This committee was composed of tine Fire of is were slaveholders, and these made the major repor The others, not being slaveholders, reported in the bill. The ground taken by the majomy vis slaves were regarded as property by the GodsuTUONG. and when taken for public service should be patie as property. The principle involved in the bill fore, was the same one which the sareboden be sought in so many ways to maintain As theT SOLUTIO afterwards to have it established by a densuot of the Supreme Court, so now they sought to hame in r nized by Congress, and Mr. Lingoz orgoset an Doar gress as heartily as be afterwards qpoel n von I took the more covert, but no less dangerous shape of a judicial dictum.

On other great questions which ame before Com Mr. Lincoln, being a Whig, took the ground vieEL VI held by the great body of his party. Es benered 1 the right of Congress to make appropriations for the improvement of rivers and harbors. He was in favor of giving the public landa, not to gentilator bis 19 actual occupants and cultivators, at se low rate a presible; and he was in favor of a prosentive tariff wid abolishing the franking privilege

In 1848 General Taylor was nominated for the Presi dency; Mr. Lincoln was a member of the convents at Philadelphia, by which be was nominated and can vassed his own State in his faron. He was also in New England during the campaign. attended the State Convention of Massachusetts, and made a speech at New Bedford, which is still remembered Illinois, Lowever, cast her vote for General Cass. In 1849 Mr. Lincoln

was the Whig candidate in Illinois for United States Senator, but without success-the Democrats having the control of the State, which they retained until the conflict arising out of the Nebraska Bill, in 1854.

During the intervening period Mr. Lincoln took no prominent part in politics, but remained at home in the practice of his profession. We may be sure, however, that he watched closely the course of public events. He had fought Slavery often enough to know what it was, and what the animus of its supporters was. It is not, therefore, likely that he was taken very much by surprise when the Nebraska Bill was introduced, and the proposition was made by Stephen A. Douglas to repeal that very Missouri Compromise which he had declared to be "a sacred thing, which no ruthless hand would ever be reckless enough to disturb."

The Nebraska Bill was passed May 22, 1854, and its passage gave new and increased force to the popular feeling in favor of freedom which the proposition to repeal the Missouri Compromise had excited, and everywhere the friends of freedom gathered themselves together and rallied round her banner, to meet the conflict which was plainly now closely impending, forced upon the people by the grasping ambition of the slaveholders. The political campaign of that year in Illinois was one of the severest ever known. It was intensified by the fact that a United States Senator was to be chosen by the Legislature then to be elected, to fill the place of Shields, who had voted with Douglas in favor of the Nebraska Bill.

Mr. Lincoln took a prominent part in this campaign.

He met Judge Douglas before the peti I m x sions, the only ones when the Tale voll wesen I such a meeting. The first time is the Sunt Fur at Springfield. on October 4 is dens considered to have been the greatest event of the vo canvass. Mr. Lincoln opened the derassin mi a his clear and eloquent yet boOAT VIT EDUed the tergiversations of which his opposes had been p and the fallacy of his preters fe his present route

Mr. Douglas had always claimed to home moneir the repeal of the Missouri Comunale benne be sus tained the “great principle" of Popular Stream and desired that the inhabitants of Kausse di Ne braska should govern themselves, & Der ve vl able to do. The fallacy of drawing from these premi ses the conclusion that they therefore should Love the right to establish Slavery there was most deny and conclusively exposed by Mr. Lincoln, so this no one could thereafter be misled by it, unless he was a willing dupe of pro-slavery sophistry.

“My distinguished friend" said be spit is an insult to the emigrants of Kansas and Nebraska to suppose that they are not able to govern themselves. We must not slur over an argument of this kind because it happens to tickle the ear. It must be met and sswered. I admit that the emigrant to Kansas ani Nebraska is competent to govern himself but I deny his right to govern any other person without that per

son's consent."

The two opponents met again at Peoria. We believe it is universally admitted that on both of these occasions Mr. Lincoln had decidedly the advantage. The

most horrible hue. As these rumors spread abroad they were received as gospel truth, and a feverish desire for vengeance seized upon the infatuated populace, whilst only prison bars prevented a horrible death at the hands of a mob. The events were heralded in the county papers, painted in highest colors, accompanied by rejoicing over the certainty of punishment being meted out to the guilty party. The prisoner, overwhelmed by the circumstances under which he found himself placed, fell into a melancholy condition bordering on despair, and the widowed mother, looking through her tears, saw no cause for hope from earthly aid.

"At this juncture, the widow received a letter from Mr. Lincoln, volunteering his services in an effort to save the youth from the impending stroke. Gladly was his aid accepted, although it seemed impossible for even his sagacity to prevail in such a desperate case; but the heart of the attorney was in his work, and he set about it with a will that knew no such word as fail. Feeling that the poisoned condition of the public mind was such as to preclude the possibility of impanelling an impartial jury in the court having jurisdiction, he procured a change of venue and a postponement of the trial. He then went studiously to work unravelling the history of the case, and satisfied himself that his client was the victim of malice, and that the statements of the accuser were a tissue of falsehoods.

"When the trial was called on, the prisoner, pale and emaciated, with hopelessness written on every feature, and accompanied by his halfhoping, half-despairing mother-whose only hope was in a mother's belief of her son's innocence, in the justice of the God she worshipped, and in the noble counsel, who, without hope of fee or reward upon earth, had undertaken the cause-took his seat in the prisoners' box, and with a 'stony firmness' listened to the reading of the indictment. Lincoln sat quietly by, whilst the large auditory looked on him as though wondering what he could say in defence of one whose guilt they regarded as certain. The examination of the witnesses for the State was begun, and a well-arranged mass of evidence, circumstantial and positive, was introduced, which seemed to impale the prisoner beyond the possibility of extrication. The counsel for the defence propounded but few questions, and those of a character which excited no uneasiness on the part of the prosecutor-merely, in most cases, requiring the main witnesses to be definite as to the time and place. When the evidence of the prosecution was ended, Lincoln introduced a few witnesses to remove some erroneous impressions in regard to the previ

ous character of his client, who, though somewhat rowdyish, had never been known to commit a vicious act; and to show that a greater degree of ill-feeling existed between the accuser and the accused, than the accused and the deceased.

"The prosecutor felt that the case was a clear one, and his opening speech was brief and formal. Lincoln arose, while a deathly silence pervaded the vast audience, and in a clear and moderate tone began his argument. Slowly and carefully he reviewed the testimony, pointing out the hitherto unobserved discrepancies in the statements of the principal witness. That which had seemed plain and plausible he made to appear crooked as a serpent's path. The witness had stated that the affair took place at a certain hour in the evening, and that, by the aid of the brightly shining moon, he saw the prisoner inflict the death-blow with a slung-shot. Mr. Lincoln showed that at the hour referred to the moon had not yet appeared above the horizon, and consequently the whole tale was a fabrication.

"An almost instantaneous change seemed to have been wrought in the minds of his auditors, and the verdict of 'not guilty' was at the end of every tongue. But the advocate was not content with this intellectual achievement. His whole being had for months been bound up in this work of gratitude and mercy, and as the lava of the overcharged crater bursts from its imprisonment, so great thoughts and burning words leaped forth from the soul of the eloquent Lincoln. He drew a picture of the perjurer so horrid and ghastly, that the accuser could sit under it no longer, but reeled and staggered from the courtroom, whilst the audience fancied they could see the brand upon his brow. Then in words of thrilling pathos Lincoln appealed to the jurors as fathers of some who might become fatherless, and as husbands of wives who might be widowed, to yield to no previous impressions, no ill-founded prejudice, but to do his client justice; and as he alluded to the debt of gratitude which he owed the boy's sire, tears were seen to fall from many eyes unused to weep.

"It was near night when he concluded, by saying that if justice was done as he believed it would be-before the sun should set, it would shine upon his client a free man. The jury retired, and the court adjourned for the day. Half an hour had not elapsed, when, as the officers of the court and the volunteer attorney sat at the tea-table of their hotel, a messenger announced that the jury had returned to their seats. All repaired immediately to the court-house, and whilst the prisoner was being brought from the jail, the court-room was filled to overflow