The two speeches, followed by others of like tenor, aroused public interest in the state as it had never been before. The desire to hear the candidates from the same platform became general. The proposal for joint debate came from Mr. Lincoln on the twentyfourth of July, and was soon thereafter accepted. Seven joint meetings were agreed upon; the first to be at Ottawa, August twenty-first, and the last at Alton, October fifteenth. The meetings were held in the open, and at each place immense crowds were in attendance. The friends of Mr. Lincoln largely preponderated in the northern portion of the state, those of Mr. Douglas in the southern, while in the center the partisans of the respective candidates were apparently equal in numbers. The interest never flagged for a moment from the beginning to the close. The debate was upon a high plane; each candidate enthusiastically applauded by his friends, and respectfully heard by his opponents. The speakers were men of dignified presence, their bearing such as to challenge respect in any assemblage. There was nothing of the "grotesque" about the one; nothing of the "political juggler" about the other. Both were deeply impressed with the gravity of the questions at issue, and of what might prove their far reaching consequence to the country. Kindly reference by each speaker to the other characterized the debates from the beginning. "My friend Lincoln," and "My friend, the Judge," were expressions of constant occurrence during the debates. While each mercilessly attacked the political utterances of the other, good feeling in the main prevailed. Something being pardoned to the spirit of debate, the amenities were well observed.

The amusing allusions to each other were taken in good part. Mr. Lincoln's profound humor is now a proverb. It never appeared to better advantage than during these debates. In criticising Mr. Lincoln's attack upon Chief Justice Taney and his associates for the "Dred Scott" decision, Douglas declared it to be an attempt to secure a reversal of the high tribunal by an appeal to a town meeting. It reminded him of the saying of Colonel Strode that the judicial system of Illinois was perfect, except that "there should be an appeal

allowed from the Supreme Court to two justices of the peace." Lincoln instantly replied: "that was when you were on the bench, Judge." Referring to Douglas's allusion to him as a kind, amiable and intelligent gentleman, he said: "Then as the Judge has complimented me with these pleasant titles, I was a little taken, for it came from a great man. I was not very much accustomed to flattery and it came the sweeter to me. I was like the Hoosier with the gingerbread, when he said he reckoned he loved it better and got less of it than any other man." Mr. Douglas referring to the alliance between the republicans and the federal office holders said: "I shall deal with this allied army just as the Russians dealt with the allies at Sebastopol, the Russians when they fired a broadside did not stop to inquire whether it hit a Frenchman, an Englishman or a Turk. Nor will I stop to inquire whether my blows hit the republican leaders or their allies who hold the federal offices." To which Lincoln replied: "I beg the Judge will indulge us while we remind him that the allies took Sebastopol.

The serious phases of the debates will now be considered. The opening speech was by Mr. Douglas. That he possessed rare power as a debater, all who heard him can bear witness. Mr. Blaine in his history says: "His mind was fertile in resources. He was master of logic. In that peculiar style of debate which in its intensity resembles physical combat, he had no equal. He spoke with extraordinary readiness. He used good English, terse, pointed, vigorous. He disregarded the adornments of rhetoric. He never cited historic precedents except from the domain of American politics. Inside that field, his knowledge was comprehensive, minute, critical. He could lead a crowd almost irresistibly to his own conclusions."

It is a pleasure to recall, after the lapse of half a century, the two men as they shook hands upon the speakers' stand, just before the opening of the debates that were to make an epoch in American history. Stephen A. Douglas! Abraham Lincoln! As they stood side by side and looked out upon "the sea of upturned faces," it was indeed a picture to live in the memory of all who witnessed it. The

one stood for "the old ordering of things," in an emphatic sense, for the government as established by the fathers, with all its compromises. The other, recognizing, equally with his opponent, the binding force of constitutional obligation, yet looking away from present surroundings "felt the inspiration of the coming of the Grander day." As has been well said: "the one faced the past, the other the future."

"Often do the spirits of great events

Stride on before the events,

And in today, already walks tomorrow."

The immediate arena of the struggle was Illinois, and the prize of victory, a senatorship. But to those who read the signs aright, it was but the prelude to the contest for the presidency soon to follow. Within less than two years from the opening debate, Lincoln and Douglas were opposing candidates for the presidency, and the area of the struggle enlarged from a state to the nation. And following close upon its determination, the momentous questions involved, were transferred from hustings and from Senate to find bloody arbitrament on the field.

The name of Lincoln is now a household word. But little can be written of him that is not already known to the world. Nothing that can be uttered or withheld can add to, or detract from, his imperishable fame. But it must be remembered that his great opportunity, and fame, came after the stirring events separated from us by the passing of fifty years. It is not the Lincoln of history, but Lincoln the country lawyer, the debater, the candidate of his party for political office, with whom we have now to do.

In the year 1858, that of the great debates, Mr. Douglas was the better known of the opposing candidates in the country at large. Both however, were personally well known in Illinois. Each was by unanimous nomination the candidate of his party. Mr. Douglas had known sixteen years of continuous service in one or the other Houses of Congress. In the Senate, he had held high debate with Seward, Sumner and Chase from the north, and during the last session, since he had assumed a position of antagonism to the Buchanan administra

tion, had repeatedly measured swords with Toombs, Benjamin and Jefferson Davis, chief among the great debaters from the south.

Mr. Lincoln's services in Congress had been limited to a single term in the lower House, and his great fame was yet to be achieved, not as a legislator, but as chief executive during the most critical years of our history.

DEBATE AT OTTAWA

Such in brief were the opposing candidates as they entered the lists of debate at Ottawa on the twenty-first day of August, 1858. Both in the prime of manhood, thoroughly equipped for the conflict, and surrounded by throngs of devoted friends. Both gifted with marvelous forensic powers, and alike hopeful as to the result. Each recognizing fully the strength of his opponent, his own powers were constantly at their highest tension.

"The blood more stirs

To rouse a lion, than to start a hare."

In opening, Mr. Douglas made brief reference to the political condition of the country prior to the year 1854. He said:

"The Whig, and the Democratic were the two great parties then in existence; both national and patriotic, advocating principles that were universal in their application; while these parties differed in regard to banks, tariff, and sub-treasury, they agreed on the slavery question, which now agitates the Union. They had adopted the compromise measures of 1850 as the basis of a full solution of the slavery question in all its forms; that these measures had received the endorsement of both parties in their national conventions of 1852, thus affirming the right of the people of each state and territory to decide as to their domestic institutions for themselves; that this principle was embodied in the bill reported by me in 1854 for the organization of the territories of Kansas and Nebraska, in order that there might be no misunderstanding, these words were inserted in that bill: 'It is the true intent and meaning of this Act, not to legislate

slavery into any state or territory, or to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to the federal constitution.""

Turning then to his opponent, he said "I desire to know whether Mr. Lincoln today stands as he did in 1854 in favor of the unconditional repeal of the Fugitive Slave Law; whether he stands pledged against the admission of a new state into the Union with such a constitution as the people of that state may see fit to make. I want to know whether he stands today pledged to the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia; I desire to know whether he stands pledged to prohibit slavery in all the territories of the United States north as well as south of the Missouri Compromise line. I desire him to answer whether he is opposed to acquisition of any more territory unless slavery is prohibited therein. I want his answer to these questions."

Mr. Douglas then addressed himself to the already quoted words of Mr. Lincoln's Springfield speech commencing: "A house divided against itself cannot stand." He declared the government had existed for seventy years divided into free and slave states as our fathers made it; that at the time the Constitution was framed there were thirteen states, twelve of which were slave holding, and one a free state; that if the doctrine preached by Mr. Lincoln that all should be free or all slave, had prevailed, the twelve would have overruled the one, and slavery would have been established by the constitution on every inch of the Republic, instead of being left as our fathers wisely left it for each state to decide for itself." He then declared that "uniformity in the local laws and institutions of the different states is neither possible nor desirable; that if uniformity had been adopted when the government was established it must inevitably have been the uniformity of slavery everywhere, or the uniformity of negro citizenship and negro equality everywhere. He said: "I hold that humanity and Christianity both require that the negro shall have and enjoy every right and every privilege and every im