The news soon spread throughout the area that young Abe Lincoln, now twenty-two years old, was quite a wrestler. Dan Needham, the best wrestler in next-door Cumberland County, heard it too.

"I can throw him three times out of four, and day," he boasted.

Their friends soon arranged for a wrestling match, and the two tall young men faced each other at a house-raising at Wabash Point. A large crowd gathered around, watching with interest. Each man had his own friends cheering loudly for him.

Lincoln won that match as he was to win other more important contests in his life. He was a leader in all sports—he could run faster and throw the crowbar farther than any man—yet he was called upon to judge whenever there were races because he was honest and fair.

In fact, most people knew Abe only as a wrestler and a joker, not as a man of learning. When he stood up to make his speech at the debating club they were ready to laugh. They soon found, though, that he knew his facts and how to present them in order to hold his listeners' attention. All he needed was practice.

The major issue of the day was slavery, and Abe Lincoln was bitterly against it. Both in the state legislature and in Congress he spoke and voted as he felt, but it was not until his debates with Stephen A. Douglas over whether or not slavery should be allowed in new territories that Lincoln became widely recognized. As a result, in 1860 he was elected President.

Abraham Lincoln is one of the most inspiring figures in American history. This clear biography makes a fine introduction to his life and his ideals. He was a man who would always do what he set out to do; who never expected favors; and who, from his earliest childhood, had place himself with the people, never above them. He was a man of peace, but when the time came for war he was ready for it.

From the dust jacket