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words and their clearest force of description to lay before the reader in plain, intelligible shape the marvelous achievements of this tireless spirit, who never hesitated in any undertaking. He was light and lithe of limb and build, in form and appearance almost running to a shadow. He had clear perceptions, with an open expression of countenance and a clear bluish-gray eye that can scarcely be described. Although light, his muscles were strong, and withal there was a sense and presence of matured manhood about him that missed nothing. One said of him that "he was graceful and easy in all his movements, so wiry and active a man that you never ceased liking him. He had a few pounds of bones and muscles, and the rest of him was all motion and strung-up nerves." He was always full of business, and seldom by his own fault missed his reckonings. He made a fortune, and lost it by the failure of others in the wild, greedy, and moneyless panic of 1837. He entirely recovered from this, and accumulated another of ten times what any other man then controlled in our part of the country, and saved it when most men were losing all they had in the repeated panic of 1857. He loved Lincoln until his sentiment for him seemed to be his highest ambition, if not a passion. He had the best of practical sense and adaptable means and powers of doing business. He surely had capacity in trading, dealing, or speculating far ahead of any one in our Central Illinois region, where these were then waiting stronger use and development.

He had means beyond limit for any undertaking in our new and unimproved condition of the country. His neverneglected ambition was to prosper Mr. Lincoln. In 1859-60 he grasped the opportunity in the most persevering and tireless way to help make him President. To this end he brought the full measure of his talents and means, honorably and diligently pursued. We will need to take up the story in its course, unwind the tale of our modern Warwick,

who, in what he did, acted full as well as the first "kingmaker."

Mr. Gridley was not a bit like him in much of his career, but came into the plan to make Mr. Lincoln President in its crucial, most critical beginning, where he helped and followed it to a successful ending, with sleepless and never-flagging energy. This was certain to all those who fully understood the inner workings of that personal movement. That he did all of it is not the story, but that he did much of it, and what no other man was able, or appeared to be able and ready to do, is the strength of the tale.

In the preceding there is much that recalls the belief and opinions of the best-informed men of the time, that the concentration and power of wealth in the hands of a few thousand, as represented in the slaveholding system, was an alarming and threatening danger to free institutions, and so to free or democratic government, and necessarily as much against the freedom, personal and civil rights under our system of law, based on the rights of the people.

On these ideas there were no differences between Douglas and Lincoln, nor in their parties. All agreed that the vast concentration of wealth in the hands of a few was a formidable danger, whether it was accumulated and held in the hands of a few slaveholders or greedy men in other labor-oppressing and grasping systems. The effect was always the same and directly against the rights of the people. Continuing so, what would those good men think of our situation, if living to-day, when the accumulation of vast and unheard-of sums of the few has more than quadrupled the increase of all Europe put together in the past thirty years?

VOL. II.-23.

TH

CHAPTER XLI.

HE closely-contested Presidential campaign in Illinois of 1856 and the senatorial campaign of 1858 were both characterized by their strenuous disputes on slavery. It was a subject that involved the life and perpetuity of the Republic; and the State became the center of the anti-slavery agitation from the campaign of 1858 to the inauguration of Mr. Lincoln in 1861 and the opening of the Civil War. Something of the interest and magnitude of the work may be gathered when we understand that both parties in 1858 held about one hundred and fifty day-meetings each, with an attendance averaging ten thousand, or an aggregate attendance of one and a half millions for each party. This was when the population of the State was a little less than two millions. This estimate is exclusive of the joint debates in 1858 heretofore considered.

These facts give evidence of healthy and well stirred-up public sentiment on the serious condition that aroused such general interest that the people went almost unanimously to hear the strong discussion, not only of one, but of both parties. During the campaign of 1858 it was common to have meetings where the attendance was over twenty thousand. In many of them the people were too numerous to be counted by any means at hand, arriving and going in so many ways. At Bloomington, Springfield, Urbana, and Danville there were Republican mass-meetings so large that there were four speakers addressing multitudes at the same time, where Lincoln, Lovejoy, Trumbull, and others were the speakers.

About the same time, Douglas, Logan, and others addressed two of the largest outdoor mass-meetings ever held at Champaign and Decatur. There were lawyers in almost every county-seat, and others who were able and inclined to carry on these interesting public discussions. Men of both parties, as their capacity ran, drew their thousands; and from this there were smaller meetings held in every town and in almost every schoolhouse in the State.

In something of this manner the people of the free States in every community discussed and came to a general understanding of the differences between the North and South on slavery and correlative public questions. The nature and effects of the slave system, its extent and relation to labor and property values, both in the North and South, were thoroughly considered. In this way public discussion became a school of civil government, including commerce, revenue, and various systems of taxation, suggesting the means and arousing the people to renewed energy in the conduct of every industrial pursuit, positively so in the urgent need of more and better means of transportation.

These meetings, general talks, and intercourse led to progress and improvement in every branch of living, in every society or community, so that, although the cause that brought them together and the progress of the discussion was full of alarm and danger, their mingling together and planning for the public good stimulated them to renewed energy and better knowledge of what could and what should be done to save the country and civilization in every proper way. These were all necessary. The general acquaintance, the common understanding, the expectation, and the preparation, as well as increased knowledge, were everywhere apparent when the crisis came that plunged us into war. Then every one realized that the five or ten years' better acquaintance with these subjects was of incalculable value to millions. Without it they would have been helpless; but in

this preparation they were schooled and ready to work at once in whatever came to be their duty. Neither must it be understood that this political activity and excited interest in public affairs caused or suggested neglect or in any way retarded our work and progress, but it increased the zeal and energy of every one in his life work, kindling courage and patriotism as the fields and valleys responded with increasing yield to the husbandman's increasing strength, skilled labor, and enlightened methods of industry.

Our people were masters in labor, as well as eager and multitudinous in politics. They had the thrift and energy that got them up and in the field, shops, and business places at sunrise, where, in honest toil and hammering blows, they pounded out success and prosperity so real as to have the produce, the grain, the cattle and hogs to feed millions.

While they were attending mass-meetings by counties, and ripening their minds in civil affairs as the grain matures and yellows for the sickle, they were making material progress beyond comparison. No one had ever seen an invasion like it, where husbandry, the arts, sciences, and social facilities were developing a basin as fertile as the Nile and as large as Europe. This increase in three States of the Central Mississippi region is shown as follows:

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