e in Washington as a congressman, he made his first actual effort
toward the abolition of slavery by drawing up a bill for the freeing of
slaves in the District of Columbia and paying their owners a good price
from the coffers of the Government. This bill had many supporters, but
it was obstructed and never came to a vote. It showed, however, as his
earlier and courageous protest showed, the thoughts that were in
Lincoln's heart about this great national evil, and that he could be
relied on to do all that lay in his power to end it.

After Lincoln's term in Congress was over he returned to Springfield,
where, for a number of years, he quietly practised law without thinking
of returning to office. He did desire to be Governor of the Territory
of Oregon and was offered this position, but gave it up because his
wife refused to live so far away. It is just as well that he did so,
for who knows if his great powers would ever have been recognized if he
had taken this appointment and lived in even more of a wilderness than
where his forefathers had cleared the land and made their homes?

The war against slavery was gaining headway, and every year the feeling
became more intense over the fact that certain States were allowed to
hold men in bondage and buy and sell them like animals. Whenever a new
territory was acquired by the Union a dispute arose as to whether it
was to be a slave or a free territory, and this discussion was opened
up with bitterness in 1854 when Lincoln's great rival, Senator Douglas,
offered a bill to bring about territorial government in Nebraska.

On account of this struggle Lincoln came once more into the public eye.
Douglas had believed that by working to repeal a measure known as the
Missouri Compromise, thereby throwing open to slavery a large amount of
territory that had been closed against it, he would stand an excellent
chance of being elected President of the United States. The struggle
between the slave and the free factions of the country had now taken on
national importance of the first order, and caused the readjustment of
the political parties. The Democratic party now became the champion of
slavery, while the Whig party, and those Democrats who desired slaves
to be free, were merged in the Republican party to which Lincoln
belonged.

In the State Convention in Illinois, where the Republican party was
formed, Lincoln made a wonderful speech, of which only the memory
remains. The stenograph