"It must be done!"
He was said to be, then, a fatalist, and so vented this command as if he believed "What must be, must be!" unlike the doubter who said: "No! what must be, won't be!" The Douglasites could not meet this change of base, and Trumbull became senator by the Lincolnites' coalition. Lincoln publicly disavowed any such formal compact.
A FIGHT PROVES NOTHING.
Stung by the repetition here in the West by Horace Greeley's quip upon Douglas, whose trimming lost him supporters, "He is like the man's pig which did not weigh as much as he expected, and he always knew he wouldn't," a partizan of the senator's wanted to challenge Lincoln. The latter declared that he would not fight Judge Douglas or his second.
"In the first place, a fight would prove nothing in issue in this contest. If my fighting Judge Douglas would not prove anything, it would prove nothing for me to fight his bottle-holder."
(It is to be borne in mind that the senator had a high reputation as a convivial host, and the toady was believed to be his familiar --"the Bottle Imp.")
"WIN THE FIGHT, OR DIE A-TRYING."
Though Douglas had his misgivings from knowing Lincoln is "the ablest of the Republican party," he was forced by his standing and the pressure of his less dubious followers to accept the oratorical challenge of the other. The trumpeteers at once boasted the Little Giant could make small feed of the animated fence-rail. Lincoln said on the subject to Judge Beckwith, of Danville, on the eve:
"You have seen two men about to fight? Well, one of them brags about what he means to do. The other fellow, he says not a word. He is saving his wind for the fight, and as sure as it comes off, he will win it--or die a-trying!"