Summary of Speech at Springfield, Illinois, 30 October 18581
At two o’clock, the vast multitude being congregated around the stand, Mr. Lincoln began his speech. We have neither time nor room to give even a sketch of his remarks
to-day. Suffice it to say, the speech was one of his very best efforts, distinguished for
its clearness and force, and for the satisfactory manner in which he exposed the roorbacks
and misrepresentations of the enemy. The conclusion of this speech was one of the most eloquent appeals ever addressed
to the American people. It was received with spontaneous bursts of enthusiasm unequalled by any thing ever before enacted in this city.2
1This summary of an address that Abraham Lincoln delivered in Springfield, Illinois, on October 30, 1858 appeared in the November 1, 1858 edition of the Daily Illinois State Journal. A handwritten version of the full speech summary that appeared in the paper is also extant. At the time of the speech, Lincoln was running as the Illinois Republican Party’s candidate to unseat incumbent Democrat Stephen A. Douglas in the U.S. Senate. He and Douglas both traveled the state throughout the summer and fall of 1858, delivering speeches in support of candidates
for the Illinois General Assembly in their respective parties and participating in the Lincoln-Douglas Debates. The local elections of 1858 were important to the senatorial race because members of the General Assembly voted for and elected the state’s representatives
in the U.S. Senate. Illinois held its local elections on November 2.
Roy P. Basler, editor of The Collected Works of
Abraham Lincoln, posited that a fragment of a speech Lincoln most likely penned in late-October 1858 was from remarks he
delivered in Springfield on October 30. However, since the actual text of that October
30 Springfield speech is no longer extant, it is not possible to be certain the fragment
constitutes a portion of this Springfield speech.
Daily Illinois State Journal (Springfield), 1 November 1858, 2:3; Michael Burlingame, Abraham
Lincoln: A Life (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008),
1:458; Allen C. Guelzo, “Houses Divided: Lincoln, Douglas, and the Political Landscape
of 1858,” The Journal of American History 94 (September 2007), 392, 394; Daily Illinois State Journal (Springfield), 2 November 1858, 2:1-2; Roy P. Basler, ed., The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1953), 3:334-35.
2In Illinois’s local elections of 1858, Republicans ultimately won a majority of all
votes cast in the state, but pro-Douglas Democrats retained control of the Illinois
General Assembly and Douglas won reelection to the U.S. Senate. Despite the loss,
through the campaign and, in particular, through his participation in the Lincoln-Douglas
Debates, Lincoln gained national recognition and standing within the Republican Party.
Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life, 1:556-57; Allen C. Guelzo, “Houses Divided: Lincoln, Douglas, and the Political
Landscape of 1858,” 414.
Printed Document, 1 page(s), Daily Illinois State Journal , (Springfield, IL) , 1 November 1858, 2:3. .