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He was a roving bachelor from North Carolina, devoted to the chase, who had built this hut three years before on the margin of a green-bordered rivulet, where the deer passed by in hundreds, going in the morning from the shady banks of the Sangamon to feed on the rich green grass of the prairie, and returning in the twilight.
Springfield, being much nearer the geographical center of the State, was anxious to deprive Vandalia of that honor, and the activity of the Sangamon politicians proved it to be a dangerous rival. In the course of a month the returns from all parts of the State had come in, and showed that Springfield was third in the race.
No consideration could induce him to abandon the course his reason told him was logical. Not that he was obstinate and having taken a position, would not change it if he saw on further study that he was wrong. In his first circular to the people of Sangamon County is this characteristic passage: "Upon the subjects I have treated, I have spoken as I thought.
The influence of a man on the world is generally proportioned to his ability to do something. When Abraham Lincoln was running for the Legislature the first time, on the platform of the improvement of the navigation of the Sangamon River, he went to secure the votes of thirty men who were cradling a wheat field.
Ordered, that Michael Killion, Hugh Armstrong, and Abram Lincoln be appointed to view said road, and said Lincoln to act as surveyor. "To the County Commissioners' Court for the county of Sangamon, at its June term, 1834.
The boat with its cargo had been set afloat in the Sangamon River at Springfield. All went well until, at New Salem, they came to a mill dam where, in spite of the fact that the water was high, owing to the spring floods, the boat stuck. Lincoln rolled his trousers "five feet more or less" up his long, lank legs, waded out to the boat, and got the bow over the dam.
The call for confirmation of the assertion led Lincoln to rise, and blushing so recorded said: "Gentlemen, I suppose you want to know something about those things. Well, the truth is, John and I did make rails in the Sangamon Bottom."
It took less than a year for Offut's shop to come to ruin, for the proprietor to wander off into the unknown void from which he had come, and for Lincoln to find himself again without occupation. He won some local reputation by navigating the steamboat Talisman up the Sangamon River to Springfield; but nothing came of it.
The causes that led to his disappointment are set forth more in detail in a letter, two days later, to a friend in the new county of Menard, which now included his old home, New Salem, whose powerful assistance was therefore lost from the party councils of Sangamon.
According to Western custom, he addressed a short note to most of the Whig members elect and to other influential members of the party asking their support. Generally the replies were not only affirmative but cordial and even enthusiastic. But a dilemma now arose. Lincoln had been chosen one of the members from Sangamon County by some 650 majority.
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