Band books

As soon as the repeal of the Missouri Compromise
had thrust the slavery question into politics as the paramount issue,
Lincoln plunged into an arduous study of all its legal, historical, and
moral aspects, and then his mind became a complete arsenal of argument.
His rich natural gifts, trained by long and varied practice, had made him
an orator of rare persuasiveness. In his immature days, he had pleased
himself for a short period with that inflated, high-flown style which,
among the uncultivated, passes for "beautiful speaking." His inborn
truthfulness and his artistic instinct soon overcame that aberration and
revealed to him the noble beauty and strength of simplicity. He
possessed an uncommon power of clear and compact statement, which might
have reminded those who knew the story of his early youth of the efforts
of the poor boy, when he copied his compositions from the scraped wooden
shovel, carefully to trim his expressions in order to save paper. His
language had the energy of honest directness and he was a master of
logical lucidity.


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