of State reputation were few, while the people were clamoring for
meetings. Fortunately I had learned how to protect my voice. In
the course of the campaign every one who spoke with me lost his
voice and had to return home for treatment. When I was a student
at Yale the professor in elocution was an eccentric old gentleman
named North. The boys paid little attention to him and were
disposed to ridicule his peculiarities. He saw that I was specially
anxious to learn and said: "The principal thing about oratory
is to use your diaphragm instead of your throat." His lesson
on that subject has been of infinite benefit to me all my life.

The programme laid out called upon me to speak on an average
between six and seven hours a day. The speeches were from ten
to thirty minutes at different railway stations, and wound up with
at least two meetings at some important towns in the evening,
and each meeting demanded about an hour. These meetings were
so arranged that they covered the whole State. It took about four
weeks, but the result of the campaign, due to the efforts of the
orators and other favorable conditions, ended in the reversal
of the Democratic victory of the year before, a Republican majority
of thirty thousand and the control of the legislature.


In 1864 the political conditions were very unfavorable for the
Republican party, owing to the bitter hostility between the
conservative and radical elements. Led by such distinguished men
as Thurlow Weed and Henry J. Raymond, on the one side, and
Horace Greeley, with an exceedingly capable body of earnest
lieutenants on the other, the question of success or defeat depended
upon the harmonizing of the two factions.