Show deep impress lincoln left not equaled the centen centenary ary of abraham Lincol ns ng birth was celebrated on february 12 1009 with nn an even deeper interest than such events usually arouse in a nation since then the lincoln legend has grown memorials to the great emancipator have multiplied each succeeding anniversary of ills birth has been marked by what ties lias come collie to be the usual impressive and nationwide observance abraham lincoln has bag been dead for nearly sixty ahr years few who remember him remain nilve alive the issues lie ho raised have long since passed in ninny many ways tho the thought end and the very feelings of the nation have changed and yet no figure in its his agry lias has ever so completely captured and held its ita imagination ns as lias has tills this sorrowful son roil of the frontier nere here was a man who came of a wandering and illiterate sometimes shiftless end and always shifting and footloose stock they knew little of books lie had little schooling it was a family of pore folks in a new and pore country in that half balf faced camp in the indiana woods lils ills mother taught him ills hla letters from tile the old blueback blue back speller of american tradition by the firelight lie he spelled out sentences from the statutes of indiana Un Lincol colins ns library 11 somehow in that new raw country tho the arabian eights came into hla his hands ile he road read the bible shakespeare 1 aesoph Ae sops fables and pilgrims progress lie he knew the life 0 washington by old person parson weems ue ile dipped a quill pen made from the turkey buzzards wing feather in a homemade home made ink compounded of roots of tile the blitek blackberry berry briar end copp copperas coppeans erns ile he wrote with the tip of a burnt stick or a dead bend coul coal from the fireplace on it a fresti fresh split clapboard one book had a profound influence upon him and possibly upon american political history the lincoln family were democrats lie ile rend read ingils boyhood the speeches of henry clay stiff with the strong ond end pungent whig doctrines of a century ago clay became to lincoln tile the beau ideal of n statesman when mica lincoln entered illinois politics in 1832 lie he wes a whig the torch of clay had lighted n grenter greater flame in the sangamon valley but blit clay dying in 1832 1852 with will his life work of compromise doomed to ruin did not live to see the glory of tills this new ore great by instinct out of the raw rough and ready school of front frontier ler politics and frontier law lincoln somehow mellow ro brought the power and experience needed for the nations greatest enier emergency gency and na as the years re revea vented ted lie he brought something greater the word humanity falls to describe it it included a deep understanding a great generosity and nn an utter futter ab absence senco of malice resentment and vindictiveness somewhere lie found a tract no trained diplomat and no gentleman born to the purple ever en excelled celled tie ile owned a tested strength tried as by fire and as surd sur to aa steel there was wad in him also a strange and al alost indescribable instinct for the right when lie conquered it was by the ho power of truth that may be why no other american statesman has left so EO deep an impress upon the thought and jl |