<P> In the 1854 elections, Lincoln was elected to the Illinois legislature but declined to take his seat . In the aftermath of the elections, which showed the power and popularity of the movement opposed to the Kansas - Nebraska Act, Lincoln instead sought election to the United States Senate . At that time, senators were elected by the state legislature . After leading in the first six rounds of voting, but unable to obtain a majority, Lincoln instructed his backers to vote for Lyman Trumbull . Trumbull was an antislavery Democrat, and had received few votes in the earlier ballots; his supporters, also antislavery Democrats, had vowed not to support any Whig . Lincoln's decision to withdraw enabled his Whig supporters and Trumbull's antislavery Democrats to combine and defeat the mainstream Democratic candidate, Joel Aldrich Matteson . </P> <P> In part due to the ongoing violent political confrontations in the Kansas, opposition to the Kansas - Nebraska Act remained strong in Illinois and throughout the North . As the 1856 elections approached, Lincoln abandoned the defunct Whig Party in favor of the Republicans . He attended the May 1856 Bloomington Convention, which formally established the Illinois Republican Party . The convention platform asserted that Congress had the right to regulate slavery in the territories and called for the immediate admission of Kansas as a free state . Lincoln gave the final speech of the convention, in which he endorsed the party platform and called for the preservation of the Union . At the June 1856 Republican National Convention, Lincoln received significant support on the vice presidential ballot, though the party nominated a ticket of John C. Frémont and William Dayton . Lincoln strongly supported the Republican ticket, campaigning for the party throughout Illinois . The Democrats nominated former Ambassador James Buchanan, who had been out of the country since 1853 and thus had avoided the debate over slavery in the territories, while the Know Nothings nominated former Whig President Millard Fillmore . In the 1856 elections, Buchanan defeated both his challengers, but Frémont won several Northern states and Republican William Henry Bissell won election as Governor of Illinois . Though Lincoln did not himself win office, his vigorous campaigning had made him the leading Republican in Illinois . </P> <P> Eric Foner (2010) contrasts the abolitionists and anti-slavery Radical Republicans of the Northeast who saw slavery as a sin, with the conservative Republicans who thought it was bad because it hurt white people and blocked progress . Foner argues that Lincoln was a moderate in the middle, opposing slavery primarily because it violated the republicanism principles of the Founding Fathers, especially the equality of all men and democratic self - government as expressed in the Declaration of Independence . </P> <P> In March 1857, the Supreme Court issued its decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford; Chief Justice Roger B. Taney opined that blacks were not citizens, and derived no rights from the Constitution . While many Democrats hoped that Dred Scott would end the dispute over slavery in the territories, the decision sparked further outrage in the North . Lincoln denounced the decision, alleging it was the product of a conspiracy of Democrats to support the Slave Power . Lincoln argued, "The authors of the Declaration of Independence never intended' to say all were equal in color, size, intellect, moral developments, or social capacity', but they' did consider all men created equal--equal in certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness' ." </P>

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