Of
course I wished, but I did not much expect a better result.... I am glad
I made the late race. It gave me a hearing on the great and durable
question of the age, which I could have had in no other way; and though
I now sink out of view, and shall be forgotten, I believe I have made
some marks which will tell for the cause of civil liberty long after I
am gone."
And to another:
"Yours of the 13th was received some days ago. The fight must go on. The
cause of civil liberty must not be surrendered at the end of one or even
one hundred defeats. Douglas had the ingenuity to be supported in the
late contest, both as the best means to break down and to uphold the
slave interest. No ingenuity can keep these antagonistic elements in
harmony long. Another explosion will soon come."
In his "House divided against itself" speech, Lincoln had emphatically
cautioned Republicans not to be led on a false trail by the opposition
Douglas had made to the Lecompton Constitution; that his temporary
quarrel with the Buchanan administration could not be relied upon to
help overthrow that pro-slavery dynasty.
"How can he oppose the advances of slavery? He don't care anything about
it. His avowed mission is impressing the 'public heart' to care nothing
about it.... Whenever, if ever, he and we can come together on principle
so that our great cause may have assistance from his great ability, I
hope to have interposed no adventitious obstacle.
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