preserved, and said, 'After all, we must fight.'' The new party nominated John C. Freemont for president, but it had not yet gained sufficient strength to carry an election, and the Democratic candidate, James Buchanan, was elected.

CHAPTER VIII.

A LEADER.

AN election of United States Senators occurred in 1858. Abraham Lincoln was chosen as the candidate of the Republicans of Illinois. At the close of the convention he delivered an address of which he afterward said that if all he had ever written or spoken except one lecture must be blotted out of existence, this one-the "last speech"-he would save from destruction.

He had known for some time that he should be called upon to make the speech and he had prepared it carefully. He had read it to his political friends. They had warned him that it was unwise at this time to make so bold and plain a statement of his views. One paragraph in particular, they said, if delivered would certainly secure his defeat.

But that was the very paragraph Lincoln

was determined to give to the world. Accordingly, in the old State House at Springfield, amid the disapproving silence of his friends, he spoke these memorable words: "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 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 Statès, old as well as new, North as well as South."

Those who were most anxious to see elected to the United States Senate the man who had the courage to say this, were yet grieved that he had spoken; they feared they were losing a senator; they did not know they were gaining a president.

Lincoln was so full of the truth and justness of his words that he could not regard them as fatal to his ambition for the Senate. He neglected his business and gave his best efforts to the campaign. During the months that followed he held seven debates with Douglas, made thirty-one speeches arranged for by the State committee, and many informal speeches.

While Douglas was touring the State every possible provision for his comfort was made by his wealthy and influential friends: they invited him to their homes; they put their carriages at his disposal; the Illinois Central Railroad Company furnished him with a private car; prominent citizens in every town led the applause when he spoke.

Lincoln had comparatively little support from the rich and powerful, and from that class he suffered many humiliating slights. Travel-worn and weary he made his way from place to place with only such help and encouragement as came from the assurance that he was more and more making the people see this grave question as he saw it.

When defeat came he wrote to a friend: "I am glad I made the race. It gave me a hearing on the great and durable questions of the age which I could have had in no other way; and, though I now sink out of view and shall be forgotten, I believe I have made some marks which will tell for the cause of liberty long after I am gone."

Abraham Lincoln's efforts were not lost. His words had not fallen on dead ears. His name was becoming a familiar one in all parts of the country. In October, 1859, he accepted an invitation to speak in New York City some time in the winter. As he was but, personally, slightly known in the East, he prepared himself with great care for his first appearance in New York.

His plan was to take for his text the words of his rival, Stephen A. Douglas, "Our fathers, when they framed the government under which we live, understood this question just as well, and even better, than we do now," and to show that those who framed the government under which we live did not forbid the Federal