Lincoln was appointed a delegate to the Convention and instructed to look after Baker's interests. This, he said, "was a good deal like acting as bridegroom for a man who has cut you out;" but he was loyal and energetic and as skilful as usual, although unsuccessful. J. M. Ruggles, one of the delegates, says, "The ayes and noes had been taken and there were fifteen votes apiece, and one in doubt that had not arrived. That was myself. I was known to be a warm friend of Baker, representing people who were partial to Hardin. As soon as I arrived Baker hurried to me, saying, 'How is it? It all depends on you.' On being told that, notwithstanding my partiality for him, the people I represented expected me to vote for Hardin, and that I would have to do so, Baker at once replied, 'You are right--there is no other way.' The Convention was organized, and I was elected secretary. Baker immediately arose and made a most thrilling address, thoroughly arousing the sympathies of the Convention, and ended by declining his candidacy. Hardin was nominated by acclamation and then came the episode. "Immediately after the nomination, Mr. Lincoln walked across the room to my table and asked if I would favor a resolution recommending Baker for the next term. On being answered in the affirmative, he said, 'You prepare the resolution, I will support it, and I think we can pass it.' The resolution created a profound sensation, especially with the friends of Hardin. After an excited and angry discussion, the resolution passed by a majority of one." Thus Lincoln defeated his own prospects for a Congressional nomination for four years. Baker was elected in 1844, and then his turn came in 1846, when the Democrats gave him for a competitor the famous Methodist circuit rider, Peter Cartwright, one of the best-known and beloved men of that period on the frontier. He was the highest type of the itinerant preacher. For sixty years he travelled on horseback throughout the Western country, marrying the young people, baptizing their children, burying the dead, preaching by the wayside and in the forests, and when he died in 1872, at eighty-seven years of age, the record of his ministry showed that he had admitted to the church twelve thousand persons, had preached fifteen thousand sermons, and a procession of one hundred and twenty-nine children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren followed him to his grave. With all his piety and devotion to the Methodist Church, Peter Cartwright was an ardent admirer of Andrew Jackson and a Democrat of the most intolerant pro-slavery type. He probably had a larger acquaintance than any other man in the State, was an exhorter of magnetic intensity, and his energy was unsurpassed; but, nevertheless, Lincoln defeated him by 1511 majority when Henry Clay carried the district by only 914.