In 1837 he left New Salem and removed to Springfield, which was ever after his home. He was elected to the Illinois legislature four times in succession and again in 1846, and the following year he was chosen to be a Representative in Congress. At the close of his two years in Congress, Mr. Lincoln returned to Springfield and applied himself to the practice of law. But very soon he was again taking an active part in the politics of his State. It was at the State convention held in Bloomington in 1856, at which time the Republican party of Illinois was finally organized, that Mr. Lincoln made the wonderful address which has become famous as his “lost speech.”
Eighteen fifty-eight was the year of the noted Lincoln-Douglas Debate that brought Mr. Lincoln conspicuously before the whole country. Two years later, when visiting New York, he was invited by a party of Republicans to deliver a speech at Cooper Union. This speech helped to increase his popularity. This same year, 1860, Mr. Lincoln was elected to be President of the United States, and on the 4th of March, 1861, delivered his First Inaugural Address in the presence of thousands of people. The Emancipation Proclamation, which gave the slaves their freedom, was issued to take effect on the 1st of January, 1863; and in this act Mr. Lincoln made his name great. It was in this same year that he delivered the famous Gettysburg Address.
Mr. Lincoln was elected to the Presidency for the second term, but lived only a few weeks afterward. He was shot in a theater in Washington on Friday evening, the 14th of April, 1865.
“He grew according to the need,
and as the problem grew,
so did his comprehension of it.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson.
COOPER INSTITUTE SPEECH
DELIVERED AT COOPER INSTITUTE, NEW YORK, FEBRUARY 27, 1860