's biographers, discovered in course of a search instituted by
this Magazine through the files of the Boston and Worcester newspapers
of September, 1848. The article also comprises various reminiscences of
Lincoln in the period covered, gathered especially for this Magazine
from associates of his who are still living._

For eight successive years Lincoln had been a member of the General
Assembly of Illinois. It was quite long enough, in his judgment. He
wanted something better. In 1842 he declined re-nomination, and became a
candidate for Congress. He did not wait to be asked, nor did he leave
his case in the hands of his friends. He frankly announced his desire,
and managed his own canvass. There was no reason, in Lincoln's opinion,
for concealing political ambition. He recognized, at the same time, the
legitimacy of the ambition of his friends, and entertained no suspicion
or rancor if they contested places with him.

"Do you suppose that I should ever have got into notice if I had waited
to be hunted up and pushed forward by older men?" he wrote his friend
Herndon once, when the latter was complaining that the older men did not
help him on. "The way for a young man to rise is to improve himself
every way he can, never suspecting that anybody wishes to hinder him.
Allow me to assure you that suspicion and jealousy never did help any
man in any situation. There may sometimes be ungenerous attempts to keep
a young man down; and they will succeed, too, if he allows his mind to
be diverted from its true channel to brood over the attempted injury.
Cast about, and see if this feeling has not injured every person you
have ever known to fall into it."

Lincoln had something more to do, however, in 1842, than simply to
announce himself in the innocent manner of earlier politics. The
convention system introduced into Illinois in 1835 by the Democrats had
been zealously opposed by all good Whigs, Lincoln included, until
constant defeat taught them that to resist organization by an
every-man-for-himself policy was hopeless and wasteful, and that if they
would succeed they must meet organization with organization. In 1841 a
Whig State convention had been called to nominate candidates for the
offices of governor and lieutenant-governor; and now, in March, 1843, a
Whig meeting was held again at Springfield, at which the party's
platform was laid, and a committee, of which Lincoln was a member, was
appointed to prepare an "Addres