SOME PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
My deep interest in Mr. Lincoln came, first, of his manifes¬ 
tations of opposition to any further extension of slavery over 
the territories of the United States—an opposition in which I 
believe I shared as sincerely as any American; for, while a 
student and medical professor in Cincinnati, in the early fifties 
of the last century, I had ofttimes looked across the Ohio River 
to the shadows on the Kentucky side, and now and then, by 
sympathy, felt the smart of a driver’s lash on Freedom’s shore; 
there, too, had earnest part in forming the great political party 
solemnly sworn to resist extension of the damning curse of 
human bondage, and thence had gone out, as one of Freedom’s 
advocates on more than a hundred ‘stumps,” in Ohio, Indiana, 
Illinois, and Wisconsin. 
Meanwhile, I had, with profound interest, so watched the 
masterly discussions of Mr. Lincoln with Douglas, in northern 
Illinois, and so marked him for his destiny, that, in the win¬ 
ter of 1858-9, being then in command of agricultural affairs in 
Wisconsin, I went down to Chicago to congratulate him and, 
if possible, secure him for delivery of the annual address at 
the next state fair, to be held at Milwaukee in September, 1859. 
We spent half the night together, in his chamber, reviewing 
the past and outlining a possible, even probable future—an 
evening so deeply interesting that, after fifty years, the dis¬ 
cussions and incidents are still almost fresh enough for recital 
in detail. Even then the dark clouds of a coming conflict 
hovered near enough to make one anxious; but in the minds 
