As a politician, Lincoln made excellent use of his humorous stories.
His long time political opponent Stephen A. Douglas complained that Lincoln’s jokes were "like a slap across my back. Nothing else—not any of his arguments or any of his replies to my questions—disturbs me. But when he begins to tell a story, I feel that I am to be overmatched."
More than once Douglas and other political opponents of Lincoln’s saw their eloquently presented arguments forgotten by the audience after Lincoln followed up their speeches with a homely story or anecdote.
At Alton, Illinois, during the last of the “great debates” with Douglas, Lincoln told a story that illustrated how he felt about a political feud that was currently raging between Democratic senator Douglas and the head of the Democratic Party. He said he felt like the old woman that, not knowing who was going to win a brawl between her husband and a bear, decided to cheer for both of them: "Go it husband, go it bear!"
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