Lincoln, the unknown

LINCOLN THE UNKNOWN • 31their anxiety to move forward, decided to go on withouthim. "But I could not endure the idea of abandoning evena dog," related Lincoln. "Pulling off shoes and socks Iwaded across the stream and triumphantly returned withthe shivering animal under my arm. His frantic leaps ofjoy and other evidences of a dog's gratitude amply repaidme for all the exposure I had undergone."While the oxen were pulling the Lincolns across the prairiesCongress was debating with deep and ominous emotion thequestion of whether or not a State had a right to withdrawfrom the Union; and during that debate Daniel Webster arosein the United States Senate and, in his deep, golden, bell-likevoice, delivered a speech which Lincoln afterward regarded"as the grandest specimen of American oratory." It is knownas "Webster's Reply to Hayne" and ends with the memorablewords which Lincoln later adopted as his own political religion:"Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable!"This cyclonic issue of secession was to be settled a third ofa century later, not by the mighty Webster, the gifted Clay, orthe famous Calhoun, but by an awkward, penniless, obscuredriver of oxen who was now heading for Illinois, wearing acoonskin cap and buckskin trousers, and singing with ribaldgusto:"Hail Columbia, happy land,If you ain't drunk, then I'll be damned."