meetings were held, and in August, 1837, his press was thrown into the river.  Another was immediately bought, which, in September, followed its predecessor to the bottom of the Mississippi.  When it was known in Alton that Mr. Lovejoy had ordered a fourth press, and had resolved to fight the opposition to the end, a public meeting was called, at which many speeches were made on both sides, and he was urged to leave Alton.  This he refused to do, and his fourth press was landed on November 6, 1837.  The next night a mob attacked the warehouse where it was placed, and in the riot one of the assailants, Lyman Bishop, and Elijah Lovejoy himself were killed.]

The members came to Vandalia full of hope and exultation.  In their judgment it needed only a few months of legislation to put their State by the side of New York; and from the opening of the session they were overflowing with excitement and schemes.  In the general ebullition of spirits which characterized the Assembly, Lincoln had little share.  Only a week after the opening of the session he wrote to a friend, Mary Owens, at New Salem, that he had been ill, though he believed himself to be about well then; and he added:  “But that, with other things I cannot account for, have conspired, and have gotten my spirits so low that I feel I would rather be any place in the world than here.  I really cannot endure the thought of staying here ten weeks.”

Though depressed, he was far from being inactive.  The Sangamon delegation, in fact, had their hands full, and to no one of the nine had more been entrusted than to Lincoln.  In common with almost every delegation, they had been instructed by their constituents to adopt a scheme of internal improvements complete enough to give every budding town in Illinois easy communication with the world.  This for the State in general; for Sangamon County in particular, they had been directed to secure the capital.  The change in the State’s centre of population made it advisable to move the seat of government northward from Vandalia, and Springfield was anxious to secure it.  To Lincoln was entrusted the work of putting through the bill to remove the capital.  In the same letter quoted from above he tells Miss Owens, “Our chance to take the seat of government to Springfield is better than I expected.”  Regarding the internal improvements scheme he feels less confident:  “Some of the legislature are for it, and some against; which has the majority, I cannot tell.”

[Illustration:  Lincoln in 1863 or 1864.

From a photograph by Brady, and kindly loaned by Mr. Noah Brooks for this reproduction.]

[Illustration:  Frontispiece of “Alton Trials,” a small volume published in 1838, containing full notes taken at the time of the trial of the persons engaged in what is called the “Alton riot.”  Twelve persons were indicted “for the crime of riot committed on the night of the 7th of November, 1837, while engaged in defending a Printing Press from an attack made on it at that time by an Armed Mob;” eleven others were indicted “for a riot committed in Alton on the night of the 7th of November, 1837, in unlawfully and forcibly entering the warehouse of Godfrey Gilman and Company, and breaking up and destroying a printing press.”  In both cases the juries returned a verdict of “not guilty.” (See note on Elijah Lovejoy.)]