Lincoln seemed an awkward countryman beside the senator. His tall body seemed too big for the platform, and his ill-fitting black clothes hung loosely upon it, as if they had been made for some one else. When he began to speak his voice was harsh and shrill. His huge hands, the hands of a labourer, with the big knuckles and red, ugly wrists, got knotted together as if nothing could unfix them. Soon, however, he became absorbed in what he was saying; he ceased to be nervous; everything seemed to change. As he forgot himself, his body seemed to expand and straighten itself, so that every one else looked small and mean beside him; his voice became deep and clear, reaching to the farthest end of the hall, and his face, that had appeared ugly, was lit up with an inner light that made it more than beautiful. The deep grey eyes seemed to each man in the hall to be looking at him and piercing his soul. The language was so simple that the most ignorant man in the hall could follow it and understand. Everything was clear. There was no hiding under fine words; nothing was left out, nothing unnecessary was said. No one could doubt what Lincoln meant; and he was not going to let any one doubt what Douglas meant. The greatest debate of all was that at the meeting at Freeport. At Freeport Lincoln asked Douglas a question, against the advice of all his friends. He asked whether, if a State wanted not to have slavery, it could so decide? Lincoln knew that if Douglas said “No. A state which had slavery must keep it,” the people of Illinois would not vote for him, and he would lose this election. If he said “yes” he would be elected, and not Lincoln. Lincoln knew this; he knew that if Douglas said “yes,” he was safe, and he would say “yes.” “Where do you come in, then?” his friends asked him. “Why do you ask him this? If you do, Douglas is sure to get in. You are ruining your own chances.” “I do not come in anywhere,” said Lincoln; “but that does not matter. What does matter is this. If Douglas says ‘yes,’ as he will, he will get into the Senate now; but two years after this he will stand for election as President. If he says ‘yes’ now, the South will vote against him then, and he will not be elected. He must not be elected. No one who believes in spreading slavery must be elected. It does not matter about me.” Lincoln was quite right. He saw further than any one else. Douglas said “yes,” and he was elected for Illinois. But the Democratic party in the South, whose support had made him strong, began to distrust him. “Douglas,” said Lincoln, “is followed by a crowd of blind men; I want to make some of these blind men see.” Lincoln was defeated, but he did not think of himself. His speeches against Douglas were printed and read all over America. He was invited to speak in Ohio; and in the next year, in the beginning of 1860, a society in New York asked him to come and give them an address on politics.