Fifty Years of Public Service | Page 7

living.

My health was impaired when I left school, and I returned home to
work on the farm. Soon I became strong again, but the labor was so
arduous and uncongenial that I determined upon a change: if there was
any other way of making a honest living, I would try to find it.
In the meantime I had leased a farm of one hundred and sixty acres
from my father. When Spring came I told him that I wanted to be
released from my contract; that I had deliberately come to the
conclusion that I could make my living some other way--that I intended
to study law. My father did not hesitate to relieve me of my obligations,
and the succeeding October, 1853, I started for Springfield to enter
upon the study of law. I consulted with Abraham Lincoln, and on his
advice I entered the law offices of Stuart and Edwards, both of whom
were Whigs and friends of my father. They were both very good men
and distinguished lawyers.
At that time Abraham Lincoln and Stephen T. Logan and Stuart and
Edwards were the four ablest lawyers of the capital city. I studied two
years in the offices of Stuart and Edwards, pursuing the usual life of a
law student in a country law office, and was admitted to the Bar in
1855, and elected City Attorney the same year.
Meanwhile, however, I had been ill of typhoid fever for several months.
During the period of my convalescence, I was advised to return to my
home in the country and spend much time riding horseback. I did so,
but the time seemed to drag, and finally I went to the city of Peoria to
learn whether I could direct my restorative exercise to an additional
profitable end. The result was that for several ensuing weeks I rode
about the countryside, buying hogs for Ting & Brotherson; at the
expiration of which time I had regained my health, was richer by about
five hundred dollars, and was thus enabled to return at once to
Springfield and take up again my interrupted studies.
Having been inducted into the office of City Attorney, I was fairly
launched upon a political career, exceeding in length of unbroken
service that of any other public man in the country's history. In fact I
never accepted but two executive appointments: the first was an
unsought appointment by Abraham Lincoln, after he had become the

central figure of his time, if not of all time; and, second, an
appointment from President McKinley as chairman of the Hawaiian
Commission.
CHAPTER II
SERVICE AS CITY ATTORNEY AT SPRINGFIELD 1855 and 1856
My election as City Attorney of Springfield signalized at once my
active interest in politics at the very moment when the war cloud was
beginning to take shape in the political heavens--a portentous cloud,
but recognized as such at that time by comparatively few of the
thinking people. It had seemed certain for years that a struggle was sure
to come. Being a very young man, I suppose I did not realize the
horrors of a civil war, but I watched with keen interest the signs of
dissolution in political parties, and realignments in party ties.
In 1854 the country seemed on the verge of a war with Spain over Cuba
which happily was averted. The Black Warrior had been seized in
Havana Harbor, and the excitement throughout the country when
Congress prepared to suspend the neutrality laws between the United
States and Spain was intense.
It was about this time also that the famous Ostend manifesto was issued
without authority from any one. The American representatives at the
Courts of England, France, and Spain met at Ostend to confer on the
best method of settling the difficulties concerning Cuba and obtaining
possession of the island. They issued a manifesto in which they
recommended that Cuba should be purchased if possible, failing which
that it should be taken by force:
"If Spain, actuated by stubborn pride and a false sense of honor, should
refuse to sell Cuba to the United States, then by every law, human and
divine, we shall be justified in wresting it from Spain, if we possess the
power."
The Ostend manifesto was repudiated; but it is certain that we would
have then intervened in favor of freeing Cuba, had it not been for the

dark war clouds which were so quickly gathering over our own
country.
Among the other vital conditions which helped to keep the country's
interest and attention divided at this critical time was the Missouri
Compromise repeal, May 30, 1855. This repealing act early began to
bear political fruit. Already treaties had been made with half a score of
the Indian Nations in Kansas, by which the greater part of the soil