This modern version of seeing the mote and not the beam in one's own eye smothered the member for Wabash in laughter, and he dropped the standard objection of "unconstitutional" as he had not his mark.
THE CREAM OF THE JOKE.
By reason of the distances and the lonesomeness, it was the pleasant habit of candidates to make their electioneering tours together. In seeking reelection in 1838, Lincoln was accompanied by Mr. Ewing. They stopped at one country house about dark, when the good wife was going a-milking, while her husband was still a-field. Intent on securing her, as she had the repute of being "the gray mare," the two partizans accompanied her to the paddock. Ewing, to show his gallantry as well as his familiarity with farm work--a main point in such communities--offered to relieve the dame of the pail and fill it, while she rested. In the meantime, Lincoln chatted with her, so that Ewing could hardly get a word in. At his finishing his self-chosen task, he beheld the pair deeply absorbed, for Lincoln had exercised his glib tongue to such advantage as to secure her influence over her man's vote.
PARALLEL COURSES.
In the thirteenth Congress, Jefferson Davis was in the Senate, while Lincoln and Alexander Stephens were in the House.
JUMPING JIM CROW!
When in Congress, he was a conscience Whig, as opposed to the cotton ones--that is, for the anti-slavery doctrine and not "cottoning" for the South. He wrote home:
"As you (at Springfield) are all so anxious for me to distinguish myself, I have concluded to do so before long." He nearly ex-tinguished himself, for suddenly he went right about face-- according to the popular song--quite a political if not a politic course:
You wheel about and jump about, and do just so!
And ebery time you jump about, you jump Jim Crow!
He had gone against the general tide in hindering the Mexican War as sure to bring Texas into the Union as a slave State, yet now he espoused its hero, "Rough and Ready" Taylor. He had to excuse himself as recognizing that the general was the Whigs' best candidate, and as the Whig National Convention agreed with him, the apparent truckling was condoned.