opportunity of being a good man.  There will still be business enough.  Never stir up litigation.  A worse man can scarcely be found than one who does this.  Who can be more nearly a fiend than he who habitually overhauls the register of deeds in search of defects in titles, whereon to stir up strife and put money in his pocket?  A moral tone ought to be infused into the profession which should drive such men out of it.”  “There is a vague popular belief that lawyers are necessarily dishonest.  I say vague because when we consider to what extent confidence and honors are reposed in and conferred upon lawyers by the people, it appears improbable that their impression of dishonesty is very distinct and vivid.  Yet the impression is common—­almost universal.  Let no young man choosing the law for a calling for a moment yield to the popular belief.  Resolve to be honest at all events; and if, in your own judgment, you cannot be an honest lawyer, resolve to be honest without being a lawyer.  Choose some other occupation, rather than one in the choosing of which you do, in advance, consent to be a knave.”

While Lincoln thus became a lawyer, he did not cease to remain a politician.  In the early West, law and politics were parallel roads to usefulness as well as distinction.  Newspapers had not then reached any considerable circulation.  There existed neither fast presses to print them, mail routes to carry them, nor subscribers to read them.  Since even the laws had to be newly framed for those new communities, the lawyer became the inevitable political instructor and guide as far as ability and fame extended.  His reputation as a lawyer was a twin of his influence as an orator, whether through logic or eloquence.  Local conditions fostered, almost necessitated, this double pursuit.  Westward emigration was in its full tide, and population was pouring into the great State of Illinois with ever accelerating rapidity.  Settlements were spreading, roads were being opened, towns laid out, the larger counties divided and new ones organized, and the enthusiastic visions of coming prosperity threw the State into that fever of speculation which culminated in wholesale internal improvements on borrowed capital and brought collapse, stagnation, and bankruptcy in its inevitable train.  As already said, these swift changes required a plentiful supply of new laws, to frame which lawyers were in a large proportion sent to the legislature every two years.  These same lawyers also filled the bar and recruited the bench of the new State, and, as they followed the itinerant circuit courts from county to county in their various sections, were called upon in these summer wanderings to explain in public speeches their legislative work of the winter.  By a natural connection, this also involved a discussion of national and party issues.  It was also during this period that party activity was stimulated by the general adoption of the new system of party caucuses and party conventions to which President Jackson had given the impulse.