A battle opened by so resounding a shot was sure to be furious. Writers and speakers fell upon the fateful paragraph and tore it savagely. They found in it a stimulus which, in fact, was not needed; for already were present all the elements of the fiercest struggle,--the best man and the best fighter in each party at the front, and not unevenly matched; a canvass most close and doubtful; and a question which stirred the souls of men with the passions of crusading days. Douglas added experience and distinction to gallantry in attack, adroitness in defense, readiness in personalities, and natural aptitude for popular oratory. Lincoln frankly admitted his formidable qualifications. But the Republican managers had a shrewd appreciation of both opponents; they saw that Lincoln's forte lay in hitting out straight, direct, and hard; and they felt that blows of the kind he delivered should not go out into the air, but should alight upon a concrete object,--upon Douglas. They conceived a wise plan. On July 24, 1858, Lincoln challenged Douglas to a series of joint debates. Douglas accepted, and named seven meetings, which he so arranged that he opened and closed four times and Lincoln opened and closed three times; but Lincoln made no point of the inequality; the arrangement was completed, and this famous duel constituted another link in that White House chain. The setting of the spectacle had the picturesqueness of the times and the region. The people gathered in vast multitudes, to the number of ten thousand, even of twenty thousand, at the places named for the speech-making; they came in their wagons from all the country round, bringing provisions, and making camps in the groves and fields. There were bonfires and music, parading and drinking. He was a singular man in Illinois who was not present at some one of these encounters.