I Am For Those Means Which Will

The Damnest Scoundrel That Ever Lived, But In The Infinite Mercy Of Providence... Also The Damnest Fool.

In Your Hands, My Dissatisfied Fellow-countrymen, And Not In Mine, Is The Momentous Issue Of Civil War.

Do You Think We Choose The Times Into Which We Are Born? Or Do We Fit The Times We Are Born Into?

And By Virtue Of The Power, And For The Purpose Aforesaid, I Do Order And Declare That All Persons Held As Slaves Within Said Designated States, And Parts Of States, Are, And Henceforward Shall Be Free; And That The Executive Government Of The United States, Including The Military And Naval Authorities Thereof, Will Recognize And Maintain The Freedom Of Said Persons.

I Was Born Feb. 12, 1809, In Hardin County, Kentucky. My Parents Were Both Born In Virginia, Of Undistinguished Families--second Families, Perhaps I Should Say. My Mother, Who Died In My Tenth Year, Was Of A Family Of The Name Of Hanks.... My Father ... Removed From Kentucky To ... Indiana, In My Eighth Year.... It Was A Wild Region, With Many Bears And Other Wild Animals Still In The Woods. There I Grew Up.... Of Course When I Came Of Age I Did Not Know Much. Still Somehow, I Could Read, Write, And Cipher ... But That Was All.