NARRATIVE: At 18 years old, Abe Lincoln traveled by flatboat to New Orleans from his home in Indiana to sell goods from his family's farm. While there, he encountered the slave trade for the first time. He saw a negro boy his age lynched for trying to escape and watched in horror from the crowd with the boy's twin brother as the victim suffered with "violent spasms" to his death.

Abe's mother described how her son was forever changed after that experience, "Abe was forged right then into a sword to be wielded by the Almighty. He was given a mission, and I curse myself, selfish as the devil, that I just wanted him to be my son, living still, here now having tea with his friend Billy and his mama." This experience was foundational in Lincoln's lifelong resolve to be a champion for freedom and equality. (Source: "That Nation Might Live: One afternoon with Lincoln's Stepmother" by Jeff Oppenheimer, CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2014)

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