Lincoln Campaign Button, 1860. From the Archives of Michigan collections.
Abraham Lincoln only once set foot on Michigan soil when he visited Kalamazoo on August 27, 1856 to campaign for Presidential Candidate John Charles Fremont. His connections to the state, however, go beyond this one visit.
For more information, see Bob Garrett, “Abraham Lincoln’s Michigan”, Seeking Michigan, Archives of Michigan, August 24, 2010.
The text of Lincoln’s Kalamazoo speech had seemed lost to time. Then, Tom Starr, a Lincoln enthusiast from Royal Oak, Michigan found it. In 1930, Starr discovered a bound volume of 1856 Detroit Advertiser issues. The volume had fallen behind the shelf at the Detroit Public Library. While paging through it, Starr discovered that the Advertiser had published a verbatim transcript of Lincoln’s Kalamazoo speech! In the speech, Lincoln talked at length about slavery and sectional tensions. Lincoln’s Speech at Kalamazoo, Michigan, August 27, 1856
Lincoln Campaign Button, 1860. From the Archives of Michigan collections.
Source : Michigan History, July/August 2011.