The story is told of him that,
while he was attending court on the circuit, he heard the news of
the Kansas-Nebraska Act in a tavern and sat up most of the night
talking about it. Next morning he used a phrase destined to
become famous. "I tell you," said he to a fellow lawyer, "this
nation cannot exist half slave and half free."
Lincoln, however, was not one of the first to join the
Republicans. In Illinois, in 1854, Lincoln resigned his seat in
the legislature to become the Whig candidate for United States
senator, to succeed the Democratic colleague of Douglas. But
there was little chance of his election, for the real contest was
between the two wings of the Democrats, the Nebraska men and the
anti-Nebraska men, and Lincoln withdrew in favor of the candidate
of the latter, who was elected.
During the following year, from the midst of his busy law
practice, Lincoln watched the Whig party go to pieces. He saw a
great part of its vote lodge temporarily among the Know-Nothings,
but before the end of the year even they began to lose their
prominence. In the autumn, from the obscurity of his provincial
life, he saw, far off, Seward, the most astute politician of the
day, join the new movement. In New York, the Republican state
convention and the Whig state convention merged into one, and
Seward pronounced a baptismal oration upon the Republican party
of New York.
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