Nor did they feel any need of estimates; that was a mere matter of
detail. They would vote a fund, and when that was exhausted they
would vote more; and so they appropriated sum after sum: one hundred
thousand dollars to improve the Rock River; one million eight hundred
thousand dollars to build a road from Quincy to Danville; four million
dollars to complete the Illinois and Michigan Canal; two hundred and
fifty thousand for the Western Mail Route--in all, some twelve
million dollars. To carry out the elaborate scheme, they provided a
commission, one of the first duties of which was to sell the bonds of
the State to raise the money for the enterprise. The majority of the
Assembly seem not to have entertained for a moment an idea that there
would be any difficulty in selling at a premium the bonds of Illinois.
"On the contrary," as General Linder says in his "Reminiscences," "the
enthusiastic friends of the measure maintained that, instead of there
being any difficulty in obtaining a loan of the fifteen or twenty
millions authorized to be borrowed, our bonds would go like hot cakes,
and be sought for by the Rothschilds, and Baring Brothers, and others
of that stamp; and that the premiums which we would obtain upon them
would range from fifty to one hundred per cent., and that the premium
itself would be sufficient to construct most of the important works,
leaving the principal sum to go into our treasury, and leave the
people free from taxation for years to come."

[Illustration: STUART AND LINCOLN'S PROFESSIONAL CARD.

The professional card of Stuart and Lincoln shows that the
copartnership began April 12, 1837. The card appeared in the next
issue of the "Sangamo Journal," and was continued until Lincoln became
the partner of Judge Logan, in 1841.]