The life and public services of Abraham Lincoln ... together with his state papers, including his speeches, addresses, messages, letters, and proclamations, and the closing scenes connected with his life and death. By Henry J. Raymond. To which are added anecdotes and personal reminiscences of President Lincoln, by Frank B. Carpenter.

STATE PAPERS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

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voted to their construction. This is a model of a different kind, carved
as one might imagine a retired rail-splitter would whittle, strongly, but
not smoothly, and evidently made with a view solely to convey, by the
simplest possible means, to the minds of the patent authorities, an idea
of the purpose and plan of the simple invention. The label on the
steamer's deck informs us that the patent was obtained; Let we do not
learn that the navigation of the western rivers was revolutionized by this
quaint conception. The modest little model has reposed here sixteen
years; and since it found its resting-place here on the shelf, tile slirewd
inventor has found it his task to guide the ship of state over shoals more
perilous, and obstructions more obstinate, than any prophet dreamed of
when Abraham Lincoln wrote his bold autograph on the prow of this
miniature steamer.
This curious episode, however, must not create the
impression that Mr Lincoln had allowed his mind to be
entirely diverted from the observation of the important
political events then transpiring. Hllundoubtedly noted
carefully the development of those questions which subsequently absorbed so large a share of attention, and
calculated accurately the influence which they would
have upon the relations of the two great political organizations. He had fought slavery often enough to know
what it was, and he was thoroughly conversant witll the
animus of its supporters. It is not, therefore, at all likely
that he was taken by surprise when the Nebraska Bill
was introduced, and the proposition was made by Stephen
A. Douglas to repeal that very Missouri Compromise
which he had declared to be "a sacred thing, which no
ruthless hand would ever be reckless enough to disturb."
The Nebraska Bill was passed May 22, 1854, and the
event gave ne,v and increased force to the popular feeling in favor of fieedom, which the proposition to repeal
the Missouri Compromise had excited. Everywhere the
friends of freedom gathered themselves together and rallied round her banner, to meet the conflict which was
plainly now closely impending, and which had been forced
upon the people by the grasping ambition of the slaveholders. The political campaign of that year in Illinois
was one of the severest ever known. It was intensified
by the fact that a United States Senator was to be chosen

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