"I shall have my hands full. He is a strong man of his party,--full of wit, facts, dates,--and the best stump speaker, with his droll ways and dry jokes, in the West. He is as honest as his is shrewd;and if I beat him my victory will be hardly won."Lincoln was burning with jealousy. He believed himself to be Douglas' full equal in mental endowment. Fortune, he thought, with a tinge of bitterness, had dealt with them most unequally, clothing his rival with the glory of a world-renowned statesman, and leaving him to waste his powers on the obscure quarrels of litigious clients in a small town. He yearned for the opportunity to measure himself with the great Senator on a conspicuous stage.
This series of debates was a rare piece of strategy on Lincoln's part. Douglas had so long been wrapped in his senatorial toga that his greatness had become exaggerated to the popular mind of Illinois; while Lincoln had been a plain, modest lawyer, moving among the people in the daily round of routine life. The dogmatic statement of the great Senator carried more weight than the profoundest argument of the clearest demonstration of the country lawyer. But these debates brought them to a common level. They measured their intellectual strength in the presence of the people, with all official trappings laid aside; and while no one could well be disappointed in Douglas' strength, the whole country was amazed at the unexpected power of Lincoln.
There were disadvantages to Douglas in this mode of combat. He must sacrifice the glamour of senatorial dignity and enter the arena on equal footing with his antagonist. He was a brilliant debater.
"In the whole field of American politics no man has equaled him in the expedients and strategy of debate. * * * He was tireless, ubiquitous, unseizable. It would have been as easy to hold a globule of mercury under the finger's tip as to fasten him to a point he desired to evade. * * * In spirit he was alert, combative, aggressive; in manner patronizing and arrogant by turns." But he had to meet in argument a man of imperturbably temper, who had thought deeply on the great questions of the time, who by unerring instinct could lay his finger on every flaw in his chain of reasoning, could rise to heights of eloquence beyond the reach of his unimaginative mind and pour out streams of quaint humor that must have filled him with despair.
So great was the interest of the people in this extraordinary contest that it was found impossible to hold the meetings in halls. They were held during the warm autumn days in the open air, where the crowds, numbering from five to twenty thousand, struggled to get within range of the speakers' voices.
It would be difficult to conceive a more picturesque contest than that now waged by these politicians as they strove for the mastery, and the enormous crowds of friends and sympathizers listened with intense interest to the weighty arguments, or shouted applause when their favorite scored a point. The audiences, consisting largely of farmers, who had made long journeys in wagons and lived in tents or camped out in the open air while awaiting the great event, were in stern earnest, despite their holiday appearance, and listened with thoughtful faces and troubled hearts as the grave theme was discussed which had distracted the country for years.
And the orators, who were unconsciously playing a great role on the historic stage, were surely among the most interesting products of modern times. Lincoln's lank, ungainly figure, nearly six and a half feet tall, clad in loose fitting clothes, contrasted oddly with the short, stout figure of Douglas, barely five feet in height, trimly and rather sprucely dressed. The sad, calm face o Lincoln, his humble and unheroic bearing, were in marked contrast with the finely chiseled, powerful, defiant face and magnificent Napoleonic head surmounting the short, thick neck of Douglas, who strode with kingly air before he admiring throngs. The manner of Douglas was so masterful and strong that a wavering audience must have been swept away by it. His finely modulated voice reached with ease to the utmost limits of the crowds as he thundered out his decisive arguments or condescended to compliment his aspiring rival; while Lincoln manifestly labored to so pitch his unmusical voice that the distant listeners could hear, and was never betrayed into a single gracious compliment to the distinguished Senator whose seat he aspired to fill. And the contestants, however great their posthumous fame, were as yet merely ambitious politicians, supremely interested in winning the splendid prize. To Lincoln the possibility of a seat in the Senate was stimulus enough. Douglas was in mid career, assured of the Presidency in the near future, but compelled at all hazards to hold the ground already won. His commanding eminence attracted universal attention to the contest. He must not only win, but bear himself throughout with the air of an assured conqueror.
With all their disparity of rank and fame, they were not badly matched, and all the substantial advantages of the situation lay with Lincoln. The greatness of Douglas' fame excited sympathy for his rival. Success in the contest would give power and prestige to Lincoln, and even defeat would not be humiliating. Douglas could not expect much glory even from victory. Though he crushed his opponent in argument, he must still measure himself with the Douglas of the Senate and not fall below his own standard. In his contest for the Senate, he must remember the Presidency and shape his arguments for a larger audience than that addressed by Lincoln.
During the period of the debates both were actively engaged in the State campaign, addressing one or two audiences daily, so arranging their routes as to meet at the appointed times and places. On August 21st, in presence of a vast multitude, Douglas opened the first debate at Ottawa.
