The discovery of an unknown address by Abraham Lincoln is an event of literary and historical significance. Various attempts have been made to recover his "Lost Speech," delivered in Bloomington, in 1856. Henry C. Whitney undertook to reconstruct it from notes and memory, with a result which has been approved by some who heard it, while others, including a considerable group who gathered in Bloomington to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of its original delivery and of the event which called it forth, declared their conviction that "Abraham Lincoln's 'Lost Speech' is still lost." So far as I am aware no one now living remembers to have heard Lincoln's address on the death of President Zachary Taylor. Lincoln's oration on the death of Henry Clay is well known, and his speech commemorative of his friend, Benjamin Ferguson, also is of record. His eulogy on President Zachary Taylor, however, appears to have been wholly overlooked by Lincoln's biographers and by the compilers of various editions of his works. Nicolay and Hay make no allusion to it, either in their "Life" of Lincoln or in their painstaking compilations of his writings and speeches. I have found but one reference to it, that in Whitney's "Life on the Circuit with Lincoln."

Lovers of Lincoln are to be congratulated upon this discovery, of which some account is to be given in this introduction. The address was delivered in the City Hall in Chicago on Thursday afternoon, July 25, 1850. It was printed in one Chicago paper. It was set up from Lincoln's original manuscript, furnished for the purpose.

President Taylor died at Washington on July 9, 1850. The disease was diagnosed as cholera morbus. A number of other distinguished men were sick in Washington at the same time and apparently with the same disease. The death of Taylor was a hard blow to the Whig Party. Of its seven candidates for the Presidency, it succeeded in electing only two, William Henry Harrison and Zachary Taylor, and each of these died not long after his election.

Lincoln arrived in Chicago two days before the President's death. The "Chicago Journal" of Monday evening, July 8, 1850, reported:

Hon. A. Lincoln, of Springfield, arrived in town yesterday to attend to duties in the United States District Court, now in session in this city.

A meeting was held in Chicago on the night of the President's death, Tuesday, July 9, 1850, and arrangements were made for a memorial service. In accordance with the journalistic methods of the times, the daily papers reported the proceedings entire.

The committee appointed evidently acted promptly, for the same issue records that the committee had selected Lincoln as the eulogist, and that he had accepted. The formal acceptance, however, was not published until two weeks later, and just before the address itself was delivered. The occasion for the delay would appear to have been that the Common Council of the City of Chicago had started independently a movement for a Memorial Service, and that the two committees after some conference had agreed to combine in one service to be held in the City Hall. The following correspondence was published on Wednesday evening, July 24:

EULOGY UPON THE LATE PRESIDENT

The following is a copy of the correspondence between the Hon. A. Lincoln and the Committee of Arrangements, for paying a suitable tribute of respect to the late President of the United States:

A. Lincoln, Esq.

Sir:—We, the undersigned Committee, appointed at a meeting of our fellow citizens, to act in conjunction with the Committee appointed by the Common Council of this city, to select a suitable person to deliver an address to our citizens at the City Hall upon the life of Z. Taylor, deceased, late President of the United States of America.

We have, with great unanimity of feeling and sentiment of both Committees, selected yourself for the purpose named--and desire that you will be kind enough to accept thereof and to name the time when you will perform that duty, of addressing your fellow-citizens of Chicago, at the place named.

With sentiments of high esteem

Your fellow-citizens

L. C. Kercheval

B. S. Morris

G. W. Dole

J. H. Kinzie

W. L. Newberry

Chicago, Ill., July 24, 1850
Gentlemen:—

Yours of the 22nd inviting me to deliver an address to the citizens of this city upon the life of Z. Taylor, deceased, late President of the United States, was duly received. The want of time for preparation will make the task, for me, a very difficult one to perform, in any degree satisfactory to others or to myself. Still I do not feel at liberty to decline the invitation; and therefore I will fix to-morrow as the time. The hour may be any you think proper, after 12 o'clock M.

Your Ob't. Serv't
A. Lincoln

Messrs. L. C. Kercheval

B. S. Morris

Geo. W. Dole

John H. Kinzie

W. L. Newberry

Formal announcement of the time and place appeared in the papers of Thursday, July 25.

EULOGY

The Eulogy upon General Taylor will be delivered at 4 o'clock this afternoon at the City Hall, by A. Lincoln, Esq., in obedience to the request of the Council, and of citizens.

The Committee of Arrangements took action immediately following the address and on the same day made formal request of Mr. Lincoln for a copy of the address for publication. The committee's letter and Lincoln's reply were both printed in full:

Chicago, July 25, 1850
Dear Sir:—

Having listened with great satisfaction to the chaste and beautiful eulogism on the character and services of Zachary Taylor, late President of the United States, pronounced by you before the citizens of Chicago, and desirous that the public at large may participate in the pleasure enjoyed by those who had the good fortune to be present on the occasion, we respectfully request that you will furnish a copy of your address for publication.

With great regard

Your obedient servants

L. C. Kercheval, City Committee

Richard J. Hamilton,

For the Committee Common Council City of Chicago.

To Hon. A. Lincoln

Chicago, July 26, 1850
Gentlemen:—

Your polite note of yesterday, requesting for publication a copy of the address on the life and public services of Gen. Taylor, is received; and I comply with the request very cheerfully. Accompanying this I send you the original manuscript.

Your ob't serv't
A. Lincoln

Messrs. L. C. Kercheval

R. J. Hamilton

As was fitting, the committee turned over the manuscript to "The Journal," a Whig paper, and "The Journal" undertook to furnish the address to its readers on Saturday, July 27. It found itself under the necessity however, of printing only part of the address in that issue, and apologized with a statement that postponement of the remainder was due to illness among its workmen. On Monday the address was printed complete. The type used in the Saturday issue remained standing and the remainder of the Eulogy was set up, and joined to it.

My attention was called to this report by Hon. Edward W. Baker, of Barry, Illinois, who having undertaken to discover in the Chicago Historical Society another matter relating to Lincoln, in which we were both interested, found this address and reported it to me, with an inquiry whether I had knowledge of it. I made search of the daily papers of the period and found not only the address, but the correspondence and notable items as here given.

Lincoln must have been glad of this opportunity to speak out of his heart his words of sincere admiration for a man whom he had helped to elect President of the United States. From the outset Lincoln had believed in Taylor, while many other Whigs refused to support, or supported with languid interest, a candidate who was a slave-holder and who had borne a conspicuous part in the Mexican War.

Taylor was nominated by a Whig Convention, which met in Philadelphia, June 7, 1848. The party was so divided that it could not put forth a distinctive platform. Even an attempt to unite upon an expression concerning the Wilmot Proviso was regarded as so divisive that it was not permitted to come to a vote. The real platform was General Taylor, and his popular nickname, "Old Rough and Ready." Although Taylor was no politician and a stranger even to the ballot-box, he regarded himself as a Whig, but he took pains to explain that he was not an "ultra Whig." Daniel Webster called him "an ignorant old frontier Colonel," but not only Webster, but Clay and Seward, joined in his support. Many a Whig who voted for Taylor accepted him as the choice of two evils. Lincoln, however, was enthusiastic in his support of the nominee. He went into the campaign, as Nicolay and Hay remind us, with "exultant alacrity." They say:

He could not even wait for the adjournment of Congress to begin his stump speaking. Following the bad example of the rest of his colleagues, he obtained the floor on the 27th of July and made a long, brilliant and humorous speech, upon the merits of the two candidates before the people.—(Abraham Lincoln: A History, vol. i, p. 279.)

This was Lincoln's noted "coat-tail speech," in which he paid his respects to General Cass, the candidate of the Democrats.

Immediately after the adjournment of Congress, Lincoln went to New England, where he delivered speeches in favor of Taylor, and opposing not so much the Democrats as the Free-Soilers, whose hostility was weakening and threatening to defeat the Whig Party.

Lincoln fully expected that Taylor when elected would remember and reward him for this service. What Lincoln wanted, inasmuch as he was not permitted to return to Congress, was an appointment as General Commissioner of the United States Land Office in Washington. To his bitter disappointment Taylor did not appoint him, but gave the position to Justin Butterfield, of Chicago, who was said to have been favored by Daniel Webster.

Although Lincoln's chief activity in the Taylor campaign was outside the State of Illinois, it happened that he delivered one notable stump speech for Taylor in the city of Chicago. It was while he was on his way back from the East, coming in part by the Great Lakes, and making his visit to Niagara, that he stopped in Chicago, Friday, October 6, 1848. The "Evening Journal" announced that "Hon. A. Lincoln, M.C., from this State, and family, were at the Sherman House." The same issue called upon the friends of Taylor and Fillmore to rally that evening at the Court-House and hear Mr. Lincoln on the issues of the campaign. "The notice is short," said the "Journal," "but Old Zack's soldiers are all minute men." The papers next day announced that although there was scant notice, only six hours, the Court-House was overcrowded, and adjournment had to be taken to the park, where Lincoln spoke for two hours in what the editor declared was one of the best political speeches which the editor had ever heard or read.

When General Taylor died, it was eminently fitting that Lincoln, as the one Whig member from Illinois of the last Congress before the election of Taylor, should have been invited to deliver the Eulogy upon him. His arrival in Chicago, two days before the death of President Taylor, furnished a convenient opportunity for the people of the city to hear him. If Lincoln had any feelings, as he may well have had, that General Taylor did not sufficiently recognize Lincoln's activities in the campaign that led to his election, the address portrays nothing of his disappointment. Though the address was hastily prepared in the midst of duties which kept him more or less busy in court, he accepted the invitation gladly and improved the occasion to the satisfaction of his hearers.

In a number of respects the address of Lincoln presents points of interest. First of all, it is notable in its biographical character. It presents in outline a fairly complete account of the life and service of General Taylor. Lincoln doubtless availed himself of such biographical data as the campaign had recently produced and which Lincoln found at hand in Chicago after the invitation had been received by him to deliver the address.

It is noteworthy that in speaking of Taylor's invasion of Mexican territory, Lincoln takes pains to state that he did it under orders. It was this fact that enabled Lincoln and other Whigs who were opposed on principle to the Mexican War to support Taylor for the Presidency. They were particular to explain that he performed that act as a soldier, under orders, and that the Polk Administration was responsible, and not their own candidate. In this address Lincoln did not enlarge upon that fact, but he did not fail to state it.

His favorable comment upon the fact that Taylor had not engaged in dueling is the more notable because Lincoln had himself been an unwilling participant in what had threatened to be a duel—a fact of which he was never very proud.

It is notable that he speaks of Taylor's freedom from ambition to be President until the position came within the range of possibility, and then became possessed of a "laudable ambition" to secure the position. Lincoln had not as yet precisely an ambition of that character, but there always lurked in his mind the possibility that he might rise to that high position. Even in 1848, when he had not been reËlected to Congress, and had been disappointed in his remaining political ambition, he still thought the desire to become President a "laudable ambition."

We note in the oration one or two studied attempts at eloquence, such as characterized the earlier oratory of Lincoln, but which disappeared wholly from his later and more chaste style. The description of the mutual solicitude of the garrison of Fort Brown and the party of soldiers outside the fort, and of the relief that was succeeded by a cry of "Victory," must have been dramatic, and it shows at its best that earlier vein of Abraham Lincoln's studied attempt at oratorical effect.

One of the most interesting because most characteristic qualities of the address is the appreciation of the magnanimity of General Taylor, as exemplified in his treatment of Colonel Worth. This I regard as one of the best things in the address, because it was an example of what was best in that bluff and sensible and generous old soldier, Zachary Taylor, and because it was so nobly characteristic also of Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln emphasized that quality in Taylor, because he unconsciously sought out in him what was most truly like to his own noble nature.

Orations by one President upon another are none too common in American literature; and this by Lincoln upon Taylor is of value in its estimate of the best in Taylor as discerned by one in whom the same quality was worthily present. Lincoln would have done for Worth what Taylor did. He treated in similar fashion the men who opposed him.

One feature of the oration has remarkable interest. It appears to have been the only address of Lincoln's in which he made use of his favorite poem,—

"Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?"

This poem he quoted so often to his friends that some of them supposed him to have been its author, but so far as a search of his published works can show, he did not use it in any other formal address.

Lincoln often inquired of his friends whether any of them knew the author of this poem. So far as is known, he never learned. Herndon, in his lecture which has served as the basis of all the literature concerning Lincoln and Ann Rutledge, informs us that, after the death of Ann, Lincoln formed an attachment for this poem. It has been affirmed that he learned it from Ann. I have inquired of Mrs. Sarah Rutledge Saunders, surviving[1] sister of Ann Rutledge, whether her mother knew this poem and taught it to her daughters, Ann included. She replied:

Yes, Mother knew the poem, "Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud." But she did not teach it to Lincoln. The girls and Mother learned it from Lincoln. They always called it Lincoln's song.

The first allusion made to this poem in any of Lincoln's letters, that I have seen, was in April, 1846, when he was writing some verses of his own, and comparing them with those of another budding poet, William Johnson. Johnson had sent to Lincoln a poem which he had written, a parody upon Poe's "Raven." Lincoln had never read the "Raven," but he sent to Johnson some lines of his own, composed after his visit to his old home in Indiana in the fall of 1844. Subsequently, in September, 1846, Lincoln sent him additional lines suggested by the same visit. It is in the letter of April 18, 1846, that Lincoln refers to the poem, "Oh why should the spirit of mortal be proud?" He says:

I have not your letter now before me; but from memory, I think you ask me who is the author of the piece I sent you, and that you do so ask as to indicate a slight suspicion that I am the author. Beyond all question, I am not the author. I would give all I am worth, and go in debt, to be able to write so fine a piece as I think that is. I met it in a straggling newspaper last summer, and I remember to have seen it once before, about fifteen years ago, and this is all I know about it.

The statement that he first had seen the poem about fifteen years before 1846—that is, about 1831—carries his acquaintance with it back to the period of his friendship for Ann Rutledge, and it is not at all improbable that she learned it at the same time.

After Lincoln had become President, he is said to have made one or more copies of this poem for personal friends; but I have not seen any of these copies. It would be interesting to know whether he ever knew the whole poem.

Literary critics have not shared his high estimate of the composition. In general they have esteemed it a rather mediocre piece. But its rhythm is accurate, and its rhyme is good, and its plaintive sentiment accorded with the melancholy of Lincoln and of his social environment. It is not the only poem of no great literary merit which became popular in that period; and it would have been forgotten with the rest but for the association of its lines with the name of Abraham Lincoln. He gave to it and its author their chief claim to immortality.

During his Presidency, Lincoln said:

There is a poem which has been a great favorite with me for years, which was first shown me when a young man, by a friend, and which I afterwards saw and cut from a newspaper and learned by heart. I would give a good deal to know who wrote it, but I have never been able to ascertain.

The author of the poem, "Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?" was William Knox, who was born at Firth, in the parish of Lilliesleaf, in the county of Roxburghshire, in Scotland, on the 17th of August, 1789, and who died at the age of thirty-six. From his early childhood he wrote verses, and he attained sufficient prominence to win the attention of Walter Scott, who encouraged him and loaned him money. What he might have done had he lived, we do not know; but this is the only poem of his that has any claim to distinction, and that not for its own outstanding merit, but for its association with Abraham Lincoln.

Knox's earliest volume, "The Harp of Zion," was published in 1825, and does not contain this poem. What appears to have been an inclusive volume of the poems of Knox was published in London and Edinburgh in 1847, and bore the title "The Lonely Hearth, The Songs of Israel, Harp of Zion, and Other Poems." This includes the poem which bears the title "Mortality." It is interesting to recall that it has sometimes been printed with the title "Immortality." To that title, however, it can bear no claim.

It will be of interest to compare the poem in its entirety with the stanzas which Lincoln quoted on the occasion of his oration in memory of the deceased President, General Zachary Taylor.