he interested them in his cause and his personality, chiefly the latter. Where he was known he was welcomed, and where he found it necessary to make himself known, his auditors soon made the discovery that he belonged to the singed cat variety. With his calico shirt, short trousers, rough brogans, and straw hat without a band, he raised a laugh at his appearance that was soon turned to applause at his knowledge and his skill in presenting it. He headed the poll on election day, and appreciating the fact that a new outfit was necessary to comport with his dignity as a legislator, he borrowed. two hundred dollars from Coleman Smoot, an admirer who had never seen him, and got himself up in the best clothes he had ever worn. The loan was scrupulously repaid. The time up to the session of the Legislature was spent in preparation for his new responsibilities, in reading and writing.

He had enough of his two hundred dollars remaining to pay his passage on the stage coach to the scene of the Legislature at Vandalia. That body was overwhelmingly Democratic in its political complexion, and set the pace for Illinois of that class of legislation so common in new countries: the creation of public debt and the starting of great and ill-considered public improvements, and the licensing of banks with great privileges, and practically no guarantees, a class of legislation that brought on the financial collapse of 1837. The legislature represented the overwhelming majority of the people and accomplished their behests. All were crazed with the spirit of speculation, all were similarly responsible,

and all suffered in the same general consequences. Mr. Lincoln swam with the stream, voted for all the wild-cat measures which, according to the best wisdom of the time, were essential to the prosperity of the state. He

Stephen A. Douglas.

Born 1813. Died 1861

was a silent member, however, at this session of the Legislature, though served

he

on

the committee

on Public Accounts and Expenditures.

It was at this session of the

legislature that he met Stephen A. Douglas, with whose later career his own

was destined to

be so closely interwoven, and

whom at his first meeting he characterized as the "least man he ever saw." In time he readily accorded him the title of "The Little Giant," with whose powers he, only, seemed able to cope. This legislature was beset, as later legislatures of Illinois have been, by a corrupt and persistent body of so-called log rollers, who were on

hand to push their schemes by persuasion and corruption. But no taint attached to young Lincoln, who, if he were carried away like the other legislators of the time, by schemes of artificial prosperity, was beyond the reach of bribery.

In 1836, he was again a candidate for the legislature, self-nominated, for this was before the age of caucuses and conventions. In the Journal of New Salem he announces his platform. He favors extending to all whites who pay taxes or bear arms (not excluding women) the right of suffrage. If elected, he should consider the whole people of the district as his constituents, regardless of the manner of their voting, and while acting as their representative he would be governed by their will on all subjects on which they should make known their will, and on other subjects he would follow his own judgment as to what would advance their interests. further announced that he was in favor of distributing the proceeds of the sales of public lands to the several states, to enable each state in common with others, to dig canals and construct railroads without borrowing money and paying the interest on it. On the question of national politics, he announced his adhesion to the standard bearer of the Whigs.

He

For two months the campaign was conducted in the rough and ready manner peculiar to those times. Hot words were bandied, personalities were indulged in, pistols were frequently drawn, and the personal prowess of the candidate was one of his strong claims to the respect of a rough constituency. At no point was Lincoln lack

ing in his knowledge of his audiences. They had had demonstrations of his physical prowess. Popular report had credited him with fearlessness, and his plain strong reasoning, his humor and skillful repartee did

the rest.

It was the custom for political antagonists to address the same audiences, or at least for both sides to get a hearing at the same time and place. It was during this campaign that Geo. Forquer, who had been a Whig in the legislature of 1834, and had changed his views on being appointed registrar of the Land Office, presumed to call Lincoln to account. Forquer had aroused much attention as a political turn-coat, and likewise by his sudden prosperity in being able to build the finest house in Springfield, on which he set up the only lightning rod of which the region could boast. He listened to Lincoln's speech in defense of the principles that he had recently repudiated, and when he had finished he arose. to answer, with a fine assumption of superiority, saying that the young man would have to be taken down, and he was sorry that the task devolved upon him. He thereupon proceeded to take him down in a strong Democratic speech. When he had concluded Mr. Lincoln replied to his arguments, and then alluded to Mr. Forquer's remark that the young man must be taken down. Turning to his audience, he said:

"It is for you to say whether I am down or up. The gentleman has alluded to my being a young man. I am older in years than I am in the tricks and trades of politicians. I desire to live and I desire place and distinct

ion as a politician, but I would rather die now than, like this gentleman, live to see the day that I would have to erect a lightning rod to protect a guilty conscience from an offended God."

Another Democratic orator met his Waterloo in an engagement with Lincoln in the same campaign. Dick Taylor was severely Democratic in theory, denouncing the Whig aristocracy and making much of his sympathy with the hard-handed toiling masses, but in practice he adorned himself with splendid apparel, and shone conspicuously with ruffled shirt, silk vest, and an impressive watch chain. On one occasion when Taylor was parading his democracy and denouncing the aristocratic Whigs, Lincoln edged up to the platform, and gave a jerk to Taylor's vest, that exposed his ruffled shirt, his gold watch and chain and pendant jewelry. It was a movement that took all the wind out of Taylor's sails and hardly needed the speech which Mr. Lamon credits to this occasion, which has so much of personal interest in it, that we repeat it.

"While Taylor was making his charges against the Whigs over the country, riding in fine carriages, wearing ruffled shirts, kid gloves, massive gold watch chain with large gold seals, and flourishing a heavy gold-headed cane, I was a poor boy hired on a flat-boat at eight dollars a month and had only one pair of breeches to my back, and they were buckskin, and if you know the nature of buckskin, when wet and dried by the sun, they will shrink, and mine kept shrinking until they left several inches of my legs bare between the top of my socks