Bush Johnston Lincoln, still lived in a log
cabin in the area. An enormous 80-foot-
wide banner hung across Main Street,
showing the young Lincoln driving an
oxcart into the village during “Abe’s
Entrance to Charleston Thirty Years Ago.”
Another banner showed a giant Lincoln
clubbing a cringing Douglas into submis-
sion with his mighty fists. Douglas, una-
mused, threatened to leave at once after he
saw the offending poster but rallied his
forces behind a brass band and a parade of
32 pretty young women representing the 32
states in the Union. Lincoln also led a wag-
onload of pretty girls down the street—it
seemed to be the theme of the day—under
the banner, “Girls Link-on to Lincoln.”
A huge crowd of nearly 15,000 people
attended the debate at the agricultural soci-
ety fairgrounds. Noting an enormous
Democratic banner decrying “Negro
Equality,” Lincoln began his remarks with
an apocryphal question he said “an elderly
gentleman” had asked him about whether
Lincoln was really in favor of “social and
political equality of the white and black
races.” He was not, Lincoln said, adding
that physical differences “will forever for-
bid the two races living together upon
terms of social and political equality.” He
added, in a lame attempt at humor, “I do
not understand that because I do not want
a Negro woman for a slave I must neces-
sarily want her for a wife. My understand-
ing is that I can just leave her alone.” He
suggested that since Douglas seemed to be
so worried about intermarriage, he should
give up his Senate seat and return to the
state legislature, which was the only gov-
erning body that could legally change Illi-
nois’s existing miscegenation laws. Douglas
responded drolly that he was glad to have
Lincoln’s advice on the subject.
The largest crowd of the debates assem-
bled at Galesburg in the northwestern part
of the state. An estimated 15,000-20,000
people braved an “Arctic frost” of biting
winds and cold rain to see the candidates
make their usual entrance by train and
buggy. The two were driven to Knox Col-
lege, the site of the debate, in side-by-side
carriages. The stage had been moved to aspot alongside the college building to shield
the candidates—but not the crowd—from
the wind, forcing the guests of honor to
climb through a first-floor window onto
the stage. (Lincoln quipped, “Well, at last
I have gone through college.”) Galesburg
was an old stop on the Underground Rail-
road, and most of the crowd consisted of
pro-Lincoln college students.
The strong wind made it hard for the
speakers to be heard—or even to speak.
Douglas took a throat lozenge before tak-
ing his turn on stage and politely offered
another to Lincoln. He reminded the crowd
that Lincoln had spoken out against racial
equality at Charleston after favoring it at
other stops. “His creed don’t travel,” Dou-
glas scoffed. Lincoln denied that he had
been inconsistent, noting, “I have always
maintained that in the right to life, liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness, [blacks] were
our equals.” He contrasted his position to
Douglas’s legalistic insistence on property
rights over human rights. “He insists, upon
the score of equality, that the owner of
slaves and the owner of horses should be
allowed to take them alike to new territoryand hold them there,” said Lincoln. “That
is perfectly logical if the species of property
is perfectly alike, but if you admit that one
of them is wrong, then you cannot admit
any equality between right and wrong. I
believe that slavery is wrong. There is the
difference between Judge Douglas and his
friends and the Republican Party.”
Six days later the campaign pulled into
the Mississippi River town of Quincy on
the extreme western edge of the Illinois-
Missouri border. Boats steaming downriver
from Hannibal, Missouri, and upriver from
Keokuk, Iowa, swelled the turnout to
nearly 15,000 people. After several days of
heavy rain, the day of the debate broke
sunny and cool. Lincoln was escorted to
the debate site by yet another parade of
supporters, this group pulling a horse-
drawn model of the USS Constitution
piloted for some reason by a live cartoon,
the symbol of the now extinct Whig Party.
The stage in Washington Square was made
of large pine boards, and before Lincoln
could begin his remarks the railing gave
way, sending dozens of local dignitariesA political cartoon from the presidential race of 1860 shows a long-legged Lincoln easily outdistancing Dou-
glas—something he did in the election itself.Continued on page 98CWQ-Sum16 Lincoln Douglas_Layout 1 4/20/16 4:04 PM Page 31