[Illustration:  LEVI LINCOLN, GOVERNOR OF MASSACHUSETTS FROM 1825 TO 1834.

From a photograph kindly loaned by Miss Frances M. Lincoln of Worcester, Massachusetts, after a painting by Chester Harding.  Levi Lincoln was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1782, and died there in 1868.  He was a fourth cousin of Thomas Lincoln, father of the President, being descended from the oldest son of Samuel Lincoln of Hingham, Massachusetts, from whose fourth son, Mordecai, Abraham Lincoln descended.  Levi Lincoln was a graduate of Harvard, and studied law, practising in Worcester.  He filled many important public positions in the State, serving in the legislature, and as lieutenant-governor, judge of the Supreme Court, and from 1825 to 1834 as governor.  He represented the Whigs in Congress from 1835 to 1841, and after the expiration of his term was made collector of the port of Boston.  Levi Lincoln was an active member of several learned societies, and prominent in all the public functions of his State.  In 1848, when Abraham Lincoln, then member of Congress, spoke in Worcester, ex-Governor Lincoln presided.]

“Mr. Lincoln then passed to the subject of slavery in the States, saying that the people of Illinois agreed entirely with the people of Massachusetts on this subject, except, perhaps, that they did not keep so constantly thinking about it.  All agreed that slavery was an evil, but that we were not responsible for it, and cannot affect it in States of this Union where we do not live.  But the question of the extension of slavery to new territories of this country is a part of our responsibility and care, and is under our control.  In opposition to this Mr. Lincoln believed that the self-named ‘Free Soil’ party was far behind the Whigs.  Both parties opposed the extension.  As he understood it, the new party had no principle except this opposition.  If their platform held any other, it was in such a general way that it was like the pair of pantaloons the Yankee peddler offered for sale, ’large enough for any man, small enough for any boy.’  They therefore had taken a position calculated to break down their single important declared object.  They were working for the election of either General Cass or General Taylor.  The speaker then went on to show, clearly and eloquently, the danger of extension of slavery likely to result from the election of General Cass.  To unite with those who annexed the new territory, to prevent the extension of slavery in that territory, seemed to him to be in the highest degree absurd and ridiculous.  Suppose these gentlemen succeed in electing Mr. Van Buren, they had no specific means to prevent the extension of slavery to New Mexico and California; and General Taylor, he confidently believed, would not encourage it, and would not prohibit its restriction.  But if General Cass was elected, he felt certain that the plans of farther extension of territory would be encouraged, and those of the extension of slavery would meet no