The motives that prompted public sentiment in Illinois to throttle discussion on the slave question, almost baffle understanding. The Lovejoys attacked no vested interest in the State, menaced no substantial rights of person or property. While the Southern States busied themselves with the doctrine that it was the privilege of each State to demean itself as it wished, subject only to the Constitution, as it interpreted that instrument, there was small occasion for a Northern commonwealth to curb its own citizens, to sacrifice ancient and cherished rights for the pleasure of an exacting foreign institution. The anti-slavery forces with keenness of vision saw the weak point of the enemy's attack, so they ranged themselves round the banner, proclaiming the doctrine of free speech and the sacredness of an unshackled press. Nothing more inherently reveals the weakness of the advocates of slavery, than their morbid fear of free and frank inquiry into its policy and wisdom. In the face of an institution demanding mob power, and the sacrifice of priceless principles, the Abolitionists performed a wholesome public service in contending that then more than ever liberty of discussion should be protected, maintained and hallowed. Suddenly, in the same year up starts Lincoln the statesman, Lincoln the politician sinks. He possessed the rare gift of concealing his most cherished opinions until the time was ripe for expression. He was aware of the folly of mouthing truths when no good could come therefrom. In this, he was a politician. Still when the occasion called for an act of fortitude, when the solemnity of the hour summoned heroic utterance, as from "heights afar," the sound of his voice was heard and the thrill of his words awakened. In this, he was a supreme statesman. Strange medley of the ideal and the practical,--at times he appeared the very woof of the visionary, and then stood forth as a petty politician. He was a mystery and a wonder to his contemporaries. They never beheld such a man; they had no standard by which to measure him. First, amazing some by the minuteness of his strategy, he would then startle others by a bold proclamation of immortal truth. There was something elusive in the manifoldness of his nature. The world with childlike simplicity looks for uniformity of action, for consistency. So it was that in later years time-servers called Lincoln the apostle of radicalism, and radicals named him the slave of conservatism.