Seth R. Cutter, on Upper Lick Creek. After the interview was
concluded, Mr. Lincoln, about to depart, remarked: 'Calhoun, I am
entirely unable to repay you for your generosity at present. All that
I have you see on me, except a quarter of a dollar in my pocket.' This
is a family tradition. However, my wife, then a miss of sixteen, says,
while I am writing this sketch, that she distinctly remembers this
interview. After Lincoln was gone she says she and her sister,
Mrs. Calhoun, commenced making jocular remarks about his uncanny
appearance, in the presence of Calhoun, to which in substance he made
this rejoinder: 'For all that, he is no common man.' My wife believes
these were the exact words."--_J. McCan Davis._]

We know from Dennis Hanks, from Mr. Turnham, to whom the book
belonged, and from other associates of Lincoln's at the time, that he
read this book intently and discussed its contents intelligently. It
was a remarkable volume for a thoughtful lad whose mind had been
fired already by the history of Washington; for it opened with that
wonderful document, the Declaration of Independence, a document
which became, as Mr. John G. Nicolay says, "his political chart
and inspiration." Following the Declaration of Independence was the
Constitution of the United States, the Act of Virginia passed in 1783
by which the "Territory North Westward of the river Ohio" was conveyed
to the United States, and the Ordinance of 1787 for governing this
territory, containing that clause on which Lincoln in the future based
many an argument on the slavery question. This article, No. 6 of the
Ordinance, reads: "There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary
servitude in the said territory, otherwise than in the punishment of
crimes, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted: provided
always, that any person escaping into the same, from whom labour or
service is lawfully claimed in any one of the original States,