On Saturday September 17, 1859, Abraham Lincoln spoke from the rear of a Cincinnati, Hamilton & Dayton Railroad passenger train to about 1000 people at South Fourth and Ludlow streets in Hamilton. One year before his election as president of the United States, he made five speeches in Ohio as an extension of his 1858 debates with Stephen A. Douglas during their Illinois contest for a U.S. Senate seat. After Douglas defeated him and toured Ohio for Democratic candidates in 1859, Republicans invited Lincoln to campaign for their party. He spoke twice in Columbus on September 16, then in Dayton, Hamilton, and Cincinnati the next day. Republicans later swept the 1859 elections, choosing William Dennison, Jr., an 1835 Miami University graduate, as governor and winning legislative majorities; after becoming president, Lincoln appointed Dennison postmaster general in 1864. Lincoln traveled in Ohio with his wife Mary and son Tad, and his host was Cincinnati congressman John A. Gurley. Their appearance together prompted laughter because the six-foot-four Lincoln towered over Gurley, leading Lincoln to joke, "My friends, this is the long of it," pointing to himself, "and this is the short of it," placing a hand on Gurley's head. Turning to slavery, he praised the Miami Valley as "the garden spot of the world" and said that people would not want their sons to settle in a territory like Kansas with slavery hanging over it, but would want them to have the blessing of freedom so dearly purchased by the Revolutionary forefathers. Eight months later, Lincoln won the Republican presidential nomination.