leader. If the Republicans sacrifice their principles for success, they will not be lifted up, but blown up. I trust Lincoln will conquer. It is an admirable education for the masses, this fight. Yours truly,

THEODORE PARKER.

Aside from the honest conservatism of Lincoln, there was still another reason, hints of which Mr. Herndon gave in his reply, for his caution. The Dred Scott decision which permitted the holding of slaves in every Territory, and by inference in every State, had alarmed the North. That was the point where all the anti-slavery sentiment of the North came together, and Lincoln was wise in pressing it, which he did to the utter discomfiture of his opponent. Mr. Herndon wrote in reply:

Mr. Parker.

Springfield, Ill., Sept. 11, 1858.

Dear Sir: I this moment landed at home, having been up in Christian County addressing her people on the terrible issues of the day. This fact will account, I hope, for delay. I wholly agree with you about Greeley, but dared not say so before you. He is, I think, honest, but a great special fool. He wants a guide to his brain; he is, as you say, full of whims and crochets, writing up absurdities; and on no one principle is he a greater ninny than on the subject of “national political economy." Here he is behind the age here he loses sight of principle, which blazes all around him. He struggles for liberty, but refuses, absurdly so, to follow it to its just practical results. He is a good man, but he does not see the force or logic of principle does not see far ahead.

By the by, Greeley has done us infinite harm here in Illinois, and is still doing so; he is "sorter, sorter" is this way and that is no way, and this course injures us here very much. He and Douglas have an arrangement, which I will explain to you soon, as is charged and as I understand it. You remember what I told you about Greeley and Douglas; that is, what they mutually told me when on my trip East, We are getting very warm here - boiling, and the Republican cause is gaining every day. I send you a leaf of Lincoln's speech made in this city some time since. This will explain our difficulties.

66

Your friend, W. H. HERNDON.

Instead of being weak in the knees, as Douglas had predicted he would be, when they arrived in Egypt, Lincoln seemed to be very much at home; for he had grown up in that region, and knew the people better than Douglas did. Not only so; owing to the activity of United States Marshal Dougherty, a nominee on the Buchanan ticket, the vicinity of Jonesboro, where the third debate was to be held, was even more hostile to Douglas than to Lincoln. Evidently Egypt had been smitten with a plague, for the meeting at Jonesboro on September 15th was as poorly attended as it was chary of applause; and both speakers had to make bricks without straw. Douglas opened the debate by a wild and rabid appeal to partisan passion, reiterating all his stock arguments, renewing his charge of a corrupt bargain between Lincoln and Trumbull - quoting an alleged statement of Matheny in proof and accusing his opponent of changing the color of his speeches, which, he said, were jet-black in the north, a decent mulatto in the center, and almost white in the southern part of the State. Lincoln brushed these lesser matters aside briefly, and attacked what had come to be known as "the Freeport doctrine" of Douglas, which affirmed that, despite the decision of the Supreme Court, slavery could not exist without" friendly local legislation and appropriate police regulations." He did, however, beg leave to doubt the authenticity of the Matheny statement, in view of the Ottawa episode. After analyzing the answer made by Douglas at Freeport, he added another question to his list:

I hold that the proposition that slavery cannot enter a new Territory without police regulations is historically false. . . . The history of this country shows that the institution of slavery was originally planted upon this continent without these "police regulations" which Judge Douglas now thinks necessary for the actual establishment of it. Not only so, but there is another fact how came the Dred Scott decision to be made? It was made upon the case of a negro being taken and actually held in slavery in Minnesota Territory, claiming his freedom because the act of Congress prohibited his being so held there. Will the Judge

leader. If the Republicans sacrifice their principles for success, they will not be lifted up, but blown up. I trust Lincoln will conquer. It is an admirable education for the masses, this fight. Yours truly,

THEODORE PARKER.

Aside from the honest conservatism of Lincoln, there was still another reason, hints of which Mr. Herndon gave in his reply, for his caution. The Dred Scott decision which permitted the holding of slaves in every Territory, and by inference in every State, had alarmed the North. That was the point where all the anti-slavery sentiment of the North came together, and Lincoln was wise in pressing it, which he did to the utter discomfiture of his opponent. Mr. Herndon wrote in reply:

Mr. Parker.

Springfield, Ill., Sept. 11, 1858.

Dear Sir: I this moment landed at home, having been up in Christian County addressing her people on the terrible issues of the day. This fact will account, I hope, for delay. I wholly agree with you about Greeley, but dared not say so before you. He is, I think, honest, but a great special fool. He wants a guide to his brain; he is, as you say, full of whims and crochets, writing up absurdities; and on no one principle is he a greater ninny than on the subject of national political economy." Here he is behind the age here he loses sight of principle, which blazes all around him. He struggles for liberty, but refuses, absurdly so, to follow it to its just practical results. He is a good man, but he does not see the force or logic of principle- does not see far ahead.

By the by, Greeley has done us infinite harm here in Illinois, and is still doing so; he is "sorter, sorter" is this way and that is no way, and this course injures us here very much. He and Douglas have an arrangement, which I will explain to you soon, as is charged and as I understand it. You remember what I told you about Greeley and Douglas; that is, what they mutually told me when on my trip East. We are getting very warm here — boiling, and the Republican cause is gaining every day. I send you a "leaf" of Lincoln's speech made in this city some time since. This will explain our difficulties.

Your friend,

W. H. HERNDON.

and carried him in triumph from the scene, while five thousand people joined in the ovation. After dwelling upon the remark of Douglas, he finally said: "I don't want to quarrel with him to call him a liar - but when I come square up to him I don't know what else to call him, if I must tell the truth out."

On their way to the next debate, both men paused to visit the State Fair, then in full blast at Centralia, and curious crowds followed the rivals through the grounds, deeming them more attractive than the exhibits. Fifteen thousand people assembled at Charleston to hear the discussion on September 18th. Again there were long processions with bands and banners, the women taking part in behalf of Lincoln. Thirty-two girls, representing the thirty-two States, rode in a long, decorated wagon on which was inscribed:

The girls link on to Lincoln,

As their mothers linked to Clay!

So far Lincoln had been content to deny the charge that he was advocating the political and social equality of negroes and whites, and while there may have been some variation of emphasis in different parts of the State his position was consistent and clear. He held that the authors of the Declaration of Independence intended to include all men as equal, not in all respects in color, size, moral development, or social capacity but only equal in certain inalienable rights. While he did not affirm that the negro was his equal in moral or intellectual endowment, he insisted that in the right to eat the bread which his own hands had earned, without the leave of anybody else, the black man was his equal, the equal of Senator Douglas, and the equal of any living man. Nor could he be held to account for any other position, except by some "specious and fantastic arrangement of words by which a man can prove a horse-chestnut to be a chestnut horse." But in the hotel at Charleston some one had asked him about this matter, and in opening the debate he stated his position in a manner which grated upon the feelings of some anti-slavery