Of all the gross injustice ever done to the memory of woman, that which has been accorded to Nancy Hanks is the greatest.  The story which cast a shadow upon her parentage, and on that of her illustrious son as well, should be sternly relegated to the oblivion whence it came.  Mr. Henry Watterson, in his brilliant address on Lincoln, refers to him as “that strange, incomparable man, of whose parentage we neither know nor care.”  In some localities, particularly in Kentucky and South Carolina, the rumor is definite and persistent that the President was not the son of Thomas Lincoln, the illiterate and thriftless, but of one Colonel Hardin for whom Hardin County was named; that Nancy Hanks was herself the victim of unlegalized motherhood, the natural daughter of an aristocratic, wealthy, and well-educated Virginia planter, and that this accounted for many of her son’s characteristics.  The story has long since been disproved.  Efforts to verify it brought forth the fact that it sprang into being in the early days of the Civil War and was evidently a fabrication born of the bitter spirit of the hour.

It was not from his father, however, that Lincoln inherited any of his remarkable traits.  The dark coarse hair, the gray eyes, sallow complexion, and brawny strength, which were his, constituted his sole inheritance on the paternal side.  But Nancy Hanks was gentle and refined, and would have adorned any station in life.  She was beautiful in youth, with dark hair, regular features, and soft sparkling hazel eyes.  She was unusually intelligent, and read all the books she could obtain.  Says Mr. Arnold:  “She was a woman of deep religious feeling, of the most exemplary character, and most tenderly and affectionately devoted to her family.  Her home indicated a love of beauty exceptional in the wild settlement in which she lived, and judging from her early death it is probable that she was of a physique less hardy than that of those among whom she lived.  Hers was a strong, self-reliant spirit, which commanded the love and respect of the rugged people among whom she dwelt.”

The tender and reverent spirit of Abraham Lincoln, and the pensive melancholy of his disposition, he no doubt inherited from his mother.  Amid the toil and struggle of her busy life she found time not only to teach him to read and write but to impress upon him ineffaceably that love of truth and justice, that perfect integrity and reverence for God, for which he was noted all his life.  Lincoln always looked upon his mother with unspeakable affection, and never ceased to cherish the memory of her life and teaching.