Excerpt from Lincoln's Stories and Speeches Abraham Lincoln was not only a great American, but he was a man of outstanding personality. He was a simple man, a genial man, a human man, and an honest man. These characteristics, coupled with his rugged genius, add up to greatness. On December 20, 1859, he wrote a letter to his friend Jesse W. Fell, of Bloomington, Ill., telling something of his life and the history of his family. This was the year before his election to the Presidency, and the letter shows that he was not anxious to cover up his humble back ground. Here is the letter. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.