stcoat,
displayed a glittering wealth of jewelry hidden temporarily beneath it.
There is also the tale of his friend Baker haranguing a crowd in the
store beneath Lincoln's office. The audience differed with Baker, and
was about to punish him severely for the difference, when Lincoln
dangled down through a trap-door in the ceiling, intimated his intention
to share in the fight if there was to be one, and brought the audience
to a more pacific frame of mind. Such amenities of political debate at
least tested some of the qualities of the individual. The Whig party
made him their candidate for the speakership and he came within one vote
of being elected.[44] He was again a member of the Finance Committee;
but financiering by those wise lawgivers was no longer so lightsome and
exuberant a task as it had been. The hour of reckoning had come; and the
business proved to be chiefly a series of humiliating and futile
efforts to undo the follies of the preceding two and a half years.
Lincoln shared in this disagreeable labor, as he had shared in the mania
which had made it necessary. He admitted that he was "no financier," and
gave evidence of the fact by submitting a bill which did not deserve to
be passed, and was not. It can, however, be said for him that he never
favored repudiation, as some of his comrades did.

In 1840[45] Lincoln was again elected, again was the nominee of the Whig
party for the speakership, and again was beaten by Ewing, the Democratic
candidate, who mustered 46 votes against 36 for Lincoln. This
legislature held only one session, and apparently Holland's statement,
that "no important business of general interest was transacted," is a
fair summary. Lincoln did only one memorable thing, and that
unfortunately was discreditable. In a close and exciting contest, he,
with two other Whigs, jumped out of the window in order to break a
quorum. It is gratifying to hear from the chronicler of the event, who
was one of the parties concerned, that "Mr. Lincoln always regretted
that he entered into that arrangement, as he deprecated everything that
savored of the revolutionary."[46]

The year 1840 was made lively throughout the country by the spirited
and rollicking campaign which the Whigs made on behalf of General
Harrison. In that famous struggle for "Tippecanoe and Tyler too," the
log cabin, hard cider, and the 'coon skin were the popular emblems which
seemed to lend picturesqueness and enthusiasm and a kind of