at Ottawa were that Douglas should open with a speech of an hour, with Lincoln to reply for an hour and a half, and Douglas to close with a rejoinder of thirty minutes. In the remaining debates the conditions were the same, except that the speakers alternated in the privilege of opening and closing.

The resulting forensic struggle is comparable but to one other in American history-that between + Webster and Hayne. The two men presented a picturesque contrast as they faced one another:Lincoln, with yellow, wrinkled face, and lean, ungainly figure, much over six feet in height; Douglas, with massy figure, wonderful leonine head, black flowing hair, swarthy complexion, brilliant, dark, magnetic eyes, yet with less than five feet of stature. As speakers they were not less in striking contrast. "The Democratic spokesman," writes Mr. Henry Villard in his Memoirs,1 "commanded. a strong, sonorous voice, a rapid, vigorous utterance, a telling play of countenance, impressive gestures, and all the other art of the practiced speaker. As far as external conditions were concerned, there was nothing in favor of Lincoln. He had an indescribably gawky figure, an odd-featured, inexpressive, and altogether uncomely face. He used singularly awkward, almost absurd, up-and-down and sidewise movements of his body to give em phasis to his arguments. His voice was naturally good, but he frequently raised it to an unnatural pitch." Yet as he became moved by the fervor of

1 Vol. i., pp. 92-3.

speaking, much of his harsh, awkward manner gave place to a sort of natural freedom and dignity, and even grace, his face became mobile and expressive, and his voice, too, softened and became flexible and melodious.

In their methods of debate they were equally unlike. "In the whole field of American politics," 1 say Nicolay and Hay, "no man has equaled Douglas in the expedients and strategy of debate. Lacking originality and constructive logic, he had great facility in appropriating by ingenious restatement the thoughts and formulas of others. He was tireless, ubiquitous, unseizable. It would have been as easy to hold a globule of mercury under the finger's tip as to fasten him to a point he wished to evade. He could almost invert a proposition by a plausible paraphrase. He delighted in enlarging an opponent's proposition to a forced inference, ridiculous in form and monstrous in dimensions. In spirit he was alert, combative, aggressive; in manner patronizing and aggressive by turns.

"Lincoln's mental equipment was of an entirely different order. His principal weapon was direct unswerving logic. His fairness of statement and generosity of admission had long been proverbial. For these intellectual duels with Douglas he possessed a power of analysis that easily outran and circumvented the 'Little Giant's' most extraordinary gymnastics of argument. But disdaining mere quibbles, he pursued lines of concise reason1 Abraham Lincoln: A History. Vol. ii. p. 147.

ing to maxims of constitutional law and political morals. Douglas was also forcible in statement and bold in assertion; Lincoln was his superior in quaint originality, aptness of phrase and subtlety of definition; and oftentimes Lincoln's philosophic vision and poetical fervor raised him to flights of eloquence which were not possible to the fiber and temper of his opponent."

To be victorious in the campaign Lincoln had need to win the radical Abolition vote, the moderate Republicans, and the conservative old-line Whigs for whose support Douglas also strove, and the Americans or "Know-nothings." The split between the Buchanan and the Douglas Democrats favored him; but on his own part he had to contend against the lukewarm or hostile attitude of influential Republicans outside of Illinois.

5:

The interest in the series of forensic encounters X rapidly grew. Vast audiences assembled from far and near; coming by train, journeying in slow wagons over the dusty prairie roads even from adjoining states to hear the rival leaders, mounted in the open air upon elevated platforms of rough-hewn timbers, wrestle with each other's convictions of policy and of duty. Newspapers throughout the country published the speeches entire, and the attention of the national public, drawn at first by Lincoln's unexpected survival of the earlier debates, became fixed with unprecedented interest upon the unfolding drama of a local contest.

Personally, Lincoln and Douglas were friends, Х

The intention of each was plainly to conduct the de-
bates upon a plane of courtesy and good-feeling.
Douglas was characteristically brimful of goody
nature. He had called his opponent, maybe with
a patronizing accent, a "kind, amiable, and in-X
telligent gentleman, a good citizen and an honor-<
able opponent." Lincoln quizzically replied to the
compliments, declaring at Ottawa that he in
respect of praise was like the Hoosier with his <
gingerbread: "He reckoned he liked it better than X
any other man, and got less of it." And yet once
when Douglas spoke of Lincoln with too much as-
sumption of superiority; and again, when he reiter-
ated without respectable evidence that Lincoln and
Trumbull had conspired, in 1855, to join the Whigs
and Anti-Nebraska Democrats into a new party,
and capture for themselves the spoils; the amenities
of debate were sorely strained, and either candidate
gave way to acrimonious comment. Even sharper
interchanges were drawn forth when Lincoln
charged that Douglas was a leading member of a
formidable conspiracy to nationalize slavery; and
particularly when Lincoln asserted with evidence
that certain strongly Abolition resolutions persist-
ently employed by Douglas as if Lincoln were re-
sponsible for the doctrines which they contained,
were essentially forgeries and known by Douglas
to be such. Besides these personalities, one serious
charge was continually reiterated by Douglas: that
Lincoln shifted his ground, as he passed from one
section of the state to another, that he made his

principles suit the political complexion of his audience.1

-X

Besides personal questions, there were ques- X tions having their origin in the search for political advantage. Douglas's aim was to separate the Whigs from Lincoln's following. To this end he propounded seven questions to Lincoln at Ottawa, with a view of showing that Lincoln agreed with the Abolitionists in their entire policy regarding the great questions of 1850 and 1854. Lincoln answered the questions at Freeport, and avoided falling into the trap; and he at once put four questions to Douglas, and later a fifth, concerning certain phases of his slavery policy; one of them of so much significance that Douglas's answer destroyed his presidential prospects in 1860.

But far above questions of personalities, and questions of politics, loomed the larger questions of political and moral principle. Did Lincoln at Springfield incite to sectionalism and revolution? Yes, and further urged interference, declared Douglas, with the sacred right of people to determine their domestic institutions for themselves. Not so, replied Lincoln; the Republican party seeks only to prevent the extension of slavery and to place it where it will disappear of itself. Why cannot the Union continue half slave and half free as our

1 For more detailed description of the debates, and for explanation and discussion of the issues of the campaign, see the supplementary notes. The Introduction merely states the issues and correlates them.