gratefully accepted. And now I will not longer defer the
pleasure of taking you, and each of you, by the hand.

A letter was then handed Lincoln containing the official notice,
accompanied by the resolutions of the convention. To this letter he
replied, a few days later, as follows:

SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS, MAY 23, 1860.

SIR--I accept the nomination tendered to me by the convention over
which you presided, of which I am formally apprised in a letter of
yourself and others acting as a Committee of the Convention for
that purpose. The declaration of principles and sentiments which
accompanies your letter meets my approval, and it shall be my care
not to violate it, or disregard it in any part. Imploring the
assistance of Divine Providence, and with due regard to the views
and feelings of all who were represented in the convention, to the
rights of all the States and Territories and people of the nation,
to the inviolability of the Constitution, and the perpetual union,
harmony and prosperity of all, I am most happy to co-operate for
the practical success of the principles declared by the convention.

In June Mr. Douglas was nominated for the Presidency by the Democratic
convention, which met at Baltimore on the 18th. Mr. Douglas made a
personal canvass, speaking in most of the states, North and South, and
exerting all the powers of which he was master to win success. The
campaign, as Mr. Arnold states, "has had no parallel. The enthusiasm of
the people was like a great conflagration, like a prairie fire before a
wild tornado. A little more than twenty years had passed since Owen
Lovejoy, brother of Elijah Lovejoy, on the bank of the Mississippi,
kneeling on the turf not then green over the grave of the brother who
had been killed for his fidelity to freedom, had sworn eternal war
against slavery. From that time on, he and his associate Abolitionists
had gone forth preaching their crusade against oppression, with hearts
of fire and tongues of lightning; and now the consummation was to be
realized of a President elected on the distinct ground of opposition to
the extension of slavery. For years the hatred of that institution had
been growing and gathering force. Whittier, Bryant, Lowell, Longfellow,
and others, had written the lyrics of liberty; the graphic pen of Mrs.
Stowe, in 'Uncle Tom's Cabin,' had painted the cruelties of the overseer
and the sla