Lincoln’s Fierce Rebuttal or O.B. Ficklin Confessed

Lincoln delivered a fierce rebuttal during the Lincoln Douglas debates, of 1858, culminating when O.B Ficklin confessed that Douglas had been lying. During these debates Stephen Douglas repeatedly accused Abraham Lincoln of not voting to send supplies to the United States Army during the War with Mexico. These false allegations, shook Lincoln to the core. Even though he could not justify the conflict in Mexico, as a just or moral cause, he had never voted not to supply the Federal Forces in their quest for victory. Lincoln would never allow anyone to question his patriotism. Abraham Lincoln replied to Stephen Douglas’ assertion,

“This is a perversion of the facts. I was opposed to the policy of the administration in declaring war against Mexico; but when war was declared I never failed to vote for the support of any proposition looking to the comfort of our poor fellows who were maintaining the dignity of our flag in a war that I thought unnecessary and unjust.”

As Lincoln spoke, his voice cracked an octave and he began to tremble and sweat. One of Lincoln’s fellow congressmen, a Democrat, who had served in office with him during the Mexican War, was seated behind him on the speaker’s stand. Lincoln reached behind and grabbed the Democrat by the scruff of the neck, raised him off the ground and began to shake him like a rag doll, saying,

“Fellow citizens, here is Ficklin, who was at the time in Congress with me, and he knows it is a lie.”

Ward Hill Lamon, who was always near at hand, and the only man on the scene who could save O.B. Ficklin from Lincoln’s death grip, pried his friend’s hand from the nape of the congressman’s neck. After the debate was finished, Ficklin, who was a personal friend of Lincoln, admitted that Douglas had lied and,

“Lincoln, you nearly shook all the Democracy out of me today.”

Bummer