nation; but so far as the immediate result was concerned,
Douglas was the victor, for the election gave him a majority of the
legislature, and he was chosen to succeed himself in the Senate.

Yet more than once he must have regretted that he had consented to cross
swords with his lank opponent, for he had been forced into many an
awkward corner. There is a popular tradition that the presidential
nomination came to Lincoln unsought; but this is anything but true. On
the contrary, in those debates with Douglas, he was consciously laying
the foundation for his candidacy two years later. He used every effort
to drive Douglas to admissions and statements which would tell against
him in a presidential campaign, while he himself took a position which
would insure his popularity with the Republican party. So his defeat at
the time was of no great moment to him.

He had gained an entrance to the national arena, and he took care to
remain before the public. He made speeches in Ohio, in Kansas, and even
in New York and throughout New England, everywhere making a powerful
impression. To disunion and secession he referred only once or twice,
for he perceived a truth which, even yet, some of us are reluctant to
admit: that every nation has a right to maintain by force, if it can,
its own integrity, and that a portion of a nation may sometimes be
justified in struggling for independent national existence. The whole
justification of such a struggle lies in whether its cause and basis is
right or wrong. So, beneath the question of disunion, was the question
as to whether slavery was right or wrong. On this question, of course,
northern opinion was practically all one way, while even in the South
there were many enemies of the institution. The world was outgrowing
what was really a survival of the dark ages.

When the campaign for the presidential nomination opened in the winter
of 1859-1860, Lincoln was early in the field and did everything possible
to win support. He secured the Illinois delegates without difficulty,
and when the national convention met at Chicago, in May, the contest
soon narrowed down to one between Lincoln and William H. Seward. Let it
be said, at once, that Seward deserved the nomination, if high service
and party loyalty and distinguished ability counted for anything, and it
looked for a time as though he were going to get it, for on the first
ballot he received 71 more votes than Lincoln. But in the course of hi