In February 1959, Carl Sandburg gave an address on the occasion of Abraham Lincoln's 150th birthday before the Joint Session of Congress. The Lincoln biographer spoke of the nation's 16th president as a man "who is both steel and velvet, who is as hard as rock and soft as drifting fog, who holds in his heart and mind the paradox of a terrible storm and peace unspeakable and perfect." This short work is part of Applewood's American Roots , series, tactile mementos of American passions by some of America's most famous writers and thinkers.