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Selected American history
The Life of Abraham Lincoln
By Henry Ketcham
CHAPTER V.
SECOND JOURNEY TO NEW ORLEANS.
The first winter in Illinois, 1830-31, was one of those epochal seasons
which come to all communities. It is remembered by "the oldest
inhabitant" to this day for the extraordinary amount of snow that fell.
There is little doing in such a community during any winter; but in
such a winter as that there was practically nothing doing. Lincoln
always held himself ready to accept any opportunity for work, but there
was no opening that winter. The only thing he accomplished was what he
did every winter and every summer of his life: namely, he made many
friends.
When spring opened, Denton Offutt decided to send a cargo of
merchandise down to New Orleans. Hearing that Lincoln, John Hanks, and
John Johnston were "likely boys," he employed them to take charge of
the enterprise. Their pay was to be fifty cents a day and "found," and,
if the enterprise proved successful, an additional sum of twenty
dollars. Lincoln said that none of them had ever seen so much money at
one time, and they were glad to accept the offer.
Two events occurred during this trip which are of sufficient interest
to bear narration.
The boat with its cargo had been set afloat in the Sangamon River at
Springfield. All went well until, at New Salem, they came to a mill dam
where, in spite of the fact that the water was high, owing to the
spring floods, the boat stuck. Lincoln rolled his trousers "five feet
more or less" up his long, lank legs, waded out to the boat, and got
the bow over the dam. Then, without waiting to bail the water out, he
bored a hole in the bottom and let it run out. He constructed a machine
which lifted and pushed the boat over the obstruction, and thus their
voyage was quickly resumed. Many years later, when he was a practising
lawyer, he whittled out a model of his invention and had it patented.
The model may to-day be seen in the patent office at Washington. The
patent brought him no fortune, but it is an interesting relic.
This incident is of itself entirely unimportant. It is narrated here
solely because it illustrates one trait of the man--his ingenuity. He
had remarkable fertility in devising ways and means of getting out of
unexpected difficulties. When, in 1860, the Ship of State seemed like
to run aground hopelessly, it was his determination and ingenuity that
averted total wreck. As in his youth he saved the flatboat, so in his
mature years he saved the nation.
The other event was that at New Orleans, where he saw with his own eyes
some of the horrors of slavery. He never could tolerate a moral wrong.
At a time when drinking was almost universal, he was a total abstainer.
Though born in a slave state, he had an earnest and growing repugnance
to slavery. Still, up to this time he had never seen much of its
workings. At this time he saw a slave market--the auctioning off of
human beings.
The details of this auction were so coarse and vile that it is
impossible to defile these pages with an accurate and faithful
description. Lincoln saw it all. He saw a beautiful mulatto girl
exhibited like a race-horse, her "points" dwelt on, one by one, in
order, as the auctioneer said, that "bidders might satisfy themselves
whether the article they were offering to buy was sound or not." One of
his companions justly said slavery ran the iron into him then and
there. His soul was stirred with a righteous indignation. Turning to
the others he exclaimed with a solemn oath: "Boys, if ever I get a
chance to hit that thing [slavery] I'll hit it hard!"
He bided his time. One-third of a century later he had the chance to
hit that thing. He redeemed his oath. He hit it hard.
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