For a few years, Lincoln returned to the law, seemingly content in the quietude of the Illinois courts. But the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854 shattered that tranquility. By repealing the Missouri Compromise and allowing the question of slavery in the territories to be decided by "popular sovereignty," the act reopened a wound that the nation had been desperately trying to patch over.
Lincoln, the moderate, was suddenly radicalized. He emerged from his political hibernation, not with fire, but with cold, hard logic. He recognized that if slavery were allowed to expand, it would eventually engulf the entire nation. His speeches during this time, most notably at Peoria, displayed a new, matured oratorical power. He stripped away the flowery rhetoric of his contemporaries and spoke in the plain, ringing tones of liberty. He was no longer just a local lawyer; he was the voice of a growing movement that feared the death of the American dream. The sleeping giant of the American conscience was awake, and Lincoln was its most articulate champion.