On February 12th we celebrate Abraham Lincoln’s birthday. He
once said: “I have never had a feeling politically that did not spring from the
sentiments embodied in the Declaration of Independence.”(1) Lincoln
admired, for a lifetime, Thomas Jefferson -- the man who had "the
coolness, forecast, and capacity to introduce into a merely revolutionary
document, an abstract truth, applicable to all men and all times...."(2) A
brief look at the early roots of those sentiments…
“'He read diligently,' Sarah Lincoln said. Young Lincoln studied in the daytime, but did not study much at night. He went to bed early, got up early, and then read. She recalled that "Abe read all the books he could lay his hands on; and, when he came across a passage that struck him he would write it down on boards if he had no paper and keep it there till he did get paper." Then he would re-write it, looked at it, and repeat it. Like Thomas Jefferson, he kept a notebook of his early readings, but it has not survived. Lincoln read histories, papers, and other books...
“'He read diligently,' Sarah Lincoln said. Young Lincoln studied in the daytime, but did not study much at night. He went to bed early, got up early, and then read. She recalled that "Abe read all the books he could lay his hands on; and, when he came across a passage that struck him he would write it down on boards if he had no paper and keep it there till he did get paper." Then he would re-write it, looked at it, and repeat it. Like Thomas Jefferson, he kept a notebook of his early readings, but it has not survived. Lincoln read histories, papers, and other books...
[I]n the pristine woods of Indiana Lincoln began to idolize
Washington and Jefferson. The founding fathers, and the documents of American
liberty became an integral part of Lincoln's entire life, political career, and
even his own death and funeral at the end of the "final sentence"
which Thomas Jefferson had feared during the Missouri crisis back in 1819.(3)
It may have been while young Lincoln was in Troy, near the Anderson River where Lincoln helped operate a ferry, and not far from where the Lafayette party had suffered the great Ohio River disaster in 1825, that Lincoln was introduced to a new field of reading; newspapers. The town was an official post office, and newspapers were delivered there by the post rider and were certainly available to anyone who might be interested to read them. Located only a mile and a half from the Lincoln family cabin; Gentry's Store became a post office on June 15, 1825. There were sixteen papers published in Indiana in the mid 1820s. Certainly occasional copies of Indiana papers would reach Gentry's Store, but also papers from Louisville, Cincinnati, Lexington, and other eastern cities. It could be days, weeks, or even months before they might arrive, but news was still news to the people of Little Pigeon Creek, Indiana.
A friend of the Lincolns, John Romine, later related that he had loaned young Lincoln a paper which contained an editorial on Thomas Jefferson. When the boy returned it, Romine declared, "it seemed he could repeat every word in that editorial and not only that but could recount all the news items as well as all about the advertisements." This particular issue may have been published in July, 1826, when newspapers were filled with editorials and articles commemorating the fiftieth anniversary celebration of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, and the sudden deaths, a double apotheosis, of the penman and the congressional advocate, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, on the very day July 4, 1826.
This unusual occasion of both men dying on the fiftieth anniversary of American's Charter of Liberty made a lasting impression on Abraham Lincoln. He recalled that event thirty-seven years later after a July 4 celebration in the middle of civil war, and a significant northern military victory at a place called Vicksburg, Mississippi.(4)
While in Indiana "a playmate, schoolfellow, associate and firm friend," David Turnham of Gentryville, loaned Lincoln The Revised Laws of Indiana [1824] ... to which Are Prefixed the Declaration of Independence, The Constitution of the U. S., the Constitution of the State of Indiana and Sundry other Documents, connected with the Political History of the Territory and State of Indiana. It was through this volume, the first law book he ever read, that Lincoln became acquainted with the Declaration of Independence which became "his political chart and inspiration," according to John Nicolay, his White House secretary. Such reading led Lincoln to try his own hand at such writing. William Wood, a Lincoln neighbor, remembered that "A. Wrote a piece on national politics, saying that the American government was the best form of government in the world for an intelligent people; that it ought to be kept sacred and preserved forever.... that the Constitution should be sacred, the Union perpetuated, and the laws revered, and enforced.... This was in 1827 or '28."
Neighbor Wood showed Lincoln's article to a lawyer, John Pitcher, practicing in Posey County at that time. "I told him one of my neighbors' boy wrote it," said Wood. "He couldn't believe it till I told him Abe did write it ... said to me this: 'The world can't beat it.' He begged for it. I gave it to him and it was published, can't say what paper it got into." The seeds of Lincoln's future reverence for the Union and the determination to keep it sacred and to preserve it forever" may be found in this writing of a young Hoosier boy. This was probably Abraham Lincoln's first published piece.”(5)
It may have been while young Lincoln was in Troy, near the Anderson River where Lincoln helped operate a ferry, and not far from where the Lafayette party had suffered the great Ohio River disaster in 1825, that Lincoln was introduced to a new field of reading; newspapers. The town was an official post office, and newspapers were delivered there by the post rider and were certainly available to anyone who might be interested to read them. Located only a mile and a half from the Lincoln family cabin; Gentry's Store became a post office on June 15, 1825. There were sixteen papers published in Indiana in the mid 1820s. Certainly occasional copies of Indiana papers would reach Gentry's Store, but also papers from Louisville, Cincinnati, Lexington, and other eastern cities. It could be days, weeks, or even months before they might arrive, but news was still news to the people of Little Pigeon Creek, Indiana.
A friend of the Lincolns, John Romine, later related that he had loaned young Lincoln a paper which contained an editorial on Thomas Jefferson. When the boy returned it, Romine declared, "it seemed he could repeat every word in that editorial and not only that but could recount all the news items as well as all about the advertisements." This particular issue may have been published in July, 1826, when newspapers were filled with editorials and articles commemorating the fiftieth anniversary celebration of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, and the sudden deaths, a double apotheosis, of the penman and the congressional advocate, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, on the very day July 4, 1826.
This unusual occasion of both men dying on the fiftieth anniversary of American's Charter of Liberty made a lasting impression on Abraham Lincoln. He recalled that event thirty-seven years later after a July 4 celebration in the middle of civil war, and a significant northern military victory at a place called Vicksburg, Mississippi.(4)
While in Indiana "a playmate, schoolfellow, associate and firm friend," David Turnham of Gentryville, loaned Lincoln The Revised Laws of Indiana [1824] ... to which Are Prefixed the Declaration of Independence, The Constitution of the U. S., the Constitution of the State of Indiana and Sundry other Documents, connected with the Political History of the Territory and State of Indiana. It was through this volume, the first law book he ever read, that Lincoln became acquainted with the Declaration of Independence which became "his political chart and inspiration," according to John Nicolay, his White House secretary. Such reading led Lincoln to try his own hand at such writing. William Wood, a Lincoln neighbor, remembered that "A. Wrote a piece on national politics, saying that the American government was the best form of government in the world for an intelligent people; that it ought to be kept sacred and preserved forever.... that the Constitution should be sacred, the Union perpetuated, and the laws revered, and enforced.... This was in 1827 or '28."
Neighbor Wood showed Lincoln's article to a lawyer, John Pitcher, practicing in Posey County at that time. "I told him one of my neighbors' boy wrote it," said Wood. "He couldn't believe it till I told him Abe did write it ... said to me this: 'The world can't beat it.' He begged for it. I gave it to him and it was published, can't say what paper it got into." The seeds of Lincoln's future reverence for the Union and the determination to keep it sacred and to preserve it forever" may be found in this writing of a young Hoosier boy. This was probably Abraham Lincoln's first published piece.”(5)
From: Rietveld, Ronald D., “Abraham Lincoln's Thomas Jefferson” (White House Studies, NOVA Science Publishers, Inc., 2005).
_________________________________
(1) Speech at Independence
Hall, February 21, 1860, American Patriotism, S. Hobart Peabody, ed. (American Book Exchange, New
York, 1880), p. 507.
(2) "To Henry L. Pierce and Others," April 6, 1859," in The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, ed. Roy P. Basler, 9 vols (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press in association with the Abraham Lincoln Association, 1953-1955), 3:375-376, hereafter cited as CWAL.
(3) Douglas L. Wilson and Rodney O. Davis, eds., Herndon's Informants (Urbana and Chicago: Univ. of Illinois Press, 1998), p. 107; Noah Brooks, Abraham Lincoln and the Downfall of American Slavery (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1894), pp. 23-24; "Address to the New Jersey Senate at Trenton, New Jersey, February 21, 1861," in CWAL, 4:236.
(4) John Romine to William H. Herndon, September 14, 1865, in Herndon-Weik MSS, Library of Congress; Louis A. Warren, Lincoln's Youth: Indiana Years, Seven to Twenty-One, 1816-1830 (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, Inc., 1959), pp. 168-169; CWAL, 6:319-20
(5) Warren, Lincoln's Youth: Indiana Years, pp. 201-202; 169; 265; Wilson and Davis, eds., Herndon's Informants, pp. 120-123.
(2) "To Henry L. Pierce and Others," April 6, 1859," in The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, ed. Roy P. Basler, 9 vols (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press in association with the Abraham Lincoln Association, 1953-1955), 3:375-376, hereafter cited as CWAL.
(3) Douglas L. Wilson and Rodney O. Davis, eds., Herndon's Informants (Urbana and Chicago: Univ. of Illinois Press, 1998), p. 107; Noah Brooks, Abraham Lincoln and the Downfall of American Slavery (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1894), pp. 23-24; "Address to the New Jersey Senate at Trenton, New Jersey, February 21, 1861," in CWAL, 4:236.
(4) John Romine to William H. Herndon, September 14, 1865, in Herndon-Weik MSS, Library of Congress; Louis A. Warren, Lincoln's Youth: Indiana Years, Seven to Twenty-One, 1816-1830 (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, Inc., 1959), pp. 168-169; CWAL, 6:319-20
(5) Warren, Lincoln's Youth: Indiana Years, pp. 201-202; 169; 265; Wilson and Davis, eds., Herndon's Informants, pp. 120-123.
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