"It is more than mortal to think and to do well on all occasions and
subjects."--(To Senator James F. Wilson.)
* * * * *
"SET THE TRAP AGAIN!"
To fix extreme abolition upon Abraham Lincoln, Senator Douglas lent
himself to assuring that his rival had taken part in a convention and
helped pass a certain resolution. This was a fraud, as there was no
such resolution passed, and Lincoln was not present.
"The main object of that forgery was to beat Yates and elect Harris for
Congress, object known to be exceedingly dear to Judge Douglas at the
time.... The fraud having been apparently successful, both Harris and
Douglas have more than once since then been attempting to put it to new
uses. As the fisherman's wife, whose drowned husband was brought home
with his body full of eels, said, when asked what was to be done with
him: 'Take out the eels and set him again!' [Footnote: See Colman's
"Broad Grins."] So Harris and Douglas have shown a disposition to take
the eels out of that stale fraud by which they gained Harris' election,
and set the fraud again, more than once."--(Speech by A. Lincoln,
Jonesboro, Illinois, September 15, 1858.)
* * * * *
"NO ROYALTY IN OUR CARRIAGE."
From August to mid-October, 1858, Lincoln and Douglas warred on the
platform throughout Illinois, in a celebrated series of debates. As the
senator was in a high position, and expected to reap yet more important
honors, the Central Railroad corporation extended to him all graces. A
special car, the Pullman in embryo in reality, was at his beck, and a
train for his numerous friends if he spoke. On the other hand, his
rival, becoming more and more democratic in his leaning to the
grotesque, gloried in traveling even in the caboose of a freight-train.
He had no brass bands and no canteen for all comers; on one occasion
his humble "freighter" was side-tracked to let the palace-cars sweep
majestically by, a calliope playing "Hail to the Chief!" and laughter
mingling with toasts shouted tauntingly through the open windows. The
oppositionist laughed to his friends, and said:
"The gentleman in that decorated car evidently smelled no royalty in
our scow!"
He scoffed at these "fizzlegigs and fireworks," to employ his phrase.
But his keen sense of the ludicrous was not shared with his admirers.
On the contrary, the women saw nothing absurd in drowning him with
flowers and the men in "chairing him." Henry Villard relates that he
saw him battling with his supporters literally, and beseeching them who
bore him shoulder-high, with his long limbs gesticulating like a
spider's, for them to "Let me down!"
In another place, after Douglas had been galloped to the platform in
his carriage and pair, his antagonist was hauled up in a hayrack-wagon
drawn by lumbering farm-horses.
* * * * *