Illinois might find it in the line of their duty to aid in returning him to the senate. The republicans of Illinois, however, felt that they knew the man better, and that their duty did not lie in that direction at all. They urged that Mr. Douglas did not agree with them in a single point of doctrine—that he had differed with the administration merely on a question of fact, whether the Lecompton Constitution was the act and deed of the people of Kansas. They averred that he adhered to the outrageous decision of the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott case—that a negro cannot sue in a United States court, and that Congress cannot prohibit slavery in the territories-and that they dared not trust Mr. Douglas. To this it was replied that Mr. Douglas was coming over to the republican party as fast as he could carry his followers with him, and that his extraordinary hold upon the masses of the democratic party at the North would enable him to bring to the republican ranks a reinforcement which would prove irresistible at the approaching presidential election. The rejoinder of the Illinois republicans was that the probability of any sincere change of faith in Mr. Douglas was too remote and uncertain to warrant them in abandoning an organization which had been formed to advance a great and just cause, and which, once dissolved, could not be re-formed in time to render efficient service in the election of 1860. Quite a controversy grew out of the differences between the Illinois republicans and their eastern advisers, and no small degree of bitterness was engendered. The party in Illinois was nearly a unit in its views, but the controversy had undoubtedly the influence to loosen the hold of the organization upon some of its members. The effect was temporary, however, for the issues of the campaign were so thoroughly discussed, and the discussions themselves were so generally listened to, or read in the journals of the day, that it is doubtful whether Mr. Douglas gained any appreciable advantage from the controversy, or the sympathy of republicans in other states.

The republican state convention met at Springfield on the sixteenth of June, nearly two months after the assembling of

the democratic convention. tion, there was but little interest in the proceedings. For state officers, only a treasurer and a superintendent of public instruction were to be nominated, and, besides these officers, only the members of a legislature were to be elected. Nearly six hundred delegates were present in the convention, and they, with their alternates, completed a round thousand of earnest men, gathered from all parts of the state. The fifth resolution adopted on this occasion covers the grand issue made with Judge Douglas.

Aside from the senatorial ques

"That while we deprecate all interference on the part of political organizations with the judiciary, if such action is limited to its appropriate sphere, yet we cannot refrain from expressing our condemnation of the principles and tendencies of the extra-judicial opinions of a majority of the Judges of the Supreme Court of the United States, in the matter of Dred Scott, wherein the political heresy is put forth that the federal constitution extends slavery into all the territories of the Republic, and so maintains it that neither Congress nor the people through the territorial legislature can by law abolish it. We hold that Congress possesses sovereign power over the territories, and has the right to govern and control them whilst they remain in a territorial condition, and that it is the duty of the general government to protect the territories from the curse of slavery, and to preserve the public domain for the occupation of free men and free labor; and we declare that no power on earth can carry and maintain slavery in the states against the will of their people and the provisions of their constitutions and laws; and we fully indorse the recent decision of the Supreme Court of our own state, which declares that property in persons is repugnant to the Constitution and laws of Illinois, and that all persons within its jurisdiction are presumed to be free, and that slavery, where it exists, is a municipal regulation, without any extra-territorial operation."

If there were men in the convention who had at first been affected by the representations of the republicans in the eastern states, the action of the democratic convention which met in April had restored their determination to stand by their party and its candidates. That convention had denounced the republicans, had indorsed the old democratic platform of the party adopted at Cincinnati in national convention, and, while it approved the course of Senator Douglas, failed to

say one word in condemnation of the course and principles, or, rather, lack of principles, of Mr. Buchanan and his administration. The republican convention had hardly assembled before it was discovered that there was entire unanimity for Mr. Lincoln, as their nominee in opposition to Mr. Douglas. When a banner from Chicago was borne into the convention, inscribed with the words-" Cook County for Abraham Lincoln "the whole convention rose to its feet, and gave three cheers for the candidate whom it was proposed to place in the field in opposition to the champion of "popular sovereignty." That the convention was embarrassed and doubtful as to results, there is no question. Mr. Douglas had the sympathy of many republicans abroad, he had attacked a hated administration with great vigor and persistence, he had the enmity of that administration, and, in the state, he had the advantage of an unjust apportionment of legislative districts, by which not less than ninety-three thousand people were virtually disfranchised. Though it was not according to the wish of many of the members of the convention to make a formal nomination for the senate, yet, as Mr. Douglas had already declared that it was the intention to use Mr. Lincoln's name during the canvass, and to adopt another name in the legislature, the following resolution was brought forward, and unanimously adopted:

"That Hon. ABRAHAM LINCOLN is our first and only choice for United States Senator, to fill the vacancy about to be created by the expiration of Mr. Douglas' term of office."

The anxiety of the convention to see and hear their chosen man and champion was intense; and frequent calls were made for him during the day. That Mr. Lincoln expected the nomination, and had prepared himself for it, is evident. It was announced at length that he would address the members of the convention at the State House in the evening. During the day, he was busy in giving the finishing touches to his speech, which had been prepared with unusual care, every *Scripps, p. 24.

sentence having been carefully weighed. He had put into it what he believed to be the real issues of the campaign, and had laid out in it the ground upon which he proposed to stand, and fight his battles. Before going to the hall, he entered his law office, where Mr. Herndon, his partner, was sitting, and turned the key against all intrusion. Taking out his manuscript, he read to Mr. Herndon the first paragraph of his speech, and asked him for his opinion of it. Mr. Herndon replied that it was all true, but he doubted whether it was good policy to give it utterance at that time. "That makes no difference," responded Mr. Lincoln. "It is the truth, and the nation is entitled to it." Then, alluding to a quotation which he had made from the Bible-"A house divided against itself cannot stand," he said that he wished to give an illustration familiar to all, "that he who reads may run." "The proposition is true," said Mr. Lincoln, "and has been true for six thousand years, and I will deliver it as it is written."

At eight o'clock, the hall of the House of Representatives was filled to its utmost capacity, and when Mr. Lincoln appeared he was received with the most tumultuous applause. The speech which he made on that occasion is so full of meaning, so fraught with prophecy, so keen in its analysis, so irresistible in its logic, so profoundly intelligent concerning the politics of the time, and, withal, so condensed in the expression of every part, that no proper idea can be given of it through any description or abbreviation. It must be given entire. Mr. Lincoln said:

"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 augmented. 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.

"Have we no tendency to the latter condition?

"Let any one who doubts, carefully contemplate that now almost complete legal combination-piece of machinery, so to speak-compounded of the Nebraska doctrine, and the Dred Scott decision. Let him consider not only what work the machinery is adapted to do, and how well adapted; but also, let him study the history of its construction, and trace, if he can, or rather fail, if he can, to trace the evidences of design, and concert of action among its chief architects, from the beginning.

"The new year of 1854 found slavery excluded from more than half the states by State Constitutions, and from most of the national territory by Congressional prohibition. Four days later, commenced the struggle which ended in repealing that Congressional prohibition. This opened all the national territory to slavery, and was the first point gained.

"But, so far, Congress only had acted; and an indorsement by the people, real or apparent, was indispensable, to save the point already gained, and give chance for more.

"This necessity had not been overlooked; but had been provided for, as well as might be, in the notable argument of 'squatter sovereignty,' otherwise called 'sacred right of self-government,' which latter phrase, though expressive of the only rightful basis of any government, was so perverted in this attempted use of it as to amount to just this: That if any one man choose to enslave another, no third man shall be allowed to object. That argument was incorporated into the Nebraska bill itself, in the language which follows: 'It being the true intent and meaning of this act not to legislate slavery into any territory or state, nor to exclude it therefrom; but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to the Constitution of the United States.' Then opened the roar of loose declamation in favor of 'squatter sovereignty, and 'sacred right of self-government.' 'But,' said opposition members, 'let us amend the bill so as to expressly declare that the people of the territory may exclude slavery.' 'Not we,' said the friends of the measure; and down they voted the amendment.

"While the Nebraska bill was passing through Congress, a law case involving the question of a negro's freedom, by reason of his owner having voluntarily taken him first into a free state and then into a territory covered by the Congressional prohibition, and held him as a slave