productions of Iowa will force them to go to St. Louis if this bridge is removed. The meetings in St. Louis are connected with this case only as some witnesses are in it and thus has some prejudice added color to their testimony."

The last thing that would be pleasing to him, Mr. Lincoln said, would be to have one of these great channels extending almost from where it never freezes to where it never thaws blocked up, but there is a travel from east to west whose demands are not less important than those of the river. It is growing larger and larger, building up new countries with a rapidity never before seen in the history of the world.

He alluded to the astonishing growth of Illinois, having grown within his memory to a population of a million and a half; to Iowa and the other young rising communities of the northwest.

"This current of travel," said he, "has its rights as well as that of north and south. If the river had not the advantage in priority and legislation we could enter into free competition with it and we could surpass it. This particular railroad line has a great importance and the statement of its business during a little less than a year shows this importance. It is in evidence that from September 8th, 1856, to August 8th, 1857, 12,586 freight cars and 74,179 passengers passed over this bridge. Navigation was closed four days short of four months last year, and during this time while the river was of no use this road and bridge were valuable. There is, too, a considerable portion of time when floating or thin ice makes the river useless while the bridge is as useful as ever. This shows that this bridge must be treated with respect in this court

and is not to be kicked about with contempt. The other day Judge Wead alluded to the strike of the contending interest and even a dissolution of the Union. The proper mode for all parties in this affair is to "live and let live" and then we will find a cessation of this trouble about the bridge. What mood were the steamboat men in when this bridge was burned? Why, there was a shouting and ringing of bells and whistling on all the boats as it fell. It was a jubilee, a greater celebration than follows an excited election.

Mr. Lincoln then proceeded to discuss the evidence in the case. This consumed the rest of the day.

On the next morning, September 14, 1857, Mr. Lincoln resumed his discussion, in which he designed to show that the fault lay with the management of the damaged boat, and was not due to faulty construction of the bridge. A bridge with piers, he declared, was a necessity in railroad engineering for getting across the Mississippi river. There was, he said, no practicability in the project of building a tunnel under the river, for there "is not a tunnel that is a successful project in this world. A suspension bridge. cannot be built so high but that the chimneys of the boats will grow up till they cannot pass. The steamboat men will take pains to make them grow. The cars of a railroad cannot without immense expense rise high enough to get even with a suspension bridge or go low enough to get through a tunnel; such expense is unreasonable.

"The plaintiffs have to establish that the bridge is a material obstruction and that they have managed their boat with reasonable care and skill. As to the last point, high winds have nothing to

do with it, for it was not a windy day. They must show due skill and care. Difficulties going down stream will not do, for they were going up stream. Difficulties with barges, in tow, have nothing to do with the accident, for they had no barge.'

Mr. Lincoln said he had much more to say, many things he could suggest to the jury, but he wished to close to save time.

Adjudication Rather Than Legislation the Proper Method for Settlement of Certain Legal Controversies,

NOTES OF ARGUMENT IN A RAILROAD CASE. JUNE 15, 1858.

Legislation and adjudication must follow and conform to the progress of society. The progress of society now begins to produce cases of the transfer for debts of the entire property of railroad corporations; and to enable transferees to use and enjoy the transferred property, legislation and adjudication begin to be necessary. Shall this class of legislation just now beginning with us be general or special? Section ten of our Constitution requires that it should be general, if possible. [Read the section.] Special legislation always trenches upon the judicial department, and in so far violates section two of the Constitution. [Read it.]

Just reasoning-policy-is in favor of general legislation, else the legislature will be loaded down with the investigation of smaller cases-a work which the courts ought to perform, and can perform much more perfectly. How can the

legislature rightly decide the facts between P. and B. and S. C. and Co. ?

It is said that under a general law, whenever a railroad company got tired of its debts it may transfer fraudulently to get rid of them. So they may-so may individuals; and which, the legislature or the courts, is best suited to try the question of fraud in either case?

It is said, if a purchaser have acquired legal rights, let him not be robbed of them; but if he needs legislation, let him submit to just terms to obtain it.

Let him, say we, have general law in advance (guarded in every possible way against fraud), so that when he acquires a legal right he will have no occasion to wait for additional legislation; and if he has practised fraud, let the courts so decide.

"A House Divided Against Itself Cannot Stand."

THE

SPEECH IN ACCEPTANCE OF NOMINATION AS UNITED STATES SENATOR, MADE AT CLOSE OF THE REPUBLICAN STATE CONVENTION, SPRINGFIELD, ILL. JUNE 16, 1858.

Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Convention: 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 combinationpiece 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