Hidden Treasures; Or, Why Some Succeed While Others Fail

by Harry A. Lewis

In 1836 he first met Stephen A. Douglas who was destined to be his adversary in the political arena for the next twenty years. Stephen A. Douglas was, or soon became the leader of the Democracy in Illinois and Lincoln spoke for the Whigs as against Douglas. In 1847 Lincoln was sent to Congress, being chosen over the renowned Peter Cartwright, who was the Democratic candidate. In Congress he vigorously opposed President Polk and the Mexican war, and proposed a bill to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, provided the inhabitants would vote for it. In 1855 he withdrew from the contest for the United States Senatorship in favor of Mr. Trumbull, whom he knew would draw away many Democratic votes and to Lincoln was due Trumbull's election. During the canvass he met Stephen A. Douglas in debate at Springfield, where he exploded the theory of 'Squatter Sovereignty' in one sentence, namely: "I admit that the emigrant to Kansas and Nebraska is competent to govern himself, but I deny his right to govern any other person without that person's consent."

In 1858 he had his great contest for the United States Senatorship with Douglas. At that time Judge Douglas was renowned throughout the nation as one of the ablest, if not the ablest of American speakers. Horace Greeley well said, "The man who stumps a State with Stephen A. Douglas and meets him day after day before the people has got to be no fool." The tremendous political excitement growing out of the 'Kansas-Nebraska Act,' and the agitation of the slavery question, in its relation to the vast territory of Kansas and Nebraska, convulsed the nation. The interest was greatly heightened from the fact that these two great gladiators, Stephen A. Douglas, the great mouth-piece of the Democratic party and champion of 'Squatter Sovereignty,' and Abraham Lincoln, a prominent lawyer, but otherwise comparatively unknown, the opponent of that popular measure and the coming champion of the anti-slavery party.

The question at issue was immense—permanent, not transient—universal, not local, and the debate attracted profound attention on the part of the people, whether Democratic or Free Soil, from the Kennebec to the Rio Grande. Mr. Douglas held that the vote of the majority of the people of a territory should decide this as well as all other questions concerning their domestic or internal affairs. Mr. Lincoln, on the contrary, urged the necessity of an organic enactment, excluding slavery in any form—this last to be the condition of its admission into the Union as a State. The public mind was divided and the utterances and movements of every public man were closely scanned. Finally, after the true western style, a joint discussion, face to face, between Lincoln and Douglas, as the two representative leaders, was proposed and agreed upon. It was arranged that they should have seven great debates, one each at Ottawa, Freeport, Charleston, Jonesboro, Galesburg, Quincy, and Alton.

Processions and cavalcades, bands of music and cannon-firing made every day a day of excitement. But the excitement was greatly intensified from the fact that the oratorical contests were between two such skilled debaters, before mixed audiences of friends and foes, to rejoice over every keen thrust at the adversary, and again to be cast down by each failure to 'give back as good,' or to parry the thrust so aimed.

In personal appearance, voice, gesture and general platform style, nothing could exceed the dissimilarity of these two speakers. Mr. Douglas possessed a frame or build particularly attractive; a natural presence which would have gained for him access to the highest circles, however courtly, in any land; a thickset, finely built, courageous man, with an air as natural to him as breath, of self-confidence that did not a little to inspire his supporters with hope. That he was every inch a man no friend or foe ever questioned. Ready, forceful, animated, keen, playful, by turns, and thoroughly artificial; he was one of the most admirable platform speakers that ever appeared before an American audience, his personal geniality, too, being so abounding that, excepting in a political sense, no antagonism existed between him and his opponent.

Look at Lincoln. In personal appearance, what a contrast to his renowned opponent. Six feet and four inches high, long, lean and wiry in motion; he had a good deal of the elasticity and awkwardness which indicated the rough training of his early life; his face genial looking, with good humor lurking in every corner of its innumerable angles. Judge Douglas once said, "I regard Lincoln as a kind, amiable and intelligent gentleman, a good citizen and an honorable opponent." As a speaker he was ready, precise, fluent and his manner before a popular assembly was just as he pleased to make it; being either superlatively ludicrous or very impressive. He employed but little gesticulation but when he desired to make a point produced a shrug of the shoulders, an elevation of the eyebrows, a depression of his mouth and a general malformation of countenance so comically awkward that it scarcely ever failed to 'bring down the house.' His enunciation was slow and distinct, and his voice though sharp and piercing at times had a tendency to dwindle into a shrill and unpleasant tone. In this matter of voice and commanding attitude, the odds were decidedly in favor of Judge Douglas.

Arrangements having been consummated, the first debate took place at Ottawa, in Lasalle county, and a strong Republican district. The crowd in attendance was a large one, and about equally divided—the enthusiasm of the Democracy having brought more than a due proportion of their numbers to hear and see their favorite leader. The thrilling tones of Douglas, his manly defiance against the principles he believed to be wrong assured his friends, if any assurance were wanting, that he was the same unconquered and unconquerable Democrat that he had proved to be for the previous twenty-five years.

Douglas opened the discussion and spoke one hour; Lincoln followed, the time assigned him being an hour and a half, though he yielded a portion of it. It was not until the second meeting, however, that the speakers grappled with those profound public questions that had thus brought them together, and in which the nation was intensely interested. The debates were a wonderful exhibition of power and eloquence.

In the first debate Mr. Douglas arraigned his opponent for the expression in a former speech of a "House divided against itself," etc.,—referring to the slavery and anti-slavery sections of the country; and Mr. Lincoln defended those ideas as set forth in the speech referred to. As Mr. Lincoln's position in relation to one or two points growing out of the former speech referred to, had attracted great attention throughout the country, he availed himself of the opportunity of this preliminary meeting to reply to what he regarded as common misconceptions. "Anything," he said, "that argues me into the idea of perfect social and political equality with the negro is but a specious and fantastic arrangement of words, by which a man can prove a horse-chestnut to be a chestnut horse. I will say here, while upon this subject, that I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it now exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so. I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and black races. There is a physical difference between the two which, in my judgment, will probably forever forbid their living together upon a footing of perfect equality, and inasmuch as it becomes a matter of necessity that there must be a difference I, as well as Judge Douglas, am in favor of the race to which I belong, having the superior position. I have never said anything to the contrary, but I hold that notwithstanding all this, there is no reason in the world why the negro is not entitled to all the natural rights enumerated in the Declaration of Independence—the right to life, liberty, and the pursuits of happiness. I hold that he is as much entitled to these as the white man. I agree with Judge Douglas he is not my equal in many respects—certainly not in color, perhaps not in moral and intellectual endowment. But in the right to eat the bread without the leave of any one else, which his own hand earns, he is my equal, and the equal of Judge Douglas, and the equal of every living man."

Touching the question of respect or weight of opinion due to deliverance of the United States Supreme Court—an element which entered largely into this national contest, Mr. Lincoln said: "This man—Douglas—sticks to a decision which forbids the people of a territory from excluding slavery, and he does so, not because he says it is right in itself—he does not give any opinion on that, but because it has been decided by the Court, and being decided by the Court, he is, and you are bound to take it in your political action as law; not that he judges at all of its merits, but because a decision of the Court is to him a 'Thus saith the Lord.' He places it on that ground alone, and you will bear in mind that thus committing himself unreservedly to this decision, commits him to the next one just as firmly as to this. He did not commit himself on account of the merit or demerit of the decision, but is a 'Thus saith the Lord.' The next decision, as much as this, will be a 'Thus saith the Lord.' There is nothing that can divert or turn him away from this decision. It is nothing that I point out to him that his great prototype, General Jackson, did not believe in the binding force of decisions—it is nothing to him that Jefferson did not so believe. I have said that I have often heard him approve of Jackson's course in disregarding the decision of the Supreme Court, pronouncing a national bank unconstitutional. He says: I did not hear him say so; he denies the accuracy of my recollection. I say he ought to know better than I, but I will make no question about this thing, though it still seems to me I heard him say it twenty times. I will tell him, though, that he now claims to stand on the Cincinnati platform which affirms that Congress cannot charter a national bank, in the teeth of that old standing decision that Congress can charter a bank. And I remind him of another piece of history on the question of respect for judicial decisions, and it is a piece of Illinois history belonging to a time when the large party to which Judge Douglas belonged were displeased with a decision of the Supreme Court of Illinois, because they had decided that a Governor could not remove a Secretary of State. I know that Judge Douglas will not deny that he was then in favor of oversloughing that decision by the mode of adding five new judges, so as to vote down the four old ones. Not only so, but it ended in the judge's sitting down on that very bench, as one of the five new judges so as to break down the four old ones." In this strain Mr. Lincoln occupied most of his time. But the debate was a very equal thing, and the contest did not prove a 'walk over' either way.