By all this it is made entirely evident that Lincoln held a faith widely different from that of the great crusading leaders of Abolitionism at the East.[84] Equally marked was the difference between him and them in the matters of temper and of the attitude taken towards opponents.  The absence of any sense of personal hostility towards those who assailed him with unsparing vindictiveness was a trait often illustrated in his after life, and which was now noted with surprise, for it was rare in the excited politics of those days.  In this especial campaign both contestants honestly intended to refrain from personalities, but the difference between their ways of doing so was marked.  Douglas, under the temptation of high ability in that line, held himself in check by an effort which was often obvious and not always entirely successful.  But Lincoln never seemed moved by the desire.  “All I have to ask,” he said, “is that we talk reasonably and rationally;” and again:  “I hope to deal in all things fairly with Judge Douglas.”  No innuendo, no artifice, in any speech, gave the lie to these protestations.  Besides this, his denunciations were always against slavery, and never against slaveholders.  The emphasis of condemnation, the intensity of feeling, were never expended against persons.  By this course, unusual among the Abolitionists, he not only lost nothing in force and impressiveness, but, on the contrary, his attack seemed to gain in effectiveness by being directed against no personal object, but exclusively against a practice.  His war was against slavery, not against the men and women of the South who owned slaves.  At Ottawa he read from the Peoria speech of 1854:  “I have no prejudice against the Southern people.  They are just what we would [should] be in their situation.  If slavery did not now exist among them, they would not introduce it.  If it did now exist among us, we should not instantly give it up....  It does seem to me that systems of gradual emancipation might be adopted; but for their tardiness in this, I will not undertake to judge our brethren of the South.”  Repeatedly he admitted the difficulty of the problem, and fastened no blame upon those Southerners who excused themselves for not expelling the evil on the ground that they did not know how to do so.  At Peoria he said:  “If all earthly power were given me, I should not know what to do as to the existing institution.”  He contributed some suggestions which certainly were nothing better than chimerical.  Deportation to Africa was his favorite scheme; he also proposed that it would be “best for all concerned to have the colored population in a State by themselves.”  But he did not abuse men who declined to adopt his methods.  Though he was dealing with a question which was arousing personal antagonisms as bitter as any that history records, yet he never condemned any one, nor ever passed judgment against his fellow men.