by our government to filch from them their territory, and yet, if they did not vote supplies to carry it on, and support our soldiers in their dangerous exposures, they were called unpatriotic and barbarous. In a speech in Congress, January 12, 1848, Mr. Lincoln, in a cool, clear and exact statement of the facts in the case, showed how the country stood in relation to the war, and how it placed the whig party.

On the first of June, 1848, the whig convention met at Philadelphia, to nominate a candidate for the presidency. Henry Clay was the idol of the party, but he had been defeated. Mr. Lincoln had seen him and lost his former confidence in him. Mr. Lincoln was in the convention, and did not approve of nominating Clay.

General Taylor, a nominal whig, though he had not voted for forty years, had come back from the Mexican war covered with the glory of a military chieftain. His career had been a succession of victories, which the democratic papers all over the country had magnified into most magnificent and brilliant exploits of military genius. His dispatches had been the simple, unpretending facts of what his army had done. Their modesty was praised as much as his military genius. He was the herothe Cincinnatus of the hour. The democrats made his glory and fired the country with it, and the whigs in convention caught it upon their banner. They nominated General Zachary Taylor as their candidate. Of course it put them in an awkward position to glorify General Taylor and denounce the war that made him their candidate and was sure to elect him. But this was their good luck, and Lincoln urged his nomination and that they should make the most of the tide in his favor. He counseled saying as little as possible about the beginning of the war which the whigs were in no way responsible for.

Mr. Lincoln took up the canvass in behalf of General Taylor with great zeal, going first from Washington to New England and making several speeches there. He canvassed Illinois and in his own district gave Taylor almost as large a vote as he had got himself when elected to Congress.

Early in the winter Mr. Lincoln returned to Congress, and

went as a recognized anti-slavery man, who would do as much against slavery as the constitution would permit him to do. He was a constitutional man, loyal to that great charter of American liberty as to the rights of man and conscience. In his first session in Congress he had voted forty-two times for the Wilmot Proviso, had stood with John Quincy Adams stoutly for the right of petition, and was counted as an ally of Joshua R. Geddings and men of his convictions and conscience. During this session he prepared a bill for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia with the consent of the people of the District. But some of the people who agreed to his plan at first, withdrew from it, and time was not permitted him to begin anew, and so his bill fell through before coming to a vote. His service in Congress closed with honor and profit to himself.

As Mr. Lincoln became more acquainted with educated men. and society, he felt more intensely his lack of early education; and he returned from Washington to his home resolved to make up for his deficiency as much as he could. So he took up the study of geometry and went through the first six books of Euclid. His success among educated men surprised him. He felt a constant gratitude to them for their appreciation of his motives and their kindness to him. He was always self-deprecating, and often wondered how others could think so well of him. This self-deprecation was greatly magnified by his conscious lack of an education.

RETURN TO HIS PROFESSION.

On his return from Congress Mr. Lincoln took up again the practice of his profession; and now for a number of years had one of the most peaceful and enjoyable portions of his life. He had attained a conspicuous place among his countrymen; had formed a large acquaintance among the great and good; had put his original obscurity far behind him; had in his profession a way to obtain an honorable living and be useful; had a wife and little family; had books, friends, appreciative society; all of which he enjoyed in their full measure.

By the distinguished lawyers who knew him well and practiced with him, he was profoundly appreciated as a man and lawyer. Judge Caton, said of him: "He applied the principles of law to the transactions of men with great clearness and precision. He was a close reasoner. He reasoned by analogy and enforced his views by apt illustrations. His mode of speaking was generally of a plain and unimpassioned character, and yet he was the author of some of the most beautiful and eloquent passages in our language, which, if collected, would form a valuable contribution to American literature. The most punctilious honor ever marked his professional and private life."

Who will ever know what society, literature, learning, the country and humanity, have failed to have that is rich and grand, because his great soul was cheated of an education by the hard fortune of his early years?

Judge Breese, said of him: "For my single self, I have for a quarter of a century, regarded Mr. Lincoln as the finest lawyer I ever knew, and of a professional bearing so high toned and honorable as justly, and without derogating from the claims of others, entitling him to be presented to the claims of the profession, as a model well worthy the closest imitation."

Judge Drummond, said of him: "I have no hesitation in saying that he was one of the ablest lawyers I have ever known. No intelligent man who ever watched Mr. Lincoln through a hard-contested case at the bar ever questioned his great ability. With a probity of character known of all, with an intuitive insight into the human heart, with a clearness of statement which was itself an argument, with uncommon power and felicity of illustration-often it is true, of a plain and homely kind— and with that sincerity and earnestness of manner which carried conviction, he was, perhaps, one of the most successful jury lawyers we have ever had in the state. He always tried a case fairly and honestly. He never, intentionally, misrepresented the evidence of a witness, or the argument of an opponent. He met both squarely, and, if he could not explain the one, or answer the other, he admitted it. He never misstated the law according to his own intelligent view of it."

In 1852, on the death of Henry Clay, Mr. Lincoln delivered a eulogy on that famous statesman of his day. The eulogy was calm, and probably quite less enthusiastic than he would have given before his visit to Ashland. The closing words are worth repeating here. "Such a man the times have demanded, and such, in the providence of God, was given us. But he is gone. Let us strive to deserve, as far as mortals may, the continued care of Divine Providence, trusting that in future national emergencies, he will not fail to provide us the instruments of safety and security." No instrument, since the days of Washington, has seemed to the lovers of our republic, so providential as Mr. Lincoln himself. To no other have his words such a profound application. And it seems almost certain, that in the generations to come, he will be held as the preserver of the country of which Washington was the father.

But great national events were in progress. The northern section of the country was rapidly overgrowing the southern. The great northwest was inviting settlements. The western prairies were attracting the hardy and enterprising from the eastern states and Europe. It was becoming clear that the balance of power was soon to be in the north. The political leaders of the south who were devoted to slavery, were getting uneasy and absolute in their determination to rule or ruin. In 1850, the free state of California was admitted to the Union. There was no balancing slave-state to come in with it. California had grown to a free state on territory won from Mexico by the pro-slavery war. This was a result not in the original calculation.

In the whig canvass for General Scott, in 1852, Mr. Lincoln took but little interest, and General Pierce, who ran against him, was elected.

In 1854, the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which shut slavery out of the whole northwest, was abrogated, with a view to force slavery into Kansas and Nebraska. This was an act of bad faith, which stirred Mr. Lincoln deeply. Northern democrats, particularly Mr. Douglas, acted in complicity with the south in the matter, and this stirred northern blood far more

than the action of southern men. It was understood that Mr. Douglas was the author of the Kansas-Nebraska bill, which opened those territories to slavery. It made him unpopular with many of his friends, and when he went home to Chicago and attempted to make a speech in defense of his work, he was prevented.

A few weeks after, at the autumnal fair at Springfield, he made, before a great audience of representative men from all parts of the state, his defense of the Kansas-Nebraska bill, which Mr. Lincoln heard, and the next day replied to in one of the most masterly efforts of his life. He spoke three hours, but no complete report of his speech was made. The press, which sympathized with him, gave enthusiastic accounts of it. It is certain that it inaugurated a new political era in Illinois. A few days after, Mr. Douglas spoke again in Peoria, and Mr. Lincoln followed him with much the same effect. This speech was reported. Mr. Douglas retired, and they held no more debates that season. But a mighty wave of thought and emotion was started among the people which would not stop.

On May 29, 1856, a convention was held at Bloomington, Illinois, of all men in the state opposed to the democratic party. Mr. Lincoln was present, and made a most powerful speech. One biographer says of it: "Never was an audience more completely electrified by human eloquence. Again and again during its delivery they sprang to their feet and upon the benches, and testified by long continued shouts and the waving of hats how deeply the speaker had wrought upon their minds and hearts. It fused the mass of hitherto incongruous elements into perfect homogeneity; and from that day to the present they have worked together in fraternal union." The republican party was there organized in Illinois. It sent delegates to the next national convention with Mr. Lincoln's name as a candidate for the vicepresidency. But Mr. Dayton was nominated with Mr. John C. Fremont, and Mr. Lincoln was only thus formally introduced to the nation.

The Kansas-Nebraska excitement grew rapidly. Mr. Lincoln, like all northern men of his opinions and character, grew