The Life of Abraham Lincoln

Produced by Robert Nield, Tom Allen, Tiffany Vergon, Charles Aldarondo,
Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
I. The Wild West II. The Lincoln Family III. Early Years IV. In Indiana V. Second Journey to New Orleans VI. Desultory Employments VII. Entering Politics VIII. Entering the Law IX. On the Circuit X. Social Life and Marriage XI. The Encroachments of Slavery XII. The Awakening of the Lion XIII. Two Things that Lincoln Missed XIV. Birth of the Republican Party XV. The Battle of the Giants XVI. Growing Audacity of the Slave Power XVII. The Backwoodsman at the Center of Eastern Culture XVIII. The Nomination of 1860 XIX. The Election XX. Four Long Months XXI. Journey to Washington XXII. The Inauguration XXIII. Lincoln his Own President XXIV. Fort Sumter XXV. The Outburst of Patriotism XXVI. The War Here to Stay XXVII. The Darkest Hour of the War XXVIII. Lincoln and Fremont XXIX. Lincoln and McClellan XXX. Lincoln and Greeley XXXI. Emancipation XXXII. Discouragements XXXIII. New Hopes XXXIV. Lincoln and Grant XXXV. Literary Characteristics XXXVI. Second Election XXXVII. Close of the War XXXVIII. Assassination XXXIX. A Nation's Sorrow XL. The Measure of a Man XLI. Testimonies
The question will naturally be raised, Why should there be another Life of Lincoln? This may be met by a counter question, Will there ever be a time in the near future when there will not be another Life of Lincoln? There is always a new class of students and a new enrolment of citizens. Every year many thousands of young people pass from the Grammar to the High School grade of our public schools. Other thousands are growing up into manhood and womanhood. These are of a different constituency from their fathers and grandfathers who remember the civil war and were perhaps in it.
To the younger generation, writes Carl Schurz, Abraham Lincoln has already become a half mythical figure, which, in the haze of historic distance, grows to more and more heroic proportions, but also loses in distinctness of outline and figure. The last clause of this remark is painfully true. To the majority of people now living, his outline and figure are dim and vague. There are to-day professors and presidents of colleges, legislators of prominence, lawyers and judges, literary men, and successful business men, to whom Lincoln is a tradition. It cannot be expected that a person born after the year (say) 1855, could remember Lincoln more than as a name. Such an one's ideas are made up not from his remembrance and appreciation of events as they occurred, but from what he has read and heard about them in subsequent years.