ther provided for
the manumission of slaves by the Government of the United States with
compensation to the owners who might make application therefor, for
the return of fugitive slaves from Washington and Georgetown, and
finally for the submission of the bill to popular vote in the District
of Columbia. This measure, however, and its probability of success so
excited the proslavery members of Congress and the slave owners in the
District of Columbia that a violent opposition thereto followed. So
many influential forces were arrayed against the measure that its
friends did not further endeavor to pilot it through the House.[5]
This unsuccessful effort marked the expiration of Lincoln's term in
Congress.

Declining to become a candidate for renomination to Congress, Lincoln
returned to Springfield, partially withdrew from politics, and devoted
himself largely to the practice of law. He reappeared as an active
participant in politics in Illinois in 1854, when there appeared a new
aspect of the question as reflected by the debate incident to the
Kansas-Nebraska controversy. At this time Lincoln was called for in
all directions to deliver addresses to inform the people on the issue
of the day. In this connection he demonstrated his inalterable
opposition to the extension of slavery.[6] He objected to the
iniquitous doctrine of the Nebraska Bill in that it assumed that there
was moral right in the enslaving of one man by another, and, further,
that it tended to be unmistakably subversive of the basic principles
of the Declaration of Independence. Lincoln was of the opinion that
the salvation of the Union was dependent upon the extension or the
restriction of slavery. Realizing the futility and the hopelessness of
voluntary emancipation, he asserted that the "Autocrat of all the
Russias" would resign his crown, and proclaim freedom to all his
subjects sooner than the "American masters" would voluntarily give up
their slaves.[7] It is remarkable that Lincoln's speculative
affirmation was followed by what he thought an impossibility, for on
the day preceding Mr. Lincoln's inauguration the "Autocrat of all the
Russias," Alexander II, by an imperial decree emancipated his serfs;
"while six weeks after the inauguration, the proslavery element,
headed by Jefferson Davis, began the Rebellion to perpetuate and to
spread the institution of slavery."

In 1857 came the Dred Scott decision, in which Chief Justice Taney of
the Supreme