ery, and took every opportunity of
making their wishes known. In 1837 the legislature passed a set of
resolutions "highly disapproving abolition societies." Lincoln and five
others voted against it; but, not content with this, Lincoln also drew
up a paper protesting against the passage of such a resolution and
stating his views on slavery. They were not extreme views. Though
declaring slavery to be an evil, he did not insist that the black people
ought to be set free. But so strong was the popular feeling against
anything approaching "abolitionism" that only one man out of the five
who voted against the resolution had the courage to sign this protest
with him. Lincoln was young, poor, and in need of all the good-will at
his command. Nobody could have blamed him for leaving it unwritten; yet
he felt the wrong of slavery so keenly that he could not keep silent
merely because the views he held happened to be unpopular; and this
protest, signed by him and Dan Stone, has come down to us, the first
notable public act in the great career that made his name immortal.

During the eight years that he was in the legislature he had been
working away at the law. Even before his first election his friend John
T. Stuart, who had been major of volunteers in the Black Hawk War
while Lincoln was captain, and who, like Lincoln, had reenlisted in the
Independent Spy Battalion, had given him hearty encouragement. Stuart
was now practising law in. Springfield. After the campaign was over,
Lincoln borrowed the necessary books of Stuart, and entered upon the
study in good earnest. According to his own statement, "he studied with
nobody. ... In the autumn of 1836 he obtained a law license, and on
April 15, 1837, removed to Springfield and commenced the practice, his
old friend Stuart taking him into partnership."

Lincoln had already endeared himself to the people of Springfield by
championing a project they had much at heart--the removal of the State
capital from Vandalia to their own town. This was accomplished, largely
through his efforts, about the time he went to Springfield to live.
This change from New Salem, a village of fifteen or twenty houses, to a
"city" of two thousand inhabitants, placed him once more in striking new
relations as to dress, manners, and society. Yet, as in the case of
his removal from his father's cabin to New Salem six years earlier, the
change was not so startling as would at first appear. In spite of its
larger