For many a year and many an age,
While History on her ample page
The virtues shall enroll
Of that Paternal Soul.
SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Born February 12, 1809. Died April 15, 1865.
Abraham Lincoln was born at Hodginville, Kentucky, on the 12th of February, 1809. His parents were poor, and his youth was thus a youth of labor. From the age of seven to that of nineteen, he worked on his father’s farm—his parents having removed to Indiana, and subsequently into Illinois. When nineteen years of age he left home and sought labor on the Mississippi river, as a hired hand on a flatboat plying between St. Louis and New Orleans. He subsequently built a similar vessel, which he personally managed, in the river traffic. Until 1832 his life was a continual struggle against adverse fortune, but it was prosecuted with a strong heart and firm hand. In 1832 the Indian war with Black Hawk broke out. Mr. Lincoln raised a company of volunteers in Menard county, Ill., and served through the war under General Samuel Whiteside.
The early career of Mr. Lincoln as a pioneer and in camp, had gradually trained and formed his character for more active life. His prominence in his county, as the former captain of a company, naturally gave him additional influence at home, on his return from the war, and, after beginning life as a lawyer, he soon became, also, a politician. In 1834, at the age of twenty-five, he was elected on the whig ticket, to the Illinois Legislature. In 1836, he was re-elected for a second term, during which he avowed conservative principles on the subject of slavery, and added much to his popularity by efforts to make Springfield the capital of the State. He also won credit by his action as Chairman of the Finance Committee in the Legislature. In 1846, after several years of retirement from political life, during which he had established himself as a highly successful lawyer, Mr. Lincoln was nominated for Congress, and was elected by the largest vote ever given to a whig candidate in his district. He served until 1849, and was active—in connection with Seward, Chase and Giddings—in the agitation of the Wilmot proviso, and in opposition to the Mexican war. From 1849 to 1854 he remained secluded at Springfield, taking, however, an active, though not prominent part, in the organization of the republican party, and in 1856 he ardently supported its first candidates, Fremont and Dayton. He had just been defeated in the Illinois Legislature for United States Senator, and, except during the Presidential canvass for 1856, when he was brought frequently in contact on the stump with Stephen A. Douglas, he remained quiet in his office at Springfield until 1858, when he became a candidate for Senator. During this canvass he made some of the most remarkable speeches of his life. In 1860 he was elected President of the United States.
On January 1st, 1863, President Lincoln declared in accordance with a previous proclamation, the freedom of all the slaves in the rebellious territory, a work which has since been consummated throughout all the Union by act of the States and the Federal Congress.
In 1864, Mr. Lincoln was re-elected to the Presidency, and was duly inaugurated, on the 4th of March, 1865. He will be remembered as long as the history of the American Republic endures, as a good man, who labored to do his duty, who bore the honors of a high station with meekness and humility, and who guided his country through dreadful perils to a happy and secure peace, upon the safe basis of democratic institutions.