external Lincoln that came into practical contact with his fellows.

This is especially true of the growing politician. He served four
consecutive terms in the Legislature without doing anything that had
the stamp of true leadership. He was not like either of the two types of
politicians that generally made up the legislatures of those days--the
men who dealt in ideas as political counters, and the men who were
grafters without in their naive way knowing that they were grafters.
As a member of the Legislature, Lincoln did not deal in ideas. He was
instinctively incapable of graft A curiously routine politician, one who
had none of the earmarks familiar in such a person. Aloof, and yet, more
than ever companionable, the power he had in the Legislature--for he had
acquired a measure of power--was wholly personal. Though called a Whig,
it was not as a party man but as a personal friend that he was able to
carry through his legislative triumphs. His most signal achievement was
wholly a matter of personal politics. There was a general demand for
the removal of the capital from its early seat at Vandalia, and rivalry
among other towns was keen. Sangamon County was bent on winning
the prize for its own Springfield. Lincoln was put in charge of the
Springfield strategy. How he played his cards may be judged from the
recollections of another member who seems to have anticipated that noble
political maxim, "What's the Constitution between friends?" "Lincoln,"
he says, "made Webb and me vote for the removal, though we belonged
to the southern end of the state. We defended our vote before our
constituents by saying that necessity would ultimately force the seat
of government to a central position; but in reality, we gave the vote
to Lincoln because we liked him, because we wanted to oblige our friend,
and because we recognized him as our leader."(3)

And yet on the great issues of the day he could not lead them. In 1837,