The Leadership of Lincoln
That was a subject on which no man had a right to be indifferent or neutral. So he meant to compel Douglas to commit himself on it in some fashion one way or the other. That he regarded as a moral duty. But he was shrewd enough and wise enough to see, too, that by thus compelling Douglas to commit himself he would immeasurably widen the breach in the Democratic party.
So he entered the race for the senatorship against the judgment of Seward and Greeley and many others who could see in it nothing but defeat for him. Probably Lincoln expected nothing but defeat; but it would be a defeat in 1858 which would assure victory in 1860; and that was the victory which he wanted to win. He not only entered the race but he also challenged Douglas to stump the state with him in joint debate. Douglas of course accepted. He could not have done otherwise. In that moment Lincoln might well have exclaimed, "the Lord hath delivered him into my hands!" In the graces of oratory and the tricks and sophistry of rhetoric Douglas was the master. He was, too, a master of plausibility and evasion. But Lincoln, direct and remorseless as fate, kept pressing at the fatal flaw in his armor until at last in the debate at Freeport he pressed the point home. He there extorted from Douglas the admission, the declaration that, no matter what the Supreme Court might say, the people of a territory had the power to exclude slavery by hostile police regulations.
It was enough. Lincoln had won the fight. True he was defeated in the senatorial campaign. That Freeport declaration strengthened Douglas with the Democrats of Illinois and they returned him to the United
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