Boys' and Girls' Biography of Abraham Lincoln

e, and make comments. He was so bright in this that there would always be a great crowd around to listen to him. Abraham was a great story teller, and would give them many a hearty laugh with the stories he could tell. Special subjects were also much discussed. About this time, a few people began to claim that negro slavery was a bad thing, and there was general discussion over it. Slavery was universally common in the South. One question of debate was, which was the most to be complained of, the Indian or the Negro. Soon Mr. Lincoln's habit of making comments grew into speech making, and he sometimes gave sort of stump speeches to the crowd in which he would recite passages that he had committed from the speeches of some of the great orators. He used to get up on the stump of an old tree to deliver these speeches. This is why they were called stump speeches. His father did not like this because it took his attention away from the farm work. Once in a while, Abraham used to go to Booneville, the county seat t