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A
 L
.
If one reads the life of Abraham Lincoln they are thoroughly convinced
that the possibilities of our country are indeed very great. He was born in
Hardin county, Kentucky, on the 14th day of February, 1809, of very poor
parents, who lived in a log cabin.
Scarcely a boy in the country will read these lines but has tenfold the
opportunity to succeed in the world as had Abraham Lincoln. When he was
still a little boy his parents moved to Indiana, which was then a wilderness.
Here, in a log cabin, he learned to read under the tuition of his mother and
afterward received nearly a year's schooling at another log cabin a mile
away,—nearly a year's schooling and all the schooling he ever received
from a tutor!
But he loved books, he craved knowledge and eagerly did he study the
few books which fell in his way. He kept a scrap-book into which he copied
the striking passages and this practice enabled him to gain an education.
Here he grew up, becoming famous for his great strength and agility; he
was six foot four inches in his stockings and was noted as the most skillful
wrestler in the country. When he was about twenty years old the Lincoln
family moved to Illinois, settling ten miles from Decatur, where they
cleared about fifteen acres and built a log cabin. Here is where Lincoln
gained his great reputation as a rail-splitter. He had kept up his original
system of reading and sketching, and from this period in his life he became
a marked man—he was noted for his information. It makes little difference
whether knowledge is gained in college or by the side of a pile of rails, as
Lincoln was wont to study after his day's work was done.
In 1830 he took a trip on a flat-boat to New Orleans. It was on this trip
that he first saw slaves chained together and whipped. Ever after, he
detested the institution of slavery. Upon his return he received a challenge
from a famous wrestler; he accepted and threw his antagonist. About this

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time he became a clerk in a country store, where his honesty and square
dealing made him a universal favorite, and earned for him the sobriquet of
'Honest Abe.' He next entered the Black Hawk war, and was chosen captain
of his company. Jefferson Davis also served as an officer in this war. In the
fall of 1832 he was a candidate for the legislature, but was defeated. He
then opened a store with a partner named Berry. Lincoln was made
postmaster, but Berry proved a drunkard and spendthrift, bringing the
concern to bankruptcy, and soon after died, to fill a drunkard's grave,
leaving Lincoln to pay all the debts. But during all this time Lincoln had
been improving his spare moments learning surveying, and for the next few
years he earned good wages surveying.
He now decided to become a lawyer, and devoted his attention, so far as
possible, to the accumulation of a thorough knowledge. At one period
during his studies he walked, every Saturday, to Springfield, some eight
miles away, to borrow and return books pertaining to his studies. These
books he studied nights, and early in the morning, out of working hours. In
1834 he was once more a candidate for the legislature, and was
triumphantly elected, being re-elected in 1836, 1838, and 1840. In 1837,
when he had arrived at the age of twenty-eight, he was admitted to the bar,
where he soon became noted as a very successful pleader before a jury. He
was a Whig of the Henry Clay school, a splendid lawyer, and a ready
speaker at public gatherings.
In 1836 he first met Stephen A. Douglas who was destined to be his
adversary in the political arena for the next twenty years. Stephen A.
Douglas was, or soon became the leader of the Democracy in Illinois and
Lincoln spoke for the Whigs as against Douglas. In 1847 Lincoln was sent
to Congress, being chosen over the renowned Peter Cartwright, who was
the Democratic candidate. In Congress he vigorously opposed President
Polk and the Mexican war, and proposed a bill to abolish slavery in the
District of Columbia, provided the inhabitants would vote for it. In 1855 he
withdrew from the contest for the United States Senatorship in favor of Mr.
Trumbull, whom he knew would draw away many Democratic votes and to
Lincoln was due Trumbull's election. During the canvass he met Stephen A.
Douglas in debate at Springfield, where he exploded the theory of 'Squatter

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Sovereignty' in one sentence, namely: "I admit that the emigrant to Kansas
and Nebraska is competent to govern himself, but I deny his right to govern
any other person without that person's consent."
In 1858 he had his great contest for the United States Senatorship with
Douglas. At that time Judge Douglas was renowned throughout the nation
as one of the ablest, if not the ablest of American speakers. Horace Greeley
well said, "The man who stumps a State with Stephen A. Douglas and
meets him day after day before the people has got to be no fool." The
tremendous political excitement growing out of the 'Kansas-Nebraska Act,'
and the agitation of the slavery question, in its relation to the vast territory
of Kansas and Nebraska, convulsed the nation. The interest was greatly
heightened from the fact that these two great gladiators, Stephen A.
Douglas, the great mouth-piece of the Democratic party and champion of
'Squatter Sovereignty,' and Abraham Lincoln, a prominent lawyer, but
otherwise comparatively unknown, the opponent of that popular measure
and the coming champion of the anti-slavery party.
The question at issue was immense—permanent, not transient—universal,
not local, and the debate attracted profound attention on the part of the
people, whether Democratic or Free Soil, from the Kennebec to the Rio
Grande. Mr. Douglas held that the vote of the majority of the people of a
territory should decide this as well as all other questions concerning their
domestic or internal affairs. Mr. Lincoln, on the contrary, urged the
necessity of an organic enactment, excluding slavery in any form—this last
to be the condition of its admission into the Union as a State. The public
mind was divided and the utterances and movements of every public man
were closely scanned. Finally, after the true western style, a joint
discussion, face to face, between Lincoln and Douglas, as the two
representative leaders, was proposed and agreed upon. It was arranged that
they should have seven great debates, one each at Ottawa, Freeport,
Charleston, Jonesboro, Galesburg, Quincy, and Alton.
Processions and cavalcades, bands of music and cannon-firing made every
day a day of excitement. But the excitement was greatly intensified from
the fact that the oratorical contests were between two such skilled debaters,
before mixed audiences of friends and foes, to rejoice over every keen

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thrust at the adversary, and again to be cast down by each failure to 'give
back as good,' or to parry the thrust so aimed.
In personal appearance, voice, gesture and general platform style, nothing
could exceed the dissimilarity of these two speakers. Mr. Douglas possessed
a frame or build particularly attractive; a natural presence which would
have gained for him access to the highest circles, however courtly, in any
land; a thickset, finely built, courageous man, with an air as natural to him
as breath, of self-confidence that did not a little to inspire his supporters
with hope. That he was every inch a man no friend or foe ever questioned.
Ready, forceful, animated, keen, playful, by turns, and thoroughly artificial;
he was one of the most admirable platform speakers that ever appeared
before an American audience, his personal geniality, too, being so
abounding that, excepting in a political sense, no antagonism existed
between him and his opponent.
Look at Lincoln. In personal appearance, what a contrast to his renowned
opponent. Six feet and four inches high, long, lean and wiry in motion; he
had a good deal of the elasticity and awkwardness which indicated the
rough training of his early life; his face genial looking, with good humor
lurking in every corner of its innumerable angles. Judge Douglas once said,
"I regard Lincoln as a kind, amiable and intelligent gentleman, a good
citizen and an honorable opponent." As a speaker he was ready, precise,
fluent and his manner before a popular assembly was just as he pleased to
make it; being either superlatively ludicrous or very impressive. He
employed but little gesticulation but when he desired to make a point
produced a shrug of the shoulders, an elevation of the eyebrows, a
depression of his mouth and a general malformation of countenance so
comically awkward that it scarcely ever failed to 'bring down the house.'
His enunciation was slow and distinct, and his voice though sharp and
piercing at times had a tendency to dwindle into a shrill and unpleasant
tone. In this matter of voice and commanding attitude, the odds were
decidedly in favor of Judge Douglas.
Arrangements having been consummated, the first debate took place at
Ottawa, in Lasalle county, and a strong Republican district. The crowd in
attendance was a large one, and about equally divided—the enthusiasm of

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the Democracy having brought more than a due proportion of their numbers
to hear and see their favorite leader. The thrilling tones of Douglas, his
manly defiance against the principles he believed to be wrong assured his
friends, if any assurance were wanting, that he was the same unconquered
and unconquerable Democrat that he had proved to be for the previous
twenty-five years.
Douglas opened the discussion and spoke one hour; Lincoln followed, the
time assigned him being an hour and a half, though he yielded a portion of
it. It was not until the second meeting, however, that the speakers grappled
with those profound public questions that had thus brought them together,
and in which the nation was intensely interested. The debates were a
wonderful exhibition of power and eloquence.
In the first debate Mr. Douglas arraigned his opponent for the expression
in a former speech of a "House divided against itself," etc.,—referring to
the slavery and anti-slavery sections of the country; and Mr. Lincoln
defended those ideas as set forth in the speech referred to. As Mr. Lincoln's
position in relation to one or two points growing out of the former speech
referred to, had attracted great attention throughout the country, he availed
himself of the opportunity of this preliminary meeting to reply to what he
regarded as common misconceptions. "Anything," he said, "that argues me
into the idea of perfect social and political equality with the negro is but a
specious and fantastic arrangement of words, by which a man can prove a
horse-chestnut to be a chestnut horse. I will say here, while upon this
subject, that I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the
institution of slavery in the States where it now exists. I believe I have no
lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so. I have no purpose
to introduce political and social equality between the white and black races.
There is a physical difference between the two which, in my judgment, will
probably forever forbid their living together upon a footing of perfect
equality, and inasmuch as it becomes a matter of necessity that there must
be a difference I, as well as Judge Douglas, am in favor of the race to which
I belong, having the superior position. I have never said anything to the
contrary, but I hold that notwithstanding all this, there is no reason in the
world why the negro is not entitled to all the natural rights enumerated in

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the Declaration of Independence—the right to life, liberty, and the pursuits
of happiness. I hold that he is as much entitled to these as the white man. I
agree with Judge Douglas he is not my equal in many respects—certainly
not in color, perhaps not in moral and intellectual endowment. But in the
right to eat the bread without the leave of any one else, which his own hand
earns, he is my equal, and the equal of Judge Douglas, and the equal of
every living man."
Touching the question of respect or weight of opinion due to deliverance
of the United States Supreme Court—an element which entered largely into
this national contest, Mr. Lincoln said: "This man—Douglas—sticks to a
decision which forbids the people of a territory from excluding slavery, and
he does so, not because he says it is right in itself—he does not give any
opinion on that, but because it has been decided by the Court, and being
decided by the Court, he is, and you are bound to take it in your political
action as law; not that he judges at all of its merits, but because a decision
of the Court is to him a 'Thus saith the Lord.' He places it on that ground
alone, and you will bear in mind that thus committing himself unreservedly
to this decision, commits him to the next one just as firmly as to this. He did
not commit himself on account of the merit or demerit of the decision, but
is a 'Thus saith the Lord.' The next decision, as much as this, will be a 'Thus
saith the Lord.' There is nothing that can divert or turn him away from this
decision. It is nothing that I point out to him that his great prototype,
General Jackson, did not believe in the binding force of decisions—it is
nothing to him that Jefferson did not so believe. I have said that I have often
heard him approve of Jackson's course in disregarding the decision of the
Supreme Court, pronouncing a national bank unconstitutional. He says: I
did not hear him say so; he denies the accuracy of my recollection. I say he
ought to know better than I, but I will make no question about this thing,
though it still seems to me I heard him say it twenty times. I will tell him,
though, that he now claims to stand on the Cincinnati platform which
affirms that Congress