agitation on the spread of slavery, by setting forth a doctrine of
extreme cleverness. This doctrine, like many others of its kind, seemed
at first sight to be the balm it pretended, instead of an irritant, as it
really was. It was calculated to deceive all except thinking men, and to
silence all save a merciless logician. And this merciless logician, who
was heaven-sent in time of need, was Abraham Lincoln.

Mr. Douglas was a juggler, a political prestidigitateur. He did things
before the eyes of the Senate and the nation. His balm for the healing of
the nation's wounds was a patent medicine so cleverly concocted that
experts alone could show what was in it. So abstruse and twisted were
some of Mr. Douglas's doctrines that a genius alone might put them into
simple words, for the common people.

The great panacea for the slavery trouble put forth by Mr. Douglas at
that time was briefly this: that the people of the new territories should
decide for themselves, subject to the Constitution, whether they should
have slavery or not, and also decide for themselves all other questions
under the Constitution. Unhappily for Mr. Douglas, there was the famous
Dred Scott decision, which had set the South wild with joy the year
before, and had cast a gloom over the North. The Chief Justice of the
United States had declared that under the Constitution slaves were
property,--and as such every American citizen owning slaves could carry
them about with him wherever he went. Therefore the territorial
legislatures might pass laws until they were dumb, and yet their settlers
might bring with them all the slaves they pleased.

And yet we must love the Judge. He was a gentleman, a strong man, and a
patriot. He was magnanimous, and to his immortal honor be it said that
he, in the end, won the greatest of all struggles. He conquered himself.