publican Committee asked permission to publish them together
with the Lincoln-Douglas Debates as campaign documents in the
Presidential election of the next year.

In December he yielded to the persuasion of his Kansas political
friends and delivered five lectures in that State, only fragments of
which have been preserved.

Unquestionably the most effective piece of work he did that winter was
the address at Cooper Institute, New York, on February 27. He had
received an invitation in the fall of 1859 to lecture at Plymouth
Church, Brooklyn. To his friends it was evident that he was greatly
pleased by the compliment, but that he feared that he was not equal to
an Eastern audience. After some hesitation he accepted, provided they
would take a political speech if he could find time to get up no
other. When he reached New York he found that he was to speak there
instead of Brooklyn, and that he was certain to have a distinguished
audience. Fearful lest he was not as well prepared as he ought to be,
conscious, too, no doubt, that he had a great opportunity before him,
he spent nearly all of the two days and a half before his lecture in
revising his matter and in familiarizing himself with it. In order
that he might be sure that he was heard he arranged with his friend,
Mason Brayman, who had come on to New York with him, to sit in the
back of the hall and in case he did not speak loud enough to raise his
high hat on a cane.

Mr. Lincoln's audience was a notable one even for New York. It
included William Cullen Bryant, who introduced him; Horace Greeley,
David Dudley Field, and many more well known men of the day. It is
doubtful if there were any persons present, even his best friends, who
expected that Lincoln would do more than interest his hearers by his
sound arguments. Many have confessed since that they feared his queer
manner and quaint speeches would amuse people so much that they would
fail to catch the weight of his logic. But to the surprise of
everybody Lincoln impressed his audience from the start by his dignity
and his seriousness. "His manner was, to a New York audience, a very
strange one, but it was captivating," wrote an auditor. "He held the
vast meeting spellbound, and as one by one his oddly expressed but
trenchant and convincing arguments confirmed the soundness of his
political conclusions, the house broke out in wild and prolonged
enthusiasm. I think I never saw an audience more thoroughly carried