only for flatboats. It had to be improved and become navigable for light-Âdraft steamboats if New Salem were to realize its potential. The Sangamon Âreputedly took 150 miles of river to cover forty-Âfive miles as the crow flies. Lincoln joked that he once headed downriver and ended up camped at exactly the same spot three straight nights.
As an aspiring representative of the villageâs interests, candidate Lincoln opposed a railroad project that would bypass the burg. He instead pumped for straightening and deepening the Sangamon. Early in 1832, he joined the men wielding long-Âhandled axes who helped chop the river clear for a steamboat to make its way up it past New Salem, to much fanfare. But then the river fell. Lincoln assisted on the boat during its desultory retreat. It struggled to make its way back downriver, its cabin raked by low-Âhanging trees. The ballyhooed voyage, which had held out the prospect of freight arriving from St. Louis at a much diminished cost, ended in a fizzle.
In a notice of his candidacy in the Sangamo Journal , Lincoln declared his support for education and âinternal improvementsâ (or, in modern parlance, infrastructure). In other words, he wanted Âpeople better educated for a world beyond subsistence agriculture, and he wanted to aid the development of the connective tissue of transport and communication to hasten that worldâs emergence. These are themes that would carry through Lincolnâs politics throughout the decades.
âFor my part,â he wrote, âI desire to see the time when Âeducation, and by its means, morality, sobriety, enterprise and industry, shall become much more general than at present.â On improvements, he argued, âWith respect to the county of Sangamo, some more easy means of communication than we now possess, for the purpose of facilitating the task of exporting the surplus products of its fertile soil, and importing necessary articles from abroad, are indispensably necessary.â And if he werenât elected, well, âI have been too familiar with disappointments to be very much chagrined.â
Even in this first campaign, we can see in rough outline what would become the trademark Lincoln formula: a high-Âminded program of uplift and improvement (both personal and collective), presented with a winsome political touch.
The emphasis on âmore easy means of communicationâ was latent with revolutionary economic potential. The extension of modern transportation networks would take a sledgehammer to the subsistence economy of Lincolnâs youth. It would make it obsolete, impossible even. âMembers of inland communities found it hard to resist the high-Âquality manufactures that good roads, canals, and railroads made available at unprecedented low prices,â historian Bruce Levine writes. âBut the extra money needed to buy such items compelled them to sell still more goods and increasingly to focus their efforts on raising crops that would command the highest price in distant markets.â In its remorseless logic, newly open markets drove specialization. They meant it no longer made sense for farmers even to grow all their own food, let alone make their own agricultural implements. The enmeshment of farmers âwith commerce grew into a dependence upon the market and subordination to its rhythms.â
Whatever the merits of his vision, Lincoln didnât have much time to campaign. As Offuttâs store died (it was the kind of venture that might have benefited if New Salem had been better connected to St. Louis via the Sangamon), Lincoln joined the militia for the Black Hawk War. When his serÂvice ended uneventfully, he made his way back to New Salem by hook and crook after someone stole his horse the night before his departure. Out on the hustings, he cut quite the figure, as usual. âI well remember,â a prospective constituent said later, âhow he
As an aspiring representative of the villageâs interests, candidate Lincoln opposed a railroad project that would bypass the burg. He instead pumped for straightening and deepening the Sangamon. Early in 1832, he joined the men wielding long-Âhandled axes who helped chop the river clear for a steamboat to make its way up it past New Salem, to much fanfare. But then the river fell. Lincoln assisted on the boat during its desultory retreat. It struggled to make its way back downriver, its cabin raked by low-Âhanging trees. The ballyhooed voyage, which had held out the prospect of freight arriving from St. Louis at a much diminished cost, ended in a fizzle.
In a notice of his candidacy in the Sangamo Journal , Lincoln declared his support for education and âinternal improvementsâ (or, in modern parlance, infrastructure). In other words, he wanted Âpeople better educated for a world beyond subsistence agriculture, and he wanted to aid the development of the connective tissue of transport and communication to hasten that worldâs emergence. These are themes that would carry through Lincolnâs politics throughout the decades.
âFor my part,â he wrote, âI desire to see the time when Âeducation, and by its means, morality, sobriety, enterprise and industry, shall become much more general than at present.â On improvements, he argued, âWith respect to the county of Sangamo, some more easy means of communication than we now possess, for the purpose of facilitating the task of exporting the surplus products of its fertile soil, and importing necessary articles from abroad, are indispensably necessary.â And if he werenât elected, well, âI have been too familiar with disappointments to be very much chagrined.â
Even in this first campaign, we can see in rough outline what would become the trademark Lincoln formula: a high-Âminded program of uplift and improvement (both personal and collective), presented with a winsome political touch.
The emphasis on âmore easy means of communicationâ was latent with revolutionary economic potential. The extension of modern transportation networks would take a sledgehammer to the subsistence economy of Lincolnâs youth. It would make it obsolete, impossible even. âMembers of inland communities found it hard to resist the high-Âquality manufactures that good roads, canals, and railroads made available at unprecedented low prices,â historian Bruce Levine writes. âBut the extra money needed to buy such items compelled them to sell still more goods and increasingly to focus their efforts on raising crops that would command the highest price in distant markets.â In its remorseless logic, newly open markets drove specialization. They meant it no longer made sense for farmers even to grow all their own food, let alone make their own agricultural implements. The enmeshment of farmers âwith commerce grew into a dependence upon the market and subordination to its rhythms.â
Whatever the merits of his vision, Lincoln didnât have much time to campaign. As Offuttâs store died (it was the kind of venture that might have benefited if New Salem had been better connected to St. Louis via the Sangamon), Lincoln joined the militia for the Black Hawk War. When his serÂvice ended uneventfully, he made his way back to New Salem by hook and crook after someone stole his horse the night before his departure. Out on the hustings, he cut quite the figure, as usual. âI well remember,â a prospective constituent said later, âhow he
Similar Books
