friends.  All remember his magnanimity towards Col.  Edward D. Baker, when the latter was elected to Congress from the Springfield District in 1844, and the frankness with which he informed Baker of his own desire to be a candidate in 1846—­when for the only time in his life, he was elected to that body.  In 1852, Richard Yates of Jacksonville, then recognized as one of the rising young orators and statesmen of the West, was elected to Congress for the second time from the Springfield District.  It was during the term following this election that the Kansas-Nebraska issue was precipitated upon the country by Senator Douglas, in the introduction of his bill for the repeal of the Missouri Compromise.  Yates, in obedience to his impulses, which were always on the side of freedom, took strong ground against the measure—­notwithstanding the fact that a majority of his constituents, though originally Whigs, were strongly conservative, as was generally the case with people who were largely of Kentucky and Tennessee origin.  In 1854 the Whig party, which had been divided on the Kansas-Nebraska question, began to manifest symptoms of disintegration; while the Republican party, though not yet known by that name, began to take form.  At this time I was publishing a paper at Jacksonville, Yates’s home; and although from the date of my connection with it, in 1852, it had not been a political paper, the introduction of a new issue soon led me to take decided ground on the side of free territory.  Lincoln at once sprang into prominence as one of the boldest, most vigorous and eloquent opponents of Mr. Douglas’s measure, which was construed as a scheme to secure the admission of slavery into all the new territories of the United States.  At that time Lincoln’s election to a seat in Congress would probably have been very grateful to his ambition, as well as acceptable in a pecuniary point of view; and his prominence and ability had already attracted the eyes of the whole State toward him in a special degree.  Having occasion to visit Springfield one day while the subject of the selection of a candidate was under consideration among the opponents of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, I encountered Mr. Lincoln on the street.  As we walked along, the subject of the choice of a candidate for Congress to succeed Yates came up, when I stated that many of the old-line Whigs and anti-Nebraska men in the western part of the district were looking to him as an available leader.  While he seemed gratified by the compliment, he said:  ’No; Yates has been a true and faithful Representative, and should be returned.’  Yates was renominated; and although he ran ahead of his ticket, yet so far had the disorganization of the Whig party then progressed, and so strong a foothold had the pro-slavery sentiment obtained in the district, that he was defeated by Major Thomas L. Harris, of Petersburg, whom he had defeated when he first entered the field as a candidate four years before.  While it is scarcely probable