On May 29, 1856, as the Anti-Nebraska Convention was set to meet, speakers from the portico of the Pike House denounced the Nebraska Act passed under the leadership of Stephen A. Douglas. A correspondent of the Chicago Democrat Press wrote that Abraham Lincoln, Douglas' chief nemesis, had spoken briefly from the same portico on the evening of May 28, with expectations that he would deliver a stronger address at the convention the next day. The Springfield Illinois State Register recalled Lincoln's remarks on the repeal of the Missouri Compromise line, including his story about the fence being torn down and the cattle eating the crops, and his condemnation of violence in Kansas. Elihu Washburne, John Palmer, Leonard Swett, and Owen Lovejoy also spoke at the Pike House. Abraham Lincoln was a frequent guest there. The four story wooden hotel, considered palatial in its day, stood at the corner of North and Center streets and opened on June 30, 1854. On June 29, 1855, Lincoln checked into the hotel, then briefly named the Matteson House after its sale to Massewin Matteson and Herman Hickok, and spent the night before continuing to Chicago for cases pending before the U.S. Court, Northern District of Illinois. A year later, Meshach Pike retained Lincoln in a damages suit before the McLean County Circuit Court, and although Pike lost, he regained ownership of the hotel. Despite being major political rivals, Lincoln and Douglas were also friends and on at least one occasion dined together at the Pike House in 1857 or 1858. During Douglas's campaign for reelection to the Senate, after he and Adele Cutts Douglas had returned from Europe, Bloomington attorney Lawrence Weldon recounted that Mrs. Douglas asked Lincoln about his travels, and Lincoln replied, "Madam, not to be abrupt, but to cut the matter short, the truth is I have never been anywhere."