e mass meetings in the open air at important towns of
Illinois, taking turns in the right of opening the debate and replying
at its close; in addition each was speaking at meetings of his own at
least once a day for three months. At the end of it all Douglas had
won his seat in the Senate, and Lincoln had not yet gained recognition
among the Republican leaders as one of themselves. Nevertheless the
contest between Lincoln and Douglas was one of the decisive events in
American history, partly from the mere fact that at that particular
moment any one opposed Douglas at all; partly from the manner in which,
in the hearing of all America, Lincoln formulated the issue between
them; partly from the singular stroke by which he deliberately ensured
his own defeat and certain further consequences.

2. _The Principles and the Oratory of Lincoln_.

We can best understand the causes which suddenly made him a man of
national consequence by a somewhat close examination of the principles
and the spirit which governed all his public activity from the moment
of the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. The new Republican party
which then began to form itself stood for what might seem a simple
creed; slavery must be tolerated where it existed because the
Constitution and the maintenance of the Union required it, but it must
not be allowed to extend beyond its present limits because it was
fundamentally wrong. This was what most Whigs and many Democrats in
the North had always held, but the formulation of it as the platform of
a party, and a party which must draw its members almost entirely from
the North, was bound to raise in an acute form questions on which very
few men had searched their hearts. Men who hated slavery were likely
to falter and find excuses for yielding when confronted with the danger
to the Union which would arise. Men who loved the Union might in the
last resort be ready to sacrifice it if they could thereby be rid of
complicity with slavery, or might be unwilling to maintain it at the
cost of fratricidal war. The stress of conflicting emotions and the
complications of the political situation were certain to try to the
uttermost the faith of any Republican who was not very sure just how
much he cared for the Union and how much for freedom, and what loyalty
to either principle involved. It was the distinction of Lincoln--a man
lacking in much of the knowledge which statesmen are supposed to
possess, and capable