E Pluribus Unum Lincoln’s Peoria Speech and the Promise of One Nation

As America celebrates its 250th anniversary, we look at a moment right here in Peoria, Illinois, that changed the course of American history: the Peoria Speech. On October 16, 1854, Abraham Lincoln stood before the Peoria County Courthouse and delivered an address, invoking the American motto E Pluribus Unum (“Out of many, one”) to critique the growing moral neutrality toward slavery.

That autumn evening, Lincoln spoke for nearly three hours, responding to Illinois Senator Stephen A. Douglas (1813-1861) and the newly passed Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854), which created two new territories and allowed settlers to vote slavery “up or down.” Then a practicing lawyer, Lincoln viewed the Act as a reversal of the nation’s founding principles – a violation of the Declaration of Independence and a dangerous step toward the nationalization of slavery.

Though Lincoln had stepped away from politics, his outrage at the Act reignited his political career, a move that would ultimately reunite America.

WHY PEORIA?

A Whig Party committee invited Lincoln to debate Douglas about the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Peoria, then a Democratic stronghold, was a key stop on the Whig speaking circuit. Douglas arrived triumphantly in a carriage to a cheering crowd of 500. Lincoln rode in on horseback, leaving an indelible mark on American history. His arguments were so forceful that Douglas declined to respond and would not engage Lincoln again until the Lincoln-Douglas Debates four years later in 1858.

In Peoria, Lincoln introduced phrases that would echo through his presidency: “Our republican robe,” he said, had been dragged “in the dust.” The nation must “repurify it” and “re-adopt the Declaration of Independence,” returning slavery to the narrow legal corners where the Founders expected it to fade. These ideas became the moral foundation of his later speeches and presidency.

Eyewitness Horace White (1834-1916), a young Chicago newspaper editor, recalled watching the awkward Springfield lawyer warm into greatness – his face “lighting up with the rays of genius,” speaking with such conviction that it awakened conviction in others. That night, White believed, Lincoln truly found his voice.

Historians agree that Peoria marked a hinge in Lincoln’s life. The National Park Service calls it the moment he “explained his objections to the Kansas–Nebraska Act and resurrected his political career.” Historian Lewis E. Lehrman, in Lincoln at Peoria: The Turning Point, argued the address became the foundation for every major argument Lincoln would make through the 1858 debates and into the White House.

The speech also mattered profoundly for Illinois – and for Peoria, which helped give birth to a new Republican coalition. Lincoln offered antislavery voters a constitutional and moral framework that didn’t require abolitionist radicalism. You could stand with the Founders and still oppose slavery’s expansion; you could honor self-government without sanctioning the enslavement of others. Those arguments laid the groundwork for his “House Divided” warning four years later.

Lincoln’s Peoria method was as important as his message: “educate first, elevate second”. He began with facts and history, then asked a timeless question: Does our practice honor our principles? If not, he urged, citizens must change the practice, not abandon the principle. As Lincoln observed, “A universal feeling, whether well or ill founded, cannot be safely disregarded.”

True leaders, Lincoln suggested, must reckon with feeling but correct it by appealing to “the principles of eternal right.”

OUT OF MANY, ONE: THE GREAT SEAL

Lincoln’s challenge becomes even more meaningful when we consider one of the nation’s oldest symbols: the Great Seal of the United States. Congress approved it on June 20, 1782, after six years of design work. Its central figure, the bald eagle, carries an entire statement about the new republic.

In one talon, the eagle holds an olive branch, representing peace; in the other, 13 arrows, representing the power to defend the nation and wage war. Its breast bears a shield with 13 stripes, and above its head is a constellation of 13 stars – reminders of the original states joining together. In its beak is a scroll bearing the Latin motto E Pluribus Unum: “Out of Many, One.” The motto describes 13 former colonies becoming one nation.

But unity was never simply a matter of putting 13 states beneath one eagle. By 1854, slavery had exposed a profound contradiction between the nation’s ideals and its laws. What did “Out of Many, One” mean if some Americans were denied the liberty the republic celebrated? Lincoln argued that the nation could not preserve its founding promise by extending slavery. Seven years later, as president, he would confront a Union torn apart by civil war.

The Great Seal’s olive branch and arrows suggest both peace and the capacity for conflict. Lincoln’s Peoria Speech reminds us that the harder task is deciding what principles a united nation must defend. The motto is not merely a description of America’s founding; it remains an aspiration and a responsibility.

View other objects devoted to Abraham Lincoln, including a Lincoln-signed Emancipation Proclamation and the Gettysburg Address in The Promise of Liberty.

The Promise of Liberty is sponsored by the Gilmore Foundation, Ashley and Josh Bellamy, McKinnon Family Foundation, America 250 Donors, Visionary Society, Friends of History.