He
quietly settled down among the men he owed, and promised to pay them.
For fifteen years he carried this burden--a load which he cheerfully
and manfully bore, but one so heavy that he habitually spoke of it
as the "national debt." Talking once of it to a friend, Lincoln said:
"That debt was the greatest obstacle I have ever met in life; I had no
way of speculating, and could not earn money except by labor, and to
earn by labor eleven hundred dollars, besides my living, seemed the
work of a lifetime. There was, however, but one way. I went to the
creditors, and told them that if they would let me alone, I would give
them all I could earn over my living, as fast as I could earn it." As
late as 1848, so we are informed by Mr. Herndon, Mr. Lincoln, then
a member of Congress, sent home money saved from his salary to be
applied on these obligations. All the notes, with interest at the high
rates then prevailing, were at last paid.
With a single exception Lincoln's creditors seem to have been lenient.
One of the notes given by him came into the hands of a Mr.
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