From a first-state proof of an engraving of the Cooper Institute picture of Lincoln (see McCLURE'S MAGAZINE for February, 1896, first frontispiece). Made by John C. Buttre, and now in the collection of W.C. Crane of New York City, through whose courtesy it is here reproduced.
These citations show that Lincoln had already learned to handle public documents, and to depend for at least a part of his success with an audience upon a careful statement of facts. The methods used in at least a portion of this speech are exactly those which made the irresistible strength of his speeches in 1858 and 1859.
LINCOLN IN THE CAMPAIGN OF 1840.
But there was little of as good work done in the campaign of 1840, by Lincoln or anybody else, as is found in this speech. It was a campaign of noise and fun, and nowhere more so than in Illinois. Lincoln was one of the five Whig Presidential electors, and he flung himself into the campaign with confidence. "The nomination of Harrison takes first rate," he wrote to his partner Stuart, then in Washington. "You know I am never sanguine, but I believe we will carry the State. The chance of doing so appears to me twenty-five per cent, better than it did for you to beat Douglas." The Whigs, in spite of their dislike of the convention system, organized as they never had before, and even sent out a "confidential" circular of which Lincoln was the author.
Every weapon he thought of possible use in the contest he secured. "Be sure to send me as many copies of the 'Life of Harrison' as you can spare from other uses," he wrote Stuart. "Be very sure to procure and send me the 'Senate Journal' of New York, of September, 1814. I have a newspaper article which says that that document proves that Van Buren voted against raising troops in the last war. And, in general, send me everything you think will be a good 'war-club.'"
Every sign of success he quoted to Stuart; the number of subscribers to the "Old Soldier," a campaign newspaper which the Whig committee had informed the Whigs of the State that they "must take;" the names of Van Buren men who were weakening, and to whom he wanted Stuart to send documents; the name of every theretofore doubtful person who had declared himself for Harrison. "Japh Bell has come out for Harrison," he put in a postscript to one letter; "ain't that a caution?"
The monster political meetings held throughout the State did much to widen Lincoln's reputation, particularly one held in June in Springfield. Twenty thousand people attended this meeting, delegations coming from every direction. It took fourteen teams to haul the delegation from Chicago, and they were three weeks on their journey. Each party carried some huge symbolic piece—the log cabin being the favorite. One of the cabins taken to Springfield was drawn by thirty yokes of oxen. In a hickory tree which was planted beside this cabin, coons were seen playing, and a barrel of hard cider stood by the door, continually on tap. Instead of a log cabin, the Chicago delegation dragged across country a government yawl rigged up as a two-masted ship, with a band of music and a six-pounder cannon on board.
There are many reminiscences of this great celebration, and Lincoln's part in it, still afloat in Illinois. General T.J. Henderson writes, in the entertaining reminiscences of Lincoln prepared for this biography:
"The first time I remember to have seen Abraham Lincoln was during the memorable campaign of 1840, when I was a boy fifteen years of age. It was at an immense Whig mass-meeting held at Springfield, Illinois, in the month of June of that year. The Whigs attended this meeting from all parts of the State in large numbers, and it was estimated that from forty to fifty thousand people were present. They came in carriages and wagons, on horseback and on foot. They came with log cabins drawn on wheels by oxen, and with coons, coon-skins, and hard cider. They came with music and banners; and thousands of them came from long distances. It was the first political meeting I had ever attended, and it made a very strong impression upon my youthful mind.
"My father, William H. Henderson, then a resident of Stark County, Illinois, was an ardent Whig; and having served under General William Henry Harrison, the then Whig candidate for President, in the war of 1812-1815, he felt a deep interest in his election. And although he lived about a hundred miles from Springfield, he went with a delegation from Stark County to this political meeting, and took me along with him. I remember that at this great meeting of the supporters of Harrison and Tyler there were a number of able and distinguished speakers of the Whig party of the State of Illinois present. Among them were Colonel E.D. Baker, who was killed at Ball's Bluff, on the Potomac, in the late war, and who was one of the most eloquent speakers in the State; Colonel John J. Hardin, who was killed at the battle of Buena Vista, in the Mexican War; Fletcher Webster, a son of Daniel Webster, who was killed in the late war; S. Leslie Smith, a brilliant orator of Chicago; Rev. John Hogan, Ben Bond, and Abraham Lincoln. I heard all of these men speak on that occasion. And while I was too young to be a judge of their speeches, yet I thought them all to be great men, and none of them greater than Abraham Lincoln."