Lincoln had been in the telegraph office at Springfield during the
casting of the first and second ballots in the Republican National
Convention at Chicago, and then left and went over to the office of the
State Journal, where he was sitting conversing with friends while the
third ballot was being taken.
In a few moments came across the wires the announcement of the result.
The superintendent of the telegraph company wrote on a scrap of paper:
“Mr. Lincoln, you are nominated on the third ballot,” and a boy ran with
the message to Lincoln.
He looked at it in silence, amid the shouts of those around him; then
rising and putting it in his pocket, he said quietly: “There’s a little
woman down at our house would like to hear this; I’ll go down and tell
her.”
“SHALL ALL FALL TOGETHER.”
After Lincoln had finished that celebrated speech in “Egypt” (as a
section of Southern Illinois was formerly designated), in the course
of which he seized Congressman Ficklin by the coat collar and shook him
fiercely, he apologized. In return, Ficklin said Lincoln had “nearly
shaken the Democracy out of him.” To this Lincoln replied:
“That reminds me of what Paul said to Agrippa, which, in language and
substance, was about this: ‘I would to God that such Democracy as you
folks here in Egypt have were not only almost, but altogether, shaken
out of, not only you, but all that heard me this day, and that you would
all join in assisting in shaking off the shackles of the bondmen by all
legitimate means, so that this country may be made free as the good Lord
intended it.’”
Said Ficklin in rejoinder: “Lincoln, I remember of reading somewhere in
the same book from which you get your Agrippa story, that Paul, whom
you seem to desire to personate, admonished all servants (slaves) to be
obedient to them that are their masters according to the flesh, in fear
and trembling.
“It would seem that neither our Savior nor Paul saw the iniquity of
slavery as you and your party do. But you must not think that where you
fail by argument to convince an old friend like myself and win him over
to your heterodox abolition opinions, you are justified in resorting to
violence such as you practiced on me to-day.
“Why, I never had such a shaking up in the whole course of my life.
Recollect that that good old book that you quote from somewhere says in
effect this: ‘Woe be unto him who goeth to Egypt for help, for he shall
fall. The holpen shall fall, and they shall all fall together.’”