Page:Life of Abraham Lincoln - Bowers - 1922.djvu/30

 28 man in the Democratic party, and any man who could beat him would have national recognition. The Republicans of Illinois nominated Lincoln, who challenged Douglas to a series of joint debates.

The famous Lincoln-Douglas Debates are full of interest and repay a full and careful study, but they will be treated very briefly in this volume.

Lincoln entered upon these debates in a lofty spirit and to the end pursued a high course, fraught with kindness, fairness, magnanimity and most commendable dignity. He said, "While pretending no indifference to earthly honors, I do claim, in this contest, to be actuated by something higher than anxiety for office," and apparently he was.

Lincoln looked into the future and foresaw the coming campaign of 1860 for the Presidency. He foresaw that Douglas would be the leader of the Democrats in that campaign and conducted the debate accordingly.

Lincoln thought not alone of momentary issues, but also of eternal verities. Some things which his friends wished him not to say, for fear it would lose him votes, he said, because they were things that were true and ought to be said: for example, "This nation cannot endure half slave and half free … A house divided against itself cannot stand. … I do not expect the house to fall. … I do not expect the Union to be dissolved. I do expect it to cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the