Page:Life of Abraham Lincoln - Bowers - 1922.djvu/29

 Rh The nation was aroused over the question of slavery. While many good people desired peace rather than agitation concerning such an irritating problem, the question of slavery in the territories had to be decided and the whole question of slavery would not down. In 1856 the Republican party was organized for the state of Illinois in a big convention at Bloomington at which Lincoln made a strong speech; and in the Republican National Convention held in Philadelphia a few weeks later he was given 110 votes for Vice-President. He was committed to the new Republican party and campaigned vigorously for Fremont, their candidate for President.

Lincoln's enthusiastic friends said he was already on the track for the Presidency. As the contest of 1858 for the Senate approached, it again appeared that the Democrats would be divided and Lincoln had some confidence of success. Out in Kansas the proslavery men, by an unfair vote, had adopted the Lecompton Constitution favoring slavery; President Buchanan urged Congress to admit Kansas with that fraudulent constitution; Douglas opposed that constitution and voted against the admission of Kansas as a slave state; thus angering the President and the South and delighting the Republicans of the North.

Now the time was approaching when, in the 1859 session of the Illinois legislature, Douglas would have to stand for re-election to the United States Senate. The legislators would be chosen in the campaign of 1858 largely on that issue. Douglas had become the foremost