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concerned,* illustrates a trait of his character no less prominent than his qualities of integrity and truth. One day an old Indian wandered into Lincoln's camp, and was instantly seized by his men. The general opinion was that he ought to be put to death. They were in the field for the purpose of killing Indians, and to spare the slaughter of one that Providence had delivered into their hands was something of which these honest pioneers could not abide the thought. It was to little purpose that the wretched aborigine showed a letter signed by General Cass, and certifying him to be not only a model of all the savage virtues, but a sincere friend of the whites. He was about to be sacrificed, when Lincoln boldly declared that the sacrifice should not take place. He was at once accused of cowardice, and of a desire to conciliate the Indians. Nevertheless, he stood firm, proclaiming that even barbarians would not kill a helpless prisoner. If any one thought him a coward, let him step out and be satisfied of his mistake, in any way he chose. As to this poor old Indian, he had no doubt he was all that the letter of General Cass affirmed; he declared that they should kill him before they touched the prisoner. His argument, in fine, was so convincing, and his manner so determined, that the copper-colored ally of the whites was suffered to go his ways, and departed out of the hostile camp of hist friends unhurt.

*The authority for this anecdote is Mr. William G. Green, a tried and intimate friend of Lincoln during early manhood.

After his return from the wars, Lincoln determined to test the strength of his popularity, by offering himself as a candidate for the Legislature. Added to the goodwill which had carried him into the captaincy, he had achieved a warmer place in the hearts of those who had followed his fortunes during the war, by his bravery, social qualities, and uprightness. He was warm-hearted and good-natured, and told his stories, of which he had numbers, in better style than any other man in the camp. No one was so fleet of foot; and in those wrestlings which daily enlivened the tedium of camp life, he was never thrown but once, and then by a man of superior science who was not his equal in strength. These were qualities which commended him to the people, and made him the favorite officer of the battalion.

Parties, at this time, were distinguished as Adams parties and Jackson parties, and in Lincoln's county the Jackson men were vastly in the ascendant. He was a stanch Adams man, and, being comparatively unknown in the remoter parts of the county, was defeated. In his own neighborhood the vote was almost unanimous in his favor; though he had only arrived from the war and announced himself as a candidate ten days before the election. Indeed, he received, at this election, one more vote in his precinct than both of the rival candidates for Congress together.*

The following is the vote taken from the poll-book in Springfield: For Congress-Jonathan H. Pugh, 179, and Joseph Duncan, 97. For LegislatureLincoln, 277.

Defeated, but far from dismayed, Lincoln once more turned his attention to business. He was still poor, for though thrifty enough, he never could withstand the appeals of distress, nor sometimes refuse to become security for those who asked the use of his name. His first surveying had been done with a grape-vine instead of a chain, and having indorsed a note which was not paid, his compass was seized and sold. One James Short bought it and returned it to Lincoln. The surveyor of Sangamon county, John Calhoun, (since notorious for his candle-box concealment of the election returns ir Kansas,) deputed to Lincoln that part of the county in which he resided, and he now assumed the active practice of surveying, and continued to live upon the slender fees of his office until 1834, when he was elected to the Legislature by the largest vote cast for any candidate.

Before this election Lincoln had engaged and failed in merchandising on his own account.

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It is supposed that it was at New Salem that Lincoln, while a " clerk in Offutt's store, first saw Stephen A. Douglas, and, probably, the acquaintance was renewed during Lincoln's proprietorship of the store which he afterward bought in the same place.*

*Lincoln expressly stated, in reply to some badinage of Douglas, during thi debates of 1858, that he never kept a grocery anywhere. Out West, a grocers is understood to be a place where the chief article of commerce is whisky. Lincoln's establishment was, in the Western sense, a store; that is, he sold tea, coffee, sugar, powder, lead, and other luxuries and necessaries of pioneer existence. Very possibly his store was not without the "elixir of life," with which nearly every body renewed the flower of youth in those days; though this is not a matter of absolute history, nor perhaps of vital consequence.

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One Reuben Radford was Lincoln's predecessor. He had fallen, by some means, into disfavor with Clary's Grove Boys, who, one evening, took occasion to break in the windows of his establishment. Reuben was discouraged. Perhaps it would not be going too far to allude to his situation as discouraging. At any rate, he told a young farmer,* who came to trade with him the next day, that he was going to close out his business. would Mr. Green give him for his stock? Mr. Green looked about him and replied, only half in earnest, Four hundred dollars. The offer was instantly accepted, and the business transferred to Mr. Green. On the following day Lincoln chanced to come in, and being informed of the transaction, proposed that he and Green should invoice the stock, and see how much he had made. They found that it was worth about six hundred dollars, and Lincoln gave Mr. Green a hundred and twenty-five dollars for his bargain, while Green indorsed the notes of Lincoln and one Berry, to Radford for the remaining four hundred. Berry was a thriftless soul, it seems, and after a while the store fell into a chronic decay, and, in the idiom of the region, finally winked out.

Lincoln was moneyless, having previously invested his whole fortune in a surveyor's compass and books, and Berry was uncertain. Young Green was compelled to pay the notes given to Radford. He afterward removed to Tennessee, where he married, and was living

*Mr. W. T. Green, now one of the most influential and wealthy men of his 'part of Illinois.

in forgetfulness of his transaction with Lincoln, when he one day received a letter from that person, stating he was now able to pay back to Green the amount for which he had indorsed. Lincoln was by this time in the practice of the law, and it was with the first earnings of his profession, that he discharged this debt, principal and interest.

The moral need not be insisted on, and this instance is not out of the order of Abraham Lincoln's whole life. That the old neighbors and friends of such a man should regard him with an affection and faith little short of man-worship, is the logical result of a life singularly pure, and an integrity without flaw.

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