One of the committee appointed to acquaint Mr. Lincoln formally with
the decision of the Chicago Presidential Convention of 1860 was Judge
Kelly, a man of unusual stature. At the meeting with the nominee he
eyed the latter with admiration and the jealousy the exceptional
cherish for rivals. This had not escaped the curious Lincoln; he asked
him, as he singled him out: "What is your height?"
"Six feet three. What is yours?"
"Six feet four." [Footnote: This will probably never be exactly settled
now. Speaker Reed agreed with this statement. But Miss Emma Gurley
Adams, in a position to know, published in the New York _Press_: "Mr.
Lincoln told my father that he was exactly six feet three inches." This
was at the end of his life. The contrariety of the assertions simply
baffles one.]
"Then, sir, Pennsylvania bows to Illinois," responded the judge. "My
dear sir, for years my heart has been aching for a President I could
look up to, and I have found him at last in the land where we thought
there were none but _little_ giants."
(Stephen Douglas, leader of the Democratic party, was a pocket Daniel
Webster and bearing the by-name of "the Little Giant.")
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