A DEBATING SOCIETY 87 



lie speaking which has been quite effaced. That I made a fair 

 success of it is shown by the fact that I was chosen president 

 of the society before I was eighteen years of age, though I was 

 the youngest of its members. What surprises me as I look back 

 on those exercises was that I had a swing of phrase and ration- 

 ality of thought which attracted judicious elders and led them 

 to believe that I was to be an orator. 



It was my habit to make briefs of my little speeches and to 

 rehearse the discourses in the neighboring woods. Long after- 

 ward I came across the plan of the argument for a speech on the 

 secession question; it ran as follows: At the outset I gave a 

 hearty assent to the principle of State Rights, by which system 

 alone it was possible to secure the benefits of local government, 

 of a government near to the people and adjustable to their 

 needs. But to establish and maintain such a system it was 

 necessary to preserve the Union as it existed ; for if it were 

 divided into a slaveholding section and a non-slaveholding sec- 

 tion the inevitable consequence would be interminable war be- 

 tween those opposed nations, each of which would have to seek 

 the strength consolidation only could give with the consequent 

 destruction of state rights. This thesis was, doubtless, taken 

 in part from the ancient debater, and the illustrations from 

 what Marshall had taught me ; but the judgment was, in effect, 

 original and the argument good. I have never seen it set forth 

 in just this form. It had at least the merit of clearing my mind 

 as to the situation. It kept me on the Union side, though there 

 were strong, almost mastering influences due to my youthful 

 friends that inclined me to go South. Whether my arguments 

 convinced others I do not know, although they had a rather 

 wide currency, since they found their way into print and thus 

 to speakers who were often heard. 



The political debate which went on in Kentucky between 

 1858 and 1861 probably was the most universal and effective 

 of any ever held by a commonwealth. Men, women, and chil- 

 dren shared in it, with the result that I have noted elsewhere, 



