Politics and Lincoln

Politics and Lincoln. Looking for Lincoln. Lincoln's visit to Dallas City on October 23, 1858, was significant to his political career in many ways. According to the Dallas City Review newspaper, several efforts were made by Democrats to tear down the platform that had been erected for Lincoln to use during his speech. Republican forces, however, were present and did not allow it to happen. The Democrats then improvised their own platform, made of a large barrel or hogshead with wide planks atop it, for a rival speaker to drown out Lincoln. It was said that just as the speaker was getting his vocal cords limbered up, the main plank was jerked from his platform, sending him tumbling to the ground. Another story that was told of Lincoln that day was that, "When he saw the banner of the Durham Democrats 'Douglas Against the World,' he smiled and said, "Well, Douglas may be against the world, but always let it be said that Lincoln was for the world, and all the people that live in it - now and always.", According to the Carthage Republican newspaper, there were several thousand people on hand to hear Lincoln's speech in Dallas City, and it is said that businessmen of that time took advantage of the crowd to get signers for a charter to incorporate the City under state law on that day. Their efforts paid off, and on February 19, 1859, Dallas got its charter and was incorporated as a city by approval of the Legislature and was given the official name of "Dallas City.", Many local men were instrumental in persuading Lincoln to visit Dallas in 1858, including George M. Ames, H.F. Black, and Ben Mendenhall. Ames's daughter, Ella Harris, recalled seeing Lincoln's "tall frame mounted on a lumber pile delivering his address, despite interruption and 'heckling.'" The lumberyard, owned by H.F. Black, served as the gathering site along the Mississippi River for Lincoln's speech. It was at this lumberyard, originally called Wisconsin Lumber Company, that Black finished lumber brought down the river from the north on rafts. The lumberyard had many other names throughout the years, including Black and Loomis Lumber Company and, most recently, Pioneer Lumber Company.