addressing the people in company. Those readers who examine the letter of our Monticello correspondent will learn somewhat of the circumstances which attended the conclusion of this arrangement. Mr. Lincoln's letter is dated Springfield, but it was sent by the author from some place in Piatt county to Senator Douglas in Bement. We are not disposed to criticise too harshly the style of Mr. Lincoln's letter. It is now printed and speaks for itself its own praise or condemnation. But, the public will have their opinion of it, and it can be none other than that it is as badly conceived as bunglingly expressed. We hope, however, that we have seen the "conclusion" of the correspondence, and do not question that by the time Mr. Lincoln has "concluded" on Senator Douglas, once or twice, and permitted Senator Douglas to "conclude" on him an equal number of times, he will "conclude" that he better haul off and lay by for repairs.
We need not describe the arrangement, as it is made fully to appear in the correspondence itself.
[Illinois State Journal, July 31, 1858]
MR. LINCOLN'S CHALLENGE TO MR. DOUGLAS.—REJOINDER OF MR. LINCOLN
We have already published the letter of Mr. Lincoln challenging Mr. Douglas to a joint canvass of the State, and also the letter of Mr. Douglas in reply, declining the invitation in the most pettifogging and cowardly manner. Today we publish a rejoinder of Mr. Lincoln, exposing the flimsy pretexts upon which Mr. Douglas places his declension and at the same time cordially responding to that part of the reply in which Mr. Douglas reluctantly consents to allow himself to be used up by Mr. Lincoln at seven different places. It is clear that Mr. Douglas is not fond of Mr. Lincoln's rough handling and is anxious to get out of an ugly scrape on any terms. In this matter Douglas goes on the principle that discretion is the better part of valor.
We knew from the first that Douglas would not dare to make a general canvass of the state with Lincoln. He had to run away from that gentleman in 1854 and dared not stand his broadsides now. If he dared not meet Lincoln in the first dawnings of his conspiracy to Africanize the whole American Continent, of course he would object still more to such a canvass in 1858, when the evidences of that conspiracy are so numerous and overwhelming that even his audacity shrinks from denying it. But we did expect that Mr. Douglas would
