HAWKINS TAYLOR, Esq.
DEAR SIR:—Yours of the 3d is just received. There is some mistake about my expected attendance of the U.S. Court in your city on the 3d Tuesday of this month. I have had no thought of being there.
It is bad to be poor. I shall go to the wall for bread and meat if I neglect my business this year as well as last. It would please me much to see the city and good people of Keokuk, but for this year it is little less than an impossibility. I am constantly receiving invitations which I am compelled to decline. I was pressingly urged to go to Minnesota; and I now have two invitations to go to Ohio. These last are prompted by Douglas going there; and I am really tempted to make a flying trip to Columbus and Cincinnati.
I do hope you will have no serious trouble in Iowa. What thinks Grimes about it? I have not known him to be mistaken about an election in Iowa. Present my respects to Col. Carter, and any other friends, and believe me
Yours truly,
A. LINCOLN. [ [!-- H2 anchor --] ]
SPEECH AT COLUMBUS, OHIO.
SEPTEMBER 16, 1859.
FELLOW-CITIZENS OF THE STATE OF OHIO: I cannot fail to remember that I appear for the first time before an audience in this now great State,—an audience that is accustomed to hear such speakers as Corwin, and Chase, and Wade, and many other renowned men; and, remembering this, I feel that it will be well for you, as for me, that you should not raise your expectations to that standard to which you would have been justified in raising them had one of these distinguished men appeared before you. You would perhaps be only preparing a disappointment for yourselves, and, as a consequence of your disappointment, mortification to me. I hope, therefore, that you will commence with very moderate expectations; and perhaps, if you will give me your attention, I shall be able to interest you to a moderate degree.
Appearing here for the first time in my life, I have been somewhat embarrassed for a topic by way of introduction to my speech; but I have been relieved from that embarrassment by an introduction which the Ohio Statesman newspaper gave me this morning. In this paper I have read an article, in which, among other statements, I find the following: