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UNIVERSITY

OF CALIFORNIA

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Portrait of Lincoln from a photograph taken by Hesler in
June, 1860

Frontispiec

Portrait of Lincoln from a photograph taken by Hesler at

PAGE

Chicago in 1857

facing 80

A newspaper cut of Lincoln made in 1860 from an earlier portrait by the same artist, the late Thomas Hicks, N.A.

facing 166

Facsimile of the autobiography sent by Lincoln to the late Mr. Jesse W. Fell and used in the political campaign of 1860

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facing 170

Facsimile of the letter dated May 21, 1861, from Secretary Seward to Charles Francis Adams, United States Minister to England: corrected by Lincoln

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217-231

Portrait of Lincoln taken in 1860 by Brady in New York, at

the time of the speech at the Cooper Institute

Facsimile of the Gettysburg Address

facing 260

336-337

Portrait of Lincoln from a photograph taken in 1864 and

presented by him to Hannibal Hamlin

facing 360

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

CHAPTER I

ORIGIN AND CHILDHOOD

WHEN Lowell calls Lincoln the first American, and when Emerson rejoices that a middle-class nation was wise enough to select a middle-class president, the importance of that ruler's social origin is suggested. He sprang from the great base of the national life, with few traditions, no knowledge of other lands and times, confronting a wilderness and its pioneers, longing for light, but having to work for every ray. Thrown intellectually naked into the world, his education had to be directly from the nature of the men and women who passed before him, so that when he came to his great trial, he had to pilot a people whose peculiarities he intimately knew. The fathers of the Revolution were cultivated Englishmen confronting Englishmen. Lincoln's whole nature grew in our soil, and when he was asked to rule a distracted country, native strength, honesty, and shrewdness had as their foundation an inti

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macy with the kinds of human nature which formed the conflicting masses.

His family emigrated from Norfolk, England, in 1637 His grandfather, Abraham, left Virginia, where he was a fairly prosperous farmer, to follow in the wake of the aspiring pioneer, Daniel Boone. In 1780, he sold 240 acres of land for "five thousand pounds current money of Virginia," and moved to Kentucky, where, in the custom of the time, he "entered" a large amount of land, settling near one tract on Long Run, in Jefferson County, to clear a farm. As the Indians were dangerous, there were but eighteen houses in the territory, practically all of the population, which in 1784 was thirty thousand, living, the Linkhorns among them, in the fiftytwo stockades. In 1788, while he and his three sons were at work in the clearing, a stray shot from an Indian killed him. An inventory of his personal estate was made, according to Miss Tarbell, as follows:

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"At a meeting of the Nelson County Court, October 10, 1788, present Benjamin Pope, James Rogers, Gabriel Cox, and James Baird, on the motion of John Coldwell, he was appointed administrator of the goods and chattels of Abraham Lincoln, and gave bond in one thousand pounds, with Richard Parker security.

"At the same time John Alvary, Peter Syburt, Christopher Boston, and William (John (?)) Stuck, or any three of them, were appointed appraisers.

"March 10, 1789, the appraisers made the following

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Dutch oven and cule, weighing 15 pounds
Small iron kettle and cule, weighing 12

pounds .

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