On the morn­ing of Feb­ru­ary 22 in Philadel­phia, Lin­coln arrived at Inde­pen­dence Hall for a cer­e­mo­ni­al event, feel­ing reju­ve­nat­ed after a good night’s rest. Despite his orig­i­nal plan to sim­ply raise the flag, a large crowd demand­ed he deliv­er a speech. He hes­i­tant­ly oblig­ed, speak­ing in a near­ly inaudi­ble tone, yet his words moved the audi­ence pro­found­ly.

Stand­ing in a place that sym­bol­ized the nation’s incep­tion, Lin­coln expressed the polit­i­cal sen­ti­ments root­ed in the Dec­la­ra­tion of Inde­pen­dence. He reflect­ed on the strug­gle for inde­pen­dence, pon­der­ing the essen­tial prin­ci­ples that had pre­served the union. He empha­sized that it wasn’t mere­ly the act of sep­a­ra­tion from Britain but the ideals of lib­er­ty encap­su­lat­ed in the Dec­la­ra­tion that offered hope and pos­si­bil­i­ty for future gen­er­a­tions. This notion received enthu­si­as­tic applause.

Lin­col­n’s com­pelling asser­tion that lib­er­ty should extend to all indi­vid­u­als res­onat­ed deeply with the crowd. He posed a rhetor­i­cal ques­tion regard­ing the nation’s via­bil­i­ty based on these prin­ci­ples, assert­ing that he would pre­fer to be assas­si­nat­ed than to aban­don them. His con­vic­tion regard­ing equal­i­ty was a pow­er­ful moment, evok­ing cheers and applause from the gath­ered audi­ence.

He ascend­ed a plat­form to hoist the flag, an act that prompt­ed man­ic cheers from the crowd, sig­ni­fy­ing uni­ty and hope. A reporter not­ed that the essence of Lin­col­n’s remarks points towards the deep­er mean­ing of equal­i­ty, empha­siz­ing the grad­ual steps toward African eman­ci­pa­tion.

In light of the events, Lin­coln agreed to mod­i­fy his trav­el plans as sug­gest­ed by Pinker­ton and Nor­man Judd. He com­mit­ted to speak­ing in Har­ris­burg to the state leg­is­la­ture before embark­ing on a secret jour­ney back to Philadel­phia. From there, Lin­coln planned to board a mid­night train to Bal­ti­more, under­stand­ing that the notion of sneak­ing into the cap­i­tal could be polit­i­cal­ly risky. Nonethe­less, he dis­missed con­cerns over ridicule, deter­mined to fol­low through with Jud­d’s plan, sig­nal­ing his resolve and eager­ness to embrace the poten­tial risks ahead .