Then he was always draggin’ in things which didn’t have no bearin’ on the case, and takin’ up Lincoln’s time makin’ him answer ’em. One was a-tellin’ how Lincoln had voted against givin’ money to carry on the Mexican War. Now, I know that wa’n’t so, and more’n that it didn’t have anything to do with the question. It made me feel plumb bad to have him goin’ on that way.
And that’s the way he kept it up. Always digressin’, never takin’ up a p’int till Lincoln had drove him into a corner, always insistin’ Lincoln wanted a nigger wife. Why, he made so much of that fool lie that there was a lot of people got to thinkin’ mebbe that’s what Lincoln’s idees did mean. There’s a man livin’ here in this town now that’s got a little book Lincoln made for him to show around and to prove he didn’t mean nuthin’ of the kind.
Fact was, Douglas never meant to argue it out fair and square. He meant to dodge, to mix us up and keep our minds off Kansas-Nebraska and old Judge Taney, and all the things Lincoln made so much of. I recollect Lincoln said one day that the way Douglas acted reminded him of a cuttle-fish throwin’ out a black ink to color up the water so he could git away from something that was chasin’ him.
Of course what made Douglas seem worse was Lincoln bein’ so fair and so dead in earnest. Sometimes it seemed as if he was givin’ the whole case away, he was so honest with Douglas. But he knew what he was doin’ every time. Lincoln was the kind that breaks to win. And serious, why he wouldn’t take time to tell a story. I recollect sayin’ to him one day, “Mr. Lincoln, why don’t you make us laugh sometimes?” “This ain’t no time for stories, Billy,” he says, “it’s too serious.”
Felt bad because he wa’n’t elected? Nope. Didn’t expect him to be. Somehow I’d got to feelin’ by the time election come that it didn’t make no real difference whether he went to the Senate or not. His goin’ there wa’n’t goin’ to settle the question. What was goin’ to settle it was gettin’ more people to feel as he did about it. If he got beat tryin’ to make people understand, it was worth a sight more to the country than his gettin’ elected dodgin’ the truth. I didn’t figure that out alone, though, it was Mr. Lincoln helped me to see that.
You see, after I’d made up my mind I’d vote the Republican ticket, one day when I was walkin’ down the street with him here in town and there wa’n’t nobody around I told him. He looks at me sharp-like and then he says, mighty solemn: “Billy, are you sure you know what you’re doin’? What’s the reason you’re leavin’ the party? ’Cause you want to see me git in?”
“No, sir,” I says, “that ain’t it at all. I’m a Democrat. Besides, I hate like all possessed to go back on Little Doug, you know what store I’ve always set by him. The reason I’m votin’ for you, Mr. Lincoln, is because you’ve got it right and nobody can git around it. Douglas is wrong. There ain’t nuthin’ else to do but vote for your side, much as I hate to.”
Well, sir, you never seen how he straightened up and how his eyes lit up like I’d seen ’em do when he was speakin’.
“Billy,” he says, “I’d ruther hear you say that than anything anybody could say. That’s what I’ve been tryin’ to do—to make people see it as I do. I believe I’ve got it figured out right, Billy. I’ve been at it night and day for four years, and I can’t find no mistake in my line of argument. What I want is to make people understand.”
“What bothers me, Mr. Lincoln,” I says, “is that I don’t believe you’ll git elected, even if you are right,” and then, sir, he throws back his head and just laffs right out loud. “Don’t worry, Billy, about that,” he says, “that don’t make no difference. I ain’t sayin’ I don’t want to go to the United States Senate—I do! Always have. When I quit politics in ’49 and made up my mind I wa’n’t goin’ to have another chanct to go to Congress or be anybody, I was miserable. But that’s all over. What’s important now in this country is makin’ people feel that slavery is wrong, that the South is bent on spreadin’ it and that we’ve got to stop ’em. Slavery is wrong, Billy, if it ain’t wrong nuthin’ is. We’ve got to fight against its spreadin’, and it’s goin’ to be a durable struggle. It don’t make no difference who gits office or who don’t. All that’s important is keepin’ on fightin’. Don’t you worry if I ain’t elected. The fight’s goin’ on.”