Early speeches of Abraham Lincoln, 1830-1860 . pearances aside, Lincoln knew itwould be his political do-or-die moment,a chance to show a sophisticated crowdthat he was no frontier bumpkin - but amaster of logic, history and argumenta-tion, Holzer said. With the introductions over, Waterston -wearing a modern suit but still bearing a re-semblance to the portrait of a young, clean-shaven Lincoln - stood behind the verysame waist-high lectern where Lincoln oncestood, and began. Much as Lincoln reportedly had, Water-ston struggled at first, straining to find hisvoice and unable to settle on a par
Early speeches of Abraham Lincoln, 1830-1860 . pearances aside, Lincoln knew itwould be his political do-or-die moment,a chance to show a sophisticated crowdthat he was no frontier bumpkin - but amaster of logic, history and argumenta-tion, Holzer said. With the introductions over, Waterston -wearing a modern suit but still bearing a re-semblance to the portrait of a young, clean-shaven Lincoln - stood behind the verysame waist-high lectern where Lincoln oncestood, and began. Much as Lincoln reportedly had, Water-ston struggled at first, straining to find hisvoice and unable to settle on a particular in-flection (It was the adrenaline, Water-ston said later). The audience, perhapsstunned by Lincolns long windup and withno assurances that they were not about to besupremely bored, simply froze. But as the arguments took shape, careful-ly knit with strands of irrefutable logic andclever, crowd-pleasing rhetorical devices,this years audience began to stir. At first itoffered murmurs and timid laughter at the J G- p,Z/ W-1 ? OH Friday,. New York City. ^ Wednesday at the Cooper Union Great Hail in subtle barbs and fitting parables. But ulti-mately, as Lincolns assertions were galva-nized one by one, Waterston was forced tostop several times, yielding to shouts of ap-proval and rousing applause. People really seemed to be responding WflrH%Sne^gthD°f ^ ar8umentS; JoshWard, 30, from Brooklyn, said. Hearing itjust brought out the power of that long, ex-tended-format argumentation. I was amazedthatmy concentration could hold on to Waterston was picking up steam as thespeech barreled toward its conclusion, jab-bing his finger in the air as he read Lin-colnis most pointed words, addressed toSouthern Democrats: But you will not abide the election of aRepublican president! In that supposedevent you say, you wiJJ destroy the Union-and then you say, the great crime of havingdestroyed it will be upon us! That is cool Ahighwayman holds a pistol to my ear andmutters through his teeth,
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Keywords: ., bookauthorli, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1860, booksubjectslavery
