thousand popular votes in the thirty-one States which then composed the Union. Mr. Buchanan, therefore, was in a popular minority, though receiving a large majority of the votes in the electoral college.

The event of most political significance, perhaps, which occurred during the administration of President Buchanan, was the attempt to force slavery into Kansas, against the will of the people, under what was known at the time as "the Lecompton Constitution"-an instrument representing fraud and force only. Against this policy the illustrious Stephen A. Douglas, Senator from Illinois, revolted, and with undisguised indignation assailed the administration. In this he was most heartily in accord with the Republican party, which, with his great aid, was enabled herein to achieve a memorable victory. It was not until some years after this, however, that Kansas was admitted into the Union,

THE LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES.

The discussion of the Lecompton Constitution in Congress gave rise to two important events. First, it caused a division in the Democratic party which continued through the following presidential campaign; and, secondly, it was the indirect cause of that remarkable series of debates between Senator Douglas and Abraham Lincoln in 1858, through which the latter became first honorably

known to the American public generally, thereby gaining a national renown, without which his nomination for the Presidency in 1860 would have been impossible. On account of the plucky revolt of Senator Douglas against the administration in the Kansas affair, not a few Republicans and Republican journals of note in the country thought that he ought to be returned to the Senate by the Illinois Legislature to be chosen in 1858. The Republicans of Illinois were not of this opinion, and in their State Convention of that year did the unusual thing of actually nominating Mr. Lincoln as candidate for United States Senator. It was upon this occasion that Mr. Lincoln delivered that great speech, new become historical, beginning with this remarkable exordium :

"MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN 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 far into the fifth year since a policy was initiated with the avowed object and confident promise of putting an end to slavery agitation. Under the operation of that policy, that agitation not only has not ceased, but has constantly augmented. In my opinion it will not ceasc until a crisis shall have been reached and passed. 'A house divided against itself cannot stand.' I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved; I do not expect the house to fall but I 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 forward till it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new-North as well as South."

Mr. Lincoln's demonstration of the tendency of the government to the latter condition through the operation of the Nebraska Doctrine and the

Dred Scot Decision, was profound, unanswerable. The speech startled the convention, and, published in all the leading journals, made a profound impression throughout the republic. It served as text for many a political harangue during subsequent campaigns, and it at once taught the country that if Senator Douglas did not have his equal in debate on the floor of the Senate, he would find him in this till then comparatively unknown lawyer of Illinois. He did, in fact, soon return home from Washington, and made a speech in the city of Chicago, in reply to Mr. Lincoln's Springfield address. To this, Mr. Lincoln speedily rejoined, and soon afterwards arrangements were made for a series of joint debates between these two celebrated men. It is certain that no State campaign was ever more animatedly conducted, or attracted more general attention. On those days when these great disputants were not engaged in joint discussion, they addressed large audiences in independent meetings, and all Illinois rang with their argumentation and eloquence. Through the elaborate reports of the newspaper press, the whole country listened, and with eager interest, to the joint debates. At their conclusion Abraham Lincoln was universally acknowledged to be among the ablest of American thinkers and speakers. His fame was exalted and national.

CHAPTER II.

HISTORY OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY.

(CONTINUED.)

The Chicago Convention of 1860-Nomination of Lincoln and Hamlin— The Platform-The Canvass-Success of the Republicans-The South Belligerent-President Lincoln's Inaugural Address-His Cabinet, Etc.

Lincoln was, however, defeated for the Senate, Mr. Douglas being again elected by the Legislature. But when the National Convention of the Republican party assembled at Chicago in 1860, it was at once discovered that Mr. Lincoln was a formidable candidate for the Presidency. He had friends and admirers in all parts of the country. The convention itself was very large, while the attendance of visitors was so great as to crowd the city for days. The "outside pressure" for Mr. Lincoln was tremendous. He was nominated on the third ballot, amid excitement and enthusiasm the like of which has rarely been witnessed in this country. Hannibal Hamlin, of Maine, was chosen for the second place on the ticket. The platform, which, it is believed, was chiefly prepared by Horace Greeley and the Hon. John A. Kasson, of Iowa, was much more elaborate than that of 1856. As showing the growth of the party in respect of platform literature, it may be well to quote the entire document:

CHICAGO PLATFORM OF 1860.

"Resolved, That we, the delegated representatives of the Republican electors of the United States, in Convention assembled, in discharge of the duty we owe to our constituents and our country, unite in the following declaration :

"1. That the history of the nation, during the last four years, has fully established the propriety and necessity of the organization and perpetuation of the Republican party, and that the causes which called it into existence are permanent in their nature, and now, more than ever before, demand its peaceful and constitutional triumph.

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"2. That the maintainance of the principles promulgated in the Declaration of Independence, and embodied in the Federal Constitution, "That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed," is essential to the preservation of our Republican institutions; and that the Federal Constitution, the rights of the States, and the Union of the States, must and shall be preserved.

"3. That to the Union of the States this nation owes its unprecedented increase in population, its surprising development of material resources, its rapid augmentation of wealth, its happiness at home, and its honor abroad; and we hold in abhorrence all schemes for Disunion, come from whatever source they may; and we congratulate the country that no Republican member of Congress has uttered or countenanced the threats of Disunion so often made by Democratic members, without rebuke and with applause from their political associates; and we denounce those threats of Disunion, in case of a popular overthrow of their ascendancy, as denying the vital principles of a free government, and as an avowal of contemplated treason, which it is the imperative duty of an indignant people sternly to rebuke and forever silence.

"4. That the maintainance, inviolate, of the rights of the States, and especially the right of each State to order and control its own domestic institutions according to its own judgment exclusively, is essential to that balance of powers on which the perfection and endurance of our political fabric depends; and we denounce the lawless invasion by armed force of the soil of any State or Territory, no matter under what pretext, as among the gravest of crimes.

"5. That the present Democratic Admistration has far exceeded our worst apprehensions in its measureless subserviency to the exactions of a sectional interest, as especially evinced in its desperate exertions to force the infamous Lecompton Constitution upon the protesting people of Kansas; in