The people believed in Lincoln and that made him believe in himself, but they would never have believed in him if they had not seen the unchanging conduct that is necessary for human confidence. If the people had not believed in him he would never have had the confidence to develop his way of life, able at last to face the world-making problems of the great Civil War, and thus to hold to a course of conduct, which he knew to be right, against the hisses, slander and desperate intrigue of men and masses, who knew that he was making a civilization in America contrary to their mercenary interests and their customary moral standards. Business men are devoted to the business game. Otherwise the play is poor business. So, the man whose happiness was in learning could not be a business man. The store did not pay. As Lincoln was compelled to earn his living at other work, the management of the store was entirely in the hands of Berry, with whom it went from bad to worse until two brothers offered to buy out the business. The store was sold, not for cash, but for notes covering the amount. When the notes became due, the two brothers fled. The store was closed by the creditors, the goods were auctioned off, and a heavy remaining debt was against Berry and Lincoln. Soon after this Berry died and all the debt was against Lincoln. Now was the time for him "to skip the country," as was the custom. But he did not "clear out" and therewith beat his creditors out of the debt of eleven hundred dollars. Lincoln told a friend that this debt, in many ways an unjust one, because he did not make it, was "the greatest obstacle I 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 the interest and my living, seemed the work of a lifetime." It did, indeed, take all he could earn above his living for seventeen years. But he did it. He paid the debt in full. The moral system in his soul was never sold for the mess of pottage in any temporary distress. "To thyself be true," says Shakespeare, "and it follows, as the night the day, thou canst not be false to any man." Many think themselves to be an emotion, or a tired feeling, or a fool ambition, or a will to do something, but it is not so. My self is a system, an identity, an integrity, a consistency, that has no hour, or day, or year, but at least a life time. One of Lincoln's creditors, who was like Shylock, demanded his exact dues the exact time they were due. He sued Lincoln and got judgment, so that the surveyor's tools, and everything by which he made his living were seized and put up for sale by auction.