ks I rode about the countryside, buying hogs
for Ting & Brotherson; at the expiration of which time I had regained
my health, was richer by about five hundred dollars, and was thus
enabled to return at once to Springfield and take up again my
interrupted studies.

Having been inducted into the office of City Attorney, I was fairly
launched upon a political career, exceeding in length of unbroken
service that of any other public man in the country's history. In
fact I never accepted but two executive appointments: the first
was an unsought appointment by Abraham Lincoln, after he had become
the central figure of his time, if not of all time; and, second,
an appointment from President McKinley as chairman of the Hawaiian
Commission.

CHAPTER II
SERVICE AS CITY ATTORNEY AT SPRINGFIELD
1855 and 1856

My election as City Attorney of Springfield signalized at once my
active interest in politics at the very moment when the war cloud
was beginning to take shape in the political heavens--a portentous
cloud, but recognized as such at that time by comparatively few of
the thinking people. It had seemed certain for years that a struggle
was sure to come. Being a very young man, I suppose I did not
realize the horrors of a civil war, but I watched with keen interest
the signs of dissolution in political parties, and realignments in
party ties.

In 1854 the country seemed on the verge of a war with Spain over
Cuba which happily was averted. The _Black Warrior_ had been seized
in Havana Harbor, and the excitement throughout the country when
Congress prepared to suspend the neutrality laws between the United
States and Spain was intense.

It was about this time also that the famous Ostend manifesto was
issued without authority from any one. The American representatives
at the Courts of England, France, and Spain met at Ostend to confer
on the best method of settling the difficulties concerning Cuba
and obtaining possession of the island. They issued a manifesto in
which they recommended that Cuba should be purchased if possible,
failing which that it should be taken by force:

"If Spain, actuated by stubborn pride and a false sense of honor,
should refuse to sell Cuba to the United States, then by every law,
human and divine, we shall be justified in wresting it from Spain,
if we possess the power."

The Ostend manifesto was repudiated; but it is certain that we
would have then intervened in favor of freeing Cuba,