House Divided - Claremont Review of Books

https://claremontreviewofbooks.com/house-divided/

From a review of Charles R. Kesler's Crisis of the Two Constitutions by Hillsdale College president Larry Arnn: "Lincoln replied that reading to be a lawyer, he came across the word 'demonstrate.' He thought it was some extraordinary kind of proof. He consulted many sources to figure out what it was, and in vain. 'You might as well have defined blue to a blind man.' So he said to himself: '"Lincoln, you can never make a lawyer if you do not understand what demonstrate means"; and I left my situation in Springfield, went home to my father's house, and staid there till I could give any proposition in the six books of Euclid at sight.' Lincoln returned to the classics to understand the basis of reason and persuasion."