assailants, Lyman Bishop, and Elijah Lovejoy himself were killed.]

The members came to Vandalia full of hope and exultation. In their
judgment it needed only a few months of legislation to put their State
by the side of New York; and from the opening of the session they were
overflowing with excitement and schemes. In the general ebullition of
spirits which characterized the Assembly, Lincoln had little share.
Only a week after the opening of the session he wrote to a friend,
Mary Owens, at New Salem, that he had been ill, though he believed
himself to be about well then; and he added: "But that, with other
things I cannot account for, have conspired, and have gotten my
spirits so low that I feel I would rather be any place in the world
than here. I really cannot endure the thought of staying here ten
weeks."

Though depressed, he was far from being inactive. The Sangamon
delegation, in fact, had their hands full, and to no one of the nine
had more been entrusted than to Lincoln. In common with almost every
delegation, they had been instructed by their constituents to adopt a
scheme of internal improvements complete enough to give every budding
town in Illinois easy communication with the world. This for the State
in general; for Sangamon County in particular, they had been directed
to secure the capital. The change in the State's centre of population
made it advisable to move the seat of government northward from
Vandalia, and Springfield was anxious to secure it. To Lincoln was
entrusted the work of putting through the bill to remove the capital.
In the same letter quoted from above he tells Miss Owens, "Our
chance to take the seat of government to Springfield is better than
I expected." Regarding the internal improvements scheme he feels less
confident: "Some of the legislature are for it, and some against;