Besides baiting Jackson with the national bank, Clay baited him with barbs, theatrics, and satire every chance he had. He rebuffed Jackson’s charge of “bargain and corruption” by producing a letter from then-senator James Buchanan, who denied Jackson’s claim that Buchanan had told him about the deal struck between Adams and Clay at Jackson’s expense. While Jackson’s rhetoric was plain, direct, and often profane, delivered much like a sharp jab to the jaw of an opponent, Clay characteristically opted for more rhythmic, dramatic rhetoric, often sprinkled with alliteration or palilalia (repeating the same sentence or word) and rhetorical questions instead of declarative statements, such as when he implored the House to approve the Tariff of 1824 (a protective tariff designed to protect American businesses from cheaper British commodities):
The object of the bill under consideration is to create this home market, and to lay the foundations of a genuine American policy. . . . Are we doomed to behold our industry languish and decay more and more? But there is a remedy, and that remedy consists in . . . adopting a genuine AMERICAN SYSTEM. We must naturalize the arts in our country, and we must naturalize them by the only means which the wisdom of nations has yet discovered to be effectual—by adequate protection against the overwhelming influence of foreigners.
Jackson rejected flowery language and complex metaphors in further contrast with Clay, who often indulged in convoluted, intricate similes and allegories to make his point, as he once did when, in the Kentucky state legislature, he likened the current capital, Frankfurt, to “an inverted hat” and “penitentiary” so difficult to navigate that he wondered, “Who that got in, could get out?”
Clay also undertook several efforts during the campaign to bolster his own image and to cast Jackson in a bad light. Believing that Jackson’s veto of the national bank placed him on the wrong side of federal power, Clay and Biddle authorized the printing and distribution of thirty thousand copies of the text of the veto. Around the same time, Clay authorized George Prentice to write a campaign biography as a response to the one Eaton had written several years before about Jackson. Prentice hailed Clay as a man who had worked his way up from nothing, whose oratory was “the voice of salvation in the country” and whose story exemplified American independence and virtue.76 Prentice made no money from the biography, in spite of the fact that twenty thousand copies were sold. To help Prentice financially, Clay procured him a job as the publisher of the Louisville Journal in 1830.
Dennis Hanks later suggested that Lincoln had read Prentice’s biography in his teens, but that was impossible, for it was not published and widely distributed until 1831, when Lincoln turned twenty-two.77 But Lincoln did not need to read the book when it first appeared to know the details of Clay’s life, as he avidly read the Louisville Journal, which reliably celebrated Clay and published his speeches and many of the same pro-Clay, anti-Jackson stories that appeared in the Clay campaign biography. Through his daily reading and political discussions and debates with his friends and neighbors, Lincoln tightened his embrace of Clay’s American System to such an extent that his fidelity to Clay’s political vision became obvious to everyone he met.
V
* * *
Largely by accident, twenty-two-year-old Lincoln arrived in New Salem, Illinois, in late July 1831. It was a tiny town, with only about a hundred residents. He was on his second trip there when the flatboat he was steering got stranded near a dam. Denton Offutt, who had hired Lincoln to pilot the boat, lent him an auger, which Lincoln used to drill a hole in the boat that allowed the water to drain out, freeing the boat to sail past the dam. Impressed with Lincoln’s ingenuity, Offutt offered him a job in his store. Over the next six years, Lincoln would find employment as a shopkeeper (Offutt’s store failed within a year, and he turned out to be a con man rather than a legitimate businessman), a shop owner (the shop went belly up, saddling Lincoln with debt that took years to pay off), a soldier (who saw no combat), a hardworking land surveyor tasked with determining the boundaries of several neighboring towns (in the words of one nearby resident, “Mr. Lincoln had the monopoly of finding the lines, and when any dispute arose among the Settlers Mr. Lincolns Compass and chain always settled the matter satisfactorily”), a rail splitter, and a postmaster.78 None of these jobs captured his imagination. Lincoln disliked physical labor, even when he was good at it. (Lincoln loved to tell friends, “[My] father taught [me] to work but never learned [me] to love it.”) Instead, politics captured his interest and shaped his ambitions.
The work did not impress Lincoln much but the people did: He found the residents of New Salem friendly, welcoming a young stranger who had no ties there. He settled into town around the time newspapers were reporting John Calhoun’s leaked letter from President Monroe. Lincoln’s arrival also coincided with an off-year election for Congress, set for August 1, 1831. It was the first election in which Lincoln cast a vote. Voting at that time was done not in secret but by open declaration. Lincoln walked up to the station set up in the middle of town and announced that he was voting for James Turney, the pro-Clay, National Republican candidate. It was a brave thing to do, given that the community was largely Democratic, but Clay’s vision of federal government had enthralled Lincoln.
The man responsible for tabulating the votes was Mentor Graham, the local schoolteacher. Legend has it that Graham asked Lincoln to help him when he discovered Lincoln could read and write.79 More likely, Lincoln hung around the table for most of the day, chatting with anyone who listened. By the time the day was over, Lincoln’s candidate had lost, but Abe had met most of the townsfolk.80
Becoming known in the community quickly produced a problem for Lincoln. Gangly at six four but not fierce, he seemed ripe pickings for a local gang, led by a bully, Jack Armstrong. Armstrong was shorter than Lincoln but known for his muscle and toughness. While reports conflict on what exactly happened between the two, they entered into a wrestling match. Much of the town is said to have come out to watch the two men wrestle to a draw (though legend has Lincoln defeating him). Up until that point, Armstrong, as far as anyone knew, had never lost a match. Lincoln’s strength and confidence impressed the gang and particularly his opponent, who afterward became a lifelong friend.
John Todd Stuart, a prominent Whig lawyer from nearby Springfield, said the wrestling match “was a turning point in Lincoln’s life.”81 It is unclear whether Stuart actually witnessed the event (he met Lincoln later when he was a land surveyor and again when they served together in the state militia), nor is it clear exactly what Stuart meant. In light of Lincoln’s later political acumen, however, the match obviously served as an apt metaphor for Lincoln’s canniness in waiting for people to undo themselves by overplaying their hands, as well as his gift for bringing enemies into alliance.
In New Salem, Lincoln boarded first with one of the town elders, then with Mentor Graham for several months. Almost certainly, Graham later exaggerated his importance to Lincoln’s education. He had only rudimentary knowledge of math and was barely literate himself, yet he was the best the town had for a schoolmaster. In all likelihood, Lincoln sharpened his math under Graham’s roof and studied other books Graham and others gave him. Graham claimed that, besides teaching Lincoln arithmetic, he persuaded him that a thorough knowledge of grammar was indispensable to an aspiring politician.82 Graham supposedly told Lincoln, “If you ever expect to go before the public in any capacity, I think it is the best thing you can do.”83 Even if this were the counsel he gave Lincoln, it was unnecessary advice, given Lincoln’s studies before this point, but probably on his own volition, Lincoln spent time reviewing Samuel Kirkham’s English Grammar, a leading textbook of the era, as well as any newspapers he could get his hands on. Indeed, Graham is said to have observed that Lincoln’s “text book was the Louisville Journal.”84 This has the ring of truth, for the Louisville Journal had become, under the leadership of Clay’s man George Prentice, the best-selling and most popular newspaper in the west. It deepened and strengthened Linco
ln’s allegiance to Clay. John Rowland Herndon, a friend from New Salem, recalled Lincoln’s idolization of Clay much as Dennis Hanks remembered. Recounting Lincoln’s early life, Herndon later wrote, “Henry Clay was his favorite of all the great men of the nation. He all but worshipped his name.”85
Jack Kelso, a book lover himself, was another man with whom Lincoln briefly boarded in New Salem. Kelso urged Lincoln to read Shakespeare and Robert Burns, both of whom Abe had encountered earlier when his stepmother had brought William Scott’s anthology home. Another New Salem resident said Kelso and Abe “were always together—always talking and arguing.”86 The two would sit for hours on the bank of the Sangamon River and “quote Shakespear.”87
Lincoln and Burns had similar backgrounds. They both grew up in working-class families, and both had lost their mothers in their formative years. Lincoln adored Burns, sometimes claiming him as his favorite poet. The motifs, patterns, and rhyme schemes of Burns’s poetry were ingrained in Lincoln’s mind, memorized by him as a youth in Indiana, and recited by him as an adult in New Salem and beyond. Much of Burns’s poetry deals with themes of poverty, enlightenment, independence, honesty, and the use of reason. At the 1865 annual banquet of the Washington, D.C., Robert Burns club, Lincoln was asked to make a toast to the poet. He replied, “I cannot. . . . I can say nothing worthy of his generous heart and transcending genius. Thinking of what he has said, I cannot say anything which seems worth saying.”88
David Herbert Donald suggests that “during his New Salem years [Lincoln] probably read more than at any time in his life.”89 Retreating to the woods, walking through the village with a book tucked under his arm, or sitting by the fire, Lincoln “read a great deal, improving every opportunity, by day and by night.”90 Another friend from New Salem remembered that Lincoln “used to sit up late of nights reading & would recommence in the morning when he got up but ‘knew nothing of his reading a novel.’” Instead, “History & poetry & the newspapers constituted the most of his reading.”91 A fellow shopkeeper, William Greene, believed “he never saw anyone who could learn as fast as Lincoln.”92 His abundant reading led more than a few people to complain that Lincoln was lazy, particularly because he was often discovered reading a book rather than working.
Another significant influence on Lincoln’s development in New Salem was a man named Bowling Green, whom Lincoln had voted for as the town’s justice of the peace in 1831. Green, who’d easily won that election, was much older than Lincoln, rotund, jocular, and a fierce Jacksonian Democrat. Later, the two met as members of a local debating society. At its meetings, residents fenced over political topics, not just of local interest but also state and national. Young men of all kinds joined such gatherings, which were common around the country. (When working with George Wythe, Clay had participated in a Richmond debating society.) Like Mentor Graham, Green encouraged Lincoln to read and loaned him books, including some about the law. Green also let Lincoln come to his court to observe him at work. Initially just for fun, he let his visitor argue some make-believe cases, and rather quickly Green saw Lincoln’s potential and encouraged him to study law. Later, in 1839, Lincoln did not support Green for a seat in the General Assembly. When Green died three years later, Lincoln returned to New Salem from Springfield for the funeral, one of the few times anyone saw him cry. Those who knew Lincoln and Green remembered their close relationship. One of them recalled, “Mr. L Loved Mr. Green as he did his father”93 and said “that he owed more to Mr. Green for his advancement than any other Man.”94
Less than a year after arriving in New Salem, though not yet gainfully employed, Lincoln felt sufficiently comfortable in the community to follow Jackson’s example in both declaring his candidacy for public office and heading into battle. Clay had been too young to fight in the Revolutionary War and then too old and well established in civilian life to fight in any other war, but it was common for (white) American men between eighteen and forty-five years of age to volunteer in the state militias. Lincoln followed other townspeople in signing up for the Black Hawk War, a campaign authorized by President Jackson to rebuff the efforts of Sauk warrior Black Hawks to bar Americans from settling on traditional tribal lands. Serving under Jackson as a colonel was his friend Zachary Taylor, with whom he had fought against the Seminoles in Florida. In his first monthlong tour of duty, Lincoln was elected captain by the popular vote of his troops. He signed on for two additional short tours. In his last one, he served as a private in the Independent Spy Corps that unsuccessfully tried to track down Chief Black Hawk in southern Wisconsin. It had been at the urging of Zachary Taylor that Lincoln reenlisted as a private, so as to have experience being both a leader and a follower in the war, experiences expected to burnish his credentials for office.
Lincoln took pride in his soldiering (though he enjoyed making fun of his tours by saying the only combat he had was with the mosquitoes) and particularly in his selection by his men as their first captain. In 1859, he told supporters, “I was elected a Captain of volunteers—a success which gave me more pleasure than any I have had since.”95 A year later, after he became the Republican Party’s candidate for president, he reiterated that “he has not since had any success in life which gave him so much satisfaction.”96 As a soldier, a Washington or Jackson he was not, but he was “elated”97 to have had the experience.
Lincoln made several lasting friendships during the Black Hawk War, two of which were significant influences on the rest of his life. The first was with John Todd Stuart. Stuart was only fifteen months older than Lincoln and was a lawyer well known throughout the state for his sharp and crafty courtroom tactics. After graduating from Centre College in Kentucky in 1826, Stuart traveled west to look for a place to settle and to practice law. On October 25, 1828, he moved to Springfield, Illinois, then a small, friendly town of around three hundred people. He opened a solo law practice, which continued to thrive as he added and changed partners over the next several decades.
When Lincoln first met him, Stuart already was a prominent Whig. He was tall, thin, “debonair,” and “handsome.”98 He was slick, satirical, but charming—qualities that would be useful in greasing the legislative rails but also in leaving an oily stain on his reputation. Though Lincoln never developed a taste for alcohol or carousing (one legend suggests Stuart introduced Lincoln to prostitutes), both Clay and Stuart were renowned for their abilities to drink, swear, and gamble, and for their reputed sexual affairs.99
Though Stuart later outranked Lincoln in the Black Hawk War (he became a major), Stuart initially served under him when Lincoln was captain of a company that included Jack Armstrong and the rest of his New Salem gang. (Stuart had then reenlisted as a private, following, like Lincoln, the advice of Zachary Taylor to young soldiers that they broaden their military experience to include time serving both as a leader and as someone led.) Stuart, whose recollections of Lincoln are widely considered to be among the most reliable, recalled that, while Lincoln was the captain of his men, he “had no military qualities whatever except that he was a good clever fellow and kept the esteem and respect of his men.”100 Stuart laughed, in recollection, that Lincoln and the others (himself included) tried but failed “to find out where the Indians were,” even though “the Indians were all about us, constantly watching our movements.”101
Another man Lincoln befriended during the Black Hawk War was another prominent Whig lawyer in the state, Orville Browning. Nearly three years older than Lincoln, Browning was Stuart’s opposite: taller and stouter, more ponderous in his manner than Stuart, who was quick-witted and sharp-tongued. Stuart was charming, while most of Browning’s contemporaries regarded Browning as pompous. Stuart was keen on having a good time wherever he went, while Browning was a homebody whose wife quickly befriended Lincoln as well. Though neither Stuart nor Browning lacked self-confidence, neither much enjoyed the thrust and parry of political campaigns. Browning in particular preferred not to dirty his hands if he could help it. The two men differed in other w
ays: Browning kept a diary, in which he recorded thoughts, conversations, and events throughout his life, and he liked to write letters, often offering advice or thoughts about contemporary issues. Stuart kept no such records, and his letters rarely engaged in extended political discourse. Yet Lincoln looked to both men for honest, unvarnished counsel. They rarely disappointed.
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