CHAPTER IX.

Reorganization of Parties-Presidential Campaign of 1836-The Long Nine-Making Haste to be RichLincoln's Anti-Slavery Protest-The State Capital Removed to Springfield.

MR. LINCOLN attended the Winter session of the Legislature, 1835-36, closing the term for which he had been elected without having advanced beyond the very quiet position which he had at first so modestly assumed. He made no speeches, but attended faithfully to his duties as a member of the Committee on Accounts and Expenditures. His constituents heard a good report of him, however, and were well satisfied with him. He returned among them a wiser and stronger man, and he seemed to have entirely recovered his cheerfulness and to have retained the kindly ways for which they liked him so well.

The year 1836 was notable in the political history of the United States. The larger part of the old Republican Party had long since assumed another shape and name, under Jackson and Van Buren, as the Democratic Party. Another section of the Jeffersonian political power had followed Henry Clay and his associates, and was now known as the Whig Party, although still claiming the name of Republican. It had not yet succeeded in drawing in all the

fragments of rebellion against the iron rule of Andrew Jackson. A severe defeat at the polls and a few years of hard times were needed to complete that process, but the country was preparing itself for its lessons more rapidly than it was aware of.

The National Democratic Convention, prudently summoned a full year in advance, had met at Baltimore in May, 1835, and had nominated Martin Van Buren to succeed General Jackson, with Colonel Richard M. Johnson for Vice-President. There was no power yet in existence to bring the elements of the Opposition together. The Whig Party proper nominated General William Henry Harrison and Francis Granger, and succeeded in securing for them ninety-three electoral votes. One hundred and seventy electors declared for Martin Van Buren, but some of even these refused to vote for Colonel Johnson, and he was afterward made Vice-President by the Senate. The remaining forces, which were shortly to become Whig, were divided among three candidates. Daniel Webster received fourteen, from Massachusetts. Willie P. Mangum was honored by eleven, from North Carolina. Much the largest fragmentary organization, outside of the great parties, was that which nominated Hugh L. White, of Tennessee, for President. He had been a prominent Republican and for many years a warm, personal friend of General Jackson. The fact that Abraham Lincoln was not yet in full accord with Clay and Harrison was signalized by his support of Judge White in the Presidential campaign of 1836, and throws light upon the other fact that his own

first and second nominations to the Legislature were warmly sustained by numbers of Democrats-that is, of old Republicans, who did not regard him as a very distinctly marked Whig.

One of the important acts of the Illinois Legislature of 1835-36 had been a reapportionment of the State for purposes of representation. By the new law, and owing to its increased population, Sangamon County was entitled to two State Senators and seven members of the Lower House. All of these were to be chosen not by minor districts, but by the full county vote. There were no nominating conventions, and the manner in which candidates were brought before the people is well illustrated by Lincoln's own announcement in the Springfield Journal:

To the Editor of the 'Journal.'

"NEW SALEM, June 13, 1836.

In your paper of last Saturday I see a communication over the signature Many Voters,' in which the candidates who are announced in the Journal are called upon to 'show their hands.' Agreed. Here's mine.

I go for all sharing the privileges of the Government who assist in bearing its burdens. Consequently, I go for admitting all whites to the right of suffrage who pay taxes or bear arms (by no means excluding females).

"If elected, I shall consider the whole people of Sangamon my constituents, as well those that oppose as those that support me. "While acting as their representative, I shall be governed by their will on all subjects upon which I have the means of knowing what their will is, and upon all others I shall do what my own judgment teaches me will best advance their interests. Whether elected or not, I go for distributing the proceeds of the sale of the public lands to the several States, to enable our State, in common with others, to dig canals and construct railroads without borrowing money and paying interest on it.

"If alive on the first Monday in November, I shall vote for Hugh L. White for President.

"Very respectfully,

"A. LINCOLN."

An uncommonly vigorous canvass followed, and it is said by good authority that Mr. Lincoln's oratorical power exhibited marked tokens of improvement. Even his voice had undergone a change, correspondent to the mental development which enabled him to use it more effectively. He was elected by a larger majority than that given to any other of the successful candidates. They were all tall men, their aggregate measurement being fiftyfive feet, to which Lincoln contributed six feet and four inches. They shortly became noted in the legislative contests at Vandalia as "the Long Nine," and the title was not always accompanied with complimentary epithets.

The Presidential candidacy of Hugh L. White had served the important purpose of rallying a considerable political force and leading it into the Whig Party, of which Mr. Lincoln now became a recognized member and local leader. Its consolidated strength gave it very firm control of Sangamon County, but in other parts of the State the old-time Democratic ascendancy continued.

The vote which Mr. Lincoln had received gave him a first place in the county delegations of which he was the tallest member. He at once began to prove that his first term had been to him a kind of legislative apprenticeship, of which he had made remarkably good use. He had so studied

parliamentary law and tactics that he returned to Vandalia as an adroit and experienced manager.

Now that the Presidential campaign was over, there was no very close connection between State and national politics. The very men, for instance, who were most bitterly opposed to a Bank of the United States were all the more ready to unite with the Whigs they had defeated in chartering what some people called State banks, and what others described as rag-money mills. Democrats, who maintained that the general Government had no power over the subject of internal improvements, declared that they were, nevertheless, in favor of unlimited development under the direction of the several States. The entire population of Illinois, as well as of other commonwealths, east and west, was going crazy with land speculation and a mania for sudden wealth. The several Legislatures did but represent the people who elected them. New towns and cities were dreamed of, planned, mapped out, named, and, as the phrase was, were located" at the junction of every pair of respectable streams and at almost every cross road. Canal and railway enterprises, which had been taking shape during several previous years, received now the full favor of the Vandalia lawgivers, and the new prominence of Abraham Lincoln was greatly enhanced by the skill and vigor with which he advocated scheme after scheme. He had no pecuniary interest in any of them. His hands were utterly clean of any suspicion of jobbery, and that very fact, well and publicly known, gave his arguments a power which they