Page:The Presidents of the United States, 1789-1914, v. II.djvu/319

ABRAHAM LINCOLN 255 of their own way of thinking. Lincoln, fearing that this dissension among the anti-slavery men might result in the election of a supporter of Doug las, urged his friends to go over in a body to the support of Trumbull, and his influence was suffi cient to accomplish this result. Trumbull was elected, and for many years served the Republican cause in the senate with ability and zeal. As soon as the Republican party became fully organized in the nation, embracing in its ranks the anti-slavery members of the old Whig and Demo cratic parties, Mr. Lincoln, by general consent, took his place at the head of the party in Illinois; and when, in 1858, Senator Douglas sought a re election to the senate, the Republicans with one voice selected Mr. Lincoln as his antagonist. He had already made several speeches of remarkable eloquence and power against the pro-slavery re action of which the Nebraska bill was the signifi cant beginning, and when Mr. Douglas returned to Illinois to begin his canvass for the senate he was challenged by Mr. Lincoln to a series of joint dis cussions* The challenge was accepted, and the most remarkable oratorical combat the state had ever witnessed took place between them during the summer. Mr. Douglas defended his thesis of non intervention with slavery in the territories (the doctrine known as "popular sovereignty," and de rided as "squatter sovereignty") with remarkable