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 Glimpses of 
 
 Abraham Lincoln 
 
 By 
 ALONZO ABERNETHY 
 
 fktt 
 
 Delhered before the Mitchell County Farmers' Institute, 
 February 12, 1909. Reprint from the Osage News, February 
 18, 1909. 
 

 
GLIMPSES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 The American people have been 
 celebrating, for nearly a century, the 
 l»irthday of one distinguished citi- 
 zen, as the Father of His Country. 
 
 Today begins the centennial cele- 
 bration of another illustrious patriot, 
 as the Saviour of His Country. 
 
 When Abraham Lincoln was born 
 one hundred years ago today in a far 
 western wilderness, five hundred 
 miles east of where we now live, the 
 nation had a population of seven mil- 
 lion. Today it has more than eighty 
 million. 
 
 When Lincoln was born, the first 
 steamboat ever built, was not yet two 
 years old. When at the age of nine- 
 teen, he went down the Ohio and Mis- 
 sissippi rivers in a flat boat, built by 
 his own hands, there was not a rail- 
 road engine in the world. He had 
 lived nearly half his life, when on 
 the 24th of May, 184 4, Morse sent 
 his first thrilling telegraph message; 
 '•What hath God wrought?" from 
 Washington to Baltimore, and re- 
 turn. President Lincoln had been 
 in his grave many years before either 
 electric light, heat, or power, or a 
 telephone was invented. The last in- 
 vention of the century and most won- 
 derful of all was wireless telegraphy. 
 
 Iowa has already made this man's 
 birthday a legal and perpetual holi- 
 day. The smallest hermit nation, 
 fifty years ago, is now among the 
 greatest world powers. With such a 
 pace does the world move in one 
 century. 
 
 What little I can say in the few 
 minutes allotted me today, regard- 
 ing Mr. Lincoln, I prefer to state, so 
 far as I may, in his own words, let- 
 ting these depict his life and labors. 
 
 his character and purposes, his aspir- 
 ations and longings: the burdens, de- 
 feats, and triumphs he experienced: 
 and all the intense and sorrowful 
 life, of this earnest, honest, inspired 
 leader of a nation. 
 
 He lived and wrought during the 
 most turbulent and embittered 
 period in the nation's life, if not in 
 human history. But his life, and 
 work, and final assassination, was 
 crowned at last, under divine Provi- 
 dence, and under his guiding hand 
 and brain, with the greatest moral 
 and civil achievements of modern 
 times. 
 
 Great as was the work wrought by 
 Abraham Lincoln, the chief lesson of 
 his life, as I look at it, is the mar- 
 velous value, in human life, of hon- 
 esty, truthfulness, devotion to right, 
 and lofty patriotism. 
 
 Early Life, 
 
 His early life was the humblest 
 possible. His several early homes 
 were the rudest of log huts, built on 
 the extreme frontier of civilization in 
 the wilderness, in Hardin, now Larue 
 County, Kentucky, near the present 
 town of Hodgenville. Here he spent 
 the first seven years of his life. 
 
 His father Thomas Lincoln, grew 
 up, also on the frontier; was 
 without education, and could neither 
 read nor write. He attributed much 
 of his hard life to his lack of edu- 
 cation, but was an honest, good man. 
 and an affectionate father. History 
 records that, his mother was a 
 woman out of place among those 
 primitive surroundings. She was a 
 slender, pale sad and sensitive wo- 
 man, with much in her nature that 
 was truly heroic, and much that 
 
shrank from the rude life around 
 her. A great man never drew his in- 
 fant life from a purer or more wo- 
 manly bosom, and Mr. Lincoln al- 
 ways looked back to her with un- 
 speakable affection. Long after her 
 sensitive heart and weary hands had 
 crumbled to dust, he said to a friend 
 with tears in his eyes: "■■■ All that I 
 am or hope to be. I owe to my angel 
 mother, blessings on her memory." 
 Here was the home and here were 
 the occupants, all humble and poor, 
 yet it was a home of love and virtue. 
 Both father and mother were religi- 
 ous persons, and sought at the earli- 
 est moment, to impress the minds of 
 their children with religious truth. 
 
 For many years Abraham Lincoln 
 never saw a church, but up to his 
 seventh year when they removed to 
 Indiana he had occasionally heard 
 Parson Elkin, a Baptist minister, 
 preach. 
 
 Death of His Mother. 
 
 At the age of nine his mother died, 
 and was buried under the trees near 
 the home. Neither the husband nor 
 son could endure the thought of 
 l&tting the sorrowful event go by 
 without the loving tribute of a funer- 
 al, and wanted to send back to Ken-- 
 tucky a hundred miles, for good 
 Parson Elkin to perform this duty. 
 Apparently no one in the neighbor- 
 hood, but little Abraham, could write 
 a letter. He therefore, with his 
 father's help, framed the letter, beg- 
 ging the minister to come over for 
 this service. He accepted the duty, 
 came, and performed the loving tri- 
 l)ute in the presence of all the people 
 for many miles around. 
 
 What better heritage can any man 
 have, than a loving, honest. Christian 
 father and mother? 
 
 Books He Read. 
 
 The books which Lincoln had the 
 
 privilege of reading in boyhood, were 
 the Bible, much of which he could 
 repeat; AEsop's Fables, all of whic.i 
 he could repeat, Pilgrim's Progress, 
 Weem's Life of Washington, and a 
 life of Henry Clay. 
 
 The latter, undoubtedly, had a 
 marked effect upon his later life, and 
 he became a great partisan of the 
 " Sage of Ashland," and in 1844, 
 canvassed the state of Illinois for 
 him, for President. 
 
 Weem's Life of Washington was 
 one of the earliest books he read, 
 and yet when he visited Trenton, N. 
 J., many years afterwards, on his 
 way to Washington, alluding to- this 
 little book he said: "I remember all 
 tie fields and struggles for the lib- 
 erties of the country; and none fixed 
 themselves upon my imagination so 
 deeply as the struggle here at Tren- 
 ton. I recMIect thinking then, hoy 
 t^ven though I was, tliat there ninst 
 have been something more than com- 
 moin, that these men struggled for." 
 
 In 183 0, Lincoln's father moved to 
 Illinois, settling on the Sangamon 
 river, near Decatur. I remember 
 hearing, many years ago, one of his 
 stories connected with this river. He 
 was describing a man who did a 
 great deal of talking and very little 
 thinking. He said the man remind- 
 ed him of the first Sangamon river 
 steamboat he ever saw. It's boiler 
 was so little and its whistle so big 
 that whenever they blew the whistle, 
 the paddles had to stop, there not be- 
 ing enough steam to run the pad- 
 dles and the whistle at the same 
 time. 
 
 Mr. Lincoln split rails enough to 
 fence his father's first ten acre clear- 
 ing, and did other farm work; and 
 later became clerk in a store. It was 
 there that he was given the name of 
 "Honest Abe.'-' Every one trusted 
 
him and liked him. 
 
 In 183 2, he enlisted to fight Black 
 Hawk and his Indian allies along the 
 Rock River. He was elected captain 
 but did no fighting, and saw no In- 
 dians. 
 
 Later he was appointed post mas- 
 ter at New Saiem, which had few du- 
 ties, but enabled him to read all the 
 newspapers that came to the office. 
 
 He also learned surveying and by 
 this means supported himself while 
 studying law, having previously 
 bought, at auction, a copy of Black- 
 stone. 
 
 One man who knew him at that 
 time said; "Lincoln had nothing 
 only plenty of friends." 
 
 In 183 4, he was elected represen- 
 tative from Sangamon county, and 
 was re-elected in '36, '38 and '40, 
 serving eight years, going and re- 
 turning, the first two sessions on 
 foot, about a hundred miles. The 
 first session he said little but learned 
 much. In 183 4, he became acquaint- 
 ed with Stephen A. Douglas, and 
 later served with him in the legis- 
 lature and in congress. It was with 
 Douglas that he had nearly all his 
 great political battles, before his 
 election to the presidency. 
 The L;i\vy<'r. 
 
 Soon after entering the legisla- 
 ture he decided to study law and was 
 admitted to the bar in 1836. He was 
 a keen student and hard worker, and 
 studied every case that came to him 
 with great care, trying to get thoro- 
 ughly at the strong points of both 
 sides. If he made up his mind that 
 his client was wrong he would not 
 take the case. 
 
 On one occasion when it develop- 
 ed that his client had indulged in 
 fraudulent practices, he walked out 
 of the court-room, and refused to 
 continue the case. The judge sent a 
 
 messenger directing him to return. 
 He said: "Tell the judge that my 
 hands are dirty, and I've gone to 
 wash them." 
 
 During the years of Lincoln's law 
 practice he became one of the ablest 
 attorneys in Illinois. He had none 
 of the graces of an orator, nor was 
 he a specially profound lawyer; but 
 his mind was so vigorous, his con-' 
 ceptions so clear and e.xact, and his 
 probity of character known to all 
 men, that he soon rose to promi- 
 nence. He had an intuitive insight 
 into human nature, a wonderful 
 clearness of statement, and an amaz- 
 ing facility of illustration. His illus- 
 trations were always of t' - plain 
 homely kind, easily understood by 
 the common people. He always tried 
 a case fairly, honestly. 
 
 Stephen A. Douglas in one of his 
 political contests with Lincoln led off 
 with so captivating a speech, that 
 his admirers believed the battle was 
 already won. But Lincoln got up, as 
 soon as the cheers died away, and 
 taking off his long linen duster, he 
 dropped it on the arm of a young by- 
 stander, remarking in his far pervad- 
 ing voice, "Hold my coat while I 
 stone Stephen." This witticism turn- 
 ed the laugh on Douglas, and the 
 whole audience were soon eagerly 
 watching to see how he was going to 
 "stone Stephen." 
 
 I'ersoiial Truits. 
 
 Mr. Lincoln was considered in his 
 early life rather uncouth in ap- 
 pearance, and awkward In manner. 
 He was six feet four inches in height 
 with a powerful frame, but rather 
 slender, with a thin angular face. 
 
 He shunned society, but finally be- 
 came much interested in a young 
 lady of accomplished manners and 
 refined social tastes, named Mary 
 Todd, daughter of Hon. Robert S. 
 
Todd of Lexington, Kentucky. 
 
 One evening Lincoln approached 
 Miss Todd, and said, in liis peculiar 
 idiom: "Miss Todd, I should like to 
 dance with you the worst way." 
 
 The young lady accepted the in- 
 evitable, and hobbled about the room 
 with him. When she returned to 
 her seat, one of her companions ask- 
 ed, mischievously: 
 
 "Well, Mary, did he 'dance with 
 you the worst way?' " 
 
 "Yes," replied Miss Todd, "The 
 very worst!" 
 
 Lincoln's DueL 
 
 Lincoln, Douglas, and Shields 
 were rival candidates for the hand 
 of Miss Todd. After the campaign 
 had been carried on for several 
 months, it was announced that Abe 
 Lincoln was the accepted suitor. 
 But Shields, an Irishman, at that 
 time a school master in Springfield, 
 but later a United States Senator in 
 three different states, persisted in 
 paying attention to the young lady, 
 much to her annoyance, as well as to 
 Lincoln's. Finally an unsigned para- 
 graph appeared in the Springfield 
 Journal, written by Miss Todd, pur- 
 porting to be an old lady's advice 
 to a granddaughter, warning her, 
 among other things, against allowing 
 her hand to be held unduly long by 
 Irish school masters. The allusion 
 was instantly recognized in the little 
 community of 1,500, and Shields 
 threatened to chastise the editor un- 
 less he revealed the writer's name. 
 The editor said he would not divulge 
 it without the author's consent. "If 
 you will return in fifteen minutes, I 
 will give you an answer." Shields 
 departed, and the editor ran around 
 to Lincoln's office and stated what 
 had occurred, saying, 'Abe, what 
 shall I do?" "Tell Shields I wrote it," 
 Lincoln replied. Promptly came a 
 
 challenge which was promptly ac^' 
 cepted. Lincoln chose cavalry swords 
 for weapons and the Bloody Island 
 in the Mississippi was selected as the 
 scene of the duel. The day was clear 
 and cold, and while the seconds were 
 arranging the preliminaries, Lincoln 
 to warm himself, began mowing the 
 grass. When Shields saw the giant 
 figure swinging a long sword like a 
 scythe, he leaned against a huge elm, 
 and fainted from fright. And so end- 
 ed the bloodless duel. 
 
 Lincoln afterward married Miss 
 Todd. They had four boys, Robert, 
 Edward, William and Thomas. Ed- 
 ward died in infancy at Springfield, 
 and William at the White House. 
 
 The Calamity of Slavery. 
 
 It was generally supposed that 
 Lincoln's father left Kentucky be- 
 cause he was opposed to slavery. 
 Certainly the son, early in life, be- 
 came strongly opposed to this insti- 
 tution. 
 
 During his first session in the leg- 
 islature, at Vandalia in southern' Illi- 
 nois, surrounded by much pro-slave- 
 ry sentiment, he united with one 
 other member, in placing on the rec- 
 ords their protest against some reso- 
 lutions adopted of a pro-slavery na- 
 ture. 
 
 Henry Clay had early become Lin- 
 coln's political idol. He knew well 
 of Mr. Clay's personal dislike of 
 slavery. He knew how Clay had been 
 compelled to yield his own convic- 
 tions regarding this national wrong, 
 to the demands of southern senti- 
 ment, growing everywhere below Ma- 
 son and Dixon's line. 
 
 When he entered congress in 1847, 
 he at once took sides with the anti- 
 slavery section, but he remained in 
 congress a single term only, return- 
 ing to his Springfield practice. 
 
The Kaiisus*Nebraska Act. 
 
 He watched with alarm, the exten- 
 sion of slavery westward, beyond the 
 Mississippi, and northward, by means 
 of the Compromise of 1850, and later 
 complete abrogation of the Compro- 
 mise of 1820, which had shut out 
 slavery from all territory west and 
 north of Missouri, by Mr. Douglas' 
 popular Sovereignty Bill, in the Kan- 
 sas-Nebraska Act of 185 4. 
 
 Mr. Lincoln's first great political 
 speech was made at Peoria, Illinois, 
 October 16, 1854, replying to Judge 
 Douglas who had spoken for three 
 hours. The subject was this abro- 
 gation of the Missouri Compromise 
 of 1850, by the Kansas-Nebraska 
 Act. To indicate Mr. Lincoln's po- 
 sition let me quote two sentences: 
 
 "I wish to make and to keep the 
 distinction between the e.visting in- 
 stitution, and the extension of it, so 
 broad and so clear, that no honest 
 man can misunderstand me, and no 
 dishonest one successfully misrepre- 
 sent me." 
 
 "Mr. Jefferson — the author of the 
 Declaration of Independence, then a 
 delegate in Congress: afterwards, 
 twice president: a Virginian by birth 
 and residence, and withal a slave- 
 holder — conceived the idea of taking 
 that occasion to prevent slavery ever 
 going into the Northwestern Terri- 
 tory. He prevailed on the Virginia 
 Legislature to adopt his views, and 
 to cede the Territory, making the 
 prohibition of slavery therein a con- 
 dition of the deed. Congress accept- 
 ed the cession with the condition, 
 and in the first Ordinance for the 
 government of the Territory, provid- 
 ed that slavery should never be per- 
 mitted therein. This was the famed 
 Ordinance of 1787." 
 
 The Dred Scott Decision. 
 
 In March, 1857, four days after 
 
 Presideut Buchanan was inaugurat- 
 ed, came the famous Dred Scott De- 
 cision, read by Chief Justice Roger 
 B. Taney, of the Supreme Court of 
 the United States, declaring that 
 when the constitution was adopted, 
 "Negroes had no rights which the 
 white man was bound to respect," 
 that the slave holder had the right 
 to take his slaves — his property — in- 
 to any territory in the land. 
 
 On the following June, at Spring- 
 field. Mr. Lincoln made another 
 elaborate and powerful speech, the 
 closing sentence being as follows: 
 
 "The plainest print cannot be read 
 through a gold eagle, and it will 
 ever be hard to find many men, who 
 will send a slave to Liberia, and pay 
 his passage, while he can send him 
 to a new country — Kansas for in- 
 stance — and sell him for fifteen hun-- 
 dred dollars, and the rise." 
 
 Lincoln>Doug;las Debate.s. 
 
 In 185 8, the second term of Mr. 
 Douglas in the U. S. Senate, being 
 about to expire, the republicans of Ill- 
 inois, met in Springfield, June 16 
 and nominated Mr. Lincoln as their 
 candidate for the office. Here he 
 made his celebrated "House Divided 
 Against Itself" speech. Like nearly 
 all his speeches, a historical paper 
 with his usual logical conclusions, 
 and unanswerable. I quote one sen- 
 tence only: 
 
 "A house divided against itself 
 cannot stand." I believe this, Gov- 
 ernment cannot endure permanently 
 half slave and half free. I do not 
 expect the Union to be dissolved: 
 I do not expect the house to fall: but 
 I do expect it will cease to be divid- 
 ed. It will become all one thing or 
 all the other. Either the opponents 
 of slavery will arrest the further 
 spread of it, and place it where the 
 public mind shall rest in the belief 
 
that it is in tlie course of ultimate 
 extinction, or its advocates will push 
 it forward, until it shall become 
 alike, lawful in all the states, old as 
 well as new, North as well as South." 
 This speech made trouble in the 
 Democratic ranks in the state, and 
 something must be done. Three 
 weeks later, on the evening of July 
 9th , Mr. Douglas answered the 
 speech at great length, Mr Lincoln 
 being present. 
 
 Mr. Lincoln in turn, on the follow- 
 ing evening, made a reply to Douglas 
 of nearly equal length. I will quote 
 a sentence near the close. 
 
 '"So I say in relation to the prin- 
 ciple that all men are created equal, 
 let it be as nearly reached as we can. 
 If we cannot give freedom to every 
 creature. Let us do nothing that 
 will impose slavery upon any other 
 creature. Let us then turn this gov- 
 ernment back into the channels in 
 whicli the framers of the Constitu- 
 tion originally placed it." 
 
 At Springfield, July 17, afternoon, 
 Mr. Douglas spoke again devoting a 
 large part of his speech to attacking 
 lancoln's published speeches, quot- 
 ing freely from them. Mr. Lincoln, 
 though not present at Douglas' 
 speech, replied to it the same even- 
 ing. Two sentences will illustrate 
 one element of his popularity with 
 the common people. He said near the 
 beginning: 
 
 "Senator Douglas is of world wide 
 renown. All the anxious politicians 
 of his party, or who have been of his 
 party, for years past, have been look- 
 ing upon him as certainly, at no dist- 
 ant day, to be President of the Unit- 
 ed States. They have seen in his 
 round, jolly, fruitful face, post offic- 
 es, land offices, marshalships, and 
 cabinet appointments, chargeships 
 and foreign missions, sprouting and 
 
 bursting out in wonderful exhuber- 
 ance; ready to be laid hold of by 
 their greedy hands. On the contrary, 
 no body has ever expected me to be 
 president. In my poor lean, lank face, 
 nobody has ever seen that any cab- 
 bages were sprouting out." 
 
 Then follows the celebrated seven 
 joint debates between Douglas and 
 Lincoln, which were published and 
 republished, by the republicans as 
 republican campaign literature until 
 his election. 
 
 Heard Mr, Lincoln in 1858. 
 It was during these debates, that I 
 had the unspeakable privilege of see- 
 ing and hearing Mr. Lincoln. I was 
 attending school at the time In Bur- 
 lington. The republicans of that 
 city became greatly interested in the 
 debates; also in Mr. Lincoln's suc- 
 cess: and invited him to come over 
 to Burlington, and let his friends in 
 that section have a chance to see and 
 hear him. His fifth debate with 
 Douglas was at Galesburg, forty 
 miles east of Burlington, on October 
 7th. He sent word that he would 
 speak in Burlin^jton on the evening 
 of October 9th. 
 
 Grimes hall was packed with anx- 
 ious hearers, when Mr. Lincoln came 
 in. He was then as always, tall and 
 angular, and to me, he appeared, a 
 fine looking man, with intellectual 
 face and pleasant voice. I watched 
 his every move. He brought with 
 him a large bundle of papers, which 
 he unrolled and spread out on the 
 table, including many letters and 
 clippings. He arranged these, pick- 
 ing out here and there one, and lay- 
 ing it aside as if to use it; though as. 
 I remember, he consulted none of 
 them during the speech. This done, 
 he was introduced and began. I was 
 in plain sight and hearing, and I 
 think I heard every word he uttered; 
 
entirely captivated by the most mar- 
 velousiy interesting man, I had ever 
 seen or heard, or have ever seen or 
 heard since. I cannot recall any 
 part of his speech. Fifty-one years 
 is a long time. I do not think there 
 was any attempt at oratory, or any 
 part of the speech delivered with 
 special emphasis, but the whole of it 
 with earnestness and force. I know 
 that the speeca was intensely satis- 
 factory to me, and I had hurrahed 
 for Henry Clay for president In 1844, 
 fourteen years earlier, and had read 
 Greeley's New York Tribune almost 
 from boyhood. I remember also that 
 I said in my enthusiasm, as I left the 
 hall, and to fellow students next day, 
 that the speech was wholly unlike 
 anything I had ever heard, not polit- 
 ical, but a statesman's speech. 
 Lincoln in the Ease. . 
 
 Mr. Lincoln's life had been spent 
 almost wholly in the West. The East 
 knew little of him. In 1859, he 
 made two great speeches in O'nio, 
 one in Columbus, the other in Cin-- 
 cinati, which greatly stirred the 
 people of that section, but his great-- 
 est address was made February 27, 
 1860, at the Cooper Institute meet- 
 ing, New York City, which surprised 
 New York and New England and un- 
 doubtedly aided materially in his 
 nomination for the presidency the 
 following .Tune. 
 
 Saw Mv. Lincoln Nominated. 
 
 I was at school in Chicago, in 
 1860, when Mr. Lincoln was nomin- 
 ated, and attended all the sessions in 
 that great Wigwam, where 'the nom- 
 ini'ti^n was made, as an intensely in- 
 terested spectator. It was to me the 
 most thrilling scene of my life, in its 
 exhil)ition of intense human excite- 
 ment and passion, 
 
 Mr. Lincoln spent the first eight 
 months between the nomination and 
 
 his first inaugural, at his home in 
 Springfield, in deep study and in- 
 tense anxiety, as to what he could 
 possibly do to avert the long threat- 
 ened effort of the South to secede. 
 He chose his cabinet with his uner- 
 ring foresight, calling around him 
 seven of the ablest men in the na- 
 tion, led by Senator Seward, himself, 
 his chief rival for the nomination the 
 year before, and thereby again great- 
 ly strengthened his hold on the peo- 
 ple. 
 
 His First Inan^uraL 
 
 When his inaugural was read 
 seven states had already withdrawn 
 from the Union, and as many more 
 were preparing to do so. Neverthe- 
 less, the whole purport of his mes- 
 sage was a plea for the maintenance 
 of the Union. The last clause was as 
 follows: 
 
 "We are not enemies but friends. 
 We must not be enemies. Though 
 passion may have strained, it must 
 not break our bonds of affection. The 
 mystic cords of memory, stretching 
 from every l)attlefield and patriotic 
 grave to every living heart and 
 hearthstone all over this broad land, 
 will yet be the chorus of the Union, 
 when again touched, as surely they 
 will be, by the better angels of our 
 nature." 
 
 In spite of such pleadings, in spite 
 of everything, slavery's preparations 
 for war went relentlessly on, but 
 when Beauregard fired on Ft. Sump- 
 ter, Mr. Lincoln was prepared for 
 this crisis also, and instantly issued 
 his call for seventy-five thousand 
 volunteers, and in four days had reg- 
 iments marching to protect the Capi- 
 tal. 
 
 Douglas Won Ovor. 
 
 Then followed another one of his 
 singular personal triumphs. He and 
 Mr. Douglas had really led the rival 
 
parties in the West for twenty-years, 
 and finally throughout the North, 
 and they were the rival candidates 
 for president the year before. But 
 when Mr. Douglas saw that war was 
 inevitable, when he saw that this 
 first overt act of war had been com- 
 mitted he went at once with a friend 
 to the White House on Sunday even- 
 ing, the day following the fall of Ft. 
 Sumpter to assure Mr. Lincoln of his 
 own earnest support in the contest 
 which was now inevitable. The 
 President received him most cordial- 
 ly, and read him the call, which he 
 had prepared to issue the next morn- 
 ing. Mr. Douglas said at once to him: 
 "Mr. President, I cordially concur in 
 every word of that document, except 
 that instead of the call for seventy- 
 five thousand men, I would make it 
 two hundred thousand. You do not 
 know the dishonest purposes of 
 those men as well as I do." For once 
 the lifelong antagonists were united 
 in heart and purpose. The next morn- 
 ing Mr. Douglas prepared an earnest 
 appeal and sent it to the country, 
 along with the president's call. In 
 this act he proved himself a true 
 patriot, and a leader that helped to 
 unite the whole North in support of 
 the war. 
 
 The Emancipation Proclamation. 
 
 Mr. Lincoln, apparently from the 
 first, had a vision that slavery would, 
 at some time and in some way, come 
 to an end, but bided his time. When 
 the war had mowed its terrible swath 
 for one long and sorrowful year, his 
 great heart said that the time had 
 come. He would issue the proclama- 
 tion of emancipation, but was advis- 
 ed by his cabinet to defer action until 
 it could follow the announcement of 
 a victory for the Union arms. At 
 
 last came the victory of Antietam. 
 He hurridly called his cabinet, and 
 said to them: "I made a solemn 
 vow to my God, that if General Lee 
 should be driven back, from Pennsyl- 
 vania, I would crown the result by a 
 declaration of freedom of the slaves." 
 On the 22d of September, 1862, the 
 Emancipation Proclamation was is- 
 sued. Later he said: "As affairs 
 have turned out, it is the central act 
 of my administration, and the great 
 event of the nineteenth century." 
 
 Getteysburg Address and Last Inaug- 
 ural. 
 
 Let nie close these hastily prepar- 
 ed glimpses of America's matchless 
 Commoner with one sentence each, 
 from his Gettysburg speech, and his 
 last inaugural; two sentences whic"a 
 will enshrine his memory in the love 
 and veneration of his countrymen for 
 all time: 
 
 "It is rather for us to be here 
 dedicated to the great task remain- 
 ing before us— that from these hon- 
 ored dead we take increased devotion 
 to that cause for which they gave the 
 last full measure of devotion; that 
 this nation, under God, shall have 
 a new birth of freedom, and that gov- 
 ernment of the people, by the people, 
 and for the people, shall not perish 
 from the earth." 
 
 "With malice toward none, with 
 charity for all, with firmness in the 
 right, as God gives us to see the 
 right, let us strive on to finish the 
 work we are in; to bind up the na- 
 tion's wounds; to care for him who 
 shall have borne the battle and for 
 his widow and orphans — to do all 
 which may achieve and cherish a just 
 and a lasting peace among ourselves 
 and with all nations." 
 
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