and not too immaculate scrap of paper from the multitude therein.
"Now, Joe," said he, "here are the four questions I intend to ask Judge Douglas. I am ready for you. Fire away."
"We don't care anything about the others," answered Mr. Medill. "But I tell you this. If you ask that second one, you'll never see the United States Senate."
"And the Republican party in this state will have had a blow from which it can scarcely recover," added Mr. Judd, chairman of the committee.
Mr. Lincoln did not appear to hear them. His eyes were far away over the wet prairie.
Stephen held his breath. But neither he, nor Medill, nor Judd, nor Hill guessed at the pregnancy of that moment. How were they to know that the fate of the United States of America was concealed in that Question,--was to be decided on a rough wooden platform that day in the town of Freeport, Illinois?
But Abraham Lincoln, the uncouth man in the linen duster with the tousled hair, knew it. And the stone that was rejected of the builders was to become the corner-stone of the temple.
Suddenly Mr. Lincoln recalled himself, glanced at the paper, and cleared his throat. In measured tones, plainly heard above the rush and roar of the train, he read the Question:
"Can the people of a United States Territory, in any lawful way, against the wish of any citizen of the United States, exclude slavery from its limits prior to the formation of a State Constitution?"
Mr. Medill listened intently.
"Abe," said he, solemnly, "Douglas will answer yes, or equivocate, and that is all the assurance these Northern Democrats want to put Steve Douglas in the Senate. They'll snow you under."
"All right," answered Mr. Lincoln, quietly.
"All right?" asked Mr. Medill, reflecting the sheer astonishment of the others; "then why the devil are you wearing yourself out? And why are we spending our time and money on you?"
Mr. Lincoln laid his hand on Medill's sleeve.
"Joe," said he, "a rat in the larder is easier to catch than a rat that has the run of the cellar. You know, where to set your trap in the larder. I'll tell you why I'm in this campaign: to catch Douglas now, and keep him out of the White House in 1860. To save this country of ours, Joe. She's sick."
There was a silence, broken by two exclamations.
"But see here, Abe," said Mr. Medill, as soon as ever he got his breath, "what have we got to show for it? Where do you come in?"
Mr. Lincoln smiled wearily.
"Nowhere, I reckon," he answered simply.
"Good Lord!" said Mr. Judd.
Mr. Medill gulped.
"You mean to say, as the candidate of the Republican party, you don't care whether you get to the Senate?"
"Not if I can send Steve Douglas there with his wings broken," was the calm reply.
"Suppose he does answer yes, that slavery can be excluded?" said Mr. Judd.
"Then," said Mr. Lincoln, "then Douglas loses the vote of the great slave-holders, the vote of the solid South, that he has been fostering ever since he has had the itch to be President. Without the solid South the Little Giant will never live in the White House. And unless I'm mightily mistaken, Steve Douglas has had his aye as far ahead as 1860 for some time."
Another silence followed these words. There was a stout man standing in the aisle, and he spat deftly out of the open window.
"You may wing Steve Douglas, Abe," said he, gloomily, "but the gun will kick you over the bluff."
"Don't worry about me, Ed," said Mr. Lincoln. "I'm not worth it."
In a wave of comprehension the significance of all this was revealed to Stephen Brice, The grim humor, the sagacious statesmanship, and (best of all)--the superb self sacrifice of it, struck him suddenly. I think it was in that hour that he realized the full extent of the wisdom he was near, which was like unto Solomon's.
Shame surged in Stephen's face that he should have misjudged him. He had come to patronize. He had remained to worship. And in after years, when he thought of this new vital force which became part of him that day, it was in the terms of Emerson: "Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood."
How many have conversed with Lincoln before and since, and knew him not!
If an outward and visible sign of Mr. Lincoln's greatness were needed,--he had chosen to speak to them in homely parables. The story of Farmer Bell was plain as day. Jim Rickets, who had life all his own way, was none other than Stephen A. Douglas, the easily successful. The ugly galoot, who dared to raise his eyes only to the pear, was Mr. Lincoln himself. And the pear was the Senatorship, which the galoot had denied himself to save Susan from being Mr. Rickets' bride.
Stephen could understand likewise the vehemence of the Republican leaders who crowded around their candidate and tried to get him to retract that Question. He listened quietly, he answered with a patient smile. Now and then he threw a story into the midst of this discussion which made them laugh in spite of themselves. The hopelessness of the case was quite plain to Mr. Hill, who smiled, and whispered in Stephen's ear: "He has made up his mind. They will not budge him an inch, and they know it."
Finally Mr. Lincoln took the scrap of paper, which 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