On an Example of Stephen Douglas in the Lincoln
Today as I was reading a speech by Stephen Douglas, the counterpart to the latter President of the United States [POTUS] Abraham Lincoln, I came across the following passage:
«In the remarks, I have made on this platform and the position of Mr. Lincoln upon it, I mean nothing personally disrespectful or unkind to that gentleman. I have known him for nearly twenty-five years. There were many points of sympathy between us when we first got acquainted. We were both comparatively boys, both struggling with poverty in a strange land. I was a school-teacher in the town of Winchester, and he a flourishing grocery-keeper in the town of Salem. [Applause and laughter] He was more successful in his occupation than I was in mine, and hence more fortunate in this world's goods, Lincoln is one of those peculiar men who perform with admirable skill everything in which they undertake. I made as good a school-teacher as I could, and when a cabinet-maker I made a good bedstead and tables, although my old boss said I succeeded better with bureaus and secretaries than with anything else; [cheers] but I believe that Lincoln was always more successful in business than I, for his business enabled him to get into the Legislature. I met him there, however, and had a sympathy with him, because of the up-hill struggle we both had in life. He was then just as good at telling an anecdote as now. [“No doubt.”]»[1]
Nowadays, we must say that there is little chance to meet such respect and credit for a political counterpart as Mr. Douglas has expressed for his counterpart in this debate on slavery, itself a hot iron. It therefore inspired me for the following text which you will read hereunder.