Stephen could understand likewise the vehemence of the Republican leaders who crowded around their candidate and tried to get him to retract that Question.  He listened quietly, he answered with a patient smile.  Now and then he threw a story into the midst of this discussion which made them laugh in spite of themselves.  The hopelessness of the case was quite plain to Mr. Hill, who smiled, and whispered in Stephen’s ear:  “He has made up his mind.  They will not budge him an inch, and they know it.”

Finally Mr. Lincoln took the scrap of paper, which was even more dirty and finger-marked by this time, and handed it to Mr. Hill.  The train was slowing down for Freeport.  In the distance, bands could be heard playing, and along the track, line upon line of men and women were cheering and waving.  It was ten o’clock, raw and cold for that time of the year, and the sun was trying to come out.

“Bob,” said Mr. Lincoln, “be sure you get that right in your notes.  And, Steve, you stick close to me, and you’ll see the show.  Why, boys,” he added, smiling, “there’s the great man’s private car, cannon and all.”

All that Stephen saw was a regular day-car on a sidetrack.  A brass cannon was on the tender hitched behind it.

CHAPTER V

THE CRISIS

Stephen A. Douglas, called the Little Giant on account of his intellect, was a type of man of which our race has had some notable examples, although they are not characteristic.  Capable of sacrifice to their country, personal ambition is, nevertheless, the mainspring of their actions.  They must either be before the public, or else unhappy.  This trait gives them a large theatrical strain, and sometimes brands them as adventurers.  Their ability saves them from being demagogues.

In the case of Douglas, he had deliberately renewed some years before the agitation on the spread of slavery, by setting forth a doctrine of extreme cleverness.  This doctrine, like many others of its kind, seemed at first sight to be the balm it pretended, instead of an irritant, as it really was.  It was calculated to deceive all except thinking men, and to silence all save a merciless logician.  And this merciless logician, who was heaven-sent in time of need, was Abraham Lincoln.

Mr. Douglas was a juggler, a political prestidigitateur.  He did things before the eyes of the Senate and the nation.  His balm for the healing of the nation’s wounds was a patent medicine so cleverly concocted that experts alone could show what was in it.  So abstruse and twisted were some of Mr. Douglas’s doctrines that a genius alone might put them into simple words, for the common people.