1854, for a seat in the house, but he preferred to make a canvass for the senate. He was a popular man and after his nomination for the senate, his course toward me was so personal, that I determined to become an independent Democratic candidate.

In a discussion at Stanton, he claimed that the states of the Union were equal and that the citizens of states, in which slavery existed, had a right to remove into the territories with their slaves and hold them, as slaves until the people, with the sanction of congress, formed a state government, when slavery might be tolerated, or excluded from the new state.

He attacked the "Popular Sovereignty" doctrine of Douglas as "illogical and absurd," which it was. I had trouble in defending myself for opposing the Nebraska bill: At that time the prejudice against "Abolitionists" was bitter and affected the minds of three-fourths of the voters. I was only remotely influenced in my course by hostility to slavery, although I avowed my opposition to the institution: I was chiefly concerned by the fact that the repeal of the Missouri Compromise re-opened the slavery question. In February, 1854, at the special session of the legislature, I had offered the resolutions heretofore copied, which at once expressed my opinions as well as my apprehensions. I reiterated the substances of these resolutions in all the speeches I made in the district and assailed Major Burke for his opposition to the compromise of 1850 and the result was, that I was elected by about two hundred majority.

I have already expressed my great regard for Mr. Douglas, and up to the time to which I refer, I regarded him as my friend-two or three weeks before the election, he came into the district and addressed the people of Greene county at Carrollton, and from that place came to Carlinville, my home. I came into Carlinville from Jerseyville, where I had attended court after sundown on the same day and hearing that Judge Douglas was at the hotel, I called upon him and we spent two hours or more, in earnest conversation of the purport, that Judge Douglas was anxious that the legislature would elect

a United States senator to succeed Gen. James Shields, I should agree to attend the legislative caucus and vote for whoever might be nominated as a candidate for senator.

On the other hand, I insisted that as I was an independent Democratic candidate for state senator, in opposition to the Nebraska bill, and especially opposed to that measure as a test of party orthodoxy, he ought to agree that the Democratic caucus should pass no resolutions favoring that measure. Our discussion was somewhat heated, both of us obstinate, and he finally said to me "You may join the Abolitionists if you choose to do so, but if you do, there are enough patriotic Whigs to take your place and elect Shields," I answered, "I will beat Burke in spite of all you can do against me. You will fix the imputation of Abolitionism upon me and by that means try to beat me. We have fought the Whigs together, you now promise yourself that they will take my place and help elect Shields, I will fight you until you are defeated and have learned to value your friends." I kept my word. I think Judge Douglas had no more active, or earnest political enemy than I was from that time until I met him in Washington in February, 1861.

After the November election in 1854, I saw Mr. Lincoln frequently and told him that I was elected as an Anti-Nebraska Democrat and could not vote for him but would be compelled to vote for a Democrat.

When the legislature met in 1855, the Anti-Nebraska Democrats were represented by Judd, Cook, Baker, Allen and myself; we held a separate caucus. Among the names considered by us for United States senator were those of Underwood, Judd, Cook, Ogden, Williams and Trumbull, but we finally selected Trumbull, and I placed him in nomination in the joint session. He received but five votes on the first ballot. After several ballots Mr. Lincoln came into the hall and insisted that his name should be dropped and his friends should vote for Trumbull.

All but fifteen did so, and the ballot stood, Lincoln 15Trumbull 36-and Matteson, (who had taken the place of Shields on the balloting,) 47.

As the next ballot was called, Judge Stephen T. Logan, Lincoln's close friend, arose and announced the purpose of the remaining Whigs to vote for Trumbull, which they did, he receiving fifty-one votes, just enough to elect him. General Henderson did vote for Mr. Lincoln, "nine times" but at the suggestion of Judge Logan, voted for Trumbull.

We kept our faith with Mr. Lincoln three years afterwards, for when Elihu B. Washburn came to Springfield in 1858, as a messenger from Horace Greeley and proposed to drop Mr. Lincoln and take up Mr. Douglas for senator, we, the Anti-Nebraska Democrats opposed him and in June, 1858, we concurred in the declaration that Mr. Lincoln was the nominee of the Republican convention as its "first and only candidate for senator."

There is no doubt that the Dred-Scott decision, and the assertion that congress had no right to prohibit slavery in the territories of Nebraska and Kansas, gave birth to the Republican party.

The men who attended the convention of 1856 were sincere and earnest in their opposition to the extension of slavery into free territories. They were "anti-slavery men" but they conceded the right to the states where slavery existed by law, to maintain it. And such were the opinions of the Republican party until Mr. Lincoln, in the exercise of the war power proclaimed the Emancipation of the slaves in all but the excepted states. And I had the satisfaction of "driving the last nail into the coffin of slavery" while commanding the Department of Kentucky in 1865-66.

The convention passed resolutions that,"Congress possessed the power to abolish slavery in the territories, and should exercise that power to prevent its extension into territories heretofore free;"

"Opposition to the repeal of the Missouri Compromise," and in "favor of making Kansas and Nebraska free states."

In the afternoon preceding the assemblage of the convention, Gen. John T. Farnsworth and I delivered speeches

from the steps of the Pike House; General Farnsworth had been a Democrat.

Mr. Lincoln, who was a member of the committee to report nominations to be ratified by the convention, made a speech before the convention, which was of marvelous power and force and fully vindicated the new movement in opposition to the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, and then the convention adjourned.

In 1860, we were true to Mr. Lincoln, and Mr. Judd was chairman of his campaign committee in this state.

In securing Mr. Lincoln's nomination in 1860, three of your fellow citizens, Judge David Davis, Jesse W. Fell and Leonard Swett, were the recognized leaders of the Lincoln forces, Judge Davis, by common consent, being the commander-in-chief.

Gov. William H. Bissell.

Col. Bissell, the nominee for governor at this convention, died a few weeks before the expiration of his term of office. The great event of the war of the rebellion and the great names of Lincoln, Grant, Palmer, Yates, Logan and the other Illinois heroes of the war of the rebellion have overshadowed the fame of one of the best and noblest of our Illinois governors of whom we have only very meagre accounts. At the request of the Historical Society Mr. Frank Elliott, of Evanston, Illinois, has prepared for this book the following sketch of Gov. Bissell.

WILLIAM H. BISSELL.

FRANK M. ELLIOTT, OF EVANSTON, ILL.

The name of Governor Bissell is not a familiar one to the politician of today, but if any young student wishes to place before him the conditions existing in the period just before our Civil War; if he wishes to know of the intense hatred and the political devotion to parties of those days, he will nowhere