A. Lincoln.
He spoke at Columbus, Cincinnati, and several other points, each time devoting the greater part of his address to Mr. Douglas and his theories, as if the habit of combating that illustrious chieftain was hard to break.
In December he went to Kansas, speaking at Elwood, Don-aphan, Troy, Atchison, and twice at Leavenworth. Wherever he went, he was met by vast assemblages of people. His speeches were principally repetitions of those previously made in Illinois; but they were very fresh and captivating to his new audiences. These journeys, which turned out to be continuous ovations, spread his name and fame far beyond the limits to which they had heretofore been restricted.
During the winter of 1859-60, he saw that his reputation had reached such a height, that he might honorably compete with such renowned men as Seward, Chase, and Bates, for the Presidential nomination. Mr. Jackson Grimshaw of Quincy urged him very strongly on the point. At length Mr. Lincoln consented to a conference with Grimshaw and some of his more prominent friends. It took place in a committee-room in the State House. Mr. Bushnell, Mr. Hatch (the Secretary of State), Mr. Judd (Chairman of the Republican State Central Committee), Mr. Peck, and Mr. Grimshaw were present,—all of them "intimate friends." They were unanimous in opinion as to the expediency and propriety of making him a candidate. But "Mr. Lincoln, with his characteristic modesty, doubted whether he could get the nomination, even if he wished it, and asked until the next morning to answer us.... The next day he authorized us to consider him, and work for him, if we pleased, as a candidate for the Presidency."
It was in October, 1859, that Mr. Lincoln received an invitation to speak in New York. It enchanted him: no event of his life had given him more heartfelt pleasure. He went straight to his office, and, Mr. Herndon says, "looked pleased, not to say tickled. He said to me, 'Billy, I am invited to deliver a lecture in New York. Shall I go?'—'By all means,' I replied; 'and it is a good opening too.'—'If you were in my fix, what subject would you choose?' said Lincoln. 'Why, a political one: that's your forte,' I answered." Mr. Herndon remembered his partner's previous "failure,—utter failure," as a lecturer, and, on this occasion, dreaded excessively his choice of a subject. "In the absence of a friend's advice, Lincoln would as soon take the Beautiful for a subject as any thing else, when he had absolutely no sense of it." He wrote in response to the invitation, that he would avail himself of it the coming February, provided he might be permitted to make a political speech, in case he found it inconvenient to get up one of another kind. He had purposely set the day far ahead, that he might thoroughly prepare himself; and it may safely be said, that no effort of his life cost him so much labor as this one. Some of the party managers who were afterwards put to work to verify its statements, and get it out as a campaign document, are alleged to have been three weeks in finding the historical records consulted by him.
On the 25th of February, 1860, he arrived in New York. It was Saturday, and he spent the whole day in revising and retouching his speech. The next day he heard Beecher preach, and on Monday wandered about the city to see the sights. When the committee under whose auspices he was to speak waited upon him, they found him dressed in a sleek and shining suit of new black, covered with very apparent creases and wrinkles, acquired by being packed too closely and too long in his little valise. He felt uneasy in his new clothes and a strange place. His confusion was increased when the reporters called to get the printed slips of his speech in advance of its delivery. Mr. Lincoln knew nothing of such a custom among the orators, and had no slips. He was, in fact, not quite sure that the press would desire to publish his speech. When he reached the Cooper Institute, and was ushered into the vast hall, he was surprised to see the most cultivated men of the city awaiting him on the stand, and an immense audience assembled to hear him. Mr. Bryant introduced him as "an eminent citizen of the West, hitherto known to you only by reputation." Mr. Lincoln then began, in low, monotonous tones, which gradually became louder and clearer, the following speech:—
Mr. President and Fellow-Citizens of New York,—The facts with which I shall deal this evening are mainly old and familiar; nor is there any thing new in the general use I shall make of them. If there shall be any novelty, it will be in the mode of presenting the facts, and the inferences and observations following that presentation.
In his speech last autumn, at Columbus, Ohio, as reported in "The New-York Times," Senator Douglas said,—"Our fathers, when they framed the government under which we live, understood this question just as well, and even better than we do now."
I fully indorse this, and I adopt it as a text for this discourse. I so adopt it, because it furnishes a precise and agreed starting-point for the discussion between Republicans and that wing of Democracy headed by Senator Douglas. It simply leaves the inquiry, "What was the understanding those fathers had of the questions mentioned?"
What is the frame of government under which we live?