subjects such as taxation and finance whose moral bearing was
not apparent, and therefore into which he never inquired closely, for
Lincoln's mind could not be profoundly interested in any save a moral
question. When he found that a revered statesman was weak upon a
crucial moral issue, he repressed his innate tendency to loyalty and
rejected him. Thus, after a visit to Henry Clay in Kentucky, when the
slavery question was arising to vex the country despite the efforts
the aged statesman had made to settle it by the compromise of 1850,
Lincoln returned disillusioned, having found that the light he himself
possessed on the subject was clearer than that of his old leader. The
eulogy which he delivered on the death of Clay, which occurred shortly
afterward (in 1852), is the most perfunctory of all his addresses.

Indeed, not till the time of the Repeal of the Missouri Compromise of
1854, which brought Lincoln back into politics by its overthrow of
what he regarded as the constitutional exclusion of slavery from the
Territories, did he rise to his highest powers as a thinker and
speaker. Lincoln had been defeated for reelection to Congress because
of his opposition, though not highly moral in character, to the
popular Mexican war, and, regarding himself as a political failure, he
had devoted himself to law. His most notable speech in the House of
Representatives, a well composed satirical arraignment of President
Polk for throwing the country into war, had failed utterly of its
intended effect, probably because of its trimming partisan tone. In
1854 he was relieved of the trammels of party, the Whigs having gone
to smash. Anti-slavery had become a great moral movement, and he was
drawn into its current. Almost at once he became its Western leader.
His speech against the Repeal of the Missouri Compromise which had
been effected by his inveterate antagonist, Senator Stephen A.
Douglas, was his first classic achievement in argumentative oratory.
While in the greater aspect of artistic composition, the form of the
address as a whole, his master was Euclid, in minor points the
influence of Shakespeare, of whom Lincoln had become a great reader,
was apparent, as indicated by a quotation from the dramatist, and an
application to Senator Douglas of the scene of Lady Macbeth trying to
wash out the indelible stain upon her hand. Also the Bible was the
source of strong and telling phrases and figures of speech. Thus he
denominated sl