denounced at the South as a traitor, and this fact, added to the energy with which he carried on his warfare with the Administration against so many odds, gained him not a little sympathy in many Repuhlican quarters. This, however, for the most part, his subsequent course alienated. It is believed that but for the firm stand taken by the lamented Broderick, in opposition to the course intended, Douglas would have made his peace with the Administration by voting for the shabby compromise known as the English Bill. That measure, in spite of his final influence against it, passed both Houses on the 4th of May.

Previous to that date, the Democratic State Convention, of Illinois, had met at Springfield (April 21st), nominated a State ticket and indorsed Douglas and his Anti-Lecompton associates from that State. The issue was thus fairly joined early in the season; and all the influence of the Administration was brought to bear in getting up a counter Democratic organization sustaining the Lecompton policy. However promising for a time, this undertaking was not brilliantly successful. The friends of Douglas had taken time by the forelock, and made the most of their advantage in having the regular organization, with a State ticket early in the field. They spared no labor from this time forward in preparing for the re-election of Douglas. Without expecting the election of their candidates on the State ticket, they hoped, through an unequal apportionment strongly favoring their side, and from the large number of Democratic Senators holding over, to be able, at least, to get the control of the Senate, and to prevent the choice of a Republican successor to Douglas, if they could not accomplish their full purpose.

On the 16th of June-the day on which the session of Congress closed-the Republicans held their State Convention at Springfield. Richard Yates was the temporary, and Gustavus Koerner the permanent President. Nearly every one of the hundred counties of Illinois was duly represented, the delegates numbering over five hundred. Candidates were nominated for State Treasurer and for Superintendent of Public Instruction, and a Platform was adopted essentially the same as that put

forth two years previously at Bloomington, as already quoted. A resolution approving the course of Lyman Trumbull as Senator was carried without opposition. The following resolution was then introduced, which, according to the official report, "was greeted with shouts of applause, and unanimously adopted :"

Resolved, That Abraham Lincoln is the first and only choice of the Republicans of Illinois for the United States Senate, as the successor of Stephen A. Douglas.

Mr. Lincoln had not been present during the Convention, and when called on to speak, at the adjourned evening session, he had no knowledge that such a resolution had been offered. So far was it from being true that his speech on that occasion, as subsequently stated by Douglas, was made on accepting a nomination for the Senatorship, that, of course, he did not allude to that subject. The speech, too, though carefully prepared, as Mr. Lincoln afterward admitted, was never known to any one else than himself until its delivery, notwithstanding the insinuation of Douglas that it was a subject of special consultation among the Republican leaders. It was the result of a broad and profound survey of the slavery question, from the point of view then reached in the progress of parties. It laid down certain propositions as philosophical truths, derived from a close observation of events. Its opening paragraph has already become one of the most celebrated passages in the political literature of the country. However it may be perverted, there is no portion of this speech which can be successfully assailed, when taken in its true meaning. There is a moral sublimity in the rugged honesty and directness with which the grand issues in this whole slavery agitation are presented. The two forces of slavery and free labor in our civil and social system, inevitably antagonistic, so long as they come into collision in our national politics, have each their peculiar tendency, the one to make slavery, and the other to make free labor universal. Until slavery is again reduced to its true local and sectional character, from which Douglas, Buchanan, and other agitators had conspired to raise it into national predominance, the antagonism will not cease. What Douglas

always superficially slurred over-assuming an indifference, such as no earnest or sound statesman can really feel, whether "slavery is voted up or voted down"-Lincoln treats with true philosophic insight, and in the light of earnest convictions. This famous speech is in entire harmony with the views of the earlier statesmen, even of the South. If any man at first reads this great effort doubtingly, or with an inclination toward dissent-as most assuredly few really earnest, thinking men can-let him carefully look onward and see how it endures the test of a severe campaign, and how its chief positions are maintained against all the assaults of a wily foe, who is himself really on trial, solemnly indicted by that speech, yet vainly imagines that he is placing Mr. Lincoln on the defensive,

"The hall, and lobbies, and galleries were even more densely crowded and packed than at any time during the day," says the official report, as the Convention re-assembled in the evening to hear Mr. Lincoln. "As he approached the speaker's stand, he was greeted with shouts, and hurrahs, and prolonged cheering."

MR. LINCOLN'S FIRST SPEECH IN THE SENATORIAL CANVASS.

(At the Republican State Convention, June 16, 1858.) Mr. Lincoln said

GENTLEMEN OF THE CONVENTION:-If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could then better judge what to do, and how to do it. We are now far on 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 can not stand." I believe this Government can not 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 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 newNorth as well as South.

Have we no tendency to the latter condition? Let any one who doubts, carefully contemplate that now almost complete legal combination-piece of machinery, so to speakcompounded 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 master-workers from the beginning.

But, so far, Congress only had acted; and an indorsement by the people, real or apparent, was indispensable, to save the point already gained, and give chance for more. 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.

This necessity had not been overlooked, but had been provided for, as well as might be, in the notable argument of squatter sovereignty," otherwise called "sacred right of selfgovernment," which latter phrase, though expressive of the only rightful basis of any government, was so perverted in this attempted use of it as to amount to just this: that if any one man choose to enslave another, no third man shall be allowed to object. That argument was incorporated into the Nebraska bill itself, in the language which follows: "It being the true intent and meaning of this act not to legislate slavery into any Territory or State, nor exclude it therefrom; but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to the Constitution of the United States."

Then opened the roar of loose declamation in favor of squatter sovereignty," and "sacred right of self-government."

"But," said opposition members, "let us be more specificlet us amend the bill so as to expressly declare that the people of the territory may exclude slavery." "Not we," said the friends of the measure; and down they voted the amendment.

While the Nebraska Bill was passing through Congress, a law case, involving the question of a negro's freedom, by reason of his owner having voluntarily taken him first into a free State and then a territory covered by the Congressional prohibition, and held him as a slave-for a long time in each

was passing through the U. S. Circuit Court for the District of Missouri; and both the Nebraska Bill and law suit were. brought to a decision in the same month of May, 1854. The negro's name was "Dred Scott," which name now designates the decision finally made in the case.

Before the then next Presidential election case, the law came to, and was argued in the Supreme Court of the United States; but the decision of it was deferred until after the election. Still, before the election, Senator Trumbull, on the floor of the Senate, requests the leading advocate of the Nebraska Bill to state his opinion whether a people of a territory can constitutionally exclude slavery from their limits; and the latter answers, "That is a question for the Supreme Court."

The election came, Mr. Buchanan was elected, and the indorsement, such as it was, secured. That was the second point gained. The indorsement, however, fell short of a clear popular majority by nearly four hundred thousand votes, and so, perhaps, was not overwhelmingly reliable and satisfatory. The outgoing President in his last annual message, as impressively as possible echoed back upon the people the weight and authority of the indorsement.

The Supreme Court met again; did not announce their decision, but ordered a re-argument. The Presidential inauguration came, and still no decision of the court; but the incoming President, in his Inaugural Address, fervently exhorted the people to abide by the forthcoming decision, whatever it might be. Then, in a few days, came the decision. This was the third point gained.

The reputed author of the Nebraska Bill finds an early occasion to make a speech at this capitol indorsing the Dred Scott decision, and vehemently denouncing all opposition to it. The new President, too, seizes the early occasion of the Silliman letter to indorse and strongly construe that decision, and to express his astonishment that any different view had ever been entertained. At length a squabble springs up between the President and the author of the Nebraska Bill on the mere question of fact, whether the Lecompton Constitution was, or was not, in any just sense, made by the people of Kansas; and, in that squabble, the latter declares that all he wants is a fair vote for the people, and that he cares not whether slavery be voted down or voted up. I do not understand his declaration that he cares not whether slavery be voted down or voted up, to be intended by him other than as an apt definition of the policy he would impress upon the public mind-the principle for which he declares he has suf fered much, and is ready to suffer to the end.