ly the speech was
never reported; but its effect lives vividly in the memory of all who
heard it, and it crowned his right to popular leadership in his own
State, which thereafter was never disputed.

[Sidenote] 1856.

The organization of the Republican party for the nation at large
proceeded very much in the same manner as that in the State of
Illinois. Pursuant to separate preliminary correspondence and calls
from State committees, a general meeting of prominent Republicans and
anti-Nebraska politicians from all parts of the North, and even from a
few border slave-States, came together at Pittsburgh on Washington's
birthday, February 22. Ohio, New York, and Pennsylvania sent the
largest contingents; but around this great central nucleus were
gathered small but earnest delegations aggregating between three and
four hundred zealous leaders, representing twenty-eight States and
Territories. It was merely an informal mass convention; but many of
the delegates were men of national character, each of whose names was
itself a sufficient credential. Above all, the members were cautious,
moderate, conciliatory, and unambitious to act beyond the requirements
of the hour. They contented themselves with the usual parliamentary
routine; appointed a committee on national organization; issued a call
for a delegate convention; and adopted and put forth a stirring
address to the country. Their resolutions were brief and formulated
but four demands: the repeal of all laws which allow the introduction
of slavery into Territories once consecrated to freedom; resistance by
constitutional means to slavery in any United States Territory; the
immediate admission of Kansas as a free-State, and the overthrow of
the present national Administration.

In response to the official call embodied in the Pittsburgh address,
the first National Convention of the Republican party met at
Philadelphia on the 17th of June, 1856. The character and dignity of
the Pittsburgh proceedings assured the new party of immediate prestige
and acceptance; with so favorable a sponsorship it sprang full-armed
into the political conflict. That conflict which opened the year with
the long congressional contest over the speakership, and which found
its only solution in the choice of Banks by a plurality vote, had been
fed by fierce congressional debates, by presidential messages and
proclamations, by national conventions, by the Sumner assault, by the
Kansas war; the b