Possibly he was not so popular among the ma.s.ses of the people; but his ready wit, his unfailing good humor, and the candor which gave him his character for honesty, won for him the admiration and respect of all who heard him. I remember once meeting a choleric old Democrat striding away from an open-air meeting where Lincoln was speaking, striking the earth with his cane as he stumped along, and exclaiming, "He"s a dangerous man, sir! A d----d dangerous man! He makes you _believe_ what he says, in spite of yourself!" It was Lincoln"s manner. He admitted away his whole case apparently--and yet, as his political opponents complained, he usually carried conviction with him. As he reasoned with his audience, he bent his long form over the railing of the platform, stooping lower and lower as he pursued his argument, until, having reached his point, he clinched it, usually with a question, and then suddenly sprang upright, reminding one of the springing open of a jack-knife blade. At the Ogle County meeting to which I refer, Lincoln led off, the raciest speakers being reserved for the latter part of the political entertainment. I am bound to say that Lincoln did not awaken the boisterous applause which some of those who followed him did, but his speech made a more lasting impression. It was talked about for weeks afterward in the neighborhood, and it probably changed many votes; for that was the time when Free-soil votes were being made in Northern Illinois."
Mr. Brooks had made Lincoln"s acquaintance early in the day referred to; and after Lincoln had spoken, and while some of the other orators were entertaining the audience, the two drew a little off from the crowd and fell into a discussion over the political situation and prospects. "We crawled under the pendulous branches of a tree," says Mr. Brooks, "and Lincoln, lying flat on the ground, with his chin in his hands, talked on, rather gloomily as to the present but absolutely confident as to the future. I was dismayed to find that he did not believe it possible that Fremont could be elected. As if half pitying my youthful ignorance, but admiring my enthusiasm, he said, "Don"t be discouraged if we don"t carry the day this year. We can"t do it, that"s certain. We can"t carry Pennsylvania; those old Whigs down there are too strong for us. But we shall sooner or later elect our President. I feel confident of that."
"Do you think we shall elect a Free-soil President in 1860?" I asked.
"Well, I don"t know. Everything depends on the course of the Democracy.
There"s a big anti-slavery element in the Democratic party, and if we could get hold of that we might possibly elect our man in 1860. But it"s doubtful, very doubtful. Perhaps we shall be able to fetch it by 1864; perhaps not. As I said before, the Free-soil party is bound to win in the long run. It may not be in my day; but it will be in yours, I do really believe."" The defeat of Fremont soon verified Lincoln"s prediction on that score.
A peculiarly interesting episode of Lincoln"s life belongs to this period, though unrelated to political events. This was the meeting, in a professional way, with Edwin M. Stanton, at that time a prominent lawyer of Pittsburgh, afterwards the great War Secretary of President Lincoln"s cabinet. The circ.u.mstances were briefly these: Among Lincoln"s law cases was one connected with the patent of the McCormick Reaper; and in the summer of 1857 he visited Cincinnati to argue the case before Judge McLean of the United States Circuit Court. It was a case of great importance, involving the foundation patent of the machine which was destined to revolutionize the harvesting of grain. Reverdy Johnson was on one side of the case, and E.M. Stanton and George Harding on the other. It became necessary, in addition, to have a lawyer who was a resident of Illinois; and inquiry was made of Hon. E.B. Washburne, then in Congress, as to whether he knew a suitable man. The latter replied that "there was a man named Lincoln at Springfield, who had considerable reputation in the State." Lincoln was retained in the case, and came on to Cincinnati with a brief. Stanton and Harding saw in their a.s.sociate counsel "a tall, dark, uncouth man, who did not strike them as of any account, and, indeed, they gave him hardly any chance." An interesting account of this visit, and of various incidents connected with it, has been prepared by the Hon. W.M. d.i.c.kson of Cincinnati. "Mr. Lincoln came to the city," says Mr. d.i.c.kson, "a few days before the argument took place, and remained during his stay at the house of a friend. The case was one of large importance pecuniarily, and in the law questions involved. Reverdy Johnson represented the plaintiff. Mr. Lincoln had prepared himself with the greatest care; his ambition was to speak in the case, and to measure swords with the renowned lawyer from Baltimore.
It was understood between his client and himself, before his coming, that Mr. Harding of Philadelphia was to be a.s.sociated with him in the case, and was to make the "mechanical argument." Mr. Lincoln was a little surprised and annoyed after reaching Cincinnati, to learn that his client had also a.s.sociated with him Mr. Edwin M. Stanton, of Pittsburgh, and a lawyer of our own bar; the reason a.s.signed being that the importance of the case required a man of the experience and power of Mr. Stanton to meet Mr. Johnson. The reasons given did not remove the slight conveyed in the employment, without consultation with Lincoln, of this additional counsel. He keenly felt it, but acquiesced. The trial of the case came on; the counsel for defense met each morning for consultation. On one of these occasions one of the counsel moved that only two of them should speak in the case. This motion was also acquiesced in. It had always been understood that Mr. Harding was to speak to explain the mechanism of the reapers. So this motion excluded either Mr. Lincoln or Mr. Stanton. By the custom of the bar, as between counsel of equal standing and in the absence of any action of the client, the original counsel speaks. By this rule Mr. Lincoln had precedence. Mr. Stanton suggested to Mr. Lincoln to make the speech. Mr.
Lincoln answered, "No; you speak," Mr. Stanton replied, "I will," and taking up his hat, said he would go and make preparation. Mr. Lincoln acquiesced in this, but was deeply grieved and mortified; he took but little more interest in the case, though remaining until the conclusion of the trial. He seemed to be greatly depressed, and gave evidence of that tendency to melancholy which so marked his character. His parting on leaving the city cannot be forgotten. Cordially shaking the hand of his hostess, he said: "You have made my stay here most agreeable, and I am a thousand times obliged to you; but as for repeating my visit, I must say to you I never expect to be in Cincinnati again. I have nothing against the city, but things have so happened here as to make it undesirable for me ever to return." Thus untowardly met for the first time, Lincoln and Stanton. Little did either then suspect that they were to meet again on a larger theatre, to become the chief actors in a great historical epoch."
If Lincoln was "surprised and annoyed" at the treatment he received from Stanton, the latter was no less surprised, and a good deal more disgusted, on seeing Lincoln and learning of his connection with the case. He made no secret of his contempt for the "long, lank creature from Illinois," as he afterwards described him, "wearing a dirty linen duster for a coat, on the back of which the perspiration had splotched wide stains that resembled a dirty map of the continent." He blurted out his wrath and indignation to his a.s.sociate counsel, declaring that if "that giraffe" was permitted to appear in the case he would throw up his brief and leave it. Lincoln keenly felt the affront, but his great nature forgave it so entirely that, recognizing the singular abilities of Stanton beneath his brusque exterior, he afterwards, for the public good, appointed him to a seat in his cabinet.
Lincoln, says Mr. d.i.c.kson, "remained in Cincinnati about a week, moving freely about. Yet not twenty men in the city knew him personally, or knew he was here; not a hundred would have known who he was had his name been given to them. He came with the fond hope of making fame in a forensic contest with Reverdy Johnson. He was pushed aside, humiliated and mortified. He attached to the innocent city the displeasure that filled his bosom, and shook its dust from his feet."
In his Autobiography, Moncure D. Conway records a glimpse of Lincoln during his Cincinnati visit that seems worth transcribing. "One warm evening in 1859, pa.s.sing through the market-place in Cincinnati, I found there a crowd listening to a political speech in the open air. The speaker stood on the balcony of a small brick house, some lamps a.s.sisting the moonlight. Something about the speaker, and some words that reached me, led me to press nearer. I asked the speaker"s name, and learned that it was Abraham Lincoln. Browning"s description of the German professor, "Three parts sublime to one grotesque," was applicable to this man. The face had a battered and bronzed look, without being hard. His nose was prominent, and b.u.t.tressed a strong and high forehead.
His eyes were high-vaulted, and had an expression of sadness; his mouth and chin were too close together, the cheeks hollow. On the whole, Lincoln"s appearance was not attractive until one heard his voice, which possessed variety of expression, earnestness, and shrewdness in every tone. The charm of his manner was that he had no manner; he was simple, direct, humorous. He pleasantly repeated a mannerism of his opponent,--"This is what Douglas calls his "_gur-reat per-rinciple."_ But the next words I remember were these: "_Slavery is wrong_.""
CHAPTER XI
The Great Lincoln-Douglas Debate--Rivals for the U.S.
Senate--Lincoln"s "House-Divided-against-Itself" Speech--An Inspired Oration--Alarming His Friends--Challenges Douglas to a Joint Discussion--The Champions Contrasted--Their Opinions of Each Other--Lincoln and Douglas on the Stump--Slavery the Leading Issue--Scenes and Anecdotes of the Great Debate--Pen-Picture of Lincoln on the Stump--Humors of the Campaign--Some Sharp Rejoinders--Words of Soberness--Close of the Conflict.
The year 1858 is memorable alike in the career of Lincoln and in the political history of the country. It was distinguished by the joint discussions between the two great political leaders of Illinois, which rank among the ablest forensic debates that have taken place since the foundation of the republic. The occasion was one to call out the greatest powers of the two remarkable men who there contested for political supremacy. It was not alone that Lincoln and Douglas were opposing candidates for a high office--that of Senator of the United States: they were the champions and spokesmen of their parties at a critical period when great issues were to be discussed and great movements outlined and directed. It was naturally expected that the winner in the contest would become the political leader of his State.
Little was it imagined that the loser would become the leader and savior of the Nation.
On the 21st of April the Democratic convention of Illinois met at Springfield and announced Stephen A. Douglas, then United States Senator, as its choice for another term. June 16 the Republican convention met at the same place and declared unanimously that "Abraham Lincoln is our first and only choice for United States Senator to fill the vacancy about to be created by the expiration of Mr. Douglas"s term of office." For a number of days previous to the meeting of the Republican convention Lincoln had been engaged in preparing a speech for the occasion. It was composed after his usual method--the separate thoughts jotted down as they came to him, on sc.r.a.ps of paper at hand at the moment, and these notes were arranged in order and elaborated into a finished essay, copied on large sheets of paper in a plain and legible handwriting. This was the speech which afterwards came to be so celebrated as the "house-divided-against-itself" speech. Lincoln was gravely conscious of its unusual importance, and gave great care and deliberation to its composition. The evening of June 16--the day of his nomination by the convention--Lincoln went to his office, accompanied by his friend Herndon, and having locked the door proceeded to read his speech. Slowly and distinctly he read the first paragraph, and then turned to Herndon with, "What do you think of that?" Mr. Herndon was startled at its boldness. "I think," said he, "it is all true. But is it entirely politic to read or speak it as it is written?" "That makes no difference," said Lincoln. "That expression is a truth of all human experience,--"a house divided against itself cannot stand." The proposition is indisputably true, and has been true for more than six thousand years; I want to use some universally known figure, expressed in simple language, that may strike home to the minds of men in order to rouse them to the peril of the times." Mr. Herndon was convinced by Lincoln"s language, and advised him to deliver the speech just as it was written. Lincoln was satisfied, but thought it would be prudent to consult a few other friends in the matter, and about a dozen were called in. "After seating them at the round table," says John Armstrong, one of the number, "he read that clause or section of his speech which reads, "a house divided against itself cannot stand," etc. He read it slowly and cautiously, so as to let each man fully understand it. After he had finished the reading, he asked the opinions of his friends as to the wisdom or policy of it. Every man among them condemned the speech in substance and spirit, especially that section quoted above, as unwise and impolitic if not untrue. They unanimously declared that the whole speech was too far in advance of the times. Herndon sat still while they were giving their respective opinions of its unwisdom and impolicy; then he sprang to his feet and said, "Lincoln, deliver it _just as it reads_.
If it is in advance of the times, let us lift the people to its level.
The speech is true, wise, and politic, and will succeed now or in the future. Nay, it will aid you, if it will not make you President of the United States." Mr. Lincoln sat still a moment, then rose from his chair, walked backwards and forwards in the hall, stopped, and said: "Friends, I have thought about this matter a great deal, have weighed the questions from all corners, and am thoroughly convinced the time has come when this speech should be uttered; and if it be that I must go down because of it, then let me go down linked to truth--die in the advocacy of what is right and just. This nation cannot live on injustice; "a house divided against itself cannot stand," I say again and again." This was spoken with emotion--the effects of his love of truth, and sorrow from the disagreement of his friends."
On the next evening the speech was delivered to an immense audience in the hall of the House of Representatives at Springfield. "The hall and lobbies and galleries were even more densely crowded and packed than at any time during the day," says the official report; and as Lincoln "approached the speaker"s stand, he was greeted with shouts and hurrahs, and prolonged cheers." The prophetic sentences which dropped first from the lips of the speaker were freighted with a solemn import which even he could scarcely have divined in full. The seers of old were not more inspired than he who now, out of the irresistible conviction of his heart, said to his surprised and unbelieving listeners:
If we could first know where we are and whither we are tending, we could then better judge what to do and how to do it. We are now far on in the fifth year since a policy was initiated with the avowed object and confident promise of putting an end to slavery agitation. Under the operation of that policy, that agitation has not only not ceased, but has constantly augmented. In my opinion it will not cease until a crisis shall have been reached and pa.s.sed.
"A house divided against itself cannot stand." I believe this Government cannot endure, permanently, half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved--I do not expect the house to fall--but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in course of ultimate extinction, or its advocates will push it forward till it shall become alike lawful in all the States--old as well as new--North as well as South.
Mr. Jeriah Bonham, an old citizen of Illinois, relates that he was present as a delegate at the Springfield convention and heard the famous speech of Lincoln. According to Mr. Bonham, "The speech was prepared with unusual care, every paragraph and sentence carefully weighed. The firm bedrock of principles, the issues of the campaign on which he proposed to stand and fight his battles, were all well considered, and his arguments were incontrovertible. In that memorable speech culminated all the grand thoughts he had ever uttered, embodying divinity, statesmanship, law, and morals, and even fraught with prophecy. As he advanced in this argument he towered to his full height, forgetting himself entirely as he grew warm in his work. Men and women who heard that speech well remember the wonderful transformation wrought in Lincoln"s appearance. The plain, homely man towered up majestically; his face lit as with angelic light; the long, bent, angular figure, like the strong oak of the forest, stood erect, and his eyes flashed with the fire of inspiration."
The party that had nominated Lincoln for the Senate was not prepared to endorse his restriction of the coming struggle to the single issue of the slavery question. His friends dreaded the result of his uncompromising frankness, while politicians quite generally condemned it. Even so stanch a friend as Leonard Swett, whose devotion to Lincoln never wavered throughout his whole career, shared these apprehensions.
Says Mr. Swett: "The first ten lines of that speech defeated him. The sentiment of the "house divided against itself" seemed wholly inappropriate. It was a speech made at the commencement of a campaign, and apparently made for the campaign. Viewing it in this light alone, nothing could have been more unfortunate or inappropriate. It was saying the wrong thing first; yet he felt that it was an abstract truth, and that standing by the speech would ultimately find him in the right place. I was inclined at the time to believe these words were hastily and inconsiderately uttered; but subsequent facts have convinced me they were deliberate and had been well matured."
A few days after the delivery of this speech, a gentleman named Dr. Long called on Lincoln and gave him a foretaste of the remarks he was to hear during the next few months. "Well, Lincoln," said he, "that foolish speech of yours will kill you--will defeat you in this contest, and probably for all offices for all time to come. I am sorry, sorry, very sorry. I wish it was wiped out of existence. Don"t you wish so too?"
Laying down the pen with which he had been writing, and slowly raising his head and adjusting his spectacles, Lincoln replied: "Well, Doctor, if I had to draw a pen across and erase my whole life from existence, and I had one poor gift or choice left as to what I should save from the wreck, _I should choose that speech_, and leave it to the world unerased."
The Senatorial campaign was now well begun. Douglas opened it by a speech at Chicago on the 9th of July. Lincoln was present, and on the next evening spoke in reply from the same place--the balcony of the Tremont House. A week later Douglas spoke at Bloomington, with Lincoln again in the audience. The notion of a joint discussion seems to have originated with Lincoln, who on the 24th of July addressed a note to Douglas as follows:
HON. S.A. DOUGLAS--My Dear Sir:--Will it be agreeable to you to make an arrangement for you and myself to divide time, and address the same audiences during the present canva.s.s? Mr. Judd, who will hand you this, is authorized to receive your answer, and, if agreeable to you, to enter into the terms of such arrangement. Your obedient servant, A. LINCOLN.
The result of this proposal was an agreement that there should be a joint discussion between the two candidates in each of the seven Congressional districts in which they had not both already been heard.
Places were named and dates fixed extending to the middle of October. It was agreed that the opening speech on each occasion should occupy one hour; the reply, one hour and a half; the close, half an hour; and that Mr. Douglas should have the first and last voice in four of the seven meetings.
The champions who were thus to enter the lists in a decisive trial of forensic strength and skill are forcibly contrasted by Mr. Speed, who says: "They were the respective leaders of their parties in the State.
They were as opposite in character as they were unlike in their persons.
Lincoln was long and ungainly; Douglas was short and compact. Douglas, in all elections, was the moving spirit and manager. He was content with nothing short of a blind submission to himself. He could not tolerate opposition to his will within his party organization. He held the reins and controlled the movements of the Democratic chariot. With a large State majority, with many able and ambitious men in it, he stepped to the front in his youth and held his place till his death. Lincoln, on the other hand, shrank from any controversy with his friends. His party being in a minority in the State, he was forced to the front because his friends thought he was the only man with whom they could win. In a canva.s.s his friends had to do all the management. He knew nothing of how to reach the people except by addressing their reason. If the situation had been reversed--Lincoln representing the majority and Douglas the minority--I think it most likely Lincoln would never have had the place.
He had no heart for a fight with friends."
The Hon. James G. Blaine has given a masterly description and a.n.a.lysis of the comparative powers of the two ill.u.s.trious debaters. Douglas, says Mr. Blaine, "was everywhere known as a debater of singular skill. His mind was fertile in resources. He was a master of logic. No man perceived more quickly than he the strength or the weakness of an argument, and no one excelled him in the use of sophistry and fallacy.
Where he could not elucidate a point to his own advantage, he would fatally becloud it for his opponent. In that peculiar style of debate which in intensity resembles a physical combat, he had no equal. He spoke with extraordinary readiness. There was no halting in his phrase.
He used good English, terse, vigorous, pointed. He disregarded the adornments of rhetoric--rarely used a simile. He was utterly dest.i.tute of humor, and had slight appreciation of wit. He never cited historical precedents except from the domain of American politics. Inside that field his knowledge was comprehensive, minute, critical; beyond it his learning was limited. He was not a reader. His recreations were not in literature. In the whole range of his voluminous speaking, it would be difficult to find either a line of poetry or a cla.s.sical allusion. But he was by nature an orator, and by long practice a debater. He could lead a crowd almost irresistibly to his own conclusions. He could, if he wished, incite a mob to desperate deeds. He was, in short, an able, audacious, almost unconquerable opponent in public discussion. It would have been impossible to find any man of the same type able to meet him before the people of Illinois. Whoever attempted it would probably have been destroyed in the first encounter. But the man who was chosen to meet him, who challenged him to the combat, was radically different in every phase of character. Scarcely could two men be more unlike in mental and moral const.i.tution than Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A.
Douglas. Lincoln was calm and philosophic. He loved the truth for the truth"s sake. He would not argue from a false premise, or be deceived himself or deceive others by a false conclusion. He had pondered deeply on the issues which aroused him to action. He had given anxious thought to the problems of free government, and to the destiny of the Republic.
He had marked out a path of duty for himself, and he walked it fearlessly. His mental processes were slower but more profound than those of Douglas. He did not seek to say merely the thing which was best for that day"s debate, but the thing which would stand the test of time and square itself with eternal justice. He wished nothing to appear white unless it was white. His logic was severe and faultless. He did not resort to fallacy, and could detect it in his opponent and expose it with merciless directness. He had an abounding sense of humor, and always employed it in ill.u.s.tration of his argument--but never for the mere sake of provoking merriment. In this respect he had the wonderful aptness of Franklin. He often taught a great truth with the felicitous brevity of an Aesop fable. His words did not flow in an impetuous torrent, as did those of Douglas; but they were always well chosen, deliberate and conclusive."
Mr. Arnold, in the course of an extended comparison, says: "At the time of these discussions, both Lincoln and Douglas were in the full maturity of their powers. Douglas was forty-five and Lincoln forty-nine years of age. Physically and mentally, they were as unlike as possible. Douglas was short, not much more than five feet high, with a large head, ma.s.sive brain, broad shoulders, a wide, deep chest, and features strongly marked. He impressed every one, at first sight, as a strong, st.u.r.dy, resolute, fearless man. Lincoln"s herculean stature has already been described. A stranger who listened to him for five minutes would say: "This is a kind, genial, sincere, genuine man; a man you can trust, plain, straightforward, honest, and true." If this stranger were to hear him make a speech, he would be impressed with his clear good sense, by his wit and humor, by his general intelligence, and by the simple, homely, but pure and accurate language he used. In his long residence at Washington, Douglas had acquired the bearing and manners of a gentleman and a man of the world. But he was always a fascinating and attractive man, and always and everywhere personally popular. He had been for years carefully and thoroughly trained on the stump, in Congress, and in the Senate, to meet in debate the ablest speakers in the State and Nation.
For years he had been accustomed to meet on the floor of the Capitol the leaders of the old Whig and Free-soil parties. Among them were Webster and Seward, Fessenden and Crittenden, Chase, Trumbull, Hale and others of nearly equal eminence; and his enthusiastic friends insisted that never, either in single conflict or when receiving the a.s.sault of the senatorial leaders of a whole party, had he been discomfited. His style was bold, vigorous, and aggressive; at times even defiant. He was ready, fluent, fertile in resources, familiar with national and party history, severe in denunciation, and he handled with skill nearly all the weapons of debate. His iron will and restless energy, together with great personal magnetism, made him the idol of his friends and party. His long, brilliant, and almost universally successful career, gave him perfect confidence in himself, and at times he was arrogant and overbearing.... Lincoln also was a thoroughly trained speaker. He had met successfully, year after year, at the bar and on the stump, the ablest men of Illinois and the Northwest, including Lamborn, Stephen T.
Logan, John Calhoun, and many others. He had contended, in generous emulation, with Hardin, Baker, Logan, and Browning; and had very often met Douglas, a conflict with whom he always courted rather than shunned.
His speeches, as we read them to-day, show a more familiar knowledge of the slavery question than those of any other statesman of our country.
This is especially true of the Peoria speech and the Cooper Inst.i.tute speech. Lincoln was powerful in argument, always seizing the strong points, and demonstrating his propositions with a clearness and logic approaching the certainty of mathematics. He had, in wit and humor, a great advantage over Douglas. Then he had the better temper; he was always good humored, while Douglas, when hard pressed, was sometimes irritable. Douglas perhaps carried away the more popular applause; Lincoln made the deeper and more lasting impression. Douglas did not disdain an immediate _ad captandum_ triumph; while Lincoln aimed at permanent conviction. Sometimes, when Lincoln"s friends urged him to raise a storm of applause, which he could always do by his happy ill.u.s.trations and amusing stories, he refused, saying, "The occasion is too serious; the issues are too grave. I do not seek applause, or to amuse the people, but to _convince_ them." It was observed in the canva.s.s that while Douglas was greeted with the loudest cheers, when Lincoln closed the people seemed serious and thoughtful, and could be heard all through the crowd, gravely and anxiously discussing the subjects on which he had been speaking."
Soon after the arrangements for the debate had been made, Senator Douglas visited Alton, Illinois. A delegation of prominent Democrats there paid their respects to him, and during the conversation one of them congratulated Douglas on the easy task he would have in defeating Lincoln; at the same time expressing surprise at the champion whom he had selected. Douglas replied: "Gentlemen, you do not know Mr. Lincoln.
I have known him long and well, and I know that I shall have anything but an easy task. I a.s.sure you I _would rather meet any other man in the country than Abraham Lincoln."_ This was Douglas"s mature opinion of the man of whom, years before, he had said, in his characteristic way: "Of all the d----d Whig rascals about Springfield, Abe Lincoln is the ablest and honestest." On another occasion, Douglas said: "I have known Lincoln for nearly twenty-five years. There were many points of sympathy between us when we first got acquainted. We were both comparatively boys, and both struggling with poverty in a strange land. I was a school-teacher in the town of Winchester, and he a flourishing grocery-keeper in the town of Salem. He was more successful in his occupation than I was in mine, and hence more fortunate in the world"s goods. Lincoln is one of those peculiar men who perform with admirable skill everything they undertake. I made as good a school-teacher as I could, and when a cabinet-maker I made as good bedsteads and tables as I could--although my old boss says that I succeeded better with _bureaus_ and _secretaries_ than with anything else. But I believe that Lincoln was always more successful in business than I, for his business enabled him to get into the Legislature. I met him there, however, and had a sympathy with him because of the up-hill struggle we both had had in life. He was then just as good at telling an anecdote as now. He could beat any of the boys in wrestling or running a foot-race, in pitching quoits or pitching a copper; 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 that was present. I sympathized with him because he was struggling with difficulties, and so was I. Mr. Lincoln served with me in the Legislature of 1836; then we both retired, and he subsided, or became submerged, and was lost sight of as a public man for some years. In 1846, when Wilmot introduced his celebrated proviso, and the Abolition tornado swept over the country, Lincoln again turned up as a Member of Congress from the Sangamon district. I was then in the Senate of the United States, and was glad to welcome my old friend."
Lincoln, in a speech delivered two years before the joint debate, had spoken thus of Senator Douglas: "Twenty-two years ago, Judge Douglas and I first became acquainted; we were both young then--he a trifle younger than I. Even then, we were both ambitious--I perhaps quite as much as he. With me, the race of ambition has been a failure--a flat failure; with him, it has been one of splendid success. His name fills the nation, and is not unknown even in foreign lands. I affect no contempt for the high eminence he has reached; so reached that the oppressed of my species might have shared with me in the elevation, I would rather stand on that eminence than wear the richest crown that ever pressed a monarch"s brow."
A few days before the first discussion was to take place, Lincoln, who had become conscious that some of his party friends distrusted his ability to meet successfully a man who, as the Democrats declared and believed, had never had his equal on the stump, met an old friend from Vermilion County, and, shaking hands, inquired the news. His friend replied, "All looks well; our friends are wide awake, but they are looking forward with some anxiety to these approaching joint discussions with Douglas." A shade pa.s.sed over Lincoln"s face, a sad expression came and instantly pa.s.sed, and then a blaze of light flashed from his eyes, and with his lips compressed and in a manner peculiar to him, half serious and half jocular, he said: "My friend, sit down a minute, and I will tell you a story. You and I, as we have travelled the circuit together attending court, have often seen two men about to fight. One of them, the big or the little giant, as the case may be, is noisy and boastful; he jumps high in the air, strikes his feet together, smites his fists, brags about what he is going to do, and tries hard to "_skeer_" the other man. The other man says not a word; his arms are at his side, his fists are clenched, his teeth set, his head settled firmly on his shoulders; he saves his breath and strength for the struggle.
_This man will whip,_ as sure as the fight comes off. Good-bye, and remember what I say."
The spirit and purpose with which Lincoln went into the contest are shown also in the following words: "I shall not ask any favors at all.
Judge Douglas asks me if I wish to push this matter to the point of personal difficulty. I tell him, _No!_ He did not make a mistake, in one of his early speeches, when he called me an "amiable" man, though perhaps he did when he called me an "intelligent" man. I again tell him, _No!_ I very much prefer, when this canva.s.s shall be over, however it may result, that we at least part without any bitter recollections of personal difficulties."
The speeches in these joint discussions were entirely extemporaneous in form, yet they were reported and printed in all the prominent papers in the West, and found eager readers throughout the country. The voice and manner, which add so much to the effect of a speaker, could not be reproduced on the printed page; nor could full justice be done, in a hasty transcript, to the force and fitness of the language employed.
Still, the impressions of those who heard them at the time, as well as later and cooler a.n.a.lyses of them, have agreed in p.r.o.nouncing these debates among the most able and interesting on record. The scenes connected with the different meetings were intensely exciting. Vast throngs were invariably in attendance, while a whole nation was watching the result. "At Freeport," says an observer, "Mr. Douglas appeared in an elegant barouche drawn by four white horses, and was received with great applause. But when Mr. Lincoln came up, in a "prairie schooner,"--an old-fashioned canvas-covered pioneer wagon,--the enthusiasm of the vast throng was unbounded."
At Charleston Lincoln opened and closed the day"s debate. It was the fourth discussion, and there was no more doubt of his ability to sustain the conflict. According to Mr. Arnold, "Douglas"s reply to Lincoln was mainly a defense. Lincoln"s close was intensely interesting and dramatic. His logic and arguments were crushing, and Douglas"s evasions were exposed with a power and clearness that left him utterly discomfited. Republicans saw it. Democrats realized it, and a sort of panic seized them, and ran through the crowd of upturned faces. Douglas realized his defeat, and, as Lincoln"s blows fell fast and heavy, he lost his temper. He could not keep his seat; he rose and walked rapidly up and down the platform, behind Lincoln, holding his watch in his hand, and obviously impatient for the call of _"time."_ A spectator says: "He was greatly agitated, his long grizzled hair waving in the wind, like the s.h.a.ggy locks of an enraged lion." It was while Douglas was thus exhibiting to the crowd his eager desire to stop Lincoln, that the latter, holding the audience entranced by his eloquence, was striking his heaviest blows. The instant the secondhand of his watch reached the point at which Lincoln"s time was up, Douglas, holding up the watch, called out: "Sit down, Lincoln, sit down! Your time is up!" Turning to Douglas, Lincoln said calmly: "I will. I _will_ quit. I believe my time _is_ up." "Yes," said a voice from the platform, "Douglas has had enough; it is time you let up on him.""
The inst.i.tution of slavery was, of course, the topic around which circled all the arguments in these joint discussions. It was the great topic of the hour--the important point of division between the Republican and Democratic parties. Lincoln"s exposition of the subject was profound and masterly. At the meeting in Quincy the issue was defined and the argument driven home with unsparing logic and directness. In closing the debate, he said:
I wish to return to Judge Douglas my profound thanks for his public annunciation here to-day, to be put on record, that his system of policy in regard to the inst.i.tution of slavery contemplates that it shall last _forever_. We are getting a little nearer the true issue of this controversy, and I am profoundly grateful for this one sentence. Judge Douglas asks you, "Why cannot the inst.i.tution of slavery, or, rather, why cannot the nation, part slave and part free, continue as our fathers made it forever?" In the first place, I insist that our fathers _did not_ make this nation half slave and half free, or part slave and part free. I insist that they found the inst.i.tution of slavery existing here. They did not make it so, but they left it so, because they knew of no way to get rid of it at that time. When Judge Douglas undertakes to say that, as a matter of choice, the fathers of the Government made this nation part slave and part free, he a.s.sumes what is historically a _falsehood_. More than that; when the fathers of the Government cut off the source of slavery by the abolition of the slave-trade, and adopted a system of restricting it from the new Territories where it had not existed, I maintain that they placed it where they understood, and all sensible men understood, it was in the course of ultimate extinction; and when Judge Douglas asks me why it cannot continue as our fathers made it, I ask him why he and his friends could not let it remain as our friends made it? It is precisely all I ask of him in relation to the inst.i.tution of slavery, that it shall be placed upon the basis that our fathers placed it upon. Mr. Brooks, of South Carolina, once said, and truly said, that when this Government was established, no one expected the inst.i.tution of slavery to last until this day; and that the men who formed this Government were wiser and better than the men of these days; but the men of these days had experience which the fathers had not, and that experience had taught them the invention of the cotton-gin, and this had made the perpetuation of the inst.i.tution of slavery a necessity in this country. Judge Douglas could not let it stand upon the basis on which our fathers placed it, but removed it, and put it upon the cotton-gin basis. It is a question, therefore, for him and his friends to answer--why they could not let it remain where the fathers of the Government originally placed it.
In these debates Lincoln often seemed like one transfigured--carried away by his own eloquence and the force of his conviction. He said to a friend during the canva.s.s: "Sometimes, in the excitement of speaking, I seem to see the end of slavery. I feel that the time is soon coming when the sun shall shine, the rain shall fall, on no man who shall go forth to unrequited toil.... How this will come, when it will come, by whom it will come, I cannot tell;--but that time will surely come." Again, at the first encounter at Alton, he uttered these pregnant sentences:
On this subject of treating slavery as a wrong, and limiting its spread, let me say a word. Has anything ever threatened the existence of this Union save and except this very inst.i.tution of slavery? What is it that we hold most dear among us? Our own liberty and prosperity. What has ever threatened our liberty and prosperity, save and except this inst.i.tution of slavery? If this is true, how do you propose to improve the condition of things by enlarging slavery?--by spreading it out and making it bigger? You may have a wen or cancer upon your person, and not be able to cut it out lest you bleed, to death; but surely it is no way to cure it to ingraft it and spread it over your whole body--that is no proper way of treating what you regard a wrong. This peaceful way of dealing with it as a wrong--restricting the spread of it, and not allowing it to go into new countries where it has not already existed--that is the peaceful way, the old-fashioned way, the way in which the fathers themselves set us the example. Is slavery wrong? That is the real issue. That is the issue that will continue in this country when these poor tongues of Judge Douglas and myself shall be silent. It is the eternal struggle between these two principles--right and wrong--throughout the world. They are two principles that have stood face to face from the beginning of time; and will ever continue to struggle. The one is the common right of humanity, and the other the divine right of kings. It is the same principle, in whatever shape it develops itself. It is the same spirit that says: "You work, and toil, and earn bread, and I"ll eat it." No matter in what shape it comes, whether from the mouth of a king who seeks to bestride the people of his own nation and live by the fruit of their labor, or from one race of men as an apology for enslaving another race, it is the same tyrannical principle.
On still another occasion he used these unmistakable words:
My declarations upon this subject of negro slavery may be misrepresented, but cannot be misunderstood. I have said that I do not understand the Declaration to mean that all men were created equal in all respects. They are not our equal in color.
But I suppose that it does mean to declare that all men are created equal in some respects; they are equal in their right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Certainly the negro is not our equal in color, perhaps not in many other respects; still, _in the right to put into his mouth the bread that his own hands have earned, he is the equal of every other man, white or black_.