Lincoln the Politician

LINCOLN THE POLITICIAN
1850 to 1860

The gains made by proslavery forces in the 1850s compelled Abraham Lincoln to return to politics. By 1849, he had served only one term as a U.S. congressman and had reconciled himself to life as a country lawyer. Then, in 1850, Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act; in 1854, the Kansas-Nebraska Act became law; in 1857 came the Supreme Court’s infamous Dred Scott decision. Each of these further expanded or entrenched the practice of slavery, which Lincoln believed should be restricted to the South and eventually ended. He responded as any righteous attorney would: by making oral arguments, not before a judge, but in the court of public opinion. He found his moral voice and the justification for his career in politics when speaking against slavery. These speeches and debates, now uncommonly found in their first printings, are the vehicles by which Lincoln ascended to the highest ranks of politics.

Fugitive Slave Act

William Wells Brown, Narrative of . . . a Fugitive Slave (Boston: Anti-Slavery Office, 1847).

“The Fugitive Slave Law,” A Document for the People (Washington: Buell & Blanchard, 1853).

Henry Walton Bibb, Narrative of the Life and Adventures (New York: The Author, 1849).

The Kansas-Nebraska Act & Dred Scott Decision

Stephen A. Douglas, “Kansas, Utah, and the Dred Scott Decision” (Chicago: n.p., 1857).

Stephen A. Douglas, Popular Sovereignty in the Territories: The Dividing Line between Federal and Local Authority (Boston: Harper & Brothers, 1859).

[Supreme Court], A Report of the Decisions . . . in the Case of Dred Scott versus John F.A. Sandford (New York: Appleton, 1857).

Lincoln Returns to the Political Stage

Abraham Lincoln, “Speech . . . in Reply to Judge Douglas” ([Springfield, IL: n.p., 1857]).

Abraham Lincoln, “Speech . . . Delivered in Springfield” ([Springfield, IL: n.p., 1858]).

Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas, Political Debates (Columbus [OH]: Follett [et al.], 1860).

Stephen A. Douglas and Abraham Lincoln, The Campaign in Illinois. The Last Joint Debate (Washington: Towers, 1858).