oving Lincoln's
personal popularity. He remembered for the remainder of his life with
great pride that this was the only time he was ever beaten on a direct
vote of the people.

The result of the election brought him to one of the serious crises of
his life, which he forcibly stated in after years in the following
written words:

"He was now without means and out of business, but was anxious to remain
with his friends, who had treated him with so much generosity,
especially as he had nothing elsewhere to go to. He studied what he
should do; thought of learning the blacksmith trade, thought of trying
to study law, rather thought he could not succeed at that without a
better education."

The perplexing problem between inclination and means to follow it, the
struggle between conscious talent and the restraining fetters of
poverty, has come to millions of young Americans before and since, but
perhaps to none with a sharper trial of spirit or more resolute
patience. Before he had definitely resolved upon either career, chance
served not to solve, but to postpone his difficulty, and in the end to
greatly increase it.

New Salem, which apparently never had any good reason for becoming a
town, seems already at that time to have entered on the road to rapid
decay. Offutt's speculations had failed, and he had disappeared. The
brothers Herndon, who had opened a new store, found business dull and
unpromising. Becoming tired of their undertaking, they offered to sell
out to Lincoln and Berry on credit, and took their promissory notes in
payment. The new partners, in that excess of hope which usually attends
all new ventures, also bought two other similar establishments that were
in extremity, and for these likewise gave their notes. It is evident
that the confidence which Lincoln had inspired while he was a clerk in
Offutt's store, and the enthusiastic support he had received as a
candidate, were the basis of credit that sustained these several
commercial transactions.

It turned out in the long run that Lincoln's credit and the popular
confidence that supported it were as valuable both to his creditors and
himself as if the sums which stood over his signature had been gold coin
in a solvent bank. But this transmutation was not attained until he had
passed through a very furnace of financial embarrassment. Berry proved a
worthless partner, and the business a sorry failure. Seeing this,
Lincoln and Berry sold out again on cred