" In this way the people were not allowed to forget
the stand Lincoln had taken, and during the year 1859 they came
to look upon him as the one man who could be relied on at all
times to answer Douglas and Douglas's arguments.
In the autumn of that year Lincoln was asked to speak in Ohio,
where Douglas was again referring to him by name. In December he
was invited to address meetings in various towns in Kansas, and
early in 1860 he made a speech in New York that raised him
suddenly and unquestionably to the position of a national leader.
It was delivered in the hall of Cooper Institute, on the evening
of February 27, 1860, before an audience of men and women
remarkable for their culture, wealth and influence.
Mr. Lincoln's name and words had filled so large a space in the
Eastern newspapers of late, that his listeners were very eager to
see. and hear this rising Western politician. The West, even at
that late day, was very imperfectly understood by the East. It
was looked upon as a land of bowie-knives and pistols, of
steamboat explosions, of mobs, of wild speculation and wilder
adventure. What, then, would be the type, the character, the
language of this speaker? How would he impress the great editor
Horace Greeley, who sat among the invited guests; David Dudley
Field, the great lawyer, who escorted him to the platform;
William Cullen Bryant, the great poet, who presided over the
meeting?
The audience quickly forgot these questioning doubts.
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