DISCOVERIES
AND
INVENTIONS

A PREFATORY NOTE

The Lecture—“Discoveries and Inventions”—byour greatest American,presents a phase of Lincoln’s activityabout which little is generally known.It shows as clearly as any of his otherwritings how great was Lincoln’sknowledge of the progress of mankind,particularly as related in the Bible, andit reveals also his debt to that Book ofBooks for inspiration and illustration,as well as his masterly use of pureEnglish, largely gained through thatstudy.

In the fateful year of 1860, the yearof his election to the presidency, Lincolntook up, in the pause of his affairs afterthe long debate with Douglas, the customof lyceum lecturing, then in great5vogue. This lecture on “Discoveries andInventions” was delivered in townsnear his home, Springfield, Illinois, andin Springfield itself on Washington’sbirthday. Five days later Lincoln madehis great speech at Cooper Union inNew York.

The lecture is not included with anycollection of Lincoln’s addresses. It appearedin print for the first time in SunsetMagazine in 1909—the centennialof Lincoln’s birth.

The original manuscript, from whichthis edition, the first in book form, ismade, was a cherished possession of thelate Dr. Samuel Houston Melvin, ofOakland, California, formerly a residentof Springfield, Illinois, and afriend of Mr. Lincoln. Just prior toDr. Melvin’s death, in 1898, he made6an affidavit setting forth the historyof the manuscript; that statement is asfollows:

MEMORANDUM OF
CERTAIN FACTS FOR INFORMATION OF
THOSE WHO FOLLOW AFTER

In the month of February, 1861, being at thattime a resident of Springfield, Illinois, I called oneevening at the residence of my friend, Dr. John Todd.The doctor was an uncle of Mrs. Abraham Lincoln.While there Mr. Lincoln came in, bringing withhim a well-filled satchel, remarking as he set it downthat it contained his literary bureau. Mr. Lincolnremained some fifteen or twenty minutes, conversingmainly about the details of his prospective trip toWashington the following week, and told us of thearrangements agreed upon for the family to followhim a few days later. When about to leave he handedthe grip above referred to to Mrs. Grimsley, theonly daughter of Dr. Todd, who was then a widowbut who subsequently became the wife of Rev. Dr.John H. Brown, a Presbyterian minister located inSpringfield, remarking as he did so that he wouldleave the bureau in her charge; that if he ever returnedto Sp

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