One of the newspaper men * who heard this majestic oration wrote me as follows: "The apostrophe to the Declaration of Independence to which you refer was written by myself from a vivid recollection of Mr. Lincoln's speech at Beardstown, August 12, 1858. On the day following the delivery of the speech, as Mr. Lincoln and I were proceeding by steamer from Beardstown to Havana, I said to him that I had been greatly impressed by his concluding remarks of the day previous, and that if he would write them out for me I felt confident their publication would be highly beneficial to our cause as well as honorable to his own fame. He replied that he had but a faint recollection of any portion of the speech; that, like all his campaign speeches, it was necessarily extemporaneous; and that its good or bad effect depended upon the inspiration of the moment. He added that I had probably over-estimated the value of the remarks referred to. In reply to my question whether he had any objection to my writing them out from memory and putting them in the form of a verbatim report, he said, 'None at all.' I accordingly did so. I felt confident then and I feel equally assured now that I transcribed the peroration with absolute fidelity as to ideas and commendable fidelity as to language. I certainly aimed to reproduce his exact words, ard my recol lection of the passage as spoken was very clear. After I had finished writing I read it to Mr. I incoln. When I had finished the reading he said,

* Horace White, MS., May 17, 1865.

'Well, those are my views, and if I said anything on the subject I must have said substantially that, but not nearly so well as that is said.' I remember this remark quite distinctly, and if the old steamer Editor is still in existence I could show the place where we were sitting. Having secured his assent to the publication I forwarded it to our paper, but inasmuch as my report of the Beardstown meeting had been already mailed I incorporated the remarks on the Declaration of Independence in my letter from Lewiston two or three days subsequently. I do not remember ever having related these facts before, although they have often recurred to me as I have seen the peroration resuscitated again and again, and published (with good effect, I trust) in the newspapers of this country and England."

CHAPTER IV.

THE importance of a more accurate and elaborate history of the debate between Lincoln and Douglas has induced Mr. Weik and me to secure, for publication in these pages, the account by Horace White, of this world-renowned forensic contest. Mr. White's means of knowledge, as fully set forth in the article, are exceptional, and his treatment of the subject is not less entertaining than truthful. It is certainly a great contribution to history and we insert it without further comment:

"It was my good fortune to accompany Mr. Lincoln during his political campaign against Senator Douglas in 1858, not only at the joint debates but also at most of the smaller meetings where his competitor was not present. We travelled together many thousands of miles. I was in the employ of the Chicago Tribune, then called the Press and Tribune. Senator Douglas had entered upon his campaign with two short-hand reporters, James B. Sheridan and Henry Binmore, whose duty it was to write it up' in the columns of the Chicago Times. The necessity of counteracting or matching that force became apparent very soon, and I was chosen to write up Mr. Lincoln's campaign.

"I was not a short-hand reporter. The verbatim reporting for the Chicago Tribune in the joint debates

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was done by Mr. Robert R. Hitt, late Assistant Secretary of State, and the present Representative in Congress from the 6th District of Illinois. Verbatim reporting was a new feature in journalism in Chicago, and Mr. Hitt was the pioneer thereof. The publication of Senator Douglas's opening speech in that campaign, delivered on the evening of July 9th, by the Tribune the next morning, was a feat hitherto unexampled in the West, and most mortifying to the Democratic newspaper, the Times, and to Sheridan and Binmore, who, after taking down the speech as carefully as Mr. Hitt had done, had gone to bed intending to write it out next day, as was then customary.

"All of the seven joint debates were reported by Mr. Hitt for the Tribune, the manuscript passing through my hands before going to the printers, but no changes were made by me except in a few cases where confusion on the platform, or the blowing of the wind, had caused some slight hiatus or evident mistake in catching the speaker's words. I could not resist the temptation to italicise a few passages in Mr. Lincoln's speeches, where his manner of delivery had been especially emphatic.

"The volume containing the debates, published in 1860 by Follett, Foster & Co., of Columbus, Ohio, presents Mr. Lincoln's speeches as they appeared in the Chicago Tribune, and Mr. Douglas's as they appeared in the Chicago Times. Of course, the speeches of both were published simultaneously in both papers. The Chicago Times' reports of Mr. Lincoln's speeches were not at all satisfactory to Mr. Lincoln's friends, and this led to a charge that they were purposely mutilated in order to give his competitor a more

scholarly appearance before the public-a charge indignantly denied by Sheridan and Binmore. There was really no foundation for this charge. Of course, Sheridan and Binmore took more pains with Mr. Douglas's speeches than with those of his opponent. That was their business. It was what they were paid for, and what they were expected to do. The debates were all held in the open air, on rude platforms hastily put together, shaky, and overcrowded with people. The reporters' tables were liable to be jostled and their manuscript agitated by the wind. Some gaps were certain to occur in the reporters' notes and these, when occurring in Mr. Douglas's speeches, would certainly be straightened out by his own reporters, who would feel no such responsibility for the rough places in Mr. Lincoln's. Then it must be added that there were fewer involved sentences in Mr. Douglas's extempore speeches than in Mr. Lincoln's. Douglas was the more practiced and more polished speaker of the two, and it was easier for a reporter to follow him. All his sentences were round and perfect in his mind before he opened his lips. This was not always the case with Mr. Lincoln's.

"My acquaintance with Mr. Lincoln began four years before the campaign of which I am writing, in October, 1854. I was then in the employ of the Chicago Evening Journal. I had been sent to Springfield to report the political doings of State Fair week for that newspaper. Thus it came about that I occupied a front seat in the Representatives' Hall, in the old State House, when Mr. Lincoln delivered the speech already described in this volume. The impression made upon me by the orator was quite overpowering.