Douglas made his speech, according to notice, on the first day of the fair, Tuesday, October 3. "I will mention," said he, in his opening remarks, "that it is understood by some gentlemen that Mr. Lincoln, of this city, is expected to answer me. If this is the understanding, I wish that Mr. Lincoln would step forward and let us arrange some plan upon which to carry out this discussion." Mr. Lincoln was not there at the moment, and the arrangement could not then be made. Unpropitious weather had brought the meeting to the Representatives' Hall in the State House, which was densely packed. The next day found the same hall filled as before to hear Mr. Lincoln. Douglas occupied a seat just in front of him, and in his rejoinder he explained that "my friend Mr. Lincoln expressly invited me to stay and hear him speak to- day, as he heard me yesterday, and to answer and defend myself as best I could. I here thank him for his courteous offer." The occasion greatly equalized the relative standing of the champions. The familiar surroundings, the presence and hearty encouragement of his friends, put Lincoln in his best vein. His bubbling humor, his perfect temper, and above all the overwhelming current of his historical arraignment extorted the admiration of even his political enemies. "His speech was four hours in length" wrote one of these, "and was conceived and expressed in a most happy and pleasant style, and was received with abundant applause. At times he made statements which brought Senator Douglas to his feet, and then good-humored passages of wit created much interest and enthusiasm." All reports plainly indicate that Douglas was astonished and disconcerted at this unexpected strength of argument, and that he struggled vainly through a two hours' rejoinder to break the force of Lincoln's victory in the debate. Lincoln had hitherto been the foremost man in his district. That single effort made him the leader on the new question in his State.
The fame of this success brought Lincoln urgent calls from all the places where Douglas was expected to speak. Accordingly, twelve days afterwards, October 16, they once more met in debate, at Peoria. Lincoln, as before, gave Douglas the opening and closing speeches, explaining that he was willing to yield this advantage in order to secure a hearing from the Democratic portion of his listeners. The audience was a large one, but not so representative in its character as that at Springfield. The occasion was made memorable, however, by the fact that when Lincoln returned home he wrote out and published his speech. We have therefore the revised text of his argument, and are able to estimate its character and value. Marking as it does with unmistakable precision a step in the second period of his intellectual development, it deserves the careful attention of the student of his life.
After the lapse of more than a quarter of a century the critical reader still finds it a model of brevity, directness, terse diction, exact and lucid historical statement, and full of logical propositions so short and so strong as to resemble mathematical axioms. Above all it is pervaded by an elevation of thought and aim that lifts it out of the commonplace of mere party controversy. Comparing it with his later speeches, we find it to contain not only the argument of the hour, but the premonition of the broader issues into which the new struggle was destined soon to expand.
The main, broad current of his reasoning was to vindicate and restore the policy of the fathers of the country in the restriction of slavery; but running through this like a thread of gold was the demonstration of the essential injustice and immorality of the system. He said:
This declared indifference but, as I must think, covert zeal for the spread of slavery, I cannot but hate. I hate it because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself. I hate it because it deprives our republican example of its just influence in the world; enables the enemies of free institutions with plausibility to taunt us as hypocrites; causes the real friends of freedom to doubt our sincerity; and especially because it forces so many really good men among ourselves into an open war with the very fundamental principles of civil liberty, criticizing the Declaration of Independence and insisting that there is no right principle of action but self- interest.
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The doctrine of self-government is right,—absolutely and eternally right,—but it has no just application as here attempted. Or perhaps I should rather say that whether it has such just application, depends upon whether a negro is not, or is, a man. If he is not a man, in that case he who is a man may as a matter of self-government do just what he pleases with him. But if the negro is a man, is it not to that extent a total destruction of self-government to say that he too shall not govern himself? When the white man governs himself, that is self- government; but when he governs himself and also governs another man, that is more than self-government—that is despotism.
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What I do say is, that no man is good enough to govern another man without that other's consent.
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