Initially, the decision appeared to be a stunning victory for the South. For more than a decade, the Richmond Enquirer proclaimed, antislavery forces had claimed for the federal government the right of prescribing the boundaries of slavery in the territories. Now the territorial prize for which the two sides had "often wrestled in the halls of Congress, has been awarded at last, by the proper umpire, to those who have justly won it." The decision of the Supreme Court, "the accredited interpreter of the Const.i.tution and arbiter of disagreements between the several States," the Enquirer continued, has destroyed "the foundation of the theory upon which their warfare has been waged against the inst.i.tutions of the South." Antislavery men were staggered, the Enquirer claimed, left "nonplused and bewildered, confounded and confused."
"Sheer blasphemy," Republicans responded. The ruling was "ent.i.tled to just so much moral weight as would be the judgment of a majority of those congregated in any Washington bar-room." The New York Tribune argued that the Supreme Court had forfeited its stature as "an impartial judicial body," and predicted that its attempt to derail the Republican Party, which had come so close to victory in the previous presidential election, would fail. "Judge Taney can do many things," Frederick Dougla.s.s observed, "but he cannot...change the essential nature of things-making evil good, and good, evil." Frances Seward hoped that the blatantly unethical decision would galvanize the national will of the North. It "has aroused many to the encroachments of the slave power," she happily reported to Sumner.
The furor broke yet another bond of union by involving the Supreme Court, the common guarantor of both North and South, in sectional conflict. Dred Scott was sold to a Mr. Taylor Blow, who promptly freed him. He would die within a year, a free man whose name would leave a deeper mark on American history than those of the justices who had consigned him to slavery.
Speaking in Springfield, Lincoln attacked the decision in characteristic fashion, not by castigating the Court but by meticulously exposing flaws of logic. The Chief Justice, Lincoln said, "insists at great length that negroes were no part of the people who made, or for whom was made, the Declaration of Independence, or the Const.i.tution." Yet in at least five states, black voters acted on the ratification of the Const.i.tution and were among the "We the People" by whom the Const.i.tution was ordained and established. The founders, he acknowledged, did not "declare all men equal in all respects. They did not mean to say all were equal in color, size, intellect, moral developments, or social capacity." But they did declare all men "equal in "certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."...They meant simply to declare the right, so the enforcement of it might follow as fast as circ.u.mstances should permit."
SEWARD, TOO, would condemn the Dred Scott decision in a sensational oration on the Senate floor, accusing the administration of having engaged in a corrupt conspiracy with the Supreme Court. "The day of inauguration came," Seward said. The innocent crowd gathered for the ceremony were "unaware of the import of the whisperings carried on between the President and the Chief Justice." While the Chief Justice looked on and the members of the Senate watched in silence, Seward continued, President Buchanan proclaimed his complete support for the forthcoming, and supposedly yet unknown, Supreme Court ruling on the status of blacks under the Const.i.tution. When "the pageant ended," Seward cried scornfully, "the judges, without even exchanging their silken robes for courtiers" gowns, paid their salutations to the President, in the Executive palace. Doubtlessly the President received them as graciously as Charles I did the judges who had, at his instance, subverted the statues of English liberty."
While Seward"s charges were echoed and acclaimed throughout the North, they provoked a violent reaction in the South and within the administration. President Buchanan was so enraged by the conspiracy charge that he forbade Seward access to the White House. Chief Justice Taney was even more infuriated, declaring later that if Seward had become president in 1861, he would "have refused to administer to him the official oath, and thereby proclaim to the nation that he would not administer that oath to such a man."
Six months later, Seward delivered another provocative speech that, like the "higher law" speech, would be indelibly linked to his name. Catering to the emotions of an ardent Republican gathering overflowing in Corinthian Hall in Rochester, New York, Seward argued that the United States was divided by two "incompatible" political and economic systems, which had developed divergent cultures, values, and a.s.sumptions. The free labor system had uneasily coexisted with slave labor, he observed, until recent advances in transportation, communication, and commerce increasingly brought the two "into closer contact." A catastrophic "collision" was inevitable. "Shall I tell you what this collision means?" he asked his audience. "They who think that it is accidental, unnecessary, the work of interested or fanatical agitators, and therefore ephemeral, mistake the case altogether. It is an irrepressible conflict between opposing and enduring forces, and it means that the United States must and will, sooner or later, become either entirely a slaveholding nation, or entirely a free-labor nation."
Frances Seward was thrilled with her husband"s speech, believing its radical tone completely warranted by the increasingly aggressive stance of the South. Indeed, for all those fighting against slavery, the words "irrepressible conflict" provided a mighty battle cry. Seward had defined the sectional conflict as driven by fundamental differences rather than the machinations of extremists who exaggerated discord for their own political ends. He had taken his stand on an issue, Kenneth Stampp suggests, "that troubled the politicians of his generation as it has since troubled American historians: Was the conflict that ultimately culminated in the Civil War repressible or irrepressible?"
The speech produced an uproar in opposition papers. The Albany Atlas and Argus claimed that Seward was no longer content with restricting slavery to its present domain, but threatening to end slavery in South Carolina and Georgia. With this speech, the New York Herald claimed, Seward had thrown off his mask to reveal a "more repulsive abolitionist, because a more dangerous one, than Beecher, Garrison or [Ma.s.sachusetts minister Theodore] Rev. Dr. Parker."
Seward, in fact, was not an abolitionist. He had long maintained that slavery in the states where it already existed was beyond the reach of national power. When he told of a nation without slavery, he referred to long-run historical forces and the inevitable triumph of an urbanizing, industrializing society. To Southerners, however, Seward seemed to be threatening the forced extinction of slavery and the permanent subjugation of the South. Seward, the historian William Gienapp suggests, "never comprehended fully the power of his words." He failed to antic.i.p.ate the impact that such radical phrases as "higher law" and "irrepressible conflict" would have on the moderate image he wished to project. Long after the incendiary words had been spoken, Seward conceded that "if heaven would forgive him for stringing together two high sounding words, he would never do it again."
Ironically, while Seward was applauded in the antislavery North for his radical rhetoric, he was by temperament fundamentally conciliatory, eager to use his charisma and good-natured manner to unify the nation and find a peaceful solution to the sectional crisis. From his earliest days in politics, Seward had trusted the warmth and power of his personality to bridge any divide, so long as he could deal one-on-one with his adversaries. When his first election to the Senate was greeted with "alarm and apprehension" throughout the South, he remained placid. Although his positions on immigration, public education, the protective tariff, internal improvements, and above all, slavery made him a symbol of everything the South abhorred about the North, Seward"s confidence was unshaken. "This general impression only amuses me," he wrote, "for I think that I shall prove as gentle a lion as he who played that part before the Duke, in the "Midsummer Night"s Dream.""
He remained true to his resolve. "Those who a.s.sailed him with a view to personal controversy were disturbed by continual failures to provoke his anger," a contemporary recalled. The story was told and retold of a Southern senator who delivered an abusive speech against Seward, labeling him "an infidel and a traitor." When the senator resumed his seat, "heated and shaken with the fierce frenzy" of his own ire, Seward walked over to his chair and "sympathetically offered him a pinch of snuff."
Within the Washington community, Seward"s extravagant dinner parties were legendary, attended by Northerners and Southerners alike. No one showed greater ac.u.men in reconciling the most contentious politicians in a relaxing evening atmosphere. Throughout the 1850s, the New Yorker used such dinners to maintain cordial relations with everyone, from Jefferson Davis of Mississippi and John Crittenden of Kentucky to Charles Sumner and Charles Francis Adams of Ma.s.sachusetts. Seward was a superb master of ceremonies, putting all at ease with his amiable disposition. Though an inveterate storyteller himself, he would draw the company into lively conversations ranging from literature and science to theater and history.
A woman who was present at one of these feasts recalled that seventeen courses were served, beginning with turtle soup. The plates were changed with each serving of fish, meat, asparagus, sweetbreads, quail, duck, terrapin, ice cream, and "beautiful pyramids of iced fruits, oranges, french kisses." By each place setting there stood winegla.s.ses, "five in number, of different size, form and color, indicating the different wines to be served." After dinner, coffee was served to the women in the parlor while the men gathered in the study to enjoy after-dinner liqueurs, and cigars ordered specially from Cuba. Through these Baccha.n.a.lian feasts, "by the juice of the grape, and even certain distillations from peaches and corn," Seward endeavored, one reporter suggested, "to give his guests good cheer, and whether they are from the North or South, keep them in the bonds of good fellowship. Strange rumors have often crept out from Washington and startled the people, to the effect, that fire-eaters have been known to visit the house of the great New Yorker, and come away mellow with the oil of gladness, purple with the essence of the fruit of the wine."
Seward"s social engagements did not lessen when Congress was out of session. The summer after the Dred Scott decision was handed down, he invited Francis Blair, Sr., and his wife, Eliza, to accompany him on a trip through Canada. Joining the party were Seward"s son Fred and Fred"s young wife, Anna. Though he understood that the Blairs were far more conservative than he, Seward trusted that his charm would win their support for the nomination in 1860.
The "voyage of discovery," as Blair later described the trip, took the travelers through Niagara Falls, Toronto, and the Thousand Islands to the coast of Labrador. The sprightly Blairs, who seemed far younger than their years, enjoyed the adventure thoroughly. In an exuberant letter of thanks, Blair told Seward he was the "very best traveling companion," who not only made every stop "doubly interesting" by his gifts as a storyteller, but had taken pains to remove all the hardships of the voyage, providing secure sleeping arrangements, a comfortable fishing boat that traversed rough waters without inducing seasickness, and elegant meals. It was a trip they would never forget. But when the time came for hard decisions, the Blair family would back the man more closely aligned with their political views-Edward Bates.
WHILE SEWARD WAS A NATURAL in social situations, Governor Chase struggled through the dinners and receptions he organized to further his political ambitions, possessing none of Seward"s social grace. Chase"s greatest resource was his seventeen-year-old daughter, Kate, who flourished in her role as her father"s hostess. "At an age when most girls are shy and lanky," the Cincinnati Enquirer noted, "she stepped forth into the world an accomplished young woman, able to cross swords with the brightest intellects of the nation."
A child less strong-willed and high-spirited than Kate might have been crushed by the vicissitudes of her father"s demanding love, which he bestowed or denied depending on her performance. In her case, however, the unremitting stress on good habits, fine manners, and hard work paid off. By the time she returned to Columbus, she had acquired an excellent education, a proficiency in several languages, an ability to converse with anyone, and, her biographer observes, "a scientific knowledge of politics that no woman, and few men, have ever surpa.s.sed."
Tall and willowy, Kate was celebrated far and wide as one of the most captivating women of her age. "Her complexion was marvellously delicate," a contemporary recalled, "her hair a wonderful color like the ripe corn-ta.s.sel in full sunlight. Her teeth were perfect. Poets sang then, and still sing, to the turn of her beautiful neck and the regal carriage of her head." Friends and acquaintances were struck by the extraordinary similarity in looks between the handsome Chase and his stunning daughter. Indeed, when they made an entrance, a hush invariably fell over the room, as if a king and his queen stood in the doorway.
Kate"s return to Columbus prompted her father to settle in a house of his own. Devastated by the loss of three young wives, Chase had never summoned the energy to buy and furnish a home, shuttling instead between rented homes, boardinghouses, and hotel suites. Now, with both Kate and Nettie at home, he bought the stately Gothic mansion on Sixth Street, leaving most of the decorating decisions to Kate. He sent her to Cincinnati to select the wallpaper, carpets, draperies, and sideboards. "I feel I am trusting a good deal to the judgment of a girl of 17," Chase told her, "but I am confident I may safely trust yours"..."you have capacity and will do very well."
a.s.suming the role of Ohio"s first lady, Kate wrote out the invitations and oversaw arrangements for scores of receptions, soirees, and dinners. "I knew all of the great men of my time," she later recalled. "I was thrown upon my own resources at a very early age." William Dean Howells, working then as a cub reporter in Columbus, never forgot his invitation to an elegant Thanksgiving party at the governor"s house. It was his first dinner "in society," the first time he had seen individual plates placed before guests "by a shining black butler, instead of being pa.s.sed from hand to hand among them." After dinner, the company was invited to a game of charades, which promised mortification for the shy young Howells. Kate immediately allayed his fears, he gratefully recalled, by "the raillery glancing through the deep lashes of her brown eyes which were very beautiful." Kate"s dynamic grace and intellect made her the most interesting woman in any gathering, as well as a critical force behind her father"s drive for the presidency.
While Kate projected a mature poise, she was yet a spirited young girl with a rebellious streak. Her craving for excitement and glamour led to a tryst with a wealthy young man who had recently married the daughter of a well-known Ohio journalist. The dashing figure reportedly "began his attentions by little civilities, then mild flirtations," building familiarity to take Kate for carriage rides and call on her in the Governor"s Mansion. When Chase learned of these encounters, he banished Kate"s admirer from the house. Nonetheless, the young couple continued meeting, signaling each other with handkerchiefs from the window. One day Chase apparently arrived home unexpectedly, to find the "enamored Benedict" in his drawing room. Chase used his horsewhip to put an end to the relationship.
Kate once again settled into her role as her father"s helpmate, working with him side by side as he set his sights on a presidential run in 1860. Like Seward and Lincoln, Chase regarded the Dred Scott decision as part of a conspiracy aimed at free inst.i.tutions, which only a Republican victory could stop. He had offered his services to Scott"s defenders, but in the end had not taken part in the case. His true service to the nation, he believed, could best be served in the White House. "I find that many are beginning to talk about the election of 1860," he wrote his friend Charles Cleveland in November 1857, "and not a few are again urging my name.... Some imagine that I can combine more strength than any other man."
WHILE SEWARD AND CHASE eyed the presidency, Lincoln prepared for another bid for the U.S. Senate. As chief architect of the Republican Party in his state, Lincoln had first claim to run against Stephen Douglas in 1858. Recognizing the sacrifice he had made three years earlier to ensure Trumbull"s election, hundreds of party workers stood ready to do everything they could to ensure that this time Lincoln had every chance to realize his dream. In addition to David Davis, Leonard Swett, and Billy Herndon, stalwart friends in 1855, he could count on Norman Judd, whose refusal to abandon Trumbull had contributed mightily to his earlier defeat.
Once again fate threatened to disrupt his plans as events in Kansas took an ominous turn. Although an overwhelming majority of the settlers were opposed to slavery and wanted to join the Union as a free state, a rump group of proslavery forces met in Lecompton, drafted a proslavery const.i.tution, and applied for statehood. The Buchanan administration, hoping to appease Southern mainstays of the Democratic Party, endorsed the Lecompton Const.i.tution, calling on Congress to admit Kansas as a slave state. A new wave of outrage swept the North.
At this juncture, Stephen Douglas stunned the political world by breaking with his fellow Democrats. In an acrimonious session with President Buchanan, he told him he would not support the Lecompton Const.i.tution. The man who had led the Democratic fight for the Nebraska Act was now siding with the Republicans in open opposition to his own administration. "My objection to the Lecompton const.i.tution did not consist in the fact that it made Kansas a slave State," he later explained. He cared not whether slavery was voted up or down; but the decision "was not the act and deed of the people of Kansas, and did not embody their will." To Douglas, the clash with the Buchanan administration must have seemed unavoidable. Support for Lecompton would have betrayed his own doctrine of "popular sovereignty," on which he had staked his political future, and seriously diminished his chances for reelection to the Senate from Illinois.
With Douglas on their side, Republicans were thrilled, believing they now had a chance to keep Kansas from entering the Union as a slave state. "What can equal the caprices of politics?" Seward queried his wife the day after Douglas made his dramatic announcement. Throughout the entire decade, Seward explained, "the triumph of slavery...could not have occurred but for the accession to it of Stephen A. Douglas, the representative of the West." His defection, Seward exulted, was "a great day for freedom and justice." Old party enmities were forgotten as Eastern Republicans rushed to embrace Douglas as an ally in the fight against slavery. In the Tribune, Horace Greeley called on Illinois Republicans to cross party lines and endorse Douglas for senator in the upcoming race.
Lincoln at once understood the catastrophic implications for his own political prospects. Furthermore, knowing Douglas as he did, Lincoln believed that his "break" with the administration was but a temporary squabble over the facts of the situation in Kansas, rather than a change of heart on principle. Once the Kansas matter was settled, Lincoln suspected, Douglas would resume his long-standing alliance with the proslavery Democrats. In the meantime, duped Republican voters would have reelected Douglas, destroyed the Republican Party in Illinois, and ceded their voice in the Senate to a fundamentally proslavery politician.
Everywhere he went, lamented Lincoln, he was "accosted by friends" asking if he had read Douglas"s speech. "In every instance the question is accompanied with an anxious inquiring stare, which asks, quite as plainly as words could, "Can"t you go for Douglas now?" Like boys who have set a bird-trap, they are watching to see if the birds are picking at the bait and likely to go under."
"What does the New-York Tribune mean by it"s constant eulogising, and admiring, and magnifying [of] Douglas?" Lincoln demanded of Trumbull. "Have they concluded that the republican cause, generally, can be best promoted by sacraficing us here in Illinois?" Even in his bleakest moods, Lincoln characteristically refused to attribute petty motives to Greeley, whom he considered "incapable of corruption." While he recognized that Greeley would rather "see Douglas reelected over me or any other republican," it was not because Greeley conspired with Douglas, but because "he thinks Douglas" superior position, reputation, experience, and ability, if you please, would more than compensate for his lack of a pure republican position." Lincoln felt much the same about Seward"s enthusiasm for Douglas"s reversal, despite the hazard it posed to his own chances.
To Lincoln"s immense relief, the interference of the Eastern Republicans only served to strengthen the determination of his friends and supporters. At hastily called conventions all over the state, resolutions were pa.s.sed declaring that "Abraham Lincoln is the first and only choice of the Republicans of Illinois for the United States Senate." In an unprecedented move, since the ultimate decision would be made by the state legislature elected that fall, a statewide Republican convention in Springfield was called in June to officially nominate Lincoln for senator. "Lincoln"s rise from relative obscurity to a presidential nomination," Don Fehrenbacher has convincingly argued, "includes no more decisive date than June 16, 1858," when the convention met in Springfield and enthusiastically endorsed Lincoln as its "first and only choice...for the United States Senate, as the successor of Stephen A. Douglas."
"A house divided against itself cannot stand," Lincoln said, echoing the Gospels of Mark and Matthew, as he began his now famous acceptance speech at Springfield. Straightaway, he set forth an instantly accessible image of the Union as a house in danger of collapse under the relentless pressure of the slavery issue. "I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free," he continued. "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."
Supporters and opponents alike believed that with his image of a house that could not "endure, permanently half slave and half free," Lincoln had abandoned the moderate approach of his Peoria speech four years earlier in favor of more militant action. His argument, however, remained essentially unchanged: slavery had seemed on the road to gradual extinction until the fateful pa.s.sage of the Nebraska bill gave it new momentum. His call for action was no more radical than before-to "arrest the further spread" of slavery and "place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief" that it was back where the framers intended it, "in course of ultimate extinction." The true change since the Peoria speech was not in Lincoln"s stance but in the designs of proslavery Democrats, who, he charged, had cunningly erected a new proslavery edifice to destroy the framers" house of democracy.
Lincoln deftly ill.u.s.trated what he, like Seward, considered a plot to overthrow the Const.i.tution. Whereas Seward cited the days of the English king, Charles I, with an oblique reference to the Roman emperor Nero, to present a tableau of a tyrant"s coronation, Lincoln delineated the conspiracy with an everyday metaphor. "When we see a lot of framed timbers, different portions of which we know have been gotten out at different times and places by different workmen-Stephen, Franklin, Roger and James, for instance," Lincoln explained, "and when we see these timbers joined together, and see they exactly make the frame of a house...all the lengths and proportions of the different pieces exactly adapted to their respective places...we find it impossible to not believe that Stephen and Franklin and Roger and James all understood one another from the beginning, and all worked upon a common plan or draft drawn up before the first lick was struck." With these timbers in place, Lincoln warned, only one other "nice little niche" needed to be "filled with another Supreme Court decision," declaring that the const.i.tutional protection of private property prevented states as well as territories from excluding slavery from their limits. Then, in one fell swoop, all laws outlawing slavery in the Northern states would be invalidated.
If "the point of this rather elaborate [house] metaphor seems obscure today," the historian James McPherson observes, "Lincoln"s audience knew exactly what he was talking about." The four conniving Democratic carpenters were Stephen Douglas, architect of the lamentable Nebraska law and vocal defender of the Dred Scott decision; Franklin Pierce, the outgoing president who had used his last annual message to underscore the "weight and authority" of Supreme Court decisions even before the Court had completed its deliberations in the Dred Scott case; Roger Taney, the Chief Justice who had auth.o.r.ed the revolutionary decision; and James Buchanan, the incoming president who had strongly urged compliance with the Supreme Court decision a full two days before the opinion was made public. Working together, these four men had put slavery on a path to "become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new-North as well as South."
Reminding his audience that Douglas had always been among the foremost carpenters in the Democratic plan to nationalize slavery, Lincoln made it clear that the Republican cause must be "intrusted to, and conducted by its own undoubted friends-those whose hands are free, whose hearts are in the work" of shoring up the frame first raised by the founding fathers. While Douglas might be "a very great man," and the "largest of us are very small ones," he had consistently used his influence to distort the framers" intentions regarding slavery, exhibiting a moral indifference to slavery itself. "Clearly, he is not now with us," Lincoln stated, "he does not pretend to be-he does not promise to ever be."
The image of America as an unfinished house in danger of collapse worked brilliantly because it provided a ringing challenge to the Republican audience, a call for action to throw out the conspiring carpenters, unseat the Democratic Party, and recapture control of the nation"s building blocks-the laws that had wisely prevented the spread of slavery. Only then, Lincoln claimed, with the public mind secure in the belief that slavery was once more on a course to eventual extinction, would the people in all sections of the country live together peaceably in the great house their forefathers had built.
In the campaign that followed, Douglas would strenuously deny that he had ever conspired with Taney and Buchanan before the Dred Scott decision. "What if Judge Douglas never did talk with Chief Justice Taney and the President," replied Lincoln. "It can only show that he was used by conspirators, and was not a leader of them." This charge reflected his agreement with Seward and Chase that-whether there was an explicit conspiracy-there was a mutual intent by the slave power to extend slavery. Edward Bates also feared that Southern radicals "planned to seize control of the federal government and nationalize slavery."
SO THE STAGE WAS SET for a t.i.tanic battle, arguably the most famous Senate fight in American history, a clash that would make Lincoln a national figure and propel him to the presidency while it would, at the same time, undermine Douglas"s support in the South and further fracture the Democratic Party.
In keeping with political strategy followed to this day, Lincoln, the challenger, asked Douglas to campaign with him so they could debate the issues. The inc.u.mbent, Douglas, who boasted a national reputation and deep pockets, had little to gain from debating Lincoln and initially refused the challenge, but eventually felt compelled to partic.i.p.ate in the seven face-to-face debates known to history as the Lincoln-Douglas Debates.
In the course of the campaign, both men covered over 4,000 miles within Illinois, delivering hundreds of speeches. The northern part of the state was Republican territory. In the southern counties, populated largely by migrants from the South, the proslavery sentiment dominated. The election would be decided in the central section of Illinois, where the debates became the centerpiece of the struggle. With marching bands, parades, fireworks, banners, flags, and picnics, the debates brought tens of thousands of people together with "all the devoted attention," one historian has noted, "that many later Americans would reserve for athletic contests."
Attending the debate in Quincy, the young Republican leader Carl Schurz recounted how "the country people began to stream into town for the great meeting, some singly, on foot or on horseback, or small parties of men and women, and even children, in buggies or farm wagons; while others were marshaled in solemn procession from outlying towns or districts.... It was indeed the whole American people that listened to those debates," continued Schurz, later remarking that "the spectacle reminded one of those lays of ancient times telling us of two armies in battle array, standing still to see their two princ.i.p.al champions fight out the contested cause between the lines in single combat." The debates, said Lincoln in Quincy, "were the successive acts of a drama...to be enacted not merely in the face of audiences like this, but in the face of the nation."
"On the whole," Schurz observed, "the Democratic displays were much more elaborate and gorgeous than those of the Republicans, and it was said that Douglas had plenty of money to spend for such things. He himself also traveled in what was called in those days "great style," with a secretary and servants and a numerous escort of somewhat loud companions, moving from place to place by special train with cars specially decorated for the occasion, all of which contrasted strongly with Lincoln"s extreme modest simplicity."
Each debate followed the same rules. The first contestant spoke for an hour, followed by a one-and-a-half-hour response, after which the man who had gone first would deliver a half-hour reb.u.t.tal. The huge crowds were riveted for the full three hours, often interjecting comments, cheering for their champion, bemoaning the jabs of his opponent. Newspaper stenographers worked diligently to take down every word, and their transcripts were swiftly dispatched throughout the country.
"No more striking contrast could have been imagined than that between those two men as they appeared upon the platform," one observer wrote. "By the side of Lincoln"s tall, lank, and ungainly form, Douglas stood almost like a dwarf, very short of stature, but square-shouldered and broad-chested, a ma.s.sive head upon a strong neck, the very embodiment of force, combativeness, and staying power."
The highly partisan papers concocted contradictory pictures of crowd response and outcome. At the end of the first debate, the Republican Chicago Press and Tribune reported that "when Mr. Lincoln walked down from the platform, he was seized by the mult.i.tude and borne off on their shoulders, in the center of a crowd of five thousand shouting Republicans, with a band of music in front." Observing the same occasion, the Democratic Chicago Times claimed that when it was over, Douglas"s "excoriation of Lincoln" had been so successful and "so severe, that the republicans hung their heads in shame."
The people of Illinois had followed the careers of Douglas and, to a lesser extent, Lincoln for nearly a quarter of a century as they represented opposing parties in the State House, in Congress, and on the campaign trail. Indeed, in the opening debate at Ottawa, Douglas spoke of his first acquaintance with Lincoln when they were "both comparatively boys, and both struggling with poverty in a strange land," when Lincoln was "just as good at telling an anecdote as now. He could beat any of the boys wrestling, or running a foot race, in pitching quoits or tossing a copper, could ruin more liquor than all the boys of the town together, and the dignity and impartiality with which he presided at a horse race or fist fight, excited the admiration and won the praise of everybody," as well as the lifelong epithet "Honest Abe."
The amiable tone was laced with innuendo as Douglas described Lincoln"s climb from "flourishing grocery-keeper" (meaning that Lincoln sold liquor, a curious charge from the notoriously hard-drinking Douglas) to the state legislature, where they had served together in 1836, till Lincoln was "submerged...for some years," turning up again in Congress, where he "in the Senate...was glad to welcome my old friend," for he had neither friends nor companions. "He distinguished himself by his opposition to the Mexican war, taking the side of the common enemy against his own country; and when he returned home he found that the indignation of the people followed him everywhere, and he was again submerged or obliged to retire into private life, forgotten by his former friends. He came up again in 1854, just in time to make this Abolition or Black Republican platform, in company with Giddings, Lovejoy, Chase, and Fred Dougla.s.s for the Republican party to stand upon." With this, the crowd broke into laughter, shouting: "Hit him again."
Lincoln readily conceded that Douglas was far better known than he. As he outlined the advantages of Douglas"s stature, however, his audience laughed with glee. "All the anxious politicians of his party," Lincoln told a crowd at Springfield, "have been looking upon him as certainly, at no distant day, to be the President of the United States. They have seen in his round, jolly, fruitful face, postoffices, landoffices, marshalships, and cabinet appointments, chargeships and foreign missions, bursting and sprouting out in wonderful exuberance ready to be laid hold of by their greedy hands." When the cheers and laughter drawn forth by this comical image subsided, Lincoln went on, "n.o.body has ever expected me to be President. In my poor, lean, lank face, n.o.body has ever seen that any cabbages were sprouting out. These are disadvantages all, taken together, that the Republicans labor under. We have to fight this battle upon principle and upon principle, alone."
Douglas a.s.serted that Lincoln dare not repeat his antislavery principles in the southern counties of Illinois. "The very notice that I was going to take him down to Egypt made him tremble in the knees so that he had to be carried from the platform. He laid up seven days, and in the meantime held a consultation with his political physicians." Lincoln promptly responded, "Well, I know that sickness altogether furnishes a subject for philosophical contemplation, and I have been treating it in that way, and I have really come to the conclusion (for I can reconcile it no other way), that the Judge is crazy." There was "not a word of truth" to the claim that he had ever had to be carried prostrate from a platform, although he had been hoisted aloft by enthusiastic supporters. "I don"t know how to meet that sort of thing. I don"t want to call him a liar, yet, if I come square up to the truth, I do not know what else it is." Amid cheers and laughter, Lincoln closed: "I suppose my time is nearly out, and if it is not, I will give up and let the Judge set my knees to trembling-if he can."