Abram Lincoln, Whig
member of Congress from Illinois, a representative of free soil.
Mr. Lincoln has a very tall and thin figure, with an intellectual face,
showing a searching mind, and a cool judgment. He spoke in a clear and
cool and very eloquent manner, for an hour and a half, carrying the
audience with him in his able arguments and brilliant illustrations--only
interrupted by warm and frequent applause. He began by expressing a real
feeling of modesty in addressing an audience "this side of the
mountains," a part of the country where, in the opinion of the people of
his section, everybody was supposed to be instructed and wise. But he had
devoted his attention to the question of the coming Presidential
election, and was not unwilling to exchange with all whom he might the
ideas to which he had arrived. He then began to show the fallacy of some
of the arguments against Gen. Taylor, making his chief theme the
fashionable statement of all those who oppose him ("the old Locofocos as
well as the new") that he has no principles, and that the Whig party have
abandoned their principles by adopting him as their candidate. He
maintained that Gen. Taylor occupied a high and unexceptionable Whig
ground, and took for his first instance and proof of this the statement
in the Allison letter--with regard to the bank, tariff, rivers and
harbors, etc.
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