"This work challenges attention for the really valuable light which it throws upon the character of George Washington." "The volume is particularly worth reading because it revives the many-sided nature and activity of a truly great man." "A most readable and entertaining volume. Jefferson will stand higher in popular estimation because of the human touch in the picture." ABRAHAM LINCOLN From an original, unretouched negative made in 1864...

This is not a conventional biography. It is a collection of sketches in which an attempt is made to portray the character of Abraham Lincoln as the highest type of the American from several interesting points of view. He has doubtless been the subject of more literary composition than any other man of modern times, although there was nothing eccentric or abnormal about him; there were no mysteries in his career to excite curiosity; no controversies concerning his conduct, morals, or motives; no

Abraham Lincoln inherited his love of learning from his mother, who was superior in intelligence and refinement to the women of her class and time. His ambition to become a lawyer was inspired by a copy of the Revised Statutes of Indiana which accidentally fell into his hands when he was a mere boy in the swampy forests of the southern section of that State. In the brief autobiography already referred to, which he prepared for the newspapers to gratify public curiosity when he was nominated as a

The fame of Abraham Lincoln as an orator was made secure by his debate with Douglas in 1858, his political speech at Cooper Institute in February, 1860, his oration at the dedication of the Soldiers' Cemetery at Gettysburg in 1863, and his second inaugural address in March, 1865. Neither of these four distinct examples of argument and eloquence has ever been surpassed in their separate fields. That was the judgment of his contemporaries, and it is confirmed by the succeeding generation, not only

When Abraham Lincoln was twenty-two years old and a clerk in Denton Offutt's store he offered himself to the voters of New Salem and vicinity as a candidate for the Illinois Legislature. It was the year that the Whigs held their first National Convention and nominated Henry Clay as their candidate for President; and from that time, as has been seen, Lincoln made politics as well as law a profession, and participated actively in every campaign until he was elected President. In those days nominat

Lincoln tells us that before he left the telegraph office at Springfield on the night of the election in November, 1860, he had practically selected his Cabinet. The superintendent of the telegraph company gave him a room from which all other visitors were excluded, and, with no company but two operators, he read the reports as they came in. Between times he had plenty of opportunity for meditation, and, always confident, the returns soon convinced him of his election and his mind naturally turn

When President Lincoln, confronted by the infirmities and incapacity of General Scott and the jealousy and rivalry of the younger officers of the army, was compelled to assume the direction of the conduct of the war, he was entirely ignorant of military affairs, except for the experience he had gained in his youth during the Black Hawk War, which, however, was more of a frontier frolic than a serious campaign. His own account of it is found in the autobiography he furnished to the press after hi

There was very little social life in the White House during the Lincoln administration. The President gave a few State dinners each year, such as were required of his official position, held a few public receptions to gratify the curiosity of the Washington people and strangers in the city, and gave one ball which excited much criticism from the religious press and from unfriendly sources. It was represented as a heartless exhibition of frivolity in the midst of dying soldiers and a grief-strick

Abraham Lincoln's hatred of slavery was inborn, but its development began when he saw human beings sold at auction on the levee at New Orleans and chained and beaten upon the decks of Mississippi River steamboats on their way to market. These horrors were first witnessed by him when he made his voyage on the flat-boat from Gentryville, and the impression was deepened upon his second journey four years later from New Salem. Even to the day of his death the recollection was vivid. He alluded to it

That rare gift which in the every-day affairs of life is called tact and in statecraft is known as diplomacy was possessed by Abraham Lincoln to a degree that was remarkable for a man of his meagre education and limited experience. Before his nomination to the Presidency his fame and activity had been almost exclusively provincial, and in a province which had not yet grown out of the formative period; but he was a profound student of human nature, and possessed a quality called sagacity, which i

Abraham Lincoln has left us abundant testimony in words and works of his code of morals and religious creed. He was a man of keen perception of right and wrong, of acute conscience and deep religious sentiment, although he was not "orthodox." He declined to join a church because of conscientious scruples. He would not confess a faith that was not in him. His reason forbade him to accept some of the doctrines taught by the Baptist and Christian churches, to which his parents belonged, and the Pre