don't begin to know one half, and that's enough.' I did, however, go and have his name reinstated, and there it stood. He and Logan were elected by about six hundred majority."

There is a wonderful simplicity about this whole transaction of wife and husband and devoted friends. Little enough the others knew, unless it may have been to some extent known to his wife, the awful struggle of which the external symptoms so puzzled them.

They seem to have sagely decided, although with some wonder that Lincoln should feel so badly about it, that he had serious doubts of the advisability of going to the Legislature just then. His very soul was wrung to agony; they could see that; but he never took the small trouble to have his candidacy denied. He was elected; and then, as soon as the Legislature came together, he resigned.

There was an obvious reason for the latter step. Mr. Lincoln was well known to be a candidate for United States Senator, in place of James Shields, whose term was expiring. The latter had voted for the Kansas-Nebraska Bill with Mr. Douglas, and the opponents of the hated law were in the majority if their several factions could be induced to act in concert. Some other man than Shields would surely be chosen by the Legislature, and Mr. Lincoln's sense of propriety forbade him to sit as a member of the body which was to act upon his claims as a candidate.

He had a strong desire to go to the Senate, there to continue the war he had so well begun. He was no prophet, and had none to tell him that, for a time at least, private life was a better place for him than the dignified assembly which has been shrewdly described as "the graveyard of Presidential candidates." It was necessary that he should remain a man of the people, among the people; studying the course of events better than that could be done in the heated atmosphere of the Capitol. It was equally needful that he should keep himself untrammeled by the fetters of official responsibility, and that

he should avoid the sure peril of injudicious utterances in the fierce debates that were soon to come, and to which the country was to listen as it had never listened before.

More than all was it needful that the forces preparing and growing within him should have two years of accumulation, rather than exhaustion.

On the 8th of February, 1855, the Legislature took in hand the election of a United States Senator. It was found that Gen. Shields, and after him ex-Governor Mattison, to whom the Democrats transferred their strength, had forty-one votes; while the anti-Democratic majority were divided, giving to Mr. Lincoln forty-five, Mr. Trumbull five, and Mr. Koerner two. Forty-seven were required to elect, and repeated ballotings brought no change in favor of either of the leading candidates. Then came signs of danger that some of Mr. Trumbull's supporters, who were opposed to the Kansas-Nebraska measure, but were Democrats all, and old political opponents of Mr. Lincoln, might relapse into their former party allegiance. Mr. Lincoln's advice was asked and given. He said without a moment's hesitation: "You ought to drop me and go for Trumbull. That is the only way you can defeat Mattison."

His friend, Judge Logan, urged that he should continue to be a candidate, but was firmly answered:

"If I do, you will lose both Trumbull and myself, and I think the cause, in this case, is to be preferred to men."

The Whigs obeyed, in bitterness of spirit, and Lyman Trumbull was chosen Senator instead of Abraham Lincoln. The act of the latter did more than send an able and patriotic man to the Senate. It retained the anti-Nebraska Democratic element in the new party, in that and in other States. It kept Lincoln at home in Illinois, but in charge of all further consolidation of jarring elements, and with the threads of all control more firmly in his hands than ever. His neighbors had trusted his integrity and recognized his capacity. They were now compelled to acknowledge and to honor his rare unselfishness.

The sacrifice had cost him something, but the unexpected reward was promptly and loyally paid him.

It was an additional recompense, shortly afterwards, to find how bravely and how well Senator Trumbull was performing the high duty so magnanimously surrendered to him. His very presence in the Senate-chamber was a visible warning to the slavery propagandists that their long control of the Democratic party of the North had been broken forever.

CHAPTER XXI.

THE NEW PARTY.

Bleeding Kansas-A Watchful Friend-Trapping a Trapper-The Bloomington Convention-General Apathy-The Voice of Faith.

Or the two Territories created by the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, the former was manifestly the more nearly ready for admission into the Union as a State. Upon the soil of Kansas, therefore, the contending political forces had already begun to pour themselves, in a tide of extraordinary immigration from the older States. The lawless and often bloody scenes enacting there were doing much to convince the nation that the days of mere argument, and even of mere balloting, were passing away. A most peaceful generation, born and nurtured in the hatred of all violence, was undergoing a process of habituation to the idea of brute force as a tribunal of final appeal.

The sympathies of the anti-slavery men of Illinois were strongly appealed to on behalf of their downtrodden brethren of Kansas. In 1856, not long after the Senatorial election, an association was formed of the more zealous Abolitionists, with the view of emigrating, armed and equipped, to what was practically the seat of civil war. Among these was Mr. Herndon, and his purpose could not long be concealed from his wiser, cooler, more far-seeing law-partner. By some means Mr. Lincoln got the hot-heads together, and addressed them in the name of peace, law, order, and sound common-sense. He not only convinced them that their purpose was wrong, but that it was foolish, and persuaded them to stay at home. He joined them, however, in sending pecuniary and other contri

butions to the assistance of the actual Kansas settlers who were suffering in consequence of the political disorders.

He himself had been too wise, in his most earnest utterances, to avow himself an extreme Abolitionist. In his mind, the country had other interests than those of the black man. The future of the white race was also entitled to some consideration. The best good of all forbade indifference to the welfare of any part.

The several factions into which the opposition to the controlling party was still divided in Illinois were in a state of seeming blindness to their approaching consolidation; but Mr. Lincoln was not. Each coterie put forth eager but vain efforts to secure the adhesion to their number of the man who contained in himself more power than any or all of them. They compelled him to exercise great care. So reticent was he, so cautious not to make any answer which should seem to identify his name with any clique or segment, that even Mr. Herndon felt himself called upon to labor with his friend in the interest of the cause of freedom. He lent him antislavery books and papers; read him extracts from speeches and lectures; strove in every way to arouse in him a more aggressive hatred of slavery and a disposition to fight against it. Mr. Lincoln might well have said to him, as he had said to Mr. Jayne: "You don't begin to know the half of it, and that's enough."

He said very little, however, and his friend persisted in considering him unsettled in his political mind.

The radicals of every name were shortly summoned to a State convention to be held at Bloomington, and a "call" was circulated in Springfield for a county convention for the selec tion of delegates. There still remained a curious doubt as to the course Mr. Lincoln would pursue. He was absent when the "call" was passed around for signatures, but Mr. Herndon, zealously determined to make him commit himself, signed his name to it for him. Nothing could add to Mr. Herndon's own account of the transaction and its consequences. He says: