delegates to the Chicago convention to use all honorable means to secure his nomination and to cast the vote of the state as a unit for him.

Thus was the movement started that should make Abraham Lincoln, the flat-boatman, the rail splitter, the standard-bearer of the Republican party in the fateful election of 1860.

The convention met at Chicago on the 16th of May in a great wigwam at the corner of Lake and Market Streets. William H. Seward of New York was the representative man of the East for the highest office in the gift of the nation, at the hands of the Republican party. Favorite sons of other states received complimentary votes on the first ballot.

On the third ballot Mr. Lincoln had distanced all competitors and was within 1-2 votes of the nomination. Those votes were quickly given and the nomination was made unanimous. When the dispatch announcing his nomination was handed him, at Springfield, he started home with it, saying:

"Gentlemen, there is a little short woman at our house who is probably more interested in this dispatch than I am, and if you will excuse me I will take it up and let her see it."

The formal letters of notification and acceptance were passed. The Democrats were divided, as Mr. Lincoln had foreseen. His Freeport question had rent them in twain. Douglas and Breckenridge were their standard bearers, and the result was not difficult to foresee. On the 6th of November, the nation recorded its verdict. Abraham

Lincoln was President-elect of the United States. Between November and March there was much to be done. His cabinet was to be chosen, numerous offices were to be filled, his private affairs were to be wound up. The magnanimity of his mind was soon made apparent in his willingness to appoint his opponents to the highest offices within his gift.

He offered the Secretaryship of the Treasury to Mr. Guthrie of Kentucky; another secretaryship was tendered to Mr. Gilmer of North Carolina; Stephens of Georgia was also approached. He saw, He saw, as few party men could see, the injustice and impolicy of administering the government in the interest of a party that had no existence in the southern states. Though he was a conqueror, he was a conciliator, and if grave trouble was to be safely avoided, he would leave no stone unturned to avoid it.

Without jealousy or fear, he intrusted the foremost places in his cabinet to his late political rivals, utterly oblivious to the suggestion that they might outshine or supplant him.

Seward, the accomplished, eloquent statesman from New York, he made his Secretary of State, Chase his Secretary of the Treasury, Bates his Attorney Gen-eral.

Cameron and Smith he appointed in deference to the suggestions of his friends, for services rendered, as alleged, in securing his nomination. Hundreds of office seekers made a pilgrimage to Springfield and made life burden to him. He listened to their

plea, regaled them with an apposite story and sent them on their way. Many of his old-time friends hoped to reap the reward of their friendship in appointment to office, and felt hardly toward him that their cases were not always favorably considered. But he would not have it said that he used his public position in the interest of his friends. Then too, old friends and old scenes must be visited that he might say good-bye, for his long absence, from the region where he had grown to manhood. He made a tender farewell visit to his old step-mother, who had been a mother indeed. He visited New Salem and shook hands with thousands of his old friends, whom he had known in all the phases of his career.

The framing of his policy and the writing of his inaugural address were absorbing cares. As he looked out on the alarming situation in the South and the imbecility and knavery that was being manifested in Washington, his forced inactivity till March was like a consuming canker. Southern States were seceding and appropriating national property. The arsenals of the North were being looted for the benefit of the South, by order of the Secretary of War. Frantic efforts were being made in Congress to concoct some scheme of compromise that would save the union, and Mr. Lincoln was implored to, speak some word, or offer some suggestion as to his policy, that would help the situation. To such as sought to know his position, he referred them to his record.

To the committee of thirty-three in the House he said, "Entertain no compromise in regard to the extension of slavery." To Mr. Washburne he said on this point:

"Hold firm, as with a chain of steel."

On Dec. 17th, he wrote to Thurlow Weed that "no state can in any way, lawfully, get out of the union without

the consent of the others," and, that "it is the duty of the president and other government functionaries to run the machine as it is." To Mr. Washburne he wrote, for the