d become a master, and his
position, to judge from the class of cases entrusted to him, was second
to none in Illinois. To that severe yet wholesome cast of mind which
the law establishes in men naturally lofty, Lincoln added the
tonic influence of a sense of style--not the verbal acrobatics of a
rhetorician, but that power to make words and thought a unit which
makes the artist of a man who has great ideas. How Lincoln came by this
literary faculty is, indeed, as puzzling as how Burns came by it. But
there it was, disciplined by the court room, made pungent by familiarity
with plain people, stimulated by constant reading of Shakespeare, and
chastened by study of the Bible.

It was arranged that Douglas and Lincoln should tour the State together
in a series of joint debates. As a consequence there followed a most
interesting opposition of methods in the use of words, a contest between
the method formed in Congress at a time when Congress was a perfect
rhetorical academy, and that method of using words which was based on
an arduous study of Blackstone, Shakespeare, and Isaiah. Lincoln issued
from the debates one of the chief intellectual leaders of America, and
with a place in English literature; Douglas came out a Senator from
Illinois.

But though Douglas kept his following together, and though Lincoln was
voted down, to Lincoln belonged the real strategic victory. In order
to save himself with his own people, Douglas had been forced to make
admissions that ruined him with the South. Because of these admissions
the breach in the party of political evasion became irreparable. It was
in the debate at Freeport that Douglas's fate overtook him, for Lincoln
put this question: "Can the people of a United States territory, in
any lawful way, against the wish of any citizen of the United States,
exclude slavery from its limits, prior to the formation of a state
constitution?"

Douglas answered in his best style of political thunder. "It matters
not," he said, "what way the Supreme Court may hereafter decide as to
the abstract question whether slavery may or may not go into a territory
under the Constitution; the people have the lawful means to introduce it
or exclude it as they please, for the reason that slavery cannot exist
a day or an hour anywhere unless it is supported by local police
regulations. Those police regulations can only be established by the
local legislatures; and if the people are opposed to slavery, they