And Lincoln again scored on his opponent, when he pointed out that his political doctrine rested upon the major premise, that there was no wrong in slavery. "If you will take the Judge's speeches, and select the short and pointed sentences expressed by him,--as his declaration that he 'don't care whether slavery is voted up or down'--you will see at once that this is perfectly logical, if you do not admit that slavery is wrong.... Judge Douglas declares that if any community wants slavery they have a right to have it. He can say that logically, if he says that there is no wrong in slavery; but if you admit that there is a wrong in it, he cannot logically say that anybody has a right to do wrong."[757] Those who now read these memorable debates dis-passionately, will surely acquit Lincoln of inconsistency in his attitude toward the negro. His speech at Charleston supplements the speech at Chicago; at Galesburg, he made an admirable re-statement of his position. Nevertheless, there was a marked difference in point of emphasis between his utterances in Northern and in Southern Illinois. Even the casual reader will detect subtle omissions which the varying character of his audience forced upon Lincoln. In Chicago he said nothing about the physical inferiority of the negro; he said nothing about the equality of the races in the Declaration of Independence, when he spoke at Charleston. Among men of anti-slavery leanings, he had much to say about the moral wrong of slavery; in the doubtful counties, Lincoln was solicitous that he should not be understood as favoring social and political equality between whites and blacks. Feeling keenly this diplomatic shifting of emphasis, Douglas persisted in accusing Lincoln of inconsistency: "He has one set of principles for the Abolition counties and another set for the counties opposed to Abolitionism." If Lincoln had said in Coles County what he has to-day said in old Knox, Douglas complained, "it would have settled the question between us in that doubtful county."[758] And in this Douglas was probably correct. At Quincy, Douglas was in his old bailiwick. Three times the Democrats of this district had sent him to Congress; and though the bounds of the congressional district had since been changed, Adams County was still Democratic by a safe majority. Among the people who greeted the speakers, however, were many old-time Whigs, for whose special benefit the Republicans of the city carried on a pole, at the head of their procession, a live raccoon. With a much keener historic sense, the Democrats bore aloft a dead raccoon, suspended by its tail.[759] Lincoln again harked back to his position that slavery was "a moral, a social, and a political wrong" which the Republican party proposed to prevent from growing any larger; and that "the leading man--I think I may do my friend Judge Douglas the honor of calling him such--advocating the present Democratic policy, never himself says it is wrong."[760]