Emphasis Preaching Journal

Lincoln had attempted time and again to make plain his thought and purpose with regard to the issue of slavery. Now he rose from his seat beside Horace Greeley and William Cullen Bryant and stepped to the podium. His new suit of broadcloth hung rumpled on his tall, lean frame. Every eye in the audience at New York City's famed Cooper Union on that snowy Tuesday evening of February 27, 1860, was fixed on the Illinois Republican. It was a lamentable time for the American nation, a time of great introspection and anticipation as winter days stretched toward spring.