Those must have been strenuous days. The Whigs were in a minority; yet they began, from the fall of the gavel, to exert an influence upon legislation out of all proportion to their numbers. This required skillful team-play, and the leaders were doubtless wary of employing novices. At any rate, no important part on the programme, so far as now appears, was entrusted to Lincoln. His appointment to the Committee on Public Accounts and Expenditures seems appropriate enough, in view of the sobriquet with which he had entered the House; but the transactions of that committee afforded him slender scope, if the record may be followed, for displaying financial honesty or, in fact, honesty of any sort. Nor was he more active during this first session in general legislation. Several bills of no great moment, service on a few select committees, occasional routine motions, the presentation of an unsuccessful petition, and a resolution concerning monies received from the sales of public lands apparently made up the sum of his doings on the floor. For the rest, as behooved a fledgling, he kept modestly in the background. By the time this Legislature reassembled, however, at the special session of 1835-36, Lincoln’s downright sincerity, his homely common sense, and a certain capacity for parliamentary work began to dawn upon his colleagues. He attracted favorable notice too, some say, by the zeal with which he labored, when the legislative districts were reapportioned that winter, toward securing for Sangamon a considerable increase of representation. Under the law then passed, his county, though not the most populous in the State, was awarded the heaviest membership in the House of Representatives. So that its delegation to the General Assembly became enlarged from four members in the House and two in the Senate to seven in the House and two in the Senate—changes which were destined to exert a memorable influence upon the political history of Illinois as well as upon the fortunes of Abraham Lincoln.
His popularity among the people had meanwhile suffered no diminution. They liked him, trusted him, and now some of them felt grateful toward him. It was to a pleased constituency, therefore, from more than one point of view, that he appealed during the following summer for reëlection. The contest appears to have been warmly waged on every side, and though the enlarged list of candidates included several doughty campaigners,—Democrats as well as Whigs,—Lincoln regained his seat with the highest vote given by Sangamon to any nominee for the House of Representatives. What is more, the entire legislative ticket of the new party in that district was elected. The Whigs, by a signal victory, had revolutionized the neighborhood; and so complete—we may add in passing—was their triumph throughout the county that the control which they then gained over its affairs could at no time, during several succeeding decades of Democratic ascendancy elsewhere in the State, be successfully disputed there.
Clean sweeps presuppose stalwart brooms. The newly elected Sangamon Representatives, together with the Senators who held over, did in fact make a notable group of men. They were as tall as they were vigorous. Their average weight is said to have exceeded two hundred pounds, and their average height six feet. When they appeared at Vandalia for the session of 1836-37, some wag dubbed them the “Long Nine”—an appellation that stuck. For even in the capital of a State dedicated, as the Indian tradition has it, to “superior men,” their appearance no less than their achievements attracted attention. The stature, moreover, which one of these tall politicians eventually attained in the world’s history lends peculiar interest to the whole coterie. On that account, if on no other, a chronicle of his doings would seem incomplete without the names of those eight colleagues. They comprised, in the House, John Dawson, Ninian W. Edwards, Robert L. Wilson, Daniel Stone, William F. Elkin, and Andrew McCormick; in the Senate, Archer G. Herndon and Job Fletcher, Sr. These men, fresh from the exaltation of a thoroughgoing party victory, took their seats in the Legislature with the avowed purpose of accomplishing great things. And they had need of all their courage. The particular task which awaited them was no easy one. They were expected to capture the State Capital for Sangamon County by having the seat of government transferred from Vandalia to Springfield.
The management of this enterprise was entrusted to Lincoln. He had then already evinced some of the qualities that go to make a political leader, and his associates in the “Long Nine,” as if by common consent, looked to him for guidance. But the honor was apparently not welcome just then. Suffering from illness and from one of those attacks of morbid depression that at times possessed him, he entered upon the session, unlike the others, in no conquering mood. Nevertheless, under his direction the Sangamon delegation straightway began a spirited campaign to the greater glory of Springfield. That town was not by any means the favorite among some half-dozen places which actively aspired to the capital prize.[v-15] Yet so vigorously were its claims put forth that competitors came to regard it as their most formidable rival, and for a time the contest looked as if all the other municipalities in the field were combined against this one.
The odds bore heavily against the “Long Nine”—so heavily that some of the big men, at critical points in the unequal, at times well-nigh futile, struggle, lost heart. But their leader did not flinch. What might have dismayed more seasoned parliamentary chieftains merely stimulated Lincoln to renewed efforts. He seemed prepared to stake the entire session, if necessary, upon the success of the Springfield project. That measure was, in fact, thrown into the scales whenever the advocates of pending legislation sought Sangamon support.
And such calls came frequently enough, because well-nigh every member of this remarkable Assembly had his own particular interest to serve. It took the form, generally speaking, of some scheme for so-called “internal improvements,” whereby the politicians tried to satisfy a mania for overnight development that had recently obsessed the inhabitants of the State—a mania which was now about to reach its culmination in a series of extravagant enactments. One eager statesman came charged by his constituents with the duty of securing a railroad; another must obtain an appropriation for a canal, another a State road; still another was under orders to have this stream or that made more widely navigable; and so on through the whole range of public betterments. A hungrier crowd of the people’s chosen Representatives has seldom been seen to clamor around the “pork barrel.” It seemed as if each man’s political life depended upon securing and carrying home a generous helping. To that end, other interests were freely sacrificed, while “log-rolling,” as the expressive idiom for the trading of votes sometimes phrased it, became the order of the day.
Few if any among these struggling legislators appear to have marketed their influence more profitably than did the members from Sangamon County; and the most able “log-roller” in even that proficient band is said, beyond a question, to have been Abraham Lincoln. Maneuvering his followers so as to take advantage of every turn, arraying their united strength solidly for or against the designs of other delegations, as those delegations declared themselves during the preliminary skirmishes to be allies or opponents of Springfield, winning over some members by appeals to personal interests, others by appeal to sheer good-fellowship,—adroit, tireless, unruffled,—Lincoln at last surmounted all obstacles, and brought this unique campaign to a triumphant finish. The “Long Nine” won. Springfield carried the day, and by a joint vote of both houses, in the closing days of the session, that town became their choice for the permanent capital of Illinois.
Great was the rejoicing throughout the Sangamon region over this achievement. And no less elated—need we add?—were the citizens of the little prairie burg so suddenly raised to prominence. They welcomed the returning delegation as they might have welcomed a band of conquering heroes. Nothing was too good in Springfield for the men who had brought it this coveted civic honor. Members of the “Long Nine” were fêted and lauded on every hand, while their leader particularly came in for grateful attentions. At one complimentary dinner sixty guests are said to have joined in the toast: “Abraham Lincoln: He has fulfilled the expectations of his friends and disappointed the hopes of his enemies.”[v-16]
But “his enemies,” or, more correctly speaking, the enemies of Springfield, were still, in a way, to be reckoned with. Some of them took their defeat hard. They affected to believe, if they did not indeed actually believe, that the Sangamon interest had won unfairly. In fact, above the notes of triumph with which the victors celebrated their joyful homecoming might be heard the discordant voices of these chagrined opponents, charging trickery and corruption.
The brunt of such assaults naturally fell upon Lincoln. He it was who had guided the activities of the “Long Nine,” and against him were now directed the severest blows of their assailants. Yet the Sangamon chief, by all accounts, proved equal to the occasion. Whenever his conduct or that of his colleagues in the contest for the Capital was publicly attacked, he is said to have replied with telling effect—so much so, in truth, that before long all detractors were silenced, efforts to repeal the act failed, and the Springfield forces, rejoicing in Lincoln’s prowess, remained undisputed masters of the situation.[v-17] They applauded without stint, as might have been expected, the man to whom this was mainly due; but their enthusiastic approval of him is not by any means the last word.