LINCOLN (Vol. 1-7). Theodore Roosevelt
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When Lincoln began, they say, he seemed awkward, homely, unprepossessing. As he went on, and became excited, his figure rose to its full height and became commanding and majestic. His plain face was illuminated and glowed with expression. His dreamy eye flashed with inspiration, and his whole person, his voice, his gestures, were full of the magnetism of powerful feeling, of conscious strength and true eloquence."
The inflexible honesty and fine sense of honor which lay at the foundation of Lincoln's character are nobly exhibited in the following letter to a former friend but now political opponent, Col. Robert Allen:
DEAR COLONEL:—I am told that during my absence last week, you passed through this place, and stated publicly that you were in possession of a fact or facts which, if known to the public, would entirely destroy the prospects of N.W. Edwards and myself at the ensuing election, but that through favor to us you would forbear to divulge them. No one has needed favors more than I, 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 since done anything, either by design or misadventure, which if known would subject me to a forfeiture of that confidence, he who 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 more mature reflection you will view the public interest as a paramount consideration, and therefore determine to let the worst come.
I assure you that the candid statement of facts on your part, however low it may sink me, shall never break the ties of personal friendship between us.
I wish an answer to this, and you are at liberty to publish both if you choose.
Very respectfully,
A. LINCOLN.
COL. ROBERT ALLEN.
The campaign resulted in Lincoln's election to the Legislature of 1836. The nine delegates from Sangamon County happened to be men of remarkable stature, each one measuring six feet or more in height; and very naturally they were nicknamed the "Long Nine." Lincoln overtopped all the rest, and as a consequence was called "the Sangamon Chief." The State capital was then at Vandalia; and Lincoln's journey there from Springfield was made mainly on foot. As he was trudging along the muddy road, he fell in with Judge John Dean Caton, one of the early lawyers of Illinois, afterwards Chief Justice of the State, who became an intimate friend of Lincoln. Judge Caton gives an interesting account of their first meeting, which occurred at this time. "I first met Mr. Lincoln," says Judge Caton, "about the last of November, 1835, when on my way to Vandalia to join the Supreme Court, which met there the first Monday in December, at the same time as the meeting of the Legislature. There were a great many people and all sorts of vehicles on the road from Springfield to Vandalia. The roads were very bad, and most of the passengers got out and walked a considerable portion of the distance. It seemed almost like the movement of a little army. While walking thus along the side of the road I met Mr. Lincoln for the first time, and in the course of a two days' journey we became quite well acquainted. If he had been admitted to the bar at that time, he had not become known as a lawyer out of his own immediate circuit. He was going to Vandalia as a member of the Legislature. He was one of the 'Long Nine,' as it was called, from Sangamon County, who by their successful manoeuvring and united efforts succeeded in getting the seat of government moved from Vandalia to Springfield. During my stay of a few weeks in Vandalia I frequently met Mr. Lincoln. He was a very pleasant companion; but as we walked along the road on the occasion referred to, talking about indifferent subjects, nothing impressed me with any idea of his future greatness."
When Lincoln took his seat in the first session of the new Legislature at Vandalia, his mind was full of new projects. His real public service was now about to begin, and having spent his time in the previous Legislature mainly as an observer and listener he was determined during this session to identify himself conspicuously with the "liberal" progressive legislation, dreaming of a fame far different from that he actually obtained as an anti-slavery leader. As he remarked to his friend Speed, he hoped to obtain the great distinction of being called "the De Witt Clinton of Illinois."
It was at a special session of this Legislature that Lincoln first saw Stephen A. Douglas, his great political antagonist of the future, whom he describes as "the least man" he ever saw. Douglas had come into the State from Vermont only the previous year, and having studied law for several months considered himself eminently qualified to be State's attorney for the district in which he lived. General Linder says of the two men at this time: "I here had an opportunity, better than any I had previously possessed, of measuring the intellectual stature of Abraham Lincoln. He was then about twenty-seven years old—my own age. Douglas was four years our junior; consequently he could not have been over twenty-three years old. Yet he was a very ready and expert debater, even at that early period of his life. He and Lincoln were very frequently pitted against each other, being of different politics. They both commanded marked attention and respect."
A notable measure effected by the "Long Nine" during this session of the Legislature was the removal of the State Capital from Vandalia to Springfield. It was accomplished by dint of shrewd and persistent management, in which Lincoln was a leading spirit. Mr. Robert L. Wilson, one of his colleagues, says: "When our bill to all appearance was dead beyond resuscitation, and our friends could see no hope, Lincoln never for a moment despaired. Collecting his colleagues in his room for consultation, his practical common-sense, his thorough knowledge of human nature, made him an overmatch for his compeers, and for any man I have ever known."
Lincoln's reputation as an orator was gradually extending beyond the circle of his friends and constituents. He was gaining notice as a ready and forcible speaker, with shrewd and sensible ideas which he expressed with striking originality and independence. He was invited to address the Young Men's Lyceum at Springfield, January 27, 1837, and read a carefully prepared paper on "The Perpetuation of Our Political Institutions," which was afterwards published in the Springfield "Weekly Journal." The address was crude and strained in style, but the feeling pervading it was fervent and honest, and its patriotic sentiment and sound reflection made it effective for the occasion. A few paragraphs culled from this paper, some of them containing remarkable prophetic passages, afford a clue to the stage of intellectual development which Lincoln had reached at the age of twenty-seven, and an interesting contrast with the terser style of his later years.
In the great journal of things happening under the sun, we, the American people, find our account running under date of the nineteenth century of the Christian era. We find ourselves in the peaceful possession of the fairest portion of the earth, as regards extent of territory, fertility of soil, and salubrity of climate. We find ourselves under the government of a system of political institutions conducing more essentially to the ends of civil and religious liberty than any of which the history of former times tells us. We, when mounting the stage of existence, found ourselves the legal inheritors of these fundamental blessings. We toiled not in the acquisition or establishment of them; they are a legacy bequeathed us by a once hardy, brave and patriotic, but now lamented and departed race of ancestors. Theirs was the task (and nobly they performed it) to possess themselves, and, through themselves, us, of this goodly land, and to uprear upon its hills and valleys a political edifice of liberty and equal rights; 'tis ours only to transmit these—the former unprofaned by the foot of an invader, the latter undecayed by the lapse of time and untorn by usurpation—to the latest generation that fate shall permit the world to know. This task, gratitude to our fathers, justice to ourselves, duty to posterity, all imperatively require us faithfully to perform.
How, then, shall we perform it? At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant to step the ocean and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia, and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest, with a Bonaparte for a commander, could not, by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years! At what point, then, is the approach