This protest was received and ordered to be spread on the journals of the House, much to the regret of some of Lincoln's more timorous friends, who probably did not believe that slavery could pass away from the face of the land during the time of any then living. At this late day, the paper reads like a very harmless and even over-cautious document. But it was, for those times, a bold and dangerous thing to say that the institution of slavery was founded on injustice and bad policy. Men had been mobbed and treated with violence for saying no more than this, so intolerant and brutal was the spirit of the slave-owning and slavery-defending class. So far as we know, this was Lincoln's first blow at the institution that was bound to disappear before his life and work were ended.

On the whole, the doings of Lincoln and the other members of the "Long Nine" were highly acceptable to the people of Sangamon County. The Lincoln-Stone protest was looked upon as a harmless vagary, soon to be forgotten, and already overshadowed by the greatness of the feat of moving the State capital to Springfield. The long-limbed group was hailed with great acclaim, and numerous feasts and festivities were given in their honor. Of the toasts offered in praise of "the Sangamon chief" were these that have come down to us from those faroff days in 1837: "Abraham Lincoln: he has fulfilled the expectations of his friends and disap. pointed the hopes of his enemies." "A. Lincoln: one of nature's noblemen.

In April, 1837, Lincoln went to Springfield, the

new capital of the State, where he established himself in the practice of law, and where he remained until his election to the Presidency. He had managed, crippled though he was with "the national debt," to earn a scanty livelihood, and to keep good his credit. But the new venture was a doubtful one, and he undertook it with many misgivings. He rode into town on a borrowed horse, his earthly possessions packed in a pair of saddle-bags fastened to the

crupper of his saddle. Tying the horse to a fencepost, Lincoln sought the store of his friend Mr. Joshua F. Speed, formerly of Kentucky, and asked for information concerning board and lodging. He proposed to hire a room, furnish it, and, as he expressed it, "browse around" for his sustenance. To his great dismay, the price of the barest necessaries in the way of furniture would be seventeen dollars; and Mr. Speed included these articles in his promiscuous stock-in-trade.

Lincoln said, sadly: "It is cheap enough, but I want to say that, cheap as it is, I have not the money to pay for it. But if you will credit me until Christmas, and my experiment here is a success, I will pay you then. If I fail, I will probably never be able to pay you.

Impressed by Lincoln's sadness, Speed replied: "I have a very large double bed which you are perfectly welcome to share with me, if you choose." "Where is your bed?" asked Lincoln.

"Upstairs," replied Speed. Lincoln took his saddle-bags on his arm and went upstairs, set them on the floor, took a swift survey of the premises, and

then came down again, good-humoredly laughing, and said: "Speed, I am moved." And Lincoln was then settled in his new quarters with his steadfast friend Mr. Speed.

The new capital of Illinois was a large village, its population being about eighteen thousand. It was the county-seat of Sangamon, and the United States Court for that circuit was held there. These, with the annual session of the Legislature, imparted to the embryo metropolis considerable importance. Men famous afterwards in the history of the county, State, and the republic were found among the assemblies of the citizens. Some social grandeur was apparent, and Lincoln has recorded his notion that Springfield was putting on pretensions to elegance. To the shy son of the Kentucky backwoods, doubtless, there was a great deal of "flourishing about" among the people of the capital; but we must make allowance for the fact that Springfield, like Lincoln, was only just emerging from the backwoods. The courthouse was built of logs, and this was true of nearly all the courthouses on the circuit. The judge sat at a cloth-covered table, behind a rail that separated the awful majesty of the bench from the bar and people. The rest of the space was occupied by a promiscuous crowd, and it was a very dull day when the courthouse audience did not press hardly upon the accommodations allotted for clerk, bar, and official attendants at the trial. For the courthouse afforded, in those days of few amusements, almost the only in-door entertainment of the people. Here they found tragedy, comedy, elocution, contests of

wit and logic, and all that material for neighborhood gossip that is needed so keenly in sparsely settled communities.

The lawyers rode horseback from courthouse to courthouse, trying cases and following the presiding judges in their circuit. Each limb of the law carried with him, in his saddle-bags, a change of raiment, a few lawbooks, and the articles of use indispensable to the hard-faring traveller. Manners were simple, even rude, but kindly and hospitable. It was on these long jaunts, travelled in company with judges, witnesses, and jurymen, that Lincoln picked up a vast proportion of the stories of wild Western life. and manners, that, in after years, made him famous as an impromptu story-teller. Once, Lincoln, having assisted the prosecuting attorney in the trial of a man who had appropriated some of the tenants of his neighbor's chicken-house, fell in, next day, jogging along the highway, with the foreman of the jury who had convicted the hen-stealer. The man complimented Lincoln on the zeal and ability of the prosecution, and remarked: "Why, when the country was young and I was stronger than I am now, I did n't mind backing off a sheep now and again. But stealing hens!" The good man's scorn could not find words to express his opinion of a man who would steal hens.

On another occasion, while riding the circuit Lincoln was missed from the party, having loitered, apparently, near a thicket of wild plum-trees where the cavalcade had stopped to water their steeds. One of the company, coming up with the others,

reported, in answer to questions: "When I saw him last, he had caught two young birds that the wind had blown out of their nest, and was hunting for the nest to put them back." The men rallied Lincoln on his tender-heartedness, when he caught up with them. But he said: "I could not have slept unless I had restored those little birds to their mother."

This

Lincoln formed a law partnership with John T. Stuart, of Springfield, in April, 1837, and this relation continued until April, 1841, when Lincoln associated himself in business with Stephen T. Logan. partnership was dissolved in September, 1843, when the law firm of Abraham Lincoln and William H. Herndon was formed, and this copartnership was not dissolved until the death of Lincoln, in 1865.

As a lawyer, Lincoln soon proved that the qualities that had won him the title of honest Abe Lincoln, when he was a store-keeper, still stuck to him. He was an honest lawyer; he never undertook a case of doubtful morality. If it was a criminal whom he was defending, and he became convinced of the guilt of the prisoner, he lost all heart in the case. No fee, no expectation of winning fame for his shrewdness, would induce him to undertake a suit in which it would be necessary to resort to quibbles and nice little tricks to win. Perhaps there was less of that sort of legal management in those days than now. But he certainly never did resort to it. And, as those who practised at the bar when he did have left this record of him, it is evident that he was thought to be peculiar, different from the rest of his associates. There were men of ability and skill in the circuit in