In the course of history there sometimes arises a man who has a
marvelous power of attaching others to himself. He commands a measure
of devotion and enthusiasm which it is impossible fully to understand.
Such a man was Henry Clay. Under the fascination of his qualities
Lincoln lived. From childhood to maturity Clay had been his idol, and
Clay's party, the whig, nearly synonymous with all that was desirable
in American politics. It was therefore no easy matter for Lincoln to
leave the whig party. Nothing could accomplish this but the
overmastering power of a noble emotion.

From childhood Lincoln had hated slavery. The fact that Kentucky was a
slave state had its influence in his father's removal to Indiana. His
personal observations upon his journeys down the Mississippi River had
given him a keener feeling on the subject. The persistent and ever-
increasing outrages of the slave power had intensified his hatred. The
time had come when he, and such as he, felt that other party questions
were of minor importance, and that everything else should for the time
be subordinated to the supreme question of slavery.

There were certain reasons why the whig party could not accomplish the
desired end. Its history had identified it with a different class of
subjects. Though Clay himself and a majority of his party were opposed
to the extension of slavery, there were still pro-slavery men in its
ranks in sufficient numbers to prevent any real efficiency on the
slavery question.

On the other hand, while the democratic party was overwhelmingly pro-
slavery, there were anti-slavery democrats who, from their numbers,