Team of Rivals_ The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln - Doris Kearns Goodwin [111]
As he wound to a close, Lincoln implored his audience to re-adopt the Declaration of Independence and “return [slavery] to the position our fathers gave it; and there let it rest in peace.” This accomplishment, he pledged, would save the Union, and “succeeding millions of free happy people, the world over, shall rise up, and call us blessed, to the latest generations.” When he finished, the enthusiastic audience broke out in “deafening applause.” Even the editors of the Democratic paper felt “compelled” to say that they had “never read or heard a stronger anti-Nebraska speech.”
From that moment on, propelled by a renewed sense of purpose, Lincoln dedicated the major part of his energies to the antislavery movement. Conservative and contemplative by temperament, he embraced new positions warily. Once he committed himself, however, as he did in the mid-fifties to the antislavery cause, he demonstrated singular tenacity and authenticity of feeling. Ambition and conviction united, “as my two eyes make one in sight,” as Robert Frost wrote, to give Lincoln both a political future and a cause worthy of his era.
CHAPTER 6
THE GATHERING STORM
AS 1854 GAVE WAY TO 1855, Abraham Lincoln’s long-dormant dream of high political office was reawakened, now infused with a new sense of purpose by the passage of the Nebraska Act. He won a seat in the Illinois State Assembly, then promptly declared himself a candidate for the U.S. Senate. In the Illinois state elections the previous fall, the loose coalition of antislavery Whigs and independent Democrats had gained a narrow majority over the Douglas Democrats in the legislature. The victory was “mainly attributed” to Lincoln’s leadership, observed state legislator Joseph Gillespie. With the new legislature set to convene in late January to choose the next U.S. senator from Illinois, Lincoln was “the first choice” of the overwhelming majority of anti-Nebraska members. His lifelong dream of achieving high political office seemed about to be realized at last.
On January 20, 1855, however, the worst blizzard in more than two decades isolated Springfield from the rest of the state, preventing a quorum from assembling in the state legislature. Immense snowdrifts cut off trains coming in from the North, and mail was halted for more than a week. While Springfield’s children relished “the merry sleigh bells” jingling through the snow, the “pulsation of business” was “nearly extinct.” Finally, the weather improved sufficiently for the legislature to convene.
On Thursday morning, February 8, long before the balloting opened at three o’clock, the Capitol was “a beehive of activity.” Representatives caucused and whispered in every corner. The anti-Nebraska caucus, composed mainly of Whigs, voted, as expected, to support Lincoln, but a small group of five anti-Nebraska Democrats was ominously absent. The Douglas Democrats, meanwhile, had decided to support the incumbent senator, James Shields, on the early ballots. If Shields’s campaign faltered, due to his outspoken endorsement of the Nebraska bill, they had devised a plan to switch their support to the popular Democratic governor, Joel Matteson, who had not taken an open position on the bill. In this way, the Democrats believed, they might win over some members of the anti-Nebraska caucus.
By noon, the “lobby and the galleries of the Hall of the House of Representatives began to fill with senators, representatives and their guests.” Notable among the ladies in the gallery were Mary Todd Lincoln and her friend