LIE^E 
 
 OF 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 £AKLY USE. 
 
 Uh Ancestors— nu Grandfather Murdered by Indiiins — His Parent* — Aa Only Child— Advene Circumjtanoefr— 
 Western Schools Fifty Years Ago — Kemoval to Indiana — Work In the Forest — Letter-Writer (or the Neighborhood 
 —The First Great Sorrow— Character of his Mother- Heading the Scriptures — Self-Educated— first Boolt*— Inter- 
 kstiu^- Xaoldeut of Boyhood — Early Western Preachers. 
 
 IT is not known at what period the anccs- 
 tor.s of Abrahnm Lincoln ciuno to America. 
 The tJrst account that has been obtained of 
 them dales back about one hundred and fifty 
 vtars, at which time they wore Uving in 
 Berks Coui)t3', Pennsylyania, and were mem- 
 bers of the Society of Friends. AVhcnce or 
 when they came to that region is not known. 
 
 About the middle of the hist century, the 
 greitt-grandfather of Abraham Lincohi re- 
 moved from Berks County, Pennsylvania, to 
 Kockinghara County, Virginia. There Abra- 
 ham Lincoln, the grandfather, and Thomas 
 Lincoln, the father of the subject of this 
 sketch, were born. Abraham, the grand- 
 father, had four brothers — Isaac, Jacob, John, 
 and Thomj^ — descendants of whom are now 
 living in Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky, 
 Tennessee, and Missouri. Abraham removed 
 to Kentucky about the yeitr 1780, and four 
 years thereafter, >vhile engaged in opening a 
 farm, he was surpriged and killed by Indians ; 
 leaving a widow, three sons, and two daugh- 
 ters. Tlie eldest son, Mordecai, remained in 
 ICentucky until late in life, when he removed 
 to Hancock County, Illinois, where he shortly 
 afterward died, and where his descendants 
 htill live. The second son, Josiah, settled 
 many years ago on Blue River, in Harrison 
 County, Indiana. The eldest daughter, Mary, 
 was married to Ralph Crume, and some of her 
 descendants are now living in Breckenridge 
 County, Kentucky, The second daughter, 
 Nancy, was married to William B;-umtield, 
 and^her descendants are supposed to be living 
 in Kentucky. 
 
 Thomas, the youngest son, and father of 
 the subject of this sketch, by the death of his 
 father and the very uarrovy circumstances of 
 his mother, waa thrown upon his own re- 
 sources while yet a child. Traveling from 
 neighborhood to neighborhood, working 
 wherever ho could find employment, ho grow 
 
 up literally without education. He finally 
 settled in liardin County, where, in ISOti, he 
 was married to Nancy Hanks, whose family 
 had also come from Vu-ginia, The fruits of 
 this union were a daughter and two sons. 
 One of the latter died in infancy ; the daugh- 
 ter died later in life, having been married, but 
 leaving no issue. The sole survivor is the 
 subject of this sketch. 
 
 Abraliam Lincoln was born in Hardin 
 County, Kentucky, February 12th, 1809. It 
 would bo difhcult to conceive of more un- 
 promising circumstances than those under 
 which be was ushered into life. His parents 
 were poor and uneducated. They were un- 
 der the social ban which the presence of 
 slavery alv. ::ys entail^ upon poverty. Their 
 very limited means and the low grade of the 
 neighbor! rp schools, precluded the expecta- 
 tion of conKrring upon their children the ad- 
 vantages of eve:i a common English education. 
 The present inhabitants of the Western States 
 can have but t; faint idea of the schools which 
 fifty years ag<. constituted the only means of 
 education accessible to the poorer classes. 
 The teachers were, for the must part, ignor- 
 ant, uncultivated men, rough of speech, un- 
 couth in manners, and rarely competent to 
 teach beyond the simplest rudiments of learn- 
 ing — "spelling, reading, -wTiting," and some- 
 times a very little arithmetic. The books -of 
 study then in vogue, would not now be toler- 
 ated in sghools of the lowest grade. The 
 school-house, constructed of logji, floorless, 
 windowless, and without inclosure, was in ad- 
 mirable harmony with teacher, textbooks, 
 and the mode of imparting instruction. 
 
 In his sovcntli year, Abraham was sent for 
 short periods to two of these schools, and 
 while attending them progressed so far as to 
 learn to write. For this acquirement he 
 nianifested a great fondness. It was his cus- 
 tom to form letters, to write words and sen' 
 
 EaTkJUU) according to Act of Congress, In the year ISOO, by Uie CHIOAQO PllESS AND TIOBUNK CO., In Uie Clerk'* 
 Office of the Dlairlct Court for the HorUiera Dl»trlct of llUaok.
 
 tences wherever he found suitable material. 
 He scrawled them with charcoal, he scored 
 them ia the dust, in the sand, in the snow — 
 anywhere and everywhere that lines could be ! 
 drawn, there he improved his capacity for ' 
 
 writmg. 
 
 Jtfeanwhile, 
 elder Lincoln 
 
 the worldly condition of the 
 did not improve. He realized 
 in his daily experience and observation how 
 slavery oppresses the poorer classes, making 
 their poverty and social disrepute a permanent 
 condition through the degradation which it 
 atSxes to labor. Revolving this matter in his 
 mind, he wisely resolved to remove his young 
 family from its presence. Accordingly, in the 
 autumn of 1816, he emigrated to Spencer 
 County, Indiana — one of the States conse- 
 crated forever to freedom and free labor by 
 the Jeffersonian Ordinance of 1TS7, and which, 
 with the States now comprising the territory 
 included in that memorable instrument, has 
 afforded asylum — an open field and fair play 
 — to thousands upon thousands who have, in 
 like manner, been driven from their homes by 
 that great social scourge of the " poor whites " 
 of the South. 
 
 Young Lincoln was in his eighth year when 
 ■::iily removed to Indiana. They settled 
 unbroken forest, gladly takins: np'^- 
 .- ;'res all the privations and '^ 
 ■'.■^r life, in view of what 
 * ^.mad them. The erection of a, nouse and 
 )f the forest was the first wrk to 
 J Abraham was young to e ._ j-e ' 
 a labor, but be was large of hh agp ^-^i. 
 v,3.Tt, and willing to work. An p- ^^3,3 at 
 once placed in bis hands, and fr-" ^^ ^j-^g^j; time 
 until lie attained bis twenty-*-' .j.^ year, when 
 not employed jn .'dbor or '\^ r^j.„ j^g '^^^ al- 
 
 most cons 
 plem'juL 
 
 jn to. 
 more in 
 
 tantV- 
 
 TVIP' 
 
 that most useful im- 
 
 . the family in Indiana, 
 .. fVere left behmd were " : be 
 The elder Lincoln could '^ ■ "th- 
 the way of writing thi.i -i- 
 
 _,imgly sign his name. The tnocner, though a 
 ready reader, h.Ld n.jC been taught the accom- 
 plishment of writing. In this emergency 
 Abraham's skill as a penman was out into 
 requisition, a- 1 with hisrhly satis:a.j;ory re- 
 sults. Fr -..crime ouwardhe conducted 
 the fam" correspondence. This fact soon 
 becor- ■ ^ public, little Abraham was consid- 
 er'- . marvel of learning and wisdom by the 
 simple-minded settlers; and ever afterward, 
 as long as he remained in Indiana, he was the 
 letter-writer for the neighbors generally, as 
 well as for his father's family. That he was 
 selected for this purpose was doubtless owing 
 not more to his proficiency in writing than to 
 his ability to e.'cpress the wishes and feelings 
 of those for whom he wrote in clear and forci- 
 ble language, and to that obliging disposition 
 
 that has always distinguished him in subse- 
 *quent life. It cannot be doubted that some- 
 thing of Mr. Lincoln's style and laoiliiy of 
 composition in later years, both as a writer 
 and speaker, is to be traced back to 'rh ■ ^ ear- 
 lier efforts as an amanuensis for tb > ibor- 
 hood. 
 
 In the autumn of 181S, Abraham, ir the 
 loss of his mother, experienced the fir eat 
 sorrow of his life. Facts in the pos of 
 
 the writer have impressed him with t;. ef 
 
 that, although of but limited educati . sae 
 was a woman of great native strength 0; iitA- 
 lect and force of character; and he suspects 
 that those admirable qualities of head an • 
 heart which characterize her distin - 
 son are inherited mostly from V. ■ ' 
 well as her husband, was a devou 
 the Baptist Church. It was her' .on the 
 Sabbath, when there was no re'..^ .as rrors^ ■ 
 in the neighborhood — a thing of fre . . ■ 
 occurrence — to employ a portion of the day 
 in reading the Scriptures aloud to her famUv 
 After Abraham and h'- sister 'r, ' ' 
 read, they shared b' 
 
 Sunday reading. xnis .-act;. .^lUinueU 
 faithfully through a seri^ , of years, could not 
 fail to produce f^ert.i' iects. Among other 
 thi^- as to impart an ac:u- 
 
 .„a Bible history and Bible 
 -.a?" • — i it must also hav-. '■ r-T. larg-e'y 
 inst-^ cental in " -elcping th 
 ^ . in the c'.- .-i' f^*" 
 yi the family. The fa ud with this 
 
 hypothesis. There ar public life 
 
 so familiar with the Scr :. Lincoln, 
 
 while to those pious '■ nother in 
 
 his early childhood -.css to be attrib- 
 
 uted much . . >;y of life, that elevation 
 
 of moral ci _. . , .c;r, that exquisite sense of 
 justice, and that sentiment of humanity which 
 now form distinguishing traits of his charac- 
 ter. A year after the death of his mother, his 
 father married Mrs. Sally Johnston, at Eliza- 
 bethtown, Kentucky, a widow with three chil- 
 dren. She proved a good and kind mother to 
 to Abraham. She survives her husband, and 
 is now living in Coles County, Illinois. 
 
 Afte'- tb.p removal of the family to Indiana, 
 Abraham attended school a little, chiefly in 
 the winter, when work was less pressing; 
 but the aggregate of all the time thus spent, 
 both in Kentucky and Indiana, did not amount 
 to one year. He is therefore indebted to 
 schools for but a very small part of his educa- 
 tion. All men who become in any respect 
 distinguished, are, in one sense at least, self- 
 made ; that is to say, the development and the 
 discipline of the intellect can only be secured 
 by self-effort. Without this, assistance on 
 the part of teachers, however long and contin- 
 uously offered, will yield no fruit With it, 
 assistance is valuable maialv in that it directs 
 
 mger members
 
 and encourages effort He is said to be a self- 
 made man who attains to distinction without 
 having enjoyed the advantages of teachers and 
 of institutions of learning; and in this sense 
 Abraham Lincoln is peculiarly entitled to the 
 appellation. His early teachers were men of 
 scarcely any learning, and what he mastered 
 through their assistance consisted only of the 
 simplest rudiments of education. That sub- 
 sequent training and disciplining of the intel- 
 lect, that habit of close investigation, that 
 power of intense thought, which enable him to 
 master every subject he investigates, and that 
 faculty of clear and forcible expression, of log- 
 ical arrangement, and of overwhelming argu- 
 ment, by which he enforces his own well- 
 grounded convictions — all this is the result 
 of his own unaided exertions, and of a natu- 
 rally sound and vigorous understanding. So 
 far from being indebted to institutions of 
 learning for any of the qualities which char- 
 acterize him, he was never in a college or an 
 academy as a student, and was never, in fact, 
 inside of a college or academy building until 
 after he had commenced the practice of the 
 law. He studied English grammar after he 
 was twenty-three years of age ; at twenty-five 
 he mastered enough of geometry, trigonom- 
 etry, and mensuration to enable him to take 
 the field as a surveyor ; and he studied the 
 six books of Euclid after he had served a term 
 in Congress, and when he was forty years of 
 age, amid the pressure of an extensive legal 
 practice, and of frequent demands upon his 
 time by the public. 
 
 Books were another means of education 
 which young Lincoln did not neglect; but in 
 a backwoods settlement of Indiana, forty years 
 ago, books were somewhat rarer than now. 
 They had this advantage, however, over a ma- 
 jority of the books of the present time : the 
 few that were to be had possessed solid merit, 
 and well repaid the time and labor given to 
 their study. Abraham's first book, after 
 Dilworth's Spelling-Book, was, as has been 
 stated, the Bible. Next to that came ^sop's 
 Fables, which he read with great zest, 
 and so often as to commit the whole to memo- 
 ry. After that he obtained a copy of Pilgrim's 
 Progress — a book which, perhaps, has quick- 
 ened as many dormant intellects and started 
 into vigorous growth the religious element of 
 as many natures, as any other in the English 
 language. Then came the Life of Franklin, 
 Weems' Washington, and Rill's Narrative. 
 Over the two former the boy lingered with 
 rapt delight. He followed Washington and 
 brave Ben. Franklin through their early trials 
 and .struggles as well as through their later tri- 
 umphs; and even then, in the midst of his 
 cramped surroundings, and in the f;ice of the 
 discouragements which beset him on every 
 hand, his soul was lifted upwards, and noble 
 
 aspirations which never afterwards forsook 
 him, grew up within him, and great thoughts 
 stirred his bosom — thoughts of emancipated 
 nations, of the glorious principles which lie at 
 the foundation of human freedom, and of hon- 
 orable fame acquired by heroic endeavors to 
 enforce and maintain them. These books con- 
 stituted the boy's library. When he was four- 
 teen or fifteen years of age, he learned that 
 one Mr. Crawford, a distant neighbor, had in 
 his house Ramsey's Life of Washington — a 
 book which he was told gave a fuller and bet- 
 ter account of Washington and the Revolution 
 than the volume he had read with so much 
 pleasure. He at once borrowed the book, and 
 devoured its contents. By some accident the 
 volume was exposed to a shower and badly 
 damaged. Young Lincoln had no money, but 
 he knew how to work. He went to Crawford, 
 told him what had happened, and expressed 
 his readiness to work out the full value of the 
 book. Crawford had a field of corn, which 
 had been stripped of the blades as high as the 
 ear, preparatory to cutting off the tops for 
 winter fodder for his cattle. He expressed his 
 willingness to square accounts if Lincoln 
 would cut the tops from that field of corn. 
 The offer was promptly accepted, and with 
 three days of hard labor the book was paid 
 for, and Young Lincoln returned home the 
 proud possessor of another volume. Not long 
 after this incident, he was fortunate enough to 
 get possession of a copy of Plutarch's Lives. 
 What fields of thought its perusal opened up 
 to the stripling, what hopes were excited in 
 his youthful breast, what worthy models of 
 probity, of justice, of honor, and of devotion 
 to great principles he resolved to pattern after, 
 can be readily imagined by those who are fami- 
 liar with his subsequent career, and who hare 
 themselves lingered over the same charmed 
 page. 
 
 Listening occasionally to the' early back- 
 woods preachers, was another means which, 
 more than schools, and, perhaps, quite as much 
 as books, aided in developing and forming the 
 character of young Lincoln. It has already 
 been stated that his parents were pious mem- 
 bers of the Baptist Church. Among the back- 
 woodsmen of Indiana, at that period, sectarian- 
 ism did not run as high as it probably does in 
 the same section now. The people were glad 
 of an opportunity to hear a sermon, whether 
 delivered by one of their own religious faith 
 or not. Thus it was at least with the father 
 and mother of young Lincoln, who never 
 failed to attend, with their family, upon reli- 
 gious worship, whenever held within reasona- 
 ble distance. They gladly received the word, 
 caring less for the doctrinal tenets of the 
 preacher than for the earnestness and zeal 
 with which he enforced practical godliness. 
 No class of men are more deserving of admi-
 
 
 ration than those who have been the first to 
 carry the gospel to our frontier settlements. 
 If ever men have labored in the cause of their 
 Divine Master and for the salvation of their 
 fellow-mortals, impelled by motives entirely 
 free from any dross of selfishness, surely that 
 honor should be awarded to them. Many of 
 these early pioneer preachers were gifted with 
 a rare eloquence. Inspired always with the 
 grandeur of their theme, communing daily 
 with nature while on their long and solitary 
 journeyings from settlement to settlement, 
 they seemed to be favored, beyond human 
 wont, with a very near approach to the source 
 of all inspiration ; and coming with this pre- 
 paration before an audience of simple-minded 
 settlers, preacher and people freed from con- 
 ventional restraint, these men almost always 
 moved the hearts and wrought upon the imag- 
 ination of their hearers as only those gifted 
 with the truest eloquence can. Of course the 
 immediate result of such preaching was to 
 awaken the religious element, rather than to 
 inform the understanding as to doctrines and 
 dogmas — to lead to spiritual exaltation and re- 
 ligious fervor, rather than to a clear knowledge 
 and appreciation of those points of theological 
 controversy which for so many centuries have 
 engaged the attention of disputatious divines. 
 It is not intended to decide which of the two 
 methods is the better calculated to evangelize 
 the world. But as to the great value of the 
 preaching here spoken of, and its singular 
 adaptation to the people to whom it was ad- 
 dressed, there can be but one opinion. That 
 it exerted a marked influence upon the charac- 
 ter of young Lincoln, that it thoroughly awa- 
 kened the religious element within him, and 
 that his subsequent life has been greatly in- 
 fluenced by it, are facts which the writer de- 
 sires to place upon record for the encourage- 
 ment of other laborers in the same field, and 
 
 as a distinct recognition of the further fact 
 that there can be no true and lasting great- 
 ness unless its foundation be laid in the truths 
 of the Bible. 
 
 And thus young Lincoln grew to manhood, 
 constantly engaged in the various kinds of 
 labor incident to the country and the times — 
 felling the forest, clearing the ground of the 
 undergrowth and of logs, splitting rails, pull- 
 ing the cross-cut and the whip-saw, driving the 
 frower, plowing, harrowing, planting, hoeing, 
 harvesting, assisting at house-raisings, log- 
 rollings andcorn-huskings; mingling cordially 
 with the simple-minded, honest people with 
 whom his lot was cast, developing a kindly 
 nature, and evincing social qualities which 
 rendered his companionship desirable ; remark- 
 able even then for a wonderful gift of relating 
 anecdotes, and for a talent of intei-spersing 
 them with acute and apt reflections ; every- 
 where a favorite, always simple, genial, truth- 
 ful, and unpretending, and always chosen um- 
 pire on occasions calling for the exercise of 
 sound judgment and inflexible impartiality. 
 It is scarcely necessary to add that he also 
 greatly excelled in all those homely feats of 
 strength, agility, and endurance, practiced by 
 frontier people in his sphere of life. In wrest- 
 ling, jumping, running, throwing the maul and 
 pitching the crow-bar, he always stood first 
 among those of his own age. As in height he 
 loomed above all his associates, so in these 
 customary pastimes he as far surpassed his 
 youthful competitors, and even when pitted 
 against those of maturer years, he was almost 
 always victorious. In such daily companion- 
 ship, he grew up in full sympathy with the 
 people, rejoicing in their simple joys and 
 pleasures, sorrowing in their trials and misfor- 
 tunes, and united to them all by that bond of 
 brotherhood among the honest poor — a com- 
 mon heritage of labor. 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 REMOVAL TO ILLINOIS. 
 
 Illinois in 1829— Explorers in the Northern and Middle Portion of the State— Character of the Country— Remarkable 
 Influx of Population— Removal of the Lincoln Farnily— Their Mode of Travel— Founding another Home — Building 
 a Log Cabin and making Rails — Symbols. 
 
 FROM 1829 until the financial revulsion of 
 1837-40, a vast flood of immigration 
 poured into Illinois. At the first-named date, 
 the population of the State was only about 
 150,000 — a number scarcely equal to the pres- 
 ent population of the city of Chicago. This 
 population was confined mostly to the south- 
 ern part of the State. There were compara- 
 tively few people north of Alton, and these, as 
 is always the case in the settlement of a new 
 
 country, were scattered along the rivers and 
 smaller watercourses. And even south of 
 Alton, in the older-settled portion of the 
 State, most of the population still clung either 
 to the water-courses or close to the edges of the 
 timber-land. The large prairies, with the ex- 
 ception of a narrow belt along the fringes of 
 timber, were wholly uncultivated and without 
 population. Indeed, at that time, and for 
 many years after, it was the opinion of even
 
 5 
 
 the most intelligent people, that the larger 
 prairies of Illinois would never be used for any 
 other purpose than as a common pasturage for 
 the cattle of adjacent settlers. It is only of 
 later years, and since the introduction of rail- 
 roads, that the true value and destiny of these 
 prairies have come to be understood and ap- 
 preciated. Thus, in 1829, only an infinitesi- 
 mal portion of the better part of Illinois was 
 occupied. At the same time, the people of the 
 other States entertained very imperfect no- 
 tions of the character of the country and of its 
 wonderful natural resources. The first settle- 
 ment by an indigenous American population 
 had been the result of the accounts carried 
 back to the old States by the soldiers who ac- 
 companied the gallant George Rogers Clark in 
 that memorable expedition in 1778, which 
 resulted in the conquest of Kaskaskia, Caho- 
 kia, and Vincennes. Another impetus was 
 given in the same direction after the war of 
 1812, by similar reports of the beauty and 
 fertility of the country taken back by rangers 
 and other troops who had done service in the 
 then territory of Illinois. But from that time 
 until the year 1829, the increase of population 
 by immigration had been very slow. The era 
 of financial prosperity which terminated in 
 the memorable financial break-down of 1837- 
 40, gave another impulse to western immigra- 
 tion. The Anglo-Saxon greed for land was 
 stimulated to unusual activity by the abun- 
 dance of money, and explorers started out in 
 search of new and desirable countries. Enter- 
 ing Illinois by the great lines of travel — at 
 Vincennes, at Terre Haute, at Paducah, at 
 Shawneetown, and journeying westward and 
 northward, these explorers were struck with 
 the wonderful beauty and fertility of the 
 country, and the ease with which it could be 
 reduced to immediate cultivation. Its rich, 
 undulating prairies, its vast natural pasturage 
 for cattle, the accessibility to navigable water- 
 courses, the salubrity of its climate, and, 
 above all, its millions of acres of government 
 land, conspired to render it peculiarly at- 
 tractive to men who had been accustomed all 
 their lives to mountainous and rocky districts, 
 or to a country covered with heavy forests. 
 Other explorers, entering the State from the 
 direction of the great Northwestern Lakes, 
 and traversing it southward and westward to 
 the Mississippi, saw at every stage of their 
 journey, a country no less fertile and inviting, 
 the sylvan beauty of which no pen or pencil 
 could adequately portray. The reports spread 
 by these travelers, on their return to the older 
 States, regarding the wonderful region they 
 had seen, together with occasional letters con- 
 tributed to leading journals by delighted and 
 enthusiastic tourists, awakened a spirit of 
 emigration the like of whi h the country had 
 never before witnessed. The stream of popu- 
 
 lation that set at ance Illinoisward continued, 
 from this and other causes, to grow constantly 
 broader and deeper — coming in from the 
 South, setting westward from the belt of Mid- 
 dle States, pouring in by way of the North- 
 western Lakes — dotting every prairie with 
 new homes, opening thousands of farms, mak- 
 ing roads, building bridges, founding schools, 
 churches, villages, and cities — until the crash 
 of 1837 came suddenly and unexpectedly 
 upon the country, putting an immediate and 
 effectual check upon the human movement. 
 
 Among those who heard the earliest reports 
 concerning this land of promise, were the Lin- 
 coln family, in their quiet home in Indiana, 
 and they resolved to try their fortunes in it. 
 Accordingly, on the first day of March, 1830, 
 Abraham having just completed his twenty- 
 first year, his father and family, together with 
 the families of the two daughters and sons-in- 
 law of his step-mother, bidding adieu to the 
 old homestead in Indiana, turned their faces 
 towards Illinois. In those days, when people 
 changed their residence from one State or set- 
 tlement to another, they took all their mova- 
 ble possessions with them — their household 
 goods, their kitchen utensils, including pro- 
 visions for the journey, their farming imple- 
 ments, their horses and cattle. The former 
 were loaded into wagons drawn, for the most 
 part, by oxen, and the latter were driven by the 
 smaller boys of the family, who were some- 
 times assisted by their sisters and mother. 
 Thus arranged for a journey of weeks, — not 
 unfrequently of months, — the emigrant set 
 out, thinking but little of the hardships be- 
 fore him — of bad roads, of unb ridged streams, 
 of disagreeable weather, of sleeping on the 
 ground or in the wagon, of sickness, acci- 
 dents, and, sometimes, death, by the way — 
 dwelling chiefly in thought upon the novelty 
 and excitement of the trip, the rumored at- 
 tractions of the new country whither he was 
 going, and of the probable advantages likely 
 to result from the change. By stages of ten 
 or fifteen miles per day, over untraveled roads, 
 now across mountains, swamps, and water- 
 courses, and now through dense, umbrageous 
 forests, and across broad prairies where the 
 horizon alone bounded the vision, the caravan 
 of wagons, men, women, and children, flocks 
 and herds, toiled onward by day, sleeping 
 under the broad canopy of stars by night, pa- 
 tiently accomplishing the destined journey, 
 sometimes of weeks' — sometimes of months' — 
 duration. 
 
 It was by this primitive and laborious 
 method that the Lincoln family made the jour- 
 ney from Spencer county, Indiana, to NIacon 
 county, Illinois — Abraham himself driving 
 one of the ox-teams. He had now arrived at 
 manhood, and both by law and by universal 
 custom, was at liberty to begin the world for
 
 himself. But he was the only son of his 
 father, now advanced in years, and it was not 
 in his nature to desert his aged sire at a time 
 when all the hardships, privations, and toil 
 of making a new home in a new country, 
 were about to be entered upon. AVhatever 
 the future may have seemed to hold in it as a 
 reward for eftort specially directed to that end, 
 he cheerfully put aside in obedience to his 
 sense of duty, and engaged at once and heart- 
 ily in the work before him. That summer's 
 labor consisted, mainly, in building a log 
 house, into which the family moved, making 
 rails for, and fencing in ten acres of prairie, 
 breaking the sod, and raising upon it a 
 crop of corn. This farm was situated on the 
 north side of the Sangamon river, at the junc- 
 tion of the timber land and prairie, and about 
 ten miles west of Decatur. The rails used in 
 fencing in the ten-acre field are those of which 
 so much, of late, has been said in the news- 
 papers. Their existence was brought to the 
 public attention during the sitting of the Re- 
 publican State Convention, at Decatur, on the 
 
 9th of May last, on which occasion a banner 
 attached to two of these rails, and bearing an 
 appropriate inscription, was brought into the 
 assemblage, and formally presented to that 
 body, amid a scene of unparalleled enthusi- 
 asm. Since then, they have been in great de- 
 mand in every State of the Union in which 
 free labor is honored, where they have been 
 borne in processions of the people, and hailed 
 by hundreds of thousands of freemen as a 
 symbol of triumph, and as a glorious vindica- 
 tion of freedom, and of the rights and the dig- 
 nity of free labor. These, however, were far 
 from being the first or only rails made by 
 young Lincoln. He was a practiced hand at 
 the business. His first lessons had been 
 taken while yet a boy in Indiana. Some 
 of the rails made by him in that State have ' 
 been clearly identified, and are now eagerly 
 sought after. The writer has seen a cane, 
 now in the possession of Mr. Lincoln, made 
 since his nomination by one of his old Indiana 
 acquaintances, from one of those rails split, 
 by his own hands in boyhood. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 FLAT- BOATMAN — CLEKK — INDIAN- FIGHTER. 
 
 Fiat-Boats and Flat-Boatmen — A Commercial Revolution — The deep Snow — Lincoln engages to take a Plat-Boat Ur 
 New ©rleans — Incident of his first Trip — First entrance into Sangamon County — Builds a Boat, and goes to New 
 Orleans — Takes Charge of a Store and Mill at New Salem — Primitive Customs — Personal Popularity — The Black 
 Hawk War— Volunteers— Elected Captain— Volunteers a Second and Third Time— The War Ended— Return Home. 
 
 THOSE who have come into Illinois since 
 steamboats became numerous on the 
 Western waters, and since the introduction of 
 railroads, and the opening of the Illinois and 
 Michigan Canal, have no correct idea how 
 small an amount of business was transacted in 
 the State so late as 1830, or of the great com- 
 mercial revolution which has taken place since 
 that time. At the period named there was 
 but little inducement for growing surplus pro- 
 ductions. The merchants of the country did 
 not deal in corn, wheat, flour, beef, pork, lard, 
 butter, or any of the great staples of the State. 
 Beyond the purchase of a few furs and peltries, 
 small quantities of feathers, beeswax, and tal- 
 low, the merchant rarely engaged in barter. 
 The old United States Bank was then in exist- 
 ence, and through it the exchanges of the coun- 
 try were conducted at a rate so satisfactory that 
 no Western merchant thought of shipping the 
 products of the country to liquidate his East- 
 ern balances. He bought his goods for cash, or 
 on credit, and collected his debts, if so fortu- 
 nate as to collect at all, in the same commod- 
 ity, and never paid any of it out again, except 
 for goods. The dependence of the country for 
 monev was chiefly upon that brought in by 
 
 new settlers. Occasionally an adventurer ap- 
 peared who paid out money for sufiicient of 
 the products of the country to load a flat-boat, 
 which he floated off to find a market. Some- 
 times the more enterprising of the farmers, 
 finding no market at home for the surplus of 
 their farms, loaded a flat-boat on their own 
 account, and by this means some money found 
 its way into the country. Within the last 
 twenty years this order of things has entirely 
 changed, and at the present time every de' 
 scription of surplus product meets a ready 
 cash market at home. While the old order 
 lasted, however, the business of shipping by 
 flat-boats was maintained on all the Western 
 rivers, though the multiplication and compe- 
 tition of steamboats rendered the number less 
 every year. The business itself was one of 
 exposure, of hard labor, and of constant peril. 
 It developed and nurtured a race of men pe- 
 culiar for courage, herculean strength, hardi- 
 hood, and great contempt of danger. Western 
 annals abound in stories of these men. As a 
 class they have become extinct, and the world 
 will never see their like again; but their mem- 
 ory remains, and will constitute a part of the 
 country's history, and mingle with our na-
 
 tional romance forever. This much it seemed 
 necessary to say for the benefit of the unini- 
 tiated reader, by way of preface to some 
 account of young Lincoln's experiences as a 
 flat-boatman. Going back then to the new 
 home on the Sangamon River, we take up 
 again the thread of the narrative. 
 
 The winter of 1830-31 is memorable to this 
 day among the early settlers of Illinoi.s, by 
 reason of the deep snow x\ hich fell about tiie 
 last of December, and which continued upon 
 the ground for more than two months. It 
 was a season of unusual severity, both upon 
 •the settlers and their stock. Many of the 
 latter peiished from exposure to the cold and 
 from hunger, while the former, especially 
 the more recently arrived of their number, 
 were often put to great straits to obtain pro- 
 visions. Of these hardships the Lincolns and 
 their immediate neighbors had their full share, 
 and but for Abraham, whose vigor of consti- 
 tution and remarkable power of endurance 
 fitted him for long and wearisome journeys in 
 search of provisions, their suffering would 
 have been often greater. 
 
 Some time during the winter, one of those 
 adventurers previously spoken of — Denton 
 Offut — engaged in buying a boat-load of pro- 
 duce to ship in the spring, fell in with young 
 Lincoln. Conceiving a liking for him, and 
 having learned also that he had previously 
 taken a flat-boat down the Mississippi, OfFut 
 ■engaged him, together with his step-mother's 
 son, John D. Johnston, and his mother's 
 cousin, John Hanks, to take a flat boat from 
 Beardstown, on the Illinois River, to New 
 Orleans. 
 
 Lincoln's first trip to New Orleans had been 
 made from the Ohio River, while living in In- 
 diana, and when he was in the nineteenth 
 year of his age. On that occasion also he was 
 a hired hand merely, and he and the son of 
 the owner, without other assistance, made the 
 •trip. A part of the cargo had been selected 
 with special reference to the wants of the sugar 
 plantations, and the young adventurers were 
 instructed to linger upon the sugar coast for 
 the purpose of disposing of it. On one occa- 
 ■sion they tied up their boat for the night near 
 •a plantation at which they had been trading 
 during the afternoon. The negroes observing 
 that the boat was in charge of but two per- 
 sons, seven of them formed a plan to rob it 
 during the night. Their intention evidently 
 was to murder the young men, rob the boat 
 of whatever money there might be on it, carry 
 off such articles as they could secrete in their 
 cabins, and then, by sinking the boat, destroy 
 all traces of their guilt. They had not, how- 
 ever, properly estimated the courage and 
 prowess of the two young men in charge. 
 The latter, being on their guard, gave the 
 would-be robbers and assassins a warm recep- 
 
 tion, and, notwithstanding the disparity in 
 numbers, after a severe struggle, in which 
 both Lincoln and his companion were consid- 
 erably hurt, the former were driven from the 
 boat. At the close of the fight, the j'oung 
 navigators lost no time in getting their boat 
 again under way. 
 
 The trip in the main was successful, and in 
 due time the young men returned to their 
 homes in Indiana. 
 
 Lincoln and his associates for a second trip, 
 Johnson and Hanks, were to join OfFut at 
 Springfield, Illinois, as soon as the snow had 
 disappeared, whence they were to go with 
 him to Beardstown, the port of departure, for 
 New Orleans. When the snow melted, which 
 was about the first of March, the whole coun- 
 try was so flooded as to render traveling 
 impracticable. This led the party to purchase 
 a canoe, in which they descended the Sanga- 
 mon River to a point within a few miles of 
 Springfield. This was the time and this the 
 method of Lincoln's first entrance into Sanga- 
 mon county — a county which was to be the 
 field of his future triumphs, which was to be- 
 come proud of him as her most distinguished 
 citizen, and which, in time, was to be honored 
 through him with being the home of a Presi- 
 dent of the United States. On arriving at 
 Springfield, they learned from OfFut that, not 
 having been able to purchase a boat in Beards- 
 town, he had concluded to build one on the 
 Sangamon River. Lincoln, Hanks, and John- 
 ston were hired for that purpose, at twelve 
 dollars per month, and going into the woods, 
 they got out the necessary timber and built a 
 boat at the town of Sangamon, near where the 
 Chicago, Alton, and St. Louis Railroad now 
 crosses the Sangamon River, which they took 
 to New Orleans upon the old contract. 
 
 The writer has not been put in possession 
 of any of the incidents connected with this 
 trip. It is sufficient for the present purpose, 
 however, to know that so well did young Lin- 
 coln bear himself throughout — so faithful in 
 all the trusts reposed in him by his employer ; 
 so active, prompt, and efficient in all neces- 
 sary labor ; so cool, determined, and full of 
 resources in the presence of danger — that be- 
 fore reaching New Orleans, Offut had become 
 greatly attached to him, and on their return 
 engaged him to take the general chai'ge of a 
 store and mill in the village of New Salem, 
 then in Sangamon, now in Menard County. 
 
 In July, 1831, Lincoln was fairly installed 
 in this new business. In those primitive times 
 the country merchant was a personage of vast 
 consequence. He was made the repository of 
 all the news of the surrounding settlements, 
 and as he "took the papers," he was able to 
 post his customers as to the affairs of state and 
 the news of the world generally. His acquire- 
 ments in this last respect were as astounding
 
 8 
 
 to the country people as were those of Gold- 
 smith's village schoolmaster to the simple 
 rustics. His store was a place of common 
 resort for the people on rainy days, and at 
 those periods of the j'ear when farm-work was 
 not pressing, and nearly always on Saturday 
 afternoons. There all the topics of the neigh- 
 borhood and of the times were discussed, the 
 merchant usually bearing the leading part, and 
 all disputed points of past history or of cur- 
 rent events were always referred to him, as 
 the ultimate tribunal, for decision. His word 
 and opinion, in these respects, were supreme, 
 never disputed, and triumphantly repeated 
 by the fortunate first-hearers at all casual 
 meetings with neighbors, and at all the little 
 neighborhood gatherings at which the oracle 
 was not present. 
 
 Young Lincoln's acquirements and natural 
 gifts most admirably fitted him for the dis- 
 tinction awarded to men engaged in his new 
 occupation. He had read a few books, as we 
 have seen, had been twice to New Orleans, 
 and otherwise had observed a good deal of the 
 world, treasuring up whatever he had seen 
 faithfully in his memory. He had an unfail- 
 ing fund of anecdote ; he was an admirable 
 talker, sharp, witty, good-humored, and pos- 
 sessed also of an accommodating spirit which 
 always led him to exert himself for the enter- 
 tainment of his friends, as well as to be ever 
 ready to do any of them a kind and neighborly 
 turn when his assistance was needed. In a 
 very little time he had become the most pop- 
 ular man in the neighborhood. His new 
 acquaintances respected him for his upright- 
 ness, honored him for his intelligence, admired 
 him for his genial and social qualities, and 
 loved him him for that deep, earnest sympa- 
 thy which he ever manifested for those who 
 were unfortunate in their enterprises, or who 
 were overtaken by some great sorrow. How 
 much they confided in him, honored and loved 
 him, will be seen a little further on. 
 
 Early in the following spring (1832) the 
 Black Hawk war broke out in the northwest- 
 ern part of the State. The previous year a 
 part of the tribes of the Sac and Fox Indians 
 had recrossed the Mississippi from its western 
 bank, and taken possession of their old town 
 on Rock River, a few miles above its mouth, 
 and about four miles from where the city of 
 Rock Island is now situated. The Indian title 
 to the lands in that vicinity had been extin- 
 guished by a treaty made with the chiefs of 
 the Sac and Fox Nations at St. Louis, in 1804, 
 which treaty was afterwards confirmed by 
 a portion of the tribes in 1815, and by another 
 portion in 1816. Black Hawk always denied 
 the validity of these treaties, and, in fact, of 
 all the treaties made by his people with the 
 whites. In the war of 1812, he had co-opera- 
 ted with the British army, and had conceived 
 
 an unconquerable hatred of the Americans; 
 The lands on which the great town of his na- 
 tion was situated had recently been surveyed 
 and brought into market, and a number of 
 white settlers had gone upon them. This 
 aroused the enmity of the old chieftain, and 
 taking with him his women and children, and 
 as many warriors as he could in.spire with the 
 same feeling, he returned to his former haunts, 
 took possession of the ancient metropolis of 
 his people, ordered the white settlers away, 
 killed their stock, unroofed their houses, pulled 
 down their fences, and cut up their growing 
 grain. News of these outrages reaching Gov. 
 Reynolds, at his request Gen. Gaines proceed- 
 ed at once to Rock Island. Becoming con- 
 vinced that Black Hawk meditated war on the 
 settlers. Gen. Gaines called upon Gov. Rey- 
 nolds for a small force of mounted volunteers. 
 These were soon in the field, and in a short 
 time, together with a few regular troops, ap- 
 peared before Black Hawk's town. The latter, 
 with his women and children and fighting 
 men, retreated across the Mississippi without 
 firing a gun; the volunteers destroyed the 
 town, and encamped upon the Mississippi, on 
 the site of the present city of Rock Island. 
 Black Hawk, anticipating that the troops 
 would follow him to the west side of the river, 
 came into Fort Armstrong and sued for peace. 
 A treaty was then made in which it was stip- 
 ulated that Black Hawk's people should re- 
 main forever after on the west side of the 
 river, never to recross it without permission 
 of the President of the United States or the 
 Governor of Illinois.* This treaty proved to 
 be but an Indian's stratagem. Black Hawk's 
 sole object in making it was to gain time in 
 order to perfect his preparations. He was 
 fully bent upon war, and early in the following 
 spring he recrossed the Mississippi, in force, 
 moving up the valley of the Rock River to the 
 country of the Pottawattomies and the Win- 
 nebagoes, whom he hoped to make his allies. 
 
 As soon as apprized of these facts. Gov. 
 Reynolds issued a call for four regiments of 
 volunteers. Among the earliest in his neigh- 
 borhood to enroll himself for this service, was 
 young Lincoln. A company was formed in 
 New Salem, and to his own great surprise, 
 though doubtless not to the surprise of any 
 one else, Lincoln was chosen captain. This 
 was the first evidence he had ever received of 
 popularity among his acquaintances, and he 
 has often said, later in life and since he has 
 won the distinction of a leading man in the 
 nation, that no other success ever gave him 
 so much unalloyed satisfaction. The volun- 
 teers rendezvoused at Beardstown. Here Lin- 
 coln's company joined its regiment, and after 
 a few days of rapid marching the scene of 
 
 * Ford's History of Illinois, page lOS, et seq.
 
 ■conflict was reached. It is not the intention 
 to give an account of this war. It was of short 
 duration. Black Hawk took the field early in 
 April. In the last days of the following July 
 the decisive battle of the Bad Axe was fought, 
 which put an end to the war ; and a few days 
 thereafter Black Hawk, and his principal 
 braves who had escaped the bullet and the bay- 
 onet, were prisoners of war at Fort Armstrong, 
 on Rock Island. But short as it was, the In- 
 dians showed themselves to be courageous, 
 desperate, and merciless. Their war parties 
 traversed the whole country from Rock Island 
 to the neighborhood of Chicago, and from the 
 Illinois River into the territory of Wisconsin ; 
 they occupied every grove, waylaid every 
 road, hung around every Settlement, picked 
 oflF many of the settlers without regard to age, 
 sex, or condition, and attacked every small 
 party of white men that attempted to pene- 
 trate the country.* 
 
 The first levy of volunteers was called out for 
 but thirty days. At the end of that time they 
 were disbanded at Ottawa without having 
 seen the enemy. 
 
 * Ford's History of Illinois, page 128. 
 
 When the troops were disbanded, most of 
 them returned home. Lincoln, however, had 
 gone out for the war, and a new levy being 
 called for, he again volunteered and served as 
 a private. A second time his regiment was 
 disbanded, and again he volunteered. When 
 his third term of service had expired the war 
 was about concluded, and he returned home. 
 Having lost his horse, near where the town of 
 Janesville, Wisconsin, now stands, he went 
 down Rock River to Dixon in a canoe. Thence 
 he crossed the country on foot to Peoria, where 
 he again took canoe to a point on the Illinois 
 River within forty miles of home. The latter 
 distance he accomplished on foot, having been 
 in active service nearly three months. We 
 have been told by men who were with Lincoln 
 during this campaign, that he was always 
 prompt and energetic in the performance of 
 duty, never shrinking from danger or hard- 
 ship; that he was a universal favorite, the best 
 talker, the best story-teller, and the best at a 
 wrestling-match or a foot-race in the whole 
 army. He still owns the land in Iowa on which 
 his own warrants for this service were located. 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 MERCHANT — SURVETOK — LEGISLATOR — LAWYER. 
 
 Lincoln a Candidate for the Legislature — The vote of New Salem — Merchant again — Studies English Grammar — Dep- 
 uty Surveyor— Elected to the Legislature — Douglas's Opinion of Lincoln — The True Test of Genius — Studies Law, 
 and removes to Springfield — A Reminiscence — Lincoln's First Speech — Political Complexion of Illinois for Twenty 
 Years — Lincoln Recognized as a Leader — Twice he receives the vote of his Party for Speaker — Summary of liis career 
 in the State Legislature. 
 
 PRIOR to the adoption of the present consti- 
 tution of Illinois, in 1847, elections for State 
 officers and Members of the Legislature were 
 held on the first Monday in August — for the 
 former once in four years, for the latter once 
 in every two years. Lincoln's return to New 
 Salem was, therefore, but a few days before 
 the election of that year for Members of the 
 Legislature. The system of nominating can- 
 didates for office by county and State conven- 
 tions had not then been introduced into 
 Illinois. Indeed, party lines and party desig- 
 nations were at that time scarcely known in 
 the State. There were " Clay Men," " Jack- 
 son Men," "Adams Men," " Crawford Men," 
 and so on, but no clearly defined party creeds 
 around which men of similar views rallied to 
 make common cause against those holding 
 opposite opinions. Men announced them- 
 selves as candidates for the various elective 
 oflBces. It was a very rare circumstance that 
 a contest for an office was narrowed down to 
 two candidates. More frequently a half dozen 
 eager aspirants contested the prize. 
 
 The county of Sangamon was entitled to four 
 members in the lower branch of the Legisla- 
 ture, and there were at the time of Lincoln's 
 return, more than twice that number of can- 
 didates. Among the number were some of the 
 ablest, best known, and most popular men of 
 the county, of whom may be mentioned John 
 T. Stuart, afterwards Representative in Con- 
 gress, Col. E. D, Taylor, Peter Cartwright, 
 the famous eccentric Methodist preacher, and 
 others of considerable note. These gentlemen 
 had been in the field some time before the re- 
 turn of Lincoln — had canvassed the county 
 thoroughly, defining their position on local 
 and other questions, and obtaining promises 
 of support. 
 
 Lincoln had no sooner returned than he was 
 urgently besought by his friends at New Sa- 
 lem to enter the lists for the Legislature 
 against this array of strong men and old citi- 
 zens. These entreaties, continued from day 
 to day, together with the cordial reception he 
 had just received at the hands of all his old 
 acquaintances, induced him, against his better
 
 10 
 
 judgment, to give a reluctant assent, know- 
 ing very well that, under the circumstances, 
 his election was entirely out of the question. 
 It will be remembered that the county was a 
 large one ; that he had lived in it only from 
 July to the following April; that he had but 
 few acquaintances outside of the precinct of 
 New Salem; and that the election was so 
 near at hand as to deprive him of the oppor- 
 tunity of visiting other portions of the county, 
 and making himself known to the people. 
 Nevertheless, when the election came off, he 
 was but a few votes behind the successful 
 candidates. His own precinct— New Salem — 
 gave him 277 votes in a poll of 284; and this 
 too in the face of his avowed preferences for 
 Mr. Clay, and notwithstanding the same pre- 
 cinct at the Presidential election, three months 
 later, gave a majority of 115 for General Jack- 
 son. The result of this election, though prac- 
 tically a defeat, was, all circumstances 
 considered, a most brilliant triumph, clearly 
 presaging success in any future trial he mijrht 
 make. And never since that day has Mr. 
 Lincoln been beaten in any du'ect vote of the 
 people. 
 
 Having received such generous treatment at 
 the hands of his New Salem fiiends, Mr. Lin- 
 coln resolved to make the place his permanent 
 home. He was wholly Without means, and at 
 a loss as to what he should try to do. At one 
 time he had almost concluded to learn the 
 trade of a blacksmith. Those who discerned 
 in the young man qualities which he had not 
 yet suspected himself to be the possessor of, 
 urged him to turn his attention to the profes- 
 sion of law; but he always met sugges- 
 tions of this character with objections based 
 upon his lack of education. While yet in a 
 quandary as to the future, he was very unex- 
 pectedly met with a proposition to purchase 
 on credit, in connection with another man as 
 poor as himself, an old stock of goods. The 
 ofifer was accepted, and forthwith he was in- 
 stalled at the head of a village store. It is 
 needless to recount the difficulties which be- 
 set him as a merchant. It is enough to say 
 that after a manly struggle with certain ad- 
 verse circumstances for which he was not re- 
 sponsible, he relinquished the business, finding 
 himself encumbered with debt — which he 
 afterwards paid to the last farthing. While 
 engaged in this business he received the ap- 
 pointment of post-master of New Salem — the 
 profits of the office being too insignificant to 
 make his politics an objection. 
 
 Again thrown out of employment, Mr. Lin- 
 coln now turned his attention more than ever 
 to books. He read everything that fell in his 
 way ; he kept himself well jjosted in national 
 politics ; he accustomed himself to write out 
 his views on various topics of general interest, 
 though not for the public eye ; and realizing 
 
 in these exercises the importance of a correct 
 knowledge of English Grammar, he took up 
 that study for the first time. About this pe- 
 riod he made the acquaintance of John Cal- 
 houn, then living in Springfield, and afterwards 
 notorious for his efforts to maintain Demo- 
 cratic supremacy in Kansas, and as President 
 of the Lecompton Constitutional Convention. 
 Mr. Calhoun was then County Surveyor for 
 Sangamon county. The great influx of immi- 
 grants before spoken of, and the consequent 
 active entry of the government lands, gave him 
 more business in the way of establishing cor- 
 ners, and tracing boundary fines, than he 
 could well attend to. Conceiving a liking for 
 Mr. Lincoln, Calhoun offered to depute to him 
 that portion of the work contiguous to New 
 Salem. Lincoln had no knowledge of survey- 
 ing, or of the science on which it is based ; 
 but he was now too much absorbed by a de- 
 sire for improvement to decline a position 
 which, while securing a livelihood, would ena- 
 ble him to increase his acquirements. He 
 accepted the kind proffer of Air. Calhoun, con- 
 trived to procure a compass and chain, set 
 himself down to the study of Flint and Gib- 
 son, and in a very short time took the field as 
 a surveyor. Mr. Lincoln never forgot or 
 ceased to be grateful for this kindness. Al- 
 though he and Mr. Calhoun were ever after- 
 wards political opponents, he always treated 
 him fairly, placed the most charitable con- 
 struction possible upon his actions, and never 
 lost an opportunity to do a kindly act either 
 for him or his family. 
 
 In the summer of 18-34, Mr. Lincoln was 
 again a candidate for the Legislature. He 
 had now become acquainted with the people 
 throughout the county ; and although they 
 had not seen enough of him to have learned 
 to appreciate him quite as highly as the peo- 
 ple of New Salem precinct, nevertheless he 
 was this time elected by an overwhelming 
 majority, and by the largest vote cast for any 
 candidate. Up to this period, and, indeed, for 
 the two years after, Mr. Lincoln was not 
 aware that he possessed any faculty for public 
 speaking. His acquaintances knew him to be 
 an admirable talker, full of original thought, 
 a close reasoner, united to a matchless gift of 
 illustration ; and from their eager desire to 
 get him into the Legislature, it is more than 
 probable that they believed he would there 
 develop into a forcible and ready debater. 
 Whatever they had known him to undertake 
 he had done well ; and they therefore had 
 faith in his success, should he enter this new 
 and untried field of effort. In one of his me- 
 morable debates with Stephen A. Douglas, in 
 1858, the latter, in alluding to the early expe- 
 riences in life, as well as to the later efforts 
 of his opponent, said: — '^Lincoln is one of 
 those peculiar men who perform with admirable
 
 11 
 
 '3MU everything they undertake^ Douglas 
 had known and watched him closely for a 
 quarter of a century — watched him not as an 
 admirer and friend, but as a political oppo- 
 nent whom he always dreaded to encounter, 
 and whose failure in anything would have 
 given him sincere gratification, — and this was 
 the conclusion to which he had been forced to 
 come contrary to his wishes. To be able to 
 rise with the occasion, and to never fall below 
 it, is one of the surest marks of genius ; and 
 we have the authority of the man, who, of all 
 men in the world, is the least likely to be 
 biased in Mr. Lincoln's favor, for saying that 
 he has never failed to come up to this stand- 
 ard. The trait of character to which Mr. 
 Douglas thus bore reluctant testimony, had 
 been early remarked by Lincoln's friends. It 
 was not wonderful, therefore, that they had 
 implicit faith in him — that, although young 
 and wholly inexperienced in legislation, they 
 cheerfully confided their interests to his keep 
 
 as the election was over, he took home with 
 him a few books from the law library of Mr. 
 Stuart, and entered upon their study in his 
 usually earnest way. When the Legislature 
 met, in the following December, the law books 
 were laid aside, but were resumed again imme- 
 diately after the adjournment. In the autumn 
 of 1836, Mr. Lincoln was admitted to the bar, 
 and on the 15th day of the following April, 
 having formed a copartnership with his old 
 friend Stuait, he removed to Springfield, and 
 entered upon his professional career. 
 
 During all this time — that is, from his ac- 
 ceptance of the post of deputy-surveyor under 
 Calhoun until he removed to Springfield, in 
 1837 — he supported himself by occasional 
 jobs of surveying. Of course he was com- 
 pelled to live as cheaply as possible, to dress, 
 as he had always done before and always has 
 done since, in plain, simple garb, and to study 
 at night by the light of the fire — candles being 
 a luxury he could not then afford. Yet he 
 
 ing, for in his past life they had the strongest was always buoyant, enjoyed life, and never 
 
 possible guarantee that in this new sphere he 
 would make himself " master of the situa- 
 tion," and fully equal to all of its duties. 
 
 But in the session of 1834-5, Mr. Lincoln 
 did not attempt to make a speech. He was 
 faithful in his attendance, watchful of the in- 
 terests of his constituents, acquired the confi- 
 dence of his fellow-members as a man of 
 sound judgment and patriotic purposes, and 
 in this manner he wielded a greater influence 
 in shaping and controlling legislation than 
 many of the noisy declaimers and most fre- 
 quent speakers of the body. His constituents 
 were satisfied — so well satisfied, indeed, that 
 they re-elected him in 1836, again in 1838, and 
 again in 1840, and would have continued elect- 
 ing him, had he desired it ; but by this time, 
 as we shall presently see, his circumstances 
 and position were greatly changed, and there 
 were higher duties before him. 
 
 During the canvass for the Legislature, in 
 1834, Mr. Lincoln was thrown considerably 
 into the company of Hon. John T. Stuart, 
 of Springfield, then a candidate for re-election. 
 The latter gentleman, with his accustomed 
 penetration, was not long in discovering in his 
 retiring and unassuming companion powers of 
 mind which, if properly developed, could not 
 fail to confer distinction upon their possessor. 
 To Lincoln's great surprise, Mr. Stuart warmly 
 urged him to study law. Mr. Stuart was a 
 . gentleman of education, an able lawyer, and 
 in every respect one of the foremost men of 
 the State. Advice of this character, tendered 
 by one so competent to give it, could not be 
 otherwise than gratifying to a young man as 
 yet unknown to fame outside of New Salem 
 precinct, and being accompanied by a gene- 
 >rous offer to loan him whatever books he might 
 need, Lincoln resolved to follow it. As soon 
 
 once fancied that his condition was otherwise 
 than an enviable one. His most severe annoy- 
 ances grew out of his rare gifts as a talker. 
 His friends would come to see him and to hear 
 him talk, and whenever a stranger sojourned 
 for a day or more in New Salem, these friends 
 could not forego the gratification of showing 
 off the fine points of the village favorite. Apro- 
 pos to incidents of this character, is the fol- 
 lowing, related by Hon. Richard Yates, the dis- 
 tinguished Republican candidate for Governor 
 of Illinois, in a speech delivered at Springfield, 
 on the 7th of June last, to a meeting composed 
 of Mr. Lincoln's old friends and neighbors, 
 many of whom had known him intimately at 
 the time referred to. Said Mr. Yates : 
 
 " I recollect the first time I ever saw OUl Abe, and I 
 have a great niiiid to tell you, though I don't know that I 
 ought to. [' Yes, go on — go on.'] It was more than a 
 quarter of a century ago. [A voice, 'He was " Young 
 Abe" then.'] I was down at Salem with a friend, who 
 remarked to me one day, ' I'll go over and introduce you 
 to a fine young fellow we have here — a smart, genial, act- 
 ive young fellow, a/wi we'^i be certain to have a good 
 talk..'' I consented, and he took me down to a collection 
 of four or five houses, and looking over the way, I saw a 
 young man partly lying or resting on a cellar door, intently 
 engaged in readinii. My frien(l took me up and intro- 
 duced me to young Lincoln, and I tell you, aa he rose up, 
 I would not have shot at him th-n for a President. 
 [Laughter.] Well, after some pleasant conversation — 
 for Lincoln, talked then just as he does wno — we all 
 went up to dinner. You know we all lived in a very plain 
 wav in those times. The house wa.s a rough log house, 
 with a puncheon floor and clapboard roof, and might have 
 been builf, like Solomon's Temple, 'without the sound 
 of hammer or nail,' for there was no iron in it. [Laugli- 
 ter.] The old lady whose house it was soon jirovided 
 us with a dinner, the principal ingreilieut of which was a 
 great bowl of milk, which she handed to each. Somehow 
 in serving Lincoln there was a mistake made, and his 
 bowl tipped up, and the bowl and milk rolled over the 
 floor. The good old lady was in deep distress, and ex- 
 claimed, ' Oh dear me ! that's all my fixult.' Lincoln 
 picked up the bowl in the best natured way in the world, 
 remarking to her, 'Aunt Lizzy, we'll not discuss whose 
 fault it was; only if it don't worry you, it don't worry 
 me.' [Laughter and applause.] The old lady was com-
 
 12 
 
 forted, and gave him another bowl of milk. [Renewed 
 laughter.] 
 
 '•My friend Grocn, who introduced me to Lincoln, told 
 me the first time he ever saw him he was in the Sanga- 
 mon River, with liis pants rolled up some five feet, more 
 or less [great merriment], trj'ing to pilot a llat-boat over 
 a n)ill-dam. The boat had got so full of water that it was 
 very ditlicult to manage, and almost impossible to get it 
 over the dam. Lincoln finally contrived to get her prow 
 over so tliat it projected a few feet, and there it stood, 
 Blithe then invented a new way of bailing a flat-boat. 
 He bored a liole tlirough the bottom, to let the water run 
 out, and tlicn corked her up, and she launched right over. 
 [Great laughter.] I think the captain who prove(l himself 
 so fitted to navigate the broad-horn over the dam, is no 
 doubt the man who is to stand upon tlie deck of the old 
 ship, 'The Constitution,' and guide her safely over the 
 billows and breakers that surround her." [Enthusiastic 
 and prolonged applause.] 
 
 It has been already stated that Lincoln wa.s 
 a iDorhing member of the Legislature at the 
 session of 1834-5, but did not attempt the 
 roZe of a speaker. The convention system had 
 been introduced into Illinois by Stephen A. 
 Douglas, in 1834; and about that time the 
 opponents of the administration began calling 
 themselves "Whigs," and laying the founda- 
 tion of a party organization. Party spirit 
 soon began to run high, and political discus- 
 sions between leading men of the two parties 
 were of frequent occurrence. Lincoln's first 
 speech was made during the canvass for the 
 Legislature in 183G. The candidates had met 
 at Springfield by appointment for the purpose 
 of a public discussion. A large concourse of cit- 
 izens had assembled in the court-house to listen 
 to the speeches. Ninian W. Edwards, then a 
 Whig, led off. He was followed by Dr. Early, 
 who was regarded as one of the most effective 
 debaters on the Democratic side in the State. 
 Early was severe upon Edwards, and the lat- 
 ter vras desirous of making an immediate 
 rejoinder. But Early's speech had aroused 
 Lincoln. His name vras the next on the pro- 
 gramme, and telling Edwards to be patient, he 
 arose to reply. Although embarrassed at the 
 beginning, his exordium gave indications of 
 what was to come. He began in that slow 
 and deliberate manner which is still one of his 
 marked characteristics as a speaker, succinctly 
 and lucidly stating the principles of the two 
 parties, carefully laying down his premises, 
 and weaving a network of facts and deduc- 
 tions around his adversary, from which escape 
 was utterly impossible. In less than five min- 
 utes all traces of embarrassment had disap- 
 peared. As he warmed with his subject, his tall 
 form grew proudly erect, his gray eye burning 
 and flashing with an intensity never witnessed 
 before, and all his features in full play — now 
 mantling with humoi', as some well-atmed 
 shaft of ridicule penetrated and disclosed a 
 weak place in his opponent's argument, and 
 now glowing with an honest indignation, 
 as he laid bare the sophisms and misrep- 
 resentations with which it abounded. When 
 he sat down, his reputation was made. 
 
 Not only had he achieved a signal victory 
 over the acknowledged champion of Demo- 
 cracy, but he had placed himself, by a single 
 effort, in the very front rank of able and elo- 
 quent debaters. The surprise of his audience 
 was only equalled by their enthusiasm ; and 
 of all the surprised people on that memorable 
 occasion, perhaps no one was more profound- 
 ly astonished than Lincoln himself. In the 
 election which followed, Early was defeated, 
 and with him every Democratic candidate on 
 the ticket — a result to which Lincoln's mas- 
 terly efforts before the people largely con- 
 tributed. 
 
 In the following December, Lincoln took his 
 seat a second time in the Legislature. It is 
 proper to state here that Illinois, until of late 
 years, has always been strongly Democratic. 
 It gave its electoral vote to Jackson in 1832, 
 to Van Buren in 1836 and in 1840, to Polk in 
 1844, to Cass in 1848, and to Pierce in 1852. 
 During these twenty years, with the exception 
 of a part of Gov. Duncan's term, who was 
 elected as a Jackson man, but identified him- 
 self with the Whig party before the close of 
 his administration, all the State oflices and the 
 State Legislature were in the possession of the 
 Democratic party. The whole responsibility 
 of the State government devolved upon that 
 party. The Whigs in the Legislature, as a 
 party, had no power to inaugurate a policy of 
 their own. Their hands were effectually tied. 
 The most they could do was, in cases in which 
 their opponents differed among themselves on 
 questions of policy, to throw their votes on 
 the side that seemed to them the least mis- 
 chievous. Such was the condition of things 
 when Mr. Lincoln entered the Legislature in 
 1834. It had not altered in any respect when 
 he took his seat a second time in that body in 
 1836, nor indeed at any subsequent period 
 while he remained a member of it. During 
 the session of 1836-37, he was recognized 
 from the start as a leader of his party on the, 
 floor of the House, and made such a reputation; 
 for himself in that capacity, that both in 1838 
 and in 1840, he received the unanimous vote 
 of his party friends for speaker. 
 
 The details of State legislation afford but 
 few matters of interest to the general reader, 
 and for that reason it is not proposed to follow 
 Mr. Lincoln through this portion of his career. 
 It is enough to say on this head, that he was 
 always watchful of the public interests, labored 
 zealously and with great efficiency for what- 
 ever he believed would promote the welfare of 
 the State, and opposed with untiring energy 
 every measure that he thought would have 
 an opposite tendency. He entered the body 
 in 1834, the youngest member in it, with a 
 fame that had not extended beyond the limits 
 of his own county; distrustful of himself by 
 reason of his lack of education; inexperienced
 
 13 
 
 in legislation ; and having no knowledge of the 
 arts and chicanery with which he would have 
 to contend. He left it in 1840, by common 
 consent the ablest man in it; the recognized 
 leader of his party in the House and in the 
 State ; his name familiar as a household word 
 
 from Cairo to Galena, and from the Wabash 
 to the Mississippi ; and with a reputation for 
 honesty and integrity which not even the 
 bitterest of his political opponents had the 
 hardihood to asperse. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Resolves to devote himself to his Profession— The Presidential Canvass of 1540—18 placed on the Electoral Ticket — 
 First Contests with Douglas — The Law again— Some of Lincoln's characteristics as a Lawyer — llis Marriage— The 
 Canvass of 1S44— Is again placed on the Klectoral Ticket — Discussions with Calhoun (of Kansas notoriety) — His 
 Speeches on the Tariff— Speeches in Indiana. 
 
 ON retiring from the Legislature it was the 
 intention of Mr. Lincoln to devote him- 
 self exclusively to the labors of his profession. 
 His own convictions on the questions which 
 divided parties were deeplj^-rooted and im- 
 movable. His party in the State was in a 
 hopeless minority. There seemed but small 
 opportunity for a man of his views to succeed 
 in politics, while the qualities that he had by 
 this time developed insured both an honorable 
 fame and a lucrative income in his profession. 
 To this he now turned with all the earnestness 
 of his nature, and with a firm resolve to win 
 laurels in it worth the wearing. But he was 
 not permitted long to give his exclusive atten- 
 tion to professional pursuits. The ground- 
 swell of that political revolution which in 1840 
 carried the Whig party into power in the na- 
 tional government, had no sooner been felt, 
 than there was a universal desire awakened 
 among the Whigs of Illinois to make one more 
 effort to carry the State over to the Whig 
 column. Mr. Lincoln was assigned a place 
 on the Electoral ticket — a position which he 
 accepted with reluctance, but which he filled 
 with great zeal and ability. In that memora- 
 ble canvass he repeatedly met Mr. Douglas on 
 the stump ; and it is no disparagement to that 
 gentleman to say, that then, as in later years, 
 Mr. Lincoln proved himself to be immeasuraby 
 his superior — superior in logic, in argument, 
 in resources as a debater, in broad and com- 
 prehensive views of national policy, in fairness 
 and in gentlemanly courtesy towards his com- 
 petitor. 
 
 After the election of that year, Mr. Lincoln 
 returned to his professional duties. He had 
 now obtained a reputation at the bar which 
 placed him in the front rank of the many able 
 and profound jurists of the State. His servi- 
 ces were eagerly sought in almost every case 
 of importance ; and perhaps no lawyer in Il- 
 linois or any other State has been more uni- 
 formly successful in the cases which he has 
 undertaken. It is one of the peculiarities of 
 
 Mr. Lincoln as a lawyer, that beholds himself 
 bound in honor and in conscience, having ac- 
 cepted a fee, to thoroughly master the case of 
 his client. In this regard he is noted among 
 his professional brethren for the greatness of 
 his labors. He not only studies the side of his 
 client, but that of his opponent also. Conse- 
 quently he is never taken unawares, but has 
 ample resources for whatever turn the ingenu- 
 ity, skill, or learning of opposing counsel may 
 give to the case. To this peculiarity, in part, is 
 owing the well-known fact that whenever Mr. 
 Lincoln is employed in connection with other 
 eminent counsel, before the conclusion of the 
 case the sole management of it is almost invari- 
 ably surrendered to him. Not by any ostenta- 
 tious thrusting of himself forward is this position 
 obtained, for nothing could be more foreign to 
 Mr. L incoln's manner, either at the bar or else- 
 where ; but proving himself to be more com- 
 pletely master of the case than hisassociates, the 
 latter voluntarily award the position tohira, and 
 even insist upon his taking it. Another pecu- 
 liarity of ^Ir. Lincoln as a lawyer, is the fact 
 that he is ever ready to give his a.ssistance gra- 
 tuitously to a poor client who has justice and 
 right on his side. lie has managed many such 
 cases from considerations of a purelj^ benevo- 
 lent character, which he would not have un- 
 dertaken for a fee. More than this, in cases 
 of peculiar hardship, he has been known, 
 again and again, after throwing all of his power 
 and ability as a lawyer into the management 
 of the case, without charge, or any other re- 
 ward than the gratification of a noble nature, 
 on bidding his client adieu, and when receiv- 
 ing his cordial thanks and the warm grasp of 
 his hand, to slip into his palm a live or a ten 
 dollar bill, bidding him to say nothing about 
 it, but to take heart and be hopeful. Those 
 who know him intimately will not be surprised 
 at this relation, because it harmonizes well 
 with his whole character ; but so careful has 
 he always been to conceal his charitable deeds 
 that the knowledge of such actions on his
 
 14 
 
 part is confined to those who have come into 
 possession of it without his agency. 
 
 In November, 1842, Mr. Lincoln was united 
 in marriage to Miss Mary Todd, daughter of 
 Hon. Robert S. Todd, of Lexington, Ken- 
 tucky. The fruits of this union are three sons 
 now living, and one dead. The eldest, now in 
 his seventeenth year, is a student at Exeter 
 Academy, New Hampshire, preparatory to 
 entering Harvard University. The other sons 
 are intelligent promising lads. Mrs. Lincoln is 
 a lady of charming presence, of superior in- 
 telligence, of accomplished manners, and, in 
 every respect well fitted to adorn the position 
 in which the election of her husband to the 
 Presidency will place her. The courtesies and 
 hospitalities of the White House have never 
 been more appropriately and gracefully dis- 
 pensed than they will be during the adminis- 
 tration of Mr. Lincoln. 
 
 From the retirement of his professional av- 
 ocations, Mr. Lincoln was again called by his 
 party to perform the labors of an elector for 
 the State at large in the canvass of 1 844. He 
 entered upon the duties with his accustomed 
 zeal, and with even more than his accustomed 
 abilitj^ John Calhoun (of Kansas notorie- 
 ty), then regarded as one of the ablest deba- 
 ters on the Democratic side in the State, was 
 an elector at large on the ticket of his party. 
 The meetings between these gentlemen in dif- 
 ferent parts of the State will not soon be for- 
 gotten by those who witnessed them. Cal- 
 houn exerted himself as he never had done 
 before. Not even Douglas, in his palmiest 
 days, ever bore aloft the Democratic standard 
 
 more gallantly, or brought more strength of 
 intellect to the defense of its principles. But 
 it was only the endeavor of a pigmy against 
 an intellectual giant. His arguments were 
 torn to tatters by Lincoln, his premises were 
 left without foundation, and he had only the 
 one resource of the demagogue left — to raise 
 the party cry, and to urge the fiiithful to a 
 union of effort. The issues of that day made 
 the discussion of the tariff a prominent part of 
 every political speech. It is believed by the 
 most intelligent of Mr. Lincoln's hearers, that 
 the doctrine of a tariff for the protection of 
 home industry has never received, in this 
 country, a more exhaustive exposition, and a 
 more triumphant vindication than in his 
 speeches during that canvass. It is to be re- 
 gretted that the newspaper enterprise of Illi- 
 nois, at that day, did not embrace among its 
 objects verbatim reports of public speeches. 
 There is no trace of these efforts of Mr. Lin- 
 coln remaining, save in the recollection ©f 
 those who were present at their delivery. 
 
 Before the close of the campaign, Mr. Lin- 
 coln accepted the earnest and oft-repeated in- 
 vitation of leading whigs in Indiana to visit 
 that State. The result of the August election 
 had demonstrated that Mr. Clay could not 
 carry Illinois, while Indiana was considered 
 debatable ground. The efforts of Mr. Lincoln 
 — continuing through several weeks, and un- 
 til the day of election — gave unbounded satis- 
 faction to his political friends in Indiana, thou- 
 sands of whom flocked to hear him at every 
 appointment. 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 IN CONGRESS. 
 
 Dnanimously nominated for Congress — His opponent, Peter Cartwright — Unprecedented Majority — Enters Congn-ess — 
 A Brilliant Array of Great Names — A Consistent Whig Record — The Mexican War — Lincoln votes for all the Sup- 
 ply Bills— Proofs from the Record — The Position of the Whig Party in relation to the Mexican War — Ashmua's 
 Resolution — Present Leaders of the Democracy on the Mexican War — Slavery in the District of Columbia. 
 
 IN 1846 Mr. Lincoln received the unani- 
 mous nomination for Congress by the Whig 
 Convention for the Springfield District. In 
 1844 the district had given a majority of 914 
 to Mr. Clay, and the Democracy expected, 
 in the Congressional election of 1846, to great- 
 ly lessen, if not entirely overcome, this major- 
 , ity. With the hope of securing the latter 
 result, they put in nomination Rev. Peter 
 Cartwright, the famous Methodist preacher, a 
 man of great popularity with the people gen- 
 erally, and especially popular with his own 
 denomination, which embraced a very large 
 and influential portion of the population 
 of the district. Mr. Lincoln spoke in the 
 
 principal towns in the district, on the political 
 issues of the day. His opponent did not 
 meet him in discussion, but chose his own pe- 
 culiar way of electioneering. The canvass 
 resulted in the election of Mr. Lincoln by a 
 majority of 1,511 — a majority unprecedented 
 in the distiict, and conclusive as to the esti- 
 mation in which he was held by his immedi- 
 ate neighbors. 
 
 Mr. Lincoln took his seat in the National 
 House of Representatives on the 7th of De- 
 cember, 1847 — the beginning of the first ses- 
 sion of the Thirtieth Congress. He met there 
 such men as John Quincy Adams, George 
 Ashman, Jacob Collamer, John M. Bottfi,
 
 15 
 
 Washington Hunt, J. R. Ingersoll, T. Butlei* 
 King, Henry W. Hilliard, George P. Marsh, 
 Charles S. Morehead, Meredith P. Gentry, 
 James Pollock, Caleb B. Smith, Truman 
 Smith, Robert C. Schenck, Alexander H. Ste- 
 phens, John B. Thompson, Robert Toombs, 
 Samuel F. Vinton, and other prominent Whig 
 leaders ; and although a new man in Congress, 
 and comparatively young, he at once took a 
 prominent position among this brilliant array 
 of distinguished men. Throughout his Con- 
 gressional career, his record is that of a con- 
 sistent Whig. On all the issues that divided 
 parties which were brought before Congress 
 for action, his name will be found recorded on 
 the same side on which Clay and Webster had 
 so often before recorded theirs. 
 
 A great deal has been said by his political 
 opponents in regard to his action on the sub- 
 ject of the Mexican War ; and in the canvass 
 of 1858 with Mr, Douglas, that gentleman 
 and his newspaper organs made a very disin- 
 genuous but characteristic attempt to fasten 
 upon Mr. Lincoln a charge of having voted 
 against supplies for the American Army in 
 Mexico. The charge was without foundation 
 in fact, and utterly untrue in every particular. 
 
 When Mr. Lincoln took his seat in Con- 
 gress, Gen. Scott had been nearly three months 
 in possession of the city of Mexico. All the 
 great battles of that war had been fought, and 
 the negotiations which resulted in the treaty 
 of Guadalupe Hidalgo on the 2d of February, 
 1848, had progressed very far towards a fa- 
 vorable conclusion. The American Army, 
 however, was still in Mexico; and various 
 supply measures, resolutions of thanks, acts 
 for extra pay, and for the relief of the widows 
 and orphans of officers and soldiers who had 
 fallen in the war, were brought before the 
 Thirtieth Congress, and passed. Mr. Lincoln 
 voted in favor of every measure of this kind 
 which came lefore Congress. A careful exam- 
 ination of the Journals and the Congressional 
 Glohe discloses the fact that fourteen Acts 
 and eight Joint Resolutions of the character 
 referred to, were passed by this Congress. Of 
 these, three Acts and two Joint Resolutions 
 were passed under a call for the Ayes and 
 Nays ; the remainder without. We have the 
 assurance of those who served in Congress 
 with Mr. Lincoln— both his political friends 
 and opponents — that he voted in favor of all 
 the latter ; while as to the former, the House 
 Journal contains the proof 
 
 The first of these Acts which passed the 
 House by Ayes and Naj-s, will be found in 
 U. S. Statutes at Large, page 215, chap. 23, 
 being " An Act further to supply deficiencies 
 in the Appropriations for the Service of the 
 Fiscal Year ending the thirtieth of June, 
 eighteen hundred and forty-eight;" and it ap- 
 propriates, among other items, various sums 
 
 distinctly for the benefit of volunteers in the 
 Mexican War, amounting to 17,508,939 74. 
 Mr. Lincoln's name is recorded in the afiirma- 
 tive. (See House Journal, 1st Scss. 30th 
 Congress, pages 520-1.) 
 
 The next Act, will be found in the Statutes 
 at Large, page 217, chap. 2(i, being "An Act 
 to authorize a loan not to exceed the sum of 
 sixteen millions of dollars." This act was 
 passed to provide money to meet appropria- 
 tions in general, including those for the Mexi- 
 can War, and would not have been necessary 
 but for that war. Mr. Lincoln's name stands 
 recorded in the affirmative. (See House Jour- 
 nal, pages 426-7.) 
 
 The last Act of this character passed by 
 Ayes and Nays, will be found in Stat, at Large, 
 page 247, chap. 104, being "An Act to amend 
 an Act, entitled ' An Act supplemental to An 
 Act entitled An Actproviding for the prosecu- 
 tion of the existing war between the United 
 States and the Republic of Mexico, and for 
 other purposes.'" This Act, among other 
 things, provided for giving three months extra 
 pay to officers, non-commissioned officers, mu- 
 sicians and privates, engaged in the Mexican 
 war, and to their relations, in case of their 
 dying in the service. Mr. Lincoln's name is 
 recorded in favor of this Act. (See House 
 Journal, page 768.) 
 
 The two Joint Resolutions spoken of will be 
 found in St:it. at Large, pages 333 and 834. 
 They were expressive of the thanks of Con- 
 gress to Major-General Winfield Scott and 
 Major-General Zachary Taylor, and to the 
 troops under their command respectively, for 
 their distinguished gallantry and good conduct 
 in the Mexican campaign of 1847. Mr. Lin- 
 coln's name is recorded in fevor of both reso- 
 lutions. (See House Journal, pages 365-6.) 
 
 These are the only instances that occurred 
 while Mr. Lincoln was in Congress in which 
 supplies, extra pay, or thanks were voted or 
 pioposed, under a call of the Ayes and Nays, 
 for the American Army in Mexico; and in 
 each case he is recorded in the affirmative. 
 
 Mr. Lincoln held, in common with the entire 
 Whig party of that day, that the war with 
 Mexico was unnecessarily and unconstitution- 
 ally begun; and all who desire to know the 
 reasons on which the Whig party based this 
 opinion, will find them most ably set forth in 
 a speech delivered in Congress by Mr. Lincoln, 
 Jan. 12, 1848; and which may be found in 
 the Appendix to the Congressional Glohe, 1st 
 session, 30th Congress, beginning at page 93. 
 Previous to the delivery of that speech, Mr. 
 Lincoln had intentionally refrained from taking 
 exceptions publicly to what he honestly 
 believed to be the unjustifiable conduct of 
 President Polk in precipitating the country 
 into a war with Mexico. The following ex- 
 tract from the speech contains the reasons
 
 16 
 
 which, in his judgment, demanded a departure 
 from this line of policy: 
 
 " 'Wlion the war bosran, it was my ojiinion that all those 
 who, because of knowing too little, or because of know- 
 ing too much, could not conscientiously ajjprove the con- 
 duct of the President (in the beginning of it), should, 
 nevertheless, as good citizens and patriots, remain silent 
 on thatpnint, at least till the war should be ended. Some 
 leading Democrats, including ex-I'resulent Van Buren, 
 have taken this same view, as I underst'ud them; and I 
 adhered to it, and acted upon it, until since 1 took my 
 scat here ; and 1 think I should still adhere to it, were it 
 not that the President and his friends will not allow it to 
 be so. Besides the continual effort of the President to 
 argue every silent vote given for supplies into an indorse- 
 ment of the. iustice and wisdom of his conduct; besides 
 that singularly candid paragraph in his late message, in 
 which he tells us that Congress, with great unanimity 
 (only two in the Senate and fourteen in the House dis- 
 senting) had declared that 'by tlie act of the Eepublic of 
 Mexico a state of war exists between that Governmeat 
 and the Ignited States,' when the same journals that in- 
 formed him of this, also informed him that, when that de- 
 claration stood disconnected from the question of supplies, 
 sixty -seven in the House, and not fourteen, merely, voted 
 against it; besides this open attempt to prove by telling 
 the trvth, what he could not prove by telling the tvhole 
 truth, — demanding of all who will not submit to be misre- 
 presented, injustice to themselves, to spe .k out; besides 
 all this, one of my colleagues [Mr Itichardsou], at a very 
 early dny in the session, brought in a set of resolutions, 
 e"spressly indorsing the original justice of the war on the 
 part of the President. Upon these resolutions, when they 
 shall be put on their pa.<<sage, I shall be compelUd to 
 vote ; so that I cannot be silent if I would." 
 
 As before observed, Mr. Lincoln did not 
 stand alone in holding these views. They were 
 held substantially by the entire Whig party, 
 both at the North and the South ; as well as 
 by Mr. Calhoun and those Southern men who 
 at that time had adopted his peculiar political 
 opinions. The following, from the House 
 Journal, 1st session 30th Congress, pages 183-4 
 (January 3d, 1848), shows the position of the 
 Whig party on the subject : 
 
 " In pursuance of previous notice, Mr. John W. Hous- 
 ton asked, and obtained leave, and introduced a joint re- 
 solution of tlianks to Major-General Taylor; and which 
 was read a iirst and second time ; when 
 
 "Mr. Schenck moved that the said resolution be refer- 
 red to the Committee on Military Affairs. 
 
 "Mr. Henly moved to amend the said motion of Mr. 
 Schenck by adding thereto the following: AVith instruc- 
 tions to insert In the said resolution the following: 'En- 
 gaged as they were, in defending the rights a7id honor 
 oftJie country.' 
 
 " Mr. Ashmun moved to amend the said proposed in- 
 structions by adding at the end of the same: ' //i a war 
 unnedfssarily and vncortstifutionally Vegun, Vy the 
 President of the United Staten.^ 
 
 " And the question was put. Will the House agree to 
 the amendment offered by Mr. Ashmun ? 
 
 " And decided in the atiirmati ve — Yeas 82 ; Nays 81. 
 
 " The yeas and nays being desired by one-fifth of the 
 members present. 
 
 "Those who voted in the affirmative are — 
 
 "Mr. John Quincy Adams, George Ashuuin, Daniel M. 
 Barringer, Washington Barrow, Hiram Belcher, John M. 
 Botts, Jasper E. Brady, Aylett Bnckner, PJchard S. 
 Canby, Thomas L. Clingman, William M. Cocke, Jacob 
 Collainer, >!armon S. Conger, Robert B. Cranston, John 
 Crowell, John H. Crozier, John Dickey, James Dixon, 
 Kicha'd S. Donnell, William Duer, Daniel Duncan, Gar- 
 nett Dtmcan, George G. Dunn, George N. Eckert, Thomas 
 O. Edwards, Alexander Evans, Nathan Evans, David 
 Fisher, Andrew S. Fulton, John Gayle, Meredith P. Gen- 
 try, Joshua R Giddings, William L. Goggin, Joseph 
 Grinncll, Artemas Hale, Nathan K. Hall, James G. 
 Hampton, William T. Haskell, William Henry, John W. 
 Houston, Samuel D. Hubbard, Charles Hudson, Alexander 
 Irvin, Orlando Kellogg. T. Butler King, Daniel P. King, 
 Abraham Lincoln, Abraham E. McHvane, George P. 
 
 Marsh, Dudley Msrvin, .Joseph Mullin, Henry Nes, Wil- 
 liam A. Newell, William B. Prestin, Harvey Putnam, Gid- 
 eon Keynolds, Julius Rockwell. John A. Rockwell, Joseph 
 M. Root, David Rumsey, Jr., Daniel B. St. John, Robert 
 C. Schenck, Augustine H. Shepperd,EliakimSherrill, John 
 I. Slingerland, Caleb B. Smith, Truman Smith, Alexander 
 H. Stephens, Andrew Stewart, John Strohm, Peter H. 
 Sylvester, Bannou G. Thibodeaux, John L. Taylor, Patrick 
 W. Tompkins, Richard W. Thompson, John B. Thompson, 
 Robert Toombs, Ami'S Tuck, John Van Dyke, Samuel F. 
 Vinton, Cornelius Warren, James Wilson." 
 
 It will be seen, by inspection of the fore- 
 going names, that some of the most distin- 
 guished leaders of the Democracy of the 
 present day voted with Mr. Lincoln. It will 
 also be seen that, while the resolution cen- 
 sured the President for the manner in which 
 he began the war, it also conveyed the thanks 
 of Congress to the oflScers and soldiers of the 
 American army, for their gallant defense of 
 the rights and honor of the country. 
 
 Mr. Lincoln's reasons for the opinion ex- 
 pressed by this vote, as subsequently stated 
 in his speech on the war, were, briefly, that 
 the President had sent Gen. Taylor into an 
 inhabited part of the country belonging to 
 Mexico, and thereby had provoked the first 
 act of hostility ; that the place at which these 
 hostilities were provoked, being the country 
 bordering on the east bank of the Rio Grande, 
 was inhabited by native Mexicans, born 
 there under the Mexican government, and 
 had never submitted to, nor been conquered 
 by, Texas or the United States, nor trans- 
 ferred to either by treaty ; that although 
 Texas claimed the Rio Grande as her bound- 
 ary, Mexico had never recognized it, the 
 people on the ground had never recognized 
 it, and neither Texas nor the United States 
 had ever enforced it; that there was a broad 
 desert between that and the country over 
 which Texas had actual control ; that the 
 country where hostilities commenced having 
 once belonged to Mexico, must remain so, 
 until it was somehow legally transferred, 
 which had never been done. Mr. Lincoln 
 thought the act of sending an armed force 
 among the Mexicans was iinnecessary, inas- 
 much as Mexico was in no way molesting or 
 menacing the United States or the people 
 thereof, and that it was unconstitutional^ be- 
 cause the power of levying war was vested in 
 Congress, and not in the President. He 
 thought the principal motive for the act was 
 to divert public attention from the surrender, 
 by the Democratic party, of "Fifty-four 
 forty, or fight," to Great Britain, on the 
 Oregon boundary question. He also, doubt- 
 less, believed that it was an intentional bid 
 of the Democratic party for Southern sup- 
 port, inasmuch as the conquest of all or any 
 portion of Mexico would be hailed by the 
 South as an assurance of the extension of 
 slavery, and an increase of the political 
 power, in the federal govei'nment, of the slave- 
 holding interest.
 
 17 
 
 Ihe adoption of Ashmun's amendment was 
 not the first occasion the "Whig part}^, 
 through its representatives in Congress, nad 
 condemned the act of the President in in- 
 volyiag the country in a war with Mexico. On 
 the 11th of May, 1846, as will be seen by 
 reference to the House Journal, pp. 792-3, 
 the following action was bad : 
 
 "On notion to amend a bill for ;in act providing; for the 
 prosecution of the existing war between the United States 
 and the Eepublic of Mexico, by inserting the following 
 preamble: 
 
 '"Whereas, by the act of the Republic of Mexico, a 
 state of war exists between that government and the 
 United States— 
 
 " It was decided in the affirmative — yeas 123, noes CT." 
 
 The Northern Whigs voted solidly in the 
 
 negative, as well as the following Southern 
 
 members : 
 
 " Daniel M. Barringer (N. C ), Thomas 11. Bayly (Va.), 
 Henry Bedinger (Va.), Armisted Burt (8. C), John 11. 
 Croz'er (Tenri.), Garrett Davis (Ky.), Alfred Dockery 
 (N. C), Henry Grider (,Ky.), Henry W. Hilliard (Ala.), 
 Isaac E. Holmes (3. C), John W. Houston (Del.), Ed- 
 mund W. Hubard (Va.), Robert T. M. Hunter (Va.), T. 
 Butler King (6a.), John H. Mcllenrv (Ky.), John S. 
 Pendleton (Va.), It. Barnwell Khett (S. C), James A. 
 Seddon (Va ). Ale':ander D Sims (S. C), Richard F. Simp- 
 son (3. C), Alexander H. Stephens (Ga.), Robert Toombs 
 (Ga.), Joseph A. Woodward (3. C), William L. Yancey 
 (Ala.)." 
 
 It will be seen that the above list includes a 
 number of the most prominent of the leaders 
 of modern Democracy. Like Mr. Lincoln, 
 they believed the war to have been "unneces- 
 sarily and unconstitutionally begun ;" but like 
 him, they also discriminated between the 
 honor of the country and the gallant ser- 
 vices of the American troops on the one 
 hand, and the act of the President on the 
 other. This point was brought out very clearly 
 by Mr. Lincoln in a speech delivered in the 
 House of Representatives, July 27th, 1848, of 
 which the following is an extract : 
 
 " The declaration that we have always opposed the war 
 is true or false accordingly as we may understand the 
 term, ' opposing the war.' If to say, ' the war was un- 
 necessarily and unconstitutionally commenced by the 
 President,' be opiio.sing the war, then the Whigs have 
 very generally opposed it. Whenever they have spoken 
 at all, they have said this ; and they have said it oi what 
 has appeared good reason to them. The marching an 
 army into the midst of a peaceful Mexican settlement, 
 frightening the inhabitants away, leaving their growing 
 crops and other property to destruction, to you may ap- 
 pear a perfectly amiable, peaceful, unprovoking proced- 
 ure ; but it does not ajipcar so to us. So to call .such an 
 act, to us appears no other thin a naked, impudent absurd- 
 ity, and we speak of it accordingly. But if, when the war 
 had begun, and had become the cause of the country, the 
 giving of our money and our blood, in common with 
 yours, was support of the war, then it is not true that we 
 have always opposed the war. With few individual ex- 
 ceptions, you have constantly had our votes here for all the 
 necessary supplies. And, more than this, you have had 
 the services, the blood, and the lives of our political 
 brethren in every trial, and on every field. The beard- 
 less boy and the mature man — the humble and the distin- 
 guished — you have had them. Through sulfering and 
 death — by disease and in battle — they have endured, and 
 fought, and fallen with you. Clay and Webster each 
 gave a son, never to be returned. From the State of my 
 own residence, besides other worthy but less-known 
 Whig names, we .sent Mai-shall, Morrison, Baker, and Har- 
 din; they all fought, and one fell; and in the fall of that 
 one we lost our best Whig man. Nor were the Whigs 
 few in number, or laggard in the day of danger. In that 
 
 fearful, bloody, breathless struggle at Buena Vista, where 
 each man's hard task was to beat back five foes, or die 
 himself, of the five high officers who perished, four were 
 Whigs. 
 
 " In speaking of this, I mean no odious comparison be- 
 tween the lion-hearted Whigs and Democrats who fought 
 there. On other occasions, and auiong the lower oflicers 
 and privates on that occasion, I doubt not the proportion 
 was different. I wish to do justice to all. I think of all 
 those biave men as Americans, in whose proud feme, as 
 an American, I too have a share. Many of them, Whigs 
 and Democrats, are my constituents and personal friends; 
 and I thank them — more than tliank them— one and all, 
 for the high, imperLshable honor they have conferred on 
 our oonmion State. 
 
 " But the distinction between the cause of the Presi- 
 dent inheginning the war, and the cause of the country 
 after it was begun. Is a distinction which you can not 
 perceive. To you tbe President and the country seem to 
 be all one. You are interested to see no distinction be- 
 tween them, and I venture to suggest that po>i>iibly your 
 interest blinds you a little. We s.'c the distinction, as we 
 thiuk, clearly enough; and our friends who have fought 
 in the war "have no difficulty in seeing it also. What 
 those who have fallen would say, were they alive and 
 here, of course we can never know; but with those who 
 have returned there is no difficulty. Colonel Haskell and 
 Major Gaines, members here, both fought in the war, and 
 one of them underwent extraordi nary i)erils and hardships ; 
 still they, like all other Whigs here, vote on the record 
 that the war was imnecessarily and unconstitutionally 
 comm.-nced by the President. And even General Taylor 
 himself, the noblest Roman of them all, has declared 
 that, as a citizen, and particularly as a soldier, it is suffi- 
 cient for him to know that his country is at war with 
 a foreign nation, to do all in his power to bring it to a 
 speedy and honorable termination by the most vigorous 
 and energetic operation.s, without inquiring about its 
 justice, or anything else connected with it." 
 
 The Thirtieth Congress was made famous 
 by the introduction and discussion of the Wil- 
 mot Proviso. Mr. Lincoln supported this 
 measure from first to last, being then as now, 
 uncompromisingly opposed to the extension 
 of slavery into free territory. He is also on 
 record in favor of the improvement of rivers 
 and harbors, and the appropriation of public 
 lands in aid of great and important public im- 
 provements. The subject of slavery in the 
 District of Columbia was also before the Thir- 
 tieth Congress. Mr. Lincoln prepared and 
 submitted a bill embodying his views on that 
 subject, which is here presented to the reader. 
 The bill is entitled, " A Bill to abolish Slavery 
 in the District of Columbia, by consent of the 
 fiee white people of said District, and with 
 compensation to owners," and may be found 
 in the Coi^gressional Globe, vol. 20, page 212, 
 as follows : 
 
 "Sec. 1. Beit enacted Inj He Senate and Iloitse of 
 Hepresmitatives of the United States in Congress iissern- 
 h'ed. That no person not now within the District of 
 Columbia nor now owned by any jierson or persons now 
 resident within it, nor hereafter born within it, shall ever 
 be held in slavery within .said District. 
 
 " § 2. That no person now within said District, or now 
 owned by any person or persons now resident within the 
 same, or hereafter born within it, shall ever be held in 
 slavery without the limits of said District : Provi'ted, 
 That officers of the Government of the United States, 
 being citizens of the slaveholding States, coming into 
 said District on jiublic business, and remaining only so 
 long as may be reasonably necessary for that object, may 
 be attended into and out of said District, and while there, 
 by the necessary servants of themselves and their families, 
 without their right to hold such servants in service beiag 
 thereby impaired. 
 
 ' § 3. That all children born of slave mothers, within said 
 District, on or af er the first day of January, in the year
 
 18 
 
 of sur Lord one thousand eight hundred and fifty, shall be 
 free ; bnt shall be reasonably supported and educated by 
 the respective owners of their mothers, or by their heirs 
 or represent;itives, and shall owe reasonable service, as 
 apprentices, to such owners, heirs and reprcsentoUves 
 
 until they respectively arrive at the age of years 
 
 when they shall be entirely free. And the municipai 
 authorities of Washington and Georgetown, within their 
 respective jurisdictional limits, are hereby empowered 
 and required to make all suitable and necessjirvpro\-isions 
 lor enforcing obedience to this section, on the part of both 
 masters and apprentices. 
 
 " § 4. That all persons now within said District lawfully 
 held as slaves, or now owned by any person or persons 
 now resident within said District, shall remain such at the 
 will of their respective owners, their heirs and legal re- 
 presentotives: Pro^tided, That any such owner, "or his 
 legal representatives, may at any time receive from the 
 treasury of the United States the full value of his or her 
 slave of the class in this section mentioned; upon which 
 such slave shall be forthwith and forever free: And pro- 
 vided furt/ur. That the President of the United States, 
 the Secretary of State, and the Secretary of the Treasury 
 shall be a board for determining the value of such .slaves 
 as their owners may de^ire to emancipate under this 
 section, and whose duty it shall be to hold a .session tVir 
 the purpose on the first Monday of each calendar month ; 
 to receive all applications, and, on sali.sfactory evidence 
 in each case that the person presented for valuation is 
 a slave, and of the class in this section mentioned, and is 
 owned by the applicant, shall value such slave at his or 
 her full cash value, and give to the applicant an order on 
 the treasury for the amount, and also to such slaves a 
 certificate of freedom. 
 
 " § 6. That the municipal authorities of Washington and 
 Georgetown, within their respective jurisdictional limits 
 are hereby empowered and required to i)ro^ide active and 
 efficient means to arrest and deliver up to their owners 
 all fugitive slaves escajdng into said District. 
 
 "§ 6. That the election officers within said Di-striet of 
 Columbia are hereby empowered and required to open 
 polls at all the usual places of holding elections on the 
 first Monday of April ne.xt, and receive the vote of every 
 free white male citizen above the age of twenty-one years, 
 having resided within said District for the period of one 
 year or more next preceding the time of such voting for 
 or against this act, to proceed in taking said votes in all 
 respects not herein specified, as at elections under the 
 municipal laws, and with as little delay as possible to 
 transmit correct statements of the votes so cast to the 
 President of the United States; and it shall be the duty of 
 the President to canvass said votes immediately, and if a 
 majority of them be found to be for this act. to' forthwith 
 issue his proclamation giving notice of the fact ; and this 
 act shall only be in full force and effect on and after the 
 day of such proclamation. 
 
 " § 7. That involuntary servitude for the puni.shment of 
 crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, 
 shall in nowise be prohibited by this act 
 
 " § 8. That for all the purposes of this act. the iuris- 
 dictional limits of Washington are extended to all parts of 
 the District of Columbia not now included within the 
 present limits of Georgetown." 
 
 In submitting this proposition, Mr. Lincoln 
 staled that it had the aoproval of a number 
 
 of the leading citizens of the District. J»mong 
 them, it is understood, were Messrs. Gales 
 and Seaton, oi \h.& National Jntelligemer, the 
 latter of whom was then Mayor of the city of 
 Washington. 
 
 These views were not new with }Ir. Lin- 
 coln. As early as in 1837, while a member 
 of the State Legislature, he had given them 
 expression in the following protest which was 
 entered on the House Journal : 
 
 „^ , " March 8d,lS37. 
 
 The following protest was presented to the House, 
 which was read and ordered to be spread' on the journals, 
 to wi t : 
 
 '•Resolutions upon the subject of domestic .slavery hav- 
 ing passed both branches of the General Assembly at its 
 present session, the undersigned hereby protest against 
 the i)assage of the same. 
 
 " They believe that the institution of slavery is founded 
 on both injustice and bad policy ; but that the promulga- 
 tion of abolition doctrines tends rather to increase than 
 abate its eviKs. 
 
 " They believe that the Congress of the United Stateshas 
 no piiwi'r, under the Constitution, to interfere with the 
 institution of slavery in the ditt'erent St;jtes. 
 
 " They believe that the Congress of the United Stateshas 
 the power, under the Constitution, to aboli.sh slavery in 
 the District of Columbia; but that that power ought nut 
 to be e.xercised unless at the request of the people of said 
 District. 
 
 "The difference between these opinions and those con- 
 tained in the said resolutions, is their reason for entering 
 this protest. DAN STONE, 
 
 A. LINCOLN, 
 Representatives from the cminty of Sangamon.''' 
 
 That his opinions on this subject have 
 undergone no change is evident fiom his 
 reply to an interrogatory of Mr. Douglas at 
 the Freeport debate, in 1S58, as to whether 
 he (Lincoln) did not stand pledged to the 
 abolition of slavery in the District of Colum- 
 bia. Mr. Lincoln said he was not so pledged, 
 and added : 
 
 "In relation to that, I have my mind very distinctly 
 made up. I should be exceedingly glad to see slavery 
 abolished in the District of Columbia. I believe that 
 Congress posses-^es the constitutional power to abolish it. 
 Yet as a member of Congress, I should not, wi'.h my 
 present views, be in fiivor of endeavoring to abolish sla- 
 very in the District of Columbia, unless it would be upon 
 these conditions: First, that the abolition should be 
 gradual; second, that it should be on a vote of the 
 majority of qualified voters in the District; and third, 
 that compensation should be made to unwilling owners. 
 With the.se three conditions, I confess I would be exceed- 
 ingly glad to see Congress abolish slavery in the Dis'rict 
 of Columbia, and,in the language of Henry Clay, 'sweep 
 from our Capital that foul blot upon our nation.' " 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Keason for Eetiring from Congress— The Canvass of 1852— Repeal of the Missouri Compromise— Again in Poli- 
 tics—Encounters with Douglas— Retreat of the "Little Giant"— An Opposition Legislature— Election of U. S. 
 Senator— M.'.gnanimous conduct of Mr. Lincoln— Organization of the Republican Party in Illinois— Speech of 1857. 
 
 MB. Lincoln was not a candidate for re- 
 election to Congress. This M-as deter- 
 mined upon and publicly declared before he 
 went to "Washington, in accordance with an 
 understanding among leading Whigs of the 
 district, and by virtue of which Col. John J. 
 
 Hardin and Col. E. D. Baker had each pre- 
 viously served a single term from the same 
 district After the adjournment he spoke .sev- 
 eral times, by invitation, in advocacy of the 
 election of Gen. Taylor, both in Maryland and 
 Massachusetts ; and on his return to Illinois,
 
 19 
 
 he mnvassed his own district very thoroughlj^, 
 whi(;h was followed by a majority in the dis- 
 trict, of over 1500 for the Whig electoral 
 ticket. 
 
 After the Presidential election of 1848, Mr. 
 Lincoln applied himself more closely than 
 ever to the practice of his profession. In 1852 
 he was again placed by his Whig friends upon 
 the Scott electoral ticket ; but his professional 
 engagements, together with the utter hopeless- 
 ness of the cause in Illinois, deterred him 
 from making as active and thorough a can- 
 vass of the State as he had done on former 
 like occasions. In 1854 his profession had 
 almost superseded all thought of politics. He 
 had abandoned all political aspirations, con- 
 tent, as it seemed, with the honors which his j 
 profession brought him. The country was 
 once more free from excitement. The agita- 
 tion which grew out of the acquisition of ter- 
 ritory from Mexico had been quieted by the 
 compromise measures of 1850. Each of the 
 political parties had expressed a determina- 
 tion, in national convention, to abide by that 
 settlement of the slavery question. The status 
 of all our unsettled territory was now fixed 
 by law, so far as this subject was concerned. 
 Sectional jealousies were obliterated, sectional 
 strife healed, and concord and repose marked 
 our enviable condition. From this peaceful and 
 happy state the country was suddenly and 
 unexpectedly aroused as "by the sound of a 
 fire bell at night," by the introduction of a bill 
 into the United States Senate for the repeal of 
 the Missouri Compromise. What followed is 
 painfully fresh in the public recollection. The 
 country was convulsed as it never had been 
 before, and wise men clearly foresaw the evils 
 that have since come upon us, and from which 
 we have not yet recovered. 
 
 The repeal of this time-honored compact 
 aroused Mr. Lincoln as he never had been be- 
 fore. He at once perceived the conflicts that 
 must grow out of it ; the angry strife between 
 the North and the South, and the struggles in 
 Kansas. He saw in the Kansas-Nebraska Bill 
 a wide departure from the mode pursued by 
 the fathers of dealing with slavery — that while 
 the policy of the latter M-as based upon a re- 
 cognition of its wrongfulness, the Nebraska 
 Bill proceeded upon the opposite hypothesis, 
 that it is not wrong. He saw, and he foretold, 
 before the Supreme Court had decided the 
 Dred Scott case, that the judiciary would not 
 be slow to indorse the doctrine of Congress 
 and the President, and that thus each of the 
 co-ordinate branches of the federal govern- 
 ment would stand committed against the early 
 belief that slavery is wrong, as well as against 
 the early policy based upon that belief. Not 
 only did he regard the Nebraska Bill, there- 
 fore, as inaugurating a complete revolution in 
 the policy of the government, but as artfully 
 
 designed to lay the foundation for a revo- 
 lution in the moral sentiment of the country, 
 preparatorj' to the establishment of slavery in 
 the free States as well as in the Territories, 
 and the revival of the African slave trade. 
 
 On his return to Illinois, after the passage 
 of his KansasNtbraska bill, Mr. Douglas saw 
 the mischief which that measure had wrought 
 in the ranks of his party in his own State, and 
 forthwith undertook to repair it. A Legisla- 
 ture was to be elected in November of that 
 year, on which would devolve the duty of 
 electing a successor to Gen. Shields in the 
 U. S. Senate. It was a matter of great im- 
 portance to Mr. Douglas to secure the re-elec- 
 tion of Gen. Shields, as his defeat would be 
 tantamount to a censure upon himself. He 
 commenced his labors in Chicago, where he 
 met with any thing but a flattering reception 
 from a constituency whom he had deceived, 
 and whose moral sense he had grossly out- 
 raged. Thence he went to Springfield, the 
 capital of the State. He arrived there at the 
 time the State Agricultural Society was hold- 
 ing its annual fair. The occasion had brought 
 together a vast multitude of people from all 
 parts of the State. Hundreds of politicians 
 had also assembled, among whom were many 
 of the ablest men of the State. Much time 
 was devoted to political speaking ; but the 
 great event of the occasion was the debate be- 
 tween Lincoln and Douglas. It had been 
 nearly fourteen years since these gentlemen 
 had been pitted against each other in a pub- 
 lic discussion. In the canvass of 1840, Lin- 
 coln had proved himself more than a match 
 for Douglas in debate. But during most of 
 the intervening years, the latter had occupied 
 a position either in the National House of 
 Representatives or in the United States Sen- 
 ate, where he had made a national reputation, 
 had become the recognized leader of his party, 
 and had grown more self-confident and arro- 
 gant than ever ; while the former, his party 
 being in a minority in the State, had been 
 in public life for only a brief period, had de- 
 voted himself almost exclusively to the labors 
 of his profession, and had no claims to a na- 
 tional reputation. Douglas, through his news- 
 paper organs and street trumpeters, a class to 
 whom no man is more greatly indebted for his 
 reputation, had contrived to create an impres- 
 sion in the minds of many people that he had 
 grown to propoitions too gigantic to render it 
 safe for so unpretending and modest a man as 
 Lincoln to encounter him. Douglas entered 
 upon the debate in this spirit. He displayed 
 all of his most offensive peculiarities. He was 
 arrogant, insolent, defiant, and throughout fiis 
 speech maintained the air of one who had 
 already conquered. On the next day, Lincoln 
 replied. No report was made of either of the 
 speeches ; but the following extract from the
 
 20 
 
 Springfield Journal o( the following day (Oct. 
 6th), will show how Lincoln acquitted himself, 
 and how greatly Douglas had over-estimated 
 his own abilities, and underrated those of his 
 antagonist : 
 
 " Mr. Linooln cornrnonced at two o'elook, P. M., and 
 spoke three hours and ten minutes. We propose to ^ve 
 our views and those of many Northerners and many 
 Southerners upon the debate. "We intend to give it as 
 fairly as we can. Those who know Mr. Lincoln, know 
 him to be a conscientious and honest man, who makes no 
 assertions that he does not know to be true. This anti- 
 Nebraska speech of Mr. Lincoln, was the profoumJest, in 
 our opinion, that he has made in his whole life. He felt 
 upon his soul, the truths burn which he uttered, and all 
 present felt that he was true to his own soul. His feel- 
 ings once or twice swelled within and came near stilling 
 utterance, and particularly so, when he s.aid that the 
 Declaration of Independence taught us that 'all men are 
 created equal ' — that by the laws of nature and nature's 
 God, all men were free— that the Nebraska Law chained 
 men, and that there was as much difference between the 
 glorious truths of the immortal Declaration of Independ- 
 ence and the Nebraska Bill, as there was between God 
 and Mammon. These are his own words. They were 
 spoken with emphasis, feeling and true eloquence; elo- 
 quent because true, and because he felt, and felt deeply, 
 what he said. We only wish others all over the State had 
 seen him while uttering those truths only as Lincoln can 
 utter a felt and deeply-felt truth. He quivered with feel- 
 ing and emotion. The whole house was as still as death. 
 He attacked the Nebraska Bill with unusual warmth and 
 energy, and all felt that a man of strength was its enemy, 
 and that he intended to blast it if he could, by strong and 
 manly efforts. He was most successful, and the house ap- 
 proved the gloi'ious triumph of truth by loud and contin- 
 ued huzzas. Women waved their white handkerchiefs in 
 token of woman's silent but heartfelt assent. Douglas 
 felt the sting. He frequently interrupted Mr. Lincoln. 
 His friends felt that he was crushed by Lincoln's power- 
 ful argument, manly logic, and illustrations from nature 
 around us. The Nebraska Bill was shivered, and, like a 
 tree of the forest, was torn and rent a.sunder by the hot 
 bolts of truth. Mr. Lincoln exhibited Douglas in all the 
 attitudes he conld be placed, in a friendly debate. He 
 exhibited the Bill in all its aspects, to show its hum- 
 buggery and falsehoods ; and when thus torn to rags, cut 
 into slips, held up to the gaze of the vast crowd, a kind of 
 scorn and mockery was visible upon the face of the crowd, 
 and upon the lips of the most eloquent speaker. It was 
 a proud day for Lincoln. His friends will never forget it. 
 
 " Nowhere, in the whole speech of Mr. Lincoln, was he 
 more grand than at the conclusion. He said this people 
 were degenerating from the sires of the Revolution — from 
 Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe, as it ap- 
 peared to him ; yet he called upon the spirit of the brave, 
 valiant free sons of all and every clime, to def. nd free- 
 dom and the institutions that our fathers and Washington 
 gave us ; and that now was the time to show to the world 
 that we were not rolling back towards despotism. At the 
 conclusion of this speech, every man and child felt that it 
 was unanswerable; that no human power could over- 
 throw it or trample it umler foot. The long and repeated 
 applause evinced the feelings of the crowd, an<l gave 
 token of universal assent to Lincoln's whole argument; 
 and every mind present did homage to the man n ho took 
 captive the heart and broke like a sun over the under- 
 standing." 
 
 The following extract is taken from an 
 account of the same debate, given by the 
 Chicago Press and Tribune : 
 
 "It would be imposssible. in these limits, to give an idea 
 of the strength- of Mr. Lincoln's arirument. We deemed it 
 by far the ablest effort of the campaign — from whatever 
 source. The occn.sion was a great one, and the speaker 
 was every way equal to it. The effect produced on the 
 listeners was magnetic. No one who wjis present will 
 ever forget the power and vehemence of the following 
 passage : 
 
 " 'My distingtiished friend says it is an in=ult to the 
 emigrants to Kansas and Nebraska to suppose they are 
 not able t© govern themselves. We must not slur over 
 
 an argument of tliis kind bec.iusc it happens to tickle the 
 ear. It mu.st be met and answered. I admit thst the 
 emigrant to Kan.sas and Nebraska is competent to govern 
 himnelf. \>\\t,- the speaker rising to his full height, '/ 
 rfe?iy his riff/it to govern any other person without 
 THAT person's conbbnt.' The applause which f( llowed 
 this triumphant refutation of a cunning falsehood, was 
 but an earnest of the victory at the polls which followed 
 just one month from that day. 
 
 "When Mr. Lincoln had concluded, Mr. Douglas strode 
 hastily to the stand. As usual, he employed ten minutes 
 in tellin" how grossly he had been abused. Eeco lecting 
 himself, ne added, 'though in a perfectly courteous man- 
 ner'— abused in a perfectly courteous manner ! He then 
 devoted half an hour to showing that it was indispensably 
 necessary to California emigrants, Sante Fe traders and 
 others, to have organic acts provided for the Territories 
 of Kansas and Nebraska — thai being precisely the point 
 which nobody disputed. Having established this premise 
 to his satisfaction, Mr. Douglas launched forth into an 
 argument wholly apart from the positions taken by Mr. 
 Lincoln. He had about half finished at si.x o'clock, when 
 an adjournment to tta was effected. The speaker insisted 
 strenuously upon h's right to resume in the evening, but 
 we believe the .second part of that speech has not been 
 delivered to this day.'' 
 
 From Springfield the parties went to Peoria, 
 where they again discussed the Kansas-Ne- 
 braska Bill. On this occasion the triumph of 
 Mr. Lincoln was even more marked than at 
 Springfield. His speech occupied over three 
 hours in the delivery ; and so masterly was it 
 in argument, so crushing in its sarcasm, so 
 compact in its logic, that Mr. Douglas did not 
 even undertake to reply to the points raised 
 by Mr. Lincoln. It was a thorough and un- 
 answerable exposition of all the sophisms and 
 plausible pretences with which Douglas up to 
 that time had invested the Kansns-Nebraska 
 Bill, and he stood before the audience in the 
 attitude of a mountebank, whose tricks are 
 clearly seen through by those whom he 
 attempts to deceive. Mr. Lincoln's speech on 
 this occasion was reported. As a specimen of 
 the manner in which he drove Douglas to the 
 wall on every point, take the following ex- 
 tract. Douglas had urged that the question 
 of slavery in a Territory concerned only the 
 people of the Territory — that it could be of no 
 interest to the people of Illinois whether sla- 
 very was " voted up or voted down " in Kan- 
 sas. To this Lincoln replied that, in the first 
 place, the whole nation is interested that the 
 best use shall be made of all the Territories, 
 and that this end can alene be reached by 
 preserving them as homes for free white peo- 
 ple. His other point was the following, and 
 certainly a more conclusive and unanswerable 
 argument has never been uttered : 
 
 "By the constitution, each State has two senators— each 
 has a number of representatives, in proportion to the 
 number of its people — and each has a number of Presi- 
 dential electors, equal to the whole number of its senators 
 and representatives together. But in ascertaining the 
 number of the people," for the purpose, five slaves are 
 counted as being equal to three whiti-s. The slaves do not 
 vote ; they are only counted and so used as to swell the 
 influence of the white people's votes. The practical effect 
 of this is more aptly shown by a comparison of the States 
 of South Carolina and Maine. South Carolina has .six 
 representatives, and so has M.aine ; South Carolina has 
 eight Presidential electors, and so has Maine. This is 
 
 ■ ^aV.TaV ■• — • ^a'Va^A^
 
 21 
 
 precise equality so far ; and of course they are equal in 
 senators each having two. Thus, in the control of the 
 government, the two States are equals precisely. But 
 how are they in the number of their white people? Maine 
 has 5ril,813, while South Carolin.i has 274,56V. Maine has 
 twice as many as South Carolina, an<l 32,679 over. Thus 
 each white man in South Carolina is more than the double 
 of any man in Maine. This is all because South Carolina, 
 besides her free people, has 8tv4,9S4 slaves. The South 
 Carolinian has precisely the same advantage over the 
 white man in every other free State, as well as in Maine. 
 He is more than the double of any one of us. The same 
 advantagf, but not to the same extent, is held by all the 
 citizens of the slave States, over those of the free ; and it 
 is an absolute truth, without an exception, that there is 
 no voter in any slave State, but who has more legal power 
 in the government, than any voter in any free State. 
 There is no instance of exact equality ; and the dis- 
 advantage is against us the whole chapter through. This 
 principle, in the aggregate, gives the slave St;ites in the 
 present Congress, twenty additional representatives — be- 
 ing seven more than the whole majority by which they 
 passed the Nebraska Bill. 
 
 "Now all this is manifestly unfair ; yet Idonotmention 
 it to complain of it, in i-o far as it is already settled. It Is 
 in the Constitution, and I do not, for that cause, or any 
 other cause, propose to destroy, or alter, or disregard the 
 Constitution ; I stand to it fairly, fully, and firmly. But 
 when I am told that I must leave it altogether to other 
 people to say whether new partners are to be bred up and 
 brought into the firm on the same degrading terms 
 against me, I respectfully demur. I insist, that whether 
 I shall be a whole man, or only the half of one, in com- 
 parison with others, is a question in which I am somewhat 
 concerned ; and one which no •ther man can have a 
 'sacred right' of deciding for me. It' I am wrong in 
 this — if it really be a 'sacred right' of self government, 
 in the man wlio shall go to Nebraska, to decide whether 
 he will be the equal of me or the double of me, then after 
 he shall have exercised that right, and thereby shall have 
 reduced me to a still smaller fraction of a man than I 
 already am, I should like for some gentleman deeply 
 skilled in the mysteries of ' sacred rights,' to provide 
 himself with a microscope, and peep about and find out if 
 he can, what has become of ■)«// 'sacred rights'? They 
 will surely be too small for detection with the naked 
 eye. 
 
 " Finally, I insist that if there is anything which it is 
 the duty of the wJiole people to never entrust to any 
 hands but their own, that thing is the preservation anil 
 perpetuity of their own liberties and institutions. And 
 if they iiall think, as I do, that the extension of slavery 
 endangers them, more than any or all other causes, how 
 recreant to themselves, if they submit the question, and 
 with it the fate of their country, to a mere handful of men, 
 bent only on temporary self inte.rest! If this question oi' 
 slavery extension w'ore an insignificant one — one having 
 nopower t ) do harm — it might be shuffled aside in this 
 way. But being, as it is. the ereat Behemoth of danger, 
 shall the strong gripe of the nation be loosened upon iTim' 
 to entrust him to tlie bands of such feeble keepers?" ' 
 
 It was Mr. Lincoln's purpose and desire to 
 continue the discussion with Mr. Douglas du- 
 ring the remainder of the canvass, but that 
 gentleman shrank from a repetition of the dis- 
 comfiture he had suffered at Springfield and 
 Peoria. He gave Mr. Lincoln no further op- 
 portunity of meeting him. But notwithstand- 
 ing his antagonist withdrew from the unequal 
 contest, Mr. Lincoln continued in the field. 
 He pressed the slavery issue which the repeal 
 of the Missouri Compromise had forced upon 
 the country, upon the people of central and 
 southern Illinois, who were largely made up 
 of emigrants from Kentucky, Tennessee, Vir- 
 ginia and North Carolina, with all the powers 
 of his mind. He felt the force of the moral 
 causes that must influence the final settlement 
 of the question, and he never failed to appeal 
 to the moral sentiment of the people in aid of 
 
 the argument drawn from political sources, 
 and to illuminate his theme with the lofty in- 
 spirations of true eloquence pleading for the 
 rights of humanity. 
 
 A revolution swept the State. For the first 
 time since the organization of the Democratic 
 party, a majority of those elected to the Leg- 
 islature of Illinois were opposed to the Demo- 
 cratic administration of the federal govern- 
 ment. "While Mr. Lincoln was engaged in the 
 canvass in other parts of the State, his friends 
 in Sangamon County, without his consent or 
 knowledge, presented his name for the Legis- 
 lature, and he was elected to that body by a 
 handsome majority. It was not in his power 
 to serve, and he was compelled to decline the 
 well-meant honor conferred upon him by the 
 people of Sangamon. This was Lincoln's first 
 triumph over Douglas in an appeal to the 
 people of the State; his second triumph oc- 
 curred two years later in the election of the 
 entire Republican State ticket; and his third 
 was in the memorable Senatorial contest of 
 1858, when his majority over Douglas exceed- 
 ed four thousand votes. 
 
 The Opposition in the Legislature was made 
 up of Whigs, Americans, and Anti-Nebraska 
 Democrats. The Republican party was not 
 organized in Illinois until 1856 — two years 
 later. These three divisions of the opposition 
 had no common platform, except that of hos- 
 tility to the repeal of the Missouri Compro- 
 mise and to the revolutionary principles of 
 the Kansas-Nebraska Bill. The Old Whigs 
 were still looking for a revival of their own 
 organization — the Anti-Nebraska Democrats 
 had not abandoned the hope that the repeal 
 of the Missouri Compromise and the principles 
 of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill would yet be re- 
 pudiated by the Democratic party. When 
 the election of a United States Senator came 
 on, the latter declined going into caucus with 
 the Opposition. They had never acted politi- 
 cally with the Whigs as a party. To preserve 
 their identity, to be able to exert a due influ- 
 ence on the Democratic party, and to force it 
 into the abandonment of its new and danger- 
 ous dogmas, they believed sound policy re- 
 quired them to nominate and adhere to one 
 of their own number. The remainder of the 
 Opposition went into caucus and nominated 
 Mr. Lincoln. When the two houses met in 
 joint session, February 8, 1855, the Whigs 
 presented the name of Abraham Lincoln ; 
 the Anti-Nebraska Democrats that of Lyman 
 Trumbull ; the Democrats that of Gen. James 
 Shields. The whole number of votes was 99, 
 of which 50 were necessary to a choice. On 
 the fii-st ballot the vote stood, for Abraham 
 Lincoln 45 ; James Shields 41 ; for Lyman 
 Trumbull 5 ; scattering 8. On the seventh 
 ballot the Democrats dropped Gen. Shields, 
 and voted for Joel A. Matteson, then holding
 
 22 
 
 the oflBce of Governor of the State. Gov. 
 Matteson had never openly taken ground for 
 or against the Kansas-Nebraska Bill. He was 
 a shrewd man, and had long been arranging 
 and planning for the emergency which had 
 now occurred. On the seventh ballot (first 
 for him) he received 44 votes, two higher 
 than Shields had at any time received ; on 
 the eighth he received 46 votes, and on the 
 ninth 47, or within three of an election. On 
 that ballot, for the second time, the joint vote of 
 Lincoln and Trumbull was just sufficient to 
 elect, if thrown, for a single person, viz. for 
 Trumbull 35 ; for Lincoln 15 ; and this, too, 
 was the first time that Trumbull's vote had 
 exceeded Lincoln's. Perceiving the danger 
 of electing Matteson unless his own and 
 Trumbull's strength could be united at once, 
 Lincoln went to his friends and begged them 
 to cast their united vote on the next ballot for 
 Trumbull. They yielded to his urgent entrea- 
 ties, and on the next ballot Mr. Trumbull 
 received 51 votes, and was declared elected. 
 
 The scene will long be remembered by those 
 who witnessed it. The excitement was most 
 intense. The Democrats had never doubted 
 their ability to elect some non-committal man 
 like Matteson. They did not believe the Oppo- 
 sition could be brought to unite. They were 
 not prepared for such a display of magnanimity 
 as that exhibited by Mr. Lincoln. The result 
 filled them with astonishment as well as 
 chagrin. On the other hand, the old political 
 associates of Mr. Lincoln felt that he was en- 
 titled to the place, and that all portions of the 
 Opposition ought to have united in awarding 
 it to him. Strong men wept at the necessity 
 which required them to withdraw their votes 
 from him. He alone was calm and unmoved, 
 in the midst of all these different phases of 
 excitement. 
 
 Zealous efforts have since been made to 
 awaken unkind feelings on the part of Mr. 
 Lincoln against Senator Trumbull and those 
 Anti-Nebraska Democrats who brought him 
 forward as a candidate ; but all to no purpose. 
 The relations subsisting between him and 
 them were of the most frank and cordial char- 
 acter at the time, and such they have been 
 ever since. He justly ranks them among his 
 best friends ; and surely none have gone or 
 can go bej-^ond them in manifestation of zeal 
 in his behalf, both as a candidate for the Sen- 
 ate in 1858, and for the Presidency in 1860. 
 
 In June, 1856, a convention of those op- 
 posed to the Democratic party, was held at 
 Bloomington, Illinois, at which time the Re- 
 publican party was organized in that State, a 
 Platform adopted, a State Ticket nominated, 
 and delegates appointed to the National Re- 
 publican Convention to meet at Philadelphia. 
 Mr. Lincoln bore a leading part in securing 
 -these results. Perhaps no other man exerted 
 
 so wide and salutary an influence in harmoni- 
 zing differences, in softening and obliterating 
 prejudices, and bringing into a cordial union 
 those who for years had been bitterly hostile 
 to each other. His speech before that Con- 
 vention will ever be regarded by many of 
 those who heard it, as the greatest effort of 
 his life. Never was an audience more com- 
 pletely electrified by human eloquence. Again 
 and again, during the progress of its delivery, 
 they sprang to their feet and upon the 
 benches, and testified by long-continued shouts 
 and the waving of hats, how deeply the 
 speaker had wrought upon their minds and 
 hearts. It fused the mass of hitherto incon- 
 gruous elements into perfect homogeneity, and 
 and from that day to the present, they have 
 worked together in harmonious and fraternal 
 union. It kindled also an enthusiasm in the 
 bosoms of those who heard it, which they car- 
 ried home with them, and with which they 
 imbued their neighbors, and by which the 
 Republican party of Illinois, in the first year 
 of its existence, was carried triumphantly into 
 power. 
 
 At the National Republican Convention of 
 that year, Mr. Lincoln's name was presented 
 by the Western delegates for nomination for 
 the Vice-Presidency. Although, had his own 
 wishes been consulted in the matter, he would 
 not have consented to this use of his name, it 
 was nevertheless a well-deserved compliment, 
 as well as a recognition of the fact that his 
 reputation had now become national. Mr. 
 Lincoln's vote on the informal ballot was 110 
 —Mr. Dayton's, 259. 
 
 During the recess of Congress in 1857, Mr. 
 Douglas made a speech at Springfield in fur- 
 ther vindication of his Kansas-Nebraska Bill, 
 known as his " Grand Jury Speech," from the 
 fact that he was invited to deliver it by the 
 Grand Jury of the U. S. District Court for 
 Southern Illinois. In that speech, he first pro- 
 mulgated the docrine that the framers of the 
 Declaration of Independence, in asserting that 
 "all men are created equal," simply meant to 
 say that "British subjects on this continent 
 were equal to British subjects born and re- 
 siding in Great Britain." Mr. Lincoln, by invi- 
 tation of a large number of his fellow citizens, 
 replied to Douglas. When he came to that 
 part of the speech which containedhis (Doug- 
 las's) theory of the Declaration, as above given, 
 Mr. Lincoln said : — 
 
 " My good friends, read that carefully over, some leisure 
 hour, and ponder well upon it. See what a mere wreck — 
 a mangled ruin — it makes of our glorious Declaration ! 
 
 " They were speaking of British subjects on this conti- 
 nent being equal to British subjects born and residing in 
 Great Britain ! Why, according to this, not only negroes, 
 but white people outside of G-reat Britain and America, 
 were not spoken of in that instrument. The English, Irish, 
 and Scotch, along with white Americans, were Included, 
 to be sure, but the French, Germans, and other white 
 people of the world are all gone to pot along with the 
 Judge's inferior races.
 
 23 
 
 "I had thought the Declaration promised something bet- 
 ter than the condition of British subjects ; but no, it only 
 meant that we should be equal to them in their own o))- 
 pressed and vneqval condition. According to that, it 
 pave no promise that, having kicked off the King and 
 LorJs of Great Britain, we should not at once be saddled 
 with a King and Lords of our own. 
 
 "I had thought the Declaration contemplated a pro- 
 gressive improvement in the condition of all men every- 
 where ; but no, it merely 'was adopted for the purpose of 
 justifying the colonists in the eyes of the civilized world in 
 withdrawing their allegiance from the British crown, and 
 dissolving their connection with the mother country.' 
 Why, that object having been effected some eighty yfars 
 ago, the Declaration is of no practical use now — mere 
 rubbish — old wadding left to rot on the battle-field after 
 the victory is won. 
 
 " I understand you are preparing to celebrate the ' Fourth,' 
 to-morrow week. What for? The doings of that day had 
 no reference to the present ; and quite half of you are not 
 even descendants of those who were referred to at that 
 day. But I suppose you will celebrate, and will even go 
 so far as to read the Declaration. Suppose after you read 
 it once in the old-fashioned way, you read it once more 
 with Judge Douglas's version. It will then run thus: 'We 
 hold these truths to be self-evident, that all British subjects 
 who were on this continent eighty-one years ago, were 
 created equal to all British subjects born and then residing 
 in Great Britain.' 
 
 "And now, I appeal to all — to Democrats as well as oth- 
 ers — _are you really willing that the Declaration shall thus 
 be frittered away ? — thus left no more, at most, than an 
 interesting memorial of the dead past? — thus shorn of its 
 vitality and practical value, and left without the germ, or 
 even the suggesiicm, of the inalienable rights of man in it ?" 
 
 Mr. Lincoln then gave his own views of the 
 intention of the framers of the Declaration ; 
 and in the contrast between his theory and 
 that ©f Douglas, the relative moral and philo- 
 .sophic status of the two men is most cleaily 
 «hown. This is Mr. Lincoln's theory : — 
 
 " I think the autliors of that notable instrument intended 
 to include all men, but they did not intend to declare all 
 men equal in aU respects. They did not mean to say all 
 were equal in color, size, intellect, moral developments, 
 or social capacity. They defined with tolerable distinct- 
 ness, in what respects they did consider all men created 
 equal — equalin "certain inalienable rights, among which 
 are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." This they 
 said, and this they meant. They did not mean to assert 
 the obvious untruth that all were then actually enjoying 
 that equality, nor yet that they were about to confer it 
 immediately upon them. In fact, they had no power to 
 confer such a boon. They meant simply to declare the 
 right, so that the enforcement of it might follow as fast as 
 circumstances should permit. 
 
 " TTieymeanttosetup astandardmaxim for free soci- 
 ety, vMch should ie familiar to all, andretered by all; 
 constantly looked to, constantly labored for, and even 
 though, never perfectly attained, constantly approxi- 
 mated, and thereby constantly spreading and deepen- 
 i7ig its infltience, and augmenting the happiness and 
 vahie of life to allpeople of all colors everyuhere. The 
 assertion that " all men are created equal," was of no 
 practical use in effecting our separation from Great Brit- 
 ain ; and It was placed in the Declaration, not for that, 
 but for future use. Its authors meant it to be as, thank 
 God, it is now proving itself, a stumbling-block to all 
 those who in after times might seek to turn a free people 
 back into the hateful paths of despotism. They knew the 
 proneness of prosperity to breed tyrants, and they meant 
 when such should reappear in this fair land and com- 
 mence their vocation, they should find left for them at 
 least one hard nut to crack." 
 
 Let the reader decide on which theory the 
 heroes of the Revolution are most entitled to 
 the veneration of posterity — on which the as- 
 sertion and defense of the natural and inalien- 
 able rights of man can be most successfully 
 maintained. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE SENATORIAL CONTEST WITH DOUGLAS, IN 1858. 
 
 The Democratic State Convention met at 
 Springfield on the 21st of April, 1858, and 
 published a declaration of the principles on 
 which they proposed to make their battle. 
 They resolved — 
 
 " That the Democracy of Illinois are unalterably attach- 
 ed to, and will maintain inviolate, the principles declared 
 in the Is at' on<<l Democratic Convention at Cincinnati, 
 in June, -iSbC:' 
 
 Several supplementary resolutions were 
 adopted, all tending to the same conclusion. 
 Senator Douglas and his Democratic col- 
 leagues in the House of Representatives were 
 warmly indorsed, and promised the " earnest 
 and efficient support" of the party in the 
 coming campaign. No rebuke was offered to 
 the Administration for its course on Lecomp- 
 ton, except by a misty inference. The last re- 
 solution was as follows : 
 
 " nesolted. That in all things wherein the National Ad- 
 ministration sustain and carry out the principles of the 
 Democratic party, as expres-ed in the Cincinnati platform 
 and affirmed in their resolutions, it is entitled to and will 
 receive cur hearty support," 
 
 The distinct and unqualified endorsement of 
 the Cincinnati platform by the friends of Mr. 
 Douglas, their neglect to pass any censure en 
 the corruptions and tergiversations of Presi- 
 dent Buchanan, and their violent speeches in 
 the Convention against the Republicans, de- 
 stroyed whatever hope of union and compro- 
 mise might have been entertained by members 
 of either party. The challenge had passed, 
 and the Republicans were not slow in accept- 
 ing it. Their State Convention was held at 
 Springfield on the IGth of June, seven weeks 
 later than the other. Nearly one thousand 
 delegates and alternates were present, and the 
 chairman of the committee on credentials re- 
 ported fourteen hundred persons in attend- 
 ance, other than the resident population of the 
 capital. It was very soon ascertained that the 
 convention was all for Lincoln. Immediately 
 after the organization, a Chicago delegate 
 brought into the hall a banner on which were 
 inscribed the words, " Cook County for 
 Abraham Lincoln." The whole Convention
 
 24 
 
 rose simultaneously, and gave three cheers for 
 the candidate upon whom it was proposed to 
 confer the peiilous honor of a nomination 
 against Senator Douglas. The precarious 
 ground which Mr. Douglas's opposition to the 
 Lecompton Constitution had left for a distinc- 
 tive Republican candidate before the masses, 
 was carefully considered by the committee on 
 resolutions. The alleged sympathy entertain- 
 ed for him by prominent Republicans in other 
 parts of the country ; the odor of free-soil 
 which he had collected in his garments during 
 the recent session of Congress, notwithstand- 
 ing his obstinate and blind adherence to the 
 Dred Scott decision ; the universal favor to 
 which he had been commended by the perse- 
 cutions of the Administration ; the flagrant ap- 
 portionment of the State into Legislative Dis- 
 tricts, by which ninety -three thousand people 
 in the Republican counties were virtually dis- 
 franchised, — combined to give a very unpromi- 
 sing complexion to the campaign. Nothing 
 was to be done, however, but to lay down a 
 platform of straight Republican principles and 
 trust to their potency, and the popularity of 
 their leader, f©r a successful issue. It was 
 agreed that any result was to be courted rather 
 than allow the Republican party to become 
 the tail for a kite patched together from the 
 Cincinnati platform and the Dred Scott deci- 
 sion. The Convention then proceeded to the 
 adoption of a platform of principles, and the 
 nomination of candidates for State Treasurer 
 and Superintendent of Pubhc Instruction. It 
 was not deemed advisable by the committee 
 on resolutions to give Mr. Lincoln a formal 
 nomination for the Senate, but many members 
 of the convention deemed it proper to do so, 
 in order to destroy the force of allegations, 
 which had already been put forth by Mr. Doug- 
 las from his seat in the Senate, that the Re- 
 publicans designed to elect a different man 
 provided they were successful in securing a 
 majority of the Legislature. The following re- 
 solution was therefore offered by a delegate, 
 and adopted unanimously : 
 
 " liesol'ved. That the Hon. Abraham Lincoln is our first 
 and only choice for U. S. Senator, to fill the vacancy about 
 to be created by the expiration of Mr. Douglas's term of 
 office." 
 
 Mr. Lincoln had been frequently called for 
 during the session, but did not make his ap- 
 pearance. The Secretary of State, however, 
 announced that, if it was the desire of his 
 friends, he would address the members of the 
 convention in the Representatives' Hall in the 
 evening. About 8 o'clock, therefore, the room 
 was filled to its utmost capacity, and Mr. Lin- 
 coln spoke about half an hour. The limits of 
 this work do not permit the introduction of 
 any speeches at full length, but the masterly 
 manner in which the pending topics were dis- 
 cussed, the wide celebrity which this speech 
 
 acquired, and more especially the fact that it 
 contained the essence of the whole campaign, 
 require that more than a passing notice should 
 be given to it. The exceeding terseness of all 
 Mr. Lincoln's efforts renders it difficult to 
 condense his utterances without impairing or 
 destroying their force, yet the reader will be 
 able to catch the essential points of his argu- 
 ment from the following summary. We quote 
 the opening paragraph entire : 
 
 " Mr. President, and Gbntle.mf.n of the Convention : 
 If we could first know where we are, and whither we are 
 tending, we could better judge what to do, and how to do 
 it. We are now in the fifth year since a policy was 
 initiated with the avowed object, and confident promise, 
 of putting an end to slavery agitation. Under the opera- 
 tion of that policy, that agitation has not only not ceased, 
 but has constantly augmented. In my opinion, it will 
 not cease, until a crisis shall have been reached and 
 passed. 'A house divided agninst itself cannot stand.' I 
 believe this government cannot endure permanently half 
 slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dis- 
 solved — I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect 
 it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, 
 or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will 
 arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the 
 public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course 
 of ultimate extinction ; or its advocates will push it for- 
 ward, till it shall become alike lawful in all the States, 
 Old as well as New — North as well as South. 
 
 " Have we no tendency to the latter condition ? 
 
 "Let anyone who doubts, carefully contemplate that 
 now almost complete legal combination — piece of ma- 
 chinery, so to speak — compounded of the Nebraska doc- 
 trine, and the Dred Scott decision. Let him consider not 
 only what work the machinery is adapted to, and how 
 well adapted; but also, let him study the history of its 
 construction, and trace, if he can, — or ratherfail, if he can, 
 to trace the evidences of design and concert of action, 
 among its chief architects, from the beginning." 
 
 Mr. Lincoln then proceeded to show that 
 prior to 1854 slavery had been excluded from 
 more than half the States by local laws or 
 constitutions, and from the greater portion of 
 the national territory by congressional pro- 
 hibition. On the 4th of January, 1854, the 
 struggle commenced, which ended with the 
 repeal of the congressional prohibition, ac- 
 complished on the grounds of squatter sov- 
 ereignty, and "sacred right of self-govern- 
 ment," which meant that "if any one man 
 chooses to enslave another, no third man 
 shall be allowed to object." This is shown to 
 be a correct definition by the fact that when 
 Mr. Chase, in the Senate, and Mr. Mace, in 
 the House of Representatives, offered their 
 amendments to the Kansas-Nebraska bill, de- 
 claring that the people of the territories might 
 exclude slavery if they wanted to, Mr. Doug- 
 las and the other friends of the measure voted 
 them dotcn. But while the Nebraska Bill was 
 going through Congress the Dred Scott case 
 was going through the courts, and when Sen- 
 ator Trumbull asked Senator Douglas whether 
 in his opinion the people of a territory could 
 exclude slavery, the latter replied that it was 
 "a question for the Supreme Court," — the 
 Nebraska Bill having provided that the rights 
 of the people should be " subject to the Con- 
 stitution of the United States." The Nebraska 
 Bill was passed by both branches of Con- 
 
 #'▲'%▼*,> '
 
 25 
 
 gress, and received the signature of the Pres- 
 ident; the Election of 1856 was carried by 
 the Democracy, on the issue of "sacred right 
 of self-government"; and then the Supreme 
 Court decided, in the Dred Scott case, that 
 neither Congress nw a Territorial Legislature 
 could exclude slavery from any United States 
 Territory. But the Dred Scott judges refused 
 to decide whether the holding of Dred Scott 
 in the free State of Illinois, by his master, 
 made him a free man. One member of the 
 Court (Judge Nelson) approached this branch 
 of the case so nearly as to say that "except 
 in cases where the power is restrained ' ly the 
 Constitution of the United States,^ the law of 
 the State is supreme over the subject of sla- 
 very, within its jurisdiction." In view of this 
 strange decision, does it not appear that the 
 phrase, " subject to the Constitution of the 
 United States," in the Nebraska Bill, was 
 interpolated for the purpose of leaving room 
 for the Dred Scott decision ? We quote again 
 from Mr. Lincoln's words : 
 
 "We cannot absolutely know that all these exact adap- 
 tations are the result of preconcert. But when we see a 
 lot of iramed timbers, different portions of which we 
 know have been gotten out at different times and places 
 and by different workmen — Stephen, Franklin, Koger, 
 and James, for instance— and when we see these timbers 
 joined together, and see they exactly make the frame of a 
 house or a mill, all the tenons and mortices exactly 
 fitting, and all the lengths and proportions of the differ- 
 ent pieces exactly ad.apted to their respective places, and 
 not a piece too many or too few — not omitting even scaf- 
 folding — or, if a single piece be lacking, we see the pla':c 
 in the frame exactly fitted and prepared yet to bring such 
 piece in — in such a case, we find it impossible not to be- 
 lieve that Stephen and Franklin and Roger and James all 
 understood one another from the beginning, and all 
 worked upon a common jjlan or draft, drawn up before the 
 first blow was struck." 
 
 So far as to Territories. How as to States ? 
 Singularly enough, the Nebraska Bill said that 
 it was "the' true intent and meaning of this 
 act not to legislate slavery into any Territory 
 or State, nor to exclude it therefrom." Why 
 was the word "State" employed? The Ne- 
 braska conspirators were legislating for Terri- 
 toi-ies, not States. It would seem, from the 
 ominous expression of Judge Nelson, quoted 
 above, as though a second niche had been left 
 in the Nebraska Bill, to be filled by a second 
 Dred Scott decision, — possibly the decision in 
 the Lemmon case — declaring that as no Terri- 
 tory can exclude slavery, neither can any 
 State. "And," says Mr. Lincoln, "this may 
 especially be expected if the doctrine of ' care 
 not whether slavery be voted down or voted 
 up,' shall gain upon the public mind suffi- 
 ciently to give promise that such a decision 
 can be maintained when made." 
 
 Such was Mr. Lincoln's admirable presenta- 
 tion of the issues of 1858. It is difficult to 
 see in what point the argument is not equally 
 good to-day. 
 
 Mr. Douglas returned to Chicago on the 
 9th of July, and speedily realized the expec- 
 
 tations of the Republicans of his own State by 
 making a speech cordially and emphatically 
 re-indorsing the Dred Scott decisio}i. 
 
 On the 24:th of July, Mr. Lincoln addressed 
 the following note to his antagonist : 
 
 " Hon. S. A. Douglas— 3/!/ Dear Sir /—Will it be agree- 
 able to you to make an arrangement for you and myself 
 to divide time, and address the same audiences during the 
 present canvass? Mr. Judd, who will hand you this, is 
 authorized to receive your answer ; and, if agreeable to 
 you, to enter into the terms of such arrangement. 
 
 "Your obedient servant, A. LINCOLN." 
 
 Mr. Douglas had too vivid a recollection of 
 his past encounters with Mr. Lincoln, to de- 
 sire a repetition of them. Had he not felt in 
 his inmost soul that Mr. Lincoln was more 
 than a match for him in debate, he would not 
 have waited for a challenge, but would him- 
 self have thrown down the glove to Mr. Lin- 
 coln immediately upon entering the State. 
 His reply, declining the proposed arrange- 
 ment, was quite voluminous, and presented a 
 singular array of reasons why it would be im- 
 possible for him to meet Mr. Lincoln accord- 
 ing to the terms of the challenge. His chief 
 objection was that the Democratic candidates 
 for Congress and the Legislature desired to 
 address the people at the various county seats 
 in conjunction with him; a pretext which, 
 whether true or not as to the "desire," was 
 found to be altogether untrue as to the fulfill- 
 ment. Mr. Douglas, nevertheless, consented 
 to seven meetings with his opponent for joint 
 discussion, to wit, at Ottawa, Freeport, Jones- 
 boro', Charleston, Galesburg, Quincy, and 
 Alton. Mr. Lincoln, of course, promptly ac- 
 ceded to this arrangement. As he could not 
 prevail upon Douglas to meet him in discus- 
 sion in every part of the State, he was willing 
 to do the next best thing— meet him wherever 
 he could have the opportunity. 
 
 Mr. Douglas having taken no notice at Chi- 
 cago, Bloomington, or Springfield, where he 
 made preliminary speeches, of the " conspira- 
 cy" to which his attention had been called 
 by Mr. Lincoln, in his speech of June 16th, 
 the latter deemed it proper to take a default 
 on him, and to dwell somewhat upon the 
 enormity of his having " left a niche in the 
 Nebraska Bill to receive the Dred Scott deci- 
 sion," which declared that a Territorial Legis- 
 lature could not abolish slavery. Mr. Doug- 
 las was not slow in discovering that this 
 charge, fortified as it was by overwhelming 
 evidence, had begun to hurt. Therefore, at 
 Clinton, De Witt County, he took occa.sion to 
 read the charge to his audience, and to say in 
 reply that " his self-respect alone prevented 
 him from calling it a falsehood." A few days 
 later, the "self-respect" broke down, and at 
 Beardstown, Cass County, he pronounced it, 
 with much vehemence of gesture, " an infa- 
 mous lie!" 
 
 Mr. Lincoln commenced his canvass of the
 
 26 
 
 State at Beardstown, a place of considerable 
 importance on the Illinois River, on the 12th 
 of August. At the conclusion of his speech 
 OH this occasion, he reviewed the conspiracy 
 charge in a manner so forcible that it can only 
 be told in his own language : 
 
 ********* 
 
 " I say to you, gentlemen, that it would be more to the 
 purpose for Judge Douglas to say that he did not repeal 
 tlie Missouri Compromise ; that he did not make slavery 
 possible where it was Impossible before; that he did «o; 
 leave a niche in the Nebraska Bill for the Dred Scott de- 
 cision to rest in ; that he did not vote down a clause giv- 
 ing the people the right to exclude slavery if they wanted 
 to; that he did M0< refuse to give his individual opinion 
 whether a Territorial Legislature could exclude slavery ; 
 that he did not make a report to the Senate in which he 
 said that the rights of the people in this regard were ' held 
 in abeyance' and could not be immediately exercised; 
 that he did no< make a hasty Indorsement of the Dred 
 Scott decision over at Springfield; that he does not 
 now Indorse that decision; that that decision does not 
 take away from the Territorial Legislature the power to 
 exclude slavery ; and that he did not in the original Ne- 
 braska Bill so couple the words Utate, and Territory to- 
 gether, that what the Supreme Court has done in forcing 
 open all the Territories for slavery, it may yet do in for- 
 cing open all the States — I say it would be vastly more to 
 the point for Judge Douglas to say he did not do some of 
 these things, did not forge some of these links of over- 
 whelming testimony, than to go to vociferating about the 
 country that possibly he may be obliged to hint that 
 somebody is a liar!" 
 
 From Beardstown, Mr. Lincoln went up the 
 Illinois River to Havana and Bath, Alason 
 county, Lewistown and Canton, Fulton coun- 
 ty, Peoria, Henry, Marshall county, speaking 
 at each place, and thence to Ottawa on the 
 21st of August, where the first joint debate 
 was appointed to take place. An immense 
 audience, estimated by the friends of both 
 parties at about twelve thousand, had con- 
 gregated to witness the first grand passage-at- 
 arms. Mr. Douglas had appointed to himself 
 the opening and closing of the first and last of 
 the seven discussions. Accordingly he occu- 
 pied an hour in opening at Ottawa, giving 
 Mr. Lincoln an hour and a half to reply and 
 himself half an hour for rejoinder. The only 
 thing of even moderate consequence presented 
 in Mr. Douglas's first hour was a series of 
 questions to his antagonist drawn from a 
 series of radical anti-slavery resolutions which, 
 he alleged, had been reported by Mr. Lincoln, 
 as chairman of a committee, to the Republican 
 State Convention of Illinois, held at Springfield 
 in October, 1854. To this Mr. Lincoln merely 
 replied, that no Republican State Convention 
 was held at Springfield, or anywhere else, in 
 1854, and that he was not present at the 
 meeting held there by a small number of per- 
 sons, who nominated a candidate for State 
 Treasurer ; on the contrary, he was in another 
 Qounty, attending court. Having disposed of 
 this matter for the present, he proceeded to 
 occupy his time with the vital issues of the 
 campaign, dwelling chiefly on the Dred Scott 
 decision, and the peculiar reasoBS put forth 
 by Mr. Douglas for sustaining it. " This 
 
 man," said he, '• sticks to a decj^ion which 
 forbids the people of a Territory from exclud- 
 ing slavery ; and he does so not because he 
 says it is right in itself — he does not give any 
 opinion on that — but because it has been 
 decided hy the coiirt, and being decided by 
 the court, he is, and you are, bound to take it 
 in your political action as lato — not that he 
 judges at all of its merits, but because a deci- 
 sion of the court is to him a ' TTiiis suith the 
 Lord? He places it on that ground alone, 
 and you will bear in mind that this com- 
 mitting himself unreservedly to this decision, 
 commits Mm to the next one just as firmly as 
 to this. He did not commit himself on account 
 of the merit or demerit of the decision, but it 
 is a ITius saith the Lord. The next decision, 
 as much as this, will be a 77ms saith the 
 Lord." Yet, as Mr. Lincoln proceeded to 
 show, Mr. Douglas's public record presented 
 three glaring instances of violation of Supreme 
 Court decisions: (1) his repeated indorsement 
 of Gen. Jackson's course in disregarding the 
 decision of the Supreme Court declaring a 
 National Bank constitutional ; (2) his endorse- 
 ment of the Cincinnati platform, which says 
 that Congress cannot charter a National Bank, 
 in the teeth of the Supreme Court decision, 
 declaring that Congress can do so ; (3) his no- 
 torious war upon the Supreme Court of Illi- 
 nois which had decided that the Governor 
 could not remove a Secretary of State, which 
 ended in the appointment of five new judges, 
 of whom Douglas icas 07te, to vote down the 
 four old ones. And here exactly was the time 
 and place where Mr. Douglas acquired his 
 title of " Judge " ! " These things," continued 
 Mr. Lincoln, " show there is a purpose, strong 
 as death and eternity, for which he adheres to 
 this decision, and for which he will adhere to 
 all othe>' decisions of the same court." 
 
 The following eloquent paragraph concluded 
 the Ottawa debate, on Mr. Lincoln's part : — 
 
 "" Now, having spoken of the Dred Scott decision, one 
 more word, and I am done. Henry Clay, my beau ideal 
 of a statesman, the man for whom I fought all my humble 
 life — Henry Clay once said of a class of men who would 
 repress all tendencies to liberty and ultimate emancipation, 
 that they must, if they would do this, go back to the era 
 of our independence, and muzzle the cannon which 
 thunders its annual joyous return ; they must blow out 
 the moral lights around us; they must penetrate the hu- 
 man soul, and eradicate tliere the love of liberty; and 
 then, and not till then, could they perpetuate slavery in 
 this country! To my thinking, Judge Douglas is, by hi.s 
 example and vast influence, doing that very thing in this 
 comniunit3% when he says that the negro has nothing in 
 the Declaration of Independence. Henry Clay plainly 
 understood the contrary. Judge Douglas is going back 
 to the epoch of our KeVolution, and, to the extent of his 
 ability, muzzling the cannon which thunders its annual 
 joyous return. When he invites any people, willing to 
 have slavery, to establish it, he is blowing out the moral 
 lights around us. When he says, he " cares not whether 
 slavery is voted down or voted up" — that it is a sacred 
 right of self-government— he is, in my judgment, pene- 
 trating the human soul, and eradicating the light of reason 
 and the love of liberty in this American people. And 
 now I will only say, that vhen, by all these means and
 
 27 
 
 appliances, Judge Douglas shall succeed in bringing pub- 
 lic sentiment to an exact accordance with his own views — 
 when these vast assemblages shall echo back all these 
 sentiments — when they shall come to repeat his views and 
 to avow his principles, and to say all that he says on these 
 mighty questions— then it needs only the formality of tlie 
 second Ored Scott flecision, which he endorses in advance, 
 to make slavery alike lawful in all the States, old :is well 
 as new, North as well as South." 
 
 When Mr. Dougla.s had occupied his half- 
 hour, and the debate was finished, Mr. Lin- 
 coln was borne away from the stand on the 
 shoulders of his friends, in a frenzy of enthu- 
 siasm. 
 
 Directly after the Ottawa debate, it was dis- 
 covered that the resolutions which Mr. Doug- 
 las produced there, and declared to have 
 been written by Mr. Lincoln, at Springfield, 
 in 1854, were never adopted at that place by 
 any lody, but had been passed by a local con- 
 vention at Aurora, Kane county. Common 
 people very naturally called it a forgery. At 
 the Freeport debate, six days later, Mr Lin- 
 coln referred to it in the following crushing 
 paragraph : — 
 
 "I allude to this extraordinary matter in this canvass 
 for some further purpose than anything yet advanced. 
 Judge Douglas did not make his statement upon that oc- 
 casion as of matters that he believed to be true, but he 
 stated them roundly as heing true, in such form as to 
 pledge his veracity for their truth. When the whole 
 matter turns out as it does, and when we consider who 
 Judge Douglas is — that he is a distinguished Senator of 
 the United States — that he has served nearly twelve years 
 as such— that his character is not at all limited as an ordi- 
 nary Senator of the United States, but that his name has 
 become of world-wide renown — it is tnoat extraordinarii 
 that he should so far forget all the suggestions of justice 
 to an adversary, or of prudence to himself, as to venture 
 npon the assertion of that which the slightest investiga- 
 tion would have shown him to be wholly false. I can 
 only account for his having done so upon the supposition 
 that that evil genius which has attended him through his 
 life, giving to him an astonishing prosperity, such as to lead 
 very many good men to doubt there being any advantage 
 in virtue over vice — I say, I can only account for it on the 
 supposition that that evil genius has at last made up Its 
 mind to forsake him." 
 
 The questions propounded by Mr. Douglas 
 to his antagonist at Ottawa were still out- 
 standing, unanswered. At Freeport, Mr. 
 Lincoln took them up, and replied to them seri- 
 atim^ as follows : — - 
 
 Question 1. "I desire to know whether Lincoln to-day 
 stands pledged, as he did in 18.34, in favor of the uncon- 
 ditional repeal of the Fugitive Slave law ?" 
 
 Answer. I do not now, nor ever did, stand pledged in 
 favor of the unconditional repeal of the Fugitive Slave 
 law. 
 
 Q. 2. " I desire him to answer whether he stands 
 pledged to-day, as he did in 1 854, against the admission of any 
 more slave States into the Union, even if the people want 
 them?" 
 
 A. I do not now, nor ever did, stand pledged against the 
 admission of any more slave States into the Union. 
 
 Q. 3. "I want to know whether he stands pledged 
 against the admission of a new State into the Union with 
 such a Constitution as the people of that State may see fit 
 to make ?" 
 
 A. I do not stand pledged against the admission of a 
 new State into the Union, with such a Constitution as the 
 people of that .-tate may see fit to make. 
 
 Q. 4. " I want to know whether he stands to-d.ny 
 pledsed to the abolition of slavery in the District of C'o- 
 lumbia?'' 
 
 A. I do not stand to-day pledsed to the abolition of 
 slavery in the District of Columbia. 
 
 Q. 5. " I desire him to answer whether he stands 
 
 pledged to the prohibition of the slave-trade between the 
 different States ?" 
 
 A. I do not stand pledged to the prohibition of the 
 slave-trade between the ditferent States. 
 
 Q. 6. " I desire to know whether he stands pledged to 
 prohibit slavery in all the Territories of llie United States, 
 North us well as ^outh of the Missouri Comi)roniise line?" 
 
 A. 1 am impliedly, if not expressly, pledged to a be- 
 lief in the right and Out)/ of Congress to prohibit slavery 
 in all the United States' Territories. 
 
 Q. 7. " 1 desire him to answer whether he is opposed 
 to the acquisition of any new territory unless slavery is 
 first prohibited therein ?" 
 
 A. I am not generally opposed to honest acquisition of 
 territory; and, in any given case,! would or would not 
 oppose such acquisition, according as I might think such 
 acquisition would or would not aggravate the slavery 
 question among ourselves. 
 
 Now, my friends, it will be perceived, upon an examina- 
 tion of these questions and answers, that so far I have 
 only answered that I was not pledged to this, that, or the 
 other. The Judge has not framed his interrogatories to 
 ask me anything more than thi.s, and I have answered in 
 strict accordance with the interrogatories, and have an- 
 swered truly that I am not pledged at all upon any of the 
 points to which I have answered. But I am not disposed 
 to hang upon the exact form of his interrog.itory. I am 
 rather disposed to take up at least some of these questions, 
 and state what I really think upon them. 
 
 As to the first one, in regard to the Fugitive Slave law, 
 I have never hesitated to say, and I do not now hesitate 
 to say, that I think, under the Constitution of the United 
 States, the people of the t^outhern ttates are entiiled to a 
 Congressional Fugitive Slave law. Having said that, I 
 have had nothing to say in regard to the existing Fugitive 
 Slave law, further than that I think it should have been 
 framed so as to be free from some of the objections that 
 pertain to It, without lessening its efficiency. And inas- 
 much as we are not now in an agitation in regard to an 
 alteration or modification of that law, I would not be the 
 man to introduce it as a new subject of agitation npon the 
 general question of slavery. 
 
 Iji regard to the other question, of v^'helher I am pledged 
 lo the admission of any more slave Slates into the Union. 
 I state to you very frankly that I would be exceedingly 
 sorry ever to be put in a position of having to pass upon 
 that question. I should be exceedingly glad to know that 
 there would never be another slave Stale admitted into the 
 Union ; but I must add that, if slavery shall be kept out of 
 the Territories during the territorial existence of any one 
 given Territory, and then the people sliall, having a fair 
 chance and a clear field, when they come lo adopt the 
 Constitution, do such an extraordinary thing as to adopt a 
 Slave Constitution, uninfluenced by the actual presence of 
 the institution among them, I see no alternative, if we 
 own the country, but lo admit them into the Union. 
 
 The third interrogatory is answered by the answer to 
 the second, it being, as I conceive, the same as the second. 
 
 The fourth one is in regard to the abolition of slavery in 
 the District of Columbia. In relation lo thai, I have my 
 mind very distinctly made up. I should be exceedingly 
 elad to see slavery abolished in the District of Columbia. 
 I believe that Congress possesses the Constitutional power 
 to abolish it. Yet as a member of Congress, I should not, 
 will) my present views, be in favor of endeavoring lo 
 abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, unless it would 
 be upon these conditions : Firi^t, that the abolition should 
 be gradual. Second, that it should be on a vote of the 
 majority of qualified voters in the District ; and third, 
 that compensation .should be made to unwilling owners. 
 With these three conditions, I confess I would be exceed- 
 ingly glad to see Congress abolish slavery in the District 
 of Columbia, and, in the language of Henry Clay, "sweep 
 from our Capital that foul blot upon our nation." 
 
 In regard lo the fifth interrogatory, I must say here, that 
 as to the question of the abolition of the slave-trade be- 
 tween the difP'rent States, I can truly answer, as I have, 
 that I a.m pledged to nothing about it. It is a subject to 
 which I have not given that mature consideration that 
 would make me feel authorized to state a position so as to 
 hold myself entirely bound by it. In other words, that 
 question has never been prominently enough before me to 
 induce me to investigate whelhtr we really have, the con- 
 stitutional power lodo it. I could investigate it if I had 
 sufficient time, to bring myself to a conclusion upon that 
 subject ; but I have not done so, and I say so frankly to 
 you here, and to Judge Douglas. I must say, however, 
 that if I should be of opinion that Congress does possess
 
 28 
 
 the conslitutional power to abolish the slave-trade among 
 llic different States, I should still not be in favor of the ex- 
 ercise of that power unless upon some conservative prm- 
 ciple, as I conceive it, akin to what I have said in relation 
 to the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. 
 
 My answer as to whether I desire that slavery should be 
 prohibited in all the Territories of the United State's, is full 
 and explicit within itself, and cannot be made clearer by 
 any comments of mine. So I suppose in regard to the 
 question whether I am opposed to the acquisi'.ion of any 
 more territory unless slavery is first prohibited therein, my 
 answer is such that I could add nothing by way of illustra- 
 tion, or making myself better understood, than the answer 
 wliieh I have placed in writing. 
 
 Mr. Lincoln having answered all the ques- 
 tions propounded by his adversary, as Senator 
 Benjamin observes, " with no equivocation, no 
 evasion," it now became his turn to interro- 
 gate. The two prominent facts of the cam- 
 paign, in Mr. Lincoln's view, were "Popular 
 Sovereignty," so called, and the Dred Scott 
 decision — each a sham and a fraud, yet di- 
 rectly antagonistic. Mr. Lincoln therefore re- 
 solved to present them to Mr. Douglas in ihe 
 form of a brief interrogatory, so worded that 
 even the latter could find no avenue for es- 
 caping or dodging the contradiction. He men- 
 tioned to some ©f his friends at Freeport that 
 such was his purpose. They unanimously 
 counseled him to let that topic alone, " for," 
 said they, "if you put that question to him, 
 he will perceive that an answer giving pi-ac- 
 tical force and effect to the Dred Scott de- 
 cision in the Territories inevitably loses him 
 the battle, and he will therefore reply by 
 affirming the decision as an abstract princi- 
 ple, but denying its practical application." 
 "But," said Mr. Lincoln," " if he does that, he 
 can never be President." His friends re- 
 plied, with one voice, " That's not 3^our look- 
 out ; you are after the Senatorship.^^ " No, 
 gentlemen," rejoined Mr, Lincoln, " I am 
 UlUng larger game. The battle of 1860 
 is worth a hundred of this!" So the ques- 
 tions were put, and Mr. Douglas was forced 
 to avow his dogma of " unfriendly legisla- 
 tion." His present position as the candidate 
 for the Presidency of a faction of his party, 
 verifies Mr. Lincoln's prediction. 
 
 The third joint discussion was held nineteen 
 days later, at Jonesborough, Union County 
 (Lower Egypt), on the 15th of September. 
 The intervening time was occupied by Mr. 
 Lincoln in active canvassing. He spoke suc- 
 cessively to large audiences at Fremont, Car- 
 linville, Clinton, Bloomington, Monticello, 
 Mattoon, Paris, Hillsborough, Edwardsville, 
 and Greenville. 
 
 At Edwardsville, Madison County, Mr. Lin- 
 coln had comparatively a small audience — 
 three or four hundred, perhaps. This county 
 was one of four in the State which gave a plu- 
 rality for Mr. Fillmore in 1856 — the vote stand- 
 ing : Fillmore, 1,658; Buchanan, 1,451; Fre- 
 mont, 1,111. Notwithstanding the " conserv- 
 ative " character of the people in this latitude. 
 
 Mr. Lincoln gave them a straightforward Re- 
 publican speech, without altering or modifying 
 a syllable of the party creed, concluding with 
 the following masterly appeal to the reason 
 and consciences of his hearers : 
 
 " My I'riends, I have endeavored to show you the logi- 
 cal consequences of the Dred Scott decision, which holds 
 that the people of a Territory cannot prevent the establish- 
 ment of slavery in their midst. I have stated what can- 
 not be gamsayed, that the grounds upon which this deci- 
 sion is made are equally applicable to the Free States as to 
 the Free Territories, and that the peculiar reasons put 
 forth by Judge Douglas for indorsing this decision, com- 
 mit him in advance to the next decision, and to all other 
 decisions emanating from the same source. And, when by 
 all these means you have succeeded in dehumanizing the 
 negro ; when you have put him down, and made it impossi- 
 ble for him to be but as the beasts of the field ; when you 
 have extinguished liis soul, and placed him where the ray 
 of hope is blown out in the darkness that broods over the 
 damned, are you quite sure the demon you have roused 
 will not turn and rend you? What constitutes the bul- 
 wark of our liberty and independence? It is not our 
 frowning battlements, our bristling sea-coasts, tlie guns of 
 our war steamers, or the strength of our gallant army. 
 These are not our reliance against a resumption of tyranny 
 in our land. All of them may be turned against our 
 lil>erties without making us stronger or weaker for the 
 struggle. Our reliance is iu the love of liberty which God 
 has planted in our bosomc. Our defense is in the preser- 
 vation of the spirit which prizes liberty as the heritage of 
 all Dien, in all lands, everywhere. Destroy this spirit, and 
 you have planted the seeds of despotism around your own 
 doors. Familiarize yourselves with the chains of bond- 
 age, and you are preparing your own limbs to wear 
 them. Accustomed to trample on the rights of those 
 around you, you have lost the genius of your own inde- 
 pendence, and become the fit subjects of the first cunning 
 tyrant who rises atnong you. And let ine tell you that all 
 the.se things are prepared for you with the logic of history, 
 if the elections shall promise that the next Dred Scott de- 
 cision and all future decisions will be quietly acquiesced in 
 by the people." 
 
 After making a similar speech at Green- 
 ville, Bond County, whose vote stood in 1856 
 Filmore, 659; Buchanan, 607; Fremont, 153, 
 — but which was nevertheless carried in 1858 
 by Mr. Gillespie, the Republican candidate for 
 State Senator — Mr. Lincoln proceeded to the 
 Jonesborough "milk-pan," as he facetiously 
 termed it, because Mr. Douglas had said at 
 Ottawa, in his usual ornate style, that he was 
 "going to trot him (Mr. L.) down to Egypt, 
 and bring him to his milk." In this debate, 
 Mr. Lincoln devoted considerable attention to 
 the " unfriendly legislation " dodge, clearly 
 demonstrating that, if the Constitution con- 
 fers the right of taking slaves into the terri- 
 tories, the territorial legislature cannot annul 
 the right, and that Congress is bound to 
 give the slaveholder ample protection in the 
 enjoyment of that right, should the territorial 
 legislature neglect to do so. Sub.'ieqaently, in 
 a speech at Columbus, Ohio, Mr. Lincoln gave 
 the finishing blow to "unfriendly legislation," 
 in the following terse and admirable defini- 
 tion : — 
 
 " The Dred Scott decision expressly gives every citizen 
 of the United States a right to cany his slaves into the 
 United States' Territories. And now there was some in- 
 consistency in saying that the decisjon was right, and say- 
 ing, too, that the people of the Territory could lawfully 
 drive slavery out again. When all the trash, the words, 
 the collateral matter, was cleared away from it — all the 
 chaff was fanned out of it, it was a bare absurdity — tio less
 
 29 
 
 thdn that a thing may be lawfully driven atoay from 
 where it has a lawful right to be. 
 
 The fourth joint discussion took place at 
 Charleston, Coles County, on the 18th of Sep- 
 tember, three daj'S after the Jonesboro' debate, 
 Mr. Lincoln having the opening and closing. 
 This debate was remarkable chiedy for the 
 fact that Mr. Lincoln fastened upon his antag- 
 onist, by incontrovertible proof, the charge of 
 having conspired with Senator Toombs and 
 others to bring Kansas into the Union, with- 
 out having her Constitution submitted to a 
 vote of the people, /or the purpose of makmg 
 her a sUve State. Whoever will turn to that 
 debate and examine the proofs presented by 
 Mr. Lincoln, cannot possibly entertain a doubt 
 as to the existence of such a conspiracy, and 
 that Douglas was a party to it. 
 
 "Negro equaUty," the peculiar bugaboo of 
 Mr. Douglas, also received a few moments' at- 
 tention from Mr. Lincoln at Charleston, in 
 these words : 
 
 " While I was at the hole! lo-Jay, an elderly gentleman 
 called upon me to know whether I was really in favor of 
 producing a perfect equality between the negroes and 
 white people. While I had not proposed to myself on this 
 occasion to say much on that subject, yet as the question 
 was asked me I thought I would occupy perhaps five min- 
 utes in saying something in regard to it. I will say, then, 
 that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing 
 about in any way the social and political equality of the 
 white and black races— that I am not nor ever have been 
 m favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of 
 qualilying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with 
 white people ; and I will say, in addition to this, that there 
 ts a physical difference between the white and black races 
 which I believe will forever forbid the two races livino- 
 together on terms of social and political equality. And" 
 inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain 
 together there must be the position of superior and in- 
 ferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of 
 having the superior (wsition assigned to the while race 
 I say upon this occasion, I do not perceive that, because 
 the white man is to have the superior position, the nen-ro 
 should be denied everything. I do not understand that 
 because I do not want a negrr) woman for a slave I must 
 necessarily want her for a wife. IW understanding is, 
 that I can just let her alone. I am now in my fiftieth 
 year, and I certainly never have had a black woman for 
 either a slave or a wife. So it seems to me quite possible 
 for us to get along without malcing either slaves or wives 
 of negroes. I will add to this, that I have never seen, to 
 my knowledge, a man, woman, or child, who was in favor 
 of producing a perfect equality, social and political, be- 
 tween negroes and white men. I recollect of but one 
 distinguished instance that I ever lieird of so frequently 
 as to be entirely satisfied of iia correctness— and that is 
 the case of Judge Douglas's old friend. Col. Richard M. 
 Johnson. I will also add lo the remarks I have made 
 (for I am not going lo enter at large upon this subject,)' 
 that I have never had the least apprehension that I or my 
 friends would marry negroes if there was no law to keep 
 them from it ; but as Judge Douglas and his friends seem 
 to be m great apprehension that they might, if there were 
 no law to keep them from it, I give him the most solemn 
 pledge that I will to the very last stand by the law of this 
 hlate, which forbids the marrying of white people with 
 negroes. I will add one further word, which is this • that 
 I do not understand that there is any place where an al- 
 teration of the social and political relations of the negro 
 and the white man can be made except in the State Le"-- 
 is4ature— not m the Congress of the United .Slates— and as 
 I do not really apprehend the approach of any such thin" 
 myself, and as Judge Douglas seems to be in constant 
 horror that some such danger is rapidly approaching, I 
 propose as the best means to prevent it, that the Judge be 
 kept at home and placed in the State Legislature lo fi-^ht 
 the measure. " = o 
 
 At the Galesburg debate, held on the 7th of 
 
 October, Mr. Lincoln uttered the remarkable 
 
 prediction concerning his adversary which we 
 
 nosv see realized, in answer to one of Mr. 
 
 Douglas's tirades about '' sectionalism :" 
 
 " I ask his attention also to the fact that, by the rule of 
 nationality, ho is himself fast becoming sectional. I ask 
 his attention to the fact that his speeches VFOuld not go as 
 current now south of the Ohio river as they have formerly 
 gone there. 1 ask bis a'tention to the fact that he felici- 
 tates himself to day that all the Democrats of the free 
 States are agreeing with him, while he omits to tell us 
 that the Democrats of any slave State agree with him. If 
 he has not thought of this, I commend to his consideration 
 the evidence in his own declaration, on this day, of liis 
 becoming sectional too. I see it rapidly approaching. 
 Whatever may be the result of this ephemeral contest be- 
 tween Judge Douglas and myself, I see the day rapidly 
 approaching when his pill of sectionalism' which he has 
 been thrusting down the throats of Kepublicans for years 
 past, will be crowded down his own throat." 
 
 The sixth (Quincy) debate took place on the 
 13th of October. It was at this meeting that 
 Mr. Lincoln made an argument to prove that 
 the Dred Scott premise as to the constitutional 
 right to take slaves into the territories, if car- 
 ried to its logical results, would establish the 
 right to take and hold them in the free States 
 also. Subsequently, Mr. Douglas, in his 
 Harper Magazine article, appropriated this 
 argument of Mr. Lincoln to his own use, with- 
 out giving credit therefor. 
 
 The reader who will take the trouble to ex- 
 amine the volume of these debates, will find 
 that, while Mr. Lincoin made a new argument 
 at each meeting, Mr. Douglas's portion of each 
 debate was substantially a repetition of his 
 first effort at Ottawa. 
 
 Two days later, on the 15th of October, the 
 final encounter between the champions took 
 place at Alton. This volume would be incom- 
 plete without the admirable summing up of 
 the ISSUES OF THE CAMPAIGN there appropri- 
 ately presented by Mr. Lincoln. Let no one 
 fail to peruse it. 
 
 " I have stated upon former occasions, and I may as 
 well state again, what I understand to be the real issue in 
 this controversy belween Judge Douglas and myself. On 
 the point of my wanting to make war between the free 
 and the slave States, there has been no issue between ns. 
 So, too, when he assumes that I am in favor of introducing 
 a perfect social and political equality between the w^hile 
 and black races. These are false issues, upon which Judge 
 Douglas has tried to force the controversy. There is no 
 foundation in truth for the charge that I maintain either of 
 these propositions. The real issue in this controversy — 
 the one pressing upon every mind — is the sentiment on the 
 part of one class that looks upon the institution of slavery 
 as a wrong, and of another class that does not look upon it 
 as a wrong. The sentiment that contemplates the institu- 
 tion of slavery in this country as a wrong is the sentiment 
 of the Republican party. It isthe sentiment around which 
 all their actions — all their arguments circle — from which 
 all iheir propositions radiate. They look upon it as being 
 a moral, social, and political wrong; and while they con- 
 template it as such, they nevertheless have due regard for 
 its actual existence among us, and the difficulties of gel- 
 ling rid of it in any satisfactory way, and to all the con- 
 stitutional obligations thrown about it. Yet, having a due 
 regard for these, they desire a policy in regard to it that 
 looks to its not creating any more danger. They insist 
 that it should, so far as may be, be treated as a wrong, and 
 one of the methods of treating it as a wrong is lo Tnake 
 provision that it shall grow no larger. They also desire a 
 policy that looks to a peaceful end of slavery at some time,
 
 30 
 
 a« being wrong. These are the views they entertain in 
 regard toil, as 1 understand them; and all their senti- 
 rraents — all their arguments and propositions — are brought 
 within this range. I have said, and I repeal it here, that 
 if there be a man amongst us who does not think that the 
 instrtution of slavery is wrong in any one of the aspects 
 of which I have spoken, he is misplaced, and ought not to 
 be with us. And if there be a man amongst us who is so 
 impatient of it as a -wfon? as to disregard its actual pres- 
 ence among us and the difficulty of getting rid of it sudden- 
 ly in a satisfactory way, and to disregard the constitution- 
 al obligations thrown about it, that man is misplaced if he 
 is on our platform. We disclaim sympathy with him in 
 practical action. He is not placed properly with us. 
 
 On this subject of treating it as a wrong, and limiting 
 its spread, let ine say a word. Has anything ever threat- 
 ened the existence of this Union save and except this very 
 institution of slavery? What is it that we hold most dear 
 amongst us? Our own liberty and prosperity. What has 
 ever threatened our liberty and prosperity save and ex- 
 cept this institution of slavery? If this is true, how do you 
 propose to improve the condition of things by enlarging 
 slavery — by spreading it out and making it bigger? You 
 may have a wen or cancer upon your person and not be 
 able to cut it out lest you bleed to death ; but surely it is 
 no way to cure it, to engraft it and spread it over your 
 whole body. That is no proper way of treating what you 
 regard as a wrong. You see this peaceful way of dealing; 
 with it as a wrong — restricting the spread of it, and not 
 allowing it to go mlo new countries where it has not al- 
 ready existed. That istlie peaceful way, the old-fashioned 
 way, the way in which the fathers themselves set us the 
 example. 
 
 On the other hand, I have said there is a sentiment 
 wliich treats it as not being wrong. That is the Democrat- 
 ic sentiment of this day. I do not mean to say that every 
 man who stands within that range positively asserts that 
 it is right. That class will include all who positively as- 
 sert that it is right, and all who like Judge Douglas treat it 
 as indifferent, and do not say it is either right or wrong. 
 These two classes of men fall within the general cla.ss of 
 those who do not look upon it as a wrong. And if tliere 
 be among you anybody who supposes that he, as a 
 Democrat, can consider himself" as much opposed to slav- 
 ery as anybody," I would like to reason witli him. You 
 never treat it as a wrong. What other thing that you con- 
 sider as a wrong do you deal with as you deal with that ? 
 Perhaps you say it is wrong, hrit your leader never does, 
 and you guarrel with anybody who says it is wrong. 
 Although you pretend to say so yourself, you can find no 
 fit place to deal with it as a wrong. You must not say 
 anything about it in the free States, because it is not here. 
 You must not say anything about it in the slave Stales, 
 because it is there. You must not say anything about 
 it in the pulpit, because that is religion and has nothing to 
 do with it. You must not say anyliiing about it in politics, 
 because that will disturb the security of '■^ my place.'''' 
 There is no place to talk ahout it as being a wrong, 
 although you say yourst-lf it is a wrong. But final- 
 ly, you will screw yourself up to the belief that if 
 the people of the slave t^lales should adopt a system of 
 eradnal emancipation on the slavery question, you would 
 be in favor of it. You say that is getting it in the right 
 place, and you would be glad to see it succeed. But you 
 are deceiving yourself. You all know that Frank Blair 
 and Gratz l;rown undertook to introduce that system in 
 Missouri. They fought as valiantly as they could for the 
 system of gradual emancipation which you pretend yon 
 would be glad to see succeed. Now I will bring you to 
 the test. After a hard fight, they were beaten, and when 
 the news came over liere you threw up your hats and 
 hurrahed for Deinocractj. JJore than that, take all the 
 argument made in fiivor of the system you have proposed, 
 and it carefully e.xcliules the idea that there is anything 
 wrong in the institution of slavery. The arguments to 
 sustain that policy carefully exclude it. Even here to- 
 day, you heard Judge Douglas quarrel with ine because I 
 nttered a wish that it might sometime come to an end. 
 Although Henry < l.iy could say he wished every slave 
 in the Uni ed States was in the country of liis an- 
 cestors, I am denounced by those pretending to re- 
 spect Henry Clay fir uttering a wish that it might 
 sometime, in some peaceful way, come to an end. The 
 Democratic policy in regard to that institution will 
 not tolerate the merest bre.ith, tlie sliglitest liint, of the 
 Jeaat degree of wrong about it. Try it by some of Judge 
 Douglas s argumentsr He says be " don't care whether it 
 
 is voted up or voted down " in the Territories. I do not 
 care myself, in dealing with that expression, whether it is 
 intended to be expressive of his individual sentiments on 
 the subject, or only of the national policy he desires to 
 have established. It is alike valuable for my purpose. 
 Any man can say that who does not see anything wrong 
 in slavery, but no man can logically say it who does Bee a 
 wrong in it ; because no man can logically say he don't 
 care whether a wrong is voted up or voted down. lie 
 may say he don't care whether an indifferent thing is 
 voted up or down, but he must logically have a choice be- 
 tween a right thing and a wrong thing. He contends that 
 whatever community wants slaves has a right to have 
 them. So they have if it is not a wrong. But if it is a 
 wrong, he cannot say people have a right to do wrong. 
 He says that, upon the score of equality, slaves should be 
 allowed to go into a new Territory, like other property. 
 This is strictly logical if there is no difference between it 
 and other property. If it and other property are equal, 
 his argument is entirely logical. But if you insist that 
 one is wrong and the other right, there is no use to institute 
 a comparison between right and wrong. Yon may turn 
 over every thing in the Democratic polTcy froui beginning 
 to end, whether in the shape it takes on the statute-book, 
 in the shape it takes in the Dred Scott decision, in the 
 shape it takes in conversation, or the shape it takes in 
 short, maxim-like arguments — it every where carefully ex- 
 cludes the idea that there is anything wrong in it. 
 
 That is the real issue. That is the issue th.at will 
 continue in this country when these poor tongues of Judge 
 Douglas ami myself shall be §ilent. It is the eternal 
 struggle between these two principles — right and wrong 
 — throughout the world. They are the two principles 
 that have stood face to face from the beginning of time ; 
 and will ever continue to struggle. The one is the com- 
 mon right of liumanity, and the other the divine right of 
 kings. It is the same principle in whatever shape it de- 
 velops itself. It is the same spirit that says, " You work 
 and toil and earn bread, and I'll eat it" No matter in 
 what shape it comes, whether from the mouth of a king 
 who seeks to bestride the people of his own nation and 
 live by the fruit of their labor, or from one race of men 
 as an apology for enslaving another race, it is the same 
 tyrannical principle. 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 shivery. 
 That will help the people to see where the struggle really 
 is. It will hereafter place with us all men who really do 
 wish tlie wrong may have an end. And whenever we can 
 get rid of the fog which obscures the real question — when 
 we can get Judge Douglas and his friends to avow a policy 
 looking to its perpetuation — we can gel out from among 
 them that class of men and bring them to the side of those 
 who treat it as a wrong. Then there will soon be an end of 
 it, and that will be its "ultimate extinction." Whenever the 
 issue can be distinctly made, and all extraneous matter 
 thrown out, so t'nat men can fairly see the real difference 
 between the parties, this controversy will soon be settled, 
 and it will be done peaceably, too. There will be no war, 
 no violence. It will be placed again where the wisest 
 and best men of the world placed it. Brooks of South 
 Carolina once declared that, when this Constitution was 
 framed, its fivimers did not look to the institution existing 
 until this day. When he said this, I think he stated a fact 
 that is fully borne out by the history of the times. But 
 he also said they were better and wiser men than the men 
 of these days; yet the men of these days had experience 
 which they had not, and by the invention of the cotton- 
 gin it became a necessity in this country that slavery 
 should be perpetual. I now say that, willingly or unwil- 
 lingly, purposely or without purpose, Judge Douglas has 
 been the most prominent instrument in changing the posi- 
 tion of the in.stitution of slavery which the lathers of the 
 Government expected to come to an end ere this — and 
 putting it upon Brooks''s cottnn-gin, basis — placing it 
 where he openly confesses he has no desire there shall 
 ever be an end of it. 
 
 The canvass was now finished — a canvass in 
 some respects the most remarkable ever wit- 
 nessed in this country — and nought remained 
 but for the people to record their verdict. Each 
 of the speakers addressed public meetings up 
 to the day of election. Mr. Lincoln made 
 about sixty .speeches during the canvass, tra-
 
 versing almost the entire State, by nearly 
 every conceivable mode of travel. He spoke 
 usually from two to three hours, nearly always 
 in the open air, and to audiences so large as 
 to require great effort on his part to be heard 
 distinctly by all. During these arduous labors, 
 he never once faltered, never exhibited signs 
 of weariness, never failed to meet an appoint- 
 ment. He seemed to grow fresher and stronger 
 as the campaign progressed. Esercise in the 
 open air, travel, and the excitement incident 
 to the canvass, were, in some respects, a return 
 to the habits of his early life, and the effect 
 was plainly visible upon his physical man. 
 His voice grew clearer and stronger to the 
 very last day ; and at the close he was heavier 
 by nearly twenty pounds than at the begin- 
 ning of the canvass. He exhibited powers of 
 endurance that have rarely been equaled. The 
 gallant manner in which he bore himself at his 
 meetings with Douglas, and the transcendent 
 ability which he displayed on all occasions, 
 more than satisfied his friends. His progress 
 through the State had all the characteristics 
 of a triumphal march. He was met by large 
 deputations from every town which he ent-er- 
 ed, tendering hir\, in behalf of its citizens, a 
 cordii'; welcome totheirhospitalitiesandawarm 
 place in their aflfections. The subsequent pub- 
 lication of his debates with Douglas, precisely 
 as they were reported by their respective 
 friends, without a word of comment or expla- 
 nation, and its general circulation as a Repub- 
 lican campaign document, is the highest testi- 
 monial that could be offered to the genius, to 
 the ability, to the broad and comprehensive 
 views, and to the statesmanlike character of 
 Mr. Lincoln. 
 
 The election took place on the 2d of Novem- 
 ber. The excitement which had wrought the 
 State up to a tempest during the progress of 
 the fight, culminated on this eventful day. 
 The whole number of votes cast for President 
 in Illinois, in 1856, was 238,981 ; the whole 
 number cast for members of the Legislature 
 in 1858, was 251,1-iS. A drenching and chill- 
 ing rain poured down all day in the northern 
 part of the State, extending southward, with 
 more or less discomfort to voters, so far as 
 Vandalia. It did not, however, reach " Lower 
 Egypt" The result of the election is matter 
 of history. Mr. Lincoln had a majority over 
 Mr. Douglas, in the popular vote, of 4,085 ; 
 while, by an unfair apportionment law, the 
 latter had a small majority of the Legislature, 
 and was therefore re-elected to the Senate. A 
 careful analysis of the official returns reveals 
 the following facts.: 
 
 1st. That according to the census of 1855, 
 the 33 districts carried by the Democrats, and 
 electing 40 members, contained 606,278 pop- 
 ulation, and the 25 districts carried by the 
 Republicans and electing 35 members, con- 
 
 tained 699,340 population, or 93,562 more 
 than the districts carried by the Democrats. 
 
 2d. That in a Democratic district the ratio 
 of representation was 15,156 inhabitants to a 
 member, while in Republican districts, tt re- 
 quired 19,910 inhabitants to a member. 
 
 3d. That the true ratio being 17,421 inhab- 
 itants to a member, had the Legislature been 
 elected on that basis, the Republican districts 
 would have been entitled to fortt members 
 of the House and fourleen, Senators, and the 
 Democrats to fA^r^y-yii-e members of the House 
 and eleven Senators — exactly reversing the 
 number each, side secured. Of course, this 
 would have elected Lincoln by the ?ime ma- 
 jority on joint ballot that Douglas received. 
 Had every citizen possessed an equal weight 
 and voice in the choice of Senator, Mr. Doug- 
 las would now be a private citizen and Mr. 
 Lincoln a member of the L'. S. Senate. Mr. 
 Douglas is a Senator from Illinois through a 
 palpable violation of the principles of popular 
 sovereis-ntv. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 The man whose history ~we have thus 
 briefly traced now stands before the country 
 the chosen candidate of the Republican party 
 for President of the United States. Com- 
 mencing life under circumstances the most 
 discouraging, we have seen him courageously 
 and manfully battling his way upward from 
 one position of honor and responsibility to an- 
 other, until he now stands in an attitude to 
 place his foot upon the very topmost round of 
 honorable fame. He presents in his own per- 
 son the best living illustration of the true dig- 
 nity of labor, and of the genius of our fi"ee 
 American institutions, having been elevated 
 through their instrumentality from poverty 
 and obscurity to his present distinguished 
 position. 
 
 Perhaps no more appropriate conclusion can 
 bo given to this sketch of Mr. Lincoln's life, 
 than the following, relative to his personal ap- 
 pearance, habits, tastes, &c., which is copied 
 from the Chicago Press and Tribune, and for 
 the correctness of which, in every particular, 
 we can fully vouch : 
 
 '•Mr. Lincoln stands sis feet four inches hi^Ii in his 
 stockings. Kia frame is not tnascular, but a;aunt and wiry. 
 In walking, his ?3it, though lirm, is never brisk. Ho steps 
 slowly and deliberately, almost always with his head in- 
 clined forward, and his hands clasped behind his back, 
 la maaaer, he is remartably cordial, and at the same time 
 sinaple. His politeness is always sincere, but never elab- 
 orate and opp essive. A warm shake of the hand and a 
 warmer smile of recognition are his methods of greeting 
 his friends. At rest, hts features, though they are those 
 of a man of mark, are not such as belong to a handsomo 
 man : but when his ane, dark-gray eyes are lighted up by 
 any emotion, and his features begin their play, he would 
 be chosen from amon^ a crowd as one wbo had in him not 
 only the kindly sentimentj which women love, but the 
 heavier metal of which full-grown men and Presidents 
 aro made. His hair is black, and though thin, is wiry. 
 His he-id sits well on his shoulders, but bavond thatitdo- 
 fies description. It nearer resembles that of Clay than
 
 32 
 
 ■Webster's, but Is unlike olthor. It is very larsc and , 
 I)hrciiulu;;icuny will iiroiiurliuued, bclokcijiujj jiowor iu 
 nil Us dcvulupuieiits. A bli^htly JUunan uoic, a uijo-cut 
 inoutlL, and a dark coinpkiion, wilh tbo appoaruuco ol| 
 liiiviiij^ Uecu wcjilior-beali^D, cumiiiute Lhu <lcj><;riiitiuli. i 
 In hia personal liabita, Mr. Liiicolii id us biuiplc us a ! 
 cliild. lie loves a good diiiuer, and eal9 with the aj'P' - j 
 tile which Koes with ii great brain ; but liis food is plain | 
 unit nuiriliuus. He never driiika Inloxicatiug liiiuuiu of 
 any sort. He is not addicted to tobacco in any of Us 
 ahupcs. IIu \va6 never accused of a liceiilious uct la liis 
 life. He never UffS profane language. IJc never gaiu- 
 bles. lie is iKirticularly cautious about Inciirrijig pecuni- 
 ary obligalions for any pui'pose whatever; and, iu debt, 
 he b never content until tlio score U discharged. 'We 
 presume he owes no man a dollar. lie never speculates. 
 The raKB for Itn^ sudden acciuiblllon of wealth never took 
 hold of him. ills galnji from hla profession have been 
 luoderato, but DUlllciecl for his purj;oses. While others 
 have drcameil of gold, he lias been in pursuit of knowl- 
 edge. In uU his dealliiK^, he hui thu reiiulallon of being 
 generous but e-iLact, and, above alt, religiously honest, 
 lie would be a bold man who wouldsay that iibraham Lin- 
 coln ever wronged a man out of a cent, or ever spent a 
 dolla that he hud not honestly earned. Ills struggles In 
 early lU'e have made hiiu careful of money, but his gen- 
 ero.^ity wilh his own is proverbial, lie Is u regular ul- 
 leuddaul upon religinus worship, and, though not a com- 
 niuncant, is a pew-holder and liberal supporter of the Pres- 
 byterian Cburcb i^ ijpringlleld, tu which Mrs. LiucuUi be- 
 
 belongs. Tie is a scrupulous teller of the tru'h— loo exact 
 
 iu his neiliuns tu ciii the utuiusphere of \S ashingtun, us it 
 now is- His eneiiiU'S <; ..y say tliut Le telJs i>iack liepubli- 
 cau lies; bui no man i.v._r ihar^-ed that, in a jjrofesiit nal 
 capacity, or us a ciluen deuiing wilh his neit/hburt, iie 
 would depart from the ^crii>turul command. At houje, 
 he lives like a gentleman of mode ! nie.inh aud simple 
 tastes. Agood-slzed house of wood, »ini|jjy h^: tastefully 
 furnished, surrounded by trees and lluwers, is his own: 
 there he lives, at peace wilh himself, the i Jol of hla fan.ily, 
 uud for his honesty, ability and i;atriotJ:iin, lie udmlraliou 
 of lib counti'ymeu. 
 
 If Mr. Lincoln Is elected President, he will carry 
 but liltle that Is ornameutal to thu White lIoa.-,e. The 
 country must acceiit his sincerity, his ub;Lty, and his )ioi.- 
 csty, iu the mould In wbicli they ure cast. He wUi nut bu 
 able to make so polite a bow us li'runklin I'lerce, hut lie 
 will not commeuco anew the agltaliou of the bluvejy 
 question by recommending tu OuugreBti any Kansas-Ne- 
 braska ilillii. He may not preside at the I'resulenlial din- 
 ners with the ease and grace which dislinguiib the " Ven- 
 erable public functionary," Mr. Uachauan ; but he will 
 not create the necessity for a Covnde Committee and thel 
 disgraceful revelations of Cornelius 'Wendell. He \kil 
 take to the Presidential (Jh.iir just tlie qualities which the 
 country now dciuanda to save It from Impending destruc- 
 tion — ability that uo wan can question, liimness that 
 nothing can oveibear, honesty that never has been im- 
 peached, and patriotism Ihat never despairs." 
 
 1§ AND TMHUl^^E, 
 
 CAMPAIGN OF 1860. 
 
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