HISTORY · HISTORICAL MARKER
President Abraham Lincoln
West Allis, Wisconsin
· Campaign Speech, Sept. 30, 1859
History
10
Candidate Abraham Lincoln delivered a campaign speech at the 1859 Wisconsin State Fair, then held at the Spring Street Hill/Brockway Grounds in the heart of Milwaukee between Wisconsin Avenue and Highland Avenue and from 10th to 13th Streets. His address, confined to the problems of labor and agriculture, became his only speech on agriculture. Clean shaven, he stood on a platform wagon wearing a black frock coat and a high, stove-pipe hat. He received $150.00 for the speech, a respectable fee in 1859. Lincoln, the rising Republican politician who debated Stephen Douglas, was elected in 1860. Two years later he signed the bill that established the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
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