"When Mr. Lincoln replied, on the following day, he took notice of Douglas"s hard words in this way:
"I am informed that my distinguished friend yesterday became a little excited, nervous (?) perhaps, and that he said something about fighting, as though looking to a personal encounter between himself and me. Did anybody in this audience hear him use such language? (Yes, Yes.) I am informed, further, that somebody in his audience, rather more excited or nervous than himself, took off his coat and offered to take the job off Judge Douglas"s hands and fight Lincoln himself. Did anybody here witness that warlike proceeding? (Laughter and cries of "yes.") Well, I merely desire to say that I shall fight neither Judge Douglas nor his second. I shall not do this for two reasons, which I will explain. In the first place a fight would prove nothing which is in issue in this election. It might establish that Judge Douglas is a more muscular man than myself, or it might show that I am a more muscular man than Judge Douglas. But this subject is not referred to in the Cincinnati platform, nor in either of the Springfield platforms. Neither result would prove him right or me wrong. And so of the gentleman who offered to do his fighting for him. If my fighting Judge Douglas would not prove any thing, it would certainly prove nothing for me to fight his bottle-holder. My second reason for not having a personal encounter with Judge Douglas is that I don"t believe he wants it himself. He and I are about the best friends in the world, and when we get together he would no more think of fighting me than of fighting his wife. Therefore, when the Judge talked about fighting he was not giving vent to any ill-feeling of his own, but was merely trying to excite--well, let us say enthusiasm against me on the part of his audience. And, as I find he was tolerably successful in this, we will call it quits."
"At Havana I saw Mrs. Douglas (_nee_ Cutts) standing with a group of ladies a short distance from the platform on which her husband was speaking, and I thought I had never seen a more queenly face and figure.
I saw her frequently afterward in this campaign, but never personally met her till many years later, when she had become the wife of General Williams of the regular army, and the mother of children who promised to be as beautiful as herself. There is no doubt in my mind that this attractive presence was very helpful to Judge Douglas in the campaign.
It is certain that the Republicans considered her a dangerous element.
"From Havana we went to Lewistown and thence to Peoria, still following on the heels of the Little Giant, but nothing of special interest happened at either place. As we came northward Mr. Lincoln"s meetings grew in size, but at Lewistown the Douglas gathering was much the larger of the two and was the most considerable in point of numbers I had yet seen.
"The next stage brought us to Ottawa, the first joint debate, August 21st. Here the crowd was enormous. The weather had been very dry and the town was shrouded in dust raised by the moving populace. Crowds were pouring into town from sunrise till noon in all sorts of conveyances, teams, railroad trains, ca.n.a.l boats, cavalcades, and processions on foot, with banners and inscriptions, stirring up such clouds of dust that it was hard to make out what was underneath them. The town was covered with bunting, and bands of music were tooting around every corner, drowned now and then by the roar of cannon. Mr. Lincoln came by railroad and Mr. Douglas by carriage from La Salle. A train of seventeen pa.s.senger cars from Chicago attested the interest felt in that city in the first meeting of the champions. Two great processions escorted them to the platform in the public square. But the eagerness to hear the speaking was so great that the crowd had taken possession of the square and the platform, and had climbed on the wooden awning overhead, to such an extent that the speakers and the committees and reporters could not get to their places. Half an hour was consumed in a rough-and-tumble skirmish to make way for them, and, when finally this was accomplished, a section of the awning gave way with its load of men and boys, and came down on the heads of the Douglas committee of reception. But, fortunately, n.o.body was hurt.
"Here I was joined by Mr. Hitt and also by Mr. Chester P. Dewey of the New York _Evening Post_, who remained with us until the end of the campaign. Hither, also, came quite an army of young newspaper men, among whom was Henry Villard, in behalf of Forney"s Philadelphia Press. I have preserved Mr. Dewey"s sketch of the two orators as they appeared on the Ottawa platform, and I introduce it here as a graphic description by a new hand:
""Two men presenting wider contrasts could hardly be found, as the representatives of the two great parties. Everybody knows Douglas, a short, thick-set, burly man, with large, round head, heavy hair, dark complexion, and fierce, bull-dog look. Strong in his own real power, and skilled by a thousand conflicts in all the strategy of a hand-to-hand or a general fight; of towering ambition, restless in his determined desire for notoriety, proud, defiant, arrogant, audacious, unscrupulous, "Little Dug" ascended the platform and looked out impudently and carelessly on the immense throng which surged and struggled before him.
A native of Vermont, reared on a soil where no slave stood, he came to Illinois a teacher, and from one post to another had risen to his present eminence. Forgetful of the ancestral hatred of slavery to which he was the heir, he had come to be a holder of slaves, and to owe much of his fame to continued subservience to Southern influence.
""The other--Lincoln--is a native of Kentucky, of poor white parentage, and, from his cradle, has felt the blighting influence of the dark and cruel shadow which rendered labor dishonorable and kept the poor in poverty, while it advanced the rich in their possessions. Reared in poverty, and to the humblest aspirations, he left his native State, crossed the line into Illinois, and began his career of honorable toil. At first a laborer, splitting rails for a living--deficient in education, and applying himself even to the rudiments of knowledge--he, too, felt the expanding power of his American manhood, and began to achieve the greatness to which he has succeeded. With great difficulty, struggling through the tedious formularies of legal lore, he was admitted to the bar, and rapidly made his way to the front ranks of his profession. Honored by the people with office, he is still the same honest and reliable man. He volunteers in the Black Hawk war, and does the State good service in its sorest need. In every relation of life, socially and to the State, Mr. Lincoln has been always the pure and honest man. In physique he is the opposite to Douglas. Built on the Kentucky type, he is very tall, slender and angular, awkward even in gait and att.i.tude. His face is sharp, large-featured and unprepossessing. His eyes are deep-set under heavy brows, his forehead is high and retreating, and his hair is dark and heavy. In repose, I must confess that "Long Abe"s" appearance is not comely. But stir him up and the fire of his genius plays on every feature. His eye glows and sparkles; every lineament, now so ill-formed, grows brilliant and expressive, and you have before you a man of rare power and of strong magnetic influence. He _takes_ the people every time, and there is no getting away from his st.u.r.dy good sense, his unaffected sincerity and the unceasing play of his good humor, which accompanies his close logic and smoothes the way to conviction. Listening to him on Sat.u.r.day, calmly and unprejudiced, I was convinced that he had no superior as a stump-speaker. He is clear, concise and logical, his language is eloquent and at perfect command. He is altogether a more fluent speaker than Douglas, and in all the arts of debate fully his equal. The Republicans of Illinois have chosen a champion worthy of their heartiest support, and fully equipped for the conflict with the great Squatter Sovereign."
"One trifling error of fact will be noticed by the readers of these volumes in Mr. Dewey"s sketch. It relates to Douglas, and it is proper to correct it here. Mr. Douglas was never a slave-holder. As a trustee or guardian, he held a plantation in Louisiana with the slaves thereon, which had belonged to Col. Robert Martin, of North Carolina, the maternal grandfather of his two sons by his first marriage. It is a fact that Douglas refused to accept this plantation and its belongings as a gift to himself from Colonel Martin in the life-time of the latter. It was characteristic of him that he declined to be an owner of slaves, not because he sympathized with the Abolitionists, but because, as he said once in a debate with Senator Wade, "being a Northern man by birth, by education and residence, and intending always to remain such, it was impossible for me to know, understand, and provide for the happiness of those people."
"At the conclusion of the Ottawa debate, a circ.u.mstance occurred which, Mr. Lincoln said to me afterwards, was extremely mortifying to him.
Half a dozen Republicans, roused to a high pitch of enthusiasm for their leader, seized him as he came down from the platform, hoisted him upon their shoulders and marched off with him, singing the "Star Spangled Banner," or "Hail Columbia," until they reached the place where he was to spend the night. What use Douglas made of this incident, is known to the readers of the joint debates. He said a few days later, at Joliet, that Lincoln was so used up in the discussion that his knees trembled, and he had to be carried from the platform, and he caused this to be printed in the newspapers of his own party. Mr. Lincoln called him to account for this fable at Jonesboro.
"The Ottawa debate gave great satisfaction to our side. Mr. Lincoln, we thought, had the better of the argument, and we all came away encouraged. But the Douglas men were encouraged also. In his concluding half hour, Douglas spoke with great rapidity and animation, and yet with perfect distinctness, and his supporters cheered him wildly.
"The next joint debate was to take place at Freeport, six days later. In the interval, Mr. Lincoln addressed meetings at Henry, Marshall county; Augusta, Hanc.o.c.k county, and Macomb, McDonough county. During this interval he prepared the answers to the seven questions put to him by Douglas at Ottawa, and wrote the four questions which he propounded to Douglas at Freeport. The second of these, viz.: "Can the people of a United States Territory, in any lawful way, against the wish of any citizen of the United States, exclude slavery from its limits prior to the formation of a State Const.i.tution?" was made the subject of a conference between Mr. Lincoln and a number of his friends from Chicago, among whom were Norman B. Judd and Dr. C. H. Ray, the latter the chief editor of the Tribune. This conference took place at the town of Dixon.
I was not present, but Doctor Ray told me that all who were there counseled Mr. Lincoln not to put that question to Douglas, because he would answer it in the affirmative and thus probably secure his re-election. It was their opinion that Lincoln should argue strongly from the Dred Scott decision, which Douglas endorsed, that the people of the Territories could not lawfully exclude slavery prior to the formation of a State Const.i.tution, but that he should not force Douglas to say yes or no. They believed that the latter would let that subject alone as much as possible in order not to offend the South, unless he should be driven into a corner. Mr. Lincoln replied that to draw an affirmative answer from Douglas on this question was exactly what he wanted, and that his object was to make it impossible for Douglas to get the vote of the Southern States in the next Presidential election. He considered that fight much more important than the present one and he would be willing to lose this in order to win that.*
* Mr. Lincoln"s words are given in Mr. Arnold"s biography thus: "I am after larger game; the battle of 1860 is worth a hundred of this." Mr. Arnold"s authority is not mentioned, but these are exactly the words that Doctor Ray repeated to me.
"The result justified Mr. Lincoln"s prevision. Douglas did answer in the affirmative. If he had answered in the negative he would have lost the Senatorial election, and that would have ended his political career. He took the chance of being able to make satisfactory explanations to the slaveholders, but they would have nothing to do with him afterward.
"The crowd that a.s.sembled at Freeport on the 27th of August was even larger than that at Ottawa. Hundreds of people came from Chicago and many from the neighboring State of Wisconsin. Douglas came from Galena the night before the debate, and was greeted with a great torch-light procession. Lincoln came the following morning from Dixon, and was received at the railway station by a dense crowd, filling up all the adjacent streets, who shouted themselves hoa.r.s.e when his tall form was seen emerging from the train. Here, again, the people had seized upon the platform, and all the approaches to it, an hour before the speaking began, and a hand-to-hand fight took place to secure possession.
"After the debate was finished, we Republicans did not feel very happy. We held the same opinion that Mr. Judd and Doctor Ray had--that Douglas"s answer had probably saved him from defeat. We did not look forward, and we did not look South, and even if we had done so, we were too much enlisted in this campaign to swap it for another one which was two years distant. Mr. Lincoln"s wisdom was soon vindicated by his antagonist, one of whose earliest acts, after he returned to Washington City, was to make a speech (February 23, 1859) defending himself against attacks upon the "Freeport heresy,"as the Southerners called it. In that debate Jefferson Davis was particularly aggravating, and Douglas did not reply to him with his usual spirit.
"It would draw this chapter out to unreasonable length, if I were to give details of all the small meetings of this campaign. After the Freeport joint debate, we went to Carlinville, Macoupin county, where John M. Palmer divided the time with Mr. Lincoln. From this place we went to Clinton, De Witt county, via Springfield and Decatur. During this journey an incident occurred which gave unbounded mirth to Mr.
Lincoln at my expense.
"We left Springfield about nine o"clock in the evening for Decatur, where we were to change cars and take the north-bound train on the Illinois Central Railway. I was very tired and I curled myself up as best I could on the seat to take a nap, asking Mr. Lincoln to wake me up at Decatur, which he promised to do. I went to sleep, and when I did awake I had the sensation of having been asleep a long time. It was daylight and I knew that we should have reached Decatur before midnight.
Mr. Lincoln"s seat was vacant. While I was pulling myself together, the conductor opened the door of the car and shouted, "State Line." This was the name of a shabby little town on the border of Indiana. There was nothing to do but to get out and wait for the next train going back to Decatur. About six o"clock in the evening I found my way to Clinton. The meeting was over, of course, and the Chicago Tribune had lost its expected report, and I was out of pocket for railroad fares. I wended my way to the house of Mr. C. H. Moore, where Mr. Liacoin was staying, and where I, too, had been an expected guest. When Mr. Lincoln saw me coming up the garden path, his lungs began to crow like a chanticleer, and I thought he would laugh, _sans_ intermission, an hour by his dial. He paused long enough to say that he had fallen asleep, also, and did not wake up till the train was starting _from_ Decatur. He had very nearly been carried past the station himself, and, in his haste to get out, had forgotten all about his promise to waken me. Then he began to laugh again. The affair was so irresistibly funny, in his view, that he told the incident several times in Washington City when I chanced to meet him, after he became President, to any company who might be present, and with such contagious drollery that all who heard it would shake with laughter.
"Our course took us next to Bloomington, McLean county; Monticello, Piatt county, and Paris, Edgar county. At the last-mentioned place (September 8th) we were joined by Owen Lovejoy, who had never been in that part of the State before. The fame of Lovejoy as an Abolitionist had preceded him, however, and the people gathered around him in a curious and hesitating way, as though he were a witch who might suddenly give them lock-jaw or bring murrain on their cattle, if he were much provoked. Lovejoy saw this and was greatly amused by it, and when he made a speech in the evening, Mr. Lincoln having made his in the day-time, he invited the timid ones to come up and feel of his horns and examine his cloven foot and his forked tail. Lovejoy was one of the most effective orators of his time. After putting his audience in good humor in this way, he made one of his impa.s.sioned speeches which never failed to gain votes where human hearts were responsive to the wrongs of slavery. Edgar county was in the Democratic list, but this year it gave a Republican majority on the legislative and congressional tickets, and I think Lovejoy"s speech was largely accountable for the result.
"My notes of the Paris meeting embrace the following pa.s.sage from Mr.
Lincoln"s speech:
WHAT IS POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY?
""Let us inquire what Judge Douglas really invented when he introduced the Nebraska Bill? He called it Popular Sovereignty. What does that mean? It means the sovereignty of the people over their own affairs--in other words, the right of the people to govern themselves. Did Judge Douglas invent this? Not quite. The idea of Popular Sovereignty was floating about several ages before the author of the Nebraska Bill was born--indeed, before Columbus set foot on this continent. In the year 1776 it took form in the n.o.ble words which you are all familiar with: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal," etc. Was not this the origin of Popular Sovereignty as applied to the American people? Here we are told that governments are inst.i.tuted among men deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.
If that is not Popular Sovereignty, then I have no conception of the meaning of words. If Judge Douglas did not invent this kind of Popular Sovereignty, let us pursue the inquiry and find out what kind he did invent. Was it the right of emigrants to Kansas and Nebraska to govern themselves, and a lot of "n.i.g.g.e.rs," too, if they wanted them? Clearly this was no invention of his, because General Ca.s.s put forth the same doctrine in 1848 in his so-called Nicholson letter, six years before Douglas thought of such a thing. Then what was it that the "Little Giant" invented? It never occurred to General Ca.s.s to call his discovery by the odd name of Popular Sovereignty. He had not the face to say that the right of the people to govern "n.i.g.g.e.rs" was the right of the people to govern themselves. His notions of the fitness of things were not moulded to the brazenness of calling the right to put a hundred "n.i.g.g.e.rs" through under the lash in Nebraska a "sacred right of self-government." And here, I submit to you, was Judge Douglas"s discovery, and the whole of it. He discovered that the right to breed and flog negroes in Nebraska was Popular Sovereignty."
"The next meetings in their order were Hillsboro, Montgomery county; Greenville, Bond county, and Edwardsville, Madison county. At Edwardsville (September 13th) I was greatly impressed with Mr. Lincoln"s speech, so much so, that I took down the following pa.s.sages, which, as I read them now, after the lapse of thirty-one years, bring back the whole scene with vividness before me--the quiet autumn day in the quaint old town; the serious people cl.u.s.tered around the platform; Joseph Gillespie officiating as chairman, and the tall, gaunt, earnest man, whose high destiny and tragic death were veiled from our eyes, appealing to his old Whig friends, and seeking to lift them up to his own level:
""I have been requested," he said, "to give a concise statement of the difference, as I understand it, between the Democratic and the Republican parties on the leading issues of the campaign. This question has been put to me by a gentleman whom I do not know. I do not even know whether he is a friend of mine or a supporter of Judge Douglas in this contest, nor does that make any difference. His question is a proper one. Lest I should forget it, I will give you my answer before proceeding with the line of argument I have marked out for this discussion.
""The difference between the Republican and the Democratic parties on the leading issues of this contest, as I understand it, is that the former consider slavery a moral, social and political wrong, while the latter do not consider it either a moral, a social or a political wrong; and the action of each, as respects the growth of the country and the expansion of our population, is squared to meet these views. I will not affirm that the Democratic party consider slavery morally, socially and politically right, though their tendency to that view has, in my opinion, been constant and unmistakable for the past five years. I prefer to take, as the accepted maxim of the party, the idea put forth by Judge Douglas, that he "don"t care whether slavery is voted down or voted up." I am quite willing to believe that many Democrats would prefer that slavery should be always voted down, and I know that some prefer that it be always "voted up;" but I have a right to insist that their action, especially if it be their constant action, shall determine their ideas and preferences on this subject. Every measure of the Democratic party of late years, bearing directly or indirectly on the slavery question, has corresponded with this notion of utter indifference, whether slavery or freedom shall outrun in the race of empire across to the Pacific--every measure, I say, up to the Dred Scott decision, where, it seems to me, the idea is boldly suggested that slavery is better than freedom. The Republican party, on the contrary, hold that this government was inst.i.tuted to secure the blessings of freedom, and that slavery is an unqualified evil to the negro, to the white man, to the soil, and to the State. Regarding it as an evil, they will not molest it in the States where it exists, they will not overlook the const.i.tutional guards which our fathers placed around it; they will do nothing that can give proper offense to those who hold slaves by legal sanction; but they will use every const.i.tutional method to prevent the evil from becoming larger and involving more negroes, more white men, more soil, and more States in its deplorable consequences. They will, if possible, place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in course of ultimate peaceable extinction in G.o.d"s own good time. And to this end they will, if possible, restore the government to the policy of the fathers--the policy of preserving the new Territories from the baneful influence of human bondage, as the northwestern Territories were sought to be preserved by the ordinance of 1787, and the Compromise Act of 1820. They will oppose, in all its length and breadth, the modern Democratic idea, that slavery is as good as freedom, and ought to have room for expansion all over the continent, if people can be found to carry it. All, or nearly all, of Judge Douglas"s arguments are logical, if you admit that slavery is as good and as right as freedom, and not one of them is worth a rush if you deny it. This is the difference, as I understand it, between the Republican and Democratic parties....
""My friends, I have endeavored to show you the logical consequences of the Dred Scott decision, which holds that the people of a Territory cannot prevent the establishment of slavery in their midst. I have stated what cannot be gainsaid, that the grounds upon which this decision is made are equally applicable to the free States as to the free Territories, and that the peculiar reasons put forth by Judge Douglas for endorsing this decision, commit him, in advance, to the next decision and to all other decisions coming from the same source. And when, by all these means, you have succeeded in dehumanizing the negro; when you have put him down and made it impossible for him to be but as the beasts of the field; when you have extinguished his soul in this world and placed him where the ray of hope is blown out as in the darkness of the d.a.m.ned, are you quite sure that the demon you have roused will not turn and rend you? What const.i.tutes the bulwark of our own liberty and independence? It is not our frowning battlements, our bristling sea coasts, our army and our navy. These are not our reliance against tyranny. All of those may be turned against us without making us weaker for the struggle. Our reliance is in the love of liberty which G.o.d has planted in us. Our defense is in the spirit which prizes liberty as the heritage of all men, in all lands everywhere. Destroy this spirit and you have planted the seeds of despotism at your own doors.
Familiarize yourselves with the chains of bondage and you prepare your own limbs to wear them. Accustomed to trample on the rights of others, you have lost the genius of your own independence and become the fit subjects of the first cunning tyrant who rises among you. And let me tell you, that all these things are prepared for you by the teachings of history, if the elections shall promise that the next Dred Scott decision and all future decisions will be quietly acquiesced in by the people."
"From Edwardsville we went to the Jonesboro joint debate. The audience here was small, not more than 1,000 or 1,500, and nearly all Democrats.
This was in the heart of Egypt. The country people came into the little town with ox teams mostly, and a very stunted breed of oxen, too. Their wagons were old-fashioned, and looked as though they were ready to fall in pieces. A train with three or four carloads of Douglas men came up, with Douglas himself, from Cairo. All who were present listened to the debate with very close attention, and there was scarcely any cheering on either side. Of course we did not expect any in that place. The reason why Douglas did not get much, was that Union county was a stronghold of the "Danites," or Buchanan Democrats. These were a pitiful minority everywhere except in the two counties of Union and Bureau. The reason for this peculiarity in the two counties named, must lie in the fact that Union county was the home of the United States Marshal for the Southern District, W. L. Dougherty; and Bureau, that of the Marshal for the Northern District, Charles N. Pine. Evidently both these men worked their offices for all they were worth, and the result would seem to show that Marshalships are peculiarly well fitted to the purpose of turning voters from their natural leanings. In Bureau county the "Danites"
polled more votes than the Douglas Democrats. In Union, they divided the party into two nearly equal parts. In no other county did they muster a corporal"s guard; James W. Sheahan, the editor of the Times, told me, with great glee, after the election, that at one of the voting places in Chicago, where the two Democratic judges of election were Irish, a few "Danite" votes were offered, but that the judges refused to receive them, saying gravely, "We don"t take that kind." They thought it was illegal voting.
"The only thing noteworthy that I recall at Jonesboro was not political and not even terrestrial. It was the splendid appearance of Donati"s comet in the sky, the evening before the debate. Mr. Lincoln greatly admired this strange visitor, and he and I sat for an hour or more in front of the hotel looking at it.
"From Jonesboro we went to Centralia, where a great State Fair was sprawling over the prairie, but there was no speaking there. It was not good form to have political bouts at State Fairs, and I believe that the managers had prohibited them. After one day at this place, where great crowds cl.u.s.tered around both Lincoln and Douglas whenever they appeared on the grounds, we went to Charleston, Coles county, September 18th, where the fourth joint debate took place.
"This was a very remarkable gathering, the like of which we had not seen elsewhere. It consisted of a great outpouring ( or rather inpouring ) of the rural population, in their own conveyances. There was only one line of railroad here, and only one special train on it. Yet, to my eye, the crowd seemed larger than at either Ottawa or Freeport, in fact the largest of the series, except the one at Galesburg, which came later.
The campaign was now at its height, the previous debates having stirred the people into a real fever. "It is astonishing," said Mr. Dewey, in his letter from Charleston to the _Evening Post_, "how deep an interest in politics this people take. Over long weary miles of hot, dusty prairie, the processions of eager partisans come on foot, on horseback, in wagons drawn by horses or mules; men, women and children, old and young; the half-sick just out of the last "shake," children in arms, infants at the maternal fount; pushing on in clouds of dust under a blazing sun, settling down at the town where the meeting is, with hardly a chance for sitting, and even less opportunity for eating, waiting in anxious groups for hours at the places of speaking; talking, discussing, litigious, vociferous, while the roar of artillery, the music of bands, the waving of banners, the huzzas of the crowds, as delegation after delegation appears; the cry of peddlers vending all sorts of wares, from an infallible cure for "agur" to a monster water-melon in slices to suit purchasers--combine to render the occasion one scene of confusion and commotion. The hour of one arrives, and a perfect rush is made for the grounds; a column of dust rising to the heavens, and fairly deluging those who are hurrying on through it. Then the speakers come, with flags and banners and music, surrounded by cheering partisans. Their arrival at the grounds and immediate approach to the stand, is the signal for shouts that rend the heavens. They are introduced to the audience amid prolonged and enthusiastic cheers, they are interrupted by frequent applause and they sit down finally among the same uproarious demonstrations. The audience sit or stand patiently, throughout, and, as the last word is spoken, make a break for their homes, first hunting up lost members of their families, gathering their scattered wagon loads together, and, as the daylight fades away, entering again upon the broad prairies and slowly picking their way back to the place of beginning."
"Both Lincoln and Douglas left the train at Mattoon, distant some ten miles from Charleston, to accept the escort of their respective partisans. Mattoon was then a comparatively new place, a station on the Illinois Central Railway peopled by Northern men. Nearly the whole population of this town turned out to escort Mr. Lincoln along the dusty highway to Charleston. In his procession was a chariot containing thirty-two young ladies, representing the thirty-two States of the Union, and carrying banners to designate the same. Following this, was one young lady on horseback holding aloft a banner inscribed, "Kansas--I will be free." As she was very good looking, we thought that she would not remain free always. The muses had been wide awake also, for, on the side of the chariot, was the stirring legend:
"Westward the star of empire takes its way; The girls link-on to Lincoln, as their mothers did to Clay."
"The Douglas procession was likewise a formidable one. He, too, had his chariot of young ladies, and, in addition, a mounted escort. The two processions stretched an almost interminable distance along the road, and were marked by a moving cloud of dust.
"Before the Charleston debate, Mr. Lincoln had received (from Senator Trumbull, I suppose) certain official doc.u.ments to prove that Douglas had attempted, in 1856, to bring Kansas into the Union without allowing the people to vote upon her const.i.tution, and with these he put the Little Giant on the defensive, and pressed him so hard that we all considered that our side had won a substantial victory.
"The Democrats seemed to be uneasy and dissatisfied, both during the debate and afterward. Mr. Isaac N. Arnold, in his biography of Lincoln, page 148, relates an incident in the Charleston debate on the authority of "a spectator" ( not named ), to this effect: that near the end of Mr.
Lincoln"s closing speech, Douglas became very much excited and walked rapidly up and down the platform behind Lincoln, holding a watch in his hand; that the instant the watch showed the half hour, he called out "Sit down! Lincoln, sit down! Your time is up."
"This must be a pure invention. My notes show nothing of the kind. I sat on the platform within ten feet of Douglas all the time that Lincoln was speaking. If any such dramatic incident had occurred, I should certainly have made a note of it, and even without notes I think I should have remembered it. Douglas was too old a campaigner to betray himself in this manner, whatever his feelings might have been.
"After the debate was ended and the country people had mostly dispersed, the demand for speeches was still far from being satisfied. Two meetings were started in the evening, with blazing bonfires in the street to mark the places. Richard J. Oglesby, the Republican nominee for Congress (afterward General, Governor and Senator ), addressed one of them.
At the Douglas meeting, Richard T. Merrick and U. F. Linder were the speakers. Merrick was a young lawyer from Maryland, who had lately settled in Chicago, and a fluent and rather captivating orator. Linder was an Old Line Whig, of much natural ability, who had sided with the Democrats on the break-up of his own party. Later in the campaign Douglas wrote him a letter saying: "For G.o.d"s sake, Linder, come up here and help me." This letter got into the newspapers, and, as a consequence, the receiver of it was immediately dubbed, "For-G.o.d"s-Sake Linder," by which name he was popularly know all the rest of his days.
"There was nothing of special interest between the Charleston debate and that which took place at Galesburg, October 7th. Here we had the largest audience of the whole series and the worst day, the weather being very cold and raw, notwithstanding which, the people flocked from far and near. One feature of the Republican procession was a division of one hundred ladies and an equal number of gentlemen on horseback as a special escort to the carriage containing Mr. Lincoln. The whole country seemed to be swarming and the crowd stood three hours in the college grounds, in a cutting wind, listening to the debate. Mr. Lincoln"s speech at Galesburg was, in my judgment, the best of the series.
"At Quincy, October 13th, we had a fine day and a very large crowd, although not so large as at Galesburg. The usual processions and paraphernalia were on hand. Old Whiggery was largely represented here, and, in front of the Lincoln procession, was a live racc.o.o.n on a pole, emblematic of a by-gone day and a by-gone party. When this touching reminder of the past drew near the hotel where we were staying, an old weather-beaten follower of Henry Clay, who was standing near me, was moved to tears. After mopping his face he made his way up to Mr.
Lincoln, wrung his hand and burst into tears again. The wicked Democrats carried at the head of their procession a dead "c.o.o.n, suspended by its tail. This was more in accord with existing facts than the other specimen, but our prejudices ran in favor of live "c.o.o.ns in that part of Illinois. Farther north we did not set much store by them. Here I saw Carl Schurz for the first time. He was hotly in the fray, and was an eager listener to the Quincy debate. Another rising star, Frank P.
Blair, Jr., was battling for Lincoln in the southern part of the State.
"The next day both Lincoln and Douglas, and their retainers, went on board the steamer _City of Louisiana_, bound for Alton. Here the last of the joint debates took place, October 15th. The day was pleasant but the audience was the smallest of the series, except the one at Jonesboro.
The debate pa.s.sed off quietly and without any incident worthy of note.
"The campaign was now drawing to a close. Everybody who had borne an active part in it was pretty well f.a.gged out, except Mr. Lincoln. He showed no signs of fatigue. Douglas"s voice was worn down to extreme huskiness. He took great pains to save what was left of his throat, but to listen to him moved one"s pity. Nevertheless, he went on doggedly, bravely, and with a jaunty air of confidence. Mr. Lincoln"s voice was as clear and far-reaching as it was the day he spoke at Beardstown, two months before--a high-pitched tenor, almost a falsetto, that could be heard at a greater distance than Douglas"s heavy ba.s.so. The battle continued till the election (November 2d), which took place in a cold, pelting rainstorm, one of the most uncomfortable in the whole year. But n.o.body minded the weather. The excitement was intense all day in all parts of the State. The Republican State ticket was elected by a small plurality, the vote being as follows: