Lincoln’s Lyceum Address Document Analysis

The importance of Lincoln’s Lyceum Address, presented on January 27th, 1838, was the idea that Freedom was and is a significant ideal that we as Americans need to value, appreciate, and fight for. While only presented to a group of young men, this speech is said to have contained some of Lincoln’s strongest values pertaining to Freedom in the United States, and also Lincoln’s views on the government and how it handled laws, specifically slave related. This speech was important for the people of the time period because of the many people working on farms that used slaves and how many people felt about slavery and what was considered free in our nation. I have always been a fan of Lincoln, and this address is a very good example of the speaking power of this great President.

The document tells me that there was a great deal of tension between those that were for slavery that those that were against it, namely the North and the South. The Lyceum address also infers that there was fear of a political up rise if radical ideals were shared by those of high importance within the government. While there are many inferences in the document, the entire reason for the speech was to address mobs and mob uprising in the United States. A quote from the document is as follows; “I mean the increasing disregard for law which pervades the country…” which directly calls out those that took part in mobs and who aided the mobs in evading the law.

This address directly and indirectly biases towards the anti-slavery movement, and the feeling of abolishing slavery versus keeping it. Lincoln’s direct words in the Lyceum address state that “Alike, they spring up among the pleasure hunting masters of Southern slaves” meaning that those causing riots, and those uprising against the government were most likely to be slave owners or those that dealt with slavery in some way. Anything mentioned in the Lyceum address relating to slavery is not pro-slavery, and at one point Lincoln...