Lincoln carried into politics the same standard of consistency of action that had characterised his work at the Bar.  He writes, in 1859, to a correspondent whom he was directing to further the organisation of the new party:  “Do not, in order to secure recruits, lower the standard of the Republican party.  The true problem for 1860, is to fight to prevent slavery from becoming national.  We must, however, recognise its constitutional right to exist in the States in which its existence was recognised under the original Constitution.”  This position was unsatisfactory to the Whigs of the Border States who favoured a continuing division between Slave States and Free States of the territory yet to be organised into States.  It was also unsatisfactory to the extreme anti-slavery Whigs of the new organisation who insisted upon throttling slavery where-ever it existed.  It is probable that the raid made by John Brown, in 1859, into Virginia for the purpose of rousing the slaves to fight for their own liberty, had some immediate influence in checking the activity of the more extreme anti-slavery group and in strengthening the conservative side of the new organisation.  Lincoln disapproved entirely of the purpose of Brown and his associates, while ready to give due respect to the idealistic courage of the man.

In February, 1860, Lincoln was invited by certain of the Republican leaders in New York to deliver one of a series of addresses which had been planned to make clear to the voters the purposes and the foundations of the new party.  His name had become known to the Republicans of the East through the debates with Douglas.  It was recognised that Lincoln had taken the highest ground in regard to the principles of the new party, and that his counsels should prove of practical service in the shaping of the policy of the Presidential campaign.  It was believed also that his influence would be of value in securing voters in the Middle West.  The Committee of Invitation included, in addition to a group of the old Whigs (of whom my father was one), representative Free-soil Democrats like William C. Bryant and John King.  Lincoln’s methods as a political leader and orator were known to one or two men on the committee, but his name was still unfamiliar to an Eastern audience.  It was understood that the new leader from the West was going to talk to New York about the fight against slavery.  It is probable that at least the larger part of the audience expected something “wild and woolly.”  The West at that time seemed very far off from New York and was still but little understood by the Eastern communities.  New Yorkers found it difficult to believe that a man who could influence Western audiences could have anything to say that would count with the cultivated citizens of the East.  The more optimistic of the hearers were hoping, however, that perhaps a new Henry Clay had arisen and were looking for utterances of the ornate and grandiloquent kind such as they had heard frequently from Clay and from other statesmen of the South.