When the election returns came in Lincoln had reason to be satisfied with the efforts he had made.  He received the second highest number of votes in the long list of candidates.  Those cast for the representatives chosen stood:  Dawson, 1390; Lincoln, 1376; Carpenter 1170; Stuart, 1164.  The location of the State capital had also been submitted to popular vote at this election.  Springfield, being much nearer the geographical center of the State, was anxious to deprive Vandalia of that honor, and the activity of the Sangamon politicians proved it to be a dangerous rival.  In the course of a month the returns from all parts of the State had come in, and showed that Springfield was third in the race.

It must be frankly admitted that Lincoln’s success at this juncture was one of the most important events of his life.  A second defeat might have discouraged his efforts to lift himself to a professional career, and sent him to the anvil to make horseshoes and to iron wagons for the balance of his days.  But this handsome popular indorsement assured his standing and confirmed his credit.  With this lift in the clouds of his horizon, he could resolutely carry his burden of debt and hopefully look to wider fields of public usefulness.  Already, during the progress of the canvass, he had received cheering encouragement and promise of most valuable help.  One of the four successful candidates was John T. Stuart, who had been major of volunteers in the Black Hawk War while Lincoln was captain, and who, together with Lincoln, had reenlisted as a private in the Independent Spy Battalion.  There is every likelihood that the two had begun a personal friendship during their military service, which was of course strongly cemented by their being fellow-candidates and both belonging to the Whig party.  Mr. Lincoln relates: 

“Major John T. Stuart, then in full practice of the law [at Springfield], was also elected.  During the canvass, in a private conversation he encouraged Abraham to study law.  After the election, he borrowed books of Stuart, took them home with him, and went at it in good earnest.  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.”

From and after this election in 1834 as a representative, Lincoln was a permanent factor in the politics and the progress of Sangamon County.  At a Springfield meeting in the following November to promote common schools, he was appointed one of eleven delegates to attend a convention at Vandalia called to deliberate on that subject.  He was reelected to the legislature in 1836, in 1838, and in 1840, and thus for a period of eight years took a full share in shaping and enacting the public and private laws of Illinois, which in our day has become one of the leading States in the Mississippi valley.  Of Lincoln’s share in that legislation, it need only be said that it was