have shrunk from the expression of more extreme views, had he really
entertained them. It is only fair to assume that he said what at the
time he really thought, and that if, subsequently, his opinions changed,
it was owing to new conceptions of good policy and of duty brought forth
by an entirely new set of circumstances and exigencies. It is
characteristic that he continued to adhere to the impracticable
colonization plan even after the Emancipation Proclamation had already
been issued.

But in this contest Lincoln proved himself not only a debater, but also a
political strategist of the first order. The "kind, amiable, and
intelligent gentleman," as Douglas had been pleased to call him, was by
no means as harmless as a dove. He possessed an uncommon share of that
worldly shrewdness which not seldom goes with genuine simplicity of
character; and the political experience gathered in the Legislature and
in Congress, and in many election campaigns, added to his keen
intuitions, had made him as far-sighted a judge of the probable effects
of a public man's sayings or doings upon the popular mind, and as
accurate a calculator in estimating political chances and forecasting
results, as could be found among the party managers in Illinois. And now
he perceived keenly the ugly dilemma in which Douglas found himself,
between the Dred Scott decision, which declared the right to hold slaves
to exist in the Territories by virtue of the Federal Constitution, and
his "great principle of popular sovereignty," according to which the
people of a Territory, if they saw fit, were to have the right to exclude
slavery therefrom. Douglas was twisting and squirming to the best of his
ability to avoid the admission that the two were incompatible. The
question then presented itself if it would be good policy for Lincoln to
force Douglas to a clear expression of his opinion as to whether, the
Dred Scott decision notwithstanding, "the people of a Territory could in