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Here he first saw the hideous side of slavery. His law-partner thus refers to one of the scenes he witnessed:

“A vigorous and comely mulatto girl was being sold. She underwent a thorough examination at the hands of the bidders; they pinched her flesh and made her trot up and down the room like a horse.... Bidding his companions follow him, he said, ‘By God, boys, let’s get away from this. If ever I get a chance to hit that thing I’ll hit it hard.’”

The grandest and bloodiest page of modern history is a record of how Lincoln fulfilled that promise.

That very summer he went to the village of New Salem, on the Sangamon River—a village that has long since vanished—and became clerk in a log-house general store opened by Offut, who was a restless commercial adventurer. Lincoln and an assistant slept in the store.

Here the tall clerk became famous for his stories and homely wit. His immense stature, his strength, his humor and his penetrating logic attracted attention at once. He talked in quaint, waggish parables, but he never failed to reach the heart or brain.