JOHN CALHOUN, UNDER WHOM LINCOLN LEARNED SURVEYING.
From a steel engraving in the possession of R.W. Diller, Springfield, Illinois. John Calhoun was born in Boston, Massachusetts, October 14, 1806; removed to the Mohawk Valley, New York, in 1821; was educated at Canajoharie Academy, and studied law. In 1830 he removed to Springfield, Illinois, and after serving in the Black Hawk War was appointed Surveyor of Sangamon County. He was married there December 29, 1831, to Miss Sarah Cutter. He was a Democratic Representative in 1838; Clerk of the House in 1840; circuit clerk in 1842; Democratic presidential elector in 1844; candidate for Governor before the Democratic State convention in 1846; Mayor of Springfield in 1849, 1850, and 1851; a candidate for Congress in 1852, and in the same year again a Democratic presidential elector. In 1854, President Pierce appointed him Surveyor-General of Kansas, and he became conspicuous in Kansas politics. He was president of the Lecompton Convention. He died at St. Joseph, Missouri, October 25, 1859. Mr. Frederick Hawn, who was his boyhood friend, and afterward married a sister of Calhoun's wife, is now living at Leavenworth, Kansas, at the age of eighty-five years. In an interesting letter to the writer, he says: "It has been related that Calhoun induced Lincoln to study surveying in order to become his deputy. Presuming that he was ready to graduate and receive his commission, he called on Calhoun, then living with his father-in-law, Seth R. Cutter, on Upper Lick Creek. After the interview was concluded, Mr. Lincoln, about to depart, remarked: '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.' This is a family tradition. However, my wife, then a miss of sixteen, says, while I am writing this sketch, that she distinctly remembers this interview. After Lincoln was gone she says she and her sister, Mrs. Calhoun, commenced making jocular remarks about his uncanny appearance, in the presence of Calhoun, to which in substance he made this rejoinder: 'For all that, he is no common man.' My wife believes these were the exact words."—J. McCan Davis.
We know from Dennis Hanks, from Mr. Turnham, to whom the book belonged, and from other associates of Lincoln's at the time, that he read this book intently and discussed its contents intelligently. It was a remarkable volume for a thoughtful lad whose mind had been fired already by the history of Washington; for it opened with that wonderful document, the Declaration of Independence, a document which became, as Mr. John G. Nicolay says, "his political chart and inspiration." Following the Declaration of Independence was the Constitution of the United States, the Act of Virginia passed in 1783 by which the "Territory North Westward of the river Ohio" was conveyed to the United States, and the Ordinance of 1787 for governing this territory, containing that clause on which Lincoln in the future based many an argument on the slavery question. This article, No. 6 of the Ordinance, reads: "There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said territory, otherwise than in the punishment of crimes, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted: provided always, that any person escaping into the same, from whom labour or service is lawfully claimed in any one of the original States, such fugitive may be lawfully reclaimed, and conveyed to the person claiming his or her labour or service, as aforesaid."
LINCOLN'S SADDLE-BAGS—PHOTOGRAPHED FOR McCLURE'S MAGAZINE.
These saddle-bags, now in the Lincoln Monument at Springfield, are said to have been used by Lincoln while he was a surveyor.
Following this was the Constitution and the Revised Laws of Indiana, three hundred and seventy-five pages of five hundred words each of statutes—enough law, if thoroughly digested, to make a respectable lawyer. When Lincoln finished this book, as he had probably before he was eighteen, we have reason to believe that he understood the principles on which the nation was founded, how the State of Indiana came into being, and how it was governed. His understanding of the subject was clear and practical, and he applied it in his reading, thinking, and discussion.
