[CHAPTER XXVI.]
He hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been
So clear in his great office, that his virtues
Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against
The deep damnation of his taking off.
Macbeth.
Reminiscences of Abraham Lincoln.
The assassination of President Lincoln, while these chapters are in press, attaches a sad interest to everything connected with his memory.
During the great canvass for the United States Senate, between Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Douglass, the right of Congress to exclude Slavery from the Territories was the chief point in dispute. Kansas was the only region to which it had any practical application; and we, who were residing there, read the debates with peculiar interest.
No such war of intellects, on the rostrum, was ever witnessed in America. Entirely without general culture, more ignorant of books than any other public man of his day, Douglass was christened "the Little Giant" by the unerring popular instinct. He who, without the learning of the schools, and without preparation, could cope with Webster, Seward, and Sumner, surely deserved that appellation. He despised study. Rising after one of Mr. Sumner's most scholarly and elaborate speeches, he said: "Mr. President, this is very elegant and able, but we all know perfectly well that the Massachusetts Senator has been rehearsing it every night for a month, before a looking-glass, with a negro holding a candle!"
His Great Canvass with Douglass.