 CHAPTER I. ANCESTRY Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks Rock Spring Farm Lincoln's Birth Kentucky Schools The Journey to Indiana Pigeon Creek Settlement Indiana Schools Sally Bush Lincoln Gentryville Work and Books Satires and Sermons Flatboat Voyage to New Orleans The Journey to Illinois Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States, was born in a log cabin in the backwoods of Kentucky on the 12th day of February, 1809. His father, Thomas Lincoln, was sixth indirect line of descent from Samuel Lincoln, who emigrated from England to Massachusetts in 1638. Following the prevailing drift of American settlement, these descendants had, during a century and a half, successively moved from Massachusetts to New Jersey, from New Jersey to Pennsylvania, from Pennsylvania to Virginia, and from Virginia to Kentucky, while collateral branches of the family eventually made homes in other parts of the West. In Pennsylvania and Virginia, some of them had acquired considerable property and local prominence. In the year 1780, Abraham Lincoln, the President's grandfather, was able to pay into the public treasury of Virginia, one hundred and sixty pounds current money, for which he received a warrant directed to the principal surveyor of any county within the commonwealth of Virginia, to lay off in one or more surveys for Abraham Lincoln, his heirs or assigns, the quantity of four hundred acres of land. The error in the spelling of the name was a blunder of the clerk who made out the warrant. With this warrant and his family of five children, Mordecai, Josiah, Mary, Nancy, and Thomas, he moved to Kentucky, then still a county of Virginia, in 1780, and began opening a farm. Four years later, while at work with his three boys in the edge of his clearing, a party of Indians, concealed in the brush, shot and killed him. Josiah, the second son, ran to a neighboring fort for assistance. Mordecai, the eldest, hurried to the cabin for his gun, leaving Thomas, youngest of the family, a child of six years, by his father. Mordecai had just taken down his rifle from its convenient resting-place over the door of the cabin when, turning, he saw an Indian in his war-paint stooping to seize the child. He took quick aim through a loophole, shot and killed the savage, at which the little boy also ran to the house, and from this citadel Mordecai continued firing at the Indians until Josiah brought help from the fort. It was doubtless this misfortune which rapidly changed the circumstances of the family. Kentucky was yet a wild, new country. As compared with later periods of emigration, settlement was slow and pioneer life a hard struggle. So it was probably under the stress of poverty as well as by the marriage of the older children, that the home was gradually broken up, and Thomas Lincoln became, quote, even in childhood, a wandering, laboring boy and grew up literally without education. Before he was grown he passed one year as a hired hand with his uncle Isaac in Wattaga, a branch of the Holston River, unquote. Later he seems to have undertaken to learn the trade of carpenter in the shop of Joseph Hanks in Elizabeth Town. When Thomas Lincoln was about twenty-eight years old he married Nancy Hanks, a niece of his employer near Beechland, in Washington County. She was a good-looking young woman of twenty-three, also from Virginia, and so far superior to her husband in education that she could read and write and taught him how to sign his name. Neither one of the young couple had any money or property, but in those days living was not expensive, and they doubtless considered his trade a sufficient provision for the future. He brought her to a little house in Elizabeth Town where a daughter was born to them the following year. During the next twelve month Thomas Lincoln either grew tired of his carpenter work or found the wages he was able to earn insufficient to meet his growing household expenses. He therefore bought a little farm on the big south fork of Nolan Creek in what was then Hardin, and is now LaRue County, three miles from Hodgensville and thirteen miles from Elizabeth Town. Having no means he of course bought the place on credit. A transaction not so difficult when we remember that in that early day there was plenty of land to be bought for mere promises to pay. Under the disadvantage, however, that farms to be had on these terms were usually of a very poor quality on which energetic or forehanded men did not care to waste their labor. It was a kind of land generally known in the West as Barrens, rolling upland with very thin unproductive soil. Its momentary usefulness was that it was partly cleared and cultivated, that an indifferent cabin stood on it, ready to be occupied, and that it had one specially attractive as well as useful feature. A fine spring of water, prettily situated amid a graceful clump of foliage because of which the place was called Rock Spring Farm. The change of abode was perhaps in some respects an improvement upon Elizabeth Town. To pioneer families in deep poverty, Little Farm offered many more resources than a town lot. Space, wood, water, greens in the spring, berries in the summer, nuts in the autumn, small game everywhere, and they were fully accustomed to the loss of companionship. On this farm, and in this cabin, the future president of the United States was born on the 12th of February, 1809, and here the first four years of his childhood were spent. When Abraham was about four years old, the Lincoln home was changed to a much better farm of 238 acres on Knob Creek, six miles from Hodgensville, bought by Thomas Lincoln, again on credit, for the promise to pay 118 pounds. A year later he conveyed 200 acres of it by deed to a new purchaser. In this new home the family spent four years more, and while here Abraham and his sister Sarah began going to ABC schools. Their first teacher was Zachariah Reiny, who taught near the Lincoln cabin, the next Caleb Hazel, at a distance of about four miles. Thomas Lincoln was evidently one of those easygoing good-natured men who carry the virtue of contentment to an extreme. He appears never to have exerted himself much beyond the attainment of a necessary subsistence. By little farming and occasional jobs at his trade he seems to have supplied his family with food and clothes. There is no record that he made any payment on either of his farms. The fever of westward emigration was in the air and, listening to glowing accounts of rich lands and newer settlements in Indiana, he had neither valuable possessions nor cheerful associations to restrain the natural impulse of every frontiersman to move. In this determination his carpenter's skill served him a good purpose and made the enterprise not only feasible but reasonably cheap. In the fall of 1816 he built himself a small flatboat which he launched at the mouth of Knob Creek, half a mile from his cabin, on the waters of the rolling fork. This stream would float him to Salt River and Salt River to the Ohio. He also thought to combine a little speculation with his undertaking. Part of his personal property he traded for four hundred gallons of whiskey. Then, loading the rest on his boat with his carpenter's tools and the whiskey, he made the voyage, with the help of the current, down the rolling fork to Salt River, down Salt River to the Ohio, and down the Ohio to Thompson's Ferry in Perry County on the Indiana shore. The boat capsized once on the way, but he saved most of the cargo. Sixteen miles out from the river he found a location in the forest which suited him. Since his boat would not float upstream he sold it, left his property with a settler, and trudged back home to Kentucky, all the way on foot, to bring his wife and the two children, Sarah, nine years old, and Abraham, seven. Another son had been born to them some years before, but had died when only three days old. This time the trip to Indiana was made with the aid of two horses, used by the wife and children for riding, and to carry their little equipage for camping at night by the way. In a straight line the distance is about fifty miles, but it was probably doubled by the very few roads it was possible to follow. Having reached the Ohio and crossed to where he had left his goods on the Indiana side, he hired a wagon which carried them and his family the remaining sixteen miles through the forest to the spot he had chosen, which in due time became the Lincoln Farm. It was a piece of heavily timbered land, one and a half miles east of what has since become the village of Gentryville in Spencer County. The lateness of the autumn compelled him to provide a shelter as quickly as possible, and he built what is known on the frontier as a half-faced camp, about fourteen feet square. This structure differed from a cabin in that it was closed on only three sides and opened to the weather on the fourth. It was usual to build the fire in front of the open side, and the necessity of providing a chimney was thus avoided. He doubtless intended it for a mere temporary shelter and, as such, it would have sufficed for good weather in the summer season. But it was a rude provision for the winds and snows of an Indiana winter. It illustrates Thomas Lincoln's want of energy that the family remained housed in this primitive camp for nearly a whole year. He must, however, not be too hastily blamed for his dilatory improvement. It is not likely that he remained altogether idle. A more substantial cabin was probably begun, and, besides, there was the heavy work of clearing away the timber, that is, cutting down the large trees, chopping them into suitable lengths, and rolling them together into great log heaps to be burned, or splitting them into rails to fence the small field upon which he managed to raise a patch of corn and other things during the ensuing summer. Thomas Lincoln's arrival was in the autumn of 1816. That same winter Indiana was admitted to the Union as a state. There were as yet no roads worthy of the name to or from the settlement formed by himself and seven or eight neighbors at various distances. The village of Gentryville was not even begun. There was no sawmill to saw lumber. Breadstuff could be had only by sending young Abraham on horseback seven miles with a bag of corn to be ground on a hand gristmill. In the course of two or three years a road from Corridon to Evansville was laid out running past the Lincoln farm, and, perhaps two or three years afterward, another from Rockport to Bloomington crossing the former. This gave rise to Gentryville. James Gentry entered the land at the crossroads. Gideon Romine opened a small store, and their joint efforts succeeded in getting a post office established from which the village gradually grew. For a year after his arrival Thomas Lincoln remained a mere squatter. Then he entered the quarter section, one hundred and sixty acres, on which he opened his farm, and made some payments on his entry, but only enough in eleven years to obtain a patent for one half of it. About the time that he moved into his new cabin, relatives and friends followed from Kentucky, and as some of them in turn occupied the half-faced camp. In the ensuing autumn much sickness prevailed in the Pigeon Creek settlement. It was thirty miles to the nearest doctor, and several persons died. Among them Nancy Hanks Lincoln, the mother of young Abraham. The mechanical skill of Thomas was called upon to make the coffins, the necessary lumber for which had to be cut with a whipsaw. The death of Mrs. Lincoln was a serious loss to her husband and children. Abraham's sister Sarah was only eleven years old, and the tasks and cares of the little household were altogether too heavy for her years and experience. Nevertheless they struggled on bravely through the winter and next summer. But in the autumn of eighteen-nineteen Thomas Lincoln went back to Kentucky, and married Sally Bush Johnston, whom he had known, and it is said, courted when she was merely Sally Bush. Johnston, to whom she was married about the time Lincoln married Nancy Hanks, had died, leaving her with three children. She came of a better station in life than Thomas and is represented as a woman of uncommon energy and thrift, possessing excellent qualities both of head and heart. The household goods which she brought to the Lincoln home in Indiana filled a four-horse wagon. Not only were her own three children well clothed and cared for, but she was able at once to provide little Abraham and Sarah with home comforts to which they had been strangers during the whole of their young lives. Under her example and urging, Thomas at once supplied the yet unfinished cabin with floor, door, and windows, and existence took on a new aspect for all the inmates. Under her management and control all friction and jealousy was avoided between the two sets of children and contentment, if not happiness, reigned in the little cabin. The new stepmother quickly perceived the superior aptitudes and abilities of Abraham. She became very fond of him and in every way encouraged his market inclination to study and improve himself. The opportunities for this were meager enough. Mr. Lincoln himself has drawn a vivid outline of the situation. Quote, It was a wild region with many bears and other wild animals still in the woods. There I grew up. There were some schools so-called, but no qualification was ever required of a teacher beyond reading, writing, and ciphering to the rule of three. If a straggler supposed to understand Latin happened to sojourn in the neighborhood, he was looked upon as a wizard. There was absolutely nothing to excite ambition for education." As Abraham was only in his eighth year when he left Kentucky, the little beginnings he had learned in the schools kept by Reiney and Hazel in that state must have been very slight, probably only his alphabet or possibly three or four pages of Webster's elementary spelling book. It is likely that the multiplication table was as yet an unfathomed mystery and that he could not write or read more than the words he spelled. There is no record at what date he was able again to go to school in Indiana. Some of his schoolmates think it was in his tenth year or soon after he fell under the care of his stepmother. The school house was a low cabin of round logs, a mile and a half from the Lincoln home with split logs or punchins for a floor, split logs roughly leveled with an axe and set up on legs for benches, and a log cut out of one end and the space filled in with squares of greased paper for window panes. The main light in such primitive halls of learning was admitted by the open door. It was a type of school building common in the early West, in which many estatesmen gained the first rudiments of knowledge. Very often Webster's elementary spelling book was the only text book. Abraham's first Indiana school was probably held five years before Gentryville was located at a store to establish there. Until then it was difficult, if not impossible, to obtain books, slates, pencils, pen, ink and paper, and their use was limited to settlers who had brought them when they came. It is reasonable to infer that the Lincoln family had no such luxuries and, as the Pigeon Creek settlement numbered only eight or ten families, there must have been very few pupils to attend this first school. Nevertheless it is worthy of special note that even under such difficulties and limitations the American thirst for education planted a schoolhouse on the very forefront of every settlement. Abraham's second school in Indiana was held about the time he was fourteen years old and the third in his seventeenth year. By this time he probably had better teachers and increased facilities, though with the disadvantage of having to walk four or five miles to the schoolhouse. He learned to write and was provided with pen, ink and a copybook and probably a very limited supply of writing paper. For facsimiles had been printed of several scraps and fragments upon which he had carefully copied tables, rules and sums from his arithmetic, such as those of long measure, land measure and dry measure, and examples in multiplication and compound division. All this indicates that he pursued his studies with a very unusual purpose and determination, not only to understand them at the moment, but to imprint them indelibly upon his memory and even to regain them in visible form for reference when the schoolbook might no longer be in his hands or possession. Mr. Lincoln has himself written that these three different schools were, quote, kept successively by Andrew Crawford, Swayne and Aisle W. Dorsey, unquote. Other witnesses state the succession somewhat differently. The important fact to be gleaned from what we learn about Mr. Lincoln's schooling is that the instruction gave him by these five different teachers, two in Kentucky and three in Indiana, in short sessions of attendance scattered over a period of nine years, made up in all less than a twelve-month. He said of it in 1860, quote, Abraham now thinks that the aggregate of all his schooling did not amount to one year. This distribution of the tuition he received was doubtless an advantage. Had it all been given him at his first school in Indiana, it would probably not have carried him half through Webster's elementary spelling book. The lazy or indifferent pupils who were his schoolmates doubtless forgot what was taught them at one time, before they had opportunity at another. But to the exceptional character of Abraham, these widely separated fragments of instruction were precious steps to self-help, of which he made on remitting use. It is the concurrent testimony of his early companions that he employed all his spare moments in keeping on with some one of his studies. His stepmother says, Abrete diligently he read every book he could lay his hands on, and when he came across a passage that struck him, he would write it down on boards, if he had no paper, and keep it there until he did get paper. Then he would rewrite it, look at it, repeat it. He had a copy-book, a kind of scrap-book in which he put down all things, and thus preserved them. There is no mention that either he or other pupils had slates and slate pencils to use at school or at home, but he found a ready substitute in pieces of board. It is stated that he occupied his long evenings at home doing sums on the fire-shovel. Iron fire-shovels were a rarity among pioneers. They used, instead, a broad, thin, clappard, with one end narrowed to a handle. In cooking by the open fire, this domestic implement was of the first necessity to arrange piles of live coals on the hearth over which they set their skillet and oven upon the lids of which live coals were also heaped. Upon such a wooden shovel, Abraham was able to work his sums by the flickering fire-light. If he had no pencil, he could use charcoal and probably did so. When it was covered with figures he would take a drawing-knife, shave it off clean, and begin again. Under these various disadvantages and by the help of such troublesome expedience, Abraham Lincoln worked his way to so much of an education as placed him far ahead of his schoolmates and quickly abreast of the acquirements of his various teachers. The feel from which he could glean knowledge was very limited, though he diligently borrowed every book in the neighborhood. This list is a short one. Robertson Crusoe, Aseps Fables, Bunyan's Pilgrims Progress, Weems Life of Washington, and A History of the United States. When he had exhausted other books, he even resolutely attacked the revised statutes of Indiana which Dave Turnham, the constable, had in daily use and permitted him to come to his house and read. It needs to be borne in mind that all this effort at self-education extended from first to last over a period of twelve or thirteen years during which he was also performing hard manual labor and proves a degree of steady, unflinching perseverance in a line of conduct that brings into strong relief a high aim and the consciousness of abundant intellectual power. He was not permitted to forget that he was on an uphill path, a stern struggle with adversity. The leisure hours which he was able to devote to his reading, his penmanship, and his arithmetic were by no means overabundant. Writing of his father's removal from Kentucky to Indiana he says, He settled in an unbroken forest, and the clearing away of surplus wood was the great task ahead. Abraham, though very young, was large of his age and had an axe put it to his hands at once. And from that, to within his twenty-third year, he was almost constantly handling that most useful instrument, less, of course, in plowing and harvesting seasons. John Hanks mentions the character of his work a little more in detail. Quote, He and I worked barefoot, grubbed it, plowed, mowed, and cradled together, plowed corn, gathered it, and shucked corn. The sum of it all is that from his boyhood until after he was of age, most of his time was spent in the hard and varied muscular labor of the farm and the forest, sometimes on his father's place, sometimes as a hired hand for other pioneers. In this very useful but common place occupation he had, however, one advantage. He was not only very early in his life a tall, strong country boy, but as he grew up he soon became a tall, strong, sinewy man. He early attained the unusual height of six feet four inches, with arms of proportionate length. This gave him a degree of power and facility as an ax-man which few had or were able to acquire. He was therefore usually able to lead his fellows in efforts of both muscle and mind. He performed the task of his daily labor and mastered the lessons of his scanty schooling with an ease and rapidity they were unable to attain. Twice during his life in Indiana this ordinary routine was somewhat varied. When he was sixteen, while working for a man who lived at the mouth of Anderson's Creek, it was part of his duty to manage a ferry boat which transported passengers across the Ohio River. It was doubtless this which three years later brought him a new experience, that he himself related in these words. When he was nineteen, still residing in Indiana, he made his first trip upon a flat boat to New Orleans. He was a hired hand merely and he and a son of the owner without other assistance made the trip. The nature of part of the cargo-load, as it was called, made it necessary for them to linger and trade along the Sugar Coast, and one night they were attacked by seven Negroes with intent to kill and rob them. They were hurt some in the melee, but succeeded in driving the Negroes from the boat and then cut cable, weighed anchor, and left. This commercial enterprise was set on foot by Mr. Gentry, the founder of Gentryville. The affair shows us that Abraham had gained an enviable standing in the village as a man of honesty, skill, and judgment, one who could be depended on to meet such emergencies as might arise in selling their bacon and other produce to the cotton planters along the shores of the lower Mississippi. By this time Abraham's education was well advanced. His handwriting, his arithmetic, and his general intelligence were so good that he had occasionally been employed to help at the Gentryville store, and Gentry thus knew by personal test that he was entirely capable of assisting his son Alan in the trading expedition to New Orleans. For Abraham, on the other hand, it was an event which must have opened up wide vistas of future hope and ambition. Alan Gentry probably was nominal supercargo and steersman, but we may easily surmise that Lincoln, as the bow-or, carried his full half of general responsibility. For this service the elder Gentry paid him eight dollars a month and his passage home on a steamboat. It was the future president's first eager look into the wide, wide world. Abraham's devotion to his books and his sums stands forth in more striking light from the fact that his habits differed from those of most frontier boys in one important particular. Almost every youth of the backwoods early became a habitual hunter and superior marksman. The Indiana woods were yet swarming with game, and the larder of every cabin depended largely upon this great storehouse of wild meat. The Pigeon Creek settlement was especially fortunate on this point. There was in the neighborhood of the Lincoln home what was known in the west as a deer lick, that is, there existed a feeble salt spring which impregnated the soil in its vicinity or created little pools of brackish water, and various kinds of animals, particularly deer, resorted there to satisfy their natural craving for salt by drinking from these or licking the moist earth. Hunters took advantage of this habit, and one of their common customs was to watch in the dusk or at night and secure the reproaching prey by an easy shot. Skill with a rifle and success of the chase were points of friendly emulation. In many localities the boy or youth who shot a squirrel in any part of the animal except its head became the butt of the jests of his companions and elders. Yet under such conditions and opportunities Abraham was neither a hunter nor a marksman. He tells us. A few days before the completion of his eighth year in the absence of his father a flock of wild turkeys approached the new law cabin and Abraham with a rifle gun standing inside shot through a crack and killed one of them. He has never since pulled a trigger on any larger game. The hours which other boys spent in roaming the woods or lying in ambush at the deer-lick he preferred to devote to his effort at mental improvement. It can hardly be claimed that he did this from calculating ambition. It was a native intellectual thirst, the significance of which he did not himself yet understand. Such exceptional characteristics manifested themselves only in a few matters. In most particulars he grew up as the ordinary backwards boy develops into the youth and man. As he was subjected to their usual labours so also he was limited to their usual pastimes and enjoyments. The varied amusements common to our day were not within their reach. The period of the circus, the political speech and the itinerant show had not yet come. Schools as we have seen and probably meetings or church services were irregular, to be had only at long intervals. Primitive athletic games and commonplace talk enlivened by frontier jests and stories formed the sum of social intercourse when half a dozen or a score of settlers of various ages came together at a house-raising or corn-husking or when mere chance brought them at the same time to the post-office or the country store. On these occasions, however, Abraham was, according to his age, always able to contribute his full share or more. Most of his natural aptitudes equipped him especially to play his part well. He had quick intelligence, ready sympathy, a cheerful temperament, a kindling humour, a generous and helpful spirit. He was both a ready talker and appreciative listener. By virtue of his tall stature and unusual strength of sinew and muscle, he was from the beginning a leader in all athletic games. By reason of his studious habits and his extraordinarily retentive memory, he quickly became the best storyteller among his companions. Even the slight training he gained from his studies greatly quickened his perceptions and broadened and steadied the strong reasoning faculty with which nature had endowed him. As the years of his youth passed by, his less gifted comrades learned to accept his judgments and to welcome his power to entertain and instruct them. On his own part he gradually learned to write not merely with the hand, but also with the mind, to think. It was an easy transition for him from remembering the jingle of a common-placed rhyme to the constructing of a doggerel verse, and he did not neglect the opportunity of practicing his penmanship in such impromptu's. Tradition also relates that he added to his list of stories and jokes humorous imitations from the sermons of eccentric preachers. But tradition has very likely both magnified and distorted these alleged exploits of his satire and mimicry. All that can be said of them is that his youth was marked by intellectual activity far beyond that of his companions. It is an interesting coincidence that nine days before the birth of Abraham Lincoln Congress passed the act to organize the territory of Illinois, which his future life and career were destined to render so illustrious. Another interesting coincidence may be found in the fact that in the same year, 1818, in which Congress definitely fixed the number of stars and stripes in the national flag, Illinois was admitted as a state to the union. The star of empire was moving westward at an accelerating speed. Alabama was admitted in 1819, Maine in 1820, Missouri in 1821. Little by little the line of frontier settlement was pushing itself toward the Mississippi. No sooner had the pioneer built him a cabin and opened his little farm than during every summer canvas-covered wagons wound their toilsome way over the new-made roads into the newer wilderness, while his eyes followed them with wistful eagerness. Thomas Lincoln and his Pigeon Creek relatives and neighbors could not forever withstand the contagion of this example, and at length they yielded it to the irrepressible longing by a common impulse. Mr. Lincoln writes. March 1, 1830, Abraham having just completed his twenty-first year, his father and family with the families of the two daughters and sons-in-law of his stepmother, left the old homestead in Indiana and came to Illinois. Their mode of conveyance was wagons drawn by ox-teams, and Abraham drove one of the teams. They reached the county of Macon and stopped there some time within the same month of March. His father and family settled a new place on the north side of the Sangamon River at the junction of the Timberland in Prairie about ten miles westerly from Decatur. Here they built a log cabin into which they removed and made sufficient of rails to fence ten acres of ground, fenced and broke the ground, and raised a crop of sown corn upon it the same year. The sons-in-law were temporarily settled in other places in the county. In the autumn all hands were greatly afflicted with egg and fever to which they had not been used, and by which they were greatly discouraged so much so that they determined on leaving the county. They remained, however, through the succeeding winter which was the winter of the very celebrated deep snow of Illinois. CHAPTER II. OF A SHORT LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINKEN. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by John Leader. A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln. By John G. Nicolet. CHAPTER II. FLAT BOAT. New Salem. Election Clerk. Store and Mill. Kirkham's Grammar. Sangamo Journal. The Talisman. Lincoln's Address. March 9, 1832. Black Hawk War. Lincoln Elected Captain. Mustered Out. May 27, 1832. Re-enlisted in Independent Spy Battalion. Finally Mustered Out. June 16, 1832. Defeated for the Legislature. Blacksmith or Lawyer. The Lincoln Berry Store. Appointed Postmaster. May 7, 1833. NATIONAL POLITICS. The life of Abraham Lincoln, or that part of it which will interest readers for all future time, properly begins in March, 1831, after the winter of the deep snow. According to Frontier Custom, being then twenty-one years old, he left his father's cabin to make his own fortune in the world. A man named Denton Offit, one of a class of local traders and speculators usually found about early Western settlements, had probably heard something of young Lincoln's Indiana history, particularly that he had made a voyage on a flatboat from Indiana to New Orleans, and that he was strong, active, honest, and generally, as would be expressed in Western phrase, a smart young fellow. He was therefore just the sort of man Offit needed for one of his trading enterprises, and Mr. Lincoln himself relates somewhat in detail how Offit engaged him and the beginning of the venture. Quote, Abraham, together with his stepmother's son, John D. Johnston, and John Hanks, yet residing in Macon County, hired themselves to Denton Offit to make a flatboat from Beards Town, Illinois, on the Illinois River, to New Orleans, and for that purpose, were to join him, Offit, at Springfield, Illinois, so soon as the snow should go off. When it did go off, which was about the first of March, 1831, the county was so flooded as to make traveling by land impractical, to obviate which difficulty they purchased a large canoe, and came down the Sangamon River in it. This is the time and the manner of Abraham's first entrance into Sangamon County. They found Offit at Springfield, but learned from him that he had failed in getting a boat at Beards Town. This led to their hiring themselves to him for twelve dollars per month each, and getting the timber out of the trees and building a boat at Old Sangamon Town on the Sangamon River, seven miles northwest of Springfield, which boat they took to New Orleans substantially upon the old contract. It needs here to be recalled that Lincoln's father was a carpenter, and that Abraham had no doubt acquired considerable skill in the use of tools during his boyhood, and had a practical knowledge of the construction of flat boats during his previous New Orleans trip, sufficient to enable him with confidence to undertake this task in shipbuilding. From the after history of both Johnston and Hanks, we know that neither of them was gifted with skill or industry, and it becomes clear that Lincoln was from the first leader of the party, master of construction, and captain of the craft. Which took some time to build the boat, and before it was finished, the Sangamon River had fallen, so that the new craft stuck midway across the dam at Rutledge's Mill at New Salem, a village of fifteen or twenty houses. The inhabitants came down to the bank and exhibited great interest in the fate of the boat, which, with its bow in the air and its stern underwater, was half bird and half fish, and they probably justingly inquired of the young captain whether he expected to dive or to fly to New Orleans. He was, however, equal to the occasion. He bored a hole in the bottom of the boat at the bow, and rigged some sort of lever or derrick to lift the stern so that the water she had taken in behind ran out in front, enabling her to float over the partly submerged dam, and this feat in turn caused great wonderment in the crowd at the novel expedient of bailing a boat by boring a hole in her bottom. This exploit of naval engineering fully established Lincoln's fame at New Salem, and grounded him so firmly in the esteem of his employer Offit that the latter, already looking forward to his future usefulness, at once engaged him to come back to New Salem after his New Orleans voyage to act as his clerk in a store. Once over the dam and her cargo reloaded, partly there and partly at Beardstown, the boat safely made the remainder of her voyage to New Orleans, and returning by steamer to St. Louis, Lincoln and Johnston, Hanks had turned back from St. Louis, continued on foot to Illinois, Johnston remaining at the family home, which had meanwhile been removed from Macon to Coles County, and Lincoln going to his employer and friends at New Salem. This was in July or August 1831. Neither Offit nor his goods had yet arrived, and during his waiting he had a chance to show the New Salemites another accomplishment. An election was to be held, and one of the clerks was sick and failed to come. Scribes were not plenty on the frontier, and mentor Graham, the clerk who was present, looking around for a properly qualified colleague, noticed Lincoln and asked him if he could write, to which he answered in local idiom that he could make a few rabbit tracks, and was thereupon immediately inducted into his first office. He performed his duties not only to the general satisfaction, but so as to interest Graham, who was a schoolmaster, and afterward made himself very useful to Lincoln. Offit finally arrived with a miscellaneous lot of goods, which Lincoln opened and put in order in a room that a former New Salem storekeeper was just ready to vacate, and whose remnant stock Offit also purchased. Trade was evidently not brisk at New Salem, for the commercial zeal of Offit led him to increase his venture by renting the Rutledge and Cameron Mill, on whose historic dam the flatboat had stuck. For a while the charge of the mill was added to Lincoln's duties, until another clerk was engaged to help him. There was likewise good evidence that in addition to his duties at the store and the mill, Lincoln made himself generally useful. That he cut down trees and split rails enough to make a large hog-pin adjoining the mill, a proceeding quite natural, when we remember that his hitherto active life and still growing muscles imperatively demanded the exercise which measuring calico or weighing out sugar and coffee failed to supply. We know from other incidents that he was possessed of ample bodily strength. In frontier life it is not only needed for useful labor of many kinds, but is also called upon to aid in popular amusement. There was a settlement in the neighborhood of New Salem called Clary's Grove, where lived a group of restless, rollicking back woodsmen with a strong liking for various forms of frontier athletics and rough, practical jokes. In the progress of American settlement there has always been a time, whether the frontier was in New England or Pennsylvania or Kentucky or on the banks of the Mississippi, when the champion wrestler held some fraction of the public consideration accorded to the victor in the Olympic games of Greece. Until Lincoln came, Jack Armstrong was the champion wrestler of Clary's Grove and New Salem, and picturesque stories are told how the neighborhood talk, inflamed by Offit's fulsome laudation of his clerk, made Jack Armstrong feel that his fame was in danger. Lincoln put off the encounter as long as he could, and when the wrestling match finally came off neither could throw the other. The bystanders became satisfied that they were equally matched in strength and skill, and the cool courage which Lincoln manifested throughout the ordeal prevented the usual close of such incidents with a fight. Instead of becoming chronic enemies and leaders of a neighborhood feud, Lincoln's self-possession and good temper turned the contest into the beginning of a warm and lasting friendship. If Lincoln's muscles were at times hungry for work, no less so was his mind. He was already instinctively feeling his way to his destiny when, in conversation with mentor Graham, the schoolmaster, he indicated his desire to use some of his spare moments to increase his education, and confided to him his notion to study English grammar. It was entirely in the nature of things that Graham should encourage this mental craving and tell him, quote, if you expect to go before the public in any capacity, I think it's the best thing you can do. Lincoln said that if he had a grammar he would begin it once. Graham was obliged to confess that there was no such book at New Salem, but remembered that there was one at Vayner's, six miles away. Properly after breakfast the next morning, Lincoln walked to Vayner's and procured the precious volume, and, probably with Graham's occasional help, found no great difficulty in mastering its contents. While tradition does not mention any other study begun at that time, we may fairly infer that, slight as may have been Graham's education, he must have had other books from which, together with his friendly advice, Lincoln's intellectual hunger derived further stimulus and nourishment. In his duties at the store and his work at the mill, in his study of Kirkham's grammar and educational conversations with mentor Graham, in the somewhat rude but frank and hearty companionship of the citizens of New Salem and the exuberant boys of Clary's Grove, Lincoln's life for the second half of the year 1831, appears not to have been eventful, but was doubtless, more comfortable, and as interesting as had been his flatboat building and New Orleans voyage during the first half. He was busy and useful labor, and, though he had few chances to pick up scraps of schooling, was beginning to read deeply in that book of human nature, the profound knowledge of which rendered him such immense service in after years. The restlessness and ambition of the village of New Salem was many times multiplied in the restlessness and ambition of Springfield, fifteen or twenty miles away, which, located approximately near the geographical center of Illinois, was already beginning to crave, if not yet to feel, its future destiny as the capital of the state. In November of the same year that aspiring town produced the first number of its weekly newspaper, the Sangamo Journal, and in its columns we begin to find recorded historical data. Situated in a region of alternating spaces of prairie and forest, of attractive natural scenery and rich soil, it was nevertheless at a great disadvantage in the means of commercial transportation. Lying sixty miles from Beardstown, the nearest landing on the Illinois River, the peculiarities of soil, climate, and primitive roads rendered a travel and land carriage extremely difficult, often entirely impossible for nearly half of every year. The very first number of the Sangamo Journal sounded its strongest note on the then leading tenant of the Whig Party, internal improvements by the general government, and active politics to secure them. In later numbers we learned that a regular eastern mail had not been received for three weeks. The tide of immigration, which was pouring into Illinois, is illustrated in a tabular statement on the commerce of the Illinois River, showing that the steamboat arrivals at Beardstown had risen from one each in the years 1828 and 1829, and only four in 1830 to 32 during the year 1831. This naturally directed the thoughts of travelers and traders to some better means of reaching the river landing than the frozen or muddy roads and impassable creeks and sloths of winter and spring. The use of the Sangaman River, flowing within five miles of Springfield, and emptying itself into the Illinois, ten or fifteen miles from Beardstown, seemed for the present the only solution of the problem, and a public meeting was called to discuss the project. The deep snows of the winter of 1830 and 31 abundantly filled the channels of that stream, and the winter of 1831 and 32 substantially repeated its swelling floods. Newcomers in that region were therefore warranted in drawing the inference that it might remain navigable for small craft. Public interest on the topic was greatly heightened when one Captain Bogue, commanding a small steamer than at Cincinnati, printed a letter in the Journal of January 26, 1832 saying, quote, I intend to try to ascend the river Sangamo, immediately on the breaking up of the ice, end of quote. It was well understood that the chief difficulty would be that the short turns in the channels were liable to be obstructed by a gorge of driftwood and the limbs and trunks of overhanging trees. To provide for this, Captain Bogue's letter added, quote, I should be met at the mouth of the river by ten or twelve men, having axes with long handles under the direction of some experienced man. I shall deliver freight from St. Louis at the landing on the Sangamo River opposite the town of Springfield for thirty-seven and a half cents per hundred pounds. End of quote. The Journal of February 16 contained an advertisement that the splendid upper cabin steamer talisman would leave for Springfield and the paper of March 1 announced her arrival at St. Louis on the twenty-second of February with a full cargo. In due time the citizen committee appointed by the public meeting met the talisman at the mouth of the Sangamo River and the Journal of March 29 announced with great flourish that the steamboat talisman of one hundred and fifty tons burden arrived at the Portland landing opposite this town on Saturday last. There was great local rejoicing over this demonstration that the Sangamo River was really navigable and the Journal proclaimed with exaltation that Springfield could no longer be considered an inland town. President Jackson's first term was nearing its close and the Democratic Party was preparing to reelect him. The Whigs on their part had held their first national convention in December 1831 and nominated Henry Clay to dispute the succession. This nomination made almost a year in advance of the election indicates an unusual degree of political activity in the east and voters in the new state of Illinois were fired with an equal party zeal. During the months of January and February 1832 no less than six citizens of Sangamo County announced themselves in the Sangamo Journal as candidates for the state legislature. The election for which was not to occur until August and the Journal of March 15 printed a long letter addressed to the people of Sangamo County under date of the 9th signed a Lincoln and beginning quote fellow citizens having become a candidate for the honorable office of one of your representatives in the next General Assembly of this state in accordance with an established custom and the principles of true republicanism it becomes my duty to make known to you the people whom I propose to represent my sentiments with regard to local affairs end of quote he then takes up and discusses in an imminently methodical and practical way the absorbing topic of the moment the Whig doctrine of internal improvements and his local application the improvement of the Sangaman River he mentions that meetings have been held to propose the construction of a railroad and frankly acknowledges that quote no other improvement that reason will justify us in hoping for can equal in utility the railroad end of quote but contends that its enormous cost precludes any such hope that therefore quote the improvement of the Sangaman River is an object much better suited to our infant resources end of quote relating his experience in building and navigating his flat boat and his observation of the stage of the water since then he draws the very plausible conclusion that by straightening its channel and clearing away its driftwood the stream can be made navigable quote to vessels of from twenty five to thirty tons burden for at least one half of all common years and to vessels of much greater burden a part of the time end of quote his letter very modestly touches a few other points of needed legislation a law against usury laws to promote education and amendments to estre and road laws the main interest for us however is in the frank avowal of his personal ambition quote every man is said to have his peculiar ambition whether it be true or not i can say for one that i have no other so great is that of being truly esteemed of my fellow men by rendering myself worthy of their esteem how far i shall succeed in gratifying this ambition is yet to be developed i am young and unknown to many of you i was born and have ever remained in the most humble walks of life i have no wealthy or popular relations or friends to recommend me my case is thrown exclusively upon the independent voters of the country and if elected they will have conferred a favor upon me for which i shall be unremitting in my labors to compensate but if the good people in their wisdom shall see fit to keep me in the background i have been too familiar with disappointments to be very much chagrined end of quote this written and printed address gives us an accurate measure of the man and the time when he wrote to this document he was 23 years old he had been in the town and county only about nine months of actual time as sangamon county covered an estimated area of 2160 square miles he could know but little of either it or its people how dared a friendless uneducated boy working on a flat boat at $12 a month with no wealthy or popular friends to recommend him aspire to the honors and responsibilities of the legislator the only answer is that he was prompted by that intuition of genius that consciousness of powers which justify their claims by their achievements when we scan the circumstances more closely we find distinct evidence of some reason for his confidence relatively speaking he was neither uneducated nor friendless his requirements were already far beyond the simple elements of reading writing and ciphering he wrote a good clear serviceable hand he could talk well and reason cogently the simple manly style of his printed address fully equals in literary ability that of the average collegian in the twenties his migration from indiana to illinois and his two voyages to norlands had given him a glimpse of the outside world his natural logic readily grasped the significance of the railroad as a new factor in transportation although the first american locomotive had been built only one year and 10 to 15 years were yet to elapse before the first railroad train was to run in illinois one other motive probably had its influence he tells us that off its business was failing and his quick judgment warned him that he would soon be out of a job as clerk this however could be only a secondary reason for announcing himself as a candidate for the election was not to occur till august and even if he were elected there would be neither service nor salary till the coming winter his venture into politics must therefore be ascribed to the feeling which he so frankly announced in his letter his ambition to become useful to his fellow men the impulse that throughout history has singled out the great leaders of mankind in this particular instance a crisis was also at hand calculated to develop and utilize the impulse just about a month after the publication of linkedin's announcement the sangamo journal of april 19 printed an official call from governor reynolds directed to general neal of the illinois militia to organize 600 volunteers of his brigade for military service in a campaign against the indians under blackhawk the war chief of the sacks who in defiance of treaties and promises had formed a combination with other tribes during the winter and had now crossed back from the west to the east side of the mississippi river with the determination to reoccupy their old homes in the rock river country toward the northern end of the state in the memoranda which mr lincoln furnished for a campaign biography he thus relates what followed the call for troops quote abraham joined a volunteer company and to his own surprise was elected captain of it he says he has not since had any success in life which gave him so much satisfaction he went to the campaign served near three months met the ordinary hardships of such an expedition but was in no battle end of quote official documents furnish some further interesting details as already said the call was printed in the sangamo journal of april 19 on april 21 the company was organized at richland singham and county and on april 28 was inspected and mustered into service at beardstown and attached to colonel samuel tomson's regiment the fourth illinois mounted volunteers they marched at once to the hostile frontier as the campaign shaped itself it probably became evident to the company that they were not likely to meet any serious fighting and not having been enlisted for any stated period they became clamorous to return home the governor therefore had them and other companies mustered out of service at the mouth of fox river on may 27 not however wishing to weaken his forces before the arrival of new levies already on the way he called for volunteers to remain 20 days longer lincoln had gone to the frontier to perform real service not merely to enjoy military rank or reap military glory on the same day therefore on which he was mustered out as captain he re-enlisted and became private lincoln in captain aisles' company of mounted volunteers organized apparently principally for scouting service and sometimes called the independent spy battalion among the other officers who imitated this patriotic example were general whiteside and major john t steward lincoln's later law partner the independent spy battalion having faithfully performed its new term of service was finally mustered out on june 16 1832 lincoln and his messmate george m harrison had the misfortune to have their horses stolen the day before but harrison relates quote i laughed at our fate and he joked at it and we all started off merrily the generous men of our company walked and rode by turns with us and we fared about equal with the rest but for this generosity our legs would have had to do the better work for in that day this dreary route furnished no horses to buy or to steal and whether on horse or a foot we always had company for many of the horses backs were too sore for riding end of quote lincoln must have reached home about august 1 for the election was to occur in the second week of that month and this left him but 10 days in which to push his claims for popular endorsement his friends however had been doing manful duty for him during his three months absence and he lost nothing in public estimation by his prompt enlistment to defend the frontier successive announcements in the journal had by this time swelled the list of candidates to 13 but sangham and county was entitled to only four representatives and when the returns came in lincoln was among those defeated nevertheless he made a very respectable showing in the race the list of successful and unsuccessful aspirants and their votes was as follows ed taylor one thousand one hundred and twenty seven john t steward nine hundred and ninety one achilles morris nine hundred and forty five peter cartwright eight hundred and fifteen under the plurality rule these four had been elected the unsuccessful candidates were a g herndon eight hundred and six w carpenter seven hundred and seventy four j dawson seven hundred and seventeen a lincoln six hundred and fifty seven t m neil five hundred and seventy one r quintan four hundred and eighty five z peter two hundred and fourteen e robinson a hundred and sixty nine kirk patrick forty four the returns show that the total vote of the county was about twenty one hundred and sixty eight comparing this with the vote cast for lincoln we see that he received nearly one-third of the total county vote notwithstanding his absence from the canvas notwithstanding the fact that his acquaintanceship was limited to the neighborhood of new salem notwithstanding the sharp competition indeed his talent and fitness for active practical politics were demonstrated beyond question by the result in his home precinct of new salem which though he ran as a wig gave two hundred and seventy seven votes for him and only three against him three months later it gave one hundred and eighty five for the jackson and only seventy for the clay electors proving lincoln's personal popularity he remembered for the remainder of his life with great pride that this was the only time he was ever beaten on a direct vote of the people the result of the election brought him to one of the serious crises of his life which he forcibly stated in after years in the following written words quote he was now without means and out of business but was anxious to remain with his friends who had treated him with so much generosity especially as he had nothing elsewhere to go to he studied what he should do thought of learning the blacksmith trade thought of trying to study law rather thought he could not succeed at that without a better education end of quote the perplexing problem between inclination and means to follow it the struggle between conscious talent and their restraining fetters of poverty has come to millions of young americans before and since but perhaps to none with a sharper trial of spirit or more resolute patience before he had definitely resolved upon either career chance served not to solve but to postpone his difficulty and in the end to greatly increase it new Salem which apparently never had any good reason for becoming a town seems already at that time to have entered on the road to rapid decay off its speculations had failed and he had disappeared the brothers Herndon who had opened a new store found business dull and uncompromising becoming tired of their undertaking they offered to sell out to Lincoln and Barry on credit and took their promissory notes and payment the new partners in that excess of hope which usually attends all new ventures also bought two other similar establishments that were in extremity and for these likewise gave their notes it is evident that the confidence which Lincoln had inspired while he was a clerk in offered store and the enthusiastic support he had received as a candidate were the basis of credit that sustained these several commercial transactions it turned out in the long run that Lincoln's credit and the popular confidence that supported it was valuable both to his creditors and himself as if the sums which stood over his signature had been gold coin in a solvent bank but this transmutation was not attained until he had passed through a very furnace of financial embarrassment Barry proved a worthless partner and the business is sorry failure seeing this Lincoln and Barry sold out again on credit to the Trent brothers who soon broke up and ran away Barry also departed and died and finally all the notes came back upon Lincoln for payment he was unable to meet these obligations but he did the next best thing he remained promised to pay when he could and most of his creditors maintaining their confidence in his integrity patiently bided their time till in the course of long years he fully justified it by paying with interest every cent of what he learned to call in humorous satire upon his own folly the national debt with one of them he was not so fortunate van bergen who bought one of the Lincoln Barry notes obtained judgment and by peremptory sale swept away the horse saddle and surveying instruments with the daily use of which Lincoln quote procured bread and kept body and sold together unquote to use his own words but here again Lincoln's recognized honesty was his safety out of personal friendship James short bought the property and restored it to the young surveyor giving him time to repay it was not until his return from Congress 17 years after the purchase of the store that he finally relieved himself of the last installments of his national debt but by the 17 years of sober industry rigid economy and unflinching faith to his obligations he earned the title of honest old Abe which proved of greater service to himself and his country than if he had gained the wealth of Croesus out of this ill-starred commercial speculation however Lincoln derived one incidental benefit and it may be said it became the determining factor in his career it is evident from his own language that he underwent a severe mental struggle and deciding whether he would become a blacksmith or a lawyer and taking a middle course and trying to become a merchant he probably kept the latter choice strongly in view it seems well established by local tradition that during the period while the Lincoln Barry store was running its four doomed course from bad to worse Lincoln employed all the time he could spare from his customers and he probably had many leisure hours in reading and studying of various kinds this habit was greatly stimulated and assisted by his being appointed May 7th 1833 Postmaster at New Salem which office he continued to hold until May 30th 1836 when New Salem partially disappeared and the office was removed to Petersburg the influences which brought about the selection of Lincoln were not recorded but it is suggested that he had acted for some time as deputy postmaster under the former incumbent and thus became the natural successor evidently his politics formed no objection as New Salem precinct had at the August election when he ran as a wig given him its almost solid vote for representative notwithstanding the fact that it was more than two-thirds democratic the postmaster ship increased his public consideration and authority broadened his business experience and the newspapers he handled provided him an abundance of reading matter on topics of both local and national importance up to the latest dates those were stirring times even on the frontier the Sangamo Journal of December 30 1832 printed Jackson's nullification proclamation the same paper of March 9 1833 contained an editorial on Clay's compromise and that of the 16th had a notice of the great nullification debate in congress the speeches of Clay Calhoud and Webster were published in full during the following month and Mr. Lincoln could not well help reading them and joining in the feelings and comments they provoked while the town of New Salem was locally dying the county of Sangaman and the state of Illinois were having what is now called a boom other wide awake newspapers such as the Missouri Republican and Louisville Journal abounded in notices of the establishment of new stage lines and the general rush of immigration but the joyous dream of the New Salemites that the Sangaman River would become a commercial highway quickly faded the talisman was obliged to hurry back down the rapidly falling stream tearing away a portion of the famous dam to permit her departure there were rumors that another steamer the silt would establish regular trips between Springfield and Beardstown but she never came the freshets and floods of 1831 and 1832 were succeeded by a series of dry seasons and the navigation of the Sangaman River was never afterward a telling plank in the county platform of either political party end of chapter 2 recording by John leader Bloomington Illinois chapter 3 of a short life of Abraham Lincoln this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Leon Meyer a short life of Abraham Lincoln by John G. Nicolay chapter 3 appointed deputy surveyor elected to legislature in 1834 campaign issues begin study of law internal improvement system the Lincoln Stone protest candidate for speaker in 1838 and 1840 when Lincoln was appointed postmaster in May 1833 the Lincoln Berry Store had not yet completely winked out to use his own picturesque phrase when at length he ceased to be a merchant he yet remained a government official a man of consideration and authority who still had a responsible occupation and definite home where he could read write and study the proceeds of his office were doubtless very meager but in that day when the rate of postage on letters was still 25 cents a little change now and then came into his hands which in the scarcity of money prevailing on the frontier had an importance difficult for us to appreciate his positions as candidate for the legislature and as postmaster probably had much to do in bringing him another piece of good fortune in the rapid settlement of Illinois in Sangamon County and the obtaining titles to farms by purchase or preemption as well as in the locating and opening of new roads the county surveyor had more work on his hands than he could perform throughout a county extending 40 miles east and west and 50 north and south and was compelled to appoint deputies to assist him the name of the county surveyor was John Calhoun recognized by all his contemporaries in Sangamon as a man of education and talent and an aspiring democratic politician it was not an easy matter for Calhoun to find properly qualified deputies and when he became acquainted with Lincoln and learned his attainments and aptitudes and the estimation in which he was held by the people of New Salem he wisely concluded to utilize his talents in standing notwithstanding their difference in politics the incident is thus recorded by Lincoln quote the surveyor of Sangamon offered to depute to Abraham that portion of his work which was within his part of the county he accepted procured a compass and chain studied flint and Gibson a little and went at it this procured bread and kept soul and body together unquote tradition has it that Calhoun not only gave him the appointment but lent him the book in which to study the art which he accomplished in a period of six weeks aided by the schoolmaster mentor Graham the exact period of this increase in knowledge and business capacity is not recorded but it must have taken place in the summer of 1833 as there exists a certificate of survey in Lincoln's handwriting signed J Calhoun SSC by A. Lincoln dated January 14th 1834 before June of that year he had surveyed and located a public road from quote quote music's ferry on Salt Creek via New Salem to the county line in the direction to Jacksonville unquote 26 miles and 70 chains in length the exact course of which survey with detailed bearings and distances was drawn on common white letter paper pasted in a long slip to a scale of two inches to the mile in ordinary yet clear and distinct penmanship the compensation he received for this service was three dollars per day for five days and two dollars and fifty cents for making the plat and report an advertisement in the journal shows that the regular fees of another deputy were quote two dollars per day or one dollar per lot of eight acres or less and fifty cents for a single line with ten cents per mile for traveling while this class of work and his post-offits with its emoluments probably amply supplied his board lodging and clothing it left him no surplus with which to pay his debts for it was in the latter part of the same year 1834 that van burgen caused his horse and surveying instruments to be sold under the hammer as already related meanwhile amid these fluctuations of good and bad luck Lincoln maintained his equanimity his steady persevering industry and his hopeful ambition and confidence in the future through all his misfortunes and his failures he preserved his self-respect and his determination to succeed two years had nearly elapsed since he was defeated for the legislature and having received so flattering a vote on that occasion it was entirely natural that he should determine to try a second chance four new representatives were to be chosen at the august election of 1834 and near the end of april Lincoln published his announcement that he would again be a candidate he could certainly view his expectations in every way in a more hopeful light his knowledge had increased his experience broadened his acquaintanceship greatly increased his talents were acknowledged his ability recognized he was postmaster and deputy surveyor he had become a public character whose services were in demand as compared with the majority of his neighbors he was a man of learning who had seen the world greater however than all these advantages his sympathetic kindness of heart his sincere open frankness his sturdy unshrinking honesty and that inborn sense of justice that yielded to no influence made up a nobility of character and bearing that impressed the rude frontiersmen as much as if not more quickly and deeply then it would have done the most polished and erudite society beginning his campaign in april he had three full months before him for electioneering and he evidently used the time to good advantage the pursuit of popularity probably consisted mainly of the same methods that in backwards districts prevail even to our day personal visits and solicitations attendance at various kinds of neighborhood gatherings such as raisings of new cabins horse races shooting matches sales of townlots or of personal property under execution or whatever occasion served to call a dozen or two of the settlers together one recorded incident illustrates the practical nature of the politician's art at that day quote he lincoln came to my house near island grove during harvest there were some 30 men in the field he got his dinner and went out in the field where the men were at work i gave him an introduction and the boys said that they could not vote for a man unless he could make a hand well boys said he if that is all i am sure of your votes he took hold of the cradle and led the way all the round with perfect ease the boys were satisfied and i don't think he lost a vote in the crowd unquote sometimes two or more candidates would meet at such places and short speeches be called for and given altogether the campaign was livelier than that of two years before 13 candidates were again contesting for the four seats in the legislature to say nothing of candidates for governor for congress and for the state senate the scope of discussion was enlarged and localized from the published address of an industrious aspirant who received only 92 votes we learned that the issues now were the construction by the general government of a canal from lake michigan to the illinois river the improvement of the sangamon river the location of the state capital at springfield a united states bank a better road law and amendments to the astray laws when the election returns came in lincoln had reason to be satisfied with the efforts he had made he received the second highest number of votes in the long list of candidates those cast for the representatives chosen stood the location of the state capital had also been submitted to popular vote at this election springfield being much nearer the geographical center of the state was anxious to deprive vandalia of that honor and the activity of the sangamon politicians proved it to be a dangerous rival in the course of a month the returns from all parts of the state had come in and showed that springfield was third in the race it must be frankly admitted that lincoln's success at this juncture was one of the most important events of his life a second defeat might have discouraged his efforts to lift himself to a professional career and sent him to the anvil to make horseshoes and to iron wagons for the balance of his days but this handsome popular endorsement assured his standing and confirmed his credit with this lift into the clouds of his horizon he could resolutely carry his burden of debt and hopefully look to wider fields of public usefulness already during the progress of the canvas he had received cheering encouragement and promise of most valuable help one of the four successful candidates was john t steward who had been major of volunteers in the blackhawk war while lincoln was captain and who together with lincoln had re-enlisted as a private in the independence by battalion there is every likelihood that the two begun a personal friendship during their military service which was of course strongly cemented by there being fellow candidates and both belonging to the wig party mr. lincoln relates quote major john t steward then in full practice of the law at springfield was also elected during the canvas in a private conversation he encouraged abraham to study law after the election he borrowed books of steward took them home with him and went at it in good earnest he studied with nobody in the autumn of 1836 he obtained a law license and on april 15 1837 removed to springfield and convinced the practice his old friend steward taking him into partnership unquote from and after this election in 1834 as a representative lincoln was a permanent factor in the politics and the progress of sangamon county at a springfield meeting in the following november to promote common schools he was appointed one of 11 delegates to attend a convention at vandalia called to deliberate on that subject he was re-elected to the legislature in 1836 in 1838 and in 1840 and thus for a period of eight years took a full share in shaping and enacting the public and private laws of al-anoy which in our day has become one of the leading states in the mississippi valley of lincoln's share in that legislation it need only be said that it was as intelligent and beneficial to the public interest as that of the best of his colleagues the most serious error committed by the legislature of al-anoy during that period was that it enacted law setting on foot an extensive system of internal improvements in the form of railroads and canals altogether beyond the actual needs of transportation for the then existing population of the state and the consequent reckless creation of a state debt for money borrowed at extravagant interest in liberal commissions the state underwent a season of speculative intoxication in which by the promised and expected rush of immigration and the swelling currents of its business its farms were suddenly to become villages its villages spreading towns and its towns transformed into great cities while all its people were to be made rich by the increased value of their land and property both parties entered with equal recklessness into this ill advised internal improvement system which in the course of about four years brought the state to bankruptcy with no substantial works to show for the foolishly expended millions in voting for these measures mr. lincoln represented the public opinion and wish of his county and the whole state and while he was as blameable he was at the same time no more so than the wisest of his colleagues it must be remembered an extinuation that he was just beginning his parliamentary education from the very first however he seems to have become a force in the legislature and to have rendered special service to his constituents it is conceded that the one object which springfield and most of singham and county had at heart was the removal of the capital from vandalia to that place this was accomplished in 1836 and the management of the measure appears to have been entrusted mainly to mr. lincoln one incident of his legislative career stands out in such prominent relation to the great events of his afterlife that it deserves special explanation and emphasis even at that early date a quarter of a century before the outbreak of the civil war the slavery question was now and then obtruding itself as an irritating and perplexing element into the local legislation of almost every new state elinois though guaranteed its freedom by the ordinance of 1787 nevertheless underwent a severe political struggle in which about four years after her admission into the union politicians and settlers from the south made a determined effort to change her to a slave state the legislature of 1822 1823 with the two-thirds pro-slavery majority of the state senate and a technical but legally questionable two-thirds majority in the house submitted to popular vote in act calling a state convention to change the constitution it happened fortunately that governor coals though a virginian was strongly anti-slavery and gave the weight of his official influence and his whole four-year salary to counteract the dangerous scheme from the fact that southern elinoy up to that time was mostly peopled from the slave states the result was seriously in doubt through an active and exciting campaign and the convention was finally defeated by a majority of 1800 and the total vote of 11612 while this result effectually decided that elinoy would remain a free state the propagandism and reorganization left a deep and tenacious undercurrent of pro-slavery opinion that for many years manifested itself in vehement and intolerant outcries against abolitionism which on one occasion caused the murder of elisha p lovejoy for persisting in his right to print an anti-slavery newspaper at alton nearly a year before this tragedy the elinoy legislature had under consideration certain resolutions from the eastern states on the subject of slavery and the committee to which they had been referred reported a set of resolves highly disapproving abolition societies holding that the right of property and slaves is secured to the slave holding states by the federal constitution together with other phraseology calculated on the whole to soothe and comfort pro-slavery sentiment after much irritating discussion the committee's resolutions were finally passed with but lincoln and five others voting in the negative no record remains whether or not lincoln joined in the debate but to leave no doubt upon his exact position and feeling he and his colleague dan stone caused the following protest to be formally entered on the journals of the house quote 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 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 reasons for entering this protest unquote in view of the great scope and quality of lincoln's public service and afterlife it would be a waste of time to trace out in detail his words or his votes upon the multitude of questions on which he acted during this legislative career of eight years it needs only to be remembered that it formed a varied and thorough school of parliamentary practice and experience that laid the broad foundation of that extraordinary skill and sagacity in statesmanship which he afterward displayed in party controversy and executive direction the quick proficiency and ready aptitude for leadership evidence by him in this as it may be called his preliminary parliamentary school are strikingly proved by the fact that the wigg members of the elinoy house of representatives gave him their full party vote for speaker both in 1838 and 1840 but being in a minority they could not of course elect him end of chapter three chapter four of a short life of abraham lincoln this is a liper vox recording all liper vox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit liper vox.org recording by leon mire a short life of abraham lincoln by john g nickolay chapter four law practice rules for a lawyer law and politics twin occupations the springfield coterie friendly help and rutledge mary owens lincoln's removal from new salem to springfield and his entrance into a law partnership with major john t stewart begin a distinctively new period in his career from this point we need not trace in detail his progress and his new and this time deliberately chosen vocation the lawyer who works his way up in professional merit from a five dollar fee and a suit before a justice of the piece to a five thousand dollar fee before the supreme court of estate has a long and difficult path to climb mr. lincoln climbed this path for 25 years with industry perseverance patience above all with that sense of moral responsibility that always clearly trace the dividing line between his duty to his client and his duty to society and truth his unqualified frankness of statement assured him the confidence of judge and jury in every argument his habit of fully admitting the weak points in this case gain their close attention to its strong ones and when clients brought him bad cases his uniform advice was not to begin the suit among his miscellaneous writings there exists some fragments of autograph notes evidently intended for a little lecture or talk to law students which sat forth with gravity and force his opinion of what a lawyer ought to be and do he earnestly commands diligence and study and next to diligence promptness and keeping up his work as a general rule never take your whole fee in advance he says nor any more than a small retainer when fully paid beforehand you are more than a common mortal if you can feel the same interest in the case as if something was still in prospect for you as well as for your client extemporaneous speaking should be practiced and cultivated it is the lawyer's avenue to the public however able and faithful he may be in other respects people are slow to bring him business if you cannot make a speech and yet there is not a more fatal error to young lawyers than relying too much on speech making if anyone upon his rare powers of speaking shall claim an exemption from the drudgery of the law his case is a failure in advance discourage litigation persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever you can point out to them how the nominal winner is often a real loser in fees expenses and waste of time as a peacemaker the lawyer has a superior opportunity of being a good man there will still be business enough never stir up litigation a worse man can scarcely be found than one who does this who can be more nearly a fiend than he who habitually overhauls the register of deeds in search of defects and titles where on to stir up strife and put money in his pocket a moral tone ought to be infused into the profession which should drive such men out of it there is a vague popular belief that lawyers are necessarily dishonest I say vague because when we consider to what extent confidence and honors are opposed in and conferred upon lawyers by the people it appears improbable that their impression of dishonesty is very distinct and vivid yet the impression is common almost universal let no young man choosing the law for a calling for a moment yield to the popular belief resolve to be honest at all events and if in your own judgment you cannot be an honest lawyer resolve to be honest without being a lawyer choose some other occupation rather than one in the choosing of which you do in advance consent to be a nave while Lincoln thus became a lawyer he did not cease to remain a politician in the early west law and politics are parallel roads to usefulness as well as distinction newspapers had not then reached any considerable circulation there existed neither fast presses to print them mail routes to carry them nor subscribers to read them since even the laws had to be newly framed for these new communities the lawyer became the inevitable political instructor and guide as far as ability and fame extended his reputation as a lawyer was a twin of his influence as an orator whether through logic or eloquence local conditions fostered almost necessitated this double pursuit westward immigration was in its full tide and population was pouring into the great state of al-anoy with ever accelerating rapidity settlements were spreading roads were being opened towns laid out the larger counties divided and new ones organized and the enthusiastic visions of coming prosperity through the state into that fever of speculation which culminated in wholesale internal improvements on borrowed capital and brought collapse stagnation and stagnation and bankruptcy in its inevitable train as already said these swift changes required a plentiful supply of new laws to frame which lawyers were in a large proportion sent to the legislature every two years these same lawyers also filled the bar and recruited the bench of the new state and as they followed the itinerant circuit courts from county to county in their various sections were called upon in these summer wanderings to explain in public speeches their legislative work of the winter by a natural connection this also involved a discussion of national and party issues it was also during this period that party activity was stimulated by the general adoption of the new system of party caucuses and party conventions to which president jackson had given the impulse in the american system of representative government elections not only occur with the regularity of clockwork but pervade the whole organism in every degree of its structure from top to bottom federal state county township and school district in al-anoy even the state judiciary has a different times been chosen by popular ballot the function of the politician therefore is one of continuous watchfulness and activity and he must have intimate knowledge of details if he would work out grand results activity in politics also produces eager competition and sharp rivalry in 1839 the seat of government was definitely transferred from vandalia to springfield and they're soon gathered at the new state capital a group of young men whose varied ability and future success in public service has rarely been excelled douglas shields calhoun stewart logan baker treat harden tremble mclernand browning mcdougal and others his new surroundings greatly stimulated and reinforced mr. lincoln's growing experience and spreading acquaintance giving him a larger share and wider influence in local and state politics he became a valued and sagacious advisor in party caucuses and a power in party conventions gradually also his gifts as an attractive and persuasive campaign speaker were making themselves felt and appreciated his removal in april 1837 from a village of 20 houses to a city of about 2000 inhabitants placed him in striking new relations and necessities as to dress manners and society as well as politics yet here again as in the case of his removal from his father's cabin to new salem six years before peculiar conditions rendered the transition less abrupt than what it first appear springfield notwithstanding its greater population and prospective dignity as the capital was in many respects no great improvement on new salem it had no public buildings its streets and sidewalks were unpaved its stores in spite of all their flourish of advertisements were staggering under the hard times of 1837 to 1839 and stagnation of business imposed a rigid economy on all classes if we make credit tradition this was one of the most serious crises of lincoln's life his intimate friend william butler related to the writer that having attended a session of the legislature at vandalia he and lincoln returned together at its close to springfield by the usual mode of horseback travel at one of their stopping places overnight lincoln and one of his gloomy moods told butler the story of the almost hopeless prospects which lay immediately before him that the session was over his salary all drawn and his money all spent that he had no resources and no work that he did not know where to turn to earn even a week's board butler bade him be of good cheer and without any formal proposition or agreement took him and his belongings to his own house and domesticated him there as a permanent guest with lincoln's tacit compliance rather than any definite consent later lincoln shared a room and genial companionship which ripened into closest intimacy in the store of his friend joshua f speed all without charge or expense and these brotherly offerings helped the young lawyer over present necessities which might otherwise have driven him to muscular handiwork at weekly or monthly wages from this time onward in daily conversation an argument at the bar in political consultation and discussion lincoln's life gradually broadened into contact with the leading professional minds of the growing state of elinoy the man who cannot pay a week's board bill was twice more elected to the legislature was invited to public banquets and toasted by name became a popular speaker moved in the best society of the new capital and made what was considered a brilliant marriage lincoln's stature and strength his intelligence and ambition in short all the elements which gave him popularity among men in new salem rendered him equally attractive to the fair sex of that village on the other hand his youth his frank sincerity his longing for sympathy and encouragement made him peculiarly sensitive to the society and influence of women soon after coming to new salem he chanced much in the society of miss ann rutledge a slender blue-eyed blonde 19 years old moderately educated beautiful according to local standards and altogether lovely tenderhearted universally admired and generally fascinating girl from the personal descriptions of her which tradition has preserved the inference is naturally drawn that her temperament and disposition were very much akin to those of mr. lincoln himself it is little wonder therefore that he fell in love with her but two years before she had become engaged to a mr. magnum are who had gone to the east to settle certain family affairs and whose absence became so unaccountably prolonged that and finally despaired of his return and in time betrothed herself to lincoln a year or so after this event and rutledge was taken sick and died the neighbors said of a broken heart but the doctor called it brain fever and his science was more likely to be correct than their psychology whatever may have been the truth upon this point the incident threw lincoln into profound grief in a period of melancholy so absorbing as to cause his friend's apprehension for his own health gradually however their studied and devoted companionship won him back to cheerfulness and his second affair the heart assumed altogether different characteristics most of which may be gathered from his own letters two years before the death of ann rutledge mr. lincoln had seen and made the acquaintance of miss mary owens who had come to visit her sister mrs. abel and had passed about four weeks in new salem after which she returned to kentucky three years later and perhaps a year after miss rutledge's death mrs. abel before starting for kentucky told mr. lincoln probably more ingest than an earnest that she would bring her sister back with her on condition that he would become her mrs. abel's brother-in-law lincoln also probably more ingest than earnest promptly agreed to the proposition for he remembered mary owens as a tall handsome dark-haired girl with fair skin in large blue eyes who in conversation could be intellectual and serious as well as jovial and witty who had a liberal education and was considered wealthy one of those well poised steady characters who look upon matrimony in life with practical views and social matronly instincts the bantering offer was made and accepted in the autumn of 1836 and in the following april mr. lincoln removed to springfield before this occurred however he was surprised to learn that mary owens had actually returned with her sister from kentucky and felt that the romantic jest had become a serious and practical question their first interview dissipated some of the illusions in which each had been indulged the three years elapsed since they first met had greatly changed her personal appearance she had become stout her 28 years one year more than his had somewhat hardened the lines of her face both in figure and feature she presented a disappointing contrast to the slim and not yet totally forgotten ann rutledge on her part it was more than likely that she did not find in him all the attractions her sister had pictured the speech and manners of the elinoy frontier lacked much of the chivalric attentions and flattering compliments to which the kentucky bows were addicted he was yet a diamond in the rough and she would not immediately decide till she could better understand his character and prospects so no formal engagement resulted in december lincoln went to his legislative duties at vandalia and in the following april took up his permanent abode in springfield such a separation was not favorable to rabbit courtship yet they had occasional interviews and exchanged occasional letters none of hers to him have been preserved and only three of his to her from these it appears that they sometimes discuss their affair in a cold hypothetical way even down to problems of housekeeping in the light of mere worldly prudence much as if they were guardians arranging a mariage to confinance rather than impulsive and ardent lovers wandering in arcady without mrs. owens letters it is impossible to know what she may have said to him but in may 1837 lincoln wrote to her quote i am often thinking of what we said about your coming to live at springfield i am afraid you would not be satisfied there is a great deal of flourishing about in carriages here which it would be your doom to see without sharing it it would have to be poor without the means of hiding your poverty do you believe you could bear that patiently whatever woman may cast her lot with mine should any effort do so it is my intention to do all in my power to make her happy and contented and there is nothing i can imagine that would make me more unhappy than to fail in the effort i know i should be much happier with you than the way i am provided i saw no signs of discontent in you what you have said to me may have been in the way of jest or i may have misunderstood it if so then let it be forgotten if otherwise i much wish you would think seriously before you decide what i have said i will most positively abide by provided you wish it my opinion is that you would better not do it you have not been accustomed to hardship and it may be more severe than you now imagine i know you are capable of thinking correctly on any subject and if you deliberate maturely upon this before you decide then i am willing to abide your decision unquote whether after receiving this she wrote him the good long letter he asked for in the same epistle is not known apparently they did not meet again until august and the interview must have been marked by reserve and coolness on both sides which left each more uncertain than before for on the same day linkin again wrote her and after saying that she might perhaps be mistaken in regard to his real feelings towards her continued thus quote i want in all cases to do right and most particularly so in all cases with women i wanted this particular time more than anything else to do right with you and if i knew it would be doing right as i rather suspected would to let you alone i would do it and for the purpose of making the matter as plain as possible i now say that you can now drop the subject dismiss your thoughts if you ever had any from me forever and leave this letter unanswered without calling forth one accusing murmur from me and i will even go further and say that if it will add anything to your comfort or peace of mind to do so it is my sincere wish that you should do not understand by this that i wish to cut your acquaintance i mean no such thing what i do wish is that our further acquaintance shall depend upon yourself if such further acquaintance would contribute nothing to your happiness i am sure it would not to mine if you feel yourself in any degree bound to me i am now willing to release you provided you wish it while on the other hand i am willing and even anxious to bind you faster if i can be convinced that it will in any considerable degree add to your happiness this indeed is the whole question with me unquote all that we know of the sequel is contained in a letter which linkin wrote to his friend mrs browning nearly a year later after miss owens had finally returned to kentucky in which without mentioning the lady's name he gave a serial comic description of what might be called a courtship to escape matrimony he dwells on his disappointment at her changed appearance and continues quote but what could i do i told her sister that i would take her for better or for worse and i made a point of honor and conscience in all things to stick to my word especially if others had been induced to act on it which in this case i had no doubt they had for i was now fairly convinced that no other man on earth would have her and hence the conclusion that they were bent on holding me to my bargain well thought i i have said it and be the consequences what they may it shall not be my fault if i fail to do it although i was fixed firm as the surge repelling rock and my resolution i found i was continually repenting the rashness which had led me to make it through life i have been in no bondage either real or imaginary from the thralldom of which i so much desired to be free after i delayed the matter as long as i thought i could and on or do which by the way had brought me round into last fall i concluded i might as well bring it to a consummation without further delay and so i mustered my resolution and made the proposal to her direct but shocking to her late she answered no at first i suppose she did it through an affectation of modesty which i thought but ill became her under the peculiar circumstances of her case but on my renewal of the charge i found she repelled it with greater firmness than before i tried it again and again but with the same success or rather with the same want of success i finally was forced to give it up at which i very unexpectedly found myself mortified almost beyond endurance i was mortified it seemed to me in a hundred different ways my vanity was deeply wounded by the reflection that i had so long been too stupid to discover her intentions and at the same time never doubting that i understood them perfectly and also that she whom i had taught myself to believe nobody else would have had actually rejected me with all my fancied greatness and to cap the whole i then for the first time began to suspect that i was really a little in love with her unquote the serious side of this letter is undoubtedly genuine and candid while the somewhat over exaggeration of the comic side points as clearly that he had not fully recovered from the mental suffering he had undergone in the long conflict between doubt and duty from the beginning the matchmaking zeal of the sister had placed the parties in a false position produced embarrassment and created distrust a different beginning might have resulted in a very different outcome for Lincoln while objecting to her corpulency acknowledges that in both feature and intellect she was as attractive as any woman he had ever met and Miss Owens's letters written after his death state that her principal objection lay in the fact that his training had been different from hers and that mr. Lincoln was deficient in those little links which make up the chain of a woman's happiness she adds the last message i ever received from him was about a year after we parted in Illinois mrs. Abel visited Kentucky and he said to her in springfield tell your sister that i think she was a great fool because she did not stay here and marry me she was even then not quite clear in her own mind but that his words were true end of chapter four