Chapter VII

CONQUERING HIMSELF

T

HE QUALITIES of sympathy, simplicity, directness of statement and a sort of melancholy good humor

which made him a story teller of the first order, made Lincoln the hero of New Salem; and his success as a surveyor, and evident love and appreciation of the law, carried his fame to other neighborhoods.

The Whigs gave him support as one of their candidates for the Legislature of 1834, and he was elected. During the session he was content to occupy a modest place, absorbing, as was his wont, knowledge of law making and legislative procedure. He took the measure of his associates and found himself not their inferior in general knowledge and the practice of it. After two scant years of public life he was considered one of the leaders of his Party. No longer waiting on the advice of friends he offered himself as a candidate for renomination. He initiated his campaign with the following political pronouncement:

"To the Editor of the Journal: In your paper of last Saturday I see a communication over the signature of 'Many Voters,' in which the candidates who are announced in The Journal are called upon to 'show their hands.' Agreed. Here's mine.

"I go for all sharing privileges of the Government who

assist in bearing its burdens. Consequently I go for admitting all Whites to the right of suffrage who pay taxes or bear arms, by no means excluding women.

"If elected, I shall consider the whole people of Sangamon my constituents, as well those that oppose as those that support me.

"While acting as their Representative, I shall be governed by their will on all subjects upon which I have the means of knowing what their will is; and upon all others I shall do what my judgment teaches me best to advance their interests. Whether elected or not, I go for distributing the proceeds of the sales of public lands to the several states, to enable our state, in common with others, to dig canals and construct railroads without borrowing money and paying interest on it.

"If alive on the first Monday in November, I shall vote for Hugh L. White for President.

The campaign was hot and strenuous. The prairies saw debates as vigorous and important, if not as dignified, as those of the Senate. Early in the campaign Lincoln spoke at Springfield. Among his auditors was a Mr. Forquer, who had the finest house in Springfield, lately protected by the only lightning rod in that locality. Formerly a Whig, his apostacy was awarded with a lucrative office. He felt Lincoln's strong presentation of the principles of the Whig Party. The recent recruit to the Democratic organization replied to Lincoln in a speech of some argument, but filled with scorn and satire. Lincoln responded, in a manner related by Speed as characterized by so great dignity and force that he would never forget the conclusion of that speech.

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"Mr. Forquer commenced his speech," said Lincoln, "by announcing that the young man would be taken down. It is for fellow citizens, not for me, to say whether I am up or down. The gentleman has seen fit to allude to my being a young man; but he forgets that I am older in years than I am in the tricks and trades of Politicians. I desire to live, and I desire place and distinction, but I would rather die now than, like the gentleman, live to see the day that I would change my politics for an office worth $3,000 a year, and then feel compelled to erect a lightning rod to protect a guilty conscience from an offended God."

Lincoln did not fling away ambition but ennobled it. With patient footsteps he unrestingly followed the vision of higher place along the road of helpful service to his fellowmen. Years passed, times changed. Events of which he could not have dreamed crowded his stage with giant actors moved by the clashing of tremendous forces of which he was the central figure. His hands held the power of the Nation, but through it all his conduct was governed by these same simple rules he gave at the outset of his career. His words multiplied, his deeds grew many and of first importance, but in the core of each were the seeds of human sympathy and justice.

Lincoln was now launched upon a public career. He loved popularity and knew how to win it. No public man of any period has shown a more comprehensive knowledge of human nature than Abraham Lincoln. He knew the thoughts of the people of his state better than they knew them. He abhorred sham and pretension and loved to submit it to the revealing light of humorous satire. He was easily re-elected to the Legislature at this time and remained in the House as long as he felt it to be to his advantage, and so long as he felt that his duty to the public demanded it.

While he was in the Legislature he became an aggressive champion of the Public Improvement Policy, which contemplated great expenditures of state funds for waterways and railroads. Although the day for those improvements had not arrived and the bonds issued by the state for their construction became a menace to the conscience of the people who talked seriously of repudiation, the improvements which Lincoln saw in his mind's eye have all come about and are greatly extended today, both by private and public means. Even the canal which the Lincoln group of legislators at Springfield conceived and advocated to connect the Illinois River with Lake Michigan, is now one of the proud boasts of modern engineering and operates just as Lincoln said it would. Financial panics in 1837-38 caused such a depreciation in the Illinois State Bonds that the folly of the previous Legislature was made a campaign issue. But the people returned the men who had advocated the public improvements.

The burning of a negro in St. Louis and the murder of Lovejoy at Alton for his abolition utterances forced all others questions into abeyance, and made it necessary for every man before the public in Illinois to take sides in the contro

versy.

The State Capitol had been moved to Springfield from Vandalia during the previous session of the Legislature, principally through the efforts of Lincoln and his followers, known as the "Long Nine" from Sangamon, each of the rugged statesmen measuring above six feet and weighing more than 200 pounds. Lincoln, too, had left his New Salem home for residence at the Capitol. There domiciled with his friend Speed in a room over his store, the law firm of Stuart and Lincoln having been formed, Lincoln soon became as conspicuous a figure in this aristocratic center, as he had been

in New Salem, where social life was in a way measured by the opinions of the Clary Grove boys. Here were wealthy families whose heads boasted the best blood of Kentucky and Virginia. Lincoln gives a characteristic picture of the spirit of the city of that day in a private letter, in which he expresses a doubt of anyone who could not afford to live in them being satisfied in the surroundings.

"I am afraid you would not be satisfied," he writes. "There is a great deal of flourishing about in carriages here, which it would be your doom to see without sharing in it."

No doubt this expresses his own emotions, born of comparing his humble state with that of the society of which his official position compelled him to be a part. Like Burns and Shakespeare, he had no respect for the outward show of honor or distinction, yet he felt with extreme keenness the insolence of office and the spurns that patient merit of the unworthy takes.

His complex nature required the spur of some mighty question of human rights to be aroused to definite action, but when face to face with such a problem his decision was determined and uncompromising. He might lend a ready hand at political "log-rolling" in an affair that promised results in conformity to the demands of his constituents, and wherein the result could have no bearing on the fundamental principles of right and justice. He might adopt, or even invent, a political situation which would draw his opponents to his support or confound them quite; but let the matter pass over from political expediency to a point where the decision required an application of justice and the welfare of humanity, either singly or in groups, and he would cut away all extraneous matter, wherever the chips might fall, to present the elemental truth and to uphold it at all hazards.