Like other candidates for public office he was subjected to all manner of hostility and opposition. He was not spared the humility of defending his most cherished integrity. Lincoln was not a common egoist and he sparingly bared his view. He was little trained in the easy language of self-praise. Yet once across the bar he displayed rare skill in the presentation of his position.
"For a senator to be the impartial representative of his whole State is so plain a duty that I pledge myself to the observance of it without hesitation, but not without some mortification that any one should suspect me of an inclination to the contrary. I was eight years a representative of Sangamon County in the legislature; and although in a conflict of interest between that and other counties it perhaps would have been my duty to stick to old Sangamon, yet it is not within my recollection that the northern members ever wanted my vote for any interests of theirs without getting it."[302]
Self interest in the campaign did not once lead him astray in partial judgment of the course of events. Early in January he informed Washburne that he did not know that it was of much advantage to have the largest number of votes at the start; that if he did know it to be an advantage, he should feel better, for he had more committals than any other man.[303] He remained a master in the study of the attitude of the individual voter and delegate. He not only had the enthusiasm of the orator, but also the keen, calm sense of the politician, knowing that battles are largely won by strategy and plan. He did not leave the decision to chance. He studied the way to reach men, the method of attaching and calling friends. He was methodical rather than brilliant.
His last letter dealing with the event opens with the statement that the agony was over at last. He then unfolded the story of his defeat, how his forty-seven adherents yielded to the five of Trumbull, how Governor Matteson by a secret candidacy gathered some anti-Nebraska men to his support; how five of the latter declared they would never vote for a Whig and twenty Whigs resentfully contended that they would not vote for the man of the five. He then stated that the signal was given to the Nebraska men to turn to Matteson on the seventh ballot; that soon he only wanted three of an election; that to detain the bolters Lincoln's friends turned to Trumbull until he had risen to thirty-five and he, Lincoln, had been reduced to fifteen; that they would never desert him except by direction; that he then determined to strike at once and accordingly advised the fifteen to go for Trumbull and thus elected him on the tenth ballot.
"Such is the way," said Lincoln, "the thing was done. I think you would have done the same under the circumstances; though Judge Davis, who came down this morning, declares he never would have consented to the forty-seven being controlled by the five. I regret my defeat moderately, but I am not nervous about it. I could have headed off every combination and been elected, had it not been for Matteson's double game—and his defeat now gives me more pleasure than my own gives me pain. On the whole, it is perhaps as well for our general cause that Trumbull is elected. The Nebraska men confess that they hate it worse than anything that could have happened. It is a great consolation to see them worse whipped than I am."[304]
Here a composite Lincoln confronts the student—a politician much concerned over defeat and getting pleasure out of the failure of an unfair opponent. Yet at the same time another Lincoln reveals himself. Determined to run no risk in the cause of freedom he yielded cherished hopes and gave way to an obstinate minority. He would not allow his own fortune to stand in the way of striking a blow at the slave power. Lincoln emancipated himself from selfish egoism, rising in the hour of disappointment to the calmness of duty.