Abe Lincoln Once Used a Lightning Rod to Win an Election

“American Country Life, May Morning” (1855)
by artist F. Palmer [*]

Abraham Lincoln, during his campaign for a second term in the Illinois State Legislature in 1836, gave a speech in Springfield on a hot summer day in July – a few days before the election. But it was his impromptu speech afterwards that made all the difference.

The crowd was a large one. Many of Lincoln’s friends and admirers had come into town from New Salem and the surrounding countryside to hear him speak. Lincoln’s speech was a thorough one. He effectively argued the various issues by clearly presenting both the Whig Party’s and the Democratic Party’s stances on each one.

The speech — and the crowd’s reaction — was strong enough that when Lincoln finished, George Forquer, a well‑to‑do lawyer and prominent citizen, asked to address the audience.

William Herndon, Lincoln’s law partner and later biographer, preserved the story.

Forquer had long been a Whig — one of the party’s champions in Springfield — until he abruptly switched sides and joined the Democrats. Not long after, he received a federal appointment as Registrar of the Land Office from the Democratic administration in Washington.

Around the same time, Forquer completed a new frame house in Springfield — the finest in town. On its roof he installed the only lightning rod in the county. The display of refinement and status did not go unnoticed.

Lincoln had seen the lightning rod for the first time the day before the speech. Curious about its purpose, he bought a book to study it. The same instinct that drove him to understand the device drove him to understand men like Forquer.

When Forquer rose to speak, he began by saying that the young man — Lincoln — “had to be taken down,” and that he regretted the duty. He then delivered a condescending reply. As Herndon put it, “his whole manner claimed and asserted superiority.”

Lincoln stood with his arms folded, listening. When Forquer finished, Lincoln stepped forward.

Mr. Forquer commenced his speech by announcing that the young man would have to be taken down. It is for you, fellow citizens, not for me to say whether I am up or down. The gentleman has seen fit to allude to my being a young man, but he forgets that I am older in years than I am in the tricks and trades of politicians. I desire to live, and I desire place and distinction; but I would rather die now than, like the gentleman, live to see the day that I would change my politics for an office worth three thousand dollars a year, and then feel compelled to erect a lightning rod to protect a guilty conscience from an offended God.

Herndon wrote that Lincoln’s rejoinder “gave Forquer and his lightning rod a notoriety the extent of which no one envied him.”

A few days later, Lincoln and the Whigs swept the Sangamon County elections for the first time since the county was formed.

That lightning rod — in the hands of a political street‑fighter like Lincoln — certainly did draw the electricity away from the Democrats and their newest convert.

Another anecdote from the archives of Abraham Lincoln, Storyteller.

Mac

[*] The lithograph that heads this post is entitled: “American Country Life, May Morning” (1855) by artist F. Palmer. This is a hand-colored stone lithograph. The lightning rod is noticeable on the center cupola.

📚 Works Cited

[1] Herndon, William H. and Weik, Jesse W. (1930) Herndon’s Life of Lincoln. Cleveland, Ohio: The World Publishing Company. pp.136-139.