As he remarked to his friend Speed, he hoped to obtain the great distinction of being called "the De Witt Clinton of Illinois." It was at a special session of this Legislature that Lincoln first saw Stephen A.Douglas, his great political antagonist of the future, whom he describes as "the _least_ man" he ever saw.

Douglas had come into the State from Vermont only the previous year, and having studied law for several months considered himself eminently qualified to be State's attorney for the district in which he lived.

General Linder says of the two men at this time: "I here had an opportunity, better than any I had previously possessed, of measuring the intellectual stature of Abraham Lincoln.

He was then about twenty-seven years old--my own age.

Douglas was four years our junior; consequently he could not have been over twenty-three years old.