In the early days of our Republic a boy was growing up on a New Hampshire farm. He was to be our greatest orator, our most inspiring defender of the Union and the Constitution. Poor as the rocky soil from which he sprang, he was to find his road to success very hard. But on that soil he learned early that what one boy could not do alone, he could do with his neighbors' help. What was hard to learn alone came more easily when brothers and sisters helped one another. In Union there is strength. When his father asked, "Do you know what the Union is?" he answered, "It's like me and Zeke. We pull together."

So his love of the Union was in him from childhood, as was his love of the Constitution. His pride in the Constitution began when his father went to the state ratifying convention. With that ratification began our national life.

But Dan never had a chance to read the Constitution—for books were few—until he found at the store a handkerchief on which it was printed. That handkerchief cost twenty-five cents, a lot of money then for a poor farm boy. Dan got it together, and gained his most precious possession. He read the Constitution till he knew it by heart. His wonderful memory became a legend. Then on tree stumps he addressed one imaginary audience after another on the greatness of the Constitution and the Union.

For years those audiences were imaginary. Young Dan was ready-witted and bold in action, but somehow when he tried to speak out what was in his mind and heart, his courage failed him and he grew dumb. At last in a college class while he was still a boy, a slur on the Constitution so moved him that he sprang up and poured forth his heart. His depth of feeling and inspired words amazed himself as well as his listeners. Then his road lay clear. The greatest lawyer of his day, he was early elected to Congress. His eloquent answer to an attack on the Union and the Constitution rang through the country as it rings in our hearts. "Liberty and Union —now and forever, one and inseparable!"

From the dust jacket