isted that the federal
             government should colonize all blacks in Africa, an idea he got from his political idol,
             Then came 1854 and the momentous Kansas-Nebraska Act , brainchild of
             Lincoln's archrival Stephen A. Douglas. At once a storm of free-soil protest broke across
             the North, and scores of political leaders branded the Kansas-Nebraska Act as part of a
             sinister Southern plot to extend slavery and augment Southern political power in
             Washington. The train of ominous events from Kansas-Nebraska to Dred Scott shook
             Lincoln to his foundations. Lincoln waded into the middle of the antiextension fight. By
             1858, Lincoln, like a lot of other Republicans, began to see a grim proslavery conspiracy
             at work in the United States. The next step in the conspiracy would be
             ...