It is in the midsummer of 1854 that we find him reappearing upon the stump in central Illinois. The rural population always welcomed his oratory, and he never lacked invitations to address the public. His first speeches on the new and all-absorbing topic were made in the neighboring towns, and in the counties adjoining his own. Towards the end of August the candidates for Congress in that district were, in Western phrase, "on the track." Richard Yates, afterwards one of the famous "war governors," sought a reelection as a Whig. Thomas L. Harris as a Douglas-Democrat strove to supplant him. Local politics became active, and Lincoln was sent for from all directions to address the people. When he went, however, he distinctly announced that he did not purpose to take up his time with this personal and congressional controversy. His intention was to discuss the principles of the Nebraska Bill.
Once launched upon this theme, men were surprised to find him imbued with an unwonted seriousness. They heard from his lips fewer anecdotes and more history. Careless listeners who came to laugh at his jokes were held by the strong current of his reasoning and the flashes of his earnest eloquence, and were lifted up by the range and tenor of his argument into a fresher and purer political atmosphere. The new discussion was fraught with deeper questions than the improvement of the Sangamon, protective tariffs, or the origin of the Mexican war. Down through incidents of, legislation, through history of government, even underlying cardinal maxims of political philosophy, it touched the very bedrock of primary human rights. Such a subject furnished material for the inborn gifts of the speaker, his intuitive logic, his impulsive patriotism, his pure and poetical conception of legal and moral justice.
Douglas, since his public rebuff at Chicago on September 1, had begun, after a few days of delay and rest, a tour of speech-making southward through the State. At these meetings he had at least a respectful hearing, and as he neared central Illinois the reception accorded him became more enthusiastic. The chief interest of the campaign finally centered in a sort of political tournament which took place at the capital, Springfield, during the first week of October; the State Agricultural Fair having called together great crowds, and among them the principal politicians of Illinois. This was Lincoln's home, in a strong Whig county, and in a section of the State where that party had hitherto found its most compact and trustworthy forces. As yet Lincoln had made but a single speech there on the Nebraska question. Of the Federal appointments under the Nebraska bill, Douglas secured two for Illinois, one of which, the office of surveyor-general of Kansas, was given to John Calhoun, the same man who, in the pioneer days twenty years before, was county surveyor in Sangamon and had employed Abraham Lincoln as his deputy. He was also the same who three years later received the sobriquet of "John Candlebox Calhoun," having acquired unenviable notoriety from his reputed connection with the "Cincinnati Directory" and "Candlebox" election frauds in Kansas, and with the famous Lecompton Constitution. Calhoun was still in Illinois doing campaign work in propagating the Nebraska faith. He was recognized as a man of considerable professional and political talent, and had made a speech in Springfield to which Lincoln had replied. It was, however, merely a casual and local affair and was not described or reported by the newspapers.
The meetings at the State Fair were of a different character. The audiences were composed of leading men from nearly all the counties of the State. Though the discussion of party questions had been going on all summer with more or less briskness, yet such was the general confusion in politics that many honest and intelligent voters and even leaders were still undecided in their opinions. The fair continued nearly a week. Douglas made a speech on the first day, Tuesday, October 3. Lincoln replied to him on the following day, October 4. Douglas made a rejoinder, and on that night and the succeeding day and night a running fire of debate ensued, in which John Calhoun, Judge Trumbull, Judge Sidney Breese, Colonel E. D. Taylor, and perhaps others, took part.
Douglas's speech was doubtless intended by him and expected by his friends to be the principal and the conclusive argument of the occasion. But by this time the Whig party of the central counties, though shaken by the disturbing features of the Nebraska question, had nevertheless reformed its lines, and assumed the offensive to which its preponderant numbers entitled it, and resolved not to surrender either its name or organization. In Sangamon County, its strongest men, Abraham Lincoln and Stephen T. Logan, were made candidates for the Legislature. The term of Douglas's colleague in the United States Senate, General James Shields, was about to expire, and the new Legislature would choose his successor. To the war of party principles was therefore added the incentive of a brilliant official prize. The Whigs were keenly alive to this chance and its influence upon their possible ascendency in the State.
Lincoln's Whig friends had therefore seen his reappearance in active discussion with unfeigned pleasure. Of old they knew his peculiar hold and influence upon the people and his party. His few speeches in the adjoining counties had shown them his maturing intellect, his expanding power in debate. Acting upon himself, this renewed practice on the stump crystallized his thought and brought method to his argument. The opposition newspapers had accused him of "mousing about the libraries in the State House." The charge was true. Where others were content to take statements at second hand, he preferred to verify citations as well as to find new ones. His treatment of his theme was therefore not only bold but original.
By a sort of common consent his party looked to him to answer Douglas's speech. This was no light task, and no one knew it better than Lincoln. Douglas's real ability was, and remains, unquestioned. In many qualities of intellect he was truly the "Little Giant" which popular fancy nicknamed him. It was no mere chance that raised the Vermont cabinet-maker's apprentice from a penniless stranger in Illinois in 1833 to a formidable competitor for supreme leadership in the great Democratic party of the nation in 1852. When after the lapse of a quarter of a century we measure him with the veteran chiefs whom he aspired to supplant, we see the substantial basis of his confidence and ambition. His great error of statesmanship aside, he stands forth more than the peer of associates who underrated his power and looked askance at his pretensions. In the six years of perilous party conflict which followed, every conspicuous party rival disappeared in obscurity, disgrace, or rebellion. Battling while others feasted, sowing where others reaped, abandoned by his allies and persecuted by his friends, Douglas alone emerged from the fight with loyal faith and unshaken courage, bringing with him through treachery, defeat, and disaster the unflinching allegiance and enthusiastic admiration of nearly three-fifths of the rank and file of the once victorious army of Democratic voters at the north. He had not only proved himself their most gallant chief, but as a final crown of merit he led his still powerful contingent of followers to a patriotic defense of the Constitution and government which some of his compeers put into such mortal jeopardy.
We find him here at the beginning of this severe conflict in the full flush of hope and ambition. He was winning in personal manner, brilliant in debate, aggressive in party strategy. To this he added an adroitness in evasion and false logic perhaps never equaled, and in his defense of the Nebraska measure this questionable but convenient gift was ever his main reliance. Besides, his long official career gave to his utterances the stamp and glitter of oracular statesmanship. But while Lincoln knew all Douglas's strong points he was no less familiar with his weak ones. They had come to central Illinois about the same time, and had in a measure grown up together. Socially they were on friendly terms; politically they had been opponents for twenty years. At the bar, in the Legislature, and on the stump they had often met and measured strength. Each therefore knew the temper of the other's steel no less than every joint in his armor.
It was a peculiarity of the early West—perhaps it pertains to all primitive communities—that the people retained a certain fragment of the chivalric sentiment, a remnant of the instinct of hero-worship. As the ruder athletic sports faded out, as shooting-matches, wrestling- matches, horse-races, and kindred games fell into disuse, political debate became, in a certain degree, their substitute. But the principle of championship, while it yielded high honor and consideration to the victor, imposed upon him the corresponding obligation to recognize every opponent and accept every challenge. To refuse any contest, to plead any privilege, would be instant loss of prestige. This supreme moment in Lincoln's career, this fateful turning of the political tide, found him fully prepared for the new battle, equipped by reflection and research to permit himself to be pitted against the champion of Democracy—against the very author of the raging storm of parties; and it displays his rare self-confidence and consciousness of high ability, to venture to attack such an antagonist.
[Sidenote: Correspondence of the "Missouri Republican," October 6, 1854.]