Hansen: If book hadn't been left in barrel, Abe Lincoln would never have been president

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.omaha.com/article/20130223/NEWS/702239944/1685#hansen-if-book-hadn-t-been-left-in-barrel-abe-lincoln-would-never-have-been-president

By Matthew Hansen

The man who will star at the Oscars on Sunday night was once a 23-year-old who owned his own store. That was where his good news ended.

His skin had a yellow pall. One of his eyes drooped. He was 6-foot-4 and powerful, but he slouched and plodded and moved so awkwardly that his enemies likened him to a gorilla.


President Abraham Lincoln and his son, Tad, looking at a book of photographs. It was a different type of book, an English law book, “Blackstone's Commentaries,” that Lincoln found in a barrel and that whetted his appetite for the law, shaping U.S, history. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS


His clothes didn't and never would fit his frame. Sometimes the arms of his suit coat ended at his forearms. Sometimes his pants legs stopped at his calves.

Even if he wanted to, he couldn't buy new clothes — he was so deeply in debt that he would be sued by creditors five different times.

FULL story at link.