his occupation than I was in mine, and hence more fortunate in the world’s goods.  Lincoln is one of those peculiar men who perform with admirable skill everything they undertake.  I made as good a school-teacher as I could, and when a cabinet-maker I made as good bedsteads and tables as I could—­although my old boss says that I succeeded better with bureaus and secretaries than with anything else.  But I believe that Lincoln was always more successful in business than I, for his business enabled him to get into the Legislature.  I met him there, however, and had a sympathy with him because of the up-hill struggle we both had had in life.  He was then just as good at telling an anecdote as now.  He could beat any of the boys in wrestling or running a foot-race, in pitching quoits or pitching a copper; and the dignity and impartiality with which he presided at a horse-race or fist-fight excited the admiration and won the praise of everybody that was present.  I sympathized with him because he was struggling with difficulties, and so was I. Mr. Lincoln served with me in the Legislature of 1836; then we both retired, and he subsided, or became submerged, and was lost sight of as a public man for some years.  In 1846, when Wilmot introduced his celebrated proviso, and the Abolition tornado swept over the country, Lincoln again turned up as a Member of Congress from the Sangamon district.  I was then in the Senate of the United States, and was glad to welcome my old friend.”

Lincoln, in a speech delivered two years before the joint debate, had spoken thus of Senator Douglas:  “Twenty-two years ago, Judge Douglas and I first became acquainted; we were both young then—­he a trifle younger than I. Even then, we were both ambitious—­I perhaps quite as much as he.  With me, the race of ambition has been a failure—­a flat failure; with him, it has been one of splendid success.  His name fills the nation, and is not unknown even in foreign lands.  I affect no contempt for the high eminence he has reached; so reached that the oppressed of my species might have shared with me in the elevation, I would rather stand on that eminence than wear the richest crown that ever pressed a monarch’s brow.”

A few days before the first discussion was to take place, Lincoln, who had become conscious that some of his party friends distrusted his ability to meet successfully a man who, as the Democrats declared and believed, had never had his equal on the stump, met an old friend from Vermilion County, and, shaking hands, inquired the news.  His friend replied, “All looks well; our friends are wide awake, but they are looking forward with some anxiety to these approaching joint discussions with Douglas.”  A shade passed over Lincoln’s face, a sad expression came and instantly passed, and then a blaze of light flashed from his eyes, and with his lips compressed and in a manner peculiar to him, half serious and half jocular, he said:  “My friend, sit down