GDG- Dialogue between Douglas and Breckinridge

[Dennis Lawrence]

Saturday, September 29, 1860.
Springfield, IL.
	

Lincoln enjoys himself by composing, in pencil, imaginary dialogue between 
Douglas and Breckinridge. Dialogue between Stephen A. Douglas and John C. 
Breckinridge, .

 >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Dialogue between Stephen A. Douglas and John C. Breckinridge [1]
Louisville, Ky--- Sep. 29. 1860

Meeting & Dialogue of Douglas & Breckenridge---

DOUG--- Well, you have succeeded in breaking up the Democratic party.

BRECK--- Certainly, for the time being, the party is under a cloud, to say 
the least; but why you should say I did it, I do not comprehend.

DOUG--- Perhaps I should charge it to your supporters, rather than to you.

BRECK--- The blame, as I conceive, is neither upon my friends or me.

DOUG--- They insisted on having a plat-form, upon which I could not stand.

BRECK--- Aye, and you insisted on having a platform upon which they could 
not stand.

DOUG--- But mine was the true Democratic platform.

BRECK--- That presents the exact point in dispute; my friends insist that 
theirs is the true Democratic platform.

DOUG--- Let us argue it, then.

BRECK--- I conceive that argument is exhausted; you certainly could advance 
nothing new, and I know not that I could. There is, however, a colatteral 
point, upon which I would like the exchange of a few words.

DOUG--- What is it?

Page  124
BRECK--- It is this: We insisted on Congressional protection of Slave 
property in the national teritories; and you broke with us professedly 
because of this.

DOUG--- Exactly so; I insisted upon non-intervention.

BRECK--- And yet you are forming coalitions, wherever you can, with Bell, 
who is for this very congressional protection of slavery---for the very 
thing which you pretend, drove you from us--- for Bell, with all his 
Know-Nothingism, and anti-democracy of every sort.

DOUG--- Bell is a good Union-man; and you, and your friends, are a set of 
disunionists.

BRECK--- Bah! You have known us long, and intimately; why did you never 
denounce us as disunionists, till since our refusal to support you for the 
Presidency? Why have you never warned the North against our disunion 
schemes, till since the Charleston and Baltimore sessions of the National 
convention? Will you answer, Senator Douglas?

DOUG--- The condition of my throat will not permit me to carry this 
conversation any further.

 >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Annotation

[1]   AD, DLC-RTL. Lincoln's jeu d'esprit, written in pencil, was probably 
suggested by Douglas' speech at Louisville, September 29, in which Douglas 
made the points included in Lincoln's imaginary dialogue.