On August 8, when the war was barely three months old, an obscure first-term Democratic congressman from Pennsylvania named David Wilmot offered an amendment to an appropriations bill: “that, as an express and fundamental condition to the acquisition of any territory from the Republic of Mexico…neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall ever exist in any part of said territory.” The principle embodied in this amendment – the Wilmot Proviso, as it came to be known – remained the lodestone of sectional conflict for the next fifteen years…Northern Whigs voted unanimously for Wilmot’s p

Although the Fugitive Slave Act included heavy fines and prison terms for helping a runaway, whites and free African Americans continued their work with the Underground Railroad. This informal, but well organized system, begun in the early 1830's, helped thousands of enslaved persons escape.

But instead of congratulating Lincoln for rebuking Greeley and catching the Douglasites off-guard, the reactions of the Illinois Republican leadership to the House Divided speech ranged from unease to irritation. Yes, Lincoln had certainly painted Douglas in the most dire proslavery colors, and that would keep the faint-hearts and celebrity-struck “sisters” from running after the Little Giant with their caps in hand.

Mordecai McKinney was born in Middletown in central Pennsylvania in 1796.  His parents, Mordecai and Mary (Molly) Chambers McKinney, who owned a store in the town, sent him to Dickinson College in Carlisle where he graduated with the class of 1814.  He then studied law under Stephen Duncan of Carlisle, the father of his classmate Robert Duncan, and was admitted to the Dauphin County bar in Harrisburg in May 1817.

McKINNEY, Mordecai, lawyer, b. near Carlisle, Pa., about 1796; d. in Harrisburg. Pa., 17 Dec., 1867. He was graduated at Dickinson college in 1814, studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1817, and practiced in Harrisburg. In 1821 he was appointed deputy attorney-general for Miami county, and in 1827 he became associate judge of Dauphin county.