in the words of Lincoln himself, stress being laid on crucial incidents hitherto, in the main, indifferently considered. A unity, dramatic in its simplicity, appears in his recital, giving glimpses of a man who was guided by a supreme political philosophy in seeking to externalize his gospel of the brotherhood of man in statute and decision. Considerable attention is devoted to Lincoln in Indiana and at New Salem, showing the peculiarity of his power, his political popularity, and the rapid maturity of his convictions as to the wisest methods of attacking entrenched evil. An earnest, reverent and impartial study of his political career is an enriching education. There is no need of hiding its humble, rude phases. The more his life is lingered over, the greater the wonder grows at the emerging of Lincoln from the humility and the poverty of his environment with a "message of range and sweep," to the sons of men the world over.

CONTENTS

LINCOLN THE POLITICIAN

CHAPTER I

LINCOLN IN KENTUCKY

The forefathers of Abraham Lincoln, like thousands of Western pioneers, were of a sturdy English lineage. His immediate ancestry, however, was less distinguished than that of many whose names are forgotten and whose influence on American history is imperceptible. Every effort to explain his career through an illustrious parentage has proved altogether futile.

Lincoln's grandfather belonged to that band of fearless adventurers in Kentucky, whose ideal was a lonely house in the middle of a vast farm, even though maintained in the presence of skulking redskins.[1] It was in this land that earned the title of "the Dark and Bloody Ground," that a common frontier tragedy made the grandmother of Lincoln a widow. For one day while her husband was in the fields, a short distance from the house, with their youngest son Thomas, a sudden shot from an Indian ambush broke the stillness of the woods and the father fell dead. The oldest son Mordecai looking out of the loop hole in the loft of the house saw an Indian raising his little brother from the ground. Aiming at a silver ornament on the breast of the redman, he brought him down. The boy ran to the cabin