Contents: Lincoln's place in history; presidential office; education of a future president; frontier youth encounters slavery; Lincoln's first taste of politics and war; Lincoln becomes a lawmaker; definite position on the slave question; emancipation projects, Lincoln's plan; crisis in national banking; boisterous Harrison campaign; Tyler, a president without a party; Clay loses his third campaign; war with Mexico, the Oregon crisis; Lincoln, the Congressman; Washington in Polk's time; Lincoln a leader in the politics of 1848; Lincoln returns to private life; birth of the Republican party; presidential election of 1856; Lincoln and Douglas, a supreme debate; how the two Illinois rivals stood; Douglas wins a costly victory; Buchanan surveys the world at large; John Brown attempts emancipation; Congress meets in bitter dissension; Lincoln addresses the East. Profusely illustrated with contemporary cartoons, portraits and scenes.