“On the point of my wanting to make war between the free and the slave states, there has been no issue between us.  So too when he says that I am in favor of introducing a perfect social and political equality between the white and the black races.  These are false issues upon which Judge Douglas has tried to force the controversy.  There is no foundation in truth for the charges that I maintain either of these propositions.  The real issue in this controversy—­the one pressing upon every mind—­is the sentiment upon the part of one class that looks upon the institution of slavery as a wrong, and of another class that does not look upon it as a wrong.  The sentiment that contemplates the institution of slavery in this country as a wrong is the sentiment of the Republican party.  It is the sentiment around which all their actions, all their arguments, circle, from which all their propositions radiate.  That is the real issue.  That is the issue that will continue in this country when these poor tongues of Judge Douglas and myself shall be silenced.  It is the eternal struggle between these two principles—­right and wrong—­throughout the world.  They are the two principles that have stood face to face from the beginning of Time, and will ever continue to struggle.  The one is the common right of humanity and the other the divine right of kings.  It is the same spirit that says:  ‘You work and toil and earn bread, and I’ll eat it.’  No matter in what shape it comes, whether from the mouth of a king who seeks to bestride the people of his own nation and live by the fruit of their labor, or from one race of man as an apology for enslaving another race, it is the same tyrannical principle.”

What had come over Lincoln?  He was no longer awkward.  A divine grace permeated his being.  The October sun threw glory upon his brow, gave us a look into his deeply illuminated eyes, left nothing of the great nose and mouth but their strength, the sculptural impressiveness of stone features in the sides of hills.  What would Serafino think if he could hear this?

Then of a sudden I saw Pinturicchio in Lincoln’s face, the same gentleness along the sunken cheeks, the same imaginative glow in the whole countenance.  Here in this warped and homely face, this face out of the womb of poverty and sorrow, the winter loneliness of the forest, the humbleness and the want of the log cabin, the mystical yearning of humanity on the prairies and under the woodland stars, I saw for a swift moment in the glancing of the sun, as he uttered these words, the genius of the poet who knows and states, who has lived years of loneliness and failure, who has seen others grow rich, notable, and powerful, and who has remained obscure and unobeyed, with nothing but a vision which has become lightning at last in a supreme moment of inspiration.  Lincoln had had his hour whatever should befall him.

The debate was over—­the debates were over.  Reverdy and I walked away with the great crowd hurrahing for Douglas, a few hurrahing for Lincoln.