specimen of the stump "statesman." Going around alone and playing the artful dodger before phonographic reports were the fashion, he passed through that "Test" with great success. Compelled now to face the music and to abandon many of his old stump tricks, he is manifestly suffering damage. [Washington (D. C.) Union, Sept. 22, 1858] [Fron the Mississippian, September 14] We cordially join Senator Brown in the wish expressed in his speech at Hazlehurst, that "Douglas may whip Lincoln out of his boots;" but we go further. After Lincoln receives his drubbing, we want him to return the compliment and larrup Douglas. And then, by way of making honors easy and ridding the country entirely of a pair of depraved, blustering, mischievous, lowdown demagogues, we would have them make a Kilkenny cat fight of it, and eat each other up. We have no choice to express between them; because it is like choosing between Punch and the devil. [Cincinnati (Ohio) Commercial, September 25, 1858] THE ILLINOIS DEBATE-INTERVENTION AND NONINTERVENTION The debate between Messrs. Douglas and Lincoln, has been one of the weakest, least candid and most entirely useless for any good purpose, of any that ever took place before an intelligent constituency. Professing to discuss political doctrines, Messrs. Douglas and Lincoln. have insulted the people of Illinois and of the country, by the daily utterance of compounds of the most transparent fallacies and the most vulgar personalities. [Lowell (Mass.) Citizen & News, September 6, 1858] In the meantime Douglas and Lincoln are stumping the State, sometimes in company and sometimes singly. . . . . There is no doubt that Lincoln supports himself under the personal and often low-bred attacks of his opponent. The following is a sample from one of their latest discussions: "I knew Mr. Lincoln in early life; he commenced his life as a grocer!”—Douglas. "The only difference between Judge Douglas and myself on the grocery question is, that while I have stood on one side of the counter, he has been equally attentive on the other."-Lincoln. It is a lamentable fact that with the 20,000 voters present on this occasion this repartee would have more influence than the profoundest statesmanship and the closest logic. With the Republicans, the Americans and the Protestant Norwegians, Germans, Scotch and English banded together against Douglas and his Irish Catholic phalanx, it is difficult to see any great chance for him. The second day of November will settle the question. [True Republican, Centreville, Ind., September 2, 1858] DOUGLAS AND LINCOLN Looking over the field of battle there are some spirited contests going on and as the fight grows fast and furious it is interesting to behold. Perhaps of any, the pitched battle between Douglas and Lincoln of Illinois is on the whole as interesting-as severe-and reviewed by as many anxious spectators. Mankind naturally behold with delight a contest of either physical or intellectual strength. We have seen a greater crowd collected to see a dog-fight, each man taking sides and hurrahing as his favorite came uppermost, than could have been brought together by a week's notice to hear a distinguished preacher. Douglas is a perfect specimen of the adroit politician, which the American system seems calculated to engender. . . . . Lincoln gives him blow for blow. They are canvassing the state together. [New York Tribune, November 9, 1858] A. B. It was manifest that his (Douglas') triumph would render inevitable his nomination for next President at Charleston in 1860. He must either be nominated or the Democratic party practically retires from the contest, surrendering the Government to the Republicans. And now that Mr. Douglas is in the full flush of hard won brilliant conclusive triumph, we tell him that his late canvass, although a successful, has not been a truly brave and noble one-that although it may carry him into the White House, it has not exalted him in the estimate of thoughtful discerning conscientious truly patriotic men, whose good opinion is worth having although it may not waft its object into the Presidential chair. We are not complaining of the positions with regard to slavery and the related topics which Mr. Douglas has seen fit to take in prosecution of his canvass. We know that men-not men of the highest type but such men as for the most part make up the world we live in-are creatures of circumstances taking and maintaining such positions as their necessities and supposed interests dictate. If, then, it had seemed necessary to Mr. Douglas to advocate the reopening of the African Slave trade, we should not have complained if he had done so. When it had been settled that the Republicans of Illinois would determinedly oppose Mr. Douglas' reelection at all hazards, it was obvious that he would feel constrained to take a position so near the South Pole as would be necessary to prevent the formation of any considerable Buchanan Democratic party, so as to enclose him between two fires. Yet we must confess that we were not quite prepared to see him take the positions in the canvass which The South pretty accurately sums up as follows: 1. Judge Douglas affirms the original and essential inferiority of the negro. 2. He denies that the negro was intended to be embraced within the abstractions of the Declaration of Independence and asserts that the right of freedom and equality was predicated only of the dominant race of white men. 3. He denies the privileges of citizenship to the negro. 4. He affirms the compatibility of a confederation of Free and Slave States and the possibility of their harmonious coexistence under a common Constitution. 5. He affirms the absolute sovereignty of the State in respect to their dominant institution and denies the authority of the Federal Government to discriminate against the interests of Slavery. 6. He inculcates a policy of non-intervention as between the free and slave-holding state, as well as between the latter and the Federal Government. 7. He supports the decision of the Supreme Court and asserts for Slavery the right of colonization in the territory. 8. He upholds all the guaranties of the Federal Constitution in respect to the rights of the South. 9. He maintains the dignity and independence of the Senatorial function against the encroachments of executive usurpation. 10. He protests his opposition to Black Republicanism at every point and upon every principle. II. 11. He pledges himself to fidelity to the organic principles and nominees of the Democratic party. If South Carolina should object to a candidate for President who plants himself on that platform, she must be fastidious indeed. But it is not in this respect that Mr. Douglas' canvass has fallen most signally below our expectations. With his indefatigable energy his readiness in repartee his tenacity—if we should not rather say his audacity in maintaining an exposed and indefensible position, his fertility of resource, we were already familiar. But his recent canvass, while it has stamped him first among county or ward politicians has evinced a striking absence of the far higher qualities of statesmanship. His speeches have lacked the breadth of view, the dignity, the courtesy to his opponent which-not to speak here of Clay, Calhoun or Websterwe should have confidently looked for in the popular addresses of Crittenden, or Corwin or Wise or Quitman-proscribed by the official leaders of his party and appealing from them to his constituents. They are plainly addressed to an excited crowd at some railway station, and seem uttered in unconsciousness that the whole American People are virtually deeply interested though not intensely excited auditors. They are volcanic and scathing but lack the repose of conscious strength, the calmness of conscious right. They lack forecast and are utterly devoid of faith. They not merely assume as an axiom that "God is on the side of the strongest battalions," they make "the God," or at least fail to recognize any other. That such a struggle were better nobly lost than ignobly won is a truth of which Senator Douglas on the stump would seem not to have the faintest conception. Hence his late canvass while it has given him an exalted rank among mere politicians, and probably paved his way to the Presidency—or more strictly, to the next Democratic nomination for that post-has failed to elicit any evidence of his possessing those lofty and admirable qualities without which the Presidency can afford no heartfelt satisfaction and confer no enduring fame. CHAPTER XV HUMOR OF THE CAMPAIGN [Evening Post, New York, August 25, 1858] LIGHTS AND SHADOWS OF THE ILLINOIS CANVASS The correspondent of the Chicago Tribune gives the following extracts from "Abe Lincoln's" speech at Havana (Ill.) on the 13th inst : A QUESTION OF MUSCLE "I am informed [said he] that my distinguished friend yesterday became a little excited-nervous, perhaps laughter and he said something about fighting, as though referring to a pugilistic encounter between him and myself. Did anybody in this audience hear him use such language? [Cries of yes.] I am informed, further, that somebody in his audience, rather more excited or nervous than himself, took off his coat, and offered to take the job off Judge Douglas's hands, and fight Lincoln himself. Did anybody here witness that warlike proceeding? [Laughter, and cries of yes.] Well, I merely desire to say that I shall fight neither Judge Douglas nor his second. [Great laughter.] I shall not do this for two reasons, which I will now explain. In the first place, a fight would prove nothing which is in issue in this contest. It might establish that Judge Douglas is a more muscular man than myself, or it might demonstrate that I am a more muscular man than Judge Douglas. But this question is not referred to in the Cincinnati platform, nor in either of the Springfield platforms. [Great laughter.] Neither result would prove him right or me wrong. And so of the gentleman who volunteered to do his fighting for him. If my fighting Judge Douglas would not prove anything, it would certainly prove nothing for me to fight his bottle-holder. [Continued laughter.] "My second reason for not having a personal encounter with the Judge is, that I don't believe he wants it himself. [Laughter.] He and I are about the best friends in the world, and when we get together he would no more think of fighting me than of fighting his wife. Therefore, ladies and gentlemen, when the Judge talked about fighting, he was not giving vent to any ill-feeling of his own, but merely trying to excite-well, enthusiasm against me on the part of his audience. And as I find he was tolerably successful, we will call it quits." [Cheers and laughter.] "TWO UPON ONE" "One other matter of trifling consequence," continued Mr. Lincoln, "and I I will proceed. I undersatnd that Judge Douglas yesterday referred to the fact that both Judge Trumbull and myself are making speeches throughout the state to beat him for the Senate, and that he tried to create a sympathy by the suggestion that this was playing two upon one against him. It is true that Judge Trumbull has made a speech in Chicago, and I believe he intends to co-operate with the Republican |