 CHAPTER V. A FOUR GREAT AMERICANS by James Baldwin. Red for LibriVox.org into the public domain. AT EXITER ACADEMY. It was the first time that Daniel Webster had been so far from home. He was bashful and awkward. His clothes were of homemade stuff, and they were cut in the quaint style of the back-country districts. He must have been a funny-looking fellow. No wonder that the boys laughed when they saw him going up to the principal to be examined for admission. The principal of the academy, at the time, was Dr. Benjamin Abbott. He was a great scholar and a very dignified gentleman. He looked down at the slender, black-eyed boy and asked, What is your age, sir? Fourteen years, said Daniel. I will examine you first in reading. Take this Bible and let me hear you read some of these verses. He pointed to the twenty-second chapter of St. Luke's Gospel. The boy took the book and began to read. He had read this chapter a hundred times before. Indeed, there was no part of the Bible that was not familiar to him. He read with a clearness and fervor which few men could equal. The dignified principal was astonished. He stood as though spellbound, listening to the rich, mellow tones of the bashful lad from among the hills. In the case of most boys it was enough if he heard them rediverse or two, but he allowed Daniel Webster to read on until he had finished the chapter. Then he said, There is no need to examine you further. You are fully qualified to enter this academy. Most of the boys at Exeter were gentlemen's sons. They dressed well. They had been taught fine manners. They had the speech of cultivated people. They laughed at the awkward new boy. They made fun of his home-spun coat. They twitted him on account of his poverty. They annoyed him in a hundred ways. Daniel felt hurt by this cruel treatment. He grieved bitterly over it in secret, but he did not resent it. He studied hard and read much. He was soon at the head of all his classes. His schoolmates ceased laughing at him, for they saw that with all his uncouth ways he had more ability than any of them. He had, as I have said, a wonderful memory. He had also a quick insight and sound judgment. But he had had so little experience with the world that he was not sure of his own powers. He knew that he was awkward, and this made him timid and bashful. When it came his turn to decline before the school he had not the courage to do it. Long afterwards, when he had become the greatest orator of modern times, he told how hard this thing had been for him at Exeter. Many a peace did I commit to memory, and rehearse in my room over and over again. But when the day came, when the school collected, when my name was called and I saw all eyes turned upon my seat, I could not raise myself from it. Sometimes the masters frowned, sometimes they smiled. My tutor always pressed and entreated with the most winning kindness that I would venture only once, but I could not command sufficient resolution, and when the occasion was over I went home and wept tears of bitter mortification. Daniel stayed nine months at Exeter. In those nine months he did as much as the other boys of his age could do in two years. He mastered arithmetic, geography, grammar, and rhetoric. He also began the study of Latin. Besides this, he was a great reader of all kinds of books, and he added something every day to his general stock of knowledge. His teachers did not oblige him to follow a graded course of study. They did not hold him back with the duller pupils of his class. They did not oblige him to wait until the end of the year before he could be promoted, or could begin the study of a new subject. But they encouraged him to do his best. As soon as he had finished one subject, he advanced to a more difficult one. More than fifty years afterwards Dr. Abbott declared that in all his long experience he had never known anyone whose power of gaining knowledge was at all equal to that of the bashful country lad from the New Hampshire Hills. Judge Webster would have been glad to let Daniel stay at Exeter until he had finished the studies required at the academy, but he could not afford the expense. If he should spend all his money to keep the boy at the academy, how could he afterwards find the means to send him to college where the expenses would be much greater? So he thought it best to find a private teacher for the boy. This would be cheaper. CHAPTER VI. OF FOUR GREAT AMERICANS by JAMES BALDWIN. Red for LibriVox.org into the public domain. GETTING READY FOR COLLEGE. One day in the early winter Judge Webster asked Daniel to ride with him to Boscoen. Boscoen was a little town, six miles away, where they sometimes went for business or for pleasure. Snow was on the ground. Father and son rode together in a little old fashioned sleigh, and as they rode they talked about many things. Just as they were going up the last hill Judge Webster said, Daniel, do you know the Reverend Samuel Wood here in Boscoen? I have heard of him, said Daniel. He takes boys into his family and gets them ready for college. Yes, and he does it cheap, too, said his father. He charges only a dollar a week for board intuition, fuel and lights and everything. But they say he is a fine teacher, said Daniel. His boys never fail in the college examinations. That is what I have heard, too, answered his father. And now, Danny, I may as well tell you a secret. For the last six years I have been planning to have you take a course at Dartmouth College. I want you to stay with Dr. Wood this winter, and he will get you ready to enter. We might as well go and see him now. This was the first time that Daniel had ever heard his father speak of sending him to college. His heart was so full that he could not say a word. But the tears came in his eyes as he looked up into the Judge's stern, kind face. He knew that if his father carried out his plan it would cost a great deal of money, and if this money should be spent for him then the rest of the family would have to deny themselves of many comforts which they might otherwise have. Oh, never mind that, Dan, said his brother Ezekiel. We are never so happy as when we are doing something for you, and we know that you will do something for us some time. And so the boy spent the winter in Boscoine with Dr. Wood. He learned everything very easily, but he was not as close a student as he had been at Exeter. He was very fond of sport. He liked to go fishing, and sometimes when the weather was fine his studies were sadly neglected. There was a circulating library in Boscoine, and Daniel read every book that was in it. Sometimes he slid at his Latin for the sake of giving more time to such reading. One of the books in the library was Don Quixote. Daniel thought it the most wonderful story in existence. He afterwards said, I began to read it, and it is literally true that I never closed my eyes until I had finished it, so great was the power of this extraordinary book on my imagination. But it was so easy for the boy to learn that he made very rapid progress in all his studies. In less than a year Dr. Wood declared that he was ready for college. He was then fifteen years old. He had a pretty thorough knowledge of arithmetic, but he had never studied algebra or geometry. In Latin he had read four of Cicero's orations and six books of Virgil's Aeneid. He knew something of the elements of Greek grammar, and had read a portion of the Greek Testament. Nowadays, a young man could hardly enter even a third-rate college without a better preparation than that. The colleges are much more thorough than they were a hundred years ago. Dartmouth College is at Hanover, New Hampshire. It is one of the oldest colleges in America and among its students have been many of the foremost men of New England. It was in the fall of 1797 that Daniel Webster entered this college. He was then a tall, slender youth with high cheekbones and a swarthy skin. The professors soon saw that he was no common lad. They said to one another, This young Webster will one day be a greater man than any of us. And young Webster was well behaved and studious at college. He was as fond of sport as any of the students, but he never gave himself up to boyish pranks. He was punctual and regular in all his classes. He was as great a reader as ever. He could learn anything that he tried. No other young man had a broader knowledge of things than he. And yet he did not make his mark as a student in the prescribed branches of study. He could not confine himself to the narrow routine of the college course. He did not, as at Exeter, push his way quickly to the head of his class. He won no prizes. But he minded his own business, said one of the professors, as steady as the sun he pursued, with intense application, the great object for which he came to college. Soon everybody began to appreciate his scholarship. Everybody admired him for his manliness and good common sense. He was looked upon as being so far in advance of anyone else that no other student of his class was ever spoken of a second to him. He very soon lost that bashfulness which had troubled him so much at Exeter. It was now no task for him to stand up and acclaim before the professors and students. In a short time he became known as the best writer and speaker in the college. Indeed, he loved to speak, and the other students were always pleased to listen to him. One of his classmates tells us how he prepared his speeches. He says, It was Webster's custom to arrange his thoughts, in his mind, while he was in his room or while he was walking alone. Then he would put them upon paper just before the exercise was to be called for. If he was to speak at two o'clock he would often begin to write after dinner, and when the bell rang he would fold his paper, put it in his pocket, go in, and speak with great ease. In his movements he was slow and deliberate, except when his feelings were aroused. Then his whole soul would kindle into a flame. In the year 1800 he was chosen to deliver the Fourth of July address to the students of the college and the citizens of the town. He was then eighteen years old. The speech was a long one. It was full of the love of country. Its tone throughout was earnest and thoughtful. But in its style it was overdone. It was full of pretentious expressions. It lacked the simplicity and good common sense that should mark all public addresses. And yet, as the speech of so young a man, it was a very able effort. People said that it was the promise of much greater things, and they were right. In the summer of 1801 Daniel graduated, but he took no honors. He was not even present at the commencement. His friends were grieved that he had not been chosen to deliver the valedictory address. Perhaps he also was disappointed. But the professors had thought best to give that honor to another student. End of Section 37, read by Cibella Denton. For more information please visit LibriVox.org. Section 38, Webster Chapter 8 of Four Great Americans by James Baldwin. Read for LibriVox.org into the public domain. How Daniel Taught School While Daniel Webster was taking his course in college, there was one thing that troubled him very much. It was the thought of his brother Ezekiel toiling at home on the farm. He knew that Ezekiel had great abilities. He knew that he was not fond of the farm, but that he was anxious to become a lawyer. This brother had given up all his dearest plans in order that Daniel might be favored, and Daniel knew that this was so. Once, when Daniel was at home on a vacation, he said, Zeke, this thing is all wrong. Father has mortgaged the farm for money to pay my expenses at school, and you are making a slave of yourself to pay off the mortgage. It isn't right for me to let you do this. Ezekiel said, Daniel, I am stronger than you are, and if one of us has to stay on the farm, of course I am the one. But I want you to go to college, said Daniel, and education will do you as much good as me. I doubt it, said Ezekiel, and yet if father was only able to send us both, I think that we might pay him back some time. I will see father about it this very day, said Daniel. He did see him. I told my father, said Daniel afterwards, that I was unhappy at my brother's prospects. For myself I saw my way to knowledge, respectability, and self-protection. But as to Ezekiel, all looked the other way. I said that I would keep school and get along as well as I could, be more than four years in getting through college if necessary, provided he also could be sent to study. The matter was referred to Daniel's mother, and she and his father talked it over together. They knew that it would take all the property they had to educate both the boys. They knew that they would have to do without many comforts, and that they would have a hard struggle to make a living while the boys were studying. But the mother said, I will trust the boys. And it was settled that Ezekiel too should have a chance to make his mark in the world. He was now a grown-up man. He was tall and strong and ambitious. He entered college the very year that Daniel graduated. As for Daniel, he was now ready to choose a profession. What should it be? His father wanted him to become a lawyer, and so to please his parents he went home and began to read law in the office of a Mr. Thompson in the little village of Salisbury which adjoined his father's farm. The summer passed by. It was very pleasant to have nothing to do but to read, and when the young man grew tired of reading he could go out fishing or could spend a day in hunting among the New Hampshire hills. It is safe to say that he did not learn very much law during that summer. But there was not a day that he did not think about his brother. Ezekiel had done much to help him through college, and now ought he not to help Ezekiel? But what could he do? He had a good education, and his first thought was that he might teach school, and thus earn a little money for Ezekiel. The people of Freiburg in Maine wanted him to take charge of the academy in their little town, and so early in the fall he decided to take up with their offer. He was to have three hundred and fifty dollars for the year's work, and that would help Ezekiel a great deal. He bade good-bye to Mr. Thompson and his little law office and made ready to go into his new field of labor. There were no railroads at that time, and a journey of even a few miles was a great undertaking. Daniel had bought a horse for twenty-four dollars. In one end of an old-fashioned pair of saddlebags he put his Sunday clothes, and in the other he packed his books. He laid the saddlebags upon the horse, then he mounted and rode off over the hills toward Freiburg, sixty miles away. He was not quite twenty years old. He was very slender and nearly six feet in height. His face was thin and dark. His eyes were black and bright and penetrating. No person who once saw them could ever forget them. Young as he was, he was very successful as a teacher during that year which he spent at Freiburg. The trustees of the academy were so highly pleased that they wanted him to say a second year. They promised to raise his salary to five or six hundred dollars and to give him a house and a piece of land. He was greatly tempted to give up all further thoughts of becoming a lawyer. What shall I do, he said to himself, shall I say, yes, gentlemen, and sit down here to spend my days in a kind of comfortable privacy? But his father was anxious that he should return to the study of the law, and so he was not long in making up his mind. In a letter to one of his friends he said, I shall make one more trial of the law in the ensuing autumn. If I prosecute the profession, I pray God to fortify me against its temptations, to be honest, to be capable, to be faithful to my client and my conscience. Early the next September he was again in Mr. Thompson's little law office. All the money that he had saved while at Freiburg was spent to help Ezekiel through college. A year and a half young Daniel Webster stayed in the office of Mr. Thompson. He had now fully made up his mind as to what profession he would follow, and so he was a much better student than he had been before. He read many law books with care. He read Hume's history of England and spent a good deal of time with the Latin classics. At this period of my life, he afterwards said, I passed a great deal of time alone. My amusements were fishing and shooting and riding, and all these were without a companion. I loved this solitude then, and I have loved it ever since, and I love it still. The Webster family were still very poor. Judge Webster was now too old to do much work of any kind. The farm had been mortgaged for all that it was worth. It was hard to find money enough to keep Daniel at his law studies and Ezekiel in college. At last it became necessary for one of the young men to do something that would help matters along. Ezekiel decided that he would leave college for a time and try to earn enough money to meet the present needs of the family. Through some of his friends he obtained a small private school in Boston. There were very few pupils in Ezekiel Webster's school, but there were so many branches to be taught that he could not find time to hear all the recitations. So at last he sent word to Daniel to come down and help him. If Daniel would teach an hour and a half each day, he should have enough money to pay his board. Daniel was pleased with the offer. He had long wanted to study law in Boston, and here was his opportunity. And so early in March 1804 he joined his brother in that city, and was soon doing what he could to help him in his little school. There was in Boston at that time a famous lawyer whose name was Christopher Gore. While Daniel Webster was wondering how he could best carry on his studies in the city, he heard that Mr. Gore had no clerk in his office. How I should like to read law with Mr. Gore, he said to Ezekiel. Yes, said Ezekiel, you could not want a better tutor. I mean to see him today and apply for a place in his office, said Daniel. It was with many misgivings that the young man went into the presence of the great lawyer. We will let him tell the story in his own words. I was from the country, I said, had studied law for two years, had come to Boston to study a year more, had heard that he had no clerk, thought it possible he would receive one. I told him that I came to Boston to work, not to play, was most desirous on all accounts to be his pupil, and all I ventured to ask at present was that he would keep a place for me in his office till I could write to New Hampshire for proper letters, showing me worthy of it. Mr. Gore listened to this speech very kindly, and then bad Daniel be seated, while he should have a short talk with him. When at last the young man rose to go, Mr. Gore said, my young friend, you look as if you might be trusted. You say you came to study and not to waste time. I will take you at your word. You may as well hang up your hat at once. And this was the beginning of Daniel Webster's career in Boston. He must have done well in Mr. Gore's office, for in a few months he was admitted to the practice of law in the Court of Common Pleas in Boston. It was at some time during this same winter that Daniel was offered the position of clerk in the county court at home. His father, as you will remember, was one of the judges in this court, and he was very much delighted at the thought that his son would be with him. The salary would be about fifteen hundred dollars a year, and that was a great sum to Daniel as well as to his father. The mortgage on the farm could be paid off, Ezekiel could finish his course in college, and life would be made easier for them all. At first Daniel was as highly pleased as his father, but after he had talked with Mr. Gore he decided not to accept the offered position. Your prospects, as a lawyer, said Mr. Gore, are good enough to encourage you to go on. Go on and finish your studies. You are poor enough, but there are greater evils than poverty. Live on no man's favor. Pursue your profession. Make yourself useful to your friends, and a little formidable to your enemies, and you will have nothing to fear. A few days after that Daniel paid a visit to his father. The judge received him very kindly, but he was greatly disappointed when the young man told him that he had made up his mind not to take the place. With his deep-set flashing eyes he looked at his son for a moment as though in anger. Then he said very slowly, Well, my son, your mother has always said that you would come to something or nothing. She was not sure which. I think you are now about settling that doubt for her. A few weeks after this Daniel, as I have already told you, was admitted to the bar in Boston, but he did not think it best to begin his practice there. He knew how anxious his father was that he should be near him. He wanted to do all that he could to cheer and comfort the declining years of the noble man who had sacrificed everything for him. And so in the spring of 1805 he settled in the town of Boscoen, six miles from home, and put up at his office-door this sign, D. Webster, attorney. CHAPTER TEN OF FOUR GREAT AMERICANTS BY JAMES BALTWIN LEWYER AND CONGRESSMAN When Daniel Webster had been in Boscoen nearly two years, his father died. It was then decided that Ezekiel should come and take charge of the home farm and care for their mother. Ezekiel had not yet graduated from college, but he had read law and was hoping to be admitted to the bar. He was a man of much natural ability, and many people believed that he would some day become a very famous lawyer. And so in the autumn of 1807 Daniel gave up to his brother the law business which he had in Boscoen, and removed to the city of Portsmouth. He was now twenty-five years old. In Portsmouth he would find plenty of work to do. It would be the very kind of work that he liked. He was now well-started on the road towards greatness. The very next year he was married to Miss Grace Fletcher, the daughter of a minister in Hopkinson. The happy couple began housekeeping in a small, modest wooden house in Portsmouth, and there they lived very plainly and without pretension for several years. Mr. Webster's office was a common, ordinary-looking room with less furniture and more books than common. He had a small inner room, opening from the larger, rather an unusual thing. It was not long until the name of Daniel Webster was known all over New Hampshire. Those who were acquainted with him said that he was the smartest young lawyer in Portsmouth. They said that if he kept on in the way that he had started, there were great things in store for him. The country people told wonderful stories about him. They said that he was as black as a coal, but of course they had never seen him. They believed that he could gain any case in court that he chose to manage, and in this they were about right. There was another lawyer in Portsmouth. His name was Jeremiah Mason, and he was much older than Mr. Webster. Indeed he was already a famous man when Daniel first began the practice of law. The young lawyer and the older one soon became warm friends, and yet they were often opposed to each other in the courts. Daniel was always obliged to do his best when Mr. Mason was against him. This caused him to be very careful. It no doubt made him become a better lawyer than he otherwise would have been. While Webster was thus quietly practicing law in New Hampshire, trouble was brewing between the United States and England. The English were doing much to hinder American merchants from trading with foreign countries. They claimed the right to search American vessels for seamen who had deserted from the British service, and it is said that American sailors were often dragged from their own vessels and forced to serve on board the English ships. Webster's kept getting worse and worse for several years. At last, in June 1812, the United States declared war against England. Daniel Webster was opposed to this war, and he made several speeches against it. He said that although he had doubtless suffered many wrongs, there was more cause for war with France than with England, and then the United States had no navy, and hence was not ready to go to war with any nation. Webster's influence in New Hampshire was so great that he persuaded many people of that state to think just as he thought on this subject. They nominated him as their representative in Congress, and when the time came they elected him. It was on the 24th of May, 1813, that he first took his seat in Congress. He was then thirty-one years old. In that same Congress there were two other young men who afterward made their names famous in the history of their country. One was Henry Clay of Kentucky. The other was John C. Calhoun of South Carolina. Both were a little older than Webster, both had already made some mark in public life, and both were in favor of the war. During his first year in Congress Mr. Webster made some stirring speeches in support of his own opinions. As well by his skill in debate he made himself known as a young man of more than common ability and promise. Chief Justice Marshall, who was then at the head of the Supreme Court of the United States, said of him, I have never seen a man of whose intellect I had a higher opinion. In 1814 the war that had been going on so long came to an end. But now there were other subjects which claimed Mr. Webster's attention in Congress. Then as now there were important questions regarding the money of the nation, and upon these questions there was a great difference of opinion. Daniel Webster's speeches, in favor of a sound currency, did much to maintain the national credit and to save the country from bankruptcy. The people of New Hampshire were so well pleased with the record which he made in Congress that when his first term expired they re-elected him for a second. End of Section 40, read by Cibella Denton. For more information please visit LibriVox.org. Section 41, Webster, Chapter 11 of Four Great Americans by James Baldwin, read for LibriVox.org into the public domain. The Dartmouth College Case. In 1816, before his second term in Congress had expired, Daniel Webster removed with his family to Boston. He had lived in Portsmouth nine years, and he now felt that he needed a wider field for the exercise of his talents. He was no longer the slender, delicate person that he had been in his boyhood and youth. He was a man of noble mean, a sturdy, dignified personage who bore the marks of greatness upon him. People said, when Daniel Webster walked across the streets of Boston, he made the buildings look small. As soon as his term in Congress had expired, he began the practice of law in Boston. For nearly seven years he devoted himself strictly to his profession. Of course, he at once took his place as the leading lawyer of New England. Indeed, he soon became known as the ablest counselor and advocate in America. The best business of the country now came to him. His income was very large, amounting to more than twenty thousand dollars a year. During this time, there was no harder worker than he. In fact, his natural genius could have done but little for him had it not been for his untiring industry. One of his first great victories in law was that which is known as the Dartmouth College case. The lawmakers of New Hampshire had attempted to pass a law to alter the charter of the college. By doing this, they would endanger the usefulness and prosperity of that great school in order to favor the selfish projects of its enemies. No Webster undertook to defend the college. The speech which he made before the Supreme Court of the United States was a masterly effort. Sir, he said, you may destroy this little institution. It is weak. It is in your hands. I know it is one of the lesser lights in the literary horizon of our country. You may put it out. But if you do so, you must carry through your work. You must extinguish, one after another, all those greater lights of science which, for more than a century, have thrown their light over our land. He won the case, and this, more than anything else, helped to gain for him the reputation of being the ablest lawyer in the United States. In 1820, when he was thirty-eight years old, Daniel Webster was chosen to deliver an oration at a great meeting of New Englanders at Plymouth, Massachusetts. Plymouth is the place where the pilgrims landed in 1620. Just two hundred years had passed since that time, and this meeting was to celebrate the memory of the brave men and women who had risked so much to found new homes in what was then a bleak wilderness. The speech which Mr. Webster delivered was one of the greatest ever heard in America. It placed him at once at the head of American Orators. John Adams, the second president of the United States, was then living a very old man. He said, This oration will be read five hundred years hence with as much rapture as it was heard. It ought to be read at the end of every century, and indeed at the end of every year, for ever and ever. But this was only the first of many great addresses by Mr. Webster. In 1825 he delivered an oration at the laying of the cornerstone of the Bunker Hill Monument. Eighteen years later, when the monument was finished, he delivered another. Many of Mr. Webster's admirers think that these two orations are his masterpieces. On July 4, 1826 the United States had been independent just fifty years. On that day there passed away two of the greatest men of the country, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. Both were ex-presidents, and both had been leaders in the councils of the nation. It was in memory of these two patriots that Daniel Webster was called to deliver an oration in Fanuel Hall, Boston. No other funeral oration has ever been delivered in any age or country that was equal to this in eloquence. Like all his other discourses it was full of patriotic feeling. This lovely land, he said, this glorious liberty, these benign institutions, the dear purchase of our fathers, are ours, ours to enjoy, ours to preserve, ours to transmit. Generations past and generations to come hold us responsible for this sacred trust. Our fathers, from behind, admonish us with their anxious paternal voices. Posterity calls out to us from the bosom of the future. The world turns hither its solicitous eyes. All, all conjure us to act wisely and faithfully in the relation which we sustain. Most of his other great speeches were delivered in Congress, and are therefore political in tone and subject. Great as Daniel Webster was in politics and law, it is as an orator and patriot that his name will be longest remembered. CHAPTER XIII When Daniel Webster was forty years old, the people of Boston elected him to represent them in Congress. They were so well pleased with all that he did while there that they re-elected him twice. In June, 1827, the legislature of Massachusetts chose him to be United States Senator for a term of six years. He was at that time the most famous man in Massachusetts, and his name was known and honored in every state of the union. After that he was re-elected to the same place again and again, and for more than twenty years he continued to be the distinguished senator from Massachusetts. I cannot now tell you of all his public services during the long period that he sat in Congress. Indeed, there are some things that you would find hard to understand until you have learned more about the history of our country. But you will, by and by, read of them in the larger books which you will study at school, and no doubt you will also read some of his great addresses and orations. It was in 1830 that he delivered the most famous of all his speeches in the Senate chamber of the United States. This speech is commonly called the Reply to Hain. I shall not here try to explain the purport of Mr. Hain's speeches, for there were two of them. I shall not try to describe the circumstances which led Mr. Webster to make his famous reply to them. But I will quote Mr. Webster's closing sentences. Forty years ago the schoolboys all over the country were accustomed to memorize and to claim these patriotic utterances. When my eyes shall be turned to behold for the last time the sun in heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of a once glorious union, on states desevered, discordant, belligerent, on a land rent with civil feuds or drenched it may be in fraternal blood. Let their last feeble and lingering glance rather behold the gorgeous ensign of the Republic, now known and honored throughout the earth, still high advanced, its arms and trophies streaming in their original luster, not a stripe erased or polluted, not a single star obscured, bearing for its motto no such miserable interrogatory, what is all this worth? Nor those other words of delusion and folly, liberty first and union afterwards, but everywhere, spread all over in characters of living light, blazing on all its folds as they float over the land, and in every wind under the whole heavens that other sentiment, dear to every American heart, liberty and union, now and forever, one and inseparable. In 1841 Daniel Webster resigned his seat in the Senate. He did this in order to become Secretary of State in the Cabinet of the newly elected President William Henry Harrison. But President Harrison died on the 5th of April after having held his office just one month, and his place was taken by the Vice President John Tyler. Mr. Webster now felt that his position in the Cabinet would not be a pleasant one, but he continued to hold it for nearly two years. His most important act as Secretary of State was to conclude a treaty with England which fixed the northeastern boundary of the United States. This treaty is known in history as the Ashburton Treaty. In 1843 Mr. Webster resigned his place in President Tyler's Cabinet, but he was not allowed to remain long in private life. Two years later he was again elected to the United States Senate. Not this time, Texas was annexed to the United States. But Mr. Webster did not favor this, for he believed that such an act was contrary to the Constitution of our country. He did all that he could to keep our government from making war upon Mexico. But after this war had been begun, he was a firm friend of the soldiers who took part in it, and he did much to provide for their safety and comfort. Among these soldiers was Edward, the second son of Daniel Webster. He became a major in the main division of the Army and died in the city of Mexico. End of Section 43, read by Cibella Denton. For more information please visit LibriVox.org. Section 44, Webster, Chapter 14 of Four Great Americans by James Baldwin. Read for LibriVox.org into the public domain. Mr. Webster in Private Life Let us now go back a little way in our story and learn something about Mr. Webster's home and private life. In 1831 Mr. Webster bought a large farm at Marshfield, in the southeastern part of Massachusetts, not far from the sea. He spent a great deal of money in improving this farm, and in the end it was as fine a country seat as one might see anywhere in New England. When he became tired with the many cares of his busy life, Mr. Webster could always find rest and quiet days at Marshfield. He liked to dress himself as a farmer, and stroll about the fields looking at the cattle and the growing crops. I had rather be here than in the Senate, he would say. But his life was clouded with many sorrows. Long before going to Marshfield, his two eldest children relayed in the grave. Their mother followed them just one year before Mr. Webster's first entry into the United States Senate. In 1829 his brother Ezekiel died suddenly, while speaking in court at Concord. Ezekiel had never cared much for politics, but as a lawyer in his native state he had won many honors. His death came as a great shock to everybody that knew him. To his brother it brought overwhelming sorrow. When Daniel Webster was nearly forty-eight years old he married a second wife. She was the daughter of a New York merchant, and her name was Carolyn Bayard Leroy. She did much to lighten the disappointments of his later life, and they lived together happily for more than twenty years. In 1839 Mr. and Mrs. Webster made a short visit to England. The fame of the great order had gone before him, and he was everywhere received with honor. The greatest men of the time were proud to meet him. Henry Hallam, the historian, wrote of him, Mr. Webster approaches as nearly to the beau ideal of a Republican senator as any man that I have ever seen in the course of my life. Even the Queen invited him to dine with her, and she was much pleased with his dignified ways and noble bearing. And indeed his appearance was such as to win the respect of all who saw him. When he walked the streets of London people would stop and wonder who the noble stranger was, and working men whispered to one another, there goes a king. Section 45 Webster, Chapter 15, A Four Great Americans by James Baldwin, read for LibriVox.org into the public domain. The last years. Many people believed that Daniel Webster would finally be elected president of the United States, and indeed there was no man in all this country who was better fitted for that high position than he. But it so happened that inferior men, who were willing to stoop to the tricks of politics, always stepped in before him. In the meanwhile the question of slavery was becoming, every day, more and more important. It was the one subject which claimed everybody's attention. Should slavery be allowed in the territories? There was great excitement all over the country. There were many hot debates in Congress. It seemed as though the Union would be destroyed. At last the wiser and cooler-headed leaders in Congress said, Let each side give up a little to the other. Let us have a compromise. On the 7th of March, 1850, Mr. Webster delivered a speech before the Senate. It was a speech in favor of compromise, in favor of conciliation. He thought that this was the only way to preserve the Union, and he was willing to sacrifice everything for the Constitution and the Union. He declared that all the ends he aimed at were for his country's good. I speak today for the preservation of the Union, he said, hear me for my cause. I speak today out of a solicitous and anxious heart for the restoration to the country of that quiet and harmony which make the blessings of this Union so rich and dear to us all. He then went on to defend the law known as the Fugitive Slave Law. He declared that this law was in accordance with the Constitution, and hence it should be enforced according to its true meaning. This speech was a great disappointment to his friends. They said that he had deserted them, that he had gone over to their enemies, that he was no longer a champion of freedom but of slavery. Those who had been his warmest supporters now turned against him. A few months after this President Taylor died. The Vice President, Millard Fillmore, then became President. Mr. Fillmore was in sympathy with Daniel Webster and soon gave him a seat in his cabinet as Secretary of State. This was the second time that Mr. Webster had been called to fill this high and honorable position, but under President Fillmore he did no very great or important thing. He was still the leading man in the Whig Party, and he hoped in 1852 to be nominated for the presidency, but in this he was again disappointed. He was now an old man. He had had great successes in life, but he felt that he had failed at the end of the race. His health was giving way. He went home to Marshfield for the quiet unrest which he so much needed. In May that same year he was thrown from his carriage and severely hurt. From this hurt he never recovered. He offered to resign his seat in the cabinet, but Mr. Fillmore would not listen to this. In September he became very feeble and his friends knew that the end was near. On the twenty-fourth of October, 1852, he died. He was nearly seventy-one years old. In every part of the land his death was sincerely mourned. Both his friends and his enemies felt that a great man had fallen. They felt that this country had lost its leading statesman, its noblest patriot, its worthiest citizen. Rufus Chote, who had succeeded him as the foremost lawyer in New England, delivered a great oration upon his life and character. He said, Look in how manly a sword, in how high a moral tone Mr. Webster uniformly dealt with the mind of his country. Where do you find him flattering his countrymen, indirectly or directly, for a vote? On what did he ever place himself but good councils and useful service? Who ever heard that voice cheering the people on to repacity, to injustice, to a vain and guilty glory? How anxiously, rather, did he prefer to teach that by all possible acquired sobriety of mind, by asking reverently of the past, by obedience to the law, by habits of patient labor, by the cultivation of the mind, by the fear and worship of God, we educate ourselves for the future that is revealing. CHAPTER ONE OF FOUR GREAT AMERICANS by James Baldwin Read for LibriVox.org into the public domain THE STORY OF ABRAHAM LINCAN THE KENTUCKY HOME Not far from Hodginsville, in Kentucky, there once lived a man whose name was Thomas Lincoln. This man had built for himself a little log cabin by the side of a brook, where there was an ever-flowing spring of water. There was but one room in this cabin. On the side next to the brook there was a low doorway, and at one end there was a large fireplace built of rough stones and clay. The chimney was very broad at the bottom and narrow at the top. It was made of clay, with flat stones and slender sticks laid around the outside to keep it from falling apart. In the wall, on one side of the fireplace, there was a square hole for a window, but there was no glass in this window. In the summer it was left open all the time, in cold weather a deer skin or a piece of coarse cloth was hung over it to keep out the wind in the snow. At night or on stormy days the skin of a bear was hung across the doorway for there was no door on hinges to be opened and shut. There was no ceiling to the room, but the inmates of the cabin, by looking up, could see the bear rafters and the rough roofboards which Mr. Lincoln himself had split in hewn. There was no floor, but only the bear ground that had been smoothed and beaten until it was as level and hard as pavement. For chairs there were only blocks of wood and a little rude bench on one side of the fireplace. The bed was a little platform of poles on which were spread the furry skins of wild animals and a patchwork quilt of homespun goods. In this poor cabin on the 12th of February 1809 a baby boy was born. There was already one child in the family, a girl, two years old whose name was Sarah. The little boy grew up and became strong like other babies and his parents named him Abraham after his grandfather who had been killed by the Indians many years before. When he was old enough to run about he liked to play under the trees by the cabin door. Sometimes he would go with his little sister into the woods and watch the birds and the squirrels. He had no playmates. He did not know the meaning of toys or playthings, but he was a happy child and had many pleasant ways. Thomas Lincoln the father was a kind-hearted man, very strong and brave. Sometimes he would take the child on his knee and tell him strange true stories of the great forest and of the Indians and the fierce beasts that roamed among the hills and woods. Poor Thomas Lincoln had always lived on the wild frontier and he would rather hunt deer and other game in the forest than do anything else. Perhaps this is why he was so poor. Perhaps this is why he was content to live in the little log cabin with so few of the comforts of life. But Nancy Lincoln, the young mother, did not complain. She too had grown up among the rude scenes of the back woods. She had never known better things. And yet she was by nature refined and gentle, and people who knew her said that she was very handsome. She was a model housekeeper too, and her poor log cabin was the neatest and best kept house in all that neighborhood. No woman could be busier than she. She knew how to spin and weave, and she made all the clothing for the family. She knew how to wield the axe and the hoe, and she could work on the farm or in the garden when her health was needed. She had also learned how to shoot with a rifle, and she could bring down a deer or other wild game with as much ease as could her husband. And when the game was brought home she could dress it, she could cook the flesh for food, and of the skin she could make clothing for her husband and children. There was still another thing that she could do. She could read, and she read all the books that she could get hold of. She taught her husband the letters of the alphabet, and she showed him how to write his name. For Thomas Lincoln had never gone to school, and he had never learned how to read. As soon as little Abraham was old enough to understand, his mother read stories to him from the Bible. Then while he was still very young she taught him to read the stories for himself. The neighbors thought it a wonderful thing that so small a boy could read. There were very few of them who could do as much. Few of them thought it of any great use to learn how to read. There were no schoolhouses in that part of Kentucky in those days, and of course there were no public schools. One winter a traveling schoolmaster came that way. He got leave to use a cabin not far from Mr. Lincoln's, and gave notice that he would teach school for two or three weeks. The people were too poor to pay him for teaching longer. The name of this schoolmaster was Zachariah Riney. The young people, for miles around, flocked to the school. Most of them were big girls and boys, and a few were grown-up young men. The only little child was Abraham Lincoln, and he was not yet five years old. There was only one book studied at that school, and it was a spelling book. It had some easy reading lessons at the end, but these were not to be read until after every word in the book had been spelled. You can imagine how the big boys and girls felt when Abraham Lincoln proved that he could spell and read better than any of them. End of Section 46. Read by Cibela Denton. For more information, please visit LibriVox.org. Section 47. Lincoln, Chapter 2 of Four Great Americans by James Baldwin. Read for LibriVox.org into the public domain. Work and Sorrow. In the autumn, just after Abraham Lincoln was eight years old, his parents left their Kentucky home and moved to Spencer County in Indiana. It was not yet a year since Indiana had become a state. Land could be bought very cheap, and Mr. Lincoln thought that he could make a good living there for his family. He had heard also that game was plentiful in the Indiana woods. It was not more than seventy or eighty miles from the old home to the new. But it seemed very far indeed, and it was a good many days before the travelers reached their journey's end. For a part of the way there was no road, and the movers had to cut a path for themselves through the thick woods. The boy, Abraham, was tall and very strong for his age. He already knew how to handle an axe, and few men could shoot with a rifle better than he. He was his father's helper in all kinds of work. It was in November when the family came to the place which was to be their future home. Winter was near at hand. There was no house nor shelter of any kind. It would become of the patient, tired mother, and the gentle little sister who had borne themselves so bravely during the long, hard journey. No sooner had the horses been loosed from the wagon than Abraham and his father were at work with their axes. In a short time they had built what they called a camp. This camp was but a rude shed made of poles and thatched with leaves and branches. It was enclosed on three sides so that the chill winds or driving rains from the north and west could not enter. The fourth side was left open and in front of it a fire was built. This fire was kept burning all the time. It warmed the interior of the camp. A big iron kettle was hung over it by means of a chain and pole, and in this kettle the fat bacon, the venison, the beans, and the corn were boiled for the family's dinner and supper. In the hot ashes the good mother baked luscious corn dodgers, and sometimes perhaps a few potatoes. In one end of the camp were the few cooking utensils and little articles of furniture which even the poorest house cannot do without. The rest of the space was the family's sitting-room and bedroom. The floor was covered with leaves, and on these were spread the furry skins of deer and bears and other animals. It was in this camp that the family spent their first winter in Indiana. How very cold and dreary that winter must have been. Think of the stormy nights, of the shrieking wind, of the snow and the sleet and the bitter frost. It is not much wonder if, before the spring months came, the mother's strength began to fail. But it was a busy winter for Thomas Lincoln. Every day his axe was hurt in the woods. He was clearing the ground so that in the spring it might be planted with corn and vegetables. He was hewing logs for his new house, for he had made up his mind now to have something better than a cabin. The woods were full of wild animals. It was easy for Abraham and his father to kill plenty of game, and thus keep the family supplied with fresh meat. And Abraham, with chopping and hewing and hunting and trapping, was very busy for a little boy. He had but little time to play, and since he had no playmates we cannot know whether he even wanted to play. With his mother he read over and over the Bible stories which both of them loved so well. And during the cold stormy days when he could not leave the camp his mother taught him how to write. In the spring the new house was raised. It was only a huge log house, with one room below and a loft above, but it was so much better than the old cabin in Kentucky that it seemed like a palace. The family had become so tired of living in the camp that they moved into the new house before the floor was laid, or any door hung at the doorway. Then came the plowing and the planting and the hoeing. Everybody was busy from day light to dark. There were so many trees and stumps that there was but little room for the corn to grow. The summer passed and autumn came. Then the poor mother's strength gave out. She could no longer go about her household duties. She had to depend more and more upon the help that her children could give her. At length she became too feeble to leave her bed. She called her boy to her side. She put her arms about him and said, Abraham I am going away from you and you will never see me again. I know that you will always be good and kind to your sister and father. Try to live as I have taught you and love your heavenly father. On the fifth of October she fell asleep, never to wake again. Under a big sycamore tree, half a mile from the house, the neighbors dug the grave for the mother of Abraham Lincoln. And there they buried her in silence and great sorrow. There was no minister there to conduct religious services. In all that new country there was no church, and no holy man could be found to speak words of comfort and hope to the grieving ones around the grave. But the boy, Abraham, remembered a traveling preacher whom they had known in Kentucky. The name of this preacher was David Elkin, if he would only come. And so, after all was over, the lad sat down and wrote a letter to David Elkin. He was only a child nine years old, but he believed that the good man would remember his poor mother and come. It was no easy task to write a letter. Paper and ink were not things of common use as they are with us. A pen had to be made from the quill of a goose. But at last the letter was finished and sent away. How it was carried I do not know, for the males were few and far between in those days, and postage was very high. It is more than likely that some friend, who was going into Kentucky, undertook to have it finally handed to the good preacher. Months passed. The leaves were again on the trees. The wild flowers were blossoming in the woods. At last the preacher came. He had ridden a hundred miles on horseback. He had forded rivers and traveled through pathless woods. He had dared the dangers of the wild forest, all in answer to the lad's beseeching letter. He had no hope of reward, save that which is given to every man who does his duty. He did not know that there would come a time when the greatest preachers in the world would envy him his sad task. And now the friends and neighbors gathered again under the great sycamore tree. The funeral sermon was preached. Hymns were sung. A prayer was offered. Words of comfort and sympathy were spoken. In that time forward the mind of Abraham Lincoln was filled with a high and noble purpose. In his earliest childhood his mother had taught him to love truth and justice, to be honest and upright among men, and to reverence God. These lessons he never forgot. Long afterward, when the world had come to know him as a very great man, he said, All that I am or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother. CHAPTER III The Log-House, which Abraham Lincoln called his home, was now more lonely and cheerless than before. The sunlight of his mother's presence had gone out of it forever. The sister Sarah, twelve years old, was the housekeeper and cook. His father had not yet found time to lay a floor in the house or to hang a door. There were great crevices between the logs through which the wind and the rain drifted on every stormy day. There was not much comfort in such a house. But the lad was never idle. In the long winter days, when there was no work to be done, he spent the time in reading or in trying to improve his writing. There were very few books in the cabins of that backwood settlement. But if Abraham Lincoln heard of one, he could not rest until he had borrowed it and read it. Another summer passed, and then another winter. Then one day Mr. Lincoln went on a visit to Kentucky, leaving his two children and their cousin, Dennis Hanks, at home to care for the house and the farm. I do not know how long he stayed away, but it could not have been many weeks. One evening the children were surprised to see a four-horse wagon draw up before the door. Their father was in the wagon, and by his side was a kind- faced woman, and sitting on the straw at the bottom of the wagon bed there were three well-dressed children, two girls and a boy. And there were some grand things in the wagon, too. There were six split-bottom chairs, a bureau with drawers, a wooden chest and a feather bed. All these things were very wonderful to the lad and lassie who had never known the use of such luxuries. Abraham and Sarah, said Mr. Lincoln, as he leapt from the wagon, I have brought you a new mother and a new brother and two new sisters. The new mother greeted them very kindly, and no doubt looked with gentle pity upon them. They were barefooted, their scant clothing was little more than rags and tatters. They did not look much like her own happy children, whom she had cared for so well. And now it was not long until a great change was made in the Lincoln home. A floor was laid, a door was hung, a window was made, the crevices between the logs were dogged with clay. The house was furnished in fine style, with the chairs and the bureau and the feather bed. The kind new mother brought sunshine and hope into the place that had once been so cheerless. With the young lad, Dennis Hanks, there were now six children in the family. But all were treated with the same kindness, all had the same motherly care. And so, in the midst of much hard work, there were many pleasant days for them all. CHAPTER IV. SCHOOL AND BOOKS. Not very long after this, the people of the neighborhood made up their minds that they must have a schoolhouse. And so, one day after harvest, the men met together and chopped down trees and built a little low-roofed log cabin to serve for that purpose. If you could see that cabin, you would think it a queer kind of schoolhouse. There was no floor, there was only one window, and in it were strips of greased paper pasted across instead of glass. There were no desks, but only rough benches made of logs split in halves. In one end of the room was a huge fireplace, at the other end was the low doorway. The first teacher was a man whose name was Aisle Dorsey. The term of school was very short, for the settlers could not afford to pay him much. It was in mid-winter, for then there was no work for the big boys to do at home. And the big boys, as well as the girls and smaller boys, for miles around came in to learn what they could from Aisle Dorsey. The most of the children studied only spelling, but some of the larger ones learned reading and writing and arithmetic. There were not very many scholars, for the houses in that new settlement were few and far apart. School began at an early hour in the morning and did not close until the sun was down. Just how Abraham Lincoln stood in his classes I do not know, but I must believe that he studied hard and did everything as well as he could. In the arithmetic which he used, he wrote these lines, Abraham Lincoln, his hand and pen, he will be good, but God knows when. In a few weeks Aisle Dorsey's school came to a close, and Abraham Lincoln was again as busy as ever about his father's farm. After that he attended school only two or three short terms. If all his school days were put together they would not make a twelve-month. But he kept on reading and studying at home. His stepmother said of him, he read everything he could lay his hands on. When he came across a passage that struck him he would write it down on boards, if he had no paper, and keep it until he had got paper. Then he would copy it, look at it, commit it to memory, and repeat it. Among the books that he read were the Bible, the Pilgrims Progress, and the Poems of Robert Burns. One day he walked a long distance to borrow a book of a farmer. This book was Weems' Life of Washington. He read as much as he could while walking home. By that time it was dark, and so he sat down by the chimney and read by firelight until bedtime. Then he took the book to bed with him in the loft and read by the light of a tallow candle. In an hour the candle burned out. He laid the book in a crevice between two of the logs of the cabin, so that he might begin reading as soon as it was daylight. But in the night a storm came up. The rain was blown in and the book was wet through and through. In the morning when Abraham awoke he saw what had happened. He dried the leaves as well as he could and then finished reading the book. As soon as he had eaten his breakfast he hurried to carry the book to its owner. He explained how the accident had happened. Mr. Crawford, he said, I am willing to pay you for the book. I have no money, but if you will let me I will work for you until I have made its price. Mr. Crawford thought that the book was worth seventy-five cents and that Abraham's work would be worth about twenty-five cents a day. And so the lad helped the farmer gather corn for three days and thus became the owner of the delightful book. He read the story of Washington many times over. He carried the book with him to the field and read it while he was following the plow. From that time Washington was the one great hero whom he admired. Why could he not model his own life after that of Washington? Why could not he also be a doer of great things for his country? CHAPTER V. OF FOUR GREAT AMERICANS by James Baldwin. Read for LibriVox.org into the public domain. LIFE IN THE BACKWODS. Abraham Lincoln now set to work with a will to educate himself. His father thought that he did not need to learn anything more. He did not see that there was any good in book learning. If a man could read and write in cipher, what more was needed? But the good stepmother thought differently, and when another short term of school began in the little log schoolhouse, all six of the children from the Lincoln cabin were among the scholars. In a few weeks, however, the school had closed, and the three boys were again hard at work, chopping and grubbing in Mr. Lincoln's clearings. They were good-natured, jolly young fellows, and they lightened their labor with many a joke and playful prank. Many were the droll stories with which Abraham amused his companions. Many were the puzzling questions that he asked. Sometimes in the evening, with the other five children around him, he would declaim some peace that he had learned, or he would deliver a speech of his own on some subject of common interest. If you could see him as he then appeared, you would hardly think that such a boy would ever become one of the most famous men of history. On his head he wore a cap made from the schoon of a squirrel or a raccoon. Instead of trousers of cloth he wore buck-skin breeches, the legs of which were many inches too short. His shirt was of deerskin in the winter, and of homespun towel in the summer. Stockings he had none. His shoes were of heavy cowhide, and were worn only on Sundays or in very cold weather. The family lived in such a way as to need very little money. Their bread was made of cornmeal. Their meat was chiefly the flesh of wild game found in the forest. Pewter plates and wooden trenches were used on the table. The tea and coffee-cups were of painted tin. There was no stove, and all the cooking was done on the hearth of the big fireplace. But poverty was no hindrance to Abraham Lincoln. He kept on with his reading and his studies as best he could. Sometimes he would even go into the little village of Gentryville nearby to spend an evening. He would tell so many jokes and so many funny stories that all the people would gather round him to listen. When he was sixteen years old he went one day to Boonville, fifteen miles away, to attend a trial in court. He had never been in court before. He listened with great attention to all that was said. When the lawyer for the defense made his speech, the youth was so full of delight that he could not contain himself. He arose from his seat, walked across the courtroom, and shook hands with the lawyer. That was the best speech I ever heard, he said. He was tall and very slim. He was dressed in a jeans coat and buckskin trousers. His feet were bare. It must have been a strange sight to see him thus complimenting an old and practiced lawyer. From that time one ambition seemed to fill his mind. He wanted to be a lawyer and make great speeches in court. He walked twelve miles barefooted to borrow a copy of the laws of Indiana. Day and night he read and studied. Someday I shall be president of the United States, he said to some of his young friends, and this he said not as a joke, but in the firm belief that it would prove to be true. End of Section 50, read by Cibella Denton. For more information please visit LibriVox.org. Section 51, Lincoln, Chapter 6 of Four Great Americans by James Baldwin. Read for LibriVox.org into the public domain. THE BOATMAN One of Thomas Lincoln's friends owned a ferry boat on the Ohio River. It was nothing but a small row boat and would carry only three or four people at a time. This man wanted to employ some one to take care of his boat and to ferry people across the river. Thomas Lincoln was in need of money, so he arranged with his friend for Abraham to do this work. The wages of the young man were to be two dollars and fifty cents a week, but all the money was to be his father's. One day two strangers came to the landing. They wanted to take passage on a steamboat that was coming down the river. The ferry boy signaled to the steamboat and it stopped in midstream. Then the boy rode out with the two passengers and they were taken on board. As he was turning towards the shore again, each of the strangers tossed a half-dollar into his boat. He picked the silver up and looked at it. Ah! How rich he felt! He had never had so much money at one time, and he had gotten all for a few minutes' labor. When winter came on there were fewer people who wanted to cross the river. So at last the ferry boat was tied up and Abraham Lincoln went back to his father's home. He was now nineteen years old. He was very tall, nearly six feet four inches in height. He was as strong as a young giant. He could jump higher and farther and he could run faster than any of his fellows, and there was no one far or near who could lay him on his back. Although he had always lived in a community of rude, rough people, he had no bad habits. He used no tobacco. He did not drink strong liquor. No profane word ever passed his lips. He was good-natured at all times and kind to everyone. During that winter Mr. Gentry, the storekeeper in the village, had bought a good deal of corn and pork. He intended, in the spring, to load this on a flat boat and send it down the river to New Orleans. In looking about for a captain to take charge of the boat, he happened to think of Abraham Lincoln. He knew that he could trust the young man, and so a bargain was made. Abraham agreed to pilot the boat to New Orleans and to market the produce there, and Mr. Gentry was to pay his father eight dollars and a half a month for his services. As soon as the ice had well melted from the river the voyage was begun. Besides Captain Lincoln there was only one man in the crew, and that was the son of Mr. Gentry's. The voyage was a long and weary one, but at last the two boatmen reached the great southern city. Here they saw many strange things of which they had never heard before. But they soon sold their cargo and boat, and then returned home on a steamboat. To Abraham Lincoln the world was now very different from what it had seemed before. He longed to be away from the narrow life in the woods of Spencer County. He longed to be doing something for himself, to be making for himself a fortune and a name. But then he remembered his mother's teachings when he sat on her knee in the old Kentucky home. Always do right. He remembered her last words. I know you will be kind to your father. And so he resolved to stay with his father, to work for him and to give him all his earnings until he was twenty-one years old. EARLY IN THE SPRING of 1830 Thomas Lincoln sold his farm in Indiana, and the whole family moved to Illinois. The household goods were put in a wagon drawn by four yoke of oxen. The kind stepmother and her daughters rode also in the wagon. Abraham Lincoln, with a long whip in his hand, trudged through the mud by the side of the road and guided the oxen. Who that saw him thus going into Illinois would have dreamed that he would in time become that state's greatest citizen. The journey was a long and hard one, but in two weeks they reached a cater where they had decided to make their new home. Abraham Lincoln was now over twenty-one years old. He was his own man. But he stayed with his father that spring. He helped him fence his land. He helped him plant his corn. But his father had no money to give him. The young man's clothing was all worn out, and he had nothing with which to buy any more. What should he do? Three miles from his father's cabin there lived a thrifty woman, whose name was Nancy Miller. Mrs. Miller owned a flock of sheep, and in her house there were a spinning wheel and a loom that were always busy. And so you must know that she wove a great deal of jeans and homemade cloth. Abraham Lincoln bargained with this woman to make him a pair of trousers. He agreed that for each yard of cloth required he would split her four hundred rails. He had to split fourteen hundred rails in all, but he worked so fast that he had finished them before the trousers were ready. The next April saw young Lincoln piloting another flatboat down the Mississippi to New Orleans. His companion this time was his mother's relative, John Hanks. This time he stayed longer in New Orleans, and he saw some things which he had barely noticed on his first trip. He saw gangs of slaves being driven through the streets. He visited the slave market and saw women and girls sold to the highest bidder like so many cattle. The young man, who would not be unkind to any living being, was shocked by these sides. His heart bled. He was mad, thoughtful, sad, and depressed. He said to John Hanks, If I ever get a chance to hit that institution I'll hit it hard, John. He came back from New Orleans in July. Mr. Offit, the owner of the flatboat which he had taken down, then employed him to act as a clerk in a country store which he had at New Salem. New Salem was a little town not far from Springfield. Young Lincoln was a good salesman, and all the customers liked him. Mr. Offit declared that the young man knew more than anyone else in the United States, and that he could outrun and out wrestle any man in the county. But in the spring of the next year Mr. Offit failed. The store was closed, and Abraham Lincoln was out of employment again. CHAPTER VIII. There were still a good many Indians in the West. The Sac Indians had lately sold their lands in northern Illinois to the United States. They had then moved across the Mississippi River to other lands that had been set apart for them. But they did not like their new home. At last they made up their minds to go back to their former hunting grounds. They were led by a chief whose name was Black Hawk. And they began by killing the white settlers and burning their houses and crops. This was in the spring of 1832. The whole state of Illinois was in alarm. The Governor called for volunteers to help the United States soldiers drive the Indians back. Abraham Lincoln enlisted. His company elected him captain. He did not know anything about military tactics. He did not know how to give orders to his men. But he did the best that he could and learned a great deal by experience. His company marched northward and westward until they came to the Mississippi River. But they did not meet any Indians and so there was no fighting. The young men under Captain Lincoln were rude fellows from the prairies and backwoods. They were rough in their manners and hard to control. But they had very high respect for their captain. Perhaps this was because of his great strength and his skill in wrestling, for he could put the roughest and strongest of them on their backs. Perhaps it was because he was good-natured and kind, and at the same time very firm and decisive. In a few weeks the time for which the company had enlisted came to an end. The young men were tired of being soldiers and so all, except Captain Lincoln and one man, were glad to hurry home. But Captain Lincoln never gave up anything half done. He enlisted again. This time he was a private in a company of mounted rangers. The main camp of the volunteers and soldiers was on the banks of the Rock River in northern Illinois. Here one day Abraham Lincoln saw a young lieutenant of the United States Army whose name was Jefferson Davis. It is not likely that the fine young officer noticed the rough clad Ranger, but they were to know more of each other at a future time. Three weeks after that the war was at an end. The Indians had been beaten in a battle and Black Hawk had been taken prisoner. But Abraham Lincoln had not been in any fight. He had not seen any Indians except peaceable ones. In June his company was mustered out and he returned home to New Salem. He was then twenty-three years old. End of Section fifty-three, read by Cibella Denton. For more information please visit LibriVox.org. Section fifty-four, Lincoln, Chapter nine of Four Great Americans by James Baldwin. Read for LibriVox.org into the public domain. In the Legislature. When Abraham Lincoln came back to New Salem it was nearly time for the state election. The people of the town and neighborhood wanted to send him to the Legislature and he agreed to be a candidate. It was at Papsville, twelve miles from Springfield, that he made his first campaign speech. He said, gentlemen and fellow citizens, I presume you all know who I am. I am humble, Abraham Lincoln. I have been solicited by my friends to become a candidate for the Legislature. My politics are short and sweet. I am in favor of a national bank. I am in favor of the internal improvement system and a high protective tariff. These are my sentiments and political principles. If elected I shall be thankful. If not it will be all the same. He was a tall, gawky, rough-looking fellow. He was dressed in a coarse suit of humspun, much the worse for wear. A few days after that he made a longer and better speech at Springfield. But he was not elected. About this time a worthless fellow, whose name was Barry, created Mr. Lincoln to help him buy a store in New Salem. Mr. Lincoln had no money, but he gave his notes for the value of half the goods. The venture was not a profitable one. In a few months the store was sold, but Abraham did not receive a dollar for it. It was six years before he was able to pay off the notes which he had given. During all this time Mr. Lincoln did not give up the idea of being a lawyer. He bought a second-hand copy of Blackstone's Commentaries at auction. He studied it so diligently that in a few weeks he had mastered the whole of it. He bought an old form-book and began to draw up contracts, deeds, and all kinds of legal papers. He would often walk to Springfield fourteen miles away to borrow a book, and he would master thirty or forty pages of it while returning home. Soon he began to practice in a small way before justices of the peace and country juries. He was appointed postmaster at New Salem, but so little mail came to the place that the office was soon discontinued. He was nearly twenty-five years old, but with all his industry he could hardly earn money enough to pay for his board and clothing. He had learned a little about surveying while living in Indiana. He now took up the study again and was soon appointed deputy surveyor of Sangamon County. He was very skillful as a surveyor. Although his chain was only a grapevine, he was very accurate and never made mistakes. The next year he was again a candidate for the legislature. This time the people were ready to vote for him and he was elected. It was no small thing for so young a man to be chosen to help make the laws of his state. No man ever had fewer advantages than Abraham Lincoln. As a boy he was the poorest of the poor. No rich friend held out a helping hand. But see what he had already accomplished by pluck, perseverance, and honesty. He had not had access to many books, but he knew books better than most men of his age. He knew the Bible by heart. He was familiar with Shakespeare. He could repeat nearly all the poems of Burns. He knew much about physics and mechanics. He had mastered the elements of law. He was very awkward and far from handsome, but he was so modest, so unselfish and kind, that everyone who knew him liked him. He was a true gentleman, a gentleman at heart, if not in outside polish. And so, as I have already said, Abraham Lincoln, at the age of twenty-five, was elected to the State Legislature. He served the people so well that when his term closed, two years later they sent him back for another term. The capital of Illinois had, up to this time, been at Vandalia. Mr. Lincoln and his friends now succeeded in having a law pass to remove it to Springfield. Springfield was nearer to the center of the State. It was more convenient to everybody and had other advantages which Vandalia did not have. The people of Springfield were so delighted that they urged Mr. Lincoln to come there and practice law. An older lawyer, whose name was John T. Stewart, and who had a good practice, offered to take him in partnership with him. And so, in eighteen-thirty-seven, Abraham Lincoln left New Salem and removed to Springfield. He did not have much to move. All the goods that he had in the world were a few clothes which he carried in a pair of saddlebags and two or three law books. He had no money and he rode into Springfield on a borrowed horse. He was then twenty-eight years old. From that time on, Springfield was his home. Section Fifty-Five, Lincoln, Chapter Ten of Four Great Americans by James Baldwin, read for LibriVox.org into the public domain. Politics and Marriage The next year, after his removal to Springfield, Mr. Lincoln was elected to the legislature for the third time. There were then, in this country, two great political parties, the Democrats and the Whigs. Mr. Lincoln was a Whig, and he soon became the leader of his party in the state. But the Whigs were not so strong as the Democrats. The legislature was in session only a few weeks each year, and so Mr. Lincoln could devote all the rest of his time to the practice of law. There were many able lawyers in Illinois, but Abe Lincoln of Springfield soon made himself known among the best of them. In 1840 he was again elected to the legislature. This was the year in which General William H. Harrison was elected President of the United States. General Harrison was a Whig, and Mr. Lincoln's name was on the Whig ticket as a candidate for Presidential Elector in his state. The Presidential Campaign was one of the most exciting that had ever been known. It was called the Log Cabin Campaign because General Harrison had lived in a Log Cabin, and his opponents had sneered at his poverty. In the East, as well as in the West, the excitement was very great. In every city and town and village, wherever there was a political meeting, a Log Cabin was seen. On one side of the low door hung a long handled gourd. On the other side, a Coonskin was nailed to the Logs, the blue smoke curled up from the top of the stick-and-clay chimney. You may believe that Abraham Lincoln went into this campaign with all his heart. He traveled over a part of the state, making stump speeches for his party. One of his ablest opponents was a young lawyer, not quite his own age, whose name was Stephen A. Douglas. In many places during this campaign, Lincoln and Douglas met in public debate upon the questions of the day. And both of them were so shrewd, so well-informed, and so eloquent that those who heard them were unable to decide which was the greater of the two. General Harrison was elected, but not through the help of Mr. Lincoln, for the vote of Illinois that year was for the Democratic candidate. In 1842, when he was thirty-three years old, Mr. Lincoln was married to Miss Mary Todd, a young lady from Kentucky who had lately come to Springfield on a visit. For some time after their marriage, Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln lived in a hotel called the Globe Tavern, paying four dollars a week for rooms and board. But in 1844 Mr. Lincoln bought a small but comfortable frame house, and in this they lived until they went to the White House seventeen years later. Although he had been successful as a young lawyer, Mr. Lincoln was still a poor man. But Mrs. Lincoln said, I would rather have a good man, a man of mind, with bright prospects for success and power and fame, than marry one with all the horses and houses and gold in the world. In 1846 Mr. Lincoln was again elected to the legislature. In the following year the people of his district chose him to be their representative in Congress. He took his seat in December. He was then thirty-nine years old. He was the only Whig from Illinois. There were many famous men in Congress at that time. Mr. Lincoln's lifelong rival, Stephen A. Douglas, was one of the senators from Illinois. He had already served a term or two in the House of Representatives. Daniel Webster was also in the Senate, and so was John C. Calhoun, and so was Jefferson Davis. Mr. Lincoln took an active interest in all the subjects that came before Congress. He made many speeches. But perhaps the most important thing that he did at this time was to propose a bill for the abolition of the slave trade in the city of Washington. He believed that slavery was unjust to the slave and harmful to the nation. He wanted to do what he could to keep it from becoming a still greater evil. But the bill was opposed so strongly that it was not even voted upon. After the close of Mr. Lincoln's term in Congress he hoped that President Taylor, who was a Whig, might appoint him to a good office. But in this he was disappointed. And so in 1849 he returned to his home in Springfield and again settled down to the practice of law. He was then forty years old. Considering the poverty of his youth he had done great things for himself. But he had not done much for his country. Outside of his own state his name was still unknown. His life for the next few years was like that of any other successful lawyer in the newly settled West. He had a large practice, but his fees were very small. His income from his profession was seldom more than $2,000 a year. His habits were very simple. He lived comfortably and respectably. In his modest little home there was an air of order and refinement, but no show of luxury. No matter where he might go Mr. Lincoln would have been known as a Western man. He was six foot four inches in height. His face was very homely, but very kind. He was cordial and friendliness manors. There was something about him which made everybody feel that he was a sincere, truthful, upright man. He was known among his neighbors as Honest Abe Lincoln. Section 57 Lincoln, Chapter 12 of Four Great Americans by James Baldwin Read for LibriVox.org into the public domain. The Question of Slavery The great subject before the country at this time was slavery. It had been the cause of trouble for many years. In the early settlement of the American colonies slavery had been introduced through the influence of the English government. The first slaves had been brought to Virginia nearly 240 years before the time of which I am telling you. Many people saw from the beginning that it was an evil which would at some distant day bring disaster upon the country. In 1782 the people of Virginia petitioned the King of England to put a stop to the bringing of slaves from Africa into that colony. But the petition was rejected and the King forbade them to speak of the matter any more. Washington, Jefferson, and other founders of our nation looked upon slavery as an evil. They hoped that the time might come when it would be done away with, for they knew that the country would prosper better without it. At the time of the revolution slavery was permitted in all the states. But it was gradually abolished, first in Pennsylvania and then in the New England states and afterwards in New York. In 1787 a law was passed by Congress declaring that there should be no slavery in the territory northwest of the river Ohio. This was the territory from which the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin were formed. And so of course these states were free states from the beginning. The great industry of the South was cotton raising. The people of the southern states claimed that slavery was necessary because only Negro slaves could do the work required on the big cotton plantations. Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana were admitted one by one into the union and all were slave states. In 1821 Missouri applied for admission to the union. The South wanted slavery in this state also but the North objected. There were many hot debates in Congress over this question. At last, through the influence of Henry Clay, the dispute was settled by what has since been known as the Missouri Compromise. The Missouri Compromise provided that Missouri should be a slave state. This was to satisfy the South. On the other hand, it declared that all of the western territory north of the line which formed the southern boundary of Missouri should forever be free. This was to appease the North. But the cotton plantars of the South grew more wealthy by the labor of their slaves. More territory was needed for the extension of slavery. Texas joined the United States and became a slave state. Then followed a war with Mexico and California, New Mexico, and Utah were taken from that country. Will slavery be allowed in these new territories also? At this time a new political party was formed. It was called the Free Soil Party and the principle for which it contended was this. No more slave states and no slave territory. This party was not very strong at first, but soon large numbers of Whigs and many Northern Democrats who did not believe in the extension of slavery began to join it. Although the Whig party refused to take any position against the extension of slavery, there were many anti-slavery Whigs who still remained with it and voted with the Whig ticket, and one of these men was Abraham Lincoln. The contest between freedom and slavery became more fierce every day. At last another compromise was proposed by Henry Clay. This compromise provided that California should be admitted as a free state, that slavery should not be prohibited in New Mexico and Utah, that there should be no more markets for slaves in the District of Columbia, and that a new and very strict fugitive slave law should be passed. This compromise is called the Compromise of 1850. It was in support of these measures that Daniel Webster made his last great speech. It was hoped by Webster and Clay that the Compromise of 1850 would put an end to the agitation about slavery. Now we shall have peace, they said, but the agitation became stronger and stronger, and peace seemed farther away than ever before. In 1854 a bill was passed by Congress to organize the territories of Kansas and Nebraska. This bill provided that the Missouri Compromise should be repealed, and that the question of slavery in these territories should be decided by the people living in them. The bill was passed through the influence of Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois. There was now no bar to the extension of slavery into any of the territories, save that of public opinion. The excitement all over the North was very great. In Kansas there was actual war between those who favored slavery and those who opposed it. Thinking men in all parts of the country saw that a great crisis was at hand. End of Section 57. Read by Cibela Denton. For more information please visit LibriVox.org. Section 58. Lincoln. Chapter 13. A Four Great Americans by James Baldwin. Read for LibriVox.org into the public domain. Lincoln and Douglas. It was then that Abraham Lincoln could came forward as the champion of freedom. Stephen A. Douglas was a candidate for reelection to the Senate, and he found it necessary to defend himself before the people of his state for the part he had taken in repealing the Missouri Compromise. He went from one city to another, making speeches, and at each place Abraham Lincoln met him in joint debate. I do not care whether slavery is voted into or out of the territories, said Mr. Douglas. The question of slavery is one of climate. Wherever it is to the interest of the inhabitants of a territory to have slave property, there a slave law will be enacted. But Mr. Lincoln replied, the men who signed the Declaration of Independence said that all men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I beseech you, do not destroy that immortal emblem of humanity, the Declaration of Independence. At last Mr. Douglas felt that he was beaten. He proposed that both should go home and that there should be no more joint discussions. Mr. Lincoln agreed to this, but the words which he had spoken sank deep into the hearts of those who had heard them. The speeches of Lincoln and Douglas were printed in a book. People in all parts of the country read them. They had heard much about Stephen A. Douglas. He was called the Little Giant. He had long been famous among the politicians of the country. It was believed that he would be the next president of the United States. But who was this man Lincoln who had so bravely vanquished the Little Giant? He was called Honest Abe. There were a few people outside his state who had ever heard of him before. Mr. Douglas returned to his seat in the United States Senate. Mr. Lincoln became the acknowledged leader of the forces opposed to the extension of slavery. In May 1856 a convention of the people of Illinois was held in Bloomington, Illinois. It met for the purpose of forming a new political party, the chief object and aim of which should be to oppose the extension of slavery into the territories. Mr. Lincoln made a speech to the members of this convention. It was one of the greatest speeches ever heard in this country. Again and again during the delivery the audience sprang to their feet and by long continued cheers expressed how deeply the speaker had roused them. And so the new party was organized. It was composed of the men who had formed the old free soil party, together with such wigs and Democrats as were opposed to the further growth of the slave power. But the greater number of its members were wigs. This party was called the Republican Party. In June the Republican Party held a national convention at Philadelphia and nominated John C. Fremont for president. But the party was not strong enough to carry the election that year. In that same month the Democrats held a convention at Cincinnati. Every effort was made to nominate Stephen A. Douglas for president. But he was beaten in his own party on account of the action which he had taken in the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. James Buchanan was nominated in his stead and in November was elected. And so the conflict went on. In the year 1858 there was another series of joint debates between Lincoln and Douglas. Both were candidates for the United States Senate. Their speeches were among the most remarkable ever delivered in any country. Lincoln spoke for liberty and justice. Douglas's speeches were full of fire and patriotism. He hoped to be elected president in 1860. In the end it was generally acknowledged that Lincoln had made the best arguments. But Douglas was re-elected to the Senate. End of Section 58. Read by Cibella Denton. For more information please visit LibriVox.org. Section 59, Lincoln, Chapter 14 of Four Great Americans by James Baldwin. Read for LibriVox.org into the public domain. President of the United States. In 1860 there were four candidates for the presidency. The great Democratic Party was divided into two branches. One branch nominated Stephen A. Douglas. The other branch, which included the larger number of the slave owners of the South, nominated John C. Breckenridge of Kentucky. The remnant of the old Whig Party, now called the Union Party, nominated John Bell of Tennessee. The Republican Party nominated Abraham Lincoln. In November came the election and a majority of all the electors chosen were for Lincoln. The people of the cotton-growing states believed that by this election the northern people intended to deprive them of their rights. They believed that the anti-slavery people intended to do much more than prevent the extension of slavery. They believed that the abolitionists were bent upon passing laws to deprive them of their slaves. Wild rumors were circulated concerning the designs which the black Republicans, as they were called, had formed for their coercion and oppression. They declared that they would never submit. So in December the people of South Carolina met in convention and declared that state had succeeded from the Union, that they would no longer be citizens of the United States. One by one six other states followed, and they united to form a new government called the Confederate States of America. It had long been held by the men of the South that the state had a right to withdraw from the Union at any time. This was called the Doctrine of States' Rights. The Confederate States at once chose Jefferson Davis for their president and declared themselves free and independent. In February Mr. Lincoln went to Washington to be inaugurated. His enemies openly boasted that he should never reach that city alive, and a plot was formed to kill him on his passage through Baltimore. But he took an earlier train than the one appointed and arrived at the capital in safety. On the Fourth of March he was inaugurated. In his address at that time he said, In your hands, my dissatisfied countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. Your government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn one to protect and defend it. The Confederate States demanded that the government should give up all the forts, arsenals, and public property within their limits. This president Lincoln refused to do. He said that he could not admit that these states had withdrawn from the Union, or that they could withdraw without the consent of the people of the United States, given in a national convention. And so, in April, the Confederate guns were turned upon Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, and the war was begun. President Lincoln issued a call for seventy-five thousand men to serve in the army for three months, and both parties prepared for the great contest. It is not my purpose to give a history of that terrible war of four years. The question of slavery was now a secondary one. The men of one party were determined at whatever hazard to preserve the Union. The men of the other party fought to defend their doctrine of state's rights, and to set up an independent government of their own. President Lincoln was urged to use his power and declare all the slaves free. He answered, My paramount object is to save the Union, and not either to save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it. If I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it. If I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that. At last, however, when he saw that the success of the Union arms depended upon his freeing the slaves, he decided to do so. On the first of January, 1863, he issued a proclamation declaring that the slaves, in all the states or parts of states, then in rebellion, should be free. By this proclamation more than three millions of colored people were given their freedom. But the war still went on. It reached a turning point, however, at the Battle of Gettysburg in July that same year. From that time the cause of the Confederate states was on the wand. Little by little the Patriots, who were struggling for the preservation of the Union, prevailed. CHAPTER XV. At the close of Mr. Lincoln's first term he was again elected President of the United States. The war was still going on, but the Union arms were now everywhere victorious. His second inaugural address was very short. He did not boast of any of his achievements. He did not rejoice over the defeat of his enemies. But he said, with malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations. Five weeks after that, on the 9th of April, 1865, the Confederate army surrendered, and the war was at an end. Abraham Lincoln's work was done. The 14th of April was Good Friday. On the evening of that day Mr. Lincoln, with Mrs. Lincoln and two or three friends, visited Ford's Theatre in Washington. At a few minutes past ten o'clock an actor whose name was John Wilkes Booth came into the box where Mr. Lincoln sat. No one saw him enter. He pointed a pistol at the President's head and fired. He leaped down upon the stage, shouting, Six Semper Tyrannus, the South is avenged. Then he ran behind the scenes and out by the stage door. The President fell forward. His eyes closed. He neither saw nor heard nor felt anything that was taking place. Kind arms carried him to a private house not far away. At twenty minutes past seven o'clock the next morning those who watched beside him gave out the mournful news that Abraham Lincoln was dead. He was fifty-six years old. The whole nation wept for him. In the South as well as in the North the people bowed themselves in grief. Heartfelt tributes of sorrow came from other lands in all parts of the world. Never before nor since has there been such universal mourning. Such is the story of Abraham Lincoln. In the history of the world there is no story more full of lessons of perseverance, of patience, of honor, of true nobility of purpose. Among the great men of all time there has been no one more truly great than he. End of Section 60