"Lost" Speeches and Agrapha

[RJNorton]

(10-06-2015 07:48 PM)STS Lincolnite Wrote:  He thought perhaps that the speech was so "radical" for Lincoln at that time that he did not want it distributed widely.

Scott, I agree that is a good possibility.

It must have been some speech. Thomas J. Henderson, a member of the Illinois legislature and later a Congressman for 20 years, was present for the speech and said:

"The great speech of that Convention was the speech made by Abraham Lincoln. His speech was of such wonderful eloquence and power that it fairly electrified the members of the Convention and everybody who heard it. It was a great speech, in what he said, in the burning eloquence of his words, and in the manner in which he delivered it. If ever such a speech was inspired in this world, it has always seemed to me that that speech of Mr. Lincoln's was. It aroused the Convention, and all who heard it sympathized with the speaker, to the highest pitch of enthusiasm. I have never heard any other speech that had such a great power and influence over those to whom it was addressed. I have always believed it to have been the greatest speech Mr. Lincoln ever made, and the greatest speech to which I ever listened."