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Herndon · 10-12-2015, 08:39 PM

(10-06-2015 07:48 PM)STS Lincolnite Wrote: He was talking about how Lincoln often pre-wrote or pre-prepared letters for publication stating he "reacted ahead of time". Lincoln did this to organize his thoughts and anticipate his critics arguments beforehand. He would then have a response ready immediately for publication (an example would be the Greely letter). Lincoln was also known to prepare copies of speeches ahead of time so they could be distributed to newspapers.

Very interesting... I suppose these are the copies we read today? I wonder how closely he stuck to what he'd written or how much he used ad lib!

(09-12-2015 06:44 PM)Rob Wick Wrote: Also, Ida Tarbell wrote a fictionalized account of Lincoln's Lost Speech for the American Magazine called "Back There in '58."

Compared to the rest of the forum members, I don't really have much to contribute... so to try to give something back and as I couldn't find a full transcription of this on the web, only book scans, I decided to use the book scans to add it to Wikisource, here (please edit it there if I've missed any typos!).

Anyway, here's the section from "Back There in '58" for anyone who hasn't read it:

Ida Tarbell Wrote:As I was sayin', I was up to Bloomington that night. Nobody that didn't hear that speech ever knows what Abraham Lincoln could do. Lots of 'em will tell you he was homely. Seems to me sometimes that's about all some folks around here has to tell about Abraham Lincoln. "Yes, I knowed him," they say. "He was the homeliest man in Sangamon County." Well, now, don't you make no mistake. The folks that don't tell you nuthin' but that never knowed Mr. Lincoln. Mebbe they'd seen him, but they never knowed him. He wa'n't homely. There's no denyin' he was long and lean, and he didn't always stand straight and he wasn't pertikeler about his clothes, but that night up to Bloomington in ten minutes after he struck that platform, I tell you he was the handsomest man I ever see.

He knew what he was doin' that night. He knew he was cuttin' loose. He knew them old Whigs was goin' to have it in for him for doin' it, and he meant to show 'em he didn't care a red cent what they thought. He knew there was a lot of fools in that new party he was joinin'—the kind that's always takin' up with every new thing comes along to git something to orate about. He saw clear as day that if they got started right that night, he'd got to fire 'em up; and so he threw back his shoulders and lit in.

Good Lord! I never see anything like it. In ten minutes he was about eight feet tall; his face was white, his eyes was blazin' fire, and he was thunderin', "Kansas shall be free!" "Ballots, not bullets!" "We won't go out of the Union and you sha'n't!" Generally when he was speakin', he was cool and quiet and things all fit together, and when you come away you was calm—but your head was workin'; but that time up to Bloomington he was like—what's that the Bible calls it?—"avengin' fire"—yes, sir, that's it, he was like "avengin' fire." I never knew exactly what did happen there. All I recollect is that at the beginnin' of that speech I was settin' in the back of the room, and when I come to I was hangin' on to the front of the platform. I recollect I looked up and seen Jo Medill standin' on the reporter's table lookin' foolish-like and heard him say: "Good Lord, boys, I ain't took a note!"

Fact was he'd stampeded that audience, reporters and all. I've always thought that speech made the Republican party in Illinois. It melted 'em together. 'Twa'n't arguments they needed just then, it was meltin' together of what they'd heard.