LINCOLN IN OHIO
BY JOHN H. CRAMER
I. The Cincinnati Speech of September,
1859: Did Dayton Hear
It First ?
The words which Abraham Lincoln spoke in
Cincinnati upon
the seventeenth of September, 1859, are
well known to careful
students of his addresses and writings.
They were the words of
one of the most important speeches which
the famous Illinoisan
made upon his brief, but important
excursion into Ohio. The
address was given in answer to a
previous speech made by the
then more noted Stephen Arnold Douglas,
and it abounded in
political arguments in opposition to the
theories of the "Little
Giant." There is no doubt that
Lincoln made an important speech
to the people of Cincinnati; there is a
doubt in regard to the fact
that this talk was first addressed to
the citizens of the great Ohio
River port. It is possible that the
smaller city of Dayton may
have listened to the Cincinnati speech
before the people of the
Ohio metropolis heard it. Certain papers
in 1859 ignored the
Dayton speech, and asserted that Lincoln
was delayed in the "Gem
City." It was while waiting for the
Cincinnati train that he is
supposed to have delivered the Dayton
address. It is strange
to assume that a speech of two hours
length was delivered by
Mr. Lincoln to fill in the time while he
waited the arrival of the
cars for Cincinnati, but many writers in
1859 took such a view-
point.
The full text of the speech which was
delivered in Cincinnati
is included in the Gettysburg edition of
the writings of Abraham
Lincoln; a work of his two secretaries,
John Hay and John G.
Nicolay. These men did not include the
Dayton speech, for no
exact copy of the words spoken in that
city was available. It
was not until the year, 1930, that a
resume of the Dayton speech
was made available to the students of
Lincolniana. The Dayton
speech became known through the careful
research of the Lincoln
(149)
150
OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
scholar, Paul Angle. The resume as it
appears in New Letters
and Papers of Lincoln is deserving of careful study by those who
are interested in the evidence which may
be found there. This
speech, combined with newly discovered
material, presents an
interesting problem for Lincoln
scholars. The evidence is not
definitive nor conclusive, but it does
offer a basis for inquiry into
the possibility that the Cincinnati
speech was first delivered to
the people of Dayton.
In the absence of the type of evidence
that is termed con-
clusive by historians, it is well to
present the known facts in the
case, and to allow students of the
Lincoln addresses to interpret
such evidence, and draw their own conclusions.
The case rests
with Lincoln scholars.
The daily and weekly journals which were
published in Day-
ton offer interesting material upon the
address which Abraham
Lincoln delivered from the court house.
There is some informa-
tion upon the Dayton speech in the work
of Daniel J. Ryan.
In his Lincoln and Ohio Ryan
gives an excellent account of the
visit to Dayton, but a few pertinent
facts seem to have been
overlooked. The reports from the local
press are well presented.
but Ryan seems to have left unnoticed
the account in one paper.
the weekly Dayton Journal, which
stressed certain similarities in
the Dayton and Cincinnati speeches. This
report should prove
of interest in a careful analysis of the
two speeches. The Day-
ton writer copied the report of a
Cincinnati paper, but he presented
his account as follows:
There is a part of Mr. Lincoln's speech
delivered in Dayton and at
Cincinnati, in relation to the influence
of the Ordinance of 1787 in excluding
slavery from Ohio, and other States of
the West and North West, which for
the historical information it contains,
as well as for its reputation (refuta-
tion) of an oft reported declaration of
Senator Douglas, deserves an at-
tentive consideration. We copy from the
report of the Cincinnati Gazette:
"It may appear a little episodical
for me to mention the topic of which
I shall speak now. It is a favorite
proposition of Douglas's that the in-
terference of the general government,
through the Ordinance of '87, or
through any other act, never has made or
ever can make a Free State,
that the Ordinance of '87 did not make
the free States of Ohio, Indiana,
and Illinois. That these states are free
upon his great principle of Popular
LINCOLN IN OHIO 151
Sovereignty, because the people of those
several States have chosen to make
them so, or probably here he undertook
to compliment the people that they
themselves have made the State of Ohio
free and the Ordinance of '87
was not entitled in any degree to divide
the honor with them. I have no
doubt that the people of the State of
Ohio did make her free according to
their own will and judgment, but let the
facts be remembered.
"In 1802, I believe, it was you
that introduced the clause prohibiting
slavery, and you did it I reckon very
nearly unanimously, but you should
bear in mind that you -- speaking of you
as one of the people -- that you did
so unembarrassed by the actual presence
of the institution amongst you;
that you made it a Free State, not with
the embarrassment of already hav-
ing among you many slaves, which if they
had been here, and you had
sought to make a Free State, you would
not know what to do with. If
they had been among you, embarrassing
difficulties must probably have in-
duced you to tolerate a slave
constitution instead of a free one, as indeed
these very difficulties have constrained
every people on this continent who
have adopted slavery.
"Pray what was it that made you
free? What kept you free? Did
you find the State free when you came to
decide that Ohio should be a
free State? It is important to inquire
by what reason you found it so.
Let us take an illustration between the
States of Ohio and Kentucky.
Kentucky is separated by this Ohio
River, not a mile wide. A portion of
Kentucky, by reason of the course of the
Ohio, is further north than this
portion of Ohio in which we now stand.
Kentucky is entirely covered with
slavery -- Ohio is entirely free from
it. What made the difference? Was
it climate? No. A portion of Kentucky
was further north than this por-
tion of Ohio. Was it soil? No. There is
nothing in the soil of the one
more favorable to slave labor than the
other. It was not climate or soil
that made one side of the line to be
entirely covered with slavery and the
other free from it. What was it? Study
it over. Tell us if you can, in
all of the range of conjecture, if there
be anything that you can conceive of
that made the difference, other than
that there was no law keeping it out
of Kentucky? And the Ordinance of '87
kept it out of Ohio. If there is
any other reason than this, I confess
that it is wholly beyond my power to
conceive of it. This, then, I offer to
combat the idea that the Ordinance
has never made any State free.
"I don't stop at this illustration.
I come to the State of Indiana; and
what I have said about Kentucky and Ohio
I repeat as between Indiana
and Kentucky; it is equally
applicable. One additional argument is
ap-
plicable however to Indiana. In her
territorial condition she more than
once petitioned Congress to abrogate the
ordinance entirely, or at least so
far as to suspend its operation for a
time, in order that they might ex-
ercise the 'Popular Sovereignty' of
having-slaves if they wanted them. The
men then controlling the government,
imitating the men of the Revolution,
152
OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
so far as the intelligence was
concerned, refused Indiana that privilege,
and so we have the evidence that Indiana
supposed she could have slaves
if it were not for the Ordinance; that
she besought Congress to put that
barrier out of the way, that Congress
refused to do so, and it all ended at
last in Indiana being a Free State. Tell
me not then that the Ordinance
of '87 had nothing to do with making
Indiana a Free State, when we find
men chafing against that barrier.
"Come down again to our State of
Illinois -- when the great North
West Territory, including Ohio, Indiana,
Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin
was acquired, first, I believe, by the
British Government from the French.
Before the establishment of our
independence, it became a part of Virginia,
enabling Virginia afterwards to transfer
it to the general government.
There were French settlements in what is
now Missouri -- in the tract of
the country which was not purchased
until about 1803. In these French
settlements negro slavery had existed
for many years -- perhaps more than
a hundred, if not as much as two hundred
years -- at Kaskaskia in Illinois,
and at St. Genevieve, or Cape Girardeau,
perhaps in Missouri. The number
of slaves was not very great, but there
was about the same number in each
place. They were there when we acquired
the territory. There was no
effort made to break up the relation of
master and slave, and even the
Ordinance of 1787 was so enforced as to
destroy that slavery in Illinois,
nor did the ordinance apply to Missouri
at all.
"What I want to ask your attention
to, at this point, is that Illinois
and Missouri came into the Union about
the same time, Illinois in the latter
part of 1818, and Missouri, after a
struggle, I believe some time in 1820.
They had been filling up with American
people about the same period of
time, their progress enabling them to be
ready to come into the Union at
about the same time. At the end of that
ten years in which they had been
so preparing (for it was about that
period of time) the number of slaves
in Illinois had actually decreased;
while in Missouri, beginning with a very
few, at the end of ten years there were
about ten thousand. This being so,
and it being remembered that Illinois
and Missouri are, to a certain extent
in the same parallel of latitude -- that
of the Northern half of Missouri and
the Southern half of Illinois are in the
same parallel of latitude -- so that
the climate would have the same effect
upon the one as upon the other,
and that in the soil there is no
material difference so far as bears upon the
question of Slavery being settled upon
one or the other -- there being none of
those natural causes to produce a
difference in filling them, and yet there
being a broad difference in their
filling up, we are led again to enquire what
was the cause of that difference.
"It is not natural to say that in
Missouri there was no law to keep
that country from filling up with
Slaves, while in Illinois there was the
Ordinance of '87. The ordinance being
there, Slavery decreased during
LINCOLN IN OHIO 153
that ten years -- the ordinance not
being in the other, it increased from a
few to ten thousand. Can anybody doubt
the reason of the difference?
"I think all these facts most
abundantly prove that my friend Judge
Douglas' proposition, that the Ordinance
of '87 or the natural restriction
of Slavery, never had a tendency to make
a Free State, is a fallacy -- a
proposition without the shadow or semblance
of truth about it.
Popular Sovereignty Causing Freedom.
"Douglas sometimes says that all
the States (and it is a part of this
same proposition I have been discussing)
that have become free, have be-
come so on his 'great principle' -- that
the State of Illinois itself came into
the Union as a Slave State, and that the
people upon the 'great principle'
of Popular Sovereignty have since made
it a Free State.
"I have mentioned to you that there
were a few old French slaves
there. They numbered, I think, two
hundred. Besides there had been a
territorial law for indenturing black
persons. Under that law, in violation
of the Ordinance of '87, but without any
enforcement of it to overthrow
the system, there had been a small number
of Slaves introduced as inden-
tured persons. Owing to this cause for
the prohibition of Slavery, was
slightly modified. Instead of running
like yours, that neither Slavery nor
involuntary servitude, except for crime
of which the party shall have been
duly convicted, should exist in the
State, they said that neither Slavery nor
involuntary servitude should exist after
a certain time, and that the children
of children should be born free.
"Out of this fact, that the one
cause of slavery was moderated be-
cause of the actual presence of it,
Douglas asserts again and again that
Illinois came into the Union as a Slave
State. How far the fact sustains
the conclusion that he draws, it is for
intelligent and impartial men to de-
cide. I leave you with these remarks,
worthy of being remembered, that
that little, those few indentured
servants being there, was of itself suf-
ficient to modify a constitution made by
a people ardently desiring to have
a free constitution; showing the power
of the actual presence of the institu-
tion of slavery to prevent any people,
however anxious to make a Free
State, from making it perfectly
so."1
A close study of the text of the 1859
speech which was de-
livered in Cincinnati, will reveal that
the reporter for the Cin-
cinnati Gazette was unusually
accurate in his copy. There is a
striking similarity between it and the
text as found in the Nicolay
and Hay edition of the complete, or
supposedly complete works
of the Civil War president. There are a
few minor errors, and
there is a most inaccurate rendering of
the sentence: "Owing
1 Weekly Dayton Journal, September
27, 1859.
154
OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
to this, the clause for the prohibition
of slavery was slightly modi-
fied." The Cincinnati correspondent
reported these words: "Ow-
ing to this cause for the prohibition of
Slavery, was slightly modi-
fied." In the first sentence of the
last paragraph in the excerpt
from the Gazette which was copied
by the Dayton paper, the word
"cause" is used incorrectly in
place of the correct word, "clause".
These are, at best, insignificant
errors, and the entire speech was
very accurately reported in the
Cincinnati paper. The slight dif-
ferences between the report in the
Cincinnati journal and the
text as given in Nicolay and Hay may be
evidence of the exist-
ence of a manuscript of the speech given
at Cincinnati, or as
the Dayton paper states, at Dayton and
Cincinnati. Nicolay and
Hay left no citation of the sources of
the Lincoln speeches which
they edited. Arthur Brooks Lapsley did
not edit as complete an
edition as that of Nicolay and Hay, but
he did cite the source of
the writings and addresses which he
used. In those cases in which
the material was obtained from a
newspaper, Lapsley cited the
paper as the source of his material. In
other cases, no such cita-
tion appears. There is no footnote
citation following the Cincin-
nati speech of 1859, and it would appear
that the speech was
gained from another source than a
newspaper. The interesting
fact in relation to this speech, is not
the one in regard to the
source of the address, but it is the
unusual and absolute statement
of the Dayton weekly Journal that
it copied from the Gazette
an excerpt of the speech which Lincoln
delivered at both Dayton
and Cincinnati. The writer of the
article admitted his inability
to make a rapid shorthand report of the
Dayton address, and gave
a resume of the ideas contained in the
speech. Despite this ad-
mission, he stated with deep conviction
his belief that the address
delivered at Cincinnati was also
delivered at Dayton. The article
of an unknown Dayton writer is not
conclusive proof that the
Cincinnati speech was first heard at
Dayton, but it must not be
dismissed in any consideration of the
evidence.
The editor of the Dayton paper made
admission of the in-
ability of his reporter to follow the
words of Lincoln in the
exact manner in which they were
delivered. In place of this,
the paper gave a detailed outline of the
speech. It followed Lin-
LINCOLN IN OHIO 155
coin step by step in his argument; it
made reference to Lincoln's
refutation of Douglas's assertion that
the Constitution favored
slavery, to his remarks upon the
limitation of the slave trade by
Congress, and then launched into a
discussion of that part of the
speech which took up the Ordinance of
1787. It then continued
with a reference to Lincoln's remarks
upon Ohio, the effects of
soil and climate, and concluded with a
good summary of his ideas
in regard to the rights of free labor. A
comparison of the Day-
ton resume of the Lincoln speech, and
the principal points con-
tained in the Cincinnati speech will
reveal a striking similarity
between the two speeches. The final
portion of the Cincinnati
speech deals with free labor; the Dayton
resume concerns the
same topic.
The conclusion might be drawn that the
Dayton reporter as
an afterthought, merely used the
Cincinnati report as the words
given in Dayton, for the paper of the
smaller city was issued after
Lincoln had visited Cincinnati. Such a
conclusion must be con-
sidered in conjunction with a report by
the Dayton Daily Empire,
a Democratic journal of the "Gem
City." This account was
printed the same day as the one which
appeared in the Cincin-
nati press. The opposition paper was not
flattering in its report
of Lincoln's visit, but it gave a
complete account of the stop at
Dayton, and a good outline of the speech
made by Douglas's rival.
The Democratic paper gave the following
description of Lincoln's
visit.
On Saturday last, instead of tens of
thousands of persons being as-
sembled in our city, and the streets
being deluged with people, as one of
our morning contemporaries prophesied
would be the case, upon the oc-
casion of Mr. Lincoln's speech, a meagre
crowd, numbering scarce 200, was
all that could be drummed up, and they
were half Democrats, who attended
from mere curiosity. Mr. Lincoln is a very
seductive reasoner, and his
address although a network of fallacies
and false assumptions throughout,
was calculated to deceive almost any
man, who would not pay close atten-
tion, and keep continually on the guard.
He opened his speech by saying
that he was aware what were the
objections of Judge Douglas, to the irre-
pressible conflict doctrine, promulgated
by himself and Gov. Seward. He
had read and heard his speeches upon
that subject, and the inquiry had
always been made by Douglas, why our
country could not remain part
slave and part free, as our fathers had
made it? This question, Mr. Lin-
156 OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL
QUARTERLY
coin assumed, implied that our fathers
did make the country part slave and
part free. He assumed that Douglas
conveyed the idea by this question,
that our fathers, by actual legislation,
at the formation of the government
forced, compelled one part of the
country to be slave and the other part
free; and having made this assumption,
he proceeded to prove that it was
false. Having succeeded, after the labor
of half an hour in setting up this
wooden man, he proceeded to knock him
down.
Now the fact is that the declaration
that Douglas ever embraced or
promulgated, either in whole or in part,
the doctrines which Mr. Lincoln
charged upon him, is wholly gratuitous.
His late speeches at Columbus
and Cincinnati are very clear upon this
subject. In both of those ad-
dresses, he distinctly stated that the
existence of slavery in these United
States was owing to the agency of
England in aiding and giving counte-
nance to the African Slave trade, while
we were yet colonies. He said that
the country was part slave and part free
at the time the Constitution was
formed, but because England had fixed
the curse of Slavery upon us, and
made us part slave and part free, long
before the revolution. And when
the revolution did come, and
independence was declared, and our liberty was
achieved, and a government was
constructed, then our fathers left the in-
stitution of Slavery just as it was, to
be regulated by each separate State,
within her bounds, and the United States
took their position among the
nations of the world in the same
condition, as far as slavery was concerned,
as when they were colonies, that is part
slave and part free.
Our fathers--the first Congress did not
make them part slave and
part free, but they simply recognized
and re affirmed their previous condi-
tion, allowing each Sovereign State to
regulate the institutions as she
pleased.--This is the opinion set forth
in the speeches of Douglas, in char-
acters so legible that he that runs may
read; and yet Mr. Lincoln attempts
to transform his meaning and charges
upon him a doctrine which he never
avowed; and when he has succeeded in
abolishing that doctrine, takes credit
to himself for having demolished one of
Douglas' great principles. He
says that Douglas declared that our
fathers made the country part slave
and part free, (whereas Douglas declares
no such thing, and would fight
such a doctrine to the bitter end,) and
when he has proved this doctrine to
be untrue, he supposes that he has
overthrown one of Douglas' strong holds.
Having made this point clear to his
satisfaction, nearly all the re-
mainder of his speech was taken up in
attempting to prove that the ordi-
nance of 1787, had all the validity of a
Congressional law; and because it
excluded slavery from the North-West
Territory, therefore Congress had
a right to exclude Slavery from any
territory in the United States, at the
present day. He said that the ordinance
was re-affirmed in 1802, when Ohio
was admitted into the Union, under an
act of Congress declaring that her
constitution should be republican, and
should contain nothing repugnant to
LINCOLN IN OHIO 157
the provisions of the ordinance of 1787,
and that its validity was also re-
affirmed by Congress in the admission of
Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and
Wisconsin. He entirely overlooked the fact, that the Ordinance of 1787
although subsequently recognized by
Congress, at different times, was
simply a contract, between the General
Government and the State of Vir-
ginia, that Virginia ceded the North
West Territory, with a proviso pro-
hibiting slavery therein, as long as
that tract of country should remain in
a territorial condition. Slavery was
excluded then, not by the action of
the Federal government, but by Virginia
herself. That this she had a
perfect right to do will not be denied.
The North-West Territory was at that
time as much a part of Vir-
ginia as any portion of that State is at
present, and she had as much right
to legislate for or against slavery
therein, as she had to legislate for or
against it in the territory or country
comprised within her present limits.
Had she granted the North-West Territory
to the United States, with a
proviso, that the slavery should be
allowed therein, until such time as
States should be formed, the Federal Government,
if accepting the grant,
would have been bound to pass laws
protecting slavery therein as she
was to pass laws prohibiting it, when
such was the condition under which
she accepted it. The Ordinance of 1787
was not an act prohibiting slavery
in the territories of the United States,
but an act re-affirming and carrying
out the action of Virginia, that part of
her own dominion, comprising the
North West Territory should be free.
This fact Mr. Lincoln ignored entirely,
and declared the aforesaid
act to be the same as an ordinary act of
Congress.
He also attempted to prove that the soil
and climate of Ohio is as
well suited for the establishment and
perpetuation of slavery as the soil and
climate of Kentucky. The southern part
of Ohio, said he, is opposite in
east and west direction, and on the same
parallel with the northern part
of Kentucky, these portions of the two
States are alike in soil, and the one
is as well fitted by nature for the
existence of slavery as the other. The
fallacy of the argument is evident.
He closed his speech with a long
harangue upon the nobility of free
labor, and said that the Democratic
party claimed that the laboring man in
the north was no better than the slave
in the south--a declaration which
bears the impress of falsity upon its
very face.
These are the principal points which he
attempted to make in his
speech, all of which are alike false,
and the argument with which he under-
took to sustain them equally fallacious.
His diction is choice, his logic
clear, and in some instances, had his
premises been true, his conclusions
would have been irresistible. The
general impression of those who heard
him is that either he did not do himself
justice while here, or that he is
highly overrated; that he acquired his
notoriety from his contest with
158 OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL
QUARTERLY
Douglas, and that it is that alone which
gives him a reputation beyond the
bounds of his own State.2
The account of the opposition paper and
the argument which
is included are worthy of study. It
cannot be slighted or ignored.
The fact that each sovereign state
controlled the institution of
slavery was not denied by Lincoln; he
admitted as late as the day
of his first Inaugural Address, that he
had neither the power nor
the inclination to interfere with the
domestic institution of slavery
in the states where it existed. He did
not admit the same fact in
regard to the territories. A complete
study of the relative strength
of Lincoln's argument and that of the
Dayton paper would require
a detailed and careful understanding of
the Ordinance of 1787. It
will be seen that the Dayton writer was
guilty of certain fallacies
and errors of which he accused Lincoln.
The Northwest Territory
was not ceded by Virginia; Virginia did
not own it. The southern
State controlled the largest portion of
the area, but other sections
of the Northwest Territory were ceded by
Massachusetts and
Connecticut. There is a strange note in
the statement that the
territory was ceded by Virginia with a
proviso prohibiting slavery
therein. Jefferson provided such a
clause in the Ordinance of 1784,
but it was deleted by the Congress
acting under the Articles of
Confederation. It appears that the final
provision was the act of
one Manasseh Cutler, and not that of the
state of Virginia. It
would seem that Lincoln was upon better
ground than the Demo-
crat paper in certain aspects of
historical knowledge of his
argument.
The appraisal of Lincoln and his
argument is a most interest-
ing paradox. The reporter cloaks his own
view in a reference to
"those who heard him." At the
same time he remarks of the excel-
lent diction; the good logic of Lincoln,
and an ability to convince
a people which was not exceptionally
well informed. It seems that
the Dayton writer had to make certain
admissions in regard to
Lincoln, but concluded by "damning
him with faint praise."
It is neither the reaction of the paper
to Lincoln, nor its argu-
ment that attains importance in a
consideration of the visit to
Dayton; it is a certain phrase which
commands attention. After
2 Dayton Daily Empire,
September 19, 1861.
LINCOLN IN OHIO 159
presenting a detailed resume of the
ideas of the address by Lin-
coln, the correspondent concluded with
these words in regard to
the Dayton speech, "These are the
principal points which he
attempted to make in his speech, . .
." The content of the speech
can thus be easily compared with the
ideas which are to be found
in the Cincinnati speech. The
correspondent even made reference
to the comparison of Kentucky and Ohio;
a point upon which
Lincoln dwelt at some length in both
speeches. On the whole, the
resume was very similar to that
contained in the Republican paper,
the weekly Dayton Journal, for
September 20, 1859. The Daily
Empire made no reference to any speech at Cincinnati, and in
this
it was similar to the September 20 issue of the Weekly
Journal. It
is probable that the Daily Empire had
no report of the Cincinnati
speech, for the account of Lincoln's
speech appeared in the issue
of Monday, September 19. Lincoln
spoke in Dayton upon Satur-
day afternoon, September 17, and
addressed the citizens of Cin-
cinnati in the evening of the same day.
Sunday papers were
published in neither city, and the Daily
Empire report appeared at
the same time as the accounts in the
papers of Cincinnati.
No conclusive evidence is adduced by the
Dayton papers to
prove that the Cincinnati speech was
given first in the smaller city.
A copy of the daily Dayton Journal is
not available in the Dayton
library, but it is probable that the
weekly edition reprinted the
resume of the daily. The inability of
the Dayton reporter to obtain
the exact words of Lincoln may have been
responsible for the
speech not being accredited at first to
his city. The evidence is not
clear.
There are two remaining bits of evidence
to be presented in
the case for Dayton. One of them is
found in the words of
Lincoln in an address to a Chicago
audience upon July 10, 1858.
In this address he said:
Gentlemen, Judge Douglas informed you
that this speech of mine was
probably carefully prepared. I admit
that it was. I am not a master of
language; I have not a fine education; I
am not capable of entering into a
disquisition upon dialectics, as I
believe you call it; but I do not believe
the language I employed bears any such
construction as Judge Douglas put
upon it.3
3 John G. Nicolay, and John Hay, eds., Complete Works of Abraham
Lincoln
(New York, 1905), III, 32.
160
OHIO ARCHEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
Would an address of two hours length at
Dayton have been
carefully prepared? The answer is that
Lincoln was a sagacious
man, a clever politician and a cautious
man in any discussion of
controversial matters. He did not
blunder into political error from
lack of preparation of his material. For
example, the tariff was an
important topic of discussion in 1861.
At Pittsburgh, upon the
night of February 14, Lincoln referred
to the notes for the speech
which he gave upon this subject the
following morning.
In the absence of the exact words which
Lincoln spoke at
Dayton, it is difficult to arrive at a
definite conclusion. One point
in the chain of evidence remains. After
presenting a complete
report of the speech and the visit at
Dayton, the Weekly Journal
concluded the report with this sentence,
"When Mr. Lincoln closed,
three cheers were given, and he left for
Cincinnati upon the
4 o'clock train."4
In this case, as in that of the resume,
the material was taken
from the daily Dayton Journal. The
Dayton paper had written a
resume of the speech and then announced
the departure of Lincoln
at four o'clock in the afternoon. He
spoke at eight o'clock in the
evening at Cincinnati. The similarity of
the outline of the speech
given by Lincoln before he left Dayton,
and that given after the
arrival in Cincinnati is most unusual.
The coincidence of the
Dayton paper having knowledge of the
speech at Cincinnati and
a four o'clock departure for that city
would be most unusual.
Did Dayton hear the Cincinnati speech
before that city heard
it? There is much material in the Dayton
paper from which
conclusions may be drawn. It is not the
sort of evidence upon
which a conclusive decision may be
arrived at.
These facts are known: Lincoln did speak
at Dayton and
Cincinnati. He spoke for two hours at
Dayton, and upon an im-
portant matter of legislation in regard
to slavery. Finally, Lin-
coln made it known to an Illinois group
that he was not given to
long "disquisitions" without
careful and adequate preparation of
the material upon which he was speaking.
4 Weekly Dayton Journal, September
20, 1859.
LINCOLN IN OHIO 161
2. A PRESIDENT ELECT VISITS HUDSON AND
ALLIANCE
It seems incredible that any of the
remarks made by Abra-
ham Lincoln, or that any account of his
activities should remain
unrevealed for over eighty years. It is
probable that these words
and actions were considered of too
little consequence to be noticed
by the people of Lincoln's day. It is
certain that these were
overlooked by the reporters of 1861 as
too unimportant to in-
clude in the accounts of Lincoln's trip
which appeared in the
newspapers of the larger cities.
Even today, these brief remarks, and the
accounts of the
actions of Lincoln may assume importance
only because of their
connection with the Civil War president.
They may seem in-
significant to the present generation,
but it is possible that these
few words were most important to those
who heard them, and
that the visit of a President elect was
the outstanding occurrence
in a day which would be remembered by
them for many years.
Abraham Lincoln made a number of
speeches in his lifetime;
he made many of them upon his way to
Washington in February
of 1861. They were not all great
speeches; there were many of
them which never reached the high level
of great oratory. They
were merely the words of the man who
fashioned a Gettysburg
Address, and the unusual eloquence of
the Second Inaugural
Address. They become important only as
the spoken words of a
Lincoln.
There were important speeches which were
made by Lin-
coln upon the trip in 1861. The
addresses at Indianapolis, Cin-
cinnati, Pittsburgh, New York and
Philadelphia were of most
serious nature, and were related to
important matters. The
newspaper writers of the day gave such
speeches their full at-
tention; they could not be expected to
notice a few remarks of
greeting at some relatively unimportant
rural stopping place along
the route. Such matters could be left
for the attention of the
small town newspapers; local news was
not of interest to the
citizens of New York City, Philadelphia
and Chicago. At times
there was mention of the stops at the
smaller towns, but the re-
162 OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
ports of the speeches at the large
cities and the accounts of the
visits there were the important news
items of the day.
The indifference of the newspapers of
the large cities to the
visits of the President elect to the
smaller towns does not make
any great difference in the intrinsic
picture of Lincoln, but
the reports of the press of the smaller
towns do give interesting
facts about the gaunt Illinoisan that
would have been otherwise
left unknown. These accounts do not
reveal a new Lincoln; they
merely show the things that Lincoln did,
they relate his brief
remarks, and picture him as a man among
the people who had
chosen him as their president. It is
known that Lincoln was a man
of many moods; these accounts picture
him in the lighter moods
upon the long and tiring trip to the
Federal Capital. This is not
the Lincoln of the Pittsburgh and
Indianapolis speeches; it is
the Lincoln who could joke and greet his
neighbors in casual
fashion as he did at Springfield.
There were many brief and unimportant
remarks made by
the President elect upon his way to
Washington in 1861. Many
of these were addressed to the people of
Ohio and New York
state, for Lincoln spoke in these states
more than in any others
which he visited. He spoke only less
frequently in Ohio than in
New York state, and in the former state
he made at least seven
addresses in two days. These were given
in Cincinnati and Co-
lumbus.
The speeches in the large Ohio cities
are well known; the
words that Lincoln spoke at Alliance and
Hudson; the things
that he did in these two Ohio towns are
little known. The re-
porters upon the Lincoln train mentioned
the large crowd at
Hudson, and they commented upon a
twenty-minute stop for
dinner at Alliance, but this was the
full extent of their account.
It is strange that the papers in the
larger Ohio cities did not give
fuller reports, but it is probable that
they were more interested
in the visits to Pittsburgh and
Cleveland than brief stops at the
small towns of Alliance and Hudson. The
Cleveland Plain
Dealer merely reported a stop of one minute at Hudson, and
con-
tained no remarks by Lincoln in its
report. It might seem
that such remarks were too brief and
unimportant to gain at-
LINCOLN IN OHIO 163
tention, but the New York Times printed
the remarks at Clyde,
New York, and these were briefer and
less significant than those
at Alliance.
The large city papers ignored the
activities and remarks of
Lincoln in the two Ohio towns, but three
newspapers in
nearby Ohio towns gave full accounts of
the reception of the
President elect, and reported the words
spoken by him. The
metropolitan dailies treated Alliance
and Hudson as mere stops
upon the route from Pittsburgh to
Cleveland; the three Ohio
papers treated the stops as an important
news event of the day.
The President elect did not remain long
in either town; the
train was late, and it was trying to
make up time. At one point
along the way from Pittsburgh it
traveled over a stretch of six
miles in six minutes. The train,
however, did stop long enough
for the people to see and hear Mr.
Lincoln, and such a visit was
material for news of importance in the
smaller town newspapers.
The train did not pause at Alliance as a
mere dinner stop;
it stopped at request of the Alliance
Committee. The dinner was
but one part of the ceremonies arranged
by the people of Alliance.
A platform had been erected for him, the
Canton Zouaves had
been invited to participate in the
festivities, and a band was in
readiness at the depot. The people began
to troop into Alliance
shortly after the noon hour, in order
that they might have the
best sight of the President elect when
he arrived. They came in
wagons and carriages; they arrived upon
horseback, and some
traveled many miles on foot to see the
newly chosen President.
They arrived from the surrounding
countryside; they traveled
by the cars from Canton and Salem, and
long before the train
was due to arrive, a crowd of over one
thousand people had as-
sembled at the depot. There was a good
crowd from the neighbor-
ing city of Salem, and the reporter for
the paper of that town
gave the following description of the
departure from that well-
known center of abolitionism:
Having received a note a few days
previous from Mr. E. Crew,
Chairman of the Committee for LINCOLN,
stating that the President
would pass through that place, and dine
there on Friday afternoon at two
o'clock a large number of our citizens
"rose early in the morning," traveled
164 OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL
QUARTERLY
down to the Station, and finally got
aboard the train, and in about half an
hour arrived safe and sound in the
"City of Mud."1
The appellation of the "City of
Mud" would seem to connote
a rivalry between Salem and its
neighbor, but it is likely that
the term was most fitting upon February
the fifteenth. Lincoln
had arrived in a downpour of rain in
Pittsburgh upon the four-
teenth; it was raining hard as he left
that city, and he spoke of
the mud of the Cleveland streets in his
address in that place.
Despite the rain, the crowd remained,
and was gratified by the
sound of the approaching train. It was
almost two o'clock in
the afternoon when the train arrived on
scheduled time. In a
moment, Lincoln emerged from his car,
and his appearance
was greeted with loud and continued
applause. The crowd surged
forward eager to get a glimpse of
him. In turn, Lincoln
bowed his acknowledgment of the
reception from the car plat-
form.
After the cheers had subsided, he told
the people that he un-
derstood "there was a turkey
prepared for him to discuss," but
after attending to this important matter
he would address a few
words to them. He was then escorted into
the dining room of the
famous Sourbeck Hotel, and served with a
dinner which one of the
correspondents reported to be the best
meal upon the trip. It is
unfortunate to note that much of the
time spent at Alliance was
taken up by the dinner at Sourbeck's.
There were but a few minutes of time
left as Lincoln
came out of the dining room. The
Committee escorted him to
the platform, from which he addressed
his brief remarks to the
people. The reporters for the Canton and
Salem papers differed
in their account of the words spoken by
Lincoln, and the two
reports present an interesting
comparison. The Canton paper
gave its version of the speech in this
manner:
After dinner, Mr. Lincoln was elevated
on a narrow platform and
briefly addressed the people there
assembled, he stated he could but bid
them the time of day, and then say
farewell--that if he were to stop and
make a speech wherever wanted along the
route, he would not get to Wash-
ington until after the inauguration. He
then thanked them for this mani-
festation and bid them farewell,
and--that was all.2
1 Salem Republican, February
20, 1861.
2 Canton (Ohio) Stark County
Democrat, February 20, 1861.
LINCOLN IN OHIO 165
Time was short; the engine whistle was
continuously shriek-
ing its warning that the passengers
should board the train. The
shrill blasts cut into the words and
disturbed the audience. Despite
such confusion, the reporter for the
Salem paper managed to copy
down the remarks made by Mr. Lincoln.
His report is the only
known account which exists in the Salem
paper, and in which
the words of Lincoln are quoted. These
are the words as the
writer for the Salem newspaper heard
them:
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: I appear before
you merely to greet
you and say farewell. I have no time for
long speeches, and could not make
them at every stopping place without
wearing myself out. If I should
make a speech at every town, I would not
get to Washington until some
time after the inauguration.
(Laughter.) But as I am somewhat inter-
ested in the inauguration, I would like
to get there a few days before the 4th
of March.3
This was not such a speech as to command
itself to poster-
ity; it was the usual brief address of
greeting which was often
used by Lincoln. He had addressed these
remarks to the people
of London, Newark, Cadiz Junction,
Wellsville and Xenia. He
later used them in other Ohio towns, and
in other states visited
by him. There was but one sentence that
he did not use again.
It was the one in which he had jocularly
expressed a slight in-
terest in the inauguration ceremonies.
There was but a moment left; the tall
speaker gained the
platform of his car, and the train
started upon the way to Cleve-
land.
The crowd was satisfied with the sight of Lincoln,
for the Salem reporter said that the
appearance of the President
elect had made a pleasing impression
upon the people. It remained
for the correspondent for the Canton
paper to give a picture of
Lincoln as Alliance saw him, and to add
a word of advice to
Lincoln. He gave the following
description of and advice to the
guest of honor:
In appearance Mr. Lincoln is not by any
means a handsome man.
His mouth and nose are rather large for
symmetry. His countenance,
however, is not inexpressive nor
unpleasing. In height he is probably six
feet two inches, with a fair breadth of
shoulders, and though spare and
apparently loosely put up, we should not
wonder if he had not seen the
3 Salem Republican, February
20, 1861.
166
OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
time when he could split rails or
navigate a flatboat. Thus did "Old Abe"
appear to our observation. We think Mr.
Lincoln will find the ship of
State in these days a different vessel
to navigate from a flatboat or a river
craft. He will find he has too many self
conceited pilots on board, all
assisting him to sail the vessel, and as
too many cooks spoil the broth, so
too many pilots, each intent on
following his own "Nor-Aist coorse," will
likely throw the old ship with Mr.
Lincoln and the crew upon the rocks
and quicksands of a lee shore. Captain
Lincoln, look out.4
Abraham Lincoln was aware of the
difficulty of too many
pilots for his ship. He had faced the
problem of creating har-
mony in a cabinet composed of Seward,
Cameron and Chase;
many of the days before his departure
had been filled with con-
templation of this problem. The
President elect had not reached
the full maturity of his powers, but no
one was more aware of
the difference between steering a river
craft and guiding the ship
of state through the crises of the years
ahead of him. This, too,
was the Abraham Lincoln which Alliance
saw.
Slowly the train disappeared in the
distance; the Lincoln
pictured by the Canton reporter was on
his way to Ravenna,
Hudson, and then Cleveland. A stop was
made at Ravenna, and
the people of that town listened to a
brief address which has only
recently been discovered.5 At
the conclusion of the address,
the President elect hurriedly reentered
his car, and the train sped
upon the way to Hudson. Although it was
on time at Alliance,
it was now behind schedule. Hudson was a
small town, but it
had a most interesting background of
history. It was one of
the oldest towns in that region which
the Democratic newspapers
termed the "citadel of
abolitionism," and it had been the residence
of the fanatical John Brown. It was steeped in opposition to
slavery, and it had planned a great
tribute to the first president
elected by the Republican party. It was
still early morning as
the people began to make their way to
the historic town of the
Western Reserve. They came from the
rural area around Hud-
son, and many traveled by railroad from
Akron and Cuyahoga
Falls. Nine car loads of people arrived
from these two towns,
and among the people was the reporter
for the Akron paper.
4 Stark County Democrat, February 20, 1861.
5 See Cleveland Press, February
12, 1944.
LINCOLN IN OHIO 167
By the time the train arrived, the crowd
numbered between
four and six thousand people, a
congregation described by one of
the reporters upon the train as one of
the largest yet seen along
the road through Ohio. The people were
in the gayest of spirits,
and their enthusiasm was not decreased
by the fact that they had
to wait on a train that was late. As the
train drew toward the
small Hudson station, the people became
expectant; they crowded
forward, each man and woman eager to be
the first to see the face
of Lincoln. As the President elect
appeared upon the rear plat-
form of the car, he was greeted with
most enthusiastic applause.
The lateness of the hour allowed but a
few minutes at Hudson.
The Lincoln who greeted the people of
Hudson was a tired
man; he was hoarse and he was fatigued.
Thirty-seven speeches
in five days was enough to tire any man.
The train was late,
and as he told more than one audience,
he "had no time to speak."
There was every reason for silence, but
one. These people had
come many miles to hear him. Lincoln was
a politician; Abraham
Lincoln was a democrat. It may have been
the politician; it may
have been the democrat; but neither
disappointed these fellow citi-
zens of Hudson.
As the cheers of the people became
fainter and silence was
gradually restored, Lincoln began his
few words of welcome.
He was so hoarse that he was almost
inaudible to people beyond
the front row, but the Akron reporter
heard every word of the
brief remarks. He told his readers that Lincoln greeted the
people of Hudson in these words:
Ladies and Gentlemen:--I stepped upon
the platform to see you, and
to give you an opportunity of seeing me,
which I suppose you desire to do.
You see by my voice that I am quite
hoarse. You will not, therefore,
expect a speech from me.6
There was merely a pause for a farewell
bow, and Lin-
coln was on the way to Cleveland. It was
here that he was to
conclude his speech with an excuse of
the hoarse condition of his
voice; the very hoarseness he had
complained of at Hudson. The
remarks of the President elect at Hudson
had less significance
6 Akron
(Ohio) Summit County Beacon, February 21,
1861.
168 OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL
QUARTERLY
than those at Alliance; they were merely
brief words of greeting
from a democratic President to the
fellow citizens who had chosen
him. Neither the words at Alliance, nor
the words at Hudson will
seem of great importance to the present
generation. They may not
have seemed exceptionally important to
the citizens of Hudson and
Alliance. The words did not matter; the
fact that the metropolitan
dailies took slight notice of the visit
of Lincoln did not matter;
the one thing that mattered to these
people was the fact that they
had seen the President elect; they had
been greeted by a man
who was to become one of the great world
figures of any age.
The words of Lincoln did not matter to
them; the man and his
visit did.
LINCOLN IN OHIO
BY JOHN H. CRAMER
I. The Cincinnati Speech of September,
1859: Did Dayton Hear
It First ?
The words which Abraham Lincoln spoke in
Cincinnati upon
the seventeenth of September, 1859, are
well known to careful
students of his addresses and writings.
They were the words of
one of the most important speeches which
the famous Illinoisan
made upon his brief, but important
excursion into Ohio. The
address was given in answer to a
previous speech made by the
then more noted Stephen Arnold Douglas,
and it abounded in
political arguments in opposition to the
theories of the "Little
Giant." There is no doubt that
Lincoln made an important speech
to the people of Cincinnati; there is a
doubt in regard to the fact
that this talk was first addressed to
the citizens of the great Ohio
River port. It is possible that the
smaller city of Dayton may
have listened to the Cincinnati speech
before the people of the
Ohio metropolis heard it. Certain papers
in 1859 ignored the
Dayton speech, and asserted that Lincoln
was delayed in the "Gem
City." It was while waiting for the
Cincinnati train that he is
supposed to have delivered the Dayton
address. It is strange
to assume that a speech of two hours
length was delivered by
Mr. Lincoln to fill in the time while he
waited the arrival of the
cars for Cincinnati, but many writers in
1859 took such a view-
point.
The full text of the speech which was
delivered in Cincinnati
is included in the Gettysburg edition of
the writings of Abraham
Lincoln; a work of his two secretaries,
John Hay and John G.
Nicolay. These men did not include the
Dayton speech, for no
exact copy of the words spoken in that
city was available. It
was not until the year, 1930, that a
resume of the Dayton speech
was made available to the students of
Lincolniana. The Dayton
speech became known through the careful
research of the Lincoln
(149)