CHAPTER XXXVII.

Visit to Galesburg-Address on Lincoln and Douglas-Met General Buckner at Chicago-Begin the canvass-Home of Don DickinsonVisit Cincinnati.

On October 7, 1896, I visited Galesburg, and with Mrs. Palmer was hospitably entertained by Mrs. Philip S. Post, who, with her son and daughter, gave us a hearty welcome. Mrs. Post was the widow of the former member of congress from that district, who was also colonel of the 59th Illinois Infantry, which had played. so important a part in the battle of Chickamauga. My visit to Galesburg was by invitation of President Finley, of Knox College. The occasion was commemorative of the great debate between Lincoln and Douglas, which occurred on the same platform and on the same day in 1858. Amongst those upon the platform were Robert T. Lincoln, Hon. Chauncey Depew, General Clark E. Carr and Dr. Newton Bateman, who soon after passed from this world, where he had lived a long and useful life, beloved by all who knew him.

Addresses were made by Robert Lincoln and Mr. Depew. My own was a comparison of the two great leaders, which is given below:

"ORATION OF HON. JOHN M. PALMER, DELIVERED AT GALESBURG, ILL., OCTOBER 7, 1896.

"It is too early even now for an impartial review of the great debate, which commenced at Ottawa on the 21st of August, and was continued at Freeport on the 27th, at Jonesboro on the 15th of September, at Charleston on the 18th of the same month, at Galesburg, October 7th, Quincy, October 13th, and which ended at Alton on October 15, 1858.

"The places I have mentioned were the mere points

of contact between these two great leaders as they traversed the state. In the intervals between their former meetings, both of them addressed large popular assemblies in different parts of the state, and in that manner continued the discussion of the questions of the day, until the people were fully aroused, and watched this battle of the giants with the most profound and absorbing interest.

"I have said that it is too early for an impartial review of the 'debate of 1858,' for though thirty-eight years have elapsed since the historic meeting of Lincoln and Douglas, which occurred on this spot, some of the subordinate actors in the drama of that year still survive, while some of them preceded Douglas into the land of shadows, and did not live to hear his words of burning patriotism, when with transcendent eloquence, he pleaded with his countrymen to save the states from disintegration, and the Union under the constitution, from subversion.

"Others of their hearers died under the flag, in the hospitals or on the battle-fields, and did not witness the tragedy of the 14th of April, 1865, or share in the almost despairing gloom which that event cast upon the country. Still others have fallen by the wayside, and the days and years have passed, and now a few, ah, how few, linger, as if reluctant to quit the stage. After awhile, when all of them are gone, the historian will with judicial accuracy arrange his pitiless facts, and then, and not until then, will the world be given a calm and impartial review of the great debate of 1858, with all of its attendant characteristic circumstances. Still, on this occasion, without injustice to the memory of the dead, and without risk of wounding the sensibilities of the living, I may contribute something to the picture which this assemblage is intended to recall and commemorate.

"The personnel of Douglas and Lincoln are almost as well known to the people of Illinois as to their contemporaries. It is difficult to imagine men more unlike in their

origin, their education, their intellectual and personal habits and appearance. Mr. Douglas was of New England birth, had the advantages afforded by the public schools of his native state, and had some share of classical training. He came to Illinois and found employment as a teacher.

"Mr. Lincoln was born in Kentucky, where at that time public schools were unknown. His opportunities for mere elementary education were of the most humble character. The story of his earlier years is familiar and I will not repeat it. It is the history of a life commenced under most unfavorable circumstances, and its lesson is that under American institutions eminence is attainable by the most humble.

"I became acquainted with Mr. Douglas in the month of June, 1838, when he was a candidate for a seat in the second branch of congress of the United States. The district he sought to represent included Quincy and Chicago, Danville and Rock Island, Springfield and Galena.

"At that time Illinois was entitled to but three members of 'the house,' and the population, as shown by the preceding census, made it proper to provide two districts in Southern Illinois, and but one for the whole northern half of the state. I heard Mr. Douglas the day after our first meeting in 1838, and was impressed with his remarkable power as a popular orator. My subsequent acquaintance with him ripened into the most profound respect for his great abilities.

"In December, 1839, when I visited Springfield to obtain admission to the bar, he took charge of my application, obtained an order for the appointment of a committee, consisting of himself and Jonathan Young Scammon, a name venerable in law, to examine me touching my qualifications to practice as an attorney and counselor at law, made a favorable report, wrote my license, obtained the signature of two of the judges of the supreme court, handed me the license, and congratulated me on

my entry upon what he called 'the honorable profession of the law.'

"It can be readily imagined that from that time until political events separated us I was his devoted follower, always ready and eager to serve him.

"In December, 1839, while in Springfield on the errand I have just mentioned, I saw Abraham Lincoln for the first time, but not under circumstances favorable to the formation of intimate personal or political relations between us. He came into the building occupied by the second branch of the legislature, and made what was called in the language of the times, 'a Whig speech,' in which he assailed the Democratic party with great severity. Although at that time the Democratic party in Illinois held all the departments of the state government, there were even then rumblings of the storm which came in 1840.

"Under the provisions of the constitution of 1818, which was in force until superseded by that of 1848, the executive officers of the state government (with the exception of the secretary of state, who was appointed by the governor), the judges of the courts, the attorney-general and the state's attorney were elected by the legislature in joint session. The party leaders therefore attended the legislative sessions, and the 'lobby,' as it was termed, was the theater of their eloquence.

"I there heard Alexander P. Field, who afterwards left the state and died in New Orleans; Abraham Lincoln; E. D. Baker, who fell at Ball's Bluff during the late civil war; O. H. Browning, late secretary of the interior, for the Whigs; and Stephen A. Douglas, John Calhoun, Isaac P. Walker, afterwards senator from Wisconsin, Democrats. They were all stars of the first magnitude. But I even then imagined that the respective parties relied upon Lincoln and Douglas as the pillars of their strength.

"Mr. Lincoln, in the speech I heard him deliver, on the occasion I have mentioned, surprised me by his

ability and by his apparent logical frankness. He seemed to concede to his adversary almost everything he could claim, but I observed that he always found means to escape the effect even of his own concessions. His language was simple, but exact. His statements were clear, and his arguments must have given great satisfaction to the party he represented. He asserted his propositions with firmness and supported them in the most effective manner.

"Mr. Douglas was then, as afterwards, aggressive, bold and defiant. He was quick to perceive the strong as well as the weak points of his adversary. He approached the strong with caution, but assailed the weak ones with irresistible force. Nor was he mistaken in the strength of his own positions. He invited attack upon those that were impregnable, but covered the weak ones with marvelous ingenuity.

"These were my estimates of Lincoln and Douglas, made perhaps as early as 1839, but were corrected and matured by subsequent acquaintance.

"The annexation of Texas, in 1845, and the acquisition of the large territories gained by the United States. as the result of the war with Mexico, gave in some quarters a new importance to the subject of slavery.

"The sectional strife which that subject occasioned was, as was believed, or hoped rather than believed, settled by the passage by congress of what were called 'the compromise measures of 1850.'

"Both the great parties pledged themselves by the action of their national conventions, in 1852, to maintain the compromise of 1850' as a final and satisfactory settlement of the question of slavery in the United States. No one exerted himself more earnestly and efficiently than did Mr. Douglas to secure the adoption by congress of the so-called 'compromise,' and the result was most favorable to the Democratic party, of which he had become one of the national leaders. His supporters in Illinois hoped for his nomination as