F albert cotton biography of abraham lincoln
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Abraham Lincoln&#;s Personality
&#;In temper he was Earnest, yet controlled, frank, yet sufficiently guarded, patient, yet energetic, forgiving, yet just to himself; generous yet firm,&#; wrote J. T. Duryea of the U.S. Christian Commission, which met frequently with President Abraha Lincoln. &#;His conscience was the strongest element of his nature. His affections were tender & warm. His whole nature was simple and sincere &#; he was pure, and then was himself.&#;1
The Marquis de Chambrun, a French writer who came to know Mr. Lincoln in the last months of his life, observed: &#;Such a nature was admirably constituted to direct an heroic struggle on the part of a people proud enough to prefer a guide to a leader, a man commissioned to execute the popular will but, as in his case, strong enough to enforce his own.&#;2
Much of Mr. Lincoln&#;s character was framed in early manhood when he moved to New Salem, Illinois to work for shopkeeper Dennis Offut. Lincoln chronicler
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Abraham Lincoln and Cotton
Cotton was a scandal in the Civil War. By the war&#;s conclusion, cotton had become as annoying to the President Abraham Lincoln as the boll weevil was to cotton growers. On the night he was assassinated, Mr. Lincoln met former Massachusetts Congressman George Ashmun at the White House shortly before the Lincolns left to go to Ford&#;s theater. Ashmun had a client who had a claim against the government regarding cotton he owned. Mr. Lincoln was in a good mood that day, but according to artist Francis B. Carpenter, &#; Mr. Lincoln replied with considerable warmth of manner, &#;I have done with &#;commissions.&#; I believe they are contrivances to cheat the Government out of every pound of cotton they can lay their hands on.&#; Mr Ashmun&#;s face flushed, and he replied that he hoped the President meant no personal imputation. Mr. Lincoln saw that he had wounded his friend, and he instantly replied: &#;You did not understand me, Ashmun. I did not mean w
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Albert J. Beveridge and Demythologizing Lincoln
Albert J. Beveridge turned to the writing of history after the frustration of his ambitions to man history. Born in rural Ohio on October 6, , he was an up-and-coming ung lawyer of thirty-six in In-dianapolis when he surprised the Indiana Republican establishment by winning election to the United States Senate. He first attracted attention as a champion of American overseas expansion. After his re-election in to a second term, he became identified with the reform-minded—or insurgent—wing of the GOP. He championed national child labor legislation, sponsored the federal meat inspection law adopted in the wake of the publication of Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, and broke with President William Howard Taft over the Payne-Aldrich tariff. The Democratic capture of Indiana in the elections cost him his Senate seat. Two years later, he joined former president Theodore Roosevelt in leaving the Republican party and launching the Progre