The farm hands thanked him and went in. Then they said that one of them, whose name was Jim, was quite tall. They had told him that he was as tall as the great A-bra-ham Lin-coln, and they had made up their minds to come to town and see if they could find out if that was the case.
So with a smile on his face Mr. Lin-coln left his desk, and the morn-ing’s mail, and asked the young man to stand up by the side of the wall. Then Mr. Lin-coln put a cane on the top of his head, and let the end of the stick touch the plas-ter-ing. Thus he found his height. Mr. Lin-coln told the man that it was now his turn to hold the cane and do the same for him. So Mr. Lin-coln stepped un-der the cane, and it was found that both were the same height. Jim’s friends had made a good guess.
Small deeds of kind-ness like these won hosts of friends for A-bra-ham.
As time went on the trains brought scores of folks to Spring-field. Some said they had just come to shake hands with Mr. Lin-coln, while more told a straight tale and said they came to ask for a post of some sort, and thought they would “take time by the fore-lock.” In fact the crowds of men who came to ask for pri-zes were so large that Mr. Lin-coln had to leave his old desk and go to a room in the State-house which the Gov-ern-or of Il-li-nois had placed at his use. Here he met all in his kind way.
While Lin-coln wait-ed, af-ter his nom-i-na-tion, he kept track of all the moves that were made. Still, he had so much trust that he said, “The peo-ple of the South have too much sense to ru-in the gov-ern-ment,” and he told his friends that they must not say or feel an-y ill will to those who were not of the same mind, but “re-mem-ber that all A-mer-i-cans are broth-ers and should live like broth-ers.”
But, ere long, it was plain that the storm which had been mak-ing its way slow-ly but sure-ly, was a-bout to burst.
As soon as Lin-coln’s e-lec-tion was known the South be-gan to throw off the ties which bound it to the Un-ion.
The Sen-a-tors from South Car-o-li-na gave up their posts four days lat-er. Six weeks from that time that state went out from the Un-ion and set up a new gov-ern-ment.
One af-ter an-oth-er, oth-er states in the South went out, al-so, and joined South Car-o-li-na, un-til, by the first of Feb-ru-a-ry, 1861, all the sev-en cot-ton states had with-drawn from the Un-ion. Their claim was that the rights of a state were high-er than those of the Un-ion when it thought it ought to do so.