{"id":946,"date":"2013-06-28T20:35:50","date_gmt":"2013-06-28T20:35:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/?p=946"},"modified":"2016-08-18T16:29:26","modified_gmt":"2016-08-18T16:29:26","slug":"copybook-verses-1824-1826","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/copybook-verses-1824-1826\/","title":{"rendered":"Copybook Verses (1824-1826)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Contributing editors for this page include Mike Capps<\/em><\/p>\n

Ranking<\/strong><\/h3>\n

#52<\/span> on the list of 150 Most Teachable Lincoln Documents<\/em><\/p>\n

Annotated Transcript<\/h3>\n
Abraham Lincoln his hand and pen he will be good\u00a0but god knows When<\/a><\/div>\n

Close Readings<\/h3>\n

Mike Capps, “Understanding Lincoln” blog post (via Storify), 2016<\/a><\/p>\n

Custom Map<\/h3>\n

\"Screen<\/a>
\nView in Larger Map<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

How Historians Interpret<\/h3>\n

\u201cThe eleven leaves from Lincoln\u2019s cyphering book deserve a special place in history. They represent the earliest examples remaining of his handwriting, and reflect the effort he put into filling the pages with appropriate rules, problems, and solutions. This was his<\/em> book, created \u201cby his hand and pen.\u201d These leaves came from the formative years of his life, years that would prepare him in remarkable ways for what lay ahead. Understanding something of the structure and content of his early cyphering work gives us a small but powerful glimpse of the character, commitment, and thirst for knowledge of a lad from Indiana named Abraham. He would be good.\u201d<\/p>\n

—\u00a0McKenzie A. Clements and Nerida F. Ellerton, \u201cAbraham Lincoln\u2019s Cyphering Book and the Abbaco <\/em>Tradition,\u201d <\/a>Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association <\/em>36, no. 1 (2015): 1-17.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis may have been a Lincoln family tradition. In a dictionary kept by the family of Lincoln\u2019s uncle Mordecai there appears the following inscription: \u201cMordecai Lincoln his hand and pen he Will be good, but you know when. When he is good then you may say The time is come and will hurray this was Wrote by Mordecai Lincoln in the twenty third year of his adge in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and ninety three in the second year of the Common Wealth.\u201d<\/p>\n

— \u00a0Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life, Volume 1<\/a> <\/em>(Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008), 28.<\/p>\n

\u201cHis last school, probably the one that he attended longest of the five to which he was exposed, was taught by Azel W. Dorsey, the treasurer of Spencer County and a sometimes storekeeper. It met in the same cabin that Crawford has used, and Abe\u2019s attendance was more regular than it had been with Swaney. Dennis Hanks insisted that he had given Abe much of his early instruction in reading, spelling, and writing, but since Dennis was barely literate, his claim must be suspect. Abe became proud of his penmanship, often writing letters for other members of the family and for some of the neighbors. The earliest known specimen of his script was a piece of doggerel that he penned in a copybook. \u201cAbraham Lincoln, his hand and pen,\/ he will be good but God knows when.\u201d He was at the school long enough to develop close relationships with other students, and he began to emerge as a leader among them.\u201d<\/p>\n

– Lowell H. Harrison, Lincoln of Kentucky<\/em> <\/a>(Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 2000).<\/p>\n

NOTE TO READERS<\/h3>\n

This page is under construction and will be developed further by students in the new \u201cUnderstanding Lincoln\u201d online course sponsored by the House Divided Project at Dickinson College and the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. To find out more about the course and to see some of our videotaped class sessions, including virtual field trips to Ford’s Theatre and Gettysburg, please visit our Livestream page at\u00a0http:\/\/new.livestream.com\/gilderlehrman\/lincoln<\/a><\/p>\n

Searchable Text<\/span><\/h3>\n
Abraham Lincoln<\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
his hand and pen<\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
he will be good but<\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
god knows When<\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
Abraham Lincoln his hand and pen he will be good<\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
but god knows When Time What an emty vaper<\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
tis and days how swift they are swift as an indian arr[ow]<\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
Meter<\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
fly on like a shooting star the presant moment Just [is here]<\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
then slides away in h[as]te that we [can] never say they [‘re ours]<\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
but [only say] th[ey]’re past<\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
Abraham Lincoln is my nam[e]<\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
And with my pen I wrote the same<\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
I wrote in both hast and speed<\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
and left it here for fools to read<\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Contributing editors for this page include Mike Capps Ranking #52 on the list of 150 Most Teachable Lincoln Documents Annotated Transcript Abraham Lincoln his hand and pen he will be good\u00a0but god knows When Close Readings Mike Capps, “Understanding Lincoln” blog post (via Storify), 2016 Custom Map View in Larger Map How Historians Interpret \u201cThe […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10855],"tags":[10866,10872,11669,10864,10865,10876],"class_list":["post-946","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-railsplitter","tag-antebellum","tag-education","tag-needs-close-reading","tag-notes","tag-private","tag-younger-readers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/946","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=946"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/946\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4570,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/946\/revisions\/4570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}