ablest speakers in the State and Nation.
For years he had been accustomed to meet on the floor of the Capitol the
leaders of the old Whig and Free-soil parties. Among them were Webster
and Seward, Fessenden and Crittenden, Chase, Trumbull, Hale and others
of nearly equal eminence; and his enthusiastic friends insisted that
never, either in single conflict or when receiving the assault of the
senatorial leaders of a whole party, had he been discomfited. His style
was bold, vigorous, and aggressive; at times even defiant. He was ready,
fluent, fertile in resources, familiar with national and party history,
severe in denunciation, and he handled with skill nearly all the weapons
of debate. His iron will and restless energy, together with great
personal magnetism, made him the idol of his friends and party. His
long, brilliant, and almost universally successful career, gave him
perfect confidence in himself, and at times he was arrogant and
overbearing.... Lincoln also was a thoroughly trained speaker. He had
met successfully, year after year, at the bar and on the stump, the
ablest men of Illinois and the Northwest, including Lamborn, Stephen T.
Logan, John Calhoun, and many others. He had contended, in generous
emulation, with Hardin, Baker, Logan, and Browning; and had very often
met Douglas, a conflict with whom he always courted rather than shunned.
His speeches, as we read them to-day, show a more familiar knowledge of
the slavery question than those of any other statesman of our country.
This is especially true of the Peoria speech and the Cooper Institute
speech. Lincoln was powerful in argument, always seizing the strong
points, and demonstrating his propositions with a clearness and logic
approaching the certainty of mathematics. He had, in wit and humor, a
great advantage over Douglas. Then he had the better temper; he was
always good humored, while Douglas, when hard pressed, was sometimes
irritable. Douglas perhaps carried away the more popular applause;
Lincoln made the deeper and more lasting impression. Douglas did not
disdain an immediate _ad captandum_ triumph; while Lincoln aimed at
permanent conviction. Sometimes, when Lincoln's friends urged him to
raise a storm of applause, which he could always do by his happy
illustrations and amusing stories, he refused, saying, 'The occasion is
too serious; the issues are too grave. I do not seek applause, or to
amuse the people, but to _convince_ them.' It was obser