On the 6th of December, 1847, Mr. Lincoln took his seat in Congress. Mr.
Douglas, who had already run a brilliant career in the lower House of
Congress, at this same session took his seat in the Senate. Mr. Lincoln
distinguished himself by able speeches upon the Mexican War, upon
Internal Improvements, and by one of the most effective campaign
speeches of that Congress in favor of the election of General Taylor to
the Presidency. He proposed a bill for the abolition of slavery at the
National capital. He declined a re-election, and was succeeded by his
friend, the eloquent E. D. Baker, who was killed at Ball's Bluff.
In 1852, he lead the electoral ticket of Illinois in favor of General
Scott for President. Franklin Pierce was elected, and Mr. Lincoln
remained quietly engaged in his professional pursuits until the repeal
of the Missouri Compromise in 1854. This event was the beginning of the
end of slavery. "It thoroughly roused the people of the Free States to a
realization of the progress and encroachments of the slave power, and
the necessity of preserving 'the jewel of freedom.'" From that hour the
conflict went on between freedom and slavery, first by the ballot, and
all the agencies by which public opinion is influenced, and then the
slave-holders, seeing that their supremacy was departing, sought by arms
to overthrow the government which they could no longer control.
Mr. Lincoln, while a strong opponent of slavery, had up to this time
rested in the hope that by peaceful agencies it was in the course of
ultimate extinction. But now seeing the vast strides it was making, he
became convinced its progress must be arrested or that it would dominate
over the republic, and Slavery would become "lawful in all the States."
From this time he gave himself with solemn earnestness to the cause of
liberty and his country. He forgot himself in his great cause. He did
not seek place, if the great cause could be better advanced by the
promotion of another; hence his promotion of the election of Trumbull to
the United States Senate.
This unselfish devotion to principle was a great source of his power.
Placing himself at the head of those who opposed the extension of, and
who believed in the moral wrong of slavery, he entered upon his great
mission with a singleness of purpose, an eloquence and power, which made
him as the advocate of freedom, the most effective and influential
speaker who ever addressed the American people.
He brought to the tremendous struggle between freedom and slavery
physical strength and endurance almost superhuman. Notwithstanding his
modesty and the absence of all self-assertion, when we review the
conflict from 1854 to 1865, when the struggle closed by the adoption of
the constitutional amendment abolishing and prohibiting slavery forever
throughout the republic, it is clear that Lincoln's speeches and
writings did more to accomplish this result than any other agency.
Following the repeal of the Missouri Compromise came the Kansas
struggle, and the organization of a great party to resist the
encroachments and aggressions of slavery. The people instinctively found
the leader of such a party in Lincoln.
Looking over the whole ground, with the sagacity which marked his
far-seeing mind, he saw that the basis upon which to build were the
grand principles of the Declaration of Independence. This foundation was
broad enough to include old-fashioned Democrats who sympathized with
Jefferson in his hatred of slavery; Whigs who had learned their love of
liberty from the utterances of the Adamses and Channings, and the
earlier speeches of Webster; and anti-slavery men, who recognized Chase
and Sumner as their leaders.
He now addressed himself to the work of consolidating out of all these
elements a party, the distinctive characteristics of which should be the
full recognition of the principles of the Declaration of Independence
and hostility to the extension of Slavery. This was the party which in
1856 gave John C. Fremont 114 electoral votes for President, and in
1860, elected Lincoln to the executive chair.