DEBATES BETWEEN CHAPTER XXIII THE LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATE OF LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS LINCOLN'S CHALLENGE-REPLY DOUGLAS FIRST MEETING AT OTTAWA-THE "PHONOGRAPHIC REPORT" OF THE OF PRESS AND TRIBUNE-HITT AND BINMORE THE SHORT HAND REPORTERS THE RE- CANDIDATES-ANECDOTE THE THE BEGINNING OF THE DEBATES HE contest of 1858," said Horace White, in an address before the Illinois State Historical Society, in 1908, "has been more talked about and written about than any other intellectual encounter in our national annals." The debates proper, that is as arranged between Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Douglas, were comprised in a series of seven meetings, which were held during the late summer and fall of 1858, as follows: August 21st, at Ottawa; August 27th, at Freeport; September 15th, at Jonesboro; September 18th, at Charleston; October 7th, at Galesburg; October 13th, at Quincy; and on October 15th, at Alton. The beginning of the debates, however, was regarded by Isaac N. Arnold as taking place in Chicago in the previous July. "The first speech was made by Douglas," says Arnold, "Lincoln being present at Chicago, on the evening of the 9th of July, 1858, from the balcony of the old Tremont House; Dearborn and Lake streets being completely packed with citizens, and the hotel parlors and rotunda filled with ladies and privileged guests. On the following evening Lincoln replied from the same place to a crowd equally great. On the 16th of July Douglas spoke again at Bloomington, Lincoln being present. On the 17th of July Douglas spoke at the Capitol in Springfield, and on the evening of the same day Lincoln replied." But in the volume edited by Professor E. E. Sparks entitled the "Lincoln-Douglas Debates," these speeches were merely regarded, he gives us to understand, as the irregular beginning of the campaign, and it was not until Lincoln's challenge of July 24th, and Douglas' acceptance of it on the same day, that the series were definitely arranged for. The seven formal debates began with the one at Ottawa on August 21st, and ended with the one at Alton, October 15th. LINCOLN'S CHALLENGE A challenge was sent by Mr. Lincoln to Judge Douglas to hold joint meetings. The letter was dated at Chicago, July 24th, 1858; and was as follows: "Hon. S. A. Douglas; My Dear Sir: Will it be agreeable to you to make an arrangement for you and myself to divide time, and address the same audiences the present canvass? Mr. Judd, who will hand you this, is authorized to receive your answer; and, if agreeable to you, to enter into the terms of such agreement.” Douglas' reply was quite lengthy. He said that "recent events had interposed difficulties in the way of such an arrangement," that he had already "made a list of appointments covering the entire period until late in October," that candidates for other offices on the Democratic ticket expected to be present at such meetings, and that there would be no opportunity at the meetings "for other speeches.". "I cannot refrain from expressing my surprise," he continued, "if it was your original intention to invite such an arrangement, that you should have waited until after I had made my appointments, inasmuch as we were both here in Chicago together for several days after my arrival, and again at Bloomington, Atlanta, Lincoln, and Springfield, where it was well known I went for the purpose of consulting with the State Central Committee, and agreeing upon the plan of the campaign." However, he says, he will, “in order to accommodate you as far as it is in my power to do so, take the responsibility of making an arrangement with you for a discussion between us at one prominent point in each Congressional district in the State, except the second and sixth districts, where we have both spoken, and in each of which cases you had the concluding speech." He then named the places which he considered the most suitable "at which we should speak," the places being those where the meetings were afterward held. THE FIRST JOINT MEETING AT OTTAWA The people of Chicago were immensely interested in the debates, as appears in the large space given to the speeches in the newspapers of the city. The Chicago Press and Tribune, in its issue of August 21, 1858, announces the meeting at Ottawa, as follows: "The gallant Lincoln will enter the lists at Ottawa today, with Douglas. The meeting will be a memorable one, and the first of the present campaign. A large delegation will be in attendance from this city, leaving here by the 8:00 a. m. train, on the Chicago and Rock Island Railroad, returning this evening. Let there be a good attendance of our Republicans. The Press and Tribune of Monday will contain a full Phonographic verbatim report of the speeches of Lincoln and Douglas. Let all who can be present hear the champions, and all who cannot should read and judge for themselves." The reports of the speeches were accompanied, in all the newspapers which printed them, with comments and descriptions, according to the political sympathies of their editors. The Chicago Times, a Douglas partisan newspaper (this was two years before Wilbur F. Storey became its editor), said: "When Douglas had concluded, the shouts were tremendous; his excoriation of Lincoln was SO severe that the Republicans hung their heads in shame. The Democrats, however, were loud in their vociferations. About two-thirds of the meeting at once sur rounded Douglas, and with music, cheers, and every demonstration of enthusiastic admiration, they escorted him to his quarters at the hotel. . . . Lincoln, in the meantime seemed to have been paralyzed. He stood upon the stage looking wildly at the people as they surrounded the triumphant Douglas and It was a he could not find a friend to say one word to him in his distress. delicate point for Republicans, who had witnessed his utter defeat, and who knew how severely he felt it, to offer him condolence, or bid him hope for better success again. The only thing they could say was that Lincoln ought not to travel round with Douglas, and had better not meet him any more. When Douglas and the Democrats had left the square, Lincoln essayed to descend from the stage, but his limbs refused to do their office. In this extremity, the Republican marshal called half a dozen men, who, lifting Lincoln in their arms, carried him along. By some mismanagement the men selected for this office happened to be very short in stature, and the consequence was that while Lincoln's head and shoulders towered above theirs, his feet dragged on the ground. . It was one of the richest farces we have ever witnessed and provoked the laughter of all Democrats and Republicans, who happened to see it." The Chicago Journal, however, seemed not to have gathered such an impression, and remarked as follows: "Since the flailing Senator Douglas received at Ottawa on Saturday, we suggest that his friends hereafter address him as the late Mr. Douglas." In another part of its issue, the Journal gives this narrative of the occasion, which differs materially from the Times account. "The Republicans were in their glory at Ottawa on Saturday, the foolish statements and falsehoods of the Chicago Times to the contrary notwithstanding. At least two-thirds of the vast assemblage, that was attracted thither to listen to the Lincoln and Douglas debate, was composed of Republicans, and every candid man present whom we have seen bears testimony to the fact that Lincoln 'took down' Douglas most effectually, on every point of the debate. The genuine enthusiasm of the occasion was all on the side of Lincoln, and so pleased were his friends with his strong and crushing reply to the misrepresentations and sophistications of Douglas, that when he concluded his speech they rushed up to the stand, took him upon their shoulders and bore him in triumphal procession to the house of Mayor Glover, where he stopped." After one of the debates it was remarked by some one to Lincoln that he looked tired. "Yes," he said, "I have been stoning Stephen." This allusion to the death of Stephen, as related in the book of the "Acts of the Apostles," is an excellent illustration of Mr. Lincoln's familiarity with the Scriptures. REPORTING THE DEBATES The man employed by the Chicago Press and Tribune to make the "Phonographic verbatim report," mentioned in the announcement previously quoted, was Robert R. Hitt, who later became assistant secretary of state under Blaine, and in 1882 was elected a member of Congress, an office which he continued to hold for twelve consecutive terms. Horace White, who later became the editor of the Chicago Tribune (from 1865 to 1874) was at that time one of the editorial writers of the Press and Tribune, and was designated as chief correspondent to accompany Mr. Lincoln on his campaign against Senator Douglas. The noteworthy features of the great debates were given to the public through Mr. White's letter to his paper. Mr. White has related the particulars of the reporting of the speeches, and from his account the following is quoted: "Senator Douglas had entered upon his campaign with two short-hand reporters, James B. Sheridan and Henry Binmore, whose duty it was to 'write it up' in the columns of the Chicago Times. The necessity of counteracting or matching that force became apparent very soon, and I was chosen to write up Mr. Lincoln's campaign. I was not a short-hand reporter. The verbatim reporting for the Press and Tribune in the joint debates was done by Mr. Robert R. Hitt, late assistant Secretary of State. Verbatim reporting was a new feature in journalism in Chicago and Mr. Hitt was the pioneer thereof. The publication of Senator Douglas' opening speech in that campaign, by the Press and Tribune the next morning, was a feat hitherto unexampled in the West, and most mortifying to the Democratic newspaper, the Times, and to Sheridan and Binmore, who, after taking down the speech as carefully as Mr. Hitt had done, had gone to bed intending to write it out the next day, as was then customary. "All of the seven joint debates were reported by Mr. Hitt for the Press and Tribune, the manuscript passing through my hands before going to the printers, but no changes were made by me except in a few cases where confusion on the platform or the blowing of the wind had caused some slight hiatus or evident mistake in catching the speaker's words. I could not resist the temptation to italicise a few passages in Mr. Lincoln's speeches, where his manner of delivery had been especially emphatic." Mr. Hitt, in an interview published many years later, said that Mr. Lincoln never saw the written reports of any of the debates. "I mention this," he said “as it was often charged at that time, in the fury of partisan warfare, that Mr. Lincoln's speeches were doctored and almost rewritten before they were printed; that this was necessary because he was so petty a creature in ability, in thought, in style, in speaking, when compared with the matchless Douglas." In a sketch of Mr. Hitt, printed in the New York Herald in 1904, it is said that some of Mr. Lincoln's political enemies, who had brought an indictment of illiteracy against the gaunt Illinois statesman, charged Mr. Hitt with "doctoring" the English of the speech, but he denied that he had taken any liberties whatever with Lincoln's phraseology. CONCLUSION OF THE SENATORIAL CAMPAIGN When the campaign was over it was found that the Republicans had a popular majority in the state of four thousand and eighty-five votes, though they failed to secure enough members in the legislature to elect a senator. A sufficient number of Democrats in the upper house, elected two years before and still holding their offices, although their districts had gone Republican, served to give the election to Douglas, who was thus elected to the United States Senate for the third time. The vote in the legislature stood forty-six Republican and fifty-four Democratic. When asked by a friend how he felt over the result of the election, Lincoln replied that he felt like the boy who had stubbed his toe, "too bad to laugh and too big to cry." In a letter he wrote to Dr. A. G. Henry he said, "I am glad I made the late race. It gave me a hearing on the great and durable question of the age which I would have had in no other way; and though I now sink out of view and shall be forgotten. I believe I have made some marks which will tell for the cause of civil liberty long after I am gone." ISAAC N. ARNOLD'S DESCRIPTION AND ESTIMATE The following quotation is made from a paper read by Hon. Isaac N. Arnold, on Abraham Lincoln, before the Royal Historical Society, London, June 16, 1881: "The great debate between Lincoln and Douglas, in 1858, was unquestionably, both with reference to the ability of the speakers and its influence upon opinion and events, the most important in American history. I do not think I do injustice to others, nor over-estimate their importance, when I say that the speeches of Lincoln published, circulated, and read throughout the Free States, did more than any other agency in creating the public opinion, which prepared the way for the overthrow of slavery. The speeches of John Quincy Adams, and those of Senator Sumner, were more learned and scholarly, and those of Lovejoy and Wendell Phillips were more vehement and impassioned; Senators Seward, Chase, and Hale spoke from a more conspicuous forum, but Lincoln's speeches were as philosophic, as able, as earnest as any, and his manner had a simplicity and directness, a clearness of illustration, and his language a plainness, a vigor, an Anglo-Saxon strength, better adapted than any other to reach and influence the understanding and sentiment of the common people. "At the time of this memorable discussion, both Lincoln and Douglas were in the full maturity of their powers. Douglas being forty-five and Lincoln forty-nine years old. Douglas had had a long training and experience as a popular speaker. On the hustings ('stump,' as we say in America) and in Congress, and especially in the United States Senate, he had been accustomed to meet the ablest debaters of his State and of the Nation. "His friends insisted that never, either in conflict with a single opponent, or when repelling the assaults of a whole party, had he been discomfited. His manner was bold, vigorous, and aggressive. He was ready, fertile in resources, familiar with political history, strong and severe in denunciation, and he handled with skill all the weapons of the dialectician. His iron will, tireless energy, united with physical and moral courage, and great personal magnetism, made him a natural leader, and gave him personal popularity. "Lincoln was also now a thoroughly trained speaker. He had contended successfully at the bar, in the legislature, and before the people, with the ablest men of the West, including Douglas, with whom he always rather sought than avoided a discussion. But he was a courteous and generous opponent, as is illustrated by the following beautiful allusion to his rival, made in 1856, in one of their joint debates. "Twenty years ago, Judge Douglas and I first became acquainted; we were both young then; he a trifle younger than I. Even then we were both ambitious, I, perhaps, quite as much as he. With me, the race of ambition has been a flat failure. With him, it has been a splendid success. His name fills the Nation, and it is not unknown in foreign lands. I affect no contempt for the high eminence he has reached; so reached, that the oppressed of my species might have shared |