of his friends, down to the last moment. With the causes and the consequences which followed that event, the impartial historian, at some future day, can more candidly and philosophically speak than any of those who shared in this disappointment. That the election of Mr. Polk over Mr. Clay, made the subsequent political history of our country far different from what it would have been with the opposite result, all will concede.

Two years later, in 1846, Mr. Lincoln was induced to accept the Whig nomination for Congress in the Sangamon District. The annexation of Texas had, in the mean time, been consummated. The Mexican war had been begun, and was still in progress. The Whig tariff of 1842 had just been repealed. This latter event had been accomplished in the Senate by the easting vote of Mr. DALLAS, the Vice President, and with the official approval of Mr. POLK, the President, both of whom had been elected by the aid of Pennsylvania, and had carried the vote of that State solely by being passed off upon the people as favoring the maintenance of the tariff which they thus destroyed.

The Springfield district had given Mr. Clay a majority of 914 in 1844, on the most thorough canvass. It gave Mr. Lincoln a majority of 1,511, which was entirely unprecedented, and has been unequaled by that given there for any opposition candidate, for any office since. The nearest approach was in 1848, when Gen. Taylor, on a much fuller vote than that of 1846, and receiving the votes of numerous returned Mexican volunteers, of Democratic faith, and who had served under him in Mexico, obtained a majority of 1,501. In the same year (1848) Mr. Logan, the popular Whig candidate, was beaten by Col. Thomas L. Harris, Democrat, by 106 majority. There was no good reason to doubt, in advance, that Mr. Lincoln would have been elected by a handsome majority, had he consented to run for another term, nor has it been questionable, since the result became known, that the strong personal popularity of Mr. Lincoln would have saved the district. It was redeemed by Richard Yates in 1850, who carried his election by less than half the majority (754) which Mr. Lincoln had received in 1846. The district, since its reconstruc

tion, following the census of 1850, has been Democratic. Under all the circumstances, therefore, the vote for Mr. Lincoln was a remarkable one, showing that he possessed a rare degree of strength with the people. His earnest sincerity of manner always strongly impressed those whom he addressed. They knew him to be a man of strong moral convictions. An opponent intended a sneer at this trait (of which he himself was never suspected), when he called Mr. Lincoln

"conscientious."

There was a universal confidence in his honest integrity, such as has been rarely extended to men so prominent in political life. The longer he was tried as a public servant, the more his constituents became attached to him. A popularity thus thoroughly grounded is not to be destroyed by the breezes of momentary passion or prejudice, or materially affected by any idle fickleness of the populace.

CHAPTER VIII.

MR. LINCOLN IN CONGRESS.-1847-49.

The Thirtieth Congress-Its Political Character-The Democracy in a Minority in the House.-Robert C. Winthrop Elected Speaker.— Distinguished Members in both Houses.-Mr. Lincoln takes his Seat as a Member of the House, and Mr. Douglas for the first time as a Member of the Senate, at the same Session. Mr. Lincoln's Congressional Record, that of a Clay and Webster Whig.-The Mexican War.— Mr. Lincoln's Views on the Subject.--Misrepresentations.-Not an Available Issue for Mr. Lincoln's Opponents.-His Resolutions of Inquiry in regard to the Origin of the War.-Mr. Richardson's Resolutions Indorsing the Administration.—Mr. Hudson's Resolutions for an Immediate Discontinuance of the War.-Voted Against by Mr. Lincoln.-Resolutions of Thanks to Gen. Taylor.-Mr. Henley's Amendment, and Mr. Ashmun's Addition thereto.-Resolutions Adopted without Amendment.-Mr. Lincoln's First Speech in Congress, on the Mexican War.-Mr. Lincoln on Internal Improvements.-A Characteristic Campaign Speech-Mr. Lincoln on the Nomination of Gen. Taylor; the Veto Power; National Issues; President and People; the Wilmot Proviso; Platforms; Democratic Sympathy for Clay; Military Heroes and Exploits; Cass a Progressive; Extra Pay; the Whigs and the Mexican War; Democratic Divisions.-Close of the Session. Mr. Lincoln on the Stump.-Gen. Taylor's Election.-Second Session of the Thirtieth Congress.-Slavery in the District of Columbia.--The Public Lands.-Mr. Lincoln as a Congressman.-He Retires to Private Life.

MR. LINCOLN took his seat in the National House of Representatives on the 6th day of December, 1847, the date of the opening of the Thirtieth Congress. In many respects this Congress was a memorable one. That which preceded, elected at the same time Mr. Polk was chosen to the Presidency, had been strongly Democratic in both branches. The policy of the Administration, however, had been such, during the first two years of its existence, that a great popular reaction had followed.

The present House contained but one hundred and ten Democrats, while the remaining one hundred and eighteen, with the exception of a single Native American from Philadelphia, were nearly all Whigs, the balance being "Free-Soil men," who mostly co-operated with them. Of these, only Messrs. Giddings, Tuck and Palfrey refused to vote for the Hon. Robert C. Winthrop for Speaker, who was elected on the third ballot.

Among the members of the House, on the Whig side, were John Quincy Adams (who died during the first session, and was succeeded by Horace Mann), and George Ashmun of Massachusetts, Washington Hunt of New York, Jacob Collamer and George P. Marsh of Vermont, Truman Smith of Connecticut, Joseph R. Ingersoll and James Pollock of Pennsylvania, John M. Botts and William L. Goggin of Virginia, Alexander H. Stephens, Robert Toombs and Thomas Butler King of Georgia, Henry W. Hilliard of Alabama, Samuel F. Vinton and Robert C. Schenck of Ohio, John B. Thompson and Charles S. Morehead of Kentucky, Caleb B. Smith and Richard W. Thompson of Indiana, and Meredith P. Gentry of Tennessee. On the Democratic side, there were David Wilmot of Pennsylvania, Robert M. McLane of Maryland, James McDowell and Richard K. Meade of Virginia, R. Barnwell Rhett of South Carolina, Howell Cobb of Georgia, Albert G. Brown and Jacob Thompson of Mississippi, Linn Boyd of Kentucky, Andrew Johnson, George W. Jones and Frederick P. Stanton of Tennessee, James S. Greene and John S. Phelps of Missouri, and Kinsley S. Bingham of Michigan. Illinois had seven representatives, of whom Mr. Lincoln was the only Whig. His Democratic colleagues were John A. McClernand, Orlando B. Ficklin, William A. Richardson, Robert Smith, Thomas J. Turner and John Wentworth.

At this session, Stephen A. Douglas took his seat in the Senate, for the first time, having been élected the previous winter. In that body there were but twenty-two Opposition Senators, against thirty-six Democrats. Among the former were Daniel Webster, Wm. L. Dayton, S. S. Phelps, John M. Clayton, Reverdy Johnson, Thomas Corwin, John M. Berrien, and John Bell. On the Democratic side were John C. Cal

houn, Thomas H. Benton, Daniel S. Dickinson, Simon Cameron, Hannibal Hamlin, Sam Houston, R. M. T. Hunter and William R. King.

Mr. Lincoln was comparatively quite a young man when he entered the House, yet he was early recognized as one of the foremost of the Western men on the floor. His Congressional record, throughout, is that of a Whig of those days, his votes on all leading national subjects, being invariably what those of Clay, Webster or Corwin would have been, had they occupied his place. One of the most prominent subjects of consideration before the Thirtieth Congress, very naturally, was the then existing war with Mexico. Mr. Lincoln was one of those who believed the Administration had not properly managed its affairs with Mexico at the outset, and who, while voting supplies and for suitably rewarding our gallant soldiers in that war, were unwilling to be forced, by any trick of the supporters of the Administration, into an unqualified indorsement of its course in this affair, from beginning to end. In this attitude, Mr. Lincoln did not stand alone. Such was the position of Whig members in both Houses, without exception. Yet his course was unscrupulously misrepresented, during the campaign of 1858, and not improbably will be again during the present canvass. That many men who now support Mr. Lincoln, approved the President's course in regard to the Mexican War, as well in its inception as in its management from first to last, is not improbable. But that all those who, at that time were induced by their party relations, to sustain the Administration, at heart approved the method in which hostilities were precipitated, or felt satisfied that the most commendable motives actuated the Government in its course toward Mexico, is certainly not true. This is not an issue that the present Democratic party need be anxious to resuscitate. Still less will the friends of Mr. Lincoln be reluctant to have his record on this question scrutinized to the fullest extent.

Early in the session, after listening to a long homily on the subject from the President, in his annual message, in which the gauntlet was defiantly thrown down before the Opposition members, and after his colleague, Mr. Richardson, had pro