Lincoln, the unknown

106•LINCOLN THE UNKNOWNAnd time after time, Lincoln was forced to deny it: "I objectto the alternative which says that because I do not want aNegro woman for a slave, I must want her for a wife. I havelived until my fiftieth year, and have never had a Negro womaneither for a slave or a wife. There are enough white men tomarry all the white women; and enough Negro men to marryall the Negro women; and, for God's sake, let them be so married."Douglas tried to dodge and befog the issues. His arguments,Lincoln said, had got down to the point where they were asthin as "soup made by boiling the shadow of a pigeon that hadstarved to death." He was using "specious and fantastic arrangementsof words, by which a man can prove a horse-chestnutto be a chestnut horse.""I can't help feeling foolish," continued Lincoln, "in answeringarguments that are no arguments at all."Douglas said things that weren't true. He knew that theywere falsehoods, and so did Lincoln."If a man," responded Lincoln, "will stand up and assert,and repeat and reassert, that two and two do not make four,I know nothing that will stop him. I cannot work an argumentinto the consistency of a mental gag and actually close hismouth with it. I don't like to call Judge Douglas a liar, butwhen I come square up to him, I don't know what else to callhim."And so the fight raged on, week after week. Day after dayLincoln continued his attacks. Others leaped into the fray.Lyman Trumbull called Douglas a liar, and declared that hehad been guilty of "the most damnable effrontery that ever manput on." Frederick Douglas, the famous Negro orator, came toIllinois and joined in the assault. The Buchanan Democratswaxed vicious and ferocious in their denunciation of Douglas.Carl Schurz, the fiery German-American reformer, indicted himbefore the foreign voters. The Republican press in screaminghead-lines branded him as "a forger." With his own party divided,and himself hounded and harassed on every side, Douglaswas fighting against tremendous odds. In desperation, he wiredhis friend Usher F. Linden "The hell-hounds are on my track.For God's sake, Linder, come and help me fight them."The operator sold a copy of the telegram to the Republicans,and it was head-lined in a score of papers.Douglas's enemies screamed with delight, and from that day