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The summer birds were singing, but Abraham Lincoln did not heed them as he walked the streets. Old acquaintances met him, but he did not see them. He was lost in thought. At times his friends saw him take a scrap of paper from his hat and the stub of a pencil from his pocket and jot down a few words. In by-gone years his hat had been the New Salem Post-office, but it had come to be a receptacle of his thoughts. When he reached his office he usually emptied it of the bits of paper, dipped his pen into a large wooden inkstand, and wrote out the thoughts that had come to him. He was thinking about the decision of Chief-justice Taney, of what was going on in Kansas, and smiled as he reflected upon the predicament in which Douglas found himself. He looked into the future, and the smile faded away. He saw what other men did not see, that either slavery or freedom was to be supreme in the nation; that ever since the advent of Jesus Christ on earth righteousness and liberty had been making headway against wrong and slavery. He had an abiding faith in God, and saw that sooner or later freedom was to win.

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ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S INKSTAND.

Mr. Lincoln was not an Abolitionist, but was against the further extension of slavery. Possibly before the formation of the Republican Party he could not have said just what course ought to be pursued to bring about its final extinction. He was being educated by passing events. He read the "Antislavery Standard," the New York "Tribune," the Chicago "Tribune," which came regularly to his office. "Never did a man," said his partner, Mr. Herndon, "change as did Mr. Lincoln. No sooner had he planted himself right on the slavery question than his whole soul seemed burning. He blossomed right out. Spiritual things became clear to him."

1858.

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The hotels of Springfield were filled with delegates from all the counties in the State. They were discussing the great question of the hour-the decision of the Supreme Court, its effect on the June 16, Popular Sovereignty" doctrine of Douglas. They had read about the massacre in Kansas, and were enthusiastic over the formation of the Republican Party. In a quiet chamber Abraham Lincoln was reading his speech to several of his confidential friends. He wanted their opinion in regard to it. These the opening sen

tences:

"If we could first know where we are and whither we are tending, we could better judge what to do and how to do it. We are now far into the fifth year since a policy was initiated with the avowed object and confident promise of putting an end to slavery agitation. Under the operation of that policy that agitation has not only not ceased, but has constantly augmented. In my opinion it will not cease until a crisis has been reached and passed. 'A house divided against itself cannot stand.' I believe this Government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved, I do not expect the house to fall, but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction, or its advocates will push it forward till it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new, North as well as South."(*)

His friends were startled.

"It will never do for you to make that speech," they said. you say is true, but the time has not come for you to say it. defeat your election. It will ruin the Republican Party."

"What It will

He does

Mr. Lincoln hears them, rises from his chair, stands erect. not look into the faces of those around him. It is the old far-away look, as if seeing what they cannot see.

"My friends, I have given much thought to this question. The time has come when these sentiments should be uttered. If it is decreed that I should go down because of this speech, then let me go down linked with it to the truth. Let me die in the advocacy of what is just and right."

If it is decreed. He believes in God, a being of absolute justice and truth, who directs the affairs of men and nations. He himself is of little Justice and truth are eternal, and if need be he will go down

in their defence.

Not quite half a century has gone by since his mother folded him in her arms in the cheerless Kentucky home, less than twenty-five years since he was swinging an axe in the woods on the bank of the Sangamon; but, with a great prize before him, he tramples all political and personal considerations beneath his feet. In this supreme hour he stands with the steadfast men of all the ages. liver it as written or not at all.

Not a word is changed. He will de

He exposed the plan by which Kansas was to be made a Slave State, and slavery carried into the Free States-a plan arranged by Stephen A. Douglas, Franklin Pierce, Roger B. Taney, and James Buchanan. "We cannot," he said, "absolutely know that all these exact adaptations are the result of preconcert. But when we see a lot of framed timbers, different portions of which we know have been gotten out at different times and places by different workmen-Stephen, Franklin, Roger, and

James, for instance-and when we see these timbers joined together, and see that they exactly make the frame of a house or a mill, all the tenons and mortises exactly fitting and all the lengths and proportions exactly adapted to their respective places, and not a piece too many or too few, not omitting even scaffolding, we find it impossible not to believe that Stephen, Franklin, Roger, and James all understood one another from the beginning, and all worked upon a common plan drawn before the first blow was struck."

The convention nominated him as candidate for Senator, but the delegates went home with heavy hearts, fearing the sentiments expressed would not be acceptable to the Republicans of the State.

"The first ten lines of your speech will bring about your defeat," wrote his friend Swett from Chicago.

"You have made a great mistake," the words of another.

"If I had," wrote Mr. Lincoln in reply, "to draw my pen across my

LEONARD SWETT.

record and erase my whole life from sight, and if I had one poor choice left as to what I should save from the wreck, I should choose that speech and leave it to the world as it is."

Douglas and Lincoln both visited Chicago. A great crowd assembled in front of the Tremont House to listen to a speech from the former. He had many ardent friends who admired his great abilities and his winning ways. He knew Mr. Lincoln

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was in the city and courteously invited him to take a seat on the platform. It was a gracious act. The invitation was accepted. The thousands in the street had an opportunity of seeing the two foremost men of the State, both of them in the full vigor of manhood.

"I take great pleasure," said Douglas, " in saying that I have known personally and intimately, for about a quarter of a century, the worthy gentleman who has been nominated for my place, and I will say that I regard him as a kind, amiable, and intelligent gentleman-a good citizen and an honorable opponent; and whatever may be the issue I may have with him it will be of principle and not of personalities."

He read the opening sentences of the speech of Lincoln at Springfield, "A house divided against itself cannot stand," and said:

"Mr. Lincoln advocates boldly and clearly a war of sections, a war of the North against the South, of the Free States against the Slave States, a war of extermination to be continued relentlessly until the one or the other shall be subdued, and all the States shall either become free or become slave."

Mr. Lincoln had not indicated a desire to see any such contest, but had stated what would be the probable course of events. He had uttered a prophecy, nothing more.

Douglas did not notice the allusion to the political carpenters and house-builders, Stephen, Franklin, Roger, and James. He boldly announced his support of the decision rendered by the Supreme Court in relation to Dred and Harriet Scott.

"This Government is founded on the white basis. It was made for the white man, for the benefit of the white man, to be administered by the white men as they shall determine. . . . Kentucky has the right to say that her negroes shall be slaves, Illinois that her negroes shall not vote, New York that hers may vote, when qualified by property, and Maine that the negro is equal at the polls to the white man."

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The next evening Abraham Lincoln stood upon the same platform, looking down upon a sea of faces. He made a vigorous reply to Douglas. A week later both candidates were in Bloomington. Douglas had misrepresented his opponent, but Lincoln was not irritated. With good-humor he spoke of those who supported Douglas. They are looking upon him as certain at no distant day to be President. They have seen in his round, jolly, fruitful face, post-offices, land-offices, marshalships, Cabinet appointments, chargéships, and foreign missions bursting and sprouting out in wonderful luxuriance ready to be laid hold of by their greedy hands. . . . On the contrary, nobody has ever expected me to be President. In my poor, lean, lank face nobody has seen any cabbages sprouting out."

"Challenge Douglas to a joint debate," said some of Lincoln's

friends.

“Will it be agreeable to you to make an arrangement for you and myself to divide the time and address the same audiences the present canvass?" read a note from Lincoln. It lead ultimately to an arrangement for a joint discussion in some of the principal towns in different parts of the State.

"It never will do for Lincoln to meet Douglas on the same platform," said timid friends.

The hotel of Mr. Chenery in Springfield was crowded with the friends of Lincoln, and he was there to meet them. The old-time sadness was on his face, for he knew many of them were fearful that he would be no match for Douglas.

"We are looking forward with some anxiety to your proposed debate," the remark of one who had ridden the circuit with him.

"Sit down; let me tell you a story. Have you and I not seen two men about to fight, one noisy and boastful, jumping, striking his fists together, telling what he is going to do, trying hard to skeer the other fellow, who don't say anything? His arms hang down, but his fists are clinched, his teeth are set, his muscles rigid. You may be sure he will whip. Good-bye. Remember what I say."

The sadness was gone; his face was beaming with smiles.

The arrangements were made. The first debate was at Ottawa, attended by 20,000 people. No hall could hold the multitudes who gathered to hear the two men who had risen from obscurity to be the foremost political debaters of the State. Douglas had a series of questions for which he demanded answers. Mr. Lincoln answered them unhesitatingly. Before the next meeting came, which was to be held at Freeport, Lincoln prepared four questions for Douglas to answer. was the third question propounded :

This

"If the Supreme Court of the United States shall decide that States cannot exclude slavery from their limits, are you in favor of acquiescing in, adopting, and following such decision as a code of political action?"

"Douglas," said Lincoln's friends, "will reply by affirming this decision as an abstract principle, but denying its political application." "If he does that he can never be President," said Lincoln. "That is not your lookout; you are after the Senatorship."

"No, gentlemen; I am killing larger game. The battle of 1860 is worth a hundred of this."

Mr. Douglas saw the dilemma in which he would be placed, and evaded answering the question. Throughout the campaign he trav

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