CHAPTER VII

The Closing Debates

With his powerful voice and facile energy, Douglas had entered the campaign under full steam, confident of success, and determined to win at any cost. His vanity was colossal, and he lost no opportunity to emphasize his superiority over his adversary, if not indeed over every other man in the nation. At Ottawa his strut was impressive, and to his followers overwhelming, as though Lincoln in his grasp was as a mouse being shaken by a lion. All that he had to do, so he seems to have felt, was to fasten upon his opponent the stigma of Abolitionism, and to belittle his personal history and political pretensions. But Lincoln, though vexed at first, was in nowise overawed by so much greatness, and soon let his opponent know that there was serious business on hand.

As Douglas began to realize that the tide had turned toward Lincoln, he lost some of his confidence and all of his manners. Nothing could surpass the imperious and truculent offensiveness of his behavior at Freeport. Deterred by no feeling of humility, no sense of fairness, no regard for the amenities of debate, he resorted to all the devices of a back-alley demagogue, denying facts, dodging arguments, playing upon prejudice, and hurling epithets with a fluency that scarcely another man of his day could equal. A Republican was always a "black Republican," despite the protest of more than one audience that he change the color and "make it a little brown." Negroes, he said, were stumping for "their brother Abe," who, with Trumbull, was leading a "white, black and mixed drove of disappointed politicians " armed with slander. While pretending to greatness, he did not hesitate to stoop to every cheap and trivial trick of gutter-rabble debate.

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Still calling Lincoln and Trumbull liars, and expatiating upon the mob spirit prevalent in the "black Republican " party, the Senator wended his way southward to find a more congenial climate. All along he had been eager to trot Lincoln down into Egypt," threatening what would happen to him when he proclaimed his "negro equality" in that section. What was really happening in the central and southern counties was portrayed, in part at least, in a characteristically vivid letter from Herndon to Parker, describing the state of feeling and some of the causes of the anger of Douglas:

Friend Parker.

Springfield, Ill., Sept. 2, 1858.

Dear Sir:-I wrote you on yesterday a hasty letter, but I hope you can understand; and I am now just on the eve of taking another tour, just having got back. My object in bothering you is this: I want to put the facts of this canvass clearly before you, so that you may form a tolerably correct opinion. My letter on yesterday was specially devoted to conditions of localities, and to the complication of parties.

Now, in this I propose to speak especially of the state of feeling, first in the individual, and then in the whole masses. You are aware that I am a kind of "clever boy among our people, and consequently all treat me respectfully go all places and say all things. This gives me a view of the family circle. Here I hear them talk and sputter in their own way - look out of their own eyes. I state to you from this standpoint, that the spirit of Liberty, Freedom every way, is flooding out and clothing the outer clouds with frills of gold and fire. This is not only so in the Republican party, but it is so with respect to the Democratic. This disposition has reached to places very remote. In places that I came near being mobbed in 1855 and '56 men are this day aware of the truth, and are somewhat aroused on all questions of Freedom. This is so in religion. One good thing has resulted from Douglas's war on the clergy: it has opened the people's eyes in that direction; they have in fact commenced a series of inquiries. The world wags, I assure you. I have been in the south part of the State,

"on the sly," organizing clubs, etc., and know what I am talking about. The huge mass begins, just begins, to move. It moves, it is true, heavily and gruntingly, yet it does move. This is the state of individuals and the condition of the masses. Apply it, as you will do, and it follows that the people are ready to hear. They do hear Douglas and Lincoln. Five thousand go; ten, twenty, thirty thousand, it is said, go.

In the debates between Douglas and Lincoln, Douglas is mad, is wild, and sometimes I should judge "half seas over." Douglas gets mad: he calls Lincoln a liar; he calls Trumbull a liar. I heard Judge Trumbull here a few days since, and saw him demonstrate that Douglas struck out of the Toombs Bill that provision which required a submission of the Lecompton constitution to the people. I saw him demonstrate that Douglas put another provision in the bill absolutely prohibiting the people from voting on the constitution. These things I saw proved by the original papers, printed at Washington. Again: Douglas says that the Republicans of Illinois in 1854 passed some resolutions, as their platform. He makes this charge boldly at Ottawa, and now at Freeport they prove that the ones he read are base forgeries, never having been passed by the Republicans. He is compelled by public invitation in all parties to withdraw these forgery charges. He does so, and basely charges Major Harris as the perpetrator.

Again: he asserts that in 1854-56 he was in favor of squatter sovereignty," and said so on a thousand stumps -real squatter sovereignty, that is, that the people of Illinois might drive slavery out at any time. Now Lincoln is prepared by one of Douglas's printed speeches to prove that Douglas was the other way. In short, that he wilfully lied. So it goes. While Douglas enunciates "lie, lie, blackguards," etc., they are demonstrating to vast crowds by the record that he is a good liar and a forger. The whole State is up in arms, politically so, I mean. Excitement rolls and chafes; it really foams. Believe me, Douglas is losing ground every day. As Douglas sinks, Lincoln rises. We are getting along grandly. Douglas is "sorter" cowed. is" W. H. HERNDON. By this time Mr. Parker had read reports of the speeches made in the debate at Ottawa, and was frankly disappointed that Lincoln did not face the questions as stated in the resolutions,

Your friend,

whether forged or not. Even with Herndon's political map of Illinois before him, he seemed not to grasp the dilemma in which Lincoln was placed by having to avoid the Abolition position on the one side, while not permitting Douglas to force him to disavow his repugnance to slavery on the other. Nor did he understand that Lincoln, so far from being an Abolitionist, had no inclination to interfere with slavery in the States where it existed, but was only seeking to check the spread of it. Mr. Parker wrote, once more paying his respects to Greeley:

Hon. Mr. Herndon.

Boston, Mass., Sept. 9, 1858.

My Dear Sir:-Many thanks for your two very interesting and instructive letters. You make the case quite clear. I look with intense interest on the contest now raging in Illinois. There is but one great question before the people: Shall we admit Slavery as a principle and found a Democracy, or Freedom as a principle and found a Despotism? This question comes up in many forms, and men take sides on it. The great mass of people but poorly see the question; their leaders are often knaves and often fools. But

Quidquid delirant reges, plectuntur Achivi.

I make no doubt Douglas will be beaten. I thought so in 1854, and looked on him then as a ruined man. What you told me last spring has all come to pass. I am glad Trumbull has demonstrated what you name. I thought it could be done. But in the Ottawa meeting, to judge from the Tribune report, I thought Douglas had the best of it. He questioned Mr. Lincoln on the great matters of Slavery, and put the most radical questions, which go to the heart of the question, before the people. Mr. Lincoln did not meet the issue. He made a technical evasion; he had nothing to do with the resolutions in question. Suppose he had not, admit they were forged. Still they were the vital questions pertinent to the issue, and Lincoln dodged them. That is not the way to fight the battle of freedom.

You say right that an attempt is making to lower the Republican platform. Depend upon it, this effort will ruin the party. It ruined the Whigs in 1840 to 1848. Daniel Webster stood on higher anti-slavery ground than Abraham Lincoln now. Greeley's conduct, I think, is base. had never any confidence in him. He has no talent for a

leader. If the Republicans sacrifice their principles for success, they will not be lifted up, but blown up. I trust Lincoln will conquer. It is an admirable education for the masses, this fight. Yours truly, THEODORE PARKER.

Aside from the honest conservatism of Lincoln, there was still another reason, hints of which Mr. Herndon gave in his reply, for his caution. The Dred Scott decision which permitted the holding of slaves in every Territory, and by inference in every State, had alarmed the North. That was the point where all the anti-slavery sentiment of the North came together, and Lincoln was wise in pressing it, which he did to the utter discomfiture of his opponent. Mr. Herndon wrote in reply:

Mr. Parker.

Springfield, Ill., Sept. 11, 1858.

Dear Sir:-I this moment landed at home, having been up in Christian County addressing her people on the terrible issues of the day. This fact will account, I hope, for delay. I wholly agree with you about Greeley, but dared not say so before you. He is, I think, honest, but a great special fool. He wants a guide to his brain; he is, as you say, full of whims and crochets, writing up absurdities; and on no one principle is he a greater ninny than on the subject of "national political economy. Here he is behind the age here he loses sight of principle, which blazes all around him. He struggles for liberty, but refuses, absurdly so, to follow it to its just practical results. He is a good man, but he does not see the force or logic of principle does not see far ahead,

By the by, Greeley has done us infinite harm here in Illinois, and is still doing so; he is "sorter, sorter" is this way and that - is no way, and this course injures us here very much. He and Douglas have an arrangement, which I will explain to you soon, as is charged and as I understand it. You remember what I told you about Greeley and Douglas; that is, what they mutually told me when on my trip East. We are getting very warm here- boiling, and the Republican cause is gaining every day. I send you a leaf" of Lincoln's speech made in this city some time since. This will explain our difficulties.

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Your friend, W. H. HERNDON.