Abraham Lincoln

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 278, 14 February 1928, Page 9

Abraham Lincoln

I AMERICA COMMEMOR- M ATES 119TH ANNIVERSARY OF IMMORTAL PRESIDENTS 'BIRTH MOST LOVED PUBLIC MAN On Sunday a national holiday was observed throughout the United States of America to commemorate the 119th anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln. The immortal President was born on February 12, 1809, in the State of .Kentucky. He was the son of a migratory farmer. At 21 he began an independent life as a labourer and soon gained a reputation for honesty, good nature and a gift of humorous speech. Luring the next few years he lived a varied life and travelled from State to State. While in New Orleans he saw something of the horrors of slavery which later were to exert so profound an influence upon his politics. Lincoln began his political career as a candi diate for the Legislature of Illinois Reading for the Bar he began to practise law with immediate success. In 1846 he was elected to Congress in the Whig interest, but only remained there for four years. His brilliant success in Illinois in 1858 was of national importance in keeping the Republican Party to its principles and two years later he became President. He was elected on the principle that slavery was wrong. All through a harassing political regime he held to his ideals and in 1862 achieved his life’s goal, the emancipation of all Southern slaves. He had but three years more to live. On April, 14, 1865, Lincoln was assassinated by a dissolute fanatic. Soon after his death the scholarly world discovered his worth as a calm and restrained orator. Later study revealed a profundity in his thought and historical inquiry reveals him a statesman where once he seemed a patient, honest blunderer. His combination of simplicity with a touch of indefinable genius, forceful ambition, absolute unselfishness and transparent honesty, has made him the best-loved public man in the history of America. /