And so they did. Yet money for the first two payments—there were to be three in all—was scraped together with some difficulty; and worse still, when the third installment came due, no funds whatever seemed collectible. Many of the subscribers had become impoverished, while none of them were flush. So the required sum, $16,666.67, was borrowed from the State Bank of Illinois on a note that bore the signatures of one hundred and one citizens. They took eight years to discharge the debt. How hard it came for some of them to meet their share, what economies were practiced, what sacrifices made, can, in the nature of things, never be known. The episode itself, stripped of all these romantic details,—a simple tale of plain good faith,—must suffice for history. And it does suffice. For now, after more than two thirds of a century has elapsed, that painfully liquidated note is still extant. Framed and displayed in a banking-house at Springfield, where all who enter may see, it serves as a memorial to the rectitude of the community during those trying times.
They were trying times, indeed, and to none of these one hundred and one signers more so, perhaps, than to him who had written the name, “A. Lincoln.” When he came to the recently chosen capital, as we have seen, shortly after adjournment of the General Assembly, to seek his fortunes at the bar, this young politician’s financial condition was, in a sense, worse than penniless. The burden of “the national debt” lay upon him, and the few dollars in his pocket did not suffice—the reader will recall—to supply his most pressing wants. How those wants were met, first by a seat at Butler’s table, then by a place in Speed’s bed, may also be recalled. And possibly it is as well to add—for all these circumstances are of peculiar significance now—even the horse which carried him, a few weeks later, on his first trip around the circuit was borrowed from a colleague, Robert L. Wilson, of the “Long Nine.” That a man who had been one of the leading actors in an orgy of extravagant legislation should emerge from the session so impoverished as to be dependent momentarily upon the hospitality of one friend for food, of another for shelter, and of still another for the means of gaining a livelihood, is its own commentary on his probity. Nor does this appear less noteworthy, in the light of a commonly accepted belief that the “internal improvement” measures were tainted with personal corruption. The whirl of enticing opportunities during those rapid days is said to have swept more than one legislator off his feet. Yet the Sangamon chief stood steadfast. He could see nothing attractive in the illicit, or at least dubious, gains which were garnered by perverting official duties to selfish ends. In fact, then and thereafter—during that sinister period, as well as throughout his entire four consecutive terms in the Illinois House—Lincoln’s record, so far as such matters went, was spotless. Like certain other political leaders to whom private fortunes have been lacking, he followed the rule laid down in one of Daniel Webster’s aphorisms: “The man who enters public life takes upon himself a vow of poverty, to the religious observance of which he is bound so long as he remains in it.”
There was, however, nothing ascetic, we hasten to add, about “the godlike” Daniel’s life—public or private. Improvident and debt-ridden, he indulged himself, to the point of reckless extravagance, in a mode of living beside which the Illinoisan’s simple habits formed a striking contrast. They were both poor, it is true, but from very different causes. What some of these were, in Lincoln’s case, the stories recounting his hapless business ventures and his unprofitable methods at the bar have already disclosed. For the rest, an engrossing interest in politics with its resultant sacrifices, as the years went on, of time, attention, even money, hardly served to improve the situation. One is prepared, therefore, to learn that when funds ran low he too made shift to eke out his resources by applying the familiar mathematical formula,—three from two we cannot take so I borrow.
Lincoln’s very entrance into public life had been made, it must be confessed, through the drab doors of debt. After his first election to the Legislature, while still at New Salem, he was confronted by a perplexing question. How could a countryman, wholly without means, acquire presentable clothes, travel all the way down to the seat of government at Vandalia, and maintain himself there until pay-day in a manner befitting the dignity of a lawmaker? This particular countryman was not long contriving the answer. Calling on Coleman Smoot, a prosperous farmer in the district, he asked: “Smoot, did you vote for me?”
The answer was a prompt affirmative.
“Well,” said Lincoln, “you must loan me money to buy suitable clothing, for I want to make a decent appearance in the Legislature.”
Here was a whimsical reversal of the course that funds too often take in passing between candidate and voter. But Smoot, who had a warm admiration for the new member, entered cordially into the humor of the affair. He handed out two hundred dollars—enough it would seem to meet all of Lincoln’s prospective expenses; and these two hundred dollars—we have the lender’s own statement for the fact—were some time thereafter repaid, “according to promise.”[v-21]
The same amount of money, taking the same unaccustomed direction, figured in another peculiar election episode. On the latter occasion, however, a contribution was made to further the office-seeker’s election, rather than to help him out afterwards. And this is how it happened. During a vigorously contested canvass, the Whigs raised a purse of two hundred dollars which Joshua F. Speed handed Lincoln to defray his expenses. When the election was over, the victorious candidate brought back one hundred and ninety-nine dollars and twenty-five cents. Giving this to his friend, with a request that it be distributed again among the subscribers, he said: “I did not need the money. I made the canvass on my own horse. My entertainment, being at the houses of friends, cost me nothing; and my only outlay was seventy-five cents for a barrel of cider, which some farmhands insisted I should treat them to.”[v-22]
Lincoln’s failure to find a use for these funds was in keeping with the simple honesty which prompted their return. Yet throughout this very period he must have been harried, not only by his old business debts, but also by the several successors to the Smoot loan that his necessities, from time to time, brought into being. Nor were such accommodations always from friends. We catch a glimpse, early in 1839, of a maturing note at the bank that had to be renewed, and the interest charges on which had to be paid.[v-23] Indeed, many years were destined to elapse before Lincoln could wholly free himself from the meshes of these carking obligations. They held him meanwhile fast-bound among the debtor class, and what he endured, intensifying a natural tenderness for all unfortunates, stirred his sympathies to their very depths in behalf of other men who might be similarly circumstanced.