The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1935-11-21
LINCOLN WAS
A PARTY MAN

eXtolled as man "above party poll
ties" Blaine Brooks Gernon, writing
in the current issue of the National
Republic, calls attention to the fact
that Lincoln was not averse to party
activity and took a keen interest in it
from the day he entered public life in
Illinois. In part, Mr.. Gernon says:
"a Lincoln mural in one of the fed
eral courtrooms in Chicago bears this
quotation: Every man is said to have
his peculiar ambition. Whether it be
true or not, l can say, for one, that 1
have no other so great as that of being
truly esteemed by my fellowmen, by
rendering myself worthy of their es-
teem.' Taken from his speech of March
9, 1882, addressed to the voters of
Sangamon county, Illinois, in his first
race for public Office, that of legisla-
tor, it probably best expressed all of
the lodgings and ambitions that were
TO carry tWenty-three year old Abra-
ham Lincoln from a try for humble
office in the obscure hamlet of New
Salem to the great office of President
of the United States-all in the short
space of Twenty-Five years.
at is often glibly said that Lincoln
was above partisan politics and that
he was somehow beyond that which
created him and opened for him the
door of public service. AS fine as
such eulogies may sound, they have
little basis of fact. Mr.. Lincoln was a
practical politician in the best sense
of the word and was, usually, strict
party man.
at is probable that in the great
national election of 1928 nineteen-year
old Abe Lincoln, clerking for Bill
Jones, grocery keeper of Gentryville,
Indiana, got his first taste of politics.
This cross roads hamlet nesting in
the low foothills of southern Indiana,
few short miles north of the Ohio
River, was the scene of many bitter
debates on politics and slavery. Here
the young clerk could listen with rapt
attention while men violently dis
cussed the merits of Andrew Jackson
and Henry Clay. Tom Lincoln and his
family were jackson Democrats, but
most of the people in Carter township
were Clay men, including the boys en-
ployer, Bill Jones, Dave Turnham,
the sheriff, and Bill Wood
There is nothing in the record to
indicate that Abe Lincoln differed
from his fathers choice of political
heroes, yet, such a difference is the
only explanation of mis- subsequent
choice of Clay and the Wings. 1t is
probable that reading the life of the
Kentuckian he chose to follow the
MillbOy Of the Slashes and to him was
to cling for many years. In the debates
of 1858 with Douglas, looking back
over the span of his years, he stated:
Henry Clay, my beau ideal of a states
man, the man for whom I fought all
of my humble life On what little
things hang the fate of years!
"July, 1881, found young Lincoln in
the microscopic hamlet of New Salem,
built on a twisted crust of earth on a
bend in the Sangamon River, near
Springfield, Illinois, where he acted
as grocery clerk and mill assistant to
Denton Offutt. In August he found
time to assist Mentor Graham, village
schoolmaster, in his manifold duties
as clerk Of election. And while this
probably gave him no recompense or
official standing, it marked him in that
backwoods community as a man who
could read and write, something that
was to be of untold value to his polit-
ical fortunes.
'In the spring of 1882, Lincoln an
nounced his candidacy for the Illinois
legislature. The national Republicans
were gradually breaking up into the
factions Of Clay, Webster and Cal
houn, soon to form the Wing party. If
Lincoln made any political choice at
this time, he gave no public utterance
of it. All Of the candidates for public
office in Illinois were apparently Dem
ocrats, so that his silence can hardly
be chargeable to political fear The
state election took place in August,
and the national in November, yet the
candidate indicated no preference for
either Clay or Jackson. And that fall
he saw the Hero of New Orleans sweep
the nation, Illinois, and even Sanga-
mon county.
"If Lincoln had been an opportunist
he should have cast his lot with the
Democrats for they were in power
everywhere. Yet, although Jackson
won the New Salem precinct, 1876 to
70, we note that the grocer candidate
recorded his vote for Clay"