Lincoln speaks in Phoenix Hall. "Mr. Lincoln is probably the fairest and most honest political speaker in the country," Pantagraph comments (April 11, 1860). "While he convinces the understanding by arriving at legitimate and unavoidable sequences, he wins the hearts of his hearers by the utmost fairness and good humor." Speech at Bloomington, Illinois, 10 April 1860, CW, 4:41-43; Sherman D. Wakefield, How Lincoln Became President: The Part Played by Bloomington, Illinois, and Certain of Its Citizens in Preparing Him for the Presidency and Securing his Nomination and Election (New York: Wilson-Erickson, 1936), 108-9.