Page:General James Shields, Soldier, Orator, Statesman.djvu/10

 and influential in council. It was a critical time in the affairs of Illinois, the inauguration of a policy of extensive public improvements, in which the youthful legislator bore a progressive part.

Shields served four years in the Legislature, gaining so much prominence that in 1839 he was elected State Auditor. Meantime, Springfield had become the state capital, and in 1840 he began his residence there, which continued for fifteen years. His administration was so successful that in 1841 he was re-elected without opposition.

While he occupied this important office he was involved in an "affair of honor" with a Springfield lawyer,—no less a personage than Abraham Lincoln. At this time "James Shields, Auditor," was the pride of the young Democracy. In the summer of 1842 the Springfield Journal contained some letters from the "Lost Townships," by a contributor whose nom de plume was "Aunt Becca," which held up the gallant young Auditor to ridicule. These letters caused intense excitement in the town. Nobody knew their authorship except the editor of the paper, of whom Shields demanded the name. The real author was Miss Mary Todd, afterward the wife of Abraham Lincoln, to whom she was engaged, and who felt bound to assume the responsibility for her sharp pen thrusts. Mr. Lincoln accepted the situation. Not long after, the two men with their seconds were on their way to the field of honor. But the affair was adjusted without any fighting, and thus ended the Lincoln-Shields duel of the Lost Townships. The antagonists were ever afterward firm friends.

Considering all the circumstances, the temperament of the respective parties, the customs and surroundings, there was nothing censurable in the conduct of either. Shields justly deemed himself grossly insulted and humiliated by some of the epithets in the letters, and bitterly resented. Lincoln felt in honor bound to represent his fiancée. Both displayed bravery in meeting the crisis and magnanimity in adjusting it. Times and customs have happily changed. Some mistaken friends on both sides have latterly felt impelled to discredit the whole story, but the truth of history demands that it be correctly