One of the most prominent members of the Illinois bar has written out especially for this work his impressions of Lincoln's speech at that gathering.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN IN 1861.
From a photograph by Klauber of Louisville, Kentucky. From a photograph owned by Mr. James B. Speed of Louisville, Kentucky, to whose courtesy we owe the right to reproduce it here. When Lincoln was visiting Joshua F. Speed in 1841, Mrs. Speed, the mother of his friend, became much interested in him. His melancholy was profound, and she tried by kindness and gentleness to arouse him to new interest in life. One day before his departure she asked one of her daughters for the latter's Oxford Bible, telling her she wanted it for Mr. Lincoln, and promising to get another in its place. The gift touched Lincoln deeply, and after he became President he remembered the giver with the above portrait—one he had had taken especially for her, he wrote.
WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON, NINTH PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.
From a painting. William Henry Harrison was born at Berkeley, Virginia, February 9, 1773. He was educated at Hampden Sidney College, and began to study medicine, but, excited by Indian outrages, gave it up to enter the army. He was sent against the Indians of the West, and at once distinguished himself. After peace was made in 1798, he was appointed secretary of the Northwest Territory. In 1799 he was a territorial delegate to Congress, and from 1801 to 1813, territorial governor of Indiana. In the war of 1812 he gained the battles of Tippecanoe and the Thames. From 1816 to 1819 he was a delegate to Congress from Ohio; from 1825 to 1828, a United State Senator; and in 1828 and 1829, United States Minister to Colombia. In 1836 he was the Whig candidate for the Presidency, but was defeated. Four years later (1840) he was elected, but lived for only one month after his inauguration.
"Mr. Lincoln stood in a wagon, from which he addressed the mass of people that surrounded it. The meeting was one of unusual interest because of him who was to make the principal address. It was at the time of his greatest physical strength. He was tall, and perhaps a little more slender than in later life, and more homely than after he became stouter in person. He was then only thirty-one years of age, and yet he was regarded as one of the ablest of the Whig speakers in that campaign. There was that in him that attracted and held public attention. Even then he was the subject of popular regard because of his candid and simple mode of discussing and illustrating political questions. At times he was intensely logical, and was always most convincing in his arguments. The questions involved in that canvass had relation to the tariff, internal public improvements by the federal government, the distribution of the proceeds of the sales of public lands among the several States, and other questions that divided the political parties of that day. They were not such questions as enlisted and engaged his best thoughts; they did not take hold of his great nature, and had no tendency to develop it. At times he discussed the questions of the time in a logical way, but much time was devoted to telling stories to illustrate some phase of his argument, though more often the telling of these stories was resorted to for the purpose of rendering his opponents ridiculous. That was a style of speaking much appreciated at that early day. In that kind of oratory he excelled most of his contemporaries—indeed, he had no equals in the State. One story he told on that occasion was full of salient points, and well illustrated the argument he was making. It was not an impure story, yet it was not one it would be seemly to publish; but rendered, as it was, in his inimitable way, it contained nothing that was offensive to a refined taste. The same story might have been told by another in such a way that it would probably have been regarded as transcending the proprieties of popular address. One characterizing feature of all the stories told by Mr. Lincoln, on the stump and elsewhere, was that although the subject matter of some of them might not have been entirely unobjectionable, yet the manner of telling them was so peculiarly his own that they gave no offence even to refined and cultured people. On the contrary, they were much enjoyed. The story he told on this occasion was much liked by the vast assembly that surrounded the temporary platform from which he spoke, and was received with loud bursts of laughter and applause. It served to place the opposing party and its speakers in a most ludicrous position in respect to the question being considered, and gave him a most favorable hearing for the arguments he later made in support of the measures he was sustaining."