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Selected American history
The Life of Abraham Lincoln
By Henry Ketcham
TO MY TWO OLDER BROTHERS, JOHN LEWIS KETCHAM,
AND WILLIAM ALEXANDER KETCHAM,
WHO UNDER ABRAHAM LINCOLN AS COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF
LOYALLY SERVED THEIR COUNTRY IN THE WAR
FOR THE PERPETUATION OF THE UNION AND THE
DESTRUCTION OP SLAVERY, THIS BOOK IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED.
CONTENTS.
PREFACE
The question will naturally be raised, Why should there be another Life
of Lincoln? This may be met by a counter question, Will there ever be a
time in the near future when there will not be another Life of
Lincoln? There is always a new class of students and a new enrolment of
citizens. Every year many thousands of young people pass from the
Grammar to the High School grade of our public schools. Other thousands
are growing up into manhood and womanhood. These are of a different
constituency from their fathers and grandfathers who remember the civil
war and were perhaps in it.
"To the younger generation," writes Carl Schurz, "Abraham Lincoln has
already become a half mythical figure, which, in the haze of historic
distance, grows to more and more heroic proportions, but also loses in
distinctness of outline and figure." The last clause of this remark is
painfully true. To the majority of people now living, his outline and
figure are dim and vague. There are to-day professors and presidents of
colleges, legislators of prominence, lawyers and judges, literary men,
and successful business men, to whom Lincoln is a tradition. It cannot
be expected that a person born after the year (say) 1855, could
remember Lincoln more than as a name. Such an one's ideas are made up
not from his remembrance and appreciation of events as they occurred,
but from what he has read and heard about them in subsequent years.
The great mine of information concerning the facts of Lincoln's life
is, and probably will always be, the History by his secretaries,
Nicolay and Hay. This is worthily supplemented by the splendid volumes
of Miss Tarbell. There are other biographies of great value. Special
mention should be made of the essay by Carl Schurz, which is classic.
The author has consulted freely all the books on the subject he could
lay his hands on. In this volume there is no attempt to write a history
of the times in which Lincoln lived and worked. Such historical events
as have been narrated were selected solely because they illustrated
some phase of the character of Lincoln. In this biography the single
purpose has been to present the living man with such distinctness of
outline that the reader may have a sort of feeling of being acquainted
with him. If the reader, finishing this volume, has a vivid realization
of Lincoln as a man, the author will be fully repaid.
To achieve this purpose in brief compass, much has been omitted. Some
of the material omitted has probably been of a value fully equal to
some that has been inserted. This could not well be avoided. But if the
reader shall here acquire interest enough in the subject to continue
the study of this great, good man, this little book will have served
its purpose.
H. K.
WESTFIELD, NEW JERSEY, February, 1901.
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