The district
consisted of several counties, but the unanimous vote of the people of
his own county was for Lincoln. Another unsuccessful attempt at
store-keeping was followed by better luck at surveying, until his horse
and instruments were levied upon under execution for the debts of his
business adventure.
I have been thus detailed in sketching his early years because upon these
strange foundations the structure of his great fame and service was
built. In the place of a school and university training fortune
substituted these trials, hardships, and struggles as a preparation for
the great work which he had to do. It turned out to be exactly what the
emergency required. Ten years instead at the public school and the
university certainly never could have fitted this man for the unique work
which was to be thrown upon him. Some other Moses would have had to lead
us to our Jordan, to the sight of our promised land of liberty.
At the age of twenty-five he became a member of the Legislature of
Illinois, and so continued for eight years, and, in the meantime,
qualified himself by reading such law books as he could borrow at
random--for he was too poor to buy any to be called to the Bar.
Pages:
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125