The Democratic party at this time was mostly in the South and the Whig party mostly in the North. Slavery was in the South, but not in the North. Naturally, therefore, the Democratic party favored slavery, and the Whig party, while it did not oppose slavery, yet did not favor it. You would think, under the circumstances, that Mr. Lincoln coming from the South, would have been a Democrat, and Mr. Douglas coming from the North would have been a Whig. But they each did the opposite. The Democratic party was in the majority in Illinois at this time and I presume Mr. Douglas, coming to the state, ambitious to succeed, thought he could best succeed if he went in with the popular party, for it had control of the offices and could give him a place and then advance him higher and higher as he proved his worth. After events proved that he was thus advanced and to very great honors.
When Mr. Lincoln was making a speech at Charleston, Illinois, one time, a man in the audience tried to ridicule him, and shouted out: "Say, Lincoln, when you came to Illinois, didn't you come barefoot and driving a yoke of oxen?"
Showing how coming poor from a slave state, he was helped to be what he was, by the free state of Illinois. Mr. Lincoln wound up the reply with these magnificent words:
"Yes, and we will speak for freedom and against slavery as long as the constitution of our country guarantees free speech, until everywhere on this wide land, the sun shall shine and the rain fall and the wind blow upon no man who goes forth to unrequited toil."
Thus you see Mr. Lincoln was opposed to slavery, and though he was as ambitious as Mr. Douglas and would have been glad to be on the successful and winning side so he could be advanced, he was nevertheless so strictly honest that he would not join the popular party because it endorsed slavery, and he was so determined to be strictly honest in his politics as well as everything else that he was willing to apparently throw away his chances of success and join the unpopular party because it did not endorse slavery, which he thought a wicked institution.
So these two young men started out. One went into the popular and successful party and succeeded with it. The other went into the unpopular and unsuccessful party and failed with it, yet did not fail, because he kept his principles. Mr. Douglas went on higher and higher in honors and fame and was United States senator a number of years. In the senate he ranked as one of the greatest statesmen of the day.
Mr. Lincoln was only a well-to-do lawyer, unknown out of Central Illinois. Twenty years after their start he thus wrote of it:
"Twenty years ago Douglas and I first became acquainted. We were both young then. 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."
By this you see he appreciated Mr. Douglas' honors, but would not accept them himself if to do so, he had to endorse slavery.
In 1858 Mr. Douglas was generally recognized as the ablest man in the Democratic party, and it was thought that two years later, he would be the Democratic nominee for president, and as the Democrats were in the majority he would certainly be the next president of the United States. Mr. Lincoln was not known much outside of Central Illinois, where he practiced law.