would neither let him vote nor testify, nor serve on a jury, to stand up and proclaim the right of the negro to all the rights in the Declaration of Independence. Mr. Lincoln stated, "that up to the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, he had lived in the hope that slavery was in the course of ultimate extinction:"

The adoption of the Constitution and its attendant history led the people to believe so; and that such was the belief of the framers of the Constitution itself. Why did those old men, about the time of the adoption of the Constitution, decree that slavery should not go into the new territory, where it had not already gone? Why declare that within twenty years the African slave trade, by which slaves are supplied, might, be cut off by Congress? Why were all these acts? I might enumerate more of these acts-but enough. What were they but a clear indication that the framers of the Constitution intended and expected the ultimate extinction of that institution? And now, when I say, as I said in my speech that Judge Douglas has quoted from, when I say that I think the opponents of slavery will resist the farther spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest with the belief that it is in course of ultimate extinction, I only mean to say, that they will place it where the founders of this Government originally placed it.

He thus describes his appreciation of the momentous issue:

I do not claim, gentlemen, to be unselfish; I do not pretend that I would not like to go to the United States Senate; I make no such hypocritical pretence; but I do say to you that in this mighty issue, it is nothing to the mass of the people of the Nation, whether or not Judge Douglas or myself shall ever be heard of, after this night; it may be a trifle to either of us, but in connection with this mighty question, upon which hang the destinies of the Nation, perhaps, it is absolutely nothing.

Judge Douglas, in the speech at Bloomington, July 16th, 1858, indicated the style in which he desired to conduct the debate:

The Republican Convention, when it assembled at Springfield, did me and the country the honor of indicating the man who was to be their standard-bearer, and the embodiment of their principles, in this State. I owe them my gratitude for thus making up a direct issue between Mr. Lincoln and myself. I shall have no controversies of a personal character with Mr. Lincoln. I have known him well for a quarter of a century. I have known him, as you all know him, a kindhearted, amiable gentleman, a right good fellow, a worthy citizen, of eminent ability as a lawyer, and I have no doubt, sufficient ability to make a good Senator. The question, then, for you to decide is, whether his principles are more in accordance with the genius of our free institutions, the peace and harmony of the Republic, than those which I advocate. He tells you, in his speech made at Springfield, before the convention which gave him his unanimous nomination, that:

"A house divided against itself cannot stand." "I believe this Government cannot endure permanently, half slave and half free." "1 do not expect the Union to be dissolved-I don't 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."

Mr. Lincoln in his speech at Quincy, indicated the gravity of the great drama:

He, Douglas, said, too, "that he should not concern himself with Trumbull any more, but thereafter he should hold Lincoln responsible for the slanders upon him." When I met him at Charleston after that, although I think that I should not have noticed the subject if he had not said he would hold me responsible for it, I spread out before him the statements of the evidence that Judge Trumbull had used, and I asked Judge Douglas, piece by piece, to put his finger upon one piece of all that evidence that he would say was a forgery! When I went through with each and every piece, Judge Douglas did not dare then to say that any piece of it was a forgery. So it seems that there are some things that Judge Douglas dares to do, and some that he dares not to do.

A voice-"It's the same thing with you."

Mr. Lincoln - Yes, sir, it's the same thing with me. I do dare to say "forgery," when it's true, and I don't dare to say "forgery," when it's false. Now, I will say here, to this audience, and to Judge Douglas, I have not dared to say he committed a forgery, and I never shall until I know it; but I did dare to say -just to suggest to the Judge-that a forgery had been committed, which by his own showing, had been traced to him and two of his friends. I dared to suggest to him that he had expressly promised in one of his public speeches to investigate that matter, and I dared to suggest to him that there was an implied promise that when he investigated it he would make known the result. I dared to suggest to the Judge that he could not expect to be quite clear of suspicion of that fraud, for since the time that promise was made, he had been with those friends, and had not kept his promise in regard to the investigation and the report upon it. I am not a very daring man, but I dared that much, Judge, and I am not much scared about it yet. When the Judge says he would' nt have believed of Abraham Lincoln that he would have made such an attempt as that, he reminds me of the fact that he entered upon this canvass with the purpose to treat me courteously; that touched me somewhat. It sets me to thinking.

I was aware, when it was first agreed that Judge Douglas and I were to have these seven joint discussions, that they were the successive acts of a drama-perhaps I should say, to be enacted not merely in the face of audiences like this, but in the face of the nation, and to some extent, by my relation to him, and not from anything in myself, in the face of the world; and I am anxious that they should be conducted with dignity and in good temper, which would be befiting the vast audience before which it was conducted.

But when Judge Douglas got home from Washington and made his first speech in Chicago, the evening afterward I made some sort of a reply to it. His second speech was made at Bloomington, in which he commented upon my speech at Chicago, and said that I had used language ingeniously contrived to conceal my intentions, or words to that effect. Now, I understand that this is an imputation upon my veracity and my candor. I do not know what the Judge understood by it, but in our first discussion at Ottawa, he led off by charging a bargain, somewhat corrupt in its character, upon Trumbull and myself; that we had entered into a bargain, one of the terms of which was that Trumbull was to abolitionize the old democratic party, and I, (Lincoln,) was to abolitionize the old whig party; - I pretending to be as good an old line whig as ever. Judge Douglas may not understand that he implicated my truthfulness and honor, when he said I was doing one thing and pretending another; and I misunderstood him if he thought he was treating me in a dignified way, as a man of honor and truth, as he now claims he was disposed to treat me.

Even after that time, at Galesburg, when he brings forward an extract from a speech made at Chicago, and an extract from a speech made at Charleston, to prove that I was trying to play a double part-that I was trying to cheat the public, and get votes upon one set of principles at one place, and upon another set of principles at another place. I do not understand but what he impeaches my honor, my veracity, and my candor, and because he does this, I do not understand that I am bound, if I see a truthful ground for it, to keep my hands off of him. As soon as I

learned that Judge Douglas was disposed to treat me in this way, I signified in one of my speeches, that I should be driven to draw upon whatever of humble resources I might have-to adopt a new course with him. I was not entirely sure that I should be able to hold my own with him, but I at least had the purpose made to do as well as I could upon him; and now I say that I will not be the first to cry “hold." I think it originated with the Judge, and when he quits, I probably will. But I shall not ask any favors at all. He asks me, or he asks the audience, 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. It really hurts me very much to suppose that I have wronged anybody on earth. I again tell him, no! I very much prefer, when this canvass shall be over, however it may result, that we at least part without any bitter recollections of personal difficulties.

These discussions were generally grave, but Lincoln could not at all times refrain from humour. In his speech at Springfield, July 17th, 1858, he said:

Senator Douglas is of world-wide renown. All the anxious politicians of his party, or who have been of his party for years past, have been looking upon him as certainly, at no distant day, to be the President of the United States. They have seen in his round, jolly, fruitful face, post-offices, land-offices, marshalships, and cabinet appointments, chargeships, foreign missions, and sprouting out in wonderful exuberance, ready to be laid hold of by their greedy hands. And as they have been gazing upon this attractive picture so long, they cannot, in the little distraction that has taken place in the party, bring themselves to give up the charming hope, but with greedier anxiety they rush about him, sustain him, and give him marches, triumphal entries, and receptions beyond what, even in the days of his highest prosperity, they could have brought about in his favor.

On the contrary, nobody has ever expected me to be President. In my poor, lean, lank face,nobody has ever seen that any cabbages were sprouting out. These are disadvantages, all taken together, that the republicans labor under. We have to fight this battle upon principle alone. I am, in a certain sense, made the standardbearer in behalf of the republicans. I was made so merely because there had to be some one so placed - I being in nowise preferable to any other one of the twentyfive-perhaps a hundred, we have in the republican ranks. Then I wish it to be distinctly understood and borne in mind, that we have to fight this battle without many - perhaps without any of the external aids which are brought to bear against us. So I hope those with whom I am surrounded have principle enough to nerve themselves for the task, and leave nothing undone that can be fairly done, to bring about the right result.

After Senator Douglas left Washington, his movements were made known by the public prints; he tarried a considerable time in the city of New York; and it was heralded that, like another Napoleon, he was lying by and framing the plan of his campaign.

I think I have been able to see what are the material points of that plan. They were not very numerous. The first is "popular sovereignty." The second and third are attacks upon my speech made on the 16th of June. Out of these three points-drawing within the range of popular sovereignty the question of the Lecompton Constitution -he makes his principal assault. Upon these his successive speeches are substantially one and the same. On this matter of popular sovereignty I wish to be a little careful. Auxiliary to these main points, to be sure, are their thunderings of cannon, their marching and music, their fizzle-gigs, and fire-works; but I will not waste time with them. They are but the little trappings of the campaign.

Coming to the substance- the first point-"popular sovereignty," is to be labelled upon the cars in which he travels; put upon the hacks he rides in; to be flaunted upon the arches he passes under, and the banners which wave over him. It is to be dished up in as many varieties as a French cook can produce soups from potatoes.

Lincoln again expresses his views of the importance of the slavery question:

Although I have ever been opposed to slavery, so far I rested in the hope and belief that it was in the course of ultimate extinction. I might have been mistaken; but I had believed, and now believe, that the whole public mind, that is, the mind of the great majority, had rested in that belief up to the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. But upon that event, I became convinced that either I had been resting in a delusion, or the institution was being placed on a new basis-a basis for making it perpetual, national, and universal. Subsequent events have greatly confirmed me in that belief. I believe that bill to be the beginning of a conspiracy for that purpose. So believing, I have since then considered that question a paramount one. So believing, I think the public mind will never rest till the power of Congress to restrict the spread of it shall be again acknowledged and exercised on the one hand, or on the other, all resistance be entirely crushed out. I have expressed that opinion, and I entertain it to-night. It is denied that there is any tendency to the nationalization of slavery in these States.

Mr. Brooks, of South Carolina, in one of his speeches, when they were presenting him canes, silver plate, gold pitchers and the like, for assaulting Senator Sumner, distinctly affirmed his opinion that when this Constitution was formed, it was the belief of no man that slavery would last to the present day.

He thus speaks of the Dred Scott decision, and Douglas' reverence for it :

And I remind him of another piece of history on the question of respect for judicial decisions, and it is a piece of Illinois history, belonging to a time when the large party to which Judge Douglas belonged, were displeased with a decision of the Supreme Court of Illinois, because they had decided that a Governor could not remove a Secretary of State. You will find the whole story in Ford's History of Illinois, and I know that Judge Douglas will not deny that he was then in favor of overslaughing that decision by the mode of adding five new Judges, so as to vote down the four old ones. Not only so, but it ended in the Judge's sitting down on that, very bench as one of the five new Judges, to break down the four old ones. It was in this way precisely that he got his title of Judge. Now, when the Judge tells me that men appointed conditionally to sit as members of a court, will have to be catechised beforehand upon some subject, I say, "You know, Judge; you have tried it." When he says a court of this kind will lose the confidence of all men, will be prostituted and disgraced by such a proceeding, I say, "You know best, Judge; you have been through the mill." But I cannot shake Judge Douglas' teeth loose from the Dred Scott decision. Like some obstinate animal, (I mean no disrespect,) that will hang on when he has once got his teeth fixed, you may cut off a leg, or you may tear away an arm, still he will not relax his hold. And so I may point out to the Judge, and say that he is bespattered all over, from the beginning of his political life to the present time, with attacks upon judicial decisions-I may cut off limb after limb of his public record, and strive to wrench him from a single dictum of the court-yet I cannot divert him from it. He hangs to the last to the Dred Scott decision. These things show there is a purpose strong as death and eternity, for which he adheres to this decision, and for which he will adhere to all other decisions of the same court.

A Hibernian-"Give us something beside Drid Scott."

Mr. Lincoln-Yes; no doubt you want to hear something that don't hurt.

Judge Douglas is going back to the era of our Revolution, and to the extent of his ability, muzzling the cannon which thunders its annual joyous return. When he invites any people, willing to have slavery, to establish it, he is blowing out the moral lights around us. When he says he "cares not whether slavery is voted down or voted up"-that it is a sacred right of self-government - he is, in my

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judgment, penetrating the human soul, and eradicating the light of reason and the love of liberty in this American people. And now I will only say, that when by all these means and appliances, Judge Douglas shall succeed in bringing public sentiment to an exact accordance with his own views when these vast assemblages shall echo back all these sentiments-when they shall come to repeat his views and to avow his principles, and to say all that he says on these mighty questions - then it needs only the formality of the second Dred Scott decision, which he endorses in advance, to make slavery alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new, North as well as South.

My friends, that ends the chapter. Judge Douglas can take his half hour.

A good specimen of Judge Douglas' boldness and dogmatism was exhibited at Freeport, August 27, 1858. Douglas persisted in calling the Republicans "Black Republicans," although the crowd called out and insisted again and again that he should say "White Republicans"-"no epithets." It must be admitted Douglas was insulting, and the crowd resented it. He was in the very strongest Republican district, and there were ten to one of the crowd Republican, and yet Douglas persisted in calling them "Black;" at length he

said:

Now, there are a great many Black Republicans of you who do not know this thing was done. ("White, white, and great clamor.") I wish to remind you that while Mr. Lincoln was speaking, there was not a Democrat vulgar and blackguard enough to interrupt him. But I know that the shoe is pinching you. I am clinching Lincoln now, and you are scared to death for the result. I have seen this thing before. I have seen men make appointments for joint discussions, and the moment their man has been heard, try to interrupt and prevent a fair hearing of the other side. I have seen your mobs before, and deny your wrath. (Tremendous applause.) My friends, do not cheer, for I need my whole time.

I have been put to severe tests. I have stood by my principles in fair weather and in foul, in the sunshine and in the rain. I have defended the great principles of self-government here among you when Northern sentiment ran in a torrent against me, and I have defended that same great principle when Southern sentiment came down like an avalanche upon me. I was not afraid of any test they put to me. I knew I was right- I knew my principles were sound-I knew that the people would see in the end that I had done right, and I knew that the God of Heaven would smile upon me if I was faithful in the performance of my duty.

At Alton, October 15th, 1858, Lincoln said, speaking of slavery:

On this subject of treating it 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 institution of slavery? What is it that we hold most dear amongst us? Our own liberty and prosperity. What has ever threatened our liberty and prosperity save and except this institution 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 engraft it and spread it over your whole body. That is no proper way of treating what you regard a wrong. You see 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 oldfashioned way, the way in which the fathers themselves set us the example.