ablest public men of the State. We may see Lincoln advancing to the keystone of the bridge where Douglas is standing and hesitating, stop his further advance, and indeed turn him around. For the two men and their doctrines are quite different, and soon get to be opposite. Kansas may (or may not) become a Free-State through the doctrine of Douglas, but it must be a Free-State through the doctrine of Lincoln and not only Kansas but all the Territories. (See speeches of Lincoln, at Springfield, June 16, and at Chicago, July 10, 1858.)

At this point the world-historical career of Lincoln starts, and never drops from its lofty position until after his death; in fact it moves on an ascending plane from his first leap into the arena with Douglas till its sudden conclusion when it had reached its highest mark. Lincoln bids fair to become the most interesting character in all History to the People. He knew the Folk-Soul by long study and intimate acquaintance, he went to school to it during his earlier years; then he became its voice, its expounder to itself, whereby it grew conscious of its supreme purpose; finally it went to school to him as master, who brought to it a still higher message than its own.

3. We may also add, by way of contrast, that about this time the world-historical career of Kansas comes to a close, having enacted her

final scene in the rejection of the Lecompton Constitution. To be sure she will continue to have her local history, and a good deal of it, bloodier than at first; but it is not of universal import, it can no longer be recorded in the Book of the Ages, the great Presence leaves her when her unflinching grapple with slavery is over. Never since has she attracted so much attention, though she has sought to do so, nature even helping her to specks of transient fame by drouths, grasshoppers, and cyclones. Struggle has indeed continued in a small way, political fights, temperance crusades, and pitched battles over county-seats; but the stake has not been large, being local, not even national, still less has it been worldhistorical. Desperate have been the efforts of Kansas to keep herself great; but that has been shown to be beyond her power. Over her birth the World-Spirit presided, coming of its own accord and staying three years, as a kind of supernal god-mother; then the task being fulfilled, it passed elsewhither on its errand, and seemingly has never revisited its god-child up to date, almost half a century having now elapsed.

But whither has it gone? We shall find it again, that being just the function of the World's History to follow it up, to trace its presence, and to record its doings. It is not going to leave the country; its hand must be seen directing the

"We

Administration, saying "I care nothing for party.' He gave as his reason for his vote: this battle is already fought; it is over. are fighting for a majority of Free States; they are already sixteen to fifteen, and before one year we shall be nineteen to fifteen." Here we catch a glimpse of Seward's view of the conflict: Which side shall dominate the Nation? So also the South conceived it. Seward likewise spoke favorably of Popular Sovereignty in his speech on the Lecompton affair. Clearly he is leading off somewhither; what is his motive? Certainly a breach is threatening the Republican party as well as the Democratic.

Both Douglas and Seward seem to be breaking from their old connections, and to be forming an independent following of their own. Could Seward be seeking to ingratiate himself with the Administration which so hated Douglas? There was maneuvering between these two astute politicians for the right position, which might be the key to 1860. But Douglas had a nearer motive: the election of an Illinois legislature this very fall (1858) to return him to the Senate. Illinois had shown a tendency recently to go Republican. His success was doubtful without Republican support. He had already won influential Republican newspapers and politicians in the East to favor his re-election to the Senatorship.

Seward called Douglas slippery, but Seward

was open to the same charge. Both were patriots at bottom, yet both were politicians, deeply versed in what is often called practical politics. Probably neither was personally corrupt in the use of money, but they had friends who were not so tender-conscienced, and at whose doings they connived. Both changed, shifted positions, and readjusted themselves to catch the direction of the popular breeze. Some excuse may be found in the fact that their time was a time of transition and of dissolution of parties, when everybody had to make a new alignment. Neither of them was a rigid moralist as to political means; both would probably say with Cassius: "In such a time as this it is not meet that every nice offense should bear his comment."

At this point when both parties and both their chief leaders seem to be balancing in a kind of equilibrium uncertain of their way, the man of destiny, Abraham Lincoln, appears and is soon to overtop both Douglas and Seward. Here we may emphasize by contrast his straightforwardness, which the popular mind caught up first of all, giving to him the title of Honest Abe, which title men never gave to Seward or Douglas, though they were not dishonest men, and though Lincoln too had his secrecies and subtleties.

The first struggle of the new issue before the People is to take place in the West on the soil of Illinois between Lincoln and Douglas, the two

ablest public men of the State. We may see Lincoln advancing to the keystone of the bridge where Douglas is standing and hesitating, stop his further advance, and indeed turn him around. For the two men and their doctrines are quite different, and soon get to be opposite. Kansas may (or may not) become a Free-State through the doctrine of Douglas, but it must be a Free-State through the doctrine of Lincoln and not only Kansas but all the Territories. (See speeches of Lincoln, at Springfield, June 16, and at Chicago, July 10, 1858.)

At this point the world-historical career of Lincoln starts, and never drops from its lofty position until after his death; in fact it moves on an ascending plane from his first leap into the arena with Douglas till its sudden conclusion when it had reached its highest mark. Lincoln bids fair to become the most interesting character in all History to the People. He knew the Folk-Soul by long study and intimate acquaintance, he went to school to it during his earlier years; then he became its voice, its expounder to itself, whereby it grew conscious of its supreme purpose; finally it went to school to him as master, who brought to it a still higher message than its own.

3. We may also add, by way of contrast, that about this time the world-historical career of Kansas comes to a close, having enacted her