. i

A

1

1

He appears to have parduigets even then in bed which M.. Linon himself avow i.that the later wa· desi gued by the Dispenser of all things to elp apie pie in the world's history; an 1 he 50 I that ons dings had trod his poilie il charactor f Toonungton Convention was called Re, qui, ".." and the Repucan party of Iinols was there formed: it most notid Abolitionists were in it, the spirit of the Lovelape was present; and Mr. Hern lon hví a right so sey, that, if 'i. Lincoln was not an Abolitionist, he was tending → Abolitions ward" so surely that no doubt could be entert; food of t ultimate destination. But, after all, the resolutions t.. convention were very "moderate." They merely deno

the airstration for its course regarding Kansas, stag latin a

the repeal of the Missouri Compromise as an act of bad faith, and opposed" the extension of slavery into Territories heretofore free." It was surely not because Mr. Lincoln was present, and aiding at the passage of such resolutions, that Mr. Herndon and others thereafter regarded him as a “newborn" Abolitionist. It must have been the general warmth of his speech against the South, his manifest detestation of slaveholders and slaveholding, as exhibited in his words, which led them to believe that his feelings at least, if not his opinions, were similar to theirs. But the reader will see, nevertheless, as we get along in our history, that the Bloomington resolutions were the actual standard of Mr. Lincoln's views; that he continued to express his determination to maintain the rights of the Slave States under the Constitution, and to make conspicuously plain his abhorrence of negro suffrage and negro equality. He certainly disliked the Southern politicians very much; but even that sentiment, growing daily more fierce and ominous in the masses of the new party, was in his case counterbalanced by his prejudices or his caution, and he never saw the day when he would willingly have clothed the negroes with political privileges.

Notwithstanding the conservative, character of the resolutions, the proceedings of the Bloomington Convention were alarming to a portion of the community, and seem to have found little favor with the people of Springfield. About five days after its adjournment, Herndon and Lincoln bethought them of holding a ratification meeting. Mr. Herndon got out huge posters, announcing the event, and employed a band of musicians to parade the streets and "drum up a crowd." As the hour of meeting drew near, he "lit up the Court House with many blazes," rung the bells, and blew a horn. At seven o'clock the meeting should have been called to order, but it turned out to be extremely slim. There was nobody present, with all those brilliant lights, but A. Lincoln, W. H. Herndon, and John Pain. "When Lincoln came into the courtroom," says the bill-poster and horn-blower of this great demonstration," he came with a sadness and a sense of the