attention; but in Illinois he had been recognized as one of the foremost
men of the Whig party. Among the opponents of the Nebraska Bill he
occupied in his State so important a position, that in 1856 he was the
choice of a large majority of the "Anti-Nebraska men" in the Legislature
for a seat in the Senate of the United States which then became vacant;
and when he, an old Whig, could not obtain the votes of the Anti-Nebraska
Democrats necessary to make a majority, he generously urged his friends
to transfer their votes to Lyman Trumbull, who was then elected. Two
years later, in the first national convention of the Republican party,
the delegation from Illinois brought him forward as a candidate for the
vice-presidency, and he received respectable support. Still, the name of
Abraham Lincoln was not widely known beyond the boundaries of his own
State. But now it was this local prominence in Illinois that put him in
a position of peculiar advantage on the battlefield of national politics.
In the assault on the Missouri Compromise which broke down all legal
barriers to the spread of slavery Stephen Arnold Douglas was the
ostensible leader and central figure; and Douglas was a Senator from
Illinois, Lincoln's State. Douglas's national theatre of action was the
Senate, but in his constituency in Illinois were the roots of his
official position and power. What he did in the Senate he had to justify
before the people of Illinois, in order to maintain himself in place; and
in Illinois all eyes turned to Lincoln as Douglas's natural antagonist.

As very young men they had come to Illinois, Lincoln from Indiana,
Douglas from Vermont, and had grown up together in public life, Douglas
as a Democrat, Lincoln as a Whig. They had met first in Vandalia, in
1834, when Lincoln was in the Legislature and Douglas in the lobby; and
again in 1836, both as members of the Legislature. Douglas, a very able
politician, of the agile, combative, audacious, "pushing" sort, rose in
political distinction with remarkable rapidity. In quick succession he