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