In December Lincoln put away his surveying instruments to go to
Vandalia for the opening session of the Tenth Assembly. Larger by
fifty members than its predecessor, this body was as much superior
in intellect as in numbers. It included among its members a future
President of the United States, a future candidate for the same high
office, six future United States Senators, eight future members of the
National House of Representatives, a future Secretary of the Interior,
and three future Judges of the State Supreme Court. Here sat side by
side Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas; Edward Dickinson Baker,
who represented at different times the States of Illinois and Oregon
in the national councils; O.H. Browning, a prospective senator and
future cabinet officer, and William L.D. Ewing, who had just served
in the senate; John Logan, father of the late General John A.
Logan; Robert M. Cullom, father of Senator Shelby M. Cullom; John
A. McClernand, afterward member of Congress for many years, and
a distinguished general in the late Civil War; and many others of
national repute.[2]
[Illustration: ELIJAH PARISH LOVEJOY.
From a silhouette loaned by Mr. Owen Lovejoy of Princeton, Illinois.
Elijah Lovejoy was born in Maine in 1802. When twenty-five years old
he emigrated to St. Louis, where he at first did journalistic work on
a Whig newspaper. In 1833 he entered the ministry, and was soon after
made editor of a religious newspaper, the "St. Louis Observer." Mr.
Lovejoy began, in 1835, to turn his paper against slavery, but the
opposition he found in Missouri was so strong that in the summer of
1836 he decided to move his paper to Alton, Illinois. Before he could
get his plant out of St. Louis a mob destroyed the greater part. The
remainder he succeeded in getting to Alton, but a mob met it there and
threw it into the river. The citizens of Alton, ashamed of this act,
gave Mr. Lovejoy money to buy a new press. At first the tone of
the paper was moderate, but gradually it grew more emphatic in its
utterances against slavery. The pro-slavery element of the town
protested, indignation meetings were held, and in August, 1837, his
press was thrown into the river. Another was immediately bought,
which, in September, followed its predecessor to the bottom of the
Mississippi. When it was known in Alton that Mr. Lovejoy had ordered
a fourth press, and had resolved to fight the opposition to the end,
a public meeting was called, at which many speeches were made on both
sides, and he was urged to leave Alton. This he refused to do, and
his fourth press was landed on November 6, 1837. The next night a mob
attacked the warehouse where it was placed, and in the riot one of the
assailants, Lyman Bishop, and Elijah Lovejoy himself were killed.]
The members came to Vandalia full of hope and exultation. In their
judgment it needed only a few months of legislation to put their State
by the side of New York; and from the opening of the session they were
overflowing with excitement and schemes. In the general ebullition of
spirits which characterized the Assembly, Lincoln had little share.
Only a week after the opening of the session he wrote to a friend,
Mary Owens, at New Salem, that he had been ill, though he believed
himself to be about well then; and he added: "But that, with other
things I cannot account for, have conspired, and have gotten my
spirits so low that I feel I would rather be any place in the world
than here. I really cannot endure the thought of staying here ten
weeks."
Though depressed, he was far from being inactive. The Sangamon
delegation, in fact, had their hands full, and to no one of the nine
had more been entrusted than to Lincoln. In common with almost every
delegation, they had been instructed by their constituents to adopt a
scheme of internal improvements complete enough to give every budding
town in Illinois easy communication with the world. This for the State
in general; for Sangamon County in particular, they had been directed
to secure the capital. The change in the State's centre of population
made it advisable to move the seat of government northward from
Vandalia, and Springfield was anxious to secure it. To Lincoln was
entrusted the work of putting through the bill to remove the capital.
In the same letter quoted from above he tells Miss Owens, "Our
chance to take the seat of government to Springfield is better than
I expected." Regarding the internal improvements scheme he feels less
confident: "Some of the legislature are for it, and some against;
which has the majority, I cannot tell."
[Illustration: LINCOLN IN 1863 OR 1864.
From a photograph by Brady, and kindly loaned by Mr. Noah Brooks for
this reproduction.]
[Illustration: Frontispiece of "Alton Trials," a small volume
published in 1838, containing full notes taken at the time of the
trial of the persons engaged in what is called the "Alton riot."
Twelve persons were indicted "for the crime of riot committed on
the night of the 7th of November, 1837, while engaged in defending
a Printing Press from an attack made on it at that time by an Armed
Mob;" eleven others were indicted "for a riot committed in Alton on
the night of the 7th of November, 1837, in unlawfully and forcibly
entering the warehouse of Godfrey Gilman and Company, and breaking up
and destroying a printing press." In both cases the juries returned a
verdict of "not guilty." (See note on Elijah Lovejoy.)]
It was not long, however, before all uncertainty about internal
improvements was over. The people were determined to have them,
and the Assembly responded to their demands by passing an act
which provided, at State expense, for railroads, canals, or river
improvements in almost every county in Illinois. To compensate those
counties to which they could not give anything else, they voted them
a sum of money for roads and bridges. No finer bit of imaginative
work was ever done, in fact, by a legislative body, than the map of
internal improvements made by the Tenth Assembly of Illinois.
There was no time to estimate exactly the cost of these fine plans.
Nor did they feel any need of estimates; that was a mere matter of
detail. They would vote a fund, and when that was exhausted they
would vote more; and so they appropriated sum after sum: one hundred
thousand dollars to improve the Rock River; one million eight hundred
thousand dollars to build a road from Quincy to Danville; four million
dollars to complete the Illinois and Michigan Canal; two hundred and
fifty thousand for the Western Mail Route--in all, some twelve
million dollars. To carry out the elaborate scheme, they provided a
commission, one of the first duties of which was to sell the bonds of
the State to raise the money for the enterprise. The majority of the
Assembly seem not to have entertained for a moment an idea that there
would be any difficulty in selling at a premium the bonds of Illinois.
"On the contrary," as General Linder says in his "Reminiscences," "the
enthusiastic friends of the measure maintained that, instead of there
being any difficulty in obtaining a loan of the fifteen or twenty
millions authorized to be borrowed, our bonds would go like hot cakes,
and be sought for by the Rothschilds, and Baring Brothers, and others
of that stamp; and that the premiums which we would obtain upon them
would range from fifty to one hundred per cent., and that the premium
itself would be sufficient to construct most of the important works,
leaving the principal sum to go into our treasury, and leave the
people free from taxation for years to come."
[Illustration: STUART AND LINCOLN'S PROFESSIONAL CARD.
The professional card of Stuart and Lincoln shows that the
copartnership began April 12, 1837. The card appeared in the next
issue of the "Sangamo Journal," and was continued until Lincoln became
the partner of Judge Logan, in 1841.]