THE WORLD»S FAMOUS ORATIONS came submerged, and was lost sight of as a public man for some years. In 1846, when Wilmot introduced his cele- brated proviso, and the Abolition tornado swept over the country, Lincoln again turned up as a member of Congress from the Sangamon district. I was then in the Senate of the United States, and was glad to welcome my old friend and companion. While in Congress, he distin- guished himself by his opposition to the Mexican War, taking the side of the common enemy against his own country ; and when he returned home he found that the indignation of the people followed him everywhere, and he was again submerged or obliged to retire into pri- vate life, forgotten by his former friends. He came up again in 1854, just in time to make an Abolition or Black Republican platform, in company with Giddings, Lovejoy, Chase, and Fred Douglass, for the Republican party to stand upon. These two men having formed this combina- tion to abolitionize the old Whig party and the old Democratic party, and put themselves into the Senate of the United States, in pursuance of their bargain, are now carrying out that arrangement. Matheny states that Trumbull broke faith; that the bargain was that Lincoln should be the senator in Shield's place, and Trumbull cheated Lincoln, having control of four or five abolitionized Democrats who were holding over in the Senate; he would not let 264
