"This Anti-Nebraska speech of Mr. Lincoln was the profoundest, in our opinion, that he has made in his whole life. He felt upon his soul the truths burn which he uttered, and all present felt that he was true to his own soul. His feelings once or twice swelled within, and came near stifling utterance.... He quivered with emotion. The whole house was as still as death.
"He attacked the Nebraska Bill with unusual warmth and energy; and all felt that a man of strength was its enemy, and that he intended to blast it if he could by strong and manly efforts. He was most successful, and the house approved the glorious triumph of truth by loud and continued huzzas. Women waved their white handkerchiefs in token of woman's silent but heartfelt assent. Douglas felt the sting: the animal within was roused, because he frequently interrupted Mr. Lincoln. His friends felt that he was crushed by Lincoln's powerful argument, manly logic, and illustrations from nature around us. The Nebraska Bill was shivered, and, like a tree of the forest, was torn and rent asunder by hot bolts of truth.... Mr. Lincoln exhibited Douglas in all the attitudes he could be placed in a friendly debate. He exhibited the bill in all its aspects to show its humbuggery and falsehood; and, when thus torn to rags, cut into slips, held up to the gaze of the vast crowd, a kind of scorn and mockery was visible upon the face of the crowd and upon the lips of the most eloquent speaker.... At the conclusion of this speech, every man, woman, and child felt that it was unanswerable.... He took the heart captive, and broke like a sun over the understanding."
Mr. Douglas rose to reply. He was excited, angry, imperious in his tone and manner, and his voice loud and shrill. Shaking his forefinger at the Democratic malcontents with furious energy, and declaiming rather than debating, he occupied to little purpose the brief interval remaining until the adjournment for supper. Then, promising to resume his address in the evening, he went his way; and that audience "saw him no more." Evening came, but not the orator. Many fine speeches were made during the continuance of that fair upon the one absorbing topic,—speeches by the ablest men in Illinois,—Judge Trumbull, Judge Breese, Col. Taylor (Democratic recusants), and Stephen A. Douglas and John Calhoun (then Surveyor-General of Nebraska). But it is no shame to any one of these, that their really impressive speeches were but slightly appreciated, nor long remembered, beside Mr. Lincoln's splendid and enduring performance,—enduring in the memory of his auditors, although preserved upon no written or printed page.
Among those whom the State Fair brought to Springfield for political purposes, were some who were neither Whigs, Democrats, Know-Nothings, nor yet mere Anti-Nebraska men: there were the restless leaders of the then insignificant Abolition faction. Chief among them was Owen Lovejoy; and second to him, if second to any, was William H. Herndon. But the position of this latter gentleman was one of singular embarrassment. According to himself, he was an Abolitionist "sometime before he was born," and hitherto he had made his "calling and election sure" by every word and act of a life devoted to political philanthropy and disinterested political labors. While the two great national parties divided the suffrages of the people, North and South, every thing in his eyes was "dead." He detested the bargains by which those parties were in the habit of composing sectional troubles, and sacrificing the "principle of freedom." When the Whig party "paid its breath to time," he looked upon its last agonies as but another instance of divine retribution. He had no patience with time-servers, and regarded with indignant contempt the "policy" which would postpone the natural rights of an enslaved race to the success of parties and politicians. He stood by at the sacrifice of the Whig party in Illinois with the spirit of Paul when he "held the clothes of them that stoned Stephen." He believed it was for the best, and hoped to see a new party rise in its place, great in the fervor of its faith, and animated by the spirit of Wilberforce, Garrison, and the Lovejoys. He was a fierce zealot, and gloried proudly in his title of "fanatic;" for it was his conviction that fanatics were at all times the salt of the earth, with power to save it from the blight that follows the wickedness of men. He believed in a God, but it was the God of nature,—the God of Socrates and Plato, as well as the God of Jacob. He believed in a Bible, but it was the open scroll of the universe; and in a religion clear and well defined, but it was a religion that scorned what he deemed the narrow slavery of verbal inspiration. Hot-blooded, impulsive, brave morally and physically, careless of consequences when moved by a sense of individual duty, he was the very man to receive into his inmost heart the precepts of Mr. Seward's "higher law." If he had pledged faith to slavery, no peril of life or body could have induced him to violate it. But he held himself no party to the compromises of the Constitution, nor to any law which recognized the justice of human bondage; and he was therefore free to act as his God and nature prompted.
Now, Mr. Herndon had determined to make an Abolitionist out of Mr. Lincoln when the proper time should arrive; and that time would be only when Mr. Lincoln could change front and "come out" without detriment to his personal aspirations. For, although Mr. Herndon was a zealot in the cause, he loved his partner too dearly to wish him to espouse it while it was unpopular and politically dangerous to belong to it. "I cared nothing for the ruin of myself," said he; "but I did not wish to see Mr. Lincoln sacrificed." He looked forward to a better day, and, in the mean time, was quite willing that Mr. Lincoln should be no more than a nominal Whig, or a strong Anti-Nebraska man; being quite sure, that, when the auspicious moment arrived, he would be able to present him to his brethren as a convert over whom there would surely be great joy. Still, there was a bare chance that he might lose him. Mr. Lincoln was beset by warm friends and by old coadjutors, and besought to pause in his antislavery course while there was yet time. Among these there was none more earnest or persuasive than John T. Stuart, who was but the type of a class. Tempted on the one side to be a Know-Nothing, and on the other side to be an Abolitionist, Mr. Lincoln said, as if in some doubt of his real position, "I think I am still a Whig." But Mr. Herndon was more than a match for the full array against him. An earnest man, instant in season and out of season, he spoke with the eloquence of apparent truth and of real personal love. Moreover, Mr. Lincoln's preconceptions inclined him to the way in which Mr. Herndon desired him to walk; and it is not surprising that in time he was, not only almost, but altogether, persuaded by a friend and partner, whose opportunities to reach and convince his wavering mind were, daily and countless. "From 1854 to 1860," says Mr. Herndon, "I kept putting in Lincoln's hands the speeches and sermons of Theodore Parker, the speeches of Phillips and Beecher. I took 'The Anti-slavery Standard' for years before 1856, 'The Chicago Tribune,' and 'The New York Tribune;' kept them in my office, kept them purposely on my table, and would read to Lincoln good, sharp, and solid things well put. Lincoln was a natural antislavery man, as I think, and yet he needed watching,—needed hope, faith, energy; and I think I warmed him. Lincoln and I were just the opposite one of another. He was cautious and practical; I was spontaneous, ideal, and speculative. He arrived at truths by reflection; I, by intuition; he, by reason; I, by my soul. He calculated; I went to toil asking no questions, never doubting. Lincoln had great faith in my intuitions, and I had great faith in his reason."
Of course such a man as we have described Mr. Herndon to be could have nothing but loathing and disgust for the secret oaths, the midnight lurking, and the proscriptive spirit of Know-Nothingism. "A number of gentlemen from Chicago," says he, "among them the editor of 'The Star of the West,' an Abolitionist paper published in Chicago, waited on me in my office, and asked my advice as to the policy of going into Know-Nothing Lodges, and ruling them for freedom. I opposed it as being wrong in principle, as well as a fraud on the lodges, and wished to fight it out in open daylight. Lincoln was opposed to Know-Nothingism, but did not say much in 1854 or 1855 (did afterwards). I told Lincoln what was said, and argued the question with him often, insisting that, as we were advocating freedom for the slave in tendency under the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, it was radically wrong to enslave the religious ideas and faith of men. The gentlemen who waited on me as before stated asked me if I thought that Mr. Lincoln could be trusted for freedom. I said to them, 'Can you trust yourselves? If you can, you can trust Lincoln forever.'"
With this explanation of the political views of Mr. Herndon, and his personal relations to Mr. Lincoln, the reader will more easily understand what follows.
"This State Fair," continues Mr. Herndon, "called thousands to the city. We Abolitionists all assembled here, taking advantage of the fair to organize and disseminate our ideas. As soon as Lincoln had finished his speech, Lovejoy, who had been in the hall, rushed up to the stand, and notified the crowd that there would be a meeting there in the evening: subject, Freedom. I had been with the Abolitionists that day, and knew their intentions: namely, to force Lincoln with our organization, and to take broader and deeper and more radical views and ideas than in his speech, which was simply Historic Kansas.... He (Lincoln) had not then announced himself for freedom, only discussed the inexpediency of repealing the Missouri Compromise Line. The Abolitionists that day determined to make Lincoln take a stand. I determined he should not at that time, because the time had not yet come when Lincoln should show his hand. When Lovejoy announced the Abolition gathering in the evening, I rushed to Lincoln, and said, 'Lincoln, go home; take Bob and the buggy, and leave the county: go quickly, go right off, and never mind the order of your going.' Lincoln took a hint, got his horse and buggy, and did leave quickly, not noting the order of his going. He staid away till all conventions and fairs were over."