ABRAHAM LINCOLN American History in Literature NOTED SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN Including the Lincoln-Douglas Debate EDITED WITH BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES BY LILIAN MARIE BRIGGS Assistant in the New York Public Library WITH PORTRAITS   New York MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY 1911 Copyright, 1911, by MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY New York THE QUINN & BODEN CO. PRESS RAHWAY, N. J....

This series, American History in Literature, will include only the best-known American speeches,—those which commemorate the most important events in the history of our country. The biographical sketches have been included for the convenience of the student and reader, and for the schoolboys and girls, who are constantly seeking concise accounts of the lives of our great Americans. This present volume, the first of the series, gives to the student and reader Abraham Lincoln’s most noted speeches

In a little log-cabin in Hardin County, Kentucky, on the 12th of February, 1809, was born a future President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln. When Abraham was seven years old, his father, Thomas Lincoln, moved with his family to Indiana. It was a cold, dreary winter for them in the rude shed which Abraham, knowing well how to handle an ax, had helped his father to build. The following autumn found them in a better cabin, but brought to Abraham the loss of his mother, Nancy Hanks Lincoln, l

DELIVERED AT COOPER INSTITUTE, NEW YORK, FEBRUARY 27, 1860 Mr. President and Fellow-Citizens of New York :—The facts with which I shall deal this evening are mainly old and familiar; nor is there anything new in the general use I shall make of them. If there shall be any novelty, it will be in the mode of presenting the facts, and the inferences and observations following that presentation. In his speech last autumn at Columbus, Ohio, as reported in the New York Times , Senator Douglas said: “Ou

MARCH 4, 1861 Fellow-Citizens of the United States :—In compliance with a custom as old as the government itself, I appear before you to address you briefly, and to take, in your presence, the oath prescribed by the Constitution of the United States to be taken by the President before he enters on the execution of his office. I do not consider it necessary, at present, for me to discuss those matters of administration about which there is no special anxiety or excitement. Apprehension seems to e

AT THE DEDICATION OF THE NATIONAL CEMETERY AT GETTYSBURG, PA., NOVEMBER 15, 1863 Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final re

MARCH 4, 1865 Fellow-Countrymen :—At this second appearing to take the oath of the Presidential office, there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement somewhat in detail of a course to be pursued seemed very fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies of the nation,

JANUARY 1, 1863 Whereas, on the twenty-second day of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-two, a proclamation was issued by the President of the United States, containing, among other things, the following, to wit: “That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States,

Stephen Arnold Douglas was born at Brandon, Vermont, on the 23d of April, 1813. When a child he lived on a farm, working in the fields in the summer and attending the district school during the winter months. At the age of fifteen young Douglas realized his condition in life,—that his widowed mother was not in circumstances to give him an education, so he suppressed his ambition for college for the time, and apprenticed himself to a cabinet-maker in Middlebury. Here he worked with enthusiasm for

Ladies and Gentlemen :—I appear before you to-day for the purpose of discussing the leading political topics which now agitate the public mind. By an arrangement between Mr. Lincoln and myself, we are present here to-day for the purpose of having a joint discussion, as the representatives of the two great political parties of the State and Union, upon the principles in issue between those parties; and this vast concourse of people shows the deep feeling which pervades the public mind in regard t

My Fellow-Citizens :—When a man hears himself somewhat misrepresented, it provokes him,—at least I find it so with myself; but when misrepresentation becomes very gross and palpable it is more apt to amuse him. The first thing I see fit to notice is the fact that Judge Douglas alleges, after running through the history of the old Democratic and the old Whig parties, that Judge Trumbull and myself made an arrangement in 1854 by which I was to have the place of General Shields in the United States