Michigan Minute
Lincoln's Kalamazoo Visit | August 27
Today in 1856, Abraham Lincoln visited Kalamazoo to campaign for John Charles Fremont. His speech, initially lost to history, was rediscovered in 1930 by Tom Starr in a 1856 Detroit Advertiser at the Detroit Public Library. Lincoln emphasized the importance of emancipation, stating, “Shall we say, 'Let it be'? No – we have an interest in the maintenance of the principles of the Government, and without this interest, it is worth nothing.”
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- 27 Aug 2024
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It's August 27, and this is your Michigan Minute. Abraham Lincoln only once set foot on Michigan soil when he visited Kalamazoo on August 27, 1856, to campaign for the presidential candidate John Charles Fremont. For a long time, Lincoln's speech in Kalamazoo seemed lost a time, but in 1930, Tom Starr, a Lincoln enthusiast from Royal Oak, found a bound volume from 1856 and Detroit advertiser issues. He had fallen behind the shelf of the Detroit Public Library. While paging through it, Starr discovered that the advertiser had published a verbatim transcript of Lincoln's Kalamazoo speech. "Turning to the south," he said, "we see a people who, while they boast of being free, keep their fellow beings in bondage. Shall we say, let it be? No. We have an interest in the maintenance of the principles of the government, and without this interest, it is worth nothing." The words of Abraham Lincoln today in 1856 in Kalamazoo. And that is your Michigan Minute.