Page:Samuel Scoville -Abraham Lincoln, His Story.djvu/61

 Anything that argues me into social and political equality with the negro is but a specious and fantastic arrangement of words, as if a man could prove a horse-chestnut to be a chestnut horse. Again he would crystallize his whole argument into a single sentence:

On the platform as in court Lincoln could retort severely if the occasion demanded it. When only twenty-six years of age he was once bitterly attacked at a political meeting by a sarcastic speaker of great local reputation, who had changed his politics and by so doing had been appointed Register of the Land Office. Moreover, he had the distinction of owning the only lightning-rod in the county. When Lincoln came to reply he said: