The whole number of persons present could not have been less than twelve thousand. Large numbers were present from Chicago, Galena, Springfield, Peoria, Quincy, Rock Island, Bloomington, Alton and other distant towns. The crowd was considerably larger on the ground than that which assembled in this city on the night of Douglas' opening speech.
Mr. Douglas's speech
At half past 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:
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Mr. Lincoln's reply
Mr. Lincoln then came forward and was greeted with loud and protracted cheers from fully two-thirds of the audience. This was admitted by the Douglas men on the platform. It was some minutes before he could make himself heard, even by those on the stand. At last he said:
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When Lincoln had concluded his masterly and crushing indictment and conviction, amidst the applause of thousands of voices, Douglas sprang to his feet to reply. His face was livid with passion and excitement. All his plans had been demolished, himself placed in the criminal's box to answer to an indictment, and make head against a mountain of damning testimony heaped up against him by his antagonist. We have never seen a human face so distorted with rage. He resembled a wild beast in looks and gesture, and a maniac in language and argument. He made no adequate reply to the heavy charges brought against him, save to call everybody "liars" who alleged to believe them. He finished up by renewing his miserable charges and repeatin his irrelevant questions, and claiming with a grand flourish, that Lincoln had not refuted the one nor answered the other; boasted that he had won the victory, and threatened what awful things he would do when he would next meet Lincoln at Freeport. The bodyguard of five or six hundred Irish Papists stood close by him yelling and cheering at all he said, perfectly indifferent whether it was sound sense or wild raving.
It was the opinion of every unprejudiced listener, that Douglas
