This speech of Mr. Lincoln's was a noted one, and nearly all his biographers mention it, but it has not been left on record, except in small extracts. Mr. McCord's statement, made for this book, is interesting, and all will be glad to see the picture of his friendly and intellectual face as it now appears.
The passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill and its effects was the means of the destruction of the Whig party, to which Mr. Lincoln belonged, the disruption of other party lines, and the organization of a new party with Abraham Lincoln as its acknowledged leader, which in a few years was to decide the destinies of the United States Government. It also had the effect of bringing about a state of civil war in Kansas. Thousands of pro- and anti-slavery people flocked to Kansas to help decide the destiny of that territory. Illegal votes, bogus legislatures, mobs, murders, incendiary acts, and general lawlessness were some of the fruits of Mr. Douglas' famous bill for popular sovereignty, better known as "squatter sovereignty."
In 1857, Chief-Justice Taney of the United States Supreme Court, with a majority of his associates, decided on a test case, known as the "Dred Scott Case," that when the Constitution of the United States was formed and adopted, a negro slave was not a person, but simply a piece of property,—a thing,—and that his master could lawfully take his slaves anywhere he pleased, just as he could his horses and his cattle.
The Kansas-Nebraska Bill, the Fugitive Slave Law, and the Dred Scott Decision greatly aroused the North. Some declared that the latter two laws should not be carried out. This increased the hostility of the South. Many persons in the North assisted in what was called the "underground railroad"—secretly assisting slaves on their way to Canada for freedom.
When a small boy, just beginning to read, I remember seeing at my Grandfather Todd's, in southern Indiana, copies of the Louisville _Journal_ (now the _Courier-Journal_) with whole columns of short advertisements, offering rewards for runaway slaves. Such advertisements could easily be recognized at a glance, for each one had a small picture of a slave with a carpet-sack on his back making long strides for liberty.