In a little clearing in the backwoods of Harding County, Kentucky,
there stood years ago a rude cabin within whose walls Abraham Lincoln
passed his childhood. An "unaccountable" man he has been called, and
the adjective was well chosen, for who could account for a mind and
nature like Lincoln's with the ancestry he owned? His father was a
thriftless, idle carpenter, scarcely supporting his family, and with
but the poorest living. His mother was an uneducated woman, but must
have been of an entirely different nature, for she was able to impress
upon her boy a love of learning. During her life, his chief, in fact
his only book, was the Bible, and in this he learned to read. Just
before he was nine years old, the father brought his family across the
Ohio River into Illinois, and there in the unfloored log cabin, minus
windows and doors, Abraham lived and grew. It was during this time
that the mother died, and in a short time the shiftless father with
his family drifted back to the old home, and here found another for
his children in one who was a friend of earlier days. This woman was
of a thrifty nature, and her energy made him floor the cabin, hang
doors, and open up windows. She was fond of the children and cared for
them tenderly, and to her the boy Abraham owed many pleasant hours.
As he grew older, his love for knowledge increased and he obtained
whatever books he could, studying by the firelight, and once walking
six miles for an English Grammar. After he read it, he walked the six
miles to return it. He needed the book no longer, for with this as
with his small collection of books, what he once read was his. He
absorbed the books he read.
During these early years he did "odd jobs" for the neighbors. Even at
this age, his gift of story telling was a notable one, as well as his
sterling honesty. His first knowledge of slavery in all its horrors
came to him when he was about twenty-one years old. He had made a trip
to New Orleans, and there in the old slave market he saw an auction.
His face paled, and his spirits rose in revolt at the coarse jest of
the auctioneer, and there he registered a vow within himself, "If ever
I have a chance to strike against slavery, I will strike and strike
hard." To this end he worked and for this he paid "the last full
measure of devotion."
His political life began with a defeat for the Illinois Legislature in
1830, but he was returned in 1834, 1836, 1838, and declined
re-election in 1840, preferring to study law and prepare for his
future. "Honest Abe" he has been called, and throughout Illinois that
characteristic was the prominent one known of him. From this time his
rise was rapid. Sent to the Congress of the nation, he seldom spoke,
but when he did his terse though simple expression always won him a
hearing. His simplicity and frankness was deceptive to the political
leaders, and from its very fearlessness often defeated them.
His famous debates with Senator Douglas, the "Little Giant," spread
his reputation from one end of the country to the other, and at their
close there was no question as to Lincoln's position in the North, or
on the vital question of the day.
The spirit of forbearance he carried with him to the White House,
"with malice toward none, with charity for all." This was the spirit
that carried him through the four awful years of the war. The martyr's
crown hovered over him from the outset. The martyr's spirit was always
his. The burden of the war always rested on his shoulders. The
fathers, sons and brothers, the honored dead of Gettysburg, of
Antietam, all lay upon his mighty heart.
He never forgot his home friends, and when occasionally one dropped in
on him, the door was always open. They frequently had tea in the good
old-fashioned way, and then Lincoln listened to the news of the
village, old stories were retold, new ones told, and the old
friendships cemented by new bonds.
Then came the end, swift and sudden, and gloom settled upon the
country; for in spite of ancestry, self-education, ungainly figure,
ill-fitting clothes, the soul of the man had conquered even the
stubborn South, while the cold-blooded North was stricken to the
heart. The noblest one of all had been taken.