inen duster and, handing it to
a bystander, said:

"Hold my coat while I stone Stephen!"

In the course of these debates Lincoln propounded questions for Mr.
Douglas to answer. Brilliant as "the Little Giant" was, he was not
shrewd enough to defend himself from the shafts of his opponent's wit
and logic. So he fell into Lincoln's trap.

"If he does that," said Lincoln, "he may be Senator, but he can never be
President. I am after larger game. The battle of 1860 is worth a hundred
of this."

This prophecy proved true.

CHAPTER XVIII

HOW EMANCIPATION CAME TO PASS

When Abraham Lincoln was a small boy he began to show the keenest
sympathy for the helpless and oppressed. The only time he betrayed anger
as a child was, as you already have learned, when he saw the other boys
hurting a mud-turtle. In his first school "composition," on "Cruelty to
Animals," his stepsister remembers this sentence: "An ant's life is as
sweet to it as ours is to us."

As you have read on an earlier page, when Abe grew to be a big, strong
boy he saved a drunken man from freezing in the mud, by carrying him to
a cabin, building a fire, and spent the rest of the night warming and
sobering him up. Instead of leaving the drunkard to the fate the other
fellows thought he deserved, Abe Lincoln, through pity for the helpless,
rescued a fellow-being not only from mud and cold but also from a
drunkard's grave. For that tall lad's love and mercy revealed to the
poor creature the terrible slavery of which he was the victim. Thus Abe
helped him throw off the shackles of drink and made a man of him.

BLACK SLAVES AND WHITE

As he grew older, Abe Lincoln saw that the drink habit was a sort of
human slavery. He delivered an address before the Washingtonian
(Temperance) Society in which he compared white slavery with black, in
which he said:

"And when the victory shall be complete--when there shall be neither a
slave nor a drunkard on the earth--how proud the title of that land
which may truly claim to be the birthplace and the cradle of both those
revolutions that have ended in that victory."

This address was delivered on Washington's Birthday, 1842. The closing
words throb with young Lawyer Lincoln's fervent patriotism:

"This is the one hundred and tenth anniversary of the birth of
Washington; we are met to celebrate this day. Washington is the
mightiest name of earth, long since the mightiest in the cause of civil
liberty, still