Lincoln's Lost Words: The Speech That Shaped His Destiny

 

The cover illustration of
Elwell Crissey's 1967 book:
Lincoln's Lost Speech

The year was 1856. It was late May, and the place was Major's Hall, at the corner of East and Front Streets in downtown Bloomington, Illinois. A gathering of men from across the political spectrum—Whigs, Free Soilers, Abolitionists, anti-slavery Democrats, and others—had come together to discuss how to put the genie back in the bottle.

The genie, of course, was the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, which unleashed a wave of bloodshed in the territory of Kansas. Pro-slavery and anti-slavery forces clashed violently as they fought to decide for themselves—a new concept called popular sovereignty—a question that was anything but new: Slave or Free?

The bottle from which the genie had escaped was labeled the Missouri Compromise of 1820. For over thirty years, that compromise had kept an uneasy peace by containing slavery with a line drawn across the map—and across the nation's conscience. But once the Kansas-Nebraska Act shattered that seal, the genie was out—and it would not go back in.

This convention marked the official formation of "Republican Party" in Illinois. Chairman John M. Palmer was elected convention president after his opening address. Nine vice presidents and five secretaries were then elected. The convention nominated Bissell for governor with Francis Hoffmann as lieutenant governor, Ozias M. Hatch for secretary of state, Jesse K. Dubois as auditor, and James Miller as treasurer. Hoffmann was found to be ineligible for his position due to a residency requirement, and John Wood was nominated in his place. Six resolutions defining the party platform were then approved. [1]

And then came the moment for which no one had planned.

The convention had officially ended. Abraham Lincoln, not even scheduled to speak, was urged to the podium by friends, and the crowd—some 1,500 strong—lingered, expecting a light-hearted sendoff to a long day of speeches and resolutions. 

What followed, however, was not the storyteller they knew. It was someone else entirely. Instead of laughing, they were awestruck.

The man usually described as “silent,” “taciturn,” and “reserved” now stood ablaze with conviction. His voice rose, his gestures sharpened, and his words cut deep. He condemned the Kansas-Nebraska Act with a fury that startled even his closest allies. Slavery, he warned, would tear the Union apart if allowed to spread further into free territory.

William Herndon, Lincoln’s longtime law partner and biographer, later reflected on that night with awe. Herndon called it “the grand effort of his life.” Herndon had heard or read all of Lincoln’s major speeches, but this one, he said, had a different ethos:

“full of fire and energy and force; it was logic; it was pathos; it was enthusiasm; it was justice, equity, truth, right, and good, set ablaze by the divine fires of a soul maddened by wrong; it was hard, heavy, knotty, gnarly, edged, and heated." [2]  

In fact, it was so electrifying that Herndon admitted he was caught up in it. 

"I attempted for about fifteen minutes, as was usual with me then, to take notes; but at the end of that time I threw pen and paper to the dogs, and lived only in the inspiration of the hour. If Mr. Lincoln was six feet four inches high usually, at Bloomington he was seven feet . . ." [2]

No transcript of this speech was ever made. Like Herndon, no journalist scribbled it down. No stenographer captured it. They, too, were spellbound. And yet, nearly every one of the 1,500 people packed into Major’s Hall that evening remembered one line with crystal clarity:

“We won't go out of the Union AND YOU SHAN'T!” [3]

It was a declaration, a defiance, and a promise all at once. Lincoln’s voice—usually measured and restrained—had thundered with determination. He wasn’t just condemning a piece of legislation. He was drawing a moral line in the sand.

Henry C. Whitney, decades later, even remembered the feeling that line gave him:

"The close of the sentence was uttered in such an earnest, impressive, if not, indeed, tragic manner, as to make a cold chill creep over me. Others gave a similar experience."[4]

That passage is a thunderclap. Whitney’s account doesn’t just describe a speech—it captures a moment of spiritual transfiguration. 

From that day forward, Lincoln was no longer just a cautious statesman parsing policy—he was a prophet of principle. The speech he gave that night in Bloomington, though its words are lost to history, survived by its impact. It marked the moment when Lincoln stepped fully into the light of moral leadership, no longer hedging, no longer calculating. He embraced his cause, and it burned within him.

Herndon saw it. Whitney felt it. The crowd lived it. And though no transcript remains, the fire of that night personified a nation that would soon be asked to choose between compromise and conscience.

Bloomington was not the beginning of Lincoln’s greatness. But it was the moment he chose to bear the full weight of the task before him.

This is another anecdote about Abe Lincoln, Storyteller.

Mac

🎩 Were you intrigued by the surprised reaction to Lincoln’s Lost Speech? Here’s a famous speech of Lincoln's that wasn't lost, but it nearly slipped through history’s fingers. [Read: The Famous Speech That Nearly Vanished]

📚 Works Cited

[1] Raum, Green Berry (1900). History of Illinois Republicanism. Chicago, IL: Rollins Publishing Company. Retrieved August 27, 2025.

[2] Browne, Francis Fisher (1913) The Every-Day Life of Abraham Lincoln. Chicago, IL: Browne and Howell Company.

[3] Crissy, Elwell (1967) Lincoln’s Lost Speech: The Pivot of His Career. New York, NY: Hawthorn Books.

[4] Whitney, Henry Clay (1908) Life of Lincoln, Volume I. New York, NY: The Baker & Taylor Company.