llinois State convention at Decatur in Coles County, not far from the
old Lincoln home, when, at a given signal, there marched into the
convention old John Hanks, one of his boyhood companions, and another
pioneer, who bore on their shoulders two long fence rails decorated with
a banner inscribed: "Two rails from a lot made by Abraham Lincoln and
John Hanks in the Sangamon Bottom in the year 1830." They were greeted
with a tremendous shout of applause from the whole convention succeeded
by a united call for Lincoln, who sat on the platform. The tumult would
not subside until he rose to speak, when he said:

"GENTLEMEN: I suppose you want to know something about those things
[pointing to old John and the rails]. Well, the truth is, John Hanks and
I did make rails in the Sagamon Bottom. I don't know whether we made
those rails or not; fact is, I don't think they are a credit to the
makers [laughing as he spoke]. But I do know this: I made rails then,
and I think I could make better ones than these now."

Still louder cheering followed this short, but effective reply. But the
convention was roused to its full warmth of enthusiasm when a resolution
was immediately and unanimously adopted declaring that "Abraham Lincoln
is the first choice of the Republican party of Illinois for the
Presidency," and directing the delegates to the Chicago convention "to
use all honorable means to secure his nomination, and to cast the vote
of the State as a unit for him."

It was this resolution which the Illinois delegation had so successfully
carried out at Chicago. And, besides they had carried with them the two
fence rails, and set them up in state at the Lincoln headquarters at
their hotel, where enthusiastic lady friends gaily trimmed them with
flowers and ribbons and lighted them up with tapers. These slight
preliminaries, duly embellished in the newspapers, gave the key to the
Republican campaign, which designated Lincoln as the Rail-splitter
Candidate, and, added to his common Illinois sobriquet of "Honest Old
Abe," furnished both country and city campaign orators a powerfully
sympathetic appeal to the rural and laboring element of the United
States.

When these homely but picturesque appellations were fortified by the
copious pamphlet and newspaper biographies in which people read the
story of his humble beginnings, and how he had risen, by dint of simple,
earnest work and native genius, through privation and difficulty, first
t