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CHAPTER I.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

The Men of our Time-Lincoln Foremost-The War was the Working-Man's Revolution-Abraham Lincoln's Birth and Youth-The Books he readThe Thirty Thousand Dollars for Tender-The Old Stocking of Government Money-A Just Lawyer; Anecdotes-His First Candidacy and SpeechGoes to Legislature and Congress-The Seven Debates and Campaign against Douglas in 1858—Webster's and Lincoln's Language Compared-The Cooper Institute Speech-The Nomination at Chicago-Moral and Physical Courage -The Backwoodsman President and the Diplomatists-Significance of his Presidential Career-Religious Feelings-His Kindness-"The Baby Did It”—The First Inaugural-The Second Inaugural, and other State PapersThe Conspiracy and Assassination-The Opinions of Foreign Nations on Mr. Lincoln.

OUR TIMES have been marked from all other times as the scene of an immense conflict which has not only shaken to its foundation our own country, but has been felt like the throes of an earthquake through all the nations of the earth.

Our own days have witnessed the closing of the great battle, but the preparations for that battle have been the slow work of years.

The "Men of Our Times," are the men who indirectly by their moral influence helped to bring on this great final crisis, and also those who, when it was brought on, and the battle was set in array, guided it wisely, and helped to bring it to its triumphant close.

In making our selection we find men of widely dif ferent spheres and characters. Pure philanthropists, who, ignoring all selfish and worldly politics, have

labored against oppression and wrong; far-seeing statesmen, who could foresee the working of political causes from distant years; brave naval and military men, educated in the schools of our country; scientific men, who helped to perfect the material forces of war by their discoveries and ingenuity-all are united in one great crisis, and have had their share in one wonderful passage of the world's history.

Foremost on the roll of "men of our time," it is but right and fitting that we place the honored and venerated name of the man who was called by God's providence to be the leader of the nation in our late great struggle, and to seal with his blood the proclamation of universal liberty in this country-the name of

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

It

The revolution through which the American nation has been passing was not a mere local convulsion. was a war for a principle which concerns all mankind. It was the war for the rights of the working class of society as against the usurpation of privileged aristocracies. You can make nothing else of it. That is the reason why, like a shaft of light in the judgment day, it has gone through all nations, dividing the mul titudes to the right and the left. For us and our cause, all the common working classes of Europe-all that toil and sweat, and are oppressed. Against us, all privileged classes, nobles, princes, bankers and great manufacturers, all who live at ease. A silent instinct, piercing to the dividing of soul and spirit, joints and marrow, has gone through the earth, and sent every soul with instinctive certainty where it be

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