it was found that only one man in the long list had received more
votes than Abraham Lincoln.

Lincoln's election to the legislature of Illinois in August,
1834, marks the end of the pioneer period of his life. He was
done now with the wild carelessness of the woods, with the rough
jollity of Clary's Grove, with odd jobs for his daily bread--with
all the details of frontier poverty. He continued for years to be
a very poor man, harassed by debts he was constantly laboring to
pay, and sometimes absolutely without money: but from this time
on he met and worked with men of wider knowledge and
better-trained minds than those he had known in Gentryville and
New Salem, while the simple social life of Vandalia, where he
went to attend the sessions of the legislature, was more elegant
than anything he had yet seen.

It must be frankly admitted that his success at this election was
a most important event in his life. Another failure might have
discouraged even his hopeful spirit, and sent him to the
blacksmith-shop to make wagon-tires and shoe horses for the
balance of his days. With this flattering vote to his credit,
however, he could be very sure that he had made a wise choice
between the forge and the lawyer's desk. At first he did not come
into special notice in the legislature. He wore, according to the
custom of the time, a decent suit of blue jeans, and was known
simply as a rather quiet young man, good-natured and sensible.
Soon people began to realize that he was a man to be reckoned
with in the politics of the county and State. He was reelected in
1836, 1838, and 1840, and thus for eight years had a full share
in shaping the public laws of Illinois. The Illinois legislature