Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1860-08-04

nation. The enthusiasm with which we were
received at Springfield was boundless. There
we saw MIR Lincoln's neighbors, and il became
at once apparent that those who knew him best,
loved and esteemed him most. Cheers. And
then saw Mr. Lincoln again, for had met him
before in that memorable Senatorial campaign
in Illinois, when he as man of true and pro-
found convictions, although discountenanced
and discouraged by many leading republicans,
who thought it good policy to let Mr. Douglas
return to the Senate without opposition, threw
himself forward for the imperiled purity of our
principles, grasped with bold hand the repub-
lican banner, which was in danger of sinking
into the mre of combinationns, and held it up
proudly aloft in one of the ficrcest struggles the
country ever witnessed. [Grcat appause] |
met him then, when he bearded the lion of dem
agoguism in his den, when the brilliant sallies
of his wit and sarcasm drew shouts of delight
from the multitude, when the thunderbolts Of
his invectivc ratified triumphantly against the
brazen front of Stephen A. Douglas [applause]
when the lucid unanswerable logic of his ar
guments inspired every patriotic heart with new
confidence in the justice of our cause, and when
under his powerful blows the large democratic
majority of Illinois dwinded down to nothing.
There | saw him do what perhaps no other man
in the country would have done. There |
learned to conhde in the patriot and the defen-
statesman, and to love the man. Great APP
plause. And now, | saw him again, surround
cd by the Committee of the National Conven-
ton, who had come to lay into his hands the
highest honor and the greatest trust that po-
litical party has to bcstow-an honor which he
had not thought of in his hard fought battles,
which he had not craved and had hardly been
sangune enough to expect. There he stood,
silently listening to the address of our chair
1, Il -,
a feeling OF just pride struggling with the over
awing consciousness of responsibility. Then
he answered, thanking them for the honors be-
slowed upon him, and accepting the leadership
in the great struggle, not with the exulting tone
of one who has achieved personal triumph;
not with the pompous airs and artificial dignity
of one who is conscious Of standing upon the
great stage of the world, but with the unaffected
modest simplicity of man who is strong in
the consciousness of his ability and his honest
intention to do right. applause Many of
those who now surrounded him voted for other
candidates in the Convention, and some, still
laboring under feeling OF personal disappont-
ment, had come there not without some preiu-
dice unfavorabe to Mr. Lincoln. But when
they saw a man who had worked his way from
the humblest station in life to his present emil
nence, not by fast speculation or adventurous
efforts, not on the wing of good luck, but by
quiet steady LABOR answering hdeiity TO prln-
ciple and his private and public duties, by the
vlgor OF his genius and the energy OF his char
the people and was now lifted upon the shield
OF great national party not by ingenious COM
binations and adroit management, but by the
popular instinct-unfettered by promises un-
pledged to anybody, or anything but the people
and the welfare OF our country, his hands free
to carry out the honest dictates OF his pure con-
science, life behind him, not only. above re-
proach, but above suspicion, problem before