As you have read on an earlier page, when Abe grew to be a big, strong boy he saved a drunken man from freezing in the mud, by carrying him to a cabin, building a fire, and spent the rest of the night warming and sobering him up. Instead of leaving the drunkard to the fate the other fellows thought he deserved, Abe Lincoln, through pity for the helpless, rescued a fellow-being not only from mud and cold but also from a drunkard's grave. For that tall lad's love and mercy revealed to the poor creature the terrible slavery of which he was the victim. Thus Abe helped him throw off the shackles of drink and made a man of him.
BLACK SLAVES AND WHITE
As he grew older, Abe Lincoln saw that the drink habit was a sort of human slavery. He delivered an address before the Washingtonian (Temperance) Society in which he compared white slavery with black, in which he said:
"And when the victory shall be complete—when there shall be neither a slave nor a drunkard on the earth—how proud the title of that land which may truly claim to be the birthplace and the cradle of both those revolutions that have ended in that victory."
This address was delivered on Washington's Birthday, 1842. The closing words throb with young Lawyer Lincoln's fervent patriotism:
"This is the one hundred and tenth anniversary of the birth of Washington; we are met to celebrate this day. Washington is the mightiest name of earth, long since the mightiest in the cause of civil liberty, still mightiest in moral reformation. On that name no eulogy is expected. It cannot be. To add to the brightness of the sun or glory to the name of Washington is alike impossible. Let none attempt it. In solemn awe we pronounce the name and, in its naked, deathless splendor, leave it shining on."
It was young Lincoln's patriotic love for George Washington which did so much to bring about, in time, a double emancipation from white slavery and black.
Once, as President, he said to a boy who had just signed the temperance pledge:
"Now, Sonny, keep that pledge and it will be the best act of your life."
President Lincoln was true and consistent in his temperance principles. In March, 1864, he went by steamboat with his wife and "Little Tad," to visit General Grant at his headquarters at City Point, Virginia.