Part 9 (1/2)

In his speech at Springfield, June 17, accepting the nomination of his party for the Senate, Mr Lincoln had uttered the words which have since becoth, as they soon furnished the text for his severe arraignlas in debate

The words are:

”We are now far into this fifth year since a policy was initiated with the avowed object and confident proitation Under the operation of that policy, that agitation has not only not ceased, but has constantly augmented

In my opinion, it will not cease until a crisis shall have been reached and passed 'A house divided against itself cannot stand'

I believe this country cannot endure permanently half slave and half free I do not expect the Union to be dissolved--I do not expect the house to fall--but I do expect it will cease to be divided It will beco or all the other Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction, or its advocates will push it forward until it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new, North as well as South”

This, at the time, was a bold utterance, and, it was believed by many, would imperil Mr Lincoln's chances for election Mr Blaine in his ”Twenty Years of Congress,” says:

”Mr Lincoln had been warned by intimate friends to whom he had communicated the contents of his speech in advance of its delivery, that he was treading on dangerous ground, that he would be ht fatally da its existence synony speech of Senator Douglas at Chicago a few days later-- sounding the keynote of his canment of his opponent for an attempt to precipitate an internecine conflict, and array in deadly hostility the North against the South

He said:

”In other words, Mr Lincoln advocates boldly and clearly a war of sections, a war of the North against the South, of the free States against the slave States--a war of extermination--to be continued relentlessly until the one or the other shall be subdued, and all the States shall either become free or become slave”

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 froeneral The proposal for a joint debate came from Mr Lincoln on July 24 and was soon thereafter accepted Seven joint ust 21, and the last at Alton, October 15 The s were held in the open, and at each place immense croere in attendance The friends of Mr Lincoln largely preponderated in the northern portion of the State, those of Douglas in the southern, while in the centre the partisans of the respective candidates were apparently equal in nuinning 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 e respect in any asserotesque” about the one, nothing of the ”political juggler” about the other Both were deeply iravity of the questions at issue, and of whatconsequence to the country

Kindly reference by each speaker to the other characterized the debates froe,” were expressions of constant occurrence during the debate While each ood feeling in thepardoned to the spirit of debate, the amenities ell observed

They had been personally well known to each other for islature when the State Capitol was at Vandalia, and at a later date, Lincoln had appeared before the Supre allusions to each other were taken in good part Mr Lincoln's profound hue 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 atteh tribunal by an appeal to a townof 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 replied, ”That hen you were on the bench, Judge”

Referring to Douglas's allusion to hientlee has complimented me with these pleasant titles, I was a little taken, for it careat man I was not very much accustomed to flattery and it caerbread, when he said he reckoned he loved it better and got less of it than any other las said:

”In the remarks I have made on the platfor personally disrespectful or unkind to that gentleman I have known him for twenty-five years There were ot acquainted

We were both coe land I was a school-teacher in the town of Winchester, and he a flourishi+ng grocery-keeper in the town of Salem He was more successful in his occupation than I was in oods Lincoln is one of those peculiarwhich they undertake I ood a school-teacher as I could, and when a cabinet-h my old boss said I succeeded better with bureaus and secretaries than anything else I islature and had a syle we both had in life He was then just as good at telling an anecdote as now He could beat any of the boys wrestling or running a foot-race, in pitching quoits or tossing a copper, and the dignity and impartiality hich he presided at a horse-race or a fist-fight, excited the admiration and won the praise of everybody I sy with difficulties, and so was I”

To which Lincoln replied:

”The Judge is woefully at fault about his friend Lincoln being a grocery-keeper I don't know as it would be a sin if I had been; but he is rocery anywhere in the world It is true that Lincoln did work the latter part of one Winter in a little still house up at the head of a hollow”

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 ic In that peculiar style of debate which in its intensity resembles a 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 doe was comprehensive, minute, critical He could lead a crowd allas was, in very truth, iave little ti solely to the realm of the speculative or the abstract He was in no sense a dreae has defined wisdoree”--was his In phrase the si, he struck at once at the very core of the controversy Possibly no man was ever less inclined ”to darken counsel ords without knowledge” Positive, and aggressive to the last degree, he never sought ”by indirections to find directions out” In statesmanshi+p-- in all that pertained to human affairs--he was intensely practical

With him, in the words of Macaulay, ”one acre in Middlesex is worth a principality in Utopia”

It is a pleasure to recall--after the lapse of half a century--the two men as they shook hands upon the speaker's stand, just before the opening of the debates that were to las! 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 itnessed 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 co equally with his opponent the binding force of Constitutional obligation, yet looking, away fro of the grander day” As has been well said, ”The one faced the past; the other, the future”

The name of Lincoln is now a household word But little can be written of hi that can be uttered or withheld can add to, or detract froreat opportunity and fa events separated fro 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, e have now to do Born in Kentucky, much of his early life was spent in Indiana, and all his professional and public life up to his election to the Presidency, in Illinois His early opportunities for study, like those of Douglas, were h training of the schools Of both it ht truly have been said, ”They knew amon, Mr Lincoln had in his early manhood volunteered, and was made captain of his company, in as so well known to the early settlers of Illinois as the Black Hawk War Later on, he was surveyor of his county, and three tiislature At the tilas, Mr Lincoln had for nized leader of the bar As an advocate, he had probably no superior in the State During the days of the Whig party he was an earnest exponent of its principles, and an able champion of its candidates As such, he had in successive contests eloquently presented the claims of Harrison, Clay, Taylor, and Scott to the Presidency In 1846, he was elected a Representative in Congress, and upon his retirement he resumed the active practice of his profession Upon the dissolution of the Whig party, he cast in his fortunes with the new political organization, and was in very truth one of the builders of the Republican party At its first national convention, in 1856, he received a large vote for no the n of that year canvassed the State in advocacy of the election of Fremont and Dayton, the candidates of the Philadelphia convention