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The Lehrman Institute

Lewis E. Lehrman, Founder

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FEATURED ARTICLE

Abraham Lincoln's
Writing & Speaking

Those who challenged Mr. Lincoln in debate quickly learned how daunting it could be. One early Lincoln biographer, Ohio journalist Joseph H. Barrett, wrote that Mr. Lincoln “met [Douglas] in debate at Springfield, during the time of the State Fair, early in October, 1854, and the encounter was a memorable one in the great campaign then in progress. They met a few days later at Peoria, where Mr. Douglas had no better fortune. Subsequently to that encounter, he showed a decided preference for speaking at other times and places than Mr. Lincoln did.”¹ Senator Stephen A. Douglas, a pugnacious debater and one of the most accomplished political speakers in the country, shied away from further confrontations with Mr. Lincoln in that campaign. Lincoln had a well-justified reputation for clear, crisp analysis of issues. Lincoln scholar Lewis E. Lehrman noted in Lincoln at Peoria that the Peoria speech exemplified the rhetorical techniques that would propel him to the presidency:

With research and study conducted in the State Capitol, the forty-five year-old attorney carefully prepared a counterattack on the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Years of studying Sir William Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England, preparing for jury trials, litigating in the courts of Illinois, and researching American political history had prepared Lincoln’s mind and speech to argue the issues raised by the new legislation. To his natural aptitude for learning Lincoln now joined a mature intellect, a driving instinct for political organization, and a masterful grasp of the facts and logic of the case against Kansas-Nebraska.²

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