city it was attended by
shocking cruelty and degradation. Lincoln witnessed in New Orleans for
the first time the revolting sight of men and women sold like animals
Mr. Herndon says that he often heard Mr. Lincoln refer to this
experience: "In New Orleans for the first time," he writes, "Lincoln
beheld the true horrors of human slavery. He saw 'negroes in
chains--whipped and scourged.' Against this inhumanity his sense of
right and justice rebelled, and his mind and conscience were awakened
to a realization of what he had often heard and read. No doubt, as one
of his companions has said, 'slavery ran the iron into him then and
there.' One morning in their rambles over the city the trio passed a
slave auction. A vigorous and comely mulatto girl was being sold. She
underwent a thorough examination at the hands of the bidders; they
pinched her flesh, and made her trot up and down the room like a
horse, to show how she moved, and in order, as the auctioneer said,
that 'bidders might satisfy themselves' whether the article they were
offering to buy was sound or not. The whole thing was so revolting
that Lincoln moved away from the scene with a deep feeling of
'unconquerable hate.' Bidding his companions follow him, he said,
'Boys, let's get away from this. If ever I get a chance to hit that
thing' (meaning slavery), 'I'll hit it hard.'"

Mr. Herndon gives John Hanks as his authority for this statement. But
this is plainly an error, for, according to Mr. Lincoln himself,
Hanks did not go on to New Orleans, but having a family and being
likely to be detained from home longer than at first expected, turned
back at St. Louis. Though there is reason for believing that Lincoln
was deeply impressed on this trip by something he saw in a New Orleans
slave market, and that he often referred to it, the story told above
probably grew to its present proportions by much telling.[A]

[Footnote A: "No doubt the young Kentuckian was disgusted [with what
he saw in the New Orleans slave auction]; but there is no proof that
this was his first object lesson in human slavery, or that, as so
often has been asserted, he turned to his companion and said, 'If I
ever get a chance to hit slavery, I will hit it hard.' Such an
expression from a flatboat-man would have been absurd."--_Personal
Reminiscences of 1840-1890, by L.E. Chittenden._]

[Illustration: MENTOR GRAHAM.

Mentor Graham was the New Salem school-master. He it was who assisted
Lincol