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| Mr. Lincoln's residence at Springfield. |
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beneficent and elevating operations of republican government and republican institutions.
He was born in comparative obscurity, in the State of Kentucky, early in the year 1809; and when he was inaugurated President, he had just passed his fifty-second birthday.
His earlier years had been spent in hard labor with his hands on the farm, in the forest, and on the waters of the Mississippi.
His later years had been equally laborious in the profession of the law, a knowledge of which he had acquired by painful study, in the midst of many difficulties.
In that profession he had advanced rapidly to distinction, in the State of Illinois, wherein he had settled with his father in the year 1830.
His fellow-citizens discovered in him the tokens of statesmanship, and they chose him to represent them in the National Congress.
He served them and his country therein with great diligence and ability, and, as we have observed, his countrymen, in the autumn of 1860, chose him to fill the most exalted station in their gift.1 How he filled that station during the four terrible years of our history, while the Republic was ravaged by the dragon of civil war, will be recorded on succeeding pages.
On the 11th of February, Mr. Lincoln left his home in Springfield for the seat of the National Government, accompanied by a few friends.2 At the railway station, a large concourse of his fellow-townsmen had gathered to bid him adieu.
He was deeply affected by this exhibition of kindness on the part of his friends and neighbors, and with a sense of the great responsibilities he was about to assume.
“My friends,” he said, when he was about to leave, “no one not in my position can appreciate the sadness I feel at this parting.
To this people I owe all that I am. Here I have lived more than a quarter of a century; here my children were born, and here one of them lies buried.
A duty devolves upon me which is, perhaps, greater than that
which has devolved upon any other man since the days of Washington.
Hie never would have succeeded, except for the aid of Divine Providence, upon which he at all times relied.
I feel that I cannot succeed without the same Divine aid which sustained him, and on the same Almighty Being I place my reliance for support; and I hope you, my friends, will all pray that I may receive that Divine assistance without which I cannot succeed, but with which success is certain.
Again I bid you farewell.”
3
1 See page 34.
2 The following persons accompanied Mr. Lincoln :--J. G. Nicolay, private secretary of the President elect; John Hay; Robert L. Lincoln, Major Hunter, United States Army; Colonel Sumner, United States Army; Colonel E. E. Ellsworth, Hon. John K. Dubys, State Auditor; Colonel W. H. Lamon, Aid to Governor Yates; Judge David Davis, Hon. 0. H. Browning, E. L. Baker, editor of the Springfield Journal; Robert Irwin, N. B. Judd, and George Lotham.
3 Before Mr. Lincoln left home, J. Young Scammon, member of the Legislature of Illinois, presented to Mr. Lincoln a fine picture of the flag of the Union, with an inscription upon the folds of the same, in Hebrew, being the fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth verses of the first chapter of Joshua. The verses are those in which Joshua is commanded to reign over the whole land. The last one is as follows:--“9th. ‘ Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.’ ” The picture was surrounded by a gilt frame, and accompanied by a letter to Mr. Scammon from the donor, Abr. Kohn, City Clerk of Chicago.
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