A Thrifty Campaigner

When Abraham Lincoln was running for the Illinois Legislature in 1832, according to Paul M. Angle, author of The Lincoln Reader, Joshua Speed handed him $200, raised by Whig supporters, to cover his campaign expenses.

After the election was over, and Lincoln had won his seat, he handed Speed $199.25, requesting that he return it to the subscribers.

“I did not need the money,” he said. “I made the canvass on my own horse; my entertainment, being at the houses of friends, cost me nothing; and my only outlay was seventy-five cents for a barrel of cider, which some farm hands insisted I should treat them to.”