“Why can we not thus have peace?  Why should we allow a sectional party to agitate this country, to array the North against the South, and convert us into enemies instead of friends merely that a few ambitious men may ride into power on a sectional hobby?  How long is it since these ambitious northern men wished for a sectional organization?  Did any one of them dream of a sectional party as long as the North was the weaker section and the South the stronger?  Then all were opposed to sectional parties; but the moment the North obtained the majority in the House and in the Senate by the admission of California and could elect a President without the aid of southern votes, that moment ambitious men formed a scheme to excite the North against the South and make the people be governed in their votes by geographical lines, thinking that the North being the stronger section would outvote the South and consequently they, the leaders, would ride into office on a sectional hobby.  I am told that my hour is out.  It was very short.”

Short it was.  I thought he had just begun.  What would this strange creature now rising to six feet four inches of awkward angularity say in reply to this wonderful oration?  He opened his great mouth and spoke.  What is this?  A falsetto note, a piping instead of the musical thunder we have heard.  He poses strangely, his gestures shoot up and out like the arms of a dislocated clothes rack.  He rises on his toes with a quick springlike movement, as if he were a puppet loosened by a spring from a box.  He sways from side to side to give emphasis to his words.  His mouth opens to huge proportions in moments of excitement.  His black hair falls over his forehead.  His great nose sticks out like a signboard.  Is he scoring?

I know, for I have read the other debates.  He is wasting no words; he is meeting Douglas point by point, whether successfully or not.  He seemed embarrassed, diffident at first.  Why not?  He is fighting a giant; then there are ugly faces in the audience, men in drink, slave owners from Missouri, Democrats who hate sectionalism and loathe the rise of the Republican party.  Whispers are near me:  “He amounts to nothing.  Douglas has laid him out.  He is scared.  The Little Giant has choked him.”

But Lincoln goes on.  His earnestness deepens, his seriousness becomes more impressive.  His voice is carrying even though it pipes.  He has endurance, too, and courage and fighting will.  But Douglas has made it very difficult for him; indeed he has brought Lincoln to his terms on nearly everything—­all but the ‘house divided against itself’ doctrine; and the right and duty of Congress to keep slavery out of the territories.  These are issues between him and Douglas still; but is this the real issue after all?  He is nearly through.  He has been going on as if he were making a statement of a case.  It is interjected with argument; but it is largely statement of positions.  It is declaratory and follows the form of a poem, not an argument.  It assumes premises; he says “I think so.”  It has reason back of it, but it is the reason of things proven.  It is fortified by matters of general acceptance.  It has logic, but the logic of things existing inherently, not made.  And at last, more earnestly than before, he says: