CHAPTER IX

LINCOLN IS RE-ELECTED TO THE ILLINOIS ASSEMBLY—HIS FIRST PUBLISHED ADDRESS-PROTESTS AGAINST PROSLAVERY RESOLUTIONS OF THE ASSEMBLY

THE Ninth General Assembly of Illinois held its opening session in the winter of 1834-35. It was Lincoln's first experience as a legislator and it was rather a tame one, but in December, 1835, the members were called to an extra session which proved to be in every way more exciting and more eventful than its predecessors. The chief reason for its being called was in itself calculated to exhilarate the hopeful young law-givers. A census had been taken since their last session and so large an increase in population had been reported that it was considered necessary to summon the assembly to re-apportion the legislative districts. When the reapportionment was made it was found that the General Assembly was increased by fifty members, the number of senators being raised from twenty-six to forty, of representatives from fifty-five to ninety-one. A growth of fifty members in four years excited the imagination of the State. The dignity and importance of Illinois suddenly assumed new importance. It was imagined that the story of New York's growth in wealth and influence was to be repeated in this new country and every ambitious man in the assembly determined to lead in the rise of the State.

The work on internal improvements begun in the previous session took a new form. The governor, in calling the members together, had said: "While I would urge the most liberal support of all such measures as tending with perfect certainty to increase the wealth and prosperity of the

State, I would at the same time most respectfully suggest the propriety of intrusting the construction of all such works where it can be done consistently with the general interest, to individual enterprise." The legislators acquiesced and in this session began to grant a series of private charters for internal improvements which had they been carried out, would have given the State means of communication in 1840 almost if not quite equal to those of to-day. The map on page 135 shows the incorporations of railroad and canal companies made in the extra session of the Ninth Assembly, 1835-36, and in the regular session of the Tenth, 1836-37; sixteen of the railroads were chartered in the former session.

Lincoln and his colleagues did not devote their attention entirely to chartering railroads. Ten schools were chartered in this same session, some of which exist to-day. In the next session twelve academies and eighteen colleges received charters.

The absorbing topic of the winter, however, and the one in which Lincoln was chiefly concerned was the threatened naturalization of the convention system in Illinois. Up to this time candidates for office in the United States had generally nominated themselves as we have seen Lincoln doing. The only formality they imposed upon themselves was to consult a little unauthorized caucus of personal friends. Unless they were exceptionally cautious persons the disapproval of this caucus did not stand in their way at all. So long as party lines were indistinct and the personal qualities of a candidate were considered rather than his platform this method of nomination was possible, but with party organization it began to change. In the case of presidential candidates the convention with its delegates and platform had just appeared, the first full-fledged one being held but three years before, in 1832. Along with the presidential convention came the "machine," an organization of all those who

belonged to a party, intended to secure unity of effort. By means of primaries and conventions one candidate was put forward by a party instead of a dozen being allowed to offer themselves. The strength which the convention gave the Democratic party, which first adopted and developed it, was enormous. The Whigs opposed the new institution; they declared it "was intended to abridge the liberties of the people by depriving individuals, on their own mere motion, of the privilege of becoming candidates and depriving each man of the right to vote for a candidate of his own selection and choice."

The efficacy of the new method was so apparent, however, that, let the Whigs preach as they would, it was rapidly adopted. In 1835 the whole machinery was well developed in New England and New York and had appeared in the West. In the north of Illinois the Democrats had begun to organize under the leadership of two men of eastern origin and training, Ebenezer Peck of Chicago, and Stephen A. Douglas of Jacksonville, and this session of the Illinois legislature the convention system became a subject of discussion.

The Whigs, Lincoln among them, violently opposed the new scheme. It was a Yankee contrivance they said, favored only by New Englanders like Douglas, or worse still by monarchists like Peck. They recalled with pious indignation that Peck was a Canadian, brought up under an aristocratic form of government, that he had even deserted the liberal party of this government to go over to the ultramonarchists. They declared it a remarkable fact that no man born and raised west of the mountains or south of the Potomac had yet returned to vindicate "the wholesale system of convention." In spite of Whig warnings, however, the convention system was approved by a vote of twenty-six to twenty-five.

The Ninth Assembly expired at the close of this extra ses

sion and in June Lincoln announced himself as a candidate for the Tenth Assembly. A few days later the "Sangamon Journal" published his simple platform:

"New Salem, June 13, 1836.

"To the Editor of the 'Journal':

"In your paper of last Saturday I see a communication, over the signature of 'Many Voters,' in which the candidates who are announced in the 'Journal' are called upon to 'show their hands.' Agreed. Here's mine.

"I go for all sharing the privileges of the government who assist in bearing its burdens. Consequently, I go for admitting all whites to the right of suffrage who pay taxes or bear arms (by no means excluding females).

"If elected, I shall consider the whole people of Sangamon my constituents, as well those that oppose as those that support me.

"While acting as their representative, I shall be governed by their will on all subjects upon which I have the means of knowing what their will is; and upon all others I shall do what my own judgment teaches me will best advance their interests. Whether elected or not, I go for distributing the proceeds of the sales of the public lands to the several States, to enable our State, in common with others, to dig canals and construct railroads without borrowing money and paying the interest on it.

"If alive on the first Monday in November, I shall vote for Hugh L. White for President.

"Very respectfully,

"A. LINCOLN."

The campaign which Lincoln began with this letter was in every way more exciting for him than those of 1832 and 1834. In the reapportionment of the legislative districts which had taken place the winter before Sangamon County's delegation had been enlarged to seven representatives and two senators. This gave large new opportunities to political ambition, and doubled the enthusiasm of political meetings.

But the increase of the representation was not all that made the campaign exciting. Party lines had never before been so clearly drawn in Sangamon county, nor personal abuse quite so frank. One of Lincoln's first acts was to answer a personal attack. During his absence from New Salem a rival candidate passed through the place and stated publicly that he was in possession of facts which, if known to the public, would entirely destroy Lincoln's prospects at the coming election; but he declared that he thought so much of Lincoln that he would not tell what he knew. Lincoln met this mysterious insinuation with shrewd candor. "No one has needed favors more than I," he wrote his rival, "and generally few have been less unwilling to accept them; but in this case favor to me would be injustice to the public, and therefore I must beg your pardon for declining it. That I once had the confidence of the people of Sangamon County is sufficiently evident; and if I have done anything, either by design or misadventure, which if known would subject me to a forfeiture of that confidence, he that knows of that thing and conceals it is a traitor to his country's interest.

"I find myself wholly unable to form any conjecture of what fact or facts, real or supposed, you spoke; but my opinion of your veracity will not permit me for a moment to doubt that you at least believed what you said. I am flattered with the personal regard you manifested for me; but I do hope that on mature reflection you will view the public interest as a paramount consideration and therefore let the worst come.'

Usually during the campaign Lincoln was obliged to meet personal attacks, not by letter, but on the platform. Joshua Speed, who later became the most intimate friend that Lincoln probably ever had, tells of one occasion when he was obliged to meet such an attack on the very spur of the moment. A great mass-meeting was in progress at Spring