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[504] produced a transcript of the bill. Lincoln's debates with1 Douglas in 1858 were next overhauled by the abolitionists, with a not unfair emphasizing of expressions which showed how far the Whig Republican then was from acknowledging the brotherhood of man, or from objecting to the Dred Scott decision because of its disfranchising2 the free blacks. His anticipation of Seward's “irrepressible conflict” Ante, p. 470; was quickly pointed out in mitigation—3 proof of his statesmanship if not of his humanity.

The language of his present supporters, even more than his own, furnished ground of abolition distrust of Lincoln. The Boston Advertiser said that to elect him was the4 shortest way to repeal the Massachusetts Personal Liberty Law—an end for which the Republican press of the State strove both before and after the election.5 Moreover, in Lincoln's own State, so cowardly were the Republicans that, Mr. Seward chancing to be in Chicago, and having recovered his tone in a late visit to Kansas, so as to be able to reaffirm the ‘irrepressible conflict,’ the6 party managers wanted their torchlight procession to7 avoid passing his hotel! In the same city, Mayor John Wentworth having helped pay the fine of men8 imprisoned for aiding a fugitive to escape, and presided at a public deliverance meeting, ‘The party is crushed!’9 was heard from the audience; ‘Lincoln is defeated!’ ‘Long John is playing thunder with us!’ ‘Long John has gone over to Douglas!’

The Higher Power at the helm of affairs paid no attention to such trivialities. The October State elections in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana, following those in New10 England, clearly foreshadowed the result of the national contest. “Will the South be so obliging as to secede from the Union?” Lib. 30.163. asked Mr. Garrison. And, ‘I salute your Convention with hope and joy,’ he wrote to his11 friend Johnston in Vermont, on October 15. “All the omens are with us. Forward!” N. R. Johnston. On the sixth of November, Lincoln was elected by the vote of every Northern12 State save one; and that array of the North under one

1 Lib. 30.105, 134, 166.

2 Lib. 30.166.

3 Lib. 30.102.

4 Lib. 30.145, 146.

5 Lib. 30.145, 186, 189, 190.

6 Lib. 30.161.

7 Lib. 30.165.

8 Lib. 30.165, 177.

9 Lib. 30.177.

10 Lib. 30.163, 147.

11 Lib. 30.175.

12 Lib. 30.178.

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