country were the effect that the Dred Scott decision would have upon slavery and freedom, and the struggle in Kansas. Although Douglas was now an antiLecompton Democrat, he was to be taken to task before the country for the result in Kansas of his advocacy of what he called popular sovereignty. This had made the Lecompton infamy possible. He also approved the Dred Scott decision; but the dogma laid down in that decision effectually killed his own doctrine of popular sovereignty. It put slavery into all the Territories of the United States before the people of those Territories could have an opportunity of saying whether it should be voted up or down.

Replying to Douglas's speech in which that orator accused Lincoln of advocating the disunion of the States, Lincoln said that he believed that the framers of the Constitution expected that, in course of time, slavery would become extinct; they had decreed that slavery should not go into territory where it had not already gone, and that when he had said that the opponents of slavery would place that institution where the public mind would rest in the expectation of its ultimate extinction, he only meant to say that they would place it where the fathers of the Republic originally placed it. In Douglas's speech, as was common in those days, when men were cornered for want of logical answers to Republican arguments, the speaker had intimated that Lincoln was in favor of a complete equality of the black and the white races. In his reply, Lincoln said: "I protest, now and forever, against that counterfeit logic which presumes that because I do not want a negro woman for a slave, I do necessarily want her for a wife. My understanding is that I need not have her for either; but, as God made us separate, we can leave

one another alone, and do one another much good thereby."

This was the opening of the great debate in Chicago, in the summer of 1858. A few days later, Douglas spoke at Bloomington and then in Springfield, on each occasion devoting himself to Lincoln's previous speeches. Lincoln spoke in Springfield, also; and, addressing himself to the expectation that Douglas would, some day, be President of the United States, and that the anxious politicians of his party were waiting for that event with great hopefulness, Lincoln said:

"They have seen, in his round, jolly, fruitful face, post-offices, land-offices, marshalships, and Cabinet appointments, chargeships and foreign missions, bursting and sprouting out, in wonderful luxuriance, 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."

All this, however, was a contest at which both disputants were, so to speak, at arm's length from each other. Lincoln wanted a closer wrestle with the "Little Giant." Accordingly, he addressed a note to Douglas, asking him if he would agree to a joint canvass of the State, each speaking from the same plat

form and each having his own quota of time allotted him. Douglas objected to this arrangement, several reasons, satisfactory to himself, being given. But, after some negotiation, arrangements were made by which a joint debate was fixed for seven different points, the first being at Ottawa, August 21, 1858, and the last at Alton, October 15th. Meanwhile both speakers were industriously canvassing the State, each in his own way and independently of the other.

Lincoln travelled in an unostentatious and inexpensive manner. Douglas moved from point to point on a special railway train, accompanied by a brass band and cannon, with the blare and volleying of which his entrance to town was heralded. Douglas did not always observe the proprieties of debate; and too often the unmannerly followers of the "Little Giant" insolently interrupted the opponent of their chieftain. Lincoln during this memorable canvass was shamefully belied and misrepresented, but no word of remonstrance or complaint ever escaped his lips. Douglas resorted to the use of unworthy epithets and insinuations. He continually harped on the assertion that the Republicans were in favor of negro social equality, and he invariably referred to them as "black Republicans," and employed other terms to express his contempt. Now that we can look back upon this remarkable episode in the history of American politics, it must be admitted that Lincoln's bearing, deportment, and general behavior were all superior to Douglas's.

Mr. Douglas in these debates contended that each State was privileged to decide for itself just what rights, if any, it should give to the negro; that the negro had no natural equality; that the people of each Territory had a right to say whether they would have slavery or

not; and that the Union and the government could exist forever, so far as he could see, half slave and half free. Especially did he insist that those who differed from him were in favor of negro social equality,— the admission of negroes to the homes and bosoms of those who were in favor of limiting slavery to the States in which it then existed, or of excluding it from the Territories.

Lincoln, on the other hand, planted himself squarely on the Declaration of Independence; that all men were born free, and that they all had certain rights of which they could not be justly deprived, such as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The negro, he insisted, was a man. Slavery was wrong, and it should at least be confined in the States in which it already existed; it should not be the natural condition of things in the Territories, as the Dred Scott decision made it. On this point, he sharply arraigned Douglas for his inconsistency. Douglas clamored for popular sovereignty, the right of the voters in a Territory to say whether slavery should exist with them or not, and the Dred Scott decision declared that slavery was already in the Territories. This, said Lincoln, is declaring that the people have a right to drive away that which has a right to go there.

It was Lincoln's manifest purpose to compel Douglas to desert his seeming indifference to slavery, and to say whether he thought it right or wrong in itself. In his view, the Dred Scott decision and the Douglas idea of popular sovereignty could not be held together in one man's belief. So he framed questions designed to bring the matter before Douglas in such a shape as to oblige him to admit or deny the abstract rights of slavery. Lincoln's friends remonstrated with him.

"If you put that question to him," they said, "he will perceive that the answer, giving practical force and effect to the Dred Scott decision in the Territories, inevitably loses him the battle; and he will therefore reply by offering the decision as an abstract principle, but denying its practical application. He will say that the decision is just and right, but it is not to be put into force and effect in the Territories."-" If he takes that shoot," said Lincoln, "he can never be President." Lincoln's anxious friends replied: "That is not your lookout; you are after the senatorship."No, gentlemen," said he, " I am killing larger game. The battle of 1860 is worth a hundred of this."

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On the points here indicated, the seven joint debates usually turned. Everybody felt that Lincoln was, to use the common expression of the country, "getting the best" of Douglas. At some times, indeed, Douglas, by his manner, showed that he thought so too. For example, at Charleston, Illinois, when they were in their fourth meeting, Lincoln's reply to Douglas was powerful and intense in its vigor. Douglas's evasions and shifty tricks were exposed with a clearness of logic that was wonderful, and so convincing that everybody saw it; even Douglas's friends seemed to be seized with a panic, and the great assembly was stirred with a strange tremor. Douglas realized his overthrow, his inability to reply, although he had the closing of that day's debate. He lost his temper, left his seat, and, watch in hand, paced up and down the rear of the platform, behind the speaker, his impatience manifest in his manner. The instant that the hands of Douglas's watch marked the moment for Lincoln to stop, he turned the timepiece towards Lincoln, and eagerly cried: "Sit down, Lincoln, sit down; your time is up."