The Hon. W.M. Dickson, whose interesting account of Lincoln's first visit to Cincinnati and the disappointments attending it has already been given in this narrative, says of this second visit as contrasted with the obscurity of the first: "Lincoln returned to the city with a fame wide as the continent, with the laurels of the Douglas contest on his brow, and the Presidency almost in his grasp. He returned, greeted with the thunder of cannon, the strains of martial music, and the joyous plaudits of thousands of citizens thronging the streets. He addressed a vast concourse on Fifth Street Market; was entertained in princely style at the Burnet House; and there received with courtesy the foremost citizens, come to greet this Western rising star."
In December of the same year Lincoln visited Kansas and addressed the people of that troubled State upon the political questions then before the country. At Leavenworth, Atchison, Elwood, and other places, he was met by large gatherings of eager listeners who were charmed and convinced by his fresh and reassuring utterances. His journeys were complete ovations, and he returned to Illinois leaving a host of new friends behind him. As several of Lincoln's biographers make no reference to his Kansas visit, and the entire matter seems more or less obscured, the following letter, lately written by Mr. Harry W. Stewart, of Carlsbad, New Mexico, is of much interest: "I have recently seen a reference to Lincoln's visit to Kansas as if the fact were not clearly established. In this connection I may offer a personal recollection of my father, James G. Stewart, who was a physician practicing in the little town of Elwood, Kansas, from 1856 to 1860. He said that both Lincoln and Seward came out and spoke in St. Joseph, Mo., just across the river from Elwood. On each occasion a large following of 'free state' men went over to St. Jo to hear the speech and incidentally to support the speaker in case of violence, which had been freely predicted. According to this reminiscence, Lincoln crossed the Missouri into Kansas, my father having the honor of taking him in a buggy to a small town fourteen miles distant from Elwood in Doniphan County. They drove out to Troy, where Mr. Lincoln made a speech. From here I think he went on to Lawrence and other places before returning to St. Joseph, but have no account of his movements beyond Troy. I think it was in the year 1858 and must have been in the summer time, for the party took Mr. Lincoln over the Missouri on a ferry. It did not make trips oftener than about once in two hours. When Lincoln came to the bank on the Missouri side the boat had just gone. There was no waiting-room or benches to sit on and some of the party were inclined to think they were in hard luck. When Lincoln found out how it was, he said: 'It's all right. We'll sit right down on the sand and wait for the boat.' Then they all sat down on the ground and listened to genuine Lincoln stories till the time was up. My father often spoke with delight of this incident. I have looked in vain in Lincoln histories for a more definite account of this Kansas trip. Of the actual fact there can be no doubt."
Lincoln's fame, as we have seen, had now extended to the East, where he seems to have been looked upon as a rising man and an interesting figure in national politics. Invitations to visit the East now began to reach him. In the following February (1860) he went to Brooklyn, for the purpose of delivering a lecture in Mr. Beecher's church. The invitation had given him much pleasure, and he prepared himself thoroughly; indeed, it is said that no effort of his life cost him so much labor as this. In the Plymouth congregation of Brooklyn there was an association of young men which was successful in getting an annual course of six lectures of the highest order. This association discerned in Lincoln a man worthy of a place in its course, and invited him to give such a lecture. Meanwhile, some prominent Republican politicians of New York had heard of him as a possible candidate for the Presidency, and desired him to make a speech in that city in order to determine whether he would be the man to present to the Republican National convention in case Mr. Seward could not be nominated. Lincoln informed these gentlemen of his Brooklyn engagement, but said he would speak in New York if the Brooklyn club gave its consent. That club agreed to this arrangement; and thus it was decided that Lincoln's speech should be delivered in New York City, instead of Brooklyn, as had been first intended. Mr. R.C. McCormick, who was a member of the committee in charge of the arrangements, says: "When Mr. Lincoln came to New York City, there was some confusion in the arrangements. He had at first been invited to appear in Brooklyn, but upon deliberation his friends thought it best that he should be heard in New York. Reaching the Astor House on Saturday, February 25, he was surprised to find by announcement in the public prints that he was to speak at the Cooper Institute. He said he must review his address if it was to be delivered in New York. What he had prepared for Mr. Beecher's church-folks might not be altogether appropriate to a miscellaneous political audience. Saturday was spent in a review of the speech, and on Sunday morning he went to Plymouth church, where apparently he greatly enjoyed the service. On Monday morning I waited upon him with several members of the Young Men's Republican Union, into whose hands the preparations for the meeting at the Cooper Institute had fallen. We found him in a suit of black, much wrinkled from its careless packing in a small valise. He received us cordially, apologizing for the awkward and uncomfortable appearance he made in his new suit, and expressing himself surprised at being in New York. His form and manner were indeed very odd, and we thought him the most unprepossessing public man we had ever met. I spoke to him of the manuscript of his forthcoming address, and suggested to him that it should be given to the press at his earliest convenience, in order that it might be published in full on the morning following its delivery. He appeared in much doubt as to whether any of the papers would care to print it; and it was only when I accompanied a reporter to his room and made a request for it, that he began to think his words might be of interest to the metropolitan public. He seemed wholly ignorant of the custom of supplying slips to the different journals from the office first putting the addresses in type, and was charmingly innocent of the machinery so generally used, even by some of our most popular orators, to give success and éclat to their public efforts. The address was written upon blue foolscap paper, all in his own hand, and with few interlineations. I was bold enough to read portions of it, and had no doubt that its delivery would create a marked sensation throughout the country. Lincoln referred frequently to Douglas, but always in a generous and kindly manner. It was difficult to regard them as antagonists. Many stories of the famous Illinois debates were told us, and in a very short time his frank and sparkling conversation won our hearts and made his plain face pleasant to us all. During the day it was suggested that he should be taken up Broadway and shown the city, of which he knew but little—stating, I think, that he had been here but once before. At one place he met an Illinois acquaintance of former years, to whom he said, in his dry, good-natured way: 'Well, B., how have you fared since you left Illinois?' To which B. replied, 'I have made a hundred thousand dollars, and lost all. How is it with you, Mr. Lincoln?' 'Oh, very well,' said Lincoln. 'I have the cottage at Springfield, and about eight thousand dollars in money. If they make me Vice-president with Seward, as some say they will, I hope I shall be able to increase it to twenty thousand; and that is as much as any man ought to want.' We visited a photographic establishment upon the corner of Broadway and Bleeker streets, where he sat for his picture, the first taken in New York. At the gallery he met and was introduced to Hon. George Bancroft, and had a brief conversation with that gentleman, who welcomed him to New York. The contrast in the appearance of the men was most striking; the one courtly and precise in his every word and gesture, with the air of a trans-Atlantic statesman; the other bluff and awkward, his very utterance an apology for his ignorance of metropolitan manners and customs. 'I am on my way to Massachusetts,' he said to Mr. Bancroft, 'where I have a son at school, who, if report be true, already knows much more than his father.'"
On the evening of February 27 a large and brilliant audience gathered at Cooper Institute, to hear the famous Western orator. The scene was one never to be forgotten by those who witnessed it. Upon the platform sat many of the prominent men of the Republican party, and in the body of the hall were many ladies. The meeting was presided over by the distinguished citizen and poet William Cullen Bryant, of whom Mr. Lincoln afterward said, "It was worth a journey to the East merely to see such a man." The orator of the evening was introduced by Mr. Bryant with some very complimentary allusions, especially to his controversy with Douglas. "When Mr. Lincoln came on the platform and was introduced by Mr. Bryant," says one who was present, "he seemed a giant in contrast with him. His first sentence was delivered in a peculiarly high-keyed voice, and disappointed us. In a short time the sharp points of his address began to come, and he had not been speaking for half an hour before his audience seemed wild with enthusiasm." Another account says: "His manner was, to a New York audience, a very strange one, but it was captivating. He held the vast meeting spell-bound, and as one by one his oddly expressed but trenchant and convincing arguments confirmed the soundness of his political conclusions, the house broke out in wild and prolonged enthusiasm. I think I never saw an audience more thoroughly carried away by an orator." This speech was full of trenchant passages, which called forth tumultuous applause. The following is a specimen:
I defy anyone to show that any living man in the whole world ever did, prior to the beginning of the present century (and I might almost say prior to the beginning of the last half of the present century), declare that, in his understanding, any proper division of local from Federal authority, or any part of the Constitution, forbade the Federal Government to control slavery in the Federal territories. To those who now so declare, I give not only our fathers who framed the government under which we live, but with them all other living men within the century in which it was framed, among whom to search, and they shall not be able to find the evidence of a single man agreeing with them.
Referring to the South, and the growing political discontent in that quarter, he said:
Let all who believe that our fathers understood this question just as well as, and even better than, we do now, speak as they spoke and act as they acted upon it. This is all Republicans ask—all Republicans desire—in relation to slavery. As those fathers marked it, so let it be again marked, as an evil not to be extended, but to be tolerated and protected only because, and so far as, its actual presence among us makes that toleration and protection a necessity. Let all the guarantees those fathers gave it be not grudgingly but fully and fairly maintained.
His counsel to the young Republican party was timely and full of wisdom.
A few words now to Republicans: It is exceedingly desirable that all parts of this great Confederacy shall be at peace, and in harmony one with another. Let us Republicans do our part to have it so. Even though much provoked, let us do nothing through passion and ill-temper. Even though the Southern people will not so much as listen to us, let us calmly consider their demands, and yield to them, if in our deliberate view of our duty we possibly can.
The address closed with the following impressive words: