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in such State, himself become Free.

      Now it was, that the meaning of the words, "subject only to the Constitution," as used in the Kansas-Nebraska Act, began to be discerned. For if the people of a Territory were to be "perfectly free," to deal with Slavery as they chose, "subject only to the Constitution" they were by this Judicial interpretation of that instrument "perfectly free" to deal with Slavery in any way so long as they did not attempt "to exclude" it! The thing was all one-sided. Mr. Douglas's attitude in inventing the peculiar phraseology in the Kansas-Nebraska Act—which to some seemed as if expressly "made to order" for the Dred Scott decision—was criticized with asperity; the popularity, however, of his courageous stand against President Buchanan on the Lecompton fraud, seemed to make it certain that, his term in the United States Senate being about to expire, he would be overwhelmingly re-elected to that body.

      But at this juncture occurred something, which for a long time held the result in doubt, and drew the excited attention of the whole Nation to Illinois as the great battle-ground. In 1858 a Republican State Convention was held at Springfield, Ill., which nominated Abraham Lincoln as the Republican candidate for United States Senator to succeed Senator Douglas in the National Legislature. On June 16th—after such nomination—Mr. Lincoln made to the Convention a speech—in which, with great and incisive power, he assailed Mr. Douglas's position as well as that of the whole Democratic Pro-Slavery Party, and announced in compact and cogent phrase, from his own point of view, the attitude, upon the Slavery question, of the Republican Party.

In that remarkable speech—which at once attracted the attention of the Country—Mr. Lincoln said: "We are now far 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 cannot stand.' I believe this Government cannot 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 the 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 new, North as well as South."14

He then proceeded to lay bare and closely analyze the history of all that had been done, during the four years preceding, to produce the prevailing condition of things touching human Slavery; describing it as resulting from that, "now almost complete legal combination-piece of machinery, so to speak—compounded of the Nebraska doctrine and the Dred Scott decision." After stating the several points of that decision, and that the doctrine of the "Sacred right of self-government" had been perverted by the Nebraska "Squatter Sovereignty," argument to mean that, "if any one man chose to enslave another, no third man shall be allowed to object," he proceeded to show the grounds upon which he charged "pre-concert" among the builders of that machinery. Said he: "The people were to be left perfectly free, 'subject only to the Constitution.' What the Constitution had to do with it, outsiders could not see. Plainly enough now, it was an exactly fitted niche for the Dred Scott decision to afterward come in and declare the perfect freedom of the people to be just no freedom at all. Why was the amendment, expressly declaring the right of the people, voted down? Plainly enough now, the adoption of it would have spoiled the niche for the Dred Scott decision. Why was the Court decision held up? Why even a Senator's individual opinion withheld, till after the Presidential election? Plainly enough now: the speaking out then would have damaged the 'perfectly free' argument upon which the election was to be carried. Why the outgoing President's felicitation on the indorsement? Why the delay of a re-argument? Why the incoming President's advance exhortation in favor of the decision? These things look like the cautious patting and petting of a spirited horse, preparatory to mounting him, when it is dreaded that he may give the rider a fall. And why the hasty after-indorsement of the decision, by the President and others? We cannot absolutely know that all these exact adaptations are the result of pre-concert. But when we see a lot of framed timbers, different portions of which we know have been gotten out at different times and places and by different workmen—Stephen, Franklin, Roger, and James15 for instance—and when we see these timbers joined together, and see they exactly make the frame of a house or a mill, all the tenons and mortices exactly fitting, and all the lengths and proportions of the different pieces exactly adapted to their respective places, and not a piece too many or too few—not omitting even the scaffolding, or, if a single piece be lacking, we see the place in the frame exactly fitted and prepared yet to bring such piece in—in such a case, we find it impossible not to believe that Stephen and Franklin and Roger and James all understood one another from the beginning, and all worked upon a common plan or draft drawn up before the first blow was struck."

      He drew attention also to the fact that by the Nebraska Bill the people of a State, as well as a Territory, were to be left "perfectly free," "subject only to the Constitution," and that the object of lugging a "State" into this merely Territorial law was to enable the United States Supreme Court in some subsequent decision to declare, when the public mind had been sufficiently imbued with Judge Douglas's notion of not caring "whether Slavery be voted up or voted down," that "the Constitution of the United States does not permit a State to exclude Slavery from its limits"—which would make Slavery "alike lawful in all the States." That, he declared to be Judge Douglas's present mission:—"His avowed mission is impressing the 'public heart' to care nothing about it." Hence Mr. Lincoln urged Republicans to stand by their cause, which must be placed in the hands of its friends, "Whose hands are free, whose hearts are in the work—who do care for the result;" for he held that "a living dog is better than a dead lion."

      On the evening of July 9, 1858, at Chicago, Mr. Douglas (Mr. Lincoln being present) spoke to an enthusiastic assemblage, which he fitly described as a "vast sea of human faces," and, after stating that he regarded "the Lecompton battle as having been fought and the victory won, because the arrogant demand for the admission of Kansas under the Lecompton Constitution unconditionally, whether her people wanted it or not, has been abandoned, and the principle which recognizes the right of the people to decide for themselves has been submitted in its place," he proceeded to vindicate his position throughout; declared that he opposed "the Lecompton monstrosity solely on the ground than it was a violation of the fundamental principles of free government; on the ground that it was not the act and deed of the people of Kansas; that it did not embody their will; that they were averse to it;" and hence he "denied the right of Congress to force it upon them, either as a Free State or a Slave State."

      Said he: "I deny the right of Congress to force a Slaveholding State upon an unwilling people. I deny their right to force a Free State upon an unwilling people. I deny their right to force a good thing upon a people who are unwilling to receive it. The great principle is the right of every community to judge and decide for itself, whether a thing is right or wrong, whether it would be good or evil for them to adopt it; and the right of free action, the right of free thought, the right of free judgment upon the question is dearer to every true American than any other under a free Government. * * * It is no answer to this argument to say that Slavery is an evil, and hence should not be tolerated. You must allow the people to decide for themselves whether it is good or evil." He then adverted to the arraignment of himself by Mr. Lincoln, and took direct issue with that gentleman on his proposition that, as to Freedom and Slavery, "the Union will become all one thing or all the other;" and maintained on the contrary, that "it is neither desirable nor possible that there should be uniformity in the local institutions and domestic regulations of the different States of this Union."

      Upon the further proposition of Mr. Lincoln, which Mr. Douglas described as "a crusade against the Supreme Court of the United States on account of the Dred Scott decision," and as "an appeal from the decision" of that Court "upon this high Constitutional question to a Republican caucus sitting in the country," he also took "direct and distinct issue with him." To "the reason assigned by Mr. Lincoln for resisting the decision of the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott case * * * because

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