hole land rocked with excitement. Liberty and Slavery, like two giants,
grappled for the death struggle. In such an era God raised up Abraham
Lincoln, to lead the people out of the wilderness, and into the Promised
Land of Union, of Liberty, and of Peace.

Never was a candidate for universal fame born under so unfriendly a sky.
His annals are "the short and simple annals of the poor." His home was a
log cabin that had but three sides, the fourth one being a buffalo robe,
swaying to and fro in the wind. When the biting wind of poverty became
unbearable in Kentucky, the scant possessions were loaded upon a horse,
carried across the Ohio, and the child walked barefooted through the
forests of Indiana, where a new shack was built in the wilderness. There
Lincoln's "angel mother" sickened and died--that mother to whom Lincoln
said he owed all that he was or hoped to be. Then when the winter of
poverty and discontent settled down blacker than ever, the father
removed to another State, where the mud was deeper, and the winters
colder, where nature was less propitious. Lying on his face, before
blazing logs, the boy committed to memory the four Gospels, "AEsop's
Fables," and Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress." At nineteen he went to New
Orleans, and standing in the slave market saw a young girl sold at
public auction, and told his brother, Dennis Hanks, that if he ever had
a chance he would hit slavery the hardest blow he could. At twenty he
split 1,200 rails for a farmer, whose wife wove for him three yards of
cloth, dyed in walnut juice, with which he had a new suit of clothes. He
started a little store, failed in business, became a surveyor, bought a
copy of the Constitution of the United States and the Declaration of
Independence; was made postmaster; several years later returned to the
government agent the exact silver quarters and copper cents that he had
kept tied up in a bag, because honesty meant that the identical coins
must be returned to the government; entered upon the study and the
practice of the law; was elected to the legislature, and reflected; was
sent to Congress, and on a second campaign for the United States
senatorship from Illinois met his competitor, Stephen A. Douglas, in the
great debate. Beginning this contest, he delivered the "house divided
against itself cannot stand" speech; and in the course of his marvellous
debate made the issue between liberty and slavery so clear that a
wayfaring man, though a foo