audience got into a scuffle.

Lincoln proceeded in his speech until it became evident that his friend
was getting the worst of the scuffle, when he descended from the
platform, seized the antagonist and threw him ten or twelve feet away
on the ground, and then remounted the platform and took up his speech
where he had left off without a break in the logic.

The methods of electioneering are given by Miss Tarbell in the
following words:

"Wherever he saw a crowd of men he joined them, and he never failed to
adapt himself to their point of view in asking for votes. If the degree
of physical strength was the test for a candidate, he was ready to lift
a weight, or wrestle with the countryside champion; if the amount of
grain a man could cut would recommend him, he seized the cradle and
showed the swath he could cut" (I. 109).

The ten days devoted to the canvass were not enough, and he was
defeated. The vote against him was chiefly in the outlying region where
he was little known. It must have been gratifying to him that in his
own precinct, where he was so well known, he received the almost
unanimous vote of all parties. Biographers differ as to the precise
number of votes in the New Salem precinct, but by Nicolay and Hay it is
given as 277 for, and three against. Of this election Lincoln himself
(speaking in the third person) said: "This was the only time Abraham
was ever defeated on the direct vote of the people."

His next political experience was a candidacy for the legislature 1834.
At this time, as before, he announced his own candidacy. But not as