A NEW YORK AUDIENCE

211 in Beecher's church in Brooklyn. He noticed that the New York Tribune described him as "a man of the people, a champion of free labor, of diversified and prosperous industry," and in his speeches there were "clearness and candor of statement, a chivalrous courtesy to opponents, and a broad, genuine humor." He learned for the first time that by giving to one newspaper in New York a copy of his speech it would be set in type and corrected proof "slips" would be sent to the other papers, and he would be sure of his speech being printed without mistakes.

A snowstorm interfered with traffic and Cooper Union had that night an audience that didn't fill all the seats. About 1,500 people had come, some with complimentary tickets, but most of them paying their way at twenty-five cents a head; the door receipts were $367.00. But for all that it was agreed in the Tribune office that "since the days of Clay and Webster" there hadn't been a larger assemblage of the "intellect and moral culture" of the city of New York. It included people who had heard Jenny Lind and Adelina Patti warble, who had seen French and Spanish dancers, who had spoken with P. T. Barnum and studied his freaks and monstrosities, who read the newspapers edited by Greeley, Bennett, and Raymond, who believed the undersea cable for instant communication from New York to London would be soon repaired. The pick and flower of New York culture was there. Some had heard of the Black Hawk War; but was Black Hawk an Indian chief or a river? Some had heard vaguely that this Lincoln person had once fought a duel and killed a man out in Illinois; at any rate, he came from a region of corn-fed farmers, steamboat explosions, camp-meeting revivals, political barbecues, boom towns, and repudiated state canal bonds. Also, they knew this Lincoln had been the first man to grapple and give stiff handling to the dramatic and powerful Stephen A. Douglas.

David Dudley Field escorted the speaker to the platform. William Cullen Bryant, editor of the Evening Post, author of "Thanatopsis" and "To a Waterfowl," told the audience that Lincoln had won a majority of the votes for the senatorship in

Illinois and that it was the legislative apportionment that gave Douglas the victory. Closing, Bryant said, "I have only, my friends, to pronounce the name of Abraham Lincoln of Illinois [loud cheering], I have only to pronounce his name to secure your profoundest attention."

Below the platform Noah Brooks had been telling other newspaper reporters that he had heard Lincoln speak out in Illinois, and once had heard an old Democrat in an outburst: "He's a dangerous man, I tell you, a dangerous man! He makes you believe what he says in spite of yourself." But as Brooks sized up the crowd and Lincoln, he said to himself: "Old fellow, you won't do; it's all very well for the wild West, but this will never go down in New York."

Then came forward on the platform a tall, gaunt frame of bones on which hung a loose and long, new broadcloth suit of clothes, bought just before leaving Springfield, Illinois, and creased in a satchel all the way on the steam cars to New York. Applause began; the orator smiled, put his left hand in the lapel of his broadcloth coat, and stood so as the greeting slowed down. "Mr. Cheerman," he began with the Kentucky tang of dialect. He was slow getting started. There were Republicans who weren't sure whether they should laugh at him or feel sorry for him.

As he got into his speech there came a change. He was telling them something. It was good to hear. It was what they wanted said. He opened with a text from Stephen A. Douglas: "Our fathers, when they framed this government under which we live, understood this question [of slavery] just as well and even better than we do now." He inquired as to who these "fathers" might be. Included among them must be the thirtynine framers of the original Constitution and the seventy-six members of the Congress who framed the amendments thereto. And he went into a crisscross of roll-calls, quotations, documents in established history connected with the sacred names of early bygone times, to prove "the fathers" were with the Republican party view of slavery and against the Democratic position.

SPEAKING IN COOPER UNION

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Did any one of "the fathers" ever say that the Federal Government should not have the power to control slavery in the Federal Territories? "I defy any man to show that any one of them ever in his whole life declared that." Search all the historical records, prior to the beginning of the century, and then not only among "the fathers" but with them all other living men. "And they shall not be able to find the evidence of a single man agreeing with them." Of course, he must guard a little against being misunderstood. "I do not mean to say we are bound to follow implicitly in whatever our fathers did. To do so would be to discard all the lights of current experienceto reject all progress, all improvement." He would take all blame for John Brown and Harpers Ferry off the Republican party. And he would speak to the people of the South.

His loose-hung, dangling sleeves were by now forgotten, by himself and by his listeners. At moments he seemed to have drifted out of mind that there was an audience before him; he was sort of talking to himself. In the quiet of some moments the only competing sound was the steady sizzle of the gas-lights burning.

The audience spread before him in a wide quarter-circle. Thick pillars sprang up from floor to ceiling, white trunks, dumb, inhuman. But the wide wedges of faces between were listening. He had thought, practiced, rehearsed for this event. It was different from lecturing in Cook's Hall in Springfield, Illinois.

"His face lights with an inward fire," said Noah Brooks to himself. A New York World reporter was making mental notes: "His voice was soft and sympathetic as a girl's . . . not lifted above a tone of average conversation . . . a peculiar naïveté in his manner and voice produced a strange effect on his audience . hushed for a moment to a silence like that of the dead." In swinging from the past to the present, Lincoln said, "And now, if they would listen-as I suppose they will not-I would address a few words to the southern people." Then he became a sad, lost, grim man, dealing in simple words with the terrible

ropes of circumstance that snarled and meshed the two sections

of the country.

"The question recurs, What will satisfy them? Simply this: we must not only let them alone, but we must somehow convince them that we do let them alone." What was the nub? "Wrong as we think slavery is, we can yet afford to let it alone where it is, because that much is due to necessity arising from its actual presence in the nation; but can we, while our votes will prevent it, allow it to spread into the national Territories and to overrun us here in the free states? If our sense of duty forbids this, then let us stand by our duty fearlessly and effectively."

To search for middle ground between the right and the wrong would be "vain as the search for a man who should be neither a living man nor a dead man." He finished: "Let us have faith that right makes might; and in that faith let us to the end dare to do our duty as we understand it."

There were applause, cheers; hats and handkerchiefs went into the air, the speaker's hand was shaken; Noah Brooks, the Tribune man, was blurting out, "He's the greatest man since St. Paul"; Brooks scurried away to write: "The tones, the gestures, the kindling eye, and the mirth-provoking look defy the reporter's skill. The vast assemblage frequently rang with cheers and shouts of applause. No man ever before made such an impression on his first appeal to a New York audience."

At the Athenæum Club five or six Republicans gave Lincoln a supper; over the oysters one asked which candidates would be most likely to carry Illinois. The reply was: "Illinois is a peculiar state, in three parts. In northern Illinois, Mr. Seward would have a larger majority than I could get. In middle Illinois I think I could call out a larger vote than Mr. Seward. In southern Illinois, it would make no difference who was the candidate."

The head of the lecture committee, Charles C. Nott, took Lincoln to show him the way to the Astor House. As they walked along the street, Nott saw Lincoln was limping, and asked, "Are you lame, Mr. Lincoln?" No, he wasn't lame;

LOOKING OVER "THE FRONT DOOR"

215

he had new boots on and they hurt his feet. So they waited for a street car, got on board, and rode to where Nott had to hop off for the nearest way home. He told Lincoln just to keep on riding and the car would take him to the door of the Astor House. And Nott said afterward that as he watched the car go bumping up the street he wasn't sure he had done right to get off; Lincoln looked sad and lonesome like something blown in with the drifts of the snowstorm.

In the morning in the lobby of the Astor, Lincoln saw that four morning papers printed his speech in full, and learned there would be a pamphlet reprint of it. He stayed in New York several days, sizing up "the front door" of the nation. It was a town with sights worth seeing if there was time. From his hotel room it was an easy walk to where, not so long before, the Dead Rabbits and the Bowery Boys had been in a gang fight and put up barricades and fought off the police and held their barricades till state troops arrived. Nor was it far to where Laura Keene, the actress manager, had put on her new successful play, "Our American Cousin."

He heard Beecher give a sermon and, coming away with James A. Briggs, walked past the city post office. Briggs mentioned that it was a dirty, disreputable-looking post office for a city like New York. And he put the question whether Lincoln, if he happened to be elected President, would recommend a million dollars for a new post office. Lincoln answered, "I'll make a note of that." He was taken to the studio of Brady and photographed; as the picture came out he looked satisfied with himself; it wasn't his usual face.

When New York papers carrying the Cooper Union speech arrived in the Chicago Tribune office, Medill and Ray were glad to see the compliments paid to Lincoln. "Ray and I plunged eagerly into the report, feeling quite satisfied with the successful effect of the polish we had applied to the address," said Medill in telling about it afterward. "We both got done reading it about the same time. With a sickly sort of smile, Dr. Ray looked at me and remarked, 'Medill, old Abe must have lost out of