together. The country must become all slave or all free, or the free and the slave States must separate.

All this was as clear as the sunlight to the eye of Abraham Lincoln when, on the 16th of June, 1858, in the convention which nominated him to the Senate of the United States, he discoursed from the text, "If a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand," and declared his belief that this government could not permanently endure half slave and half free. It was useless for his friends to remonstrate; to assure him that he would be charged with fomenting a sectional war; to entreat him to modify or to withdraw that statement. He simply could not. It was the truth, plain and unclouded; he might, with his party, fall and perish, but he could not be disloyal to the truth.

From this time to his nomination for the Presidency covering a very important period of his life, comprising the debate with Judge Douglas and many of his most powerful speeches - almost all his public utterances, varied, logical, and powerful as they are, cluster about and illustrate the foregoing text and its associations. It may seem to some unnecessary to multiply extracts from them. Slavery is dead. It will no more

disturb our peace. It has none but an historical interest for the present generation. Why, then, repeat arguments which have spent their force, and demonstrations which have accomplished their purpose?

There are still some survivors of the past who, with the writer, remember what an inspiration to patriotism these arguments were when slavery was making ready to raise its hand against the ark of our covenant. They relate to one of the eras in the history of our Republic. They cannot be too well known to the present generation or its posterity. It is better to incur some charge of repetition than to lose the memory of their eloquence and power.

The opinion has prevailed that the youth of Abraham Lincoln gave small promise of his future eminence, that his intellectual powers were slow in reaching their maturity. Such an opinion needs revision. His address to the people of Sangamon County, at the age of twenty-three, and that before the Lyceum at Springfield three years later, give as full promise as could be expected at that age, of the speech at Gettysburg and the two inaugural addresses.

I shall not attempt any criticism of the power or excellence of the following extracts, nor any

defence of their selection. They have been made after a thorough study of Mr. Lincoln's intellectual life, from its commencement to its close. If it shall occur to any that omissions have been made, as, for example, in the great debate with Senator Douglas, it should be remembered that this book is not a history. It is a collection intended to comprise the best expressions of a great patriot, perhaps the greatest patriot-statesman who has honoured our Republic since its birth. If by its publication I shall succeed in making him better known to the Republic he did so much to preserve, and to the people in whose service his life was sacrificed, I shall feel that I have been adequately rewarded.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

ADDRESS TO THE PEOPLE OF SANGAMON COUNTY.1

NEW SALEM, March 9, 1832.

TO THE PEOPLE OF SANGAMON COUNTY :

FELLOW-CITIZENS,- Having become a candidate for the honourable office of one of your Representatives in the next General Assembly of this State, in accordance with an established custom and the principles of true republicanism, it becomes my duty to make known to you, the people whom I propose to represent, my sentiments with regard to local affairs.

1 Interest is attached to this Address from the fact that it is the earliest-known product of Mr. Lincoln's pen. It was issued when, at the age of twenty-three, he was first a candidate for the office of Representative to the Legislature of Illinois. It is therefore given without abbreviation. Mr. Lincoln was defeated. He was running on the opposition ticket to General Jackson, the popular Presidential candidate in Illinois.

Time and experience have verified to a demonstration the public utility of internal improvements. That the poorest and most thinly populated countries would be greatly benefited by the opening of good roads and in the clearing of navigable streams within their limits, is what no person will deny. Yet it is folly to undertake works of this or any other kind, without first knowing that we are able to finish them, half-finished work generally proves to be labour lost.

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There cannot justly be any objection to having railroads and canals, any more than to other good things, provided they cost nothing. The only objection is to paying for them; and the objection arises from the want of ability to pay.

With respect to the County of Sangamon, some more easy means of communication than it now possesses, for the purpose of facilitating the task of exporting the surplus products of its fertile soil, and importing necessary articles from abroad, are indispensably necessary. A meeting has been held of the citizens of Jacksonville and the adjacent country for the purpose of deliberating and inquiring into the expediency of constructing a railroad from some eligible point on the Illinois River through the town of Jacksonville,