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In the circular in which he announced his candidacy he made no reference to national politics, but confined himself mainly to a discussion of the practicability of improving the navigation of the Sangamon, the favorite hobby of the place and time. He had no monopoly of this "issue." It formed the burden of nearly every candidate's appeal to the people in that year.
Abraham Lincoln's mother, Nancy Hanks Lincoln, and several of their relatives who had followed them from Kentucky, had died of it. The cattle had been carried off by it. Neither brute nor human life seemed to be safe. The place chosen for their new home was the Sangamon country in central Illinois.
The Republicans of Illinois were assembled at Decatur in preparation for the Chicago Convention, when, amid tumultuous cheers, there marched in old John Hanks and another pioneer bearing on their shoulders two long fence rails labelled: "Two rails from a lot made by Abraham Lincoln and John Hanks in the Sangamon Bottom in the year 1830."
Lincoln, who in the meantime 'blushed, but seemed to shake with inward laughter. 'Well, the truth is, John Hanks and I did make rails in the Sangamon Bottom. 'But I do know this: I made rails then, and I think I could make better ones than these now. By this time the innocent Egyptians began to open their eyes; they saw plainly enough the admirable Presidential scheme unfolded to their view.
Even so late as 1848, we find a remarkable letter from Mr. Lincoln, who was then in Congress, bearing upon the same point. His partner, William H. Herndon, had written him a letter, complaining that the old men in Sangamon County were unwilling to let the young ones have any opportunity to distinguish themselves.
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.
At a muster of the Sangamon company at Clary's Grove, Lincoln was elected captain. The election was a proof of his popularity, but he found it rather hard to manage his constituents in the field. One morning on the march the Captain commanded his orderly to form the company for parade; but when the orderly called "parade," the men called "parade" too, but could not fall into line.
Lincoln served with me in the Legislature of 1836; then we both retired, and he subsided, or became submerged, and was lost sight of as a public man for some years. In 1846, when Wilmot introduced his celebrated proviso, and the Abolition tornado swept over the country, Lincoln again turned up as a Member of Congress from the Sangamon district.
The whole family set out again on their wanderings and made their way in an oxcart to a new halting place on the Sangamon River in Illinois. There Abraham helped his father clear another piece of land for another illusive "start" in life. The following spring he parted with his family and struck out for himself. His next adventure was a second trip as a boatman to New Orleans.
He was therefore just the sort of man Offutt needed for one of his trading enterprises, and Mr. When it did go off, which was about the first of March, 1831, the county was so flooded as to make traveling by land impracticable, to obviate which difficulty they purchased a large canoe, and came down the Sangamon River in it.
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