XXIII.

HUGH MCCULLOCH.

HE history of Mr. Lincoln's life is an exceed

THE

ingly interesting one-more interesting in many respects than that of any other man which our country has produced.

Of humble parentage, without opportunities for mental culture in early life, he became an able lawyer, a forcible writer, a captivating and instructive speaker, an executive officer of singular foresight and wisdom in the most trying period of our nation's history. Before his joint debate with Mr. Douglas in 1858, he was little known outside of his own State. The ability which he displayed in that debate gave him a national reputation. He and Mr. Douglas were the rival candidates for a seat in the United States Senate, of which Mr. Douglas was a prominent member, but whose term of office was about to expire. They had frequently met as opposing counsel in important suits. They were therefore well known to each other, and by their public speeches they were well known to the people of Illinois. They had, in one or two instances, addressed the same audiences upon po

litical subjects, but they had never met by agreement, at that time a common occurrence in the West, in public debate. The question which then was exciting the greatest interest throughout the Union was slavery-not (with the exception of a comparatively few ultra-antislavery men in the Northern States) whether it should be abolished in the States where it existed, but whether it should be extended into the Territories.

Mr. Douglas, as a United States Senator, had been largely instrumental in effecting a repeal of the compromise by which Missouri had been admitted into the Union and the extension of slavery into other Territories prohibited. He was the leading advocate, in fact the father, of the doctrine of popular sovereignty-the right of the people of the Territories, in preparing constitutions for admission into the Union as sovereign States, to determine for themselves whether they should be slave States or free.

Mr. Lincoln, although a hater of slavery, was not an Abolitionist. He had a profound reverence for the Constitution upon which the Union was founded, which recognized slavery as a local institution, but he was firm and unyielding in his opposition to its

extension.

Thus they stood before the people of Illinois the acknowledged representatives of their respective parties-one, the advocate of the nationalization of

slavery; the other, the advocate of freedom for all, and everywhere except in those States in which slavery had a constitutional existence. Neither was an extremist; neither was the exponent of ultra doctrines on either side. Mr. Lincoln did not go far enough, in merely opposing the extension of slavery, to satisfy the Abolitionists of the North, who demanded the extirpation of slavery, root and branch, without regard to the sanctions of the Constitution. Mr. Douglas, who was neither an advocate nor an opponent of slavery, did not go far enough to satisfy the pro-slavery leaders of the South, who contended for the right of slave-holders to take their slaves into the Territories and hold them there, in perpetual servitude, regardless of what he called popular, and they denounced as squatter, sovereignty. While, therefore, neither of them came up to the high standard of either Abolitionists on the one hand or pro-slavery men on the other, the difference between them was decided and irreconcilable; and in order that the difference might be fairly and thoroughly discussed before the same audiences, Mr. Lincoln invited Mr. Douglas to meet him in a joint debate in some of the most populous counties of the State. The invitation was promptly accepted. The debate began on the 21st of August and closed on the 15th of October. They spoke in the open air, and their speeches were listened to with the deepest interest by the

many thousands who thronged to hear them. They were fully and carefully reported, and were published in the leading journals North and South. No speeches ever made in the United States commanded so great attention or made so deep an impression upon the public mind. It was, indeed, the opening of the "irrepressible conflict" which Mr. Seward had predicted.

Mr. Lincoln, in a speech which he made a short time before, had avowed the sentiment that the United States could not permanently continue to be "part slave and part free;" that freedom or slavery sooner or later must become dominant in all the States; that slavery was local; that there was no warrant under the Constitution for its extension; and that its extension could rightfully be prevented by Congress. On the contrary, Mr. Douglas was committed to the doctrine that slavery was nationalized by the Constitution; that Congress had no authority to prevent its introduction to the Territories; that the people of each Territory and each State could alone decide whether they should be slave States or free. In a word, he was committed to the doctrine of popular sovereignty in its widest sense.

This really was the question to be discussed, but the discussion was not confined to it. In the course of the debate, slavery, its inhumanity, its influence upon the white population, its inconsistency with republicanism, were freely considered.