What Did the Young Lincoln Say the First Time He Saw Slavery?

Abraham Lincoln was not yet twenty years old the first time he saw slavery up close.

He was on a flatboat trip to New Orleans with a friend. They drifted past a slave market. People being sold. Families separated. The ordinary machinery of an institution that had existed for centuries.

Lincoln watched. Then he turned away and said it quietly, with a fury that surprised even the people who knew him:

"By God, boys, let's get away from this. If ever I get a chance to hit that thing, I'll hit it hard."

He was nobody. An awkward, penniless driver of oxen in a coonskin cap, heading for Illinois with no money, no connections, no particular reason to think the world would ever ask his opinion on anything.

Thirty-three years later, he signed the Emancipation Proclamation.

He got his chance. He hit it hard.

Most of the things worth doing in a life begin exactly like this — not with a plan, not with a platform, but with a moment of revulsion at something wrong and a private vow that you will do something about it if you ever can.

The vow doesn't expire. It waits.