id="FNanchor_23_23"/>^[23]

Jacksonville was then hardly more than a crowded village of log cabins on the outposts of civilized Illinois.^[24] Comfort was not among the first concerns of those who had come to subdue the wilderness. Comfort implied leisure to enjoy, and leisure was like Heaven,—to be attained only after a wearisome earthly pilgrimage. Jacksonville had been scourged by the cholera during the summer; and those who had escaped the disease had fled the town for fear of it.^[25] By this time, however, the epidemic had spent itself, and the refugees had returned. All told, the town had a population of about one thousand souls, among whom were no less than eleven lawyers, or at least those who called themselves such.^[26]

A day's lodging at the Tavern ate up the remainder of the wanderer's funds, so that he was forced to sell a few school books that he had brought with him. Meanwhile he left no stone unturned to find employment to his liking. One of his first acquaintances was Murray McConnell, a lawyer, who advised him to go to Pekin, farther up the Illinois River, and open a law office. The young man replied that he had no license to practice law and no law books. He was assured that a license was a matter of no consequence, since anyone could practice before a justice of the peace, and he could procure one at his leisure. As for books, McConnell, with true Western generosity, offered to loan such as would be of immediate use. So again Douglass took up his travels. At Meredosia, the nearest landing on the river, he waited a week for the boat upstream. There was no other available route to Pekin. Then came the exasperating intelligence, that the only boat which plied between these points had blown up at Alton. After settling accounts with the tavern-keeper, he found that he had but fifty cents left.^[27]

There was now but one thing to do, since hard manual labor was out of the question: he would teach school. But where? Meredosia was a forlorn, thriftless place, and he had no money to travel. Fortunately, a kind-hearted farmer befriended him, lodging him at his house over night and taking him next morning to Exeter, where there was a prospect of securing a school. Disappointment again awaited him; but Winchester, ten miles away, was said to need a teacher. Taking his coat on his arm—he had left his trunk at Meredosia—he set off on foot for Winchester.^[28]

Accident, happily turned to his profit, served to introduce him to the townspeople of Winchester. The morning after his arrival, he found a crowd in the public square and learned that an auction sale of personal effects was about to take place. Everyone from the administrator of the estate to the village idler, was eager for the sale to begin. But a clerk to keep record of the sales and to draw the notes was wanting. The eye of the administrator fell upon Douglass; something in the youth's appearance gave assurance that he could "cipher.". The impatient bystanders "'lowed that he might do," so he was given a trial. Douglass proved fully equal to the task, and in two days was in possession of five dollars for his pains.^[29]

Through the good will of the village storekeeper, who also hailed from Vermont, Douglass was presented to several citizens who wished to see a school opened in town; and by the first Monday in December he had a subscription list of forty scholars, each of whom paid three dollars for three months' tuition.^[30] Luck was now coming his way. He found lodgings under the roof of this same friendly compatriot, the village storekeeper, who gave him the use of a small room adjoining the store-room.^[31] Here Douglass spent his evenings, devoting some hours to his law books and perhaps more to comfortable chats with his host and talkative neighbors around the stove. For diversion he had the weekly meetings of the Lyceum, which had just been formed.^[32] He owed much to this institution, for the the debates and discussions gave him a chance to convert the traditional leadership which fell to him as village schoolmaster, into a real leadership of talent and ready wit. In this Lyceum he made his first political speech, defending Andrew Jackson and his attack upon the Bank against Josiah Lamborn, a lawyer from Jacksonville.^[33] For a young man he proved himself astonishingly well-informed. If the chronology of his autobiography may be accepted, he had already read the debates in the Constitutional Convention of 1787, the Federalist, the works of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, and the recent debates in Congress.

Even while he was teaching school, Douglass found time to practice law in a modest way before the justices of the peace; and when the first of March came, he closed the schoolhouse door on his career as pedagogue. He at once repaired to Jacksonville and presented himself before a justice of the Supreme Court for license to practice law. After a short examination, which could not have been very searching, he was duly admitted to the bar of Illinois. He still lacked a month of being twenty-one years of age.^[34] Measured by the standard of older communities in the East, he knew little law; but there were few cases in these Western courts which required much more than common-sense, ready speech, and acquaintance with legal procedure. Stare decisis was a maxim that did not trouble the average lawyer, for there were few decisions to stand upon.^[35] Besides, experience would make good any deficiencies of preparation.

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