Ladies And Gentlemen:
I appear before you only to address you very briefly. I shall do little else
than to thank you for this very kind reception; to greet you and bid you
farewell. I should not find strength, if I were otherwise inclined, to repeat
speeches of very great length, upon every occasion similar to this — although
few so large — which will occur on my way to the Federal Capital. The General
Assembly of the great State of Ohio has just done me the honor to receive me,
and to hear a few broken remarks from myself. Judging from what I see, I infer
that the reception was one without party distinction, and one of entire
kindness — one that had nothing in it beyond a feeling of the citizenship of
the United States of America. Knowing, as I do, that any crowd, drawn together
as this has been, is made up of the citizens near about, and that in this
county of Franklin there is great difference of political sentiment, and those
agreeing with me having a little the shortest row; from this and the
circumstances I have mentioned, I infer that you do me the honor to meet me
here without distinction of party. I think this is as it should be. Many of you
who were not favorable to the election of myself to the Presidency, were
favorable to the election of the distinguished Senator from the State in which
I reside. If Senator Douglas had been elected to the Presidency in the late
contest, I think my friends would have joined heartily in meeting and greeting
him on his passage through your Capital, as you have me to-day. If any of the
other candidates had been elected, I think it would have been altogether
becoming and proper for all to have joined in showing honor quite as well to
the office and the country as to the man. The people are themselves honored by
such a concentration. I am doubly thankful that you have appeared here to give
me this greeting. It is not much to me, for I shall very soon pass away from
you; but we have a large country and a large future before us, and the
manifestations of good will towards the Government, and affection for the
Union, which you may exhibit, are of immense value to you and your posterity
forever. In this point of view it is that I thank you most heartily for the
exhibition you have given me; and with this, allow me to bid you an affectionate
farewell.
SOURCE: Roy P.
Basler, Editor, Collected Works of
Abraham Lincoln, Volume 4, p. 205-6