Abstract
Abraham Lincoln's admiration for, and discipleship under, Henry Clay is well documented. Throughout his life Lincoln admired Clay as a "self-made" man who rose from relative obscurity to become one of the most dominant forces in American politics. Lincoln considered himself such a man, whose origins were even more obscure and more humble than Clay's own. Lincoln the Whig also identified readily with the policies of the Whig leader Clay, affirming his support for the three pillars of Clay's political program: banking, protective tariffs, and internal improvements. More than any other part of Clay's program, however, the young Lincoln believed passionately in internal improvement. Lincoln's support for internal improvement, like that of Whigs generally, was connected to larger notions of improvement, which were connected to Lincoln's understanding of himself as a self-made man. Beyond this, however, Daniel Walker Howe maintains that "Lincoln was 'self-made' not merely in the sense of being upwardly mobile, but in the more important senses of being self-educated and self-disciplined.