e "Tribune," "using his rare powers solely to elucidate and
convince, though their inevitable effect is to delight and electrify
as well. We present herewith a very full and accurate report of this
speech; yet the tones, the gestures, the kindling eye, and the
mirth-provoking look defy the reporter's skill. The vast assemblage
frequently rang with cheers and shouts of applause, which were
prolonged and intensified at the close. No man ever before made such
an impression on his first appeal to a New York audience."

[Illustration: CALEB CUSHING.]

[Sidenote] Pamphlet edition with notes and preface by Charles C. Nott
and Cephas Brainerd, September, 1860.

A pamphlet reprint was at once announced by the same paper; and later,
in the Presidential campaign, a more careful edition was prepared and
circulated, to which were added copious notes by two members of the
committee under whose auspices the address was delivered. Their
comment, printed in the preface, is worth quoting as showing its
literary value under critical analysis. "No one who has not actually
attempted to verify its details can understand the patient research
and historical labor which it embodies. The history of our earlier
politics is scattered through numerous journals, statutes, pamphlets,
and letters; and these are defective in completeness and accuracy of
statement, and in indices and tables of contents. Neither can any one
who has not traveled over this precise ground appreciate the accuracy
of every trivial detail, or the self-denying impartiality with which
Mr. Lincoln has turned from the testimony of 'the fathers' on the
general question of slavery, to present the single question which he
discusses. From the first line to the last, from his premises to his
conclusion, he travels with a swift, unerring directness which no
logician ever excelled, an argument complete and full, without the
affectation of learning, and without the stiffness which usually
accompanies dates and details. A single, easy, simple sentence of
plain Anglo-Saxon words, contains a chapter of history that, in some
instances, has taken days of labor to verify, and which must have cost
the author months of investigation to acquire."

From New York Lincoln went to fill other engagements to speak at
several places in New England, where he met the same enthusiastic
popular reception and left the same marked impression, especially upon
his more critical and learned hearers. They