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A CHARACTER SKETCH

BY

ROBERT DICKINSON SHEPPARD, D.D.
Prof. of American and English History, Northwestern University

WITH ANECDOTES, CHARACTERISTICS AND

CHRONOLOGY. «^. ⠀ TY

CHICAGO

THE UNIVERSITY ASSOCIATION

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T is a far cry from a Kentucky cabin to the White

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House at Washington, from the estate of a poor white child in the south to that of Chief Magistrate of the United States of America. Yet it is our task to show how that distance was spanned in the life of Abraham Lincoln, and the story of it should be of the highest interest to every American youth.

We are probably not sufficiently removed from the times of Abraham Lincoln to estimate him in his full proportions. The greater part of the literature that has been written concerning him, that is not absolutely ephemeral, has been written for a people who reverenced him, and who would brook no other than a reverent handling of the object of their devotion. Such jealousy, however, was needless, for loving hands have written intelligently and judicially the story of his life, and of the unfolding of his character. They have written with the ardor of personal friendship and almost in the heat of the exciting days when Lincoln stood as their champion and contended for the National Union to which they were devoted.

These circumstances are not favorable to the ex

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