By the
1850s, slavery was still legal in the southern
United States, but had been generally outlawed in the northern states, including
Illinois, whose original 1818
Constitution forbade slavery, as required by the
Northwest Ordinance.
Lincoln disapproved of slavery, and the spread of slavery to new
U.S. territory in the west. He returned to politics to oppose the pro-slavery
Kansas–Nebraska Act (1854); this law repealed the slavery-restricting
Missouri Compromise (1820).
Senior Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois had incorporated popular sovereignty into the
Act. Douglas' provision, which Lincoln opposed, specified settlers had the right to determine locally whether to allow slavery in new U.S. territory, rather than have such a decision restricted by the national
Congress.
Eric Foner (
2010) contrasts the abolitionists and anti-slavery
Radical Republicans of the
Northeast who saw slavery as a sin, with the conservative
Republicans who thought it was bad because it hurt white people and blocked progress. Foner argues that Lincoln was a moderate in the middle, opposing slavery primarily because it violated the republicanism principles of the
Founding Fathers, especially the equality of all men and democratic self-government as expressed in the
Declaration of Independence.
On
October 16, 1854, in his "
Peoria Speech", Lincoln declared his opposition to slavery, which he repeated en route to the presidency.[89] Speaking in his
Kentucky accent, with a very powerful voice,[90] he said the
Kansas Act had a "declared indifference, but as I must think, a covert real zeal for the spread of slavery. I cannot but hate it. I hate it because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself. I hate it because it deprives our republican example of its just influence in the world
..."[91]
In late 1854, Lincoln ran as a
Whig for the
U.S. Senate seat from Illinois. At that time, senators were elected by the state legislature.[92] After leading in the first six rounds of voting in the Illinois assembly, his support began to dwindle, and Lincoln instructed his backers to vote for
Lyman Trumbull, who defeated opponent
Joel Aldrich Matteson.[93]
The Whigs had been irreparably split by the Kansas–Nebraska Act. Lincoln wrote, "I think I am a Whig, but others say there are no
Whigs, and that I am an abolitionist [...] I do no more than oppose the extension of slavery."[94]
Drawing on remnants of the old
Whig party, and on disenchanted
Free Soil,
Liberty, and
Democratic Party members, he was instrumental in forging the shape of the new
Republican Party.[95] At the
1856 Republican National Convention, Lincoln placed second in the contest to become the party's candidate for vice president.[96]
In
1857–1858, Douglas broke with
President James Buchanan, leading to a fight for control of the Democratic Party. Some eastern Republicans even favored the reelection of Douglas for the
Senate in 1858, since he had led the opposition to the
Lecompton Constitution, which would have admitted Kansas as a slave state.[97] In March 1857, the
Supreme Court issued its decision in
Dred Scott v. Sandford;
Chief Justice Roger B. Taney opined that blacks were not citizens, and derived no rights from the Constitution. Lincoln denounced the decision, alleging it was the product of a conspiracy of
Democrats to support the
Slave Power.[98] Lincoln argued, "The authors of the Declaration of Independence never intended 'to say all were equal in color, size, intellect, moral developments, or social capacity', but they 'did consider all men created equal—equal in certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness'."[99]
After the state
Republican party convention nominated him for the U.S. Senate in 1858, Lincoln delivered his
House Divided Speech, drawing on
Mark 3:25, "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 all the other."[
100] The speech created an evocative image of the danger of disunion caused by the slavery debate, and rallied Republicans across the
North.[
101] The stage was then set for the campaign for statewide election of the Illinois legislature which would, in turn, select Lincoln or Douglas as its
U.S. senator.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Lincoln
- published: 27 Jan 2015
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