His words did not flow in an impetuous torrent as did those of Douglas, but they were always well chosen, deliberate, and conclusive.
Thus fitted for the contest, these men proceeded to a discussion which at the time was so interesting so as to enchain the attention of the nation,--in its immediate effect so striking as to affect the organization of parties, in its subsequent effect so powerful as to change the fate of millions.

Mr.Lincoln had opened his own canvass by a carefully prepared speech in which, after quoting the maxim that a house divided against itself cannot stand, he uttered these weighty words: "I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free.

I do not expect the Union to be dissolved; I do not expect the house to fall; but I do expect it will cease to be divided.

It will become all one thing or all the other.

Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the farther spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction, or its advocates will push it forward till it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new, north as well as south." Mr.Lincoln had been warned by intimate friends to whom he had communicated the contents of his speech, in advance of its delivery, that he was treading on dangerous ground, that he would be misrepresented as a disunionist, and that he might fatally damage the Republican party by making its existence synonymous with a destruction of the government.