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Lincoln was drawn back into politics when he wanted to oppose the pro-slavery Kansas–Nebraska Act in 1854. This law repealed the Missouri Compromise which had restricted slavery to the southern area of the nation. Senior Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois had inserted a provision into the act which provided the people had the right to determine locally whether to allow slavery in their territory rather than have such a decision imposed on them by the national Congress. Northern abolitionists saw slavery a sin, while conservative Republicans thought it gave slaveholders an unfair economic advantage. Lincoln was opposed to slavery primarily because it violated the notion of the equality of all men as expressed in the Declaration of Independence.
On October 16, 1854, gave his "Peoria Speech" in which he declared his opposition to slavery. He said the Kansas Act had a "declared indifference, but as I must think, a covert real zeal for the spread of slavery. I cannot but hate it. I hate it because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself. I hate it because it deprives our republican example of its just influence in the world..."
In 1854, Lincoln ran as a Whig for the U.S. Senate seat from Illinois. At that time, senators were elected by the state legislature. The Whigs had been irreparably split by the Kansas–Nebraska Act. Lincoln wrote, "I think I am a Whig, but others say there are no Whigs, and that I am an abolitionist, even though I do no more than oppose the extension of slavery." Drawing from what was left of the old Whig party, and on disenchanted Free Soil, Liberty, and Democratic party members, he was instrumental in helping to create the new Republican Party. At the Republican convention in 1856, Lincoln placed second in the contest to become the party's candidate for vice president.
In March 1857, the Supreme Court issued its decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford. Chief Justice Roger B. Taney held that African-Americans were not citizens, and acquired no rights from the Constitution. Lincoln denounced the decision, and accused it of being the product of a conspiracy of Democrats to support the Slave Power Lincoln said "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'."
After the state Republican party convention nominated him for the U.S. Senate in 1858, Lincoln delivered his House Divided Speech, quoting the book of Mark from the Bible. He said:
"A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved—I do not expect the house to fall—but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other."
The speech was a key piece of rhetoric in the slavery debate. It rallied Republicans across the North. The 1858 senate campaign featured the seven Lincoln–Douglas debates of 1858, the most famous political debates in American history. In the debates Lincoln warned that what he called "the Slave Power" was threatening the values of republicanism, and accused Douglas of distorting the values of the Founding Fathers that all men are created equal. Douglas maintained that local settlers were free to choose whether to allow slavery or not, and accused Lincoln of having joined the abolitionists. The debates drew crowds in the thousands. Lincoln argued that Douglas's position was a threat to the nation's morality and that Douglas represented a conspiracy to extend slavery to free states. Douglas said that Lincoln was defying the authority of the U.S. Supreme Court and the Dred Scott decision.
The Republican legislative candidates won more popular votes, but the Democrats won more seats, and the legislature re-elected Douglas to the Senate. Lincoln's his articulation of the issues gave him a national political stature.
On February 27, 1860, New York party leaders invited Lincoln to give a speech at Cooper Union to a group of powerful Republicans. Lincoln insisted the moral foundation of the Republicans required opposition to slavery, and rejected any "groping for some middle ground between the right and the wrong". Lincoln demonstrated leadership qualities that brought him into the front ranks of the party and into contention for the Republican presidential nomination. A journalist asked if Lincoln had any presidential intentions, to which he replied "the taste is in my mouth a little."