Jeniffer electronic book

To all appearance nobody could have been more than Abraham Lincoln a man
of his own time and place. Until 1858 his outer life ran much in the
same groove as that of hundreds of other Western politicians and
lawyers. Beginning as a poor and ignorant boy, even less provided with
props and stepping-stones than were his associates, he had worked his
way to a position of ordinary professional and political distinction. He
was not, like Douglas, a brilliant success. He was not, like Grant, an
apparently hopeless failure. He had achieved as much and as little as
hundreds of others had achieved. He was respected by his neighbors as
an honest man and as a competent lawyer. They credited him with
ability, but not to any extraordinary extent. No one would have pointed
him out as a remarkable and distinguished man. He had shown himself to
be desirous of recognition and influence; but ambition had not been the
compelling motive in his life. In most respects his ideas, interests,
and standards were precisely the same as those of his associates.


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