d his party friends still called themselves
Whigs, though they could muster only a minority of the total membership
of the legislature. The so-called Anti-Nebraska Democrats, opposing
Douglas and his followers, were still too full of traditional party
prejudice to help elect a pronounced Whig to the United States Senate,
though as strongly "Anti-Nebraska" as themselves. Five of them brought
forward, and stubbornly voted for, Lyman Trumbull, an Anti-Nebraska
Democrat of ability, who had been chosen representative in Congress from
the eighth Illinois District in the recent election. On the ninth ballot
it became evident to Lincoln that there was danger of a new Democratic
candidate, neutral on the Nebraska question, being chosen. In this
contingency, he manifested a personal generosity and political sagacity
far above the comprehension of the ordinary smart politician. He advised
and prevailed upon his Whig supporters to vote for Trumbull, and thus
secure a vote in the United States Senate against slavery extension. He
had rightly interpreted both statesmanship and human nature. His
personal sacrifice on this occasion contributed essentially to the
coming political regeneration of his State; and the five Anti-Nebraska
Democrats, who then wrought his defeat, became his most devoted personal
followers and efficient allies in his own later political triumph, which
adverse currents, however, were still to delay to a tantalizing degree.
The circumstances of his defeat at that critical stage of his career
must have seemed especially irritating, yet he preserved a most
remarkable equanimity of temper. "I regret my defeat moderately," he
wrote to a sympathizing friend, "but I am not nervous about it."

We may fairly infer that while Mr. Lincoln was not "nervous," he was
nevertheless deeply impressed by the circumstance as an illustration of
the grave nature of the pending political controversy. A letter written
by him about half a year later to a friend in Kentucky, is full of such
serious reflection as to show that the existing political conditions in
the United States had engaged his most profound thought and
investigation.

"That spirit," he wrote, "which desired the peaceful extinction of
slavery has itself become extinct with the occasion and the men of the
Revolution. Under the impulse of that occasion, nearly half the States
adopted systems of emancipation at once, and it is a significant fact
that not a single State has