In 1854, the Missouri Compromise Bill of 1820, made to shut out the free States from the invasion of slavery, was repealed. The author of this yielding on a vital question to the pro-slavery party was Stephen A. Douglas, leader of the Democrats. He had been Lincoln's early friend, and they were rivals for the hand of the Miss Todd who wedded Lincoln, with spoken confidence, and woman's astonishing art of reading men and the future, that he would attain a loftier station in the national Walhalla than his brilliant and more bewitching adversary. Indignant at this revoke in the great game of immunity which should have been played aboveboard, the lawyer sprang forth from his family peace and studious retirement to fall or fulfil his mission in the irrepressible conflict. Lincoln delivered a speech at Springfield when the town was crammed by the spectators attending the State Fair. It was rated the greatest oratorical effort of his career, and demolished Douglas' political stand. The State, previously Democratic, slid upon and crushed out Douglas' Kansas-Nebraska Bill, and a Whig legislature was chosen. Having "the senatorship in his eye," or even a dearer if not a nearer object, Lincoln resigned the seat he won in this revolutionary house. On the other hand, a vacancy in the State senatorship at Washington falling pat, he was set up as Whig candidate. Douglas had selected General James Shields, who had married Miss Todd's sister, but was as antagonistic to his brother-in-law as Douglas himself. The fight was made triangular, by the Anti-Kansas-Nebraska Bill party advancing Lyman Trumbull. Although Shields was not strong enough, a substitute in Governor Mattheson, "a dark horse," uncommitted to either side, came within an ace of election in the ballotage. * * * * * SELF-SACRIFICE. Mr. Lincoln had the finished art of the politician; he had also a magnanimous heart, ready to sacrifice all personal gain to the party. He proposed withdrawing, and throwing all his supporters' votes over to Mattheson--anything to beat Douglas! His friends resisted; he had distinguished himself sufficiently as a "retiring man" in letting Baker get the seat over his head. But he was terribly bent on this stroke of victory. He gave up the reins and, in his great self-sacrifice, passionately exclaimed: "It _must_ be done!" He was said to be, then, a fatalist, and so vented this command as if he believed "What must be, must be!" unlike the doubter who said: "No! what must be, won't be!" The Douglasites could not meet this change of base, and Trumbull became senator by the Lincolnites' coalition. Lincoln publicly disavowed any such formal compact. * * * * * A FIGHT PROVES NOTHING.