Lincoln could adapt his style to the situation. When he visited Mt. Carmel in early September, he delivered a “dignified and eloquent” address before a mixed audience in the afternoon and a more informal one to an all-male group that evening, when “he seemed to let himself down to their level, pouring forth a current of witticisms and anecdotes which aroused the wildest bursts of applause.” A Democratic paper reported that in Mt. Vernon later that month, as Lincoln again debated McClernand, he spoke with “much urbanity and suavity of manner” and “was listened to with attention.” He showed that he was “well calculated for a public debater,” for “he seldom loses his temper, and always replies jocosely and in good humor,” so much so that “the evident marks of disapprobation which greet many of his assertions, do not discompose him, and he is therefore hard to foil.”
Source: Abraham Lincoln ∶ A Life ▫𓂃