Chief among these, as adviser and actor, was Abraham Lincoln.
Rarely has a deliberative body met under circumstances more exciting than did this one.

The Congressional debates at Washington and the civil war in Kansas were each at a culmination of passion and incident.

Within ten days Charles Sumner had been struck down in the Senate Chamber, and the town of Lawrence sacked by the guerrilla posse of Atchison and Sheriff Jones.

Ex-Governor Reeder, of that suffering Territory, addressed the citizens of Bloomington and the earliest-arriving delegates on the evening of the 28th, bringing into the convention the very atmosphere of the Kansas conflict.
The convention met and conducted its work with earnestness and dignity.

Bissell, already designated by unmistakable popular indications, was nominated for governor by acclamation.