Chapter 2

At that time the State of Illinois--as, indeed, the whole United States--was convinced that the future of the country depended on the opening of canals and railroads, and the clearing out of the rivers. In the Sangamon country the population felt that a quick way of getting to Beardstown on the Illinois River, to which point the steamer came from the Mississippi, was, as Lincoln puts it in his circular, "indispensably necessary." Of course a railroad was the dream of the settlers; but when it was considered seriously there was always, as Lincoln says, "a heart-appalling shock accompanying the amount of its cost, which forces us to shrink from our pleasing anticipations." Improvement of the Sangamon River he declared the most feasible plan. That it was possible, he argued from his experience on the river in April of the year before (1831), when he made his flatboat trip, and from his observations as manager of Offutt's saw-mill. He could not have advocated a measure more popular. At that moment the whole population of Sangamon was in a state of wild expectation. Some six weeks before Lincoln's circular appeared, a citizen of Springfield had advertised that as soon as the ice went off the river he would bring up a steamer, the "Talisman," from Cincinnati, and prove the Sangamon navigable. The announcement had aroused the entire country, speeches were made, and subscriptions taken. The merchants announced goods direct per steamship "Talisman" the country over, and every village from Beardstown to Springfield was laid off in town lots. When the circular appeared the excitement was at its height.

Lincoln's comments in his circular on two other subjects on which all candidates of the day expressed themselves are amusing in their simplicity. The practice of loaning money at exorbitant rates was then a great evil in the West. Lincoln proposed a law fixing the limits of usury, and he closed his paragraph on the subject with these words, which sound strange enough from a man who in later life showed so profound a reverence for law:

"In cases of extreme necessity, there could always be means found to cheat the law; while in all other cases it would have its intended effect. I would favor the passage of a law on this subject which might not be very easily evaded. Let it be such that the labor and difficulty of evading it could only be justified in cases of greatest necessity."

A change in the laws of the State was also a topic which he felt required a word. "Considering the great probability," he said, "that the framers of those laws were wiser than myself, I should prefer not meddling with them, unless they were attacked by others; in which case I should feel it both a privilege and a duty to take that stand which, in my view, might tend most to the advancement of justice."

The audacity of a young man in his position presenting himself as a candidate for the legislature is fully equalled by the humility of the closing paragraphs of his announcement:

"But, fellow-citizens, I shall conclude. Considering the great degree of modesty which should always attend youth, it is probable I have already been more presuming than becomes me. However, upon the subjects of which I have treated, I have spoken as I have thought. I may be wrong in regard to any or all of them; but, holding it a sound maxim that it is better only sometimes to be right than at all times to be wrong, so soon as I discover my opinions to be erroneous, I shall be ready to renounce them.

"Every man is said to have his peculiar ambition. Whether it be true or not, I can say, for one, that I have no other so great as that of being truly esteemed of my fellow-men by rendering myself worthy of their esteem. How far I shall succeed in gratifying this ambition is yet to be developed. I am young, and unknown to many of you. I was born, and have ever remained, in the most humble walks of life. I have no wealthy or popular relations or friends to recommend me. My case is thrown exclusively upon the independent voters of the county; and, if elected, they will have conferred a favor upon me for which I shall be unremitting in my labors to compensate. But, if the good people in their wisdom shall see fit to keep me in the background, I have been too familiar with disappointments to be very much chagrined."

Very soon after Lincoln had distributed his handbills, enthusiasm on the subject of the opening of the Sangamon rose to a fever. The "Talisman" actually came up the river; scores of men went to Beardstown to meet her, among them Lincoln, of course; and to him was given the honor of piloting her--an honor which made him remembered by many a man who saw him that day for the first time. The trip was made with all the wild demonstrations which always attended the first steamboat. On either bank a long procession of men and boys on foot or horse accompanied the boat. Cannons and volleys of musketry were fired as settlements were passed. At every stop speeches were made, congratulations offered, toasts drunk, flowers presented. It was one long hurrah from Beardstown to Springfield, and foremost in the jubilation was Lincoln, the pilot. The "Talisman" went as near Springfield as the river did, and there tied up for a week. When she went back Lincoln again had a conspicuous position as pilot. The notoriety this gave him was quite as valuable politically, probably, as was the forty dollars he received for his service financially.

While the country had been dreaming of wealth through the opening of the Sangamon, and Lincoln had been doing his best to prove that the dream was possible, the store in which he clerked was "petering out"--to use his own expression. The owner, Denton Offutt, had proved more ambitious than wise, and Lincoln saw that an early closing by the sheriff was probable. But before the store was fairly closed, and while the "Talisman" was yet exciting the country, an event occurred which interrupted all of Lincoln's plans.

THE BLACK HAWK WAR.

One morning in April a messenger from the governor of the State rode into New Salem scattering a circular. It was an address from Governor Reynolds to the militia of the northwest section of the State, announcing that the British band of Sacs and other hostile Indians, headed by Black Hawk, had invaded the Rock River country, to the great terror of the frontier inhabitants; and calling on the citizens who were willing to aid in repelling them, to rendezvous at Beardstown within a week.

The name of Black Hawk was familiar to the people of Illinois. He was an old enemy of the settlers, and had been a tried friend of the British. The land his people had once owned in the northwest of the present State of Illinois had been sold in 1804 to the government of the United States, but with the provision that the Indians should hunt and raise corn there until it was surveyed and sold to settlers.

Long before the land was surveyed, however, squatters had invaded the country, and tried to force the Indians west of the Mississippi. Particularly envious were these whites of the lands at the mouth of the Rock River, where the ancient village and burial place of the Sacs stood, and where they came each year to raise corn. Black Hawk had resisted their encroachments, and many violent acts had been committed on both sides.

Finally, however, the squatters, in spite of the fact that the line of settlement was still fifty miles away, succeeded in evading the real meaning of the treaty and in securing a survey of the desired land at the mouth of the river. Black Hawk, exasperated and broken-hearted at seeing his village violated, persuaded himself that the village had never been sold--indeed, that land could not be sold:

"My reason teaches me," he wrote, "that land cannot be sold. The Great Spirit gave it to his children to live upon, and cultivate, as far as is necessary for their subsistence; and so long as they occupy and cultivate it, they have the right to the soil, but if they voluntarily leave it, then any other people have a right to settle upon it. Nothing can be sold but such things as can be carried away."

Supported by this theory, conscious that in some way he did not understand he had been wronged, and urged on by White Cloud, the prophet, who ruled a Winnebago village on the Rock River, Black Hawk crossed the Mississippi in 1831, determined to evict the settlers. A military demonstration drove him back, and he was persuaded to sign a treaty never to return east of the Mississippi. "I touched the goose quill to the treaty, and was determined to live in peace," he wrote afterward; but hardly had he "touched the goose quill" before his heart smote him. Longing for his home; resentment at the whites; obstinacy; brooding over the bad counsels of White Cloud and his disciple Neapope, an agitating Indian who had recently been East to visit the British and their Indian allies, and who assured Black Hawk that the Winnebagoes, Ottawas, Chippewas, and Pottawottomies would join him in a struggle for his land, and that the British would send him "guns, ammunition, provisions, and clothing early in the spring"--all persuaded the Hawk that he would be successful if he made an effort to drive out the whites. In spite of the persuasion of many of his friends and of the Indian agent in the country, he crossed the river on April 6, 1832, and with some five hundred braves, his squaws and children, marched to the Prophet's town, thirty-five miles up the Rock River.

As soon as they heard of Black Hawk's invasion, the settlers fled in a panic to the forts in the vicinity, and they rained petitions for protection on Governor Reynolds. General Atkinson, who commanded a company at Fort Armstrong, wrote the governor he must have help; and accordingly on the 16th of April Governor Reynolds sent out "influential messengers" with a sonorous summons. It was one of these messengers riding into New Salem who put an end to Lincoln's canvassing for the legislature, freed him from Offutt's expiring grocery, and led him to enlist.

There was no time to waste. The volunteers were ordered to be at Beardstown, nearly forty miles from New Salem, on April 22d. Horses, rifles, saddles, blankets were to be secured, a company formed. It was work of which the settlers were not ignorant. Under the laws of the State every able-bodied male inhabitant between eighteen and forty-five was obliged to drill twice a year or pay a fine of one dollar. "As a dollar was hard to raise," says one of the old settlers, "everybody drilled."

LINCOLN A CAPTAIN.

Preparations were quickly made, and by April 22d the men were at Beardstown. Here each company elected its own officers, and Lincoln became a candidate for the captaincy of the company from Sangamon to which he belonged.