who was to be President or governor, but concerning itself
with questions which came much closer home to dwellers on the frontier.
"Internal improvements," as they were called--the building of roads and
clearing out of streams so that men and women who lived in remote places
might be able to travel back and forth and carry on trade with the rest
of the world--became a burning question in Illinois. There was great
need of such improvements; and in this need young Lincoln saw his
opportunity.

It was by way of the Sangamon River that he entered politics. That
uncertain watercourse had already twice befriended him. He had floated
on it in flood-time from his father's cabin into Springfield. A
few weeks later its rapidly falling waters landed him on the dam at
Rutledge's mill, introducing him effectively if unceremoniously to the
inhabitants of New Salem. Now it was again to play a part in his life,
starting him on a political career that ended only in the White House.
Surely no insignificant stream has had a greater influence on the
history of a famous man. It was a winding and sluggish creek, encumbered
with driftwood and choked by sand-bars; but it flowed through a country
already filled with ambitious settlers, where the roads were atrociously
bad, becoming in rainy seasons wide seas of pasty black mud, and
remaining almost impassable for weeks at a time. After a devious course
the Sangamon found its way into the Illinois River, and that in turn
flowed into the Mississippi. Most of the settlers were too new to the
region to know what a shallow, unprofitable stream the Sangamon really
was, for the deep snows of 183031 and of the following winter had
supplied it with an unusual volume of water. It was natural, therefore,
that they should regard it as the heaven-sent solution of their problem
of travel and traffic with the outside world. If it could only be freed
from driftwood, and its channel straightened a little, they felt sure it
might be used for small steamboats during a large part of the year.

The candidates for the legislature that summer staked their chances of
success on the zeal they showed for "internal improvements." Lincoln
was only twenty-three. He had been in the county barely nine months.
Sangamon County was then considerably larger than the whole State of
Rhode Island, and he was of course familiar with only a small part of it
or its people; but he felt that he did know the river. He had sailed on
it