Nominations as One of President Lincoln's Finest Speeches

[David Lockmiller]

(03-22-2023 03:56 AM)RJNorton Wrote:  I think the one I am most curious about is the Lost Speech. . . . I wish the actual text were available as maybe I could then understand why the people listening reacted as they did.

Roger, I believe part of the answer for the effectiveness of Lincoln's words were the detailed descriptions by the prefatory speaker of the crimes recently committed in Lawrence, Kansas.

Abraham Lincoln: A Life, Vol. One, page 418
Chapter 11 - "Unite with Us, and Help Us to Triumph": Building the Illinois Republican Party (1855-1857)

The next day, another fugitive from Kansas, James S. Emery of Lawrence, portrayed the outrages he had witnessed in that territory. After Emery described the sacking of Lawrence he watched Lincoln stride to the podium with a giraffe-like gait. His hair was tousled, his clothes were not neat, and his shoulders were stooped. But the delegates, so arrested by Lincoln's intensely serious look, scarcely noticed his appearance. Emery recalled that he “at once held his big audience and handled it like the master he was before the people, pleading in a great and just cause.”

Incredibly, Lincoln’s words on that occasion have not survived, and this oration, believed to be one of his masterpieces, has become known as the “lost speech.” Reporters were allegedly so carried away by it that they dropped their pencils and listened spellbound. Although many journalists were present, only two brief accounts of the speech’s substance are extant.