The Cooper Union Speech, or Address, was delivered by Abraham Lincoln on February 27, 1860, at Cooper Union, in New York City. Lincoln was not yet the Republican nominee for the presidency, as the convention was scheduled for May. It is considered one of his most important speeches. Some have argued it was responsible for making him President. In the speech, Lincoln elaborated his views on slavery, affirming that he did not wish it to be expanded into the western territories and claiming that the Founding Fathers would agree with this position. The journalist Robert J. McNamara wrote, "Lincoln’s Cooper Union speech was one of his longest, at more than 7,000 words. And it is not one of his speeches with passages that are often quoted. Yet, due to the careful research and Lincoln's forceful argument, it was stunningly effective." Horace Greeley's New York Tribune hailed it as "one of the most happiest and most convincing political arguments ever made in this City ... No man ever made such an impression on his first appeal to a New-York audience."
Read more about Cooper Union Speech: The Speech, Key Excerpts, Legacy
Famous quotes containing the words cooper, union and/or speech:
“A monarchy is the most expensive of all forms of government, the regal state requiring a costly parade, and he who depends on his own power to rule, must strengthen that power by bribing the active and enterprising whom he cannot intimidate.”
—James Fenimore Cooper (1789–1851)
“It would be unjust, and moreover Utopian, for Shakespeare to direct the shoemakers’ union. But it would be equally disastrous for the shoemakers’ union to ignore Shakespeare.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)
“Wherever the relevance of speech is at stake, matters become political by definition, for speech is what makes man a political being.”
—Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)