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. 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

more and more resolute in the republican doctrine to stop the spread of slavery, and lead it into its present constitutional localities. And with this resolution grew a stronger and stronger opposition to slavery itself.

THE GREAT DEBATE.

In 1858 began the celebrated campaign for the United States senatorship between Mr. Douglas and Mr. Lincoln. Mr. Lincoln began his discussion of the great subject then before the country in June, at the state republican convention in Springfield, with the following almost prophetic opening:

"If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could better judge what to do and how to do it. We are now far into the fifth year since a policy was initiated with the avowed object and confident promise of putting an end to slavery agitation. Under the operation of that policy that agitation has not only not ceased, but has constantly aug mented. In my opinion, it will not cease until a crisis shall have been reached and passed. A house divided against itself cannot stand.' I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved. I do not expect the house to fall, but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction, or its advocates will push it forward till it shall become alike lawful in all the states, old as well as new, north as well as south."

The speech went on to show what the advocates of slavery, then in charge of the government, had done to open the territories to slavery, to prevent them from rejecting slavery; to carry slaves into the free states, and what they were preparing to do, to open the way to force slavery, by a Supreme Court decision into the free states. But this result must be prevented, he contended, by putting the government into new hands which would put it back into its original condition in which it should

move toward the ultimate extinction of slavery. He closed in these words: "We shall not fail-if we stand firm, we shall not fail. Wise counsels may accelerate or mistakes delay it, but sooner or later, the victory is sure to come."

He made two or three other speeches, and Mr. Douglas made some, to one or two of which he replied, when he made a proposition to Mr. Douglas to canvass the state together. But Mr. Douglas objected on the ground that his arrangements were too far made, but proposed to join with him in a discussion at seven places in different parts of the states. This arrangement was made and these discussions were held, awakening an immense interest among the people, not only of Illinois, but of the whole country. The great issue of that time was laid bare before the people. The discussion went over the whole country as a republican campaign document, and was read and talked of till the whole reading north became acquainted with the issue as there presented.

Mr. Lincoln lost the election to the Senate, but he gained the ear and confidence of the republican north. The discussion consolidated the republican party, intensified the northern opposition to slavery, and still more the opposition to the party in power which was using all its energy to carry out the grasping purposes of a few radical pro-slavery leaders. The ultimate result of the discussion was that Mr. Lincoln won the presidency, the destruction of slavery, a country all free, and a martyrdom that put his name where it stands among the "immortal few that were not born to die."

In 1859, at the republican state convention at Decatur, two rails from a lot of three thousand which Mr. Lincoln had made when he first came to the state, were brought into the convention where he was soon to speak, considerably ornamented, and bearing this inscription: "Abraham Lincoln, the 'rail-splitter,' candidate for the presidency in 1860.”

During the latter part of 1859 and the early part of 1860, Mr. Lincoln traveled into Kansas, Ohio, New York and New England. His visit in Kansas was an ovation. The people knew they had a friend in this great-hearted man, and they

came in immense throngs to see and hear him. They knew him, his principles and power, already, by reading his discussions, and they wanted to look at his person and hear his voice. In Ohio he found a hearty reception, and his speeches kindled the usual enthusiasm. He went on to New York, under an arrangement with Reverend Henry Ward Beecher, to speak in Plymouth church. He heard Mr. Beecher, which was a great pleasure to him; but found that arrangements had been made for him to speak in Cooper Institute. He was anxious about his speech. He knew his lack of polish; his crude appearance; his want of education; now to come before the educated, polished and strong men of this great city, was a trial to his courage. The great hall was packed with brains, culture, worth. The magnates covered the platform. William Cullen Bryant, whose poems he had read and admired, introduced him. As he rose and stood in his great height, six feet and four inches, in that dazzling throng, he was bewildered. What business had he, a poor, awkward, uneducated man of the wild west, to stand there and expect to be heard with patience? He was embarrassed and humiliated; but he had something to say, and he must say it. He began with a low voice and a slow utterance. He laid down his iniatory propositions with great deliberation. The great audience listened with breathless attention. It was something new, a new man, manner and statement; it was clear, convincing, brilliant. He had got but little way on in his terse and strong work, before a vigorous round of applause assured him that he was understood and appreciated. He now began to be at home; his manner became more free and confident; his voice filled and yielded readily to the sentiment. He became master of the situation, and went through to the close carrying his great audience with him in rapturous admiration of his argument, rhetoric and unique and wonderful illustration. The whole performance was so original, incisive, marrowsearching and powerful that it became the great political and literary feast of the season. The papers spread it and eulogized it; the people read it and talked about it. The writer of this sketch well remembers the enthusiasm he felt in reading the

speech, and in the conviction that a great and brilliant star had risen in the political firmament.

Mr. Lincoln made many valuable acquaintances in New York, who served him and the country well in his time of sore need.

He had a son in Harvard college whom he went to see; and while there he made speeches in different places, always with similar results. It was a study to him to know why educated New York and New England so readily accepted and enjoyed his humble efforts at public speaking; why college presidents and professors came to hear him and set him before their students as an example in many particulars. Perhaps never in his life had he been more appreciated than in the speeches made on this eastern trip. They were the best he had ever made. He was really all the while improving. They told mightily for his future and for his country. His manner of treating the southern people in these speeches was very acceptable to the people of the north. He was fair, candid, kind-even affectionate toward them. He was southern born; his wife was southern born and reared. His heart was large, and he really loved everybody. This good nature so pervaded his speeches that they won upon the public. Then they were intensely logical and searching. They went to the roots of right and wrong; they magnified just principles; loved freedom and hated slavery; they were put in simple but choice language; they were full of nut-shell statements of important facts and principles; and, beyond all this, they were unique in their quaint and crystaline originality.

THE COMING STORM.

During all this great discussion, which was getting more and more intense and thorough, there were constant threats of secession and disunion from the southern leaders. The northern people were but little moved by these threats. They counted them as the bravado of the fire-eating radicals in which the solid southern people took little part. They believed the people of the south loved the union and would stand by it. They could