"Will it be agreeable to you to make an arrangement for you and myself to divide time, and address the same audience during the present canvass?"
Abraham Lincoln to Stephen Douglas, July 24, 1858
Senator Stephen Douglas was apprehensive about accepting Abraham Lincoln's challenge to debate him in the 1858 contest for a seat in the United States Senate. Respecting Lincoln's abilities on the stump and fearful of giving his challenger a national platform, Douglas told a friend, "I do not feel, between you and me, that I want to go into this debate. The whole country knows me and has me measured. Lincoln, as regards myself, is comparatively unknown, and if he gets the best of this debate, and I want to say he is the ablest man the Republicans have got, I shall lose everything and Lincoln will gain everything. Should I win. I shall gain but little."