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Whig colleague, took Stephens aside, and, pointing to a paper he held in his hand, said: "Stephens, let me write ' Union at the top of the page, and you may write below it whatever else you please." Stephens found Lincoln the same jovial, tolerant, firm friend, but a changed man: "The Union with him in sentiment rose to the sublimity of a religious mysticism." One of the best pictures of Lincoln in Congress is that left us by Stephens:

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I knew Mr. Lincoln well and intimately, and we were both ardent supporters of General Taylor for President in 1848. Mr. Lincoln, Toombs, Preston, myself, and others formed the first Congressional Taylor Club, known as " The Young Indians," and organized the Taylor movement, which resulted in his nomination. Mr. Lincoln

was careful as to his manners, awkward in his speech, but was possessed of a very strong, clear, vigorous mind. He always attracted and riveted the attention of the House when he spoke. His manner of speech, as well as thought, was original. He had no model. He was a man of strong convictions, and what Carlyle would have called an earnest man. He abounded in anecdote. He illustrated everything he was talking about by an anecdote, always exceedingly apt and pointed, and socially he always kept his company in a roar of laughter.2

In June the Whigs met in national convention in Philadelphia, and Lincoln attended as a delegate. Henry Clay was still his ideal statesman, but since it had been agreed that a military hero was needed to steal the war-thunder of the Democrats, he supported General Zachary Taylor, dubious as the Whig faith of Taylor was known to be. No platform was adopted, and a resolution affirming as a party principle the

1 The Compromises of Life, by Henry Watterson, pp. 164-6 (1903). This statement has been questioned, but it rests upon the authority of Mr. Stephens himself, who related it to Mr. Watterson, as he did to others, including Mr. Felix de Fontaine, the famous Southern war correspondent, with whom he passed the night in Richmond after he came up from Hampton Roads. This testimony, with the Joint Resolution to be passed by Congress, in Lincoln's handwriting, appropriating money to be paid the South for the slaves, would seem to be abundant evidence.

2 Life of Lincoln, by I. N. Arnold, pp. 77, 78 (1884).

It

Wilmot Proviso-designed to exclude slavery from territory acquired from Mexico was repeatedly voted down. was thus evident that the Whigs, like the Democrats, intended to evade the slavery issue, and Lincoln, though a "conscience Whig," seemed willing to leave that question in abeyance for the sake of party advantage. He returned in high hope and set to work zealously to elect the ticket, on which he was named as an elector, predicting victory to his friends and asking them to make Illinois do her part. A gloomy letter from Herndon, reporting extensive defections in the party ranks, pained him, but did not cool his enthusiasm. Instead, he wrote to his partner urging him to organize a band of Young Indians" in Springfield, and giving specific instructions how to do it:

Washington, D. C., June 22, 1848. Dear William :- The whole field of the nation was scanned; all is high hope and confidence. Illinois is expected to better her condition in this race. Under these circumstances judge how heart-rending it was to come to my room and find and read your discouraging letter of the 15th. Now, as to the young men. You must not wait to be brought forward by the older men. For instance, do you suppose that I would ever have got into notice if I had waited to be hunted up and pushed forward by older men? You young men get together and form a "Rough and Ready Club," and have regular meetings and speeches. Take in everybody you can get. Harrison Grimsley, L. A. Enos, Lee Kimball, and C. W. Matheney will do to begin the thing; but as you go along, gather up all the shrewd, wild boys about town, whether just of age or a little under age Chris Logan, Reddick Ridgely, Lewis Zwizler, and hundreds such. Let every one play the part he can play best some speak, some sing, and all holler." Your meetings will be in the evenings; the old men, and the women, will go to hear you; so that it will not only contribute to the election of "Old Zack," but will be an interesting pastime, and improving to the intellectual faculties of all engaged. Don't fail to do this.

Your friend,

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A. LINCOLN.

But alas, Herndon was too profoundly disgusted with the Whig attitude on the slavery question to have any heart in

the business of organizing a "Rough and Ready Club." Unable to conceal his feelings, he permitted an interview to appear in one of the Springfield papers in which he took a thoroughly disheartened view of the situation, intimating that the Whig party had run its course. He clipped the interview and sent it to Lincoln, accompanied by a letter telling of the dissatisfaction in the district, and reflecting rather severely on certain "old fossils in the party who are constantly keeping the young men down." Just what lay behind Herndon's complaint is not quite clear; but it brought a characteristic reply, valuable for its homely philosophy and as glimpse of the relations between the two men:

Washington, D. C., July 10, 1848. Dear William:- Your letter covering the newspaper slips was received last night. The subject of that letter is exceedingly painful to me; and I cannot but think there is some mistake in your impression of the motives of the older men. I suppose I am now one of the older men; and I declare on my veracity, which I think is good with you, that nothing could afford me more satisfaction than to learn that you and others of my young friends at home were doing battle in the contest, and endearing themselves to the people, and taking a stand far above any I have ever been able to reach in their admiration. I cannot conceive that other older men feel differently. Of course I cannot demonstrate what I say; but I was young once, and I am sure I was never ungenerously thrust back. I hardly know what to say. The way for a young man to rise is to improve himself in every way he can, never suspecting that anyone 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 known to fall into it.

Now, in what I have said I am sure you will suspect nothing but sincere friendship. I would save you from a fatal error. You have been a laborious, studious young You are far better informed on almost all subjects than I have ever been. You cannot fail in any laudable object unless you allow your mind to be improperly di

man.

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rected. I have some advantage of you in the world's experience merely by being older; and it is this that induces me to advise. Your friend, as ever, A. LINCOLN. Two weeks later Lincoln delivered a speech in the House in behalf of Taylor, in which he attempted to justify the Whigs for trying to make capital out of a war whose injustice and unconstitutionality they had often, and even passionately, denounced. As an example of campaign oratory in the early West, full of stump vigor and racy of the soil, it was admirable, and for its purpose effective, but quite out of place on the floor of the House. Walking up and down the aislesas a correspondent of the Baltimore American described him -gesticulating with his long arms, he mingled drollery, wit, and shrewd party appeals with pitiless satire, clever caricature and outrageous illustration, while both sides roared with laughter. He admitted that he did not certainly know what Taylor, a slaveholder, would do with the Wilmot Proviso, and added: I am a Northern man, or rather a western Free-State man, with a constituency I believe to be, and with personal feelings known to be, against the extension of slavery. As such, and with what information I have, I hope and believe that General Taylor, if elected, would not veto the Proviso. But I do not know it. But even if I knew he would, I still would vote for him," not only as against General Lewis Cass, the Democratic candidate, but also against Martin Van Buren, the nominee of the Free-Soil and old Liberty parties, whose platform affirmed the principle of the Proviso. Party loyalty could not go further; and from so dubious a position, and the labored and ingenious explanations which it required, he was glad to divert attention by ridiculing the military career of General Cass. Withal, there was an infectious quality in his rollicking burlesque, and a few passages may illustrate a style of speech, at once" Rough and Ready," in which he indulged at times, though less frequently, even so late as 1852:

But the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Iverson) further says, we have deserted all our principles, and taken shelter under General Taylor's military coat-tail; and he seems

to think this is exceedingly degrading. Well, as his faith is, so be it unto him. But can he remember no other military coat-tail, under which a certain other party have been sheltering for near a quarter of a century? Has he no acquaintance with the ample military coat-tail of General Jackson? Yes, sir, that coat-tail was not only used for General Jackson himself, but has been clung to with the grip of death by every Democratic candidate since. Mr. Polk himself was "Young Hickory,' "Little Hickory," or something so; and even now your campaign paper here is proclaiming that Cass and Butler are of the Hickory stripe." No, sir, you dare not give it up. Like a horde of hungry ticks, you have stuck to the tail of the Hermitage lion to the end of his life; and you are still sticking to it, and drawing a loathsome sustenance from it, after he is dead. A fellow once advertised that he had made a discovery by which he could make a new man out of an old one and have enough of the stuff left to make a little yellow dog. Just such a discovery has General Jackson's popularity been to you. You not only twice made Presidents of him out of it, but you have enough of the stuff left to make Presidents of several comparatively small men since; and it is your chief reliance now to make still another.

Mr. Speaker, old horses and coat-tails, or tails of any sort, are not such figures of speech as I would be the first to introduce into discussion here; but as the gentleman from Georgia has thought fit to introduce them, he and you are welcome to all you have made or can make by them. If you have any more old horses, trot them out; any more tails, just cock them and come at us. By the way, Mr. Speaker, did you know I am a military hero? Yes, sir, in the days of the Black Hawk war I fought, bled, and came away. Speaking of General Cass's career, reminds me of my own. I was not at Stillman's defeat, but I was about as near it as Cass was to Hull's surrender; and, like him, I saw the place very soon afterward. It is quite certain I did not break my sword, for I had none to break, but I bent my musket pretty badly on one occasion. If Cass broke his sword, the idea is, he broke it in desperation; I bent my musket by accident. If General Cass went in advance of me picking whortleberries, I guess I surpassed him in charges upon wild onions. If he saw any live fighting Indians, it was more than I did, but I had a good many bloody struggles with the mosquitoes; and, al