is called a king, or some other name which means
the same thing. And when a king dies his son takes his place as king.
The king may be noble and wise, or he may be base and foolish; he may be
a genius, or he may be an idiot, without any sense at all; he may be
kind and just, or he may be cruel and unjust; but for all that he is
king. There may be some good points in letting a man be born king, but
you can see that there are many bad ones. The history of the nations
has often shown this, as you may have seen in what we have said of some
of the English kings who had to do with America.

In a republic the ruler--who is called president instead of king--is not
born to his office, but is chosen by the people; and he cannot rule the
nation all his life, but only for a few years. In that way the best and
wisest man in the nation may be chosen as its ruler. We do not always
get the best man in the United States; but that is the fault of the
people, it is not the fault of the plan. There is one thing sure, we
never get a fool or an idiot, as kingdoms sometimes do.

There are times when we do choose our best and wisest man, and everybody
thinks we did so when we made Abraham Lincoln President. As I have told
you, as soon as he was made President a great war began between the two
halves of our people. It is not so easy to rule in war as in peace, and
I must say that poor Lincoln had a very hard time of it. But he did the
best he could, and people say now that no man in our nation could have
done better. Abraham Lincoln stands next to George Washington among the
great and noble men of America.

There is one more thing it is well to know. It is not only the rich and
proud that we choose to be our Presidents. Many of them have begun life
as poor boys, and none of them began poorer than "honest Abe Lincoln,"
as the people he lived among called him. He well deserved this name, for
he was always good and honest.

No doubt there are many poor boys among my readers, but I do not believe
that any of you are as poor as was little Abe Lincoln, or have had as
hard a life. So you see that while a king must have a king or great
noble for father, a President may be the son of the poorest laborer. Any
one of my young readers, if he can bring himself strongly to the notice
of the people, may become President, and I should not wonder at all if
some one among you should do so in future times.

I told you that I would not speak about Abraham Linc