written?" referring to the expression, "A house divided against itself cannot stand."

Mr. Lincoln answered, "I want to use some universally known figure, expressed in simple language as universally known, that may strike home to the minds of men in order to rouse them to the peril of the times. I would rather be defeated with this expression in the speech, and it held up and discussed before the people, than to be victorious without it."

Other friends were called in council. They thought his utterance impolitic and sure to lead to his defeat. Mr. Lincoln heard them patiently. Mr. Herndon was the only one who said:

"Lincoln, deliver it just as it reads, the speech is true, wise, politic and will succeed now or in the future."

Then Mr. Lincoln broke silence and said, "Friends, I have thought about the matter a great deal, have weighed the question well from all corners, and am thoroughly convinced the time has come when it should be uttered, and if it must be, that I must go down because of this speech, then let me go down linked to truth, die in the advocacy of what is right and just. This nation cannot live on injustice. 'A house divided against itself cannot stand,' I say again and again.”

He spoke these words with deep emotion. For him the die was cast. The speech was delivered.

The Democrats thought he had dug his political grave. The conservative Republicans shrugged their shoulders. They thought it presaged defeat. The radical Republicans and the Abolitionists recognized in it the platform

of the coming struggle, and the watchword of victory.

Then followed the campaign with its joint meetings. It was the intellectual combat of Titans. Mighty assemblies gathered all over the state, and the press of the nation reproduced the struggle so that the entire country witnessed the combat. The whole question of slavery, and Mr. Douglas's relation to it, was discussed, in a manner perfectly satisfactory to the friends of freedom and union. In the course of the campaign, with the shrewdness of the great lawyer that he was, Lincoln asked Mr. Douglas for a candid answer to four questions that he might get an answer to one of them. That question was, "Can the people of a United States Territory in any lawful way, against the wishes of any citizen of the United States, exclude slavery from its limits?"

Mr. Douglas answered, "It matters not what way the Supreme Court may hereafter decide as to the abstract question, whether slavery may or may not go into a territory, under the Constitution. The people have the lawful means to introduce or exclude it as they please, for the reason that slavery cannot exist a day or an hour anywhere unless it is supported by local police regulations. Those police regulations can only be established by the local legislature, and if the people are opposed to slavery they will elect representatives to that body who will, by unfriendly legislation, effectually prevent the introduction of it into their midst."

The doctrine of "possible unfriendly legislation" alarmed and incensed the South. The wedge that had been started by Mr. Douglas's Anti-Lecompton attitude,

It

was driven still deeper by the answer to this question. presaged the sundering of the Democratic party in twain, and the triumph of the principles of Mr. Lincoln's Springfield speech. The election that should determine the senator-ship took place Nov. 2, 1858. The ticket which Mr. Lincoln championed had four thousand more votes than the Democratic, but by an old and inequitable apportionment of the districts of the state, a majority of the law-makers chosen were Democrats. Mr. Douglas

was re-elected. When asked how he felt over the result, Mr. Lincoln answered that he felt like the boy that stubbed his toe. It hurt too bad to laugh and he was too big to cry. But he won a reputation as a debater that was a revelation to the nation. He was so strong, so fair, so temperate, so manly, in the great conflict, that he instantly took front rank among the national leaders who were devoted to the union and opposed to the extension of slavery.

On the 25th of February, 1860, he was invited to New York, and delivered at Cooper Institute, before one of the most brilliant of American audiences, his masterly review of the political questions of the hour. His utterances were all that could be desired. The nation had made his acquaintance and acknowledged his power and worth.

On May 9th and 10th, the Republican state convention. of Illinois met at Decatur. Mr. Lincoln was present as a spectator, sitting quietly just within the door of the wigwam. Richard J. Oglesby was on the platform. He arose and stated:

"I am informed that a distinguished citizen of Illinois

and one whom Illinois will ever delight to honor, is present, and I wish to move that this body invite him to a seat on the stand." Here Mr. Oglesby paused, as if to tantalize his audience and arouse their curiosity, and then he announced

the magic name of Abraham Lincoln.

Pandemonium reigned for a while in that wigwam. Then the motion was seconded and carried with tumultous shouts and Mr. Lincoln was carried over the heads of the audience to his place on the platform. Mr. Lincoln rose, smiled, bowed and blushed, as if overwhelmed

with the enthusiastic attention of his fellow citizens. Later, Mr. Oglesby rose again with a mysterious speech upon his lips:

"There is an old Democrat," said he, "waiting outside, who has something he wishes to present to the convention."

"Receive it," they cried.

The doors of the wigwam opened and in marched old John Hanks with two fence rails on his shoulders, bearing the inscription, "Two rails, from a lot made by Abraham Lincoln and John Hanks, in the Sangamon bottom, in the year 1830." The audience was beside itself. Mr.

Lincoln blushed and laughed. They insisted upon a speech, and he said:

"Gentlemen: I suppose you want to know something about those things. Well, the truth is John Hanks and I did make rails in the Sangamon bottom. I don't know

whether we made those rails or not. The fact is I don't think they are a credit to the makers. But I do know that I made rails then, and think I could make better ones than those now."

That convention closed with a resolution declaring: "Abraham Lincoln is the first choice of the Republican party of Illinois for the presidency," and instructing the