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