Alma record., 1914-02-12
LIFE HISTORY OF
GREAT PRESIDENT
lincoln's Career Can Not Be Too
AttentiveIy Studied by the
Youth of America.

MHM&I memory is reverenced by
all peoples, was born in
Hardin county, Kentucky, on Febru-
ary II, 1909. descendant Of Samuel
Lincoln of Norwich, England, and the
son Of Thomas Lincoln, an unedu.
Gated and thriftless carpenter, who
had married Nancy Hanks. Few books
came within his way in boyhood, but
he had access to the Bible, Shake.
speare, "Aesop's Fables" Robinson
Crusoe," Pilgrims Progress" and
history of the United States and
Weems' Washington, the reading and
re-reading OF which laid the founda-
tion of that mastery of idiomatic Eng.
lish which he was to show SO often In
later life.
At the age Of twenty-one he accom-.
panied his father to Illinois. and there
won reputation as a rail-splitter by
helping to clear and plant some Is
acres of land In 1881 he made ac.
quaintance with slavery in a trip to
New Orleans. renewing the expert.
ence ten years afterward.
After slight service as a volunteer.
Lincoln settled at New Salem, enter.
ed for a while into politics, tried his
fortunes in a dry goods and grocery
store, and finally settled down TO the
study OF law. In May. 1888, he was
appointed to postmastership OF New
Salem, and held the position for three
years.
Elected to the legislature as Whig
In VI IN 20
in 1916, from which date began his
public campaign against slavery and
his oratorical contest with his rival,
Stephen A Douglas. On July l, 1852,
he delivered his eulogy on Henry
Clay, and in October. 1854, spoke pow
erfully against the extension OF slav-
cry into the territories. Lincoln, aft
er being again returned to the leg
islature, was on June IT, 1856, named
for vice-president at the Republican
nominating convention in Philadel
phia. Then followed his challenge to
! the seven famous debates with Doug
las, and in May, 1860, his nomination
as candidate for president at the Re
| publican national convention in Chi.
cago.
The platform adopted, while de-
manding that slavery be forbidden
in the territories, denied the right of
congress to interfere with slavery in
the states. The south now prepared
for secession. Lincoln, elected to the
presidency, denied in his inaugural
the right Of any state or number Of
states to leave the Union. The re-
! ply Of the Confederate government
was General Beauregard's lombard
ment of Fort Sumter The president
at once called out $4,000 volunteers,
and the war for the Union was on.
The history of the conflict was thence
forward a part of Lincoln's own polit-
/ ical history until his death by the
hand of an assassin on April IA,
1865.
THE martyr president" says Ward
Lamon, in his life of Abraham Lin
coin, was six feet four inches high,
the length Of his legs being out Of
all proportion to that OF his body
When he sat on q chair he seemed to
taller than an average man, measur-
ing from the chair to the crown of
his head; but his knees rose high in
front He weighed about $50 pounds,
but was thin through the breast, mar
row across the shoulders, and had
the general appearance of a consump-
tive subject. Standing up, he stoop-
ed slightly forward; sitting down, he
usually crossed his long legs or threw
them over the arms Of the chair. His
head was long and tall from the base
Of the brain and the eyebrows; his
forehead high and narrow, inclining
backward as 1t rose.
His ears were large and stood out;
eyebrows were heavy, jutting forward
over small sunken blue eyes; nose
long, large and blunt; chin projecting
far and sharp, curved upward to meet
a thick lower lip, which hung down.
ward; cheeks flabby, the loose skin
falling in folds; a mole on one cheek
and an uncommonly prominent Ad-
ANS apple in his throat.
Every feature of the mantle hol-
low eyes, with the dark rings be-
meath; the long, sallow, cadaverous
face, intersected by those peculiar
deep lines; his whole air, his walk,
his long and silent reveries, broken
at intervals by sudden and startling
exclamations, as IL to confound an
observer who might suspect the ma
ture Of his thoughts-showed that he
was a man of sorrows not of today or
of yesterday but long treasured and
deep, bearing with him continual
sense of weariness and pain"