hich was even more dirty
and finger-marked by this time, and handed it to Mr. Hill. The train
was slowing down for Freeport. In the distance, bands could be heard
playing, and along the track, line upon line of men and women were
cheering and waving. It was ten o'clock, raw and cold for that time of
the year, and the sun was trying to come out.

"Bob," said Mr. Lincoln, "be sure you get that right in your notes. And,
Steve, you stick close to me, and you'll see the show. Why, boys," he
added, smiling, "there's the great man's private car, cannon and all."

All that Stephen saw was a regular day-car on a sidetrack. A brass
cannon was on the tender hitched behind it.

CHAPTER V. THE CRISIS

Stephen A. Douglas, called the Little Giant on account of his intellect,
was a type of man of which our race has had some notable examples,
although they are not characteristic. Capable of sacrifice to their
country, personal ambition is, nevertheless, the mainspring of their
actions. They must either be before the public, or else unhappy. This
trait gives them a large theatrical strain, and sometimes brands them as
adventurers. Their ability saves them from being demagogues.

In the case of Douglas, he had deliberately renewed some years before
the agitation on the spread of slavery, by setting forth a doctrine of
extreme cleverness. This doctrine, like many others of its kind, seemed
at first sight to be the balm it pretended, instead of an irritant, as
it really was. It was calculated to deceive all except thinking men, and
to silence all save a merciless logician. And this merciless logician,
who was heaven-sent in time of need, was Abraham Lincoln.

Mr. Douglas was a juggler, a political prestidigitateur. He did things
before the eyes of the Senate and the nation. His balm for the healing
of the nation's wounds was a patent medicine so cleverly concocted that
experts alone could show what was in it. So abstruse and twisted were
some of Mr. Douglas's doctrines that a genius alone might put them into
simple words, for the common people.

The great panacea for the slavery trouble put forth by Mr. Douglas
at that time was briefly this: that the people of the new territories
should decide for themselves, subject to the Constitution, whether they
should have slavery or not, and also decide for themselves all other
questions under the Constitution. Unhappily for Mr. Douglas, there was
the famous Dred Scott decision, which ha