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try met at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on the 22d of February of that year, to consider the necessity of a new organization. A little later, Mr. Herndon, in the office of Lincoln, prepared a call for a convention at Bloomington, Illinois, "summoning together all those who wished to see the government conducted on the principles of Washington and Jefferson." This call was signed by the most prominent Abolitionists of Illinois, with the name of A. LINCOLN at the head. The morning after its publication, Major Stuart entered Mr. Herndon's office in a state of extreme excitement, and, as the latter relates, demanded: "'Sir, did Mr. Lincoln sign that Abolition call which is published this morning?' I answered, 'Mr. Lincoln did not sign that call.' 'Did Lincoln authorize you to sign it?' 'No, he never authorized me to sign it.' 'Then do you know that you have ruined Mr. Lincoln?' 'I did not know that I had ruined Mr. Lincoln; did not intend to do so; thought he was a made man by it; that the time had come when conservatism was a crime and a blunder.' 'You, then, take the responsibility of your acts, do you?' 'I do, most emphatically.' However, I instantly sat down and wrote to Mr. Lincoln, who was then in Pekin or Tremont--possibly at court. He received my letter, and instantly replied, either by letter or telegraph--most likely by letter--that he adopted _in toto_ what I had done, and promised to meet the radicals--Lovejoy and such like men--among us." Mr. Herndon adds: "Never did a man change as Lincoln did from that hour. No sooner had he planted himself right on the slavery question than his whole soul seemed burning. _He blossomed right out._ Then, too, other spiritual things grew more real to him." Mr. Herndon had been an Abolitionist from birth. It was an inheritance with him; but Lincoln's conversion was a gradual process, stimulated and confirmed by the influence of his companion. "From 1854 to 1860," says Mr. Herndon, "I kept putting into Lincoln's hands the speeches and sermons of Theodore Parker, Wendell Phillips, and Henry Ward Beecher. I took 'The Anti-Slavery Standard' for years before 1856, 'The Chicago Tribune,' and 'The New York Tribune'; kept them in my office, kept them purposely on my table, and would read to Lincoln the good, sharp, solid things, well put. Lincoln was a natural anti-slavery man, as I think, and yet he needed watching,--needed hope, faith, energy; and I think I _warmed him_." It is state
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