him into the outlying districts. His social instincts won for him friends wherever he was known, while his sterling character gave him an influence unusual, both in kind and in me

going from one job to another, and ha

egone conclusion that he would sooner or later enter po

et back until about ten days before the election, so that he had almost no time to attend to the canvass. One incident of this campaign is preserved which is

ed Cappsville when two men in t

when he descended from the platform, seized the antagonist and threw him ten or twelve feet away on the grou

ing are given by Miss Tarb

f the degree of physical strength was the test for a candidate, he was ready to lift a weight, or wrestle with the countryside cha

his own precinct, where he was so well known, he received the almost unanimous vote of all parties. Biographers differ as to the precise number of votes in the New Salem precinct, but by Nicolay and

He usually did run ahead of his ticket excepting when running for the presidency, and then it was from the nature of the case impossible. Though Lincoln probably did not realize it, this, his first election, put an end forever to his drifting, desultory, frontier life. Up to this point he

he Vandals were. Outwardly the village was crude and forbidding, and many of the Solons were attired in coon- skin caps and other startling apparel. The fashionable clothin

le in the centers of culture to believe in the possible intelligence of the frontier, as it was in 1776 for the cultured Englishmen to believe in the intel

estion as to the shrewdness of his political methods. It is the opinion of the present writer that in the entire history of our political system no man has ever surpassed him in astuteness. Even to

nent facts will be narrated. One was the removal of the capital to Springfield. To Lincoln was entrusted the difficult task- difficult, because there were almost as many applications for the honor of being the capital city as t

ovejoy was murdered-martyred-at Alton, Ill. The legislature had passed pro-slavery resolutions. There were many in the legislature who did not approve of these, but in the condition of public feeling, it was looked on as political suicide to express opposition openly. There was no politic reason why Lincoln should protest. His protest could do no prac

both branches of the General Assembly at its present session,

th injustice and bad policy, but that the promulgation of abol

has no power under the Constitution to interfere wi

onstitution, to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, but that the power

those contained in the above resolutions

ig

ST

LIN

s from the coun

were rare and attracted an unreasonable amount of attention. One Forquer, who was Lincoln's opponent, had recently rodded his house-and every one knew it. This man's speech c

I am in the tricks and trades of a politician; but live long or die young, I would rather die now than, like the gentleman, change my politics and simultaneous with the

about the guilty conscience and the lightning-rod. The house and its lightning- rod were long a center of interest in Sprin

ded insult to injury by making him one of the delegates to the convention and instructing him to vote for his successful rival, Baker. This d

artwright's "arguments" were two: the first, that Lincoln was an atheist, and the second that he was an aristocrat. These "arguments" were not convincing, and Lincoln was elected by a handsome majority, running far ahead

other time was his introducing the resolutions known as the "spot resolutions." The president had sent to congress an inflammatory, buncombe message, in which he insisted that t

as in his messages declared, was or was not within the territory of Sp

in the territory which was wrested from Spai

., etc. It is the recurrence of the word s

at to do with himself when the votes were won. He held the confidence of his constituency. His was a constantly growing popularity. He could do everything but one,-he could not dishonor his conscience. His belief that "sl