Two young men who became very famous in the history of our country really started their careers at Springfield, Illinois. One was Stephen A. Douglas and the other Abraham Lincoln. It would be hard to say which of these young men was the smarter; they were both brilliant and hard workers. That is, they studied hard and that made them successful. Although they were both great men, they were not much alike in appearance or in disposition or in the quality of their minds. Mr. Lincoln came from the South where they liked slavery and Mr. Douglas from Vermont where they hated slavery. They both came to Illinois at about the age of twenty-one, when they became citizens according to the law. At this time Illinois was a sort of debating battle-ground. Emigrants came to it from the north and east, who were opposed to slavery; others came from the south, who were in favor of slavery, and these two classes, in the absence of slavery and on rather mutual ground, debated the rights and wrongs of slavery with constant and energetic debate. The Democratic party at this time was mostly in the South and the Whig party mostly in the North. Slavery was in the South, but not in the North. Naturally, therefore, the Democratic party favored slavery, and the Whig party, while it did not oppose slavery, yet did not favor it. You would think, under the circumstances, that Mr. Lincoln coming from the South, would have been a Democrat, and Mr. Douglas coming from the North would have been a Whig. But they each did the opposite. The Democratic party was in the majority in Illinois at this time and I presume Mr. Douglas, coming to the state, ambitious to succeed, thought he could best succeed if he went in with the popular party, for it had control of the offices and could give him a place and then advance him higher and higher as he proved his worth. After events proved that he was thus advanced and to very great honors. When Mr. Lincoln was making a speech at Charleston, Illinois, one time, a man in the audience tried to ridicule him, and shouted out: "Say, Lincoln, when you came to Illinois, didn't you come barefoot and driving a yoke of oxen?" Showing how coming poor from a slave state, he was helped to be what he was, by the free state of Illinois. Mr. Lincoln wound up the reply with these magnificent words: "Yes, and we will speak for freedom and against slavery as long as the constitution of our country guarantees free speech, until everywhere on this wide land, the sun shall shine and the rain fall and the wind blow upon no man who goes forth to unrequited toil."