The First Inaugural can be traced through the Cooper Union Address and
the Lincoln-Douglas Debates, the Peoria Speech, and the speeches of
1854 to the seed of 1832, the plain, logical, direct statement of
principles of Lincoln's first address to the public. The development
of the Gettysburg Address and the Second Inaugural, those supreme
expressions of Lincoln's feelings, is not, in the main, to be traced
through complete speeches, but it must be sought for in isolated
passages, when he left logic for the moment and gave himself up to the
passing emotion. The real seed of the majestic simplicity of those
addresses is perhaps to be found in those rhetorical speeches of an
early period, so lacking apparently in the qualities that we love and
admire. In writing, as in so many other things, we reap not what we
sow, but its fruition. The effect may seem very remotely related to
the cause, but he would be a fool who would deny the relation between
them.




BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

The complete works of Abraham Lincoln have been compiled and edited by
his biographers, John G. Nicolay and John Hay (two vols., Century
Company). Their life of Lincoln in ten volumes (Century Company) is
the standard authority. There is also an excellent condensation in one
volume. Other biographies are by W. H. Herndon, Lincoln's law partner
(two vols., Putnam); by Miss Ida Tarbell (two vols., McClure); by John
T. Morse, Jr., in the American Statesmen Series (Houghton, Mifflin &
Co.); and by Norman Hapgood (Macmillan).