now formed a partnership, and buying a stock of goods on credit, opened a coun try store. He was also appointed postmaster at New Salem. The business, however, not proving successful, nor the office remunerative, he was soon in such pecuniary straits as to be forced to close his doors. His next effort for a livelihood was as an extemporaneous assistant surveyor, for which he readily prepared himself by obtaining a field compass, a chain, and a treatise on surveying. In 1834, Lincoln was elected a member of the Legislature of Illinois. Although reticent of speech, he by the faithful discharge of his duties, and his personal and political rectitude of conduct, won so much of the good opinion of his constituents that they re-elected him for three successive terms.

Even while practicing as a surveyor, Lincoln had been in the habit of reading books on law. After entering the Legislature, he began to study them with increased attention, and in 1836 had made such progress that he was admitted to the bar. In April of the following year he became a partner of a Mr. John F. Stuart, and removed to Springfield, where he began the practice of his profession. His success as a lawyer was immediate, and he soon attained to such eminence, that he ranked among the chief legal practitioners of the neighborhood. His forte was in the management of jury cases. Though laboriously occupied with his profession, Lincoln took a prominent lead in politics. His sympathies were with the Whigs, and having been chosen a candi

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date for Presidential elector in 1844, he canvassed the whole State of Illinois and a portion of Indiana in favor of Henry Clay. In 1846 he was elected by the Whigs a member of Congress, and in December, 1847, took his seat in the House of Representatives. Though opposed to the annexation of Texas and the war with Mexico, which had been then brought to a triumphant close by the conquest of the Mexican capital, Lincoln never failed to recognize the good service of our soldiers, and to join in all the congressional votes of acknowledgment and reward.

At an early period Lincoln had manifested those opinions on slavery which secured for him the nomination of the Republican party, and elevated him to his present high position. In a protest, which is recorded upon the journal of the Illinois Legislature on the 3d of March, 1837, he united with a fellow-member in saying that: "They believe that the institution of slavery is founded on both injustice and bad policy; but that the promulgation of abolition doctrines tends rather to increase than abate its evils.

"They believe that the Congress of the United States has no power, under the Constitution, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the different States.

"They believe that the Congress of the United States has the power under the Constitution to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia; but that the power ought not to be exercised unless at the request of the people of said District."

His action while in Congress, as since his election to the Presidency, has been in strict accordance with the scrupulous regard thus early expressed for all constitutional obligations in respect to Southern slavery, while he has never failed to do his utmost to restrict within its legal bounds an institution which he does not favor. He showed his resolute opposition to its extension by voting, while in Congress, no less than fortytwo times for the Wilmot proviso. His action on other questions was in harmony with his professed Whig principles, and a protective tariff, river and harbor improvements, and the sale of the public lands at a low valuation, received his support and vote.

Lincoln, having served in Congress but a single term, returned to the practice of his profession in Springfield. In 1848, however, he was a member of the Whig National Convention, and warmly concurred in the nomination of General Zachary Taylor for the Presidency. In 1849 he was the Whig candidate for the United States Senate, but as the majority of the Legislature of Illinois was Democratic, was beaten by his competitor, General Shields.

The repeal of the Missouri Compromise aroused Lincoln once more to active political effort, and he came forward as a champion of the new Republican party organized to resist the extension of slavery. In the canvass for the choice of a senator in the place of General Shields, he sustained Judge Turnbull, and to his spirited efforts was attributed the triumph of that Republi

can candidate. So prominent had he now become as a leader of the new party, that in the Republican National Convention of 1856, which nominated John C. Fremont for President, Lincoln was pressed by the delegates from the State of Illinois as a nominee for the Vice-Presidency.

Being nominated on the 2d of June, 1858, by the Republican party of his State, candidate for the United States Senate, in opposition to Douglas, Lincoln canvassed Illinois together with his eminent competitor. Having already, in the struggle between Turnbull and Shields, tested his powers with the "Little Giant," as the partisans of Douglas fondly termed him, in allusion to his combined loftiness of intellect and, smallness of stature, Lincoln did not hesitate to challenge his doughty antagonist to another encounter. The political contest which ensued became memorable, and Lincoln exhibited, as a freesoil combatant, such pluck and bottom that he was hailed by the Republicans of Illinois as their favorite champion. They claimed that he had victoriously sustained their principles against the stoutest leader of their antagonists. He, however, with all his vigor of fight, did not succeed in his immediate purpose of gaining the prize of the senatorship. The popular vote, it is true, proclaimed him victor, but his competitor, Douglas, received the suffrage of the State Senate in consequence of the unequal apportionment law of Illinois, which gave the Democrats an undue share of its members. Lincoln, however, had se

cured for himself, among the expanding Republican party, an importance which obtained for him the nomination for the Presidency, and finally his elevation to that high office.

How far his political views upon the question of slavery are justifications of a defiance of the authority of his government, as is pretended by those seeking pretexts for rebellion, his own words will prove. In the course of his political contest for the senatorship, Douglas proposed certain questions to him, which are here given, with Lincoln's answers, which present a candid exposition of his opinions.

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Question 1. I desire to know whether Lincoln to-day stands pledged, as he did in 1854, in favor of the unconditional repeal of the Fugitive Slave law?

Answer. I do not now, nor ever did, stand pledged in favor of the unconditional repeal of the Fugitive Slave law..

Q. 2. I desire him to answer whether he stands pledged to-day, as he did in 1854, against the admission of any more slave States into the Union, even if the people want them ?"

A. I do not now, nor ever did, stand pledged against the admission of any more slave States into the Union.

Q. 3. I want to know whether he stands pledged against the admission of a new State into the Union, with such a constitution as the people of that State may see fit to make?

A. I do not stand pledged against the admission of a new State into the Union, with such a constitution as the people of that State may see fit to make.

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Q. 4. I want to know whether he stands to-day pledged to the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia?

A. I do not stand to-day pledged to the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia.

Q. 5. I desire him to answer whether he stands pledged to the prohibition of the slave-trade between the different States?

A. I do not stand pledged to the prohibition of the slave-trade between the different States.

Q. 6. I desire to know whether he stands pledged to prohibit slavery in all the Territories of the United States, north as well as south of the Missouri Compromise line?

A. I am impliedly, if not expressly, pledged to a belief in the right and duty of Congress to prohibit slavery in all the United States' Territories.

Q. 7. I desire him to answer whether he is opposed to the acquisition of any new territory, unless slavery is first prohibited therein?

A. I am not generally opposed to honest acquisition of territory; and, in any given case, I would or would not oppose such acquisition, according as I might think such acquisition would or would not aggravate the slavery question among ourselves.

Now, my friends, it will be perceived, upon an examination of these questions and answers, that so far I have only answered that I was not pledged to this, that, or the other. The Judge has not framed his interrogatories to ask me anything more than this, and I have

answered in strict accordance with the interrogatories, and have answered truly that I am not pledged at all upon any of the points to which I have answered. But I am not disposed to hang upon the exact form of his interrogatory. I am rather disposed to take up at least some of these questions, and state what I really think upon them.

As to the first one, in regard to the Fugitive Slave law, I have never hesitated to say, and I do not now hesitate to say, that I think, under the Constitution of the United States, the people of the Southern States are entitled to a Congressional Fugitive Slave law. Having said that, I have had nothing to say in regard to the existing Fugitive Slave law, further than that I think it should have been framed so as to be free from some of the objections that pertain to it, without lessening its efficiency. And inasmuch as we are not now in an agitation in regard to an alteration or modification of that law, I would not be the man to introduce it as a new subject of agitation upon the general question of slavery.

In regard to the other question, of whether I am pledged to the admission of any more slave States into the Union, I state to you very frankly, that I would be exceedingly sorry ever to be put in a position of having to pass upon that question. I should be exceedingly glad to know that there would never be another slave State admitted into the Union; but I must add that, if slavery shall be kept out of the Territories during the territorial existence of any

one given Territory, and then the people shall, having a fair chance and a clear field, when they come to adopt the Constitution, do such an extraordinary thing as to adopt a slave constitution, uninfluenced by the actual presence of the institution among them, I see no alternative, if we own the country, but to admit them into the Union.

The third interrogatory is answered by the answer to the second, it being, as I conceive, the same as the second.

The fourth one is in regard to the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. In relation to that, I have my mind very distinctly made up. I should be exceedingly glad to see slavery abolished in the District of Columbia. I believe that Congress possesses the constitutional power to abolish it. Yet, as a member of Congress, I should not, with my present views, be in favor of endeavoring to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, unless it would be upon these conditions: First, that the abolition should be gradual. Second, that it should be on a vote of the majority of qualified voters in the District; and third, that compensation should be made to unwilling owners. With these three conditions, I confess I would be exceedingly glad to see Congress abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, and, in the language of Henry Clay, " sweep from our capital that foul blot upon our nation."

In regard to the fifth interrogatory, I must say here, that as to the question of the abolition of the slave-trade between the different States, I can truly

answer, as I have, that I am pledged to nothing about it. It is a subject to which I have not given that mature consideration that would make me feel authorized to state a position so as to hold myself entirely bound by it. In other words, that question has never been prominently enough before me to induce me to investigate whether we really have the constitutional power to do it. I could investigate it if I had sufficient time to bring myself to a conclusion upon that subject; but I have not done so, and I say so frankly to you here, and to Judge Douglas. I must say, however, that if I should be of opinion that Congress does possess the constitutional power to abolish the slave-trade among the different States, I should still not be in favor of the exercise of that power unless upon some conservative principle, as I conceive it, akin to what I have said in relation to the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia.

"My answer as to whether I desire that slavery should be prohibited in all the Territories of the United States, is full and explicit within itself, and can not be made clearer by any comments of mine. So I suppose in regard to the question whether I am opposed to the acquisition of any more territory unless slavery is first prohibited therein, my answer is such that I could add nothing by way of illustration, or making myself better understood, than the answer which I have placed in writing."

1860.

*

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at Chicago. After two ballots, which resulted in no choice, Lincoln was chosen on the third, receiving three hundred and fifty-four of the whole four hundred and sixty-five votes. The election was then made unanimous. The party responded enthusiastically to the choice, and began at once to stir the country with an exciting canvass. The "Wide Awakes," unarmed but uniformed armies of voters, mustered and led by bands of music, were paraded through the streets in marching order by day, and in torchlight processions at night. Illuminated banners, gigantic flags, and posters made the names of Lincoln and Hamlin familiar to every eye and ear. Republican orators, of whom Seward, himself the leading competitor for the nomination of President with Lincoln, was the chief, posted from State to State, city to city, and throughout the rural districts, gathering great crowds and arousing them by their fervid rhetoric to resist the encroachments of slavery, and rally to the standard of the party organized to oppose it.

The divided Democrats and the socalled Unionists were not less demonstrative with their flaunting and noisy appeals through party emblems, processions, "monster" meetings, and political speech. The country was never so agitated and party spirit so envenomed. Mutterings, in the mean time,