Red Lodge daily news combined with Carbon County news., 1935-02-06

Springfield, Jacksonville and Peoria, in the order
named. The citizens of Vandalia didn't want to
lose the capital so they raised $4,000 and hope
| fully began to build a new state house to re-
place the one in which Lincoln had first served
| as ae>legislatOr and which was now becoming
sadly dilapidated. They little realized how the
manfpulations Of some very clever politicians
including lanky Abe Lincoln, were to doom them
to disappointment.
/ By the reapportionment act of 1885 Sangamon
county had seven representatives and two sena-
tors, the largest delegation in the legislature.
Because of the height of all these men (the aver
age was well over six feet) they were called the
Long Nine" The senators were Job Fletcher
and Archer Herndon and the representatives
were Abraham Lincoln, John Dawson, Dan Stone,
Ninian w. Edwards (SOn of former governOr),
William F. Elkin, r. L. Wilson, and Andrew Nc
Cormick. They voted solidly together on all ques-
tfons and held out the bait of such an important
block of votes to hackers Of the internal improve
ments schemes in return for support Of Spring
field as the new capital
Although Lincoln and the Springfield parti-
sans, of whom he was in command, strove to de.
lay final action on the location of the capital
until the passage of the Internal Improvement
bill, they could not prevent frequent consldera-
tion of that irritating and dangerous subject"
says Beveridge sometimes they were on the
very edge of defeat, twice they were actually
beaten. His colleagues were Respondent, hope
less; but Lincoln never despdired. In the dark
est hours he called the Long Nine to his room
in the tavern, heartened them and devised plans
for victory"
That victory came on February %, 1887. "Six
days before adjournment, after three months of
management, bargaining and intrigue, after the
passage of the Internal improvements bill with
it's clusters of improvident building, impossible
improvements of impracticable streams, and ap-
preparations of cash to importunate counties,
the general assembly in joint session chose
Springfield, as the permanent site Of the state
capital. =. The husbandry of the Long Nine
had yielded its harvest"
After waging their successful fight to win the
capital for their home county, Lincoln and the
other members of the Long Nine went back to
Springfield in triumph. He was resolved to make
the new capital his home henceforth and to
hang out his shingle as lawyer there, for the
very day after his victory for Springfield he had
obtained from the Supreme court in Vandalia
certificate of admission to the bar of Illinois and
was formally enrolled as an attorney.
On April 15 1887, the Sangamon Journal car
ried a new professional card in its advertising
columns-"J. T. Stuart & A. Lincoln, Attorneys
and Counsellors at Law will practice, conjointly,
in the Courts Of this Judicial Circuit ONCE No.
f. Hoffman's Row, upstairs, Springfield. ]" (Twen- |
ty-eight years later, to day, the columns of
this newspaper would appear with heavy black |
borders in mourning for one Of these Attorneys |
and Counsellors at Law" now the Martyr Presi- /
dent)
"Here, then, was Lincoln, but twenty-eight |
years old, leader Of his party in the house of |
winner Of the fight Tor Spring |
field as the state capital most talked Of and best
liked Of all the Wings OF Sangamon county, and |
now partner Of one Of the ablest lawyers In nli- /
nois and the foremost Wing in the state Thus,
Albert BeVeridge Astounding progressl But
pottering about New Salem in contact
only with little things and crude surroundings,
heavily in debt and with dim prospects for ad-
Vancement; today starting on the high road Of
ambition and achievement" ~
@by western Newspaper UuOn'