QUOTE : Struggle had been his birthright, adversity his expectation. When his youthful dream of becoming the DeWitt Clinton of Illinois had been dashed with the spectacular demise of his internal improvement projects, he had fallen into depression. A period of doubt and self-assessment had followed his disappointing congressional term. Yet, neither of his two Senate losses had triggered personal doubt or depression. On the contrary, he considered both defeats positive steps in the advancement of the antislavery movement. By then, he was “so thoroughly interwoven in the issues before the people,” his law partner William Herndon observed, that “he had become part of them.” The inner voice that anticipated defeat had been stilled by the strength of his belief in the antislavery cause. When the returns came in, a jubilant fifty-two-year-old Lincoln learned that he had won.