Walker, a Whig who was making havoc of the Democratic programme at a
mass-meeting in the Court House. In the absence of any reliable
records, nothing more can be said of Douglas's rejoinder than that it
moved the Whigs in turn to summon reinforcements, in the person of the
awkward but clever Lincoln. The debate was prolonged far into the
night; and on which side victory finally folded her wings, no man can
tell.[101] Douglas made the stronger impression, though Whigs
professed entire satisfaction with the performance of their
protagonist. There were some in the audience who took exception to
Lincoln's stale anecdotes, and who thought his manner clownish.[102]

Not long after this encounter, Douglas came in for his share of public
ridicule. Considering himself insulted by a squib in the Sangamo
_Journal_, Douglas undertook to cane the editor. But as Francis was
large and rotund, and Douglas was not, the affair terminated
unsatisfactorily for the latter. Lincoln described the incident with
great relish, in a letter to Stuart: "Francis caught him by the hair
and jammed him back against a market-cart, where the matter ended by
Francis being pulled away from him. The whole affair was so ludicrous
that Francis and everybody else, Douglas excepted, have been laughing
about it ever since."[103] The Illinois _State Register_ tried to save
Douglas's dignity by the following account of the rencontre: "Mr.
Francis had applied scurrilous language to Mr. Douglas, which could be
noticed in no other way. Mr. Douglas, therefore, gave him a sound
caning, which Mr. Francis took with Abolition patience, and is now
praising God that he was neither killed nor scathed."

The executive talents of Douglas were much in demand. First he was
made a member of the Sangamon County delegation to the State
convention;[104] then chairman of the State Central Committee; and