LINCOLN IN CONGRESS AND IN RETIREMENT
1. The Mexican War and Lincoln’s Work in
Congress.
Lincoln had ceased before his marriage to sit in the
Illinois Legislature. He had won sufficient
standing for his ambition to aim higher; a former
law partner of his was now in Congress, and he wished
to follow. But he had to submit to a few years’
delay of which the story is curious and honourable.
His rivals for the representation of his own constituency
were two fellow Whigs, Baker and Hardin, both of whom
afterwards bore distinguished parts in the Mexican
war and with both of whom he was friendly. Somewhat
to his disgust at a party gathering in his own county
in 1843, Baker was preferred to him. A letter
of his gives a shrewd account of the manoeuvres among
members of various Churches which brought this about;
it is curiously careful not to overstate the effect
of these influences and characteristically denies
that Baker had part in them. To make the thing
harder, he was sent from this meeting to a convention,
for the whole constituency, with which the nomination
lay, and his duty, of course, was to work for Baker.
Here it became obvious that Hardin would be chosen;
nothing could be done for Baker at that time, but
Lincoln, being against his will there in Baker’s
interests, took an opportunity in the bargaining that
took place to advance Baker’s claim, to the detriment
of his own, to be Hardin’s successor two years
later.
By some perverse accident notes about details of party
management fill a disproportionate space among those
letters of Lincoln’s which have been preserved,
but these reveal that, with all his business-like
attention to the affairs of his very proper ambition,
he was able throughout to illuminate dull matters
of this order with action of singular disinterestedness.
After being a second time postponed, no doubt to
the advantage of his law business, he took his seat
in the House of Representatives at Washington for
two years in the spring of 1847. Two short sessions
can hardly suffice for mastering the very complicated
business of that body. He made hardly any mark.
He probably learned much and was able to study at
leisure the characters of his brother politicians.
He earned the valuable esteem of some, and seems
to have passed as a very pleasant, honest, plain specimen
of the rough West. Like others of the younger
Congressmen, he had the privilege of breakfasting
with Webster. His brief career in the House
seems to have disappointed him, and it certainly dissatisfied
his constituents. The part that he played may
impress us more favourably than it did them, but,
slight as it was, it requires a historical explanation.
