The Lincoln-Douglas Debates: The First Complete, Unexpurgated Text

A Word on the Texts

A WORD ON THE TEXTS THE TEXTS PUBLISHED HERE for the first time since 1858 are the unedited transcripts recorded on the spot during each Lincoln-Douglas debate by the opposition press. Previous anthologies presented only the much improved , suspiciously seamless versions supposedly recorded simultaneously by each debater's friendly newspaper. The resurrection ofthese unexpurgated transcripts will give modern readers long-overdue access to the debates as they were likely heard originally by the multitudes who witnessed the encounters back in 1858. In the process, the historical record will finally be liberated from reliance on texts that long ago were processed through the alembic ofhired reporters, sympathetic publishers, and ultimately Lincoln himself, whose editorial hand guided the book-length version that, in turn, has provided the basis of all the published versions since. But as this project progressed, it became clear that adjustments would have to be made. Short ofpresenting every word of every transcript of every debate side by side for comparison, each page annotated with A Word on the Texts 35 footnotes, a compromise system seemed better suited to the effort to exhume these old texts and present them to new readers. In reading both the Republican and Democratic versions of the debates together, line by line, for example, it became obvious that all too often the various "phonographic experts" on both sides of the contest not only heard things differently but heard different things. Huge discrepancies occasionally leapt from the page and demanded clarification. So in presenting those sections which the two stenographers heard in dissimilar ways, we chose to present both versions-with the "friendly" alternative in the form ofa bracketed insert. It is instructive that, charges to the contrary, there were only a few occasions to be found in the record of the "emasculation" and "mutilation" reported at the time (readers are alerted to all of them and supplied alternative passages within the text). Read side by side, the texts often prove startlingly different. One of the most frequently quoted of Lincoln's aphorisms, for example-"he who moulds public sentiment, goes deeper than he who enacts statutes or pronounces decisions," as the pro-Republican press reported it from the first debate at Ottawa-was heard by opposition Democrats there in far less stylish, more truncated prose. It was simply "he who moulds public sentiment is greater than he who makes statutes." Who can say for certain whether the pro-Douglas press fractured Lincoln's wording as he spoke it, or whether pro-Lincoln reporters enhanced it later? But the latter explanation seems more believable. In another revealing example, Lincoln's well-known comments at the final debate at Alton were again heard quite differently by Republicanhired and Democrat-hired stenographers. As Lincoln's man heard it, he said: That is the real issue. That is the issue that will continue in this country when these poor tongues ofJudge Douglas and myself shall be silent. It is the eternal struggle between these two principles-right and wrong-throughout the world. They are the two principles that have stood face to face from the beginning of time; and will ever continue to struggle. The one is the common right of humanity and the other the divine right ofkings. It is the same principle in whatever shape it develops itself. It is the same spirit that says, "You work and toil and earn bread, and I'll eat it." No matter in what shape it comes, whether from the mouth of a king who seeks to bestride the people 36 • THE LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES • ofhis own nation and live by the fruit oftheir labor, or from one race of men as an apology for enslaving another race, it is the same tyrannical principle. It is a superbly crafted passage. But it is not what the rival press heard at Alton. As the Democratic reporter transcribed it, Lincoln said: That is the real issue! An issue that will continue in this country when these poor tongues ofDouglas and myselfshall be silent. These are the two principles that are made the eternal struggle between right and wrong. They are the two principles that have stood face to face, one ofthem asserting the divine right ofkings, the same principle that says you work, you toil, you earn bread, and I will eat it. It is the same old serpent, whether it come from the mouth of a king...