with their enthusiasm that for a time it seemed as though all
real discussion would be swallowed up in noise and shouting.

Mr. Lincoln, acting on the advice of his leading friends, sent Douglas a
challenge to joint debate. Douglas accepted, though not very willingly;
and it was agreed that they should address the same meetings at seven
towns in the State, on dates extending through August, September, and
October. The terms were that one should speak an hour in opening, the
other an hour and a half in reply, and the first again have half an hour
to close. Douglas was to open the meeting at one place, Lincoln at the
next.

It was indeed a memorable contest. Douglas, the most skilled and
plausible speaker in the Democratic party, was battling for his
political life. He used every art, every resource, at his command.
Opposed to him was a veritable giant in stature--a man whose qualities
of mind and of body were as different from those of the "Little
Giant"--as could well be imagined. Lincoln was direct, forceful,
logical, and filled with a purpose as lofty as his sense of right and
justice was strong. He cared much for the senatorship, but he cared far
more to right the wrong of slavery, and to warn people of the peril
that menaced the land. Already in June he had made a speech that greatly
impressed his hearers. "A house divided against itself cannot stand,"
he told them. "I believe this government cannot endure permanently half
slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved, I do not
expect the house to fall--but I do expect it will cease to be divided.
It will become all one thing or all the other"; and he went on to say
that there was grave danger it might become all slave. He showed how,
little by little, slavery had been gaining ground, until all it lacked
now was another Supreme Court decision to make it alike lawful in all
the States, North as well as South. The warning came home to the people
of the North with startling force, and thereafter all eyes were fixed
upon the senatorial campaign in Illinois.

The battle continued for nearly three months. Besides the seven great
joint debates, each man spoke daily, sometimes two or three times a day,
at meetings of his own. Once before their audiences, Douglas's dignity
as a senator afforded him no advantage, Lincoln's popularity gave
him little help. Face to face with the followers of each, gathered
in immense numbers and alert with jealous watchfulnes