If Lincoln was “surprised and annoyed” at the treatment he received from Stanton, the latter was no less surprised, and a good deal more disgusted, on seeing Lincoln and learning of his connection with the case.  He made no secret of his contempt for the “long, lank creature from Illinois,” as he afterwards described him, “wearing a dirty linen duster for a coat, on the back of which the perspiration had splotched wide stains that resembled a dirty map of the continent.”  He blurted out his wrath and indignation to his associate counsel, declaring that if “that giraffe” was permitted to appear in the case he would throw up his brief and leave it.  Lincoln keenly felt the affront, but his great nature forgave it so entirely that, recognizing the singular abilities of Stanton beneath his brusque exterior, he afterwards, for the public good, appointed him to a seat in his cabinet.

Lincoln, says Mr. Dickson, “remained in Cincinnati about a week, moving freely about.  Yet not twenty men in the city knew him personally, or knew he was here; not a hundred would have known who he was had his name been given to them.  He came with the fond hope of making fame in a forensic contest with Reverdy Johnson.  He was pushed aside, humiliated and mortified.  He attached to the innocent city the displeasure that filled his bosom, and shook its dust from his feet.”

In his Autobiography, Moncure D. Conway records a glimpse of Lincoln during his Cincinnati visit that seems worth transcribing.  “One warm evening in 1859, passing through the market-place in Cincinnati, I found there a crowd listening to a political speech in the open air.  The speaker stood on the balcony of a small brick house, some lamps assisting the moonlight.  Something about the speaker, and some words that reached me, led me to press nearer.  I asked the speaker’s name, and learned that it was Abraham Lincoln.  Browning’s description of the German professor, ‘Three parts sublime to one grotesque,’ was applicable to this man.  The face had a battered and bronzed look, without being hard.  His nose was prominent, and buttressed a strong and high forehead.  His eyes were high-vaulted, and had an expression of sadness; his mouth and chin were too close together, the cheeks hollow.  On the whole, Lincoln’s appearance was not attractive until one heard his voice, which possessed variety of expression, earnestness, and shrewdness in every tone.  The charm of his manner was that he had no manner; he was simple, direct, humorous.  He pleasantly repeated a mannerism of his opponent,—­’This is what Douglas calls his ’gur-reat per-rinciple.’ But the next words I remember were these:  ‘Slavery is wrong.’”

CHAPTER XI

The Great Lincoln-Douglas Debate—­Rivals for the U.S.  Senate—­Lincoln’s “House-Divided-against-Itself” Speech—­An Inspired Oration—­Alarming His Friends—­Challenges Douglas to a Joint Discussion—­The Champions Contrasted—­Their Opinions of Each Other—­Lincoln and Douglas on the Stump—­Slavery the Leading Issue—­Scenes and Anecdotes of the Great Debate—­Pen-Picture of Lincoln on the Stump—­Humors of the Campaign—­Some Sharp Rejoinders—­Words of Soberness—­Close of the Conflict.