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A
LEGACY OF FUN
BY
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
WITH
A SHORT SKETCH OF HIS LIFE.
LONDON:
FREDERICK FARRAH, 282, STRAND.
1865.
MEMOIR.
Abe Lincoln, the late President of the United States of America, was
born on the 12th of February, 1809, in Hardin County, in the State of
Kentucky. His grandfather, who emigrated from Virginia to the above
State, was slain by the Indians in 1784. Thomas Lincoln, father of
the President, and Nancy Hawks, his mother, were natives of Virginia.
The opportunities for education enjoyed by Abraham were few and
far between, for at an early age his father needed his assistance
in clearing the forest, and making it a fitting dwelling place for
man. Still, whenever an opportunity presented itself, it was eagerly
grasped, and the result was that, despite of untoward circumstances,
Abraham succeeded in acquiring a decent knowledge of his mother tongue
and the rudiments of an ordinary education.
“At nineteen,” says one of his biographers, “we find him serving as a
common bargeman on a boat plying to New Orleans. In March, 1830, he
accompanied his father to Macon County, Illinois, and helped him to
build a log cabin for the family home, and he made enough rails to
fence in ten acres of land. The next year he was employed as a boat
builder to assist in building a flat-bottomed boat, which he afterwards
took to New Orleans, and upon his return his employer put him in charge
of a store in Illinois.
“In 1832, when the ‘Black Hawk War’ broke out, he joined a company
of Volunteer Rifles; and such was his popularity that he was almost
immediately unanimously chosen captain by his comrades--an unexpected
piece of good fortune which he often said gave him greater pleasure
than any subsequent success in life. Here he served for three months
only, when he was proposed as a candidate for the Legislature of
Illinois, but his opponents being in a majority he was defeated. Soon
after this he was appointed post-master of New Salem; and now, having
a little leisure time on his hands, he began to study law, borrowing
of an evening books from a neighbouring lawyer, and returning them the
next morning.
“A survey of Sangamon County was ordered by the Government about this
time, and the surveyor offered to depute Mr. Lincoln to survey that
portion of the work lying in his part of the county. Nothing daunted,
he procured a treatise on surveying, and after reading it, purchased a
compass and chain, and _did the work_.
“In 1834 he was elected member of the Legislature of Illinois by a
large majority, and was re-elected in 1836, 1838, and 1840. In 1836 he
obtained a licence to practice law, and he removed to Springfield,
where he entered into partnership with a Mr. Stuart, and rose rapidly
in public favour, being very successful as an advocate in jury trials.
“In 1834 he was elected as one of the members of Congress for Illinois.
As soon as his Congressional term had expired, he returned to the
study of the law until 1856, when we find him nominated for the
Vice-Presidency by the Illinois delegates to the Republican States
Convention of that year, but this nomination was overruled.
“Two years afterwards and the Convention met at Springfield, and he
was unanimously elected as a candidate for the Senate in opposition
to Mr. Douglas. In 1860 the Convention met at Chicago to ballot for a
candidate for the Presidency, and after a severe and prolonged struggle
Abraham Lincoln was elected President of the United States of America.”
The fearful struggle which commenced upon his elevation to the high
office of President, is by far too recent to necessitate description.
Suffice it to say that from the commencement to the end, the great
trait in Lincoln’s character was ever active, viz., indomitable
perseverance. This valuable characteristic served him in lieu of more
brilliant qualities, and enabled him to outreach men of far larger
capacity and infinitely higher genius. He was brutally assassinated
in the presence of his wife and friends by John Wilkes Booth, while
witnessing a dramatic representation at Washington, on the 14th day of
April, 1865.