Eighteen fifty-eight was the year of the noted Lincoln-Douglas Debate that brought Mr. Lincoln conspicuously before the whole country. Two years later, when visiting New York, he was invited by a party of Republicans to deliver a speech at Cooper Union. This speech helped to increase his popularity. This same year, 1860, Mr. Lincoln was elected to be President of the United States, and on the 4th of March, 1861, delivered his First Inaugural Address in the presence of thousands of people. The Emancipation Proclamation, which gave the slaves their freedom, was issued to take effect on the 1st of January, 1863; and in this act Mr. Lincoln made his name great. It was in this same year that he delivered the famous Gettysburg Address. Mr. Lincoln was elected to the Presidency for the second term, but lived only a few weeks afterward. He was shot in a theater in Washington on Friday evening, the 14th of April, 1865. “He grew according to the need, and as the problem grew, so did his comprehension of it.” RALPH WALDO EMERSON. COOPER INSTITUTE SPEECH DELIVERED AT COOPER INSTITUTE, NEW YORK, FEBRUARY 27, 1860 MR. PRESIDENT AND FELLOW-CITIZENS OF NEW YORK:--The facts with which I shall deal this evening are mainly old and familiar; nor is there anything new in the general use I shall make of them. If there shall be any novelty, it will be in the mode of presenting the facts, and the inferences and observations following that presentation. In his speech last autumn at Columbus, Ohio, as reported in the New York _Times_, Senator Douglas said: “Our fathers, when they framed the government under which we live, understood this question just as well, and even better, than we do now.” I fully indorse this, and I adopt it as a text for this discourse. I so adopt it because it furnishes a precise and an agreed starting-point for a discussion between Republicans and that wing of the Democracy headed by Senator Douglas. It simply leaves the inquiry: What was the understanding those fathers had of the question mentioned? What is the frame of government under which we live? The answer must be, “The Constitution of the United States.” That Constitution consists of the original, framed in 1787, and under which the present government first went into operation, and twelve subsequently framed amendments, the first ten of which were framed in 1789. Who were our fathers that framed the Constitution? I suppose the “thirty-nine” who signed the original instrument may be fairly called our fathers who framed that part of the present government. It is almost exactly true to say they framed it, and it is altogether true to say they fairly represented the opinion and sentiment of the whole nation at that time. Their names, being familiar to nearly all, and accessible to quite all, need not now be repeated.