The meeting on Saturday Night.— There was a large audience at the court house to hear the discussion of the Nebraska question.2

Mr. Calhoun’s remarks were fully equal to his best efforts of the past.3 He presented the question in a light that none could misunderstand, and for cogent reasoning, sound argument, and fair dealing with facts involved in the question, we have never heard the question better elucidated. At the close of his remarks he spoke of the Know Nothing organization; their designs, and their tendency to whigery, which could not fail to have convinced his hearers of the party character of this secret organization.

Mr. Lincoln replied to Mr. C., and, with his usual ability, made the best of a bad position. We have never heard him when more at fault in covering up the heresies which he habitually takes to. The whole tenor of his discussion was to satisfy the whig portion of his audience that affiliation with abolitionism was the only salvation of their party, and (Heaven save the mark!) of the country! He knew nothing of the secret institution of which Mr. Calhoun spoke, and, like the Journal, even “doubted its existence.4 Of course he did. He “Knows Nothing” about it.

The result of the debate, we are satisfied, was to convince the audience of the fallacy of the present abolition outcry, and the correctness of the policy of leaving to the people of the territories the adjustment of their own domestic affairs; a privilege which we, as Illinoisans, claim for ourselves, and which we cannot, in justice, deny to others of our fellow countrymen.5