In 1856, Abraham Lincoln made a speech at a church on West Urbana's North First Street, now the site of the Champaign police station, backing the first Republican presidential candidate, John C. Fremont.

Fremont didn't win, of course, but four years later, Lincoln was the first Republican president. The church was popularly known as the Goose Pond church because the Illinois Central railroad had filled in such a pond and donated the land to the church.

The town is now called Champaign and the church is gone, but its descendant, Community United Church of Christ, is a sponsor of a series of speeches marking the 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's birth.

Many of them relate to a key issue of the time: slavery and abolition.

"The series is about all these things were being talked about in our country at the time, and are still important now," said Barbara Oehlschlaeger-Garvey, curator of the Early American Museum in Mahomet, another sponsor of the series.

Other sponsors include the Illinois Humanities Council, the National Council of Negro Women, the Lovejoy Society honoring abolitionist Owen Lovejoy and the Douglass Branch Library in Champaign.

The Goose Pond Lecture Series begins at 2 p.m. Saturday with "African Americans in Frontier Illinois," delivered by Illinois Wesleyan University Professor James Simeone.

He will discuss freed blacks and fugitive slaves in Illinois before the Civil War, an issue that Lincoln worked on as a lawyer – at least once defending the rights of a slave owner trying to get back a runaway.

Simeone said Tuesday that blacks were, in theory, free in Illinois, but faced restrictions on their lives and liberties.

"The Black Code made it illegal for African-Americans to meet together in public in groups larger than three," Simeone said. "They couldn't serve on juries or testify against white people. It was illegal to immigrate here. If you did come here, you had to provide a bond of $1,000."

Illinois was settled by Southerners, like Lincoln, who were often sympathetic to the institution of slavery, he said.

Simeone said they wrote a constitution that allowed a form of slavery, indentured servitude, where masters made their former slaves sign contracts of 30, 40 or 50 years. They were forced to abide by rules they had no control over, he said.

For the former slaves, this created a fatalistic and individualistic culture, where they tended to live on their own and keep out of the sight of white people, said Simeone, author of "Democracy and Slavery in Frontier Illinois," a 2000 book.

Other scheduled lectures in series

"Bring on your Arguments, Gentlemen: Women's Rights & Abolition," by Professor Stacey Robertson of Bradley University: 2 p.m. March 7, Community United Church of Christ, 805 S. Sixth St., C.

"Illinois in the 1850s: Chipping Away at Racism," by Jane Ann Moore of United Church of Christ and the Lovejoy Society: 2 p.m. March 21, Early American Museum, Mahomet.

"How Abraham Lincoln Held the Rag-Tag Coalition Together," by Bill Moore of United Church of Christ and the Lovejoy Society: 3:15 p.m. March 21, Early American Museum.

"The Underground Railroad in Illinois," by Owen Mulder of the Underground Railroad Freedom Center at Knox College: 2 p.m. April 4, Douglass Branch Library, 504 E. Grove St., C.

The Early American Museum, part of the Champaign County Forest Preserve District, is on Illinois 47 a half-mile north of Interstate 74 in Mahomet.