Instead of being weak in the knees, as Douglas had predicted he would be, when they arrived in Egypt, Lincoln seemed to be very much at home; for he had grown up in that region, and knew the people better than Douglas did. Not only so; owing to the activity of United States Marshal Dougherty, a nominee on the Buchanan ticket, the vicinity of Jonesboro, where the third debate was to be held, was even more hostile to Douglas than to Lincoln. Evidently Egypt had been smitten with a plague, for the meeting at Jonesboro on September 15th was as poorly attended as it was chary of applause; and both speakers had to make bricks without straw. Douglas opened the debate by a wild and rabid appeal to partisan passion, reiterating all his stock arguments, renewing his charge of a corrupt bargain between Lincoln and Trumbull - quoting an alleged statement of Matheny in proof - and accusing his opponent of changing the color of his speeches, which, he said, were jet-black in the north, a decent mulatto in the center, and almost white in the southern part of the State. Lincoln brushed these lesser matters aside briefly, and attacked what had come to be known as "the Freeport doctrine" of Douglas, which affirmed that, despite the decision of the Supreme Court, slavery could not exist without "friendly local legislation and appropriate police regulations." He did, however, beg leave to doubt the authenticity of the Matheny statement, in view of the Ottawa episode. After analyzing the answer made by Douglas at Freeport, he added another question to his list:

I hold that the proposition that slavery cannot enter a new Territory without police regulations is historically false. . . . The history of this country shows that the institution of slavery was originally planted upon this continent without these "police regulations" which Judge Douglas now thinks necessary for the actual establishment of it. Not only so, but there is another fact how came the Dred Scott decision to be made? It was made upon the case of a negro being taken and actually held in slavery in Minnesota Territory, claiming his freedom because the act of Congress prohibited his being so held there. Will the Judge

pretend that Dred Scott was not held there without police regulations? . . . This shows that there is vigor enough in slavery to plant itself in a new country even against unfriendly legislation. It takes not only law but the enforcement of law to keep it out. . . . If you were elected members of the Legislature, what would be the first thing you would have to do before entering upon your duties? Swear to support the Constitution of the United States. Suppose you believe, as Judge Douglas does, that the Constitution of the United States guarantees to your neighbor the right to hold slaves in that Territory that they are his property how can you clear your oaths unless you give him such legislation as is necessary to enable him to enjoy that property? . . . And what I say here will hold with still more force against the Judge's doctrine of "unfriendly legislation." How could you, having sworn to support the Constitution, and believing it guaranteed the right to hold slaves in the Territories, assist in legislation intended to defeat that right? . . . Not only so, but if you were to do so, how long would it take the courts to hold your votes unconstitutional and void? Not a moment. . . . Here I propose to give the Judge my fifth interrogatory, which he may take and answer at his leisure:

If the slaveholding citizens of a United States Territory should need and demand Congressional legislation for the protection of their slave property in such Territory, would you, as a member of Congress, vote for or against such legislation?

Will you repeat that?" said Douglas. "I want to answer that question.'

Lincoln repeated it, but Douglas, instead of answering it, dodged it by taking refuge in his favorite dogma to which Lincoln was wont to refer satirically, mimicking the manner of Douglas, as "the gur-reat pur-rinciple of popular sovereignty." At the close of his speech Lincoln was really angry, when, by a strange lapse, he descended to make note of a playful remark uttered by Douglas at Joliet, to the effect that when at Ottawa he had threatened to trot Lincoln down into Egypt," the latter became so weak that he had to be carried from the platform referring to the incident at Ottawa when two young farmers took Lincoln upon their shoulders

and carried him in triumph from the scene, while five thousand people joined in the ovation. After dwelling upon the remark of Douglas, he finally said: "I don't want to quarrel with him to call him a liar - but when I come square up to him I don't know what else to call him, if I must tell the truth out."

On their way to the next debate, both men paused to visit the State Fair, then in full blast at Centralia, and curious crowds followed the rivals through the grounds, deeming them more attractive than the exhibits. Fifteen thousand people assembled at Charleston to hear the discussion on September 18th. Again there were long processions with bands and banners, the women taking part in behalf of Lincoln. Thirty-two girls, representing the thirty-two States, rode in a long, decorated wagon on which was inscribed:

The girls link on to Lincoln,

As their mothers linked to Clay!

So far Lincoln had been content to deny the charge that he was advocating the political and social equality of negroes and whites, and while there may have been some variation of emphasis in different parts of the State his position was consistent and clear. He held that the authors of the Declaration of Independence intended to include all men as equal, not in all respects in color, size, moral development, or social capacity but only equal in certain inalienable rights. While he did not affirm that the negro was his equal in moral or intellectual endowment, he insisted that in the right to eat the bread which his own hands had earned, without the leave of anybody else, the black man was his equal, the equal of Senator Douglas, and the equal of any living man. Nor could he be held to account for any other position, except by some "specious and fantastic arrangement of words by which a man can prove a horse-chestnut to be a chestnut horse." But in the hotel at Charleston some one had asked him about this matter, and in opening the debate he stated his position in a manner which grated upon the feelings of some anti-slavery