and character to-day no less strongly than when he was yet alive.

The multiplication of his biographies, then, cannot be deplored since each one must present his life from a different, and, to some extent, novel point of view; and each new book must add to the great circle of readers and help to extend an influence which is as beneficent as it is powerful.

The historic field has been so thoroughly searched that few new facts can be procured. The material has been practically exhausted and the most enterprising biographer can only hope to present familiar facts in a new form and with different lights and shadows.

The author has no excuse for adding this simple work to the long list of biographies already in existence beyond that of a deep reverence and love for the great man, "who, though dead, yet speaketh." And if a single reader shall obtain a truer appreciation of his character, and a deeper love for the country whose altar was stained with the blood of so noble a sacrifice, the effort will not have been made in vain.

CHICAGO, January 30, 1891.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

CHAPTER I.

THE attention of an observer, who stands upon the seashore, and surveys the changing surface of the deep, is not attracted so much by the mighty mass of waters spread out before him, as by the waves which lift their crests high in the air, as if to assert their individuality and power, and then dash themselves upon the beach in the vain attempt to burst through the barriers which confine them.

So, in studying the history of past ages, the attention of the student is not attracted by the masses of the people, who have inhabited the earth during any given period, but rather by the individuals, who, by their genius, heroism or devotion to principle, have towered above the dead level of humanity and performed deeds or perpetuated institutions of which the memory and influence have become immortal. It is such men as these who, by directing the giant forces of society, government and religion, have made history. Thus all history must be, to a large extent, biographical, for it is the record of the thoughts and deeds, not of the many, but of the few who have played the principal parts in the great drama of life.