Lincoln’’s doings December 5, 1859

     Monday morning found him on the alert. He took equal pleasure in renewing old acquaintances or forming new ones.  He was to be found on the streets, in offices or workshops and took especial delight in familiarizing himself with our people, their pursuits and convictions.  In the afternoon, he delivered another speech to an immense audience. 

Leavenworth correspondence of The New York Tribune, August 30, 1860 

December MONDAY 5 1859 At Home – At Recorder’s court – Mary Ann Adams, Sarah Thornton, Josephine Rhino, Amanda Wrong, Elizabeth Thayer, Lizzy Burch were fined – Went to Hear Hon. Abe Lincoln make another speech – he has the actions of a Kentuckian he aims to say something funny but he does not try to use beautiful Language, he got off several good hits, his Language is his own & Original – Do all Kentucky orators try to say something funny? — Dist court met Organized and adjourned till Wednesday

“WENT AT NIGHT TO HEAR HON. ABE LINCOLN MAKE A SPEECH”

 Leavenworth Daily Times, December 6, 1859

 Leavenworth Daily Times, December 6, 1859

SECOND SPEECH OF HON. ABE LINCOLN.

STOCKTON’S HALL A JAM.

Elegant effort and great enthusiasm.

     Pursuant to notice, Hon. Abe Lincoln addressed the citizens of Leavenworth yesterday, at Stockton’s Hall.  The day was fearfully unpleasnt, but the Hall was filled to overflowing—even ladies being present.  

     Mr. Lincoln opened by reviewing the Territorial policy of our Government at the start, proving conclusively that it was in favor of liberty and was ever so exerted except in some of the Southern States where slavery existed by municipal law or was made a distinctive feature of the articles of cession.  But where these causes were not there was freedom proclaimed.

     The Fathers did not seek to interfere with slavery where it existed but to prevent its extension.  This was the policy of the Republican party of to-day.

     The divisions of sentiment in the Democratic party in regard to slavery were flimsy and immaterial.  The most advanced element could boast of no higher sentiment than an indifference to the peculiar institution.  No part of the Democracy ever declared slavery wrong in itself;  and they reached a sublime height when they said they didn’t care whether it was voted up or voted down.

      This indifference was all the slave-power could ask.  It was a virtual recognition of the right of slavery to universal extension.

      If a house was on fire there could be but two parties.  One in favor of putting out the fire.  Another in favor of the house burning.  But these popular sovereignty fellows would stand aloof and argue against interfering.  The house must take care of itself subject only to the constitution and the conditions of fire and wood.

      The speaker alluded, with much force and wit, to the great line (which we are assured by Senator Douglas was ordained of God) on one side of which slave-labor alone could be employed—on the other free-labor.  Thought the Missouri River might be the line referred to.  If the line was ordained of God it ought to be plain and palpable, but he had never been able to put his finger upon it.

      The attempt to identify the Republican party with the John Brown business was an electioneering dodge.  Was glad to know that the Democracy underrated the good sense of the people as the great Republican victories in New York, New Jersey, Minnesota and Iowa—where the argument was brought out with extraordinary emphasis—clearly demonstrated.  In Brown’s hatred of slavery the speaker sympathized with him.  But Brown’s insurrectionary attempt he emphatically denounced.  He believed the old man insane, and had yet to find the first Republican who endorsed the proposed insurrection.  If there was one he would advise him to step out of the ranks and correct his politics. But slavery was responsible for their uprisings.  They were fostered by the institution.  In 1830-31, the slaves themselves arose and killed fifty-eight whites in a single night.  These servile upheavings must be continually occurring where slavery exists.

      The democracy was constituted of two great elements.  First.  The original and unadulterated Democrats.  Second.  The Old line and eminently conservative Whigs.  This incongruous party was ever charging the Republicans with favoring negro suffrage, sustaining this charge by instancing the two Republican States of Massachusetts and New Hampshire where negroes are allowed to vote.  But it so happens that the law conferring this franchise was enacted by the Old Whigs in Massachusetts and the Democrats in New Hampshire. Kansas was the only State where the Republicans had the framing of the organic law and here they confined the elective franchise to the white man alone.

     Mr. Lincoln said that, in political arguments, the Democracy turned up their noses at “amalgamation.”  But while there were only one hundred and seventy-nine mulattoes in the Republican State of New Hampshire, there were seventy-nine thousand in the good old Democratic State of Virginia—and the only notable instance of the amalgamation that occurred to him was in the case of a Democratic Vice President.

     Mr. Lincoln wanted the races kept distinct.  Because he did not wish to hold a negro woman as a slave it did not follow that he wanted her for a wife.  Such flimsy diatribes were perpetrated by the Democracy to divert the public mind from the real issue—the extension or the non-extension of slavery—its localization or its nationalization.

     Mr. Lincoln closed by a clear and forcible definition of the aims and the principles of the Republican party.  He showed how they harmonized with the teachings of those by whom the Government was founded and how their predominance was “essential to the proper development of our country—its progress and its glory—to the salvation of the Union and the perpetuity of Free Institutions.”

      We have given but the merest outline of Mr. Lincoln’s speech, which we count among his ablest and happiest efforts.  He sought to make no display, but gave home-bred truths in a home-bred style that touched the hearts of his hearers-and went home to all.  The noble sentiments he uttered and the force of his logic, carried conviction with them and aroused an earnest enthusiasm.  At the close of his speech he was greeted with a cordial round of cheers which made the old hall ring.

 Leavenworth Daily Times, December 6, 1859

     ABRAM LINCOLN AGAIN — This last importation of the Blacks again addressed in shivering squad of his admirers at Stockton’s Hall yesterday.

     An effort was made beforehand to persuade him to touch more directly upon our political history, and serve up “bleeding Kansas” in his peculiar and forcible style, but he preferred to stick to his “nigger,” and twang upon the old sad worn out arguments, which by some inexpliable operation have been stereotyped upon his brain.
     Again he seized upon the subject of slavery at the outset, and after borrowing largely from his harangue on Saturday evening, went into a long strain of vilification, lnvective and abuses against all who opposed him and his party.— His audience cheered and clapped him on, in his miserable attempt to make capital out of occasion by prostituting his ability to pander to an animosity which delights itself in slurring personalities, and, filthy expectorations against the opposition.  

     It is a wonder to many how such a man as Abram Lincoln, can so prostitute himself.  Is there no other issue in the wide country, but that of “nigger?”  He has forever and firmly wadded his talents and ability in the fanatical crusade of Abolitionism, and sees nothing upon the political horizon but the African ?  Where, we ask, are those lenses, in which he once battied with a worthiness which won him renown?   Are they dead ?  No, but he has forgotten their importance, and has allowed himself to be irrevocable drawn into the whirlpool of fanaticism

     “He had a word to say of Old John Brown.”  (Cheers for Brown.) “So far as Brown’s sentiments for the negro were concerned, he sympathized with him ; (cheers) but he condemned his lawlessness and bloodshed ; ( a faint cheer;) and he had yet to hear the first Republican say, he supports him in it.”  (Old Abe paused in expectation of applause, but it didn’t come; his hearers were not with him there.)

     In reply to this balderdash, we would ask him if Conway, Thatcher, Lane & Co., of this Territory, are not Republicans ? and if they did not support Brown, why did they hold sympathy meetings at Lawrence, on the day of his execution ?  Why did the prominent Republican leaders in the States do the same thing, and raise money for him and his ?  “Honest Abram” don’t read the papers, or if he does he’s blinded by the “negro.”

     His whole speech was but just such trumpery as the above, and every position had about as much foundation.  We don’t wonder that Douglas rakes the man “fore and aft,” for he is “open” enough, and shows a good target between “ wind and water.”  To sum up the whole, we characterize his efforts as weak in the extreme, and himself an imbecile old fogy of one idea ; and that is —nigger, nigger, nigger.

Leavenworth Weekly Herald, December 10, 1859

Leavenworth Weekly Herald, December 10, 1859