Extra Credit Questions

[David Lockmiller]

I was preparing a response last night to counter the anticipated argument when I came across an entry about Lincoln's stepmother being the one who persuaded her husband to move to Decatur, Illinois and be near relatives. One might argue that but for this particular accomplishment of persuasion by Lincoln's stepmother, history would have been quite different.

Lincoln made his first political speech in the town square of Decatur, Illinois. Lincoln was first "elected to office" as Captain of the local military unit in the Black Hawk War by his fellow citizen soldiers. A fellow soldier, Stuart, led to his becoming a lawyer.

The point of this argument is that if a single necessary link in the chain of events of history does not occur, then the chain is broken and, quite possibly, there is no President Abraham Lincoln written about in any of the history books.

I add a quick edit because I could not get up at the time to find a quote about Stuart and Lincoln becoming a lawyer -- my cat, she was asleep on my lap: "Without Stuart's mentoring, Lincoln probably would not have become a lawyer." (Years later, Stuart predicted that he would be remembered only as "as the man who advised Mr. Lincoln to study law and lent him his law books.") [Abraham Lincoln, A Life, Vol. One, page 89.]