d integrity. Lincoln, on the other hand,
got a few weeks of instruction under two amateur teachers in Kentucky
and a few months more in Indiana--in all, hardly as much as one year;
and as a boy he knew only rough, coarse surroundings. When, in 1816, the
restless head of the family moved from Kentucky to southern Indiana,
his worldly belongings consisted of a parcel of carpenters' tools and
cooking utensils, a little bedding, and about four hundred gallons of
whiskey. No one who has not seen the sordidness, misery, and apparent
hopelessness of the life of the "poor whites" even today, in the
Kentucky and southern Indiana hills, can fully comprehend the chasm
which separated the boy Lincoln from every sort of progress and
distinction.

All three men prepared for public life by embracing the profession that
has always, in this country, proved the surest avenue to preferment--the
law. But, whereas Cass arrived at maturity just in time to have an
active part in the War of 1812, and in this way to make himself the most
logical selection for the governorship of the newly organized Michigan
Territory, Douglas saw no military service, and Lincoln only a few weeks
of service during the Black Hawk War, and both were obliged to seek fame
and fortune along the thorny road of politics. Following admission to
the bar at Jacksonville, Illinois, in 1834, Douglas was elected public
prosecutor of the first judicial circuit in 1835; elected to the state
Legislature in 1836; appointed by President Van Buren registrar of the
land office at Springfield in 1837; made a judge of the supreme court of
the State in 1841; and elected to the national House of Representatives
in 1843. Resourceful, skilled in debate, intensely patriotic, and
favored with many winning personal qualities, he drew to himself men
of both Northern and Southern proclivities and became an influential
exponent of broad and enduring nationalism.

Meanwhile, after a first defeat, Lincoln was elected to the Illinois
Legislature in 1834, and again in 1836. When he gathered all of his
worldly belongings in a pair of saddlebags and fared forth to the new
capital, Springfield, to settle himself to the practice of law, he had
more than a local reputation for oratorical power; and events were
to prove that he had not only facility in debate and familiarity with
public questions, but incomparable devotion to lofty principles. In the
subsequent unfolding of the careers of Lincoln and D