Abraham Lincoln and his family stopped in Steubenville on February 14, 1861, while traveling by train to his presidential inauguration in Washington, D.C. There he left the depot and addressed a large crowd of Ohioans and Virginians from a platform at Market and High Streets. After Judge W.R. Lloyd introduced him as the only person who could preserve the Union during a national crisis, President-elect Lincoln spoke eloquently about commitment to the Constitution by people on both sides of the Ohio River, differing opinions about what the Constitution meant, and the virtues of majority rule. Fifty-seven days later the Civil War began. At the time, no one knew that Steubenville native Edwin M. Stanton would become Lincoln's Secretary of War and would give the tribute at Lincoln's death in 1865, saying, "Now he belongs to the ages!"
