In the seven public debates which were held as the result of these preliminary speeches, the questions at issue were elaborately and exhaustively treated. The friends of each naturally claimed the victory for their own champion. The speeches were listened to by tens of thousands of eager auditors; but absorbing, indeed unprecedented, as was the interest, the vast throngs behaved with moderation and decorum. The discussion from beginning to end was an amplification of the position which each had taken at the outset. The arguments were held close to the subject, relating solely to the slavery question, and not even incidentally referring to any other political issue. Protection, free trade, internal improvements, the sub-treasury, all the issues, in short, which had divided parties for a long series of years, and on which both speakers entertained very decided views, were omitted from the discussion. The public mind saw but one issue; every thing else was irrelevant. At the first meeting, Douglas addressed a series of questions to Mr. Lincoln, skillfully prepared and well adapted to entrap him in contradictions, or commit him to such extreme doctrine as would ruin his canvass. Mr. Lincoln's answers at the second meeting, held at Freeport, were both frank and adroit. Douglas had failed to gain a point by his resort to the Socratic mode of argument. He had indeed only given Mr. Lincoln an opportunity to exhibit both his candor and his skill. After he had answered, he assumed the offensive, and addressed a series of questions to Mr. Douglas which were constructed with the design of forcing the latter to an unmistakable declaration of his creed. Douglas had been a party to the duplex construction of the Cincinnati platform of 1856, in which the people of the South had been comforted with the doctrine that slavery was protected in the Territories by the Constitution against the authority of Congress and against the power of the Territorial citizens, until the period should be reached, when, under an enabling act to form a constitution for a State government, the majority might decide the question of slavery. Of this doctrine Mr. Breckinridge was the Southern representative, and he had for that very reason been associated with Mr. Buchanan on the Presidential ticket. On the other hand, the North was consoled, it would not be unfair to say cajoled, with the doctrine of popular sovereignty as defined by Mr. Douglas; and this gave to the people of the Territories the absolute right to settle the question of slavery for themselves at any time. The doctrine had, however, been utterly destroyed by the Dred Scott decision, and, to the confusion of all lines of division and distinction, Mr. Douglas had approved the opinion of the Supreme Court.