by DL Fowler
“Ah, my young friend,” he says, “therein lies your advantage over the great general. You are equal to him in intelligence, but in desire you are clearly his superior. He prevailed because he could not do otherwise, whereas you shall succeed because you must.”
For the next six weeks I devote every evening to studying with the school teacher, sometimes not stopping for sleep. Even while walking about town my nose is buried in either Flint or Gibson. Once, five-year-old Oliver Armstrong enjoys a ride tucked under my arm while I’m studying a book that’s in my other hand. It’s anyone’s guess where or when I scooped up the little fellow.
Only one brief distraction interrupts my focus. Miss Mary Owens, who pays a visit to her sister, Betsy Abell, is the most intelligent and cultured gal I’ve ever met. While Mary’s charm has me wanting more of her attention, her sister’s persistent maneuvering to see a relationship blossom between us annoys me. Even so, after Miss Mary returns home, I tease Betsy. “Your sister should have stayed around and married me.”
With a gleam in her eyes Betsy says, “We’ll see to it that she does so on her next visit.”
I laugh. “Reckon we’ll have to do that. Of course, I’m not sure I’d marry a woman who’s fool enough to have me.”
At the store, our liquor sales are brisk, but our profits haven’t improved markedly, and Berry is unable to keep up even when he’s sober. We hire a second clerk, Isaac Burner’s son Daniel. I reciprocate by giving Isaac a hand at his still house up at the head of a nearby hollow. Ours isn’t the only business suffering. Rumors are that Mr. Rutledge’s tavern is not doing well, and he might have to sell out.
I wish Annie could have more of my attention, but we see each other less and less. My nights are consumed with studying, and she no longer comes by the store. McNamar hasn’t written in some time, and she’s stopped posting letters to him as well.
As winter deepens, neighbors call attention to my weathered skin, turned sallow, and my gray eyes, sunken deeper and lined with red. They beg me to rest; however, I keep pressing myself and pass Mr. Calhoun’s examination when the time comes.
My surveying duties begin in January of 1834, and since most of the work takes me miles out of town, I buy a horse on credit. The Abells’ home, near Petersburg, becomes my home several nights each week, though I keep my bed in town at the Rutledge Tavern in hopes of seeing Annie now and then. Her mood is often blue, and the sight of her in such despondency brings me no end of worry.
The surveying work takes me throughout the county, allowing me to make many new friends beyond the boundaries of New Salem. As my reputation for fairness and honesty spreads, I make another run for the state legislature. The salary for a legislator is $150 for the two month legislative session, and most of all, it may be the best opportunity for doing something noteworthy.
Voting is scheduled for early August, but before the canvass for votes begins, our business winks out. Unable to pay our bills, Berry and I exchange bitter words. We have no choice but to sell our inventory to two brothers, Alexander and William Trent. Since they have no cash, they promise to pay our debts in full as consideration for the purchase. Sam Hill, who owns the grocery and dry goods store, gives me space to receive and hand out the mail. He also hires me to clerk on occasions when he gets busy.
Within a month of selling our inventory to the Trents, they skip town without ever paying a dime to our creditors. Berry and I are left owing more than one thousand dollars on the notes we gave to purchase the Greene and Rutledge stores. We have no means of repaying them. I call our burden “the national debt.” The sum is equal to almost half the Governor’s annual salary—and far more than my earnings from surveying, which so far are a fraction of what I’d hoped they’d be.
Berry, who’s also lodging at the Rutledge Tavern, is nearly incoherent from constant drinking. One day after coming in from the field, I barge in on him and say, “Get a hold of yourself. You need to clean up and get some work so you can help pay our debts.”
He stumbles around, mumbling nonsense and rummaging through his belongings as if searching for something he’s lost.
I throw up my hands. “What are you looking for?”
“None of your business,” he slurs.
I grab him by the collar. “What are you going to do to help out?”
He turns and glares at me. “I’ll ask my father for some money.”
“He says you have to get sober before he gives you another dime.”
His nostrils flare. “He helps everyone else.”
“He’s a preacher. A temperance man … and you’re … you’re a drunk.”
His knees wobble. He leans against the wall, nodding, as if he’ll fall asleep standing up.
I shake my head and leave.
When I ask Judge Green for advice on our situation, he clears his throat, sending ripples through all three layers of his chin. Peering over his spectacles he says, “Let this be a lesson. The frontier is full of men who have more ambition than sense … or honor.”
“Reckon I should have learned that from my father’s debacles.”
“Well, let’s hope this setback doesn’t sting too badly. Maybe the men who hold your notes will be patient.”
“What do you suggest?”
“For now, tighten your belt and do what you can to make them happy.”
In this calamity there’s both good and bad. The good is that there’s no longer a reason to labor over the choice between apprenticing some trade such as blacksmithing or studying the law. I must do the latter to earn enough money to repay my obligations. The bad is that lodging at the Rutledge Tavern when I’m in town is no longer affordable.
Jack and Hannah Armstrong give me lodging and board at their place when I’m not out surveying. “Aunt” Hannah—as I call her even though she’s my age—is kind enough to mend my clothes while I study the law and rock little Duff, their newest offspring.
Jack treats me more rudely. He says he can’t understand why I prefer the attention of married women over that of the young, single gals. He teases, “Suppose, that way you’re saved the embarrassment of being thrown over in favor of one of the more handsome young bucks.”
I tell him my romantic interests are none of his business.
He chortles. “You must satisfy your carnal needs by cavorting with the married or nearly married ones. Hell, for all I know you could be little Duff’s pappy.”
His broad-beamed, illiterate wife isn’t at all attractive to me. But to preserve our friendship, I say, “Ain’t a woman alive who’d want to bear a child after my likeness. As a matter of fact, I was once accosted by a man waving his pistol in my face. He said he promised to shoot anyone who was uglier than he. I said to the fellow, ‘Then hurry up and shoot me. If I’m uglier than you, I don’t want to live another second.’” Of course, the story isn’t true, but I never let Jack know.
Nothing—even work—interferes with my reading. I always have a book in hand, usually one I’ve borrowed from John Stuart over in Springfield. One time, I’m picking up some extra wages cutting wood for Squire Godbey—the fellow who sold the pigs whose eyes Offut sewed shut. Godbey finds me perched atop a pile of logs and asks what I’m doing. I glance up from my book, scratch my head, and say, “It appears I’m reading.” He shrugs and says, “Well, you are certainly the oddest fellow I’ve ever had for a farmhand.”
During late spring and summer, the candidates for the legislature begin riding up and down the county canvassing for votes. We make speeches wherever folks gather—in a grove of shade trees, at a market or fair, at a schoolhouse, in a church or in a home, whether modest or lavish.
Sometimes I try to stand out by showing my physical strength by lifting a barrel of whiskey over my head or by burying an axe in a log deeper than anyone has ever done. When we stop at the edge of a harvest field to solicit support from laboring farmers, I grab a scythe from one of them and cut a swath so wide and long that their mouths are agape
.
Folks think of me as a Whig candidate in what is mostly a handshaking campaign. Although measures aren’t as important as how well a man is liked, my positions are popular. I favor construction of a canal between Beardstown and New Salem and dividing Sangamon County into two. The later measure would bring self-governance to fledgling towns like New Salem. My support for universal suffrage, by no means excluding women, is largely ignored.
One matter of great concern to many residents is personal. Isaac Snodgrass, whose name fits his stern face and sour disposition, leads a campaign to defeat me, alleging I’m a religious skeptic.
On hearing Snodgrass’ charges, Annie asks me if I’m Christian. I’d like to pacify her parents, whose views on temperance have persuaded me to shun alcohol, but I can’t deceive a friend. I tell her, “Much of what’s in Scripture is not reasonable. I don’t deny the Almighty, but merely wonder how much of what is said about Him is true.”
Her eyes narrow, causing my heart to skip. “Abraham Lincoln, sometimes you’re too honest for your own good. Try not to be so direct when expressing your views on the matter, especially if you’re out canvassing for votes. And for Heaven sakes! Don’t mention the writings of men such as Paine or Volney or Voltaire. They scare most common folks.”
My chest tightens. “Do you think less of me for my views?”
She wrinkles her nose. “Of course not. Candor is a great thing between friends. I respect you for it.”
I scratch the back of my neck. “It would be dishonest of me to hide the truth if someone asks.”
“Do you discuss all your feelings when you canvass?”
“No.”
“Do your feelings on religion make any difference on matters like internal improvements and breaking away to form our own county?”
“No.”
She looks away. “Then say nothing more about religion.”
“Snodgrass and his crowd will make a devil out of me if my views are not made clear.”
She snickers. “He’ll make a devil of you, nonetheless. You won’t have to worry, though. Mentor Graham will take him to task on that—even if the straight-laced schoolmaster has to exaggerate your awe for the Almighty.”
“It wouldn’t do for him to lie for me.”
She laughs. “He wouldn’t be lying. He’d just be embellishing—like he always does when his passions overtake his reason. Anyway, people will listen to him before they pay any mind to what that old persimmon Snodgrass has to say. They love you.”
I take her hand. “McNamar is a lucky man. I can only hope to be so fortunate someday.”
There’s a gleam in her eye. “To the contrary, Mr. Lincoln. It is the gal who will be privileged to have you.”
My pulse races.
Of more than a dozen candidates on the ballot, the top four of us will go to the legislature. The Jackson men think they can win three, but not all four places, and they don’t want the fourth seat to go to my friend John Stuart, an incumbent. They approach me with a strategy that will allow them to concentrate their energies on beating Stuart. They propose withdrawing two of their candidates and throwing their support behind me.
Unwilling to betray a friend, I go to Stuart and lay out their offer. He is strong in his conviction that he will win a spot in spite of their maneuvering, so he tells me to accept their proposal. He says, “That way we’ll have two anti-Jackson men from Sangamon.”
I follow his advice and place second. Stuart places fourth, and the Jackson men win only two seats.
After wrapping up the campaign, I call on Annie. Her mood is gloomier than ever, presumably on account of her father’s business failures and the family’s removal to Sand Ridge near Petersburg, several miles out of town.
We sit under a large live oak. “Annie, it burdens me to see you so.”
She begins to cry.
I pat her hand. “Your father has weathered setbacks like this before.”
She turns away and folds her arms across her chest. Shaking her head, she murmurs a few unintelligible words then draws a deep breath. In a measured tone she says, “McNamar has abandoned me.”
I lay my hand on her shoulder. “That’s nonsense. No sane man would turn away a girl as lovely as you.”
“He’s been away for nearly three years, and he hasn’t written me in months.” She lets out a hollow laugh as she wipes her tears. “All the women folk are right. I should have seen it. He’s a fraud. He so much as told me so before he left, and I wouldn’t hear of it. I’m such a fool.”
She trembles as she continues sobbing.
I put my arm around her and whisper, “Shh, all will be well. Your man will come back to you soon.”
“No,” she says. “I’m done with him.”
After a time, her crying ceases, her body is limp from exhaustion, and she looks at me. I help her up and take her hand in mine as we walk to her house. At her doorstep, we say good-bye, and I promise to return every day until the legislative session starts in Vandalia. I almost never break that pledge, and she forgives me when I do.
Chapter Thirteen
On an uncommonly balmy afternoon in late November, I peer out the window of the Springfield-Vandalia stagecoach. Whereas I should be full of excitement over attending my first session as a legislator, my embarrassment a few days ago in Judge Green’s makeshift courtroom haunts me.
When Berry and I gave Billy Greene our note for the purchase of his store, he assigned our debt to Reuben Radford from whom he had previously bought the business. Radford then endorsed our note—without our knowledge—as collateral for a loan made to him by Peter Van Bergen, a keen-eyed businessman. When Radford failed to pay his obligation, Van Bergen brought suit against Berry and me.
As Judge Green looked at me from his bench, he lamented that he had no option but to award the tight-fisted Van Bergen a judgment against my horse and surveying tools. I’d have to come up with cash to pay him—nearly four-hundred dollars—or everything I owned would be sold at auction. Only my books escaped lien because Green ascribed no value to them; he winked at me as he rapped his gavel. I slumped and walked away. What good are books when my future is to be wrenched away?
John Stuart, my mentor and a fellow anti-Jackson legislator, is seated across from me in the coach. His unperturbed countenance speaks of his familiarity with the proceedings soon to begin. I, on the other hand, expose my inexperience with a line of perspiration collecting along my newly starched collar. At the urging of several New Salem friends, Coleman Smoot advanced me two hundred dollars so I could buy a new jeans suit and accoutrements. The townsfolk didn’t want to give Vandalia’s citizens the impression that a bumpkin clad in worn buckskin was the best Sangamon County had to offer.
Since leaving New Salem, I’ve squirmed about in my seat, and not only on account of my scratchy new clothes. Before I left home, friends—Dr. John Allen in particular—admonished me to temper my oratory on slavery questions. “You might as well be heading off to the capital of South Carolina,” he told me. In fact, folks in the bottom half of the state are so southern, and they have dominated state politics to such an extent, that we have laws for the inspection of hemp and tobacco crops, even though neither is raised within our borders.
Judge Green warned I can forget re-election if I vote for any measure that imposes taxes; although I can’t fathom how we’d meet the public cry for internal improvements without a means of paying for them. He also discouraged me from supporting laws that benefit Negroes—“folks want to keep them in their place.” Much of what I’ve read in our Illinois Constitution and statutes makes it clear that this is probably the most pro-slavery free-state in the Union.
“Black Laws” were entered onto the books immediately after our Constitution was adopted. One of these laws prohibits slavery while allowing indentured servitude. Another requires that a slave found ten miles from home be arrested and punished by thirty-five stripes. Our first legislature passed a law that fines a perso
n twenty dollars for permitting slaves or servants to assemble for dancing or reveling, whether at night or during the day. All sheriffs, judges, coroners, and justices of the peace are required, on viewing such an assemblage, to commit the slaves to jail and to order each of them to be whipped on the bare back, not exceeding thirty-nine stripes. The thought of these injustices raises welts on my back.
After jostling about in the stagecoach for nearly thirty hours, we are now approaching Vandalia’s post office in the heart of the capital. The smattering of log cabins that peek through dust clouds rising out of the town’s dirt streets are interspersed with occasional brick and clapboard houses.
Minutes later, the coachman lets out a blast on his horn as he pulls his team to an abrupt stop at the edge of a public square. It’s the first evidence I’ve seen that we’re in a place better suited to be the seat of government than New Salem. A good number of Vandalia’s eight hundred residents spill out onto the dusty street from the nearby buildings and swarm around us as if summoned to greet royalty.
Stuart smirks and says, “They aren’t here to gawk at us. They’re scrambling to be first in line for mail delivery.”
I shake my head. “Reminds me of when the mail arrives in New Salem.”
Stuart steps out of the coach as soon as the footstool is in place. His trunk is the first one passed down from atop the coach. The crowd begins to buzz as folks take notice of his greater than average height and handsome appearance. When I unfold myself from the cramped compartment and crawl out of the carriage, they fall silent. People stare as I tower over Stuart. They must think of me as some sort of freak. I turn away from them and wait for my bag—one of the last pieces to be unloaded.
“Follow me,” Stuart says, his bishop’s nose leading as he starts full stride toward a large frame house marked with a sign declaring Vandalia Inn. I take a few quick steps to catch up and match his stride.
He glances at me. “We’re sharing a room.”
The next morning on my way into the eleven year old capitol, melancholy drips from my pores the way bricks fall from the building’s two-story façade. The sagging corridors smell of mildew, waterlogged plaster, and rotting timbers. Inside the House Chamber, chunks of plaster have fallen wantonly from the ceilings and walls, littering the floors. As I snug my shawl around my neck to ward off a dank morning chill, someone says that by afternoon it’ll be as stifling as a smokehouse.