of Havana they sold their canoe and set off across country on foot.

There had been genuine patriotism in Lincoln's second enlistment, for there was a reason why he should be in the neighborhood of New Salem rather than in camp in Wisconsin. Just before setting out for the war he had issued a circular, May 9th, 1832, announcing himself as a candidate for the State Legislature, at the election which was to take place in the following August. There were parties in that day with limits less clearly set forth and defined than now, but there was as yet, in Illinois, no such party machinery of all sorts as has since been invented and perfected. Nominating conventions were unknown, and any man could propose his own name for any office, or he could permit his friends to do it for him. The idea of running Lincoln for the Legislature is said to have originated with his friend, James Rutledge, after a remarkable argument made by Mr. Offutt's clerk before the New Salem debating society. He urged it upon Lincoln, and others joined him, and they succeeded in overcoming every diffident objection made to what seemed a piece of uncommon audacity. Perhaps the fact that Lincoln himself felt very little hope of election had something to do with his willingness to enter the army. At all events, he had not slighted his military duties to hasten back, and his canvass was left to take care of itself until about ten days before the election. The eleven other candidates had been stumping the county and were having the field all to themselves. It was the year of Andrew Jackson's second election

as President, and the Whig Party was in process of organization out of such fragments of the old Republican Party as had not been absorbed by the Jackson Democratic Party. Lincoln had been from boyhood an admirer of Old Hickory, and there was as yet no reason why any Democrat in Sangamon County might not strain a point and vote for so very liberal a Whig, if, indeed, he had yet assumed that

name.

Lincoln took the stump at once, not to assail Jackson, but to declare himself in favor of a national bank, of internal improvements, and of a high protective tariff. He held a position of peculiar advantages. All the voters of a certain class looked favorably upon the best wrestler in Sangamon County; only one of the other candidates had, like himself, just returned from driving Black Hawk out of the State; no other internal improvement orator had actually piloted a steamboat up and down the Sangamon; no other speaker at any political gathering could illustrate his arguments with so many or such keenly-pointed stories. He was just the man for that constituency, and there was only one thing against him. He was beaten by the simple fact that only a part of his constituency had an opportunity for getting acquainted with him. The vote of the New Salem precinct explained the matter. There were two hundred and seventy-seven votes cast, and all but three of them were for Lincoln. Other precincts adjoining did well for him, but as distances increased the majorities against him grew. Still, it was no disgrace that he was one of eight defeated

candidates, of whom five received a smaller number of votes. He was only twenty-three years of age, but he had stepped out from obscurity already, had become a marked man in Sangamon County, had established for himself a character, a reputation, and had been recognized as a born leader of men.

CHAPTER VII.

Out of Work-Lincoln a Merchant-The Credit System-A Financial Crash-Postmaster - Turning Surveyor-Small Law Cases-Horse Racing-The Village Peacemaker.

NEW SALEM was altogether an experiment as a village, and every business concern in it was experimental. Very nearly all transactions were upon a peculiarly liberal credit system, and any man who wearied of a speculation could get rid of it by taking some other man's note for its supposable value. Mr. Offutt had simply disappeared when his undertakings miscarried, but the riverside hamlet still contained four other mercantile concerns, each of which offered for sale an exceedingly miscellaneous collection of such goods as prairie people might be tempted into buying. What seems to have been the smaller of the four was conducted by Mr. Rutledge, the miller; a second by Row and Jim Herndon, special friends of Lincoln, and a third by a man named Reuben Radford. Lincoln was boarding with one of the Herndons shortly after the conclusion of his political campaign, and was looking around for some means of earning the necessary money to pay for food and shelter there or elsewhere. There is a tradition that he even spoke of the fact that so strong a man as he would perhaps do well as a

blacksmith, but there was a very different opening in course of preparation for him.

Jim Herndon grew dissatisfied with the dull business prospects of New Salem, and sold his share in the store and stock to a dissipated fellow named Berry, with whom Row Herndon shortly quarrelled. Lincoln had no money, but he was willing to help his friend Row out of an unpleasant situation, and readily gave his note for the remainder of that establishment. The firm of Lincoln & Berry succeeded to the hopes and prospects of Herndon Brothers, such as they were, and men who started in that way had been known to get along very well.

The next step was prepared by the riotous fun of the Clary's Grove boys. They had no especial grudge against Reuben Berry, but the spirit of mischief by which they were at times possessed led them to smash his store windows for him one pleasant evening. He was so disgusted the next morning by the appearance of his half-wrecked store, that he sold it on the spot for four hundred dollars to an acquaintance named William Greene. The latter asked Lincoln to come over and examine the purchase for him, and the result was every way satisfactory. Lincoln and Berry bought him out, giving him their notes for six hundred and fifty dollars. The stockin-trade of Mr. Rutledge was also secured shortly, and the new firm had but one rival remaining. This was the store kept by Hill & McNeil, and it was of the same general pattern.

The rail splitter, day laborer, flatboatman, pilot, clerk, soldier, miller, politician, had now become a