protectionists, supporters of the National Bank, and the remnants of the Federal party (for the sake of success), abandoned Mr. Clay, its true representative and leader, and nominated General Harrison for the presidency on the ground of mere availability. The selection of John Tyler as a candidate for vice-presidency, who was an enemy of protection and the banking system, an ultra states' rights man and admirer and follower of Mr. Calhoun, was the price paid by the Whig party in order to secure the cooperation of the southern leaders.

This became manifest upon the accession of Tyler to the presidency after the death of Harrison. After a violent struggle between the Whig leaders and Tyler, the latter threw himself into the arms of the Nullifiers, called Mr. Calhoun and other men of uncertain political character to his cabinet, and entered upon a line of policy which enabled the Democratic party, by an alliance with the southern leaders to carry the election of 1844, electing James K. Polk to the presidency, and defeating Mr. Clay, under whose leadership the Whigs in that year attempted to rally.

I return from this digression and continue my personal narrative. After the election of 1840, I continued the practice of my profession with great industry, and won a fair share of the very small amount of legal business that reached the courts.

The scale of legal fees charged and collected by lawyers would not be very attractive to the profession of to-day. It is, perhaps, correct to say, that ten dollars would be the full average fee for the trial of a suit in the circuit court, while two dollars and a half, and five dollars, were the amounts usually charged before a justice of the peace. But this mere statement of the rates of professional compensation reflects very little light upon the actual state of the business of the country. Public lands could still be entered at the landoffice at one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre; improved farms that are now worth fifty dollars could then be

bought for five dollars an acre; the means of sustenance were abundant and cheap; the habits of the people were simple and inexpensive, so that while the comforts and luxuries of modern life are now more abundant, the people were then far more independent than they are at present.

On the twentieth day of December, 1842, I was married to Miss Malinda Ann Neely, daughter of Mr. James Neely, of Carlinville.

She was born in Kentucky, and was very young at the time of our marriage, but within a few days afterwards we went to housekeeping, neither of us needing any assistance. I had no home for her, but we found a snug, hewed-log house, which I rented for four dollars per month. It stood upon the ground now occupied by the magnificent "Macoupin Court House;" her mother gave her the "Illinois fortune," a feather bed and its equipments. I had a bureau, which still stands in my home in Springfield, "none the worse for wear," and which I always insisted to her was an equivalent for the bed and its furnishings. A local mechanic made for us a walnut table, and with twenty-five dollars worth of the simple household and kitchen furniture, which was common at that time, a little sugar and coffee, some flour and a ham, I, proud of my new position, the head of the family,

"Felt that swelling of the heart

I ne'er shall feel again."

She was a true and devoted wife and mother, and a sincere Christian.

Ten children were born to us, six of whom survived her. On May 9, 1885, she died of that incurable disease, consumption, and sleeps in our little private cemetery at Carlinville, with the four of our children who preceded her.

When I left home on May 15, 1861, to assume command of the regiment to which I had been elected, she remained with five of our children, all of whom

needed her care, I expected to return within a few months, at most. I was only occasionally at home, but my military service ended by the acceptance of my resignation as Major-General of Volunteers, on September 1, 1866.

She never failed in her duty to our children, while the anxieties she suffered on account of her husband and two of her brothers who were in the army, must be left to the imagination of those who had like experiences. I have never doubted but that the wives of soldiers endured and suffered far more than did the soldiers themselves.

To go back to the period to which I have adverted, it ought to be said that in a new country, as Illinois was then, lawyers from their relations to the people, were more or less necessarily politicians and office seekers. There were then no railroads, telegraphs or telephones, nor "the daily newspaper," which by the railroads is now delivered on the day of its publication, at nearly every postoffice in the state.

It was then the habit of the lawyers to "go on the circuit," and some of them, like Lincoln, would follow the judge and go to all the courts in the circuit, and as all were partisans, the more ready and ambitious of them would on the first day of the term, at the adjournment of the court at noon or in the evening after the adjournment of the court, make a speech either assailing the party opposed to him, or defending his own party, or both. Some orator would reply to him on the next day or evening, and thus the debate was kept up until the close of the term. The terms of the courts at that time lasted but four or five days, and it was easy to find amongst the lawyers in attendance speakers to fill up the time.

The people who attended the courts expected the lawyers to speak, and such speeches afforded the only political information accessible to them. Some of the lawyers were more indebted to their adroitness as po

litical speakers than to their legal knowledge for their popularity at the bar.

In 1843, I became a candidate for an office, which no longer exists, that of "probate justice of the peace." The office was abolished by the constitution of 1848, which created county courts with similar and more extended jurisdiction. The probate justices of the peace were elected by the legal voters of the whole county for the term of four years; they had probate jurisdiction, and had also the civil and criminal jurisdiction of ordinary justices of the peace. The probate justices were their own clerks, and were paid by fees. I was elected by a large majority of votes. During the canvass, I made speeches, as did my opponent and the candidates for other county offices. I do not remember the topics we discussed, other than that I was charged with abolitionism, and defended myself by proving that I was a contributor to the "American Colonization Society." I kept no account of the fees received from this office, nor of my professional earnings, but they probably amounted to some seven hundred dollars per annum.

Between 1843 and 1849, I bought a house in Carlinville and three lots for $200. I spent $100 or more in altering and repairing the house, and purchased textbooks and reports, and in that way provided myself with a respectable law library. I mention the price at which I purchased the house and three lots in Carlinville to justify a statement which I now make that there never was a time in the history of Illinois when the prices of all property, real and personal, were as low as from 1840 to 1848. Pork and beef were worth one and a half and two cents a pound, horses were lower in price than they are now, in this age of electricity, bicycles and horseless carriages, and I remember that soon after my marriage I bought from an acquintance an excellent cow and her calf, for which I paid ten dollars, and he afterwards boasted that he beat me in the transaction, the average price of such cows as I bought being about eight dol

lars; common labor was fifty cents a day, and plows and harrows and other agricultural implements were made by the local mechanics.

I was married on the 20th day of December, 1843, and within a few days thereafter, I was employed to attend a suit before Squire Stewart, who lived fourteen miles north of Carlinville. I hired a horse to ride for fifty cents a day, and appeared before the "squire" for my client.

My defense was usury. When I reached the office of Justice Stewart, I was confronted by a letter to the justice from Major P. H. Winchester, an old lawyer in Carlinville, who had the full confidence of the justice, in which he said, "that as there were no pleadings before justices of the peace, it could not appear by the pleadings that the fact of usury was put in issue, and defendant could not therefore become a witness."

I knew that it would be useless to argue to Justice Stewart that Major Winchester was wrong, but I knew him to be a conscientious, honest man, so I insisted that as the statute gave the defense of usury, a justice, who was bound to give full effect to the statute, ought to dismiss the suit, in order to give the maker of the note an opportunity to plead his defense, and as the plaintiff was alive, to become a witness.

The justice dismissed the suit. I charged my client five dollars, and he asked me if I "would take my fee in cornmeal?"

Being the head of a family, but wholly ignorant of its wants, I told him I would. A few days afterwards, he came to my office, and told me that he "would have brought all the meal he owed me if he had had barrels. enough to hold it, but as he had only six barrels he had only brought eighteen bushels." I went to the house, saw the cornmeal, and told my client that I forgave him the balance he owed me.

As my family consisted then of myself and wife only, it may well be guessed that my neighbors profited by the distribution of the meal.