were killed and the Indians completely defeated. When Black Hawk was captured and carried to Washington, he said to President Jackson: "I am a man, and you are another. I did not expect to conquer the white people. I took up the hatchet to avenge injuries which could no longer be borne." Nicolai and Hay whose history gives this speech of the old Indian chief, refer at the same time to Lincoln's call for troops at the beginning of the civil war, ""to redress wrongs already long enough endured.'"'

It is good to know that Lincoln was not in any fight with these poor savages whose greatest fault often was that we wanted their land and got it at much too cheap a price, since we made them sell it. But he, really, almost got into a fight once with his own men while he was captain, and that was for an Indian. Mr. Stoddard tells the story. An old Indian trusting to the protection of a written passport from Gen. Cass and saying that he was a friend of the white man—as many Indians were-one day came into camp. The soldiers had been having a hard time of it with short rations and other privations and they were all ready to think every Indian a kind of wild beast to be killed wherever they could get him.

The poor old savage was alone, helpless, hungry and trying to get food and he saw

a host of angry men rushing at him to murder him. They had almost done it, when a tall man in captain's uniform rushed between them and the Indian. "Men! This must not be done! He must not be killed by us!" cried Lincoln. "But Captain, that Indian is a spy!" cried one in the crowd. The men were so angry and so determined, that for a few moments it looked as if they might kill their Captain himself rather than be balked of their pray. But at last they yielded sullenly.

That fight of Lincoln's for the life of the harmless old Indian was the best fight of all that war. And his saving the life of the old man the best victory.

XII.

STUMPING FOR ELECTION.

When Lincoln came home from the war with Black Hawk and his Indians, the election for the State Legislature was only ten days off and he had offered himself as candidate for representative from his own district. In those days candidates were not nominated as they are now by convention; but a man stood forth and announced himself as candidate and declared his political principles and made speeches at different places to induce people to vote for him. At this time Lincoln, as he always did, announced his platform clearly in a circular dated in March before he went to the war. He was a Whig, favored a national bank, a liberal system of internal improvements and a high protective tariff. He took up all the leading questions that at the time interested the people of the State, railroads, river navigation, especially the question of improving the Sangamon River

in which his county was much interested, and other matters. He dwelt particularly on the need of public education. In ending he said: "I was born and have ever remained in the most humble walks of life. I have no wealthy or popular friends or relatives 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," he finished, "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."

The time was too short to do much electioneering. Lincoln made a few speeches in the neighborhood of New Salem and one at Springfield. He had often a rough audience. Once he saw a ruffian attack a friend of his in the crowd, and as the contest was not going as Lincoln wished, he stepped down from the stump, seized the fighting rowdy by the neck and threw him about ten feet; then he mounted the platform again and went on with his speech, his logic unchecked by the episode. The day Lincoln went to Springfield, Judge Logan who was afterward his law partner, saw him for the first time. "He was a very tall, gawky, rough-looking fellow

then," the Judge said of Lincoln, "his pantaloons didn't meet his shoes by six inches. But after he began speaking I became very much interested in him. He made a very sensible speech. His manner was very much the same as in after life; that is, the same peculiar characteristics were apparent then, though in after years he evinced more knowledge and experience. But he had then the same novelty and the same peculiarity in presenting his ideas. He had the same individuality that he kept through all his life."

We can believe this. There was never but one Abraham Lincoln and he could not have been like anybody else had he tried; and he was too busy in his work to ever think of trying.

He was defeated in this election, the only time in his life in which he was defeated when he went before the people. If it had depended upon the people of New Salem, things would have gone differently, for he was such a favorite in his own town that he had two hundred and seventy-seven votes while only three went against him. But this defeat was not all loss; he had had practice in public speaking, and he had made friends of importance, Judge Logan, Major Stuart and others; he was getting to be better known, and wherever he was known he was liked.