II. NEARING THE HEIGHTS OF A PUBLIC CAREER
Lincoln’s long struggle to know and to be worth while culminated at last in a political career. The good opinion of associates grew into the favorable friendship of his neighbors and that confidence widened to the community, then to the political district and so on.
In this age when thousands of dollars, and, in some instances, many hundred thousands of dollars used for campaign expenses is a common occurrence, it is interesting to read how Lincoln managed such things. He was elected four times to the Illinois legislature. One time the Whigs made up two hundred dollars to pay his campaign expenses. After the election he returned one hundred and ninety-nine dollars and twenty-five cents, to be given back to the subscribers, in which he explained, “I did not need the money. I made the canvass on my own horse; my entertainment, being at the house of friends, cost me nothing; and my only outlay was seventy-five cents for a barrel of cider, which some farm hands insisted I should treat them to.”
The history of Lincoln’s political battles belongs to those who would comment on his part in public affairs. We are interested here in a moral consideration of what built him up to a life used in the preservation of his nation, the intimate personal interests of his wonderful story, and how he stands as an ideal character of American manhood.
It is therefore sufficient for us to pass over the great political struggles that proved him to be the “Giant of the West,” and begin with him on the way to the White House.
Lincoln was not exactly as the prophet without honor in his own country, for he was beloved wherever he was known, but his neighbors were struck with surprise when he was nominated to be President of the United States.
One fine old gentleman, recently settled in Springfield from England, who had brought his old country ideas of propriety with him, was covered with astonishment.
“What!” he exclaimed, “Abe Lincoln nominated for President of the United States! A man that buys a ten-cent beefsteak for his breakfast, and carries it home himself! How is it possible!”
Lincoln’s vision of himself, expressed during a debate with Douglas, was not much more hopeful. Ponder over these words in which Lincoln with mingled humor, pathos and insight contrasted his own appearance with that of his adversary in the famous debates:
“There is still another disadvantage under which we labor.... It arises out of the relative positions of the two persons who stand before the State as candidates for the Senate. Senator Douglas is of world-wide renown. All the anxious politicians of his party ... have been looking upon him as certainly, at no distant day, to be the President of the United States. They have seen in his round, jolly, fruitful face, post offices, land offices, marshalships and Cabinet appointments, chargeships and foreign missions, bursting and sprouting out in wonderful exuberance, ready to be laid hold of by their greedy hands. On the contrary, nobody has ever expected me to be President. In my poor lean, lank face nobody has ever seen that any cabbages were sprouting out. These are disadvantages all, taken together, that the Republicans labor under. We have to fight this battle upon principle and upon principle alone.”
But the people were in earnest. It was realized by all that the fundamental interests of American progress were in the midst of a great crisis. They needed a reliable man and Lincoln was that man.
Campaign songs are usually very flat reading after the campaign is over, but they were then the carriers of the enthusiasm for a great cause.
The song sung in the state nominating-convention at Springfield, Illinois, had for its first verse and chorus the following lines:
“Hark! Hark! a signal gun is heard,
Just beyond the fort;
The good old Ship of State, my boys,
Is coming into port,
With shattered sails and anchors gone,
I fear the rogues will strand her;
She carries now a sorry crew,
And needs a new commander.
Chorus
“Our Lincoln is the man!
Our Lincoln is the man!
With a sturdy mate
From the Pine-Tree State,
Our Lincoln is the man!”