Delaware State journal and statesman. [volume] (Wilmington, Del.) 1855-1870, 1864-01-15
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.


Mrs Harriet Beecher Stowe is writing series
of articles for the Christian Wafchmaa and Re-
Hector on "Men of Our Times" In the issue oil
that paper of January 9TH, she writes as follows
of President Lincoln:
Abraham Lincoln is, in the strictest sense,
man of the working classes All his advantages
and abilities are those of man of the working
classes all his disadvantages and disabilities are
those OF man OF the working classes aud his
position, now ut the head of one of the most power
ful nations of the earth, is sign of all who live
by labor that their day is coming. Lincoln was
born to the Inheritance Of hard work, as truly
as the poorest laborer's son that digs in our
fields AT seven years Of age he was set to
work, axe in hand, to clear up a farm in Il
Western forrast. Until he was seventeen his
life was that of n simple farm abOrer, with only
such intervals Of schooling as farm laborers get
Probably the school instruction of his whole
life would not amount to more than on
year. AT nineteen he made trip to New Or
leans as hired man on flat boat, and on his
return be split the rails for q log cabin and built
ii, and inclosed ten acres Of land with rail
fence Of his own handiwork The next year he
hired himself for twelve dollars a month to build
a fiat boat aud to take her to New Orleans. and
any one who knows what the lite of a Mississippi
boatmnn was in those days must know that it
involved every kind of labor.
III loDA III the DlACk HAWK lOuiQu war; the
hardy boatman volunteered to fight for his coun.
Try, md was unanimously elected a captain, and
served with honor for a season in frontier mill
tary life. After this, while serving as post
master lie began his law studies, borrowing the
books he was too poor to buy, and studying by
the light Of his evening fire. He acquired n
. name in the country about as a man of resources
= and shrewdness he was one that people looked
to for counsel in exigencies, aud to whom they
/ were ready TO depute almost any enterprise
e which needed skill and energy The surveyor
+, Of Sangamon county, being driven with work
a came TO him to take the survey Of tract of hit
, hands. True, he had never studied surveying
o but what Of that? He accepted the ',job" pro
n cured chain and did The YORK. Do we not Sc,
0 in this parable of the wilder wilderness which
l. in later years be has undertaken to survey ant
fit for human habitation without chart or survey
e or's chain?
d Little did the convention that nominated Abra
8 ham Lincoln for President know what they wer
e doing Little did the honest fatherly, pa rioli
.. mon, who stood in his simplicity on the platforr
ri at Springfield, asking the prayers of his towns
E men and receiving their pledges to remembe
10 him, forsee how aWfully he was to need thos
Il prayers, the prayers Of all this nation and Ia
III prayers of oil the working, suffering commo
a. people throughout the world. Gods hand wa
,e upon him with visible protection, saving frs
IA from the danger of assassination at Baltimor
}. aud bringing him safely to our national capita
es Then the world have seen and wondered At th
re greatest sign and marvel of our day, to wit,
On plain working man of the people, with no NOR
ug sulture, instruction or education than any sue
working man may obtain for himself called o
ill ooi.iuct the passage of great people throug
of ~ osis'e involving the destinies Of the who
on Mo.lI. lie eyes of princes, mobiles, arstocrat
ito uukes' ears, scholars, statesmen, warriors
ut turned on the plain backwoodsmau, vita Ii
of simple sense, his imperturbable simplicity, b
u determined sei'reliance, his imprac.icabie at
per nones'y, as he sat amid the war
Sas ness striving to guide the national shin throu,
tn channel at whose PsrilF the worlds Olds