Hoyt case is finally concluded and Lincoln, winner of long trial, formally accepts invitation to deliver eulogy on President Taylor. "The want of time for preparation will make the task for me," he writes, "a very difficult one to perform, in any degree satisfactory to others or to myself. Still I do not feel at liberty to decline the invitation; and therefore I will fix to-morrow as the time." Abraham Lincoln to Lewis C. Kercheval and Others, 24 July 1850, CW, 2:82-83.