MR. LINCOLN’S SPEECH.

On last night Hon. Abram Lincoln, a distinguished and able statesman and orator of this State, spoke on the Kansas Nebraska bill to the citizens of thi[s] place, at North Market Hall. Although the notice that he would speak was given merely through the papers, the fame and reputation of the orator and the absorbing interest yet felt here on this subject, drew together a large and intelligent audience. The Hall was filled, and the speaker listened to with attention and approbation.2

His speech of last evening was as thorough an exposition of the Nebraska iniquity as has ever been made, and his eloquence greatly impressed all his hearers, but it was manifest, as he frequently remarked that “he could not help feeling foolish in answering arguments which were no arguments at all.”3 He could not help feeling silly in beating the air before an intelligent audience. It is a fruitless job to pound dry sand, under the delusion that it is a rock. The laborer may get his eyes full, but the sand is just as sandy as it was before.

It is not at all important that we should give a report of his arguments of Friday evening— Our readers, those of them who are not already conv[i]nced, are not open to conviction, and it is useless to waste any strength upon them. One or two of Mr. Lincoln’s points, however, we cannot help referring to. He said that he had heard Mr. Douglas argue half an hour to show that there was a necessity of territorial organization in Nebraska and Kansas, as though it was the main point of all his efforts, and as though somebody was actually going to dispute him. It was a great trick among some public speakers to hurl a naked absurdity at his audience, with such confidence that they should be puzzled to know if the speaker didn’t see some point of great magnitude in it which entirely escaped their observation. A neatly varnished sophism would be readily penetrated, but a great, rough non sequit[u]r was sometimes twice as dangerous, as a well polished fallacy.

In reference to a certain beast who inhabits a neighboring State, the democracy of which State sends him to the Senate, of course, Mr. L. said “there was one man in Congress, John Pettit, who had no difficulty in seeing that our Declaration of Independence was a ‘self-evident lie.’— More than this, he had no hesitation in saying so in a public debate in Washington. The Declaration of Independence was a “self-evident lie.” What would have happened if he had said it in old Independence Hall? The door-keeper would have taken him by the throat and stopped his rascally breath awhile, and then have hurled him into the street.”4

Mr. Lincoln con[t]inued his speech until a little after ten o’clock, and returned to Urbanna the next morning, where he was obliged to attend Court.5

We hope Mr. Lincoln will come among us often. His great thoughts, his straight-forward honesty, his commanding eloquence and his unassuming integrity of purpose will make him friends in Chicago who will trust him and believe him as long as the principles of liberty are maintained and cherished in our midst.6