When Mr. Lincoln rose to speak on the evening of
February 27, 1860, he had held no administrative office; he had
endeavoured to be appointed Commissioner of Patents, and had failed; he
had sought to be elected United States Senator, and had been defeated;
he had been a member of Congress, yet it was not even remembered; he was
a lawyer in humble circumstances, persuasive of juries, but had not
reached the front rank of the Illinois Bar. The record which Mr. Lincoln
himself placed in the Congressional Directory in 1847 might still be
taken as the record of his public and official life: "Born February
12th, 1809, in Hardin County, Kentucky. Education defective. Profession
a lawyer. Have been a captain of volunteers in the Black Hawk War.
Postmaster in a very small office. Four times a member of the Illinois
Legislature and a member of the lower house of Congress." Was this the
record of a man who should be made the head of a nation in troubled
times? In the estimation of thoughtful Americans east of the Alleghanies
all that they knew of Mr. Lincoln justified them in regarding him as
only "a Western stump orator"--successful, distinguished, but nothing
higher than that--a Western stump orator, who had dared to brave one of
the strongest men in the Western States, and who had done so with
wonderful ability and moral success.
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