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In personal appearance Lincoln was not comely. He was very tall, thin chested, slightly stooped, gaunt, and awkward in his movements. His eyes were gray and deep-set under heavy eyebrows. His hair was dark and straight; his face was lank and pale and wore a sad expression, and the lines deepened as he advanced in life. His voice was a high-pitched tenor, almost falsetto in character. Yet it was so penetrating and had such carrying power that he was easily understood where others failed. He says of himself in his own short autobiography: "If any personal description of me is thought desirable it may be said that I am in height six feet four inches, nearly; lean in flesh, weighing on an average one hundred eighty pounds; dark complexion, with coarse black hair and gray eyes. No other marks or brands remembered."

What was there in this singular personality which grew in attractiveness as he began to speak? William Herndon, his law partner, has this to say on this point: "At first he was very awkward and it seemed a real labor to adjust himself to his surroundings. He struggled for a time under a feeling of apparent diffidence and sensitiveness. . . . . . As he moved along in his speech he became freer and less uneasy in his movements; to that extent he was graceful. . . . There was a world of meaning and emphasis in his long bony finger as he dotted the ideas on the minds of his hearers. . . . He never ranted, never walked backward and forward on the platform. . . . As he proceeded with his speech his voice lost in a measure its former acute and shrilling pitch, and mellowed into a more harmonious and pleasant sound. His form expanded, and notwithstanding the sunken breast, he rose up a splendid and imposing figure. . . . His gray eyes flashed with the fire of his profound thoughts, and his uneasy movements and diffident manner sunk themselves beneath the wave of righteous indignation that came sweeping over

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him. . . . Every lineament of his face, so ill-formed, grew brilliant and expressive, and you had before you a man of rare power and strong magnetic influence." Horace White declares that "the inspiration that possessed him took possession of his hearers also. His speaking went to the heart because it came from the heart. I have heard celebrated orators who could start thunders of applause without changing any man's opinion. Mr. Lincoln's eloquence was of the higher type which produced conviction in others because of the conviction of the speaker himself."

Not only was his speaking dignified, clear, and impressive, but it contained another prime element of oratory-directness. He conversed with his audience as he would with a friend close at hand, looking at the people and making his words carry a personal message to each listener. The people liked his frank, open way, and were willing to be led by him because of his honesty and integrity of purpose and his uncommon common sense. His success as a lawyer was due to his ability to convince the court and the jury of the fairness of his cause, and it must be said to his everlasting credit that he refused to take a case the justness of which did not appeal to him. He would not yield to the temptation to misrepresent a case, and if he was unable to bring the parties to a settlement out of court he would drop the case entirely. His reputation for honesty and fairness gave him a prestige with the courts, the influence of which it was difficult for his opponents to overcome. His heroic devotion to principle, his love of justice and fair play, his sympathy and good humor were qualities that appealed to the hearts of the masses and made his oratory supremely effective.

His greatest triumph, that which spread his fame throughout the land, was the series of debates with Senator Douglas, which one historian has called "the most characteristic and

at the same time most creditable incident in our national history. "The immediate goal was the senatorship of Illinois. There were seven joint debates in different congressional districts of the state. Though Lincoln received the popular vote by a majority of four thousand at the election, the complexion of the legislature was such as to give the senatorship to Douglas by a slight majority. But it was the influence of these remarkable speeches that won Lincoln the Presidency. Unknown outside the state of Illinois at the time he entered the canvass, his clear logic and convincing arguments in this great political debate won him recognition throughout the United States. "His defeat," says Watterson, "counted for more than Douglas's victory, for it made him the logical and successful candidate for President." The reputation that he had gained and the probability that he would have a large following at the national Republican convention led the party leaders in New York to invite him to speak at Cooper Institute. "It was a great audience," says Joseph Choate, "including all the noted men, all the learned and cultured of his party in New York - editors, clergymen, statesmen, lawyers, merchants, critics. They were all curious to hear him. His fame as a powerful speaker had preceded him. . . . He was equal to the occasion. When he spoke he was transformed; his eye kindled, his voice rang, his face shone and seemed to light up the whole assembly. .. With no attempt at ornament or rhetoric, without parade or pretense, he spoke straight to the point. If any came expecting the turgid eloquence or the ribaldry of the frontier, they must have been startled at the earnest and sincere purity of his utterances. It was marvelous to see how this untutored man, by mere self-discipline and the chastening of his own spirit, had outgrown all meretricious arts, and found his way to the grandeur and strength of absolute simplicity."

So great was his success in the Cooper Institute speech. that Lincoln was invited to make several addresses in New England. The professor of English at Yale University, who had heard Lincoln in New York, was so attracted by his style--that he followed him on his New England tour, took copious notes, and then lectured to his classes on the clearness force. and effectiveness of Lincoln's style.

Henry Watterson declares that he was not only a master of English prose and the "equal of any man who ever wrote his mother tongue," but he was also a "prose poet," and cites as a conclusive example the speech at Gettysburg, "as short as it is sublime; like a chapter of Holy Writ, it can never grow old or stale."

But the quality of all qualities which gave Lincoln supremacy as an orator was his stanch character and his fixed determination to carry out the right as God gave him to see the right. This is clearly shown in his utterance at New Orleans, when he witnessed for the first time the sale of slaves from the auction block. He turned to a friend and said, "If I ever get a chance to hit that institution, I'll hit it hard." And on another occasion he exclaimed, "I'll make the ground of this country too hot for the footstep of a slave." Time vindicated his conclusions, and now we revere him as a statesman. His love of the masses, his tenderness, his sympathy with the plain folks, as he was wont to call them, made the people trust him implicitly as one of themselves, and follow his leadership through the vicissitudes of a great civil conflict. His simple character, his integrity, his tenacity of principle, his strong magnetic influence, his balance of head, conscience, and heart, made his oratory a living, moving force, and gave his speeches a permanent place in the literature of the world.

POLITICAL ISSUES

The selections chosen from Lincoln are taken, one from each of the seven speeches made in his famous joint debates with Stephen A. Douglas in their campaign for the office of United States senator from Illinois. The election resulted in a small popular majority for Lincoln, but Douglas, owing to the peculiar districting of the state, was chosen senator by the legislature. It is generally conceded, however, that the`reputation gained by Lincoln in these speeches secured for him the nomination and election to the Presidency.

I. THE HOUSE DIVIDED

This speech was delivered at Ottawa, Illinois, August 21, 1858, in reply to the opening speech of Douglas. Douglas had charged Lincoln with maintaining revolutionary doctrines in a speech at Springfield, in which he declared that "a house divided against itself cannot stand."

I have no purpose, either directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the states where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so. I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and the black races. There is a physical difference between the two, which, in my judgment, will probably forever forbid their living together upon the footing of perfect equality; and inasmuch as it becomes a necessity that there must be a difference, I am in favor of the race to which I belong having the superior position. I have never said anything to the contrary, but I hold that, notwithstanding all this, there is no reason in the world why the negro is not entitled to all the natural rights enumerated in the Declaration of Independence the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I hold that he is as much entitled to these as the white man. I agree with Judge Douglas that the negro is not my equal in many respects — certainly not in color, perhaps not in moral or intellectual endowment. But in the right to eat the bread, without the leave of anybody else, which his own hand earns, he is my equal and the equal of Judge Douglas, and the equal of every living man.

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