In 1843 he was elected to the State Senate. Also manufactured shoes on an extended scale for the southern market. The old Whig party, with whom he had been so earnestly allied, proving itself unable to cope with the slave power, by rejecting the anti-slavery resolutions at the convention of 1843, he withdrew from it. Later, he was a conspicuous figure in the organization of the new Free Soil party, being the Chairman of the committee in his State, and editor of the Boston Republican. In 1850-52 he was president of the State Senate, and in '52 presided at the Free Soil contention at Pittsburgh. The next year he was the Free Soil candidate for Governor of Massachusetts, but was defeated. In 1855 he was chosen United States Senator, where he distinguished himself. When his colleague, Mr. Sumner, was attacked by Preston S. Brooks, Mr. Wilson fearlessly denounced it as a cowardly, not to say dastardly assault. He was immediately challenged by Mr. Brooks, but declined on the ground that dueling is a barbarous custom which the law of the country has branded as a crime. He was one of the leaders in the new Republican party movement.
During the civil war his labors were indefatigable for the Union, and in 1872 he was elected on that ticket with Grant by an overwhelming majority.
He died in office, November 22nd, 1875, and the boy shoemaker was mourned by a great nation. Truly, the price of success is patient toil.
[Abraham Lincoln.]
If one reads the life of Abraham Lincoln they are thoroughly convinced that the possibilities of our country are indeed very great. He was born in Hardin county, Kentucky, on the 14th day of February, 1809, of very poor parents, who lived in a log cabin.
Scarcely a boy in the country will read these lines but has tenfold the opportunity to succeed in the world as had Abraham Lincoln. When he was still a little boy his parents moved to Indiana, which was then a wilderness. Here, in a log cabin, he learned to read under the tuition of his mother and afterward received nearly a year's schooling at another log cabin a mile away,—nearly a year's schooling and all the schooling he ever received from a tutor!
But he loved books, he craved knowledge and eagerly did he study the few books which fell in his way. He kept a scrap-book into which he copied the striking passages and this practice enabled him to gain an education. Here he grew up, becoming famous for his great strength and agility; he was six foot four inches in his stockings and was noted as the most skillful wrestler in the country. When he was about twenty years old the Lincoln family moved to Illinois, settling ten miles from Decatur, where they cleared about fifteen acres and built a log cabin. Here is where Lincoln gained his great reputation as a rail-splitter. He had kept up his original system of reading and sketching, and from this period in his life he became a marked man—he was noted for his information. It makes little difference whether knowledge is gained in college or by the side of a pile of rails, as Lincoln was wont to study after his day's work was done.
In 1830 he took a trip on a flat-boat to New Orleans. It was on this trip that he first saw slaves chained together and whipped. Ever after, he detested the institution of slavery. Upon his return he received a challenge from a famous wrestler; he accepted and threw his antagonist. About this time he became a clerk in a country store, where his honesty and square dealing made him a universal favorite, and earned for him the sobriquet of 'Honest Abe.' He next entered the Black Hawk war, and was chosen captain of his company. Jefferson Davis also served as an officer in this war. In the fall of 1832 he was a candidate for the legislature, but was defeated. He then opened a store with a partner named Berry. Lincoln was made postmaster, but Berry proved a drunkard and spendthrift, bringing the concern to bankruptcy, and soon after died, to fill a drunkard's grave, leaving Lincoln to pay all the debts. But during all this time Lincoln had been improving his spare moments learning surveying, and for the next few years he earned good wages surveying.
He now decided to become a lawyer, and devoted his attention, so far as possible, to the accumulation of a thorough knowledge. At one period during his studies he walked, every Saturday, to Springfield, some eight miles away, to borrow and return books pertaining to his studies. These books he studied nights, and early in the morning, out of working hours. In 1834 he was once more a candidate for the legislature, and was triumphantly elected, being re-elected in 1836, 1838, and 1840. In 1837, when he had arrived at the age of twenty-eight, he was admitted to the bar, where he soon became noted as a very successful pleader before a jury. He was a Whig of the Henry Clay school, a splendid lawyer, and a ready speaker at public gatherings.