“If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could better judge what to do, and how to do it. We are now far into the fifth year, since a policy was initiated with the avowed object, and confident promise of putting an end to the slavery agitation. Under the operation of that policy, that agitation has not only not ceased, but has constantly augmented. In my opinion it will not cease, until a crisis shall have been reached and passed. ‘A house divided against itself cannot stand.’ I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved—I do not expect the house to fall—but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward, till it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new—North as well as South.” Douglas arrived in Chicago on the 9th of July, and was warmly received by enthusiastic friends. His doctrine of “popular sovereignty” had all the attractions of novelty and apparent fairness. For months it divided many Republicans, and at one time the New York _Tribune_ showed indications of endorsing the position of Douglas—a fact probably traceable to the attitude of jealousy and hostility manifested toward him by the Buchanan administration. Neither of the great debaters were to be wholly free in the coming contest. Douglas was undermined by Buchanan, who feared him as a rival, and by the more bitter friends of slavery, who could not see that the new doctrine was safely in their interest; but these things were dwarfed in the State conflict, and those who shared such feelings had to make at least a show of friendship until they saw the result. Lincoln was at first handicapped by the doubts of that class of Republicans who thought “popular sovereignty” not bad Republican doctrine. On the arrival of Douglas he replied to Lincoln’s Springfield speech; on the 16th he spoke at Bloomington, and on the 17th, in the afternoon, at Springfield. Lincoln had heard all three speeches, and replied to the last on the night of the day of its delivery. He next addressed to Douglas the following challenge to debate: CHICAGO, July 24th, 1858. HON. S. A. DOUGLAS:—_My Dear Sir_:—Will it be agreeable to you to make an arrangement to divide time, and address the same audience, during the present canvass? etc. Mr. Judd is authorized to receive your answer, and if agreeable to you, to enter into terms of such agreement, etc. Your obedient servant, A. LINCOLN.