The enterprise proved a success beyond the most sanguine
expectations. A Columbus firm undertook the publication,
itself assuming all pecuniary risk. Three large
editions were sold directly to the public, without
any aid from or any purchase by the committee—the
third edition containing the announcement that up
to that date, June 16, 1860, thirty thousand copies
had already been circulated.[2]
----------
[1] Partly printed in Hollister, “Life of Colfax,” p. 146. We are
indebted to Mrs. Colfax for the full manuscript text of this and other
valuable letters which we have used.
[2] The preface to this third edition contains a letter
from Douglas, alleging that injustice had been done
him because, “the original reports as published
in the ‘Chicago Times,’ although intended
to be fair and just, were necessarily imperfect, and
in some respects erroneous”; charging at the
same time that Lincoln’s speeches had been revised,
corrected, and improved.[A] To this the publishers
replied: “The speeches of Mr. Lincoln were
never ’revised, corrected, or improved’
in the sense you use those words. Remarks by the
crowd which were not responded to, and the reporters’
insertions of ‘cheers,’ ‘great applause,’
and so forth, which received no answer or comment
from the speaker, were by our direction omitted, as
well from Mr. Lincoln’s speeches as yours, as
we thought their perpetuation in book form would be
in bad taste, and were in no manner pertinent to, or
a part of, the speech."[B] And the publishers add
a list of their corrections.
[A] Douglas to Follet, Foster
& Co., June 9, 1860. Debates, third
edition, preface.
[B] Follet, Foster & Co. to
Douglas, June 16, 1860. Ibid.
CHAPTER XI
HARPER’S FERRY
There now occurred another strange event which, if
it had been specially designed as a climax for the
series of great political sensations since 1852, could
scarcely have been more dramatic. This was John
Brown’s invasion of Harper’s Ferry in order
to create a slave insurrection. We can only understand
the transaction as far as we can understand the man,
and both remain somewhat enigmatical.
Of Puritan descent, John Brown was born in Connecticut
in the year 1800. When he was five years old,
the family moved to Ohio, at that time a comparative
wilderness. Here he grew up a strong, vigorous
boy of the woods. His father taught him the tanner’s
trade; but a restless disposition drove him to frequent
changes of scene and effort when he grew to manhood.
He attempted surveying. He became a divinity student.
He tried farming and tanning in Pennsylvania, and tanning
and speculating in real estate in Ohio. Cattle-dealing
was his next venture; from this to sheep-raising;
and by a natural transition to the business of a wool-factor
in Massachusetts. This not succeeding, he made
a trip to Europe. Returning, he accepted from
Gerrit Smith a tract of mountain land in the Adirondacks,
where he proposed to found and foster colonies of
free negroes. This undertaking proved abortive,
like all his others, and he once more went back to
the wool business in Ohio.
Copyrights
Abraham Lincoln, a History — Volume 02 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.
