champions, beginning shortly after the Bloomington Convention, was altogether without a parallel in the history of American politics. The friends of Senator Douglas planned that his tour of the State should take on something of the semblance of a triumphal procession, with thronged receptions, artillery salutes, banners, and music. It began at Chicago on July 9th, but the effect of the speech made by Douglas to the vast assembly which greeted him was diminished by that of a rejoinder uttered by Lincoln in the same place the next day to as large an audience. At Springfield, the speech of Senator Douglas, July 16th, was replied to by his adversary on the evening of the same day. Both of them had made other speeches than these, but the Little Giant felt that he was challenged in a manner which he could not avoid. It came to him in written form on July 24th, and a conference resulted in an agreement that the two contestants should not interfere with each other's oratory except at public meetings in seven specified towns of Illinois. These were selected with reference to population of districts and the convenience of the crowds who were anxious to hear those debates.

At each place named, the speaker opening the debate was entitled to an hour, his adversary then to an hour and a half in reply, and the first speaker to half an hour in closing. Douglas was to have the first opening at Ottawa, Lincoln the next at Freeport, and so on alternately. With the help of reporters and of the public press, the entire nation was quickly added to the audience of those debates.

On each side was a perfect master of the history, the law, and the argument available for the support of his position. The great fame of Senator Douglas had in it nothing accidental, for it was well earned, and nobody was surprised that he now surpassed his previous record as an orator. The reputation of Mr. Lincoln, however, was more recent, and less extended, and many who heard, and the great majority of those who afterward read his addresses and responses, were astonished to find that the brilliant Democratic leader had met with more than his match in oratorical force. In each successive combat the positions taken by Senator Douglas received such damaging blows that he might well be glad when all was ended, and he could make his remaining speeches without any immediate response from Abraham Lincoln. Both of them worked industriously during the intervals between their joint meetings. Prior to the debate at Freeport, Mr. Lincoln prepared a series of questions to propound to Mr. Douglas any possible answer to which must bring out more clearly the precise doctrine held by him upon the subject of slavery in the Territories. With reference to the points contained in these questions, the Democratic Party shortly split in two, Mr. Douglas was defeated for the Presidency, and the election of a Republican candidate, for instance Mr. Lincoln, became possible. They were as follows:

"Question 1. If the people of Kansas shall, by means entirely unobjectionable in all other respects, adopt a State Constitution, and ask admission into the Union under it, before they have the

requisite number of inhabitants according to the English bill, some nine thousand three hundred, will you vote to admit them?

"Q. 2. Can the people of a United States Territory, in any lawful way, against the wish of any citizen of the United States, exclude slavery from its limits prior to the formation of a State Constitution?

"Q. 3. If the Supreme Court of the United States shall decide that States cannot exclude slavery from their limits, are you in favor of acquiescing in, adopting, and following such decision as a rule of political action?

"Q. 4. Are you in favor of acquiring additional territory in disregard of how such acquisition may affect the nation on the slavery question ?"

Each of these inquiries had in it something fatal. to the aspirations of any statesman who might desire the support of both wings of the Democratic Party. He could not hope to retain the men who favored the purchase and annexation of slaveholding Cuba, for instance, and at the same time keep the good-will of any other man who considered the area of slavery already large enough.

The most important points raised were manfully met by Senator Douglas. He said: "In my opinion, the people of a Territory can by lawful means exclude slavery from their limits prior to the formation of a State Constitution. . . It matters not what way the Supreme Court may hereafter decide as to the abstract question whether slavery may or may not go into a Territory under the Constitution. The people have the lawful means to introduce it or exclude it as they please, for the reason that slavery cannot exist a day or an hour anywhere, unless it is supported by police regulations. Those

police regulations can only be established by the local Legislature."

He had himself been instrumental in setting aside. a national "police regulation," known as the Missouri Compromise, but into these few sentences he had condensed a direct denial of the Calhoun doctrine, the declared position of President Buchanan and the Southern leaders, and many of the Northern leaders of the Democratic Party. His antislavery extension friends in Illinois were enabled to stand by him for a time, but the full effect of Mr. Lincoln's questions, and the answers given, could not be fully understood prior to the meeting of the next National Democratic Convention.

Very nearly did Mr. Lincoln succeed in overcoming the tremendous odds which he had confronted at Bloomington. His own party rallied better and better behind him after each of those great debates. Election day came, and when the ballots were counted it was found that one hundred and twentyfive thousand four hundred and thirty men had voted for Lincoln candidates for the State Legislature, electing forty-six members. One hundred and twenty-one thousand six hundred and nine had voted for Douglas candidates, electing, owing to unequal distribution of population, fifty-four members. Five thousand and seventy-one Buchanan voters had not elected anybody, but had aided the Republicans to carry their entire list of State officers, from governor down. When the Legislature assembled in January, 1859, Mr. Douglas was duly chosen Senator of the United States from Illinois.

Shortly afterward Mr. Lincoln wrote to a personal friend: "I am glad I made the late race. It gave me a hearing on the great and durable question of the age, which I could have had in no other way; and though I now sink out of view and shall be forgotten, I believe I have made some marks which will tell for the cause of liberty long after I am gone."