for the Presidency.  Aside from its extensive publication in the newspapers, various editions of it appeared in pamphlet form, one of the best of which was issued by Messrs. C.C.  Nott and Cephas Brainard, who appended to their edition an estimate of the speech that is well worth reprinting here:  “No one who has not actually attempted to verify its details can understand the patient research and historical labor which it embodies.  The history of our earlier politics is scattered through numerous journals, statutes, pamphlets, and letters; and these are defective in completeness and accuracy of statement, and in indexes and tables of contents.  Neither can any one who has not travelled over this precise ground appreciate the accuracy of every trivial detail, or the self-denying impartiality with which Mr. Lincoln has turned from the testimony of ‘the fathers’ on the general question of slavery to present the single question which he discusses.  From the first line to the last, from his premises to his conclusion, he travels with a swift, unerring directness which no logician ever excelled,—­an argument complete and full, without the affectation of learning, and without the stiffness which usually accompanies dates and details.  A single easy, simple sentence of plain Anglo-Saxon words contains a chapter of history that, in some instances, has taken days of labor to verify, and must have cost the author months of investigation to acquire; and though the public should justly estimate the labor bestowed on the facts which are stated, they cannot estimate the greater labor involved on those which are omitted—­how many pages have been read—­how many works examined—­what numerous statutes, resolutions, speeches, letters, and biographies have been looked through.  Commencing with this address as a political pamphlet, the reader will leave it as an historical work—­brief, complete, profound, impartial, truthful,—­which will survive the time and the occasion that called it forth, and be esteemed hereafter no less for its intrinsic worth than for its unpretending modesty.”

Lincoln’s oldest son, Robert, was at this time a student in Harvard University, and, chiefly to visit him, Lincoln made a brief trip to New England.  While there he spoke at Concord and Manchester in New Hampshire; at Woonsocket in Rhode Island; and at Hartford, New Haven, Norwich, Meriden, and Bridgeport in Connecticut.  These speeches were heard with delight by large audiences, and received hearty praise from the press.  At Manchester, “The Mirror,” a neutral paper, published the following remarks on Lincoln’s style of oratory:  “He spoke an hour and a half, with great fairness, great apparent candor, and with wonderful interest.  He did not abuse the South, the administration, or the Democrats, nor indulge in any personalities, with the exception of a few hits at ‘Douglas’s notions.’  He is far from prepossessing in personal appearance, and his voice is disagreeable; and yet he wins attention