Which was likely to win?
It might have been supposed at the outset that Lincoln would find himself overmatched. He was hardly known outside his own State, though he had served two years in Congress. Douglas was a statesman of national reputation. For fifteen years he had been in the thick of the conflict. He was a recognized leader of his party, and already he was looked upon as a probable President at no distant period. In scholastic training he was far ahead of Mr. Lincoln. He was a forcible speaker, an adroit and experienced politician, and his recognized position lent a certain weight to his words which his opponent could not claim.
But, admitting all this, Mr. Douglas found himself confronted by no inferior antagonist. Abraham Lincoln had a strong logical mind, quick to detect sophistry and bold to expose it. He had a fine command of language, a clear and pleasant voice, and a power of sarcasm which he used with powerful execution at times. This is the way in which an intelligent correspondent speaks of his speech at Galesburg:
“For about forty minutes he spoke with a power which we have seldom heard equalled. There was a grandeur in his thoughts, a comprehensiveness in his arguments, and a binding force in his conclusions, which were perfectly irresistible. The vast throng was silent as death, every eye was fixed upon the speaker, and all gave him serious attention. He was the tall man eloquent; his countenance glowed with animation, and his eye glistened with an intelligence that made it lustrous. He was no longer awkward and ungainly; but graceful, bold, and commanding.
“Mr. Douglas had been quietly smoking up to this time, but here he forgot his cigar and listened with anxious attention. When he rose to reply he appeared excited, disturbed, and his second effort seemed to us vastly inferior to his first. Mr. Lincoln had given him a great task, and Mr. Douglas had not time to answer him, even if he had the ability.”
Yet there were many points of resemblance between the two contestants. Both had been cradled in poverty, and had fought their way upward from obscurity to distinction. Douglas had climbed the higher, but the topmost round of the ladder on which he had for some time fixed longing eyes, he was destined never to mount. He had sacrificed much to reach the crowning distinction, but it was not for him. His awkward, ungraceful opponent, obscure in comparison with him, was destined to stride past him and sit in the coveted seat of power. But the smaller prize—the Senatorship—was won by Douglas, though Lincoln carried the popular vote.
CHAPTER XVII.
THE TWO GIANTS.
If I were writing a complete and exhaustive biography of Mr. Lincoln, I should be tempted to quote freely from the speeches made by both contestants in the memorable campaign which made Douglas a Senator, and his opponent the next President of the United States. But neither my space, nor the scope of my book, allows this. I will, however, quote, as likely to be of general interest, the personal description of Lincoln given by his distinguished rival:
“In the remarks I have made on this platform,” said Judge Douglas, “and the position of Mr. Lincoln upon it, I mean nothing personally disrespectful or unkind to that gentleman. I have known him for nearly twenty-five years. There were many points of sympathy between us when we first got acquainted. We were both comparatively boys, and both struggling with poverty in a strange land. I was a school-teacher in the town of Winchester, and he a flourishing grocery-keeper in the town of Salem. He was more successful in his occupation than I was in mine, and hence more fortunate in this world’s goods. Lincoln is one of those peculiar men who perform with admirable skill everything which they undertake. I made as good a school-teacher as I could, and when a cabinet-maker I made a good bedstead and tables, although my old boss said I succeeded better with bureaus and secretaries than with anything else; but I believe that Lincoln was always more successful in business than I, for his business enabled him to get into the Legislature. I met him there, however, and had a sympathy with him, because of the up-hill struggle we both had in life.
“He was then just as good at telling an anecdote as now. He could beat any of the boys in wrestling, or running a foot-race, in pitching quoits, or tossing a copper; could ruin more liquor than all the boys of the town together, and the dignity and impartiality with which he presided at a horse-race or a fist-fight, excited the admiration and won the praise of everybody that was present and participated. I sympathized with him because he was struggling with difficulties and so was I. Mr. Lincoln served with me in the Legislature in 1836, when we both retired, and he subsided, or became submerged, and he was lost sight of as a public man for some years. In 1846, when Wilmot introduced the celebrated proviso, and the Abolition tornado swept over the country, Lincoln again turned up as a Member of Congress from the Sangamon district. I was then in the Senate of the United States, and was glad to welcome my old friend and companion. While in Congress, he distinguished himself by his opposition to the Mexican war, taking the side of our common enemy against his own country; and when he returned home he found that the indignation of the people followed him everywhere, and he was again submerged, or obliged to retire into private life, forgotten by his former friends.”