CHAPTER XXI
HOW LINCOLN BECAME PRESIDENT
I SHOULD like to tell you all about one of the greatest and noblest men who ever lived in our country, and give you his story from the time he was born until the time he died. But that would be biography, and this is a book of history. Biography is the story of a man; history is the story of a nation. So I cannot give you the whole life of Abraham Lincoln, but only that part of it which has to do with the history of our country.
Nations, you should know, are divided into monarchies and republics. In a monarchy the ruler is called a king, or some other name which means the same thing. And when a king dies his son takes his place as king. The king may be noble and wise, or he may be base and foolish; he may be a genius, or he may be an idiot, without any sense at all; he may be kind and just, or he may be cruel and unjust; but for all that he is king. There may be some good points in letting a man be born king, but you can see that there are many bad ones. The history of the nations has often shown this, as you may have seen in what we have said of some of the English kings who had to do with America.
In a republic the ruler—who is called president instead of king—is not born to his office, but is chosen by the people; and he cannot rule the nation all his life, but only for a few years. In that way the best and wisest man in the nation may be chosen as its ruler. We do not always get the best man in the United States; but that is the fault of the people, it is not the fault of the plan. There is one thing sure, we never get a fool or an idiot, as kingdoms sometimes do.
There are times when we do choose our best and wisest man, and everybody thinks we did so when we made Abraham Lincoln President. As I have told you, as soon as he was made President a great war began between the two halves of our people. It is not so easy to rule in war as in peace, and I must say that poor Lincoln had a very hard time of it. But he did the best he could, and people say now that no man in our nation could have done better. Abraham Lincoln stands next to George Washington among the great and noble men of America.
There is one more thing it is well to know. It is not only the rich and proud that we choose to be our Presidents. Many of them have begun life as poor boys, and none of them began poorer than "honest Abe Lincoln," as the people he lived among called him. He well deserved this name, for he was always good and honest.
No doubt there are many poor boys among my readers, but I do not believe that any of you are as poor as was little Abe Lincoln, or have had as hard a life. So you see that while a king must have a king or great noble for father, a President may be the son of the poorest laborer. Any one of my young readers, if he can bring himself strongly to the notice of the people, may become President, and I should not wonder at all if some one among you should do so in future times.