man's manner, if not his words, said: "The result will not be doubtful."

The turmoil over the Speakership ended in the election (by Republican and American votes) of ex-Governor William Pennington, of New Jersey, on the first day of February (1860). John W. Forney, an AntiLecompton Democrat, Clerk of the previous House, was re-elected as the Opposition candidate.

It was in December, while this strife was at its height in Washington, that Lincoln proceeded to fill an engagement, made some weeks before, to address the people of Kansas, in Leavenworth, Atchison, Doniphan, and other towns. He received a very cordial welcome as one of their foremost champions. His remarks, in the main, were like in tenor to his speeches elsewhere this year. At Leavenworth, "shooting over the line " into Missouri, he was reported as using some words hardly compatible with his habitual tone of moderation, though not inconsistent in principle with his fixed views of which this is a notable example:

But you Democrats are for the Union; and you greatly fear the success of the Republicans would destroy the Union. Why? Do the Republicans declare against the Union? Nothing like it. Your own statement of it is that if the Black Republicans elect a President, you "won't stand it." You will break up the Union. If we shall constitutionally elect a President, it will be our duty to see that you submit. Old John Brown has been executed for treason against a State. We can not object, even though he agreed with us in thinking slavery wrong. That can not excuse violence, bloodshed and treason. It could avail him nothing that he might think himself right. So, if we constitutionally elect a President, and therefore you undertake to destroy the Union, it will be our duty to deal with you as old John Brown has been dealt with. We shall try to do our duty. We hope

and believe that in no section will a majority so act as to render such extreme measures necessary.*

In the Democratic Senate there were signs as portentous as in the Opposition House, though less manifest in their purport.

Mr. Davis, of Mississippi, (February 2, 1860,) offered a series of political resolutions, after the manner of Calhoun, the vital points of which were (first) the denial of any power in Congress or a Territorial Legislature "to annul or impair the constitutional right of any citizen of the United States to take his slave property into the common Territories;" and (second) the affirmation that "it is the duty of the Federal Government there to afford for that, as for other species of property, the needful protection; and if experience should at any time prove that the judiciary does not possess power to insure adequate protection, it will then become the duty of Congress to supply such deficiency." The resolutions did not omit, of course, the usual denunciation of the doctrines of the Republican party. In a body so strongly Democratic as the Senate was at this time, such expression was easily obtainable without prolonged discussion. But the main purpose of Mr. Davis was discipline within the Democratic party. His objective point was Douglas.

In October, Lincoln had been invited to deliver a lecture in Rev. Henry Ward Beecher's church, in Brooklyn, and consented, with the condition that he should speak on a political theme. It was quite satisfactory to him that the lecture committee ultimately

*Not in Complete Works" (N. & H.), but published by the press at the time.

chose the Cooper Institute Hall as the place for his appearance. On the evening of the 27th of February the appointed hour found him in the presence of an audience notable in character and numbers. William Cullen Bryant presided, and many distinguished men sat on the platform.

The subject of Lincoln's address was thus stated: "In his speech last autumn, at Columbus, Ohio, as reported in the New York Times, Senator Douglas said: Our fathers, when they framed the government under which we live, understood this question just as well, and even better, than we do now.' I fully indorse this, and I adopt it as a text for this discourse. I so adopt it, because it furnishes a precise and agreed starting point for a discussion between Republicans and that wing of the Democracy headed by Senator Douglas. It simply leaves the inquiry: What was the understanding those fathers had of the question mentioned?"

He proceeded to show from the historic record how the thirty-nine signers of the Constitution, framed in 1787, individually, so far as ascertainable from their subsequent acts, regarded the question at issue, namely, "Does the proper division of local from Federal authority, or anything in the Constitution, forbid our Federal Government to control as to slavery in our Federal Territories?" Twenty-one of the thirty-nine, as he points out in detail, sustained by their recorded acts the position taken by the Republican party in regard to the exclusion of slavery from the Territories, and only two voted against such exclusion by Congress. He then considers the position of the seventy-six members of Congress who framed the twelve amendments soon

after adopted. This was the First Congress, which also framed the ordinance excluding slavery from the Northwestern Territory. No possible escape is left from the conclusion that the Republicans, and not their opponents, were true to the doctrine of the fathers as to the power of Congress on this subject. The remainder of the speech is a calm appeal to "the Southern people," setting forth the aims and purposes of the Republicans should they come into power. famous speech may be fitly regarded either as the finale of a closing period of his life, or as the prelude to that on which he was unconsciously entering. Its publication in the New York papers and general circulation at the East had an influence on coming events.

This

From New York he was asked to extend his tour still eastward, taking part in the political canvass in New Hampshire, where a State election was to occur in March, and in Connecticut and Rhode Island, whose elections were in April. With this request he complied, after tarrying a few days in New York and Brooklyn, receiving attentions from friends and forming new acquaintances.

In New England he spoke at Hartford on the 5th of March, and next day at New Haven; later at Meriden, Norwich and Bridgeport, and at one or two places in Rhode Island. He then went into New Hampshire, where he delivered speeches at Concord and Manchester, and visited his son Robert, a student at Phillips Academy in Exeter, preparing for admission to Harvard University, which he entered the ensuing summer. Everywhere agreeable demonstrations and hearty applause greeted Lincoln's public appearance. He was already personally known in New England, and now he

socially met, for the first time, many who were impressed by his intellectual powers, and whose hearts he gained.

He returned home from this tour on the 14th of March, and was soon after busy with an important suit at Chicago, the last in which he was to be actively engaged as counsel. This was a case which may be classed among the celebrated, involving the title to certain valuable real estate - land which the waves of Lake Michigan had gradually extended in one quarter by removal of soil from another, without the intervention of the one party or the consent of the other. The suit, that of Jones against Johnson, was tried before Judge Drummond, of the United States District Court. The plaintiff, who retained Lincoln in addition to other counsel, after once losing the case, now had the satisfaction of obtaining a decision in his favor.

Lincoln was at home with his family three days before the meeting of the Republican National Convention at Chicago, where its delegates were already gathering. It was a quiet Sunday, the like of which, to him, would never return. Said Mrs. Lincoln a week

or two later, speaking of this occasion: "We had before us a New York illustrated weekly, in which a number of Presidential candidates were represented in a doublepage group, Mr. Seward's portrait being conspicuous over all, as that of the coming man. Mr. Lincoln's picture was there, such as it was, and couldn't well have been made more dismal. Half seriously I said to him: 'A look at that face is enough to put an end to hope." " But a bad wood-cut mattered little now, and the suspense would soon be over.