Abraham Lincoln

re to be counted among the pioneers. They could not then foresee that theirs was to become one of the three most populous States in the Union, rivalling New York and Pennsylvania in importance, and destined by its central geographical position to stand as a keystone in the arch of popular liberty. When Thomas Lincoln and his family crossed the Wabash at Vincennes â?? an old French settlement with memories of the daring march of Clarke in 1782 â??Chicago was a name as yet unspoken, and prairies, still scoured by the Indians, covered the northern part of the State in one wide reach of otherwise unbroken solitude. Southern Illinois, with its heavy timber, was, however, already becoming populous, and settlements were springing up through all the fertile Sangamon region. Like the Lincolns, the people were drawn principally from the South. They came, not from among the wealthy slave-owners â?? who passed on across the 30 J J J J B river into the slave State of Missouriâ??but rather from that lower social class to which, as we have noted, the economy of the Southern States offered neither hope nor encouragement. A simple, sociable, contented people, among whom a man of parts might readily rise to usefulness and leadership. The principal worthy of those days was Governor Ninian Edwards, a man of fair talents and ponderous rhetoric, whose imposing and princely person was decorated with ruffles and gold buttons. He had grown up in Kentucky, of which State he had early been made At...