d."

There are other stories of this campaign, amusing and characteristic of
the region and the times, but which there is not room to repeat. The
result of it was that Sangamon County, hitherto Democratic, was now won
by the Whigs, and that Lincoln had the personal satisfaction of leading
the poll. The county had in the legislature nine representatives, tall
fellows all, not one of them standing less than six feet, so that they
were nicknamed "the Long Nine." Such was their authority that one of
them afterward said: "All the bad or objectionable laws passed at that
session of the legislature, and for many years afterward, were
chargeable to the management and influence of 'the Long Nine.'" This
was a damning confession, for the "bad and objectionable" laws of that
session were numerous. A mania possessed the people. The whole State was
being cut up into towns and cities and house-lots, so that town-lots
were said to be the only article of export.[42] A system of internal
improvements at the public expense was pushed forward with incredible
recklessness. The State was to be "gridironed" with thirteen hundred
miles of railroad; the courses of the rivers were to be straightened;
and where nature had neglected to supply rivers, canals were to be dug.
A loan of twelve millions of dollars was authorized, and the counties
not benefited thereby received gifts of cash. The bonds were issued and
sent to the bankers of New York and of Europe, and work was vigorously
begun. The terrible financial panic of 1837 ought to have administered
an early check to this madness. But it did not. Resolutions of popular
conventions instructed legislators to institute "a general system of
internal improvements," which should be "commensurate with the wants of
the people;" and the lawgivers obeyed as implicitly as if each delegate
was lighting his steps by an Aladdin's lamp.

With this mad current Lincoln swam as wildly and as ignorantly as did
any of his comrades. He was absurdly misplaced as a member of the
Committee on Finance. Never in his life did he show the slightest
measure of "money sense." He had, however, declared his purpose to be
governed by the will of his constituents in all matters in which he knew
that will, and at this time he apparently held the American theory that
the multitude probably possesses the highest wisdom, and that at any
rate the majority is entitled to have its way. Therefore, in this
ambitious enterprise of putti