In April, Lincoln once again used Holland’s life of Van Buren to prove that the president had “advocated and supported Abolition principles, and opposed in the New York Convention the right of universal suffrage.” Addressing a Whig rally in heavily Democratic Belleville, he charged that “Van Buren had always opposed the interests of the West—was in feeling and principle an Aristocrat—had no claims upon the people on the score of Democracy, and was unworthy of their confidence and support.” Lincoln analyzed Van Buren’s rise to power “in a manner which drew forth bursts of applause and peals of laughter from the assemblage.”
Source: Abraham Lincoln ∶ A Life ▫𓂃
(echo:: @ ⌗)