THE results of the canvass for the Legislature were precisely such as
had been predicted, both by Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Rutledge: he had been
defeated, as he expected himself; and it had done "him much good," in
the politician's sense, as promised by Mr. Rutledge. He was now somewhat
acquainted with the people outside of the New Salem district, and
generally marked as a young man of good parts and popular manners. The
vote given him at home demonstrated his local strength, and made his
favor a thing of value to the politicians of all parties.
Soon after his return from the army, he had taken quarters at the house
of J. R. Herndon, who loved him then, and always, with as much sincerity
as one man can love another. Mr. Herndon's family likewise "became
much attached to him." He "nearly always had one" of Herndon's children
"around with him." Mr. Herndon says of him further, that he was "at home
wherever he went;" making himself wonderfully agreeable to the people he
lived with, or whom he happened to be visiting. Among other things, "he
was very kind to the widow and orphan, and chopped their wood."
Lincoln, as we have seen already, was not enamored of the life of a
common laborer,--mere hewing and drawing. He preferred to clerk, to go
to war, to enter politics,--any thing but that dreary round of daily
toil and poor pay. But he was now, as he would say, "in a fix:" clerks
were not wanted every day in New Salem and he began to cast about for
some independent business of his own, by which he could earn enough to
pay board and buy books. In every community where he had lived, "the
merchant" had been the principal man. He felt that, in view of his
apprenticeship under those great masters, Jones and Offutt, he was fully
competent to "run a store," and was impatient to find an opening in that
line.
Unfortunately for him, the circumstances of the business men of New
Salem were just then peculiarly favorable to his views. At least three
of them were as anxious to sell out as Lincoln was to buy.
Lincoln, as already stated, was at this time living with "Row" Herndon.
Row and his brother "Jim" had taken "a store down to New Salem early in
that year." But Jim "didn't like the place," and sold out his interests
to an idle, convivial fellow, named Berry. Six weeks later Row Herndon
grew tired of his new partner, and sold his interest to Lincoln. The
store was a mixed one,--dry goods and groceries.
About the same time Mr. Radford, who kept one of the New Salem
groceries, fell into disfavor with the "Clary's Grove Boys," who
generously determined that he should keep a grocery no longer. They
accordingly selected a convenient night for breaking in his windows,
and, in their own elegant phrase, "gutting his establishment." Convinced
that these neighborly fellows were inclined to honor him with further
attentions, and that his bones might share the fate of his windows,
Radford determined to sell out with the earliest dawn of the coming day.
The next day he was standing disconsolate in the midst of his wreck,
when Bill Green rode up. Green thought he saw a speculation in Radford's
distress, and offered him four hundred dollars for the whole concern.
Radford eagerly closed with him; and in a few minutes Green owned
the grocery, and Radford was ready for the road to a more congenial
settlement. It is said that Green employed Lincoln to make an inventory
of the stock. At all events, Lincoln was satisfied that Green's bargain
was a very good one, and proposed that he and Berry should take it off
his hands at a premium of two hundred and fifty dollars. Radford had
Green's note for four hundred dollars; but he now surrendered, it and
took Lincoln & Berry's for the same amount, indorsed by Green; while
Lincoln & Berry gave Green a note for two hundred and fifty dollars, the
latter's profit in the trade.
Mr. Rutledge "also owned a small grocery in the village;" and this was
speedily absorbed by the enterprising firm of Lincoln & Berry, who now
had the field to themselves, being sole proprietors "of the only store
of the kind in New Salem."
Whether Mr. Lincoln sold liquor by the dram over the counter of this
shop remains, and will forever remain, an undetermined question. Many
of his friends aver that he did, and as many more aver that he did not.
When Douglas, with that courtesy for which he distinguished himself in
the debates with Lincoln, revived the story, Lincoln replied, that,
even if it were true, there was but little difference between them;
for, while he figured on one side of the counter, Douglas figured on
the other. It is certain liquors were a part of the stock of all the
purchases of Lincoln & Berry. Of course they sold them by the quantity,
and probably by the drink. Some of it they _gave_ away, for no man could
keep store without setting out the customary dram to the patrons of the
place.1
1 Here is the evidence of James Davis, a Democrat, "aged
sixty," who is willing to "give the Devil his due:"--
"Came to Clary's Grove in 1829; knew Lincoln well; knew Jim
and Row Herndon: they sold out to Berry,--one of them did;
afterwards the other sold out to Lincoln. The store was a
mixed one,--dry goods, a few groceries, such as sugar,
salt, &c., and whiskey solely kept for their customers, or
to sell by the gallon, quart, or pint,--not otherwise. The
Herndons probably had the Blankenship goods. Radford had a
grocery-store,--salt, pepper, and suchlike things, with
whiskey. It is said Green bought this out, and instantly
sold to Berry & Lincoln. Lincoln & Berry broke. Berry
subsequently kept a doggery, a whiskey saloon, as I do now,
or did. Am a Democrat; never agreed in politics with Abe. He
was an honest man. Give the Devil his due; he never sold
whiskey by the dram in New Salem! I was in town every week
for years; knew, I think, all about it. I always drank my
dram, and drank at Berry's often; ought to know. Lincoln got
involved, I think, in the first operation. Salem Hill was a
barren."
The difficulty of gathering authentic evidence on this subject is
well illustrated in the following extract from Mr. George Spears of
Petersburg:--
"I took my horse this morning, and went over to New Salem, among the
P----s and A----s, and made all the inquiries I could, but could learn
nothing. The old ladies would begin to count up what had happened in New
Salem when such a one of their children was born, and such a one had
a bastard; but it all amounted to nothing. I could arrive at no dates,
only when those children were born. Old Mrs. Potter affirms that Lincoln
did sell liquors in a grocery. I can't tell whether he did or not."
All that winter (1832-3) Lincoln struggled along with a bad partner,
and a business which began wrong, and grew worse every day. Berry had no
qualities which atoned for his evil habits.. He preferred to consume
the liquors on hand rather than to sell them, and exerted himself so
successfully, that in a few months he had ruined the credit of the firm,
squandered its assets, and destroyed his own health. The "store" was a
dead failure; and the partners were weighed down with a parcel of debts,
against which Lincoln could scarcely have borne up, even with a better
man to help him. At last they sold out to two brothers named Trent. The
Trents continued the business for a few months, when they broke up and
ran away. Then Berry, encouraged by the example of the Trents, "cleared
out" also, and, dying soon after, left poor Lincoln the melancholy task
of settling up the affairs of their ill-starred partnership.
In all the preceding transactions, the absence of any cash consideration
is the one thing very striking. It is a fair illustration of the
speculative spirit pervading the whole people. Green bought from Radford
on credit; Lincoln & Berry bought from Green on credit; they bought from
the Herndons on credit; they bought from Rutledge on credit; and they
sold to the Trents on credit. Those that did not die or run away had a
sad time enough in managing the debts resulting from their connection
with this unlucky grocery. Radford assigned Lincoln & Berry's note to
a Mr. Van Bergen, who got judgment on it, and swept away all Lincoln's
little personal property, including his surveying instruments,--his very
means of livelihood, as we shall see at another place. The Herndons
owed E. C. Blankenship for the goods they sold, and assigned Lincoln &
Berry's note in payment. Mr. Lincoln struggled to pay, by slow degrees,
this harassing debt to Blankenship, through many long and weary years.
It was not until his return from Congress, in 1849, that he got the last
dollar of it discharged. He paid Green _his_ note of two hundred and
fifty dollars, in small instalments, beginning in 1839, and ending in
1840. The history of his debt to Rutledge is not so well known. It was
probably insignificant as compared with the others; and Mr. Rutledge
proved a generous creditor, as he had always been a kind and considerate
friend.
Certain that he had no abilities for trade, Mr. Lincoln took the best
resolution he could have formed under the circumstances. He sat down to
his books just where he was, believing that knowledge would be power,
and power profit. He had no reason to shun his creditors, for these were
the men of all others who most applauded the honesty of his conduct
at the period of his greatest pecuniary misfortune. He talked to them
constantly of the "old debt," "the national debt," as he sometimes
called it,--promised to pay when he could, and they devoutly relied upon
every word he said.
Row Herndon moved to the country, and Lincoln was compelled to change
his boarding-place. He now began to live at a tavern for the first time
in his life. It was kept by various persons during his stay,--first, it
seems, by Mr. Rutledge, then by Henry Onstatt, and last by Nelson Alley.
It was a small log-house, covered with clapboards, and contained four
rooms.
Lincoln began to read law while he lived with Herndon. Some of his
acquaintances insist that he began even earlier than this, and assert,
by way of proof, that he was known to borrow a well-worn copy of
Blackstone from A. T. Bogue, a pork-dealer at Beardstown. At all events,
he now went to work in earnest, and studied law as faithfully as if he
had never dreamed of any other business in life. As a matter of course,
his slender purse was unequal to the purchase of the needful books: but
this circumstance gave him little trouble; for, although he was short of
funds, he was long in the legs, and had nothing to do but to walk off to
Springfield, where his friend, John T. Stuart, cheerfully supplied
his wants. Mr. Stuart's partner, H. C. Dummer, says, "He was an
uncouth-looking lad, did not say much, but what he did say he said
straight and sharp."
"He used to read law," says Henry McHenry, "in 1832 or 1833, barefooted,
seated in the shade of a tree, and would grind around with the shade,
just opposite Berry's grocery-store, a few feet south of the door."
He occasionally varied the attitude by lying flat on his back, and
"_putting his feet up the tree_"--a situation which might have been
unfavorable to mental application in the case of a man with shorter
extremities.
"The first time I ever saw Abe with a law-book in his hand," says Squire
Godbey, "he was sitting astride of Jake Bales's woodpile in New Salem.
Says I, 'Abe, what are you studying?'--'Law,' says Abe. 'Great God
Almighty!' responded I." It was too much for Godbey: he could not
suppress the blasphemy at seeing such a figure acquiring science in such
an odd situation.
Minter Graham asserts that Abe did a little "of what we call sitting up
to the fine gals of Illinois;" but, according to other authorities, he
always had his book with him "when in company," and would read and
talk alternately. He carried it along in his walks to the woods and the
river; read it in daylight under the shade-tree by the grocery, and at
night by any friendly light he could find,--most frequently the one he
kindled himself in the shop of his old benefactor, the cooper.
Abe's progress in the law was as surprising as the intensity of his
application to study. He never lost a moment that might be improved. It
is even said that he read and recited to himself on the road and by the
wayside as he came down from Springfield with the books he had borrowed
from Stuart. The first time he went up he had "mastered" forty pages of
Blackstone before he got back. It was not long until, with his
restless desire to be doing something practical, he began to turn his
acquisitions to account in forwarding the business of his neighbors. He
wrote deeds, contracts, notes, and other legal papers, for them, "using
a small dictionary and an old form-book;" "petifogged" incessantly
before the justice of the peace, and probably assisted that functionary
in the administration of justice as much as he benefited his own
clients. This species of country "student's" practice was entered upon
very early, and kept up until long after he was quite a distinguished
man in the Legislature. But in all this he was only trying himself:
as he was not admitted to the bar until 1837, he did not regard it
as legitimate practice, and never charged a penny for his services.
Although this fact is mentioned by a great number of persons, and the
generosity of his conduct much enlarged upon, it is seriously to be
regretted that no one has furnished us with a circumstantial account of
any of his numerous cases before the magistrate.
But Mr. Lincoln did not confine himself entirely to the law. He was not
yet quite through with Kirkham nor the schoolmaster. The "valuable copy"
of the grammar "he delighted to peruse" is still in the possession of R.
B. Rutledge, with the thumb-marks of the President all over it. "He also
studied natural philosophy, chemistry, astronomy, &c. He had no regular
teacher, but perhaps received more assistance from Minter Graham than
from any other person."
He read with avidity all the newspapers that came to New Salem,--chiefly
"The Sangamon Journal," "The Missouri Republican," and "The Louisville
Journal." 1 The latter was his favorite: its wit and anecdotes were
after his own heart; and he was a regular subscriber for it through
several years when he could ill afford a luxury so costly.
1 According to Mr. McNamar, Lincoln took "The Sangamon
Journal" and "The Louisville Journal" from 1832 to 1837; and
Hill and Bale took "The Missouri Republican" and "The
Cincinnati Gazette." "The Missouri Republican" was first
issued as a daily in September, 1836. Its size was then
twenty-five by thirty-six inches.
Mr. Lincoln was never a profound historical student: if he happened
to need historical facts for the purposes of a political or legal
discussion, he read them on the spur of the occasion. For this reason
his opinions of current affairs all through his life were based
more upon individual observation and reflection than upon scientific
deductions from the experience of the world. Yet at this time, when he
probably felt more keenly than ever after the want of a little learning
to embellish the letters and speeches he was ambitious to compose, he is
said to have read Rollin's "Ancient History," Gibbon's "Rise and Fall of
the Roman Empire," and similar works, with great diligence and care. The
books were borrowed from William Green, Bowlin Greene, and other parties
in and about New Salem.
But he greatly preferred literature of another sort, such as Mrs. Lee
Hentz's novels; some of which he found among the effects of Mr. Ellis,
at the time his companion and occasional bedfellow. "He was very fond,"
Mr. Ellis declares, "of short stories, one and two columns long,--like
'Cousin Sally Dillard,' 'Becky Wilson's Courtship,' The Down-easter and
the Bull,' 'How a bashful man became a married man, with five little
bashful boys, and how he and his red-headed wife became Millerites, and
before they were to ascend agreed to make a clean breast of it to
each other;' and how, when the old lady was through, the Down-easter
earnestly wished that Gabriel might blow his horn without delay." One
New Salemite insists that Mr. Lincoln told this latter story "with
embezzlements" (embellishments), and therefore he is firmly convinced
that Mr. Lincoln "had a hand" in originating it. The catalogue of
literature in which he particularly delighted at New Salem is completed
by the statement of Mr. Rutledge, that he took great pleasure in "Jack
Downing's Letters."
Mr. Lincoln still relished a popular song with a broad "point" or a
palpable moral in it as much as he had ever enjoyed the vocal efforts of
Dennis Hanks and his rollicking compeers of the Gentryville grocery. He
even continued his own unhappy attempts, although with as little success
as before, and quite as much to the amusement of his friends. To the
choice collection of miscellaneous ballads acquired in Indiana, he
now added several new favorites, like "Old Sukey Blue Skin," and some
selections from the "Missouri Harmony," with variations by himself. He
was also singularly fond of an Irish song, "which tells how St. Patrick
came to be born on the 17th day of March."
"You ask me," says Mr. Ellis, "if I remember the first time I saw Mr.
Lincoln. Yes, I do.... I was out collecting back tax for Gen. James D.
Henry. I went from the tavern down to Jacob Bales's old mill, and then
I first saw Mr. Lincoln. He was sitting on a saw-log talking to Jack and
Rial Armstrong and a man by the name of Hohammer. I shook hands with
the Armstrongs and Hohammer, and was conversing with them a few minutes,
when we were joined by my old friend and former townsman, George
Warburton, pretty tight as usual; and he soon asked me to tell him the
old story about Ben Johnson and Mrs. Dale's blue dye, &c., which I did.
And then Jack Armstrong said, 'Lincoln, tell Ellis the story about Gov.
J. Sichner, his city-bred son, and his nigger Bob;' which he did,
with several others, by Jack's calling for them. I found out then that
Lincoln was a cousin to Charley Hanks of Island Grove. I told him I knew
three of the boys,--Joe, Charley, and John,--and his uncle, old Billy
Hanks, who lived up on the North Fork of the Sangamon River, afterwards
near Decatur."1
1 "I myself knew old Billy Hanks, his mother's brother, and
he was a very sensible old man. He was father to Mrs.
Dillon, on Spring Creek; and Charley, Billy, jr., and John
were his sons: they were all low-flung,--could neither read
nor write. Some of them used to live in Island Grove,
Sangamon County.... I remember the time that Lincoln and E.
D. Baker ran in convention, to decide who should run for
Congress in old Sangamon; that some of Baker's friends
accused Mr. Lincoln of belonging to a proud and an
aristocratic family,--meaning the Edwardses and Todds, I
suppose; and, when it came to Mr. Lincoln's ears, he laughed
heartily, and remarked, 'Well, that sounds strange to me: I
do not remember of but one that ever came to see me, and
while he was in town he was accused of stealing a jew's-
harp.' Josh Speed remembers his saying this. I think you
ought to remember it. Beverly Powell and myself lived with
Bell and Speed, and I think he said so in their store. After
that a Miss Hanks came to spend the winter with Mrs.
Lincoln."--A. Y. Ellis.
This interview took place shortly after the Black Hawk War; but it was
not until the next year (1833), the period at which we have now arrived,
that Lincoln and Ellis became "intimate." At that time Ellis went there
to keep a store, and boarded "at the same log-tavern" where Lincoln was.
Lincoln, being "engaged in no particular business," merely endeavoring
to make a lawyer, a surveyor, and a politician of himself, gave a great
deal of his time to Ellis and Ellis's business. "He also used to assist
me in the store," says this new friend, "on busy days, but he always
disliked to wait on the ladies: he preferred trading with the men and
boys, as he used to say. I also remember that he used to sleep in the
store, on the counter, when they had too much company at the tavern.
"I well remember how he was dressed: he wore flax and tow linen
pantaloons,--I thought about five inches too short in the legs,--and
frequently he had but one suspender, no vest or coat. He wore a calico
shirt, such as he had in the Black Hawk War; coarse brogans, tan color;
blue yarn socks, and straw hat, old style, and without a band.
"Mr. Lincoln was in those days a very shy man of ladies. On one
occasion, while we boarded at this tavern, there came a family,
containing an old lady and her son and three stylish daughters, from the
State of Virginia, and stopped there for two or three weeks; and, during
their stay, I do not remember of Mr. Lincoln ever eating at the same
table when they did. I then thought it was on account of his awkward
appearance and his wearing apparel."
There lived at New Salem at this time, and for some years afterward,
a festive gentleman named Kelso, a school-teacher, a merchant, or a
vagabond, according to the run of his somewhat variable "luck." When
other people got drunk at New Salem, it was the usual custom to tussle
and fight, and tramp each other's toes, and pull each other's noses;
but, when Kelso got drunk, he astonished the rustic community with
copious quotations from Robert Burns and William Shakspeare,--authors
little known to fame among the literary men of New Salem. Besides
Shakspeare and Burns, Mr. Kelso was likewise very fond of fishing, and
could catch his game "when no other man could get a bite." Mr. Lincoln
hated fishing with all his heart. But it is the testimony of the
country-side, from Petersburg to Island Grove, that Kelso "drew Lincoln
after him by his talk;" that they became exceedingly intimate; that they
loitered away whole days together, along the banks of the quiet streams;
that Lincoln learned to love inordinately our "divine William" and
"Scotia's Bard," whom his friend mouthed in his cups, or expounded more
soberly in the intervals of fixing bait and dropping line. Finally he
and Kelso boarded at the same place; and with another "merchant," named
Sincho, of tastes congenial and wits as keen as Kelso's, they were
"always found together, battling and arguing." Bill Green ventures the
opinion, that Lincoln's incessant reading of Shakspeare and Burns had
much to do in giving to his mind the "sceptical" tendency so
fully developed by the labors of his pen in 1834-5, and in social
conversations during many years of his residence at Springfield.
Like Offutt, Kelso disappeared suddenly from New Salem, and apparently
from the recollection of men. Each with a peculiar talent of his own,
kind-hearted, eccentric creatures, no man's enemy and everybody's prey,
they strolled out into the great world, and left this little village
to perish behind them. Of Kelso a few faint traces have been found in
Missouri; but if he ever had a lodging more permanent than the wayside
tavern, a haystack, or a hedge, no man was able to tell where it was.
Of Offutt not a word was ever heard: the most searching and cunning
inquiries have failed to discover any spot where he lingered for a
single hour; and but for the humble boy, to whom he was once a gentle
master, no human being that knew him then would bestow a thought upon
his name. In short, to use the expressive language of Mr. Lincoln
himself, he literally "petered out."
Mr. Lincoln was often annoyed by "company." His quarters at the tavern
afforded him little privacy, and the shade of the tree in front of the
grocery was scarcely a sufficiently secluded situation for the purposes
of an ardent student. There were too many people to wonder and laugh at
a man studying law with "his feet up a tree;" too many to worry him for
the stories and jokes which it was supposed he could furnish on demand.
For these reasons it became necessary that he should "retire to the
country occasionally to rest and study." Sometimes he went to James
Short's on the Sand Ridge; sometimes to Minter Graham's; sometimes to
Bowlin Greenes; sometimes to Jack Armstrong's, and as often, perhaps,
to Able's or Row Herndon's. All of these men served him faithfully and
signally at one time and another, and to all of them he was sincerely
attached. When Bowlin Greene died, in 1842, Mr. Lincoln, then in the
enjoyment of great local reputation, undertook to deliver a funeral
oration over the remains of his beloved friend; but, when he rose to
speak, his voice was choked with deep emotion: he stood a few moments,
while his lips quivered in the effort to form the words of fervent
praise he sought to utter, and the tears ran down his yellow and
shrivelled cheeks. Some of those who came to hear him, and saw his tall
form thus sway in silence over the body of Bowlin Greene, say he looked
so helpless, so utterly bereft and pitiable, that every heart in the
audience was hushed at the spectacle. After repeated efforts, he found
it impossible to speak, and strode away, openly and bitterly sobbing,
to the widow's carriage, in which he was driven from the scene. Mr.
Herndon's papers disclose less than we should like to know concerning
this excellent man: they give us only this burial scene, with the fact
that Bowlin Greene had loaned Mr. Lincoln books from their earliest
acquaintance, and on one occasion had taken him to his home, and cared
for him with the solicitude of a devoted friend through several weeks of
great suffering and peril. The circumstances of the attempted eulogy are
mentioned here to show the relations which subsisted between Mr. Lincoln
and some of the benefactors we have enumerated.
But all this time Mr. Lincoln had a living to make, a running board-bill
to pay, and nothing to pay it with. He was, it is true, in the hands of
excellent friends, so far as the greater part of his indebtedness was
concerned; but he was industrious by nature, and wanted to be working,
and paying as he went. He would not have forfeited the good opinion
of those confiding neighbors for a lifetime of ease and luxury. It was
therefore a most happy thing for him, and he felt it to be so, when
he attracted the attention of John Calhoun, the surveyor of Sangamon
County.
Calhoun was the type of a perfect gentleman,--brave, courteous, able,
and cultivated. He was a Democrat then, and a Democrat when he died. All
the world knows how he was president of the Lecompton Convention; how
he administered the trust in accordance with his well-known convictions;
and how, after a life of devotion to Douglas, he was adroitly betrayed
by that facile politician, and left to die in the midst of obloquy and
disaster. At the time we speak of, he was one of the most popular men
in the State of Illinois, and was one of the foremost chieftains of the
political party which invariably carried the county and the district in
which Mr. Lincoln lived. He knew Lincoln, and admired him. He was well
assured that Lincoln knew nothing of surveying; but he was equally
certain that he could soon acquire it. The speculative fever was at
its height; he was overrun with business: the country was alive with
strangers seeking land; and every citizen was buying and selling with a
view to a great fortune in the "flush times" coming. He wanted a deputy
with common sense and common honesty: he chose Lincoln, because nobody
else possessed these qualities in a more eminent degree. He hunted him
up; gave him a book; told him to study it, and said, that, as soon as he
was ready, he should have as much work as he could do.
Lincoln took the book, and "retired to the country;" that is, he went
out to Minter Graham's for about six weeks, in which time, by the aid of
that good master, he became an expert surveyor, and was duly appointed
Calhoun's deputy. Of course he made some money, merely his pay for work;
but it is a remarkable fact, that, with his vast knowledge of the lands
in Sangamon and adjacent counties, he never made a single speculation
on his own account. It was not long until he acquired a considerable
private business. The accuracy of his surveys were seldom, if ever,
questioned. Disputes regarding "corners" and "lines" were frequently
submitted to his arbitration; and the decision was invariably accepted
as final. It often happened that his business kept him away from New
Salem, and his other studies, for weeks at a time; but all this while he
was gathering friends against the day of election.
In after years--from 1844 onward--it was his good or bad fortune
frequently to meet Calhoun on the stump; but he never forgot his
benefaction to him, and always regarded him as the ablest and best man
with whom he ever had crossed steel. To the day of Calhoun's death
they were warmly attached to each other. In the times when it was
most fashionable and profitable to denounce Calhoun and the Le-compton
Constitution, when even Douglas turned to revile his old friend and
coadjutor, Mr. Lincoln was never known to breathe a word of censure on
his personal character.
On the 7th of May, 1833, Mr. Lincoln was appointed postmaster at
New Salem. His political opinions were not extreme; and the Jackson
administration could find no man who was at the same time more orthodox
and equally competent to perform the duties of the office. He was not
able to rent a room, for the business is said to have been carried on in
his hat; but, from the evidence before us, we imagine that he kept the
office in Mr. Hill's store, Mr. Hill's partner, McNamar, having been
absent since 1832. He held the place until late in 1836, when New Salem
partially disappeared, and the office was removed to Petersburg. For
a little while before his own appointment, he is said to have acted as
"deputy-postmaster" under Mr. Hill.
The mail arrived duly once a week; and the labors of distributing and
delivering it were by no means great. But Mr. Lincoln was determined
that the dignity of the place should not suffer while he was the
incumbent. He therefore made up for the lack of real business by
deciphering the letters of the uneducated portion of the community, and
by reading the newspapers aloud to the assembled inhabitants in front of
Hill's store.
But his easy good-nature was sometimes imposed upon by inconsiderate
acquaintances; and Mr. Hill relates one of the devices by which
he sought to stop the abuse. "One Elmore Johnson, an ignorant but
ostentatious, proud man, used to go to Lincoln's post-office every
day,--sometimes three or four times a day, if in town,--and inquire,
'Any thing for me?' This bored Lincoln, yet it amused him. Lincoln fixed
a plan,--wrote a letter to Johnson as coming from a negress in Kentucky,
saying many good things about opossum, dances, corn-shuckings, &c.;
'John's! come and see me; and old master won't kick you out of the
kitchen any more!' Elmore took it out; opened it; couldn't read a word;
pretended to read it; went away; got some friends to read it: they read
it correctly; he thought the reader was fooling him, and went to others
with the same result. At last he said he would get _Lincoln_ to read it,
and presented it to Lincoln. It was almost too much for Lincoln, but he
read it. The man never asked afterwards, 'Any thing here for me?"
It was in the latter part of 1834 that Mr. Lincoln's personal property
was sold under the hammer, and by due process of law, to meet the
judgment obtained by Van Bergen on the note assigned to him by Radford.
Every thing he had was taken; but it was the surveyor's instruments
which it hurt him most to part with, for by their use he was making a
tolerable living, and building up a respectable business. This time,
however, rescue came from an unexpected quarter.
When Mr. Lincoln first came to New Salem, he employed a woman to make
him a pair of pantaloons, which, probably from the scarcity of material,
were cut entirely too short, as his garments usually were. Soon
afterwards the woman's brother came to town, and she pointed Abe out to
him as he walked along the street. The brother's name was James Short.
"Without the necessity of a formal introduction," says Short, "we fell
in together, and struck up a conversation, the purport of which I
have now forgotten. He made a favorable impression upon me by his
conversation on first acquaintance through his intelligence and
sprightliness, which impression was deepened from time to time, as I
became better acquainted with him." This was a lucky "impression" for
Abe. Short was a fast friend, and in the day of trouble a sure and able
one. At the time the judgment was obtained, Short lived on the Sand
Ridge, four miles from New Salem; and Lincoln was in the habit of
walking out there almost daily. Short was then unconscious of the main
reason of Mr. Lincoln's remarkable devotion to him: there was a lady in
the house whom Lincoln secretly but earnestly loved, and of whom there
is much to be said at another place. If the host had known every thing,
however, poor Abe would have been equally welcome; for he made himself a
strangely agreeable guest here, as he did everywhere else. In busy times
he pulled off his roundabout, and helped Short in the field with more
energy than any hired man would have displayed. "He was," said Short,
"the best hand at husking corn on the stalk I ever saw. I used to
consider myself very good; but he would gather two loads to my one."
These visits increased Short's disposition to serve him; and it touched
him sorely when he heard Lincoln moaning about the catastrophe that
hung over him in the form of Van Bergen's judgment. "An execution
was issued," says he, "and levied on Lincoln's horse, saddle, bridle,
compass, chain, and other surveyor's instruments. He was then very much
discouraged, and said he would let the whole thing go by the board. He
was at my house very much,--half the time. I did all I could to put him
in better spirits. I went on the delivery-bond with him; and when the
sale came off, which Mr. Lincoln did not attend, I bid in the above
property at a hundred and twenty dollars, and immediately gave it up
again to him. Mr. Lincoln afterwards repaid me when he had moved to
Springfield. Greene also turned in on this judgment his horse, saddle,
and bridle at a hundred and twenty-five dollars; and Lincoln afterwards
repaid him."
But, after all, Mr. Lincoln had no friend more intimate than Jack
Armstrong, and none that valued him more highly. Until he finally
left New Salem for Springfield, he "rusticated" occasionally at Jack's
hospitable cabin, situated "four miles in the country," as the polished
metropolitans of New Salem would say. Jack's wife, Hannah, before
alluded to, liked Abe, and enjoyed his visits not less than Jack did.
"Abe would come out to our house," she says, "drink milk, eat mush,
corn-bread, and butter, bring the children candy, and rock the cradle
while I got him something to eat.... I foxed his pants; made his
shirts... He has gone with us to father's; he would tell stories, joke
people, girls and boys, at parties. He would nurse babies,--do any thing
to accommodate anybody.... I had no books about my house; loaned him
none. We didn't think about books and papers. We worked; had to live.
Lincoln has staid at our house two or three weeks at a time."
If Jack had "to work to live," as his wife has it, he was likewise
constrained to fight and wrestle and tumble about with his unhappy
fellow-citizens, in order to enjoy the life he earned by labor. He
frequently came "to town," where his sportive inclinations ran riot,
except as they were checked and regulated by the amicable interposition
of Abe,--the prince of his affections, and the only man who was
competent to restrain him.
"The children at school had made a wide sliding walk," from the top
of Salem Hill to the river-bank, down which they rode on sleds and
boards,--a distance of two hundred and fifty or three hundred yards.
Now, it was one of the suggestions of Jack's passion for innocent
diversion to nail up in hogsheads such of the population as incurred
his displeasure, and send them adrift along this frightful descent. Sol.
Spears and one Scanlon were treated to an adventure of this kind; but
the hogshead in which the two were caged "leaped over an embankment,
and came near killing Scanlon." After that the sport was considered less
amusing, and was very much discouraged by that portion of the community
who feared, that, in the absence of more convenient victims, "the boys"
might light on them. Under these circumstances, Jack, for once in his
life, thought it best to abandon coercion, and negotiate for subjects.
He selected an elderly person of bibulous proclivities, and tempted him
with a great temptation. "Old man Jordan _agreed_ to be rolled down the
hill for a gallon of whiskey;" but Lincoln, fully impressed with the
brutality of the pastime, and the danger to the old sot, "stopped it."
Whether he did it by persuasion or force, we know not, but probably by a
judicious employment of both.
"I remember once," says Mr. Ellis, "of seeing Mr. Lincoln out of temper,
and laughing at the same time. It was at New Salem. The boys were
having a jollification after an election. They had a large fire made of
shavings and hemp-stalks; and some of the boys made a bet with a fellow
that I shall call 'Ike,' that he couldn't run his little bob-tail pony
through the fire. Ike took them up, and trotted his pony back about one
hundred yards, to give him a good start, as he said. The boys all formed
a line on either side, to make way for Ike and his pony. Presently
here he come, full tilt, with his hat off; and, just as he reached the
blazing fire, Ike raised in his saddle for the jump straight ahead; but
pony was not of the same opinion, so he flew the track, and pitched
poor Ike into the devouring element. Mr. Lincoln saw it, and ran to his
assistance, saying, 'You have carried this thing far enough.' I could
see he was mad, though he could not help laughing himself. The poor
fellow was considerably scorched about the head and face. Jack Armstrong
took him to the doctor, who shaved his head to fix him up, and put salve
on the burn. I think Mr. Lincoln was a little mad at Armstrong, and Jack
himself was very sorry for it. Jack gave Ike next morning a dram, his
breakfast, and a seal-skin cap, and sent him home."
"One cold winter day, Lincoln saw a poor fellow named "Ab Trent" hard at
work chopping up "a house," which Mr. Hill had employed him to convert
into firewood. Ab was barefooted, and shivered pitifully while he
worked. Lincoln watched him a few moments, and asked him what he was to
get for the job. Ab answered, 'One dollar;' and, pointing to his naked
and suffering feet, said that he wished to buy a pair of shoes. Lincoln
seized the axe, and, ordering the boy to comfort himself at the nearest
fire, chopped up 'the house' so fast that Ab and the owner were both
amazed when they saw it done." According to Mr. Rutledge, "Ab remembered
this act with the liveliest gratitude. Once he, being a cast-iron
Democrat, determined to vote against his party and for Mr. Lincoln;
but the friends, as he afterwards said with tears in his eyes, made
him drunk, and he had voted against Abe. Thus he did not even have an
opportunity to return the noble conduct of Mr. Lincoln by this small
measure of thanks."
We have given some instances of Mr. Lincoln's unfailing disposition to
succor the weak and the unfortunate. He never seems to have hesitated on
account of actual or fancied danger to himself, but boldly espoused the
side of the oppressed against the oppressor, whoever and whatever the
latter might be. In a fisticuff or a rough-and-tumble fight, he was one
of the most formidable men of the region in which he lived. It took a
big bully, and a persevering one, to force him into a collision; but,
being in, his enemy found good reason to beware of him. He was cool,
calculating, but swift in action, and terribly strong. Nevertheless, he
never promoted a quarrel, and would be at infinite trouble any time to
compose one. An unnecessary broil gave him pain; and whenever there was
the slightest hope of successful mediation, whether by soft speech or by
the strong hand, he was instant and fearless for peace. His good-nature,
his humor, his fertility in expedients, and his alliance, offensive
and defensive, with Jack Armstrong, made him almost irresistible in
his benevolent efforts to keep the ordinary ruffian of New Salem within
decent bounds. If he was talking to Squire Godbey or Row Herndon (each
of them give incidents of the kind), and he heard the sounds or saw
the signs which betoken a row in the street, he would jump up, saying,
"Let's go and stop it." He would push through the "ring" which was
generally formed around the combatants, and, after separating the
latter, would demand a truce and "a talk;" and so soon as he got them
to talking, the victory was his. If it happened to be rough Jack himself
who was at the bottom of the disturbance, he usually became very much
ashamed of his conduct, and offered to "treat," or do any thing else
that would atone for his brutality.
Lincoln has often been seen in the old mill on the river-bank to lift
a box of stones weighing from a thousand to twelve hundred pounds.
Of course it was not done by a straight lift of the hands: he "was
harnessed to the box with ropes and straps." It was even said he could
easily raise a barrel of whiskey to his mouth when standing upright, and
take a drink out of the bung-hole; but of course one cannot believe it.
Frequent exhibitions of such strength doubtless had much to do with his
unbounded influence over the rougher class of men.
He possessed the judicial quality of mind in a degree so eminent, and it
was so universally recognized, that he never could attend a horse-race
without being importuned to act as a judge, or witness a bet without
assuming the responsibility of a stakeholder. "In the spring or
summer of 1832," says Henry McHenry, "I had a horse-race with George
Warbur-ton. I got Lincoln, who was at the race, to be a judge of the
race, much against his will and after hard persuasion. Lincoln decided
correctly; and the other judge said, 'Lincoln is the fairest man I ever
bad to deal with: if Lincoln is in this county when I die, I want him
to be my administrator, for he is the only man I ever met with that was
wholly and unselfishly honest.'" His ineffable purity in determining the
result of a scrub-race had actually set his colleague to thinking of his
latter end.
But Lincoln endured another annoyance much worse than this. He was
so generally esteemed, and so highly admired, that, when any of his
neighbors had a fight in prospect, one of the parties was sure to insist
upon his acting as his second. Lincoln was opposed to fights, but there
were some fights that had to be fought; and these were "set," a day
fixed, and the neighborhood notified. In these cases there was no room
for the offices of a mediator; and when the affair was pre-ordained,
"and must come off," Mr. Lincoln had no excuse for denying the request
of a friend.
"Two neighbors, Harry Clark and Ben Wilcox," says Mr. Rutledge, "had had
a lawsuit. The defeated declared, that, although he was beaten in the
suit, he could whip his opponent. This was a formal challenge, and was
at once carried to the ears of the victor (Wilcox), and as promptly
accepted. The time, place, and seconds were chosen with due regularity;
Mr. Lincoln being Clark's, and John Brewer, Wilcox's second. The parties
met, stripped themselves all but their breeches, went in, and Mr.
Lincoln's principal was beautifully whipped. These combats were
conducted with as much ceremony and punctiliousness as ever graced
the duelling-ground. After the conflict, the seconds conducted their
respective principals to the river, washed off the blood, and assisted
them to dress. During this performance, the second of the party opposed
to Mr. Lincoln remarked, 'Well, Abe, my man has whipped yours, and I
can whip you.' Now, this challenge came from a man who was very small in
size. Mr. Lincoln agreed to fight, provided he would chalk out his size
on Mr. Lincoln's person, and every blow struck outside of that mark
should be counted foul. After this sally, there was the best possible
humor, and all parties were as orderly as if they had been engaged in
the most harmless amusement."
In 1834 Lincoln was again a candidate for the Legislature, and this time
was elected by a larger majority than any other man on the ticket. By
this time the party with which he acted in the future was "discriminated
as Whig;" and he did not hesitate to call himself a Whig, although he
sought and received the votes of a great many Democrats. Just before the
time had arrived for candidates to announce themselves, he went to John
T. Stuart, and told him "the Democrats wanted to run him." He made the
same statement to Ninian W. Edwards. Edwards and Stuart were both his
personal and political friends, and they both advised him to let
the Democrats have their way. Major Stuart's advice was certainly
disinterested; for, in pursuance of it, two of the Whig candidates,
Lincoln and Dawson, made a bargain with the Democrats which very
nearly proved fatal to Stuart himself. He was at that time the favorite
candidate of the Whigs for the Legislature; but the conduct of Lincoln
and Dawson so demoralized the party, that his vote was seriously
diminished. Up to this time Sangamon had been stanchly Democratic;
but even in this election of 1834 we perceive slight evidences of that
party's decay, and so early as 1836 the county became thoroughly Whig.
We shall give no details of this campaign, since we should only be
repeating what is written of the campaign of 1832. But we cannot
withhold one extract from the reminiscences of Mr. Row Herndon:--
"He (Lincoln) came to my house, near Island Grove, during harvest. There
were some thirty 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.
"The next day was speaking at Berlin. He went from my house with Dr.
Barnett, the man that had asked me who this man Lincoln was. I told him
that he was a candidate for the Legislature. He laughed and said, 'Can't
the party raise no better material than that?' I said, 'Go to-morrow,
and hear all before you pronounce judgment.' When he came back, I
said, 'Doctor, what say you now?' 'Why, sir,' said he, 'he is a perfect
take-in: he knows more than all of them put together.'"
Lincoln got 1,376 votes, Dawson 1,370, Carpenter 1,170, Stuart 1,164.
Lincoln was at last duly elected a Representative by a very flattering
majority, and began to look about for the pecuniary means necessary to
maintain his new dignity. In this extremity he had recourse to an old
friend named Coleman Smoot.
One day in 1832, while he was clerking for Offutt, a stranger came into
the store, and soon disclosed the fact that his name was Smoot. Abe was
behind the counter at the moment; but, hearing the name, he sprang over
and introduced himself. Abe had often heard of Smoot, and Smoot had
often heard of Abe. They had been as anxious to meet as ever two
celebrities were; but hitherto they had never been able to manage it.
"Smoot," said Lincoln, after a steady survey of his person, "I am very
much disappointed in you: I expected to see an old Probst of a fellow."
(Probst, it appears, was the most hideous specimen of humanity in all
that country.) "Yes," replied Smoot; "and I am equally disappointed,
for I expected to see a good-looking man when I saw you." A few neat
compliments like the foregoing laid the foundation of a lasting intimacy
between the two men, and in his present distress Lincoln knew no one who
would be more likely than Smoot to respond favorably to an application
for money.
"After he was elected to the Legislature," says Mr. Smoot, "he came to
my house one day in company with Hugh Armstrong. Says he, 'Smoot, did
you vote for me?' I told him I did. 'Well,' says he, 'you must loan me
money to buy suitable clothing, for I want to make a decent appearance
in the Legislature.' I then loaned him two hundred dollars, which he
returned to me according to promise."
The interval between the election and his departure for the seat of
government was employed by Mr. Lincoln partly in reading, partly in
writing.
The community in which he lived was pre-eminently a community of
free-thinkers in matters of religion; and it was then no secret, nor has
it been a secret since, that Mr. Lincoln agreed with the majority of his
associates in denying to the Bible the authority of divine revelation.
It was his honest belief,--a belief which it was no reproach to hold
at New Salem, Anno Domini 1834, and one which he never thought of
concealing. It was no distinction, either good or bad, no honor, and no
shame. But he had made himself thoroughly familiar with the writings
of Paine and Volney,--"The Ruins" by one and "The Age of Reason" by
the other. His mind was full of the subject, and he felt an itching to
write. He did write, and the result was a "little book." It was probably
merely an extended essay; but it is ambitiously spoken of as "a book" by
himself and by the persons who were made acquainted with its contents.
In this work he intended to demonstrate,--
<b>"First, that the Bible was not God's revelation; and,
"Secondly, that Jesus was not the Son of God."</b>
These were his leading propositions, and surely they were comprehensive
enough; but the reader will be better able to guess at the arguments
by which they were sustained, when he has examined some of the evidence
recorded in Chapter XIX.
No leaf of this little volume has survived. Mr. Lincoln carried it
in manuscript to the store of Mr. Samuel Hill, where it was read and
discussed. Hill was himself an unbeliever, but his son considered
this book "infamous." It is more than probable that Hill, being a warm
personal friend of Lincoln, feared that the publication of the essay
would some day interfere with the political advancement of his favorite.
At all events, he snatched it out of his hand, and thrust it into the
fire, from which not a shred escaped. The sequel will show that even Mr.
Hill's provident forethought was not altogether equal to the prevention
of the injury he dreaded.