gathered from far and near and listened with breathless attention to these absorbingly interesting discussions.

Notwithstanding the intense partisan feeling that was evoked, the discussion proceeded amidst surroundings characterized by the utmost decorum. The people evidently felt that the greatest of all political principles, that of human liberty itself, was hanging on the issue of this great political contest between intellectual giants, thus openly waged before the world. They accordingly rose to the dignity and solemnity of the occasion, as has been well said by one who was then a zealous follower of Douglas, vindicating by their very example the sacredness with which the right of free speech should be regarded at all times and everywhere.

I have elsewhere described the disappointment I personally felt at the result, when the election returns came in. Although the popular vote stood 125,698 for Lincoln to 121,130 for Douglas—showing a victory for Lincoln among the people—yet enough Douglas Democrats were elected to the Legislature, when added to those of his friends in the Illinois Senate elected two years before and held over, to give him fifty-four members of both branches of the Legislature on joint ballot, against forty-six for Mr. Lincoln.

CHAPTER IV OTHER DISTINGUISHED CHARACTERS OF THAT DAY 1858 and 1859

More than four months had elapsed since Lincoln's epoch-marking speech at Springfield had brought on his great discussion with Douglas, when on October 20, 1858, Governor Seward at Rochester, New York, intensified the political inflammation of the times by saying in a notable speech:

"These antagonistic systems (free labor and slave labor) are continually coming close in contact. It is an irrepressible conflict between opposing and enduring forces; and it means that the United States must and will, sooner or later, become either an entirely slave-holding or entirely a free-labor nation."

A book written by a young Southerner, "The Impending Crisis in the South—How to Meet It," was recommended in a circular signed by a large number of the Republican Congressmen, and thus given a vogue and weight out of all proportion to the standing of the author, whose recent death under tragic circumstances at an advanced age has drawn the name of Hinton Rowan Helper for a brief hour from its long obscurity.

"Dred, a Tale of the Dismal Swamp," by the author of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," served, if such service were at all needed, to keep fresh in all civilized lands the name of Harriet Elizabeth Beecher Stowe. The British Museum has a long shelf filled with different translations, editions, and versions of her greatest literary work.

In the month of September Mr. Lincoln delivered a speech at Cincinnati, in reply to Mr. Douglas. In that speech he addressed himself to the citizens of Kentucky, and advocated the nomination of Mr. Douglas to the Presidency, upon the ground that he was more devoted to the South than were the Southern leaders themselves, and that he was wiser in methods for defending their rights.

This was a form of attack which Douglas had not anticipated, and which he could neither resent nor answer. As the event proved, the seed thus sown was to bear fruit abundantly in results at the ensuing National Democratic conventions, and at the Presidential election two years later. Until June, Mr. Lincoln was unknown outside of Illinois and Indiana. Judge Douglas had already taken a high place among the able men of his time of national and international reputation. In September, Lincoln's character was understood and his ability was recognized in all the non-slaveholding States of the Union. His mastery over Douglas had been complete. His logic was unanswerable, his ridicule fatal; every position taken by him was defended successfully. At the end Douglas had but one recourse. He misstated Lincoln's positions, and then assailed them.

But Lincoln was ever on the alert to expose his opponent's fallacies, and to hold up the author to the derision or condemnation of his hearers.

Mr. Lincoln's first fame rests, therefore, on that great debate. Judge Douglas had long been famous as an experienced politician and an exceptionally skilful debater. As lawyers both ranked high in their State at a time when the bar of Illinois could boast of exceptionally brilliant and able forensic talent.

As it is my purpose to treat of both these great men in some detail in subsequent pages of this work, devoting at least a full chapter to Mr. Lincoln, so long my admired and never failing friend, I shall now proceed to give some personal recollections concerning certain other of the distinguished characters of that day, chiefly those connected with the bar.

I knew Judge David Davis very well. He was Circuit Judge on our State circuit for a number of years, and until Mr. Lincoln became President, when he was made Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. When a young lawyer Davis was a Whig; and my father, being also a Whig, took a great interest in him, as he did in every young lawyer he knew who became affiliated with that party. My father thought himself justified in believing that Davis would become a power in the land. Hence he took up the young man soon after he had settled in the practice of the law at Bloomington; and I have heard him state that he gave Davis the first case he ever had in Tazewell County, by advising another to employ him. But he re-enacted, on the less conspicuous forum, the distressing experience of failure of Disraeli in his first attempt to address the English House of Commons. Davis broke down in the speech he had prepared to make, to the great mortification of my father, who had exhibited such unusual pride and confidence as to counsel his employment in the case. Subsequently Davis redeemed himself, as did Disraeli, and became a most prominent and successful lawyer.

Among other interesting circumstances of his career was that of a little claim he had for a client in Boston against a merchant in Chicago. He could not collect the debt, except by levying on a tract of land in Chicago—eighty acres, I think. Davis reported what he had done, and his client manifested dissatisfaction with the result. He so vigorously stated his disappointment to Davis, that the latter immediately redeemed the land by taking it himself and paying the amount of money due the client. This tract grew in value with the growth of Chicago until it became worth a million dollars or more.

Judge Davis was a remarkably popular man on his circuit. He was thoroughly honest, and could not endure a dishonest man on the witness-stand or anywhere else. I remember a man in Chicago who on one occasion filed a bill of discovery for the purpose of finding real estate that he seemed once to have had an interest in, and which also involved the insertion of Judge Davis's own name, since he had himself at one time owned the tract of land involved. The man had lost his voice to a considerable extent, so that he had come to be called "Whispering Smith." He became notorious as a successful collector of debts, where persons had failed and were unable to pay their debts. He had filed in this case a bill of discovery consisting of thirty or forty printed pages which included the names of many persons who had been found to have owned the real estate at one time or another, among them being Judge Davis. Discovering this, and being entirely innocent of any complicity with the party who had failed, the Judge denounced Smith in open court for the outrage of swearing to something he did not know anything about, and practically threw him out of court.

There was an incident characteristic of his fidelity to friendships which I think well worth relating. It occurred when I was Governor of