This is an IHeart podcast.

This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories, the show where America is the star and the American people coming to you from

the city where the West begins, Fort Worth, Texas. Up next, a story of how a lawyer from Illinois,

Abraham Lincoln, became the savior of the union, despite all conventional political wisdom.

When most people think of Lincoln, they likely think of his

famous speeches, his unwavering commitment to the nation during the Civil War, or his tragic

end. They probably don't think much about his political savvy, let alone the forces at work

that even put him in a position to win the nomination of his party in the

first place. Here's Gary Echelbarger, author of The Great Comeback to Share That Story. We'd like to thank

the U.S. National Archives for this audio. Let's get into it. The question is, how does a two-time

Senate loser, two-time Senate loser,

come back to win his party's nomination within a year and a half of that second Senate defeat?

It's only happened once in our history.

And the fact that it happened to Abraham Lincoln makes that story much more intriguing.

The Republican Party in Illinois had just gone through the ringer. On January 5th, 1859,

Abraham Lincoln officially lost that second Senate race to Douglas in the 21st General Assembly of

Illinois by a vote of 54 to 46. Back then, they chose senators not by a popular vote like they've done

since 1913, I believe. Before then it was done as

indirectly you chose your state legislators, House and Senate representatives who would meet in a

General Assembly and then have the official vote usually in the winner after the November

election. What a lot of people don't realize is his bid for the presidency began the very next day.

He gets together with a group of prominent Republicans, a lot of his lawyer friends in Illinois,

...