From the first, Lin-coln felt as if he were in the hands of God and led by Him in what he was to say and do in the cause of Free-dom for all. He felt that he, him-self, was not much, but that “Jus-tice and Truth” would live though he might go down in their de-fence.
Though not quite half a cen-tu-ry had then gone by since his dear moth-er had held him in her arms in their poor Ken-tuc-ky home, and it was less, too, than a score and five years since he swung his axe in the woods on the banks of the San-ga-mon to earn his bread and that of his kin from day to day, still, with the great prize be-fore him of that high post in the land, which he had long hoped to gain, he casts from him all chan-ces for his fur-ther rise, and in that hour stands forth one of the tru-est, no-blest men of all time.
Friends kept say-ing to Lin-coln “You’ve ruined your chan-ces. You’ve made a mis-take. Aren’t you sor-ry? Don’t you wish you hadn’t writ-ten that speech?”
Straight came the an-swer, and it was this:
“If I had to draw a pen a-cross my whole life and e-rase it from ex-ist-ence, and I had one poor lit-tle gift or choice left as to what I should save from the wreck, I should choose that speech and leave it to the world as it is.”
Men then be-gan to think as they had nev-er thought be-fore. It seemed as if a death-shot had been sent straight to the heart of sla-ver-y. That speech was, how-ev-er, but the first of a hard and fierce strug-gle be-tween two sides of one of the great-est ques-tions ev-er brought be-fore an-y na-tion.
Lin-coln and Doug-las went up and down the state of Il-li-nois talk-ing in halls and in “wig-wams” as the build-ings were called where they spoke. Some-times they made a speech on the same day, out of doors, where large crowds would come. Both oft-en held forth in the same hall, one mak-ing his views known be-fore din-ner and the oth-er talk-ing on the oth-er side af-ter din-ner. Lin-coln was not known to make fun of an-y one, but there were scores who made fun of him, and tried to make him an-gry. But he an-swered all their scoff with sound state-ments, and found friends where oth-ers would have made foes. Doug-las had a way of tell-ing folks that Lin-coln said some things which he did not say. This was hard to bear, but Lin-coln would tell the crowds just what he did say at such and such a meet-ing and peo-ple would be-lieve him.
Lin-coln’s print-ed speech-es went through all the states, and soon folks out-side of his own state had a wish to hear him. They felt that he was at the head of the par-ty for real lib-er-ty. So the time came when A-bra-ham Lin-coln spoke East and West, in Il-li-nois, O-hi-o, Con-nect-i-cut, New Hamp-shire, Rhode Is-land, Kan-sas, and New York, and crowds would be still while he pled the cause of lib-er-ty and struck blows at sla-ver-y. It is said that when he spoke in New York he ap-peared, in ev-er-y sense of the word, like one of the plain folks a-mong whom he loved to be count-ed. At first sight one could not see an-y-thing great in him save his great size, which would strike one e-ven in a crowd; his clothes hung in a loose way on his gi-ant frame, his face was dark and had no tinge of col-or. His face was full of seams and bore marks of his long days of hard toil; his eyes were deep-set and had a look of sad-ness in them. At first he did not seem at ease. The folks who were in that place to hear him were men and wom-en of note as well as those not so well known. There was a sea of ea-ger fa-ces to greet him and to find out what that rude child of the peo-ple was like. All soon formed great i-de-as of him, and these held to the end of his talk. He met with praise on all sides. He rose to his best when he saw what the folks thought of him. He spoke in his best vein. His eyes shone bright, his voice rang, his face seemed to light up the whole place. For an hour and a half he held sway in that hall and spoke straight to the point, clos-ing with these words,
“Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith let us, to the end, dare to do our du-ty as we un-der-stand it.”
A tale is told of Lin-coln’s go-ing with a friend, while in New York, to vis-it a Sun-day School at Five Points, a place where waifs were brought each Sab-bath to meet kind men and wom-en whose wish was to help them.