Abraham Lincoln in Worcester Massachusetts

On the evening of September 12, 1848 a man wearing a long linen duster and described as, "a very tall and thin figure, with an intellectual face, showing a searching mind, and cool judgement" spoke to a gathering of citizens at the old City Hall in Worcester, Massachusetts. The man was a relatively unknown member of congress from the state of Illinois named Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln had just recently left Washington after the close of the first session of Congress. It was a Presidential election year, and Lincoln, who was a Whig, was on a campaign tour for the Whig candidate General Zachary Taylor. Taylor was a sort of compromise candidate for the Whigs. The current President James K. Polk was a firm Nationalist who took the concept of Manifest Destiny and formed it as the back bone of his Presidency. The Mexican War had been Polk's doing, and Whig's like Lincoln believed that the war was unjustified and had been provoked by the United States. Lincoln had just recently delivered a scathing rebuke against President Polk's policies in a speech on the House floor. The speech alienated a number of moderate Whigs, especially those in Illinois who felt that the first term Congressman had stepped out of bounds. Illinoisans in Lincoln's district had been caught up in the patriotic jingoism like the rest of the country and had supported the war effort. They felt that Lincoln had betrayed them by speaking against their will. Lincoln, however, was a man of stern convictions and, although voting to supply the troops in Mexico with whatever they needed, he still believed that the war was an unjust one promoted and provoked by Polk and his supporters.

                           Abraham Lincoln As He Would Have Appeared In Worcester In 1848.

    The people of Massachusetts who were mostly anti-slavery "free-soil" Whig supporters were having a hard time digesting the candidacy of Zachary Taylor. Taylor was a native of Louisiana who owned a large plantation which was worked by slaves. In June of 1848, only three months before Lincoln's arrival in Worcester, a convention was held by a new up and coming party called  the "Free Soil Party" which had formed from disgruntled elements of the Whig party who were anti-slavery along with some northern Democrats who were angered by their parties control by the southern members who were mostly pro-slavery. The convention in Worcester was heavily influenced and brought together by future  Massachusetts Senator, Charles Sumner. Lincoln was a pragmatist and although he was anti-slavery he stumped for Taylor under the firm belief that a vote for the Free Soil candidate, former President Martin Van Buren, was a vote for Lewis Cass the Democratic candidate who would almost certainly attempt to expand slavery into the western territories, something that Taylor would not do. In essence Lincoln was here to tell the people of Worcester to vote their consciences.

      On the evening of Lincoln's visit he was invited to a dinner party hosted by former Massachusetts Governor Levi Lincoln. Henry J. Gardner who would himself become a Governor of Massachusetts recalled Lincoln's visit to Worcester:

Gov. Levi Lincoln, the oldest living Ex-Governor of Massachusetts, resided in Worcester. He was a man of culture and wealth; lived in one of the finest houses in that town, and was a fine specimen of a gentleman of the old school. It was his custom to give a dinner party when any distinguished assemblage took place in Worcester, and to invite its prominent participants. He invited to dine, on this occasion, a company of gentlemen, among them myself, who was a delegate from Boston. The dining-room and table arrangements were superb, the dinner exquisite, the wines abundant, rare, and of the first quality.
"I well remember the jokes between Governor Lincoln and Abraham Lincoln as to their presumed relationship. At last the latter said: I hope we both belong, as the Scotch say, to the same clan; but I know one thing, and that is, that we are both good Whigs.'
"That evening there was held in Mechanics' Hall (an immense building) a mass-meeting of delegates and others, and Lincoln was announced to speak. No one there had ever heard him on the stump, and in fact knew anything about him. When he was announced, his tall, angular, bent form, and his manifest awkwardness and low tone of voice, promised nothing interesting. But he soon warmed to his work. His style and manner of speaking were novelties in the East. He repeated anecdotes, told stories admirable in humor and in point, interspersed with bursts of true eloquence, which constantly brought down the house. His sarcasm of Cass, Van Buren and the Democratic party was inimitable, and whenever he attempted to stop , the shouts of 'Go on! go on!' were deafening. He probably spoke over an hour, but so great was the enthusiasm time could not be measured. It was doubtless one of the best efforts of his life. He spoke a day or two afterward in Faneuil Hall, with William Seward, but I did not hear him.
"In 1861 business called me to Washington, and I paid my respects to the President at the White House. He came forward smiling and with extended hand, saying: 'you and I are no strangers; we dined together at Governor Lincoln's in 1848.' When one remembers the increased burden on the President's mind at this trying time, the anxieties of the war, the army, the currency, and the rehabilitating the civil officers of the country, it seemed astonishing to me to hear him continue: Sit down. Yes, I had been chosen to Congress then from the wild West, and with hayseed in my hair I went to Massachusetts, the most cultured State in the Union, to take a few lessons in deportment. That was a grand dinner-a superb dinner; by far the finest I ever saw in my life. And the great men who were there too! Why, I can tell you just how they were arranged at table.' He began at one end, and mentioned the names in order, and , I verily believe, without the omission of a single one."

                                    
                                Old City Hall Where Lincoln Gave His Speech

     There is some confusion dealing with Lincoln's participation in the events leading up to the Massachusetts State Whig convention held in Worcester on the following day. However,  according to a speech made by Justice Arthur P. Rugg in December 1909, some 61 years after Lincoln's visit, Lincoln addressed a large gathering of state delegates and other people at City Hall. The Boston Daily Advertiser in the September 14th, 1848 edition printed a summary of Lincoln's remarks. He was said to have spoken in a "clear and cool, and very eloquent manner, for an hour and a half, carrying the audience with him in his able arguments and brilliant illustrations-only to be interrupted by warm and frequent applause." He attempted to convince the audience in supporting Zachary Taylor for the Presidency, telling them that he stood for the same principles that the Whig's stood for regarding the "Bank, Tariff, Rivers, and Harbors." He also spoke of the "absurdity of an attempt to make a platform or creed for a national party, to all parts of which all must consent and agree." In this, Lincoln was referring to the new "Free Soil Party" which he found to be a party based on only one principle "slavery." Lincoln stated that both the Whigs and Free Soilers opposed the extension of Slavery into the territories but that the Free Soilers were like "the pair of pantaloons the Yankee peddler offered for sale, large enough for any man, small enough for any boy." He then wandered into the topic of the Mexican War which he said was supported by Martin Van Buren, (In other words, a vote for Van Buren was a vote for a war hawk.) At the conclusion of Lincoln's speech it was reported that the audience "gave three enthusiastic cheers for Illinois, and three more cheers for the eloquent Whig member (Lincoln) from that State."

      Lincoln attended the Whig State Convention the next morning and was said to have made some remarks, but the content of the speech in not known with any certainty. He left Worcester for other parts of the state stumping for Taylor before heading back to Illinois. Taylor, of course, ended up becoming the nations 12th President. He gathered up 45% of the vote in Massachusetts, while his rival Martin Van Buren tallied 28%, and the Democrat Lewis Cass managed only 26% of the vote. Lincoln had done his part...