in what respect they did consider all men equal-equal in certain ‘inalienable rights,' among which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. They said this and this they meant. They did not mean to assert the obvious untruth that all were then actually enjoying that equality, nor yet that they were about to confer such a boon. In fact, they had no power to confer that equality. They meant simply to declare the right, so that the enjoyment of it might follow as fast as circumstances should permit. They meant to set up a standard maxim for free society which should be familiar to all and be revered by all, constantly looking to, constantly laboring for and even though never perfectly attained, constantly approximating and thereby constantly spreading, deepening in its influence and augmenting the happiness and value of life to all people of all colors everywhere."

The purposes and intention of making Kansas a slave State, which Lincoln had foreseen and foretold, was now in full progress. Under the KansasNebraska bill a pro-slavery Legislature was elected, mostly by non-residents. The free-soil men, who numbered three-fourths of the population, refused to participate on account of the illegality of the election. This Legislature met at Lecompton and passed an Act providing for the election of delegates to a convention to form a State Constitution. In the election of the members to this convention the free-soil men took no part, on the ground that the Legislature which ordered it had no legal authority. Only 2,000 votes were polled, whereas the legal voters in the Territory were not less than 10,000. The convention met and a pro-slavery constitution was formed. The history of its fate will be incidentally mentioned in a succeeding chapter. The great struggle for freedom and the non-extension of slavery was now approaching and near at hand, and here may properly be stated the political standing and connections which Lincoln and Douglas sustained and supported in this great national contest.

The Senatorial term of Douglas was now about to terminate, and he desired that his senatorial action should be indorsed and approved by the people of his State, and he be returned again to the Senate. But events in Kansas had taken a course he had not anticipated or desired. The burden of the pro-slavery constitution was pressing heavily on his shoulders, and he at first endeavored to shift the load on the Republican party. In this attempt, in a speech delivered at Springfield, speaking of Kansas, he said: law under which the delegates to the convention are now about to be elected, is fair and just in its provisions, and if any portion of the inhabitants acting under the advice of political leaders shall absent themselves from the polls, on that party must rest the responsibility." By these words, Douglas was fully committed to whatever might be the action and conclusions of the con

"The

vention. He had freely and voluntarily given the slave power what it had not asked for in the Kansas-Nebraska bill; he had offered and given the slave power the privilege and opportunity of making slave States out of territory set apart for freedom, if it could; and now the people were about to hold him responsible for the offspring of his own creation. In his desire to conciliate and please the slave power, he had divided his own party in his own State, and he was not slow to observe that his own political success in the future was in danger. He was soon assured that he could not place the burden of the Kansas obloquy upon the Republicans, and that his only prospect of re-election to the Senate required him to take issue with the Democratic administration in this case and assume the championship of the antiLecompton party.

As the most notable and important period in Lincoln's history was his contest with Douglas for a seat in the United States Senate in 1858, and for the Presidency in 1860, it may be proper here to say something further in reference to Douglas himself:

His career in his adopted State as a political aspirant had been one of remarkable success. He had from his first entry into public life acquired the confidence and support of his party, and long had he been honored and recognized as its leader, and had secured the power and influence second to none in his State. In the Senate and national councils he had achieved a national reputation of which he might well be proud. On all important questions of national significance he wielded a force and influence excelled by none; he had labored for and done much in promoting and advancing the interests and prosperity of his adopted State; to the material interests of and to the success, advancement and preservation of the power of his party he was fully committed and devoted, and his party had always given him its entire confidence and support. The national reputation that Douglas had secured and achieved encouraged his friends to present his name as a candidate for the Presidency in the Democratic Convention in 1852; in that convention he received ninetytwo votes. In the Democratic Convention of 1856 he was again a candidate, receiving 122 votes out of 296, and the nomination of Buchanan was only effected by Douglas requesting his friends to withdraw his name from the contest. These popular manifestations of favor had inspired Douglas with the hope that in 1860 he would be the nominee of the Democratic party for President. His Kansas-Nebraska bill was intended by him as a popular measure for effect in that direction; it was a bid for the votes of the South, and the doctrine of popular sovereignty was intended to make the provisions of the bill acceptable to the Democracy of the free States. The success

Douglas had not been unnoticed by Lincoln; he had admiration for his tact, and respect for his power with the people.

In one of Lincoln's original manuscripts, speaking of Douglas as Senator, he said: "I effect no contempt for the high eminence he has reached-so reached that the oppressed of my species might have shared with the elevation. I would rather stand on that eminence than wear the richest crown that ever pressed a monarch's brow." Noble words, worthy of him who exemplified and uttered them.

The adoption of the Lecompton constitution by the pro-slavery vote in Kansas had dispelled the illusion of popular sovereignty in the free States, as it was fully demonstrated that it was not the act and deed of the people of Kansas. At this time the administration at Washington had committed itself in favor of the Lecompton constitution, and no apparent opposition was manifested against it by the leaders of the Democratic party. Before Douglas left Illinois for Washington it was said that he would not support the administration in its approval of the Lecompton constitution, nor are we prepared to say that Douglas was not actuated by the best of motives in this resolution. To oppose that constitution was not inconsistent with his doctrine of popular sovereignty when taken by itself, for it was clear and certain that this constitution was not the act and deed of the citizens of Kansas. It is proper here to remark that Douglas saw now clearly that he could not carry the Lecompton constitution through the senatorial contest in his State, then impending, and he saw also that his opposition to the Lecompton fraud would take from the Republican party some of its best capital and lessen the efforts of the opposition to defeat him. On taking his seat in the Senate on his arrival at the national capital, Douglas startled many of his Democratic friends by taking his stand against the administration on the Lecompton question. In opposition to that slavery constitution he labored and voted with the Republicans. It was a stand-a step not often taken by politicians; it lost him the support of the South in his Presidential aspirations, and it was his only salvation in his senatorial aspiration in his own State. It was a bold step, and we may not say that it was not a patriotic one, but taken in all its connections, it was a remarkable one. He it was who, by his Kansas-Nebraska bill, had opened this free territory to this outrage, and he was now about to, by his own action and efforts, strangle his own legitimate offspring at its christening. In the final vote in the Senate, Douglas, with three other Democrats, voted against the Lecompton constitution, and in the House twenty Democrats voted the same way; the votes defeated the measure. Douglas, in his action on this measure and against the administration was endorsed by most all the Democrats of his own State, and the administration, in its efforts to defeat

him in his senatorial canvass was only able to carry a small faction against him.

This stand taken by Douglas, while he lost the support of a few administration adherents in his own State, rendered him so popular with the Republicans in the eastern States that many of them not knowing the causes and motives by which he was actuated, desired and recommended that the Republican party of Illinois should aid in returning him to the United States Senate. While this act of Douglas led the Republicans of Illinois to feel grateful for his aid in defeating this iniquitous measure, they well knew that his course was moved in that direction not by any love he had for the Republican party. Douglas was only at variance with the administration on a point of difference as to what was the act and deed of the citizens of Kansas, and the Republicans of his State, knowing well the cause and motives of his disagreement with the administration, saw in the future no probability of any further agreement or aid in the support of the measures and principles of their party, and events in the near future proved the correctness of their conclusions.

CHAPTER XIII.

SENATORIAL CONTEST OF LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS.

Before the close of the session of Congress in 1857-8, Douglas returned home to look after his senatorial interests and prepare for the most important and closely contested canvass of his political life. He was a candidate for re-election to the United States Senate, and the Democratic State Convention of Illinois of April 21, 1858, indorsed his course and votes against the Lecompton constitution. His popularity and power over his party in his own State was fully manifested during this campaign, when all the efforts of the administration, combined with the Republicans, failed to defeat him.

The Republican State Convention met at Springfield on the 16th of June, two months after the meeting of the Democratic Convention. The convention had hardly assembled before it was evident that there was an entire unanimity for Lincoln as its nominee for the Senate in opposition to Douglas. After some preliminary business, the following resolution was introduced 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."

Lincoln was prepared for this action of the convention, and posters soon announced that he would address his fellow citizens in the State House in the evening. The hall of the House of Representatives, at 8 o'clock P. M., was filled to its utmost capacity, and Lincoln was received with unbounded applause. The desire to hear Lincoln on this occasion was very great, and his speech, which was listened to with intense interest, occupied three hours in its delivery. It made no appeal to partisan prejudices, contained no tricks to win political applause. He stated the real issue of the political contest, and laid out the ground work upon which he proposed to stand and fight the battle for freedom. The first point he presented was, that in his opinion our government could not endure permanently half slave and half free. He controverted the position of the friends of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill as being