August 19, 2025 • 17 mins
In Story of Abraham Lincoln, Mary A. Hamilton offers a unique British perspective on the life of the 16th President of the United States, presenting a heartfelt tribute to “Honest Abe.” She explores Lincoln’s ancestral roots, his humble beginnings in Kentucky, his formative years in Indiana, and his impactful adult life in Illinois, culminating in his presidency and the trials of the White House. The biography also delves into the American Civil War, providing valuable context on its causes and developments. While Hamilton’s narrative is engaging, it does contain some historical inaccuracies, such as misidentifying Jefferson Davis as the Southern Democratic candidate in the 1860 election instead of John C. Breckinridge. Nevertheless, The Story of Abraham Lincoln remains an intriguing and accessible account of Lincolns life, principles, and political legacy. Please note Chapter 7 includes a single use of an epithet for African-Americans from a British magazine quote, and Chapter 8 features an example of a stereotypical Southern black dialect that may be considered offensive. (Summary by John Lieder.)
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter two of the Story of Abraham Lincoln. This is
a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
Recording by John Leeder. The Story of Abraham Lincoln by
(00:21):
Mary A. Hamilton, Chapter two, The young Backwoodsman. For Abraham,
life was dull and very monotonous. The round of work
was much the same as summer and winter. He longed
to escape from the dull work of a farm laborer
to go out and see the world. Until he was
(00:42):
twenty one, however, he was bound to serve his father,
and his father seems to have had no idea that
his son was fit for anything better than ordinary farm work.
Other people, nevertheless, were struck by Abraham. Until he was nineteen,
he had not left home at all. But then one
day a rich landowner who lived near him came to him.
(01:05):
He wanted some one to help his son to take
a raft loaded with different kinds of goods down the
Ohio River, selling the goods at the different places they passed.
Abraham had struck this mister Gentry as being an honest
and capable lad. He therefore asked him to undertake the voyage,
and Abraham consented at once, glad of any chance of
(01:26):
seeing something of life outside the settlement. He took charge
of the raft and steered it successfully down the river.
The voyage took them past the great southern sugar plantations
right down to New Orleans. They had no adventures of
any sort until they had almost come to New Orleans.
One night they encamped at Baton Rouge, a place on
(01:48):
the bank of the river. Here they fastened their raft
and lay down to sleep on it for the night.
Wrapped up in thick blankets, they were both sound asleep.
Suddenly Abraham started up. He heard the sound of many
soft footsteps all around him in the darkness. At first
he could see nothing. Then he became aware that a
(02:10):
band of Negroes was attacking the raft, ready to steal
their goods and to murder them. Abraham's cry waked up
his companion, young Allan Gentry, and they threw themselves upon
the Negroes. If Abraham had not been uncommonly strong and active,
they must both have lost their lives, for the Negroes
far outnumbered them. He seized a huge log of wood,
(02:34):
which served him as a club and brandished it in
his hand. His great height and the unknown weapon, which
he whirled around his head terrified the Negroes. He hit
first one and then another on the head and threw
them overboard, Allan gentry helping. The fight was very fierce
for a few moments, and then the Negroes turned and fled.
(02:55):
Abraham and Allan pursued them a long way into the darkness,
But the thieves did not dare to return. Though two
men could not have held their own for long against
such numbers, The voyage ended successfully, and Abraham returned home
for two more years. At the end of that time,
his father again moved. John Hanks had gone west to Illinois.
(03:19):
He wrote to his uncle, praising the new country and
urging him to come there too. Thomas Lincoln was always
ready to try something new. He sold his farm and
his land to a neighbor. All the goods of the
household were packed in a wagon drawn by Oxen. The
family walked beside it. They tramped for more than a
(03:39):
week until they came to the new state. The journey
was not easy. It was February. The forest roads were
ankled deep in mud, the prairie a mere swamp, very
difficult for walking. They had to cross streams that were
swollen into rivers by the rains. At last they arrived.
John Hanks had chosen a plantation for them and got
(04:02):
logs ready for building the house. Abraham worked very hard
and helped his father and John Hanks to make a cabin.
Then with his own hands he plowed fifteen acres of ground.
When that was done, he cut down walnut trees, split them,
and built a high and solid fence which went right
around his father's property. Abraham lived in Illinois until he
(04:25):
was made President of the United States. Once he was
addressing a meeting there years after this, and Dennis Hanks
marched in amid the shouts and applause of the crowd,
carrying on his shoulder a piece of the railing that
Abraham had made for his father. It is now in
the Museum at Washington, kept as a national treasure. How
(04:47):
little could Abraham himself or any one who knew him
at this time have dreamed that this rail splitter was
to be the greatest man in America. The winter that
followed was one of the most severe ever known in Illinois.
It is always referred to as the winter of deep snow.
When spring came at last, Abraham said good bye to
(05:09):
his father and mother and went out into the world
to make a livelihood for himself. His boyish days were over.
He was now twenty one and very tall and strong
for his age, more than six feet four inches in height.
He seldom met a man taller than himself. He is
a great exception to the saying that all great men
(05:30):
have been small, for example Napoleon, Caesar, Hannibal Shakespeare. Abraham
was very well built. It was not till he stood
up among other men that you realized that he was
head and shoulders taller than most of them in the
ordinary sense of the word. He had had no education.
He knew no language but his own, and that not
(05:53):
very well at this time. When asked could he ride,
he replied, well, I guess I could make a few rabbits.
He had taught himself all the arithmetic he knew. But
he knew two things that are the most important that
can be got from any training, how to think and
how to work. When he made clear to himself what
(06:14):
it was right to do, he did it without talking
about it all his life. His experience in taking mister
Gentry's cargo down to New Orleans induced a merchant called
Offat to offer him another job of the same kind.
Offat was an adventurous sort of dealer who did all
kinds of business. He wanted someone to help him who
(06:35):
had a head on his shoulders, and he soon saw
that Lincoln had plenty of sense. He therefore engaged him,
and Lincoln took his cousin John Hanks to help him.
They did not make much money by the voyage, but
Lincoln showed great skill in managing the raft. On this trip,
Lincoln came for the first time really face to face
(06:56):
with slavery. New Orleans was a great slave market, and
they spent some time there. For the first time, he
saw negroes being sold in the open streets, chained together
in gangs. For the first time too, he saw nigroes
being beaten, fastened to a block, and scourged till the
blood ran from their backs. Everyone took it all as
(07:18):
a matter of course, but Lincoln was deeply struck, his
heart bled at the time. He said nothing, but he
was silent for a long while afterwards, thinking over what
he had seen there, and then as his cousin used
to tell afterwards, slavery ran its iron into him. To
see these men chained was a torment to him, and
(07:41):
he never forgot it. The picture was printed on his memory,
never to be forgotten, only to be wiped out when
there were no more slaves in America. He was often
in the slave states after this, but slavery always seemed
to him horrible of it was was quite satisfied with
the way in which the young backwoodsman had managed the trip.
(08:04):
After his return, he offered him a post in his
grocery store at New Salem. He had a kind of
half shop, half office, with a mill behind it. Here
he sold everything that anyone could want to buy, grocery, drapery, stationary,
miscellaneous goods of all kinds. Lincoln was clerk superintendent of
(08:25):
the mill, and a general assistant off It. Soon began
to admire his assistant immensely. He declared that Lincoln was
the cleverest fellow he knew. He could read and talk
like a book. He was so strong and active that
he could beat anyone at running, jumping, or wrestling. Lincoln
(08:46):
did not know anyone in New Salem, and this wooling
and pulling, as he called it, of offics annoyed him a
good deal, as he knew it was not at all
likely to make people like him. The young fellows of
the place did not mind his supposed cleverness. They knew
nothing about that and cared nothing, but they did resent
the idea that he was stronger than they were. At first,
(09:11):
they did nothing. He looked rather a dangerous person to attack,
and not at all likely to take things meekly off.
It's loud and continual praise, however, was more than they
could stand. As Lincoln was on his way home one evening,
a group of the strongest fellows in New Salem, the
Boys of Clary's Grove, attacked him. Jock Armstrong, the biggest
(09:34):
and burliest of them all, challenged him to a rastle.
Jock was not as tall as Lincoln, but he was
much more solidly built, with huge shoulders like an ox
and immensely strong arms. No one in New Salem had
ever been able to throw him, and he expected an
easy victory over this strange clerk. But Abe was as
(09:55):
strong and as skillful as Jock. Though he was thin,
his muscles were made of iron, his huge arms closed
round the burly fellow like of Ice. Even when his
companions came to the champion's rescue, Abe was a match
for them. Armstrong was a sportsman and not ashamed to
take a beating. He admired a man who was able
(10:16):
to throw him. After this, Lincoln had no stauncher friend,
and he soon grew to be a person of importance
in New Salem. His strength and his honesty made him respected.
Of his honesty, there are numberless stories. One evening, he
was making up his accounts for the day. While doing so,
(10:37):
he found that he had charged a woman who had
come in the morning to buy a great number of
little things sixty one cents too much until it was
time to shut up the shop. The money seemed to
burn in his pocket. It was late when the time
for locking up came, but he could not wait. He
started off at once for the woman's house. The wit
(10:57):
was several miles off, and walked there and back in
the darkness to pay her sixty one cents Before he
went to bed. He knew he could not sleep until
he had done so. People trusted him. Those who were
in trouble soon found out how wise and gentle he was,
and they went to him for advice and help. He
(11:18):
had a wonderful way of quite forgetting himself and only
thinking of making other people happy. Generally silent, he could
tell stories so that everyone laughed. But though he enjoyed
talking and going to see people, he always worked very hard,
and he did not only work in the shop. He
(11:38):
was always eager to learn more. After the day's task
was done, he would walk miles to get hold of
some book that he wanted and read it on the
way home. When his cousin, a lazy fellow, wrote to
ask his advice, he replied, what is wrong with you
is your habit of needlessly wasting time. Go to work.
(12:00):
That is the only cure for your difficulty. When he
came to New Salem, he met people who had been
well educated, and he was at once struck by the
difference between their way of speaking and his. He resolved
to learn to speak correctly. One evening he walked to
Kirkham and back, it was twelve miles away, and bought
(12:21):
a grammar there. For the next few weeks he spent
all his spare time in studying it. He used to
sit with his feet on the mantelpiece and work for
hours without moving. In this way, he soon knew all
there was to know about grammar. When you read his speeches,
you will find that they are written in English, as
beautiful and simple as that of the Bible, which was
(12:43):
the book he knew best of all. He only remained
with off It for a year. Offat was too fond
of talking to make his business of success, and he
had to give up the store. It was Lincoln's first
attempt at earning his living and learning a trade did
not seem very successful. Instead of at once looking for
(13:05):
some new work of the same sort, he enlisted as
a soldier. The state of Illinois was thrown into a
state of wild excitement by an attack made by this
time by a powerful Indian tribe. Blackhawk, crossed the Mississippi
at the head of an army of Red warriors. To
drive them back. The government of the country called for volunteers,
(13:27):
and Abraham, who was one of the first to offer himself,
was made a captain. The men entered for three months,
during which they did a great deal of skirmishing and
marching about, but took part in no regular battles. At
the end of the time, most of them went back
to work. Abraham enlisted again, this time as a private
(13:49):
in a battalion of scouts. He was not present at
any battle, but he learnt something of war and a
good deal of soldiers. It was hard work and not
much glory. By the autumn, black Hawk was captured and
the war was at an end. Lincoln's horse had been stolen,
and he had to walk back to New Salem, a
(14:09):
three days tramp. His campaigning had not been a great success.
When he returned, the elections for members of the Illinois
Parliament were going on, and he offered himself as a candidate,
spending the ten days between his return from the war
and the time of election in making speeches in New Salem.
(14:29):
He was popular, but he was not well known even there.
He was young and had had no experience. He was
not elected, but he made good friends at the election time,
and he began to be a capital speaker. Meetings were
not very formal in those days. One day, when Lincoln
was addressing a large hall full of people, in the
(14:51):
middle of his speech, he saw that a ruffian in
the crowd was attacking a friend of his. They were
struggling together, and his friends seemed to be having the
worst of it. Lincoln jumped down from the platform where
he stood, and marched to the middle of the room.
He picked up the ruffian in his mighty arms and
threw him some ten feet so that he fell right
(15:11):
outside the hall. There he lay and did not attempt
to return. Lincoln came back on to the platform and
went on with his speech, just as if nothing had happened.
After the election, he thought of becoming a blacksmith. Instead
of this, he joined with a man called Berry in
buying a store. Barry was a stupid and not very
(15:35):
honest man. He got into debt. Then he took to drinking,
and soon afterwards died, leaving Lincoln with the business ruined
and a lot of debts to pay. After this, he
did not try store keeping again. He was made postmaster
of New Salem. This meant very little work. Few people
(15:57):
wrote letters there. He could carry the whole post in
his hat, and he read every newspaper that came. He
now had plenty of time for reading, and he read ceaselessly.
Most of all he read American history. The Life of
Washington had been his earliest treasure, and as a boy
(16:17):
he had poured over an old copy of the statutes
of Indiana. This was perhaps the beginning of his interest
in law. Now he was in a town, though a
small one, and it was possible to get hold of books.
He used to lie on his back under a tree,
with his feet high up against the trunk, only moving
(16:37):
so as to keep in the shade, and laying down
the book now and then to think over what he
had read and make sure that he understood it. He
studied surveying in this way for six weeks, and John Calhoun,
the surveyor of the county, was so much astonished by
his knowledge that he made him his assistant. His reading
in law and history deepened his interest in politics. Nothing
(17:00):
interested him so much. He was resolved sooner or later
to get into Parliament. One failure could not make him despair.
There was a great world outside, and the door into
Parliament was the door into that world. He was resolved
to make his way in end of chapter two recording
(17:21):
by John Leader, Bloomington, Illinois,
Chapter two of the Story of Abraham Lincoln. This is
a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
Recording by John Leeder. The Story of Abraham Lincoln by
(00:21):
Mary A. Hamilton, Chapter two, The young Backwoodsman. For Abraham,
life was dull and very monotonous. The round of work
was much the same as summer and winter. He longed
to escape from the dull work of a farm laborer
to go out and see the world. Until he was
(00:42):
twenty one, however, he was bound to serve his father,
and his father seems to have had no idea that
his son was fit for anything better than ordinary farm work.
Other people, nevertheless, were struck by Abraham. Until he was nineteen,
he had not left home at all. But then one
day a rich landowner who lived near him came to him.
(01:05):
He wanted some one to help his son to take
a raft loaded with different kinds of goods down the
Ohio River, selling the goods at the different places they passed.
Abraham had struck this mister Gentry as being an honest
and capable lad. He therefore asked him to undertake the voyage,
and Abraham consented at once, glad of any chance of
(01:26):
seeing something of life outside the settlement. He took charge
of the raft and steered it successfully down the river.
The voyage took them past the great southern sugar plantations
right down to New Orleans. They had no adventures of
any sort until they had almost come to New Orleans.
One night they encamped at Baton Rouge, a place on
(01:48):
the bank of the river. Here they fastened their raft
and lay down to sleep on it for the night.
Wrapped up in thick blankets, they were both sound asleep.
Suddenly Abraham started up. He heard the sound of many
soft footsteps all around him in the darkness. At first
he could see nothing. Then he became aware that a
(02:10):
band of Negroes was attacking the raft, ready to steal
their goods and to murder them. Abraham's cry waked up
his companion, young Allan Gentry, and they threw themselves upon
the Negroes. If Abraham had not been uncommonly strong and active,
they must both have lost their lives, for the Negroes
far outnumbered them. He seized a huge log of wood,
(02:34):
which served him as a club and brandished it in
his hand. His great height and the unknown weapon, which
he whirled around his head terrified the Negroes. He hit
first one and then another on the head and threw
them overboard, Allan gentry helping. The fight was very fierce
for a few moments, and then the Negroes turned and fled.
(02:55):
Abraham and Allan pursued them a long way into the darkness,
But the thieves did not dare to return. Though two
men could not have held their own for long against
such numbers, The voyage ended successfully, and Abraham returned home
for two more years. At the end of that time,
his father again moved. John Hanks had gone west to Illinois.
(03:19):
He wrote to his uncle, praising the new country and
urging him to come there too. Thomas Lincoln was always
ready to try something new. He sold his farm and
his land to a neighbor. All the goods of the
household were packed in a wagon drawn by Oxen. The
family walked beside it. They tramped for more than a
(03:39):
week until they came to the new state. The journey
was not easy. It was February. The forest roads were
ankled deep in mud, the prairie a mere swamp, very
difficult for walking. They had to cross streams that were
swollen into rivers by the rains. At last they arrived.
John Hanks had chosen a plantation for them and got
(04:02):
logs ready for building the house. Abraham worked very hard
and helped his father and John Hanks to make a cabin.
Then with his own hands he plowed fifteen acres of ground.
When that was done, he cut down walnut trees, split them,
and built a high and solid fence which went right
around his father's property. Abraham lived in Illinois until he
(04:25):
was made President of the United States. Once he was
addressing a meeting there years after this, and Dennis Hanks
marched in amid the shouts and applause of the crowd,
carrying on his shoulder a piece of the railing that
Abraham had made for his father. It is now in
the Museum at Washington, kept as a national treasure. How
(04:47):
little could Abraham himself or any one who knew him
at this time have dreamed that this rail splitter was
to be the greatest man in America. The winter that
followed was one of the most severe ever known in Illinois.
It is always referred to as the winter of deep snow.
When spring came at last, Abraham said good bye to
(05:09):
his father and mother and went out into the world
to make a livelihood for himself. His boyish days were over.
He was now twenty one and very tall and strong
for his age, more than six feet four inches in height.
He seldom met a man taller than himself. He is
a great exception to the saying that all great men
(05:30):
have been small, for example Napoleon, Caesar, Hannibal Shakespeare. Abraham
was very well built. It was not till he stood
up among other men that you realized that he was
head and shoulders taller than most of them in the
ordinary sense of the word. He had had no education.
He knew no language but his own, and that not
(05:53):
very well at this time. When asked could he ride,
he replied, well, I guess I could make a few rabbits.
He had taught himself all the arithmetic he knew. But
he knew two things that are the most important that
can be got from any training, how to think and
how to work. When he made clear to himself what
(06:14):
it was right to do, he did it without talking
about it all his life. His experience in taking mister
Gentry's cargo down to New Orleans induced a merchant called
Offat to offer him another job of the same kind.
Offat was an adventurous sort of dealer who did all
kinds of business. He wanted someone to help him who
(06:35):
had a head on his shoulders, and he soon saw
that Lincoln had plenty of sense. He therefore engaged him,
and Lincoln took his cousin John Hanks to help him.
They did not make much money by the voyage, but
Lincoln showed great skill in managing the raft. On this trip,
Lincoln came for the first time really face to face
(06:56):
with slavery. New Orleans was a great slave market, and
they spent some time there. For the first time, he
saw negroes being sold in the open streets, chained together
in gangs. For the first time too, he saw nigroes
being beaten, fastened to a block, and scourged till the
blood ran from their backs. Everyone took it all as
(07:18):
a matter of course, but Lincoln was deeply struck, his
heart bled at the time. He said nothing, but he
was silent for a long while afterwards, thinking over what
he had seen there, and then as his cousin used
to tell afterwards, slavery ran its iron into him. To
see these men chained was a torment to him, and
(07:41):
he never forgot it. The picture was printed on his memory,
never to be forgotten, only to be wiped out when
there were no more slaves in America. He was often
in the slave states after this, but slavery always seemed
to him horrible of it was was quite satisfied with
the way in which the young backwoodsman had managed the trip.
(08:04):
After his return, he offered him a post in his
grocery store at New Salem. He had a kind of
half shop, half office, with a mill behind it. Here
he sold everything that anyone could want to buy, grocery, drapery, stationary,
miscellaneous goods of all kinds. Lincoln was clerk superintendent of
(08:25):
the mill, and a general assistant off It. Soon began
to admire his assistant immensely. He declared that Lincoln was
the cleverest fellow he knew. He could read and talk
like a book. He was so strong and active that
he could beat anyone at running, jumping, or wrestling. Lincoln
(08:46):
did not know anyone in New Salem, and this wooling
and pulling, as he called it, of offics annoyed him a
good deal, as he knew it was not at all
likely to make people like him. The young fellows of
the place did not mind his supposed cleverness. They knew
nothing about that and cared nothing, but they did resent
the idea that he was stronger than they were. At first,
(09:11):
they did nothing. He looked rather a dangerous person to attack,
and not at all likely to take things meekly off.
It's loud and continual praise, however, was more than they
could stand. As Lincoln was on his way home one evening,
a group of the strongest fellows in New Salem, the
Boys of Clary's Grove, attacked him. Jock Armstrong, the biggest
(09:34):
and burliest of them all, challenged him to a rastle.
Jock was not as tall as Lincoln, but he was
much more solidly built, with huge shoulders like an ox
and immensely strong arms. No one in New Salem had
ever been able to throw him, and he expected an
easy victory over this strange clerk. But Abe was as
(09:55):
strong and as skillful as Jock. Though he was thin,
his muscles were made of iron, his huge arms closed
round the burly fellow like of Ice. Even when his
companions came to the champion's rescue, Abe was a match
for them. Armstrong was a sportsman and not ashamed to
take a beating. He admired a man who was able
(10:16):
to throw him. After this, Lincoln had no stauncher friend,
and he soon grew to be a person of importance
in New Salem. His strength and his honesty made him respected.
Of his honesty, there are numberless stories. One evening, he
was making up his accounts for the day. While doing so,
(10:37):
he found that he had charged a woman who had
come in the morning to buy a great number of
little things sixty one cents too much until it was
time to shut up the shop. The money seemed to
burn in his pocket. It was late when the time
for locking up came, but he could not wait. He
started off at once for the woman's house. The wit
(10:57):
was several miles off, and walked there and back in
the darkness to pay her sixty one cents Before he
went to bed. He knew he could not sleep until
he had done so. People trusted him. Those who were
in trouble soon found out how wise and gentle he was,
and they went to him for advice and help. He
(11:18):
had a wonderful way of quite forgetting himself and only
thinking of making other people happy. Generally silent, he could
tell stories so that everyone laughed. But though he enjoyed
talking and going to see people, he always worked very hard,
and he did not only work in the shop. He
(11:38):
was always eager to learn more. After the day's task
was done, he would walk miles to get hold of
some book that he wanted and read it on the
way home. When his cousin, a lazy fellow, wrote to
ask his advice, he replied, what is wrong with you
is your habit of needlessly wasting time. Go to work.
(12:00):
That is the only cure for your difficulty. When he
came to New Salem, he met people who had been
well educated, and he was at once struck by the
difference between their way of speaking and his. He resolved
to learn to speak correctly. One evening he walked to
Kirkham and back, it was twelve miles away, and bought
(12:21):
a grammar there. For the next few weeks he spent
all his spare time in studying it. He used to
sit with his feet on the mantelpiece and work for
hours without moving. In this way, he soon knew all
there was to know about grammar. When you read his speeches,
you will find that they are written in English, as
beautiful and simple as that of the Bible, which was
(12:43):
the book he knew best of all. He only remained
with off It for a year. Offat was too fond
of talking to make his business of success, and he
had to give up the store. It was Lincoln's first
attempt at earning his living and learning a trade did
not seem very successful. Instead of at once looking for
(13:05):
some new work of the same sort, he enlisted as
a soldier. The state of Illinois was thrown into a
state of wild excitement by an attack made by this
time by a powerful Indian tribe. Blackhawk, crossed the Mississippi
at the head of an army of Red warriors. To
drive them back. The government of the country called for volunteers,
(13:27):
and Abraham, who was one of the first to offer himself,
was made a captain. The men entered for three months,
during which they did a great deal of skirmishing and
marching about, but took part in no regular battles. At
the end of the time, most of them went back
to work. Abraham enlisted again, this time as a private
(13:49):
in a battalion of scouts. He was not present at
any battle, but he learnt something of war and a
good deal of soldiers. It was hard work and not
much glory. By the autumn, black Hawk was captured and
the war was at an end. Lincoln's horse had been stolen,
and he had to walk back to New Salem, a
(14:09):
three days tramp. His campaigning had not been a great success.
When he returned, the elections for members of the Illinois
Parliament were going on, and he offered himself as a candidate,
spending the ten days between his return from the war
and the time of election in making speeches in New Salem.
(14:29):
He was popular, but he was not well known even there.
He was young and had had no experience. He was
not elected, but he made good friends at the election time,
and he began to be a capital speaker. Meetings were
not very formal in those days. One day, when Lincoln
was addressing a large hall full of people, in the
(14:51):
middle of his speech, he saw that a ruffian in
the crowd was attacking a friend of his. They were
struggling together, and his friends seemed to be having the
worst of it. Lincoln jumped down from the platform where
he stood, and marched to the middle of the room.
He picked up the ruffian in his mighty arms and
threw him some ten feet so that he fell right
(15:11):
outside the hall. There he lay and did not attempt
to return. Lincoln came back on to the platform and
went on with his speech, just as if nothing had happened.
After the election, he thought of becoming a blacksmith. Instead
of this, he joined with a man called Berry in
buying a store. Barry was a stupid and not very
(15:35):
honest man. He got into debt. Then he took to drinking,
and soon afterwards died, leaving Lincoln with the business ruined
and a lot of debts to pay. After this, he
did not try store keeping again. He was made postmaster
of New Salem. This meant very little work. Few people
(15:57):
wrote letters there. He could carry the whole post in
his hat, and he read every newspaper that came. He
now had plenty of time for reading, and he read ceaselessly.
Most of all he read American history. The Life of
Washington had been his earliest treasure, and as a boy
(16:17):
he had poured over an old copy of the statutes
of Indiana. This was perhaps the beginning of his interest
in law. Now he was in a town, though a
small one, and it was possible to get hold of books.
He used to lie on his back under a tree,
with his feet high up against the trunk, only moving
(16:37):
so as to keep in the shade, and laying down
the book now and then to think over what he
had read and make sure that he understood it. He
studied surveying in this way for six weeks, and John Calhoun,
the surveyor of the county, was so much astonished by
his knowledge that he made him his assistant. His reading
in law and history deepened his interest in politics. Nothing
(17:00):
interested him so much. He was resolved sooner or later
to get into Parliament. One failure could not make him despair.
There was a great world outside, and the door into
Parliament was the door into that world. He was resolved
to make his way in end of chapter two recording
(17:21):
by John Leader, Bloomington, Illinois,
Popular Podcasts
NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal
Gregg Rosenthal and a rotating crew of elite NFL Media co-hosts, including Patrick Claybon, Colleen Wolfe, Steve Wyche, Nick Shook and Jourdan Rodrigue of The Athletic get you caught up daily on all the NFL news and analysis you need to be smarter and funnier than your friends.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com