that tenor intonation of voice, that ultimately settled down into a clear, shrill, monotonous style of speaking, that enabled his audience, however large, to hear distinctly the lowest sound of his voice.”

Lincoln was followed in that meeting by George Forquer, who was a prominent Whig member of the Legislature in 1834, but left his party for the sake of getting the berth of Registrar of the Land Office at Springfield. He was a wily politician, ready to change front at any time, and to resort to political tricks for the sake of office. Forquer assailed Lincoln bitterly, and began his speech by saying, “The young man must be taken down.” Lincoln stood by and listened to every word. As soon as Forquer closed his tirade, Lincoln mounted the platform, and replied “with great dignity and force,” closing his speech thus:—

“The gentleman says ‘this young man must be taken down.’ It is for you, not for me, to say whether I am up or down. The gentleman has alluded to my being a young man; I am older in years than I am in the tricks and trades of politicians. I desire to live, and I desire place and distinction as a politician; but I would rather die now, than, like the gentleman, live to see the day that I would have to erect a lightning- rod to protect a guilty conscience from an offended God.” This termination of his speech convulsed the audience, and they roared with laughter, and cheered, at Forquer’s expense.

In the Legislature of 1836-37 Lincoln found himself associated with many men who became great in public life thereafter—Stephen A. Douglas, James Shields, John A. McClernand, Dan Stone, Edward D. Baker, John J. Hardin, and a dozen others of equal ability.

There were nine Representatives from Sangamon County, and not one of them was less than six feet high. Lincoln was the tallest of the number. Members of the Legislature dubbed them “The Long Nine;” and they said, “Lincoln is the longest.”

Lincoln’s second term in the Legislature brought him face to face with the Slavery question. The “Abolitionists” had been busily at work, scattering anti-slavery literature North and South, lecturing in the Free States upon the sin and curse of Slavery, and agitating the subject in every possible way. The State governments, even at the North, were bent on suppressing these “agitators,” as they were called Even the governors of Massachusetts and New York denounced them, as if they were more dangerous than horse-thieves. The bitterest feeling prevailed against them in Illinois; and one of their leaders, the Rev. E. P. Lovejoy, who published an anti-slavery paper at Alton, in that State, was shot while defending his printing-office against the attacks of a pro-slavery mob.

In these circumstances, the Democratic party of Illinois, largely in the majority in the Legislature, waxed bold and violent. In the great excitement they introduced a series of resolutions against “abolitionists,” and in favour of Slavery, that would have been a disgrace to any Slave State. They sought to intimidate and lash the Whigs into the support of the infamous measures; and they succeeded with most of them except Abraham Lincoln. He denounced the resolutions and the party which introduced them. He spoke against them, and voted against them; and he drew one Whig to his side—Dan Stone—who stood with him fearlessly to the end. And when the House finally adopted them, these two members presented a carefully-prepared protest against the measure, as “injustice” and “bad policy,” and asked to have it entered, in their name, upon the journal of the House. His good fight for Freedom in the House, from 1836 to 1838, put him before the State and the country as a fearless and powerful opponent of the slave system.

It was during this legislative term that an Act was passed, removing the capital from Vandalia to Springfield; and the prime mover in it was Lincoln. To him was credited the success of the measure, which proved of great value to the State.

Lincoln was admitted to the bar in 1837, and soon after removed to Springfield, and became the partner of John T. Stuart, his benefactor, in the practice of law, and he boarded with Hon. William Butler. In New Salem, for two years before, “he wrote deeds, contracts, notes, and other legal papers for his neighbours; and