Abstract
New countries, such as our own United States, usually do not have a developed folk-lore nor an abundance of national legends. It is only after centuries that ancient tales and certain heroic figures become part of the literature of a race or nation.|United States history is rich in the names of outstanding characters and incidents on which to build such stories and even myths. We need only to read of the Colonial settlements, the Revolutionary War, the settling of the West, etc., to see that since the very beginnings of our government there have been women and men who have been prominent because of their achievements on behalf of an ideal.|Names such as George Washington, Roger Williams, William Penn, Benjamin Franklin, Dolly Madison, Barbara Frietchie, U. S. Grant, Abraham Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt are familiar to all of us because of the countless stories we have read and heard about them. Some of these tales have been in prose and some in poetry.|Of all the persons mentioned here is none who has been the subject of more fiction, biography, drama and poetry than Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln has played a role that has endeared him to all humanity and has made him a popular subject for inspirational literature.