Unfortunately there was one detail that could not be put down so summarily. The public debt, which had been piled up with such assurance, remained to perplex its crestfallen creators. They discovered, too late, that bonds can be more easily voted than annulled; and while casting about for a way out of their dilemma, they found themselves facing an interest day with no adequate balance in sight to pay the bill. For a brief period Illinois honor hung in the balance. Some of these precious legislators wished to repudiate the entire indebtedness outright—principal as well as interest; others, not quite so shameless, proposed that the Government, disregarding face values, should deal with the bonds on the basis of what it had received for them when they were sold; while still others favored discrimination against such of the securities only as had been disposed of illegally or acquired by questionable means.

With the last of these Lincoln agreed so far as concerned bonds held by those who had themselves been parties to fraudulent transfers. Otherwise, none of the suggested expedients won his approval. He evinced no sympathy for repudiation, in whatever form it presented itself, nor was his unmercenary mind greatly exercised over the money that had been misspent. What did concern him mightily at this juncture, though, was the unmistakable trend toward dishonesty and bad faith into which such ideas were luring the State. To head off that tendency, he set himself the task of raising somehow at once sufficient funds for the accruing interest. It seemed, in a sense, peculiarly his affair. As a member of the Committee on Finance for three successive terms, and as the acknowledged leader of those who had been most active in passing this wildcat legislation, Lincoln’s share of the responsibility was no small one. He frankly admitted it. Yet here, again, the man’s sterling character redeemed the faults of his business training. However blindly he may have groped with the others among the mazes of these financial and economic ventures, when the time came at last to settle for their mistakes, he saw, with crystal clearness, that anything short of payment in full would spell dishonor. The very language of the “improvement” act itself fixed this standard, unless indeed we are to regard as a mere stock-jobber’s flourish the words, “for which payments and redemption, well and truly to be made and effected, the faith of the State of Illinois is hereby irrevocably pledged.”[v-27]

But how were the needed funds to be obtained? A short-time loan secured by hypothecated bonds had been proposed, and the idea met with favor. But Lincoln objected. It would, he claimed, carry them along merely a few months, and leave the problem still unsolved. His solution, “after turning the matter over in every way,” was to issue “interest bonds” which should be met eventually by taxes derived from public lands.[v-28] Both these plans were far from ideal. They are suggestive of the shifts resorted to by that impecunious old gentleman who thanked God because he had succeeded, at last, in borrowing enough money to pay his debts.

The alternative presented to Illinois, however, of meeting its obligations by laying a heavy direct tax upon the impoverished people of the State was, as Lincoln truly said, out of the question. Consequently we find him, when his own measure failed of adoption, helping to put through the short-time loan. In fact, by that means the interest charges payable during 1841 were met, as they became due; and one ugly crisis was, for the time being, averted. Still, the inevitable crash had merely been postponed, not prevented. Illinois defaulted on its bonds during the following year. By that time, however, Lincoln, having attended his last session as a Representative, was spared the humiliation of officially facing this disgrace.

Other ordeals growing out of the general disaster were less easy to avoid. A notable instance had run through several of Lincoln’s preceding terms, when the State Bank of Illinois found itself in deep water. Compelled, like so many similar institutions, to suspend specie payment through the panic days of 1837, that enterprise seemed doomed to certain destruction, because under the law such a suspension for sixty days together was to be followed by forfeiture of its charter and liquidation of its affairs. But those affairs, the reader will remember, were concerned, to an intimate degree, with the recently adopted scheme for “internal improvements.” In fact, the two interests had become so closely interlocked that whatever menaced the stability of the bank might well have been deemed a source of danger to the State.

Naturally, no time was lost in providing the remedy; and an Assembly, convened during the summer of 1837, extended the period during which specie could legally be withheld “until the end of the next general or special session.” The fateful day came, but not the resumption of specie payment. So the Legislature that met in December, 1839, after listening to the several reports made by a joint select investigating committee of which Lincoln was a member, revived the forfeited charter and granted still further grace to “the close of the next session.” Conditions, however, so far as available specie went, became worse rather than better. Accordingly, when the following Assembly—a special one—was called in November, 1840, at Springfield, to provide funds for defraying interest on the bonded debt, that brief sitting alone seemingly intervened between the bank and ruin.

This prospect mightily gratified the Democrats. They had grown hostile toward the “rag-barons,” as these delinquent capitalists were then frequently called; while the Whigs, on the contrary, saw in their plight nothing short of a public calamity. So Lincoln and his followers determined to keep the House, which met at that time in the Methodist Church, from finally adjourning until the approaching regular Assembly, within a few days, might enable them to give the bank a new lease of life. An earnestly contested parliamentary struggle ensued. The Whig minority cannot be said to have made much headway save toward the close of the session, after attendance in the House had thinned out, and the Democrats were ready to vote adjournment without day. Then the friends of the bank, under Lincoln’s leadership, set about warding off that stroke by absenting themselves in sufficient numbers to break the quorum. This procedure required alert team-play. While Lincoln and his colleague Joseph Gillespie remained to demand the ayes and noes, their associates left in a body. Directly afterwards, when the opponents of the bank tried to vote a final adjournment, they were halted, as had been planned, by the point of order, “No quorum.” A call of the House having been ordered, the sergeant-at-arms rounded up a number of the absentees and brought them in. Amidst much excitement Lincoln hurried to the church door. It was locked. Turning as quickly to a window, with the faithful Gillespie and Asahel Gridley, of McLean County, at his heels, he jumped out, but not before the House had succeeded in adjourning.

There seemed still to be a chance for the State Bank, however. That ill-starred enterprise had not quite reached the closing stage. Within a few week’s its flickering life was again prolonged by legislative means, and the end was again postponed, but not, we should add, for long. Final dissolution presently set in. And after clinging to existence against desperate odds, through some very trying months, the bank collapsed, at last, beyond all hope of recovery. As for Lincoln, the lengths to which he had gone in his futile efforts to save it left him penitent. He would gladly have relegated that discreditable exit through the church window to the limbo of things best forgotten. But the public memory is tenacious of such picturesque misdeeds, and long after what really mattered in the State Bank’s tragic story had passed from men’s minds, the ghost of this little escapade returned at times to trouble its inventor.[v-29]

There were not many disquieting recollections of that sort to vex Lincoln’s peace of mind; and happily so, for he became sensitive in later days concerning them. When all is said, however, the few lapses just disclosed—lapses which his admirers might well have wished otherwise—should perhaps be charged to a callow excess of legislative ardor rather than to a deficiency in correct political principles. For Lincoln’s conduct as a politician—that is to say his conduct regarded from the personal rather than the parliamentary point of view—was above reproach. Indeed, he bore himself where his own interests were concerned with an attention to the niceties of honor that evoked admiring comments. How far these encomiums went may be inferred from a typical one by Judge Samuel C. Parks, who wrote: “I have often said that for a man who was for the quarter of a century both a lawyer and a politician, he was the most honest man I ever knew.”[v-30]

That same rectitude, in fact, which debarred him from taking a shabby case at law when cases were not too plentiful, kept his politics unsoiled. The man’s ambition was keen, keener by far than even his need of fees; yet the closest scrutiny reveals no personal let-down anywhere in his code while following either pursuit. Lincoln failed to conceive, despite certain commonly accepted tenets to the contrary, among public men the world over, why there should be one kind of conscience for the private citizen, and another, of a wholly different variety, for the politician.

How punctilious a campaigner this man could be is illustrated by a little incident that took place on one occasion when he was running for the Legislature. A candidate for another place—an office-seeker of whom he did not approve—accompanied Lincoln to the polls on election day, and ostentatiously voted for him with the hope, no doubt, of securing a similar compliment in return. But his cast went far wide of its mark. For Lincoln, ignoring the bait, greatly to the admiration of those who saw the occurrence, voted against him. Log-rolling to increase his own vote at election time and log-rolling to further the passage of a bill were acts so dissimilar in the eyes of the young member from Sangamon that he would not stoop to the one, while he made almost a fine art of the other.

Lincoln looked with disfavor, even during those ill-regulated days, upon the methods employed by unscrupulous politicians to attain their ends. He denounced the whole class as “a set of men who have interests aside from the interests of the people, and who, to say the most of them, are, taken as a mass, at least one long step removed from honest men.” The “holier-than-thou” tone of this criticism must have flashed at the moment through his mind, for he hastened to add: “I say this with the greater freedom because, being a politician myself, none can regard it as personal.”[v-31]

Somewhat of that same disapproval was more pithily expressed in another country, at a later date, by no less a personage than Benjamin Disraeli when, after sounding the depths and scaling the heights of English public life through a period of strenuous years, he remarked to a colleague: “Look at it as you will, ours is a beastly profession.”

Benjamin and Abraham had not many traits in common: they were the products of vastly different systems; yet a striking resemblance runs through their fine sense of personal honor, their prolonged struggles with debt, their disregard for money, and their contempt of those engaged in politics to serve corrupt private ends. Venality among office-holders early aroused Lincoln’s indignation. He could sympathize with nearly any human weakness but dishonesty, and the dishonesty of trusted public servants seemed to him doubly reprehensible. Consequently, in dealing with such thieves, this gentle man, usually so tender of other men’s sensibilities, smote and spared not. In fact, so severe could be his blows that the scholarly English leader—expert at sarcasm though he was—is credited with no more scathing utterance than the Illinoisan pronounced against certain rogues who had robbed the American Government. Their castigation furnished a stirring incident to the famous debate on “Subtreasuries” that took place at Springfield, during December, 1839. Seven participants—four Democrats and three Whigs—had spoken, when Lincoln closed the series in what some considered the best effort of all. Addressing himself to the argument made by a predecessor in the opposing camp, he said:—

“Mr. Lamborn insists that the difference between the Van Buren Party and the Whigs is that although the former sometimes err in practice, they are always correct in principle, whereas the latter are wrong in principle; and, better to impress this proposition, he uses a figurative expression in these words, ‘The Democrats are vulnerable in the heel, but they are sound in the head and the heart.’ The first branch of the figure,—that is, that the Democrats are vulnerable in the heel,—I admit is not merely figuratively, but literally true. Who that looks but for a moment at their Swartwouts, their Prices, their Harringtons, and their hundreds of others, scampering away with the public money to Texas, to Europe, and to every spot of the earth where a villain may hope to find refuge from justice, can at all doubt that they are most distressingly affected in their heels with a species of ‘running itch.’ It seems that this malady of their heels operates on these sound-headed and honest-hearted creatures very much like the cork leg in the comic song did on its owner; which, when he had once got started on it, the more he tried to stop it, the more it would run away. At the hazard of wearing this point threadbare, I will relate an anecdote which seems too strikingly in point to be omitted. A witty Irish soldier, who was always boasting of his bravery when no danger was near, but who invariably retreated without orders at the first charge of an engagement, being asked by his captain why he did so, replied,—‘Captain, I have as brave a heart as Julius Cæsar ever had; but, somehow or other, whenever danger approaches, my cowardly legs will run away with it.’

“So with Mr. Lamborn’s party. They take the public money into their hand for the most laudable purpose that wise heads and honest hearts can dictate; but before they can possibly get it out again, their rascally ‘vulnerable heels’ will run away with them.”[v-32]

These thieving officials were of a type common—far too common—among the spoilsmen billeted upon their country by the party in power during those easy-going days. Yet, numerous as the grafters must have been, Lincoln did not allow mere weight of numbers to unbalance his sense of their guilt. Nor was he less keenly alive to other forms of dishonesty that manifested themselves, from time to time, among certain self-seeking politicians, who, trimming their sails deftly at critical moments between conflicting breezes, somehow turned up, with charters revised to date, in any snug-harbor which, by an odd coincidence, happened to contain the lucrative offices.

How hard he could be upon such gentry may be inferred from the oft-related retort to George Forquer. It was uttered early in Lincoln’s career, before he had attained any considerable public standing, against a man, moreover, who as a lawyer, Representative, State Senator, Attorney-General, and Secretary of State, appears to have ranked for years among the ablest leaders in Illinois. Forquer, having recently swung over from the Whigs to the Democrats, had just been rewarded with an appointment to the Registry of the Land Office at Springfield. He cut a wide swathe, and his newly erected mansion, the finest in the city, attracted attention, not alone for its beauty, but also because, conspicuously displayed on the structure, rose the only lightning-rod to be seen throughout the community. It was at about this time that the two men crossed swords. Lincoln, making the canvass of 1836 for his reëlection to the Legislature, spoke at a Springfield meeting with such effect as to stir the listening Forquer, an acknowledged master of invective, into a reply. The Register felt obliged to vindicate his recently acquired Democratic principles, but what moved him most was a conviction, as he explained it, that “this young man would have to be taken down.” With a lofty assumption of superiority, the orator went on to express regret over the unpleasant task which a sense of duty had imposed upon him; yet the sentiment was apparently not allowed to dull the keen edge of his sarcasm. For the onslaught is said to have been uncommonly severe.

At its conclusion Lincoln, who had stood near, laboring under manifest excitement while attentively regarding his assailant, remounted the platform and made a rejoinder that has become historic. The final words lingered for many years in the memories of those who heard them. One listener, a devoted friend, has thus recalled what he believes to be substantially Lincoln’s language: “Mr. Forquer commenced his speech by announcing that the young man would have to be taken down. It is for you, fellow citizens, not for me to say whether I am up or down. The gentleman has seen fit to allude to my being a young man; but he forgets that I am older in years than I am in the tricks and trades of politicians. I desire to live, and I desire place and distinction; but I would rather die now than, like the gentleman, live to see the day that I would change my politics for an office worth three thousand dollars a year, and then feel compelled to erect a lightning-rod to protect a guilty conscience from an offended God.”[v-33]

The effect was electric. Forquer’s rod had not averted the lightning. He had, in fact, received a grievous stroke. His antagonist was borne from the court-house on the crest of an enthusiastic crowd; and during the brief remainder of the turncoat’s life, Lincoln’s reproach stuck in the man’s fame like a burdock on a woolly goat.

Forquer was not the only patriot of his peculiar stripe to arouse Lincoln’s slow-rising ire. It reached the boiling point against another politician who apparently placed a literal construction on that rather loose epigram whereby party has been defined as “the madness of many for the gain of a few.” In this particular instance, “the gain” fell short of what at least one among the favored “few” considered his just share. The malcontent, Charles H. Constable by name, lawyer by profession, and Whig by election, was intensely dissatisfied with his political associates. They had twice elected him to the State Senate; but considering his talents, which are admitted to have been of no mean order, he felt himself entitled to more substantial recognition. So insistent became this feeling that habits of disloyalty grew with it; and he lost no opportunity of denouncing the policy pursued by the party toward its younger supporters. These fault-findings, moreover, waxed especially censorious if Whig leaders happened to be present, as was the case one day on circuit when Constable, with others, visited Judge Davis and Lincoln in a room at Paris that the two occupied together.

On this occasion the man with a grievance lost no time in taking the floor. He characterized the Whigs as “old-fogyish,” and charged them with indifference to rising men; while the Democrats were lauded for their progressive methods in these respects. What the grumbler said was hardly borne out by the facts; and perhaps none of those present realized this more keenly than Lincoln, whose own experience proved quite the contrary. He listened in silence, however, for he was standing at the time before a mirror, with his coat off, shaving. But when the speaker went on to instance himself as a victim of political ingratitude and neglect, Lincoln turned upon him sharply and said: “Mr. Constable, I understand you perfectly, and have noticed for some time back that you have been slowly and cautiously picking your way over to the Democratic Party.”

An exciting scene ensued. Both men became so incensed that only the combined efforts of all the others who were present sufficed to prevent a fight, though Lincoln, as one of the spectators expressed it, seemed for a time to be “terribly willing.” The quarrel was patched up, however, but not Constable’s resentment against the Whig Party; for shortly afterward, he revealed how just had been Lincoln’s rebuke by deserting to the Democracy.[v-34]

These shifty place-hunters were doubly blamable in “Honest Abe’s” eyes. He despised politicians who forsook their colors to secure promotions under the standards of the enemy, not only because such acts were dishonorable in themselves, but also, it must be confessed, because they involved treason to political associates. For Lincoln was a partisan. His temperament, no less than his fidelity to principle, made him a champion eager and ever ready to battle for cherished convictions. But the feudal days of single combat had passed. He did not believe in battling alone. Like so many other public men of recent modern times, he did believe in the organized expression of economic opinion which is called a party. To him, as to them, it appeared obvious—almost elemental—that voters who accept the same cardinal doctrines should associate themselves together for united action, and that when several such associations with conflicting views, tempered, however, by the sober restraints of intelligent patriotism, confront one another in the field of politics, there is an approach at least to well-balanced government. The party in power deems itself answerable to the entire nation for a successful administration, the party or parties out of power feel an equal responsibility for watchful criticism; while the system itself, though far from ideal, provides a practical solution to some perplexing problems, and a safeguard of constitutional rights. As for the rest, Lincoln’s common sense told him that within such organizations alone was efficient political action possible. Explaining this idea on one notable occasion, and speaking from the politician’s not too lofty point of view, he said: “A free people, in times of peace and quiet,—when pressed by no common danger,—naturally divide into parties. At such times the man who is of neither party is not, cannot be, of any consequence.”[v-35]

The speaker did, at an early day, become of “consequence.” It was as a party man that he received the vote of the Whig minority for Speaker of the Illinois House in 1838, and again in 1840.[v-36] During those stormy sessions, the parliamentary leadership which went with this distinction could have been held by a zealous partisan only. Lincoln was that, but of course, be it said, he was abundantly more than that. For he commended himself also to his colleagues by signal qualities of a different character. In the first place, his remarkable talent for mastery had come into play betimes. To quote Governor Reynolds: “As soon as he got his bearings, got acquainted, and found how things were drifting, he took the Legislature good-naturedly by the nose, and led them, just like he did his township on the Sangamon.”[v-37]

Then, too, under this easy assumption of control were developing the traits that draw men to a political chieftain. A ready grasp of public questions, an equally ready skill in presenting them to the people or in discussing them with an opponent, the never-failing humor which could raise a laugh when a laugh was needed without too often leaving a sting behind, an almost infallible intuition for the trend of the popular will, certain charms of personality which endeared him to friends and won over enemies, a natural aptitude for contriving measures of attack and defense, an uncommon degree of courage,—moral as well as physical,—and an even rarer fidelity to a high standard of honor,—all these doubtless had their influence upon the vote. But that the choice centered in him, apparently without a dissenting voice from among his fellow Whigs, was also highly significant. For such a compliment furnishes the measure of a leader’s devotion to his party. It was as a partisan, moreover, that Lincoln figured prominently in Illinois affairs during the succeeding twenty years, amidst a clash of men and principles theretofore unparalleled for political rancor. The issues presented by the problems of those stirring times had to be fought out vigorously on party lines; and the Sangamon chief, plunging into the thick of the fray, appears to have relished the zest of combat day by day, no less than the occasional victory.

A man usually does best what he likes best to do. Lincoln loved politics. It was the one pursuit outside of his profession that he thoroughly enjoyed and in which he felt thoroughly at home. Almost any time during those twenty years, with possibly one interval, people might have said of him, as was said of another public man, “he eats, he drinks, he sleeps politics.” But at no time could Lincoln have truthfully forestalled Bismarck’s lament, “Politics has eaten up every other hobby I had”; for in his case there were no other hobbies. From early manhood to the end of his career, the art of government with its kindred activities was Lincoln’s sole avocation. It is hardly surprising, therefore, all in all, to observe what consummate skill he brought to the service of the party. Indeed, a mere glance over this period in his career reveals how proficient he must have been. For we see him installing a system of nomination by convention among the Whigs, despite prejudice and opposition; making the keynote speeches, as they were called, in several warmly contested campaigns; drawing up the official election circulars and appeals to the people; stumping the field in his own behalf or in that of other local candidates; canvassing the State on the electoral tickets of successive Presidential nominees; adroitly taking advantage of dissensions in the opposing camp, while striving with rare tact to compose the differences in his own; planning, advising, controlling, until he became the ablest political manager, and at last,—to anticipate somewhat,—the recognized authority in his section on matters affecting the welfare of the organization.

Lincoln was what is commonly termed a “practical” politician. He knew the ins and outs of vote-getting as only a seasoned campaigner can know them. In fact, nothing of political significance seemed to escape his notice. He could say, for the most part, where the big men of the State would be found on any public question; nor was he less accurately informed as to what might be expected from local magnates of lesser degree. While if one of them did depart from his wonted course, in principle or tactics, Lincoln’s intuitions might be trusted to prefigure, with some nicety, the effect of that departure upon the man’s popularity. For his grasp of political probabilities amounted almost to genius. How this or that district would go under given circumstances was repeatedly forecast by him on the eve of an election with unerring precision; and when the returns came in, he manifested equal skill among the figures. Every column had some story to tell him. Every gain or loss was promptly noted, often, indeed, by the aid of his well-stored memory alone; and at times, before the tables were completed, he would place a prophetic finger on the changes which presaged defeat or victory.

That such a man stood high in the party councils goes without saying. As a member of the County Committee or the State Central Committee, his views held full sway; and when he happened to be relieved of official responsibility in the management of a campaign, those who were in charge sent for him, at important junctures, to help them out. Speaking of Lincoln’s services at these conferences, Horace White, who once acted as secretary at State headquarters during a spirited canvass, said: “The Committee paid the utmost deference to his opinions. In fact, he was nearer to the people than they were. Traveling the circuit, he was constantly brought in contact with the most capable and discerning men in the rural community. He had a more accurate knowledge of public opinion in central Illinois than any other man who visited the committee rooms, and he knew better than anybody else what kind of arguments would be influential with the voters, and what kind of men could best present them.”[v-38]

Moreover, when it became necessary to meet or head off some critical move on the part of their opponents, Lincoln brought to the fore, just as he did in the courts, that crowning gift of worldly shrewdness which not infrequently goes with simplicity of nature and downright honesty. He did not mislead himself any more than he did his associates, for he saw things as they actually were. He could put himself in the other man’s place, and that is why he could make so close a calculation as to what the other man, under given circumstances, would presumably do. “The other man,” during one campaign, at least, appears to have been wanting in such foresight. And when on that occasion the projects of the Democrats miscarried, because they had failed to anticipate how Lincoln’s side might act, the occurrence called forth one of his little Menard County stories.

“This situation reminds me,” said he, “of three or four fellows out near Athens, who went coon hunting one day. After being out some time the dogs treed a coon, which was soon discovered in the extreme top of a very tall oak tree. They had only one gun, a rifle; and after some discussion as to who was the best shot, one was decided on. He took the rifle and got into a good position. With the coon in plain view, lying close on a projecting limb, and at times moving slowly along, the man fired. But the coon was still on the limb, and a small bunch of leaves from just in front of the coon fluttered down. The surprise and indignation of the other fellows was boundless. All sorts of epithets were heaped on ‘the best shot,’ and an explanation was demanded for his failure to bring down the coon. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘you see, boys, by gum, I sighted just a leetle ahead, and ’lowed for the durned thing crawling.’ ”[v-39]

When Lincoln, in the course of a political contest, allowed for something to happen, it usually did not fall very far short of taking place. A fatalist as to the great impelling current whereby a nation is carried toward its destiny, he believed that social and civic causes, however they may be impeded or diverted for a time in their operations, must at last inevitably lead to corresponding effects. His fatalism, however, was of the robust type. It recognized how important a part men play in creating these forces, as well as in bringing about the results. Miracles formed no part of his political creed, and he waited for none to do his work. So we find him repeatedly in the thick of the conflict, straining every nerve to gain a party victory. Such of his election-time letters as have been preserved furnish illuminating evidence of how industrious he could be. Appealing to this man, arguing with that, advising one inquiring supporter in the rural districts, praising another, warning a colleague of some aggressive step contemplated by their opponents here, heartening a hard-pressed brother there, figuring, explaining, forecasting, Lincoln pulled apparently every straight wire which a vigorous use of the mails brought within his reach.

He appreciated the appeal direct at its full value. And to this, Gibson W. Harris, one of the young men who sometimes assisted him, thus bore witness in later years: “The duty fell to me of writing letters, at his dictation, to influential men in the different counties, down to even obscure precincts. Finding the task not only burdensome, but slow, I suggested the use of a printed circular letter, but the proposal was vetoed offhand. A printed letter, he said, would not have nearly the same effect. A written one had the stamp of personality, was more flattering to the recipient, and would tell altogether more in assuring his good will, if not his support. So for several days the clerk was kept busy in writing more letters. Young and inexperienced as I was, I could not help noticing how shrewdly they were put together, and no two exactly alike. He approached each correspondent in a different way, and I soon reached the conclusion that the necessity he felt for doing this was his weightiest reason, after all, for discarding type.”[v-40]

Lincoln did not lose sight, however, of the wider opportunities for influencing voters presented by the printing-press. A tireless student of newspapers himself, reading them in fact, during this period, almost to the exclusion of all other general publications, Lincoln became so familiar with the journals issued throughout the State that their several party affiliations were, whenever he had occasion to recall them, at his tongue’s end. Many an article from his pen, purporting to be an expression of editorial opinion, appeared from time to time in various Illinois sheets. Whether the respective editors, when they adopted these contributions as their own, wholly eliminated the element of deception that enters into such transactions, is perhaps a moot question. One editor, at least, by a simple course avoided any misunderstanding on the subject. This was Jacob Harding who published a country newspaper in the southern part of the State. To him Lincoln once wrote: “Friend Harding: I have been reading your paper for three or four years, and have paid you nothing for it.” Enclosing ten dollars the writer adds: “Put it into your pocket, say nothing further about it.”

The journalist did as he was bid. But soon thereafter, when the generous subscriber sent him a political article with the request for its publication in the editorial columns of his “valued paper,” Harding promptly declined, “because,” he explained, “I long ago made it a rule to publish nothing as editorial matter not written by myself.”

The joke was on Lincoln. Laughing heartily over the letter, he read it aloud to his law-partner, and said: “That editor has a rather lofty but proper conception of true journalism.”[v-41]

This experience was exceptional, however. For in the main, Lincoln’s newspaper contributions, like his personal missives, reached their intended goals, as indeed did most of his projects over the still wider ranges of party management. A practical politician, he employed practical methods. That much-decried scheme of coördinated effort, which for lack of a better term is commonly called “the machine,” owed its development among the Whigs in Illinois more perhaps to him than to any other leader. As early as 1840, upon the eve of the Harrison campaign, he put forth a plan for thoroughly organizing the party within the State. Four other men, it is true, were associated with him on the Central Committee that had this matter in hand, but the enterprise was largely his work. He wrote the circular letter which explained the system they had adopted, and which announced explicitly what would be required thereafter of each party worker. From the several county committees that were arbitrarily appointed by the terms of the circular, down through district committees and sub-committees,—even to the individual voters,—every Whig was assigned to his part in the undertaking.[v-42] A more complete programme for the control of political operations is not easily conceived. Nor do we often meet with a document of this class so frankly expressed in the imperative mood. Its language is that of a master to his men. The crack of the party whip seemingly still rings, even at this late day, through the whole performance; and the hand which grasped the whip did so with a vigor not unlike that customarily displayed, in more recent decades, by the leader to whom political idiom has given the title of “Boss.”

But the parallel goes no further. Lincoln was not a boss. And nothing else in his leadership even suggests the mercenary autocrats whose intrigues have, from time to time, brought reproach upon the whole field of politics,—yes, upon republican institutions themselves. His organization was, in fact, a very different affair from the corrupt local machine of a later period. For even political machines have no vices of their own. They are what the men who run them make them. The modern ring with its spoilsmen, grafters, heelers, blackmailers, thugs, and what-not,—all held together by the cohesive power of public pelf and patronage,—could not have existed for a moment where Lincoln was in control. Nor can we conceive of him packing primaries, manipulating pudding ballots, falsifying election returns, or taking part in any of those numerous other criminal acts whereby the wishes of honest voters have, on notorious occasions, been systematically frustrated.[v-43] “He could not cheat people out of their votes any more than out of their money,” writes Horace White, who enjoyed the exceptional opportunities for close observation already spoken of. “Mr. Lincoln never gave his assent, so far as my knowledge goes, to any plan or project for getting votes that would not have borne the full light of day.”[v-44] He never, it is safe to add, so far as anybody’s knowledge goes, allowed his passion for a triumph at the polls to blur an uncommonly clear vision of what was right and what was wrong. Virtue, they say, wears the garb of no party. Yet a Lincoln could evidently be loyal to his organization,—loyal, if you will, to the machine itself,—without losing sight of what he owed, in the last event, to his own ideals and to the national well-being.

There was still another obligation, of a less lofty character, however, that neither parties nor principles could make this alert politician wholly forget. No matter how freely he gave himself up to the public, his thoughts were rarely withdrawn long from what seemed due, as the phrase goes, to number one. The appetite for distinction, so frankly avowed in that maiden address sent out from New Salem, had grown by the very efforts made to satisfy it. For those efforts were of no laggard quality. When a young man, eager to rise in the world, must first free himself from the triple clog of so many youthful aspirations,—lowly birth, ignorance, and narrow fortunes,—he sometimes acquires a degree of momentum that is not diminished even after the need for it has ceased. This happened to Lincoln. The “little engine that knew no rest” stirred him to political action through the greater portion of his life, and when he did not hold a public place, he appears to have been engaged, with occasional lulls, in hot pursuit of one. Here was no reluctant patriot of the Washington-Marshall order, waiting in dignified retirement for the office to seek the man. On the contrary, Lincoln went out to meet his honors more—much more—than halfway. And of all the faulty pictures presented by intrepid eulogists to a trustful world, none perhaps is further from the fact than that which depicts him as regretfully interrupting the practice of the law in order to enter public life at the call of duty. The sober, unromantic truth presents quite another view. It reveals the real Lincoln who ardently desired political preferment, and, with characteristic candor, said so. Indeed, few, if any, among the vote-getting campaigners of his time plunged into the ruck of a canvass with more spirited self-assertion. “Do you suppose,” he once wrote to a grumbling young politician, “that I should ever have got into notice if I had waited to be hunted up and pushed forward by older men?”[v-45]

No! Lincoln saw to his own pushing—coat off and sleeves rolled up. He did so, moreover, in the downright, honest way we should expect from him. And some idea of how it was done—in one direction, at least—may be gathered from an illuminating little anecdote told recently by John W. Bunn, another fledgling during those early Springfield days, who sought office, to use his own phrase, “under the political wing” of that same energetic leader.

“A day or two after my first nomination for city treasurer,” writes Mr. Bunn, “I was going uptown and saw Mr. Lincoln ahead of me. He waited until I caught up and said to me, ‘How are you running?’ I told him I didn’t know how I was running. Then he said, ‘Have you asked anybody to vote for you?’ I said I had not. ‘Well,’ said he, ‘if you don’t think enough of your success to ask anybody to vote for you, it is probable they will not do it, and that you will not be elected.’ I said to him, ‘Shall I ask Democrats to vote for me?’ He said, ‘Yes; ask everybody to vote for you.’ Just then a well-known Democrat by the name of Ragsdale was coming up the sidewalk. Lincoln said, ‘Now, you drop back there and ask Mr. Ragsdale to vote for you.’ I turned and fell in with Mr. Ragsdale, told him of my candidacy, and said I hoped he would support me. To my astonishment, he promised me that he would. Mr. Lincoln walked slowly along and fell in with me again, and said, ‘Well, what did Ragsdale say? Will he vote for you?’ I said, ‘Yes; he told me he would.’ ‘Well, then,’ said Lincoln, ‘you are sure of two votes at the election, mine and Ragsdale’s.’ This was my first lesson in practical politics, and I received it from a high source.”[v-46]

The source may indeed be called “high,” from more than one point of view. For that term does not overstate the matter when it applies to a politician who could zealously press his own interests or those of his party amidst the hurly-burly of many a closely contested field, as Lincoln did, and at the same time keep clear of the mud in the low places. Confuting a common fallacy, he demonstrated, once for all, that there is no essential connection between public life and personal corruption. His career puts to shame those smug gentlemen who, cloistered in spotless self-love, hold themselves aloof from active civic service, on the plea that politics would contaminate them. Of course, in their cases such fears may not be groundless. Perhaps these respectable citizens may know themselves to be weak-kneed. Perhaps their stumbling feet could not avoid the mire. In any event, they may as well be reminded that merely to keep clean, while shirking the work, is to practice a virtue of doubtful value. This man, on the other hand, spending his best years in the thick of things, and giving to each task what the task demanded, came through it all unsullied.

But to infer from these activities that Lincoln was unduly obtrusive in advancing his political interests would be wide of the mark. When he did blow his own trumpet, it struck a note which gave no offense. For from an early day he had mastered the art, so difficult to acquire, of pushing one’s self forward without overstepping the bounds of decorum. There was an air of reserve in his demeanor at the very moment when those rising fortunes were urged upward most eagerly. In fact, whatever he did seemed tinged with the lambent modesty that serves, under some conditions, to light up rather than to obscure true merit. It clearly helped Lincoln to know himself and his deserts. One might say that the insight which made the man conscious of extraordinary powers left him painfully aware, as well, of their limitations. He could look himself in the face with a certain detached candor not often found among ambitious politicians. What is more, he could stand erect against other men and check off his own shortcomings. Conceit in any form—need we add?—cannot thrive under such clarity of vision. At the same time, if this faculty for seeing things squarely as they are had failed Lincoln, an abiding simplicity of character—to say nothing about an ever-ready sense of humor—would doubtless have saved him from any exaggerated opinion of his own importance. He certainly manifested no craving for what might be called honorary distinctions. Purely formal or ornamental functions, such as the chairmanship of a meeting, the leading part in a civic ceremony, and the like, were exceedingly distasteful to him; while the master of ceremonies at some social entertainment, strutting about “drest in a little brief authority,” aroused his good-natured disdain. With all the politician’s fondness for public life and public office, he shrank from the mere display of himself on public occasions. At times, moreover, some of those personal tributes, so dear to the hearts of professional big-wigs, actually distressed him. He seemed annoyed, to cite an instance, by a tendency to name children for him that set in among certain admirers long before his fame had become more than local. And even the honor of standing sponsor to a whole community apparently brought this unassuming man no elation. For, when his friend Whitney asked whether the town of Lincoln was named after him, he answered dryly: “Well, yes, I believe it was named after I was.”[v-47]

Obviously, all this is not of a piece, with the oft-quoted pride that apes humility. It should be described rather as the genuine modesty which had its origin down deep in the man’s honest soul, in his own appraisal of his true value, made on his own sensitive scales. He could not mislead himself or others by false pretensions, during those aspiring times, any more than he had found it possible, in the old grocery-store days, to cheat customers with false weights. He frankly rated his merits quite as low as those around him were likely to have placed them; and it may be doubted whether even his intimates had a less exalted opinion of Abraham Lincoln than in the last analysis had Abraham Lincoln himself.

This freedom from egotism impressed, sooner or later, all who came in contact with the man. His political associates, somewhat after the manner, as the reader may remember, of his colleagues on circuit, bore witness to the almost humble spirit in which he ordinarily conducted himself. That such a course is likely to win popular support, disarm criticism, and turn aside the shafts of envy, might lay almost any politician so behaving open to the suspicion of assuming a pose—any politician but a Lincoln. In his case, the posture accords too closely with what we have seen of him from other angles to leave any doubt concerning its sincerity. For instance, the same kindly fellowship that encouraged beginners in the law, when they happened to approach him after he had become a leader of the bar, was manifested under parallel circumstances toward budding politicians. Among the most brilliant of these may be ranked the young German refugee, Carl Schurz, who had interested himself in American public affairs even before he could have been eligible to American citizenship. Having made some speeches in Lincoln’s behalf during a memorable canvass, the newcomer improved an early opportunity for meeting the Sangamon chief; and much to his surprise, found himself received, as he relates, with “offhand cordiality, like an old acquaintance.”

This must have made a vivid impression on the tyro’s mind. Recalling the interview toward the close of his life, Mr. Schurz tells us, with renewed wonder, how unreservedly Lincoln discussed the campaign, and then goes on to say: “When, in a tone of perfect ingenuousness, he asked me—a young beginner in politics—what I thought about this and that, I should have felt myself very much honored by his confidence had he permitted me to regard him as a great man. But he talked in so simple and familiar a strain, and his manner and homely phrase were so absolutely free from any semblance of self-consciousness or pretension to superiority, that I soon felt as if I had known him all my life and we had long been close friends.”[v-48]

Among strangers, Lincoln carried himself, it is perhaps needless to say, equally free from any suggestion of the grand air. His commonplace—at times uncouth—appearance, together with his unassuming ways, gave the chance comer no hint of the man’s importance, even after he had obtained some measure of fame beyond the State border. On more than one occasion he might have exclaimed, as did the famous Achæan general when they found him meekly cutting up firewood for the hostess of Megara: “I am paying the penalty of my ugly looks.”

So different, in truth, was Lincoln’s manner from the breezy, bumptious swagger not seldom seen among the public personages of his day, that only an observer of rare discernment would have taken him, at first glance, for a prominent politician. Even nimble-witted members of the guild themselves “smelt no royalty,” as he once quaintly expressed it, in his presence. And one of them has handed down an amusing tale which relates how the big man’s modest bearing hoaxed a brace of jocund statesmen to the top of their bent. Here is the story, as Thomas H. Nelson of Terre Haute, tells it on himself:—

“In the spring of 1849 Judge Abram Hammond, who was afterwards Governor of Indiana, and I arranged to go from Terre Haute to Indianapolis in the stage-coach. An entire day was usually consumed in the journey. By daybreak the stage had arrived from the West, and as we stepped in we discovered that the entire back seat was occupied by a long, lank individual, whose head seemed to protrude from one end of the coach and his feet from the other. He was the sole occupant, and was sleeping soundly. Hammond slapped him familiarly on the shoulder, and asked him if he had chartered the stage for the day. The stranger, now wide awake, responded, ‘Certainly not’; and at once took the front seat, politely surrendering to us the place of honor and comfort. We took in our traveling companion at a glance. A queer, odd-looking fellow he was, dressed in a well-worn and ill-fitting suit of bombazine, without vest or cravat, and a twenty-five-cent palm hat on the back of his head. His very prominent features in repose seemed dull and expressionless. Regarding him as a good subject for merriment we perpetrated several jokes. He took them all with the utmost innocence and good-nature, and joined in the laugh, although at his own expense.

“At noon we stopped at a wayside hostelry for dinner. We invited him to eat with us, and he approached the table as if he considered it a great honor. He sat with about half his person on a small chair, and held his hat under his arm during the meal. Resuming our journey after dinner, conversation drifted into a discussion of the comet, a subject that was then agitating the scientific world, in which the stranger took the deepest interest. He made many startling suggestions and asked many questions. We amazed him with ‘words of learned length and thundering sound.’ After an astounding display of wordy pyrotechnics the dazed and bewildered stranger asked, ‘What is going to be the upshot of this comet business?’ I replied that I was not certain, in fact, I differed from most scientists and philosophers, and was inclined to the opinion that the world would follow the darned thing off!

“Late in the evening we reached Indianapolis, and hurried to Browning’s Hotel, losing sight of the stranger altogether. We retired to our room to brush and wash away the dust of the journey. In a few minutes I descended to the portico, and there descried our long, gloomy fellow-traveler in the center of an admiring group of lawyers, among whom were Judges McLean and Huntington, Edward Hannigan, Albert S. White, and Richard W. Thompson, who seemed to be amused and interested in a story he was telling. I enquired of Browning, the landlord, who he was. ‘Abraham Lincoln of Illinois, a member of Congress,’ was the response. I was thunderstruck at the announcement. I hastened upstairs and told Hammond the startling news, and together we emerged from the hotel by a back door and went down an alley to another house, thus avoiding further contact with our now distinguished fellow-traveler.”[v-49]

As these two wags sneak sheepishly away from their recent butt, they present a comical reminder of that time-honored aphorism: “The world receives an unknown person according to his appearance; it takes leave of him according to his merits.” True, our crestfallen Hoosiers did not themselves sense the worth concealed under Lincoln’s homespun manners; yet for this the man who had so neatly gulled them could hardly be blamed. He paid the merry jesters in their own coin, so to say; and if they failed to notice the twinkle of his keen gray eyes as he made change, no one was at fault but themselves. The ethics of practical joking had been observed fairly enough. At all events, the gentlemen from Indiana, so far as is known, set up no claim to the contrary.

Lincoln’s energies were not confined, however, to such encounters. Within the party itself occasionally arose contests between rival leaders that differed widely from the usual election campaigns against the common enemy; and it is of interest to see how “Honest Abe,” under these more delicate circumstances, conducted himself. A typical instance was that of his canvass for Congress. This began as early as 1842 when, upon the completion of a fourth term in the Illinois House of Representatives, he declined the proffered renomination, but not because he wished to retire from public life. “His ambition,” as one intimate friend declared, “was a little engine that knew no rest.” It seemed always speeding him toward higher levels. A seat in the National House had now become his goal; and with characteristic directness, he announced himself as a candidate for the promotion. An attempt, obviously not so direct, was made to turn him aside; for we find among his letters this word of warning, addressed at the time to a correspondent in Cass County: “If you should hear any one say that Lincoln don’t want to go to Congress, I wish you, as a personal friend of mine, would tell him you have reason to believe he is mistaken. The truth is I would like to go very much.”[v-50]

In those days the Springfield District, as it was sometimes called, had become a Whig stronghold to such a degree that whoever received the endorsement of the party there on the Congressional ticket might well feel assured of his election. Naturally the prospect attracted other ambitious young politicians besides Lincoln. He found himself strongly opposed for the nomination by Edward Dickinson Baker, of his own county, and General John J. Hardin, of Black Hawk War fame, from Morgan County. The preliminary canvass was uncommonly warm. It appears to have reached a white heat, at almost the very outset, between Lincoln and Baker in their struggle for the control of the delegation which Sangamon should send to the nominating convention. Both men were popular, but Baker’s longer residence in the State, his charm of manner, his dashing personality, and his remarkable talent for impromptu oratory gave him an advantage, which enthusiastic friends sought still further to improve by tactics manifestly open to criticism, especially when employed in a party contest. For, strange to relate, a personal campaign of an abusive nature was waged against the man from New Salem. His recent faithful leadership on the floor of the Legislature had, for the moment, in some quarters at least, apparently been forgotten; while his marriage during the year to Mary Todd, whose religious affiliations—unlike those of the Bakers—were not with the potent Campbellite Church, became by cunningly contrived suggestion an adverse issue of seeming importance. Moreover, his own alleged irreligion, slyly hinted at, a duel that had been talked of but had never been fought,[v-51] an unpopular temperance address recently delivered, and, above all, his connection through the young wife with her prominent, perhaps too self-satisfied, relations, were severally urged in various directions as good reasons for withholding the desired support.

What particularly pained Lincoln was this last count in the indictment. For one who had so recently been a “friendless, uneducated, penniless boy working on a flat-boat at ten dollars per month,” to be “put down”—we are quoting his own protest—“as the candidate of pride, wealth, and aristocratic family distinction,” must have felt odd beyond measure.[v-52] It is not surprising that, with all his political acumen, he was at a loss for an adequate reply. What reply, indeed, can one make to such a charge! He tried to laugh it off, meeting the story of those high-bred relatives with the whimsical remark: “Well, that sounds strange to me. I do not remember of but one who ever came to see me, and while he was in town he was accused of stealing a jew’s-harp.”[v-53]

Still the canard persisted, though the fact that it ever received serious attention must be counted among the mysteries of Illinois politics; unless perhaps a faint suggestion of an explanation is to be found in Lincoln’s own demeanor. He was, it is true, a commoner, a man of the people, if there ever has been one in American public affairs. His democratic ways, unpretentious garb, and homely fashion of speech were as truly expressive of the man as were his sympathetic dealings, in all the essentials of life, with the plain citizens around him. But he neither flattered them nor catered to their prejudices. Lincoln was no demagogue. Coming upon the scene with a generation of pioneers whose antipathy toward the so-called aristocrats naturally had its corresponding reaction in a fondness for men of their own kind, he made it a point, nevertheless, to ask for support wholly on his merits; and practiced none of those crude arts whereby politicians of that day too often courted popular favor.[v-54] In fact, he went at times as far the other way, and bluntly declined so to cheapen himself.

A case in point occurred on the occasion of his address before an agricultural society, when he said: “I presume I am not expected to employ the time assigned me in the mere flattery of the farmers as a class. My opinion of them is that, in proportion to numbers, they are neither better nor worse than other people. In the nature of things they are more numerous than any other class; and I believe there really are more attempts at flattering them than any other, the reason for which I cannot perceive unless it be that they can cast more votes than any other. On reflection, I am not quite sure that there is not cause of suspicion against you in selecting me, in some sort a politician and in no sort a farmer, to address you.”[v-55]

These words—we must add—were uttered some years later, but they nicely illustrate the speaker’s bearing throughout his political career. The compelling candor which led him to speak so was, in truth, the very essence of the man. He could not do otherwise. And therein, perhaps, lay some explanation of why it was difficult for him, during this congressional contest, to meet the charge of having joined the so-called privileged class,—particularly as the accusation came from members of his own party.[v-56]

That Baker himself had anything to do with the misconduct of these overzealous partisans, Lincoln refused to believe.[v-57] Still he could not close his eyes to the inroads which their attacks made upon his strength in the county. And when the Sangamon Whigs met, in the spring of 1843, to elect delegates for the District Convention, Baker was clearly their choice. The meeting so voted. But its confidence in the rejected candidate was evinced, to a noteworthy extent, by his selection as a member of the delegation, instructed to cast Sangamon’s ballot at the convention for his successful opponent. This placed Lincoln in an embarrassing position; and he tried, though without avail, to be excused. Commenting on the singular occurrence to his absent friend Speed, he wrote: “The meeting, in spite of my attempt to decline it, appointed me one of the delegates; so that in getting Baker the nomination, I shall be fixed a good deal like a fellow who is made a groomsman to a man that has cut him out and is marrying his own dear ‘gal.’ ”[v-58]

There was this difference, however. The groomsman usually renounces his hopes at the church door; whereas Lincoln, for a time at least after the meeting, still considered himself, in some degree, a candidate. Expecting his old neighbors in the New Salem-Petersburg vicinage to instruct a Menard County delegation for him, he figured out a combination whereby they might, under certain conditions, cast the deciding votes in the convention. “It is truly gratifying to me,” he wrote Martin M. Morris, one of these supporters, “to learn that while the people of Sangamon have cast me off, my old friends of Menard, who have known me longest and best, stick to me.”

After outlining the situation, with the terse, firm strokes of a skilled politician, he continued: “You say you shall instruct your delegates for me, unless I object. I certainly shall not object. That would be too pleasant a compliment for me to tread in the dust. And besides, if anything should happen (which, however, is not probable) by which Baker should be thrown out of the fight, I would be at liberty to accept the nomination if I could get it. I do, however, feel myself bound not to hinder him in any way from getting the nomination. I should despise myself were I to attempt it. I think, then, it would be proper for your meeting to appoint three delegates, and to instruct them to go for some one as a first choice, some one else as a second, and perhaps some one as a third; and if in those instructions I were named as the first choice, it would gratify me very much.”[v-59]

This letter furnishes another revelation of how tight a grip Lincoln’s ambition, carrying him along at top speed, had upon his movements; and by that same token, of how tight a grip he meant to keep, in any event, upon the restraining brake, which was so rarely allowed to leave his watchful hand. Whether he could have maintained his moral equilibrium, however, in the District Convention, as a delegate instructed for one candidate while he permitted his friends to support another candidate, and that candidate himself, raises, under all the circumstances, a delicate question in political ethics. Happily, Lincoln was not called upon to try it out. By the time the delegates gathered at Pekin, he and Baker were both outdistanced by General Hardin, who promptly became the choice of a far from harmonious convention.

Then ensued an incident which, besides having a controlling influence toward the shaping of local politics for some years to come, caused controversies later of more than local importance. This is how it came about. No sooner had the vote been taken than Lincoln walked across the room to James M. Ruggles, one of the Hardin delegates, and asked him whether he would favor a resolution recommending Baker for the succeeding congressional term. Ruggles, who was fond of that gentleman, readily consented, so Lincoln said: “You prepare the resolution, I will support it, and I think we can pass it.”[v-60]

The motion is said to have “created a profound sensation, especially with the friends of Hardin.” Some of them warmly objected, but it was passed, nevertheless, by a very close vote. The proposition should, indeed, have been well received. It belonged to that class of convention devices which is sometimes designated as “good politics.” The contest had stirred up much feeling, and Lincoln, like the alert party leader that he was, took this means of placating a disgruntled faction. “So far as I can judge from present appearances,” he declared, “we shall have no split or trouble about the matter. All will be harmony.”[v-61] And when the nominee wrote a letter, after the convention, expressing some doubt as to whether the Whigs of Sangamon would support him, Lincoln replied: “You may, at once, dismiss all fears on that subject. We have already resolved to make a particular effort to give you the very largest majority possible in our county. From this, no Whig of the county dissents. We have many objects for doing it. We make it a matter of honor and pride to do it; we do it, because we love the Whig cause; we do it, because we like you personally; and last, we wish to convince you, that we do not bear that hatred to Morgan County, that you people have so long seemed to imagine. You will see by the Journal of this week, that we propose, upon pain of losing a Barbecue, to give you twice as great a majority in this county as you shall receive in your own. I got up the proposal.”[v-62]

This magnanimous treatment of Hardin, like the resolution in Baker’s favor, is noteworthy. Yet here again—of a truth, in neither case—did Lincoln wholly neglect his own aspirations. Though he regarded both these men with sincere good-will, and stepped aside for them with unruffled temper, it was in the hope that his turn would come next. Some of the party leaders, in fact, eventually worked out an arrangement whereby John J. Hardin, Edward Dickinson Baker, Abraham Lincoln, and Stephen Trigg Logan succeeded one another in the Whig nomination of the district, for a single congressional term each. That this bargain or deal—to use familiar political expressions—existed has been vehemently denied. And in the nature of such affairs, it may well be doubted whether there was a definite agreement to which the parties in interest gave their formal approval. The Hardin following, for one, appears to have acquiesced unwillingly, if indeed it actually assented at all. Still, no less an authority than Lincoln himself tells us of “an understanding among Whig friends,” whereby each of these men received the nomination in turn.[v-63] And this understanding, in part at least, had its public ratification, if not its origin, as we have seen, with his resolution endorsing Baker. Although politicians usually conceal such transactions, because they are looked upon by the voters with disfavor, and although some through-thick-and-thin eulogists, trembling for the fair fame of their hero, have refused to believe that Lincoln did anything at this point which savored of intrigue, he himself manifestly made no secret of the matter nor of his hand in it. A thoroughgoing candidate from start to finish, this man, honorable as he was, played his game according to the standards of the aggressive political school in which he had been bred. But he played it openly. He saw no harm in that group of aspirants “making a slate,” as the process is sometimes called; and under all the circumstances, neither do we.

The Sangamon chief, true to his pledge, loyally supported the nominee of the convention. General Hardin, triumphant at the polls, went to Congress. And when, by reason of a change in the time for holding the next election, it became necessary, during the following year, to name his successor, he gave way in Baker’s favor, as the Pekin resolution had provided. Naturally Lincoln, the father of that measure, did likewise. In fact, he worked no less faithfully for rival number two than he had for rival number one, and Baker was duly chosen.[v-64] Then at last, in 1846, came Lincoln’s turn. Expecting to reap the reward of his patience, he struck out vigorously for the nomination. But to his chagrin, Hardin, ready to make the race for another term, threatened again to block the way; while Judge Logan, the remaining claimant on the slate, had also entered the field, demanding precedence over Lincoln on the ground of seniority as well as of valuable services to the party. Whether this latter candidature was entirely sincere, or whether it should be deemed one of those back-firing devices to head off other aspirants, so often employed by political strategists, cannot, at this late day, be determined. True, the dissolution of partnership at law between Logan and Lincoln, several years before, had been due, in a degree at least, to the conflicting congressional ambitions of its members. Still, nothing that then took place was rasping enough, so far as is known, to keep them from entering into an “understanding” for their mutual benefit. At all events, Logan can hardly be said to have made a very vigorous start and, after a brief reconnoissance of the district, he withdrew gracefully in Lincoln’s favor.