American Leaders and Heroes Part 29

Having borrowed a copy of the "Life of Was.h.i.+ngton" on one occasion, he took it to bed with him in the loft and read until his candle gave out.

Then before going to sleep, he tucked the book into a crevice of the logs in order that he might have it at hand as soon as daylight would permit him to read the next morning. But during the night a storm came up, and the rain beat in upon the book, wetting it through and through.

With heavy heart Lincoln took it back to its owner, who told him that it should be his if he would work three days to pay for it. Eagerly agreeing to do this, the boy carried his new possession home in triumph.

This book had a marked influence over his future.

Until he was twenty his father hired him out to all sorts of work, at which he sometimes earned $6 a month and sometimes thirty-one cents a day. Just before he came of age his family, with all their possessions packed in a cart drawn by four oxen, moved again toward the West. For two weeks they travelled across the country into Illinois, and finally made a new home on the banks of the Sangamon River, a stream flowing into the Ohio. The tiresome journey was made in the month of March along muddy roads and over swollen streams, young Lincoln driving the oxen.

On reaching the end of the journey, Abraham helped his father to build a hut and to clear and fence ten acres of land for planting. Shortly after this work was done he bargained with a neighbor, Mrs. Nancy Miller, to split 400 rails for every yard of brown jeans needed to make him a pair of trousers. As Lincoln was tall, three and one-half yards were needed, and he had to split 1,400 fence rails--a large amount of work for a pair of trousers.

From time to time he had watched the boats carrying freight up and down the river, and had wondered where the vessels were going. Eager to know by experience the life of which he had dreamed, he determined to become a boatman. He was hungry for knowledge, and with the same earnestness and energy with which he had absorbed the great thoughts of his books, he now applied himself to learn the commerce of the river and the life along its banks. When an opportunity presented, he found employment on a flat boat that carried corn, hogs, hay, and other farm produce down to New Orleans. On one of his trips he chanced to attend a slave auction.

Looking on while one slave after another was knocked down to the highest bidder, his indignation grew until at length he cried out, "Boys, let's get away from this; if I ever get a chance to hit that thing" (meaning slavery), "I'll hit it hard." Little did he think then what a blow he would strike some thirty years later.

Tiring at length of his long journeys to New Orleans, he became clerk in a village store at New Salem. Many stories are told of Lincoln's honesty as displayed in his dealings with the people in this village store. It is said that on one occasion a woman in making change overpaid him the trifling sum of six cents. When Lincoln found out the mistake he walked three miles and back that night to give the woman her money.

He was now six feet four inches tall, a giant in strength, and a skilful wrestler. Much against his will--for he had no love of fighting--he became the hero of a wrestling match with a youth named Armstrong, who was the leader of the rough young fellows of the place. Lincoln defeated Armstrong, and by his manliness won the life-long friends.h.i.+p of his opponent.

At times throughout his life he was subject to deep depression, which made his face unspeakably sad. But as a rule he was cheerful and merry, and on account of his good stories was in great demand in social gatherings and at the cross-roads grocery stores. At such times, when the social gla.s.s pa.s.sed around, he always declined it, never indulging in strong liquor of any kind, nor in tobacco.

Lincoln was as kind as he was good-natured. His step-mother said of him: "I can say, what scarcely one mother in a thousand can say, he never gave me a cross word or look, and never refused in fact or appearance to do anything I asked him." He was tender-hearted too, as the following incident shows:

Riding along the road one day with a company of men, Lincoln was missed by his companions. One of them, going to look for him, found that Lincoln had stopped to replace two young birds that had been blown out of their nest. He could not ride on in any peace of mind until he had restored these little ones to their home in the tree-branches.

In less than a year the closing of the village store in which Lincoln was clerk left him without employment. He therefore enlisted as a volunteer for the Black Hawk War, which had broken out about this time, and went as captain of his company. On returning from this expedition, he opened a grocery store as part owner, but in this undertaking he soon failed. Perhaps the reason for his failure was that his interest was centred in other things, for about this time he began to study law.

For a while after closing his store he served the Government as postmaster in New Salem, where the mail was so scanty that he could carry it in his hat and distribute it to the owners as he happened to meet them.

He next tried surveying, his surveyor's chain, according to report, being a trailing grapevine. Throughout all these years Lincoln was apparently drifting almost aimlessly from one occupation to another. But whatever he was doing his interest in public affairs and his popularity were steadily increasing. In 1834 he sought and secured an election to the State Legislature. It is said that he tramped a distance of a hundred miles with a pack on his back when he went to the State Capitol to enter upon his duties as law-maker.

About four years after beginning to study law, he was admitted to the bar and established himself at Springfield, Ill. From an early age he had been fond of making stump speeches, and now he turned what had been a pleasant diversion to practical advantage in the progress of his political life. In due time he was elected to Congress, where his interest in various public questions, especially that of slavery, became much quickened.

On this question his clear head and warm heart united in forming strong convictions that had great weight with the people. He continued to grow in political favor, and in 1858 received the nomination of the Republican party for the United States Senate. Stephen A. Douglas was the Democratic nominee. Douglas was known as the "Little Giant," on account of his short stature and great power as an orator.

The debates between the political rivals challenged the admiration of the whole country. Lincoln argued with great power against the spread of slavery into the new States. Although unsuccessful in securing a seat in the Senate, he won a recognition from his countrymen that led to his election as President two years later. In 1860 the Republican National Convention, which met at Chicago, nominated "Honest Old Abe, the Railsplitter," as its candidate for President, and elected him in the same autumn.

The burning political question before the people at this time, as for many years before, related to the extension of slavery into the Territories. The South was eager to have more States come into the Union as slave States, while the North wished that slavery should be confined to the States where it already existed.

Before the purchase of the Louisiana Territory in 1803, Mason and Dixon Line and the Ohio River formed the dividing line between the free States on the north and the slave States on the south. But after that purchase there was a prolonged struggle to determine whether the new territory should be slave or free.

It was thought that the Missouri Compromise of 1820 would forever settle the trouble, but such was not the case. It broke out again, as bitter as ever, about the Mexican Cession, which became ours as a result of the Mexican War. Again it was hoped that the Compromise of 1850 would bring an end to the struggle. But even after this second compromise, the agitation over slavery continued to become more and more bitter until Mr. Lincoln's election, when some of the Southern States threatened to secede, that is, withdraw from the Union. These States claimed the right to decide for themselves whether or not they should remain in the Union.

On the other hand, the North declared that no State could secede from the Union without the consent of the other States.

Before Lincoln was inaugurated, seven of the Southern States had seceded. The excitement was everywhere intense. Many people felt that a man of larger experience than Lincoln should now be at the head of the Government. They doubted the ability of this plain man of the people, this awkward backwoodsman, to lead the destinies of the nation in these hours when delicate and intricate diplomacy was needed. But, little as they knew it, he was well fitted for the work that lay before him.

While on his way to Was.h.i.+ngton for inauguration, his friends learned of a plot to a.s.sa.s.sinate him when he should pa.s.s through Baltimore. To save him from violence, therefore, they prevailed upon him to change his route and make the last part of his journey in secret.

In a few weeks the Civil War had begun. We cannot here pause for full accounts of all Lincoln's trials and difficulties during this fearful struggle that began in 1861 and ended in 1865. His burdens were almost overwhelming, but, like Was.h.i.+ngton, he believed that "right makes might"

and must prevail.

When he became President he declared that the Const.i.tution gave him no power to interfere with slavery in the States where it existed. But as the war continued, he became certain that the slaves, by remaining on the plantations and producing food for the Southern soldiers, were a great aid to the Southern cause, and thus threatened the Union. He therefore determined, as commander-in-chief of the Union armies, to set the slaves free in all territory whose people were fighting against the Union. He took this step as a military necessity.

The famous state paper, in which Lincoln declared that the slaves were free in all the territory of the seceded States whose people were waging war against the Union, was called the Emanc.i.p.ation Proclamation. This he issued on January 1, 1863, and thus made good his word, "If ever I get a chance to strike that thing" (meaning slavery), "I'll strike it hard."

[Ill.u.s.tration: SLAVES ON A COTTON PLANTATION.]

On April 9, 1865, General Lee surrendered his army to General Grant at Appomattox Court House. By this act the war came to a close. Great was the rejoicing everywhere. But suddenly the universal joy was changed into universal sorrow. Five days after Lee's surrender Lincoln went with his wife and some friends to see a play at Ford's Theatre in Was.h.i.+ngton.

In the midst of the play, a half-crazed actor, who was familiar with the theatre, entered the President's box, shot him in the back of the head, jumped to the stage, and, shouting "Sic semper tyrannis!" (So be it always to tyrants), rushed through the wing to the street. There he mounted a horse in waiting for him, and escaped, but was promptly hunted down and killed in a barn where he lay in hiding. The martyr-President lingered some hours, tenderly watched by his family and a few friends.

When on the following morning he breathed his last, Secretary Stanton said with truth, "Now he belongs to the ages." A n.o.ble life had pa.s.sed from the field of action; and the people deeply mourned the loss of him who had wisely and bravely led them through four years of heavy trial and anxiety.

Wise and brave as the leaders.h.i.+p of Abraham Lincoln was, however, the drain of the Civil War upon the nation's strength was well-nigh overwhelming. Nearly 600,000 men lost their lives in this murderous struggle, and the loss in wealth was not far short of $8,000,000,000.

But the war was not without its good results also. One of these, embodied later in the Thirteenth Amendment to the Const.i.tution, set free forever all the slaves in the Union; and another swept away for all time the evils of State rights, nullification, and secession. Webster's idea that the Union was supreme over the States had now become a fact which could never again be a subject of dispute. The Union was "one and _inseparable_."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Map of the United States showing the Southern Confederacy, the Slave States that did not Secede, and the Territories.]

The immortal words that Lincoln uttered as part of his Second Inaugural are worthy of notice, for in their sympathy, tenderness, and beautiful simplicity they reveal the heart of him who spoke them. This inaugural address was delivered in Was.h.i.+ngton on March 4, 1865, only about six weeks before Lincoln's a.s.sa.s.sination. It closed with these words:

"With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as G.o.d gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."

REVIEW OUTLINE

THE MEXICAN WAR.

CONFLICT OVER THE EXTENSION OF SLAVERY.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN IN HIS KENTUCKY HOME.

THE LINCOLN FAMILY MOVES TO INDIANA.

THE FURNITURE AND THE FOOD OF THE BACKWOODS PEOPLE.

LITTLE ABE'S BUSY LIFE.

HIS PERSONAL APPEARANCE.

BACKWOODS MAKEs.h.i.+FTS.

HIS SCHOOL LIFE; HIS READING HABITS.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN AS A BOATMAN.

"HONEST ABE."

HIS PHYSICAL STRENGTH.

HIS KINDNESS AND SYMPATHY.

HE IS ELECTED TO THE STATE LEGISLATURE.

THE GREAT DEBATE WITH STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN AS PRESIDENT.

HE ISSUES THE EMANc.i.p.aTION PROCLAMATION.

HIS a.s.sa.s.sINATION.

TO THE PUPIL

1. Explain the conflict between the North and the South over the extension of slavery.

2. Form mental pictures of the following: the "camp"; the furniture and the food of the backwoods people; and Abraham Lincoln's personal appearance.

3. What were his reading habits?