From his Proclamation revoking General Hunter's Order setting the Slaves free; and offering Com- pensated Emancipation to Slave Owners From his Reply to the Chicago Committee of United Religious Denominations, urging Imme- diate Emancipation. His Order to remember and keep the Sabbath From the Annual Message to Congress. Draft of the Proclamation of Emancipation as Sub- From his Reply to the Resolutions of the Demo- The Letter to James C. Conkling. His Proclamation for a Day of Thanksgiving 323 INTRODUCTION. THE memory of ABRAHAM LINCOLN grows dearer to his countrymen with lapse of time. The more thorough study of his writings, and a higher appreciation of his public services, may involve a revision of some opinions founded upon imperfect or unreliable evidence, but they will lead no one to admire or love him less. It seems to be the desire of true Americans to know him just as he was. No more valuable contribution to an accurate knowledge of Abraham Lincoln could be made, than a proper selection from his speeches and writings, in a single volume of convenient, readable form; and no book of that kind could be more difficult to make. His collected works, including his speeches in Congress, his political debates, and his official papers, would fill several large volumes. Upon what principle or by what rule shall they be compressed into a duodecimo of three or four hundred pages, which will hold the interest of the reader, and enable him to form an accurate estimate of their great author and the true lessons of his life and pen? The compilation which I have made will be better understood by a statement of some of the facts of his early life. I shall give these facts as I understand them, without citing authorities. Doubtless there are those who will controvert them, with whom I shall here have no dispute. As I give them, they are consistent with his character, and the evidence is open to those who wish to examine it further. Abraham Lincoln, born in Kentucky, was descended from a New England ancestry, from which he inherited an intense love of liberty, thoroughness of character, and perfect integrity. As often happens, these qualities did not appear in his father, who was poor, improvident, and ignorant. His mother was an energetic Christian woman of much refinement, whose devotion to her domestic and maternal duties soon wore out her frail body, but imprinted her image indelibly upon the heart of her son. Many times he said that all he was, he owed to her. Then it may be assumed that to her he owed his rugged honesty, which became a part of his name, and that thoroughness which led him to commit much of the Bible to memory, and which lay at the foundation of his success. He did with his might whatever his hand found to do. Born to poverty, without paternal direction, he turned from one avocation to another, until he became a lawyer, entered public life, and was elected to Congress. From 1848, when he declined a reelection to Congress, to June, 1858, he scarcely challenged public notice. He made a speech at Peoria in 1854, and a few addresses in the Fremont campaign, but during those ten years he was not in public life, nor a candidate for office. The period of his apparent inaction was that of the metamorphosis of slavery. It comprised the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, the Dred Scott decision, and the warfare in Kansas and Nebraska. What he was doing all this time is evident from his subsequent life. From that source we learn that he must have been diligently engaged in the study of the history of American slavery. He saw in it the great question of the time, upon which depended the perpetuity of the Union. Slavery had previously been patient under restriction, it had consented to the several compromises. Now it had suddenly become aggressive, and not only demanded the repeal of those compromises, but the affirma |