stic of the speaker,
which lay behind it, is worth relating in detail. Lincoln had actually
in a speech in 1856 declared that the United States could not long
endure half slave and half free. "What in God's name," said some
friend after the meeting, "could induce you to promulgate such an
opinion?" "Upon my soul," he said, "I think it is true," and he could
not be argued out of this opinion. Finally the friend protested that,
true or not, no good could come of spreading this opinion abroad, and
after grave reflection Lincoln promised not to utter it again for the
present. Now, in 1858, having prepared his speech he read it to
Herndon. Herndon questioned whether the passage on the divided house
was politic. Lincoln said: "I would rather be defeated with this
expression in my speech, and uphold and discuss it before the people,
than be victorious without it." Once more, just before he delivered
it, he read it over to a dozen or so of his closest supporters, for it
was his way to discuss his intentions fully with friends, sometimes
accepting their advice most submissively and sometimes disregarding it
wholly. One said it was "ahead of its time," another that it was a
"damned fool utterance." All more or less strongly condemned it,
except this time Herndon, who, according to his recollection, said, "It
will make you President." He listened to all and then addressed them,
we are told, substantially as follows: "Friends, this thing has been
retarded long enough. The time has come when these sentiments should
be uttered; and if it is decreed that I should go down because of this
speech, then let me go down linked to the truth--let me die in the
advocacy of what is just and right." Rather a memorable pronouncement
of a candidate to his committee; and the man who records it is
insistent upon every little illustration he can find both of Lincoln's
cunning and of his ambition.

Lincoln did go down in this particular contest. Many friends wrote and
reproved him after this "damned fool utterance," but his defeat was
not, after all, attributed to that. All the same he did himself assure
his defeat, and he did it with extraordinary skill, for the purpose of
ensuring that the next President should be a Republican President,
though it is impossible he should at that time have counted upon being
himself that Republican. Each candidate had undertaken to answer set
questions which his opponent might propound to him. And gr