your veracity will not permit me for a moment to doubt that
you at least believed what you said. I am flattered with the
personal regard you manifested for me; but I do hope that
on mature reflection you will view the public interest as a
paramount consideration and therefore let the worst come.

"I assure you that the candid statement of facts on your part,
however low it may sink me, shall never break the ties of
personal friendship between us.

"I wish an answer to this, and you are at liberty to publish
both if you choose.

"Very respectfully,
"A. LINCOLN."

"COLONEL ROBERT ALLEN."

Usually during the campaign Lincoln was obliged to meet personal
attacks, not by letter, but on the platform. Joshua Speed, who later
became the most intimate friend that Lincoln probably ever had, tells
of one occasion when he was obliged to meet such an attack on the
very spur of the moment. A great mass-meeting was in progress at
Springfield, and Lincoln had made a speech which had produced a deep
impression. "I was then fresh from Kentucky," says Mr. Speed, "and had
heard many of her great orators. It seemed to me then, as it seems to
me now, that I never heard a more effective speaker. He carried the
crowd with him, and swayed them as he pleased. So deep an impression
did he make that George Forquer, a man of much celebrity as a
sarcastic speaker and with a great reputation throughout the State