Free Lincoln Unbound by Rich Lowry

John Roll noting his own putative slavery, Lincoln supposedly called out, “There is my old friend John Roll. He used to be a slave, but he has made himself free, and I used to be a slave, and now I am so free they let me practice law.” For him, the law office felt like a liberation, from out of the bondage of toil for others into the fresh free air of making the most of his talents.
    Lincoln had risen above drudgery. He would be paid for his knowledge and analytical prowess. He would read, write, and argue for a living. He wasn’t a man of the axe, but of the book—­and of those silver half-­dollars. He was a lawyer and a politician, though of a particular type. By habit, outlook, and partisan commitment, Lincoln emerged from the backwoods, not a Jacksonian Democrat like so many of his neighbors, but a devoted Whig.

 
    Chapter 2
    â€œThe Sober, Industrious, Thriving ­People”: A Devoted Whig
    He loved the struggling masses—­all uprising towards a higher Civilization had his assent & his prayer.
    â€”­ D AVID D AVIS, I NTERVIEW WITH W ILLI AM ­ H ERNDON, 1866
    W hen Lincoln was offered his deputy surveyorship in 1833 he wasn’t in a position to be picky. He needed to eat. Yet delighted as he was by the opportunity, he made a stipulation before taking it. A man named John Moore Fisk related the story to Herndon: A friend of Lincoln’s named Pollard Simmons knew Lincoln “was very poor at that time” and so wanted to do Lincoln a favor. He asked the surveyor of Sangamon County, John Calhoun, to give Lincoln the deputy job. Calhoun agreed. So far, so good. But Calhoun was a Democrat and it was a political appointment, although a minor one.
    Fisk tells the rest: “Simmons got on his horse and went on the hunt of Lincoln whom he found in the woods mauling rails. Simmons Said ‘Lincoln I’ve got you a job’ and to which Lincoln replied—­‘Pollard, I thank you for your trouble, but now let me ask you a question—­Do I have to give up any of my principles for this job? If I have to surrender any thought or principle to get it I wouldn’t touch it with a ten foot pole.’ ‘No, you do not Lincoln,’ said Pollard Simmons, and to which Lincoln replied—­‘Ill accept the office and now I thank you and my superior for it.’ ”
    At this point in his life, Lincoln wasn’t established in anything—­except, apparently, his Whig principles. The surveying job fell into his lap like manna from heaven. It made it possible for him to earn a living. But that didn’t trump his political commitments. Years later, in 1844, Lincoln ended up engaging Calhoun in a series of debates over tariff policy. ­According to one witness, “they were the best debaters—­most Logical & finest debates on the Tariff question in the State.”
    In Illinois in the 1830s, there wasn’t much reason to be a Whig other than principle and personal predilection. It was a heavily Jacksonian state, far from the party’s political and cultural stronghold in New England. The Whigs never elected a governor or senator in Illinois. They always lost the state in presidential elections. “From 1830 up to 1837 the tendency in Illinois was for every man of ambition to turn Democrite,” Lincoln’s early law partner John Todd Stuart told Herndon. “There was a fear,” he explained, “that the Yankees about 1832 to 1837 imigrating to Ills would be whig—­but when they got here were no more than democrats.”
    Lincoln especially disdained the opportunists who switched from Whig to Democrat to better make their way in the state. Joshua Speed wrote a letter to Herndon recounting an incident from Lincoln’s campaign for the legislature in 1836. Lincoln gave a speech in Springfield that thrilled the Whigs in attendance and dispirited the Democrats. George Forquer, a Democrat of some