enabled to write a "Life of Lincoln."

An old colored woman came to them for legal aid. Her case was a sad
one. Brought from Kentucky, Lincoln's natal State, by a planter,
Hinkle, he had set her and children free in Indiana, not fostering the
waning oppression. Her son, growing up, had the rashness to venture on
the steamboat down to New Orleans. His position was as bad as that
of an Americanized foreigner returning into a despotic land. He was
arrested and held for sale, having crossed a Louisiana law framed for
such intrusions: a free negro could be sold here as if never out of
bond. There was little time to redeem him, and Lincoln--whose view of
the institution had not been enchanting--seized the opportunity to hit
"and hit hard!" as he said in the same city on beholding a slave sale.

The office was in Springfield, the capital, and the state-house was
over the way. While Lincoln continued to question and console the poor
sufferer, his partner went over to learn of the governor what he could
do in the matter. But there was no constitutional or even legal right
to interfere with the doings of a sovereign State. This omission as
regards humanity stung Lincoln, always tender on that score, and he
excitedly vowed:

"By virtue of freedom for all, I will have that negro back--or a
twenty years' agitation in Illinois, which will afford its governor
a legal and constitutional right to interfere in such premises."

The only way to rescue the unfortunate young man was to make up a
purse and recompense a correspondent at the city below, to obtain
the captive and return him to his mother.