CHAPTER XII

LINCOLN BECOMES A CANDIDATE FOR CONGRESS AND IS DEFEATED ON THE STUMP IN 1844-NOMINATED AND ELECTED TO THE 30TH CONGRESS

FOR eight successive years Lincoln had been a member of the General Assembly of Illinois. It was quite long enough, in his judgment, and his friends seem to have wanted to give him something better, for in 1841 they offered to support him as a candidate for governor of the State. This, however, he refused. His ambition was to go to Washington. In 1842 he declined renomination for the assembly and became a candidate for Congress. He did not wait to be asked, nor did he leave his case in the hands of his friends. He frankly announced his desire, and managed his own canvass. There was no reason, in Lincoln's opinion, for concealing political ambition. He recognized, at the same time, the legitimacy of the ambition of his friends, and entertained no suspicion or rancor if they contested places with him.

"Do you suppose that I should ever have got into notice if I had waited to be hunted up and pushed forward by older men?" he wrote his friend Herndon once, when the latter was complaining that the older men did not help him on. "The way for a young man to rise is to improve himself every way he can, never suspecting that anybody wishes to hinder him. Allow me to assure you that suspicion and jealousy never did help any man in any situation. There may sometimes be ungenerous attempts to keep a young man down; and they will succeed, too, if he allows his mind to be diverted from its true channel to brood over the attempted

injury. Cast about, and see if this feeling has not injured every person you have ever known to fall into it."

Lincoln had something more to do, however, in 1842, than simply to announce himself in the innocent manner of early politics. The convention system introduced into Illinois in 1835 by the Democrats had been zealously opposed by all good Whigs, Lincoln included, until constant defeat taught them that to resist organization by an every-man-for-himself policy was hopeless and wasteful, and that if they would' succeed they must meet organization with organization. In 1841 a Whig State convention had been called to nominate candidates for the offices of governor and lieutenant-governor; and now, in March, 1843, a Whig meeting was held again at Springfield, at which the party's platform was laid, and a committee, of which Lincoln was a member, was appointed to prepare an "Address to the People of Illinois." In this address the convention system was earnestly defended. Against this rapid adoption of the abominated system many of the Whigs protested, and Lincoln found himself supporting before his constituents the tactics he had once warmly opposed. In a letter to his friend John Bennett, of Petersburg, written in March, 1843, he said:

"I am sorry to hear that any of the Whigs of your county, or of any county, should longer be against conventions. On last Wednesday evening a meeting of all the Whigs then here from all parts of the State was held, and the question of the propriety of conventions was brought up and fully discussed, and at the end of the discussion a resolution recommending the system of conventions to all the Whigs of the State was unanimously adopted. Other resolutions were also passed, all of which will appear in the next 'Journal.' The meeting also appointed a committee to draft an address to the people of the State, which address will also appear in the next 'Journal.' In it you will find a brief argument in favor of conventions, and, although I wrote it myself, I will say to you

that it is conclusive upon the point, and cannot be reasonably answered.

"If there be any good Whig who is disposed still to stick out against conventions, get him, at least, to read the argument in their favor in the 'Address." "

The "brief argument" which Lincoln thought so conclusive, "if he did write it himself," justified his good opinion. After its circulation there were few found to "stick out against conventions."

The Whigs of the various counties in the Congressional district met on April 5, as they had been instructed to do, and chose delegates. John J. Hardin of Jacksonville, Edward D. Baker and Abraham Lincoln of Springfield, were the three candidates for whom these delegates were instructed.

To Lincoln's keen disappointment, the delegation from Sangamon county was instructed for Baker. A variety of social and personal influences, besides Baker's popularity, worked against Lincoln. "It would astonish, if not amuse, the older citizens," wrote Lincoln to a friend, "to learn that I (a stranger, friendless, uneducated, penniless boy, working on a flatboat at ten dollars per month) have been put down here as the candidate of pride, wealth, and aristocratic family distinction." He was not only accused of being an aristocrat, he was called "a deist." He had fought, or been about to fight, a duel. His wife's relations were Episcopalian and Presbyterian. He and she attended a Presbyterian church. These influences alone could not be said to have defeated him, he wrote, but "they levied a tax of considerable per cent. upon my strength.'

The meeting that named Baker as its choice for Congress appointed Lincoln one of the delegates to the convention. "In getting Baker the nomination," Lincoln wrote to Speed, "I shall be fixed a good deal like a fellow who is made a

groomsman to a man that has cut him out, and is marrying his own dear 'gal.'" From the first, however, he stood bravely by Baker. "I feel myself bound not to hinder him in any way from getting the nomination; I should despise myself were I to attempt it," he wrote certain of his constituents who were anxious that he should attempt to secure the nomination in spite of his instructions. It was soon evident to both Lincoln and Baker that John J. Hardin was probably the strongest candidate in the district, and so it proved when the convention met in May, 1843, at Pekin.

It has frequently been charged that in this Pekin convention, Hardin, Baker, and Lincoln agreed to take in turn the three next nominations to Congress, thus establishing a species of rotation in office. This charge cannot be sustained. What occurred at the Pekin convention is here related by one of the delegates, the Hon. J. M. Ruggles of Havana, Illinois.

"When the convention assembled," writes Mr. Ruggles, "Baker was there with his friend and champion delegate, Abraham Lincoln. The ayes and noes had been taken, and there were fifteen votes apiece, and one in doubt that had not arrived. That was myself. I was known to be a warm friend of Baker, representing people who were partial to Hardin. As soon as I arrived Baker hurried to me, saying: 'How is it? It all depends on you.' On being told that notwithstanding my partiality for him, the people I represented expected me to vote for Hardin, and that I would have to do so, Baker at once replied: 'You are right-there is no other way.' The convention was organized, and I was elected secretary. Baker immediately arose, and made a most thrilling address, thoroughly arousing the sympathies of the convention, and ended by declining his candidacy. Hardin was nominated by acclamation; and then came the episode.

"Immediately after the nomination, Mr. Lincoln walked across the room to my table, and asked if I would favor a resolution recommending Baker for the next term. On be

ing answered in the affirmative, he said: 'You prepare the resolution, I will support it, and I think we can pass it.' The resolution created a profound sensation, especially with the friends of Hardin. After an excited and angry discussion, the resolution passed by a majority of one.'

Lincoln supported Hardin energetically in the campaign which followed. In a letter to the former written on May 11th, just after the convention, he says:

"Butler informs me that he received a letter from you in which you expressed some doubt as to whether the Whigs of Sangamon will support you cordially. You may at once dismiss all fears on that subject. We have already resolved to make a particular effort to give you the very largest majority possible in our county. From this no Whig of the county dissents. We have many objects for doing it. We make it a matter of honor and pride to do it; we do it because we love the Whig cause; we do it because we like you personally; and, last, we wish to convince you that we do not bear that hatred to Morgan County that you people have seemed so long to imagine. You will see by the 'Journal' of this week that we propose, upon pain of losing a barbecue, to give you twice as great a majority in this county as you shall receive in your own. I got up the proposal."

Lincoln was true to his promise and after Hardin was elected and in Washington he kept him informed of much that went on in the district; thus in an amusing letter written in May, 1844, while the latter was in Congress, he tells him of one disgruntled constituent who must be pacified, giving him, at the same time, a hint as to the temper of the "Locofocos."

"Knowing that you have correspondents enough, I have forborne to trouble you heretofore," he writes; "and I now only do so to get you to set a matter right which has got wrong with one of our best friends. It is old Uncle Thomas Campbell of Spring Creek (Berlin P. O.). He has received