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ing with citizens from the town. When the prisoner and his mother entered, silence reigned as completely as though the house were empty. The foreman of the jury, in answer to the usual inquiry from the court, delivered the verdict of Not Guilty!' The widow dropped into the arms of her son, who lifted her up and told her to look upon him as before, free and innocent. Then, with the words, 'Where is Mr. Lincoln ?' he rushed across the room and grasped the hand of his deliverer, whilst his heart was too full for utterance. Lincoln turned his eyes towards the West, where the sun still lingered in view, and then, turning to the youth, said, 'It is not yet sundown and you are free.' I confess that my cheeks were not wholly unwet by tears, and I turned from the affecting scene. As I cast a glance behind, I saw Abraham Lincoln obeying the Divine injunction by comforting the widowed and fatherless."

Mr. Lincoln was three times elected to the Legislature; and here commenced his political acquaintance with Stephen A. Douglas. He then remained six years in private life, devoting himself to the practice of the law, displaying remarkable ability, and gaining an enviable reputation. His interest in politics never subsided, and in 1844 he stumped the entire State of Illinois during the Presidential campaign. We have before mentioned that one of his earliest books was the "Life of Henry Clay," and his enthusiastic admiration for that Statesman, aroused in his boyhood, continued in full force during his life. In 1847 Mr. Lincoln took his seat in Congress, and was the only Whig representative from Illinois, which had then seven members in Congress.

The Congress of which Mr. Lincoln was a member, had before it questions of great importance and interest to the country. The Mexican War was then in progress, and Congress had to deal with grave questions arising out of it, besides the many which were to be

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passed upon as to the means by which it was to be carried. on. The irrepressible Slavery Question was there, also, many of its Protean forms, in questions on the right of petition, in questions as to the District of Columbia, in many questions as to the Territories.

Mr. Lincoln was charged by his enemies in later years, when political enmity was hunting sharply for material out of which to make political capital against him, with lack of patriotism, in that he voted against the war. The charge was sharply and clearly made by Judge Douglas, at the first of their joint discussions in the Senatorial contest of 1858. In his speech at Ottawa, he says of Mr. Lincoln, that "while in Congress he distinguished himself by his opposition to the Mexican war, taking the side of the common enemy against his own country, and when he returned home he found that the indignation of the people followed him everywhere."

No better answer can be given to this slander than that which Mr. Lincoln himself made in his reply to this speech. He says: "I was an old Whig, and whenever the Democratic party tried to get me to vote that the war had been righteously begun by the President, I would not do it. But whenever they asked for any money or land-warrants or any thing to pay the soldiers there, during all that time I gave the same vote that Judge Douglas did. You can think as you please as to whether that was consistent. Such is the truth, and

the Judge has a right to make all he can out of it. But when he, by a general charge conveys the idea that I withheld supplies from the soldiers who were fighting in the Mexican war, or did any thing else to hinder the

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He saw that the strength of the position of the sdministration before the people in reference to the beginning of the war, was in the point, which they lost

no opportunity of reiterating, viz, that Mexico Lad shed the blood of our citizens on our oven soll. This position he believed to be false, and he accordingly attacked it in a resolution requesting the President to give the House information on that point; which President Polk would have found as difficult to dodge as Douglas found it to dodge the questions which V.. Lincoln proposed to him.

On the right of petition Mr. Lincoln, of course, held the right side, voting repeatedly against laying on the table without consideration petitions in favor of the abolition of Slavery in the District of Columbia, and against the slave-trade.

On the question of abolishing Slavery in the District, he took rather a prominent part. A Mr. Gott had introduced a resolution directing the committee for the District to introduce a bill abolishing the slave-trade in the District. To this Mr. Lincoln moved an amendment instructing them to introduce a bill for the abolition, not of the slave-trade, but of Slavery within the District. The bill which he proposed prevented any slave from ever being brought into the District, except in the case of officers of the Government of the United States, who might bring the necessary servants for themselves and their families while in the District on public business. It prevented any one then resident within the District, or thereafter born within it, from being held in Slavery without the District. It declared that all children of slave mothers born in the District after January 1, 1850, should be free, but should be reasonably supported and educated by the owners of their mothers, and that any owner of slaves in the Dis

trict might be paid their value from the Treasury, and the slaves should thereupon be free; and it provided also for the submission of the act to the people of the District for their acceptance or rejection.

A bill was afterwards reported by the committee forbidding the introduction of slaves into the District for sale or hire. This bill also Mr. Lincoln supported, but in vain. The time for the success of such measures, involving to an extent attacks upon Slavery, had not yet come.

The question of the Territories came up in many ways. The Wilmot Proviso had made its first appearance in the previous session, in the August before, but it was repeatedly before this Congress also, when efforts were made to apply it to the territory which we procured from Mexico, and to Oregon. On all occasions when it was before the House it was supported by Mr. Lincoln, and he stated during his contest with Judge Douglas that he had voted for it, "in one way and another, about forty times." He thus showed himself in 1847 the same friend of Freedom for the Territories which he was afterwards during the heats of the Kansas struggle.

Another instance in which the Slavery Question was before the House was in the famous Pacheco case. This was a bill to reimburse the heirs of Antonio Pacheco for the value of a slave who was hired by a United States officer in Florida, but ran away and joined the Seminoles, and being taken in arms with them, was sent out of Florida with them when they were transported to the West. The bill was reported to the House by the Committee on Military Affairs.

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