Lincoln: A Life of Purpose and Power Read Online Free

as “lazy,” alluding to his frustration with physical work, they missed his natural industriousness, and his mental energy and toughness. Lincoln’s flight from the land had nothing to do with indolence and all to do with self-fulfillment. He was deeply impatient of sloth. “The leading rule” for men of all callings, he later wrote, “is diligence. Leave nothing for tomorrow which can be done today.” When his stepbrother, to whom he often lent money, sought to borrow more, he offered a sharp reprimand: “You are not
lazy,
and still you
are
an
idler.
I doubt whether since I saw you, you have done a good whole day’s work, in any one day. . . . This habit of uselessly wasting time, is the whole difficulty; and it is vastly important to you, and still more to your children that you should break this habit.” When later asked by a prospective law student how to succeed, Lincoln replied, “Work, work, work, is the main thing.” Effort and endeavor were not only good in themselves but the means to financial self-sufficiency. Not that Lincoln was driven by the desire for wealth alone: money was important as the route to bourgeois civility, not as an end in itself. Years later David Davis, Lincoln’s legal associate, reminisced that his friend, even when he enjoyed a good income from his practice of law, maintained “simple and unostentatious habits,” kept his charges low, since few of his clients were rich, and showed no interest in accumulating a fortune. 7 Unlike most of the Illinois political elite in the 1850s, he largely resisted the lure of land speculation.

    LINCOLN’S CREDO
    Lincoln’s brief letter to a young lawyer sets out crisply his personal rule of self-improvement through hard work.
    In Lincoln’s ambitious striving there was something of the temper of the New England Puritan, a “Yankee” blend of self-discipline, character-building, and initiative, though he did not subscribe to the moral coerciveness shared by many of that breed. His celebration of enterprise and individual effort had much more in common with the advancing tide of “modern,” or Arminianized, Calvinism, and its preoccupation with human responsibility, than with traditional, rural predestinarianism. Significantly, he disliked alcohol, which left him feeling “flabby,” and tobacco: these ubiquitous elements of frontier life threatened the individual’s self-control and self-reliance. Though he retained a natural humility and many of the badges of his rural origins—his accent and turn of phrase, his physical strength, his earthy humor and storytelling—he found many other features of frontier primitivism repugnant. Lincoln hated cruelty to animals, disliked hunting, would not use a gun, and had no respect for revivalist religion’s raw emotionalism and theological oversimplifications.
    The possibility of self-fulfillment through a career in politics struck Lincoln early on, though exactly when is not certain. As well as the
Life
of
George
Washington,
his youthful reading included William Scott’s
Lessons
in
Elocution.
During his limited schooling in Indiana, he wrote essays on politics and entertained his fellow pupils with his efforts at public speaking and storytelling. He was a regular reader of the political press well before he left for Illinois, and not long after his arrival he delivered an impromptu speech in Decatur, during the campaign for the state legislature. Two years later, only twenty-three, and impressing his New Salem neighbors with his integrity, forceful mind, and folksy charm, he was urged by several men of influence, including the justice of the peace and the president of the debating society, to run for the legislature himself.
    In Lincoln they saw a popular, confident young man who they knew was determined to foster New Salem’s commercial interests, notably by securing government support for improved and cheaper river transportation. Setting out his stall in an election statement, Lincoln