Encounters
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On the whole, though, Lincoln did well on the stump. In late May, the Quincy Whig reported that the Democrats “have not been able to start a man that can hold a candle to him in political debate,—All of their crack nags that have entered the lists against him, have come off the field crippled or broken down.” In a debate with John A. McClernand at Shawneetown on September 5, he impressed the crowd with “the novelty of his attacks, ludicrous comparisons and fund of anecdote.” He also won credit for eschewing criticism of Van Buren’s purportedly sybaritic style of living, a staple of Whig campaign strategy originated by Whig Congressman Charles Ogle of Pennsylvania. According to a letter in the Democratic Illinois State Register, at Shawneetown, Lincoln “emphatically declared that the Ogle mode of demagoguing is a small and contemptible affair” and “stated that he never alluded to the furniture of the President’s house himself, and that he knew it was a mere trick to gull the people—and his only justification for his party was that Mr. [ John Quincy] Adams was denounced on the same ground.”
Source: Abraham Lincoln ∶ A Life ▫𓂃
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