Lincoln's Challenge of Douglas for a Joint Debate-Douglas' Reply-Lincoln's Rejoinder-Debate at Freeport.

The campaign between Douglas and Lincoln for a seat in the United States Senate, was the most noted in the annals of the history of any of the States; and we have given precedence to the name of Douglas for the reason that at that time he was regarded as the foremost statesman in the land; while the reputation of Lincoln was confined chiefly to his own State. The character of the two men as regards their prominence in the public mind may be better understood by quoting briefly from a speech made by Mr. Lincoln, in Springfield, on the evening of the 28th of July, which is taken from a report printed in the State Register of the following day. Referring to Douglas, he said: "All the anxious politicians of his party have been looking to him as certainly at no very distant

day to be the President of the United States. They have seen in his round, jolly, fruitful face, post-offices, landoffices, marshalships, and cabinet appointments, chargeships and foreign missions bursting and spouting 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 quite give up the charming hope; but with greedier anxiety they rush about him, sustain him, 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." Although there is some sarcasm mixed with this allusion to Douglas, yet it is evident that Mr. Lincoln felt that his adversary possessed an advantage over him by reason of his National reputation; and it is doubtful if Lincoln himself, or any of his warmest admirers, had the slighest hope that he would ever rise to the exalted position in which Douglas was held in the eyes of his countrymen.

The Democratic party was divided. There was the Buchanan Democracy, and the Douglas Democracy. The Administration of Buchanan had sought to force Kansas into the union of States with a constitution which protected slavery. Douglas had opposed this unjust policy with manly courage, and the issue was carried to Illinois, and on it he made his campaign for re-election to the United States Senate. The office-holders were opposed to him, but the untrammeled masses of his party were almost to a man in favor of his re-election, notwithstanding the State convention had given him only a halfhearted endorsement. Lincoln, on the other hand, had been chosen by a State convention of the Republican party as their candidate for United States Senator, with