free Soil platform. They polled nearly 300,000 votes. 
 The Whigs won. 
 
 The discovery of gold in California in 1848 "threw a monkey 
 wrench into the political machinery." "Gold, gold, gold" swept 
 the country and people from all walks of life rushed to California 
 by every means and by every route. Soon the cry went up for 
 an organized government to preserve order. Strange to say, the 
 slaveholding President favored the new state constitution prohib- 
 iting slavery, much to the consternation of the South. 
 
 The "Argonauts" who reached California were almost all 
 
Lincoln and Douglas 
 
 Northern men and established a free state constitution. Not a 
 vote was cast in favor of making California a slave state, for 
 the simple reason that slave holders did not emigrate to California. 
 It would cost them the price of their slaves to take them and 
 then the chances were good that they might run away. 
 
 By the time California was knocking for admission as a free 
 state the North and South had taken opposite sides on its admis- 
 sion. The crisis was fast approaching. 
 
 The Crisis Postponed 
 
 The rising tide of hostility between the two sections began 
 to alarm the people, as in the time of the Missouri struggle and 
 in the battle over nullification. Henry Clay, the silver tongued 
 orator and great pacificator, had retired to his Ashland home to 
 rest awhile before being gathered to his fathers. He was a broken 
 and disappointed man, but the danger to his country aroused the 
 old hero once more and the legislature of his adopted state of 
 Kentucky, forgetting party lines, voted unanimously to send him 
 to his old place in the senate, that he might allay the storm that 
 threatened to dissolve the Union. 
 
 Welcomed back to Washington, he planned the famous Com- 
 promise of 1850: That California should be admitted as a free 
 state ; that the Territories of Utah and New Mexico should be 
 organized without reference to slavery; that Texas be paid $10,- 
 000,000 to give up her claim to New Mexico ; that the slave trade 
 be abolished in the District of Columbia ; and that a new and more 
 stringent Fugitive Slave Law be established. These were the 
 main features of the great compromise. 
 
 Henry Clay made his last great speech introducing and de- 
 fending his bill. That speech was a most powerful one. The 
 people had come from the distant parts of the country, pack- 
 ing the galleries, and filling the corridors while many stood in the 
 aisles and halls. When he arose, the victor in many an oratorical 
 conflict, that vast audience broke out in tumultuous cheering so 
 that the President of the Senate, naturally kindly disposed on this 
 occasion, was compelled to threaten to clear the galleries and 
 aisles. Clay ran along hour after hour and day after day with 
 that fine, splendid oratory of which he was the master. He 
 appealed to their love of country by picturing the glories of the 
 Union and by painting the disasters that must follow its dissolu- 
 tion. Under profound excitement he seemed young again and 
 that melodious voice which had charmed thousands sounded as 
 of old. 
 
Lincoln and Douglas 
 
 When Henry Clay closed, there took place a scene never 
 before or since witnessed in the American Senate : People crowded 
 around to congratulate him, and finely * dressed, well behaved 
 ladies imprinted upon his wan cheeks the kiss of approbation and 
 affection in their very joy for the work he was endeavoring to do. 
 
 Two other mighty men composed this trio of statesmen, the 
 like of whom was seldom seen in any time or in any country — 
 Calhoun and Webster. Each spoke for the preservation of the 
 Union, as Clay had done. Calhoun, the apostle of State Rights, 
 had one foot in the grave and could not deliver his address, but 
 sat in his accustomed place and listened to his own words and 
 watched their effect upon his comrades. What a strange and 
 weird spectacle to see this great man, through a friend, making 
 his last appeal for the preservation of Union ! But for a Union 
 which preserved the equilibrum of the two sections. This was an 
 impossible Union, for the North was sweeping forward with 
 gigantic strides while the South was remaining comparatively 
 stationary. No power under the sun could make or keep them 
 equal. If this were impossible then he prayed that the South 
 should be permitted to withdraw in peace. 
 
 Calhoun not only asked for an impossible Union, but for an 
 impossible secession. If the two sections could not live happily 
 together they could scarcely live happily apart. The South in 
 controlling the lower Mississippi would become more the enemy 
 of the North than did Spain the foe of the old Confederation. 
 
 Every one was waiting to hear from the third member of 
 the great trio, the "God-like Daniel." Webster kept his secret 
 and no one knew what he thought. He had been the champion 
 of nationality, and his anti-slavery worshipers were hoping he 
 would lift his powerful voice in favor of freedom. He disap- 
 pointed them. His address was titled the "Union and the Consti- 
 tution." He declared that he belonged to no section but was an 
 American and recognized the rights of all sections. He demanded 
 that the abolitionists of the North and the fire-eaters of the South 
 cease their agitation and asserted that the Wilmot Proviso was a 
 useless and empty decree, flying in the face of Providence. 
 
 These statesmen were the Past speaking to the American 
 people. They were born before the Revolution and had gone 
 through the experiences of the "Critical Period". They appreciated 
 the great progress the American people had made under the Union 
 since the Constitution. This wonderful trio postponed the crisis, 
 in spite of the more radical efforts of Seward and Chase and of 
 Davis and Tombs, and the compromise was finally adopted. 
 
Lincoln and Douglas 
 
 Now began a widespread propaganda to make the com- 
 promise popular. "Union" meetings were held over the nation 
 and great orators of both parties appeared on the same platform 
 to urge that the compromise be accepted as a finality. The House 
 voted 103 to 74, and the Democratic National Convention passed 
 a resolution, to stand by the compromise. In the Whig National 
 Convention, with only 60 dissenting voices, they decided to sup- 
 port the great act. The business men of the country called 
 loudly for the agitation over the slavery question to cease, for it 
 was threatening to interfere with their interests. 
 
 The Democrats won a tremendous victory in electing Franklin 
 Pierce President. This was partly due to the fact that the people 
 believed the compromise safer in Democratic hands than in that 
 of the Whigs. Hale, the Free Soil candidate, had only half as 
 many votes as Van Buren in 1848. This fact seemed to show, 
 with the overwhelming victory of Pierce that the people had 
 accepted the compromise as a finality and had placed its fate in 
 the hands of the Democracy. 
 
 The Crisis Begins to Approach Again 
 
 Douglas and the Kansas-Nebraska Bill 
 
 When Pierce took his seat there was still promise of peace 
 between the two sections. In his inaugural and again in his mes- 
 sage to Congress he pledged his entire power to carry out the 
 spirit of the Compromise of 1850. 
 
 Without doubt this was his honest purpose, but men do not 
 always see where their acts lead. He blundered in offering John 
 A. Dix a Cabinet position and then withdrew it because Dix was 
 unsatisfactory to the South — he had voted, with thousands of 
 New York Democrats, for Van Buren in 1848. 
 
 Soon it was noised abroad that Pierce was under the influence 
 of the South : The three men selected from the North were all 
 Southern allies. Besides there were Davis of Mississippi and 
 Dobbin of North Carolina, both strong in thir defense of slavery. 
 Douglas men had been passed over although he was the idol of 
 the Northwest. President Pierce let it be known that he was in 
 favor of Cuba as another slave state. By this time anti-slavery 
 men were assisting run-away slaves arrested under the New 
 Fugitive Slave Law. But the great event in the drama of agita- 
 tion was now about to take place. One Sunday early in January 
 1854, Stephen A. Douglas and Jefferson Davis visited President 
 Pierce to consult him in regard to a bill which Douglas carried. 
 This measure, which the President approved, was the famous 
 Kansas-Nebraska Bill, providing for the organization of two 
 territories of this name. 
 
 This bill, finally amended, repealed the Missouri Compromise 
 
Lincoln and Douglas 
 
 and provided that the people of the territories of Kansas and 
 Nebraska should decide for or against slavery when organized 
 as territories. This method of dealing with the slavery question 
 is the doctrine of Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 Douglas was accused by his enemies of truckling to southern 
 sentiment in opening the territories to the possibility of slavery 
 in order to be nominated for the presidency. The best defense of 
 Douglas against this charge is found in the statement that while 
 he was not -averse to gaining public favor in the South he looked 
 upon this bill as a fair and open way of settling the question : 
 That he appealed to a principle fundamental in the American 
 system of government, namely, the Right of Home Rule. He 
 certainly never dreamed of the ultimate consequences of this 
 measure to himself or the country. 
 
 Opposition in Congress and the North 
 
 Anti-slavery men everywhere saw a new menace in this 
 measure. To them it appeared that slavery was seizing on a new 
 lease of life. The independent Democrats in congress immediately 
 sounded the alarm in a protest sent broadcast over the country 
 denouncing the bill and its author. They declared it a deal 
 between Douglas and the slave power to further his campaign 
 for the presidency. They charged that it was "a gross violation 
 of a sacred pledge (the Missouri Compromise), a criminal be- 
 trayal of precious rights ... an atrocious plot to exclude from a 
 vast unoccupied region immigrants of the old world and the free 
 laborers of our own states". 
 
 This appeal sounded a fire-alarm of a conflagration that was 
 rapidly spreading throughout the North. Northern newspapers 
 flew at the bill and tore it to pieces. The public was aroused and 
 the pulpits rang with denunciations, and over 3,000 New England 
 ministers signed a protest declaring the bill a breach of faith that 
 would expose "us to the righteous judgment of the Almighty". 
 Douglas was denounced as a traitor comparable to Benedict 
 Arnold. Douglas in turn declared the preachers had "desecrated 
 the pulpit and has prostituted the sacred desk to . . . politics". 
 This attack on the clergy may remind us of the present day assault 
 on preachers for their stand on prohibition. 
 
 The bill passed both houses after a tremendous fight. In the 
 senate not a Northern Whig voted for the bill but only six North- 
 ern Democrats voted against it. Hence a party measure. One 
 Whig and one Democrat in the South voted against the bill. 
 Hence slavery was more binding in the South than party ties. In 
 the House 87 Northern and 9 Southern votes were recorded 
 
Lincoln and Douglas 
 
 against it, while for it there were 44 Northern votes and 69 
 Southern. The South was practically solid for the measure. 
 
 Douglas become more popular in the South but lost out in 
 the North and is reported to have said that on his way from New 
 York to Chicago he could read his newspaper at night by the light 
 of his own burning effigy. He was decidedly unpopular in parts 
 of his own state. In Chicago the rougher element burned his 
 effigy in public. On the public buildings, in the harbor on the 
 shipping flags floated at half mast as evidence of the people's sor- 
 row, and the church bells tolled as for a funeral. Only a few 
 friends met him at the depot. He had begun to taste the cup of 
 bitterness in his own town. 
 
 Once in Chicago he tried to explain to his constitutents his 
 conduct, but they refused to hear him. The demonstration of dis- 
 approval — the hoots, the jeers, and groans — tended to drown out 
 his stentorian voice. He fought back like a tiger at bay hurling 
 epithets at jeers and denunciations at hoots. Towards midnight 
 he said : "Gentlemen, I am going home and going to church and 
 you can go to hell." 
 
 This was the first and last time that Stephen A. Douglas was 
 howled down by a public audience, for no man ever equaled him 
 on the stump in dealing with a rough and tumultuous crowd. But 
 Chicago sentiment was not typical of Illinois for its people were 
 mainly from New England and the Middle States, and they looked 
 upon this little New Englander as a renegade. The southern part 
 of the state, like Ohio and Indiana, had been settled mainly by 
 Southern people. While New England denounced him as a rene- 
 gade who had sold his birthright for a mess of pottage this same 
 man was popular in the southern parts of these states named. 
 
 The Kansas-Nebraska bill, though unintentionally, aroused 
 a stronger anti-slavery sentiment than ever. Horace Greeley, 
 editor of the Nezv York Tribune, declared that "Pierce and Doug- 
 las have made more abolitionists in three months than Garrison 
 and Phillips could have made in half a century." The Under- 
 ground Railroad did a bigger business than ever before. State 
 legislatures in the North fell to enacting personal liberty laws 
 for the express purpose of interfering with the execution of the 
 Fugitive Slave Law. Here was practical nullification in the 
 North. 
 
 The Struggle for Kansas 
 
 Without any intention of doing so, Douglas had started a 
 race for Kansas. Which shall the territory be, slave or free? 
 Even before the bill got through congress, a New England 
 Yankee, Eli Thayer, was organizing the Emigrant Aid Society to 
 
Lincoln and Douglas 
 
 send people to Kansas. This movement alarmed the South for 
 it was reported that this Yankee was gathering about all the loose 
 capital in the North for the purpose of seizing the entire West 
 for freedom. 
 
 In the summer of 1854, the first migration started for Kansas. 
 They held the center of the stage. Crowds cheered them on their 
 way, but when they reached the Mississippi, the Missourians 
 blocked their road and forced them to reach Kansas by way of 
 Iowa. They established the town of Lawrence. 
 
 The "border ruffians", so-called by the anti-slavery men, 
 were moving into the territory from Missouri to capture the com- 
 ing election. They founded the town of Atchison, named from 
 their political leader, and established a paper called the "Squatter 
 Sovereign". They denounced the coming "hordes" and threatened 
 to hang, or tar and feather, every abolitionist that entered Kansas 
 Other slave states tried to organize to send men to the disputed 
 territory but found it an uphill job, for various reasons. 
 
 This dispute over Kansas disrupted both the Northern and the 
 Southern Whigs. In the South thousands united with the Demo- 
 crats and other thousands joined a new organization called the 
 Know Nothing party. A new party in the North, the Republi- 
 can, swept into its fold a number of sympathetic elements among 
 which the Whigs were the largest. It welcomed quite a number 
 of young Democrats who had anti-slavery tendencies and who 
 followed General Jackson in his war against Calhoun and the nul- 
 lifiers. Thousands of Free Soilers came with their great principle 
 of the right and duty of congress to prohibit slavery in the terri- 
 tories. In the border states many Whigs joined the Know 
 Nothings. Among their leaders were Fillmore of New York, 
 Belle of Tennessee, Critenden of Kentucky, Mangum of North 
 Carolina, and Thompson of Indiana. 
 
 Douglas' doctrine of Popular Sovereignty, nicknamed 
 "Squatter Sovereignty", was proving itself a failure. The Mis- 
 sourians rushed into Kansas, carried the election in 1855, and then 
 returned home. Reeder, appointed governor by President 
 Pierce, and the pro-slavery men quarreled over the meeting place 
 of the territorial legislature. It met near the Missouri border. 
 President Pierce removed Reeder and the anti-slavery settlers 
 took him up and sent him to Washington as their representative. 
 
 The free state men formed a constitution, submitted it to 
 the people of the territory. The pro-slavery party refused to 
 vote on the ground that this action was illegal. The free state 
 men met at Topeka (1856) and elected Robinson Governor. 
 
Lincoln and Douglas 
 
 There were two governments in Kansas. Pierce appointed Shan- 
 non of Ohio, a good Democrat in Reeder's stead, denounced the 
 free state government, ordered troops and dispersed their legisla- 
 ture.. A pro-slavery judge convicted Robinson and Reeder of 
 treason. 
 
 The pro-slavery men attacked the anti-slavery town of Law- 
 rence, burned the hotel, destroyed the printing press, and looted 
 private residences. 
 
 While agitation was rife in Kansas, Senator Sumner spoke 
 on the "Crime Against Kansas". Representative Brooks of South 
 Carolina stole upon Sumner at his desk in the Senate and beat him 
 with a cane into insensibility. Brooks' reason was that Sumner had 
 reflected on a relative of his. Brooks was denounced as a bully 
 and thug by the North but in the South he was hailed as its de- 
 fender. This attack upon Sumner did more to arouse the aver- 
 age man against the South than any speech Sumner ever made. 
 
 The rougher spirits from both sections were now crowding 
 into Kansas. "Old John Brown", at the head of a body of men 
 murdered half a dozen pro-slavery men. The pro-slavery men 
 retaliated in kind. Governor Shannon appealed to the national 
 authorities for troops. Colonel Sumner — whose daughter Sarah 
 Sumner Teal many of my students knew — although an anti- 
 slavery man, felt that his duty as soldier was paramount to his 
 personal views and disarmed some of the anti-slavery men. Tt has 
 been estimated that 200 persons were killed in Kansas in 1856. 
 
 This was the campaign year. The Democrats rejected Pierce 
 and nominated an old bachelor, James Buchanan of Pennsylvania. 
 He was distinguished for two things : He had never given a vote 
 against slavery and as Minister to England had favored the 
 "Ostend Manifesto", a document favoring the annexation of Cuba 
 to the United States. The American or Know Nothing Party 
 selected Fillmore and the Republicans John C. Fremont, the 
 famous western explorer. The campaign was a hot one and 
 resulted in the election of Buchanan, but the Republicans carried 
 all the Northern States but four. 
 
 Douglas Breaks with Southern Wing of His Party 
 Two more Democratic governors, Geary and Walker, had 
 failed in Kansas. The pro-slavery party saw "the handwriting 
 on the wall", met and framed the Lecompton Constitution. Only 
 the part relating to slavery was submitted to the people. They 
 were to vote for "the Constitution with Slavery or for the Con- 
 stitution without Slavery". In either case the Constitution would 
 be ratified with a clause protecting the slaves already in Kansas. 
 
Lincoln and Douglas 
 
 Johnson calls this provision a "gambler's device for securing the 
 stakes by hook or crook". 
 
 Douglas was wrought up over the situation for the method 
 of voting would be a violation of his favorite doctrine of Popular 
 Sovereignty. He hastened to have an interview with Buchanan. 
 They quarreled: The President is reported to have said, "Senator 
 Douglas, do you not know that no man ever yet opposed his 
 President has lived politically?" Douglas replied: "Mr. Presi- 
 dent, I wish you to remember that General Jackson is dead?" 
 
 In the senate he flew at this violation of Popular Sovereignty 
 with all the energy for which he was noted. He compared it to 
 a supposed order of Napoleon to his soldiers : "Now my soldiers, 
 you are to go to the election and vote as you please. If you vote 
 for Napoleon, all is well; vote against him, and you are to be 
 instantly shot." 
 
 The anti-slavery men refused to vote and the Constitution 
 was carried. President Buchanan declared that "Kansas is as 
 much a slave state as Georgia or South Carolina". 
 
 Three results followed the break of Douglas with the Presi- 
 dent : The "reading" of Douglas out of his party by Buchanan 
 Democrats and Southern newspapers ; Douglas men holding posi- 
 tions in Illinois were driven from office and Buchanan men given 
 their places ; the welcome he received from Republicans for the 
 aid he gave in the battle against the Lecompton Constitution. 
 Many hoped he would join the new party permanently, but he 
 dashed their hopes by declaring that he did not care whether 
 "slavery was voted up or down". 
 
 To a crowded senate where people held their seats in the 
 galleries all day to hear Douglas, he made his reply to the Presi- 
 dent: "If standing firmly by my principles, I shall be driven into 
 private life, it is a fate that has no terrors for me. I prefer private 
 life, preserving my own self-respect and manhood to abject and 
 servile submission to executive will." 
 
 After long and fierce discussion a bill was introduced offering 
 Kansas a bribe, said the anti-slavery men: If she accepted the 
 Constitution she would receive a gift of land large enough to 
 educate her children for all time and be immediately admitted as 
 a state ; if she refused she must wait until she had 93,000 inhabi- 
 tants, the number required under a law of congress. Douglas 
 opposed this measure. 
 
 Slavery had lost its grip on every compromise for its benefit 
 from the Constitutional Convention of 1787 down to the Kansas- 
 Nebraska bill, for the simple reason that slavery was hostile to 
 population. Its leaders now sought to change its base by an appeal 
 
10 Lincoln and Douglas 
 
 to the Supreme Court, whose decisions have no connection with 
 population. To many in the North this seemed a last desperate 
 effort. Chief Justice Taney decided that a negro had none of 
 the rights enumerated in the Declaration of Independence or the 
 Constitution, and that slavery existed in the territories and neither 
 congress nor the legislature had any power to keep it out. 
 
 The Dred Scott Decision struck a blow at the foundation of 
 the Republican party and sounded the death knell of Popular 
 Sovereignty. Douglas had been wounded in the house of his 
 friends. But like the great politicians he was, he put the best 
 face possible on the situation. He declared that "the great prin- 
 ciple of Popular Sovereignty and self government is sustained 
 and firmly established by the authority of this decision." 
 
 It was unreasonable to expect a party that had sprung fully 
 armed into the arena and that had, in its first great conflict with 
 its proud and haughty rival come within less than half a million 
 votes of victory, not to fight this decision to the death. 
 
 After the Dred Scott Decision the great question was : Can 
 the Democratic party be made into a slaveholders' party defend- 
 ing the constitutional rights of slavery as marked out by Judge 
 Taney? The answer to this question is found in the Lincoln- 
 Douglas debates. 
 
 The Development and Character of the Rivals 
 
 Stephen Arnold Douglas 
 
 Almost from the beginning of this story we have met Douglas 
 in the thickest of the fight that raged over the country from 1854 
 to 1860. But his personal characteristics and moral qualities have 
 not been much considered. These must now be taken up in order 
 to understand one of the greatest figures that belonged to this era 
 of great men. 
 
 The parents and grandparents of Stephen A. Douglas were 
 of sturdy Puritan stock. He was born among the hills of Vermont. 
 His father died while Stephen was a mere infant, and the boy 
 grew up on a farm till he was 14, when he apprenticed himself 
 to a cabinet maker in Middleburg. At this early age he became 
 a "politician" defending General Jackson against his boy com- 
 panions and his Whig employer. 
 
 Young Douglas suddenly left his work bench and entered 
 Brandon Academy to prepare for a lawyer's career. He was now 
 17 and soon removed with his mother to a point near Canandaigua, 
 New York, where he again renewed his school work by entering 
 that famous old academy. He won favor among the boys by 
 proving himself a great debater. Here he had an opportunity of 
 
Lincoln and Douglas 11 
 
 studying "practical politics" by observing the work of the "Albany 
 Regency", an organization by which the Democrats controlled the 
 state. To prepare more perfectly for a political career Douglas 
 entered the office of a distinguished lawyer while yet pursuing 
 his studies at the academy. 
 
 But not long did he continue, for the call of the West seized 
 him and he started for Cleveland where in a short time malarial 
 fever prostrated him and came near ending his career. He recov- 
 ered and set out for Cincinnati by canal and river. From here 
 he sought St. Louis by way of Louisville. With the help of a 
 boat on the Illinois and a rude stage coach he landed in the town 
 of Jacksonville with $1.25 in his pocket. 
 
 Nothing promising, he sold some of his books and started 
 for Winchester. By the aid of good natured farmers and the use 
 of his own legs he reached that town. Here fortune began to 
 smile on young Stephen. He hired himself to a street auctioneer 
 and after two days playing clerk, he possessed $5.00. 
 
 Winchester wanted a school and so did Douglas. It was not 
 long before he opened a subscription school of 40 pupils for a 
 term of three months at three dollars per. While playing the part 
 of a teacher he showed many of his good qualities : He won the 
 friendship of the first citizens, became a leading light in the town 
 lyceum, debating the questions of local, state and national import. 
 In these contests the little teacher was easily first. He practiced 
 law before the Justice of the Peace before he had a license and 
 while still teaching, making up for his lack of knowledge of the 
 law by his nimble wit and his subtle intellect. 
 
 School out, Douglas made his way back to Jacksonville and 
 appeared before a Judge of the Supreme Court for a license to 
 practice law. He was not yet 21. 
 
 At the age of 21 he was Attorney General of the first district 
 of the state. At 28 he had been a member of the legislature, 
 secretary of state, and judge of the Supreme Court of Illinois. 
 At 30 he was a congressman and a United States senator at 34 
 (1847). No more rapid rise in politics has been seen in American 
 history, unless it was that of Alexander Hamilton. 
 
 In 1852 he received 92 votes and in 1856 122 in the National 
 Democratic Conventions for the Presidency. In 1854 he was the 
 author of the Kansas-Nebraska bill and the idol of the Democrats 
 of his own state. To make his position interesting and dramatic 
 we have seen him defying personally the views of the President, 
 Buchanan, a man of his own party, in regard to the Lecompton 
 Constitution. 
 
 In the noisy campaign of 1840 in which Harrison swept the 
 
 UNIVERSE iF EW 
 
12 Lincoln and Douglas 
 
 North, Douglas saved Illinois to the Democrats by making two 
 hundred speeches. By this feat he won the title of "The Little 
 Giant". He was a man small in statue, but compactly and power- 
 fully built. He had a large head upon broad shoulders, a giant 
 cut short by nature. Douglas' mental powers were as great as 
 his physical. His mind was aggressive and his perception quick 
 and effective. His eloquence seemed like the rush of a tornado, 
 sweeping everything before it. He was the greatest off-hand 
 debater in America. No man excelled him in making the worse 
 appear the better reason; no one could throw dust in the eyes of 
 an audience as Douglas could. 
 
 But he had many fine qualities. He was witty, winning, and 
 could hold an audience spell-bound. Under the severest taunting 
 he seldom lost his temper, and then but for a moment. He was 
 warm-hearted and generous and never took revenge on an an- 
 tagonist. When he and Buchanan were having a close race for 
 the nomination for the Presidency in 1856, a change of 24 votes 
 from Buchanan to Douglas would have secured a majority of the 
 convention votes for him. But Douglas generously withdrew 
 from the race and Buchanan was nominated. 
 
 Horace Greeley- in the Tribune attacked Douglas furiously. 
 A friend asked Douglas if he would refuse to meet the famous 
 editor. "Not at all," replied the senator. "I always pay that class 
 of political debts as 1 go along." 
 
 On the stump and in the senate he attacked his enemies with- 
 out mercy. It took a strong man to stand up under the lash of 
 his powerful tongue and to survive the clouds of dust in which 
 he enveloped an enemy's favorite argument. He was a dangerous 
 antagonist, for the orators in the senate on the Republican side — 
 Seward, Chase, Sumner and Wade — had seldom escaped with 
 their armor whole. 
 
 This was Stephen A. Douglas, a national figure, a candidate 
 for the third time for the United States Senate and with his heart 
 set on the Presidency, when he faced Abraham Lincoln in debate, 
 relatively an unknown man. 
 
 Abraham Lincoln in Kentucky and Indiana 
 
 The antagonist of Douglas was a man of very different type. 
 Abraham Lincoln was born in the slave state of Kentucky among 
 its hills. His family was so poor that it was hardly conscious 
 of its poverty, so ignorant that it hardly marked the extent of that 
 ignorance. His mother, Nancy Hanks Lincoln, could read and 
 introduced little Abe to the mystery of the printed page. 
 
Lincoln and Douglas 13 
 
 The Lincoln family of four lived in a one-room log cabin 
 whose furniture was of the poorest — made by the father, Thomas 
 Lincoln, by using axe, saw and auger. There was no stove, but 
 a wood fire furnished heat for the household and gave the mother 
 the opportunity of doing the simple cooking by using the skillet 
 and pot. 
 
 Thomas Lincoln has been called shiftless, but to his wife 
 authors have attributed considerable native ability. Among these 
 unpromising surroundings Abraham first saw the light of day 
 in the year of grace 1809, February 12. 
 
 In the very year that Indiana came into the Union (1816) 
 Thomas Lincoln moved across the Ohio River into the new 
 state, and located in the woods near Gentryville, in Spencer 
 County. The family spent their first year in a "half-faced camp" 
 — really a three-sided shack with the fourth open for the fire 
 place and for entrance and exit. This was less of an excuse for 
 a house than their Kentucky cabin. In their second year Thomas 
 turned his attention to building a more pretentious house — an- 
 other log cabin — 14 feet square, and high enough for a loft to 
 which young Lincoln mounted every night by means of pins 
 driven into the wall — answering for stairs — where he found his 
 bed "covered by skins, leaves, and old clothes". In this cabin 
 home Lincoln spent most of his boyhood days. 
 
 In 1818, Lincoln's mother died of a terrible disease called 
 "milksickness". It swept away many people in that part of Indiana 
 and little Abe and his sister knew their first great sorrow. Thomas 
 Lincoln was not the most enterprising man but in one thing he 
 showed most "commendable industry". Hardly a year had passed 
 before he was back in Kentucky searching for Mrs. Sally Bush 
 Johnston, widow of a jailer. He had courted her before her 
 marriage to the jailer. His courtship was now short. He said 
 to her : "I have no wife and you have no husband. I came 
 a-purpose to marry you. I knowed you from a gal and you 
 knowed me from a boy. I have no time to lose; and if you'se 
 willin' let it be done straight off.". She owed debts and could not 
 marry till they were paid. Thomas got the list, paid them that 
 evening and the next morning they were married. 
 
 Sarah Bush Lincoln brought three children with her to share 
 that cabin, and be it said that under her kindly care those five 
 children were happy and contented. Besides she "induced" her 
 husband to plaster the cracks in the cabin, put a floor in it, and 
 furnish doors and windows. Think what those children must have 
 endured before Mrs. Lincoln number two came on the scene! 
 This step-mother was a real mother to Lincoln. She loved the 
 
14 Lincoln and Douglas 
 
 boy and sympathized with him. She insisted on Thomas giving 
 Abraham a chance. The father did not put much faith in "book 
 larnin", and insisted on Lincoln's working when the boy wanted 
 to go to school or read at home. She was proud of the record 
 he made in school and encouraged him every way she could. 
 
 Estimating his formal schooling it is found to amount to 
 about a year. But he led his school in study and sports. Since 
 he was strikingly superior in his studies and was always fair in 
 his judgments he was chosen to judge contests between the pupils. 
 In the disputes between boys in that "rough and tumble" back- 
 woods school Lincoln, by common consent, settled affairs. If a 
 larger boy attacked a smaller one Lincoln interfered and gave 
 the stronger one some advice. None dared dispute his decisions, 
 because of his superior strength and high standing with the pupils. 
 
 To the modern school boy Lincoln in his early "teens" was 
 a spectacle. In his last school, at 17, he was six feet and four 
 inches and weighed only about 160 pounds. But he was wiry, and 
 strong. "His feet and hands were large, arms and legs long and 
 in striking contrast with his slender trunk and small head." He 
 wore buckskin breeches and linsey-woolsey shirts and a cap 
 made of squirrel or coon skin. His breeches were baggy and 
 short, exposing his sharp, blue shin-bone. He never recovered 
 from his awkwardness. 
 
 In a spelling bee, Miss Kate Roby, a pretty miss of Lincoln's 
 own age, was stumped when she had "defied" given to her. She 
 hesitated whether to use an "i" or a "y". She looked up at the 
 grinning Lincoln who was pointing to his eye. She came through 
 all right. Miss Roby declared that they were not in love ! 
 
 Lincoln, at 14, perpetrated the following: 
 
 Abraham Lincoln, 
 His hand and pen, 
 He will be good, 
 But God knows when. 
 
 This shows that Lincoln had the American schoolboy's in- 
 stinct for verse-making. He kept it up with more or less success 
 till manhood was reached. 
 
 Lincoln's hunger for knowledge was insatiable. He bor- 
 rowed all the books in that frontier settlement that he could lay 
 hands upon. He read at night by the light of the wood fire and 
 when he rested his horses from ploughing. He copied passages 
 of striking meaning to memorize. These books included the 
 Bible, Aesop's Fables, Robinson Crusoe, Bunyan's Pilgrim's 
 
Lincoln and Douglas 1ft 
 
 Progress, Shakespeare, a History of the United States and 
 Weem's Life of Washington. He owned the first two books and 
 kept them near at hand, and read them over and over again. 
 Herndon declares that "these two volumes furnished him with 
 many figures of speech and parables which he used with happy 
 effect in his later public utterances". His pure Anglo-Saxon 
 English was certainly obtained mainly from the Bible and 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 Lincoln was a favorite at the cross-roads store, reading as 
 he did, from the Louisville papers and discussing questions of 
 national import. He maintained his intellectual superiority in 
 that backwoods settlement partly by his physical strength, by being 
 first among his fellows at log rollings and house raisings. If we 
 add his knowledge of men to his knowledge obtained from books 
 he was strikingly superior to his neighbors. 
 
 The store in Gentryville offered Lincoln an opportunity to 
 practice reading to the denizens of that place, and even to exer- 
 cise his "eloquence". He frequently made political speeches to 
 the boys gathered there and they declared that he was "calm, 
 clear and logical", and told stories to illustrate his point, and when 
 he found the crowd uneasy told them jokes to hold their inter- 
 est. His stories always illustrated the points in his speech and 
 were seldom told to kill time. 
 
 It is related that Lincoln attended court held in Boonville, 
 county seat of Warrick County, 15 miles away, to hear a great 
 lawyer plead for the life of a murderer, and was so struck with 
 the lawyer's eloquence that he had the temerity to venture to 
 congratulate him on his success. What the great man thought of 
 the uncouth youth who congratulated him we may not know, but 
 we can imagine that he saw none of the signs of ability which 
 had already begun to show in the boy. 
 
 In his late teens Lincoln used his pen as well as his voice. He 
 wrote a composition on the government of the nation and called 
 attention to the need of preserving the Constitution and the Union. 
 A lawyer declared that "the world could not beat it". He also 
 turned his attention to temperance and wrote an article which a 
 Baptist preacher had published in an Ohio paper. These facts 
 show that the young man was climbing. He was now 21. 
 Lincoln Moves to Illinois 
 
 In the early spring of 1830, young Lincoln drove his father's 
 oxteam hitched to a wagon loaded with the household goods of the 
 Lincoln family to Illinois. They settled on the Sangamon River, 
 near the town Decatur where Lincoln and John Hanks split rails 
 to fence fifteen acres of land. 
 
10 Lincoln and Douglas 
 
 While in Indiana Lincoln was engaged to carry a rlatboat to 
 New Orleans and now again he took another boat load to the 
 Crescent City. He spent a month there disposing of the cargo 
 and viewing the sights. One scene took hold of Lincoln: The 
 Auction Block ! He saw comely colored maidens put on the block 
 and their white bidders examining them as though they were 
 horses or cattle. Here the iron entered his soul and he bade his 
 comrades follow him, saying "By God, boys, let's get away from 
 this. If ever I get a chance to hit that thing, I'll hit it hard." 
 This scene is very Lincolnesque, whether true or not. 
 
 On his return to Illinois he finally stopped in the little town 
 of New Salem on the banks of the Sangamon. Lincoln engaged 
 himself to a blustering, bragging man as clerk in his store. This 
 man bragged about Lincoln's strength to the Clary Grove Boys, a 
 roistering lot of fellows who spent their time in neighborhood 
 deviltry. They challenged Lincoln to a wrestling match. A bet 
 was arranged, after much opposition on the part of Lincoln, and 
 "all New Salem adjourned to the scene of the wrestle". The 
 contest was on but Lincoln, angered by what seemed to him foul 
 tactics, caught Jack Armstrong, the Clary Grove bully, by the 
 throat and shook him into submission. Lincoln was now estab- 
 lished in the esteem of the town of New Salem, and with none 
 more solidly than Jack Armstrong and the whole Clary Grove 
 crew. They always rallied to Lincoln's support when he ran foi 
 office. He became a favorite of the Armstrong family and often 
 visited them, rocked the cradle, and chopped wood for Mrs. 
 Armstrong in Jack's absence. 
 
 In addition to clerking while living at New Salem he was 
 appointed postmaster, made an official surveyor, and elected Cap- 
 tain in the Black Hawk War by the votes of his own company. 
 Many of the voters were from Clary Grove. Two incidents in 
 this war illustrate Lincoln's character. This was a war against 
 the Indians and the boys were not particular in their choice of 
 Indians. One day "an old Indian strayed hungry and helpless, 
 into camp". The boys went after him crying, "Make an example 
 of him". Just then the tall form of Captain Lincoln hove into 
 sight with his face livid with rage declaring: "It must not be 
 done", and the Indian continued on his way unmolested. 
 
 Lincoln's company saw no fighting, and this gave him time 
 to make friends with all his company and with men from other 
 companies. He took pains to win the men by kindly acts and by 
 telling droll stories. When off duty he had an appreciative crowd 
 around him, listening and laughing at his tales. 
 
Lincoln and Douglas 17 
 
 Lincoln Enters Politics 
 
 After the war, -Lincoln decided to push the advantages 
 gained, by entering as a candidate for the legislature. He issued 
 a circular to the "People of Sangamon County", declaring that 
 "I was born and have ever remained in the most humble walks 
 of life . . . and if elected they will have conferred a favor upon 
 me for which I shall be unremitting in my labors to compensate. 
 But if the good people in their wisdom shall see fit to keep me in 
 the background, I have been too familiar with disappointments 
 to be very much chagrined." 
 
 His opening speech was celebrated by a free fist fight in 
 which one of Lincoln's friends was getting the worst of the 
 battle. Abraham sprang from the platform, pushed his way 
 through the crowd, seized the bully by the neck and the seat of 
 his pants and literally threw him out of the crowd. Lincoln then 
 returned to the platform, threw off his hat and began his address, 
 saying, among other things and without excitement : "Fellow citi- 
 zens, I presume you all know who I am. I am humble Abraham 
 Lincoln. I have been solicited by many friends to become a can- 
 didate for the legislature. My politics are short and sweet like 
 the old woman's dance. I am in favor of a national bank, I am 
 in favor of the internal improvement system and a high pro- 
 tective tariff." These were pure Whig doctrines. Lincoln was 
 defeated — the only time he ever appealed in vain to the common 
 people. He was 23. 
 
 Defeated, he formed a partnership with one Berry in a New 
 Salem store, which lasted only a year. Lincoln was not of 
 a mercantile turn of mind, but gave his attention to study and 
 entertaining people by his unique views on various subjects and 
 by stories while Berry was most interested in the liquor which the 
 store carried. Berry died and Lincoln was left with a burden of 
 debt carried by the store which he faithfully paid after several 
 years of effort. 
 
 In the meantime and for several years Lincoln was making- 
 efforts to become a lawyer. But he found the work hard — digging 
 out its problems by his own unaided efforts. While clerking in 
 the store or serving as postmaster he snatched the vacant minutes 
 to read the law. He often read while walking along the street. 
 The close logic of the law had a charm for him. 
 
 Lincoln had little money, but his friends often came to his 
 relief. A Democrat, Calhoun by name, appointed him assistant 
 surveyor. An old friend came to his aid and assisted him in 
 learning surveying, after he got the job! This work gave him 
 ready money, till he was sued on his old store debt. He was in a 
 
18 Lincoln and Douglas 
 
 fair way to lose his horse and surveying instruments. Another 
 friend came to his rescue and bought them and Lincoln was happy 
 once more. 
 
 I must refer my readers to Herndon-Weik for the sweet sad 
 story of the courtship of Lincoln and Ann Rutledge which came 
 so near ending his career. I refer to this work, because Mr. 
 Herndon, Lincoln's old time law-partner, knew tne Rutledge fam- 
 ily well. 
 
 In 1834 Lincoln resolved to try again for the legislature. 
 The campaign was a handshaking one, interspersed with Lincoln 
 stories and jokes. One author relates that the candidate rode up 
 to a wheat field where several men were reaping. These hard 
 working farmers intimated to him that they admired candidates 
 who could work. Whereupon Lincoln sprang from his horse, 
 seized a cradle and led the way around the field, much to the 
 satisfaction of the men. 
 
 On another occasion, a doctor, looking Lincoln over, inquired 
 of some of his friends whether "they could not raise any better 
 material than that". Fortunately the doctor remained to hear the 
 different candidates speak and then expressed his amazement that 
 Lincoln "knew more than all the other candidates put together". 
 
 Lincoln easily won, and another good friend came to his aid 
 and bought him a new suit of clothes to enable him to face that 
 legislature. 
 
 Here he met the able men of the state who had been elected 
 or who were there to lobby for their pet interests. Among the 
 latter was Stephen A. Douglas seeking appointment as Attorney 
 General of the first district of the state. Lincoln pronounced 
 him the "least man he had ever seen". We would like to know 
 what the dapper young Douglas thought of this tall, gaunt, and 
 awkward fellow. He probably did not meet him personally. 
 Lincoln was modest and did not push himself. He only intro- 
 duced one resolution — in favor of the state securing a part of the 
 money arising from the sale of public lands within the state. 
 
 The campaign for his second election was marked by an inci- 
 dent worth recording. A prominent Whig had lately changed 
 his politics for which he received appointment to the position as 
 register of the land office. This same "turn coat" had just built 
 him a new house over which he had erected a lightning rod. This 
 man listened to Lincoln's speech on an important occasion and 
 asked that he be heard in reply, declaring that "the young man 
 should be taken down". Lincoln listened attentively to him and 
 then made a telling reply: "It is for you fellow citizens, not for 
 me, to say whether I am up or down. The gentleman has seen 
 
Lincoln and Douglas 19 
 
 tit to allude to my being a young man ; but he forgets that I am 
 older in years than I am in the tricks and trades of politicians. 
 I desire to live, and I desire place and distinction, but I would 
 rather die now than, like the gentleman, live to see the day that 
 I would change my politics for an office worth $3,000 a year, and 
 then feel compelled to erect a lightning rod to protect a guilty 
 conscience from an offended God." 
 
 Lincoln was elected and to this same legislature Douglas 
 also came as a member, but strange to say there was no collision 
 between them. 
 
 We must notice one event bearing on Lincoln's future. 
 The abolitionists were stirring public sentiment but they found 
 little sympathy in Illinois. In fact the legislature almost unani- 
 mously denounced them, and declared that slavery was a sacred 
 right of the slave-holding states by the Federal Constitution. 
 Lincoln found one other member who joined him in protesting 
 against this resolution : declaring that "slavery is founded on both 
 injustice and bad policy, but that the promulgation of abolition 
 doctrines tends rather to increase than abate its evils". This 
 statement marks Lincoln as an Anti- Slavery Whig but separates 
 him from the Abolitionists. 
 
 In March 1837, Lincoln achieved one of his earliest ambi- 
 tions : He was admitted to the practice of law. Douglas had been 
 admitted four years before. Lincoln had already moved to Spring- 
 field, now made the capital of the state largely through his efforts. 
 A friend relates that he walked into his place and inquired how 
 much furniture would be required for a single bedstead. He 
 declared he did not have the $17 required but asked his friend 
 to credit him till Christmas. But he added that if his experiment 
 at law failed he would probably never pay him at all. "I looked 
 up at him and I thought then I never saw so gloomy and melan- 
 choly a face in my life," said his friend, but "I invited him to 
 share my room and bed." Lincoln took his saddle-bags, went up 
 stairs and presently returned with beaming face and said : "Well, 
 Speed, I'm moved". 
 
 Lincoln and Douglas Begin Their Rivalry 
 In 1836 Lincoln was invited to deliver an address before the 
 "Young Men's Lyceum". He prepared carefully and spoke on 
 the "Perpetuation of our Free Institutions". He was a bit sopho- 
 moric in his style but it suited his audience. It ought to be re- 
 marked here that Lincoln was probably led to select this subject 
 of national import because in this decade there was much discus- 
 sion of nullification which Jackson had condemned in his procla- 
 
20 Lincoln and Douglas 
 
 mation to the people of South Carolina. Although only 28 years 
 old Lincoln kept abreast of the times. 
 
 One evening Douglas, in an informal gathering in a store, 
 attacked the Whig party for every blunder imaginable, and finally 
 challenged the Whigs to a joint discussion. It was arranged to 
 hold the meeting in the Presbyterian Church with four men on 
 a side. Douglas led the Democrats and Lincoln the Whigs. The 
 debate was long drawn out for each one had an evening. Lin- 
 coln came on the last night with an audience somewhat tired 
 out by seven nights of political oratory. But he woke up that 
 crowd and a demand arose for the publication of the speech in 
 the Sangamon Journal. 
 
 In the great Presidential campaign of 1840 Lincoln was an 
 elector on the Harrison ticket and stumped the state for the 
 Whigs. He often met Douglas who had become one of the great 
 Democrats of the state. Douglas made a whirlwind campaign 
 and saved the state for the Democrats — the only Northern state 
 going Democratic, with the exception of New Hampshire. This 
 was a personal triumph for the Little Giant. 
 
 On one occasion Lincoln met Douglas but was worsted in the 
 combat. Lincoln begged the Whig leaders to permit him to try 
 again, and they were more than satisfied with the result. One 
 of them declared that "Lincoln transcended our highest expec- 
 tations". 
 
 Lincoln and Douglas were rivals not only in politics, but in 
 an old field where men have striven with each other from time 
 immemorial — that of love. The prize was Miss Mary Todd, a 
 Kentucky belle, who had come to make her home in Springfield. 
 She was the exact opposite of Lincoln in size, in education, bear- 
 ing, and temper. She was his superior in conversation, and poor 
 Lincoln had only to sit and listen. She was quick of thought, 
 gay and brilliant, loved to show off, and very ambitious. They 
 were finally engaged. 
 
 Now Douglas appeared on the scene, and sued for her hand. 
 He was far more attractive than Lincoln and a man, at this time, 
 of wider influence. He was constantly at Mary Todd's side, 
 promenading the streets together, and attracting Lincoln's atten- 
 tion. Some have thought it was Mary Todd's purpose to spur 
 the slow Lincoln to activity. If it was, she missed her aim. If 
 Lincoln was a bit slow he soon saw the point and wrote her a 
 letter in which he told her he did not love her enough to marry 
 her. He showed it to a friend who told him to go to Miss Todd 
 and tell her the true state of his mind. Lincoln did so and both 
 burst into tears, kissed, and made up. Douglas, on the advice of 
 
Lincoln and Douglas 21 
 
 a friend, withdrew from the contest. Lincoln married Mary 
 Todd. 
 
 In after years, when in conversation one day about her rela- 
 tions to her rival suitors, Mrs. Lincoln remarked that most ''peo- 
 ple are perhaps not aware that his heart is as large as his arms 
 are long". It is generally believed that she was ambitious to 
 marry the man who was to be President. 
 
 Anecdotes Illustrating Lincoln's Character and Conduct 
 
 Before Douglas and Lincoln came to "blows" many interest- 
 ing incidents occurred where Lincoln was a party. During 1838 
 one Colonel Dick Taylor, a sophomoric orator, indulged in tirades 
 against the Whig party and charged it with aristocratic ideas. One 
 day Taylor had been unusually abusive, accused the Whigs with 
 being aristocratic, and fond of fine clothes, and having little con- 
 cern for the poor man. Now Taylor was a "high flyer" and 
 dressed in all the ornamentation with which he accused the Whigs, 
 but he did not appear to the public so dressed. Lincoln resolved to 
 expose his duplicity, slipped up behind him, and just as Taylor 
 was at the height of his charges, gave his vest a sharp pull, re- 
 vealing to the crowd a ruffled shirt front, glittering watch chain 
 with seals and other ornaments. The speaker was dumbfounded 
 as the crowd roared with laughter. 
 
 In closing Lincoln said : "While Colonel Taylor was making 
 these charges against the Whigs . . . riding in fine carriages, wear- 
 ing ruffled shirts, kid gloves, massive gold watch-chains . . . and 
 flourishing a heavy gold-headed cane, I was a poor boy, hired on 
 a flat-boat at eight dollars a month, and had only one pair of 
 breeches to my back, and they were buckskin. Now if you know 
 the nature of buckskin when wet and dried by the sun, it will 
 shrink ; and my breeches kept shrinking until they left several 
 inches between the tops of my socks and the lower part of my 
 breeches, and whilst I was growing taller they were becoming 
 shorter, and so much tighter that they left a blue streak around 
 my legs that can be seen to this day. If you call this aristocracy, 
 I plead guilty to the charge." 
 
 Another incident shows Lincoln's courage. In this campaign 
 his friend, E. D. Baker, was addressing an audience in the court 
 room, just under Lincoln's law office. A trap-door opened into 
 the court room from this office. Lincoln often listened to the 
 speeches from his place of business. Baker was a brave and force- 
 ful speaker, and cast reflections on the Democratic editor. A 
 friend cried out : "Down with him ! Take him down !" He and 
 other Democrats made a rush for Baker. Tust as Baker was 
 
22 Lincoln and Douglas 
 
 squaring himself for a fight, a pair of long legs was seen dangling 
 from the trap door and Lincoln "lighted" on the platform calling 
 with upraised hands for quiet, but the Democrats were not in 
 a mood to be still. Lincoln seized a stone pitcher and declared 
 that he would break it over the first man who laid hands on Baker. 
 "This is the land of free speech !" shouted Lincoln. Baker finished 
 his speech ! 
 
 On another occasion, in this same campaign of 1840, a Demo- 
 cratic orator named Thomas poked fun at Lincoln and his friends, 
 called the "Long Nine", very efficient leaders of the Whig party 
 but having a height of over six feet each. 
 
 Lincoln felt the sting of Thomas' fun, and replied by mimick- 
 ing Thomas in voice, motion of the body, and in every other way. 
 No one could excell him in imitating a person ! The crowd 
 roared with laughter. This encouraged Lincoln and he turned to 
 withering sarcasm. Poor Thomas was helpless, since he had 
 already spoken, and took it out in shedding tears. This attack 
 of Lincoln was talked about town as the "Skinning of Thomas". 
 Now, this was all unlike Lincoln. It preyed upon his mind so he 
 hunted up his victim and tried to square himself by humbly 
 apologizing. 
 
 One of the most ridiculous affairs to engage Lincoln was 
 his famous duel with James Shields, a hot-headed Auditor of the 
 state of Illinois. He was a bachelor and tried to be a Beau Brum- 
 mel among the ladies of Springfield. Lincoln and two lady friends 
 decided to puncture his vanity. Lincoln published the first letter 
 under the pseudonym of Aunt Betsey, a widow from Lost Town- 
 ship who before she got through was proposing to Shields. The 
 young ladies took up the problem of exploding Shield's vanity. 
 Shields learned of Lincoln's connection with the affair. To pro- 
 tect his lady friends, Lincoln acknowledged the charge and Shields 
 immediately challenged him to a duel. 
 
 The attempt of the seconds to settle the affair and prevent 
 a duel is ludicrous but more ludicrous was Lincoln's specifications 
 of the conditions under which the fight was to take place : 
 
 1. Cavalry broad-swords of the largest size (remember the size 
 of Lincoln's hands and the length of his arms). 
 
 2. A plank ten feet long and from ten to twelve inches wide to 
 be fixed firmly on edge. Neither to step over the plank on 
 forfeit his life. 
 
 3. A line drawn on either side of the plank, parallel to it at the 
 distance of the length of the sword and three additional feet 
 from the plank. If one passes his own line during the fight 
 he shall surrender the contest. 
 
Lincoln and Douglas 28 
 
 Can't you see how impossible for any one to meet these 
 ridiculous conditions? After a dozen or more prominent citizens 
 had tried to settle the difficulty amicably, a compromise was finally 
 reached. 
 
 The fun Lincoln and his lady friends had at first was all 
 knocked out of the affair and he was sorry that he had undertaken 
 it. Beveridge declares that "never again did he write an anony- 
 mous letter, never again say an insulting word about any human 
 being." The duel, real Lincoln joke, came up to plague him in 
 his aspirations for office. 
 
 Lincoln Goes to Congress 
 
 Lincoln's study of law prepared him to think things through. 
 While "riding the circuit", he conceived the idea that he ought 
 to become the master of exact reasoning. To this end he bor- 
 rowed a copy of Euclid and made himself familiar with the pro- 
 cesses of syllogistic reasoning. From that time on, few aspiring 
 "limbs of the law" were his superior in intellectual skill. 
 
 This acquired skill plus his native ability made him the equal, 
 if not the superior, of the politicians of his day, and he became 
 ambitious to be a congressman. But in his own party he had 
 several rivals, and he had to bide his time. However, in 1846 
 he won the coveted honor and was victorious by 500 more votes 
 than Henry Clay in 1844 and in his county by a larger majority 
 than any congressman between 1834 and 1852. 
 
 Douglas had already spent six years in the House, and in the 
 next year the Legislature of Illinois sent him to United States 
 Senate. Because of his fighting qualities he was appointed chair- 
 man of the committee on territories. 
 
 In congress Lincoln introduced and defended two resolutions. 
 One known as "The Spot Resolution". In this he demanded that 
 President Polk point out whether the particular spot on which 
 American blood had been shed, as per Polk's message, was Ameri- 
 can soil or not. This speech probably lost him the nomination 
 for a second term. The other resolution provided for the aboli- 
 tion of slavery in the District of Columbia. 
 
 Lincoln must have been proud to receive invitations to the 
 old Bay State. He was the only Whig congressman from Illinois 
 and was frequently introduced as such. Douglas' work in the 
 campaign of 1840 and thereafter still held Illinois for the Demo- 
 crats. The Whigs were hard pressed in Massachusetts for they 
 had nominated a slaveholder for President, General Zachary Tay- 
 lor, the hero of Buena Vista. 
 
 His speeches were well received. One person remarked that 
 
24 Lincoln and Douglas 
 
 they were "seldom equaled for sound reasoning, cogent argument 
 and keen satire". Another that for "aptness of illustration, solid- 
 ity of argument, and genuine eloquence his speeches were hard 
 to beat". At Worcester the audience gave three rousing cheers 
 for Illinois and three more for the eloquent Whig from that state. 
 
 Do we see in these high compliments a tribute to his work 
 on Euclid? 
 
 If we remember that Lincoln's opponents were very cele- 
 brated men, not Democrats, but Free-Soilers, we can understand 
 what a stimulus to great endeavor he received from that old Puri- 
 tan state. 
 
 Lincoln Turns to the Law Again 
 
 When Lincoln's term in congress expired, he was so taken 
 with life in Washington that he applied for the appointive position 
 of the General Land Office but failed to obtain it. His friends 
 in Washington urged him to accept the governorship of the Ter- 
 ritory of Oregon. Lincoln refused it in deference to his wife's 
 desire. Mrs. Lincoln was very ambitious for her husband's pro- 
 motion, but refused to go so far from home. In light of future 
 events, her decision was a wise one. 
 
 Lincoln finally decided to abandon politics for the law, and 
 now gave himself up to study. The lawyers on the circuit noticed 
 this change. He did not mingle with them as formerly. He 
 worked at night while other lawyers slept. Herndon relates that 
 Lincoln placed a candle on a chair and read far into the night, 
 frequently as late as two o'clock in the morning. He extended 
 his study so as to include mathematics, astronomy, and poetry. 
 
 It is thought that Lincoln's aim was to reach a degree of cul- 
 ture which he had met among the men of the East, especially in 
 New England. 
 
 The state of Illinois was divided in judicial districts. A 
 judge was appointed who traveled from one county seat to an- 
 other to hold court. The leading lawyers went along. Their mode 
 of travel was by spring wagon, carriage, or on horse back. The 
 Eighth District included fifteen counties and was in the center 
 of the state. The journey and the gatherings in the towns gave 
 Lincoln an unusual opportunity to indulge his humor in the form 
 of jokes or stories. This we may designate as one of the funda- 
 mental characteristics of Lincoln's nature. 
 
 The lawyers formed a jolly, noisy crowd. They played prac- 
 tical jokes, sang, and Lincoln sometimes played the jews-harp. 
 He was a leader in this fun-making. When the court opened and 
 Lincoln had nothing better to do, he whispered stories to the 
 
Lincoln and Douglas 25 
 
 other lawyers causing them to laugh, much to the judge's annoy- 
 ance. "Come, come", said the judge, "I can't stand this. This 
 must be stopped." Then the judge turned to the lawyer who was 
 laughing and said: "You may fine yourself five dollars!" The 
 lawyer remarked to the judge: "It was worth the money!" When 
 Lincoln had disappeared the judge motioned to the lawyer: "What 
 was the story Lincoln told you?" The lawyer told him and the 
 judge "laughed out loud" in spite of judicial reserve. "Remit 
 your fine." 
 
 Lincoln was accused of receiving fees that were too small ! 
 The judge reprimanded him: "You are pauperizing this court 
 . . . you are ruining your fellows. Unless you quit this ridiculous 
 policy, we shall all have to go farming". But Lincoln did not 
 tighcen up and accept larger fees. When his client was poor, 
 he often refused to accept pay. 
 
 But while Douglas seemed all taken up with his political 
 ambitions Lincoln was summoned to take part in one of his most 
 interesting law cases. The son of his oldtime wrestling rival and 
 friend, of the famous Clary Grove band, was arrested for 
 murder. Jack Armstrong was dead and Hannah, the boy's mother, 
 appealed to Lincoln for help. He threw aside all other work and 
 turned to help the mother. 
 
 He believed young men on the jury would be more favorable 
 than mature men. As it was, public sentiment was running strong 
 against young Armstrong. The average age of the jurors was 
 only 23 ! How skillfully he handled the witnesses. "William 
 Killian" was a boy's reply to Lincoln's question. "Bill Killian !" 
 said Lincoln. "Are you the son of old Jake Killian?" "Yes sir!" 
 "Well, you are a smart boy if you take after your dad." How help- 
 ful was this familiarity to a young fellow probably much dis- 
 turbed by testifying before a packed court room ! 
 
 "It was not as a hired attorney", he said, "that he was in 
 the case, but to discharge a debt of real friendship." He told the 
 jury what true friends the young man's father and mother had 
 been to him, and said "that many a time he had rocked the pris- 
 oner to sleep in the old cradle". 
 
 But one witness had sworn that he saw, by the light of the 
 moon, Armstrong strike the fatal blow by using a "slung shot". 
 It was between ten and eleven o'clock, said the witness. Then 
 Lincoln appealed to that famous record found in every home in 
 that age — the Almanac. This unimpeachable testimony showed 
 that the moon was in the first quarter and gave little or no light 
 and that it had set before midnight on the night of the murder. 
 
Lincoln and Douglas 
 
 This turn in affairs threw the jury and the crowd into confusion 
 and turned the tide in Armstrong's favor. 
 
 "Aunt Hannah, your son will be free before sun down." 
 Lincoln was right. The jury set young Armstrong at liberty. 
 The Conflict Begins 
 Preliminary Skirmishes 
 
 When Douglas returned to Illinois to justify his Kansas- 
 Nebraska bill Lincoln was ready for him. Beginning in 1854 
 Lincoln had made a study of the slavery question from its begin- 
 ning down to the conflict in Kansas. 
 
 From his disastrous defeat at the hands of the noisy crowd 
 in Chicago, Douglas went to Springfield where sentiment was 
 kindlier to him (1854). Here he made a wonderfully astute 
 defense of his bill. For four hours the next day Lincoln made 
 reply. Douglas was frequently on his feet to challenge Lincoln's 
 statements, but he could not shake his logic. A Springfield paper 
 declared that Lincoln's speech was the "profoundest he has made 
 in his whole life". Douglas' friends were disturbed by Lincoln's 
 address. For two hours the next day Douglas labored to retrieve 
 himself. The significance of these speeches lay partly in the fact 
 that they were delivered at the state fair. 
 
 A few days later — October 16th, the people of Peoria were 
 treated to a collision between Lincoln and Douglas. Lincoln made 
 an unusually effective speech and was prevailed upon to write it 
 out for publication. Lincoln conceded Douglas the opening and 
 closing at Peoria for he was after Democrats who were wavering. 
 At the close, Douglas is reported to have said to Lincoln that he 
 was giving him more trouble on the Kansas-Nebraska question 
 than the whole United States Senate, and he proposed to Lincoln 
 that they speak no more. They agreed but Douglas, pressed by 
 an abolitionist to debate, broke the agreement. Allen Johnson 
 questions this agreement and Beveridge is inclined to accept John- 
 son's view. 
 
 Lincoln had been the Whig champion in the battle over the 
 Kansas-Nebraska question, and they wanted to make him United 
 States Senator to succeed the famous Shields. Lincoln was 
 ambitious to be senator. 
 
 The Democrats had organized a "still hunt" and had elected 
 a majority of the legislature, but that majority was divided into 
 regular Democrats and Anti-Nebraska Democrats. Douglas sup- 
 ported Shields with great enthusiasm, but after seven ballots 
 Shields withdrew and on the tenth Lincoln withdrew and Trum- 
 bull, the Anti-Nebraska candidate, was elected. This was a great 
 sacrifice for Lincoln, for Trumbull had been a political enemy, 
 
Lincoln and Douglas 27 
 
 but he was consoled by the fact that the cause had won. The 
 election of Trumbull was a defeat for Douglas, but he would not 
 admit it, for he thought that the moral wave sweeping the coun- 
 try would soon have a rebound. 
 
 The House Divided Against Itself Speech 
 
 In June 1858, the Republicans of Illinois met in state con- 
 vention at Springfield and "resolved that Abraham Lincoln is our 
 only choice for the position of United States Senator". On the 
 evening following Lincoln made a famous speech. It is the intro- 
 duction that mostly concerns us: "If we could first know where 
 we are and whither we are tending, we could better judge what to 
 do and how to do it. We are far into the fifth year since a policy 
 was initiated with the avowed object and confident promise of 
 putting an end to the slavery agitation. Under the operation of 
 that policy that agitation has not ceased but has constantly aug- 
 mented. In my opinion it will not cease until a crisis shall have 
 been reached and passed. 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 dis- 
 solved, 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 the course of ultimate extinction or its advocates will push 
 it forward till it shall become alike lawful in all the states, old as 
 well as new, North as well as South." 
 
 This was the first formal statement of the irrepressible con- 
 flict doctrine, which the popular mind has attributed to William 
 H. Seward. This was a startling statement on a startling sub- 
 ject, and there were men afraid to face it. Lincoln formulated 
 these expressions and carried them around in his hat, it was said, 
 and when ready he wrote them down. Then he showed them to 
 certain friends whom he trusted. They said: "Lincoln, if you 
 put that in your address Douglas will beat you". He replied about 
 as follows : "I would rather be defeated with that in my speech 
 than to win with that left out". 
 
 The rest of the speech was taken up largely with proving that 
 the slaveholders and their Northern friends were trying to make 
 slavery national and perpetual. He pointed out clearly that only 
 one other decision by the Supreme Court was needed. 
 
 Lincoln was a shrewd politician as well as a statesman, and 
 people of Illinois had come to believe in him. He pointed out in 
 this same speech that some Eastern Republicans who urged the 
 
28 Lincoln and Douglas 
 
 election of Douglas because of his fight against the Lecompton 
 Constitution, did not know Douglas as well as the people of Illi- 
 nois. "They remind us that he is a great man. . . . Let this be 
 granted. . . . How can he oppose the advance of slavery? He 
 does not care anything about it. Our cause must be entrusted to 
 its undoubted friends who do care for the results. . . . Clearly 
 he is not with us ; he does not pretend to be ; he does not promise 
 ever to be." 
 
 A month later at Chicago Douglas pounced upon Lincoln's 
 speech and tore it to tatters to his own satisfaction and to the 
 apparent delight of many of his friends. On this occasion Lin- 
 coln had a seat in the audience, and on the following night he re- 
 plied to Douglas. A week later Douglas spoke to the people of 
 Springfield and Lincoln made answer that night. 
 
 Lincoln, the politician, was trailing Douglas ; in this way he 
 could bring himself into prominence, for his rival was a man of 
 national reputation whose every move was watched with interest 
 by the whole country. It was hoped by Republican leaders in 
 Illinois that Dougbs would challenge Lincoln to joint debate 
 in the campaign. No doubt Douglas was a bit irritated by this 
 dogging his footsteps, but he knew a thing or two and did not pro- 
 pose to draw Democrats to hear Lincoln. Finally the Republicans 
 were driven to advise Lincoln to challenge Douglas to come to 
 blows in joint debate for the rest of the campaign. Now since 
 this was a life and death struggle for the "Little Giant" he ac- 
 cepted with two shrewd conditions : That they should meet on 
 seven successive Saturdays only, and that he should open and 
 close four of the debates. 
 
 The Real Battle 
 
 The Social Surroundings 
 
 The people of Illinois were divided into two zones, roughly 
 speaking — a northern, settled by Eastern people and a southern, 
 settled by people from the Southern states. Each class brought 
 to Illinois the ideas and institutions, customs and prejudices, of 
 their forebears. The one were inclined to anti-slavery views and 
 supported the free state cause in Kansas ; the other were people 
 escaping from the unequal competition with slavery, but were not 
 opposed to it, but were opposed to the Abolitionists. 
 
 In this semi-frontier state, nothing appealed to the people 
 like politics. The news of a joint debate by these two intellectual 
 giants stirred the people — young and old, women as well as men. 
 
 On the day appointed great processions made their way from 
 the country side to the chosen place led by bands whose music 
 
Lincoln and Douglas 
 
 by fife and drum thrilled the souls of young and old. In the big 
 wagon young women dressed in white, each wearing a ribbon 
 sash bearing the name of a state, poured forth patriotic songs, 
 and sometimes a ditty which hit off the opposing candidate or his 
 party. This "big wagon" was drawn by several span of horses 
 that pulled hard on the lines, showing that they, too, entered into 
 the fun and frolic of the day. The band wagon and the big 
 wagon each carried one or more flags, and were led by distin- 
 guished men on horseback. Following these came the farmers 
 in wagons or carriages with younger men and girls on horseback- 
 bringing up in the rear. 
 
 This vast procession, miles in length, was received with 
 tumultuous cheering as it drove into town. Bands played and can- 
 non boomed to add to the din. People came a day before hand 
 and camped in the parks, it was said. There too came the reporters 
 from distant cities to see that their papers received a proper parti- 
 san report. 
 
 Douglas had behind him the monied interests of the state 
 and he made full use of them. He traveled on a decorated special 
 train. Douglas himself, with his beautiful wife, was no small 
 part of the show. He dressed well and made a fine personal 
 appearance. Every motion of his body and every feature of his 
 face spoke the high degree of self confidence he felt in the out- 
 come of the debates. He referred to Lincoln in a patronizing 
 sort of way as an "amiable and intelligent gentleman". 
 
 Lincoln brought none of the trappings of show to impress 
 the simple minded. He himself was modest and somewhat diffi- 
 dent. But when he spoke he invited attention. One of his biog- 
 raphers declares that his principle was "direct unswerving logic, 
 that he possessed a power of analysis that easily outran and cir- 
 cumvented the 'Little Giant's' most extraordinary gymnastics of 
 argument". 
 
 While Douglas was pacing the platform, swinging his arms, 
 pounding the desk, shaking his great shock of hair, and roaring 
 like a lion, Lincoln was calm, simple and clear of statement so 
 that any one could understand. As he proceeded with his argu- 
 ment he often rose to the heights of moral grandeur. 
 
 The First Debate at Ottawa 
 In the town of Ottawa, a few hours ride southwest of Chi- 
 cago the two old rivals met for their first onset. Douglas was 
 here among Lincoln's anti-slavery friends but hundreds of Demo- 
 crats had come confident of the outcome. Douglas strode the 
 stand smiling, bowing, and shaking hands. Very early in his 
 
30 Lincoln and Douglas 
 
 speech he thought to catch Lincoln "on the hip" hy propounding 
 certain questions: "I desire to know whether. Lincoln stands today 
 as he did in 1854 in favor of the unconditional repeal of the 
 Fugitive Slave Law . . . against the admission of any more slave 
 states . . . against the admission of any new states, with such a 
 constitution as the people may see fit to make . . . whether he 
 stands pledged to the abolition of slavery in the District of Colum- 
 bia?" and other similar questions. 
 
 Douglas was shrewd. If Lincoln should make answer now, 
 Douglas would have an opportunity of answering in his closing 
 speech, and a week would pass before Lincoln could reply. Lin- 
 coln too, was shrewd and kept quiet. Douglas immediately con- 
 cluded that Lincoln was afraid and proceeded to crow a bit. 
 
 On every important occasion, Douglas attacked the house 
 divided against itself speech. It gave him a fine opportunity "to 
 set up a man of straw" that he could not pass it by. He charged 
 that Lincoln in this speech says to the South: "If you desire to 
 maintain your institutions as they are now you must not be satis- 
 fied with minding your own business, but you must invade Illinois 
 and all the Northern states, establish slavery in them and make 
 it universal; and in the same language he says to the North, you 
 must not be content with regulating your own affairs . . . but if 
 you desire to maintain your freedom you must invade the South- 
 ern states, abolish slavery there and everywhere, in order to have 
 the states all one thing or all the other. I say that this is the 
 inevitable and irresistable result of Lincoln's argument, inviting 
 a warfare between the North and the South to be carried on 
 with ruthless vengeance until one section or the other shall become 
 the victim of the rapacity of the other." How like, and how 
 unlike Lincoln's speech ! 
 
 But Lincoln was not disturbed by these dire accusations. 
 He simply countered by saying: "Does the Judge (he always 
 called Douglas the Judge) say it can stand? ... If he does then 
 there is a question of veracity, not between him and me but be- 
 tween the Judge and an authority of somewhat higher character." 
 
 In the course of the debate Douglas, loud, confident, and 
 blustering, declared that Lincoln was an Abolitionist and was in 
 favor of the social equality of the white and black races. He 
 constantly repeated the charge, and tried to prove it in his Free- 
 port speech by relating that he had seen a "carriage . . . drive . . . 
 up with a beautiful young lady sitting on the box seat, whilst 
 Fred Douglass, a prominent free negro and her mother reclined 
 on the inside." "What of it?" cried some one in this anti-slavery 
 audience. Douglas, a bit peeved, declared that "all I have to say 
 
Lincoln and Douglas 81 
 
 is that you Black Republicans who think that a negro ought to 
 he on a social equality with your wives and daughters, and ride 
 in a carriage with your wife while you drive the team . . . you 
 have a right to entertain those opinions, and of course will vote 
 for Lincoln". 
 
 Lincoln replied that any statement that argues me into this 
 idea of perfect social and political equality with the negro is but 
 a specious and fantastic arrangement of words, by which a man 
 can prove a horse-chestnut to be a chestnut horse ... I have no 
 purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white 
 and black races. There is a physical difference between them 
 which . . . will probably forever forbid their living together upon 
 the footing of perfect equality ... I as well as Judge Douglas 
 am in favor of the race to which I belong having the superior 
 position, but . . . there is no reason in the world why the negro 
 is not entitled to all the natural rights enumerated in the Declara- 
 tion of Independence ... I agree with Judge Douglas, he is not 
 my equal in many respects . . . but in the right to eat the bread 
 which his own hands earn, he is my equal, and the equal of Judge 
 Douglas and the equal of every living man." 
 
 At Charleston Lincoln added this little touch of humor, "lam 
 not in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes nor of quali- 
 fying them to hold office nor to inter-marry with white people 
 ... I do not understand that because I do not want a negro 
 woman for a slave, I must necessarily want her for a wife. My 
 understanding is that I can just let her alone . . .1 have never had 
 the least apprehension that I or my friends would marry negroes, 
 but as Judge Douglas and his friends seem in great apprehension 
 that they might, if there was no law to keep them from it, I give 
 him the most solemn pledge that I will to the very last stand by 
 the law of this state which forbids the marrying of white people 
 with negroes". 
 
 The Decisive Battle at Freeport 
 
 Lincoln Answers Douglas' Questions 
 
 In the little border town of Freeport, one hundred miles 
 northwest of Chicago, Douglas met his Waterloo. If he dreamed 
 that Lincoln was too frightened to answer his Ottawa questions, 
 he was badly mistaken. Lincoln having the opening, immediately 
 moved to the attack by proposing to answer the questions pro- 
 viding Douglas would answer a like number propounded by Lin- 
 coln. "I give him an opportunity to respond." Lincoln was now 
 standing on equal footing with Douglas, but the Little Giant 
 remained silent. Is he dodging? No, only waiting till he opens 
 
32 Lincoln and Douglas 
 
 and closes. "I will now say that I will answer the Judge's inter- 
 rogatories whether he will answer mine or not." Score one for 
 Lincoln. 
 
 He then gave an exhibition of intellectual skill in answering 
 each of Douglas' questions without throwing any light upon his 
 own views or that of his party. To play with the Judge's ques- 
 tions which he had so carefully framed must have been an eye- 
 opener to Douglas and his worshipers. Score two for Lincoln. 
 He took each of the seven questions and simply said : "I am not 
 now nor have ever been pledged in favor of the repeal of the 
 Fugitive Slave Law", and so on. Now followed an example of 
 Lincoln's fairness that must have seemed strange to Douglas. 
 He explained the answers he had given were all the Judge's ques- 
 tions called for, but that he would not take advantage of him. 
 He took up each question and made clear not only what he be- 
 lieved but his party also. Score three for honest Abe. 
 
 Lincoln Destroys Douglas Politically 
 When Lincoln had thus deployed his intellectual guns, he 
 sprung on Douglas the most astute question ever put by one man 
 to another in joint debate. 
 
 The second question in the list is the most celebrated : "Can 
 the people of a United States Territory, in any lawful way. 
 against the wish of any citizen of the United States, exclude slav- 
 ery from its midst prior to the formation of a state constitution?" 
 This seems a simple question but its significance lies in the state 
 of public sentiment.. When so considered it contains two pitfalls 
 into one of which Douglas must tumble. If he avoids one he 
 cannot escape the other. If he refuses to answer he falls into 
 both — for both North and South will denounce him as a coward. 
 If Douglas answers that a territory may exclude slavery, 
 he stands by his pet doctrine of Popular Sovereignty and he com- 
 mends himself to the wavering Democrats of Illinois, but in so 
 doing he turns his back upon the Dred Scott Decision, plunges 
 into the Southern pitfall and receives the execrations of South- 
 ern Democrats. This is just what he did. "A bird in the hand is 
 worth two in the bush"; the senatorship now and the Presidency 
 afterwards. Douglas explained that although slavery might be 
 legal in any territory it could not exist a day unless the people 
 were friendly to it and gave it protection by law. This Janus- 
 faced interpretation gave Lincoln an opportunity to twit Douglas 
 on his answer by saying : "The Judge believes that a thing might 
 be legally driven away from a place in which it had the right 
 to legally be". 
 
Lincoln and Douglas 33 
 
 In the little hotel at Freeport, in Lincoln's room his friends, 
 satisfied with his work at Ottawa, protested unanimously against 
 this question before the coming debate. "If you do, you can 
 never be senator", said they. "Gentlemen", said Lincoln, "I am 
 gunning for bigger game. If Douglas answers in the affirmative, 
 he can never be President." A true prophecy ! For shortly 
 Southern leaders were hurling anathemas at Douglas and 
 Buchanan Democrats were engaged in "reading him out of the 
 party". And all over the state they were driving Douglas men 
 from positions held by his influence. This was not the doc- 
 trine "to the victor belong the spoils" but it was one Democrat 
 pursuing another with ruthless vengeance. Benjamin of Louisi- 
 ana, from his place in the senate said : "Sir, it has been with reluc- 
 tance and sorrow that I have been obliged to pluck down my idol 
 from his place on high . . . The senator from Illinois faltered. 
 He got the prize for which he faltered ; but lo ! the grand prize 
 of his ambition today slips away from his grasp." 
 
 Another question from Lincoln's Freeport quiver ran as 
 follows: "If the Supreme Court of the United States shall de- 
 cide that the States cannot exclude slavery from their limits, are 
 you in favor of acquiescing in, and following such a decision as 
 a rule of political action?" Lincoln had charged that Douglas 
 and his friends were trying to make slavery national and perpetual. 
 
 Douglas did not answer this question, but gave a fine example 
 of throwing dust in the eyes of his audience : "I am amazed that 
 Lincoln should ask such a question. A school boy knows better. 
 Mr. Lincoln's object is to cast an imputation on the Supreme 
 Court. He knows that there was never but one man in America 
 claiming any degree of intelligence or decency who ever for a 
 moment pretended such a thing ... I denounced it in the senate 
 . . . and I was the first man who did. Lincoln's friends, Trumbull, 
 and Seward, and Hale, and Wilson, and the whole Black Repub- 
 lican side of the senate were silent. They left it for me to de- 
 nounce." 
 
 While a group of Republican leaders were talking over the 
 debates, a letter from an Eastern statesman was handed them. 
 He asked : "Who is this man that is replying to Douglas in your 
 state? Do you realize that no greater speeches have been made 
 on public questions in the history of our country; that his knowl- 
 edge of the subject is profound, his logic unanswerable, his style 
 inimitable?" 
 
 In this conflict Lincoln frequently lifted the debate out of 
 the mire of politics and discussed it from the point of view of 
 moral conviction. He denounced slavery as a moral, social, and 
 
34 Lincoln and Douglas 
 
 political wrong. He refused, however, to denounce slaveholders 
 for "we would be like them if placed in their circumstances". 
 But he attacked Douglas for not caring whether "slavery is voted 
 up or voted down". He took the reasonable ground that slaves 
 could not be regarded as a piece of physical property. "Douglas 
 contends that whatever community wants slaves, it has a right 
 to have them. So they have, if it is not wrong. But if it is 
 wrong he cannot say that the people have a right to do wrong. 
 This is the issue that will continue in this country when these 
 poor tongues of Judge Douglas and mine shall have been silent." 
 The Effects of the Debates 
 
 Four important results came from the debates : Douglas 
 was elected, the legislature districts having been juggled, although 
 Lincoln had a plurality of votes ; Douglas' presidential aspirations 
 had received a death blow, for from all parts of the South arose 
 opposition repudiating him ; the Democratic party as represented 
 by Douglas refused to be made into a pro-slavery party ; Lincoln 
 was now hailed in all parts of the North as a coming man. Invi- 
 tations for him to speak rolled in from the East and West. The 
 most significant one came from New York City to speak in 
 Cooper Union. William Cullen Bryant, David Dudley Field, 
 Horace Greeley sat on the platform. 
 
 At first Lincoln was a bit awkward before that immense 
 audience, but he soon forgot himself in his attack on slavery and 
 Douglas. He showed the slaveholders' demands had grown with- 
 out limit, and now nothing would satisfy them except that the 
 people of the North acknowledge that slavery is right and cease 
 to oppose it. 
 
 Lincoln attacked the favorite charge of Douglas that the 
 fathers had established a nation half slave and half free and that 
 the Republicans were now changing the basis of the Union and 
 endangering the peace of the whole nation. Lincoln showed by 
 citing history that the fathers had placed slavery in the course of 
 ultimate extinction, and that Douglas in repealing the Missouri 
 Compromise by his Kansas-Nebraska bill, was the real per- 
 son guilty of disturbing the basis of Union. 
 
 In closing he made a great appeal saying: "Let us have faith 
 that right makes might, and in that faith let us to the end dare to 
 do our duty as we understand it". 
 
 He made many addresses in New England, Ohio, and in 
 Kansas where the papers were filled with notices of them and 
 praise for him. He was now a national figure. 
 
Lincoln and Douglas 35 
 
 Lincoln and Douglas Rivals for the Presidency 
 
 Douglas Nominated 
 
 The cleft in the Democratic party caused by the Lincoln- 
 Douglas debates was widening into a chasm when Douglas de- 
 clared in the senate in no uncertain words, that he preferred the 
 position of senator, or even that of a private citizen, to accepting 
 the presidential nomination on a platform opposed to the prin- 
 ciple of self-government in the territories or the perpetuity of 
 the Union. 
 
 Jefferson Davis had been his friend (1854) and now intro- 
 duced a set of resolutions declaring it the duty of Congress to 
 follow the slaveholder into the territories and protect his property 
 there. Douglas repudiated these resolutions. It was clear that 
 a battle loomed in the coming national Democratic Convention 
 that threatened the career of Douglas. 
 
 This convention met in Charleston, the home of Calhoun. 
 The committee on platform consisted of one delegate from each 
 state. Douglas could not command a majority of the states, but 
 could control a majority of the delegates to the convention. The 
 result was an anti-Douglas platform based on the doctrine uttered 
 by Davis in the senate. 
 
 The convention rejected this platform and substituted a 
 Douglas one. When this was done one Southern leader after an- 
 other arose and announced that his delegation had been instructed 
 to withdraw from the convention. The delegations marched out 
 of the convention. The leaders made it plain that the South had 
 everything to lose and nothing to gain by supporting Douglas 
 and Popular Sovereignty. The seceding delegates organized a 
 "rump" convention, but neither convention dared violate the "two- 
 thirds rule", and adjourned without any nomination. 
 
 The "regulars" afterwards met at Baltimore and nominated 
 Douglas while the seceders met at Richmond and selected Sena- 
 tor Breckenridge of Kentucky. This was another proof that 
 sectionalization was complete and that the Democratic party had 
 refused to become a slaveholders' party. In spite of all that 
 Douglas had done for the South its leaders now threw him over- 
 board and marched straight toward his defeat and secession. 
 
 Lincoln Nominated 
 In the meantime the Republicans met in Chicago in the new 
 Wigwam built to hold 10,000 people, but the lower South was not 
 there. Lincoln was nominated over Seward because he was a 
 conservative and Seward a radical on the slavery question. Lin- 
 coln's friends declared that he could carry the border Northern 
 
36 Lincoln and Douglas 
 
 states of Illinois, Indiana and Ohio and that Seward could not 
 because of his radical views. Great strength was added to this 
 argument by the fact that Horace Greeley took this view. 
 
 Horace Greeley did not train with the New York crowd, but 
 was a delegate from Oregon. Although he was one of the "lions" 
 of the convention, he was a curiosity to most people as he 
 "shuffled along", looking so innocent like. A wag pinned a Seward 
 badge on his back, containing Seward's picture. He was now 
 more of a curiosity than ever, but he supported Lincoln. 
 
 Seward led on the first ballot, but the second showed Lin- 
 coln gaining and would probably win on the third. The conven- 
 tion could hardly be controlled while the third vote was being- 
 taken. When the result was known, the convention broke into 
 unbounded enthusiasm, so noisy, that it could hardly hear the 
 cannon fired from the top of the Wigwam. Men hugged each 
 other and cried for joy while others cried from sorrow. Even 
 a tough and hardened politician, like Thurlow Weed, burst into 
 tears. The Eastern delegates were deeply disappointed. 
 
 A third party swung its banner to the breeze, the Constitu- 
 tional Union party, made up of the most conservative men in the 
 nation. Probably a large number of the American or Know 
 Nothing party joined it. It named Bell of Tennessee as its candi- 
 date and summoned the people to stand by the Constitution and 
 the Union. Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee voted for Bell. 
 
 Douglas the Great Figure in the Campaign 
 Douglas was the first presidential candidate to stump the 
 nation in his own behalf. But in spite of all he could do, speaking 
 night and day, he saw in August the almost certain election of 
 Lincoln. Southern leaders were already proclaiming in press 
 and on the hustings that in case of Lincoln's election the South 
 must secede. Boldly and bravely Douglas broke his engagement 
 in the North to go South and appeal to the people not to break- 
 up the Union. 
 
 He declared at Norfolk, in answer to a question : That the 
 election of no man to the presidency, in conformity to the Consti- 
 tution will justify any attempt at dissolving this glorious confed- 
 eracy ... It is the duty of the President ... to enforce the laws 
 . . . and I . . . bound by my oath ... to the Constitution, would 
 do all in my power to aid the government ... in maintaining the 
 supremacy of the laws against all resistance to them." 
 
 Douglas appealed to the affection of many at Raleigh when 
 he said that the Northerners and Southerners had married in the 
 great Northwest. Their children have grandparents in North 
 
Lincoln and Douglas 37 
 
 Carolina and in Vermont, and they do not love to hear either of 
 these states abused. Neither will they desire secession and be 
 compelled to get passports to visit the graves of their ancestors. 
 "You cannot sever this Union unless you cut the heartstrings that 
 bind father to son, daughter to mother, and brother to sister . . . 
 I love my children but I do not desire to see them survive the 
 Union." 
 
 While in Iowa, he received word that both Pennsylvania and 
 Indiana had gone Republican in the October election. "Mr. Lin- 
 coln is the next President" he is reported to have said. "We must 
 try to save the Union. I will go South." Mrs. Douglas was with 
 him in spite of the dangers that threatened. He made a sec- 
 ond trip to the South but its press declared if he ventured among 
 them again, preaching his heretical doctrines, he would be in 
 danger. But in spite of this, he spoke at St. Louis, Memphis, 
 Montgomery, Mobile, New Orleans, and Vicksburg , making 
 powerful pleas for the Union. 
 
 Lincoln was elected by a plurality of the popular vote and 
 by a majority of the Electoral vote. Breckenridge received about 
 800,000 votes, almost entirely from the South. Lincoln's vote of 
 1,800,000 came almost entirely from the North. Douglas' vote 
 was a little less than 1,500,000. He received several thousand 
 from the border slave states. Lincoln was the first President 
 elected without the Electoral vote of a Southern state. 
 
 Immediate Effects of Secession 
 
 The Legislature of South Carolina cast her vote for Presi- 
 dent, remained in session till Lincoln was elected, and then called 
 a state constitutional convention which on December 20th, 1860, 
 passed what the South called an Ordinance of Secession. 
 
 From now till Lincoln's Inauguration was a period of painful 
 waiting, of depression, of doubt, of reaction, and almost despair. 
 The Republicans did not rejoice greatly over their victory. Their 
 danger and responsibility increased as other states left the Union. 
 A President was needed of bold and vigorous characted in this 
 "interregnum", but Buchanan was anything but that. He faced 
 an awkward situation largely of his own making. He had chosen 
 to follow Southern leaders, had repudiated and persecuted Doug- 
 las, had stood for the Lecompton Constitution, and the storm 
 overwhelmed him. His message did not help him. but encouraged 
 the South. He hesitated when Southern men boastfully declared 
 that they had tied his hands. 
 
 Horace Greeley was the first great Republican to sound 
 retreat. He declared, less than a month after the election, that 
 
:IH JJnooln and l>ouglas 
 
 he was in favor of letting the Cotton States "go in peace" and 
 the New York Herald asserted: "For less than this our fathers 
 seceded from Great Britain". Public meetings held in Boston, 
 \ew York, and Philadelphia expressed sympathy for the South. 
 Such sentiments were cheered in New York while those for the 
 Union were hissed. In Congress committees were appointed to 
 conciliate the South by compromises. Douglas favored reason- 
 able concessions, but Lincoln wrote: "Entertain no proposition 
 for a compromise in regard to the extension of slavery. The in- 
 stant you do that they have us under again." The committees 
 accomplished nothing toward the restoration of the Union. Vir- 
 ginia called a Peace Convention over which Ex-President John 
 Tyler presided*, but like the committees, its work was in vain. 
 
 But no man came out of the conflict in Congress with higher 
 regards than Stephen A. Douglas, or deserved more credit at the 
 hands of Union frien. He spoke with authority for nearly a 
 million and a half of voters who still clung to him although de- 
 feated. When a senator from Virginia asked him "What is to 
 be done with the garrison (referring to Fort Sumter) if the men 
 are in a starving condition?" "If the senator had voted right 
 in the last Presidential election", was Douglas' reply, "I should 
 have been in a condition, perhaps, to tell him authoritatively 
 what ought to be done". 
 
 Senator Wigfall, of Texas, put this question to Douglas : 
 "Would the Senator say explicitly whether he would advise the 
 withdrawal of the troops from the forts?" (Southern). Douglas 
 replied : "As I am not in their councils ... I shall not tender them 
 my advice until they ask for it ... I do not choose, either, to pro- 
 claim what my policy would be. in view of the fact that the Sen- 
 ator does not regard himself as the guardian of the honor and 
 interests of my country ... It would hardly be good policy or 
 wisdom for me to reveal what I think ought to be our policy to 
 one who may be soon in the councils of the enemy and in com- 
 mand of its armies." 
 
 Douglas Stands by Lincoln 
 
 Lincoln on the Way and in Washington 
 
 On the eleventh day of February Lincoln began his journey 
 to Washington. As he stood on the platform of the car. in Spring- 
 field, he said to the thousands come to bid him good-bye : "My 
 friends, no one not in my situation, can appreciate my feelings of 
 sadness at this parting. To this place and the kindness of these 
 
Lincoln and Douglas 39 
 
 people I owe everything. Here I have lived a quarter of a cen- 
 tury, and have passed from a young to an old man. Here my chil- 
 dren have been born and one is buried. I now leave, not knowing 
 when or whether ever I may return, with a task before me greater 
 than that which rested upon Washington. Without the assistance 
 of that Divine Being, who ever attended him, I cannot succeed. 
 With that assistance I cannot fail. Trusting in Him who can 
 go with me, and remain with you, and be everywhere for good, 
 let us confidently hope that all will yet be well. To his care com- 
 mending you, as I hope in your prayers you will commend me, 
 I bid you an affectionate farewell." 
 
 Lincoln received an ovation at the hands of his neighbors in 
 Indianapolis. He spoke words of encouragement to the people of 
 Columbus, and in Philadelphia he participated in raising the stars 
 and stripes over Independence Hall. Here he declared that he 
 drew his principles from the great document formulated in this 
 hall. 
 
 While here he received news of a supposed plot to assassinate 
 him, as he passed through Baltimore. He finally yielded and 
 reached Washington on an earlier train. To a friend he said : 
 "I thought it wise to run no risk where no risk was necessary". 
 
 All sorts of fantastic rumors flew about the city. Some said 
 he had slipped disguised into the city. He was not disguised at 
 all, but it was good news to say so. People were anxious to see 
 how the "railsplitter" looked, acted, and talked. Lincoln no doubt 
 lacked something in table manners but when weighed against the 
 impending dangers that threatened to overwhelm the Republic, 
 it is hardly a compliment to human nature that people were found 
 who made much of such matters. 
 
 It is interesting to know that Syracuse was represented in 
 this dangerous journey. Colonel Sumner, later of Civil War 
 fame, was one of the military officers sent to accompany Lincoln 
 to Washington, and his daughter, Sarah Sumner, later Mrs. Teal, 
 was one of the first women to welcome Mrs. Lincoln. 
 
 The wife of Stephen A. Douglas was the acknowledged 
 leader of Washington social life — "the reigning queen of the circle 
 in which she moved", called by Allen Johnson. She showed her 
 generous and sympathetic spirit by being among the first to call 
 on Mrs. Lincoln, thus setting a fine example to women of Wash- 
 ington who were inclined to turn up their noses at this woman 
 from the "backwoods" of Illinois. 
 
 Douglas had lost hope in the congressional committees as a 
 means of preserving the Union, and now joined Seward to urge 
 
40 Lincoln and Douglas 
 
 Lincoln to call a Constitutional Convention, hut Lincoln had to 
 think the question over. 
 
 Douglas Supports Lincoln Socially and Politically 
 
 The day before inauguration, Douglas again called upon 
 Lincoln, probably to confer over the plans for that great event. 
 On that day the President-elect rode with Buchanan to the place 
 of inauguration while "Sappers and Miners" guarded the carriage. 
 General Scott, hero of the Mexican War, marched with soldiers 
 on parallel streets. Squads of riflemen were placed on the roofs 
 of houses along the way with orders to watch the windows 
 opposite. Two frowning batteries were arranged so as to sweep 
 the front of the capitol. 
 
 On the stand stood his old friend, Senator Baker, ready to 
 introduce him to the vast throng gathered to hear. Near by stood 
 Chief Justice Taney to administer the oath, but nearer still stood 
 Stephen A. Douglas, his ancient rival and friend, who, seeing 
 Lincoln looking for a place to put his hat, took it with the remark : 
 "If I can't be President, I can hold the President's hat". In the 
 course of the Inaugural Address Douglas frequently nodded his 
 approval of its ideas. 
 
 This was probably the most momentous inaugural ever de- 
 livered. Lincoln grounded his doctrines back in our historical 
 origins, and embodied ideas common to Jackson and Webster 
 after testing them in the furnace of his own mind. 
 
 "I hold that, in contemplation of universal law and of the 
 Constitution, the union of these states is perpetual . . . that no 
 state, upon its own mere motion, can lawfully get out of the 
 Union ... I therefore consider that, in view of the Constitution 
 and laws, the Union is unbroken, and I shall take care . . . that the 
 laws of the Union be faithfully executed in all the states." 
 
 Finally came the end in a burst of feeling that revealed the 
 tenderness of the speaker's heart : "We are not enemies but friends. 
 We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, 
 it must not break, our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of 
 memory, stretching from every battle-field, and every patriot 
 grave, to every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad 
 land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union when again touched, 
 as they surely will be, by the better angels of our nature." 
 
 The inaugural was simple. Any one could understand it. 
 It contained no word of compromise. To the South it meant war. 
 
 Both the Senator and Mrs. Douglas attended the Inaugural 
 Ball and it was Douglas who marched down the great hall with 
 Mrs. Lincoln on his arm, and led her in the first dance on that 
 
Lincoln and Douglas 41 
 
 occasion. They were both at the President's receptions. The 
 New York Times remarks that Douglas was seen congratulating 
 the President and complimenting Mrs. Lincoln. The Douglases 
 were backing the administration both socially and politically. 
 
 The news of the fall of Fort Sumter reached Washington 
 Sunday morning, April 14th. Lowell declares that "the first gun 
 at Fort Sumter brought all the free states to their feet as one 
 man". Not yet. For on that eventful Sunday evening Douglas 
 sought the White House and for two hours or more these two 
 great souls pondered over the situation. What would History 
 give to know the details of that conversation ! We only know a 
 few words. When Lincoln read to Douglas his summons for 
 75,000 men to enforce the laws, Douglas arose and said : "I cor- 
 dially concur in every word of that document except that instead 
 of the call for 75,000 men, I should make it 200,000!" 
 
 Parallel with Lincoln's proclamation the next morning went 
 the statement of Stephen A. Douglas declaring that he stood with 
 the President in his determination "to preserve the Union, main- 
 tain the government, and defend the Federal Capital". This was 
 a bugle call to over a million and a quarter men who went down 
 to defeat with Douglas. How they answered may be read in the 
 archives of the nation. Democrats and Republicans marched 
 side by side to the battlefields and lie side by side in the ceme- 
 teries of the Southland. 
 
 "We must fight for our country and forget all differences", 
 said Douglas. He was the first and promised to be the greatest 
 of "War Democrats". From now on till he went West he was 
 frequently in the President's office giving opinions when asked, 
 but frequently advising the troubled President. 
 Douglas' Last Journey 
 
 In a few days came the alarming news to Douglas that 
 "Egypt" — the southern portion of Illinois — showed signs of re- 
 volt out of sympathy for the South. He carried the news to Lin- 
 coln. They studied the situation, and both saw that the North- 
 west must be held to the Union at all hazards. No one could 
 stir these communities like Douglas. "I'll go or stay as you think 
 best." "Go", said Lincoln. 
 
 In the little town of Bellaire, Ohio, just below Wheeling in 
 northwestern Virginia, Douglas addressed the people. They 
 came across the river from Virginia when the news spread that 
 Douglas was to address them. He spoke to them as a Union man, 
 and appealed to their interests describing to them what the setting 
 up of the Southern Confederacy controlling the Mississippi would 
 
42 Lincoln and Douglas 
 
 mean to them living on the Ohio river. "This great valley must 
 never be divided. The Almighty has so arranged the mountains 
 and the plain, and the watercourses as to show that this valley in 
 all time shall remain one and indissoluble." "Within thirty days 
 the Unionists of western Virginia had rallied, organized ... to 
 bring West Virginia into the Union", says Allen Johnson. 
 
 To the people of Columbus he spoke from his hotel window 
 half dressed, in those mighty tones which had appealed to his 
 followers in other days. He described to them the dangers to 
 the Union. 
 
 Friend and foe gathered to hear him in Springfield in the 
 last days of April, '61. To the legislature, with packed galleries, 
 he made his greatest plea for the Union. Men who listened de- 
 clared that he produced the most profound effect on his audience. 
 While he was pouring torrents of invective upon the seceding 
 states, some one rushed in with the Stars and Stripes. The 
 people simply went wild and Douglas burst forth in passionate 
 language : "When hostile armies are marching under new and 
 odious banners against the government of our country, the short- 
 est way to peace is the most stupendous and unanimous prepara- 
 tion for war . . . He appealed to every citizen between the Rocky 
 and the Allegheny Mountains to tell him whether they supported 
 a policy shutting "us from the world markets and make us de- 
 pendent provinces" . . . He declared that "We owe it to ourselves, 
 and to our children, and to our God, to protect this government 
 and that flag from every assailant". Who in all Illinois would 
 dare raise his hand against the Union after this mighty appeal? 
 
 Douglas went to his home in Chicago where he had had 
 showered upon him the most conflicting sentiments of hatred and 
 love ! Now he is hailed as a conquering hero ! In the great 
 Wigwam erected for Lincoln's nomination thousands upon thou- 
 sands gave him welcome. He seemed to catch enthusiasm from 
 the presence of men of all parties, and if possible in the midst of 
 excitement he used language which, in cooler moments, he would 
 not have indulged in. He declared that the slavery question, the 
 territorial question, and Lincoln's election were only pretexts for 
 getting out of the Union ; that the whole secession movement was 
 a gigantic conspiracy formed by leaders of the Southern Confed- 
 eracy. "There can be no neutrals in this war, only patriots or 
 traitors." 
 
 This was his last great speech. In a few days he was on 
 his death bed, and in his delirium he talked of nothing but his 
 country. When the inevitable was approaching, his young and 
 beautiful wife, leaning over him, asked if lie had anv words for 
 
Lincoln and Douglas 43 
 
 his boys : "Tell them to obey the laws and support the Constitution 
 of the United States". Soon after the great soul of Douglas 
 passed on. 
 
 Buried beside Lake Michigan in the City of Chicago where 
 the lake lashed into fury by its storms and the city driven to fury 
 by the passions of its people epitomise the stormy career of the 
 great Douglas. 
 
 To Lincoln, Douglas' death was a calamity. Few men stood 
 nearer to him in the early days of the war than Stephen A. 
 Douglas. 
 
 It is believed that had Douglas lived, Lincoln would have 
 named him to a position high in the government or would have 
 given him a most important military appointment. 
 
 Lincoln Assassinated 
 
 What Some Great Men Thought 
 Lincoln, without the aid of Douglas, faces the problem of 
 war and the preservation of the Union. Troubles multiply but 
 in their midst Lincoln's mental powers underwent a tremendous 
 transformation. He rose to meet the mighty problems that pressed 
 upon him. The Proclamation of Emancipation set the bondsmen 
 free, his Gettysburg Address, which critics can only praise, and 
 his second Inaugural declared by the London Spectator to be "The 
 noblest political document known to history, puts Lincoln in the 
 lead among modern political writers. But even when his favorite 
 general was battling Lee in the wilderness, we catch a new glimpse 
 of the universal in his spirit as the long list of killed and wounded 
 Union soldiers and Confederates produced its effect upon Lincoln. 
 Carpenter, the artist who painted Lincoln's portrait says of this 
 time that he met him in the main hall of the domestic apartment 
 "clad in a long morning wrapper, pacing back and forth ... his 
 hands behind him, great black rings under his eyes, his head bent 
 forward upon his breast — altogether such a picture of the effects 
 of sorrow, care, and anxiety as would have melted the heart of 
 the worst of his adversaries, who so mistakenly applied to him 
 the epithets of tyrant and usurper ... In repose it was the sad- 
 est face I ever knew. There were days when I could scarcely 
 look into it without crying." 
 
 Dr. Stone, the family physician, said: "It is the province of 
 the physician to probe deeply the interior lives of men: and I 
 affirm that Mr. Lincoln is the purest hearted man with whom I 
 ever came in contact". Secretary Seward, probably most intimate 
 with him, said : "Mr. Lincoln was the best man I ever knew". 
 In the best of spirits he had returned from Richmond after 
 
44 Lincoln and Douglas 
 
 Lee's surrender, was patiently waiting news from Sherman, and 
 was contemplating a generous line of conduct toward the Con- 
 federacy, when the assassin cut him down. 
 
 In all the North there was the deepest mourning, and men 
 cried as if their hearts would break when they heard the news of 
 his death. 
 
 An intense hatred for the man and his sympathizers, guilty 
 of this awful deed, was expressed by the best men in this awful 
 hour. 
 
 General James A. Garfield before a New York City audience 
 in most moderate language for the time said : "Tney have slain the 
 noblest and most generous spirit that ever put down a rebellion 
 ... it does seem to me that his death almost parallels that of the 
 Son of God, who cried out, 'Father, forgive them, for they know 
 not what they do' . . . when they have slain love . . . despised 
 mercy, when they have rejected those that would be their best 
 friends, then comes justice with hoodwinked eyes and the sword." 
 
 Butternuts and Copperheads — Southern sympathizers — were 
 set upon by the populace, beaten, driven out of town, and threat- 
 ened with death. 
 
 But the angry populace would have found Lincoln calling 
 out: "Forgive them for they know not what they do". 
 
 America Mourns 
 
 After Lincoln had been struck down by Booth's bullet they 
 removed him to a private home where he breathed his last on the 
 morning of April 15th, 1865. At his side were his family, his 
 Cabinet, and attending physicians. The great, burly, sorrowing 
 Stanton exclaimed : "Now he belongs to the ages". 
 
 In a short hour Washington was transformed from a city of 
 joy to one of sorrow; from a place where flags hung thick from 
 windows and bunting decorated every house to one where black 
 despair reigned ; rich and poor, and black and white hung their 
 homes with the gloomy signs of the deepening sorrow within. 
 
 In the East Room of the White House his remains lay until 
 April 19th, when a grand procession carried them to the Capitol 
 where appropriate ceremonies were held, and then began the long 
 and sad journey back to Springfield, the home of Lincoln, by the 
 same route along which he came to Washington, as far as prac- 
 ticable. 
 
 In New York City half a million people passed by the bier 
 and looked upon his face. The funeral train reached Albany at 
 midnight, and thousands rushed into the State Capital to see the 
 Lincoln they had loved while thousands came from New England 
 
Lincoln and Douglas 45 
 
 and Northern New York to bear silent testimony to the great 
 man. 
 
 At Syracuse, in the midst of a storm, 20,000 people gathered 
 at midnight, standing silent to see the train pull by, while the 
 bells of the city tolled a last sad requiem. In Chicago, where the 
 body lay for two days at the Court House, poured a mighty 
 throng, augmented by thousands that had come from the great 
 West to bear their tribute to the Saviour of the Union. At Spring- 
 field the body lay under the dome of the Capitol where Lincoln 
 had met in friendly debate the great Douglas. "For twenty-four 
 hours an unbroken stream of people passed through, bidding their 
 friend and neighbor welcome home and farewell." 
 
 On May 4th Lincoln was borne to his last resting place in 
 Oak Ridge Cemetery. The scenes were pathetic. Bishop Simp- 
 son, Lincoln's old time friend, and one loved by people every- 
 where, delivered a touching oration. Here had come, among the 
 great of Earth the lowly friends Lincoln had made and loved. 
 Among these was the widow of Jack Armstrong, now bent with 
 age, whose son Lincoln had saved from the gallows. She had 
 come to pay her last tribute to one who had not thought himself 
 too great to visit her humble home. 
 
 The finest memorial is the one erected in the hearts of his 
 countrymen by Lincoln's own deeds. It is a growing monument 
 increasing with each passing year. Even the people of the South 
 have come to believe that the tender hearted Lincoln, had he been 
 spared, was the one man who would have saved them from the 
 horrors of Reconstruction. 
 
 Memorials to Lincoln 
 
 Immediately the people started a subscription for a monu- 
 ment of stone to be erected over his grave. This was dedicated in 
 1874. On Capitol Hill is a statue erected by colored people, 
 the first gift to which was made by a colored washer 
 woman. In many communities stands a monument or statue 
 erected in honor of his name. Nearly all civilized nations have 
 testified to his wonderful worth. In Edinburgh, Scotland, there is 
 a life sized figure of Lincoln striking the shackels from a slave, 
 and dedicated to those brave Scots who fell in the Civil War. 
 
 The most stately memorial stands in Washington in the form 
 of a temple, containing among other things a copy of his immortal 
 Gettysburg address and a statue of Lincoln. 
 
 The tributes to his memory coming from literary men are 
 without number. Among them none are more unique than the 
 following from the London Punch which tries to atone for its 
 slanders upon Lincoln during the Civil War : 
 
4<> 
 
 Lincoln and Douglas 
 
 "Beside this corpse that bears for winding-sheet 
 The Stars and Stripes he lived to rear anew 
 Say, scurrile jester, is there room for you! 
 
 Yes he had lived to shame me from my sneer, 
 To lame my pencil and confute my pen; 
 
 To make me own this hind of princes' peer, 
 This rail-splitter, a true horn king of men." 
 
 9. 
 10. 
 11. 
 12. 
 13. 
 14. 
 15. 
 16. 
 
 17. 
 18. 
 19. 
 20. 
 
 Suggested Lincoln Books for Reading 
 
 Father Abraham, by Irving Bachelor. 
 The Great Good Man, by William E. Barton. 
 Lincoln at Gettysburg, by William E. Barton. 
 Abraham Lincoln, by Lord Charnwood. 
 Lincoln or Lee, by William E. Dodd. 
 Abraham Lincoln, Master of Words, by D. K. Dodge. 
 Abraham Lincoln, A True Story of a Great Life, 2 vols., Herndon 
 and Weik. 
 
 Set My People Free, by William E. Lilly. 
 Lincoln and His Cabinet, by Clarence E. Macartney. 
 Lincoln and Other Poems, Edwin Markham. 
 
 Lincoln Into the American Statesmen Series, by John T. Morse, 2 vols. 
 Lincoln, Master of Men, by Alonzo Richards. 
 Cartoon History of Lincoln, by Albert Shaw, 2 vols. 
 Abraham Lincoln, by Albert Beveridge, 2 vols. 
 Abraham Lincoln, A History by Nicholay and Hay, 10 vols. 
 Six Months in the White House with Abraham Lincoln, by F. B. Car- 
 penter. 
 
 The Life of Abraham Lincoln, Ida M. Tarbell. 
 Lincoln, the Lawyer, Frederick Trevor Hill. 
 
 Lincoln, the Man, of the People, William H. Mace (For Children.) 
 A Perfect Tribute, Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews. 
 
An Honor Soil 
 
 of Subscribers to the Lincoln Fund 
 
 arranged according to Seminars, but without 
 mention of the gifts of any person. Our pur- 
 pose is to show what History Majors have 
 sacrificed for their Alma Mater. Preceding 
 the list of Majors a statement will appear of 
 which the following is a mere outline: 1 — 
 The Majors began early, 1895, to collect 
 books and raise money for a Departmental 
 Library, until several thousand volumes were 
 assembled, worth several thousand dollars, by 
 1911. The University had little money for 
 books at this time. 2 — The Majors organ- 
 ized in this year to endow this library. The 
 money so raised was named the Mace Fund 
 (Mrs. Mace and I were in Europe at this 
 time). This fund reached its goal of $10,000 
 in 1932. 3 — Immediately the committee 
 that managed so successfully our great Re- 
 union began a campaign to raise several thou- 
 sand dollars to endow a Lincoln Collection 
 in the Mace Library. 
 
 We want every Major on this Honor Roll, 
 regardless of the size of the contribution. — 
 W. H. Mace. 
 
4(> Lincoln and Douglas 
 
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 Say, ; 
 
 Yes he , 
 
 To la 
 To mak, 
 
 This 
 
 Sugj 
 
 1. Father Abraha 
 
 2. The Great Goo 
 
 3. Lincoln at Get 
 
 4. Abraham Lino 
 
 5. Lincoln or Lee 
 
 6. Abraham Line* 
 
 7. Abraham Line 
 and Weik. 
 
 8. Set My People 
 
 9. Lincoln and H 
 
 10. Lincoln and O 
 
 11. Lincoln Into tl 
 
 12. Lincoln, Maste 
 
 13. Cartoon Histo 
 
 14. Abraham Lino 
 
 15. Abraham Line 
 
 16. Six Months in 
 penter. 
 
 17. The Life of £ 
 
 18. Lincoln, the L 
 
 19. Lincoln, the IV 
 
 20. A Perfect Tri 
 
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UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS-URBANA 
 
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 LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS. SYRACUSE 
 
 3 0112 031805945