1. 160 years ago today at Cooper Union in Manhattan, Abraham Lincoln made the speech that would do more than anything else to propel him to the Republican nomination three months later.
2. Lincoln was the first candidate to win a national nomination - let alone the presidency - by what he said, rather than who he was. By a media campaign. All prior presidents were Founders, conquering generals, and/or DC political elites (even Pierce).
3. The Cooper Union speech got national press attention, as had his 1858 debates with Douglas. People outside DC & IL now knew not only Lincoln but Lincoln's arguments. Explosive growth of newspapers & the telegraph made that possible. abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speech…
4. Lincoln made a point, at Cooper Union, to emphasize his conservatism ("adherence to the old and tried, against the new and untried") & originalism vs the radicalism of the Slave Power. He wrapped himself in the traditions of the Founders. 
5. Yet Lincoln cut to the core point: the South could not stand a status quo in which some states were free, and professed that slavery was wrong. A reality the 1787 Constitution had made possible.
6. Lincoln's appeal to the Constitution's original, written meaning was quite explicit:
7. One of Lincoln's greatest virtues was his sense of timing & what the American people were ready for. After the speech, Seward remained the favorite. But Lincoln had positioned himself as less radical than Seward or Chase seemed. He had wrapped their cause in tradition & law.
8. If you're so inclined, you can watch Sam Waterston deliver the whole speech.
