Lincoln Story Book, The

<h3>"I'LL HIT THE THING HARD!"</h3> <p>In Coffin's "Lincoln," it is stated that when Lincoln and Offutt, boating to New Orleans, attended a slave auction for the first time, the former said to his companion:</p> <p>"By the Eternal, if ever I get a chance to hit this thing, I'll hit it hard!"</p> <p>The oath was General-President Jackson's, and familiar as a household word at the day. The promise is premature in a youth of twenty. Herndon, twenty-five years associated with Lincoln, doubts, but says that Lincoln did allude to some such utterance. But it is Dennis Hanks, cousin of Lincoln, who affirms that they two saw such a sight, and that he knew by his companion's emotion that "the iron had entered into his soul."</p> <p>In 1841 Lincoln and Speed had a tedious low-water trip from Louisville to St. Louis. Lincoln says: "There were on board ten or a dozen slaves shackled together with irons. That sight was a continual torment to me ... a <i>thing</i> which has and continually exercises the power of making me miserable."</p> <p>But his acts show that he "hit the thing hard." It could not recover from the telling stroke which rent the black oak--the Emancipation Act. <br/> <br/> <br/></p> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />