My father, at the death of his father, was but six years of age, and he grew up literally without education.  He removed from Kentucky to what is now Spencer County, Indiana, in my eighth year.  We reached our new home about the time the State came into the Union.  It was a wild region, with many bears and other wild animals still in the woods.  There I grew up.  There were some schools, so called, but no qualification was ever required of a teacher beyond “readin’, writin’, and cipherin’” to the rule of three.  If a straggler supposed to understand Latin happened to sojourn in the neighbourhood, he was looked upon as a wizard.  There was absolutely nothing to excite ambition for education.  Of course, when I came of age I did not know much.  Still, somehow, I could read, write, and cipher to the rule of three, but that was all.  I have not been to school since.  The little advance I now have upon this store of education I have picked up from time to time under the pressure of necessity.

I was raised to farm work, which I continued till I was twenty-two.  At twenty-one I came to Illinois, Macon County.  Then I got to New Salem, at that time in Sangamon, now in Menard County, where I remained a year as a sort of clerk in a store.

Then came the Black Hawk War; and I was elected a captain of volunteers, a success which gave me more pleasure than any I have had since.  I went the campaign, was elated, ran for the legislature the same year (1832), and was beaten—­the only time I ever have been beaten by the people.  The next and three succeeding biennial elections I was elected to the legislature.  I was not a candidate afterward.  During this legislative period I had studied law, and removed to Springfield to practise it.  In 1846 I was once elected to the lower House of Congress.  Was not a candidate for re-election.  From 1849 to 1854, both inclusive, practised law more assiduously than ever before.  Always a Whig in politics; and generally on the Whig electoral tickets, making active canvasses.  I was losing interest in politics when the repeal of the Missouri Compromise aroused me again.  What I have done since then is pretty well known.

If any personal description of me is thought desirable, it may be said I am, in height, six feet four inches, nearly; lean in flesh, weighing on an average one hundred and eighty pounds; dark complexion, with coarse black hair and gray eyes.  No other marks or brands recollected.

From an Address delivered at Cooper Institute, New York.  February 27, 1860

...  Now, and hear, let me guard a little against being misunderstood.  I do not mean to say we are bound to follow implicitly in whatever our fathers did.  To do so, would be to discard all the lights of current experience—­to reject all progress, all improvement.  What I do say is, that if we would supplant the opinions and policy of our fathers in any case, we should do so on evidence so conclusive, and argument so clear, that even their great authority, fairly considered and weighed, cannot stand; and most surely not in a case whereof we ourselves declare they understood the question better than we.