During the special session of the legislature convened in the fall of 1839 (the first one held at Springfield), the House of Representatives occupied this church, the State House being unfinished. At the short special session which opened November 23, 1840, the House first went into the Methodist church, but on the second day Representative John Logan (father of General John A. Logan) offered a resolution "that the Senate be respectfully requested to exchange places of convening with this House for a short time on account of the impossibility of the House discharging its business in so small a place as the Methodist church." This was adopted, and the House moved over to the Second Presbyterian church. At this special session the Whigs were interested in preventing a _sine die_ adjournment (because they desired to protect the State bank, which had been authorized in 1838 to suspend specie payment until after the adjournment of the next session of the General Assembly), and to this end they sought to break the quorum. All the Whigs walked out, except Lincoln and Joseph Gillespie, who were left behind to demand a roll-call when deemed expedient. A few were brought in by the sergeant-at-arms. Lincoln and Gillespie, perceiving that there would be a quorum if they remained, started to leave; and finding the doors locked, Lincoln raised a window, and both men jumped out--an incident, as Mr. Herndon says, which Lincoln "always seemed willing to forget." It was in this church, too, that Lincoln delivered an address before the Washingtonian Temperance Society, on Washington's birthday, in 1842. The church was erected in 1839, and stood until torn down, some thirty years later, to make room for a new edifice.--_J. McCan Davis._] The speech was published in full in the "Sangamo Journal" and the editor commented: "Mr. Lincoln's remarks on Mr. Linder's bank resolution in the paper are quite to the point. Our friend carries the true Kentucky rifle, and when he fires he seldom fails of sending the shot home." ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S FIRST PROTEST AGAINST SLAVERY.