"Abraham Lincoln seldom got the chance to go to school. He went to school "by littles," he said, and received fewer than 12 months of schooling." "In the untrammeled interior of the mind's eye, young Lincoln followed his unrestrained desire to explore new intellectual worlds, even the world of American history, of politics, of law. There, in the frictionless world of thought and fantasy, young Abraham Lincoln found the freedom, the vocation, the solace he yearned for, unshackled from the irremediable, unrequited, hard labor of farmer and village artisan." "For Lincoln, there could be no retreat from the fundamental principles of the Declaration of Independence."

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