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safe from his attacks; but woe betide the unlucky and dishonest individual who suppressed the truth or colored it against Mr. Lincoln's side. His speeches to the jury were very effective specimens of forensic oratory. He talked the vocabulary of the people, and the jury understood every point he made and every thought he uttered. I never saw him when I thought he was trying to make an effort for the sake of mere display; but his imagination was simple and pure in the richest gems of true eloquence. He constructed short sentences of small words, and never wearied the minds of the jury by mazes of elaboration." CHAPTER IX Lincoln and Slavery--The Issue Becoming More Sharply Defined--Resistance to the Spread of Slavery--Views Expressed by Lincoln in 1850--His Mind Made Up--Lincoln as a Party Leader--The Kansas Struggle--Crossing Swords with Douglas--A Notable Speech by Lincoln--Advice to Kansas Belligerents--Honor in Politics--Anecdote of Lincoln and Yates--Contest for the U.S. Senate in 1855--Lincoln's Defeat--Sketched by Members of the Legislature. At the death of Henry Clay, in June, 1852, Lincoln was invited to deliver a eulogy on Clay's life and character before the citizens of Springfield. He complied with the request on the 16th of July. The same season he made a speech before the Scott Club of Springfield, in reply to the addresses with which Douglas had opened his extended campaign of that summer, at Richmond, Virginia. Except on these two occasions, Lincoln took but little part in politics until the passage of the Nebraska Bill by Congress in 1854. The enactment of this measure impelled him to take a firmer stand upon the question of slavery than he had yet assumed. He had been opposed to the institution on grounds of sentiment since his boyhood; now he determined to fight it from principle. Mr. Herndon states that Lincoln really became an anti-slavery man in 1831, during his visit to New Orleans, where he was deeply affected by the horrors of the traffic in human beings. On one occasion he saw a slave, a beautiful mulatto girl, sold at auction. She was felt over, pinched, and trotted around to show bidders she was sound. Lincoln walked away from the scene with a feeling of deep abhorrence. He said to John Hanks, "_If I ever get a chance to hit that institution, John, I'll hit it hard_!" Again, in the summer of 1841, he was painfully impressed by a scene witnessed
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