With this mad current Lincoln swam as wildly and as ignorantly as did any of his comrades.  He was absurdly misplaced as a member of the Committee on Finance.  Never in his life did he show the slightest measure of “money sense.”  He had, however, declared his purpose to be governed by the will of his constituents in all matters in which he knew that will, and at this time he apparently held the American theory that the multitude probably possesses the highest wisdom, and that at any rate the majority is entitled to have its way.  Therefore, in this ambitious enterprise of putting Illinois at the very forefront of the civilized world by an outburst of fine American energy, his ardor was as warm as that of the warmest, and his intelligence was as utterly misled as that of the most ignorant.  He declared his ambition to be “the DeWitt Clinton of Illinois.”  After the inevitable crash had come, amid the perplexity of general ruin and distress, he honestly acknowledged that he had blundered very badly.  Nevertheless, no vengeance was exacted of him by the people; which led Governor Ford to say that it is safer for a politician to be wrong with his constituents than to be right against them, and to illustrate this profound truth by naming Lincoln among the “spared monuments of popular wrath.”

“The Long Nine” had in this legislature a task peculiarly their own:  to divide Sangamon County, and to make Springfield instead of Vandalia the state capital.  Amid all the whirl of the legislation concerning improvements Lincoln kept this especial purpose always in view.  It is said that his skill was infinite, and that he never lost heart.  He gained the reputation of being the best “log-roller” in the legislature, and no measure got the support of the “Long Nine” without a contract for votes to be given in return for the removal of the state capital.  It is unfortunate that such methods should enjoy the prestige of having been conspicuously practiced by Abraham Lincoln, but the evidence seems to establish the fact.  That there was anything objectionable in the skillful performance of such common transactions as the trading of votes probably never occurred to him, being a professional politician, any more than it did to his constituents, who triumphed noisily in this success, and welcomed their candidates home with great popular demonstrations of approval.[43]

A more agreeable occurrence at this session is the position taken by Lincoln concerning slavery, a position which was looked upon with extreme disfavor in those days in that State, and which he voluntarily assumed when he was not called upon to act or commit himself in any way concerning the matter.  During the session sundry resolutions were passed, disapproving abolition societies and doctrines, asserting the sacredness of the right of property in slaves in the slave States, and alleging that it would be against good faith to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia without