g, he had, in the popular judgment, rather
worsted Mr. Lincoln. His greater familiarity with the arts if not
the tricks of the stump had given him an advantage. But now Mr.
Lincoln had the opening, and he threw Mr. Douglas upon the defensive
by the question which reached the very marrow of the controversy.
Mr. Lincoln had measured the force of his question, and saw the
dilemma in which it would place Douglas. Before the meeting he
said, in private, that "Douglas could not answer that question in
such way as to be elected both Senator and President. He might so
answer it as to carry Illinois, but, in doing so, he would
irretrievably injure his standing with the Southern Democracy."
Douglas quickly realized his own embarrassment. He could not, in
the face of the Supreme-Court decision, declare that the people of
the Territory could exclude slavery by direct enactment. To admit,
on the other hand, that slavery was fastened upon the Territories,
--past all hope of resistance or protest on the part of a majority
of the citizens--would be to concede the victory to Mr. Lincoln
without further struggle. Between these impossible roads Douglas
sought a third. He answered that, regardless of the decision of
the Supreme Court, "the people of a Territory have the lawful means
to introduce or exclude slavery as they choose, for the reason that
slavery cannot exist unless supported by local police regulations.
Those police regulations can only be established by the local
legislature; and, if the people are opposed to slavery, they will,
by unfriendly legislation, effectually prevent the introduction."

This was a lame, illogical, evasive answer; but it was put forth
by Douglas with an air of sincerity and urged in a tone of defiant
confidence. It gave to his supporters a plausible answer. But
Mr. Lincoln's analysis of the position was thorough, his ridicule
of it effective. Douglas's invention for destroying a right under
the Constitution by a police regulation was admirably exposed, and
his new theory that a thing "may be lawfully driven away from a
place where it has a lawful right to go" was keenly reviewed by
Mr. Lincoln. The debate of that day was the important one of the
series. Mr. Lincoln had secured an advantage in the national
relations of the contest which he held to the end. At the same
time Douglas had escaped a danger which threatened his destruction
in the State canvass, and secured his return to the Sena