Abraham Lincoln's Cooper Union Address

[historical quote]

Himself - as Abraham Lincoln:
Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations against us, nor frightened from it by menaces of destruction to the government nor of dungeons to ourselves. Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.

[first lines]

Narrator:
Abraham Lincoln argued against the spread of slavery to the western states in a February 1960 speech at Cooper Union's Great Hall. The oration is the subject of a new book by Harold Holzer entitled, "Lincoln at Cooper Union: The Speech That Made Abraham Lincoln President." Next the author introduces actor Sam Waterston who reenacts the address.