The war ended in time for a brief candidature, and a supporter of his at the time preserved a record of one of his speeches.  His last important speech will hereafter be given in full for other reasons; this may be so given too, for it is not a hundred words long:  “Fellow Citizens, I presume you all know who I am.  I am humble Abraham Lincoln.  I have been solicited by many friends to become a candidate for the Legislature.  My politics are short and sweet like the old woman’s dance.  I am in favour of a national bank.  I am in favour of the internal improvement system and a high protective tariff.  These are my sentiments and political principles.  If elected, I shall be thankful; if not, it will be all the same.”

To this succinct declaration of policy may be added from his earlier letter that he advocated a law against usury, and laws for the improvement of education.  The principles of the speech are those which the new Whig party was upholding against the Democrats under Jackson (the President) and Van Buren.  Lincoln’s neighbours, like the people of Illinois generally, were almost entirely on the side of the Democrats.  It is interesting that however he came by his views, they were early and permanently fixed on the side then unpopular in Illinois; and it is interesting that though, naturally, not elected, he secured very nearly the whole of the votes of his immediate neighbourhood.

The penniless Lincoln was now hankering to become a lawyer, though with some thoughts of the more practicable career of a blacksmith.  Unexpectedly, however, he was tempted into his one venture, singularly unsuccessful, in business.  Two gentlemen named Herndon, cousins of a biographer of Lincoln’s, started a store in New Salem and got tired of it.  One sold his share to a Mr. Berry, the other sold his to Lincoln.  The latter sale was entirely on credit—­no money passed at the time, because there was no money.  The vendor explained afterwards that he relied solely on Lincoln’s honesty.  He had to wait a long while for full payment, but what is known of storekeeping in New Salem shows that he did very well for himself in getting out of his venture as he did.  Messrs. Berry and Lincoln next acquired, likewise for credit, the stock and goodwill of two other storekeepers, one of them the victim of a raid from Clary’s Grove.  The senior partner then applied himself diligently to personal consumption of the firm’s liquid goods; the junior member of the firm was devoted in part to intellectual and humorous converse with the male customers, but a fatal shyness prevented him from talking to the ladles.  For the rest, he walked long distances to borrow books, got through Gibbon and through Rollin’s “History of the World,” began his study of Blackstone, and acquired a settled habit of reading novels.  So business languished.  Early in 1833 Berry and Lincoln sold out to another adventurer.  This also was a credit transaction.  The purchaser without avoidable delay failed and disappeared.  Berry then died of drink, leaving to Lincoln the sole responsibility for the debts of the partnership.  Lincoln could with no difficulty and not much reproach have freed himself by bankruptcy.  As a matter of fact, he ultimately paid everything, but it took him about fifteen years of striving and pinching himself.