Founders' Son: A Life of Abraham Lincoln (27 page)

The Declaration had been the high point of Jefferson’s life, as he himself acknowledged; it was the first of the three achievements he listed on his tombstone, “because by these, as testimonials that I have lived, I wish most
to be remembered.” The high point of Jefferson’s life became the lodestar of Lincoln’s.

Lincoln read Parson Weems’s
Life of Washington
“away back in my childhood.” He was inspired by Washington’s struggle for liberty . . .
Washington Crossing the Delaware
, by Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze. I
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. . . less by Washington as a good boy. Shown here: young George, his father, and the cherry tree. C
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Thomas Paine, whose attack on revealed religion,
The Age of Reason
, impressed Lincoln as a young man. Copy by Auguste Millière, after an engraving by William Sharp, after George Romney. © N
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Paine and friend: a hostile view. C
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Lincoln honored Thomas Jefferson, despite his contradictions. Jefferson’s greatest moment: presenting the Declaration of Independence to Congress. P
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A not-great moment: Jefferson and Sally Hemings as poultry.
A Philosophic Cock
, by James Akin. C
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Joshua Speed, Lincoln’s best friend and fellow sufferer from “nervous debility.” A
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William Herndon, Lincoln’s law partner, disciple, and biographer. S
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Rep. Alexander Stephens gave what Lincoln called “the very best speech of an hour’s length I ever heard.” He later served as vice president of the Confederacy. P
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