the sales of the public lands to the several States, to enable our State, in common with other States, to dig canals and construct railroads without borrowing money and paying interest on it." At that time there were two great questions before the people: one was the right to vote of persons not born in the United States; and the other was the policy of making public improvements, such as those named by Lincoln, at public expense. Henry Clay was Lincoln's model and example in politics. And, in taking a broad and liberal view on these two leading questions, Lincoln was not only most outspoken and resolute, but he was following in the footsteps of the great Whig chief. Nevertheless, many of Lincoln's friends were amazed at the audacity and seemingly needless courage of the young candidate for legislative honors.

During his canvass, Lincoln made additions to his reputation for ready wit and humor. On one occasion he was pitted against George Forquer, who, from being a leading Whig, had become a bitter "whole-hog Jackson man," and had been rewarded for his apostasy with a good office. Forquer was not a candidate in this canvass, but was called in to "boom" the Democratic nominee against Lincoln. Riding into Springfield, where the meeting was to be held, Lincoln's attention was drawn to Forquer's fine house, on which was a lightning-rod, then a great novelty in those parts. Lincoln had been allotted to close the debate, and Forquer, who spoke next before him, devoted himself to "taking down the young man from New Salem. He ridiculed his

dress, manners, and rough personal appearance, and, with much pomposity, derided him as an uncouth youngster. Lincoln, on rising to reply, stood for a moment with flashing eyes and pale cheeks, betraying his inward but unspoken wrath. He began by answering very briefly this ungenerous attack. He said:

"I am not so young in years as I am in the tricks and the trades of a politician; but, live long or die young, I would rather die now, than, like that gentleman, change my politics, and with the change receive an office worth three thousand dollars a year, and then feel obliged to erect a lightning-rod over my house to protect a guilty conscience from an offended God."

The effect upon the simple audience, gathered there in the open air, was electrical. Here was a pompous and vain-glorious man, who, as the settlers thought, could not sleep in his fine house, compared with which their rude cabins were poor indeed, without setting up this unusual and heaven-defying instrument. When Forquer rose to speak, later on in the canvass, and in other years, people said: "That's the man who dared not sleep in his own house without a lightning-rod to keep off the vengeance of the Almighty."

At another time, Lincoln met on the stump Colonel Richard Taylor, a self-conceited and dandified man, who wore a gold chain, ruffled shirt, and other adornments to which the men of southern Illinois were quite unaccustomed. It was the business of the Democrats to rate themselves as the hard-working

bone and sinew of the land, while the Whigs were stigmatized as aristocrats, ruffled-shirted gentry. This was Colonel Taylor's rôle, and he spoke with his finery concealed under a long surtout. But, making a sweeping gesture, Taylor's surtout became torn open, and his gorgeous array of chains, seals, pendants, and ruffles burst forth, to his manifest dismay. While he paused in embarrassment, Lincoln seized upon the opportunity, and, standing in full view, with his coarse attire and rough appearance strongly contrasting with the dandified Colonel, cried, laying his hand on his jeans-clad breast: "Here is your aristocrat, one of your silk-stocking gentry, at your service." Then, spreading out his hands, bronzed and gaunt with toil: "Here is your rag-baron with lily-white hands. Yes, I suppose, according to my friend Taylor, I am a bloated aristocrat!" It was a long time before the amiable Colonel Taylor heard the last of that exposure and humiliation.

In the Legislature to which Lincoln was now elected were not a few men whom we shall meet later on in this strange, eventful history. One of these was Edward D. Baker, a wonderful orator, afterwards Lincoln's associate in the law, and subsequently United States Senator from Oregon, a general in the army, and killed at Ball's Bluff. Another was Stephen Arnold Douglas; others were John J. Hardin, James Shields, William A. Richardson, John Logan, and John A. McClernand. From Sangamon County there were two senators and seven representatives in the House, nine in all, and each man

very tall, Lincoln being the tallest of the nine, and familiarly known as "the Sangamon chief," more on account of his height than from his mental leadership. The combined height of this tall delegation was fifty-five feet. No wonder that it was popularly known as "the Long Nine." One of the most notable achievements of Sangamon County's "Long Nine" that winter was the removal of the capital of the State from Vandalia, Macon County, to Springfield, Sangamon County, a triumph for which Lincoln received generous credit from his admiring colleagues of the delegation.

At this session, too, Lincoln put himself on record for the first time as opposed to the further extension of the American system of human slavery. The temper of the times, at least in that region, was favorable to slavery. Illinois and Indiana were affected by the proslavery influences of their nearest neighbors, Kentucky and Missouri, rivals in trade and commerce. The legislation of these two States was designed to encourage slaveholding in the slaveholding States and discourage all antislavery agitation in non-slaveholding States. For at that time a few bold men had begun to teach that slavery was wrong, unjustifiable, even wicked. The entrance of free colored people into Illinois was forbidden by statute, and the infamous "black laws," long remembered with shame as designed to curry favor with slaveholding neighbors across the border, were enacted. Certain resolutions on the subject of slavery were passed by the Illinois Legislature during the session of which we are writing; what they

were, we cannot tell, for they have vanished into oblivion; but undoubtedly they were intended to convince slaveholding customers and traders that Illinois could be relied upon to stem the rising tide of antislavery in the North. As their answer to these utterances, Abraham Lincoln and Dan Stone, the only men who dared to put themselves on record in this way, drew up and signed the following paper:

"MARCH 3, 1837.

"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 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 above resolutions is their reason for entering this protest.

(Signed)

"DAN STONE,
"A. LINCOLN,

"Representatives from the county of Sangamon."