Speech at Peoria, October 16, 1854 On Monday, October 16, Senator DOUGLAS, by appointment, addressed a large audience at Peoria. When he closed he was greeted with six hearty cheers; and the band in attendance played a stirring air. The crowd then began to call for LINCOLN, who, as Judge Douglas had announced was, by […]

1854 When Illinois Senator Stephen Douglas introduced congressional legislation in January 1854 that became the Kansas-Nebraska Act, he inadvertently sowed the seeds of his own political demise. His downfall was slow; culminating in defeat in 1860 and death in 1861, but the deterioration of his Illinois base and his national aspirations clearly began in 1854. […]

1848 Campaign Before the end of the 1847-1848 congressional session, Mr. Lincoln commented on the upcoming presidential contest and slavery on the House floor. “Our democratic friends seem to be in great distress because they think our candidate for the President don’t suit us. Most of them can not find out that Gen: Taylor has […]

Congress The first settlers of Illinois came predominantly from slave-holding states like Kentucky. Later settlers came from northern states with strong anti-slavery traditions. Lincoln chronicler Blaine Brooks Gernon wrote: “Sentiment in central and northern Illinois against slavery in any form had been growing slowly but surely, due to the large influx of settlers pouring in […]

Illinois Legislature When Mr. Lincoln served in the Illinois Legislature, wrote contemporary biographer Josiah G. Holland, “The agitation of the slavery question was just beginning to create uneasiness among slaveholders and politicians; and during the winter the subject was broached in the legislature. Resolutions were introduced of an extreme pro-slavery character, and the… Mr. Lincoln […]

Speech at Springfield, June 16, 1858 Mr. PRESIDENT and Gentlemen of the Convention. If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could then better judge what to do, and how to do it… Mr. Lincoln and Freedom >

House Divided Speech “Douglas is working like a lion. He is stumping the state, everywhere present and everywhere appealing to his old lieges to stand by him. Never did feudal baron fight more desperately against the common superior of himself and his retainers.” So reported Chester P. Dewey of the New York Evening Post on […]

Speech at Springfield, June 26, 1857 Stephen A. Douglas spoke about Utah, Kansas-Nebraska Act, the unrest in Kansas and the Dred Scott decision to an audience in Springfield in June 1857. Mr. Lincoln was present. Two weeks later, he replied… Mr. Lincoln and Freedom >

Dred Scott The first major eruption in Mr. Lincoln’s and the nation’s attitude toward slavery was the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854. The second major upheaval was the Supreme Court’s decision on the Dred Scott case. Psychohistorian Edward J. Kempf wrote: “In 1850, while the Supreme Court of Missouri had the Dred Scott […]

Legal Cases Lincoln legal and political colleague William Pitt Kellogg recalled: “During the canvass of 1860 I met, at Pekin, Judge T. Lyle Dickey, a prominent Democratic lawyer and judge. He related to me that as early as 1855 on one occasion when he was attending court, he and Mr. Lincoln slept in the same […]