"the little Giant," and "Old Abe, the Giant Killer," as his friends
called him--argued about slavery. People came from miles around to hear
them.

On the day of a debate, an open platform for the speakers was decorated
with red-white-and-blue bunting. Flags flew from the housetops. When
Senator Douglas arrived at the railroad station, his friends and
admirers met him with a brass band. He drove to his hotel in a fine
carriage.

Abe had admirers, too. Sometimes a long procession met him at the
station. Then Abe would be embarrassed. He did not like what he called
"fizzlegigs and fireworks." But he laughed when his friends in one town
drove him to his hotel in a hay wagon. This was their way of making fun
of Douglas and his fine manners.

Senator Douglas was an eloquent orator. While he was talking, some of
Abe's friends would worry. Would Old Abe be able to answer? Would he be
able to hold his own? Then Abe would unfold his long legs and stand up.
"The Giant Killer" towered so high above "the Little Giant" that a
titter ran through the crowd.

When he came to the serious part of his speech, there was silence. His
voice reached to the farthest corners of the crowd, as he reminded them
what slavery really meant. He summed it up in a few words: "You work and
toil and earn bread, and I'll eat it."

Both men worked hard to be elected. And Douglas won. "I feel like the
boy," said Abe, "who stubbed his toe. It hurts too bad to laugh, and I
am too big to cry."

All of those who loved him--Mary, his wife, in her neat white house;
Sarah, his stepmother, in her little cabin, more than a hundred miles
away; and his many friends--were disappointed. But not for long. The
part he took in the Lincoln-Douglas debates made his name known
throughout the United States.

Abe Lincoln's chance was coming.

15

[Illustration]

During the next two years Abraham Lincoln was asked to make many
speeches. "Let us have faith that right makes might," he told one
audience in New York, "and in that faith let us, to the end, dare to do
our duty as we understand it."

At the end of the speech, several thousand people rose to their feet,
cheering and waving their handkerchiefs. His words were printed in
newspapers. Throughout the Northern States, men and women began to think
of him as the friend of freedom.

By 1860 he was so well known that he was nominated for President of the
United States. Stephen A. Douglas was nominated by a