Our American Holidays: Lincolns Birthday | Page 6

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to a marked degree, but that God who was
with him throughout the struggle permitted him to live, and by his
masterly efforts and unceasing vigilance pilot the ship of state back into
the haven of peace.

On the 14th of April, 1865, after a day of unusual cheerfulness in those
troublous times, and seeking relaxation from his cares, the President,
accompanied by his wife and a few intimate friends, went to Ford's
Theater, on Tenth Street, N. W. There the foul assassin, J. Wilkes
Booth, awaited his coming and at twenty minutes past ten o'clock, just
as the third act of "Our American Cousin" was about to commence,
fired the shot that took the life of Abraham Lincoln. The bleeding
President was carried to a house across the street, No. 516, where he
died at twenty-two minutes past seven the next morning. The body was
taken to the White House and, after lying in state in the East Room and
at the Capitol, left Washington on the 21st of April, stopping at various
places en route, and finally arriving at Springfield on the 3rd of May.
On the following day the funeral ceremonies took place at Oak Ridge
Cemetery, and there the remains of the martyr were laid at rest.
Abraham Lincoln needs no marble shaft to perpetuate his name; his
words are the most enduring monument, and will forever live in the
hearts of the people.

II
EARLY LIFE
LINCOLN'S EDUCATION[1]
BY HORACE GREELEY
Let me pause here to consider the surprise often expressed when a
citizen of limited schooling is chosen to fill, or is presented for one of
the highest civil trusts. Has that argument any foundation in reason, any
justification in history?
Of our country's great men, beginning with Ben Franklin, I estimate
that a majority had little if anything more than a common-school
education, while many had less. Washington, Jefferson, and Madison
had rather more; Clay and Jackson somewhat less; Van Buren perhaps
a little more; Lincoln decidedly less. How great was his consequent

loss? I raise the question; let others decide it. Having seen much of
Henry Clay, I confidently assert that not one in ten of those who knew
him late in life would have suspected, from aught in his conversation or
bearing, that his education had been inferior to that of the college
graduates by whom he was surrounded. His knowledge was different
from theirs; and the same is true of Lincoln's as well. Had the latter
lived to be seventy years old, I judge that whatever of hesitation or
rawness was observable in his manner would have vanished, and he
would have met and mingled with educated gentlemen and statesmen
on the same easy footing of equality with Henry Clay in his later prime
of life. How far his two flatboat voyages to New Orleans are to be
classed as educational exercise above or below a freshman's year in
college, I will not say; doubtless some freshmen learn more, others less,
than those journeys taught him. Reared under the shadow of the
primitive woods, which on every side hemmed in the petty clearings of
the generally poor, and rarely energetic or diligent, pioneers of the
Southern Indiana wilderness, his first introduction to the outside world
from the deck of a "broad-horn" must have been wonderfully
interesting and suggestive. To one whose utmost experience of
civilization had been a county town, consisting of a dozen to twenty
houses, mainly log, with a shabby little court-house, including jail, and
a shabbier, ruder little church, that must have been a marvelous
spectacle which glowed in his face from the banks of the Ohio and the
lower Mississippi. Though Cairo was then but a desolate swamp,
Memphis a wood-landing, and Vicksburg a timbered ridge with a few
stores at its base, even these were in striking contrast to the sombre
monotony of the great woods. The rivers were enlivened by countless
swift-speeding steamboats, dispensing smoke by day and flame by
night; while New Orleans, though scarcely one fourth the city she now
is, was the focus of a vast commerce, and of a civilization which (for
America) might be deemed antique. I doubt not that our tall and green
young backwoodsman needed only a piece of well-tanned sheepskin
suitably (that is, learnedly) inscribed to have rendered those two boat
trips memorable as his degrees in capacity to act well his part on that
stage which has mankind for its audience.
[1] By permission of Mr. Joel Benton.

ABE LINCOLN'S HONESTY
From "Anecdotes of Abraham Lincoln and Lincoln's Stories."
Lincoln could not rest for an instant under the consciousness that he
had, even unwittingly, defrauded anybody. On one occasion, while
clerking in Offutt's store, at New Salem, Ill., he sold a woman a little
bill of goods,
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