ed by his quickness as to forget
that the routed point is not, after all, the one in question, you
suppose all is over with it. Moreover, he contrives to mingle up so many
stinging allusions, so many piquant personalities, that by the time
he has done his mystification, a dozen others are ready and burning to
spring on their feet to repel some direct or indirect attack all equally
wide of the point."

The mode of travel of the two contestants heightened the contrast.
George B. McClellan, a young engineer officer who had recently resigned
from the army and was now general superintendent of the Illinois Central
Railroad, gave Douglas his private car and a special train. Lincoln
traveled any way he could-in ordinary passenger trains, or even in the
caboose of a freight train. A curious symbolization of Lincoln's belief
that the real conflict was between the plain people and organized money!

The debates did not develop new ideas. It was a literary duel, each
leader aiming to restate himself in the most telling, popular way. For
once that superficial definition of art applied: "What oft was thought
but ne'er so well expressed." Nevertheless the debates contained an
incident that helped to make history. Though Douglas was at war with the
Administration, it was not certain that the quarrel might not be made
up. There was no other leader who would be so formidable at the head of
a reunited Democratic party. Lincoln pondered the question, how could
the rift between Douglas and the Democratic machine be made irrevocable?
And now a new phase of Lincoln appeared. It was the political strategist
He saw that if he would disregard his own chance of election-as he had
done from a simpler motive four years before--he could drive Douglas
into a dilemma from which there was no real escape. He confided his
purpose to his friends; they urged him not to do it. But he had made up
his mind as he generally did, without consultation, in the silence of
his own thoughts, and once having made it up, he was inflexible.

At Freeport, Lincoln made the move which probably lost him the
Senatorship. He asked a question which if Douglas answered it one way
would enable him to recover the favor of Illinois but would lose him
forever the favor of the slave-holders; but which, if he answered it
another way might enable him to make his peace at Washington but would
certainly lose him Illinois. The question was: "Can the people of a
United States Territory