impression given was that by an
effort of will and in order to keep his mind from dwelling too
continuously upon the tremendous problems upon which he was engaged, he
would, by the use of some humorous reminiscence, set his thoughts in a
direction as different as possible from that of his cares. A third and
very valuable use of the story which grew up in his Washington days was
to turn aside some persistent but impossible application; and to give to
the applicant, with the least risk of unnecessary annoyance to his
feelings, the "no" that was necessary. It is doubtless also the case
that, as has happened to other men gifted with humour, Lincoln's
reputation as a story-teller caused to be ascribed to him a great series
of anecdotes and incidents of one kind or another, some of which would
have been entirely outside of, and inconsistent with, his own standard
and his own method. There is the further and final word to be said about
Lincoln's stories, that they were entitled to the geometrical
commendation of "being neither too long nor too broad."

In 1846, Lincoln was elected to Congress as a Whig. The circle of
acquaintances whom he had made in the county as surveyor had widened out
with his work as a lawyer; he secured a unanimous nomination and was
elected without difficulty in a constituency comprising six counties. I
find in the record of the campaign the detail that Lincoln returned to
certain of his friends who had undertaken to find the funds for election
expenses, $199.90 out of the $200 subscribed.

In 1847, Lincoln was one of the group of Whigs in Congress who opposed
the Mexican War. These men took the ground that the war was one of
aggression and spoliation. Their views, which were quite prevalent
throughout New England, are effectively presented in Lowell's _Biglow
Papers._ When the army was once in the field, Lincoln was, however,
ready to give his Congressional vote for the fullest and most energetic
support. A year or more later, he worked actively for the election of
General Taylor. He took the ground that the responsibility for the war
rested not with the soldiers who had fought it to a successful
conclusion, but with the politicians who had devised the original
land-grabbing scheme.

In 1849, we find Lincoln's name connected with an invention for lifting
vessels over shoals. His sojourn on the Sangamon River and his memory of
the attempt, successful for the moment but ending in failure, to make
the