ous. "I tell you," said he to a
fellow lawyer, "this nation cannot exist half slave and half free."

Lincoln, however, was not one of the first to join the Republicans.
In Illinois, in 1854, Lincoln resigned his seat in the legislature to
become the Whig candidate for United States senator, to succeed the
Democratic colleague of Douglas. But there was little chance of
his election, for the real contest was between the two wings of the
Democrats, the Nebraska men and the anti-Nebraska men, and Lincoln
withdrew in favor of the candidate of the latter, who was elected.

During the following year, from the midst of his busy law practice,
Lincoln watched the Whig party go to pieces. He saw a great part of its
vote lodge temporarily among the Know-Nothings, but before the end of
the year even they began to lose their prominence. In the autumn, from
the obscurity of his provincial life, he saw, far off, Seward, the most
astute politician of the day, join the new movement. In New York, the
Republican state convention and the Whig state convention merged into
one, and Seward pronounced a baptismal oration upon the Republican party
of New York.

In the House of Representatives which met in December, 1855, the
anti-Nebraska men were divided among themselves, and the Know-Nothings
held the balance of power. No candidate for the speakership, however,
was able to command a majority, and finally, after it had been agreed
that a plurality would be sufficient, the contest closed, on the one
hundred and thirty-third ballot, with the election of a Republican, N.
P. Banks. Meanwhile in the South, the Whigs were rapidly leaving the
party, pausing a moment with the Know-Nothings, only to find that their
inevitable resting-place, under stress of sectional feeling, was with
the Democrats.

On Washington's birthday, 1856, the Know-Nothing national convention met
at Philadelphia. It promptly split upon the subject of slavery, and
a portion of its membership sent word offering support to another
convention which was sitting at Pittsburgh, and which had been called to
form a national organization for the Republican party. A third assembly
held on this same day was composed of the newspaper editors of Illinois,
and may be looked upon as the organization of the Republican party in
that state. At the dinner following this informal convention, Lincoln,
who was one of the speakers, was toasted as "the next United States
Senator."

Some four month