LINCOLN, Abraham, sixteenth president of the United States, was born in Hardin county, Ky., Feb. 12, 1809. The earliest American ancestor of the family, was probably Samuel Lincoln, of Norwich, Eng., who settled in Hingham, Mass., about 1638. His son, Mordecai, first settled in Monmouth county, N. J., and afterward in Berks county, Pa., and died in 1735; his sons, Abraham, Mordecai, Josiah and Thomas, were citizens of Rockingham county, Va., and one of them at least, Abraham, migrated to Mercer county, Ky. (then a part of the original state

of Virginia), in 1782. Abraham, the grandfather of the president, entered a tract of 400 acres of land on the south side of Licking creek, under a government land-warrant, and built a log-cabin, near Fort Beargrass, on the site now occupied by the city of Louisville. In the second year of this settlement, Abraham Lincoln, while at work in his field, was slain by an Indian from an ambush. Thomas, the younger of the brothers, was seized by the savage, but was rescued by Mordecai, the elder brother, who shot and killed the Indian. Of Thomas the president subsequently said: "My father, at the time of the death of his father, was but six years old, and he grew up literally without education." Thomas Lincoln was a tall and stalwart pioneer, and an expert hunter. While a lad, he hired himself to his uncle, Isaac Lincoln, living on Watauga creek, a branch of the Holson river. He married Nancy Hanks, a native of Virginia, in 1806, and settled on Larue creek, in what is now Larue county, Ky. They had three children, Sarah, Abraham and Thomas. Sarah married Aaron Grigsby and died in middle life. Thomas, who was two years younger than Abraham, died in infancy. Abraham Lincoln's early education from books was fitful and scanty; schools were infrequent on the wild frontier. In 1816 the Lincoln family re

moved to Spencer county, Ind., where they built and lived in a log-cabin, where Mrs. Lincoln died Oct. 5, 1818, at the age of thirty-five. In the autumn of the following year Thomas Lincoln married for his second wife Mrs. Sally Johnston (née Bush). The stepmother of Abraham Lincoln was a woman of some mental ability and great kindness of heart; her influence over the boy was great and beneficent. Aided by her, the lad secured the reading of the few books to be found in the settlement, and became noted as a hungry reader. As he grew older he took to making impromptu speeches among the neighbors on any topic that chanced to be under discussion. His first glimpse of the world was afforded in the spring of 1828, when, in company with a son of one of the traders of Gentryville, Ind., he embarked on a flatboat loaded with produce and floated down the creeks and rivers to New Orleans, 1,800 miles distant, where the cargo and craft were disposed of, and the young voyagers made their way homeward. He was now come to the years of manhood, was six feet four inches tall, an athlete, tough and wiry of fibre, and eminent as a worker and woodsman. The family moved once more, in 1830, this time to Illinois, where they built another log-cabin, near Decatur, Macon Co. After assisting his father to build the cabin, split rails, and fence and plough fifteen acres of land, Abraham Lincoln struck out for himself, hiring himself to any who needed manual labor. His father finally settled in Goose-Nest Prairie, Coles Cc., Ill., where he died in 1851 at the age of seventy-three. His son cared for him tenderly up to his latest years. In the spring of 1831 Abraham Lincoln, accompanied by his cousin, John Hanks, took a flatboat, produce-laden, to New Orleans, for one Denton Offutt, a country trader, and on his return was engaged by Offutt to take charge of a small trading store in New Salem, Ill. At this post he continued until the following spring, when the business was discontinued. He took an active interest in politics, was noted as a graphic and humorous story-teller, and was regarded as one of the oracles of the neighborhood. His unflinching honesty gained him the title of "Honest

Abe Lincoln." Resolving to run for the legislature, he issued a circular dated March 9, 1832, appealing to his friends and neighbors to vote for him. Before the election came on, Indian disturbances broke out in the northern part of the state, and Black Hawk, the chief of the Sacs, headed a formidable war party. Lincoln joined a party of volunteers and marched to the scene of hostilities. The conflict was soon over, and Lincoln returned to New Salem, Sangamon Co., ten days before the election. He was defeated, but he received nearly every vote of his own town. He was a whig in politics, and was an ardent admirer of Henry Clay, then the great whig chief. Once more he made an essay in trading, and bought on credit, after the fashion of the time, a small country store and contents, associating with himself, at sundry times, partners in business. The venture was a losing one, and the principal occupation of Lincoln during this period was that of diligent study and the reading of everything on which he could lay hands, newspapers and old political pamphlets chiefly. He studied law and surveying, and in 1833 he began work as a land-surveyor, a vocation which in that

region then gave one frequent employment. In that year, too, he was appointed postmaster of New Salem, an unimportant office, which he valued only because it gave him an opportunity to read the newspapers of its patrons. He was again a candidate for the legislature in 1834, was elected at the head of the poll, there being three other candidates in the field. He was now twenty-five years of age, manly, independent, well-poised and thoroughly informed in all public matters. He had formed his manner of speech on the few books which he read-the Bible, Shakespeare, Burns's poems and Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress." In the legislature his commanding height attracted attention, but he took very small part in the active duties of legislation, contenting himself with observation and study of all that passed. Next year, when he was again returned to the legislature, he participated actively in the affairs of the house, and distinguished himself by an unavailing protest against the "Black Laws" of the state, which forbade the entrance of free persons of color into Illinois, and by his support of the bill to remove the seat of government from Vandalia to Springfield. In 1837 Lincoln removed to Spring field, the new capital of the state, and established himself very modestly in the business of a lawyer. In this practice he remained until his election to the presidency in 1860. His first partner in business was John T. Stuart, in 1837; this partnership was changed four years later, when he associated himself with Stephen T. Logan. In 1843 the law partnership of Abraham Lincoln and William H. Herndon was formed; this firm was not dissolved until the death of Lincoln in 1865. During the "Tippecanoe and Tyler too" campaign of 1840, when the country was deeply stirred by the presidential candidacy of Gen. William Henry Harrison, Lincoln threw himself into the canvass with great ardor, and was one of the electors on the whig ticket. He was highly elated by the triumph of Harrison and the whig party, and he distinguished himself by his fearless opposition to the party that had, up to that time, been dominant and proscriptive in the country. About this time he suffered a great disappointment in the death of a beautiful young lady, Ann Rutledge, to whom he was tenderly attached, and this grief made upon his temperament a lifelong impres

sion. In November, 1840, he was married to Mary Todd, daughter of Robert Todd, of Kentucky. Miss Todd was visiting relations in Springfield, when circumstances brought her into intimate friendly intercourse with Lincoln, which ripened into marriage. He was now gradually acquiring a profitable law practice, and the days of grinding poverty, long endured without complaint, were passing away. In 1846, after several disappointments, he was given the whig nomination to congress from the Sangamon district, and was elected over his democratic opponent, Peter Cartwright, by a majority of 1,611, polling an unexpectedly large vote. During the preceding winter Texas had been admitted to the Union, and the bitterness with which the whigs opposed this step, and the measures that grew out of it, was shared by Lincoln, who made good use of arguments against these matters on the canvass, and subsequently during his term in congress. Among the members of the house of representatives with Lincoln were John Quincy Adams, Robert C. Winthrop, Alexander H. Stephens, Robert Toombs and Andrew Johnson. In the senate were Daniel Webster, Lewis Cass, John C. Calhoun, Jefferson Davis and Stephen A. Douglas. Lincoln in congress opposed the war with Mexico, but voted consistently for rewards to the soldiers who fought in it. He served only one term in congress, and did not leave any marked impression in the annals of that body. He voted with the men who favored the formation of the new territories of California and New Mexico without slavery, and he introduced a bill to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, providing for the emancipation of slaves there by governmental purchase. He was not a candidate for re-election, and was succeeded by his intimate friend, Edward D. Baker. Gen. Zachary Taylor having been elected president of the United States, Lincoln applied for the office of commissioner of the general land office, but was offered, in lieu thereof, the governorship of the territory of Oregon. This he declined, and returned to his practice of law in Springfield. The eldest son of Abraham and Mary Lincoln, Robert Todd, was born Aug. 1, 1843; the second, Edward Baker, was born March 10, 1846, and died in infancy; the third, William Wallace, was born Dec. 21, 1850, and died during his father's first year in the presidential office; Thomas, the youngest son, was born Apr. 4, 1853, and survived his father, dying at the age of nineteen years. As a lawyer, Lincoln was now engaged in several celebrated cases. One of these was that of the negro girl, Nancy, in which the question of the legality of slavery in the Northwestern territory, of which Illinois formed a part, was involved. Another, in which the seizure of a free negro from Illinois by the authorities of New Orleans was opposed, was also undertaken and conducted by him. In both these causes Lincoln succeeded. In 1850 there were many premonitions of the coming of the storm which the long-continued agitation of the slavery question had induced. Lincoln was a close but generally silent observer of the signs of the times. In 1854 the virtual repeal of the Missouri Compromise measures, in which Stephen A. Douglas took a leading part, aroused the Northern and free states to excited debate. The passage of the Kansas-Nebraska bill, by which those two territories were organized, with the question of the legality of slavery left open to be set

tled by a popular vote, was the signal for a great outburst of feeling against the institution of slavery in the non-slaveholding states. In October of that year Lincoln and Douglas met in debate at the great annual State Fair held in Springfield, Ill., and Lincoln made his first famous speech on the question that thenceforward began to engross the minds of the people. Lincoln opposed the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, and Douglas defended it. A few days later the two men met again at Peoria, Ill., and the debate was renewed, amidst great popular excitement. On both occasions Lincoln's speeches evoked much enthusiasm by the closeness of their logic and their perspicacity. His public speeches from this time forth were regarded throughout the western states as the most remarkable of the time. In 1856 the first republican national convention was held in Philadelphia. John C. Frémont was nominated for president of the United States and William L. Dayton for vice-president. Abraham Lincoln received 110 votes for the second place on the ticket. James Buchanan and John C. Breckenridge were nominated by the democratic party. Lincoln was a candidate for presidential elector on the republican ticket of Illinois, and took an active part in the canvass, speaking from one end of the state to the other almost continually throughout the campaign. The democratic candidates were elected, Buchanan receiving 174 electoral votes against 114 cast for Frémont. Maryland cast her eight electoral votes for Fillmore and Donelson, the whig candidates. In 1848, Douglas's term in the senate drawing to a close, Lincoln was put forward as a competitor for the place. The two men accordingly agreed on a joint canvass of the state, the members of the Illinois legislature then to be elected being charged with the duty of choosing a senator. The contest between Lincoln and Douglas that year was memorable and significant. The debates attracted the attention of the entire country. In their course the slavery question in all its bearings, but more especially with reference to its introduction into territory hitherto regarded as free, was debated with great force and minuteness on both sides. The total vote of the state was in favor of Lincoln, but as some of the holding over members of the legislature were friendly to Douglas, and the districting of the state was also in his favor, he was chosen senator by a small majority. At the republican convention, held in Decatur, Ill., in May, 1859, Lincoln was declared to be the candidate of his state for the presidential nomination of 1860. This was the first public demonstration in his favor as a national candidate. At that convention several rails from the Lincoln farm in Macon county were exhibited as the handiwork of Abraham Lincoln, and the title of the rail-splitter" was given him. In the autumn of that year Lincoln made political speeches in Ohio and Kentucky, arousing great enthusiasm wherever he appeared. In February, 1860, he accepted an invitation to speak in New York, and, for the first time in his life, he visited the Atlantic states. He spoke in the Cooper Union hall, New York, and his oration, which was a discussion of the great question of the day, created a profound impression throughout the country. It gave him at once a national reputation as a political speaker. The democratic national convention assembled in Charleston, S. C., Apr. 23, 1860, to nominate candidates for president and vice-president. The slavery

issue divided the body, so that the pro-slavery delegates finally withdrew, and organized a separate convention in Richmond, Va., where John C. Breckinridge was nominated. The remaining delegates adjourned to Baltimore, where they nominated Stephen A. Douglas. Meanwhile the whigs and a few other conservatives met in Baltimore and nominated John Bell, of Tennessee. The republican national convention assembled in Chicago, Ill., June 17, 1860, and, amid unparalleled enthusiasm, nominated Abraham Lincoln for president. Hannibal Hamlin, of Maine, was nominated for vice-president. The electoral canvass that year was one of the most intense excitement. It was universally conceded that the question of the extension or the confinement of slavery to its present limits was to be determined by the result of this election. Douglas was the only one of the four presidential candidates who took the field to speak in his own behalf. Lincoln was elected, having received 180 electoral votes; Breckinridge had seventy-two votes; Douglas twelve, and Bell thirty-nine. The popular vote was distributed as follows: Lincoln, 1,866,452; Breckinridge, 847,953; Douglas, 1,375,157; Bell, 590,631. As soon as the result of the election was known, the members of President Buchanan's cabinet who were in favor of a secession of the slave states began to make preparations for that event. The army, which mustered only 16,000 men, was scattered through the southern states, and the small navy was dispersed far and wide. United States arms had been already ordered to points in the Southern states, and active steps had been taken by the more rebellious of those states toward a formal severance of the ties that bound them to the Union. Their attitude was one of armed expectancy. The cabinet of President Buchanan was torn by the conflicting views of its members, some of them being in favor of resolutely confronting the danger of secession, and others opposing any action whatever. The Federal forts in Charleston harbor, S. C., being threatened by the secessionists, Lewis Cass advised reinforcement; he resigned when his advice was disregarded at the instance of his associates. Jeremiah S. Black, attorney-general, gave an opinion that the states could not be coerced into remaining in the Union, and shortly a general disruption of the cabinet ensued. Southern senators and representatives now began to leave Washington for their homes, declaring that they could no longer remain in the councils of the nation. Formal ordinances of secession were passed by the states in rebellion. South Carolina adopted its ordinance of secession Nov. 16, 1860; Mississippi, Jan. 9, 1861; Florida, Jan. 10th; Alabama, Jan. 11th; Georgia, Jan. 19, 1861; Louisiana, Jan. 25th, and Texas Feb. 1st. Representatives of the seceding states met at Montgomery, Feb. 4, 1861, and organized a provisional government, generally resembling in form that of the United States; Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi, was chosen president, and Alexander H. Stephens, of Georgia, vice-president. Davis assumed an aggressive tone in his public speeches, and, while on his way to take the reins of government of the new Confederacy, he said: "We will carry the war where it is easy to advance, where food for the sword and the torch awaits our armies in the densely populated cities." Lincoln remained at his home in Springfield, Ill., making no speeches, and silent, so far as any public utterances were concerned. broke this silence for the first time when, on Feb. 11, 1861, he bade his friends and neighbors fare

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