In the course of the debates, Mr. Lincoln said of slavery:
"The real issue in this controversy—the one pressing upon every mind—is the sentiment on the part of one class that looks upon the institution of slavery as a wrong, and of another class that does not look upon it as a wrong.... Because we think it wrong, we propose a course of policy that shall deal with it as a wrong. We deal with it as any other wrong, in so far as we can prevent it from growing any larger, and so deal with it that in the run of time there may be some promise of an end to it."
Because of the great principles involved, and the wide notoriety of these debates, Mr. Lincoln said, at Quincy:
"I was aware, when it was first agreed that Judge Douglas and I were to have these seven joint discussions, that they were the successive acts of a drama—perhaps I should say, to be enacted, not merely in the face of audiences like this, but in the face of the nation, and, to some extent, by my relation to him, and not from anything in myself, in the face of the world; and I am anxious that they should be conducted with dignity and in good temper, which would be befitting the vast audiences before which it was conducted."
In the first debate, at Ottawa, Mr. Douglas said, in reference to the early career of himself and Mr. Lincoln in Illinois:
"I have known him for nearly twenty-five years. There were many points of sympathy between us when we first got acquainted. We were both comparatively boys, and both struggling with poverty in a strange land. I was a school teacher in the town of Winchester, and he a flourishing grocery-keeper in the town of Salem."
It has been stated, in Chapter VII., that in those days to be a "grocery-keeper" implied the selling of whisky. In his reply, Mr. Lincoln, using the third person, said:
"The judge is woefully at fault about his early friend Lincoln being a 'grocery-keeper.' I don't know as it would be a great sin if I had been; but he is mistaken. Lincoln never kept a grocery anywhere in the world. It is true that Lincoln did work the latter part of one winter in a little still-house up at the head of a hollow."
Here Lincoln plainly denies ever keeping a grocery, but the query arises, Where did he "work the latter part of one winter in a little still-house, up at the head of a hollow"? In all the numerous Lincoln biographies I have ever examined I have never seen any reference to its location. But I have located the place.