McLean County Museum of History

The building outside of which you're now standing wasn't even here during my time in Bloomington. In fact, the building that was here when I first came to Bloomington in 18 and 38 was a two-story brick structure that had been put up the previous year.

Those were good old days, as I remember 'em, days riding the Eighth Judicial Circuit from courthouse to courthouse, taking whatever cases we could get, and making friends that would last a lifetime. It was the way I made my living, mostly, and sowed the seeds that would grow into my political bounty. On court days back then, folks came into town just to see the happenings. It was their entertainment, and I think they appreciated a good performance from a lawyer almost as much as they liked a good performance by a traveling minstrel. (laughs) I remember one case, uh, uh, perhaps the most sensational one ever tried in the old McLean. I's on the losing end while my good friend, Leonard Swett, won it and made some legal history. I's an assistant prosecutor in a murder trial against Isaac Wyant, who shot and killed Anson Rusk at the DeWitt County Courthouse in downtown Clinton. Of that, there was no dispute. Because both of these men were so well-known in Clinton, the case was transferred up here to Bloomington, and Wyant hired Swett to defend him. Smart move, it turned out. Leonard argued that Wyant was not guilty by reason of insanity, having been driven out of his senses after having an arm amputated from a gunshot wound administered by Anson Rusk, now the deceased, when the two got into it over a land dispute sometime earlier. It was the first time in anybody's memory that an insanity plea had been presented, and the jury agreed. It was a good'un. Leonard, by the way, was by then a good and faithful friend of mine who played an important role in getting me nominated for the presidential canvas of 1800 and '60. In fact, it's been said that without Leonard and Jesse Fell and David Davis, my political fortunes would have ended after my one term in Congress in 18 and '49.

Now, back in 1800 and '58, when I was trying to wrest the United States Senate seat from Stephen A. Douglas, I attended a great rally on this lawn you're standing next to now. I was brought into town from Clover Lawn, the fancy name of David Davis's house out on the city's east side, and was greeted by not less than 7,000 of the faithful, who'd come out to hear me speak. I repeated portions of my House Divided speech, which I delivered several months earlier in Springfield. "I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free," I said to the crowd gathered here. "I do not expect the Union to be dissolved. I do not expect the House to fall, but I do expect it will cease to be divided."

Well, I also stressed that the Republican Party had no right to interfere with slavery where it already existed, but we'd do everything in our power to halt its spread westward. That was the key: halt slavery's expansion, and thus put it on a course of ultimate extinction. And I minced no words in this speech and others at this time by calling slavery evil. It was an institution incompatible with the Declaration of Independence and the spirit of our nation. I later wrote that "If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong." Of course, at the time of my speech here in Bloomington, I had no way of knowing the terrible price our country would pay for this evil institution. Well, I won that election by the popular vote of the people, but I lost it where it mattered, in the Illinois State Senate, which sent Douglas back to Washington and me back to Springfield, but not for long. (music plays) The last time I attended court in Bloomington was in April 1800 and '60, a month before I was nominated for president at the Republican Convention in Chicago.