The reports upon this speech in the Republican and Democratic papers of the town were as follows:
From the Nonpareil, August 20, 1859:
“ABE LINCOLN.
“This distinguished gentleman addressed a very large audience of ladies and gentlemen at Concert Hall in this city, Saturday evening. The clear and lucid manner in which he set forth the true principles of the Republican party—the dexterity with which he applied the political scalpel to the Democratic carcass—beggars all description at our hands. Suffice it, that the speaker fully and fairly sustained the great reputation he acquired in the memorable Illinois campaign as a man of great intellectual power—a close and sound reasoner.”
From the Weekly Bugle, August 17, 1859:
“ABE LINCOLN ON THE SLOPE.
“The people of this city were edified last Saturday evening by a speech from Honorable Abe Lincoln. He apologized very handsomely for appearing before an Iowa audience during a campaign in which he was not interested. He then, with many excuses and a lengthy explanation, as if conscious of the nauseous nature of the black Republican nostrum, announced his intention to speak about the ‘eternal negro,’ to use his own language, and entered into a lengthy and ingenious analysis of the nigger question, impressing upon his hearers that it was the only question to be agitated until finally settled. He carefully avoided going directly to the extreme ground occupied by him in his canvass against Douglas, yet the doctrines which he preached, carried out to their legitimate results, amount to precisely the same thing. He was decidedly opposed to any fusion or coalition of the Republican party with the opposition of the South, and clearly proved the correctness of his ground, in point of policy. They must retain their sectional organization and sectional character, and continue to wage their sectional warfare by slavery agitation; but if the opposition South would accede to their view and adopt their doctrines, he was willing to run for President in 1860, a Southern man with Northern principles, or in other words, with abolition proclivities. His speech was of the character of an exhortation to the Republican party, but was in reality as good a speech as could have been made for the interest of the Democracy. He was listened to with much attention, for his Waterloo defeat by Douglas has magnified him into quite a lion here.”
Transcriber’s Notes
Old English lettering on the pages preceding the Table of Contents is represented here in boldface.