LincolnU.S. AP Story 1Reaction PaperLincoln by David Herbert Donald is a biography of our sixteenth president, Abraham Lincoln. At the age of twenty-one, he was sure that he did not want to be like his father Thomas Lincoln, an ignorant farmer, so he left home for good. He worked many jobs, learned many lessons, and made friends and enemies, all of which helped him become one of the greatest presidents of the United States of America during the time when the country was divided, the Civil War. Thoroughly researched and excellently written, this biography comes to life and shows us what really happened in the early to mid-nineteenth century and puts us again in the perspective of our former president, using the information and ideas to its disposition. In Lincoln, I believe the thesis would be: Abraham Lincoln was a man controlled by circumstances rather than determining his own destiny. Lincoln grew up on a farm and if nature had intended he would have died on a farm too, but during the time Lincoln grew up, extraordinary things were happening to the nation in politics and society. He always despised agricultural work and loved to read. "Once he got it, he couldn't get enough of it. (p. 30)" The first books he read were brought from Kentucky when his father remarried Sarah Bush Johnston. There were not many books available to Lincoln, so he "...read carefully rather than widely. (p.30)" At a young age, Lincoln was exposed to anti-slavery sentiments. His parents walked away from a church because of slavery, even though Lincoln had never been interested in religion. He said he once said, "When I do good, I feel good, and when I do bad, I feel bad, and that's my religion. (Quote DB)" In 1816 Lincoln's father went to Little Pigeon Creek in Perry County, Indiana to look for a good place to build a house. He built a "semi-fronted camp, a rude shelter, without a floor, about fourteen feet square, closed on three sides, but open on the fourth. (p. 25)" Years later Lincoln said they left Kentucky "in part on account of the slavery, but mostly because of the difficulty of finding land in Kentucky (p. 23)” Rapidly growing railroads and canals helped populate the rest of the continent. Lincoln was also affected by family problems.