At New Salem, he now found the leisure and the opportunity to initiate a system of self-education. At last, he had struggled to a point, where he could not only take breath, but could stoop and drink from those springs of knowledge, which a hopeless poverty, incessant toil, and his roving, uncertain life, had, till then, forbidden to his lips.
There seems never to have been any doubt of his ability among Lincoln’s acquaintances, any more than there was a doubt of his honesty, his generosity, and gentle heartedness. When, therefore, he began to make rapid progress in his intellectual pursuits, it surprised none of them — least of all, Lincoln’s shrewd patron, Offutt, who had been known to declare, with pardonable enthusiasm, that Lincoln was the smartest man in the United States.
The first branch of learning which he took up, was English grammar, acquiring that science from the old-fashioned treatise of Kirkham. The book was not to be had in the immediate vicinity, and Lincoln walked seven or eight miles to borrow a copy. He then devoted himself to the study with the whole strength of his resolute nature; and in three weeks he had gained a fair practical knowledge of the grammar. No doubt the thing was hard to the uncultivated mind, though that mind was of great depth and fertility. One of his friends relates that Lincoln used to take him aside, and require explanations of the sententious Kirkham, whenever he visited New Salem.
This young backwoodsman had the stubborn notion that because the Lincolns had always been people of excellent sense, he, a Lincoln, might become a person of distinction. He had talked, he said, with men who were regarded as great, and he did not see where they differed so much from others. He reasoned, probably, that the secret of their success lay in the fact of original capacity, and untiring industry. He was conscious of his own powers; he was a logician, and could not resist logical conclusions. If he studied, why might not he achieve?
And Kirkham fell before him. One incident of his study, was a dispute with the learned man of the place, — a very savant among the unlettered pioneers — in regard to a grammatical nicety, and the question being referred to competent authority, it was decided in Lincoln’s favor, to his pride and exultation.
Concluding his grammatical studies with Kirkham, he next turned his attention to mathematics, and took up a work on surveying, with which he made himself thoroughly acquainted.
So great was his ardor in study, at this time, that shrewd suspicions with regard to Offutt’s clerk got abroad; the honest neighbors began to question whether one who would voluntarily spend all his leisure in
— “poring over miserable books,”
could be altogether right in his mind.
The peculiar manner in which he afterward pursued his law studies, was not calculated to allay popular feeling. He bought an old copy of Blackstone, one day, at auction, in Springfield, and on his return to New Salem, attacked the work with characteristic energy.
His favorite place of study was a wooded knoll near New Salem, where he threw himself under a wide-spreading oak, and expansively made a reading desk of the hillside. Here he would pore over Blackstone day after day, shifting his position as the sun rose and sank, so as to keep in the shade, and utterly unconscious of everything but the principles of common law. People went by, and he took no account of them; the salutations of acquaintances were returned with silence, or a vacant stare; and altogether the manner of the absorbed student was not unlike that of one distraught.
Since that day, his habits of study have changed somewhat, but his ardor remains unabated, and he is now regarded as one of the best informed, as he is certainly the ablest, man in Illinois.
When practicing law, before his election to Congress, a copy of Burns was his inseparable companion on the circuit; and this he perused so constantly, that it is said he has now by heart every line of his favorite poet. He is also a diligent student of Shakspeare, “to know whom is a liberal education,”
The bent of his mind, however, is mathematical and metaphysical, and he is therefore pleased with the absolute and logical method of Poe’s tales and sketches, in which the problem of mystery is given, and wrought out into every-day facts by processes of cunning analysis. It is said that he suffers no year to pass without the perusal of this author.
Books, of all sorts, the eager student devoured with an insatiable appetite; and newspapers were no less precious to him. The first publication for which he ever subscribed, was the Louisville Journal, which he paid for when he could secure the intellectual luxury only at the expense of physical comfort.
It was a day of great rejoicing with Lincoln, when President Jackson appointed him postmaster at New Salem. He was a Whig, but the office was of so little pecuniary significance, that it was bestowed irrespective of politics. Lincoln, indeed, was the only person in the community whose accomplishments were equal to the task of making out the mail returns for the Department.
An acquaintance says that the Presidency can never make our candidate happier than the post-office did then. He foresaw unlimited opportunities for reading newspapers, and of satisfying his appetite for knowledge.
But it was not through reading alone that Lincoln cultivated his intellect. The grave and practical American mind has always found entertainment and profit in disputation, and the debating clubs are what every American youth is subject to. They are useful in many ways. They safely vent the mental exuberance of youth; those whom destiny intended for the bar and the Senate, they assist; those who have a mistaken vocation to oratory, they mercifully extinguish.
Even in that day, and that rude country, where learning was a marvelous and fearful exception, the debating school flourished, in part as a literary institution, and in part as a rustic frolic.
Lincoln delighted in practicing polemics, as it was called, and used to walk six and seven miles through the woods to attend the disputations in his neighborhood. Of course, many of the debates were infinitely funny, for the disputants were, frequently, men without education. Here, no doubt, Lincoln stored his mind with anecdote and comic illustration, while he delighted his auditors with his own wit and reason, and added to his growing popularity.
This popularity had been early founded by a stroke of firmness and bravery on Lincoln’s part, when he first came into Sangamon county.
He had returned from that famous voyage made with; Offutt’s impromptu flat-boat to New Orleans, and descending the Sangamon river, had, as has been already related, fixed upon the little village of New Salem, by fortuity rather than intention, as his future home. Nevertheless, he had first to undergo an ordeal to which every new corner was subjected, before his residence could be generally acknowledged. Then, when it was much more necessary to be equal parts of horse and alligator, and to be able to vanquish one’s weight in wild cats, than now, there flourished, in the region of New Salem, a band of jolly, roystering blades, calling themselves “Clary’s Grove Boys,” who not only gave the law to the neighborhood, as Regulators, but united judicial to legislative functions, by establishing themselves a tribunal to try the stuff of every one who came into that region. They were, at once, the protectors and the scourge of the whole country-side, and must have been some such company as that of Brom Bones, in Sleepy Hollow, upon whom the “neighbors all looked with a mixture of awe, admiration, and good-will.” Their mode of receiving a stranger was to appoint some one of their number to wrestle with him, fight with him, or run a foot-race with him, according to their pleasure, and his appearance.
As soon as young Lincoln appeared, the “Clary’s Grove Boys” determined to signalize their prowess anew by a triumph over a stalwart fellow, who stood six feet three inches without stockings. The leader and champion of their band, (one Jack Armstrong, who seems himself to have been another Brom Bones,) challenged Lincoln to a wrestling-match. When the encounter took place, the “Clary’s Grove Boy” found that he had decidedly the worst half of the affair, and the bout would have ended in his ignominious defeat, had not all his fellow-boys come to his assistance. Lincoln then refused to continue th
e unequal struggle. He would wrestle with them fairly, or he would run a foot-race, or if any of them desired to fight, he generously offered to thrash that particular individual. He looked every word he said, and none of the Boys saw fit to accept his offer. Jack Armstrong was willing to call the affair drawn; and Lincoln’s fearless conduct had already won the hearts of his enemies. He was invited to become one of their company. His popularity was assured. The Boys idolized him, and when the Black Hawk war broke out, he was chosen their captain, and remained at their head throughout the campaign. Their favor still pursued him, and, two years afterward, he was elected to the Legislature, through the influence created by his famous wrestling-match.
Many of the Boys are now distinguished citizens of Illinois, and are among Lincoln’s warmest friends; though they acknowledge that if he had shown signs of cowardice when they came to the rescue of their champion, it would have fared grievously with him.
Indeed, this seems to have been one of the most significant incidents of his early life. It gave him reputation for courage necessary in a new country, and opened a career to him which his great qualities have enabled him to pursue with brilliance and success.
CHAPTER III.
IN 1832, Black Hawk’s war broke out. In the light of history, this war seems to have been a struggle involuntarily commenced by the Indians against the white settlers. A treaty had been made by the Sacs and Foxes, ceding to the United States all the land east of the Mississippi — a treaty which the Sac chief, Black Hawk, declared to be illegal. A war with the Sacs ensued, which was terminated by treaty in 1825. Meanwhile Illinois had been admitted to the Union, and the country had filled up with whites, who extended the lines of their settlements around the country of the Indians, and pressed closer and closer upon them. Outrages, on one part and on the other, were of constant occurrence; and in revenge for some wrong, a party of Chippeway Indians fired upon a keel-boat conveying stores to Fort Snelling. Through mistake or injustice, Black Hawk was arrested for this, and lay imprisoned a whole year before he could be brought to trial and acquitted. After his release, it was believed that he engaged in negotiations to unite all the Indians, from Rock River to the Gulf of Mexico, in a general war upon the whites. The alarm, of course, was very great, and active preparations for hostilities were made. Regular forces were marched against the Indians at Rock Island, and large bodies of militia were called into the field. It appears that Black Hawk never succeeded in rallying about him more than two or three hundred warriors of his tribe; the Indians being desirous of peace, and willing to abide by the treaty of the chief Keokuk, who favored the cession of land. Indeed, Black Hawk himself attempted to treat with the whites several times when he met them, and only fought after his flags of truce had been fired upon. The war was brought to a close by the battle of Bad-Ax, in which glorious action a great number of squaws and papooses, not to mention several warriors, were killed. The Indians then retreated beyond the Mississippi, and Black Hawk was brought a prisoner into the camp of the whites. He made the grand tour of the Atlantic cities, where he received the usual attentions bestowed upon lions of every tribe, and returning to the West a sadder and a wiser Indian, passed into oblivion.
There can not be any doubt that the war was a very serious matter to the people who were engaged in it; and there is as little doubt that their panic exaggerated their danger, and rendered them merciless in their determination to expel the Indians.
Offutt’s business had long been failing, and at the time the war broke out, Lincoln had the leisure, as well as the patriotism, to join one of the volunteer companies which was formed in the neighborhood of New Salem. To his unbounded surprise and satisfaction, he was chosen captain by his fellow-soldiers. The place of rendezvous was at Richland, and as soon as the members of the company met, the election took place. It was expected that the captaincy would be conferred on a man of much wealth and consequence among the people, for whom Lincoln had once worked. He was a harsh and exacting employer, and had treated the young man, whom everybody else loved and esteemed, with the greatest rigor; a course which had not increased his popularity. The method of election was for the candidates to step out of the ranks, when the electors advanced and joined the man whom they chose to lead them. Three-fourths of the company at once went to Lincoln; and when it was seen how strongly the tide was set in his favor, the friends of the rival candidate deserted him, one after another, until he was left standing almost alone. He was unspeakably mortified and disappointed, while Lincoln’s joy was proportionably great.
The latter served three months in the Black Hawk war, and made acquaintance with the usual campaigning experiences, but was in no battle. He still owns the lands in Iowa that he located with warrants for service performed in the war.
An incident of the campaign, in which Lincoln is concerned, illustrates a trait of his character no less prominent than his qualities of integrity and truth. One day an old Indian wandered into Lincoln’s camp, and was instantly seized by his men. The general opinion was that he ought to be put to death. They were in the field for the purpose of killing Indians, and to spare the slaughter of one that Providence had delivered into their hands was something of which these honest pioneers could not abide the thought. It was to little purpose that the wretched aborigine showed a letter signed by General Cass, and certifying him to be not only a model of ail the savage virtues, but a sincere friend of the whites. He was about to be sacrificed, when Lincoln boldly declared that the sacrifice should not take place. He was at once accused of cowardice, and of a desire to conciliate the Indians. Nevertheless, he stood firm, proclaiming that even barbarians would not kill a helpless prisoner. If any one thought him a coward, let him step out and be satisfied of his mistake, in any way he chose. As to this poor old Indian, he had no doubt he was all that the letter of General Cass affirmed; he declared that they should kill him before they touched the prisoner. His argument, in fine, was so convincing, and his manner so determined, that the copper-colored ally of the whites was suffered to go his ways, and departed out of the hostile camp of his friends unhurt.
After his return from the wars, Lincoln determine! to test the strength of his popularity, by offering himself as a candidate for the Legislature. Added to the goodwill which had carried him into the captaincy, he had achieved a warmer place in the hearts of those who had followed his fortunes during the war, by his bravery, social qualities, and uprightness. He was warm-hearted and good-natured, and told his stories, of which he had numbers, in better style than any other man in the camp. No one was so fleet of foot; and in those wrestlings which daily enlivened the tedium of camp life, he was never thrown but once, and then by a man of superior science who was not his equal in strength. These were qualities which commended him to the people, and made him the favorite officer of the battalion.
Parties, at’ this time, were distinguished as Adams parties and Jackson parties, and in Lincoln’s county the Jackson men were vastly in the ascendant. He was a stanch Adams man, and, being comparatively unknown in the remoter parts of the county, was defeated. In his own neighborhood the vote was almost unanimous in his favor; though he had only arrived from the war and announced himself as a candidate ten days before the election. Indeed, he received, at this election, one more vote in his precinct than both of the rival candidates for Congress together.
Defeated, but far from dismayed, Lincoln once more turned his attention to business. He was still poor, for though thrifty enough, he never could withstand the appeals of distress, nor sometimes refuse to become security for those who asked the use of his name. His first surveying had been done with a grape-vine instead of a chain, and having indorsed a note which was not paid, his compass was seized and sold. One James Short bought it and returned it to Lincoln. The surveyor of Sangamon county, John Calhoun, (since notorious for his candle-box concealment of the election returns in Kansas) deputed to Lincoln that part of the county in which he resided, and he now assumed the active practice of surveying, and c
ontinued to live upon the slender fees of his office until 1834, when he was elected to the Legislature by the largest vote cast for any candidate.
Before this election Lincoln had engaged and failed in merchandising on his own account.
It is supposed that it was at New Salem that Lincoln, while a “clerk” in Offutt’s store, first saw Stephen A. Douglas, and, probably, the acquaintance was renewed during Lincoln’s proprietorship of the store which he afterward bought in the same place.
One Reuben Radford was Lincoln’s predecessor. He had fallen, by some means, into disfavor with Clary’s Grove Boys, who, one evening, took occasion to break in the windows of his establishment. Reuben was discouraged. Perhaps it would not be going too far to allude to his situation as discouraging. At any rate, he told a young farmer, who came to trade with him the next day, that he was going to close out his business. What would Mr. Green give him for his stock? Mr. Green looked about him and replied, only half in earnest, Four hundred dollars. The offer was instantly accepted, and the business transferred to Mr. Green. On the following day Lincoln chanced to come in, and being informed of the transaction, proposed that he and Green should invoice the stock, and see how much he had made. They found that it was worth about six hundred dollars, and Lincoln gave Mr. Green a hundred and twenty-five dollars for his bargain, while Green indorsed the notes of Lincoln and one Berry, to Radford for the remaining four hundred. Berry was a thriftless soul, it seems, and after a while the store fell into a chronic decay, and, in the idiom of the region, finally winked out.
Lincoln was moneyless, having previously invested his whole fortune in a surveyor’s compass and books, and Berry was uncertain. Young Green was compelled to pay the notes given to Radford. He afterward removed to Tennessee, where he married, and was living in forgetfulness of his transaction with Lincoln, when he one day received a letter from that person, stating he was now able to pay back to Green the amount for which he had indorsed. Lincoln was by this time in the practice of the law, and it was with the first earnings of his profession, that he discharged this debt, principal and interest.
Delphi Complete Works of William Dean Howells Page 1372
