THE REPUBLICAN CONVENTION
About seven o'clock, the Convention adjourned to meet in the evening; but previous to doing so, an incident occured worthy of notice. The delegates from Cook county appeared with a banner upon which was inscribed, "Cook county for Abram Lincoln for United States Senator." Mr. Judd, of Cook, in a very appropriate address referred to this fact, when a delegate in the crowd arose, and, waving a flag on which was printed the word "Illinois," moved that it be nailed over "Cook county" in the banner carried by the Cook delegation. The motion was received with rounds of applause, and carried by a unanimous vote. The inscription then read
ILLINOIS
FOR
ABRAM LINCOLN
FOR U. S. Senator
In the evening, the Hall was again crowded to excess to listen to the speeches from Lincoln, Judd, Wyche, Feree, Denio, and others. It would take up more room and time than are at our disposal to comment upon the speeches delivered, and the unbounded enthusiasm which prevailed.
LINCOLN AT THE REPUBLICAN STATE CONVENTION
Returning to the campaign of 1858—I was sent by my employers to Springfield to attend the Republican State Convention of that year.[1] Again I sat at a short distance from Mr. Lincoln when he delivered the "House-divided-against-itself" speech on the 17th of June. This was delivered from manuscript and was the only one I ever heard him deliver in that way. When it was concluded he put the manuscript in my hands and asked me to go to the State Journal office and read the proof of it. I think it had already been set in type. Before I had finished this task, Mr. Lincoln himself came into the composing room of the State Journal and looked over the revised proofs. He said to me that he had taken a great deal of pains with this speech, and that he wanted it to go before the people just as he had prepared it. He dded that some of his friends had scolded him a good deal about the opening paragraph and "the house divided against itself," and wanted
- ↑ Mr. Horace White in Herndon's Life of Lincoln, by permission of D. Appleton & Co.
