text: Rather than studying in the office of an established attorney, as was the custom, Lincoln borrowed legal texts from attorneys John Todd Stuart and Thomas Drummond, purchased books including Blackstone's Commentaries and Chitty's Pleadings, and read law on his own.He later said of his legal education that "I studied with nobody." Illinois state legislature (1834–1842) Lincoln's second state house campaign in 1834, this time as a Whig, was a success over a powerful Whig opponent.Then followed his four terms in the Illinois House of Representatives for Sangamon County.He championed construction of the Illinois and Michigan Canal, and later was a Canal Commissioner.He voted to expand suffrage beyond white landowners to all white males, but adopted a "free soil" stance opposing both slavery and abolition.In 1837, he declared, "[The] Institution of slavery is founded on both injustice and bad policy, but the promulgation of abolition doctrines tends rather to increase than abate its evils." He echoed Henry Clay's support for the American Colonization Society which advocated a program of abolition in conjunction with settling freed slaves in Liberia.He was admitted to the Illinois bar on September 9, 1836, and moved to Springfield and began to practice law under John T.Stuart, Mary Todd's cousin.Lincoln emerged as a formidable trial combatant during cross-examinations and closing arguments.He partnered several years with Stephen T.Logan, and in 1844 began his practice with William Herndon, "a studious young man".On January 27, 1838, Abraham Lincoln, then twenty-eight years old, delivered his first major speech at the Lyceum in Springfield, Illinois, after the murder of newspaper editor Elijah Parish Lovejoy in Alton.Lincoln warned that no trans-Atlantic military giant could ever crush us as a nation."It cannot come from abroad.If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher", said Lincoln.