I agree to your suggestion that we shall alternately open and close the discussion. I will speak at Ottawa one hour; you can reply, occupying an hour and a half, and I will then follow for half an hour. At Freeport, you shall open the discussion and speak one hour; I will follow for an hour and a half, and you can then reply for half an hour. We will alternate in like manner in each successive place. Very respectfully, your obedient servant, S. A. DOUGLAS. Mr. Lincoln to Mr. Douglas. SPRINGFIELD, July 31, 1858. Dear Sir: Yours of yesterday, naming places, times, and terms for joint discussions between us, was received this morning. Although by the terms, as you propose, you take four openings and closes to my three, I accede, and thus close the arrangement. I direct this to you at Hillsboro, and shall try to have both your letter and this appear in the "Journal" and "Register" of Monday morning. Your obedient servant, A. LINCOLN. LETTER TO HENRY ASBURY SPRINGFIELD, July 31, 1858. My dear Sir: Yours of the 28th is received. The points you propose to press upon Douglas he will be very hard to get up to, but I think you labor under a mistake when you say no one cares how he answers. This implies that it is equal with him whether he is injured here or at the South. That is a mistake. He cares nothing for the South; he knows he is already dead there. He only leans Southward more to keep the Buchanan party from growing in Illinois. You shall have hard work to get him directly to the point whether a territorial legislature has or has not the power to exclude slavery. But if you succeed in bringing him to itthough he will be compelled to say it possesses no such power-he will instantly take ground that slavery cannot actually exist in the Territories unless the people desire it, and so give it protection by territorial legislation. If this offends the South, he will let it offend them, as at all events he means to hold on to his chances in Illinois. You will soon learn by the papers that both the judge and myself are to be in Quincy on the 13th of October, when and where I expect the pleasure of seeing you. Yours very truly, A. LINCOLN. *LETTER TO B. C. Cook SPRINGFIELD, August 2, 1858. My dear Sir: I have a letter from a very true friend and intelligent man insisting that there is a plan on foot in La Salle and Bureau to run Douglas republicans for Congress and for the Legislature in those counties, if they can only get the encouragement of our folks nominating pretty extreme abolitionists. It is thought they will do nothing if our folks nominate men who are not very obnoxious to the charge of abolitionism. Please have your eye upon this. Signs are looking pretty fair. Yours very truly, A. LINCOLN. *LETTER TO J. M. PALMER SPRINGFIELD, August 5, 1858. Dear Sir: Since we parted last evening no new thought has occurred to [me] on the subject of which we talked most yesterday. I have concluded, however, to speak at your town on Tuesday, August 31st, and have promised to have it so appear in the papers of tomorrow. Judge Trumbull has not yet reached here. Yours as ever, A. LINCOLN. *LETTER TO ALEXANDER SYMPSON SPRINGFIELD, August 11, 1858. Dear Sir: Yours of the 6th received. If life and health continue I shall pretty likely be at Augusta on the 25th. Things look reasonably well. Will tell you more fully when I see you. Yours truly, A. LINCOLN. FIRST JOINT DEBATE, AT OTTAWA, ILLINOIS, August 21, 1858 1 L Mr. Douglas's Opening Speech. ADIES AND GENTLEMEN: I appear before you to-day for the purpose of discussing the leading political topics which now agitate the public mind. By an arrangement between Mr. Lincoln and myself, we are present here to-day for the purpose of having a joint discussion, as the representatives of the two great political parties of the State and Union, upon the principles in issue between those parties; and this vast concourse of people shows 1 'The Lincoln-Douglas debates created an almost unparalleled furore throughout the whole country. In Illinois the debates were attended by immense crowds, many of the people coming for miles to listen patiently to three hour speeches. The eye of the nation focused on the State of Illinois, which was divided into opposing halves, the northern section against the southern section for slavery. Each orator endeavored to force the other into admissions which would ruin his chances for Senatorship in these antagonistic sections of Illinois. In the second debate Lincoln put questions to Douglas that if answered to please northern Illinois must offend the South. Lincoln's friends warned him that he would lose the Senatorship if he so questioned his rival, to which he replied: "Gentlemen, I am killing large game; if Douglas answers he can never be President and the battle of 1860 is worth a hundred of this." the deep feeling which pervades the public mind in regard to the questions dividing us. Prior to 1854 this country was divided into two great political parties, known as the Whig and Democratic parties. Both were national and patriotic, advocating principles that were universal in their application. An old-line Whig could proclaim his principles in Louisiana and Massachusetts alike. Whig principles had no boundary sectional line-they were not limited by the Ohio River, nor by the Potomac, nor by the line of the free and slave States, but applied and were proclaimed wherever the Constitution ruled or the American flag waved over the American soil. So it was, and so it is with the great Democratic party, which, from the days of Jefferson until this period, has proven itself to be the historic party of this nation. While the Whig and Democratic parties differed in regard to a bank, the tariff, distribution, the specie circular, and the subtreasury, they agreed on the great slavery question which now agitates the Union. I say that the Whig party and the Democratic party agreed on the slavery question, while they differed on those matters of expediency to which I have referred. The Whig party and the Democratic party jointly adopted the compromise measures of 1850 as the basis of a proper and just solution of |