"Dear Sir:--Your letter, dated yesterday, accepting my proposition for a joint discussion at one prominent point in each congressional district * * * was received this morning. The times and places designated are as follows: Ottawa, La Salle County ......... August 21, 1858. Freeport, Stephenson County ..... August 27, 1858. Jonesboro, Union County ...... September 15, 1858. Charleston, Coles County ..... September 18, 1858. Galesburgh, Knox County ......... October 7, 1858. Quincy, Adams County ........... October 13, 1858. Alton, Madison County .......... October 15, 1858. "I agree to your suggestion that we shall alternately open and close the discussion. I will speak at Ottawa one hour, you can reply, occupying an hour and a half, and I will then follow for half an hour. At Freeport, you shall open the discussion and speak one hour; I will follow for an hour and a half, and you can then reply for half an hour. We will alternate in like manner in each successive place. "Very respectfully, your obedient servant, "S. A. Douglas." To which Lincoln replied: "Springfield, July 31, 1858. "Hon. S. A. Douglas: "Dear Sir:--Yours of yesterday, naming places, time and terms for joint discussions, between us, was received this morning. Although by the terms as you propose, you take four openings and closes to my three, I accede, and thus close the arrangement. * * * "Your obedient servant, "A. Lincoln." Now that Lincoln has become idealized and is safely classed with the great men of all ages, his modest challenge seems like a condescension of the immortal President to his rival. It then seemed an act of temerity bordering on madness. Lincoln's friends thought it rash. Douglas' friends had no hope that his adversary would be so easily delivered into his hands. Yet Lincoln was not a despised antagonist. He was the most prominent Republican in Illinois. But Douglas was the recognized head of a great national party, the giant of the Senate, the most resourceful American statesman then living. Through years of desperate battling he had successfully repelled the assaults of Seward, Sumner and Chase. He had more recently encountered with equal ease all the Southern Senators. It seemed a simple task to meet this humble Western lawyer and make his friends ashamed of their senatorial candidate. Douglas did not share the pleasant illusion of his friends. Before leaving Washington, when he heard that Lincoln was nominated, he said to Forney: "I shall have my hands full. He is a strong man of his party,--full of wit, facts, dates,--and the best stump speaker, with his droll ways and dry jokes, in the West. He is as honest as his is shrewd; and if I beat him my victory will be hardly won."