Danville, Ill., November 13, 1859.
James A. Briggs, Esq.:
Dear Sir, — Yours of the 1st, closing with my proposition for compromise, was duly received. I will be on hand, and in due time will notify you of the exact day. I believe, after all, I shall make a political speech of it. You have no objection?
I would like to know in advance, whether I am also to speak or lecture in New York.
Very, very glad your election went right.
Yours truly,
A. Lincoln.P. S. I am here at court, but my address is still at Springfield, Ill.
"In due time Mr. Lincoln wrote me that he would deliver the lecture, a political one, on the evening of the 27th of February, 1860. This was rather late in the season for a lecture, and the young gentlemen who were responsible were doubtful about its success, as the expenses were large. It was stipulated that the lecture was to be in Plymouth Church, Brooklyn. I requested and urged that the lecture should be delivered at the Cooper Institute. They were fearful it would not pay expenses—three hundred and fifty dollars. I thought it would.
"In order to relieve Messrs. Richards, Pettingill, and Tubbs of all responsibility, I called upon some of the officers of the 'Young Men's Republican Union' and proposed that they should take Mr. Lincoln, and that the lecture should be delivered under their auspices. They respectfully declined.
"I next called upon Mr. Simeon Draper, then President of 'The Draper Republican Union Club of New York,' and proposed to him that his 'Union' take Mr. Lincoln and the lecture, and assume the responsibility of the expenses. Mr. Draper and his friends declined, and Mr. Lincoln was left in the hands of 'the original Jacobs.'
"After considerable discussion, it was agreed on the part of the young gentlemen that the lecture should be delivered in the Cooper Institute, if I would agree to share the expenses, if the sale of tickets (twenty-five cents each) for the lecture did not meet the outlay. To this I assented, and the lecture was advertised to be delivered in the Cooper Institute on the evening of the 27th of February, 1860.
"Mr. Lincoln read the notice of the lecture in the papers and, without any knowledge of the arrangement, was somewhat surprised to learn that he was first to make his appearance before a New York instead of a 'Plymouth Church' audience. A notice of the proposed lecture appeared in the New York papers, and the 'Times' spoke of him 'as a lawyer who had some local reputation in Illinois.'
"At my personal solicitation Mr. William Cullen Bryant presided as chairman of the meeting, and introduced Mr. Lincoln for the first time to a New York audience.
"The lecture was over, all the expenses were paid, I was handed by the gentlemen interested the sum of $4.25 as my share of the profits, as they would have called on me if there had been a deficiency in the receipts to meet expenses."
[Mr. Briggs received as his share of the profits $4.25. What the country profited by this, Mr. Lincoln's first triumph outside of his own state, has never been computed.]
