eration and therefore let the worst come.

"I assure you that the candid statement of facts on your part,
however low it may sink me, shall never break the ties of
personal friendship between us.

"I wish an answer to this, and you are at liberty to publish
both if you choose.

"Very respectfully,
"A. LINCOLN."

"COLONEL ROBERT ALLEN."

Usually during the campaign Lincoln was obliged to meet personal
attacks, not by letter, but on the platform. Joshua Speed, who later
became the most intimate friend that Lincoln probably ever had, tells
of one occasion when he was obliged to meet such an attack on the
very spur of the moment. A great mass-meeting was in progress at
Springfield, and Lincoln had made a speech which had produced a deep
impression. "I was then fresh from Kentucky," says Mr. Speed, "and had
heard many of her great orators. It seemed to me then, as it seems to
me now, that I never heard a more effective speaker. He carried the
crowd with him, and swayed them as he pleased. So deep an impression
did he make that George Forquer, a man of much celebrity as a
sarcastic speaker and with a great reputation throughout the State
as an orator, rose and asked the people to hear _him_. He began his
speech by saying that this young man would have to be taken down, and
he was sorry that the task devolved upon him. He made what was called
one of his 'slasher-gaff' speeches, dealing much in ridicule
and sarcasm. Lincoln stood near him, with his arms folded, never
interrupting him. When Forquer was done, Lincoln walked to the stand,
and replied so fully and completely that his friends bore him from the
court-house on their shoulders.

"So deep an impression did this first speech make upon me that I
remember its conclusion now, after a lapse of thirty-eight years. Said
he:

"'The gentleman commenced his speech by saying that this young man
would have to be taken down, and he was sorry the task devolved upon
him. I am not so young in years as I am in the tricks and trade of a
politician; but live long or die young, I would rather die now than,
like the gentleman, change my politics and simultaneous with the
change receive an office worth three thousand dollars a year, and
then have to erect a lightning-rod over my house to protect a guilty
conscience from an offended God.'

"To understand the point of this it must be explained that Forquer
had been a Whig, but had changed his politic