estriction of slavery on the one hand or of
its indefinite expansion and protection on the other. The debate was
educational not merely for the voters who listened, but for the
thousands of other voters who read the reports. It would be an enormous
advantage for the political education of candidates and for the
education of voters if such debates could become the routine in
Congressional and Presidential campaigns. Under the present routine, we
have, in place of an assembly of voters representing the conflicting
views of the two parties or of the several political groups, a
homogeneous audience of one way of thinking, and speakers who have no
opponent present to check the temptation to launch forth into wild
statements, personal abuse, and irresponsible conclusions. An
interruption of the speaker is considered to be a disturbance of order,
and the man who is not fully in sympathy with the views of the audience
is likely to be put out as an interloper. With a system of joint
debates, the speakers would be under an educational repression. False
or exaggerated statements would not be made, or would not be made
consciously, because they would be promptly corrected by the other
fellow. There would of necessity come to be a better understanding and a
larger respect for the positions of the opponent. The men who would be
selected as leaders or speakers to enforce the contentions of the party,
would have to possess some reasoning faculty as well as oratorical
fluency. The voters, instead of being shut in with one group of
arguments more or less reasonable, would be brought into touch with the
arguments of other groups of citizens. I can conceive of no better
method for bringing representative government on to a higher plane and
for making an election what it ought to be, a reasonable decision by
reasoning voters, than the institution of joint debates.

I cite certain of the incisive statements that came into Lincoln's seven
debates. "A slave, says Judge Douglas (on the authority of Judge Taney),
is a human being who is legally not a person but a thing." "I contend
[says Lincoln] that slavery is founded on the selfishness of man's
nature. Slavery is a violation of the eternal right, and as long as God
reigns and as school-children read, that black evil can never be
consecrated into God's truth." "A man does not lose his right to a piece
of property which has been stolen. Can a man lose a right to himself if
he himself has been s