Iowa Clerk Of Court

Lincoln Autobiographies

December 20, 1859
I was born February 12, 1809, in the County of Hardin, Kentucky. My parents were the two born one in Virginia, of mediocre families -- the second families, maybe I should say. My mother, that is dead in my tenth year, was of a family of the name of Hank, certain of that lives now in Adams, and of others in the Counties of Macon, Illinois. My paternal grandfather, Abraham Lincoln, emigrated of the County of Rockingham, Virginia, to Kentucky, about 1781 or 2, where, a year or two later, it was killed by Indian, not in the fight, but by the diverted means, when it worked to open a farm in the forest. Its ancestors, that were quakers, went to Virginia of the County of Berkshire, Pensylvanie. An effort to identify them with the family of New England of the same finished name in nothing more defined, that a similarity of Christian names in the two families, as Enoch, Levi, Mordecai, Salomon, Abraham, and the something else as that.

My father, to the death of his father, was but six major years; and it grew, litterally [sic] without the education. It removed Kentucky to which is now the County of Spencer, Indiana, in my eighth year. We attained our new house of the time that the State came in the Union. It was a wild region, with a lot of bears and of wild animal others, still in wood. There I grew. There were some schools, therefore called; but no qualification was never demanded of a professor beyond "readin, writin, and cipherin" to the Rule of Three. If a late one supposed to understand that Latin arrived to stay in the neighborhood, it was looked at on as a wizzard [sic]. There was absolutely of nothing to excite the ambition for the education. Of course when I ripened I did not know a lot. Always of a manner or of another, I could read, could write, and could amount to the Rule of Three; but that all was. I was not to instruct since. The small advance that I have now on this education store, I took time to time under the necessity pressure.

I was raised to cultivate the work, that I continued until I was twenty-two. To twenty an I came to Illinois, and passed the first year in the County of Macon. Then I obtained again salem (at that very moment in Sangamon, now in the County of Menard), where I remained a year as a kind of Clerk in a store. Came then the war of Black Hawk; and I was elected a Captain of Voluntary ones -- a success that gave me any more pleasure than I had since. I went the country, was filled with joy, was candidate to the legislative Body the same year (1832) and was beaten -- the only time that I was never beaten by the people. The next one, and three to succeed the biennial elections, I was elected to the legislative Body. I was not candidate next. During this Legislative period I had studied the law, and removed to Springfield for practice it. In 1846 I was elected once to the lower House of Congress. Was not candidate for the reelection. Of 1849 to 1854, the two laws incluse and exercised assiduouslyer than never beforehand. Always a whig in the political one, and generally on the whig the electoral bills, doing the active canvasss -- I lost the interest in the political one, when the cancellation of the Compromise of Missouri excited me again. What I did since is known enough well.

If the personal description of me is thought desirable, it could be said, I am, in the height, six feet, four thumbs, almost; lean forward flesh, weighing on an average hundred and eighty books; the dark complexion, with the crude black hair, and the gray eyes -- no others mark or the brands remembered.

June 1860

Abraham Lincoln had been born February 12, 1809, then in Hardin, now in the county more more more recently more formed of It itself Repent of, Kentucky. His father, Thomas, and the grandfather, Abraham, had been born in the County of Rockingham, Virginia, where their ancestors had come from the County of Berkshire, Pensylvanie. His alignment was not traced father of return that this. The family was at first quakers, although in stopwatch later they fell far of the special habits of than the people. The grandfather, Abraham, had four brothers -- Isaac, Jacob, John, and Thomas. If removed as knew, the descendants of Jacob and John always are in Virginia. Isaac went to a place near where Virginia, Caroline of the North, and joined Tennessee; and its descendants are in this region. Thomas came to Kentucky, and after a lot of years are dead there, from which its descendants went to Missouri. Abraham, the grandfather of the subject of this sketch, came to Kentucky, and was killed by Indian about the year 1784. It left a widow, three sons, and two girls. The elder son, Mordecai, remained in the Kentucky until last in life, when it removed to the County of Hancock, Illinois, where shortly after it is dead, and where several of its descendants always remains. The second son, Josiah, removed to a first day to a place on the Blue River, now in the County of Hancock, in Indiana, but no recent information of him or his family was obtained. The elder sister, Mary, married Ralph Crume, and certain of its descendants now are known to be in the County of Breckenridge, Kentucky. The second sister, Nancy, married William Brumfield, and his family is not known to have left Kentucky, but there is not recent information of them. Thomas, the youngest son, and the father of the present subject, by the first death of his father, and its very narrow circumstances of his mother, even in childhood was a work boy roaming, and grew literally without the education. It more never did in the writing manner only raterment to write his own name. Before it has was grew it passed a year as an engaged hand with his uncle Isaac on Watauga, a branch of the River of Holston. Return in Kentucky, and having attained his twenty-eight years, it married Nancy Hank -- the mother of the present subject -- in 1806. She also had been born in Virginia; and the parents of his of the name of Hank, and of other names, now to lie in Cole, in Macon, and in Adams counties, Illinois, and also in the Iowa. The present subject does not have any brother or the sister of the body or of half blood. It had a sister, older than itself, that was grown and was married, but was dead a lot of years, not leaving there is child; also a brother, younger than itself, that is dead in the first childhood. Before leaving Kentucky, it and his sister was sent, for the short periods, to A schools of C OF B, the first kept by Zachariah Riney, and the second by Caleb Hazel.

In this moment his father lived on the Creek of Button, on the road of Bardstown, Kentucky, to Nashville, Tennessee, to a point three or three and a south of 800 meters or the southwest of Ferry of Atherton, on the Rolling Fork. Of this place that it removed to which is now the County of Spencer, Indiana, in the fall of 1816, Abraham then the being in his eighth year. This abduction was partially because of slavery, but principally because of the difficulty in the earth titles in the Kentucky. It regulated in an intact forest, and to remove it wood in surplus was the big task forward. Abraham, although very young, was big of his age, and had an axe put in its hands right away; and of that even to in his twenty-three years it constantly checked almost that the instrument more useful -- less, of course, in to plow and to harvest the seasons. To this place Abraham took a beginning as soon as possible as a hunter, that was never improved a lot after. Some days before the achievement of his eighth year, in the absence of his father, a flock of wild turkeys approached the new house of wood, and Abraham with a rifle rifle, being anxious the interior, the blow by a fissure and killed an of them. It never has since pulled a relaxation on the biggest game. In the dead fall of 1818 his mother; and a year after his father married Mrs Sally Johnston, to Elizabethtown, Kentucky, a widow with three children of his first marriage. She proved a voucher and kind mother to Abraham, and always lives in Cole County, Illinois. There was not child of this second marriage. The residence of his father continued to the same place in the Indiana until 1830. While here Abraham went to A schools of C OF B a little, kept successively by Andrew Crawford, -- Sweeney, and Azel W. Dorsey. It does not remember any other. The family of Mr. Dorsey lives now in the County of Schuyler, Illinois. Abraham thinks now that the agregate of all his education did not come back to a year. It was never in a university or an academy as a student, and a never interior of a university or of a constructing academy until since it had a law permit. What it has in the manner of education that it took. After it was twenty-three and had separated of his father, it studied the English grammar -- imperfectly, of course, but therefore as to speak and to write just like it does now. It studied and failed to master the six books of Euclide since it was member of the Congress. It regrets his education need, and does that it can furnish the need. In his tenth year that it was kicked by a horse, and apparently killed for a time. When it was nineteen, living still in the Indiana, it did his first trip on a flatboat to New Orleans. It was an engaged hand simply, and it and a son of the owner, without the other assistance, does the trip. The nature of party of the "the cargo load," as it was called, did it necessary for them to lead and to exchange alongside the sugar coast; and a night that they were attacked by seven black ones with the intention to kill and to fly the. They someone were injured in the brawl, but arrived to drive the black ones of the boat, and then "the cut cable," "weighed the anchor," and left.

The 1st March, 1830, Abraham having completed just his twenty-one years, his father and his family, with the families of the two girls and of sons-in-law of his mother-in-law, left the old property and came in the Indiana to Illinois. Their method of means of transportation was carts drawn by beef teams, and Abraham drove one of the teams. They attained the county of Macon, and stopped there some time in the same months of March. His father and the family regulated a new place on the side of the north of the River of Sangamon, to the junction of the forest land and the prairie, almost ten miles of the west of Decatur. Here they constructed a wood house, in which they removed, and does sufficient of block to close ten half-hectares of ground, closed and broke the ground, and student a harvest of sown corn on him the same year. These are, or are supposed to be, the bars of which one ones as much of is said just now, although these are moved away from the being the first or only bars never done by Abraham.

The sons-in-law temporarily were regulated in the other places in the county. In the fall that all the hands were strong afflicted with the fever paludedenne and the fever, to which they had not been used, and by which they were strong discouraged, as much of that they determined on to leave the county. They remained nevertheless by the following winter, that was the winter of the very famous one "the deep snow" of Illinois. During this winter Abraham, together with the son of his mother-in-law, John D. Johnston, and John Hank, living nevertheless in the County of Macon, was involved itself to Denton Offutt to take a flatboat of Beardstown, Illinois, to New Orleans; and for this goal should join it--Offutt--at Springfield, Illinois, therefore soon as the snow should jump. When it jumped, that was first March, 1831, the county was flooded himself as to do to travel by the unfeasible earth; avoid which difficulty they bought a big canoe, and brought down the River of Sangamon in him. This is the time and the manner of first entry of Abraham in the County of Sangamon. They found Offutt to Springfield, but learn from him that it had failed in to obtain a boat to Beardstown. This took to their hiring itself to him for twelve dollars by the months each, and obtain the wood of the trees and the construction of a boat to the Old city of Sangamon on the River of Sangamon, seven northwestern miles of Springfield, which boat they took to New Orleans, substantially on the old contract.

During this knowledge of boat business with Offutt, that was previously an entire unknown one, it conceived an affection for Abraham, and believing that it could turn it to explain, it contracted with him to use the clerk for him, on his return of New Orleans, loaded with a store and mill again Salem, then in Sangamon, now in the County of Menard. Hank had not gone to New Orleans, but to have a family, and the probable being to be kept than longer house first foreseen, had done u-turn of the St. Louis. It is the same John Hank that organizes now the "the rail business" to Decatur, and is First cousin to the mother of Abraham. The father of Abraham, with his own family and of others mentioned, had, in accordance with their intention, removed Macon to Cole County. John D. Johnston, the son of the mother-in-law, went with them, and Abraham stopped indefinitely and for the first time, as it was, itself again Salem, before mentioned. This was in the month of July, 1831. Here it did quickly of the knowledge and friends. In less than a matters of Offutt of year failed -- had failed almost -- when the war of Black Hawk of 1832 broke out. Abraham joined a business of voluntary one, and, to his clean surprised one, was elected the captain of him. It says that it does not have since had success in the life that gave him as much satisfaction. It went in the country, served close to three months, met the ordinary hardships of such an expedition, but was in no fight. It possesses now, in the Iowa, the earth on which its own rights for the service were localized. Return country, and encouraged by his big popularity among its immediate neighbors, it the same year was candidate to the legislative body, and was beaten, -- his possesses the pregnant voting one nevertheless 277 for and 7 against him -- and that, also, while it was a man of asserted Clay, and the pregnant one that the giving fall after a majority of 115 to General Jackson on Mr. Clay. This was the only Abraham of time was never beaten on a direct vote of the people. It was now without the means and matters, but was anxious to remain with its friends that had treated him with as much of generosity, especially as it did not have anything elsewhere to go to. It studied that it should do -- thought about to learn the commerce of forgeron -- thought about to try to study the law -- thought rather it could not succeed thereto without a better education. Before little, strangely enough, a man offered to sell, and sold, to Abraham and an as poor other as itself, an old stock of items, on the credit. They opened as the merchants; and it says that that was the Store. Of course they did nothing but obtain deeper and deeper in the debt. It was named the postmaster again Salem -- the being of too insignificant office to do his political one an objection. The store blinked out. The surveyor of Sangamon offered to delegate to Abraham that the portion of his work that was in his party of the county. It accepted, obtained a compass and a chain, Silex and studied Gibson, and went a little to him. This obtained bread, and the soul and the kept body together. The election of 1834 came, and it then was elected to the body legislative by the highest distribution of vote for any candidate. Major John T. Stuart, then in the practice a lot of the law, also was elected. During the canvass, in a private conversation it encouraged Abraham [to] the study law. After the election it borrowed books of Stuart, took them the house with him, and went to him in serious voucher. It studied with person. It always incorporated to examine it to pay the bills of counsel and clothing. When the legislative body met, the lawbooks was fallen, but again were taken at the end of the meeting. It was reelected in 1836, 1838, and 1840. In the fall of 1836 it obtained a law permit, and April 15, 1837, removed to Springfield, and began the practice -- his old Stuart of friend him that takes in the partnership. March 3, 1837, by an entered protest on the "Newspaper of House of Illinois" of this date, to the pages 817 and 818, Abraham, with the Rock of Dan, a representing other of Sangamon, defined briefly his position on the slavery question; and if far as it goes, it was then the same that this is now. Protest is as follows:

"The resolutions on the slavery subject domesticates having passed the two branches of the general assembly to his meeting present, the undersigned the by the presents protest against the passage of the same.

"They believe that the slavery institution is based on injustice and the political bad one, but that the spread of doctrines of Abolition has tendency rather to increase that diminishes its evil.

"They believe that the Congress of the United States does not have any strength under the Constitution to interfere with the slavery institution in the different States.

"They believe that the Congress of the United States has the strength, under the Constitution, abolish the slavery in the District of Columbia, but that the strength must not be exercised unless to the request of the people of the Neighborhood.

"The difference between these opinions and these content in the above mentioned resolutions are their reason to enter this protest.

"The Rock of Dan,
"A Lincoln,
"The representatives of the County of Sangamon".

In 1838 and 1840, the party of Mr. Lincoln voted for him as the High Speaker, but the being in the minority that it was not elected. After 1840 it declined a reelection to the legislative body. It was on the Harrison the electoral ticket in 1840, and on that of Clay in 1844, and a lot of times and the spent work in the two these canvasss. In the month of November, 1842, it was married to Mary, the girl of Robert S. Todd, of Lexington, Kentucky. They have three living children, all the sons, a born one in 1843, the one in 1850, and the one in 1853. They lost the one, that had been born in 1846.

In 1846 it was elected to the lower House of Congress, and served a term, beginning only in the month of December, 1847, and finishing with the inauguration of General Taylor, in the month of March 1849. All the fight of the Mexican war had been before fought that Mr. Lincoln took his seat to the Congress, but the American army always was to Mexico, and the peace treaty was not completely and definitely ratified to the June after. To a lot said summer of his course to the Congress as for this war. A prudent examination of the "Newspaper" and "the Globe of the congress" the spectacles that it voted for all the measures of provision that brought up, and for all the measures of some manner in favor of the officers, to the soldiers, and their families, that directed the war by: with the exception that certain of these past measures without yeas and the nos, not leaving report according to How the special men voted. The "Newspaper" and the "Globe" show him as voting as the war uselessly was and inconstitutionnelment started with the President of the United States. This is the language of amendment of Mr. Ashmun, for which Mr. Lincoln and almost or completely all the other Whigs of the House of Representatives voted.

The reasons of Mr. Lincoln for the opinion expressed by this vote were briefly that the President had sent General Taylor in a lived party of the country belongs to Mexico, and not to the United States, and had provoked of this manner the first act of hostility, in fact the beginning of the war; that the place, the being that the country touches on the bank of the East of the Rio Big, was lived by Natal Mexican, been born there under the Mexican government, and had never submitted to, was or conquered by, Texas or the United States, done or transfer to or by the treaty; that although Texas claimed the Rio Big as his border, his Mexico had never recognized it, and or Texas or the United States had never applied it; that there was a wide desert between that and the country on Which Texas had the true check; that the The country where the begun hostilities, having belonged once to Mexico, must remain if until it legally was transferred of a manner or of another, that had never been done.

Mr. Lincoln thought the act to send an armed forces among the Mexican ones was useless, since Mexico inconvenienced at all or threatened the United States or the people of that; and that it was unconstitutional, because the strength to demand the war is invested to the Congress, and not in the President. It thought the principal motive for the act was to divert the public attention of the surrender of "Fifty-four, forty, or fights" to Great Britain, on the question of border of Oregon.

Mr. Lincoln was not candidate for the reelection. This was determined on and declared before it is went to Washington, in accordance with a comprehension among the friends of Whig, by which Hardin of Colonel and Baker of Colonel had each served previously an only term in this same neighborhood.

In 1848, during his term to the Congress, it recommended the nomination of Taylor of General for the presidency, in the opposition to all of others, and took also a party activates for his election after his nomination, speaking some times in the Maryland, close to Washington, in the Massachusetts, and prospecting several times completely completely his own neighborhood in the Illinois, that was followed by a majority in The neighborhood of more than 1500 for General Taylor.

On his return of Congress it went to the practice of the law with the biggest seriousness than never beforehand. In 1852 it was on the Scott the electoral ticket, and did something in the manner to prospect, but due to the despair of the cause in the Illinois it did less than in the preceding presidential canvasss.

In 1854 his profession had supplanted almost the think about political in his spirit, when the cancellation of the Compromise of Missouri excited it as it had never been before.

In the fall of this year it took the stump with no objective or no object practices wider than to obtain, if possible, the reelection of Hon. Richard Yates to Congress. Its speeches attracted right away a more marked attention than they had never before does. As the canvass proceeded it was drawn to the different parties of the exterior one state of neighborhood of Mr. Yates. It did not abandon the law, but that gave his attention by the bends and political. Fails it agricultural of the state was at Springfield that the year, and Douglas was announced to speak there.

In the canvass of 1856 Mr. Lincoln converted fifty speeches, person of which, therefore far as it remembers of, was put in the characters. One of them was done to Galena, but Mr. Lincoln does not have to remember any party of him is printed; does or do it remembers of if in this speech it said does not import what of a decision of supreme Court. It could have spoken on this subject, and certain of the newspapers could have retrieved it as saying that it attributed him now, but it thinks that it could not have expressed itself as representative.