Young Manhood
During the 14 years the Lincolns lived in Indiana, the region became
more thickly settled, mostly by people from the South. But conditions
remained primitive, and farming was backbreaking work. Superstitions were
prevalent; social functions consisted of such utilitarian amusements as
corn shuckings, house raisings, and hog killings; and religion was dogmatic
and emotional. Abe, growing tall and strong, won a reputation as the best
local athlete and a rollicking storyteller. But his father kept him busy at
hard labor, hiring him out to neighbors when work at home slackened.
Abe's meager education had aroused his desire to learn, and he traveled
over the countryside to borrow books. Among those he read were Robinson
Crusoe, Pilgrim's Progress, Aesop's Fables, William Grimshaw's History of
the United States, and Mason Weems' Life of Washington. The Bible was
probably the only book his family owned, and his abundant use of scriptural
quotations in his later writings shows how earnestly he must have studied
it.
Young Lincoln worked for a while as a ferryman on the Ohio River, and at 19
helped take a flatboat cargo to New Orleans. There he encountered a manner
of living wholly unknown to him. Soon after he returned, his father decided
to move to Illinois, where a relative, John Hanks, had preceded him. On
March 1, 1830, the family set out with all their possessions loaded on
three wagons. Their new home was located on the north bank of the Sangamon
River, west of Decatur. When a cabin had been built and a crop had been
planted and fenced, young Lincoln hired out to split fence rails for
neighbors.
In the autumn all the Lincoln family came down with fever and ague. That
winter the pioneers experienced the deepest snow they had ever known,
accompanied by subzero temperatures. In the spring the family backtracked
eastward to Coles county, Ill. But this time Abraham did not accompany
them, for during the winter he, his stepbrother John D. Johnston, and his
cousin John Hanks had agreed to take another cargo to New Orleans for a
trader, Denton Offutt. A new life was opening for young Lincoln. Henceforth
he could make his own way.Supposedly it was on this second trip to New
Orleans that young Lincoln, watching a slave auction, declared: "If I ever
get a chance to hit that thing, I'll hit it hard." But the story is almost
certainly untrue. Lincoln at this period of his life could scarcely have
believed himself to be a man of destiny, and John Hanks, who originated the
story, was not with Lincoln, having left his fellow crewmen at St. Louis.
Near the outset of this voyage, at the little village of New Salem on the
Sangamon River, Lincoln had impressed Offutt by his ingenuity in moving the
flatboat over a milldam. Offutt, impressed likewise by the prospects of the
village, arranged to open a store and rent the mill. On Lincoln's return
from New Orleans, Offutt engaged him as clerk and handyman.
By late July 1831, when Lincoln came back, New Salem was enjoying what
proved to be a short-lived boom based on a local conviction that the
Sangamon River would be made navigable for steamboats. For a time the
village served as a trading center for the surrounding area and numbered
among its enterprises three stores, a tavern, a carding machine for wool, a
saloon, and a ferry. Among its residents were two physicians, a blacksmith,
a cooper, a shoemaker, and other craftsmen common to a pioneer settlement.
The people were mostly from the South, though a number of Yankees had also
drifted in. Community pastimes were similar to those Lincoln had previously
known, and life in general differed only in being somewhat more advanced.
Lincoln gained the admiration of the rougher element of the community, who
were known as the Clary's Grove boys, when he threw their champion in a
wrestling match. But his kindness, honesty, and efforts at self-betterment
so impressed the more reputable people of the community that they, too,
soon came to respect him. He became a member of the debating society,
studied grammar with the aid of a local schoolmaster, and acquired a
lasting fondness for the writings of Shakespeare and Robert Burns from the
village philosopher and fisherman.
Offutt paid little attention to business, and his store was about to fail,
when an Indian disturbance, known as the Black Hawk War, broke out in April
1832, in Illinois. Lincoln enlisted and was elected captain of his
volunteer company. When his term expired, he reenlisted, serving about 80
days in all. He experienced some hardships, but no fighting.
Politics and Law
Returning to New Salem, Lincoln sought election to the state
legislature. He won almost all the votes in his own community, but lost the
election because he was not known throughout the county. In partnership
with William F. Berry, he bought a store on credit, but it soon failed,
leaving him deeply in debt. He then got a job as deputy surveyor, was
appointed postmaster, and pieced out his income with odd jobs. The story of
his romance with Ann Rutledge is rejected as a legend by most authorities,
but he did have a short-lived love affair with Mary Owens.
Illinois Legislator
In 1834, Lincoln was elected to the Illinois House of Representatives,
and he was reelected in 1836, 1838, and 1840. Political alignments were in
a state of flux during his first two candidacies, but as the WHIG and
DEMOCRATIC parties began to take form, he followed his political idol,
Henry Clay, and John T. Stuart, a Springfield lawyer and friend, into the
Whig ranks. Twice Lincoln was his party's candidate for speaker, and when
defeated, he served as its floor leader.
His greatest achievement in the legislature, where he was a consistent
supporter of conservative business interests, was to bring about the
removal of the state capital from Vandalia to Springfield, by means of
adroit logrolling. When certain resolutions denouncing antislavery
agitation were passed by the house, Lincoln and a colleague, Dan Stone,
defined their position by a written declaration that slavery was "founded
on both injustice and bad policy, but that the promulgation of abolition
doctrines tends rather to increase than abate its evils." An internal
improvement project that Lincoln promoted in the legislature turned out to
be impractical and almost bankrupted the state. On national issues Lincoln
favored the United States Bank and opposed the presidential policies of
Andrew JACKSON and Martin VAN BUREN.
Law Practice
His friend Stuart had encouraged him to study law, and he obtained a
license on Sept. 9, 1836. By this time New Salem was in decline and would
soon be a ghost town. It has since been restored as a state park. On April
15, 1837, Lincoln moved to Springfield to become Stuart's partner. His
conscientious efforts to pay off his debts had earned him the nickname
"Honest Abe," but he was so poor that he arrived in Springfield on a
borrowed horse with all his personal property in his saddlebags.
With the courts in Springfield in session only a few weeks during the year,
lawyers were obliged to travel the circuit in order to make a living. Every
year, in spring and autumn, Lincoln followed the judge from county to
county over the 12,000 square miles (31,000 sq km) of the Eighth Circuit.
In 1841 he and Stuart disolved their firm, and Lincoln formed a new
partnership with Stephen T. Logan, who taught him the value of careful
preparation and clear, succinct reasoning as opposed to mere cleverness and
oratory. This partnership was in turn dissolved in 1844, when Lincoln took
young William H. Herndon, later to be his biographer, as a partner.
Marriage
Meanwhile, on Nov. 4, 1842, after a somewhat tumultuous courtship,
Lincoln had married Mary Todd. Brought up in Lexington, Ky., she was a high-
spirited, quick-tempered girl of excellent education and cultural
background. Notwithstanding her vanity, ambition, and unstable temperament
and Lincoln's careless ways and alternating moods of hilarity and
dejection, the marriage turned out to be generally happy. Of their four
children, only Robert Todd Lincoln, born on Aug. 1, 1843, lived to
maturity. Edward Baker, who was born on March 10, 1846, died on Feb. 1,
1850; William Wallace, born Dec. 21, 1850, died on Feb. 20, 1862; and
Thomas ("Tad"), born April 4, 1853, died on July 15, 1871.
Though Mrs. Lincoln was by no means such a shrew as has been asserted, she
was difficult to live with. Lincoln responded to her impulsive and
imprudent behavior with tireless patience, forbearance, and forgiveness.
Borne down by grief and illness after her husband's death, Mrs. Lincoln
became so unbalanced at one time that her son Robert had her committed to
an institution.
Congressman
Having attained a position of leadership in state politics and worked
strenuously for the Whig ticket in the presidential election of 1840,
Lincoln aspired to go to CONGRESS. But two other prominent young Whigs of
his district, Edward D. Baker of Springfield and John J. Hardin of
Jacksonville, also coveted this distinction. So Lincoln stepped aside
temporarily, first for Hardin, then for Baker, under a sort of
understanding that they would "take a turn about." When Lincoln's turn came
in 1846, however, Hardin wished to serve again, and Lincoln was obliged to
maneuver skillfully to obtain the nomination. His district was so
predominantly Whig that this amounted to election, and he won handily over
his Democratic opponent.
Lincoln worked conscientiously as a freshman congressman, but was unable to
gain distinction. Both from conviction and party expediency, he went along
with the Whig leaders in blaming the Polk administration for bringing on
