He was both
ambitious and successful, but his ambition was moderate, and his
success was slow. And, because his success was slow, it never
outgrew either his judgment or his powers. Between the day when
he left his father's cabin and launched his canoe on the
headwaters of the Sangamon River to begin life on his own
account, and the day of his first inauguration, lay full thirty
years of toil, self-denial, patience; often of effort baffled, of
hope deferred; sometimes of bitter disappointment. Even with the
natural gift of great genius it required an average lifetime and
faithful unrelaxing effort, to transform the raw country
stripling into a fit ruler for this great nation.
Almost every success was balanced--sometimes overbalanced, by a
seeming failure. He went into the Black Hawk war a captain, and
through no fault of his own, came out a private. He rode to the
hostile frontier on horseback, and trudged home on foot. His
store "winked out." His surveyor's compass and chain, with which
he was earning a scanty living, were sold for debt. He was
defeated in his first attempts to be nominated for the
legislature and for Congress; defeated in his application to be
appointed Commissioner of the General Land Office; defeated for
the Senate when he had forty-five votes to begin with. by a man
who had only five votes to begin with; defeated again after his
joint debates with Douglas; defeated in the nomination for
Vice-President, when a favorable nod from half a dozen
politicians would have brought him success.
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