Lincoln's fundamental principle was devotion to the popular will. In his address to the people of Sangamon County, he says, "while acting as their representative I shall be governed by their will on all subjects upon which I have the means of knowing what their will is, and upon all others I will do what my own judgment teaches me will advance their interests." "'It is a maxim,' with many politicians, just to keep along even with the humour of the people right or wrong." "This maxim," adds the biographer, "Mr. Lincoln held then, as ever since, in very high estimation." It may occur to some enquiring minds to ask what, upon those principles, is the use of having representation at all, and whether it would not be better to let the people themselves vote directly on all questions without interposing a representative to diminish their sense of responsibility, to say nothing of the sacrifice of the representative's conscience, which, in the cases of the statesmen here described, was probably not very great. With regard to Slavery, however, Mr. Lincoln showed forecast, if not conscientious independence. He stepped forth in advance of the sentiments of his party, and to his political friends appeared rash in the extreme. Lincoln's first attempt to get elected to the State Legislature was unsuccessful. It however brought him the means of "doing something for his country," and partly averting the "death-struggle of the world," in the shape of the postmastership of New Salem. The business of the office was not on a large scale, for it was carried on in Mr. Lincoln's hat--an integument of which it is recorded, that he refused to give it to a conjurer to play the egg trick in, "not from respect for his own hat, but for the conjurer's eggs." The future President did not fail to signalize his first appearance as an administrator by a sally of the jocularity which was always struggling with melancholy in his mind. A gentleman of the place, whose education had been defective, was in the habit of calling two or three times a day at the post-office, and ostentatiously inquiring for letters. At last he received a letter, which, being unable to read himself, he got the postmaster to read for him before a large circle of friends. It proved to be from a negro lady engaged in domestic service in the South, recalling the memory of a mutual attachment, with a number of incidents more delectable than sublime. It is needless to say that the postmaster, by a slight extension of the sphere of his office, had written the letter as well as delivered it.