Douglas recognized an antagonist who was easier to avoid than to meet, and attempted to keep Lincoln out of his path by treating him as an inferior. On one occasion, when both happened to be in the same town, there was a strong desire among the people to hear them discuss public questions. The proposition irritated Judge Douglas, who, with his usual arrogance, inquired,-- "What does Lincoln represent in this campaign? Is he an abolitionist or a Whig?" The committee replied that Lincoln was a Whig, whereupon Douglas dismissed the subject in his pompous way, saying,-- "Oh, yes, I am now in the region of the Old Line Whig. When I am in Northern Illinois I am assailed by an abolitionist, when I get to the centre I am attacked by an Old Line Whig, when I go to Southern Illinois I am beset by an Anti-Nebraska Democrat. It looks to me like dodging a man all over the State. If Mr. Lincoln wants to make a speech he had better get a crowd of his own, for I most respectfully decline to hold a discussion with him." Lincoln calmly ignored this assumption of superiority at the time, but never failed to punish Mr. Douglas for it when they met upon the stump, and, according to the testimony of their contemporaries, he was equal to his able and adroit opponent from the beginning of their rivalry either in the court-room, or in a rough-and-tumble debate, or in the serious political discussion of great political questions. Only one of Lincoln's speeches of this period of his life is preserved. That is an address delivered at a sort of oratorical tournament at Springfield. There was such a demand for it that a few days after its delivery he wrote out as much as he could remember and the Whig managers printed it in pamphlet form as a campaign document; but it was the last time he indulged in the old-fashioned flights of eloquence. From that hour the topics he discussed demanded his serious attention and his closest argument, and he spoke to convince, not to excite admiration or merely to stir the emotions of his audiences.