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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln by Helen Nicolay: this, Lincoln and Berry sold out, again on credit, to the Trent
brothers, who soon broke up the store and ran away. Berry also
departed and died; and in the end all the notes came back upon
Lincoln for payment. Of course he had not the money to meet these
obligations. He did the next best thing: he promised to pay as
soon as he could, and remaining where he was, worked hard at
whatever he found to do. Most of his creditors, knowing him to be
a man of his word, patiently bided their time, until, in the
course of long years, he paid, with interest, every cent of what
he used to call, in rueful satire upon his own folly, his
"National Debt."
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