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Stephen A. Douglas by Allen Johnson

A >> Allen Johnson >> Stephen A. Douglas




Unquestionably Douglas drew upon resources which Lincoln could not
command. The management of the Illinois Central Railroad was naturally
friendly toward him, though there is no evidence that it countenanced
any illegitimate use of influence on his behalf. If Douglas enjoyed
special train service, which Lincoln did not, it was because he drew
upon funds that exceeded Lincoln's modest income. How many thousands
of dollars Douglas devoted from his own exchequer to his campaign,
can now only be conjectured. In all probability, he spent all that
remained from the sale of his real estate in Chicago, and more which
he borrowed in New York by mortgaging his other holdings in Cook
County.[752] And not least among his assets was the constant
companionship of Mrs. Douglas, whose tact, grace, and beauty placated
feelings which had been ruffled by the rude vigor of "the Little
Giant."[753]

When the rivals met three weeks later at Galesburg, they were disposed
to drop personalities. Indeed, both were aware that they were about to
address men and women who demanded an intelligent discussion of the
issues of the hour. Lincoln had the more sympathetic hearing, for Knox
County was consistently Republican; and the town with its academic
atmosphere and New England traditions shared his hostility to slavery.
Vast crowds braved the cold, raw winds of the October day to listen
for three hours to this debate.[754] From a platform on the college
campus, Douglas looked down somewhat defiantly upon his hearers,
though his words were well-chosen and courteous. The circumstances
were much the same as at Ottawa; and he spoke in much the same vein.
He rang the changes upon his great fundamental principle; he defended
his course in respect to Lecomptonism; he denounced the Republican
party as a sectional organization whose leaders were bent upon
"outvoting, conquering, governing, and controlling the South."
Douglas laid great stress upon this sectional aspect of Republicanism,
which made its southward extension impossible. "Not only is this
Republican party unable to proclaim its principles alike in the North
and in the South, in the free States and in the slave States, but it
cannot even proclaim them in the same forms and give them the same
strength and meaning in all parts of the same State. My friend Lincoln
finds it extremely difficult to manage a debate in the center part of
the State, where there is a mixture of men from the North and the
South."[755]

Here Douglas paused to read from Lincoln's speeches at Chicago and at
Charleston, and to ask his hearers to reconcile the conflicting
statements respecting negro equality. He pronounced Lincoln's
doctrine, that the negro and the white man are made equal by the
Declaration of Independence and Divine Providence, "a monstrous
heresy."

Lincoln protested that nothing was farther from his purpose than to
"advance hypocritical and deceptive and contrary views in different
portions of the country." As for the charge of sectionalism, Judge
Douglas was himself fast becoming sectional, for his speeches no
longer passed current south of the Ohio as they had once done.
"Whatever may be the result of this ephemeral contest between Judge
Douglas and myself, I see the day rapidly approaching when his pill of
sectionalism, which he has been thrusting down the throats of
Republicans for years past, will be crowded down his own throat."[756]

And Lincoln again scored on his opponent, when he pointed out that
his political doctrine rested upon the major premise, that there was
no wrong in slavery. "If you will take the Judge's speeches, and
select the short and pointed sentences expressed by him,--as his
declaration that he 'don't care whether slavery is voted up or
down'--you will see at once that this is perfectly logical, if you do
not admit that slavery is wrong.... Judge Douglas declares that if any
community wants slavery they have a right to have it. He can say that
logically, if he says that there is no wrong in slavery; but if you
admit that there is a wrong in it, he cannot logically say that
anybody has a right to do wrong."[757]

Those who now read these memorable debates dis-passionately, will
surely acquit Lincoln of inconsistency in his attitude toward the
negro. His speech at Charleston supplements the speech at Chicago; at
Galesburg, he made an admirable re-statement of his position.
Nevertheless, there was a marked difference in point of emphasis
between his utterances in Northern and in Southern Illinois. Even the
casual reader will detect subtle omissions which the varying character
of his audience forced upon Lincoln. In Chicago he said nothing about
the physical inferiority of the negro; he said nothing about the
equality of the races in the Declaration of Independence, when he
spoke at Charleston. Among men of anti-slavery leanings, he had much
to say about the moral wrong of slavery; in the doubtful counties,
Lincoln was solicitous that he should not be understood as favoring
social and political equality between whites and blacks.

Feeling keenly this diplomatic shifting of emphasis, Douglas persisted
in accusing Lincoln of inconsistency: "He has one set of principles
for the Abolition counties and another set for the counties opposed to
Abolitionism." If Lincoln had said in Coles County what he has to-day
said in old Knox, Douglas complained, "it would have settled the
question between us in that doubtful county."[758] And in this Douglas
was probably correct.

At Quincy, Douglas was in his old bailiwick. Three times the Democrats
of this district had sent him to Congress; and though the bounds of
the congressional district had since been changed, Adams County was
still Democratic by a safe majority. Among the people who greeted the
speakers, however, were many old-time Whigs, for whose special benefit
the Republicans of the city carried on a pole, at the head of their
procession, a live raccoon. With a much keener historic sense, the
Democrats bore aloft a dead raccoon, suspended by its tail.[759]

Lincoln again harked back to his position that slavery was "a moral, a
social, and a political wrong" which the Republican party proposed to
prevent from growing any larger; and that "the leading man--I think I
may do my friend Judge Douglas the honor of calling him
such--advocating the present Democratic policy, never himself says it
is wrong."[760]

The consciousness that he was made to seem morally obtuse, cut Douglas
to the quick. Even upon his tough constitution this prolonged campaign
was beginning to tell. His voice was harsh and broken; and he gave
unmistakable signs of nervous irritability, brought on by physical
fatigue. When he rose to reply to Lincoln, his manner was offensively
combative. At the outset, he referred angrily to Lincoln's "gross
personalities and base insinuations."[761] In his references to the
Springfield resolutions and to his mistake, or rather the mistake of
his friends at the capital, he was particularly denunciatory. "When I
make a mistake," he boasted, "as an honest man, I correct it without
being asked to, but when he, Lincoln, makes a false charge, he sticks
to it and never corrects it."[762]

But Douglas was too old a campaigner to lose control of himself, and
no doubt the rude charge and counter-charge were prompted less by
personal ill-will than by controversial exigencies. Those who have
conceived Douglas as the victim of deep-seated and abiding resentment
toward Lincoln, forget the impulsive nature of the man. There is not
the slightest evidence that Lincoln took these blows to heart. He had
himself dealt many a vigorous blow in times past. It was part of the
game.

Douglas found fault with Lincoln's answers to the Ottawa questions: "I
ask you again, Lincoln, will you vote to admit New Mexico, when she
has the requisite population with such a constitution as her people
adopt, either recognizing slavery or not, as they shall determine!" He
was well within the truth when he asserted that Lincoln's answer had
been purposely evasive and equivocal, "having no reference to any
territory now in existence."[763] Of Lincoln's Republican policy of
confining slavery within its present limits, by prohibiting it in the
Territories, he said, "When he gets it thus confined, and surrounded,
so that it cannot spread, the natural laws of increase will go on
until the negroes will be so plenty that they cannot live on the soil.
He will hem them in until starvation seizes them, and by starving them
to death, he will put slavery in the course of ultimate
extinction."[764] A silly argument which Douglas's wide acquaintance
with Southern conditions flatly contradicted and should have kept him
from repeating.

To the charge of moral obliquity on the slavery question, Douglas made
a dignified and worthy reply. "I hold that the people of the
slave-holding States are civilized men as well as ourselves; that they
bear consciences as well as we, and that they are accountable to God
and their posterity, and not to us. It is for them to decide,
therefore, the moral and religious right of the slavery question for
themselves within their own limits."[765]

On the following day both Lincoln and Douglas took passage on a river
steamer for Alton. The county of Madison had once been Whig in its
political proclivities. In the State legislature it was now
represented by two representatives and a senator who were Native
Americans; and in the present campaign, the county was classed as
doubtful. In Alton and elsewhere there was a large German vote which
was likely to sway the election.

Douglas labored under a physical disadvantage. His voice was painful
to hear, while Lincoln's betrayed no sign of fatigue.[766] Both fell
into the argument _ad hominem_. Lincoln advocated holding the
Territories open to "free white people" the world over--to "Hans,
Baptiste, and Patrick." Douglas contended that the equality referred
to in the Declaration of Independence, was the equality of white
men--"men of European birth and European descent." Both conjured with
the revered name of Clay. Douglas persistently referred to Lincoln as
an Abolitionist, knowing that his auditors had "strong sympathies
southward," as Lincoln shrewdly guessed; while Lincoln sought to
unmask that "false statesmanship that undertakes to build up a system
of policy upon the basis of caring nothing about the very thing that
everybody does care the most about."[767]

Douglas made a successful appeal to the sympathy of the crowd, when he
said of his conduct in the Lecompton fight, "Most of the men who
denounced my course on the Lecompton question objected to it, not
because I was not right, but because they thought it expedient at that
time, for the sake of keeping the party together, to do wrong. I never
knew the Democratic party to violate any one of its principles, out of
policy or expediency, that it did not pay the debt with sorrow. There
is no safety or success for our party unless we always do right, and
trust the consequences to God and the people. I chose not to depart
from principle for the sake of expediency on the Lecompton question,
and I never intend to do it on that or any other question."[768]

Both at Quincy and at Alton, Douglas paid his respects to the
"contemptible crew" who were trying to break up the party and defeat
him. At first he had avoided direct attacks upon the administration;
but the relentless persecution of the Washington _Union_ made him
restive. Lincoln derived great satisfaction from this intestine
warfare in the Democratic camp. "Go it, husband! Go it, bear!" he
cried.

In this last debate, both sought to summarize the issues. Said
Lincoln, "You may turn over everything in the Democratic policy from
beginning to end, ... it everywhere carefully excludes the idea that
there is anything wrong in it [slavery].

"That is the real issue. That is the issue that will continue in this
country when these poor tongues of Judge Douglas and myself shall be
silent. It is the eternal struggle between these two principles--right
and wrong--throughout the world.... I was glad to express my gratitude
at Quincy, and I re-express it here, to Judge Douglas,--_that he looks
to no end of the institution of slavery_. That will help the people to
see where the struggle really is."[769]

To the mind of Douglas, the issue presented itself in quite another
form. "He [Lincoln] says that he looks forward to a time when slavery
shall be abolished everywhere. I look forward to a time when each
State shall be allowed to do as it pleases. If it chooses to keep
slavery forever, it is not my business, but its own; if it chooses to
abolish slavery, it is its own business,--not mine. I care more for
the great principle of self-government, the right of the people to
rule, than I do for all the negroes in Christendom. I would not
endanger the perpetuity of this Union, I would not blot out the great
inalienable rights of the white men, for all the negroes that ever
existed."[770]

With this encounter at Alton, the joint debates, but not the campaign
closed. Douglas continued to speak at various strategic points, in
spite of inclement weather and physical exhaustion, up to the eve of
the election.[771] The canvass had continued just a hundred days,
during which Douglas had made one hundred and thirty speeches.[772]
During the last weeks of the campaign, election canards designed to
injure Douglas were sedulously circulated, adding no little
uncertainty to the outcome in doubtful districts. The most damaging of
these stories seems to have emanated from Senator John Slidell of
Louisiana, whose midsummer sojourn in Illinois has already been noted.
A Chicago journal published the tale that Douglas's slaves in the
South were "the subjects of inhuman and disgraceful treatment--that
they were hired out to a factor at fifteen dollars per annum
each--that he, in turn, hired them out to others in lots, and that
they were ill-fed, over-worked, and in every way so badly treated that
they were spoken of in the neighborhood where they are held as a
disgrace to all slave-holders and the system they support." The
explicit denial of the story came from Slidell some weeks after the
election, when the slander had accomplished the desired purpose.[773]

All signs pointed to a heavy vote for both tickets. As the campaign
drew to a close, the excitement reached a pitch rarely equalled even
in presidential elections. Indeed, the total vote cast exceeded that
of 1856 by many thousands,--an increase that cannot be wholly
accounted for by the growth of population in these years.[774] The
Republican State ticket was elected by less than four thousand votes
over the Democratic ticket. The relative strength of the rival
candidates for the senatorship, however, is exhibited more fully in
the vote for the members of the lower house of the State legislature..
The avowed Douglas candidates polled over 174,000, while the Lincoln
men received something over 190,000. Administration candidates
received a scant vote of less than 2,000. Notwithstanding this popular
majority, the Republicans secured only thirty-five seats, while the
Democratic minority secured forty. Out of fifteen contested senatorial
seats, the Democrats won eight with a total of 44,826 votes, while the
Republicans cast 53,784 votes and secured but seven. No better proof
could be offered of Lincoln's contention that the State was
gerrymandered in favor of the Democrats. Still, this was part of the
game; and had the Republicans been in office, they would have
undoubtedly used an advantage which has proved too tempting for the
virtue of every American party.

When the two houses of the Illinois Legislature met in joint session,
January 6, 1859, not a man ventured, or desired, to record his vote
otherwise than as his party affiliations dictated. Douglas received
fifty-four votes and Lincoln forty-six. "Glory to God and the Sucker
Democracy," telegraphed the editor of the _State Register_ to his
chief. And back over the wires from Washington was flashed the laconic
message, "Let the voice of the people rule." But had the _will_ of the
people ruled?

* * * * *

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 669: Hollister, Life of Colfax pp. 119 ff; Wilson, Rise and
Fall of the Slave Power, II, p. 567.]

[Footnote 670: Hollister, Colfax, p. 121.]

[Footnote 671: Wilson, p. 567.]

[Footnote 672: Bancroft, Life of Seward, I, pp. 449-450.]

[Footnote 673: Pike, First Blows of the Civil War, p. 403.]

[Footnote 674: Hollister, Colfax, p. 119.]

[Footnote 675: _Ibid._, p. 121.]

[Footnote 676: Wilson, II, p 567; Greeley, Recollections of a Busy
Life, p. 397.]

[Footnote 677: Hollister, Colfax, p. 120.]

[Footnote 678: Herndon-Weik, Life of Lincoln, II, pp. 59 ff.]

[Footnote 679: Sheahan, Douglas, p. 394.]

[Footnote 680: Foote, Casket of Reminiscences, p. 135.]

[Footnote 681: Forney, Anecdotes, II, p. 179.]

[Footnote 682: Lincoln-Douglas Debates (Edition of 1860), p. 1.]

[Footnote 683: Sheahan, Douglas, pp. 398-400.]

[Footnote 684: Sheahan, Douglas, p. 400; Mr. Horace White in
Herndon-Weik, Life of Lincoln, II, p. 93.]

[Footnote 685: Debates, p. 9.]

[Footnote 686: Debates, p. 9.]

[Footnote 687: _Ibid._, p. 10.]

[Footnote 688: _Ibid._, p. 11.]

[Footnote 689: Debates, p. 18.]

[Footnote 690: Debates, p. 20.]

[Footnote 691: _Ibid._, p. 24.]

[Footnote 692: Flint, Douglas, pp. 114-117; Chicago _Times_, July 18,
1858.]

[Footnote 693: Debates, p. 24.]

[Footnote 694: Debates, p. 27.]

[Footnote 695: _Ibid._, p. 30.]

[Footnote 696: _Ibid._, pp. 33-34.]

[Footnote 697: Debates, p. 35.]

[Footnote 698: _Ibid._, p. 39.]

[Footnote 699: Sheahan, Douglas, p. 417; Chicago _Times_, July 21,
1858.]

[Footnote 700: Debates, p. 44.]

[Footnote 701: _Ibid._, p. 60.]

[Footnote 702: _Ibid._, p. 61.]

[Footnote 703: _Ibid._, p. 63.]

[Footnote 704: Debates, p. 64.]

[Footnote 705: _Ibid._, pp. 64-65.]

[Footnote 706: _Ibid._, p. 66.]

[Footnote 707: Debates, p. 66.]

[Footnote 708: Mr. Horace White in Herndon-Weik, Lincoln, II, pp.
104-105.]

[Footnote 709: For the following description I have drawn freely from
the narratives of eye-witnesses. I am particularly indebted to the
graphic account by Mr. Carl Schurz in _McClure's Magazine_, January,
1907.]

[Footnote 710: Mr. Schurz in _McClure's_, January, 1907.]

[Footnote 711: Debates, p. 67.]

[Footnote 712: Debates, p. 68.]

[Footnote 713: _Ibid._, p. 69.]

[Footnote 714: Herndon in Herndon-Weik, Lincoln, II, pp. 76-77; Mr.
Carl Schurz in _McClure's_, January, 1907.]

[Footnote 715: Debates, p. 73.]

[Footnote 716: Debates, p. 75.]

[Footnote 717: _Ibid._, p. 82.]

[Footnote 718: _Ibid._, p. 86.]

[Footnote 719: Henry Villard, Memoirs, I, p. 93; Mr. Horace White in
Herndon-Weik, Lincoln, II, p. 108.]

[Footnote 720: Debates, p. 129.]

[Footnote 721: _Ibid._, p. 130.]

[Footnote 722: Holland, Lincoln, p. 185; Tarbell, Lincoln, _McClure's
Magazine_, VII, pp. 408-409.]

[Footnote 723: Debates, p. 89.]

[Footnote 724: Holland, Lincoln, pp. 188-189; Mr. Horace White in
Herndon-Weik, Lincoln, II, p. 109.]

[Footnote 725: Herndon-Weik, Lincoln, II, p. 109.]

[Footnote 726: Debates, p. 95.]

[Footnote 727: Debates, pp. 94-97.]

[Footnote 728: Debates, pp. 100-101.]

[Footnote 729: Debates, p. 101.]

[Footnote 730: Mr. Horace White in Herndon-Weik, Lincoln, p. 110.]

[Footnote 731: Mr. Horace White in Herndon-Weik, Lincoln, p. 118.]

[Footnote 732: Debates, pp. 113-114.]

[Footnote 733: _Ibid._, p. 120.]

[Footnote 734: Debates, p. 127.]

[Footnote 735: _Ibid._, p. 129.]

[Footnote 736: _Ibid._, p. 135.]

[Footnote 737: Debates, p. 133. Lamon is authority for the statement
that Lincoln pledged himself to Lovejoy and his faction to favor the
exclusion of slavery from all the territory of the United States.
Douglas did not know of this pledge, but suspected an understanding to
this effect. If Lamon may be believed, this statement explains the
persistence of Douglas on this point and the evasiveness of Lincoln.
See Lamon, Lincoln, pp. 361-365.]

[Footnote 738: _Ibid._, p. 135.]

[Footnote 739: Mr. Horace White in Herndon-Weik, Lincoln, p. 119.]

[Footnote 740: Mr. Horace White in Herndon-Weik, Lincoln, p. 121.]

[Footnote 741: Debates, p. 136.]

[Footnote 742: Debates, pp. 137-143.]

[Footnote 743: See above pp. 303-304.]

[Footnote 744: Mr. Horace White in Herndon-Weik, Lincoln, p. 122.]

[Footnote 745: Debates, p. 159.]

[Footnote 746: _Ibid._, p. 157.]

[Footnote 747: Rhodes, History of the United States, II, p. 342.]

[Footnote 748: Foote, Casket of Reminiscences, p. 135; Herndon-Weik,
Lincoln, II, p. 127.]

[Footnote 749: Mr. Horace White in Herndon-Weik, Lincoln, II, p. 129.]

[Footnote 750: Coleman, Life of Crittenden, II, p. 163.]

[Footnote 751: Rhodes, History of the United States, II, p. 341.]

[Footnote 752: Rhodes, History of the United States, II, p. 338, note
3. The record of the Circuit Court of Cook County, December term,
1867, states that the entire lien upon the estate in 1864 exceeded
$94,000. The mortgages were held by Fernando Wood and others of New
York.]

[Footnote 753: Villard, Memoirs, I, p. 92.]

[Footnote 754: Mr. Horace White in Herndon-Weik, Lincoln, II, p. 123.]

[Footnote 755: Debates p. 173.]

[Footnote 756: _Ibid._, p. 180.]

[Footnote 757: Debates, p. 181.]

[Footnote 758: Debates, p. 188.]

[Footnote 759: Mr. Horace White in Herndon-Weik, Lincoln, II, pp.
123-124.]

[Footnote 760: Debates, p. 198.]

[Footnote 761: Debates, p. 199; _McClure's Magazine_, January, 1907.]

[Footnote 762: Debates, p. 201.]

[Footnote 763: _Ibid._, p. 201.]

[Footnote 764: Debates, p. 204.]

[Footnote 765: _Ibid._, p. 209.]

[Footnote 766: Mr. Horace White in Herndon-Weik, Lincoln, II, p. 124.]

[Footnote 767: Debates, p. 231.]

[Footnote 768: _Ibid._, p. 218.]

[Footnote 769: Debates, p. 234.]

[Footnote 770: _Ibid._, p. 238.]

[Footnote 771: Sheahan, Douglas, p. 432.]

[Footnote 772: Nicolay and Hay, Lincoln, II, p. 146 note.]

[Footnote 773: Sheahan, Douglas, pp. 439-442; Herndon-Weik, Lincoln,
II, p. 128.]

[Footnote 774: It has not been generally observed that the Democrats
gained more than their opponents over the State contest of 1856. The
election returns were as follows:

Democratic ticket in 1856, 106,643; in 1858, 121,609; gain, 14,966.
Republican ticket in 1856, 111,375; in 1858, 125,430; gain, 14,055.
]




CHAPTER XVII

THE AFTERMATH


Douglas had achieved a great personal triumph. Not even his Republican
opponents could gainsay it. In the East, the Republican newspapers
applauded him undisguisedly, not so much because they admired him or
lacked sympathy with Lincoln, as because they regarded his re-election
as a signal condemnation of the Buchanan administration. Moreover,
there was a general expectation in anti-slavery circles to which
Theodore Parker gave expression when he wrote, "Had Lincoln succeeded,
Douglas would be a ruined man.... But now in place for six years more,
with his own personal power unimpaired and his positional influence
much enhanced, he can do the Democratic party a world of damage."[775]
There was cheer in this expectation even for those who deplored the
defeat of Lincoln.

As Douglas journeyed southward soon after the November elections, he
must have felt the poignant truth of Lincoln's shrewd observation that
he was himself becoming sectional. Though he was received with seeming
cordiality at Memphis and New Orleans, he could not but notice that
his speeches, as Lincoln predicted, "would not go current south of the
Ohio River as they had formerly." Democratic audiences applauded his
bold insistence upon the universality of the principles of the party
creed, but the tone of the Southern press was distinctly unfriendly
to him and his Freeport doctrine.[776] He told his auditors at Memphis
that he indorsed the decision of the Supreme Court; he believed that
the owners of slaves had the same right to take them into the
Territories as they had to take other property; but slaves once in the
Territory were then subject to local laws for protection, on an equal
footing with all other property. If no local laws protecting slave
property were passed, slavery would be practically excluded.
"Non-action is exclusion." It was a matter of soil, climate,
interests, whether a Territory would permit slavery or not. "You come
right back to the principle of dollars and cents ... If old Joshua E.
Giddings should raise a colony in Ohio and settle down in Louisiana,
he would be the strongest advocate of slavery in the whole South; he
would find when he got there, his opinion would be very much modified;
he would find on those sugar plantations that it was not a question
between the white man and the negro, but between the negro and the
crocodile." "The Almighty has drawn the line on this continent, on one
side of which the soil must be cultivated by slave labor; on the other
by white labor."[777]

At New Orleans, he repeated more emphatically much the same thought.
"There is a line, or belt of country, meandering through the valleys
and over the mountain tops, which is a natural barrier between free
territory and slave territory, on the south of which are to be found
the productions suitable to slave labor, while on the north exists a
country adapted to free labor alone.... But in the great central
regions, where there may be some doubt as to the effect of natural
causes, who ought to decide the question except the people residing
there, who have all their interests there, who have gone there to live
with their wives and children!"[778]

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President Obama teams up with one of Marvel's greatest heroes, reports Alison Flood
Articles published by guardian.co.uk Books

Murder One closing so did we commit this crime?

Barack Obama is teaming up with Spider-Man in a new comic from Marvel, which will see the future president exchanging a fist-bump with Peter Parker's alter ego.

The five-page story takes place in Washington DC on inauguration day, when one of Spidey's oldest enemies, the Chameleon, attempts to stop Obama's swearing-in ceremony. Fortunately, Peter Parker is covering the event as a photographer, and jumps in to save the day.

"Ya hear that, Chameleon? The president-elect here just appointed me ... secretary of shuttin' you up," Spider-Man says as he thwacks the Chameleon in the face. "I hope this doesn't ruin the inauguration for you," he tells Obama, as the Chameleon is led away by security officials. "Honestly, I'm more upset by the Chameleon's shockingly deficient understanding of the electoral process," Obama replies.

Spidey then cedes the limelight to Obama. "This is your day, after all, and I know it wouldn't look good to be seen palling around with me," he says, in a nod to Sarah Palin's comment that the then presidential candidate had been "palling around with terrorists".

The story, written by Zeb Wells and illustrated by Todd Nauck and Frank D'Armata, will appear as a bonus feature in Amazing Spider-Man 583, which goes on sale on 14 January.

"When we heard that president-elect Obama is a collector of Spider-Man comics, we knew that these two historic figures had to meet in our comics' Marvel Universe," said Marvel's editor-in-chief Joe Quesada. "A Spider-Man fan moving into the Oval Office is an event that must be commemorated in the pages of Amazing Spider-Man."

In October, graphic novel biographies of Obama and his then rival John McCain were published by IDW. April will see Michelle Obama appearing in the Female Force comic book series.

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Poetry Workshop creature features

For many years my local corner shop displayed a large sign in its window telling local residents to "use us or lose us!" It always looked a rather toothless threat to me. After all, if I didn't use them, what difference would it make to me if they weren't there? And surely a corner shop, one that had been there for years, would have enough customers to survive without recourse to such apocalyptic warning? But it didn't and was soon converted into flats.

This community shop was destroyed not so much by the pressures of the supermarkets or people's commuting patterns, but simply by customer apathy. It's something to think about as crime writers and readers across the world mourn the imminent passing of Maxim Jakubowski's celebrated Charing Cross Road bookshop in London, Murder One.

Apathy is a strange word to connect to a bookstore that thrives on passion. It's noticeable when you walk through the door, when you speak to the friendly, knowledgeable staff, when you look at the shelves and see the vast range of titles on offer. This isn't your regular kind of bookstore: the first time I visited spent a whole lunch break looking up and down, from floor to ceiling from table to table; it was an hour that changed my perception of both crime writing and of bookselling.

Murder One was – and for a few weeks will remain – a shop that took crime seriously. Not in the sense that it intellectualised it, or made unsubstantiated claims for its importance, but in the way that it treated crime writing with the respect it was due. With a genre that has so many off-shoots, branches and sub-genres, it took a shop of Murder One's calibre to show just how diverse, interesting and mentally stimulating crime could be – far more than the guilty pleasure I had, until then, considered it.

Thanks to judicious recommendations, enticing table displays and hours of foraging among the stacks, I discovered writers that I would never have picked up, let alone read. You could always get the latest blockbuster, but delve a little deeper and you'd find books that were not stocked anywhere else, novels that, like the perfect crime, were hidden from public view. The Martin Beck novels by Sjöwall & Wahlöö – probably my favourite sequence of novels in any genre – were introduced to me via Murder One, as were Kem Nunn, Sue Grafton, and Henning Mankell. It's also the staff of Murder One who piqued my interest in the inimitable Fred Vargas, and I can't thank them enough for the introduction.

Inclusive and without snobbery, Murder One amply demonstrated that the best bookshops are places not just of commerce, but of community; places that make feel you belong. It's the kind of store that bibliophiles dream about: well-stocked, well-staffed and shabby enough to lose days browsing within. It's just unfortunate that such shops don't have enough paying customers to keep them afloat, or that these customers visit all too infrequently – something of which I'm certainly guilty.

These kinds of shops are facing a long, bloody battle – and one which, without significant reinforcements, they are likely to lose. As we hear of the travesty of another brilliant independent going down, we'll mourn the loss, wring our hands and damn Amazon and the supermarkets and Waterstone's. Yet perhaps the most important detail we'll probably keep under wraps: the last time we actually spent any money there.

Murder One closing its doors for the final time is undoubtedly a .38 shell for independent bookshops, but whether it's body blow or a warning shot all depends upon us, the consumers. No one, no matter how iconic or established, can exist on fond memories alone: just ask Woolworths. Use these shops now, because it doesn't take a master sleuth to deduce what will happen if we don't.

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