, and thus we have a full record of the most
remarkable debate, viewed from all points, that has ever occurred
in American history--possibly without a parallel in the world's
history. Vast assemblages gathered from far and near and listened
with breathless attention to these absorbingly interesting
discussions.

Notwithstanding the intense partisan feeling that was evoked, the
discussion proceeded amidst surroundings characterized by the utmost
decorum. The people evidently felt that the greatest of all
political principles, that of human liberty itself, was hanging on
the issue of this great political contest between intellectual
giants, thus openly waged before the world. They accordingly rose
to the dignity and solemnity of the occasion, as has been well said
by one who was then a zealous follower of Douglas, vindicating by
their very example the sacredness with which the right of free
speech should be regarded at all times and everywhere.

I have elsewhere described the disappointment I personally felt at
the result, when the election returns came in. Although the popular
vote stood 125,698 for Lincoln to 121,130 for Douglas--showing a
victory for Lincoln among the people--yet enough Douglas Democrats
were elected to the Legislature, when added to those of his friends
in the Illinois Senate elected two years before and held over, to
give him fifty-four members of both branches of the Legislature on
joint ballot, against forty-six for Mr. Lincoln.

CHAPTER IV
OTHER DISTINGUISHED CHARACTERS OF THAT DAY
1858 and 1859

More than four months had elapsed since Lincoln's epoch-marking
speech at Springfield had brought on his great discussion with
Douglas, when on October 20, 1858, Governor Seward at Rochester,
New York, intensified the political inflammation of the times by
saying in a notable speech:

"These antagonistic systems (free labor and slave labor) are
continually coming close in contact. It is an irrepressible conflict
between opposing and enduring forces; and it means that the United
States must and will, sooner or later, become either an entirely
slave-holding or entirely a free-labor nation."

A book written by a young Southerner, "The Impending Crisis in the
South--How to Meet It," was recommended in a circular signed by a
large number of the Republican Congressmen, and thus given a vogue
and weight out of all proportion to the standing of the author,
whose recent death under tragic circumst