In the evening, Lincoln is in Chicago's Dearborn Park, where he delivers a speech. Partisan newspapers differ on Lincoln's effectiveness. A Democratic paper reports, "Lincoln's speech was the same old sterotyped one he got up some time since, about tearing down the fence and letting in the cows, &c., &c. To those who have heard it before, it was very dry and prosy, and with those who have not heard it, it made no impression whatever." A Republican paper notes, "The speaker was calm, clear and forcible . . . He demonstrated in the strongest manner, that the only issue now before us, is freedom or slavery, that the perpetuity of our institutions is dependent upon maintaining the former against the aggressions of the latter." Daily Illinois State Register (Springfield), 24 July 1856, 2:3; The Daily Democratic Press (Chicago, IL), 21 July 1856, 3:1.

Another Democratic reporter declares crowd so small that Lincoln begins by saying he is not accustomed to "addressing such small gatherings." Chicago Times, 22 July 1856; Speech at Chicago, Illinois, 19 July 1856, CW, 2:348-49.