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

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

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

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

"Resolutions upon the subject of domestic slavery having

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

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

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

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

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

"A. LINCOLN,

"Representatives from the county of Sangamon."

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER XVII.

THE YOUNG LAWYER.

Admitted to the Bar-Honest Poverty-The Panic of 1837-Politics again -Matrimonial tendencies-Another Darkness.

UNDER every disadvantage and in spite of all manner of interruptions and hindrances, Mr. Lincoln steadily pursued the study of the law. Early in the year 1837 he was admitted to practice. He could not hope to build up a law business at New Salem, and at once removed to Springfield.

Here he sooned formed a partnership with John P. Stuart, the same kind friend from whom he had borrowed law-books in the by-gone years, when he was glad to walk to Springfield for them and read them all the long walk home.

The young lawyer was still poor. He took his meals at the very respectable residence of Hon. William Butler, a political friend, but he slept on a narrow lounge in the law-office of Stuart & Lincoln, in the second story of the court-house building. He had debts to pay, and he was steadily, honestly paying them; not in any way wasting a dollar of other people's money. He was dealing with vast sums as a legislator, and the expenditure of these and the management of the many bubble schemes of the day were mixed and tainted with fraud, corruption, and bribery. Everybody knew this; but it was also known that the most active advocate of public improvement among the Illinois legislators could not afford to hire himself a small room in a Springfield boarding-house. The bitterest tongue of political detraction never ventured to assail his personal honor. Had any man been so silly as to question Lin

coln's integrity, at that or any subsequent time, he would but have covered himself with derision.

The Springfield bar, in those days, numbered among its members many men of more than common ability. There were some, indeed, whose names were soon to be familiar to the whole country. It was not, therefore, because his competitors were few or weak that Lincoln rapidly advanced to a foremost position as a sound and able lawyer. From the outset he was compelled to fight his way against men every way capable of testing his powers to the uttermost, and there was none of them whose apparent educational advantages had not been greater than his own.

The year 1837 was marked in the history of the United States by the severest financial crisis the country had experienced since the close of the Revolutionary War. On the 10th of May the banks of New York suspended specie payments; and on the 12th the Bank of the United States and those of Philadelphia followed the example so set them. Fast and far the ruin spread in all directions. In July the Governor of Illinois called a special session of the State Legislature, to see if something could not be done for the epidemic bankruptcy by the passage of medicinal laws.

The first act which was passed had the effect of permitting all the banks in the State to suspend specie payments. Nothing was done, however, to prevent them issuing further paper promises to pay the money they did not have and could not hope to obtain. Neither was any step taken towards diminishing the current outlay for internal improvements. More loans were actually authorized, and the State went on floundering deeper and deeper into the Dismal Swamp of disaster prepared for it by its crazy people as represented by young Lincoln and all the other "De Witt Clintons of Illinois."

When all had been done that could be devised, the legislators from a distance went home to their constituents. There was no more mischief to be feared from them until another election