all the issues, in short, which had divided
parties for a long series of years, and on which both speakers
entertained very decided views, were omitted from the discussion.
The public mind saw but one issue; every thing else was irrelevant.
At the first meeting, Douglas addressed a series of questions to
Mr. Lincoln, skillfully prepared and well adapted to entrap him in
contradictions, or commit him to such extreme doctrine as would
ruin his canvass. Mr. Lincoln's answers at the second meeting,
held at Freeport, were both frank and adroit. Douglas had failed
to gain a point by his resort to the Socratic mode of argument.
He had indeed only given Mr. Lincoln an opportunity to exhibit both
his candor and his skill. After he had answered, he assumed the
offensive, and addressed a series of questions to Mr. Douglas which
were constructed with the design of forcing the latter to an
unmistakable declaration of his creed. Douglas had been a party
to the duplex construction of the Cincinnati platform of 1856, in
which the people of the South had been comforted with the doctrine
that slavery was protected in the Territories by the Constitution
against the authority of Congress and against the power of the
Territorial citizens, until the period should be reached, when,
under an enabling act to form a constitution for a State government,
the majority might decide the question of slavery. Of this doctrine
Mr. Breckinridge was the Southern representative, and he had for
that very reason been associated with Mr. Buchanan on the Presidential
ticket. On the other hand, the North was consoled, it would not
be unfair to say cajoled, with the doctrine of popular sovereignty
as defined by Mr. Douglas; and this gave to the people of the
Territories the absolute right to settle the question of slavery
for themselves at any time. The doctrine had, however, been utterly
destroyed by the Dred Scott decision, and, to the confusion of all
lines of division and distinction, Mr. Douglas had approved the
opinion of the Supreme Court.

Douglas had little trouble in making answer in an _ad captandum_
manner to all Mr. Lincoln's questions save one. The crucial test
was applied when Mr. Lincoln asked him "if the people of a Territory
can, in any lawful way, against the wishes of any citizen of the
United States, exclude slavery from their limits prior to the
formation of a State constitution?" In the first debate, when
Douglas had the openin