Wednesday, December 20, 2006
Letter of Acceptance
All the other Historians are very eager to get onto the actual debates. “Come on, let’s get going. The debates are where the rubber meets the road.” Blah, blah. I’m anxious too, but I just love these old letters too much to skip this one. This letter is very cool. It’s Stephen Douglas accepting the debate challenge and laying out some ground rules. Way cool! “The Little Giant” had some nice penmanship, if you ask me. The letter is pretty self explanatory, so I don’t need to go into much. I will tell you that Douglas wasn’t thrilled with the debate prospect. I mean, he could only really lose ground by debating Lincoln. Lincoln persisted and Douglas finally relented. However, Douglas does get the better set-up, he gets to open up the debates one more time than Lincoln. Okay, enough of my talk, read on!
From Stephen A. Douglas to Abraham Lincoln, July 30, 1858
Bement, Piatt Co. Ill.
July 30th, 1858
Dear Sir:
Your letter, dated yesterday,2 accepting my proposition for a joint discussion at one prominent point in each Congressional district as stated in my previous letter was received this morning.
The times and places designated are as follows:
Ottowa, ... LaSalle Co, ... August ... 21st ... 1858
Freeport, ... Stevenson Co. ... “ ... 27th ... “
Jonesboro’, ... Union Co. ... September ... 15 “ ... “
Charleston, ... Coles Co. ... “ ... 18 “ ... “
Galesburg, ... Knox Co. ... October ... 7 “ ... “
Quincy, ... Adams Co. ... “ ... 13 “ ... “
Alton, ... Madison Co. ... “ ... 15 “ ... “
I agree to your suggestion that we shall alternately open and close the discussion. I will speak at Ottowa 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 at each successive place.
Very resp’y,
Y’r ob’t serv’t,
S. A. Douglas
I’ll never get over that “Your obedient servant” stuff, too cool. We should try speaking that way now. “Thank you, Barley. I will take into account that you always bring an apple to headquarters and that I should not eat it. Thank you. I remain always, your obedient servant.” Ha!
