The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1896-09-29
CHANGING THE DECLARATION.

McClure's Magazine for September
prints what is called "Lincoln's Lost
Speech" This is an address that was
delivered at Springfield, Ill, May 30,
1856, in the convention at which the
Republican party was organized in
that state. It made such a profound
impression upon the speakers audi
tors that the reporters lost sight of
their duty and gave themselves UP to
the hypnotic influence of the orator.
Lincoln had not written out the adj
dress in advance and no report what
ever appeared in print, the newspapers
combining themselves to the barest out
lines, with the explanation that the
convention was completely carried
away by the ou-burst of eloquence.
Joseph Medill, who was present as the
representative of the Chicago Tribune.
testifies, in a letter published by Nc
Clure's in connection with the speech.
that he utterly forgot himself in the
witchery Of the hour, and that his hu-
initiation was relieved only when he
found that no other reporter had made
any notes of the speech.
1t CHANGED, though, that one of the
audience, who was not a reporter.
made extensive notes. This was H. G.
Whitney, young lawyer. Mr.. Whit
ney has recently written out the speech.
and it is this report that the magazine
publishes
In the course of this Cost speech,
Mr.. Lincoln said:
Here is where the greatest danger
lies-that, while we profess to be a.
government of law and reason. law
will give way to violence on demand of
this awful and crushing power Like
the great Juggernaut-I think that is
the name-the great idol, it brushes
everything that comes in it's way, and
makes a-or as I read once, in black
letter law book, "a slave is a human
being who is legally not a person, but
a thing" And if the safeguards to
liberty are broken down, as is now
attempted, when they have made
things of all the free negroes, how long.
think you, before they will begin to
make things of poor white men? Re
not deceived. Revolutions do not go
backward. The founder of the Demo-
cratic party declared that all men
were created equal. His successor N
the leadership has written the word
white" before men, making ii read
all white men are created equal"
Pray, viii or may not the Know-nofb-
ings, if they should get in power, add
the word Protestant, making it read
AL Protestant white men,
How little Lincoln thought that the
enslaying influences against which he
acclaimed in such burning words would
weave their entangling web about the
party for which he then stood sponsor
and lead it to write the word rich"
into the phrase of the immortal Declar-
alton. We have come to a pass as a
nation when it is openly declared in
many quarters, and secretly believed
by considerable portion of the peoL
pie, that peculiar rights attach to
wealth which the common people have
no right to question. even though they
feel that the demands of the rich press
the iron deep into their souls. It is, in
effect, held that wealth has superior
rights; and while the great tribune of
the people goes about proclaiming the
gospel of the Declaration of Indepen-
dence and the doctrines of the consti-
tuition, the orators and the organs of
the Republican party denounce him as
a demagogue and an anarchist. The