kery; that the Springfield delegation
had sold out to the internal improvement men, and had promised their
support to every measure that would gain them a vote to the law removing
the seat of government.' He said many other things, cutting and
sarcastic. Lincoln was chosen by his colleagues to reply to Ewing; and
I want to say here that this was the first time that I began to conceive
a very high opinion of the talents and personal courage of Abraham
Lincoln. He retorted upon Ewing with great severity, denouncing his
insinuations imputing corruption to him and his colleagues, and paying
back with usury all that Ewing had said, when everybody thought and
believed that he was digging his own grave; for it was known that Ewing
would not quietly pocket any insinuations that would degrade him
personally. I recollect his reply to Lincoln well. After addressing the
Speaker, he turned to the Sangamon delegation, who all sat in the same
portion of the house, and said: 'Gentlemen, have you no other champion
than this coarse and vulgar fellow to bring into the lists against me?
Do you suppose that I will condescend to break a lance with your low and
obscure colleague?' We were all very much alarmed for fear there would
be a personal conflict between Ewing and Lincoln. It was confidently
believed that a challenge must pass between them; but friends on both
sides took the matter in hand, and it was settled without anything
serious growing out of it."

When the legislative session ended, in February, 1837, Lincoln returned
to a job of surveying which he had begun a year before at Petersburg,
near his old home at Salem. He spent a month or two at Petersburg,
completing the surveying and planning of the town. That his work was
well and satisfactorily done is attested by many--among them by Mr. John
Bennett, who lived in Petersburg at the time. "My earliest acquaintance
with Lincoln," says Mr. Bennett, "began on his return from Vandalia,
where he had spent the winter as a member of the Legislature from
Sangamon County. Lincoln spent most of the month of March in Petersburg,
finishing up the survey and planning of the town he had commenced the
year before. I was a great deal in his company, and formed a high
estimate of his worth and social qualities, which was strengthened by
many years of subsequent social intercourse and business transactions,
finding him always strictly honest. In fact, he was now generally spoken
of in this region a