The Life of Abraham Lincoln (Arnold)/Chapter IX

The discussions between Lincoln and Douglas, in 1858, were unquestionably, with reference to the importance of the topics discussed, the ability of the speakers, and their influence upon events, the most important in American history.

There had been great debates in the old Continental Congress, on the subject of independence, and upon other vital questions; great debates in Congress in 1820-1, on the Missouri question. The discussion between Webster and Hayne, and Webster and Calhoun on nullification and the Constitution, were memorable; but the debates in 1858, between Lincoln and Douglas, in historic interest surpassed them all.

It is no injustice to others to say that these discussions, and especially the speeches of Lincoln, circulated and read throughout the Union, did more than any other agency to create the public opinion which prepared the way for the overthrow of slavery. The speeches of John Quincy Adams and of Charles Sumner were more learned and scholarly; those of Lovejoy and Wendell Phillips were more vehement and impassioned; Senators Seward, Hale, Trumbull, and Chase spoke from a more conspicuous forum; but Lincoln's were more philosophical, while as able and earnest as any, and his manner had a simplicity and directness, a clearness of statement and felicity of illustration, and his language a plainness and Anglo-Saxon strength, better adapted than any other to reach and influence the common people, the mass of the voters.

At the time of these discussions, both Lincoln, and Douglas were in the full maturity of their powers. Douglas was forty-five, and Lincoln forty-nine years of age. Physically and mentally, they were as unlike as possible. Douglas was short, not much more than five feet high, with a large head, massive brain, broad shoulders, a wide, deep chest, and features strongly marked. He impressed every one at first sight, as a strong, sturdy, resolute, fearless man. Lincoln's herculean stature has been already described. A stranger who listened to him for five minutes would say: "This is a kind, genial, sincere, genuine man; a man you can trust, plain, straightforward, honest, and true." If this stranger were to hear him make a speech, he would be impressed with his clear good sense, by his wit and humor, by his general intelligence, and by the simple, homely, but pure and accurate language he used.

Douglas was, in his manners, cordial, frank, and hearty. The poorest and humblest found him friendly. In his younger days he had a certain familiarity of manner quite unusual. When he was at the bar, and even after he went on the bench, it was not unusual for him to come down from the bench, or leave his chair at the bar, and take his seat on the knee of a friend, and, with an arm thrown familiarly around the neck of his companion, have a social chat, or a legal or political consultation.

Such familiarity had disappeared before 1858. In his long residence at Washington, Douglas had acquired the bearing and manners of a perfect gentleman and man of the world. But he was always a fascinating and attractive man, and always and everywhere personally popular. He had been, for years, carefully and thoroughly trained; on the stump, in Congress, and in the Senate, to meet in debate the ablest speakers in the state and nation. For years he had been accustomed to meet on the floor of the Capitol, the leaders of the old whig and free soil parties. Among them were Webster and Seward, Fessenden and Crittenden, Chase, Trumbull, Hale, and others of nearly equal eminence, and his enthusiastic friends insisted that never, either in single conflict, or when receiving the assault of the senatorial leaders of a whole party, had he been discomfited. His style was bold, vigorous, and aggressive, and at times even defiant. He was ready, fluent, fertile in resources, familiar with national and party history, severe in denunciation, and he handled with skill nearly all the weapons of debate. His iron will and restless energy, together with great personal magnetism, made him the idol of his friends and party. His long, brilliant, and almost universally successful career, gave him perfect confidence in himself, and at times he was arrogant and overbearing.

Lincoln was also a thoroughly trained speaker. He had met successfully, year after year, at the bar, and on the stump, the ablest men of Illinois and the Northwest, including Lamborn, Stephen T. Logan, John Calhoun, and many others. He had contended in generous emulation with Hardin, Baker, Logan, and Browning, and had very often met Douglas, a conflict with whom he always courted rather than shunned. He had at Peoria, and elsewhere, extorted from Douglas the statement, that in all his discussions at Washington, he had never met an opponent who had given him so much trouble as Lincoln. His speeches, as we read them to-day, show a more familiar knowledge of the slavery question, than those of any other statesman of our country. This is especially true of the Peoria speech, and the Cooper Institute speech. Lincoln was powerful in argument, always seizing the strong points, and demonstrating his propositions with a clearness and logic approaching the certainty of mathematics. He had, in wit and humor, a great advantage over Douglas. Douglas's friends loved to call him "the little giant;" Lincoln was physically and intellectually the big giant.

Such were the champions who, in 1858, were to discuss before the voters of Illinois, and with the whole nation as spectators and readers of the discussion, the vital questions relating to slavery. It was not a single debate, but, beginning at Chicago, in July, extended late into October, nearly to the time of the November elections. Reporters, representing the great daily newspapers of New York, Chicago, St. Louis, and Cincinnati, were present, and the speeches were reported, printed, and scattered broadcast over the nation: and were so widely read, that it is not too much to say that the whole American people paused to watch the progress of the debates, and hung with intense interest on the words and movements of the champions.

It was indeed a grand spectacle. Each speaker, while addressing from five to ten thousand people, or as many as could hear any human voice in the open air, was also conscious that he spoke not to his hearers only, but to hundreds of thousands of readers; conscious that he was speaking, not for a day, or for a political campaign, but for all time--and thus stimulated, each rose to the gravity and dignity of the occasion. There was not then, nor is there now, any hall in Illinois large enough to receive the vast crowds which gathered. The groves and prairies alone could furnish adequate space, and so the people gathered under the locusts on the public square at Ottawa, on the oak and elm shaded banks of Rock River at Freeport, at Quincy near the Mississippi, and elsewhere, to hear these their leaders.

The first speech was made by Douglas, Lincoln being present, at Chicago, on the evening of the 9th of July, 1858, from the balcony of the old Tremont House; Dearborn and Lake Streets being completely packed with citizens, and the hotel parlors and rotunda filled with ladies and privileged guests. On the following evening Lincoln replied from the same place, to a crowd equally great. On the 16th of July, Douglas spoke again at Bloomington, Lincoln being present. On the 17th of July, Douglas spoke at the Capitol in Springfield, and on the evening of the same day Lincoln replied.

On the 24th of July, Lincoln addressed a note to Douglas, proposing arrangements for a series of joint discussions during the canvass. After some correspondence it was agreed that there should be seven joint discussions, that the opening speech should occupy one hour, the reply one hour and a half, and. the close a half hour, so that each discussion should occupy three hours. They were to speak at Ottawa, August 21st; at Freeport, August 27th; at Jonesborough, September 15th; at Charleston, September 18th; at Galesburg, October 7th; at Quincy, October 13th; and at Alton, October 15th. Douglas was to have the opening and the close of the debate at four of these seven meetings.

The disinterested spectator at one of these discussions would, when they began, probably find his sympathy with "the little giant," on the principle that one is apt to sympathize with the smaller man in a fight. If so, and he were to remain to the close, he would be likely to change sides before the end, seeing that Lincoln was so fair, so candid, so frank, so courteous, and answered every question so well, while Douglas was at times evasive, at others arrogant, and not always even courteous.

There is in one of Lincoln's speeches, made in 1856, an allusion to Douglas, so beautiful, generous, and eloquent, that I quote it as an indication of the temper in which he carried on these discussions: "Twenty years ago," said he, "Douglas and I first became acquainted. We were both young then--he a trifle younger than I. Even then we were both ambitious--I, perhaps, quite as much as he. With me the race of ambition has been a failure--a flat failure.  With him it has been one of splendid success. His name fills the nation, and is not unknown even in foreign lands. I affect no contempt for the high eminence he has reached. So reached, that the oppressed of my species might have shared with me in the elevation, I would rather stand on that eminence than wear the richest crown that ever pressed a monarch's brow." We know, the world knows, that Lincoln did reach that high, nay, far higher eminence, and that he did reach it in such a way that the "oppressed of his species" shared with him in the elevation.

There is no reason to doubt that each of these great men believed, at that time, that he was right. Douglas had that ardor of temperament which would make him believe while in the midst of such a conflict that he was right, and Lincoln's friends all know that he argued for freedom and against slavery with the most profound conviction that the fate of his country hung on the result. He said to a friend during the canvass. "Sometimes in the excitement of speaking I seem to see the end of slavery. I feel that the time is soon coming when the sun shall shine, the rain fall, on no man who shall go forth to unrequited toil... How this will come, when it will come, by whom it will come, I cannot tell--but that time will surely come."

Lincoln had several advantages over Douglas in this conflict. He had the right side, the side of liberty, the side towards which the tide of popular feeling was setting with tremendous force. Then he had the better temper, he was always good humored; while Douglas, when hard pressed, was sometimes irritable. Lincoln's wit and humor, his apt stories for illustration were an immense advantage, especially when addressing a popular assembly. Speaking then, for his country, for the principles of the fathers, and for freedom, his eloquence surpassed all his own previous efforts. His lips seemed at times touched by fire from off the very altar of liberty. Patrick Henry had always been his ideal orator, and both Henry and Lincoln were great men by nature, both country-bred and self-educated. Patrick Henry had little of Lincoln's humor, but Lincoln had at times the fire and enthusiasm of him who said: "Give me liberty or give me death." It was liberty that made Henry so eloquent; it was the same theme that made Lincoln so great.

Douglas, perhaps, carried away the more popular applause. Lincoln made the deeper, and more lasting impression. Douglas did not disdain an immediate, ad captandum triumph, while Lincoln aimed at permanent conviction. Sometimes, when Lincoln's friends urged him to raise a storm of applause, which he could always do by his happy illustrations and amusing stories, he refused, saying: "The occasion is too serious; the issues are too grave. I do not," said he, "seek applause, or to amuse the people, but to convince them." It was observed, in the canvass, that while Douglas was greeted with the loudest cheers, when Lincoln closed, the people seemed serious and thoughtful, and could be heard all through the crowds, gravely and anxiously discussing the subjects on which he had been speaking.

The echo and the prophecy of this great debate were heard, and inspired hope, in the far-off cotton and rice fields of the South. The toiling and superstitious negroes began to hope for freedom, and in a mysterious way (did the sibylline lips of the Voudou whisper it?), faith was inspired in them that their deliverance was at hand, that their liberator was on the earth. In the words of Whittier, they lifted up their prayer:

"We pray de Lord. He gib us signs Dat some day, we be free, De Norf winds tell it to de pines; De wild duck to de sea."

"We tink it, when de church bell ring; We dream it in de dream; De rice bird mean it when he sing: De eagle when he scream."

The friends of Douglas, who managed the machinery of the campaign, did it well. A special train of cars, a band of music, a cannon to thunder forth his approach, and a party of ardent and enthusiastic friends accompanied him to cheer and encourage; so that his passage from place to place was like that of a conquering hero.

The democratic party, so long dominant in Illinois, were now, from Douglas down, confident, and his partisans full of bluster and brag. They everywhere boasted, and were ready to bet, that their "little giant" would "use up and utterly demolish 'old Abe'." They were so noisy and demonstrative; they seemed so absolutely sure of success, that many of the republicans, unconscious of the latent power of Lincoln, became alarmed. Douglas had so uniformly triumphed, and his power over the people was so great, that many were disheartened, and feared the ordeal of a joint discussion, which would certainly expose the weaker man. This feeling was apparent in the editorials of some of the leading republican newspapers.

Just before the first joint discussion, which was to take place at Ottawa, there was a large gathering at the Chenery House, then the leading hotel at Springfield. The house was filled with politicians, and so great was the crowd, that large numbers were out of doors, in the street, and on the sidewalk. Lincoln was there, surrounded by his friends, but it is said that he looked careworn and weary. He had become conscious that some of his party friends distrusted his ability to meet successfully a man whom, as the democrats declared and believed, had never had his equal on the stump. Seeing an old friend from Vermillion County, Lincoln came up, and, shaking hands, inquired the news. His friend replied: "All looks well. our friends are wide awake, but--," he continued, "they are looking forward with some anxiety to these approaching joint discussions with Douglas." A shade passed over Lincoln's face, a sad expression came and instantly passed, and then a blaze of light flashed from his eyes, and his lips quivered. "I saw," said his friend, "that he had penetrated my feelings and fears, and that he knew of the apprehensions of his friends. With his lips compressed, and with a manner peculiar to him, half jocular, he said: 'My friend, sit down a minute, and I will tell you a story.' We sat down on the door step leading into the hotel, and he then continued: 'You and I, as we have traveled the circuit together attending court, have often seen two men about to fight. One of them, the big, or the little giant, as the case may be, is noisy, and boastful; he jumps high in the air, strikes his feet together, smites his fists, brags about what he is going to do, and tries hard to skeer the other man.  The other says not a word.' Lincoln's manner became earnest, and his look firm and resolute. 'The other man says not a word, his arms are at his side, his fists are clenched, his teeth set, his head settled firmly on his shoulders, he saves his breath and strength for the struggle. This man will whip, just as sure as the fight comes off. Good-bye,' said he, 'and remember what I say.' From that moment, I felt as certain of Lincoln's triumph, as after it was won."

The joint discussion at Charleston, was on the 18th of September. This was in Lincoln's old circuit, where he was personally known, and popular, but a majority of the people were politically opposed to him. There was a vast throng, eager to witness the contest. Many were in wagons, having taken with them their provisions, and camping out in the groves at night. It was estimated that twenty thousand people were in attendance.

Lincoln, on that day, had the opening and the close. This was the fourth joint discussion, and no one who witnessed it could ever after doubt Lincoln's ample ability to meet Douglas. The "little giant" and his friends, had learned that there were blows to be received, as well as to be given. The Senator, who had begun the canvass at Ottawa, aggressive and overbearing, had learned caution, and that he must husband his resources. Ugly questions had been propounded to him, which it was difficult for him to answer. His action in relation to the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, which he was trying to justify, enabled Lincoln to keep him on the defensive. In reply to Douglas's charge against Lincoln, of arousing sectional feeling, and leading a sectional party, the reply was always ready. "It was you, Douglas, that started the great conflagration; it was you that set the dry prairie on fire, by repealing the Missouri Compromise."

Douglas's reply to Lincoln at Charleston, was mainly a defense. Lincoln's close was intensely interesting and dramatic. His logic and arguments were crushing, and Douglas's evasions were exposed, with a power and clearness that left him utterly discomfited. Republicans saw it, democrats realized it, and "a sort of panic seized them, and ran through the crowd of up-turned faces." Douglas realized his defeat, and, as Lincoln's blows fell fast and heavy, he lost his temper. He could not keep his seat, he rose and walked rapidly up and down the platform, behind Lincoln, holding his watch in his hand, and obviously impatient for the call of "time." A spectator says: "He was greatly agitated, his long grizzled hair waving in the wind, like the shaggy locks of an enraged lion."

It was while Douglas was thus exhibiting to the crowd his eager desire to stop Lincoln, that the latter, holding the audience entranced by his eloquence, was striking his heaviest blows. The instant the second hand of his watch reached the point at which Lincoln's time was up, Douglas, holding up the watch, called out: "Sit down, Lincoln, sit down. Your time is up."

Turning to Douglas, Lincoln said calmly: "I will. I will quit. I believe my time is up." "Yes," said a man on the platform, "Douglas has had enough, it is time you let him up." And this spectator expressed the feeling of friend and foe, concerning this battle of the giants.

Douglas had declared that certain telling charges made by Senator Trumbull, and indorsed by Lincoln, were false. He did not deny the facts stated by Trumbull, nor attempt by argument to disprove the conclusions which were drawn, but coarsely said that Trumbull had declared and Lincoln indorsed what was false. In reply, Lincoln used this fine illustration, exposing the ad captandum argument: "Why, sir," exclaimed Lincoln, "there is not a statement in Trumbull's speech that depends upon Trumbull's veracity. Why does he not answer the facts?... If," continued he, "you have ever studied geometry, you remember that by a course of reasoning Euclid proves that all the angles in a triangle are equal to two right angles. Euclid has shown how to work it out. Now, if you undertook to disprove that proposition, to show that it was erroneous, would you do it by calling Euclid a liar? That is the way Judge Douglas answers Trumbull." The result of this memorable campaign, so far as the voters were concerned, was a drawn battle. Douglas was re-elected to the Senate, but the manly bearing, the vigorous logic, the great ability and love of liberty exhibited by Lincoln in these debates, secured, two years later, his nomination and election to the Presidency.

The debates and debaters have passed into history, and the world has pronounced Lincoln the victor; but it should be remembered that Lincoln spoke for liberty and a young and enthusiastic party, and that Douglas, while a candidate for the Senate, was looking also to the White House, and that, while he kept one eye on Illinois, he had to keep the other on the slaveholders. Thus he was hampered and embarrassed, but he made a brilliant canvass. It should not be forgotten that the whole power of Buchanan's administration was used to aid in his defeat. The patronage of the Federal Government, in the hands of the unscrupulous Slidell, was used against him.

There was something almost heroic in the gallantry with which Douglas threw himself into the contest, and dealt his blows right and left, against the republican party on the one hand, and the Buchanan administration on the other. Douglas's great power as a leader, and his personal popularity, are exhibited in the facts that every democratic member of Congress from Illinois stood by him faithfully, that the Democratic State Convention indorsed him, and that no considerable impression against him could be made by an the power and patronage of the administration. There is, on the whole, hardly any greater personal triumph in the history of American politics, than his re-election.

No extracts from these debates can do anything like justice to their merits. They were entirely extemporaneous, and the reports which were made and widely circulated in book and pamphlet, while full of striking and beautiful passages, of strong arguments, and keen repartee, are disappointing and unsatisfactory to those who had the great pleasure of listening to them.

At the discussion at Freeport, Lincoln replied, with perfect fairness and frankness, to various questions of Douglas; questions skillfully framed to draw out unpopular opinions, and such as should be especially obnoxious to the extreme anti-slavery men. Lincoln answered all without evasion. He then in turn propounded certain questions to Douglas, and among others, questions designed to expose the inconsistency of the Senator, in upholding his doctrine of "popular sovereignty," and that part of the Dred Scott decision in which the court declared that the people--the "popular sovereigns," had no right to exclude slavery. His second interrogatory was: "Can the people of a United States territory, in any lawful way, against the wish of any citizen of the United States, exclude slavery from its limits, prior to the formation of a state constitution." It was in reference to this that a friend of Lincoln said: "If Douglas answers in such a way as to give practical force and effect to the Dred Scott decision, he inevitably loses the battle; but he will reply, by declaring the decision an abstract proposition; he will adhere to his doctrine of 'squatter sovereignty,' and declare that a territory may exclude slavery." "If he does that," said Mr. Lincoln, "he can never be President." "But," said the friend, "he may be Senator." "Perhaps," replied Lincoln, "but I am after larger game; the battle of 1860 is worth a hundred of this."

It was obviously impossible to reconcile Douglas's position at Freeport, and elsewhere, that "the people could exclude slavery if they pleased, and that their right to do so was perfect and complete, under the Nebraska bill," with the decision of the Court, that the people of the territory could do nothing of the kind. The Court said that a master had the right, under the Constitution, to take, and hold his slaves, in all the territories. If so, slavery could not be excluded by the people of the territory. Lincoln, in one of those terse, clear sentences, into which he often condensed a whole speech, exposed the absurdity of this. "Douglas holds," said he, "that a thing may lawfully be driven away from a place where it has a lawful right to go." He thus describes his appreciation of the momentous issue: "I do not claim to be unselfish. I do not pretend that I would not like to go to the United States Senate... But I say to you, that in this mighty issue, it is nothing to the mass of the people of the nation, whether or not Judge Douglas or myself shall ever be heard of after this night. It may be a trifle to us, but in connection with this mighty issue, upon which, perhaps, hang the destinies of the nation, it is absolutely nothing."

At their last joint discussion in October, at Alton, where Lovejoy, twenty one years before, had been killed because of his fidelity to freedom, Lincoln, in closing the debate, said: "Is slavery wrong? That is the real issue. That is the issue that will continue in this country when these poor tongues of Judge Douglas and myself shall be silent. It is the eternal struggle between these two principles--right and wrong--throughout the world. They are two principles that have stood face to face from the beginning of time; and will ever continue to struggle. The one is the common right of humanity, and the other the divine right of kings. It is the same principle in whatever shape it develops itself. It is the same spirit that says: 'You work, and toil, and earn bread, and I'll eat it.' No matter in what shape it comes, whether from the mouth of a king who seeks to bestride the people of his own nation, and live by the fruit of their labor, or from one race of men, as an apology for enslaving another race, it is the same tyrannical principle..."

"On this subject of treating it (slavery) as a wrong, and limiting its spread, let me say a word. Has anything ever threatened the existence of the Union, save and except this very institution of slavery?' What is it that we hold most dear among us? Our own liberty and prosperity. What has ever threatened our liberty and prosperity, save and except this institution of slavery? If this is true, how do you propose to improve the condition of things by enlarging slavery? By spreading it out and making it bigger? You may have a wen or cancer upon your person, and not be able to cut it out lest you bleed to death; but surely it is not the way to cure it, to engraft it and spread it over your whole body. That is no proper way of treating what you regard as wrong. You see this peaceful way of dealing with it as a wrong--restricting the spread of it, and not allowing it to go into new countries, where it has not already existed. That is the peaceful way, the old fashioned way, the way in which the fathers themselves set us the example."