Lincoln at Cooper Union
The Speech That Made Abraham Lincoln President
Excerpt
Chapter One: "Abe Lincoln Must Come"
The train bearing a weary but exultant Abraham Lincoln home from nearby De Witt County lumbered into Springfield, Illinois, early on Saturday evening, October 15, 1859. No one was on hand there to greet him. Lincoln disembarked, strode past the brick depot, and commenced the brief, four-block walk along the gas-lit streets that led to his house. The weather was "fine and bracing," with a touch of frost biting the air.
The practicing attorney had spent the last five days at Clinton, a village some forty miles to the northwest, busily "attending court," as he innocuously put it. But ever the politician, he had kept one eye keenly fixed on fast-approaching state election contests in Pennsylvania, Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota, and perhaps most crucial of all, Ohio. Just a few weeks earlier, Lincoln had stumped tirelessly for Republican candidates there, delivering rousing addresses at both Columbus and Cincinnati, rebutting, one after another, earlier speeches by his per ... read full excerpt from Lincoln at Cooper Union: The Speech That Made Abraham Lincoln President ebook
