In 1842 he was elected to the Lower House of the Illinois General Assembly. There were in that body at this time many men of distinction and marked ability, but none that were superior to the subject of this sketch. In 1844 Mr. Arnold was again elected to the House. At the close of this session of the legislature in 1846, Mr. Arnold retired from public life, and did not re-enter it until 1856. In politics he had been a Democrat, and in 1844 was a presidential elector on the Polk ticket. But becoming indignant at the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, he became what was known as an anti-Nebraska Democrat and in 1856, at the urgent solicitation of the anti-Nebraska Democrats and Republicans of Cook County, he again consented to become a candidate for the House of Representatives in the State Legislature. This was at the time that Bissel was elected Governor and his right to take the seat was challenged by the Democrats on the ground that he once accepted a challenge to fight a duel. Mr. Arnold championed the Governor’s cause, and his speech in his defense not only really settled the question, but gave him a high reputation over the whole State, marking him as one of the ablest public men of the time. In the historical election at which Abraham Lincoln was first elected President of the United States, Mr. Arnold was elected a representative in the Thirty-seventh Congress from the Chicago district. That Congress met in extra session, July 4, 1861, and has passed into history as one of the most notable and momentous events in the life of the Republic. The Administration at the time was confronted by an open rebellion against the National authority, and it was for this session of Congress to determine just what should be done in the premises. Mr. Arnold had long known Mr. Lincoln, and between the two men there was a warm feeling of regard, and perhaps no man took his seat in this memorable session upon whom the President placed greater reliance than he did upon Mr. Arnold. The respect that was generally entertained for his abilities was evidenced by the fact that he was selected to pronounce the eulogy on the occasion of the death of Stephen A. Douglass. The regular session of the Thirty-seventh Congress met on the second day of December, 1861, at a time when the country was fully plunged into the midst of civil war. Mr. Arnold took his seat in the House, and at once entered actively into all the important proceedings of the body. His labors as a representative were very great and of the highest usefulness. Among his official acts that will live forever as a memento to his manhood and his statesmanship was his vote to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia and his introduction of a bill, which against a determined opposition he persistently pushed to enactment, to prohibit slavery in every place subject to the National jurisdiction. One who knew him well, expressed the opinion however, that the ablest and most notable speech