The contrast was so ludicrous, and Abe had quoted the speaker's stock phrases with such a marvelous mimicry that the crowd burst into a roar, and Colonel Dick Taylor's usefulness as a campaign speaker was at an end.
Small wonder, then, that young Lincoln's wit, wisdom and power of ridicule made him known in that campaign as one of the greatest orators in the State, or that he was elected by such an astonishing plurality that the county, which had always been strongly Democratic, elected Whig representatives that year.
After Herculean labors "the Long Nine" succeeded in having the State capital removed from Vandalia to Springfield. This move added greatly to the influence and renown of its "prime mover," Abraham Lincoln, who was feasted and "toasted" by the people of Springfield and by politicians all over the State. After reading "Blackstone" during his political campaigns, young Lincoln fell in again with Major John T. Stuart, whom he had met in the Black Hawk War, and who gave him helpful advice and lent him other books that he might "read law."
THE LINCOLN-STONE PROTEST
Although he had no idea of it at the time, Abraham Lincoln took part in a grander movement than the removal of a State capital. Resolutions were adopted in the Legislature in favor of slavery and denouncing the hated "abolitionists"—or people who spoke and wrote for the abolition of slavery. It required true heroism for a young man thus to stand out against the legislators of his State, but Abe Lincoln seems to have thought little of that. The hatred of the people for any one who opposed slavery was very bitter. Lincoln found one man, named Stone, who was willing to sign a protest against the resolutions favoring slavery, which read as follows:
"Resolutions upon the subject of domestic slavery having passed both branches of the General Assembly at its present session, the undersigned hereby protest against the passage of the same.
"They believe that the institution of slavery is founded on both injustice and bad policy. [After several statements of their belief concerning the powers of Congress, the protest closed as follows:]
"The difference between their opinions and those contained in the said resolution is their reason for entering this protest.
"Dan Stone,
"A. Lincoln."