| Abraham Lincoln was born Feb. 12, 1809, then in
Hardin, now in the more recently formed county of Larue, Kentucky. His father, Thomas,
& grand-father, Abraham, were born in Rockingham county Virginia, whither their
ancestors had come from Berks county Pennsylvania. His lineage has been traced no farther
back than this. The family were originally Quakers, though in later times they have fallen
away from the peculiar habits of that people. The grand-father Abraham, had four brothers
- Isaac, Jacob, John & Thomas. So far as known, the descendants of Jacob and John are
still in Virginia. Isaac went to a place near where Virginia, North Carolina, and
Tennessee, join; and his descendants are in that region. Thomas came to Kentucky, and
after many years, died there, whence his descendants went to Missouri. Abraham,
grandfather of the subject of this sketch, came to Kentucky, and was killed by Indians
about the year 1784. He left a widow, three sons and two daughters. The eldest son,
Mordecai, remained in Kentucky till late in life, when he removed to Hancock comity,
Illinois, where soon after he died, and where several of his descendants still reside. The
second son, Josiah, removed at an early day to a place on Blue River, now within Harrison
county, Indiana; but no recent information of him, or his family, has been obtained. The
eldest sister, Mary, married Ralph Crume and some of her descendants are now known to be
in Breckenridge county Kentucky. The second sister, Nancy, married William Brumfield, and
her family are not known to have left Kentucky, but there is no recent information from
them. Thomas, the youngest son, and father of the present subject, by the early death of
his father, and very narrow circumstances of his mother, even in childhood was a wandering
laboring boy, and grew up literally without education. He never did more in the way of
writing than to bunglingly sign his own name. Before he was grown, he passed one year as a
hired hand with his uncle Isaac on Wataga, a branch of the Holsteen River. Getting back
into Kentucky, and having reached his 28th year, he married Nancy Hanks - mother of the
present subject - in the year 1806. She also was born in Virginia; and relatives of hers
of the name of Hanks, and of other names, now reside in Coles, in Macon, and in Adams
counties, Illinois, and also in Iowa. The present subject has no brother or sister of the
whole or half blood. He had a sister, older than himself, who was grown and married, but
died many years ago, leaving no child. Also a brother, younger than himself, who died in
infancy. Before leaving Kentucky he and his sister were sent for short periods, to A.B.C.
schools, the first kept by Zachariah Riney, and the second by Caleb Hazel. At this time his father resided on Knob-creek, on the road from Bardstown Ky.
to Nashville Tenn. at a point three, or three and a half miles South or South-West of
Atherton's ferry on the Rolling Fork. From this place he removed to what is now Spencer
county Indiana, in the autumn of 1816, A. then being in his eighth year. This removal was
partly on account of slavery; but chiefly on account of the difficulty in land titles in
Ky. He settled in an unbroken forest; and the clearing away of surplus wood was the great
task a head. A. though very young, was large of his age, and had an ax put into his hands
at once; and from that till within his twenty third year, he was almost constantly
handling that most useful instrument - less, of course, in plowing and harvesting seasons.
At this place A. took an early start as a hunter, which was never much improved
afterwards. (A few days before the completion of his eighth year, in the absence of his
father, a flock of wild turkeys approached the new log-cabin, and A. with a rifle gun,
standing inside, shot through a crack, and killed one of them. He has never since pulled a
trigger on any larger game.) In the autumn of 1818 his mother died; and a year afterwards
his father married Mrs. Sally Johnston, at Elizabeth-Town, Ky. - a widow, with three
children of her first marriage. She proved a good and kind mother to A. and is still
living in Coles Co. Illinois. There were no children of this second marriage. His father's
residence continued at the same place in Indiana, till 1830. While here A. went to A.B.C.
schools by littles, kept successively by Andrew Crawford, - Sweeney, and Azel W. Dorsey.
He does not remember any other. The family of Mr. Dorsey now reside in Schuyler Co.
Illinois. A. now thinks that the aggregate of all his schooling did not amount to one
year. He was never in a college or Academy as a student; and never inside of a college or
academy building till since he had a law-license. What he has in the way of education, he
has picked up. After he was twenty three, and had separated from his father, he studied
English grammar, imperfectly of course, but so as to speak and write as well as he now
does. He studied and nearly mastered the Six-books of Euclid, since he was a member of
Congress. He regrets his want of education, and does what he can to supply the want. In
his tenth year he was kicked by a horse, and apparently killed for a time. When he was
nineteen, still residing in Indiana, he made his first trip upon a flat-boat to
New-Orleans. He was a hired hand merely; and he and a son of the owner, without other
assistance, made the trip. The nature of part of the cargo-load, as it was called - made
it necessary for them to linger and trade along the Sugar coast - and one night they were
attacked by seven Negroes with intent to kill and rob them. They were hurt some in the
melee, but succeeded in driving the Negroes from the boat, and then "cut cable"
"weighed anchor" and left.
March 1st. 1830 - A. having just completed his 21st. year,
his father and family, with the families of the two daughters and sons-in-law, of his
step-mother, left the old homestead in Indiana, and came to Illinois. Their mode of
conveyance was wagons drawn by ox-teams, or A. drove one of the teams. They reached the
county of Macon, and stopped there some time within the same month of March. His father
and family settled a new place on the North side of the Sangamon river, at the junction of
the timber-land and prairie, about ten miles Westerly from Decatur. Here they built a
log-cabin, into which they removed, and made sufficient of rails to fence ten acres of
ground, fenced and broke the ground, and raised a crop of sown corn upon it the same year.
These are, or are supposed to be, the rails about which so much is being said just now,
though they are far from being the first, or only rails ever made by A.
The sons-in-law, were temporarily settled at other places in
the county. In the autumn all hands were greatly afflicted with augue and fever, to which
they had not been used, and by which they were greatly discouraged - so much so that they
determined on leaving the county. They remained however, through the succeeding winter,
which was the winter of the very celebrated "deep snow" of Illinois. During that
winter, A. together with his step-mother's son, John D. Johnston, and John Hanks, yet
residing in Macon county, hired themselves to one Denton Offutt, to take a flat boat from
Beardstown Illinois to New-Orleans; and for that purpose, were to join him - Offut - at
Springfield, Ills so soon as the snow should go off. When it did go off which was about
the 1st of March 1831 - the county was so flooded, as to make traveling by land
impracticable; to obviate which difficulty they purchased a large canoe and came down the
Sangamon river in it. This is the time and the manner of A's first entrance into Sangamon
County. They found Offutt at Springfield, but learned from him that he had failed in
getting a boat at Beardstown. This lead to their hiring themselves to him at $12 per
month, each; and getting the timber out of the trees and building a boat at old Sangamon
Town on the Sangamon river, seven miles N.W. of Springfield, which boat they took to
New-Orleans, substantially upon the old contract. It was in connection with this boat that
occurred the ludicrous incident of sewing up the hogs eyes. Offutt bought thirty odd large
fat live hogs, but found difficulty in driving them from where he purchased them to the
boat, and thereupon conceived the whim that he could sew up their eyes and drive them
where he pleased. No sooner thought of than decided, he put his hands, including A. at the
job, which they completed - all but the driving. In their blind condition they could not
be driven out of the lot or field they were in. This expedient failing; they were tied and
hauled on carts to the boat. It was near the Sangamon River, within what is now Menard
county.
During this boat enterprise acquaintance with Offutt, who was
previously an entire stranger, he conceived a liking for A. and believing he could turn
him to account, he contracted with him to act as clerk for him, on his return from New
Orleans in charge of a store and Mill at New-Salem, then in Sangamon, now in Menard
county. Hanks had not gone to New-Orleans, but having a family, and being likely to be
detained from home longer than at first expected, had turned back from St. Louis. He is
the same John Hanks who now engineers the "rail enterprize" at Decatur; and is a
first cousin to A's mother. A's father, with his own family & others mentioned, had,
in pursuance of their intention, removed from Macon to Coles county. John D. Johnston, the
step-mother's son, went to them; and A. stopped indefinitely, and, for the first time, as
it were, by himself at New-Salem, before mentioned. This was in July 1831. Here he rapidly
made acquaintances and friends. In less than a year Offutt's business was failing - had
almost failed, - when the Black-Hawk war of 1832 broke out. A joined a volunteer company,
and to his own surprise, was elected captain of it. He says he has not since had any
success in life which gave him so much satisfaction. He went the campaign, served near
three months, met the ordinary hardships of such an expedition, but was in no battle. He
now owns in Iowa, the land upon which his own warrants for this service, were located
Returning from the campaign, and encouraged by his great popularity among his immediate
neighbors, he, the same year, ran for the Legislature and was beaten - his own precinct,
however, casting it's votes 277 for and 7, against him. And this too while he was an
avowed Clay man, and the precinct the autumn afterwards, giving a majority of 115 to Genl.
Jackson over Mr. Clay. This was the only time A was ever beaten on a direct vote of the
people. He was now without means and out of business, but was anxious to remain with his
friends who had treated him with so much generosity, especially as he had nothing
elsewhere to go to. He studied what he should do - thought of learning the black-smith
trade - thought of trying to study law - rather thought he could not succeed at that
without a better education. Before long, strangely enough, a man offered to sell and did
sell, to A. and another as poor as himself, an old stock of goods, upon credit. They
opened as merchants; and he says that was the store. Of course they did nothing but
get deeper and deeper in debt. He was appointed Postmaster at New-Salem - the office being
too insignificant, to make his politics an objection. The store winked out. The Surveyor
of Sangamon, offered to depute to A that portion of his work which was within his part of
the county. He accepted, procured a compass and chain, studied Flint, and Gibson a little,
and went at it. This procured bread, and kept soul and body together. The election Of 1834
came, and he was then elected to the Legislature by the highest vote cast for any
candidate. Major John T. Stuart, then in full practice of the law, was also elected.
During the canvass, in a private conversation he encouraged A. to study law. After the
election he borrowed books of Stuart, took them home with him, and went at it in good
earnest. He studied with nobody. He still mixed in the surveying to pay board and clothing
bills. When the Legislature met, the law books were dropped, but were taken up again at
the end of the session. He was re-elected in 1836, 1838, and 1840. In the autumn of 1836
he obtained a law license, and on April 15, 1837 removed to Springfield, and commenced the
practice, his old friend, Stuart taking him into partnership. March 3rd. 1837, by a
protest entered upon the Ills. House Journal of that date, at pages 817, 818, A. with Dan
Stone, another representative of Sangamon, briefly, defined his position on the slavery
question; and so far as it goes, it was then the same that it is now. The protest is as
follows - (Here insert it) In 1838, & 1840 Mr. L's party in the Legislature voted for
him as Speaker; but being in the minority, he was not elected. After 1840 he declined a
re-election to the Legislature. He was on the Harrison electoral ticket in 1840, and on
that of Clay in 1844, and spent much time and labor in both those canvasses. In Nov. 1842
he was married to Mary, daughter of Robert S. Todd, of Lexington, Kentucky. They have
three living children, all sons - one born in 1843, one in 1850, and one in 1853. They
lost one, who was born in 1846. In 1846, he was elected to the lower House of Congress,
and served one term only, commencing in Dec. 1847 and ending with the inauguration of Gen.
Taylor, in March 1849. All the battles of the Mexican war had been fought before Mr. L.
took his seat in congress, but the American army was still in Mexico, and the treaty of
peace was not fully and formally ratified till the June afterwards. Much has been said of
his course in Congress in regard to this war. A careful examination of the Journals and
Congressional Globe shows, that he voted for all the supply measures which came up, and
for all the measures in any way favorable to the officers, soldiers, and their families,
who conducted the war through; with this exception that some of these measures passed
without yeas and nays, leaving no record as to how particular men voted. The Journals and
Globe also show him voting that the war was unnecessarily and unconstitutionally begun by
the President of the United States. This is the language of Mr. Ashmun's amendment, for
which Mr. L. and nearly or quite all, other Whigs of the H. R. voted.
Mr. L's reasons for the opinion expressed by this vote were
briefly that the President had sent Genl. Taylor into an inhabited part of the country
belonging to Mexico, and not to the U.S. and thereby had provoked the first act of
hostility - in fact the commencement of the war; that the place, being the county
bordering on the East bank of the Rio Grande, was inhabited by native Mexicans, born there
under the Mexican government; and had never submitted to, nor been conquered by Texas, or
the U.S. nor transferred to either by treaty - that although Texas claimed the Rio Grande
as her boundary, Mexico had never recognized it, the people on the ground had never
recognized it, and neither Texas nor the U.S. had ever enforced it - that there was a
broad desert between that, and the country over which Texas had actual control - that the
country where hostilities commenced, having once belonged to Mexico, must remain so, until
it was somehow legally transferred, which had never been done.
Mr. L. thought the act of sending an armed force among the
Mexicans, was unnecessary, inasmuch as Mexico was in no way molesting, or menacing
the U.S. or the people thereof; and that it was unconstitutional, because the power
of levying war is vested in Congress, and not in the President. He thought the principal
motive for the act, was to divert public attention from the surrender of "Fifty-four,
forty, or fight" to Great Britain, on the Oregon boundary question.
Mr. L. was not a candidate for re-election. This was
determined upon, and declared before he went to Washington, in accordance with an
understanding among Whig friends, by which Col. Hardin, and Col. Baker had each previously
served a single term in the same District.
In 1848, during his term in congress, he advocated Gen.
Taylor's nomination for the Presidency, in opposition to all others, and also took an
active part for his election, after his nomination - speaking a few times in Maryland,
near Washington, several times in Massachusetts, and canvassing quite fully his own
district in Illinois, which was followed by a majority in the district of over 1500 for
Gen. Taylor.
Upon his return from Congress he went to the practice of the
law with greater earnestness than ever before. In 1852 he was upon the Scott electoral
ticket, and did something in the way of canvassing, but owing to the hopelessness of the
cause in Illinois, he did less than in previous presidential canvasses.
In 1854, his profession had almost superseded the thought of
politics in his mind, when the repeal of the Missouri compromise aroused him as he had
never been before.
In the autumn of that year he took the stump with no broader
practical aim or object to secure, if possible, the re-election of Hon Richard Yates to
congress. His speeches at once attracted a more marked attention than they had ever before
done. As the canvass proceeded, he was drawn to different parts of the state, outside of
Mr. Yates' district. He did not abandon the law, but gave his attention, by turns, to that
and politics. The State agricultural fair was at Springfield that year, and Douglas was
announced to speak there.
In the canvass of 1856, Mr. L. made over fifty speeches, no
one of which, so far as he remembers, was put in print. One of them was made at Galena,
but Mr. L. has no recollection of any part of it being printed; nor does he remember
whether in that speech he said anything about a Supreme court decision. He may have spoken
upon that subject; and some of the newspapers may have reported him as saying what is now
ascribed to him; but he thinks he could not have expressed himself as represented.
June, 1860
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