A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln / Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History

mittee on Territories-Benjamin on Douglas-Lincoln's Popular Majority-Douglas Gains Legislature-Greeley, Crittenden, et al.-"The Fight Must Go On"-Douglas's Souther

n ranks to Abraham Lincoln. He had in 1854 yielded his priority of claim to Trumbull; he alone had successfully encountered Douglas in debate. The political events themselves seemed to have selected and pitted these two champions against each other. Therefore, when the Illinois State convention on June 16, 1858, passed by acclamation a separate resolution, "That Abraham Lincoln is the first and only choice of the Republicans of Illinois for the United States Sen

l-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 sh

e had opened all the national territory to slavery. The second established the constitutional interpretation that neither Congress nor a territorial legislature could exclude slavery from any United States territory. The President

States does not permit a State to exclude slavery from its limits.... Such a decision is all that slavery now lacks of being alike lawful in all the States.... We shall lie down pleasan

was the duty of Republicans to overthrow bot

and even hostile elements, we gathered from the four winds, and formed and fought the battle through, under the constant hot fire of a disciplined, proud, and pampered enemy. Did we brave all then to falter now?-now, when that same

me to the people of the North almost with the force of a revelation; and thereafter their eyes were fixed upon the Illinois senatorial

ncoln, at the advice of his leading friends, sent him a letter challenging him to joint public debate. Douglas accepted the challenge, but with evident hesitation; and it was arranged that they should jointly address the same meetings at seven towns in the State, on dates extending through August, September, and October. The terms were, that, alternately, one should speak an hour in opening, the other an hour and a half in reply, and the first again have half an hour in closing. This placed the contestants upo

central Illinois had to a large extent joined the Democratic party, because of their ineradicable prejudice against what they stigmatized as "abolitionism." To take advantage of this prejudice, Douglas, in his opening speech in the first debate at Ottawa in northern Illinois, propounded to Lincoln a series of questions designed to commit him to strong antislavery doctrines. He wanted

of these propositions, except the prohibition of slavery in all Territories of the Un

ainst the wish of any citizen of the United States, exclude slaver

ect of this interrogatory, and nearly a month before, in a pr

g him to it-though he will be compelled to say it possesses no such power-he will instantly take ground that slavery cannot actually exist in the Territories unless the people desi

s. They all advised against propounding it, saying, "If you do, you can never be senator." "Gentlemen," replied Lincoln, "I

but to repeat the sophism he had hastily invente

an hour anywhere unless it is supported by local police regulations. Those police regulations can only be established by the local legislature, and if the people are opposed to slavery they will elect representatives to that body who will by unfriendly legislation effectually prevent the introduction of it in

regulations" in almost every instance; 2. That United States courts were established to protect and enforce rights under the Constitution; 3. That members of a territorial legislature could no

r doctrine of "unfriendly legislation." His opposition to the Lecompton Constitution in the Senate, grievous stumbling-block to their schemes as it had proved, might yet be pas

r party ban by removing him from the chairmanship of the Committee on Territories, a position he had held for eleven years. In due time, also, the Southern leaders broke up the Charleston convent

in the Senate, he went home, and, under the stress of a local election, his knees gave way; his whole person trembled. His adversary stood upon principle and was beaten; and, lo! he is the candidate of a mighty party for the presidency of the United States. The senator from Illinois faltered. He

of 1850, and did not reflect recent changes in political sentiment, which, if fairly represented, would have given them an increased strength of from six to ten members in the legislature. Another circumstance had great influence in causing Lincoln's defeat. Douglas's opposition to the Lecompton Constitution in Congress had won him great sympathy among a few Republican leaders in the Eastern States. It was even whispered that Seward wished Douglas to succeed as a strong rebuke to the Buchanan administration. T

was also agreeing with the antislavery men in the North that Douglas ought to be re?lected. Still to heighten the wonder, a senator from Kentucky, whom I have always loved with an affection as tender and endearing as I have ever loved any man, who was opposed to the antislavery men for reasons which seemed sufficient to him, and equally opposed to Wise and Breckinridge, was writing letters to Illinois to secure the re?lection of Douglas. Now that all these conflicting elements should be brought, while at daggers' points with one another, to support him, is a feat that is

s dismayed, nor did he lose his faith in the ultimate triumph of

made the late race. It gave me a hearing on the great and durable question of the age, which I could have had in no other way; and though I now

o ano

one or even one hundred defeats. Douglas had the ingenuity to be supported in the late contest, both as the best means to break down a

on a false trail by the opposition Douglas had made to the Lecompton Constitution; that his temporary qua

ther on principle so that our great cause may have assistance from his great ability, I hope to have interposed no adventitious obstacle. But, clearly, he is not now with us-he does not pretend to be-

he sugar plantations of Louisiana he said, it was not a question between the white man and the negro, but between the negro and the crocodile. He would say that between the negro and the crocodile, he took the side of the negro; but between the negro and the white man, he would go for the white man. The Almighty had drawn a line on this continent, on the one side of which the soil must be cultivated by slave labor? on the other, by white labor. That line did not run on 36° and 30'

ir own affairs, they must consent to be governed by those who are capable of performing the duty.... In accordance with this principle, I

same speeches to defend his Freeport doctrine. Having taken his seat in Congress, Senator Bro

it pass unfriendly acts, will you pass friendly? If it pass laws hostile to sla

se direct questions, and

n ever carry any one Democratic State of the North on the platform that it is the duty of the

wed the colloquy, which showed that the Freeport doctrine had opened up an irr

adually to merge it in the coming presidential campaign. The effect of this was not only to keep before the public the position of Lincoln as the Republican champion of Illinois, but also gradually to lift him into general recognition as a national leader. Throughout the year 1859 politicians and newspapers came to look upon Lincoln as the one antagon

nd yet they are denied and evaded with no small show of success. One dashingly calls them 'glittering generalities.' Another bluntly calls them 'self-evident lies.' And others insidiously argue that they apply to 'superior races.' These expressions, differing in form, are identical in object and effect-the supplanting the principles of free government, and restoring those of classification, caste, and leg

popular sovereignty to aid them in their local campaigns. Lincoln knew from his recent experience the peril of this delusive party strategy, and

rb him-he absorbs them. They would come out at the end all Douglas men, all claimed by him as having indorsed every one of his doctrines upon the great subject with which the whole nation is engaged at this hour-that the question of negro slavery is simply a question of dollars and cents? that the Almighty has drawn a line across the continent

iend he wrote

ut than pass in. And this would be the same whether the letting down should be in deference to Douglasism, or to the Southern opposition element; either would surrender the object of the Republican organization-the preventing of the spread and nationalization of sl

d Vice-President) he said in

ere, but which, nevertheless, will be a firebrand elsewhere and especially in a national convention. As instances: the movement against foreigners in Massachusetts; in New Hampshire, to make obedience to the fugitive-slave law punishable as a crime; in Ohio, to repeal

nd in Columbus, Ohio, he wrote

n the North, and, by consequence, no capital to trade on in the South, if it were not for his friends thus magnifying him and his humbug. But lastly, and chiefly, Douglas's popular sovereignty, accepted by the public mind as a just principle, nationalizes slavery, and revives the African slave-trade inevitably. Taking slaves into new Territories, and buying slaves in Africa, ar

es showed itself not alone in their unprecedented circulation in print in newspapers and pamphlets, but also in the decided success which the Ohio Republicans gained at the polls. About the same time, also, Douglas printed a long political essay in "Harper's Magazine," using as a text quotations from Lincoln's "House divi

uesday by a detachment of Federal marines under the command of Robert E. Lee, the famous Confederate general of subsequent years; the undignified haste of his trial and condemnation by the Virginia authorities; the interviews of Governor Wise, Senator Mason, and Representative Valla

pplied to this exciting event, which threw almost everybody into an extreme of feeling or

fair, in its philosophy, corresponds with the many attempts, related in history, at the assassination of kings and emperors. An enthusiast broods over the oppression of a people till he fancies himself commissioned by Heaven to liberate them. He ventures the attempt, which ends in little else