kept his temper and finished his speech. Then Palmer arose and, laying his weapon before him, cocked, proceeded to give the Democratic party such a castigation as none of those present had ever heard before.

It was in the campaign of 1856 that I first began to make political speeches. James H. Matheny, who was then our circuit clerk, accompanied me to several meetings where we both delivered addresses. He was an old Whig inclined toward Democracy, and I was a Whig inclined toward Republicanism. The result was I made Republican speeches, while Judge Matheny made Democratic speeches.

Our first meeting away from home was at Petersburg, Menard County. Being a candidate for elector on the Fillmore ticket, I made my first away-from-home speech, which I thought was a pretty good Republican speech. Matheny followed me with a hot Democratic speech, attacking especially Judge Trumbull, then our United States Senator. I remained pretty steadily in the campaign of that year, making about the same character of speech wherever I went.

Fillmore was very popular in Central Illinois, where the Whig party also had quite a large following during its palmy days, but he did not receive votes enough to come anywhere near carrying the State. Sangamon, my home county, and Tazewell County, where I was brought up, both gave their majority votes for Fillmore.

The Hon. John T. Stuart and his partner, the Hon. B. S. Edwards, with whom I studied law, besides being able lawyers and first-class men, were both Whigs; Mr. Stuart especially took an active part in the campaign. The latter was invited to attend what was called a Fillmore meeting at Shelbyville, several counties away from Sangamon. It so happened that he could not go, and the people of Shelbyville telegraphed for me. I went, and it turned out to be a combined Fremont, Buchanan, and Fillmore meeting—at least the three meetings there were held all on the same day.

The Fillmore camp gathered its forces out in the woods until about two o'clock in the afternoon. The Buchanan and Fremont crowds then marched in, informing the first-comers that they regarded their right to have the first meeting pre-eminent. An agreement was arrived at after some little wrangling, and old General Thornton was chosen to preside. He determined that, as I was not only a young man but the farthest from home, I should make the first speech —an arrangement that suited me very well.

I made my speech, as good a one as I could, and in closing, somewhat hurriedly announced that I was obliged to leave for home, much as I might wish to remain with them to the close of the meeting. The result was that most of the Fillmore people followed me away and came nearly breaking up the whole performance. I urged them to go back and listen to the other speakers; but they declined to do so until I had gotten off for home. It was my first venture at speech- making away from home on national issues.

I worked and voted for Fillmore because I had a very high opinion of him as a good man, and did not then think very much of Fremont as a proper candidate for the Presidency. Subsequently Fremont became better known, and occupied a high place in the estimation of the people of the United States, as a gallant soldier and a statesman, enjoying the unique honor of having been the first candidate of the Republican party for President.

I have taken an active part in every campaign since 1856, excepting when poor health prevented a regular speaking campaign.

The animosities of the campaign of 1856 were carried into the Legislature and kept alive in the House during the entire session. Governor Bissell's inaugural address was a dignified State paper in which he referred to the administration of his predecessor in highly complimentary terms. He concurred in all his recommendations, but suggested no measures of his own. Although he had commented briefly upon the Kansas-Nebraska controversy, and in mild terms, his remarks stirred the ire of the Democrats. Upon the motion to print the address, a virulent attack was made upon him, led, strange to say, by John A. Logan, afterwards the foremost volunteer general of the Union, and a Republican of Republicans. The rancor of the Democrats against Governor Bissell, who at that time was a physical wreck from a stroke of paralysis, though mentally sound, was largely due to their recollection of the fearless manner in which he had responded, some years before, to a challenge given him by Jefferson Davis to a duel. That episode has long since become historic, and I need not enlarge upon it here.

As was the political temper in the State of Illinois, so was it, to a greater or less degree, throughout the entire Nation.

Buchanan's first message repeated the assurance that the discussion of slavery had come to an end. The clergy were criticised for fomenting prevalent disturbances. The President declared in favor of the admission of Kansas, with a Constitution agreeable to a majority of the settlers. He also referred to an impending decision of the Supreme Court, with which he had been made acquainted, and asked acquiescence in it. This was Judge Taney's decision in the Dred Scott case, rendered two days after Buchanan's inauguration.

An action had been begun in the Circuit Court in Missouri by Scott, a negro, for the freedom of himself and children. He claimed that he had been removed by his master in 1834 to Illinois, a Free State, and afterwards taken into territory north of the compromise line. Sanford, his master, replied that Scott was not a citizen of Missouri, and could not bring an action, and that he and his children were Sanford's slaves. The lower courts differed, and the case was twice argued. The decision nullified the Missouri restriction, or, indeed, any restriction by Congress on slavery in the Territories. Chief-Justice Taney said:

"The question is whether the class of persons (negroes) compose a portion of the people, and are constituent members of this sovereignty. We think they are not included under the word 'citizen' in the Constitution, and can therefore claim none of the rights and privileges of that instrument."

Negroes, as a race, were at that time considered as a subordinate and inferior class who had been subjugated by the dominant whites, and had no rights or privileges except such as those who held the power and the government might choose to grant them. They had for more than a century been regarded as beings of an inferior grade— so far inferior that they possessed no rights which the white man was bound to respect; and the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his (the white man's) benefit. The negro race by common consent had been excluded from civilized governments and the family of nations, and doomed to slavery. The unhappy black race was separated from the whites by indelible marks long before established, and was never thought of or spoken of except as property.

The Chief-Justice further annulled the Missouri restriction, by asserting that "the act of Congress which prohibited a citizen from holding property of this kind north of the line therein mentioned is not warranted by the Constitution, and is therefore void." Benton said that it was "no longer the exception, with freedom the rule; but slavery was the rule, with freedom the exception."

It was a year of financial distress in America, which recalled the hard times of twenty years before. The United States treasury was empty.

Early in this year (1856) a Legislature had met at Topeka, Kansas, and was immediately dissolved by the United States marshals. A Territorial Legislature also met at Lecompton and provided for a State Constitution. The people of Kansas utterly refused to recognize the latter body which had been chosen by the Missouri