months after
Lincoln rode into town, all his earthly possessions in a pair of
saddle-bags, that Douglas appeared. Handsome, polished, and always
with an air of prosperity, the advent of the young Democratic
official was in striking contrast to that of the sad-eyed, ill-clad,
poverty-stricken young lawyer from New Salem.

From the first, Lincoln and Douglas were thrown constantly together
in the social life of the town, and often pitted against each other in
what were the real forums of the State at that day--the space around
the huge "Franklin" stove of some obliging store-keeper, the steps of
somebody's law office, a pile of lumber, or a long timber, lying in
the public square, where the new State-house was going up.

In the fall of 1837 Douglas was nominated for Congress on the
Democratic ticket. His Whig opponent was Lincoln's law partner, John
T. Stuart. The campaign which the two conducted was one of the most
remarkable in the history of the State. For five months of the spring
and summer of 1838 they rode together from town to town all over the
northern part of Illinois (Illinois at that time was divided into but
three congressional districts; the third, in which Sangamon County
was included, being made up of the twenty-two northernmost counties),
speaking six days out of seven. When the election came off in August,
1838, out of thirty-six thousand votes cast, Stuart received a
majority of only fourteen; but even that majority the Democrats always
contended was won unfairly. The campaign was watched with intense
interest by the young politicians of Springfield; no one of them felt
a deeper interest in it than Lincoln, who was himself at the same time
a candidate for member of the State legislature.

[Illustration: OLD STATE-HOUSE AT SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS.

From a recent photograph made for MCCLURE'S MAGAZINE. The corner-stone
was laid July 4, 1837, about four months after the passage of the
act removing the capital to Springfield. The event was attended with
elaborate ceremonies. The orator of the day was Colonel E.D. Baker. It
was nearly four years before the building was finally completed, at a
cost of two hundred and forty thousand dollars. It was first occupied
by the legislature during the regular session of 1840-1841, that body,
at two previous special sessions, being obliged to use the Methodist
church for the Senate, and the Second Presbyterian church for the
House. The Supreme Court found a meeting p