The year after Mr. Trumbull’s election to the Senate the Republican
party was formally organized. A state convention of that party was
called to meet at Bloomington May 29, 1856. The call for this convention
was signed by many Springfield Whigs, and among the names was that of
Abraham Lincoln. Mr. Lincoln’s name had been signed to the call by his
law partner, but when he was informed of this action he endorsed it
fully. Among the famous men who took part in this convention were
Abraham Lincoln, Lyman Trumbull, David Davis, Leonard Swett, Richard
Yates, Norman, B. Judd and Owen Lovejoy, the Alton editor, whose life,
like Lincoln’s, finally paid the penalty for his Abolition views. The
party nominated for Governor, Wm. H. Bissell, a veteran of the Mexican
War, and adopted a platform ringing with anti-slavery sentiment.
Mr. Lincoln was the greatest power in the campaign that followed. He was
one of the Fremont Presidential electors, and he went to work with all
his might to spread the new party gospel and make votes for the old
“Path-Finder of the Rocky Mountains.”
An amusing incident followed close after the Bloomington convention. A
meeting was called at Springfield to ratify the action at Bloomington.
Only three persons attended--Mr. Lincoln, his law partner and a man
named John Paine. Mr. Lincoln made a speech to his colleagues, in which,
among other things, he said: “While all seems dead, the age itself is
not. It liveth as sure as our Maker liveth.”
In this campaign Mr. Lincoln was in general demand not only in his own
state, but in Indiana, Iowa and Wisconsin as well.
The result of that Presidential campaign was the election of Buchanan
as President, Bissell as Governor, leaving Mr. Lincoln the undisputed
leader of the new party. Hence it was that two years later he was the
inevitable man to oppose Judge Douglas in the campaign for United States
Senator.
THE RAIL-SPLITTER vs. THE LITTLE GIANT.
No record of Abraham Lincoln’s career would be complete without the
story of the memorable joint debates between the “Rail-Splitter of
the Sangamon Valley” and the “Little Giant.” The opening lines in Mr.
Lincoln’s speech to the Republican Convention were not only prophetic
of the coming rebellion, but they clearly made the issue between the
Republican and Democratic parties for two Presidential campaigns to
follow. The memorable sentences were as follows:
“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 the one thing
or 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 becomes alike lawful in all the states, old as
well as new, North as well as South.”
It is universally conceded that this speech contained the most important
utterances of Mr. Lincoln’s life.
Previous to its delivery, the Democratic convention had endorsed Mr.
Douglas for re-election to the Senate, and the Republican convention had
resolved that “Abraham Lincoln is our first and only choice for
United States Senator, to fill the vacancy about to be created by the
expiration of Mr. Douglas’ term of office.”
Before Judge Douglas had made many speeches in this Senatorial campaign,
Mr. Lincoln challenged him to a joint debate, which was accepted, and
seven memorable meetings between these two great leaders followed.
The places and dates were: Ottawa, August 21st; Freeport, August 27th;
Jonesboro, September 15th; Charleston, September 18th; Galesburg,
October 7th; Quincy, October 13th; and Alton, October 15th.
The debates not only attracted the attention of the people in the state
of Illinois, but aroused an interest throughout the whole country equal
to that of a Presidential election.