and Lincoln on the part of
the Whigs. The intellectual encounter between these noted champions is
still described by those who witnessed it as "the great debate." It took
place in the Second Presbyterian church at Springfield, and lasted eight
nights, each speaker occupying a night in turn. Mr. Speed speaks thus of
Lincoln's effort: "Lincoln delivered his speech without manuscript or
notes. He had a wonderful faculty in that way. He might be writing an
important document, be interrupted in the midst of a sentence, turn his
attention to other matters entirely foreign to the subject on which he
was engaged, and then take up his pen and begin where he left off
without reading the previous part of the sentence. He could grasp,
exhaust, and quit any subject with more facility than any man I have
ever seen or heard of." The subjoined paragraphs from the speech above
referred to show the impassioned feeling which Lincoln poured forth that
night. Those familiar with his admirable style in his later years would
scarcely recognize him in these florid and rather over-weighted periods:

Many free countries have lost their liberty, and ours may lose
hers; but if she shall, be it my proudest plume, not that I was
the last to desert, but that I never deserted her. I know that the
great volcano at Washington, aroused and directed by the evil
spirit that reigns there, is belching forth the lava of political
corruption in a current broad and deep, which is sweeping with
frightful velocity over the whole length and breadth of the land,
bidding fair to leave unscathed no green spot or living thing;
while on its bosom are riding, like demons on the waves of hell,
the imps of the Evil Spirit, and fiendishly torturing and taunting
all those who dare resist its destroying course with the
hopelessness of their effort; and knowing this, I cannot deny that
all may be swept away. Broken by it, I too may be; bow to it, I
never will. The probability that we may fall in the struggle ought
not to deter us from the support of a cause which we deem to be
just. It shall not deter me. If I ever feel the soul within me
elevate and expand to those dimensions not wholly unworthy of its
Almighty architect, it is when I contemplate the cause of my
country deserted by all the world beside, and I, standing up boldly
and alone, hurling defiance at her victorious opp