LETTER: LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATE ECLIPSED THE GREAT COMMET OVER JONESBORO

To the editor:

A wondrous thing happened in Union County Saturday past. It eclipsed the grand comet seen the night before. The people were moved. Science cannot explain it.

At this writing, it is a cool and breezy, brilliant Monday after. The rhythms of little Jonesboro seem emptier and slower, yet fuller and faster than before. The fair-grounds are vacant. No band plays. No cannon booms. All visible remains of the great debate are a bit of trash, a crude stand of wood and benches to return. Invisible, but equally clear to see is the memory of Abraham Lincoln.

Have no doubt about it friends and neighbors. What we saw and heard of Lincoln here was honest. Abe was no political hack. Alone, he held his own in words, and then he took some! His powers of oration swayed many to blurt-out in his defense in such a way that bodes danger. He not only splits rails, he splits tickets. Democrats beware!

If Douglas earned our votes, then Lincoln won our hearts. The man was magic. Some already say that he gave our small, county seat a fame to last one hundred years! Did he?

My dear wife, Mary, and I and another couple, perhaps more, plan to dress our best and journey north to Alton on a long-day-trip in mid-October. We will see and hear this Lincoln once more before election. Any man can have one good day in political life. Special men have more. Is it possible that he will move them there as he did us here? If he does, what happens will happen as Shakespeare says:

"All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players: They have their exits and entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts ... And he plays his part ... Last scene of all ... sans everything."

If Lincoln is genuine, no Whig by Republican name, all may be caught-up in some great contagion nothing can contain. If so, may God help Steve Douglas, the Democrat Party and these United States! I am,

Dr. Sidney S. Condon, MD, Anna, Correspondent for the Jonesboro Gazette, 1858.

DAVE BRADLEY

Re-enactor

Jonesboro, Ill.