by that Legislature. The seat of the State government, at Vandalia, was too far from the geographical center. It was inconvenient, unpopular, and there were several other towns, some of them even more badly situated, whose citizens were eager to have the advantages of a "capital" within their corporate limits.

For many reasons the young city of Springfield, in Lincoln's own county of Sangamon, seemed entitled to the preference. Every man of the county representatives could discern those reasons clearly and argue them convincingly. There were nine of these gentlemen, two in the Senate and seven in the lower house, and their bodily size had acquired for them the title of "the Long Nine." Taken together, they were fifty-four feet long; Mr. Lincoln himself having a surplus of four inches to contribute in making up the average of six feet. They were tireless workers and well skilled in the art of influencing their associates. They so arranged the removal of the capital to Springfield that it was firmly wedged into a combination of all the other schemes, and the bill for it was passed in the last hours of the session. It was an enduring piece of work, and the State is governed from that town at the present time.

Mr. Lincoln could now return to Sangamon County and New Salem with a consciousness that he had done for his enthusiastic constituents at least as much as they could reasonably expect of him. He had, however, done one thing more, and a greater and worthier thing than any success he had won as an advocate of internal improvement or the removal of the State capital. He had made a bold, clear record of his views upon the subject of human slavery.

The Legislature adjourned upon the 4th of March, and on the previous day, the 3d, with but one solitary comrade, Daniel Stone, Abraham Lincoln presented to the House, and had read and spread upon the journals of record, the following protest:

"Resolutions upon the subject of domestic slavery having

Bank. At the same time, the policy of the general government with reference to its sales of public lands was nowhere of more importance than in Illinois.

Mr. Lincoln's brain was teeming more fruitfully than ever with projects for public improvements. The example of New York was continually before him, and he had formed, with reference to the canals of his own State, the high ambition of becoming "the De Witt Clinton of Illinois." There was nothing mean or low in such an aspiration in the mind of a young man who was only separated by five short years from the deck of a flatboat and by less than three from bankruptcy, poverty, and the sheriff's hammer.

He served upon the Committee on Finance. The ideas of State credit entertained by that committee may be gathered from the facts, among many, that for the furtherance of canal and other enterprises laws were passed authorizing loans to the amount of twelve millions of dollars. The money was to be obtained by the sale of State bonds, and was then to be employed in quite a variety of ways. It was fully believed that into the State, improved by that expenditure, a flood of immigration would surely and swiftly roll, to open farms, pay taxes, and so to make the bonds good property in the hands of the imaginary capitalists who were now to buy them. The passage of a "law" creating capitalists for the occasion does not seem to have been thought of, but the nominal capital of the State Bank and of other banks was largely increased, that they might issue abundant notes, and so that "money" might be plentiful.

Small blame rightly attaches to any of the untutored legislators who proposed or voted for all these wonderful schemes for making all men rich at railway speed. They knew no better until, at last, the bursting of their own pretty bubbles, with all the other bubbles the whole nation had been blowing, sent them back to their constituencies sadder and wiser men.

One other project was kept continually in the foreground

by that Legislature. The seat of the State government, at Vandalia, was too far from the geographical center. It was inconvenient, unpopular, and there were several other towns, some of them even more badly situated, whose citizens were eager to have the advantages of a "capital" within their corporate limits.

For many reasons the young city of Springfield, in Lincoln's own county of Sangamon, seemed entitled to the preference. Every man of the county representatives could discern those reasons clearly and argue them convincingly. There were nine of these gentlemen, two in the Senate and seven in the lower house, and their bodily size had acquired for them the title of "the Long Nine." Taken together, they were fifty-four feet long; Mr. Lincoln himself having a surplus of four inches to contribute in making up the average of six feet. They were tireless workers and well skilled in the art of influencing their associates. They so arranged the removal of the capital to Springfield that it was firmly wedged into a combination of all the other schemes, and the bill for it was passed in the last hours of the session. It was an enduring piece of work, and the State is governed from that town at the present time.

Mr. Lincoln could now return to Sangamon County and New Salem with a consciousness that he had done for his enthusiastic constituents at least as much as they could reasonably expect of him. He had, however, done one thing more, and a greater and worthier thing than any success he had won as an advocate of internal improvement or the removal of the State capital. He had made a bold, clear record of his views upon the subject of human slavery.

The Legislature adjourned upon the 4th of March, and on the previous day, the 3d, with but one solitary comrade, Daniel Stone, Abraham Lincoln presented to the House, and had read and spread upon the journals of record, the following protest:

"Resolutions upon the subject of domestic slavery having

passed both branches of the General Assembly at its present session, the undersigned hereby protest against the passage of the same.

"They believe that the institution of slavery is founded on both injustice and bad policy; but that the promulgation of abolition doctrines tends rather to increase than to abate its evils.

"They believe that the Congress of the United States has no power, under the Constitution, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the different States.

"They believe that the Congress of the United States has the power, under the Constitution, to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, but that the power ought not to be exercised unless at the request of the people of the District.

"The difference between these opinions and those contained in the said resolutions is their reason for entering this protest. "DAN. STONE,

"A. LINCOLN,

"Representatives from the county of Sangamon."

Only two men in that numerous body climbed high enough, at that time, or had the courage to declare that human slavery was "founded on injustice and bad policy," whatever might be their opinion of the force of the existing laws by which it was protected. It was a bold thing to do, in a day when to be an antislavery man, even at the North, was to be a sort of social outcast and political pariah. Twenty years were to roll away before a great party was to adopt, as its platform of principles, declarations nearly equivalent and but little more advanced than the brave protest in which Abraham Lincoln induced his friend Dan Stone to join him.

That was the first public fruit of the flatboat studies of human slavery away down the Mississippi River, and other views of it obtained in the slave-market at New Orleans. The necessary moral education for persisting in making such a record

had been received through "object-lessons," and the actual sight of slave and whip, and brand and fetters, and the barter and sale of human flesh and blood.

Lincoln had struck his first blow in the great warfare, and it was as hard a stroke as the occasion permitted. It was a registered prophecy that he would strike again in the fullness of time and when another opportunity should be given him.