The debate over the status of slavery in the territories exacerbated sectional tensions between the slave-holding South and the free North. The Compromise of 1850 failed to defuse the issue. In the early 1850s, Lincoln supported sectional mediation, and his 1852 eulogy for Clay focused on the latter's support for gradual emancipation and opposition to "both extremes" on the slavery issue. As the 1850s progressed, the debate over slavery in the Nebraska Territory and Kansas Territory became particularly acrimonious, and Senator Douglas proposed popular sovereignty as a compromise measure; the proposal would allow the electorate of each territory to decide the status of slavery. The proposal alarmed many Northerners, who hoped to prevent the spread of slavery into the territories. Despite this Northern opposition, Douglas's Kansas–Nebraska Act narrowly passed Congress in May 1854.For months after its passage, Lincoln did not publicly comment, but he came to strongly oppose it. On October 16, 1854, in his "Peoria Speech", Lincoln declared his opposition to slavery, which he repeated en route to the presidency. Speaking in his Kentucky accent, with a powerful voice, 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 ..." Lincoln's attacks on the Kansas–Nebraska Act marked his return to political life.Nationally, the Whigs were irreparably split by the Kansas–Nebraska Act and other efforts to compromise on the slavery issue. Reflecting the demise of his party, Lincoln wrote in 1855, "I think I am a Whig, but others say there are no Whigs, and that I am an abolitionist [...] I do no more than oppose the extension of slavery." Drawing on the antislavery portion of the Whig Party, and combining Free Soil, Liberty, and antislavery Democratic Party members, the new Republican Party formed as a northern party dedicated to antislavery. Lincoln resisted early recruiting attempts, fearing that it would serve as a platform for extreme abolitionists. Lincoln hoped to rejuvenate the Whigs, though he lamented his party's growing closeness with the nativist Know Nothing movement.In the 1854 elections, Lincoln was elected to the Illinois legislature but declined to take his seat. In the elections' aftermath, which showed the power and popularity of the movement opposed to the Kansas–Nebraska Act, Lincoln instead sought election to the United States Senate. At that time, senators were elected by the state legislature. After leading in the first six rounds of voting, he was unable to obtain a majority. Lincoln instructed his backers to vote for Lyman Trumbull. Trumbull was an antislavery Democrat, and had received few votes in the earlier ballots; his supporters, also antislavery Democrats, had vowed not to support any Whig. Lincoln's decision to withdraw enabled his Whig supporters and Trumbull's antislavery Democrats to combine and defeat the mainstream Democratic candidate, Joel Aldrich Matteson.

Question: Lincoln drew on the antislavery policies of which political party?
Answer: Whig Party

Question: What government organization was responsible for choosing senators?
Answer: state legislature