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The conflict in Kansas had gone on with vigor. Andrew H. Reeder, of Pennsylvania, the first Governor, took the helm before the end of the year (1854), and ordered the election of a Legislature and of a delegate to Congress in the following March. The proslavery party prevailed, largely through the votes of Missourians who crossed the border solely to deposit their ballots, and through fraudulent returns. The Governor rejected the returned members in six districts and ordered new elections therein, with the result that in nearly every instance anti-slavery men were chosen. These, however, were unhesitatingly voted out of their seats and the first returned members voted in.

The interesting body so constituted proceeded to pass bills for the establishment of slavery and the suppression of Abolitionism. Reeder having vetoed certain enactments which he thought to be atrocious, they were passed over his veto, and the Legislature reciprocated his opposition by asking President Pierce to remove him. The request was granted with alacrity. Ex-Governor Shannon, of Ohio, succeeded Governor Reeder on the 1st of September.

There was no more intent spectator of the opening scenes of the Kansas drama than Lincoln. Some of his reflections on the occasion appear in the following passages of a letter to his Kentucky friend, Speed (August 24, 1855):

You know what a poor correspondent I am. Ever since I received your very agreeable letter of the 22d of May I have been intending to write you in answer to it. You suggest that in political action now you and I would differ. I suppose we would; not quite as much, however, as you may think. You know I dislike slavery, and you fully admit the

abstract wrong of it. So far there is no cause of difference. But you say that sooner than yield your legal rights to the slave, especially at the bidding of those who are not themselves interested, you would see the Union dissolved. I am not aware than any one is bidding you to yield that rightvery certainly I am not. I leave that matter entirely to yourself. I also acknowledge your rights and my obligations under the Constitution in regard to slaves. I confess I hate to see the poor creatures hunted down, and caught and carried back to their stripes and unrequited toils; but I bite my lip and keep quiet.

In 1841 you and I had together a tedious low-water trip on a steamboat from Louisville to St. Louis. You may remember, as I well do, that from Louisville to the mouth of the Ohio there were on board ten or a dozen slaves shackled together with irons. That sight was a continued torment to me, and I see something like it every time I touch the Ohio, or any other slave border. It is not fair for you to assume that I have no interest in a thing which has, and continually exercises, the power of making me miserable. You ought rather to appreciate how much the great body of the Northern people do crucify their feelings, in order to maintain their loyalty to the Constitution and the Union.

I do oppose the extension of slavery because my judgment and feeling so prompt me; but I am under no obligations to the contrary. If for this you and I must differ, differ we must. You say, if you were President, you would send an army, and hang the leaders of the Missouri outrages upon the Kansas elections; still, if Kansas fairly votes herself a slave State, she must be admitted, or the Union must be dissolved. But how if she votes herself a slave State unfairly that is, by the very means for which you say you You think Stringfellow & Co. would hang men? ought to be hung; and yet, at the next Presidential election, you will vote for the exact type and representative of Stringfellow. The slave-breeders and slave-traders are a small, odious and detested class among you, and yet in politics they dictate the course of all of you, and are as completely your masters as you are the master of your own negroes.

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You inquire where I now stand. That is a disputed point. I think I am a Whig; but others say there are no

Whigs, and that I am an Abolitionist. When I was at Washington I voted for the Wilmot proviso as good as forty times, and I never heard of any one attempting to un-Whig me for that. I now do no more that oppose the extension of slavery. I am not a Know-Nothing that is certain. How could I be? How can any one who abhors the oppression of negroes be in favor of degrading classes of white people? Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation we began by declaring that "all men are created equal." We now practically read it, "All men are created equal except negroes." When the Know-Nothings get control, it would read, "All men are created equal except negroes and foreigners and Catholics." When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy.

Mary will probably pass a day or two in Louisville in October. My kindest regards to Mrs. Speed. On the leading subject of this letter I have more of her sympathy than I have of yours; and yet let me say I am

Your friend forever,

A. LINCOLN.

The Free-State men in Kansas, in mass meeting at Big Springs, soon after Governor Shannon's arrival, denounced the alleged Legislature as a fraud, and repudiated all its works. Consequently they did not participate in the election, ordered by that body for the Ist of October, for the choice of a Delegate to Congress — as, in fact, it would seem to have been quite useless to do. They were not intending, however, to submit quietly to the yoke, and they had assembled for business. They effected a party organization, and took measures for a convention, which met at Topeka on the 19th of September. It was determined that a Delegate should be voted for on the second Tuesday of October. Thus it

happened that the Slave-State party elected John W. Whitfield (Indian agent, from Tennessee) as Delegate on one day, and the Free-State party the week after — of course irregularly — elected ex-Governor Reeder, who had remained in the Territory after being superseded. This party also held a convention to frame a State Constitution, at Topeka, on the 23d of October. Under the Free-State Constitution so framed, admission into the Union was to be sought. It had been practically a condition of civil war from the first, with actual bloodshed, as well as bolts and counter-bolts of legislation and convention, and continual tumult. As yet, too, there had been but the beginning of sorrows. The actual settlers who wanted a Free-State government were now greatly in the majority, but their adversaries had not only the advantage of being nearer their base, as earlier remarked by Lincoln, but also of having the strong arm of the central power at Washington on their side.

The Congress which met in December, 1855, was without a Democratic majority in the lower house. After a long struggle, Nathaniel P. Banks, of Massachusetts, Anti-Nebraska and American, was chosen Speaker. A committee (Messrs. W. A. Howard, of Michigan, John Sherman, of Ohio, and Mordecai Oliver, of Missouri) was appointed to investigate the affairs of Kansas. The voluminous report of the majority of this committee figured prominently in the next Presidential canvass. Whitfield took his seat as Delegate, and held it to the end of that Congress.

Such was the situation when a preliminary meeting of delegates from the free States, representing those

opposed to the Administration and its Kansas policy, was held at Pittsburg on Washington's birthday, 1856, for consultation and action in regard to the organization of a consolidated opposition party. This convention issued an address, written by Mr. Raymond, of the New York Times, and called a National Convention of the Republican" party, to be held at Philadelphia on the 17th of June following, for the nomination of candidates for President and Vice-President.

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The first Republican State Convention, under that name, in Illinois was held at Bloomington on the 29th of May, 1856. Lincoln took part in forming the new organization, and made at this convention an earnest and stimulating speech, of which there was but a brief report. This was the chief event of the occasion, aside from the appointment of delegates to the national convention at Philadelphia.

The Democratic National Convention met at Cincinnati on the 2d of June, and nominated James Buchanan for President (Douglas having 121 votes and Buchanan 168 on the last ballot) and John C. Breckinridge for Vice-President. At Philadelphia, the Republicans nominated Colonel John C. Fremont (who had 359 votes, and Justice John McLean 196,) for President, and William L. Dayton (who had 259 votes, and Abraham Lincoln 110,) for Vice-President. Lincoln had not been a candidate for the place, and was surprised to learn that he had been so complimented. The American party nominated Millard Fillmore for President and Andrew J. Donelson for Vice-President. These candidates were indorsed by a thin national convention

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