The concluding tweets of the seventh and final day of the Lincoln-Douglas Twitter War …

RealLittleBigDoug: People of Illinois! I implore you to look deep within your stout hearts of Illinois pine to answer this simple query: Do you really want a lowdown, two-faced sidewinder like @RealAbe as your representative in the hallowed halls of the United States Senate?

RealAbe: My good people of Illinois. My esteemed adversary, @ RealLittleBigDoug, accuses me of being two-faced. [posts selfie of craggy, deep-shadowed visage]. I ask you: If I had two faces, would I use this one? [emoji: wry Lincoln doffs stovepipe hat and dances a jig]

FreeSoilSam: @RealAbe Grand jollity, sir! I must confess to Laughing Out Loud!

AbbyLitionist792: Three hurrahs for @RealAbe!

KingCotton879: @ AbbyLitionist792 Three hurrahs for RealApe, you mean. I seen baboon bottoms more goodly than this abomination’s wretched physiognomy.

SarahWinthrop: @ KingCotton879 should be blocked by The Powers That Be for his scurrilous language!

RealAbe: @SarahWinthrop  Fret not on my behalf, madam. As we Illini say, if it’s too hot by the pot belly stove, a man ought not to venture inside.

BeauregardBeaumont: @RealAbe: “Man,” you say? I see no “man,” sir! [emoji: glove slaps Lincoln’s face]

RealAbe: @BeauregardBeaumont [emoji: Lincoln smiling wryly] Applying pure Pythagorean logic, sir, you have proffered the premise that I am not a man. It follows, therefore, that I must be a woman.You have thus addressed a woman as “sir,” which I can only construe as either a custom peculiar to your locality or an indication that you have forgotten to wear your hat in the sun.

SunOfTheSouth1861: @RealAbe  Oh, you’re mighty funny for a big-eared, dried- out corn stalk. I hear you were funny in bed with your old friend Joshua Speed. Or did you think we Democrats were too dumb to read about that?

UnionForEveritt: @SunOfTheSouth1861 That’s an infamous calumny!

RealAbe: @UnionForEveritt  Or a lack of familiarity with regional customs. My pugnacious Southern friend @SunOfTheSouth1861 seems unaware of how common it is in the poorer precincts out West for young unmarried men to share a bunk. Need makes for homogenous bedfellows.

SunOfTheSouth1861: @RealAbe Then you deny making the beast with two backs with Mr. Speed?

RealAbe: @SunOfTheSouth1861 Having gainsaid the charge of having two faces, I can hardly conceive of having two backs.

SunOfTheSouth1861: @RealAbe  You know what I mean, you whey-faced coward!

RealAbe: @SunOfTheSouth1861 [emoji: Lincoln smiling in melancholic manner] It would be kinder by half, I should think, if I did not confess to knowing what you mean. #DignityAlways

ImissOleMiss: You ladies and gentleman can clearly see what a fork-tongued snake this man @RealAbe is!

RealAbe: @ IMissOleMiss [emoji: abacus] Let the record reflect this good woman’s vote for my status as a “man,” though my impassioned friend @SunOfTheSouth1861 would deny me that epithet.         

BeauregardBeaumont: @RealAbe  Let us shilly-shally no more. You, sir, are a traitor to your race!

RealAbe: @BeauregardBeaumont  Whereas my claim to membership in the human race has been keenly disputed, I am fail to grasp to which race you refer.

CalhounCorps982: @RealAbe Allow me to assist you. Pray be good enough to peruse these impressions. [post: juxtaposed ink drawings of Lincoln and a gorilla]

RealAbe: @CalhounCorps982 [emoji: Lincoln thoughtfully gazing] Though I am by no means qualified to adjudge works of art, I may make bold to commend the artist’s manifest talent. Yet I fail to understand why you feel compelled to disparage our noble friend the gorilla by pairing his likeness with that of Mrs. Lincoln’s changeling son.

RealLittleBigDoug: Friends of Illinois! You see what a dissembler this “rail-splitting” hair splitter is! A dissembler who would obscure his odious intent of bringing the negro into full equality with the white man! This thread has endured for seven long days and nights. With clear minds and open hearts you have heard and weighed “the Rail Spitter’s” arguments, equally as you have heard and weighed mine. And it is abundantly clear which has prevailed. For let the record reflect the following: 23,741 retweets for me, and a paltry 12,102 for the pusillanimous Mr. Lincoln. The people have tweeted! The people, I say with boundless gratitude for their manifest wisdom, have tweeted.

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Jon Sindell wrote the story collections The Roadkill Collection and Family Happiness. His humor has appeared in The Big Jewel, Points In Case, Defenestration, The Short Humour Site, Thrice Quarterly, Feathertale, riverbabble, Hobart, and The Higgs-Weldon, and before captive audiences in petting zoos everywhere. Much of his writing hides in plain sight at jonsindell.com.