When he did speak
it was with a force and power that startled Douglas and, it is
said, brought him privately to Lincoln with the proposition that
neither of them should address a public meeting again until after
the next election.
Douglas was a man of great ambition as well as of unusual
political skill. Until recently he had been heartily in favor of
keeping slavery out of the Northwest Territory; but he had set
his heart upon being President of the United States, and he
thought that he saw a chance of this if he helped the South to
repeal the Missouri Compromise, and thus gained its gratitude and
its votes. Without hesitation he plunged into the work and
labored successfully to overthrow this law of more than thirty
years' standing.
Lincoln's speech against the repeal had made a deep impression in
Illinois, where he was at once recognized as the people's
spokesman in the cause of freedom. His statements were so clear,
his language so eloquent, the stand he took so just, that all had
to acknowledge his power. He did not then, nor for many years
afterward, say that the slaves ought to be immediately set free.
What he did insist upon was that slavery was wrong, and that it
must not be allowed to spread into territory already free; but
that, gradually, in ways lawful and just to masters and slaves
alike, the country should strive to get rid of it in places where
it already existed.
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