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here you threw up your hats and hurrahed for Democracy. More than that; take all the arguments made in favor of the system you have proposed, and it carefully excludes the idea that there is any thing wrong in the institution of slavery. The arguments to sustain that policy carefully excluded it. Even here to-day you heard Judge Douglas quarrel with me because I uttered a wish that it might sometime come to an end. Although Henry Clay could say he wished every slave in the United States was in the country of his ancestors, I am denounced by those pretending to respect Henry Clay for uttering a wish that it might sometime, in some peaceful way, come to an end. The Democratic policy in regard to that institution will not tolerate the merest breath, the slightest hint, of the least degree of wrong about it.

Besides the speeches made in the course of these seven joint debates, Mr. Lincoln delivered at least fifty other addresses to the people, in all parts of the State, during the canvass, everywhere expounding his views and declaring his sentiments with the same frankness and manliness. The chief interest of the contest, however, centred in their joint debates, and with every succeeding encounter the feeling in .the State, and throughout the country, became more intense. As the day for final decision approached, Illinois fairly blazed with the excitement. While Mr. Douglas fully sustained his previous reputation, and justified the estimate his friends had placed upon his abilities, he labored under the comparative disadvantage of being much better known to the country at large than was his antagonist. During his long public career, people had become partially accustomed to his manner of presenting arguments and enforcing them. The novelty and freshness of Mr. Lincoln's addresses, on the other hand, the homeliness and force of his illustrations, their wonderful pertinence, his exhaustless humor, his confidence in his own resources, engendered by his firm belief in the justice of the cause he so ably advocated, never once rising, however, to the point of arrogance or superciliousness, fastened upon him the eyes of the people everywhere, friends and opponents alike. It was not strange that more than once, during the course of the unparalleled excitement

which marked this canvass, Mr. Douglas should have been thrown off his guard by the singular self-possession displayed by his antagonist, and by the imperturbable firmness with which he maintained and defended a position once assumed. The unassuming confidence which marked Mr. Lincoln's conduct was early imparted to his supporters, and each succeeding encounter added largely to the number of his friends, until they began to indulge the hope that a triumph might be secured in spite of the adverse circumstances under which the struggle was commenced. And so it would have been, had party lines been more strictly drawn. But the action of Mr. Douglas with reference to the Lecompton Constitution when it was before the United States Senate, and the bitter hostility of the southern wing of the Democratic party to wards him, had led very many Republicans, and some of high consideration and influence in other States, to favor his return to the Senate. They deemed this due to the zeal and efficiency with which he had resisted the attempt to force slavery into Kansas against the will of the people, and as important in encouraging other Democratic leaders to imitate the example of Douglas in throwing off the yoke of the slaveholding aristocracy. This feeling proved to be of much weight against Mr. Lincoln in the

canvass.

In the election which took place on November 2d, the popular vote stood as follows:

Republican...
Douglas Democrat.

Lecompton Democrat..

126,084

121,940

5,091

Mr. Lincoln, therefore, had the people been permitted to decide the question directly, would have been returned to the Senate, since he had a plurality of four thousand one hundred and forty-four votes over Mr. Douglas; but the State legislature was the tribunal that was to pass finally upon it; and there, fortunately for the country, as the future showed, but unfortunately for Mr. Lincoln

at that time, the Democrats had secured an advantage, by means of an unfair districting of the State, which it was impossible to overcome. Notwithstanding the immense gains made by the Republicans, their opponents had, in the upper branch of this body, fourteen members to their eleven, while in the lower House these two parties stood forty Democrats to thirty-five Republicans. This state of affairs secured Mr. Douglas a re-election, although the fact that he was fairly beaten on the popular vote, robbed his triumph of much of its lustre. An overruling Providence, the workings of which can now be clearly traced, but which were then inscrutable, by securing this result, nltimately gave the nation for its chief magistrate the man best fitted to carry it safely through the most trying period of its history.

CHAPTER III.

MR. LINCOLN AND THE PRESIDENCY.

THE CAMPAIGN OF 1859 IN OHIO.-MR. LINCOLN'S SPEECHES AT COLUMBUS AND CINCINNATI.-HIS VISIT TO THE EAST.-IN NEW YORK CITY. THE GREAT SPEECH AT COOPER INSTITUTE.-MR. LINCOLN NOMINATED FOR THE PRESIDENCY.-HIS ELECTION.

CHEERFULLY resigning himself to the fortunes of political warfare, Mr. Lincoln, upon the close of this canvass, returned to the practice of his profession. But he was not long allowed to remain in retirement. In the autumn of 1859 the Democrats of Ohio nominated Mr. Pugh as their candidate for governor, and to repay the fidelity with which he had followed his standard, as well as in the hope of securing important advantages for the democracy, Mr. Douglas was enlisted in the canvass. The Republicans at once appealed to Mr. Lincoln to come to their assistance. He promptly responded to the invitation to meet his cld antagonist, and more than sustained his great reputation by two speeches, one delivered at Columbus and the other at Cincinnati. Not fully satis fied with the position in which the close of the canvass in Illinois had left his favorite doctrine of Popular Sovereignty, Mr. Douglas had secured the insertion in Harper's Magazine of an elaborate and carefully prepared article explaining his views at length. Mr. Lincoln's speech at Columbus was a most masterly review of this paper. After replying briefly to the identically stale charges which Mr. Douglas had so often repeated during the canvass in Illinois, and which he had reiterated in a speech delivered at Columbus a few days previously, Mr. Lincoln addressed himself to the task he had in hand, as follows:

The Republican party, as I understand its principles and policy, believe that there is great danger of the institution of slavery being spread out

and extended, until it is ultimately made alike lawful in all the States of this Union; so believing, to prevent that incidental and ultimate consurumation, is the original and chief purpose of the Republican organization. I say "chief purpose" of the Republican organization; for it is certainly true that if the National House shall fall into the hands of the Republicans, they will have to attend to all the other matters of national house-keeping as well as this. The chief and real purpose of the Republican party is eminently conservative. It proposes nothing save and except to restore this Government to its original tone in regard to this element of slavery, and there to maintain it, looking for no further change in reference to it than that which the original framers of the Government themselves expected and looked forward to.

The chief danger to this purpose of the Republican party is not just now the revival of the African slave-trade, or the passage of a Congressional slave-code, or the declaring of a second Dred Scott decision, making slavery lawful in all the States. These are not pressing us just now. They are not quite ready yet. The authors of these measures know that we are too strong for them; but they will be upon us in due time, and we will be grappling with them hand to hand, if they are not now headed off, They are not now the chief danger to the purpose of the Republican organization; but the most imminent danger that now threatens that purpose is that insidions Douglas Popular Sovereignty. This is the miner and sapper. While it does not propose to revive the African slave-trade, nor to pass a slave-code, nor to make a second Dred Scott decision, it is preparing us for the onslaught and charge of these ultimate enemies when they shall be ready to come on, and the word of command for them to advance shall be given. I say this Douglas Popular Sovereignty-for there is a broad distinction, as I now understand it, between that article and a genuine Popular Sovereignty.

I believe there is a genuine popular sovereignty. I think a definition of genuine popular sovereignty, in the abstract, would be about this: That each man shall do precisely as he pleases with himself, and with all those things which exclusively concern him. Applied to Government, this principle would be, that a General Government shall do all those things which pertain to it, and all the local Governments shall do precisely as they please in respect to those matters which exclusively concern them. I understand that this Government of the United States, under which we live, is based upon this principle; and I am misunderstood if it is supposed that I have any war to make upon that principle.

Now, what is Judge Douglas's Popular Sovereignty? It is, as a principle, no other than that, if one man chooses to make a slave of another man, neither that other man nor anybody else has a right to object. Applied in Government, as he seeks to apply it, it is this: If, in a new Territory into which a few people are beginning to enter for the purpose of making their homes, they choose to either exclude slavery from their

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