Having skillfully drawn a platform to unite the North in opposition to slavery and the planting system, the Republicans were also adroit in their selection of a candidate. The tariff plank might carry Pennsylvania, a Democratic state; but Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois were equally essential to success at the polls. The southern counties of these states were filled with settlers from Virginia, North Carolina, and Kentucky who, even if they had no love for slavery, were no friends of abolition. Moreover, remembering the old fight on the United States Bank in Andrew Jackson's day, they were suspicious of men from the East. Accordingly, they did not favor the candidacy of Seward, the leading Republican statesman and "favorite son" of New York. After much trading and discussing, the convention came to the conclusion that Abraham Lincoln of Illinois was the most "available" candidate. He was of Southern origin, born in Kentucky in 1809, a fact that told heavily in the campaign in the Ohio Valley. He was a man of the soil, the son of poor frontier parents, a pioneer who in his youth had labored in the fields and forests, celebrated far and wide as "honest Abe, the rail-splitter." It was well-known that he disliked slavery, but was no abolitionist. He had come dangerously near to Seward's radicalism in his "house-divided-against-itself" speech but he had never committed himself to the reckless doctrine that there was a "higher law" than the Constitution. Slavery in the South he tolerated as a bitter fact; slavery in the territories he opposed with all his strength. Of his sincerity there could be no doubt. He was a speaker and writer of singular power, commanding, by the use of simple and homely language, the hearts and minds of those who heard him speak or read his printed words. He had gone far enough in his opposition to slavery; but not too far. He was the man of the hour! Amid lusty cheers from ten thousand throats, Lincoln was nominated for the presidency by the Republicans. In the ensuing election, he carried all the free states except New Jersey. =References= P.E. Chadwick, _Causes of the Civil War_ (American Nation Series). W.E. Dodd, _Statesmen of the Old South_. E. Engle, _Southern Sidelights_ (Sympathetic account of the Old South). A.B. Hart, _Slavery and Abolition_ (American Nation Series). J.F. Rhodes, _History of the United States_, Vols. I and II. T.C. Smith, _Parties and Slavery_ (American Nation Series). =Questions= 1. Trace the decline of slavery in the North and explain it. 2. Describe the character of early opposition to slavery. 3. What was the effect of abolition agitation? 4. Why did anti-slavery sentiment practically disappear in the South? 5. On what grounds did Calhoun defend slavery? 6. Explain how slave owners became powerful in politics. 7. Why was it impossible to keep the slavery issue out of national politics? 8. Give the leading steps in the long controversy over slavery in the territories.