Dred Scott decision and the Douglas idea of popular sovereignty could not be held together in one man's belief. So he framed questions designed to bring the matter before Douglas in such a shape as to oblige him to admit or deny the abstract right of slavery. Lincoln's friends remonstrated with him. "If you put that question to him," they said, "he will perceive that the answer, giving practical force and effect to the Dred Scott decision in the Territories, inevitably loses him the battle, and he will therefore reply by offering the decision as an abstract principle, but denying its practical application. He will say that the decision is just and right, but it is not to be put into force and effect in the Territories." "If he takes that chute," said Lincoln," he can never be President." Lincoln's anxious friends replied, "That is not your lookout; you are after the Senatorship." "No, gentlemen," he said, "I am killing larger game. The battle of 1860 is worth a hundred of this." It is barely possible that Lincoln even then saw so far ahead as to think he might be the Republican candidate for the Presidency in 1860; but the chances are that he was thinking of the battle for freedom and not of himself. For his time had not yet come. Douglas was elected United States Senator, although the number of votes polled in the election for members of the Legislature were more in Lincoln's favor than in Douglas's; but as there were certain hold-over Senators whose votes were to be counted in the election of United States Senator, the real victory rested with Douglas.

From that contest emerged the great, majestic figure of Abraham Lincoln, easily the leader and champion of the Free-Soil party of the West. The joint debate attracted attention not only in the West, but all over the United States, and wherever the political situation was discussed

The St. Gauden's Statue of Lincoln at Lincoln Park, Chicago.

there was heard the name of Lincoln. His greatest power as a debater was the charm of his individuality. His voice was rather high and shrill, his figure awkward, and his movements ungraceful; but the strong sympathetic element that dominated his nature was always perceptible through everything he said or did.

He was pre-eminently a man of the people, the people's advocate; he was of "the plain people." He understood their joys, their sorrows, their hopes, their ambitions. He entered more fully into their sympathies than any public man who ever lived, and as the contest drew on when the last battle in the field of politics should be fought between freedom and slavery, he gradually became the people's champion as against a great wrong, rather than the champion and advocate of any great moral or political principle. From this time forth we must recognize him as speaking always in the capacity of an attorney for the people. Not only here, but later on, when the war for the Union had begun, and when it was at its height, he always aimed to be the agent and the instrument of the people.

The Republicans of Illinois at their annual convention, in May, 1859, formally presented Lincoln as their candidate for the Presidency in 1860. During the convention some of the pioneers or earlier settlers of the State made their entry into the hall of the convention with the announcement that a Macon County Democrat had a contribution at the door. The curi osity of the delegates was stimulated and they looked to see two ancient fence-rails, decorated with ribbons of red, white, and blue, borne into the hall by Thomas Hanks, on the rails being the inscription, "Abraham Lincoln, the Rail Candidate for the Presidency in 1860. Two rails from a lot of three thousand made in 1830. by Thomas Hanks and Abe Lincoln, whose

father was the first pioneer in Macon County." Years afterward, Lincoln being asked if he supposed those were the real rails that he and Hanks had made, said: "I would not make an affidavit that they were; but Hanks and I did make rails on that piece of ground, although I think I could make better rails now, and I did say that if there were any rails that we had split, I should not wonder if those were the rails." This was as near to verifying the authenticity of those celebrated rails as Lincoln was willing to go, and it may be added that he profoundly disapproved of the whole proceeding.

Early in 1860, Lincoln was invited to speak in Brooklyn, N. Y., but the place of assembly was finally changed to Cooper Union, New York, one of the largest halls in the United States, which was filled to overflowing with a tremendous crowd of people anxious to hear the noted. orator from the West. It is a matter of record that when he rose to speak the people were disappointed. He was ill-dressed; his bushy head, with the stiff, black hair thrown back, was balanced on a long, lean head-stalk, and when he raised his hands in an opening gesture, the impression he gave was one of great awkwardness. The tones of his voice at first were low and husky, and a visible expression of dismay spread over the face of his audience; but very soon he roused himself, and as the magic of his eloquence flowed out, men forgot his appearance, and the man was lost sight of in the orator. may be said that this speech not only was brill

It

iantly successful as an eloquent exposition of the doctrines of the Republican party, but it gave Lincoln great and instant vogue throughout the older States of the Union. His theme was a saying of Douglas, "Our fathers when they framed the government under which we live understood the question (the question of slavery) just as well, and even better, than we do now." His speech was an inquiry into what the fathers who framed the government thought and did about slavery, and all who heard that address marvelled greatly at its logic, its keen analysis, and its lucid and unimpeachable English. The audience at times. was swept by a whirlwind of applause.

The time for holding the Republican National Convention drew on, and that body assembled in Chicago, June 17, 1860. The candidates named were William H. Seward, Abraham Lincoln, Simon Cameron, Salmon P. Chase, Edward Bates, and John McLean. Seward was at first the leading candidate, but the enthusiasm in the galleries and in the crowds that surrounded the vast building where the convention was held was probably a factor in the influences that ultimately compelled the nomination of Lincoln. He was nominated on the third ballot, a large majority of the anti-Seward men finally going over to Lincoln and making his nomination a certainty. The liberal wing of the Democratic party nominated Stephen A. Douglas, and the extreme pro-slavery wing nominated John C. Breckinridge. The campaign that followed was conducted with tremendous