1890; E. L. Baker served nearly twenty-four years as United States consul at Buenos Ayres, dying there in 1897 as the result of injuries received in a railroad accident. So far as known the following still survive: George Schneider, Chicago; E. W. Blaisdell, Rockford; B. F. Shaw, of The Telegraph, Dixon; O. P. Wharton, editor of The Daily Journal and Local, of Sandusky, Ohio, and the author of this record. There is a coincidence of no small interest in the fact that, on the same day the conference of Anti-Nebraska editors of Illinois was in progress at Decatur, a similar body of representatives from the various states was in session at Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, called together in a similar manner, "for the purpose of perfecting the national organization and providing for a national delegate convention of the Republican party to nominate candidates for the presidency and vice-presidency."

Among those present at the Pittsburg meeting we find such names as Francis P. Blair, of Maryland (its permanent president); Gov. Edwin D. Morgan, Preston King and Horace Greeley, of New York; Judge E. R. Hoar, of Massachusetts; Oliver P. Morton and George W. Julian, of Indiana; Zachariah Chandler, K. S. Bingham and Jacob M. Howard, of Michigan; Joshua R. Giddings, of Ohio; David Wilmot, of Pennsylvania; Owen Lovejoy and J. C. Vaughan, of Illinois, and many more of national reputation. Out of this latter meeting came the call for the national convention at Philadelphia on the 17th of June, 1856, which put in nomination John C. Fremont for the presidency. It will thus be seen that the new party, which perfected its organization in this city of Bloomington on the 29th day of May, 1856, started out in its career abreast of the national organization itself.

The call for the Bloomington convention, as issued by the state central committee appointed at Decatur, provided for a total representation of 226 delegates, ranging from one for each of the smaller counties, to seventeen from Cook. When the convention came together, however, owing to the deep interest manifested in some of the counties of the state resulting in a large attendance of outsiders, and the unanimity

which prevented the introduction of controversial issues, it seems to have resolved itself into something like a "mass meeting," and, although some thirty counties, chiefly in the southern part of the state, were wholly unrepresented, the number of delegates whose names got upon the roll, as published in the papers at the time, amounted to about 270. Of these Lee county furnished 25, while the little county of Morgan came next with 20. I was not present in the convention, although appointed a delegate and entitled to be there. It will be remembered that the popular argument of some of the most zealous opponents of our new party organization, at that time, was comprised in the bludgeon and the pistol. On the Monday preceding the meeting of the convention, while on the way from my office to the hotel at which I boarded, I was assaulted upon the street by a bevy of political enemies—one of them, whom I had no reason to suspect of personal hostility, stealing behind to pinion my arms while his confederates closed around me. The injuries which they were thus able to inflict prevented my attendance upon the convention, but made no converts for their cause. The country was even then ringing with the report of the ruffianly assault upon Charles Sumner in the senate chamber at Washington, which had occurred just four days previous; but the name of Sumner lives in history while that of his assailant has passed into practical oblivion.

And now, having, in compliance with the request made of me, presented before you this plain unvarnished record; having traced the genealogy of the Bloomington convention of 1856, and proved its legitimacy of descent from that little editorial conference at Decatur on February 22, previons— having led you, so to speak, to the doors of the historic convocation in this city-I leave to others to admit you to its deliberations, to report upon its acts and portray the personal characteristics of the men whose presence here marked an era in your history and that of the state and the nation, and to describe those great events which, through the agency of a Lincoln, a Yates, a Lovejoy, a Grant and other Illinoisans, many of whom participated in the deliberations of that assem

blage and, acting in harmony and association with the patriots and heroes of the whole Union, changed the destiny of the Republic and made it the home of freemen instead of "half slave and half free." In this result we see not only the verification of the marvelous prediction of Abraham Lincoln on the evening of June 17, 1858, but a vindication of the principles enunciated and the policy indorsed in that little convocation at Decatur, and incorporated in positive action by its successor at Bloomington, on May 29, 1856.

Republican State Convention, Springfield, Ill., October 4-5, 1854.

BY PAUL SELBY, CHICAGO, ILLINOIS.

At the risk of going outside the record and digressing from the strict purpose of this reunion, I ask your indulgence while I make mention of the earliest attempt to organize a party in this state on the basis which finally became the foundation of the Republican party. I do this in no spirit of partisanship, however, and with less compunction because it is a part of the history of the times which we are here to commemorate, and citizens of Bloomington were prominent figures in the movement. This undertaking took the form of a "mass convention," so-called, announced to be held in the city of Springfield, October 4, 1854, a few months after the passage of the Nebraska bill by congress. The date and place were chosen because the second annual fair of the Illinois State Agricultural Society was to occur there during the same week, and the occasion was deemed most favorable for securing a respectable attendance.

It fell to my lot to be one of five delegates (I think) from Morgan county, one of the others being Dr. Hiram K. Jones, now a member of the faculty of Illinois College at Jacksonville. When we came together we found that not only had no arrangement been made for a place of meeting, but that the hall

of representatives was occupied by Senator Douglas and others in that memorable debate in which he first met Abraham Lincoln in the discussion of the principles of the Nebraska bill. Among those who espoused Douglas' side of the question were James W. Singleton and John Calhoun, the latter afterwards known as "John Candle-box Calhoun," on account of his connection with the alleged frauds in the attempt to impose the Lecompton Constitution upon the people of Kansas. Lyman Trumbull and Abraham Lincoln were Douglas' principal antagonists, although Judge Sidney Breese and the late Col. E. D. Taylor, of Chicago, took the same side, though later found in cooperation with the Democratic party. This debate marked the beginning of both Trumbull's and Lincoln's careers as leaders of the new party, and ante-dated only a few months the contest for United States senatorship, which resulted in favor of the former.

Between the debates of the afternoon, when Douglas and Trumbull spoke, and the evening when Lincoln replied to the former, we managed to get together long enough to effect a temporary organization and appoint a committee on resolutions when an adjournment was taken to the following day. The late A. G. Throop, then of Chicago, but who died a few years. since at Pasadena, California, was chosen chairman, while Owen Lovejoy, Ichabod Codding and the late Gen. John F. Farnsworth were leading spirits upon the floor. The committee on resolutions consisted of N. C. Geer, of Lake county; John T. Morse, of Woodford; Erastus Wright, of Sangamon; Dr. H. K. Jones, of Morgan; Bronson Murray, of LaSalle (for many years past a resident of New York City); S. M. Coe, of Whiteside; T. B. Hurlbut, of Madison; William Butler, of Lee; Jesse Penrose, of Whiteside, and Dr. Henry Wing, of Madison. They met in the evening in the dingy office of Erastus Wright, one of their number and a leading anti-slavery man of Springfield, and transacted their business by the light of one or two tallow candles.

A place of meeting was found for the convention on the second day in the old senate chamber, and, although its num

bers had been increased somewhat by new arrivals, the space was ample. The committee reported a conservative platform, one of its chief features being embraced in the two following resolutions:

"Resolved, That, as freedom is national and slavery sectional and local, the absence of all law upon the subject of slavery presumes the existence of a state of freedom alone, while slavery exists only by virtue of positive law.”

"4. That slavery can exist in a Territory only by usurpation and in violation of law, and we believe that congress has the right and should prohibit its extension into such Territory, so long as it remains under the guardianship of the general government."

The platform was adopted and the Hon. John E. McClun, of Bloomington, was nominated for state treasurer,—the only office to be filled by election that year. Later Mr. McClun gave place to James Miller, also of Bloomington, who had received a nomination for the same office from a Whig convention, and who came within less than 3,000 votes of election. His successful opponent was Hon. John Moore, also a citizen of Bloomington. Two years later Miller was the nominee of both the Republican and the American parties and was elected by over 20,000 majority.

The remaining principal business transacted by this convention was the appointment of a state central committee, consisting of David J. Baker, of Madison county, (father of the late Justice D. J. Baker, of the supreme court); N. D. Coy, of Knox; N. C. Geer, of Lake; A. G. Throop, of Cook; E. S. Leland, of LaSalle; M. L. Dunlap, of Cook; Abraham Lincoln, of Sangamon; H. M. Sheets, of Stephenson; Zebina Eastman, of Cook; John F. Farnsworth, of Kane; J. B. Fairbanks, of Morgan, and Ichabod Codding, of Cook. This committee never formally organized and faded out of existence. Mr. Lincoln took no part in the convention and, according to Herndon, absented himself from the city on the second day, going to Tazewell county in order that he might not be identified with it. He still had hope that the Clay-Whigs --the party of his first love would take ground against the Nebraska bill, and,