Such a person is quite unknown to our official circles or to those of Continental nations. Indeed, I think his place in history will be unique. He has not been trained to diplomacy or administrative affairs, and is in all respects one of the people. But how wonderfully he is endowed and equipped for the performance of the duties of the chief executive officer of the United States at this time! The precision and minuteness of his information on all questions to which we referred was a succession of surprises to me." WILLIAM D. KELLEY. WH XV. CASSIUS M. CLAY. 'HILST I was a student in Transylvania University at Lexington, Kentucky, the main building, including the dormitory, was burned down, and I sought lodgings with Robert Todd and wife, where I became acquainted with Miss Mary Todd. Her elder sister married Ninian Edwards, of Illinois, where Miss Todd followed and married Abraham Lincoln. I was on very agreeable terms with the Todd family, who were always my avowed friends during my antislavery career. So when I went to speak in the Fremont campaign at Springfield, Illinois, in 1856, Abraham Lincoln and his law partner, O. S. Browning, called upon me. As I was speaking every day, I had but little time for social intercourse. The feeling against the liberal movement was as violent then in the free as in the slave But, States. Lovejoy had been killed not long before at Alton, and the State House was refused me. as the weather was pleasant, I spoke, in the grove which was about it, to an immense audience, for more than two hours. Lincoln and Browning lay |