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In a second candidature the aspirant was more successful, and he became one of nine representatives of Sangamon County, in the State Legislature of Illinois, who, being all more than six feet high, were called "The Long Nine."
These were largely from Kentucky, southern Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia. The call of the rich and kindly lands had traveled far and streams of life were making toward them, to flow with increasing speed and volume for many years. People in Sangamon County had begun to learn of the thriving village of Chicago in the North.
Upon these people who knew and respected him Abe Lincoln based his hopes. Among them he had found his vision and failure had not diminished or dimmed it. He would try again for a place in which he could serve them and if he could learn to serve Sangamon County he could learn to serve the state and, possibly, even the Republic.
His father, one of the most shiftless of the poor whites of Kentucky, a carpenter by trade, had migrated to Indiana, and, after a short residence, had sought another home on a bluff near the Sangamon River, where he had cleared, with the assistance of his son, about fifteen acres of land. From this he gained a miserable and precarious living.
For this reason, just before Abraham Lincoln came of age, his family, with all their possessions packed in a cart drawn by four oxen, moved again toward the West. For two weeks they travelled across the country into Illinois, and finally made a new home on the banks of the Sangamon River.
But the opposition had only a majority of one or two. If Lincoln resigned his membership in the Legislature this might destroy the majority. If he refused to resign, such refusal might carry some member to the Democrats. At last, upon full deliberation, Lincoln resigned his seat, relying upon the six or seven hundred majority in Sangamon County to elect another Whig. It was a delusive trust.
Lincoln had hopes, but Ann took sick and died of brain fever. He was allowed to see her as she lay near the end, and the effect upon his kindly nature was terrible. There settled upon him a deep despondency. That fall and winter he wandered alone in the woods along the Sangamon, almost distracted with sorrow.
It is curious to see how naturally in such a state of things the fabric of political society developed itself from its germ. The county of Sangamon was called by an act of the Legislature in 1821 out of a verdant solitude of more than a million acres, inhabited by a few families.
If elected, I shall consider the whole people of Sangamon as my constituents, as well those that oppose as those that support me. While acting as their representative I shall be governed by their will upon all subjects upon which I have the means of knowing what their will is; and upon all others I shall do what my own judgment teaches me will best advance their interests."
It was not only practiced in the southern part along the Mississippi and Ohio but as far north in Illinois as Sangamon County, were found servants known as "yellow boys" and "colored girls."
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