LIFE OF LINCOLN CHAPTER XII LINCOLN BECOMES A CANDIDATE FOR CONGRESS AND IS DEFEATEDON THE STUMP IN 1844-NOMINATED AND ELECTED TO THE 30TH CONGRESS FOR eight successive years Lincoln had been a member of the General Assembly of Illinois. It was quite long enough, in his judgment, and his friends seem to have wanted to give him something better, for in 1841 they offered to support him as a candidate for Governor of the state. This, however, he refused. His ambition was to go to Washington. In 1842 he declined renomination for the Assembly and became a candidate for Congress. He did not wait to be asked, nor did he leave his case in the hands of his friends. He frankly announced his desire and managed his own canvass. There was no reason, in Lincoln's opinion, for concealing political ambition. He recognized, at the same time, the legitimacy of the ambition of his friends, and entertained no suspicion or rancor if they contested places with him. "Do you suppose that I should ever have got into notice if I had waited to be hunted up and pushed forward by older men?" he wrote his friend Herndon 1 once, when the latter was complaining that the older men did not help him on. "The way for a young man to rise is to improve himself every way he can, never suspecting that anybody wishes to hinder him. Allow me to assure you that suspicion and jealousy never did help any man in any situation. There may sometimes be ungenerous attempts to keep a young man down; and they will succeed, too, if he allows his mind to be diverted from its true channel to brood over the attempted injury. Cast about, and see if this feeling has not injured every person you have ever known to fall into it." Lincoln had something more to do, however, in 1842, than simply to announce himself in the innocent manner of early politics. The convention system introduced into Illinois in 1835 by the Democrats had been zealously opposed by all good Whigs, Lincoln included, until constant defeat taught them that to resist organization by an every-man-for-himself policy was hopeless and wasteful, and that if they would succeed they must meet organization with organization. In 1841 a Whig State convention had been called to nominate candidates for the offices of Governor and Lieutenant Governor; and now, in March, 1843, a Whig meeting was held again at Springfield, at which the party's platform was laid, and a committee, of which Lincoln was a member, was appointed to prepare an "Address to the People of Illinois." In this address the convention system was earnestly defended. Against this rapid adoption of the abominated system many of the Whigs protested, and Lincoln found himself supporting before his constituents the tactics he had once warmly opposed. In a letter to his friend. John Bennett, of Petersburg, written in March, 1843, he said: "I am sorry to hear that any of the Whigs of your county, or of any county, should longer be against conventions. On last Wednesday evening a meeting of all the Whigs then here from all parts of the state was held, and the question of the propriety of conventions was brought up and fully discussed, and at the end of the discussion a resolution recommending the system of conventions to all the Whigs of the state was unanimously adopted. Other resolutions were also passed, all of which will appear in the next ‘Journal.' The meeting also appointed a committee to draft an address to the people of the state, which address will also appear in the next 'Journal.' In it you will find a brief argument in favor of conventions, and, although I wrote it myself, I will say to you that it is conclusive upon the point and cannot be reasonably answered. "If there be any good Whig who is disposed still to stick out against conventions, get him, at least, to read the argument in their favor in the 'Address.'" The "brief argument" which Lincoln thought so conclusive, "if he did write it himself," justified his good opinion. After its circulation there were few bound to "stick out against conventions." The Whigs of the various counties in the Congressional district met on April 5, as they had been instructed to do, and chose delegates. John J. Hardin of Jacksonville, Edward D. Baker and Abraham Lincoln of Springfield, were the three candidates for whom these delegates were instructed. To Lincoln's keen disappointment, the delegation from Sangamon County was instructed for Baker. |