member of the United States Senate, where he had influenced all the important legislation of the day and met in debate every strong speaker of North and South. In 1852, and again in 1856, he had been a strongly supported, though unsuccessful, candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination. In 1858 he was put at or near the head of every list of possible presidential candidates made up for 1860.

How barren Lincoln's public career in comparison! Three terms in the lower house of the State Assembly, one term in Congress, then a failure which drove him from public life. Now he returns as a bolter from his party, a leader in a new organization which the conservatives are denouncing as "visionary," "impractical," "revolutionary."

No one recognized more clearly than Lincoln the difference between himself and his opponent. “With me," he said sadly, in comparing the careers of himself and Douglas, "the race of ambition has been a failure-a flat failure. With him it has been one of splendid success." He warned his party at the outset that, with himself as a standard-bearer, the battle must be fought on principle alone, without any of the external aids which Douglas's brilliant career gave. "Senator Douglas is of world-wide renown," he said. "All the anxious politicians of his party, or who have been of his party for years past, have been looking upon him as certainly, at no distant day, to be the President of the United States. They have seen in his round, jolly, fruitful face, post-offices, land-offices, marshalships, and cabinet appointments, chargéships and foreign missions, bursting and sprouting 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 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. These are disadvantages, all taken together, that the Republicans labor under. We have to fight this battle upon principle, and upon principle alone."

If one will take a map of Illinois and locate the points of the Lincoln and Douglas debates held between August 21 and October 15, 1858, he will see that the whole state was traversed in the contest. The first took place at Ottawa, about seventy-five miles southwest of Chicago, on August 21; the second at Freeport, near the Wisconsin boundary, on August 27. The third was in the extreme southern part of the state, at Jonesboro, on September 15. Three days later the contestants met one hundred and fifty miles northeast of Jonesboro, at Charleston. The fifth, sixth, and seventh debates were held in the western part of the state; at Galesburg, October 7; Quincy, October 13; and Alton, October 15.

Constant exposure and fatigue were unavoidable in meeting these engagements. Both contestants spoke almost every day through the intervals between the

From an ambrotype taken by C. Jackson, in Pittsfield, Ill., October 1, 1858, immediately after Lincoln had made a speech in the public square. Lincoln was the guest in Pittsfield of his friend, D. H. Gilmer, a lawyer for whom the picture was finished.

joint debates; and as railroad communication in Illinois in 1858 was still very incomplete, they were often obliged to resort to horse, carriage, or steamer to reach the desired points. Judge Douglas succeeded, however, in making this difficult journey something of a triumphal procession. He was accompanied throughout the campaign by his wife-a beautiful and brilliant woman-and by a number of distinguished Democrats. On the Illinois Central Railroad he had always a special car, sometimes a special train. Frequently he swept by Lincoln, side-tracked in an accommodation or freight train. "The gentleman in that car evidently smelt no royalty in our carriage," laughed Lincoln one day, as he watched from the caboose of a laid-up freight train the decorated special of Douglas flying by.

It was only when Lincoln left the railroad and crossed the prairie, to speak at some isolated town, that he went in state. The attentions he received were often very trying to him. He detested what he called “fizzlegigs and fireworks," and would squirm in disgust when his friends gave him a genuine prairie ovation. Usually, when he was going to a point distant from the railway, a "distinguished citizen" met him at the station nearest the place with a carriage. When they were come within two or three miles of the town, a long procession with banners and band would appear winding across the prairie to meet the speaker. A speech of greeting was made, and then the ladies of the entertainment committee would present Lincoln with flowers, sometimes even winding a garland about his head and lank figure. His embarrassment at these