[v-4] These scenes, until then happily without parallel in American history, recall the political slaughter with which Charles James Fox had seventy years before signalized a crushing victory in the British House of Commons. To quote his biographer: “The fight was over, and the butchery began. Every one who belonged to the beaten party was sacrificed without mercy, with all his kindred and dependents; and those public officers who were unlucky enough to have no political connections fared as ill as the civil population of a district which is the seat of war between two contending armies. Clerks, messengers, excisemen, coast-guardsmen, and pensioners were ruined by shoals because they had no vote for a member of Parliament, or because they had supported a member who had opposed the peace.” (Trevelyan’s Fox, 28.)
[v-5] Greeley, 20.
[v-6] During Lincoln’s first year in the Illinois Legislature he voted steadily with the minority against the adoption of resolutions which the Democratic majority had introduced to uphold President Jackson in his memorable struggle against the United States Bank. But when it came to voting on one resolution which condemned the National Senate for discourteous treatment of the old hero, and on another which commended the Illinois delegation in Congress for supporting the Administration, Lincoln turned away from his political associates, and had himself recorded, both times, in Jackson’s favor. (See Illinois House Journal, 1835, pp. 213-17, 258-63.)
[v-7] Works, vi, 31-32.
[v-8] The whole number of citizens who voted at New Salem, on August 6, 1832, amounted to 300; but as 10 of these refrained from expressing their preferences for Representatives, only 13 actually appear on the records as voting against Lincoln. No election-tickets or ballot-boxes were used in Illinois at this time. The viva-voce method was employed; and as each voter stated his choice, he saw it recorded opposite his name in the poll-book.
[v-9] It is interesting to add that in this election of 1832, the country at large gave Jackson 219 electoral votes, and Clay 49.
[v-10] Letter from Judge Stephen T. Logan, quoted in Nicolay and Hay, i, 102-03, note; and Master, 47.
[v-11] The practice of carrying documents in his hat became a habit with Lincoln. While at the bar in Springfield, long after the postmastership had become a memory, he explained his failure to answer a communication promptly, by writing: “When I received your letter I put it in my old hat, and buying a new one the next day, the old one was set aside, and so the letter was lost sight of for a time.” (See Tarbell, i, 98; and Tarbell’s Early Life, 179.)
[v-12] Lincoln was appointed Postmaster at New Salem on May 7, 1833. He served until May 30, 1836, by which time the population of the place had fallen off to such an extent that the office was discontinued, and its business transferred to Petersburg.
[v-13] Herndon, i, 111. See, also: Onstot, 249; Tarbell’s Early Life, 181; Tarbell, i, 99; Coffin, 81. Some currency having been given to an exaggerated and obviously erroneous report of the incident, Mr. Carpenter (110-12) repeated that version one day in the White House to Mr. Lincoln. The President thought they had “stretched the facts somewhat”; but his denial, such as it was, leaves the original story told by Simmons to Herndon, practically unimpeached.