Mr. Lincoln enquired of Judge Pearson if he correctly understood him—was it the word bank or corporation? Judge P. said it was bank.

Mr. Lincoln commenced and tried to show that because Washington and Madison signed the U.S. Bank Bill, therefore it was constitutional.2 He labored hard to prove that Washington never done a wrong thing in his life; that Clay was honest in changing his party and his bank notions;3 he launched into the State Bank system, and said that the democrats chartered our State Bank and all the State Banks were chartered by the democrats; that the majority of the directors (of democrats) had authorized the suspension in 1837,4 and intimated that the democrats had been for it, (the State Bank) ever since, and told his old calf story and made up his hour. Judge Pearson claimed his right of reply, according to arrangement, but would you believe, these same vapouring, bragging whigs, when they found their lion so hard pushed, got up, and I think five of them, went off and refused to hear a reply, yet Judge Pearson spoke to the democrats, and what few of the decent whigs who remained, and he asked the gentleman, if he (Mr. Lincoln) was not in the Legislature, and did not help to pass the odious State Bank bill?5 The gentleman replied, that he was, though there were at least 100 whigs who heard his denunciation of the State Bank, that don’t know that he voted for it, but say, that the democrats did it, and the whigs all opposed it.

In the evening, I am told, the whigs had a meeting of the Clay Club, and the speakers let themselves out, for they were under no restraint. Lincoln talked of the tariff, though in the day he carefully avoided that subject, and said, in conclusion, that a good argument might be made on both sides, when he got thro’[through] he told his brethren he wanted to meet with them in the morning before he took his departure.