party and his title to preferment. Never indulging in underhanded methods nor seeking to undermine his rivals, he yet did all an honorable and shrewd man could do to bring about the desired result.

He has been frequently represented as sitting quietly down and laying hold of the honors, which Providence showered upon him, without an effort on his part to secure them. But this is a mistake; political preferment comes to few men without effort and solicitation, in this age of the world, and Lincoln formed no exception to the rule.

After the great debates the idea of presenting him as a presidential candidate came to many of his friends, some of whom approached him on the subject. At first he opposed the suggestion; "What is the use of talking of me," he said, "when we have such men as Seward and Charles Sumner, and every body knows them, while scarcely anybody outside of Illinois knows me? Besides, as a matter of justice, is it not due them?"

His friends admitted the claims

of these eminent men upon the party but showed that, on account of their radical opinions and utterances, they could never be available candidates; while he had kept himself clear from all political entanglements and was not known to be openly an Abolitionist, and his political creed of "opposition to the further extension of slavery" was so simple and moderate that it commended itself to both wings of the party. As time passed on, he became more and more deeply absorbed in the political life of the country and began to neglect seriously his law busi

ness.

In the autumn of 1859, Senator Douglas was invited

to address the Democracy at Columbus and Cincinnati during the campaign preceding the State election. There was a magic in the very name of Douglas. It was only necessary to announce that he would speak to fill the largest halls to be secured in any part of the country. So, here in Ohio, he was greeted with the usual display of enthusiasm and his speeches were able and effective. But the name of Lincoln had been too closely associated with that of Douglas to be forgotten now, and the Republicans made arrangements for him to speak in both the cities, where Douglas had been. His audiences were large and attentive, and contained many representatives of the opposing political party. Many went out of mere curiosity to see and hear the man who had proved himself to be more than the peer of Douglas, but all acknowledged his ability as an orator and his political sagacity. His work in the State contributed, in no small degree, to the Republican victory which followed.

At Cincinnati there were many pro-slavery men from Kentucky in the audience and to them he addressed part of his speech. In the directness and force of his arguments, and his earnest and logical exposition of party principles, his speech had not been excelled by any previous effort.

In concluding that part of his speech, which was addressed to the Kentuckians, he asked the following pointed questions. "I often hear it intimated that you intend to divide the Union whenever a Republican, or anything like it, is elected President of the United States. . . . I want to know what you are going to do with your half of it? Are you going to

split the Ohio down through and push your half off a piece? Or are you going to keep it right alongside of us outrageous fellows? Or are you going to build up a wall some way between your country and ours, by which that movable property of yours can't come over here any more, to the danger of your losing it? Do you think you can better yourselves on that subject, by leaving us here under no obligation, whatever, to return those specimens of your movable property which came hither? You have divided the Union because we would not do right with you, as you think, upon that subject; when we cease to be under obligations to do anything for you, how much better off do you you think will be? Will you make war upon us and kill us all? Why, gentlemen, I think you are as gallant and brave men as live, that you can fight as bravely in a good cause, as any other people living; that you have shown yourselves capable of this upon various occasions; but, man for man, you are not better than we are, and there are not so many of you as there are of us. You will never make much of a hand at whipping us. If we were fewer in numbers than you I think that you could whip us; if we were equal it would likely be a drawn battle; but being inferior in numbers you will make nothing by attempting to master us."

From time to time reports of the eccentric sayings and doings of the Illinois statesman had found their way East. These had served to amuse the people and excite their curiosity, rather than to impress them with his ability as a party-leader or as a statesman, but when he met and overcame, on the forensic arena, the man who bore the reputation of being the most

finished and forcible debater in the United States Senate, and who had never, up to that time, met his equal, they were surprised, and became possessed with the desire to see and hear the "rude, Western orator." Accordingly he was invited to deliver a lecture in a course to be given in the Plymouth Church, in Brooklyn. He consented, with the understanding that he be permitted to speak upon some political subject. When he arrived in New York, on February 25, 1860, he found, to his surprise, that the arrangements had been changed, and that he was advertised to speak in Cooper Institute.

Never had he bestowed so much study upon a speech before. For months all his thought and research had been directed to its preparation, yet, when he found that he was to speak in New York, and in this famous hall, he expressed the fear that he was not equal to the occasion and that the effort would result in failure.

A large part of the audience had assembled, either from curiosity or to be amused by "the buffoonery of the low-born speaker." But never was an audience more surprised, for instead of jokes and stories, the address was scholarly and refined, and with nothing offensive to the most fastidious taste. The scene was an impressive one, and the audience of a character such as Lincoln had never before addressed. Upon the platform sat many of the leaders of the new party, and the meeting was presided over by William Cullen Bryant, whose voice had early been attuned to the song of freedom.

Mr. Lincoln afterwards remarked that it was worth a journey East "only to see such a man."

Mr.

Bryant introduced the speaker with a flattering reference to his record as an orator. "Mr. Lincoln began his address in a low, monotonous tone, but as he advanced, his quaint but clear voice rang out boldly and distinctly enough for all to hear. His manner was, to a New York audience, a very strange one, but it was captivating. He held the vast meeting spellbound, and as one by one his oddly-expressed, but trenchant and convincing arguments confirmed the soundness of his political theories, the house broke out in wild and prolonged enthusiasm."

A large part of the address was historical, tracing the origin and growth of slavery, the various causes and influences by which it had been affected and then defining its present status, with words of sage advice to the young Republican party. He took as his subject, or rather point of departure, a short passage from one of Senator Douglas's speeches, as follows: "Our fathers, when they framed the government, under which we live, understood this question just as well, and even better than we do now.”

The question referred to by Douglas, he stated concisely as: "Does the proper division of local from federal authority, or anything in the Constitution forbid our federal Government to control, as to slavery, in federal territories? Upon this Senator Douglas holds the affirmation and the Republicans the negative. This affirmative and denial form an issue, and this issue this question-is precisely what the text declares, 'our fathers understood better than we.''

The great Cooper Institute speech made a strong and abiding impression and convinced the people of the East that Lincoln was not only master of the