CHAPTER XIII.

POLITICS.

Lincoln a Candidate-Stumping the District-Defeat-The Credit System -Lincoln a Merchant.'

THE politics of the United States were in a noteworthy condition in the year 1832. There were parties, and party-spirit ran high; but party organization, such as now controls the country, did not then exist. In the West generally, and in Illinois in particular, the complicated machinery which was already in process of formation among the older States was wholly unknown. Instead of it there was a species of political chaos, although the State was nominally Democratic in its majorities, and for many years continued to be so. The old Federal party was dead and buried, the Whig party was yet unformed, and men wandered hither and thither among the great questions of the day, vainly striving to discover what these were and whither the country was drifting.

In the absence of nominating conventions large or small, it was the custom for candidates for office to nominate themselves, if they could persuade a few friends to urge them to do so. One consequence of this was that, for almost any elective honor, high or low, there were frequently as many men in the field as candidates as could combine their ambition with the energy and means to make the required canvass. For the latter some kind of personal popularity was of much more importance than any other qualification.

The volunteers who went from Sangamon County to the Blackhawk War returned to their homes in squads or singly, the greater number bringing little with them besides their very

moderate allowances of military glory. Abe Lincoln succeeded in adding to his own share of this, and it was as large as anybody's, an intense but somewhat local popularity. He greatly increased his fame as an orator, also, by a speech he made in the New Salem debating club shortly after his return. It was the first regular "speech" he had delivered in that community, and his neighbors were ignorant of his powers until that hour. When he arose to begin, the audience expected no more than a well-told story and a good joke or so, and prepared itself accordingly for an appreciative laugh.

Abe's hands were in his pockets at the first, and his words came to him slowly; but he was not there for the purpose of making fun. To the astonishment of his hearers, he seriously took hold of the subject before them, warmed with it as he went on, argued, reasoned, declaimed, with a force and an awkward eloquence which took them all by storm.

Mr. James Rutledge, the owner of the mill, was president of the club, and he for some reason felt a deep interest in the coming election for members of the State Legislature. He was very strongly impressed by that speech, and a few days afterwards he urged the young orator to offer himself as a candidate.

Lincoln at first refused, on the ground that he was little known in the greater part of the county, which was a large one, and that he should surely be defeated.

"Perhaps not," said Mr. Rutledge. "They'll know you better after you've stumped the county. Anyhow, it'll do you good to try."

Other friends added their solicitations, and Lincoln's modesty gave way under the pressure.

It seemed a tremendous undertaking for a mere boy who the year before had drifted into New Salem as a farm-hand and flatboatman. That it was not altogether absurd offers a window through which a remarkably good view can be obtained of the then social and political condition of things in Illinois.

The general canvass that fall was hot and spirited, for it was the year of General Jackson's election to the Presidency. Lincoln had from boyhood admired "Old Hickory." He was still nominally a "Jackson man," although the principles he advocated in his speeches were almost identical with those upon which the Whig party was afterwards built up.

The politics of the State of Illinois, however, were agitated by other questions besides those upon which the nation as a whole was divided. Candidates for the Legislature, even more than for other public positions, were required to meet their constituents upon numerous topics of strictly local importance. The State was fast going crazy upon the subject of "internal improvement." Roads of all kinds, and navigable rivers of designated sizes and patterns, were wanted in all directions. There was a vague idea abroad, daily obtaining a strong hold upon the minds of men, that all these could be provided by a majority vote of the State Legislature in the enacting of a "law."

Lincoln believed that a great deal could be done for the Sangamon River, and he was ready to prove it upon stump after stump. He was also earnestly in favor of laws providing for popular education. An address which he issued to his constituents two years later dealt freely with this and other topics, and was a very creditable document for a youth of twenty-five with barely a year of aggregated schooling to look back upon. He now issued no address, but he had had some training for the task set before him, and he took hold of it vigorously.

A canvass of Sangamon County was not in those days a matter for a man of weak body or sensitive nerves to think of lightly. It meant a going from place to place wherever a crowd could be gathered, and a readiness to face boldly not only any assembly of proposed hearers, but also such other assemblages as might propose to interfere with both speaking and hearing. There were fair copies of Clary's Grove and its gang of roughs in almost every precinct, and all this element

was sure to make itself heard and felt in election-time. At one place, while Lincoln was speaking, a friend of his became engaged in a fight and was getting the worst of it. So was the speech, by reason of the divided interest and attention of the crowd. The orator left the "stump" to interfere, but one of the men in his way refused to let him pass. There could be no hesitation on the part of the "candidate." The impeding person was promptly seized by the nape of the neck and the seat of his trowsers, was pitched away many feet into the grass, the friend in trouble was rescued, and then the interrupted speech was resumed under better auspices.

There were other candidates traversing Sangamon County upon the selfsame errand; men who were better known and whose political strength had been previously developed. It was no disgrace to Lincoln that he failed of an election by four hundred and seventy votes. New Salem precinct stood by him manfully. There were two hundred and eighty votes cast there, and he got all but three of them. The shaking of Jack Armstrong, the Blackhawk War, with all the other brilliant exploits of Mr. Offutt's clerk, had bound his neighbors to him for life and death. If there had been voters enough in New Salem, he could have been elected to anything.

Now that he was beaten at the polls-for his good-it became necessary for Lincoln to look around him for some other occupation than that of making laws for the State.

He was fond of playing with the children of his friends, and he was always ready to chop wood or do any other kindly act for the utterly poor around New Salem. His hand was out to every man. But all this would not buy clothes or law-books, or pay for board.

He was living at the time with an intimate friend named Herndon, one of two brothers who kept a store in the village. Besides theirs, another was carried on by a man named Radford, and still another, a smaller one, by Mr. Rutledge, the owner of the mill.

The course of these three establishments at this time was somewhat remarkable.

"Jim" Herndon became dissatisfied and sold his interest to a loose character named Berry. "Row" Herndon quarreled with his new partner in six weeks, and sold his share to Abe Lincoln. The Clary's Grove roughs had a grudge against Radford, and one night they came to town and took it out by smashing his windows. They scared him so badly that he sold the wreck of his establishment at once to Bill Green on credit for four hundred dollars. The firm of Lincoln & Berry the next day bought out Bill Green, also "on time,” giving him their note of hand for two hundred and fifty dollars profit on his sudden bargain. Then Mr. Rutledge sold Lincoln & Berry his own little grocery, and the new concern united the three "stores" in one, having given little for them all besides their own "notes of hand." Their rivals in business, destined to survive them, were the firm of Hill & McNeil.

Almost all business was done upon the credit system in those days. It continued so to be until a long succession of financial disasters had taught men the value of hard cash and short settlements.

Lincoln was now a merchant; beginning his career under a load of debt, and with the yet heavier burden of an idle, dissolute, extravagant, uttterly worthless partner.

It required no longer time than the winter months of 18321833 to determine the fate of such an undertaking, and the firm of Lincoln & Berry sold out in their turn, and "on time," to a couple of brothers named Trent.

The store was lifted from Lincoln's shoulders, if the debts were not. These could not begin to press him for some months to come, and he could turn his attention, meantime, to some other means of earning a livelihood. He was still boarding with "Row" Herndon, and he was working hard at all the lawbooks he could lay his hands on. He gave to these every hour he could spare for them. But something else had now to be done if he would live to study.