Brief biographies from American history, for the fifth and sixth grades

by Edna Henry Lee Turpin

Some American Improvements and Inventions

Franklin, the first great typical American, was interested in science,—not so much the abstract principles as the practical application of those principles so as to increase the comfort and well-being of people. This was true, also, of Jefferson, another great typical American. From those days to the present time, this practical turn has been characteristic of American talent. Sometimes it has been said in reproach that America stands for progress in material ways, that her men of science care, not for abstract truth, but for its market value.

Let us remember, however, that whenever a great cause or principle has needed support, Americans have always risen to the occasion. Material progress and business ability are good things, if only we do not overestimate their value in comparison with others.

In so large a country as America, the question of methods of travel and means of transportation was of course important from the first. Water-ways were the natural and most convenient mode of communication. If you will look on a map of the colonies, you will see how the settlements clung to water-lines—ocean, lake, and river.

Before the Revolution, men went to and fro as they had done for hundreds even thousands of years. On the water they traveled by slow boats, propelled by oars or sails. On the land they journeyed on foot, or horseback, or in rude vehicles, over roads which were generally rough and bad and often dangerous.

It was so expensive to carry goods to and fro that their carriage within the limits of a state might cost more than the value of the goods. It cost, for instance, two dollars and a half a bushel to carry salt three hundred miles in the state of New York. People who moved from the eastern to the western part of the state could not afford to carry their household goods. They had to be carried by boat from New York to Albany, hauled to Schenectady, carried in boats up the Mohawk River and on a small canal to Utica, then hauled overland to Rome, and carried again in boats down a small canal and creek to Oneida Lake, thence by water to Lake Ontario.

During the early part of the nineteenth century, in three ways travel and hauling were made easier and cheaper. The simplest of these was by the extensive use of canals. A canal is a trench filled with water deep enough to carry well-laden boats. The boats are drawn by horses which travel along a path called a “tow path.” In most cases the boats are moved up and down inclines by means of what are called “locks” on the canal. It is usually cheaper to haul goods by canals than by natural streams as the locks make the water lift or lower loads on inclines.

The people of New York state became convinced that canals along and connecting their water-ways would be a good and cheap way to carry manufactured articles from New York city to the western settlements, and to convey wheat, corn, and other produce to the eastern markets. A canal was planned between Albany and Buffalo, to connect the Great Lakes with the Atlantic. But the expense of this canal would be great and many people did not believe that the traffic would repay it. The matter was made a political issue and on it DeWitt Clinton was elected governor.

It was largely through his zeal and energy that the project was carried to a successful issue, and a canal forty feet wide and three hundred and sixty-three miles long was dug. While the canal was being constructed people called it “Clinton’s Folly,” and when it was finished and successful they called it “Clinton’s Big Ditch.”

An effort was made to get the general government to help construct this canal, but the bill was vetoed. Governor Clinton secured the help of the business men of New York, and four months after the aid bill was vetoed, the canal was begun, Clinton himself throwing the first shovelful of dirt. In fact, there was dug not one canal, but two canals,—one between Lake Erie and the Hudson, and the other between the Hudson and Lake Champlain.

DE WITT CLINTON

In the summer of 1825 the western part was opened and boats went from Buffalo to New York City. As there was no telegraph to announce the news of the starting of the first canal-boat, it was carried by cannon, placed at intervals along the route. When the boat left Buffalo, the first cannon was fired; the man at the second heard the report and fired his piece; and so from one to another the news was borne to New York in two hours. Governor Clinton was on the boat which made this first trip; he carried a keg of water dipped from Lake Erie which he poured into New York Bay, as a sign that the two were united. From the first the canal was a paying investment as well as a great convenience to the people. Freight rates decreased at once to much less than their former rates. Instead of its costing the farmer of western New York $1.10 to send a bushel of his wheat to the eastern market, it cost only forty cents.

There was another important result. So much freight was carried down the canal that vessels began to come to New York City in preference to Philadelphia and other ports, as they were sure of cargoes of grain, lumber, etc. This had much to do with the growth of New York City and the prosperity of the state. This canal is still used. Every year there travel down it great fleets of grain barges drawn by steam tugs. People overlook other things in Clinton’s political record, and, on account of this canal, remember him as the benefactor of his state.

About the time that the Erie Canal was completed, the first steam railway was built in England. Its inventor was an Englishman who was born while the American colonies were fighting for independence. George Stephenson was the son of a poor workman, and as a boy he toiled in the coal-mine where his father was employed. He made up his mind, however, to get an education. When he was eighteen, he attended a night school and learned to read and write. About this time his father’s health failed and George had to support the family. Often he had to labor by night as well as by day, but he managed to keep on with his studies.

Uncovered lights were then used by miners; carried into mines where there was gas, these often occasioned explosions in which many miners were wounded and killed. Stephenson set to work to invent a safety-lamp. Meanwhile, Sir Humphrey Davy was working on a similar invention. The two English scientists, independently of each other, arrived at success about the same time.

Stephenson now turned his attention to the subject of steam locomotion. He made a locomotive, a “traveling engine” as he called it, which in 1814 was successfully used in hauling coal-cars at a speed of four miles an hour. Stephenson saw that this locomotive had many defects, and he set to work to obtain better results. He succeeded the next year in building an engine which had “few parts and simplicity of action.”

After many years of discussion, a plan for a railroad was approved by parliament and a line was opened in 1825. People marveled at seeing Stephenson’s engine travel at a speed of fifteen miles an hour; they doubted whether the railway would ever become a practicable mode of travel. Stephenson said, “I venture to tell you that I think you will live to see the day when railways will supersede almost all other methods of conveyance in this country—when mail coaches will go by railway, and railroads will become the great highways for the king and all his subjects. The time is coming when it will be cheaper for a working man to travel on a railway than to walk on foot.”

After the success of the first railway, it was decided to build a line to connect Liverpool and Manchester, as the canal between these two cities was inadequate for the handling of their passengers and freight. There was held a contest between different steam engines in which Stephenson’s Rocket came out victor. A paper commenting on the success of the Rocket, said: “The experiments at Liverpool have established principles which will give a greater impulse to civilization than it has ever received from any single cause since the press first opened the gates of knowledge to the human species at large.” This proved true. The problem of cheap and speedy land-travel was now solved. During the years which followed England was covered with a network of railroads.

America with its great distances to traverse, was not slow to adopt the railroad. Only three years after Stephenson’s passenger railway was opened, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad was begun. The first cars were only stage-coaches made to run on rails and the locomotive was a crude affair,—but it was a vast improvement on former methods of travel. Hundreds and thousands of miles of railroads were built in different parts of the country. Now, great lines connect the north and south, the east and west. Huge engines, very unlike Stephenson’s little Rocket, travel a mile a minute: instead of taking weeks to go from the Atlantic to the Pacific coast, people can make the journey in five days.

Before the steam railway was invented by an Englishman, an American inventor had applied the use of steam to water-travel and had invented a steamboat. James Watt, a Scotch inventor, had prepared the way by his invention of the steam engine. After this was devised, many people thought that it would be possible and useful to make it furnish motive power for water-travel. Several American inventors attempted to make boats moved by steam power and had more or less success; but they lacked either money to carry out their plans or perseverance to bring them to public notice.

While Watts was working on the steam engine, there was born in America a boy who was to apply it successfully to water-travel. This was Robert Fulton, who was born in Pennsylvania, in 1765. He was only a schoolboy during the stirring days of the American Revolution. He was a bright boy and early showed inventive talent. One holiday he went fishing with some schoolmates, in a boat propelled by means of poles. To avoid the labor of using these poles, Robert made some paddle-wheels which he attached to the boat; he also fixed on the stern a paddle by means of which the boat could be guided.

ROBERT FULTON

But this was mere schoolboy sport. It did not occur to Fulton till many years later to make boat-building his profession. Even as a boy he determined that he would be an artist. He spent four years in Philadelphia working and studying; there he succeeded so well that he went abroad. In England he was welcomed by Benjamin West, a popular American painter. Through his courtesy and kindness, his young countryman met many interesting English people, men of affairs and scientists as well as artists. In England Fulton became interested in canals, which he thought would be useful to convey merchandise along the water-ways of New York, as you know was done later. In fact, he became so much interested in this subject that he gave more time to it than to painting and he invented several improvements in canals and canal-boats.

In 1797 Fulton went to France where he continued his art studies and his scientific experiments. He invented a torpedo and diving boat, but he did not succeed in getting either the French or the English government to take it up. In Paris he met a wealthy American, Mr. Robert Livingston, who was interested in science and who had tried to make a steamboat. Fulton said that he was sure he could do so if only he had money to carry on the necessary experiments. Mr. Livingston at once offered to advance the funds and to share the future profits.

Fulton gladly accepted and began his experiments. He made a little model of a steamboat with side-wheels turned by machinery. Then he made a trial boat which broke before it was used. Undiscouraged, he at once set to work on a second one. This was tried on the river Seine and to Fulton’s great satisfaction it worked well. Then he had an engine built in England and sent to America. Mr. Livingston secured the passage of an act by the New York legislature giving to him and Fulton for twenty years the sole right to use on the waters in New York state boats propelled by “fire or steam.” People laughed and said that they were welcome to the right for a hundred years. They called the steamboat on which Fulton was working “Fulton’s Folly.”

In the summer of 1807, there was completed the Clermont, a side-paddle steamboat one hundred and thirty feet in length. It was an ugly object; even Livingston confessed, “It looks like a backwoods sawmill mounted on a scow and set on fire.”

Fulton made ready for a trial trip from New York to Albany. The boat moved off from shore, and then stopped. Fulton hurried to the engine, and discovered and corrected the cause of the trouble. The boat moved off again, and this time it kept on amid the cheers of the people. The steamboat was no longer a question, it was an accomplished fact. On that trial trip the boat went a hundred and fifty miles in thirty hours, which seemed wonderful speed in those days. How different the Clermont was from the swift and powerful boats of to-day, the “ocean greyhounds,” as they are called.

In 1812 during the war with Great Britain, Fulton made a plan for a steam war-ship and he was authorized to build it, the first in the world. While attending to its construction he contracted a severe cold and died in February, 1814.

We have considered improved methods of travel,—canals, railways, and steamboats. Let us look at what invention has done for agriculture in America. We may almost say that Whitney created the cotton supremacy of to-day. Until he invented the gin, the seeds and lint had to be separated by hand. It was a tedious and costly process. The gin does the work so rapidly and well that it is possible to raise and sell cotton much cheaper than other clothing materials. Thus it has become the great agricultural staple of the South.

Whitney, the inventor of the gin, was not, as you might suppose, a southerner. He was born in 1765 on a farm in Massachusetts; he never even saw a cotton plant until about the time that he invented the gin.

From boyhood Eli Whitney showed an intelligent curiosity about machinery and a mechanical turn. One Sunday he was left at home while the other members of the family went to church. He took advantage of the opportunity to investigate his father’s big silver watch; he took the works apart, but with such care and skill that he was able to put them together properly and his father never suspected what had been done until Eli told him years afterwards.

Eli was a faithful student at the village school near his home; he longed for a better education than could be obtained there and he resolved to go to college. His father thought it would be better for the young man, now nineteen, to continue work at trade or business, but Eli was determined to have an education. For four years he worked by day on the farm and in the shop to earn money for his expenses, and studied at night to prepare himself for college. Then he went to Yale, where he spent four years, eking out his scanty funds by doing odd jobs and working during vacation.

In 1792 he was graduated from Yale. He wished to study law but his funds were now exhausted and it was necessary for him to set to work. So he went to Georgia to teach school. There were then no railroads across the country, and Whitney went by sea, which was the cheapest and most convenient way of making the journey. From New York there traveled on the same boat Mrs. Greene, the widow of the famous General Nathanael Greene. She and her children, who were on their way to their home in Georgia, soon made friends with their fellow-traveler, the bright young New Englander. When Whitney reached Savannah he was disappointed about the school which he had come to teach.

Mrs. Greene at once invited him to visit her home where he could study law until he found such a position as he wished. He proved a pleasant visitor and a helpful one, too. He was always ready to put in bolts and screws where they were needed and made many labor-saving little devices. One day Mrs. Greene complained that her embroidery frame tore the cloth on which she was working. Mr. Whitney at once made a new frame, far superior to the old one.

Not long after this, some of Mrs. Greene’s guests were talking about the unprosperous condition of the South. It could be remedied, they thought, if a way could be devised to separate the short staple cotton from the seed, which would make cotton a profitable crop. The seed and lint of the sea island cotton do not adhere so closely, and these were separated by means of a roller-gin, acting on the principle of the clothes-wringer. But the sea island cotton can be grown only in a certain section near the coast. The seeds and lint of the short staple, or upland, cotton adhere so closely that they had to be separated by hand. Mrs. Greene suggested that Mr. Whitney, who was so clever with tools, should invent a machine to do this work. Whitney was willing to try. He had never even seen cotton in the seed; he got some and examined it and tried to devise a machine to do the work of the human fingers.

His first plan was to have a cylinder on which were fastened circular saws; as the cylinder revolved the saw-teeth would catch the cotton and drag it from the seeds. On the plantation he could not get tin or metal plates to make these saws; finally he decided that teeth of wire would do as well or better. He made a model of a gin which worked well, except for the fact that the cotton lint stuck to the saw-teeth and clogged them.

“I must devise some way to get the cotton off the teeth,” he said.

“Use a brush,” suggested Mrs. Greene, picking up a brush and with it removing the cotton from the wires. Mr. Whitney accepted the suggestion and put rows of small brushes on a second cylinder to meet the teeth and take off the cotton.

In 1793 Whitney went north to secure a patent for his machine. The Secretary of State then was Jefferson who was interested in all inventions and especially in those useful in agriculture. He asked many questions about the workings of the gin which he foresaw would prove a vast benefit to the cotton-growing states.

Cotton was raised and sold now at a profit, for one man could gin a thousand pounds in the time it had taken to seed one pound by hand. Macaulay said, “What Peter the Great did to make Russia dominant, Eli Whitney’s invention of the cotton gin has more than equaled in its relation to the power and progress of the United States.”

I wish I could tell you that Whitney won fortune by his invention which was such a great benefit to his countrymen, but this was not the case. Men infringed his patent rights and there was for a long time a foolish prejudice among buyers against ginned cotton. Whitney spent thirteen years struggling for justice and recognition, and his patent had almost expired before his legal rights were established. Friends made an effort to get the patent, which ran only fourteen years, extended, but in vain.

Whitney was destined to be more successful in another undertaking. He thought that the United States ought to make its own firearms, and he succeeded in getting money advanced by the government to aid him in starting a factory near New Haven. He invented new methods which proved successful and profitable. His factory brought him fortune and his prosperous latter years were spent in his Connecticut home.

Another American benefactor of the farmer first and so of the whole country was Cyrus McCormick, the inventor of the reaper. He was born in Virginia in 1809. In his boyhood, grain was cut with the sickle. It was gathered into bundles by hand, tied, and put up in stacks. The grain was separated from the straw and chaff by beating it with flails. This was slow and tiresome work.

Many men before McCormick tried to invent machines to reap grain. Some of the English machines were fairly successful. You would think that the English farmers would welcome the invention. Instead, they said that it would deprive laborers of work, and they threatened to kill the makers if they continued to manufacture these machines.

In sparsely-populated America people were on the lookout for labor-saving inventions; they welcomed the reaping machine which was invented by McCormick in 1831. This useful invention won both money and fame for Mr. McCormick; a part of his well-gained wealth was devoted to the endowment of schools.

In 1851 at the World’s Fair in London there was a trial of different reapers. Under unfavorable conditions, the McCormick machine did perfect work; at a timed trial it proved that it could cut twenty acres in a day. A farmer who was present broke his sickle across his knee, saying that it would no longer be needed. Wonderful improvements have been made in the reaper. There are great machines now on the prairie lands of the west which cut the grain, thresh it, and carry it from the fields in sacks ready for the mill.

Mowing-machines constructed on a plan similar to the reapers, cut grass, and horse-rakes and hay-forks handle the hay so cheaply that the production of hay now costs less than a fifth of what it did under the old methods. Flails, too, have been replaced by modern threshing machines.

The labor-saving machines used on a farm enable a few people to do with ease the work which formerly required the labor of many. As fewer men are required in the country, more are set free to engage in business and trade. For these purposes, they gather in cities, which have gained size and wealth that would have been impossible under old agricultural conditions.

Let us now consider the improvements in methods of communication. The carrying of letters and papers by the great postal system of our government, is done chiefly on the steam cars and steamboats, which have already been described. You know, however, that by means of the telegraph and the telephone messages can be transmitted much more promptly than by mail. Both these modes of communication are recent. Before they were invented, various methods were used to transmit intelligence quickly. You learned how, by the firing of cannon along the canal, in two hours it was announced in New York that the first boat was starting down the Erie Canal.

A thousand years ago, beacon-fires were lighted along the coasts of England to warn people of the approach of an enemy; a hundred years ago, similar signals were used in our own country. Sometimes a wood fire was kindled, sometimes a pot of tar was set on fire. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the semaphore was used to some extent. This consists of a horizontal bar, set on a high post. By changes in its position, according to a method of signals agreed upon, messages are sent. Flags are used for signals and messages are sent by placing flags of different colors and shapes in different positions; this is less practicable on land than at sea where the range of vision is uninterrupted. Another method of signaling is by mirrors to reflect the sunlight. But all these methods have inconveniences and are limited to comparatively short distances.

Early in the nineteenth century, scientists thought that electricity which can be conducted by wires from place to place might be utilized to carry messages. This was at last successfully accomplished by an American, Samuel Finley Breese Morse.

Morse was born in Massachusetts in 1791 and was given the names of his father, his grandfather, and his great-grandfather. As befitting a child with the reputation of so many to sustain, his education began early. At four he was sent to what was called a “dame school” conducted by an old lady in the neighborhood. At seven he was sent away from home to attend a preparatory school; later he went to an academy; and thence at fifteen to Yale College.

At Yale he was much interested in some experiments with which a professor illustrated a lecture on electricity. It seemed to young Morse that this great force which travels with such wonderful speed ought to be put to some use. During vacation he made many experiments in the college laboratory.

But art, not science, was the subject which interested him most. From his childhood, he had been fond of drawing; he developed such skill and interest in the pictorial art that when he left college he told his father he wished to become an artist. Dr. Morse had hoped that his son would choose a profession but he resolved to let the youth follow his own inclinations and talents. Young Morse studied art several years, first in America and afterwards in England. His pictures brought him praise and medals abroad, and at home he became a successful portrait painter. He organized the National Academy of the Arts of Design and was made its president. Then he went abroad again and spent three years studying his chosen art.

In 1832 he started home; he was now forty-one years old and his life-work up to this time had been art. At this time an incident turned his attention to science, to the mysterious force which had interested him in his college days. On shipboard coming home, there arose a discussion about electricity and the almost instantaneous passage of a current along a copper wire.

Morse said: “If the presence of electricity can be made visible in any part of the circuit, I see no reason why intelligence may not be transmitted by it.”

The more he thought about it, the more convinced he became that messages could be sent as he had suggested. When he got home, instead of painting portraits he spent his time trying to make an electric current carry a message along a wire and to invent an instrument to receive the message. He became very poor, and moved to an attic where he devoted himself to study and experiments. In 1835 he had devised an alphabet consisting of dots and dashes and had invented a machine, rough and crude but which would carry messages.

He did not have money to push his invention, but in 1837 Mr. Alfred Vail became interested in the machine and offered to furnish money and enter into partnership with the inventor. In 1840 a patent was secured. Morse tried to get an appropriation from Congress for testing his machine, but it was delayed so long that he despaired of success. One morning in March, 1843, a young friend, Miss Ellsworth, brought him news that an appropriation of thirty thousand dollars had been made by Congress for “constructing a line of electric-magnetic telegraph.” Morse promised that she might send the first message by telegraph between Baltimore and Washington. The line of wires put up on poles, was finished May 24, 1844. The first message sent was the text selected by Miss Ellsworth, “What hath God wrought.”

The Democratic National Convention was held in Baltimore about the time that the line was completed and the names of the nominees were telegraphed to Washington. People refused to believe the message was really sent till the news was confirmed by later tidings.

In 1842 Morse made experiments to prove that messages could be carried under water. As water is a good conductor of electricity, it was necessary to insulate the wire, which Morse did by wrapping it with hemp covered with pitch, tar, and rubber. This under-water wire worked well, and a plan was formed to put across the Atlantic a cable resting on the plateau between Newfoundland and Ireland.

This scheme was undertaken by Mr. Cyrus W. Field. The first cable made of insulated wire protected by twisted wire rope was broken in the attempt to lay it in 1857. The second cable was laid and it worked a few days. The first message sent by the cable which united Europe and America was “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will towards men.” The third cable failed also, but the fourth, laid in 1866, gave good service. For thirteen years Cyrus Field had worked for the cable and at last out of failure had come success. Since the fourth cable was laid, there has been constant communication between Europe and America.

The latest great step forward in telegraphy was made by Marconi, an Italian scientist, who invented a system of telegraphing without the use of wires.

The telephone has one advantage over the telegraph; it enables a person not only to send messages but to carry on a conversation with persons at a distance. The electric telephone was invented in 1875 by Alexander Graham Bell. His father was a Scotch educator and scientist who invented a method called “Bell’s visible speech” to teach deaf-mutes to speak. Telephones now connect places hundreds of miles apart.

As great advances have been made within the last century in methods of lighting houses as in modes of travel and of communication. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, people still used candles and crude lamps, similar to those which had been in use for hundreds of years. The principle of the candle and the lamp is the same; oil or grease, liquid or solid, is burned by means of a wick. During our great-grandfather’s days, well-to-do people used chiefly wax candles and poor people used candles made of tallow. In many families the only light was furnished by pine knots, called lightwood because the pitch burned making a bright light. It was by such a light that Abraham Lincoln studied.

About the beginning of the nineteenth century an Englishman invented practical gas-light and carried gas made from coal through his house in pipes. In 1821 illuminating gas was made and used in Baltimore for the first time in this country. About a half-century later, another stride forward was made in the lighting of houses. Edison invented the electric light, the brightest, cleanest, and safest light, and the one requiring least care of any yet devised. There are two kinds of the electric light, both widely used. The incandescent, or “glow lamp” as it is called in England, is most common. The arc light is used for lighting large buildings and city streets.

Thomas Edison is an American scientist who has made it his life-work to make practical use of the great force of electricity. He was born in 1847 and is still living and still working. He was the son of a hard-working laborer. His mother had been a school teacher and she gave her son as good an education as she could. When only twelve years old, he started out to earn his own living as a news-boy on the Grand Trunk Railroad.

He was a business-like, enterprising youngster. When there was exciting news in his papers, he telegraphed the fact to stations in advance and bought extra supplies of papers which he disposed of at a good price. He decided that he would like to print a paper of his own, so he got some old type and fitted up part of a freight-car as an office. Here he published a weekly paper, “The Grand Trunk Herald,” which became popular with railroad people. He undertook a second paper called the “Paul Pry” but for some personal remarks in it he was severely punished and he soon after gave up journalism.

He now became interested in chemistry. He bought cheap apparatus and some chemicals and in his freight-car office devoted himself to experiments. Unfortunately, an over-turned bottle of phosphorus set the floor on fire; the conductor put the young editor and scientist, with his printing press and chemical outfit, off the car.

When Edison was about fifteen, he saved the life of a two-year-old child, dragging it from in front of the engine at risk of his own life. The grateful father was a station agent and he offered to teach Edison telegraphy. The boy became a rapid operator, but was too fond of experimenting to devote himself to work and he drifted from one place to another. Finally he went to New York City. For his inventions of stock-printing and other telegraph appliances, he received forty thousand dollars and this enabled him to establish a laboratory to work out his ideas.

For many years Edison was laughed at because he believed that a telegraph wire can be made to carry two messages at once; by his duplex system he made it do so, and later by his quadruplex system he made it carry four messages.

He added some improvements to the telephone invented by Bell, invented a phonograph to record and repeat the sound of the human voice, and a megaphone to carry the sound to a distance, and the kinetoscope.

His greatest work, however, was in connection with the electric light. He worked on it a long time before he succeeded. The chief trouble was in securing a good non-conducting filament. He sent men to search in China, Japan, South America, and Ceylon for bamboo and other plants which would answer his purpose. Out of three thousand specimens of vegetable fiber, he found three or four which would do. In 1880 the light which is now used all over the world was perfected and exhibited.

Edison has made few, if any real scientific discoveries, but he has made many ingenious inventions, and has applied scientific principles to practical purposes so as to increase the comfort and economy of living.

Andrew Jackson
The Man of the People

While Washington, the aristocrat, was using his sword and Jefferson, the scholarly gentleman, was using his pen, to form in America a government of the people, there was growing up in a border settlement a youth who was to be a “man of the people” and bear rule over it.

Andrew Jackson was the son of a poor Irish emigrant, who spent the years after his coming to America in a brave fight for bread for his wife and children. Worn out by the struggle, he died, and the children were left to their mother’s care. Andrew was born at the Waxhaw settlement which is partly in North Carolina and partly in South Carolina, both of which states have been claimed as Jackson’s native place. In childhood he attended an “old field school” where he gained the rudiments of an education and at work and play held his own among his comrades.

“I could throw him three times out of four,” said an old schoolmate, in later days “but he never would stay throwed. He was dead game and never would give up.”

Neither then nor in later life was he handsome, with his pale, sharp-featured face, his sandy red hair, and his keen steel blue eyes.

Andrew’s elder brothers, mere lads at the time of the Revolution, served in the patriot forces and Andrew joined them when he was only thirteen. He was taken prisoner by the British and it was then that a well-known incident occurred.

A British officer ordered Andrew to black his boots and the lad refused.

“I am a prisoner of war,” he said, “and demand to be treated as such.”

The angry officer drew his sword to chastise the young rebel; Andrew, raising his arm to parry the blow, received a wound, the scar from which he carried to his grave. One of his brothers died from neglected wounds. Andrew and Robert were confined with about three hundred other American prisoners in a stockade at Camden. Andrew, through a hole in the fence, watched the battle of Hobkirk’s Hill and the last hope of release departed when brave General Greene was forced to retreat. Not long after, however, the two brothers were released, probably in an exchange of prisoners. With their mother they made their way home. Robert died of smallpox caught while in prison and Mrs. Jackson died soon after of fever contracted while nursing American prisoners. Thus Andrew was left alone in the world,—with a bitter feeling that his mother and brothers had been sacrificed to British injustice.

The orphaned and penniless lad set to work, first at a trade, then as a school teacher; finally he studied law. When he began to practice his profession, he crossed the mountains and went west to the region now forming the state of Tennessee. In that rough border country, as it then was, his strong will, courage, and common sense were even more valuable than his small store of legal knowledge. People soon came to respect and depend on him. When offenses against the law were reported to the governor, he said, “Just inform Mr. Jackson; he will be sure to do his duty and the offenders will be punished.”

Mr. Jackson soon became Judge Jackson. We are told that on one occasion he ordered the sheriff to arrest a desperate criminal; the officer returned and reported that he was unable to do so, the man resisted his authority. Judge Jackson descended from the bench, went out and arrested the man, marched him into court, resumed his seat, tried the case, and sentenced the offender. It was a characteristic incident.

In 1791 Jackson married and between him and his wife there existed a simple-hearted devotion which was never broken. Some one who saw her years later when the beauty of youth was gone, described her as a “coarse-looking, stout little old woman,” but she remained beautiful to his eyes.

After Tennessee was admitted to statehood, Jackson was sent to Congress, first as representative, then as senator. From Washington he returned to the mountains which he loved, and busied himself as store keeper, cotton-planter, and stock-raiser,—recognized in his community as a man of undoubted integrity, a staunch friend, and a relentless foe. He took part in two duels, in one of which he was severely wounded and killed his opponent.

Jackson offered his services as soon as the war of 1812 broke out. He was ordered to lead the militia to New Orleans, which it was thought would be attacked. When he had gone about five hundred miles he was ordered to disband his troops.

Soon after, he led a force against the Creek Indians who took advantage of the war in progress to attack outlying settlements and kill white settlers. The troops failed to receive needed supplies and Jackson gave up his private stores to the sick and wounded and set his soldiers an example of cheerful endurance of hardship. At one time, it is said, he invited some officers to share his breakfast and they found—a bowl of acorns and a pitcher of water.

At last Jackson agreed that if provisions did not come in two days the troops might return home. Soon after they turned back, they met supplies; they refreshed themselves and then started to continue the homeward march. Jackson galloped to the front, raised his rifle and furiously swore that he would kill the first man who made a step homeward. The troops, driven back to the path of duty, defeated the Indians in several battles. After one battle Jackson found an Indian baby in the arms of its dead mother. The Indian women refused to care for it and Jackson took it to his own tent, fed it with brown sugar and water and finally sent it to his home, the Hermitage, where the young Indian was cared for and reared.

Jackson’s military merit was now recognized and he was made major-general.

At New Orleans which was attacked by British forces about the close of the war, he won the one important land victory of the war. The British, secure in their superior numbers and discipline, were confident of success.

“I shall eat my Christmas dinner in New Orleans,” said one of the British officers.

“Perhaps so,” said General Jackson to whom this remark was repeated, “but I shall have the honor of presiding at that dinner.”

With wonderful skill and energy, he put the place in condition for defence and made ready for the British attack which took place January 8, 1815. Fortune as well as good generalship favored the Americans. The British were defeated with a loss of about three thousand men, including their commander. The Americans lost only eight men killed and thirteen wounded. A treaty of peace had been signed two weeks before, but there was then no ocean-cable to convey the tidings, and the news did not reach America until after the battle had been fought and the repulsed British had sailed away.

In 1818 Jackson led troops to put down the Seminoles in Florida who were making war on the border settlements and had massacred the people at Fort Mimms.

In 1824 Jackson was one of four candidates for the presidency. The People’s Party founded by Jefferson was divided and put forward two candidates both from the west,—Jackson and Clay, who were bitter enemies. Adams was elected, but four years later Jackson was the successful candidate. The poor son of the Irish emigrant had fought his way upward,—saddler, lawyer, judge, general, he now held the highest office of the country. He thought and said that his will was the will of the people and he ruled with autocratic power, never hesitating to oppose Congress. If he thought that a bill was not for the best interests of the country, he vetoed it. He never forgot a friend and seldom forgave a foe. He accepted the view of one of his followers who said “to the victors belong the spoils of the vanquished.” He removed office-holders to bestow offices on his friends—a bad example followed and carried to great excesses by all parties from that day to this. In 1832 he was re-elected; the people recognized that with all his faults he was honest and loyal to their interests.

The most important acts of his administration were his attitude towards the Nullification Act of South Carolina and his leadership in the “bank war.” A dramatic incident, at a dinner in honor of Jefferson’s birthday in April, 1830, showed clearly the president’s attitude towards those who were beginning to be dissatisfied with the general government. Jackson was called on for the first toast. He raised his glass, saying, “Our federal union! it must and shall be preserved.” Calhoun, the great South Carolina leader rose and offered the next toast, “The union, next to our liberty the most dear.” After a pause, he added, “May we all remember that it can only be preserved by respecting the rights of the states and by distributing equally the benefits and burdens of the union.”

South Carolina considered herself aggrieved by certain tariff regulations, and proclaimed that these duties should not be paid after a certain day and that if the United States attempted to enforce payment the state would secede. Jackson issued a proclamation stating ably his views as to the binding force of the union. He sent to Charleston a naval force, one of the officers of which was Farragut, and he ordered General Scott to have troops ready to march at once to South Carolina. Through the influence of Clay, a compromise tariff bill was passed and the conflict was postponed thirty years.

Jackson acted with equal energy in the bank matter; thinking national banks are unconstitutional, he vetoed a bill in their favor, even though his friends believed it would cost him re-election. Feeling ran so high on this subject that the Senate passed a resolution of censure on the president; this resolution was afterwards removed from the record. During Jackson’s administration the national debt was entirely paid. He was probably the only president who went out of office more popular than he went in.

He retired to his beloved home, the Hermitage, and there he died in 1845. His tomb bears this inscription:

“General
Andrew Jackson
Born on the fifteenth of March, 1767
Died on the eighth of June, 1845.”

Henry Clay
The Great Peacemaker

On April 12, 1777, Henry Clay, the son of a poor Baptist clergyman, was born in Virginia in the country known as the “Slashes of Hanover.” His earliest recollections were of the death of his father when he was four years old and of Tarleton’s troops passing his home and carrying off slaves, provisions, and even his mother’s clothing.

In boyhood Henry Clay worked hard to aid his widowed mother. He turned his hand to such work as came up—plowing the fields around his home, and, like many another country boy, going to the grist mill with his bag of corn to be ground into meal. In later years he received, in memory of his boyhood struggles, the nickname of “the Millboy of the Slashes.”

He studied reading, writing, and arithmetic in an “old field school,” worked a while as clerk in a store, and then studied law. In those days there were no law schools in the country, and Clay, like other aspiring young men, gained the necessary training from a few books, a little instruction in a law office, and practice in the courts.

At twenty the new-fledged lawyer, went west to make his home in the Blue Grass region of Kentucky which had been but a few years a state. This adopted state was his home thenceforth and all his interests were identified with it. He worked with indomitable energy. In order to train and modulate his defective voice he went out in the barnyard and argued his cases before the pigs and cows. He used to say that the brutes of the farm were the best audiences he ever had.

Clay secured a good practice, married well and lived happily at Ashland, a farm just outside Lexington, which he bought about the time of his marriage. Remembering his own struggles and the kindness extended him during those years, he was always interested in ambitious young men and ready to help them with money, advice, and influence.

At the age of twenty-nine, Clay was appointed to represent Kentucky in the United States Senate for an unexpired term. He early formulated his “American system” declaring himself in favor of internal improvements, building up home industries, and distributing surplus money from the sale of public lands among the states, according to population. In 1811 he was in favor of war with Great Britain; as Speaker of the House, “The War Hawk,” as he was called, did much to bring it about. He was one of the men sent in 1814 to make terms of peace with England, and it was largely through his labors that favorable terms were secured.

Clay admired General Jackson’s military ability but he censured the invasion of Spanish territory in Florida and the two men became bitter and relentless enemies.

In 1820 began the career for which he is famous—that of the “Great Pacificator,” trying to avert conflict between the north and the south, the free and the slave states. It was largely through his influence that the contest was so long postponed. Clay was not the author of the Missouri Compromise—as the bill was called which provided that Missouri should be admitted to statehood without restriction as to slavery—but it was through his influence that it was passed. Although he struggled to adjust differences and keep the peace, he stood fearlessly by what he thought was right.

On one occasion Clay consulted a friend about the stand he was preparing to take on a public question. The friend suggested that the course he planned might injure his political prospects. His reply was, “I did not send for you to ask what might be the effects of the proposed movement on my prospects, but whether it is right. I would rather be right than be president.”

His life-long ambition was to become president, and he was several times a candidate and once seemed on the eve of victory only to be defeated. The Great Peacemaker was too moderate for either side. The north accused him of favoring slavery, the south of making war against established institutions. He was not, however, in favor of freeing slaves, except gradually, and then of colonizing them. His own slaves were well-treated and loved him dearly.

Clay was one of what is called the Great Triumvirate, composed of the three foremost leaders in Congress; Webster and Calhoun were the other two. The three were in many ways rivals for power and popularity, but they united in opposing Jackson—who, secure in the favor of the people, held his own against all three.

In 1833 Clay, the “Great Compromiser,” carried his second great compromise act, securing the passage of a tariff bill which caused South Carolina to withdraw her Nullification Act.

“There is one man and only one man who can save the Union,” said John Randolph of Roanoke just before his death. “That man is Henry Clay. I know he has the power—I believe he will be found to have the patriotism and firmness equal to the occasion.” His patriotism and firmness were indeed equal to his power.

In 1850 the friction between the slave and free states became so great that war seemed inevitable. In order to maintain peace, Clay, then an old and feeble man of seventy-three, gave up private for public life and returned to the senate. For the last time the Great Triumvirate met in Congress. Clay was so feeble that he had to be helped up and down the steps of the Capitol, but with unquenched energy and fire, he appealed to the people’s patriotism and urged them to uphold the Union. Through his influence, the compromise measures of 1850 were adopted and peace was again restored for a time.

He could well say near the close of his life, “If any one desires to know the leading and paramount object of my public life, the preservation of the Union will furnish him the key.”

The great leader grew gradually weaker and passed away, June 29, 1852. His body was carried back to Kentucky and laid to rest in the state he so loved.

“I am a Whig,” he said once: “I am so because I believe the principles of the Whig party are best adapted to promote the prosperity of the country. I seek to change no man’s allegiance to his party, be it what it may. A life of great length and experience has satisfied me that all parties aim at the common good of the country. The great body of the Democrats, as well as the Whigs, are so from a conviction that their policy is patriotic. I take the hand of one as cordially as that of another, for all are Americans. I place country far above all parties. Look aside from that and parties are no longer worthy of being cherished.”

“I know no south, no north, no east, no west,” he said, at another time. It was such sentiments as these that made him Lincoln’s ideal of a statesman. The conflict he had striven to avert was postponed—but it came. His children and grandchildren fought, some on one side some on the other. Two of his grandchildren who were brothers fought on opposite sides and both fell in battle. Such was the War between the States.

Daniel Webster
A Famous Orator

Daniel Webster was descended from one of the Puritans who came from Old England to New England in the “great emigration.” His father, Ebenezer Webster, was a sturdy pioneer who fought in the French and Indian War and in the Revolution. “Captain Webster, I believe I can trust you,” said General Washington, and this was the opinion of all who knew him.

Daniel, one of his ten children, was born in 1782 in Salisbury, New Hampshire. He was a delicate child and from babyhood was indulged and petted by his parents and brothers and sisters. He was fond of outdoor sports, but he was fond of study too and easily led his classes. Many characteristic stories are told of his boyhood. It is said that one of his first purchases was a handkerchief on which was printed the recently-adopted Constitution of the United States. Thus as a child he read and studied the great instrument which he was so eloquently to uphold. Looking back to his childhood in later years, Webster said: “I read what I could get to read, went to school when I could, and when not at school was a farmer’s youngest boy, not good for much for want of health and strength, but expected to do something.”

By means of many sacrifices on the part of his family, Daniel was kept at school and finally sent to college. The attitude of the family toward him is illustrated by an incident of his boyhood. He and his brother Ezekiel were one day allowed to go to town, each being provided with a small sum of spending-money. When they returned home Mrs. Webster asked Daniel, “What did you do with your money?”

“Spent it,” was the reply, and there followed an enthusiastic description of the day’s pleasures. Then the mother turned to the silent elder brother.

“And what did you do with yours, ’Zekiel?”

“Lent it to Dan’el,” was the quiet answer.

The family was always “lending to Daniel”—making sacrifices for him and feeling amply repaid by his affection and success.

Young Webster’s talents were early recognized; even in his college days his eloquence and commanding presence and deep sonorous voice attracted attention. When he was eighteen he delivered at Hanover a Fourth of July oration; in crude form it uttered the message—love of country and loyalty to the Constitution—which was the burden of his later speeches. After leaving college he began the study of law. He taught for awhile in order to aid his brother Ezekiel to obtain a collegiate education, but kept steadily on with his studies.

In 1805 he was admitted to the bar, and established himself in a New Hampshire village. He was an eloquent and able speaker, and gradually became prominent in politics, making addresses at Federalist meetings and on public occasions. In 1813, he was sent to Congress as a member of the House. There he met Clay and Calhoun, the other members of the “Great Triumvirate” of which you have heard. Webster spoke ably in behalf of a national bank, of the tariff, and of other measures advocated by the Federalists; he soon came to be recognized as one of the foremost men of his party.

After serving a term in Congress, however, he returned to private life for a few years. He removed to Boston where he continued the practice of his profession, earning money easily and spending it with equal facility, often before it was earned. He was known as one of the ablest lawyers and greatest orators in the country. The effect of his eloquence was aided by his commanding presence. “Good heavens, he is a small cathedral by himself,” said a witty Englishman.

Among Webster’s famous addresses on public occasions were the oration at Plymouth on the two hundredth anniversary of the landing of the Pilgrims, the address five years later at the laying of the corner-stone of the Bunker Hill monument, and the eulogy on Adams and Jefferson. The best-known passage in the eulogy is the imaginary speech of John Adams, which many people have supposed to be an extract from a real speech. This begins with the famous words, “Sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish, I give my hand and my heart to this vote.”

After serving again in the House, Webster was sent in 1827 to the Senate; there he supported Henry Clay’s “American system.” About this time the question of the tariff was causing much friction between the North and the South, and the people of South Carolina were discussing nullification. This discussion led to one of Webster’s ablest speeches. In 1830 General Hayne of South Carolina made a speech expressing the view that the Constitution was “a compact between sovereign states” and asserting the right of secession which Kentucky and Virginia in 1799 and New England in 1814 had threatened to exercise. In his reply to Hayne, Webster insisted that the Constitution was not a “compact” but a “national instrument,” and he made an eloquent argument for the Union and the Constitution. This speech was published and scattered far and wide; it was inserted in school-books and declaimed in debating societies; its author was regarded as the “great expounder and defender of the Constitution.”

The life-long ambition of Webster, as of Clay, was to become president, but like his rival he was doomed to disappointment. Many people thought that Webster might have attained the honor in 1852 had it not been for his speech in 1850 on the Fugitive Slave Law. Webster was not an extremist. He considered slavery “one of the greatest evils, both moral and political,” and he was opposed to its being admitted into the western territories. He said, however, that the Constitution “found slavery in the Union, it recognized it, and gave it solemn guaranties” which could not honestly and honorably be broken. He asserted that a state had no right to refuse to give up runaway slaves to their masters, as was provided by the Fugitive Slave Law. He concluded his speech with an eloquent appeal for national harmony and the Union. His position was legally unassailable and he was animated by a desire to conciliate and unite the jarring sections, but the speech called forth a storm of indignation from the abolitionists. There was no longer any hope that he would receive the presidential nomination.

But the time was at hand when earthly honors were a matter of no moment to the great orator. His health was giving way, and he died September 8, 1852, at Marshfield, his beloved home beside the sea. His dying eyes were gladdened by the sight of the flag he loved, the symbol of the “Union and liberty” for which he had striven.

Abraham Lincoln
The War President

When asked about his early life Abraham Lincoln once said, “It can all be condensed into a single sentence and that sentence you will find in Gray’s ‘Elegy,’

‘The short and simple annals of the poor.’”

His father, Thomas Lincoln, was a roving, shiftless, man, a carpenter by trade; after his marriage his wife taught him to read and to write his name, but here his education began and ended. Abraham Lincoln’s mother came, he said, “of a family of the name of Hanks,” about whom nothing good is recorded. Of his mother personally, almost nothing is known.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Abraham Lincoln was born February 12, 1809, in a log cabin in Kentucky. When he was seven years old, his father made one of his numerous moves, going to Indiana and taking up a claim of land. There he built what was called “a half-faced camp”—a log-shed open on one side; in this his family passed the winter. The next year Thomas Lincoln built a cabin; it had four walls, but for years it was left without floor, door, or window. Instead of steps there were pegs in the wall by means of which Abraham ascended to the loft where he slept. The furniture was rude and scanty. It consisted of a few stools, a rough table and bed, some pewter dishes, a skillet and a pot.

Abraham was only nine years old when his mother succumbed to a fatal disease. As she lay on her death-bed she called her son and daughter to her and gave them her last charge. “Be good to one another,” she said, “love God and your kin.”

The winter which followed was dreary and desolate for the motherless children. A few months later Thomas Lincoln brought to the cabin a second wife who was a mother indeed to the two little ones. She was thrifty and industrious, as well as kind and affectionate, and under her rule the family had more of the comforts of life than it had ever known before. Mrs. Lincoln insisted that ten-year-old Abe must be sent to school and so he trudged every day to the log schoolhouse a mile and a half from home.

He was a diligent student, and he read every book on which he could lay his hands. These books were few in number; the Bible, “Æsop’s Fables,” “Robinson Crusoe,” “Pilgrim’s Progress,” a history of the United States, and Weems’ “Life of Washington,” were read and re-read. His bookcase was a crack between the logs of the cabin wall. One night the binding of the “Life of Washington,” was injured by a driving storm; to pay the man from whom it was borrowed for the damage, Abe worked three days in his corn field. At night the boy would lie flat on the floor before the fire and cipher on a plank or a wooden shovel with a piece of charcoal; when the surface was covered with figures, he would erase them and begin anew.

His father considered the hours spent in study as wasted time, and Abe was often called to put his books aside to grub and plow and mow. Such work was little to his taste; he said in later years, “his father taught him to work but never taught him to love work.”

Abe grew fast and at seventeen he was over six feet tall. He was strong and active, but an awkward figure, in his homespun shirt, buckskin trousers, and cap of squirrel or coon skin.

In the spring of 1830 when Abe was twenty-one his father moved to Illinois where fertile land was to be had on easy terms. The household goods were carried on an ox-wagon and it took two weeks to make the long and tedious journey. In the new settlement the men set to work to clear away the forest and build cabins. Abe helped to split rails to fence in the little farm. He not only helped at home, but worked for others as occasion demanded. We are informed that he bargained with a Mrs. Miller “to split four hundred rails for every yard of brown jeans dyed with white walnut bark that would be necessary to make him a pair of trousers.”

A little later he made a trip to New Orleans with a boat-load of meat, hogs, and corn. In that city for the first time he saw slaves bought and sold. You remember that slavery had been introduced into America early in the seventeenth century. For a long time slavery existed in both the northern and the southern colonies, but in the course of time it was limited to the south where alone slave labor was profitable. Lincoln did not think that it was right that negroes should be sold like cattle, and he said, “If ever I get a chance to hit that thing [slavery] I’ll hit it hard.”

After his return home, he became clerk in a country store. Here by his scrupulous honesty he earned the nickname “Honest Abe.” One day he made an overcharge of fourpence and that night he walked several miles to return the money. During his leisure he continued his studies. Books were scarce, and on one occasion he walked six miles to borrow a grammar.

In 1832 Abe Lincoln was elected captain of a company of volunteers who marched with the regular troops against the Indian chief, Black Hawk. Most of the men went home when their term of enlistment expired but Abe Lincoln re-enlisted and served as a private. This was his only experience in actual warfare. When he returned home he presented himself as a candidate for the legislature. His neighbors heartily supported “humble Abraham Lincoln” who was one of them, but he was defeated. He was a clear, straightforward speaker with a pointed, well-told joke for every occasion.

After his political defeat he opened a store in partnership with a friend. As Lincoln spent his time in studying and telling jokes and Berry spent his in drinking, it is no wonder that the business proved a failure. Berry died soon after this; Lincoln assumed all the debts of the firm and paid them to the last penny, although it required his savings for over fifteen years.

Lincoln now began to study law, supporting himself, meanwhile, by doing such work as came to hand. People took it as a joke that this rough, awkward fellow was preparing himself for a profession. One day a man who saw him sitting on a woodpile poring over a book asked, “What are you reading, Abe?” “I am not reading; I am studying,” was the answer. “Studying what?” “Law, sir,” said Abe. The man laughed uproariously, but Lincoln kept on with his studies; neither in youth nor in manhood was he to be turned from a purpose by ridicule. He worked as a farmhand, he learned to survey lands, he served as postmaster of the country office. We are told that “he carried the office around in his hat,”—putting in his hat the handful of letters which came to New Salem and distributing them as he went to survey land.

In 1837 Lincoln was licensed to practice law. He resolved to make his home in Springfield, lately made the capital of the state. He rode thither on a borrowed horse, carrying in a pair of saddle-bags all his personal effects,—“two or three law books and a few pieces of clothing.” One who knew him in those days describes him as a tall, gaunt, awkward figure; he wore a faded brown hat, a loose, ill-fitting coat, and trousers which were too short; in winter he added to this costume a short cloak or a shawl. In one hand he carried a carpet-bag containing his papers, and in the other a faded green cotton umbrella, tied with a string. Like the other lawyers of the place, he “traveled on the circuit,” going from one place to another to attend courts. He usually carried with him a book or two; rising earlier than his companions, he would sit by the fire to read and think. In later days when a young lawyer asked Lincoln’s advice as to the best method of obtaining a knowledge of law, he answered that it was “simple though laborious,” such knowledge must be gained by careful reading and study. “Work, work, work, is the main thing.”

Lincoln was popular with men and was known as an honest, kind-hearted fellow. He himself told the following anecdote: one day as he was riding along dressed in his best he saw a hog “mired up” beside the road. Unwilling to soil his clothes, he passed on. The poor animal gave a grunt which seemed to say, “There now, my last chance is gone.” Unable to resist the brute’s appeal, Lincoln went back and helped it out.

In 1842 Lincoln married Miss Mary Todd, a clever, well-bred woman, who forwarded his professional and political success. She lacked, however, the amiable temper which would have made a happy home; more and more her husband’s interest centered in public matters and in politics. In 1844 he gave his enthusiastic support to Henry Clay, the presidential candidate, who was “his ideal of a statesman.” Two years later Lincoln was elected to Congress; after serving a term, he retired from public life for awhile, devoting himself to his profession and to his studies.

In 1854 the repeal of the Missouri Compromise led him again to take an interest in politics. Lincoln was opposed to the extension of slavery, but he did not agree with the extreme abolitionists; he said that “loyalty to the Constitution and the Union” forbade interference with slavery where it was already established. In 1856 he was a member of the Convention at Bloomington, Illinois, which formed the Republican party, the object of which Lincoln said was “the preventing of the spread and nationization of slavery.”

He became the Republican candidate for senator in 1858 and made a famous speech in which he asserted that the Union could not endure, part free and part slave. “‘A house divided against itself cannot stand,’” he said. “I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved, I do not expect the house to fall,—but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all the one thing or the other.” To a friend who objected to this utterance he said, “If I had to draw a pen across my record and erase my whole life from sight and I had one poor gift or choice left as to what I should save from the wreck, I should choose that speech and leave it to the world unerased.”

Lincoln was defeated by Douglas in this contest, but the eyes of the people were on him and in 1860 the Republican party made him its candidate for president. Some of the rails he had split were brought into the convention; the contest between free and slave labor was made an issue of the campaign. There were three other candidates in the field, and the division of votes in the old parties caused Lincoln to be elected. The southern people knew little about Lincoln personally; they knew, however, that he led the party which wished to destroy slavery. There had been so much disagreement and friction in the Union that some of the southern states now decided to leave it. The Constitution did not give the general government power to enforce a permanent union. In course of time there came to be held two different views about the Union,—one, generally held in the South, was that it was “a compact between sovereign states” and that the power of the state was supreme; the other, generally held in the North, was that the states made up one great nation to which belonged the supreme authority. The latter was the view held by Lincoln. He prepared for his inaugural address by studying the Constitution, Clay’s great speech of 1850, Jackson’s proclamation against nullification, and Webster’s reply to Hayne: locked in his dingy office he composed his inaugural address.

Before he left home, he paid a farewell visit to his aged step-parent who had been as a mother to him. Then with his wife and three sons, he set forth to Washington.

When he took the oath of office, it was over a divided Union. South Carolina had seceded and several other southern states had followed its example. Lincoln said, “the Union must be preserved” and he issued a call for seventy-five thousand soldiers. At this call there withdrew from the Union several states which loved the Union but believed in the supreme power of the states and the constitutional right of secession.

The reverse at Manassas distressed but did not daunt Lincoln. As commander-in-chief of the army and the navy, he appointed officers and supervised their movements. There were three great military tasks necessary for the northern forces,—to control the Mississippi River, to blockade southern ports, and to capture Richmond. The sea forces under Farragut and Porter successfully performed their tasks. In Virginia one unsuccessful or incompetent general after another was put forward and supported,—McClellan, Halleck, Pope, and Hooker. Meanwhile the great commanders, Grant, Sheridan, and Sherman, were fighting undiscovered in the west. At last they were brought forward and put at the head of magnificent armies to “end the job.”

As a military measure, in 1863, President Lincoln made the emancipation proclamation granting freedom to slaves. In November, of that year he made his famous address, consecrating the military cemetery at Gettysburg.

Not long before the presidential election of 1864, Lincoln issued a call for five hundred thousand soldiers; friends urged him to wait a few weeks as this call for troops might injure his chance of re-election. He refused saying, “What is the presidency worth to me if I have no country?”

In his second inaugural address are the famous words, “With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive to finish the work we are in.” The end was already in sight. The capital of the Confederacy fell and Lee’s little army was forced to surrender. Lincoln expressed only sympathy for the defeated and desolate South. But his plans for reunion in peace and kindness were not to be carried out. Just as the great victory was accomplished he was struck down by the hand of an assassin, John Wilkes Booth. His death was an even greater loss to the South than to the North which mourned so bitterly, the heroic man of the people, the martyred president.