In debate he was firm and collected.

'With malice toward none, with charity for all,' he won the confidence of the public, even his political opponents." Of all the stories of Lincoln's boyhood and youth, the most profoundly touching is that of his love for Anne Rutledge.

The existence of this romance was brief, but it is believed by many that it was the memory of it which threw over Lincoln that indescribable melancholy which seemed to shadow his whole life.

The Rutledges from whom Anne was descended were an eminent family of the Carolinas.

She was about nineteen years old when Lincoln knew her first.