Douglas demurred:  he was not sure that Mr. Lincoln wanted his advice and aid.  Mr. Ashmun assured him that the President would welcome any advances, and he spoke advisedly as a friend to both men.  The peril of the country was grave; surely this was not a time when men should let personal and partisan considerations stand between them and service to their country.  Mrs. Douglas added her entreaties, and Douglas finally yielded.  Though the hour was late, the two men set off for the White House, and found there the hearty welcome which Ashmun had promised.[979]

Of all the occurrences of this memorable day, this interview between Lincoln and Douglas strikes the imagination with most poignant suggestiveness.  Had Douglas been a less generous opponent, he might have reminded the President that matters had come to just that pass which he had foreseen in 1858.  Nothing of the sort passed Douglas’s lips.  The meeting of the rivals was most cordial and hearty.  They held converse as men must when hearts are oppressed with a common burden.  The President took up and read aloud the proclamation summoning the nation to arms.  When he had done, Douglas said with deep earnestness, “Mr. President, I cordially concur in every word of that document, except that instead of the call for seventy-five thousand men, I would make it two hundred thousand.  You do not know the dishonest purposes of those men as well as I do."[980] Why has not some artist seized upon the dramatic moment when they rose and passed to the end of the room to examine a map which hung there?  Douglas, with animated face and impetuous gesture, pointing out the strategic places in the coming contest; Lincoln, with the suggestion of brooding melancholy upon his careworn face, listening in rapt attention to the quick, penetrating observations of his life-long rival.  But what no artist could put upon canvas was the dramatic absence of resentment and defeated ambition in the one, and the patient teachableness and self-mastery of the other.  As they parted, a quick hearty grasp of hands symbolized this remarkable consecration to a common task.

As they left the executive mansion, Ashmun urged his companion to send an account of this interview to the press, that it might accompany the President’s message on the morrow.  Douglas then penned the following dispatch:  “Senator Douglas called upon the President, and had an interesting conversation on the present condition of the country.  The substance of it was, on the part of Mr. Douglas, that while he was unalterably opposed to the administration in all its political issues, he was prepared to fully sustain the President in the exercise of all his constitutional functions, to preserve the Union, maintain the government, and defend the Federal capital.  A firm policy and prompt action was necessary.  The capital was in danger, and must be defended at all hazards, and at any expense of men and money.  He spoke of the present and future without any reference to