Who Was Abraham Lincoln 林肯 Chapter 3 A Member of Congress

In 1837, Lincoln moved to Springfield, the new state capital. Springfield was still a frontier town with log cabins. Pigs ran loose on the dirt roads. But it was the biggest place Lincoln had ever lived in. It even had a bookstore. He worked at a friend’s law firm, where he kept track of the paperwork. He wasn’t very good at this. He had a habit of carrying important papers around inside his tall stovepipe hat. Sometimes he lost them.

The state government was only in session for part of the year. And there wasn’t enough business in Springfield for a lawyer to live on. So like most Western lawyers, Lincoln had to travel to towns all around the state. Twice a year, a judge visited all the towns that were too small to have their own courts. Lincoln joined the group of lawyers who followed the judge’s route.

Everyone traveled together. At night they all crowded into small rough inns. Sometimes twenty men had to squeeze into one room. Lincoln often slept on the floor. After a few days, the group would move on. Sometimes the roads were so bad, they had to walk. Because Lincoln had such long legs, his companions made him wade 1 across streams first to find out how deep they were.

WHIGS AND DEMOCRATS 2

THE UNITED STATES HAS HAD MANY DIFFERENT POLITICAL PARTIES In ITS HISTORY, OFTEN WITH CONFUSINGLY SIMILAR NAMES. (THERE WAS EVEN A PARTY CALLED THE DEMOCRATIC-REPUBLICANS.) WHEN LINCOLN WAS STARTING OUT, THE MAIN PARTIES WERE THE WHIGS And THE DEMOCRATS. THE DEMOCRATS SUPPORTED STATES’ RIGHTS. THEY THOUGHT EACH STATE SHOULD HAVE THE POWER TO RULE ITSELF. THE WHIGS WANTEd A STRONGER CENTRAL GOVERNMENT.

THEY SAID THE GOVERNMENT SHOULD ENCOURAGE And PAY FOR IMPROVEMENTS THAT WOULD MAKE THE COUNTRY WORK BETTER. LINCOLN WAS A WHIG. In HIS EARLY CAREER HE SUPPORTED THE BUILdING OF CANALS And RAILROADS THAT WOULD HELP MAKE TRADE And TRANSPORTATION EASIER.

Lincoln didn’t mind the bad food or the rough life. He liked meeting people. He impressed them with his funny stories, his friendliness 3, his skill, and his honesty. “If . . . you cannot be an honest lawyer,” he said, “resolve to be honest without being a lawyer.”

Lincoln was a strong supporter of the Whig Party. Soon he became one of the most important party members in Illinois. Wherever he went, he worked hard campaigning for Whig candidates. He knew thousands of voters by name.

Lincoln was comfortable with most people, but he was shy and awkward around young women. A couple of years after he moved to Springfield, he met Mary Todd at a party. Although he stepped all over her feet when they danced together, Mary liked Lincoln. She was a Southern belle 4 who, at twenty-one, was very eager to get married. Pretty and lively, she put Lincoln at ease by doing most of the talking herself. Mary was more interested in politics than most women of the time. She often said that she wanted to marry a man who would be president.

They were married on November 4, 1842. Lincoln joked about how strange it was that anyone would marry him. “Nothing new here,” he wrote to a friend, “except my marrying, which to me, is a matter of profound wonder.” On Mary’s wedding ring, Lincoln engraved 5 “Love is eternal.”

At first the couple lived in a hotel, but soon they bought a house. It was tiny and not very fancy. Still, it was the first house Lincoln had ever owned. Nine months after the marriage, their first child, Robert, was born. Two years later they had a second son, Edward, who died at age three. Eventually they had a third son, Willie, and a fourth, Thomas. When Thomas was born, his head was so large that Lincoln thought he looked like a tadpole 6. So the boy was nicknamed Tad.

Both parents spoiled their children. When Lincoln brought the boys into his law office, they dumped ashtrays 7 and inkstands on the floor. They piled up papers and danced on them. Lincoln’s partner said he sometimes “wanted to wring 8 their little necks.” But Lincoln never scolded his boys.

PHOTOGRAPHY

WHEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN WAS BORN, PHOTOGRAPHY DIDN’T EXIST. DURING HIS LIFETIME, NEW METHODS OF TAKING PERMANENT PICTURES WERE INVENTED. IT BECAME FASHIONABLE TO SIT FOR YOUR PORTRAIT. SO WE KNOW JUST WHAT LINCOLN And HIS FAMILY LOOKED LIKE. THE EARLIEST KNOWN PHOTOGRAPH OF LINCOLN WAS TAKEN AROUND 1846 (BEFORE HE HAD HIS BEARD). A PHOTOGRAPH OF MARY WAS TAKEN AT THE SAME TIME.

PHOTOGRAPHY ALSO MADE THE CIVIL WAR MORE REAL TO PEOPLE THAN ANY EARLIER WAR. MATHEW BRADY And HIS ASSISTANTS WENT OUT TO THE BATTLEFIELDS And RECORDED EXACTLY WHAT THEY SAW. BRADY PHOTOGRAPHED LINCOLN SEVERAL TIMES, AS WELL.

THE LINCOLNS BY 1853

In 1841, after six years in the state legislature, Lincoln decided 9 it was time to do something bigger and more important. He wanted to be the Whig candidate for the United States House of Representatives. But the party chose another candidate. Even so, he worked hard to get his rival elected. He thought this might put him in line to be elected the next time.

His plan worked. In 1846, Abraham Lincoln was elected as a representative from Illinois. He moved into a boardinghouse in Washington, D.C. Now Lincoln would be dealing 10 with issues that affected 11 the whole country, not just his own state.

Mary and the children came with him, but the boys behaved so badly that soon he had to send them away. Lincoln didn’t have time to miss them. He was working hard. He almost never missed a session of Congress. He served on committees. He made speeches. But he didn’t do anything very important, and no one noticed him. At the end of his two-year term, Lincoln returned home feeling that he had failed to make his mark on the country.

For the next six years, Lincoln concentrated on his law practice back in Springfield. He had decided he wasn’t interested in politics.