The Lincoln Story Book | Page 3

Henry Clay, Whig platform. Defeated
through strong local vote. Deputy surveyor, at three dollars a day,
Sangamon County.
1834--Elected to State legislature as Whig. (Resides in Springfield till
1861. Law partner with John L. Stuart till 1840.)
1835--Postmaster, New Salem; appointed by President Jackson.
1838 to 1840--Reelected to State legislature.
1840--Partner in law with S. T. Logan.
1842--Married Miss Mary Todd, of Kentucky. Of the four sons,
Edward died in infancy; William ("Willie") at twelve at Washington;
Thomas ("Tad") at Springfield, aged twenty; Robert M. T., minister to
Great Britain, presidential candidate, secretary of war to President
Garfield. His only grandson, Abraham, died in London, March, 1890.
1844--Proposed for Congress.
1845--Law partner with W. H. Herndon, for life.
1846--Elected to Congress, the single Whig Illinois member; voted
antislavery; sought abolition in the D. C.; voted Wilmot Proviso.
Declined reelection.
1848--Electioneered for General Taylor.
1849--Defeated by Shields for United States senator.
1852--Electioneered for General Scott.
1854--Won the State over to the Republicans, but by arrangement
transferred his claim to the senatorship to Trumbull. October, debated
with Douglas. Declined the governorship in favor of Bissell.
1856--Organized the Republican Party and became its chief; nominated
vice-president, but was not chosen by its first convention; worked for
the Fremont-Dayton presidential ticket.
1858--Lost in the legislature the senatorship to Douglas.
1859--Placed for the presidential candidacy. Made Eastern tour "to get
acquainted."
1860--May 9, nominated for President, "shutting out" Seward, Chase,
Cameron, Dayton, Wade, Bates, and McLean.
1861--March 4, inaugurated sixteenth President; succeeds Buchanan,

and precedes his vice--Andrew Johnson, whom General Grant
succeeded. Civil War began by firing on Fort Sumter, April 12.
1862--September 22, emancipation announced.
1863--January 1, emancipation proclaimed. November 19, Gettysburg
Cemetery address. December 9, pardon to rebels proclaimed.
1864--Unanimous nomination as Republican presidential candidate for
re-election, June 7. Reelected November 8.
1865--March 4, inaugurated for the second term. April 14, assassinated
in Ford's Theater, Washington, by a mad actor, Wilkes Booth. April 19,
body lay in state at Washington. April 26, Booth slain in resisting arrest,
by Sergeant Boston Corbett, near Port Royal. April 21 to May 4,
funeral-train through principal cities North, to Springfield, Illinois.
1871--Temporarily deposited in catacomb.
1874--In catacomb, in sarcophagus. The completed monument
dedicated.
1876--To frustrate repetition of body-snatchers' attempt, reinterred
deeper.
1900--A fifth removal; the whole structure solidly rebuilt, containing
the martyred President, his wife, and their three children, as well as the
grandson bearing Abraham's name.

THE LINCOLN STORY BOOK
* * * * *
CHILDISH RIME.
In a copybook, at the age of nine or ten:
Abraham Lincoln, his hand and pen. he will be good, but god knows
when.
The small "g" led a public speaker to denounce the sort of men--"sordid
and ignorant"--who write "God with a small g and gold with a big one."
This was a scrapbook in humble imitation of the albums in the East.
Another copybook motto. (A year or so later.)
Good boys who to their books apply Will all be great men by and by.
* * * * *
THE LITTLE HATCHET DID IT.
In 1823 Abraham Lincoln went briefly to Crawford's school, a log
house, pleasing the teacher by his attention to the simple course. The
boy had read but a small library, principally "Weems' Life of

Washington," which had impressed him deeply. This is shown by the
following anecdote told by Andrew Crawford, the Spencer County
pedagogue: The latter saw that a buck's head, nailed on the schoolhouse,
was broken in one horn, and asked the scholars who among them broke
it. "I did it," answered young Lincoln promptly. "I did not mean to do it,
but I hung on it"--he was very tall and reached it too easily--"and it
broke!" Though lean, he weighed fairly. "I wouldn't have done it if I
had 'a' thought it would break."
Other boys of that "class" would have tried to conceal what they did
and not own up until obliged to do so. His immediate friends believed
that the hatchet and cherry-tree incident in Washington's life traced this
truthful course.
* * * * *
THE LITTLE HATCHET AGAIN TURNS UP.
In his teens Abraham Lincoln, while not considered a man, was able to
swing an ax with full power. It was the borderer's multifarious tool and
accompanied him everywhere. One time, while sauntering along
Gentryville, his stepsister playfully ran at him of a sudden and leaped
from behind upon him. Holding on to his shoulders, she dug her knees
into his back--a rough trick called fun by these semi-savages--and
brought him to the ground. Unfortunately, she caused him to release the
ax in his surprise, and it cut her ankle. The boy stopped the wound and
bandaged it, while she moaned. Through her cries, he reproached her,
and concluded:
"How could you disobey mother so?" for