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burned my boat.”
Leaving Washington, my next point was New York, where I met the editor of the Anti-Slavery Standard, Horace Greeley, Henry Ward Beecher, and others.
I had, a long talk with Greeley, whom I noticed leaned toward Douglas.
I found, however, he was not at all hostile to Lincoln.
I presented the latter's case in the best phase I knew how, but while I drew but little from him, I left feeling that he hadn't been entirely won over.
He introduced me to Beecher, who, as everybody else did, inquired after Lincoln and through me sent him words of encouragement and praise.1 From New York I went to Boston, and from the latter place I wrote Lincoln a letter which happily I found not long since in a bundle of Lincoln's letters, and which I insert here, believing it affords a better reflex of the situation at the time than anything I might see fit to say now. Here it is:
1 Lincoln's greatest fear was that Douglas might be taken up by the Republicans. Senator Seward, when I met him in Washington, assured me there was no danger of it, insisting that the Republicans nor any one else could place any reliance on a man so slippery as Douglas.
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