Despite its virtual monopoly along certain lines, the new firm was ill-adapted to succeed. Berry soon developed habits of idleness and intemperance that would have been fatal to any business;[i-34] while Lincoln, though ambitious and sober to an exceptional degree, was hardly more effective. His keen interest in books, study, newspapers, politics, funny stories, horse-races, wrestling-matches, feats of strength,—anything, in short, but buying and selling,—left him far from alert to what is commonly called the main chance. When one remembers these pursuits, moreover, to have been the preoccupations of a man who combined rigid integrity with a kindly nature, it is not surprising to learn, as Cousin Dennis relates, that “he purty nigh always got the wust of a trade.”[i-35] The rest is soon told. Berry and Lincoln did not thrive. Giving up the struggle after several ineffectual shifts, they sold out, early in 1834, to Alexander and William Trent. The purchasers had no money, but they willingly gave notes, which the sellers as willingly accepted. Before these obligations fell due, however, the Trent brothers had disappeared, their few remaining goods had been seized by creditors, and the business had come to an inglorious close.
Berry’s death, soon after, left the surviving member of the firm to face, alone, the consequences of their ill-starred venture. Yet he could not bring himself to join in the censure which was heaped upon the young man’s memory. With characteristic consideration for his partner’s father, the Reverend John M. Berry, whom he held in affectionate regard, Lincoln declared that William’s dissipation was a result rather than a cause of their misfortunes; and took on his own shoulders the burden of liabilities bound up in those unpaid notes to Herndon, Radford, Greene, and Rutledge.
How serious the whole affair was may be gathered from this account of it, given by the hapless debtor to a friend[i-36] of later days: “That debt was the greatest obstacle I have ever met in life. I had no way of speculating, and could not earn money except by labor, and to earn by labor eleven hundred dollars, besides my living, seemed the work of a lifetime. There was, however, but one way. I went to the creditors and told them that if they would let me alone, I would give them all I could earn, over my living, as fast as I could earn it.”[i-37]
During the next few months no surplus, it is perhaps needless to add, was available for this purpose. In fact, the situation reduced itself to a struggle for bread. Lincoln’s earnings from the office of local postmaster, to which he had been appointed before the above “winked out,” were of course meager in the extreme; but he contrived to pick up a living by doing odd jobs about the neighborhood. Helping his friends—now Hill, now Ellis—behind their counters, working in the field as a farm laborer, splitting rails, lending a hand at the mill,—briefly, making himself useful on all sides, in his big, good-natured way, he just “kept,” to quote the autobiography, “soul and body together.”[i-38]
Throughout this trying period, however, Lincoln did not lose sight of his self-respect, or of the respect due to him from others. He began to manifest that sensitive chastity of honor which recoils from doubt as from a blow. So, when a patron of the post-office, upon payment of certain arrears demanded an acknowledgment, “A. Lincoln, P.M.,” responded: “I am somewhat surprised at your request. I will, however, comply with it. The law requires newspaper postage to be paid in advance, and now that I have waited a full year, you choose to wound my feelings by insinuating that unless you get a receipt I will probably make you pay it again.”[i-39]
The reputation for honesty, which Lincoln so jealously guarded, had meanwhile opened to him another channel for occasional employment. This opportunity came through John Calhoun, the surveyor of Sangamon County, who, overburdened with business, was looking about for an assistant of intelligence and unquestioned integrity. The latter qualification appears to have been especially important at the time, owing to a mania for speculation in land that had possessed the people of the region to such a degree as almost to put a premium on jobbery. A man beyond the reach of corruption was, therefore, what Calhoun sought when he offered to make Abraham Lincoln one of his deputies. The honor must have been not less flattering to the young National Republican, because it came, as had the postmastership, from a Democratic source, and with the assurance that his acceptance carried with it no obligation of party service, nor restraint upon his freedom of political action. To Lincoln’s declaration that he knew nothing whatever about surveying, Calhoun responded with an offer to aid him. Books and material having been procured, six weeks of earnest study ensued. For assistance in learning the theory of the subject, Lincoln turned to his friend, Mentor Graham, the local schoolmaster; for guidance in the practical application of the rules, he depended on the surveyor himself. When the period of preparation had reached its close, the new-fledged deputy is said to have made his pathetic little speech: “Calhoun, I am entirely unable to repay you for your generosity, at present. All that I have you see on me, except a quarter of a dollar, in my pocket.”[i-40]
Such extreme poverty left Lincoln, of course, unable to pay cash for the saddle-horse that his new duties obliged him to buy. He agreed to take care of the bill by installments; he did so, but ran behind when only ten dollars remained unpaid. Whereupon his creditor, a horse-dealer named Thomas Watkins, who is described as “a high-strung man,” lost his temper and sued for what was still due. Lincoln did not deny the debt. He hastily raised the required sum and settled the suit.
A still more unpleasant experience followed, for the young surveyor was destined to drain his cup of mortification to its dregs. One of the Berry-Lincoln notes had passed into the hands of a certain Van Bergen, who forthwith brought suit and obtained judgment. Levying on the horse, saddle, and surveying instruments, he offered them for sale in satisfaction of his claim. But Lincoln’s loyal friends were not disposed to stand idly by while he was deprived of the means of earning a livelihood. They bought the effects that had been seized, restored them to their former owner, and took the place of the impatient Van Bergen among his creditors.[i-41] The loans, so handsomely made, were in time repaid by Lincoln, principal and interest, as were all the obligations left in the train of his unfortunate business ventures. Disdaining to take advantage of a recently enacted law for the relief of insolvent debtors, he set himself resolutely to the task of seeing to it that no man should lose a penny by reason of any note which contained his signature. Yet the prospect might have appalled a stouter heart. At times, when the seeming hopelessness of the undertaking was borne in upon him, he referred to what was still to be paid, with whimsical humor, as “the national debt.” How long the process of liquidation did, in fact, take is not precisely known. Lincoln’s occasional payments on account of these claims would doubtless have made a braver showing had the only other demands upon him been for his own simple wants; but, in addition to such outlays, the frequent aid extended to his parents, and the requirements, after his marriage, of a growing family, all had to come out of earnings that never, at their best, were munificent. Nevertheless, through good times and bad, the load of indebtedness became steadily lighter, until, after seventeen years or more of self-denial, the last note, with its heavy accumulations of interest, was paid.[i-42]
A less scrupulous man than Abraham Lincoln might have appreciably shortened this debt-bound period from the very beginning. As deputy surveyor under John Calhoun, and later, under that officer’s successor, Thomas M. Neale, he doubtless had opportunities enough for employing his knowledge of what was going on, together with his still unimpaired credit, in profitable land speculations. But he could not bring himself to mingle the pursuit of private gain with public duties; and he scorned to use, on his own account, information derived from official sources.[i-43] The same conscientious spirit so manifestly entered into the doing of the work itself that he soon gained the confidence of those who employed him. They believed in the young surveyor’s accuracy, as well as in his fairness, to such an extent that disputes concerning boundaries or corners were frequently submitted to him for arbitration; and, what is of greater moment, his findings, we are told, were invariably accepted by the conflicting parties as final. A quarrel of this nature, about a corner, took place in the northern part of the county. “After a good deal of disputing,” relates one of the owners, “we agreed to send for Lincoln, and to abide by his decision. He came with compass, flagstaff, and chain. He stopped with me three or four days and surveyed the whole section. When in the neighborhood of the disputed corner by actual survey, he called for his staff and, driving it in the ground at a certain spot said, ‘Gentlemen, here is the corner.’ We dug down into the ground at the point indicated and lo! there we found about six or eight inches of the original stake sharpened at the end, and beneath which was the usual piece of charcoal placed there by Rector, the surveyor who laid the ground off for the Government many years before.” So well had the work been done that in this instance, as in the others, differences were at an end, and all concerned “went away completely satisfied.”[i-44]
There is another aspect of Lincoln’s early life that should not be overlooked. He was apparently never too busy for the contests of strength and skill from which came some of his first sweet triumphs in leadership. That these were won, for the most part, with ease must have made defeat, when it did on rare occasions occur, peculiarly hard to bear; yet he carried himself, according to all accounts,—whether victor or vanquished,—as a man of honor should. In fact, save for a single untoward act which must be charged to the hobbledehoy exuberance of his youthful Indiana days,[i-45] Lincoln treated whatever happened at these sports with the same extreme candor and nicety of good faith that marked his business dealings. Perhaps the most notable instance is that of a certain wrestling-match which took place during the Black Hawk War. At the risk of telling a twice-told tale, the story is repeated here,—told anew rather than repeated, for the later researches of an Illinois historian have contributed not a few additional details.[i-46] They reveal Lincoln in the full flower of sportsmanlike honesty.