Lincoln's "Lost Speech" was a speech given by Abraham Lincoln at the Bloomington Convention on May 29, 1856, in Bloomington, Illinois. Traditionally regarded as lost because it was so engaging that reporters neglected to take notes, the speech is believed to have been an impassioned condemnation of slavery.
Lincoln's Lost Speech was given at the since demolished building at the corner of East and Front Streets in downtown Bloomington, Illinois, known as Major's Hall on May 29, 1856. [1] Lincoln gave the speech at the Anti-Nebraska Bloomington Convention that culminated with the founding of the state Republican Party. [1]
There are no known transcripts or written accounts of the Lost Speech, other than a brief summary in the local press. Eyewitnesses have offered snippets of some of Lincoln's content that day. William Herndon asserted that some of Lincoln's House Divided Speech was not based on new concepts at the time of its delivery. He wrote that Lincoln's "house divided against itself cannot stand" originated with the famous Bloomington speech of 1856. [2] Editor of the Chicago Tribune Joseph Medill claimed that Chicago lawyer Henry Clay Whitney's transcript of the speech was accurate; Whitney's version was later debunked. [3] [4]
It is thought that the speech was a strongly worded derision of slavery. [5] [ unreliable source? ] It is known that Lincoln's condemnation of the expansion of slavery was strong. [6]
The traditional reason given for the lack of any written recollection of the Lost Speech is that Lincoln's skilled and powerful oration had mesmerized every person in attendance. Reporters were said to have laid down their pencils and neglected note taking, as if hypnotized by Lincoln's words. When the speech ended no notes existed, so media reports of the day simply recorded the fact that the speech had been delivered. [4]
There is evidence in Herndon's recollections that the fact that the speech was "lost" may not have been an accident. So strongly worded was Lincoln's oration [7] that others in attendance feared the words might lead to a crumbling of the Union and that Lincoln consented to suspending "its repetition" for the duration of the 1856 campaign. [2]
In 1896, Chicago attorney Henry Clay Whitney published his account of the speech in an issue of McClure's Magazine . [8] [9] Whitney claimed he had taken notes during the speech and based his version of the speech upon those notes. [9] Initially, Whitney's version was given some credibility. Ida Tarbell sought out Joseph Medill, who was present at the Lost Speech, and he claimed that Whitney's version displayed "remarkable accuracy". [3]
Tarbell was unwittingly carried away by the story, but others were skeptical. Former Lincoln private secretary John George Nicolay declared Whitney's version devoid of Lincoln's style and a fraud. [4] Robert Lincoln, Abraham's son, agreed with Nicolay's assessment. [4] In 1900, the McLean County Historical Society [10] declared their skepticism. [11] In modern times, Lincoln researcher and Director of the Chicago Historical Society Paul M. Angle exposed Whitney's version of the speech and his claims of its validity as a "fabrication". [4]
Lincoln's Lost Speech was famous, with a status considered legendary by the time Tarbell became enamored with Whitney's version of it. [4] [ when? ] Lincoln was said to have spoken "like a giant inspired" and the tale of how the speech came to be lost was well known. [4] Many who attended the speech considered it the greatest of Lincoln's life. [12] Given at the first state convention, which essentially founded the Illinois Republican Party, the speech thrust Lincoln into the national political limelight. [6] [12]
Though it was known as the Lost Speech, its content influenced people nonetheless. Those who heard it were often asked to repeat what they heard and a frenzied group of supporters spearheaded Lincoln's drive toward a second-place finish among U.S. vice presidential candidates in 1856. [13]
Ida Minerva Tarbell was an American writer, investigative journalist, biographer and lecturer. She was one of the leading muckrakers and reformers of the Progressive Era of the late 19th and early 20th centuries and was a pioneer of investigative journalism.
William Henry Bissell was the 11th Governor of the U.S. state of Illinois from 1857 until his death. He was one of the first successful Republican Party candidates in the U.S., winning the election of 1856 just two years after the founding of his party. In addition to being the first Republican governor of Illinois, he was also the first Catholic and also the first to die in office.
The Lincoln–Douglas debates were a series of seven debates between Abraham Lincoln, the Republican Party candidate for the United States Senate from Illinois, and incumbent Senator Stephen Douglas, the Democratic Party candidate. Until the Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which provides that senators shall be elected by the people of their states, was ratified in 1913, senators were elected by their respective state legislatures, so Lincoln and Douglas were trying to win the votes of the Illinois General Assembly for their respective parties.
The 1860 Republican National Convention was a presidential nominating convention that met May 16–18 in Chicago, Illinois. It was held to nominate the Republican Party's candidates for president and vice president in the 1860 election. The convention selected former representative Abraham Lincoln of Illinois for president and Senator Hannibal Hamlin of Maine for vice president.
The House Divided Speech was an address given by senatorial candidate and future president of the United States Abraham Lincoln, on June 16, 1858, at what was then the Illinois State Capitol in Springfield, after he had accepted the Illinois Republican Party's nomination as that state's US senator. The nomination of Lincoln was the final item of business at the convention, which then broke for dinner, meeting again at 8 pm. "The evening session was mainly devoted to speeches", but the only speaker was Lincoln, whose address closed the convention, save for resolutions of thanks to the city of Springfield and others. His address was immediately published in full by newspapers, as a pamphlet, and in the published proceedings of the convention. It was the launching point of his unsuccessful campaign for the senatorial seat held by Stephen A. Douglas; the campaign would climax with the Lincoln–Douglas debates. When Lincoln collected and published his debates with Douglas as part of his 1860 presidential campaign, he prefixed them with relevant prior speeches. The "House Divided" speech opens the volume.
Henry Smith Lane was a United States representative, Senator, and the 13th Governor of Indiana; he was by design the shortest-serving governor of Indiana, having made plans to resign the office should his party take control of the Indiana General Assembly and elect him to the United States Senate. He held that office for only two days, and was known for his opposition to slavery. A Whig until the party collapsed, he supported compromise with the south. He became an early leader in the Republican Party starting in 1856 serving as the president of the first party convention, delivering its keynote address, and was influential in the nomination of Abraham Lincoln. With the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, he became a full-fledged abolitionist, and in the Senate he was a pro-Union advocate and a strong supporter of the war effort to end the rebellion.
Mordecai Lincoln was an uncle of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln. He was the eldest son of Captain Abraham Lincoln, a brother of Thomas Lincoln and Mary Lincoln Crume, and the husband of Mary Mudd. Lincoln is buried at the Old Catholic or Lincoln Cemetery near Fountain Green, Illinois.
The 1856 Republican National Convention was a presidential nominating convention that met from June 17 to June 19, 1856, at Musical Fund Hall at 808 Locust Street in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was the first national nominating convention of the Republican Party, founded two years earlier in 1854. It was held to nominate the party's candidates for president and vice president in the 1856 election. The convention selected former John C. Frémont, a United States Senator from California, for president, and former Senator William L. Dayton of New Jersey for vice president. The convention also appointed members of the newly established Republican National Committee.
The Illinois Republican Party is the affiliate of the Republican Party in the U.S. state of Illinois founded on May 29, 1856. It is run by the Illinois Republican State Central Committee, which consists of 18 members, one representing each of the state's congressional districts. Once the dominant party in Illinois, the state GOP has become a minority party within the last few decades, holding little power in the state. The current chairman is Don Tracy, who has served since 2021.
Isaac Newton Arnold was an American attorney, politician, and biographer who made his career in Chicago. He served two terms in the United States House of Representatives (1860–1864) and in 1864 introduced the first resolution in Congress proposing a constitutional amendment to abolish slavery in the United States. After returning to Chicago in 1866, he practiced law and wrote biographies of Abraham Lincoln and Benedict Arnold.
Archibald Williams was a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Kansas. Williams was a friend and political ally of President Abraham Lincoln.
Stephen Arnold Douglas was an American politician and lawyer from Illinois. A senator, he was one of two nominees of the badly split Democratic Party for president in the 1860 presidential election, which was won by Republican candidate Abraham Lincoln. Douglas had previously defeated Lincoln in the 1858 United States Senate election in Illinois, known for the pivotal Lincoln–Douglas debates. He was one of the brokers of the Compromise of 1850 which sought to avert a sectional crisis; to further deal with the volatile issue of extending slavery into the territories, Douglas became the foremost advocate of popular sovereignty, which held that each territory should be allowed to determine whether to permit slavery within its borders. This attempt to address the issue was rejected by both pro-slavery and anti-slavery advocates. Douglas was nicknamed the "Little Giant" because he was short in physical stature but a forceful and dominant figure in politics.
John Hanks was Abraham Lincoln's first cousin, once removed, his mother's cousin. He was the son of William, Nancy Hanks Lincoln's uncle and grandson of Joseph Hanks.
Henry Clay Whitney was an American lawyer who was a close friend of President Abraham Lincoln, and later a biographer of the president.
William Trabue Major (1790–1867) was a prominent religious leader in Bloomington, Illinois in the mid-19th century. He founded the First Christian Church and built the city's first public meeting hall, Major's Hall, which hosted an early convention of the Illinois branch of the Republican Party and became best known as the site of "Lincoln's Lost Speech".
The Chicago Lincoln is a statue of a standing, beardless Abraham Lincoln in Lincoln Square Chicago. The statue was designed by Lloyd Ostendorf for a city contest and modeled by sculptor Avard Fairbanks. The statue was erected on October 16, 1956.
Robert Boal was an American politician and physician from Pennsylvania. After schooling in Ohio, Boal moved to Lacon, Illinois, where he practiced medicine for thirty years. Boal was elected to the Illinois Senate in 1844, serving for four years. He returned to the General Assembly with an 1856 election to the Illinois House of Representatives. After serving a pair of two-year terms, he was made a trustee of the Illinois Institute of the Deaf and Dumb. During the Civil War, Boal examined soldiers from his congressional district. He later directed the Peoria State Hospital.
The Bloomington Convention was a meeting held in Bloomington, Illinois, on May 29, 1856, establishing the Illinois Republican Party. It was an attempt to unite Anti-Nebraska members of the Opposition Party into a single party. The convention adopted a party platform and nominated a ticket led by William Henry Bissell for Governor of Illinois. Bissell would be elected later that year, making him one of the first governors elected as a Republican.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to Abraham Lincoln:
This article documents the political career of Abraham Lincoln from the end of his term in the United States House of Representatives in March 1849 to the beginning of his first term as President of the United States in March 1861.
