CHAPTER XII.

Law Partnerships-Lincoln in Congress-Dealings

with the Mexican War-The Presidential Campaign of 1848-Stumping New England-A Whig Victory.

MR. LINCOLN's first law partner, John T. Stuart, was more a politician than a lawyer. The firm carried altogether too heavy a load of unprofitable public business, and the partnership ceased in 1841, with Mr. Stuart's election to Congress. Hon. Stephen T. Logan, with whom Mr. Lincoln then became associated, was also a man of influence in his party and ambitious of political honors, and was an exceptionally able lawyer. This second partnership lasted until 1845, and upon its termination a third was formed, which was much more than a mere business connection. In the fullest sense of the word, Hon. William H. Herndon was Lincoln's friend, and the intimate relations between them ceased only at the death of the senior partner.

Hardly was the new firm well under way, however, before Mr. Lincoln's public duties came in to interfere seriously with its prosperity. There were clients of all sorts eager to secure the services of Mr. Lincoln. He had now faithfully followed the court from county to county of the Eighth Judicial District, year after year, until no other lawyer on

the circuit was better known. He had begun with a borrowed horse and with barely money enough in his pocket to pay his way, but his finances were in better condition now. The more profitable part of his practice, however, required his personal presence before courts and juries. He could not transfer to Mr. Herndon the confidence which other' men had imbibed in his own ability to win their cases for them. When, therefore, on May 1st, 1846, the Whig District Convention met and selected Mr. Lincoln as its candidate for Congress, it placed a serious question before him. He had long wished to go to Congress. It had even been said by his enemies that there was a standing contract between Hardin, Baker, Lincoln, and Logan, the four Whig chiefs of Sangamon County, that they should each have a term in succession. Hardin's term came in 1842, Baker's in 1844, and now Judge Logan himself moved Lincoln's nomination before the convention, and no other name was proposed. It had been well understood that he would accept, and the Democratic Convention prepared for him an uncommonly sharp and interesting canvass. They nominated the well-known and popular Methodist preacher, Peter Cartwright, accused Mr. Lincoln of being an infidel, a duellist, and otherwise unfit to receive the suffrages of good men, adding every possible argument to be deduced from the fact that he was a Whig, opposed to the war with Mexico. There was less to be gained from that field, owing to the fact that the army was led by Whig generals and that two of the regiments of Illinois volunteers

were commanded by Sangamon County Whigs, Colonel Baker and Colonel Hardin. Peter Cartwright was an enthusiastic Democrat, but there were many intelligent men in that party who were disposed to believe that his best public services could be performed in pulpits and camp meetings, rather than in the House of Representatives. They, therefore, voted for Mr. Lincoln at the August election, giving him a majority in the district of fifteen hundred and eleven, and in the county of six hundred and ninety. It was the best Whig victory ever won in Illinois.

The successful candidate had something more than a law practice to leave behind him. His first son, Robert Todd Lincoln, born in the old Globe Tavern, was now beginning to run around and talk, and William, his second, was born in March, 1847. During the remainder of the season, however, he put his business and home affairs in order, and was ready to set out for Washington, to be present at the organization of the Thirtieth Congress, on December 6th, 1847.

Both the House and Senate contained a large number of very capable men, each party being thoroughly organized and well led. If any distinction came to Mr. Lincoln from the fact that he was the only Whig member from the State of Illinois, there was also something depressing in it, and a new member cannot at once acquire influence or prominence. He may have been enabled to discern. more clearly than before the difference between a merely local and a national reputation. He was

assigned a position in the Committee on Post Offices and Post Roads, as if to indicate that as yet the great leaders of his party knew little about him and did not expect much from him. He took hold of his committee work with his accustomed industry, but he had not come to be a silent member, and he was heard from at an early day. His letters to Mr. Herndon and others show that his first experiences and observations did not increase his ambition for a prolonged career in Congress. To Mr. Speed he wrote: "Being elected to Congress, though I am very grateful to our friends for having done it, has not pleased me so much as I expected." He was a born leader of men, long accustomed to special prominence in Illinois politics, and it may have been irksome to find all present leadership in Congress so firmly held by other hands.

The questions of the future were taking form more rapidly than the masses of the people were aware. The question of the immediate present was the conduct of the war with Mexico, including the orders of President Polk to General Taylor to occupy the disputed territory between the Nueces River and the Rio Grande.

The correspondence between the general and the Secretary of War supplied the Opposition with abundant texts for criticism, and every point was made the most of. The President's Message at the opening of Congress had set forth the position and claims of the Democratic Party and the Administration with unflinching clearness, and it was well understood that the entire Whig body was ready to

vote supplies and raise troops. They were even willing to acquire new territory, if something like the Wilmot Proviso could be created as a protection. for the old Mexican law prohibiting slavery. The Proviso itself, after passing the House with much difficulty, had failed in the Senate, dragging down with it the particular bill to which it was attached. No similar measure was now before the House. On December 22d, 1847, Mr. Lincoln introduced a series of resolutions of no great effect or importance by themselves, but which very well illustrate the Whig position. They were as follows:

Resolved, by the House of Representatives: That the President of the United States be respectfully requested to inform this House : 'First: Whether the spot on which the blood of our citizens was shed, as in his Message declared, was or was not within the territory of Spain, at least after the treaty of 1819, until the Mexican revolution.

"Second: Whether that spot is or is not within the territory which was wrested from Spain by the revolutionary Government of Mexico.

"Third: Whether that spot is or is not within a settlement of people, which settlement has existed ever since long before the Texas revolution and until its inhabitants fled before the approach of the United States army.

Fourth Whether that spot is or is not isolated from any and all other settlements by the Gulf and the Rio Grande on the south and west and by wide uninhabited regions on the north and east.

"Fifth: Whether the people of that settlement, or a majority of them, or any of them, have ever submitted themselves to the Government or laws of Texas or of the United States, by consent or by compulsion, either by accepting office, or voting at elections, or paying tax, or serving on juries, or having process served upon them, or in any other way.

Sixth Whether the people of that settlement did or did not flee from the approach of the United States army, leaving unpro