Saint Paul weekly Minnesotian. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1858-1859, 1858-08-28
From the Chicago Prees and Tribune.
GREAT DEBATE BETW ZEN
LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS,
At Ottawa Illinois.
TWELVE THOUSAND PERSONS PRESENT ! !

At Ottawa, Illinois.
TWELVE THOUSAND PERSONS PRESENT u
The bred Scott Champion Pulverized !
Douglas, Speech---LincOln's Reply, and
Douglas RejOinder.
From sunrise till nigh noon ON Saturday,
August 4th, Ottawa was deluged in dust.
The first of the seven great debates which
Douglas had consented to hold with Lincoln,
had started La Sale, Will, Kendall, Grundy,
kankakee, Cook and other surrounding
counties, in unwonted commotion. Before
breakfast Ottawa was beleaguered with
multiplying host from all points OF the CON-
pass. At eight o'clock the streets and ave-
nues leading from the country were so envel-
oped with the dust that the town reSembled
vast smoke house Teams, trains and pro.
cessions poured in from every direction like
an army with banners. National flags, mot
toes and devices fluttered and started from
every street corner. Military companies and
bands of music mOnopolized the thorough
fares around the Court House and the public
square. Two brass twelve Founders banged
away in the center of the city and drowned
the hubbub of the multitude with their OWL
higher capacities for hubbub. Vanity Fair
never boiled with madden enthusiasm.
AT eleven o'clock two long professions
were formed-one marching to the de-
pot of the Rock Island Railroad where
Mr.. Lincoln was expected % arrive, and the
other moving down the road towards Peru,
whence MIR. Douglas was advertised to come.
As the first procession was crossing the canal
an enormous canal boat was moored near the
bridge, crowded with men and women. On
the bow was large banner inscribed, The
corporation of lIarSeilies for .Abraham Liacof0.
In a few minutes another boat appeared
from Morris with a similar crowd and similar
devices.
Shortly after II o'clock the special train
from Chicago Joliet, &c, came in ariM seren-
teen cars. When it reached the depot, three
deafening cheers went up for Abraham Lin
coin. The cheers were repeated and re-
repeated until the woods and bluffs rang
again. Mr.. Lincoln was placed in carriage
beautifully decorated with evergreens and
notices by the young ladies of Ottawa, and
escorted by the procession, over half a mill,
in length, with military companies and bands
of music from the depot to the public square,
around the square and to the residence Of
Mayor Glover. Enormous crowds blOckaded
the streets and sidewalks through which the
procession moved, and the shouts of the null
titude rolled from end to end, around the
street corners and across the bridge, in 4
continuous tumult. When Mr.. Lincoln S
carriage stopped at the Mayors residence,
three mighty cheers were given and the crowd
scattered miscellaneously for dinner.
The Douglas procession moved down the
Peru road to Buffalo Rock, where they met
the pro-slavery champion, whom they escort
ed to the Geiger House. The procession was
about half as long as that which waited on
Mr.. Lincoln, and the enthusiasm was almost
wholly confined to the Irish.
At one O'Clock the crowd commenced pour
ing into the public square. The rush was
literally tremendous. The whole number of
persons present could not have been less than
twelve thousand. Large numbers were pre-
sent from Chicago, Galena, Springfield, Peo-
ria, Quincy, Rock island, Bloomington, Alton.
and other distant points. The crowd was
considerably larger on the ground than that
which assembled in this city on the night Of
Douglas opening speech.
MR. DOUGLAS SPEECH.
At half pa two Mr.. Douglas took the
front of the platform, amid the cheers of the
Hibernians who had fought their way to the
front, and said:
We have not room for the whole Of this
debate and as the Pioneer and Democrat wi
probably publish DoUGLAs' speech, we shall
omit it, and content ourselves with giving
place hereafter to LIScoLN's speech. TIE
Chicago Press and Tribune gives however,
the following synopsis and notice Of the de-
bate generally:
q To-; r1op Gov
Quoting the Ottawa discussion, at once cun-
ming unfair and cowardly. We employ these
terms as describing exactly the course lie
pursued towards his opponent He had the
opening speech. His policy was first to aooicl
discussion of the real, living issues before
the people second, to throw Lincoln upon
the detensiue, and compel HIM to consume his
time in replying to irrelevant matter. lie
commenced his harangue by perverting the
"true intent and meaning" of his Nebraska
bill. He next committed forgery by read
ing some radical resolutions passed at Aurora
in September, 1854, by local meeting and
charging that they were adopted by Re-
publican State Convention at Springfield, on
October 5th 1854. He then asserted that
Lincoln, Lovejoy, Codding and Farnswortl
helped to frame and pass these resolutions
DE- pOItlOu vi 'tlc lcpuDilCall ctdlc ldtioTI
which charges as he we'll knew, were utter
ly f,lse. Then he alleged that after making
this platform, Lincoln and Trumbull entered
into a conspiracy to Abolitionize "-the
former, the Clay Wings, and the latter the
Jackson Democrats of Illinois-in order that
they might vault into the Senate Chamber,
the one into Shields seat and the other into
Douglas. Then he went on to ask Lincoln a
49,, of Il,
were wholly foreign and outside of the real
matters at issue after which he consumed the
remainder of his hour in charging that Lin
coin was in favor of negro equality, and ANAL
gamation, of turning loose upon our prairies
all the negroes of Missouri, of making then
citizens, voters and office holders, and mar
rying them with the whites of the State He
also charged that Lincoln was in favor o
freeing all the slaves of the South, of inter
fering with the institutions of the slave States
and of amalgamating and equalzing the two
races in their social and political rights. He
had the brazen mcndacity to insist that Lin.
coin went about the State preaching and adj
vocating these doctrines All these things he
said in a coarse, boisterous, Short Boy style
of delivery"
'Much to his discontinue and chagrin, Lin
coin disposed of his miserable slang and i'm
pertinent questions in about ten minute.
time, and passed at once into the merits O
the great bona fide issues before the State
and country. He lifted the curtain that hic
the conspiracies and conspirators from view
aud laid bare before the gaze of ten Thousand
auditors the work in which the little Catalina
was engaged, and showed up who were hi
confreres and associates in the plot to orerthroo
the Constitution, natioaalize SiaUery. and CON
cert our Union into O Negro breeding desDot
ism. He performed this task in an earnest
calm manner, employing gentlemanly Ian
guage, and directing his remarks to the under
standing and consciences of his hearers.
When Lincoln had concluded his masterl,
and crushing indictment and conviction, a
midst the annlanse oil thousands Of uoinoc