Dwight D. Eisenhower
Abraham Lincoln
William Henry Harrison
Rurhterford B Hayes
Franklin Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt
Andrew Jackson
​George W. Bush
William McKinnley
Harry S. Truman

A governor, a vice president, and a president gave a speech at the corner of third and high Streets. Who were they?

Abraham Lincoln's 1859 Speech

Abraham Lincoln spoke from the rear of a Cincinnati, Hamilton & Dayton Railroad passenger train on Saturday September 17, 1859, to about 1000 people at South Fourth and Ludlow streets (about 785 feet south of here). Lincoln, elected president of the United States a year later, made five Ohio speeches.

Abraham Lincoln was accompanied to Ohio by his wife Mary and son Tad. His host on the trip was John A. Gurley, a Cincinnati congressman. Lincoln and Gurley together on the speech platform caused some laughter. At six feet four inches, Lincoln towered over Gurley. Lincoln took note, saying "My friends, this is the long of it," pointing to himself, "and this is the short of it," placing a hand on Gurley's head. But turning to the seriousness of the slavery issue, he observed that "this beautiful and far-famed Miami Valley is the garden spot of the world." He then said, "your sons may desire to locate in the West; you don't want them to settle in a territory like Kansas, with the curse of slavery hanging over it. They desire the blessing of freedom so dearly purchased by our Revolutionary forefathers." Lincoln won the Republican presidential nomination eight months later.

Similar but shorter:
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On the afternoon of 17 September 1859, Abraham Lincoln arrived at the Hamilton Station (the station is on the city's Historic Preservation list). He gave a campaign speech in support of his fellow Republican, William Dennison, who was running for Ohio governor. Lincoln's speech concentrated on popular sovereignty. He began: "This beautiful and far-famed Miami Valley is the garden spot of the world." It was during this campaign that the relatively unknown Lincoln was first mentioned as a possible presidential contender.

​In four elections—1876, 1888, 1960, and 2000—intra-party deals, razor-thin margins, and contested results have slowed the results.7 With the fierce competition in 2020, the American public may simply have to wait. However in 1860 the election results lead to a civil war.

Other presidents a visit Hamilton were: Franklin D Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt, Harry S Truman, George W. Bush, Rutherford B. Hayes

Rutherford B Hayes

Taking up Antislavery CausesHaving regarded abolitionists as too radical, Hayes had been a moderately antislavery Whig in politics. But influenced by Lucy's antislavery convictions, Hayes in 1853 began to defend runaway slaves who had fled across the Ohio River from Kentucky. His defense in 1855 of Rosetta Armstead, a young girl, was most memorable. Armstead was being escorted at the behest of her Kentucky owner through the free state of Ohio on the way to Virginia when she was detained by antislavery activists and freed on a writ of habeas corpus. Her former owner appeared and asked her before witnesses to choose between going with him or being free. She chose freedom, whereupon he had her arrested by a federal marshal as a runaway slave. Hayes, along with Senator Salmon P. Chase and Judge Timothy Walker, defended Armstead.
Not only was the slavery or freedom of a human being at stake, but so were intriguing questions of law. Was Armstead a runaway since her owner brought her to Ohio? Did touching the free soil of Ohio automatically make one who was not a runaway free? Did her owner legally manumit her? Did her minor status affect her capacity to choose? Could a state court determine the legality of the imprisonment of anyone by a U.S. marshal?
The Hamilton County Court of Common Pleas ruled that the right of transit of slave property through Ohio did not exist and that a state court on a writ of habeas corpus could, in fact, free a federal prisoner. The U.S. commissioner, however, did not let the challenge to federal authority go unanswered. Armstead was rearrested. At the subsequent hearing, Hayes made the major argument for the defense. He castigated the owner for betraying his implicit promise of freedom, arguing successfully that Armstead was not a runaway since her owner's agent brought her to Ohio. The commissioner agreed, and Armstead was free. In Chase's words, Hayes "acquitted himself with great distinction."

Theodore Roosevelt

On October 16 1900 Theodore Roosevelt walked from the tracks at fourth and I straight down a block to third and Highstreet and gave a speech to 2500 people. He was then governor of New York. Less than six months later he was vice president W knighted state in less than a year later he was president of United States.

President William McKinley

For older Hamiltonians, it was the third time in their lifetime, but it was still a shock nearly 100 years ago when they learned that President William McKinley had been shot while attending the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, N. Y. It recalled April 1865, when Abraham Lincoln survived an assassin's bullet only a few hours, and 1881, when James A. Garfield lingered until Sept. 19 after being shot July 2.

Friday afternoon, Sept. 6, 1901, the news reached Hamilton by telegraph, as it had in 1865 and 1881. There was no radio or television 100 years ago, and few telephones.

At 3:50 p.m., the dispatch arrived in the office of the Republican-News, reporting that the president had been shot twice by Leon Czolgosz.

Within minutes, people waited outside local telegraph offices and the telephone exchange for the latest reports. At 4:15, a telegram said McKinley had died, causing Fire Chief P. F. Welsh to order the city's fire bells tolled for 30 minutes, alerting citizens that a major news event had happened.

When it was realized that the death report was false, community attention turned to prayers for McKinley, who was in the first year of his second term in the White House. Clergymen revised plans for Sunday sermons as the vigil continued. Reports from Buffalo on the president's condition were encouraging until Thursday.

At 1:15 Saturday morning, Sept. 14, Chief Welsh ordered the fire bells tolled again. This time it was true, the former two-term Ohio governor had died. "The bells tolled 58 strokes, the age of the dead president," the Republican-News said. Shop whistles joined the chorus alerting the sleeping city.

Later that morning, the newspaper said, "the badges of mourning for the dead president were being hung on store fronts and all places of business. The stars and stripes were festooned in graceful folds half buried in or entwined with the black that told that some great citizen of the republic had passed to the Great Beyond."

Mayor Charles S. Bosch issued a proclamation, calling "upon all true and loyal citizens, insofar as they can, to exhibit the national emblem at half mast and to drape their respective homes and places of business in reverence of the chief magistrate of this republic."

The new president, Theodore Roosevelt, proclaimed Thursday, Sept. 19, when McKinley was to be buried in Canton, Ohio, a "day of mourning and prayer."

City civic and business leaders met at the First National Bank to arrange the local memorial service. They elected Lazard Kahn chairman and Henry L. Morey secretary of the Hamilton planning group. Tom Smith, manager of the Globe Opera House on High Street, donated the theater for the program.

On the appointed day, "the business of the city is suspended," the newspaper said. "Every factory and shop is closed, every business house suspended business for at least a portion of the day." Schools, the courthouse and the banks closed all day and the post office remained open only until 10 a.m. Saloons closed from 1 to 4 p.m.

Citizens "filled every available foot of space" at the Globe Opera House for the 2 p.m. memorial program that included music, prayers and speeches by Kahn, Morey and Warren Gard. Ushers were veterans of the Civil War, a salute to McKinley's service in the same conflict.

"The mourning drapings about the city are very general," the Republican-News observed. "All High Street stores are generally draped and all about the city in almost every house window is some token of the universal sorrow felt by the people."

McKinley had made five official trips to Hamilton in the 1890s as a candidate, governor and president. On some of his visits he was the guest of Robert C. McKinney, president of the Niles Tool Works, in the McKinney residence at 610 Dayton Street.

There will be more on McKinley's Hamilton connections in a future column.

Hamiltonians watched in amazement as the rival candidates for governor of Ohio -- William McKinley and James E. Campbell -- met in the middle of High Street Sept. 17, 1891. If they expected a bitter confrontation or spirited political debate, they were disappointed. Instead, they witnessed a cordial reunion of friends in the midst of an intense campaign.

That unscheduled meeting was recalled 10 years later -- in September 1901 -- when an assassin's bullet took the life of President William McKinley. What made the 1891 incident memorable was that it came during the observance of the city's centennial and was seen by hundreds of people who were crowded into downtown Hamilton for the festivities.

At about Journal Square, the Republican-News recalled, "the rival candidates for gubernatorial honors saw each other. Mr. McKinley's carriage was stopped and Gov. Campbell advanced to it and the two public men and courteous gentlemen shook hands warmly and complimented each other upon each one's good appearance."

At the time, Campbell -- a native of Middletown, and a Hamilton resident as an adult -- was seeking his second two-year term as governor. But McKinley -- a native of Niles, Ohio -- won the election and guided the state for two terms before winning presidential elections in 1896 and 1900.

The High Street meeting characterized the friendly 1891 Campbell-McKinley contest. "The campaign was notable because the two candidates for governor, personal friends, throughout maintained the policy of discussing issues, not personalties," noted Simeon D. Fess in a 1937 book, Ohio, The History of the Great State.

The 1891 centennial celebration brought McKinley to Hamilton for the first time. He returned three times as governor and once as president before his death during his second term in the White House.

From 1892 through 1895, Gov. McKinley came to Hamilton twice for political speeches and once as a speaker and participant in a state encampment of the Grand Army of the Republic (Civil War veterans). The governor was in familiar company at the GAR event. He had entered the 23rd Ohio Volunteer Infantry Regiment as a private in 1861 and was mustered out as a captain in 1865.

After the war he studied law and was admitted to the bar in Canton in 1867. His political career started with election as prosecutor in Stark County. As a Republican, McKinley served in the U. S. House of Representatives from 1877 to 1884 and from 1885 to 1891, the year he challenged Campbell for the governor's office.

As a presidential candidate, McKinley didn't fare well in Butler County. In 1896 and 1900, his Democratic rival, William Jennings Bryan, carried the county by comfortable margins.

His only visit as president was Oct. 21, 1898 -- a few months after U. S. victory in the Spanish-American War and days before the off-year election. In his speech that day, he referred to both the warm welcomes of previous visits and his local rejection in the 1896 election.

"I recall with the pleasantest memories my former visits to your city, and whatever political differences there may have been among us then, you have always accorded me an attentive hearing and given me a cordial welcome."

McKinley -- nicknamed "The Idol of Ohio" -- was scheduled to open the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, N. Y., in the spring of 1901, but his wife's illness caused him to miss the event.

The 58-year-old president rescheduled his visit and was standing in a receiving line Sept. 6 when he was shot twice at point blank range by Leon Czolgosz, an anarchist. McKinley died eight days later.

Truman

It has been almost 50 years since a U. S. President has visited Hamilton. The last time was Friday, Oct. 31, 1952, when President Harry Truman came to the city for the second time during his seven years and 283 days in the White House. He also spoke here Oct. 11, 1948. Both appearances were brief whistlestop speeches during presidential election campaigns.

In 1952, Truman wasn’t running for re-election. He appeared on behalf of Democrast Adlai Stevenson, who was opposing Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Republican nominee and eventual victor.

Truman’s 16-car special train, powered by three diesel units, arrived at 2:26 p.m. over the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, stopping at Fourth and High streets. More than 8,000 people gathered under sunny skies to hear the outgoing president.

The president reminded listeners that the Democrats had been responsible for starting Social Security, and said the party "never lost sight of the small businessman or the housewife."

As he spoke, the U. S. not only was involved in the Cold War with the Soviet Union, but had been fighting in Korea as part of a United Nations force since June 1950. The progress of that conflict was a major issue in the 1952 campaign. "We gave been meeting the threat of Soviet aggression. If we had not acted, we might be fighting the war in Ohio instead of Korea," Truman told his local audience.

Four years earlier, more than 10,000 people braved a chilly autumn wind for Truman’s 15-minute stop, starting at 10:20 a.m. Monday, Oct. 11, 1948.

The president -- who had moved into the White House April 12, 1945, with the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt -- arrived from Cincinnati over the B&O. His 16-car special, pulled by a single diesel locomotive, stopped at Fourth and High streets on tracks that were removed in the early 1980s when the High Street underpass was built.

"Briefly, he touched upon major subjects -- peace, prices and places to live -- attacked his Republican opponents for their failure to discuss issues, and then declared he asks support on his record," said Reporter Sam Carr in reporting Truman's remarks in the Journal-News.

From 1941 through 1944, the Missouri senator had chaired the Special Senate Committee to Investigate the National Defense Program, known as the Truman Committee. Based on that experience, the president had some kind words for Hamilton's labor record, noting that the community had fewer man-hours lost during World War II than any comparable area.

His Hamilton speech was one of 11 in a 15-hour, 350-mile day which ended in Akron. Three separate Truman whistlestop tours covered 21,928 miles in 33 days in 1948.

David McCullough, a Truman biographer, declared the Hamilton stop a turning point in the campaign. McCullough said "the sight of 10,000 people spilling out in all directions at Hamilton" produced what a reporter called "the most striking change in the Democratic candidate's demeanor. Truman then was a decided underdog against Thomas Dewey, the Republican candidate.

As Truman spoke in Hamilton, U. S. and British flyers continued the Berlin Airlift, which had started after the Soviet Union began blocking Allied road and rail access to West Berlin April 1, 1948. Food, coal and other necessities were delivered to Berlin by planes until the Soviet blockade ended Sept. 30, 1949.

In November 1948, Truman won a 2,100-vote advantage over Dewey in Hamilton as Democrats swept Butler County elections for county and state offices. The president had a 3,000-vote plurality in Butler County. Nationally, his 1948 surprise victory embarrassed pollsters who had forecast a Dewey triumph.

Roosevelt

George W. Bush last week became the fifth U. S. President to visit Hamilton while exercising chief executive duties. Bush -- who traveled by helicopter -- signed a $26.5 billion education reform bill in the Hamilton High School gymnasium Tuesday, Jan. 8. His 45 minutes on the ground contrasts with brief speeches from trains between 1898 and 1952 by four predecessors -- William McKinley, Herbert Hoover, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry Truman.

William McKinley visited Hamilton in 1898 a triumphant leader who had guided the nation to the status of world power. "The country has had some notable events in the past five months -- events which have added luster to the history of our country and given a new and added meaning to American valor," he said during a 270-word speech Friday, Oct. 21, 1898.

McKinley -- a visitor several times before becoming chief executive -- was referring to military success in the Pacific and Caribbean during the Spanish-American War. A peace agreement had been reached Aug. 12, and a treaty would be signed Dec. 10, 1898, with Spain, freeing Cuba and ceding Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines to the U. S.

Mrs. McKinley accompanied the president on the special train that arrived on the Cincinnati, Hamilton & Indianapolis Railroad. Between Indianapolis and Hamilton he also gave brief speeches at Rushville, Connersville, Liberty, College Corner and Oxford.

Herbert C. Hoover expressed optimism in the depth of the Depression Friday, Oct. 28, 1932, speaking from a train at South Third and Sycamore streets. He didn't begin active campaigning for re-election until October -- when about a fourth of the nation's banks were closed. His five-minute Hamilton whistlestop was part of his last-minute effort to win a second term. Hoover lost to Franklin D. Roosevelt, the 50-year-old Democrat governor of New York

Roosevelt's special train stopped here during the early stages of the 1936 campaign. His Saturday, Sept. 5, 1936, visit was part of a 7,000-mile inspection tour of drought-affected Midwest states. The stop had been planned so the steam locomotives could take on water at the Baltimore & Ohio depot on South Fifth Street. FDR hadn’t been scheduled to speak, but seeing a crowd, he responded. Joining him on the platform was a son, John.

Harry Truman made two brief whistlestop speeches in Hamilton during the 1948 and 1952 campaigns. Monday, Oct. 11, 1948, his special train arrived from Cincinnati over the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. It stopped at High and Fourth streets, the latter renamed Martin Luther King Boulevard after railroad consolidation and completion of the High Street underpass in the 1980s.

The president introduced his wife, Bess, and their daughter, Margaret, before his speech, one of 11 in a 15-hour, 350-mile trip that day. Eight days later, Truman -- who had become president in 1945 upon the death of FDR -- won election to a full term in the White House.

He returned to Hamilton Friday, Oct. 31, 1952, his train stopping at the same spot. This time Truman was campaigning for Democrat Adlai Stevenson to succeed him. Instead, Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Republican nominee, won the office.

Among the several presidents who visited the city before or after their White House years, two had close connections with the community.

In 1791, William Henry Harrison served at Fort Hamilton as an 18-year-old ensign recently assigned to the First Regiment of the U. S. Army. Later, the military hero of the War of 1812 claimed he had raised the first national flag over the fort when it was completed Sept. 30, 1791. That event is considered the city’s founding date.

Harrison -- who had two children who married Hamilton residents -- visited Hamilton several times before election to the White House in 1840, but he didn’t have a chance to come back as president. Ohio's first president died April 4, 1841, a month after his inauguration.

A future president who spent a few weeks in Hamilton was Andrew Johnson. He was the only southern senator who remained loyal to the United States when the Civil War started in 1861. That hectic summer, he found a haven in Hamilton.

His Hamilton host was Lewis D. Campbell, who, although a member of a rival political party, had befriended Johnson when both were serving in the U. S. House of Representatives. Vice President Johnson became president April 15, 1865, when Abraham Lincoln was assassinated.