I told you that I would not speak about Abraham Lincoln's early life, but I see that I shall have to do so. He was born in a mean little log-cabin in the back woods a hundred years ago, in the year 1809. His father could not read and did not like to work, and the poor little fellow had hardly enough to eat.
His mother loved him, but she could do little for him, and she died when he was only eight years old. Then his father married a second wife. She was a good woman, and she did all she could for the poor, forlorn little boy. But it did not look much then as if this ragged and hungry little chap would become President of the United States.
There was one good thing about little Abe, he had a great love for books. He went to school only long enough to learn to read and write, but he borrowed and read all the books he could get. When he found he could not go to school he studied at home. He had no slate or pencil, so he studied arithmetic by the light of the kitchen fire, working out the problems on the back of a wooden fire shovel. When this was full he would scrape it off smooth and begin again. In this way the boy got to be the best scholar in all the country around him. How many of you would have worked as hard as he did to get an education? Yet it was this kind of work that made him President.
Lincoln knew how to make use of his learning. He was always a good talker, and he grew to be one of the best public speakers of his times. He became so well known and so well respected that at length he was sent to Congress. Lincoln did not believe that slavery was a good thing for the country, and was sure it was a wrong thing in itself. So he joined the Republican Party, which had just been formed.
There was another fine speaker in Illinois named Douglas, who had different ideas about slavery from Lincoln and was a member of the Democratic Party. Lincoln and Douglas went about Illinois making speeches to the people, and great crowds came to hear them, for they were two of the best speakers in the country. Everywhere people were talking about Lincoln and Douglas and saying what able men they were.
In 1860 came the time when a new President was to be chosen, and out of all the political leaders of the country these two men from far-west Illinois were selected—Douglas by those who were in favor of slavery and Lincoln by those who opposed slavery. When election day came round and the votes were counted, Abraham Lincoln, the rail splitter, was found to be elected President of the United States.
The people of the South were in a terrible state of mind when they found that a Republican, a man opposed to slavery, was elected President. They could not tell what would take place. The Abolitionists who were against slavery were in power and might pass laws that would rob them of all their slaves. For years they had been fighting the North in Congress—fighting by words, I mean. Now they determined to leave the Union, and to fight with swords and guns if the North would not let them go in peace. One by one the Southern States passed resolutions to go out of the Union. And on all sides they collected powder and balls and other implements of war, for their leaders felt sure they would have to fight. But Lincoln hoped the states would not quarrel. He begged them not to. But if they did it was his duty to do what the people had put him there for. He had been elected President of the United States, and he must do all he could to keep these states united.
It was on the 4th of March, 1861, that Abraham Lincoln became President. By the middle of April the North and South were at war. Both sides had their soldiers in the field and fighting had begun. The South wanted to take Washington, and the North to keep it, and soon a fierce battle was fought at a place called Bull Run, a few miles south of Washington.
The Southern States formed a Union of their own, which was called the Southern Confederacy. They chose Richmond, the capital of Virginia, for the capital of the Confederacy, and chose Jefferson Davis for their President. Davis had fought bravely as a soldier at the battle of Buena Vista, in Mexico. And he had been long in Congress, where he showed himself an able lawmaker. So the South chose him as their best man for President.
The war was half over before President Lincoln did anything about slavery. He was there to save the Union, not to free the slaves. But the time came when he found that freeing the slaves would help him in saving the Union. When this time came—it was on the 1st of January, 1863—he declared that all the slaves should be free. It was a great thing for this country, for it was clear that there could be no peace while slavery remained.